6 TIME MANAGEMENT HACKS TO INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY: How to Grow Your Business Without Burning Out
My husband bars always likes to say, don't confuse effort with results. And it's true, right? Being busy. Doesn't always mean that you're actually being productive. So today I'm talking to Amanda Holmes, the CEO of Chet Holmes international about her time management secrets and six specific steps that will help you increase your productivity by up to 500%, as always, before we get started, make sure you hit the bell and you subscribe to our channel.
So you're always notified when new episodes become available here every week. Welcome to powerhouse business on YouTube. I'm your host, Carolin, Soldo, and my business owner, business scaling master, and mom of two boys. I love thinking big pushing boundaries and doing things.
Differently. Most of all, I'm all about achieving massive growth with ease and helping you scale your business by living the life you love. Let's go. When we're talking about time management, a lot of people complain about not having enough time, always being busy, their to do list is never ending.
And sometimes you wonder how you can actually reach your goals if there's never enough time. And there are so many demands in your life, right? Your work, your business, your family, and a lot of times your personal life and your health and all of that comes last. And if you add a certain level in business that say, maybe you're at six figures, multiple six figures, and you're looking at people who are ahead of you. So to speak, who are maybe earning more, who have bigger organizations who probably have more to do, then you, you wonder how they're actually doing it, especially if you already feel maxed out and have a member that feeling, you know, at certain levels in my business growth thinking if I'm already working this much, and if I'm already this busy, how can I get to my next level without working even more? Sometimes it seems impossible. So what I've learned is that there is a really important difference between managing your time and actually being productive and knowing what to spend your time on. So to me,
time management and productivity has a lot to do with tactical things you can do and implement right now. But a lot of it also is your mindset and your focus and knowing where to focus your energy. Amanda Holmes is the CEO of Chet Holmes international, which has assisted over 250,000 businesses worldwide, C H I teach this 12 core competencies for doubling sales based on the New York times bestseller, the ultimate sales machine, which has been boarded in the top 10 most recommended sales books of all times. So let's welcome, Amanda. So Amanda, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much. So your topic is really, really interesting and it's one of the most burning questions. That I get from so many people at different stages in business, right? It's always about time, how to manage time, automate more of our time. And, um, it seems to be blocking a lot of people from reaching that next level or they think it is blocking them. And what you and I will talk about today are six specific steps to be more productive. And I want to talk to you about how you manage your time and maybe also the difference between time management and productivity.
I think there's a difference. And one funny thing before I let you kick us off is my husband has this really cool saying. And, uh, and that is, he says, don't confuse effort with results. Uh, uh, he runs a business too, right? And he has a lot of people working from him for him. And they're so proud when they say, you know, I did so much work today and I got all these things done, but then you look at what actually what the result actually was and what the outcome was.
And it doesn't always sort of balance out and that can become a problem. So tell me about your definition of productivity. Oh man, that's a great point. So when we think of, you know,
a billionaire versus maybe somebody that's struggling to get their money in the door, the same 24 hours as we do, right. It's just, they had become masters at time and productivity, right? So my father created this whole system and put it into his New York times, bestseller, ultimate sales machine lock. The book, love the book voted the top 10 was recommended sales books of all time now.
So he realized that every time he would meet with Charlie Munger, his boss, who was, who it still is, co-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, right? Billionaire, there were certain things that needed to get done so that it would be a productive meeting. And, uh, my father at the time was running seven of the different, uh, companies for him. And he just could not keep up. So here he was in complete reaction mode all the time in his, when he would come into work and just react, react, react, react, and then we'd have to come home and do all the work that actually needed to get done. And he's looking at Charlie going, okay, something's wrong here.
So then he went through all of these different courses and realized great time management. Shouldn't take a lot of time. You went through these courses that said, okay, well you have to map out everything and then start tracking everything. And if he had the time to do that, then he wouldn't have needed a time management course. So he put together six steps to increase your productivity by 500%. And I can definitely say that the difference in a day between doing these six steps and not doing them, it's just, it's a complete game changer. And I personally use it every single day I have to, or I get off the beaten track and we get lost into the world of social media or off. There's just so many distractions.
