One of our newest and awesomest Mogul Faculty Advisors, Doug Van Buskirk, is back again (hooray!) for another terrific lesson.
In case you don’t know, Doug only spends about 1 hour PER MONTH on his REI business, and the cash flow still rolls in every month. Oh yeah, and he’s only 27! Anyone who can reach the kind of success he’s had – at such a young age – is someone we want to learn from.
So make sure you check out his awesome previous lessons and we’ll let him take it away from here…
From Doug Van Buskirk…
We’ve all wondered how someone like Donald Trump has the time to run so many businesses, develop new real estate deals, star in a TV Show, write books AND take care of that hair.
I mean, he’s working with the same 24 hours each day that you and I have. So how does he do it? How does every elite entrepreneur manage to do it?
There’s a secret that highly productive business peoples use to get more done in a day than most people do in a week. It isn’t necessarily about WHAT they do – it’s much more about HOW they approach their work.
And we can use the same ideas to transform our businesses and take our productivity through the roof.
But we’ll get to that in a minute. First, let’s talk about a major challenge we face every single day as entrepreneurs…
The Vicious Cycle
Think about how many times has something like this happened to you…
You sit down to write an email, and about 3 minutes in, your phone rings. You pick it up, and have a 5-minute conversation, then go back to the email. As soon as you get back to writing, you see a new message pop up in your inbox. You stop and check it. Nothing urgent…
But before you go back to writing the email, you realize it's as good a time as any to go make yourself a cup of coffee. And while you're making the cup of coffee, you remember that the dog needs to go out. And you need to put the laundry in the dryer.
Oh shoot, you forgot to call your sister back – let's do that real quickly. (And we haven't even talked about the time-sucking Facebook and Twitter.) Next thing you know half the morning is gone, and the plan to make this a majorly productive day is shot.
Situations like this seemed to happen to me on a daily basis for years.
I was so BUSY, but I never seemed to get anything DONE!
Until I realized the key ingredient I was missing: focus. Focus is a rare commodity in our fast-paced, multi-tasking, ADD world.
The Truth about Multi-Tasking
We’ve got to rethink the idea of multi-tasking.
Study after study shows that our brains aren’t wired to do more than one complicated task at a time. When we think we’re multi-tasking, we’re actually just quickly switching from focusing on one thing to another thing.
And here’s the kicker:
When we switch back and forth too frequently, it hurts our performance in all areas, and our activities end up taking us more time than if we had just done one thing at a time.
Why’s that? Well, it takes our brains about 5 minutes of focus to “get in the zone.” It’s basically a transition time that we use to start processing on a high level.
So if we’re “in the zone” and stop to take a phone call or read a new email, it takes us 5 minutes to get back in the zone. That might not seem like very long, until you realize how many distractions are pulling at our attention all the time. Text messages, emails, phone calls, Facebook, and on and on we go.
Those 5-minute transition times start to add up to a lot of wasted time, and a lot of time spent at a lower performance level.
Here’s how to stop that from happening…
The Power of Focus
When we decide to put all of our focus into just one thing at a time, we keep ourselves operating at peak capacity. We get more things done, better and faster.
The trickle-down effect is that we’re getting more done, so we’re less stressed. Because we’re moving forward quickly on our goals, we see results faster, which builds confidence, which translates into bigger goals and better results.
This is the secret that the most productive business people leverage in everything they do. And it’s also the key for you to take your business to the next level.
There are a few simple steps you can take right away:
First, prioritize the things you need done, and commit to taking care of those tasks based on their order of importance.
Second, assign specific time blocks for when you’ll complete each of the things you need to do. Put some order into the chaos of your day. This one step alone has turned me into a productivity monster, and I’m certain it can do the same for you!
And finally, commit to ignoring or eliminating the distractions around you during your time blocks.
Some ideas to get you started are:
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Working early in the morning or late at night, when no one else is around or everyone’s asleep.
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Don’t leave your email inbox open at all times.
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Put your phone on airplane mode while you work.
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Only go on Facebook at designated times.
Be Proactive, Not Reactive
They key mindset piece to all of this is that when you focus on one thing of your choosing, and refuse to be distracted, you are living proactively. You're taking the bull by the horns and deciding on the most important thing you can be doing for YOU and YOUR business in that moment. That's how you grow.
On the flip side, when you're multi-tasking, it's usually because of outside stimuli influencing you. Someone calls you, so you pick up the phone. Someone sends you an email, so you stop what you're doing to respond. In these cases, you're organizing your day around other people's schedules. You're reacting to other people's priorities. That's no way to get ahead.
I rarely answer the phone when it rings. If it's important, the person will leave a message. If it's not, then I probably made the right decision anyway by not answering.
I've studied and practiced time management and productivity techniques for over a year and a half now, and I still fight these battles daily. There are so many things just waiting to distract us at any given moment…
We've got to constantly be aware of when we're slipping, so we can catch it early. Even as I write this lesson, I can hear my phone ringing and I see emails coming in – ahhh! But we've gotta stay strong!
This is even more crucial if you're still juggling a full-time job with your real estate investing business. Every second is precious.
So use this blueprint to take back control of your time, and watch the impact it has on your business.
Talk to us
How do you avoid distractions and stay focused? I’d also love to hear any other productivity “hacks” that have made a difference in your business! Share your tips and thoughts in the comments section below.
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Identify your main "focus-killers." Prime suspects are: email inbox, Facebook, and phone.
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Make the commitment to eliminate your focus killer by any means necessary during work sessions.
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Plan your day ahead of time. Include specifically what you’re going to get done, how long it should take, and what level of priority it is.
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Assign specific time blocks for when you’ll do each of the things on your list – it’ll help you stay on track. Do the highest priority item first. And move on down the line in order of priority.
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Don’t let other people’s priorities/outside distractions stop you from taking care of business. Be ruthless.