“Strategy and timing are the Himalayas of marketing, everything is the Catskills.”

                                                                                                                        –Al Ries

            Time management is a myth.  Time is the province of God.  No matter how hard you try, how many resources you dedicate, or how capable you are, you’ll never control it.  The real key is Task Management, which, when it comes to systems management, needs to hinge on your values.  When Chris Pollinger was in college, he had a sign taped to his ceiling which read; “Why are you getting out of bed this morning?”.  Simple concept, but easily forgotten.  Without being attached to your values, a goal will never be accomplished commensurate with your ability (if at all).  Although you can’t control the march of time, you can certainly decide where it will be spent in your life.  If you know what you want and who you are, time will be an asset and a gift vs. a stressor.  This article will focus on how to integrate proper timing into your infrastructure vs. how you should spend it (that comes later).  When allocating time towards a future task, exercise the following three principles;

            1.         Sufficiency:    Probably the best piece of advice I’ve ever received on task management was from my pastor Rick Warren (author of The Purpose Driven Life).  He advised us to put a 15 minute buffer between scheduled activities throughout the day.  Make sure that you account for the “oh shoot” moments throughout the day, especially if you have children.  If you have a staff or team under you, please ladies and gentlemen, allocate proper time towards their own planning process.  The Marine Corps uses the 1/3 to 2/3 rule from senior to subordinate.  You already have the vision, now they need the time to understand it and come up with a course of action, which they’ll later brief you on.  One thing we keep seeing at Mastery Coaching is well-meaning leaders getting involved in the “guts” of operational planning.  As a result, the joy is sapped out of the creation process.  What’s also lose is an opportunity for the rest of the team to be empowered intellectually and vocationally.  We’ve found that if junior executives begin to feel unchallenged, their mindsets will quickly devolve into believing they’re unworthy of significant responsibility.  The same applies to older executives, yet instead of staying on and feeling insignificant, they’ll just pick up and leave.  Give others the time (puls a little extra) that you yourself would appreciate for the same task (despite if you know you could do it sooner).  And by the way, sufficiency (in terms of time allocated, not so much planning) is especially important for your loved ones, especially children, who in the words of Pastor Warren, spell love; “T-I-M-E”.

2.         Sequencing:    Not only do things have to have the proper amount of time to happen, they must occur in the right order.  The more “moving parts” your operation has, the more important this principle is.  Take D-Day for example.  Gen. Eisenhower wisely decided to pound the beaches of Normandy for several hours to soften up German defenses in order for the infantry to establish a beachhead.  Once that was done, the support services would show up and the infantry and armored forces would move inland.  A few hiccups, costly ones at that, but the right order got the job done.  If the infantry would’ve landed before fire support was executed, they would’ve been massacred on the beach.  Perhaps the best depiction of proper sequencing in war is the battle scene at the beginning of “Gladiator”.  The enemy is showered with arrows and other missiles while the infantry advances, Roman legionnaires close with and gain the barbarian’s attention (called “fixing” in the military), and the final step is for the cavalry led by Maximus to take them in the rear.  Bad guys are surrounded, cut off from escape and reinforcements, and slaughtered.  Sequencing was just as important then as it is now.  A marketing plan designed to edge out a competitor in your tract or the unraveling of a larger advertisement campaign is just as important. 

            Although there are many offshoots to these two principles, they all relate back to having enough time to do what you need to do (Sufficiency) and doing things in the right order (Sequencing).  If you can figure these two out, then when you must strike will be a given.  Mastery Coaching has the tools and templates available for you to properly identify and quantify the timing requirements in your business and personal life.  We also provide the services which will liberate you from tasks which are not the highest and best use of your time.  Always remember that when you’re running a race (a timed event), it’s difficult for any runner to tell how they’re doing.  Don’t let your only feedback be victory or defeat.  Learn where the next opportunity lies before your competitors do, and get there before anyone else.  As Wayne Gretzky once said; “Skate to where the puck is going, not to where it is.”.