There are, there are so many distractions. And I also find that if we have these routines and habits, it helps us no matter what's happening some days we're like, we're happy. And I was in school in grade and you know, we're dancing around and other days, maybe it's not so great. And having this structure or the psych, you know, tax made me, um, helps us still be productive and get things done no matter how we feel. So I feel if the emotion doesn't play as much of a role, maybe too. Yes. Can we dive into them?
That's yes. What's the first one. Let's do it. Okay. So for me, I always write them down. I may be old school, but it helps me to have them separate from all my electronic devices.
I have this and it just grounds me. It brings me back to something physical and real, but that's just my own peace. So step number one is touch it once. So everybody that's listening to write this down, whether it's on a piece of paper or in your notes section. So number one, how much at once. So we waste on average,
a week's worth of vacation, re reading information. How many times have you opened up an email and gone, Oh, okay. I'll respond to that later.
And then you read it four more times before you actually respond. Yep. I make it unread. Exactly. So step number one is touch it. Once when you read it,
then you do something about it. It could even be, you know, this and this was very common with my father. He would say, this is a very long email, discuss this in our weekly meeting. That was it.
We took action. And then I put it on them to put it on the agenda so that we cover this when we meet. So step number one, touch it once. Okay. Yes. Oh, and that's just emails to do lists. This sounds so silly,
but I'm just going to say it. I rewrite my to-do list sometimes several times a day. Oh, okay. So I'm going to go into that right now.
You're you're you're upstaging me. Okay. So step number two is make a list of the top six things. Okay. A lot of people do a lot of different numbers, right?
So start with six. What are your top six things you need to do? Step number three is figuring out how much time it will take each one of those things to get accomplished. So I'll say, you know, resupply to a client, it'll take me maybe 15 minutes, 15 minutes, right? Uh, it could take me an hour and a half. I need to record a video for our Facebook ads. Okay.
That'll take me an hour and a half 90 minutes. Right? So you're, you're putting down how much each thing will take. And then when you actually prioritize, which is step number four, you start realizing, wow.
My whole day will have to be different if I want to prioritize these different steps in the right place. So then step number five is actually putting it in. So from eight to eight 30, I'm going to do the most important thing that maybe we get less of the last, at the end of the day, I'm going to do that right in that first half hour. Right. And then I know that I have a meeting from eight 30 to nine. So then from nine to nine 30, I'm going to do this contract from, you know, and you start scheduling it out. So that by the end of the day,
and I do this all the time, it happens where I'll start putting it into my list of when each thing needs to happen in my day. And I'll realize, wow, I don't even have time to do four or five and six on my list. What was I thinking? So then I have to adjust it and make sure that they get in there. So then the expectation of what your day will be is completely different. And then you're achieving everything that you set out to do rather than, wow. I had 50 things on my list. I only got four of them. They really didn't matter.
I didn't prioritize. Right. So it helps you get realistic about what you can actually accomplish. And at the end of the day you feel accomplished because wow, I actually did it all. Wow. That this is incredible. And, and how many people do this? Like nobody. Right.
Well, except you, and now me and you are the hundreds of thousands of people that read this book and go, Oh my gosh, you've got to be kidding me. So, and then the sixth step is, will it hurt me to throw this away? Can you just throw it away? Because 80% of the material that we store away never gets used again. So, so it's something that takes five, maybe eight minutes in your day. At the beginning of the day, I even like to do it before I go to bed.
So that I'm very clear on what my next day will look like or the end of my Workday. So that as I'm sleeping too, it's as if my whole brain is processing, what I'm about to step into the next day with. And I find very easy that it just then flows because I've already set it all out. Right. Uh, so great. I have this half hour in the morning, a lot, and it's very early. It's usually between like six 30 and seven, when the boys are just getting up and I'm already done, hopefully with like my S my workouts and things.
And so that's when I would do it. And that's usually when I rewrite my to-do list yet again, the prioritizing yet what I love the most. So the top six, right? So we need to select, let's dissect this a little bit. So it's only six because in reality, you're right. How much can we actually do? Probably not more than six and using every little slice of time. Because when I look my calendar, I got this whole thing. It's an outlook, it's color coded, but there's like half hour here and an hour there.
