Our Time and Eliminating Distractions: The Most Boring Topic with the Biggest Impact

Talking about time management is boring. We want “closing” and “negotiation” help not calendaring and time blocking.

In sales and marketing organizations, I would argue, time management and distractions will help unlock more revenue than most levers you can pull.

Specifically, I’m talking about email checking, non-automated tasks, the distractions of notifications popping up 24/7 from communication apps like Skype and Slack, social apps like Twitter and Instagram, and even the number one culprit - email.

Better time management is often top of mind with busy professionals, but we don’t make it a priority as a company to teach our people simple but effective ways to prioritize and better manage their time. At some point in our careers, we’ve probably been shown The Eisenhower Matrix to help prioritize important or urgent tasks, or Googled the habits of successful people, but these are theories and not actionable takeaways that Sales and Marketing people can incorporate into their everyday routines. 

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had a lot of internal conversations with the Skaled team about priorities and time management. I found three quick, actionable tips that have made a huge impact on how I run my business, and those tips immediately impacted the entire company.

No. 1: Manage Your Calendar 3 Weeks Out

The No. 1 piece of advice that I can give (and I have three for you) is to start managing your calendar three weeks out. This will require you to think in terms of longer time frames so everything doesn’t pile up and always feel busy.  It will require you to say “no” to meeting today but “ok” to meeting in five days.  

You cannot run a focused and effective day if you are constantly letting other people disrupt it with meetings. People can wait.

When you think three weeks out and longer horizons, you can very quickly move from overwhelmed to in-control.  Everything can and does fit if you give yourself enough time.

No. 2 Eliminate the Distraction of Email

Time management tip No. 2 is to eliminate the distraction of email. The most successful people I know only turn on their email 2-4 times a day. 

Why? Email is not work, my friends. It is firefighting. Also, we as humans suck at switching tasks. A study by UCI found it can take nearly 30 minutes just to refocus on a task once distracted. So when you go from email to deck creation to email to meeting to email to call to email… there is a very small in-the-micro but big in-the-macro switching cost that happens. You are being much less productive than you think. Multiple studies have shown that multitasking has negative effects on productivity, and the average employee only has about 1 hour and 12 minutes of uninterrupted time a day without the distraction of email and other communication tools.

If you build a healthy relationship with email, you realize that it’s better to firefight in short bursts instead of constantly trickling out emails throughout the day.

All email does is bring in more email. And I think a lot of people make email their to-do list - essentially dedicating 23% of each work day to the inbox. Email is something we have to do, but the work is our real to-do list.

No. 3 Make Time to Think

The third piece of advice I have for you is making sure to carve out time each week to be creative and actually think about what you are doing. We all are guilty of getting stuck in the grind and just doing but, my friends, you won’t be successful at prioritizing and managing your time if you don’t stop and think about the purpose of your work and strategizing your endgame.

Dream up new ways to do your job or work with other groups.

Block out a few hours to just think about your role and you will be shocked with what your brain comes up with.

At Skaled, I actively encourage everyone to take 4 hours PER WEEK to do this and struggle to get people to take advantage. It’s tough to put thinking on a pedestal but it is critical.

There you have it. If you can walk away today and start doing these three actionable tips, you are going to be more focused every day, less overwhelmed, happier, and more fulfilled. Whether you’re on the front lines or whether you’re the CEO, time is your most important asset.