            Stability is the most important quality of your emotional, financial, and business infrastructure.  Without it, risk-taking becomes gambling, and your sense of confidence will constantly be infected with anxiety, anxiety which your clients may pick up on.  If you want your infrastructure to be stable, you must exercise the “Four Rs”:

            Reserve:  YOU MUST HAVE A STRATEGIC RESERVE.  We can’t emphasize this enough.  You should have six months of income set aside.  Don’t wait until you’re exhausted to stop working.  Have a little left over so you can finish strong and go over the top if need be.  It’s common sense, but also a common problem.  Let’s look at blackouts.  When a section of a city’s power grid goes out, the power requirements of that section is placed upon the adjacent grid.  However, without regular, real-time upkeep, this handoff will overwhelm the grid next to it, which collapses as well.  As each grid collapses under the snowballing power vacuum from the previous ones, the result is a “cascading failure” and you get a blackout.  The key here is consistency and self-awareness, both of which have to be conducted with the assistance of an outside, objective observer.  Otherwise, you’ll be vulnerable to your biases.

            Review:  Let’s say that Saturday is your day off.  Every Friday around noon, conduct a cost-benefit analysis of your systems (in terms of cash, time, energy, etc.).  If you’re great at open houses but spend 8 hours a week without any offers or solid leads, you have to invest elsewhere to get your listings sold, perhaps even delegating it to another agent.  Marketing plans for each listing have to be intensely reviewed and constantly reassessed.  I’ve had clients who’ve insisted on having their homes in “Dream Homes” magazine.  Usually, people who’re drawn in by “Dream Homes” are dreamers themselves.  If a listing is over $800,000 and is reasonably priced (by reasonable sellers) then several hundred dollars a month may be worth it.  But you need to ensure that your cost-benefit analysis is based on current assets, NOT forecasted income, no matter how solid.  Also, a reserve needs to be flexible.  Whatever you have set aside, it won’t involve penalties for access or result in cannibalizing yourself.  HELOCs are an excellent example of this.  As Chris likes to say, the equity in your home is not income.  Cash is cash, period.

            Reboot:  When you reboot a computer, you’re essentially refreshing it’s capability to function optimally.  Friday afternoons should be spent clearing out the waste/residue left over from the operations of the past week.  Take your staff out to lunch (i.e. get out of the work environment) and have a “what’s working, what’s not” session (this is also a powerful method for your marriage).  Delete all unnecessary emails, text messages, refill your flyer boxes (better yet have your assistant do it).  Reviewing and Rebooting tend to overlap, but at the end of the day, you can expect only what you inspect.  I like David Allen’s (“Get Things Done”) endstate for each week; get clear, get clean, get current, and get complete. 

            Reposition:  It’s vital to take a day off between rebooting and repositioning.  Ladies and gentlemen, a day off means your cell phone is off, the laptop is shut, and you’re out somewhere with your significant other.  If you don’t have one, then spend this day to court one.  Just like a real reboot, you need a complete shutdown for awhile in order to enjoy the benefits.  On the following day seek to implement or reinforce the things which seem to be working.  Make sure you haven’t missed anything before the reboot stage (Maintaining focus on Friday afternoons can be challenging!).  So if you took Saturday off, by Sunday morning your systems are in alignment, in their proper place, and focused.  The time to prepare your materials and set aside your clothes for your Sunday open house is Friday, not Sunday morning (but check your comps shortly before leaving to make sure there’s been no significant activity in the tract).  Also, your refreshments have been purchased and chilled, your gas tank is full, and you have something to do during any lulls (work-related, not recreational reading).    

            Achieving stability is one of those things which sound simple, but is difficult to do.  Not because the actions required are hard, but because you won’t see the benefits in the short term.  Perhaps the hardest thing about achieving stability is engaging your faults and choosing to take them on.  These are difficult times.  “The last thing we need” is to discover yet another chink in our armor, or worse yet, finding out that what we do well isn’t producing results.  But that’s exactly why we must go for it and get help in doing so.  Don’t get caught in the “busyness” trap.  Concentrate on being effective, not productive.  Don’t strive to fix the same problems year after year.  You’re too good for that, and your clients expect more from you.  Exercise the “Four Rs” and you’ll have a business which works for you, not the other way around.