And that time goes that flies. If, but if you stick something in the connection fit there, and what I love is holding. So knowing how much time this will take, that's also something people don't do. I never do it. And like, okay, I'm going to just try to get it done. And maybe it gets done. Maybe it doesn't because oops, it took more time. And if it didn't get done. There's two really important things as well in that.
So there's the proactive time. And especially as a leader of an organization, you will perpetually be thrown in every other direction because you have so many staff that are pulling you in this direction. And this is my priority. This is my priority. But you being able to be clear, this is what my priorities are. So then you schedule out your proactive time.
You also have to schedule in reactive time. So leave an hour in the day or even an hour and another half hour later in the day that you're checking your emails. If something comes up, you're putting out a fire a reactive time, not only can be emails, but it can also be on social.
So I know that I'm going to spend 15 minutes on social and you know what I'm going to do when I'm on social, I'm going to spend five minutes figuring out what I'm going to post, because I want to create top of mind awareness. And then the other 10 minutes, I will spend going through all of the people that have posted and try to find five potential clients or clients and reply on them. That dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Okay. Bam. I've done my social justice for today and now I'm moving on.
So that reactive time is crucial, but to schedule it ahead of time. So it doesn't take over your whole world. It's just, okay, well, I have to move these things around, right. To make sure that I have that time in there.
Also, you saw it's reactive time, but it's, it's on it's intentional, reactive time. Like you plan for that as well. And as you know, it's going to come up, but you also take charge and control that piece really important. Yes. Love that. So how much time does it take? When am I doing it? Prioritizing it.
That is so key too, because what happens? You know, the things we love doing come to the top and the things we don't like so much, they, you know, they're usually priority number one, but then they fall to the bottom and we don't actually work on now. Um. And I'll also say, so for instance, my father was running 12 companies and everybody kept saying, write a book, write a book, write a book. You can do it, write a book. And he's like, you've got to be kidding me. I run 12 companies, no way do I have time to write a book? But I secret that he did was he put Monday nights at 7:00 PM. Every Monday night at 7:00 PM. He would work on his book for just one hour a week.
So those big projects that you're like, how will I ever get that done? Can you chunk them down and make sure that one hour, a week, every week you're working on that and be it your book, be it your webinar, be it, you know, it could be so many different things, but that big project that you feel, I could never take a big enough chunk out of just one hour a week. Can you do it one hour a week? That's a crucial part. Yeah. Yeah. I say that to people all the time about all kinds of things, they say, well, I'm too busy right now. Or my, my, my kids are too young or it's like a life thing. If you want to accomplish anything in life, you've got to prioritize it.
And you will be further ahead in six months then if you don't do anything, right. Yes. And then you said, throw it out. I love that. I see so many people who are doing all these things and if they stop, if they stop doing them, nothing would happen. They could literally stop doing it. It's it's like this urge or like social media. I think it's a lot of the formal,
it's why social media is so popular because we think we have to be there all the time, because otherwise we were, you know, don't mean anything or people don't see us anymore, but this something really happened. I had this big aha. I think it was 2018 when we were really scaling ads majorly when we really like double down on the funnel system and all that. And I, and I couldn't be on social media as much anymore. And every day I'm like,
Oh man, they won't see me anymore. I'm not posting anything. I'm not commenting. My business is going to go down. Like it's not going to work out my, but quite the opposite happened without me posting anything because it wasn't necessary. I could just literally cut it up. So that's just one example, but that's that's. Yeah. Do you agree?
It's big. Crucial. And if you can, we teach this as well. Can you break down your business into the key areas that generate revenue and then can you do them one hour a week? So one hour a week. So I spend one hour a week on clubhouse because I see opportunity there. I will always host a room one hour a week. Whereas I'm looking at other entrepreneurs that are spending six hours a day there. I mean, it's crazy granted. I did do my first week.
I got real hardcore into it and I got obsessed. I will admit, but then I've waned off because my time management practices will not allow me to do that much time. Right. I will spend time because it's important, but it will be one hour a week, maybe two hours a week tops. But having this framework helped me to do that.
So then all of my division heads, I meet with them all on Tuesday. That is my day that I go, okay. First meeting is with operations. Second meeting is with sales. Third meeting is with marketing board meeting is with coaching head, you know, and, and we're blocked off. So that one hour a week, we are making sure that we get in tune connected.
We know what's going on and we can further our week. And if we have to do more, we can. But that's, that's making sure that every key indicator in my business is handled. When are. You know how powerful this is? And I'm sure you do this, I'm certain you are, but, but teach teaching this to your team.
Right? Yes. Yes. They need to know that accountable. Yes. Oh my gosh. Even. Okay. We can dive a little bit into email for time management. So we want to go there. Okay. Okay, good. So this is all my gosh.
How much time do we wait? How much time do we waste going through emails and rereading emails to find. So let's say that the subject line said something like Amy Sue, and then as we're going through Amy Sue, then we decided to switch to Joe. And now we're talking about gel and the refund that we need to handle with Joe, but because it says Amy Sue, you never find it because that subject line. So you've gone through 50 different emails trying to figure out which one it is key to email etiquette that will assist you to save time is every time that the body paragraph changes in subject change the subject line, this is crucial. And it makes a dramatic difference when going through email and managing your email. And my father was like, it wasn't something that we just said, okay,
this is something you have to do. And then people did it. I mean, it was just every single day with every single email, every one of his staff, he would repeatedly over and over and over again, change the subject line. It has changed in the body. Paragraph changed subject line. It has changed in the body paragraph. I mean, over and over and over and over again. So just because you learn these six steps, it's not mastery, right. You'll,
you'll try it for three days. You'll be like, wow, why didn't I ever think of this before? And then you'll drop off and you'll be like, right, right. I know that thing works, but I will do it at some point. So it's that pigheaded, discipline and determination to continue. And something, my father always said, mastery, isn't about doing 4,000 things. It's about doing 12 things, 4,000 times.
So can you commit yourself to mastering this one thing time? Yeah. It takes, it takes mastery. I love this book and all of your dad's work and your work. And you know that,
so this is, I mean, by the way, if you haven't read the book, right? The ultimate sales machine, Amanda, you ha you have it right there. Must run and buy it now and read it. It's incredible. I mean, we're talking time management, we're talking people,
relationships, sales. I mean, it is about, about sales. It's mostly, but there's so much more in this book. It's, it's just incredible. Um, but yeah, listen, I'm going to do this. And I think I did, I'm doing 20% of it, but I'm going to do the rest and I will let you know, um, how it's working for me. And I want you watching video, give this a, try, implement this, and I want you to leave us comments below and maybe reach out to Amanda if you want and let her know. Yeah. How does this working for you? Really, really great. Um, one more question, because we have some more time, Amanda,
I, I, and I wrote this down. I wanted to talk to you about mindset and you just touched on it because of the pigheaded discipline, which is to me like the mindset, right? So your commitment, maybe, um, a lot of these are all, most of these things are strategic, tactical doing kind of things. Right. But how much of this is also a mindset question to you? What do you think? Well, yeah, I, I, as I had just said, right. People know that going to the gym is really great for them. They'll lose weight,
but how often do we actually stick to it and do it? And, uh, the book was actually supposed to be called the pigheaded executive wins every time. Okay. That was the original title of the book. And then the publisher said that book will never sell. None of our salespeople want to sell that book. It's going to be called the ultimate sales machine. And my father just went crazy. He's like, are you kidding me?
That this book isn't about sales. I have time management. I have appointment setting. I have, you know, all of these different other things that it isn't just sales. Um, but this one concept when people say I took away one thing, it's pigheaded, discipline and determination. And even for me as a next generation of my father, uh, he was so brilliant at time and managing time for my own sake. I always make sure that in my day I'm also putting in, okay, at this time I'm going to meditate. Yeah. I would love to have,
you know, just enlightened my mind a little bit before I stepped into my next thing, I will, you know, light some Sage and just clean the room for me, adding that piece of mindset is so important to me and making sure that I'm proactive about scheduling that in. So I'll just have a jam session in the middle of my day, where I pull out my guitar and I just start chanting and using mantra meditation. So there's different mindset shift, but yeah. And that speaks to, you know, you getting yourself into a place of, you know, real alignment and happiness and, and P peace and, you know, the, the, the good feeling of it all so that you can implement, you know, the practices and you can do this in steps and, you know, you can just move forward. And, and so it's a combination I love, I think the most successful and happy people have a combination of these amazing strategies might that we all need to know the hats and the tips and the secrets, but we also have a powerful spiritual side to us. And we know that it's not just all us doing, doing, doing.
We also allow him to receive. I think if you have a good balance of both of them, that's, that's the ultimate power. Huge, huge. So when I was 24, when my father passed and I inherited, you know, a couple hundred staff, I was a singer songwriter. Originally.
I had no experience in the business. I wasn't planning on taking it over. It was an utter shock. And then to have the experiences of meditating and to connect within myself and the process of self-mastery was huge for me to really realize, okay, what is my definition of success and how do I want to spend my time and how do I want my business to run? And like last year we doubled sales, but I only worked one day a week. Nice and different years have been different. Right? Some have been more, some have been less lately. I can't sleep more than three hours because I'm so energized about my business.
I can't stop. So, you know, I go to the extreme, but like it, that way I want to do, I think that's crucial to be able to connect back within yourself and even putting it into your time management. You know, yesterday I got really annoyed at one of my staff and I was just boiling and I needed to sit down and do a little, you know, sing some kumbaya. I didn't sing kumbaya,
but I did through a chance to get myself back in alignment because I'm looking to have a logical conversation instead of an emotional one. And that's a crucial part of managing your time and your life and not just having monetary success, but fulfillment in that off it's everything. Yes. I mean, we all know that from like, you know, people telling us these stories, but you can be very successful, but extremely unhappy. And you said a really important thing, Amanda, you know, you've, what is your definition of success? That was for me all of 2019, and then 2020 really, you know, beginning to implement that. But I had to really ask myself, what is my definition and what, what am I doing that I think other people want me to do, or I'm trying to prove myself to someone, or it's really not what I truly want from life.
Maybe it's good for other people, but it's really not for me. Um, but then shedding the drivers and all the sheds off of your, you know, minds and everything, and then really taking control of, of what your definition of success is. That's a whole nother thing. So, and you're such a great example of that to my, so before we began the recording, you told me, you know, stay or going live in Puerto Rico [inaudible] and thought, wow, this is a beautiful place. Now. I just love seeing people, you know,
being really open to like new ideas and just try, you know, getting the most from life in all the different ways. And, um, yes, you're just a new energy. I could talk to you all day. It was fantastic. Um, and then, uh, tell us how people can get more of your genius. Like all the, all the things, where do you want them to go? Um, we'll put all the links down below in the description, but share that with us, please. Yeah. If you haven't read the book, you can go to Chet homes.com, uh, and I think forward slash meet each, or you can get the chat chapter four for free.
So that would be a really great place to be awesome. Also on the homepage of chat homes, up comments, video series that I give away for free. It's the three strategies to double sales in depth on that.
And that's a pretty good education for everybody. Amazing. So we'll put the links down below in the description, go check it out. Connect with Amanda. How do you like people connecting with you these days? Clump house? Who said, what else? I'm on club house. If you wanted to connect with me, maybe Instagram, I spend my most time there. I don't have Amanda Holmes.
I am a man detail homes on Instagram salsa name. You saw sit downs too. I do. How good for you? I want that too. Okay. Yes. So we have Instagram, we have the websites and, um, yeah, highly recommended. I read the book and just one more, you know, testimonial here. I, I picked up the book when we were really growing our sales team and I just had to figure it all out. There's there's so much.
So this is for any business owner, really at any stage, whether you are, you know, selling yourself or you're trying to build a team where you're already managing a team and, and all of it, and so much more as we talked about so much more in there. Well, now I want to interview you. It's such a bummer because you're so magnificent. Thank you, Amanda. So I want to respect your time and also our audience's time. Thank you so much for being here. Um, you're awesome. It's always fun to spend time with you. You're full of, you know,
golden nuggets and, um, yeah. I want to thank the audience for watching us. And now we want to hear from you. How do you manage your time? What were you a big ah-has from today's episode? How do you look at productivity now versus how you look at it before? So leave us some comments below let's really have a conversation about how we can help you achieve more productivity and do more in your business and are still focused on your goals. Because I believe that you're meant to bring your message and your expertise to a whole lot more people and productivity surely will help you get that done. If you like this episode, make sure you give us a like, subscribe to our channel and then come back again next week as always thanks so much for watching and I'll see you soon.
2021-04-04 06:50
