On today’s episode of No Bullshit with Alex Willis, you’ll explore ways you can organize your own thoughts and tasks. Alex gives clear examples from his time in the construction industry, and guides you through ways to effectively determine the importance and urgency of tasks at hand, and how to communicate those to others.
Ever wish you could be in 2 places at once? What about 3? Or 10? While you can’t duplicate yourself, leaders can use delegation to effectively mobilize colleagues, as if you are there in the room yourself!
On today’s episode of No Bullshit with Alex Willis, you’ll explore ways you can organize your own thoughts and tasks. Alex gives clear examples from his time in the construction industry, and guides you through ways to effectively determine the importance and urgency of tasks at hand, and how to communicate those to others.
In our third segment, The Foundation, you’ll uncover easy ways to make and execute a to-do list through delegating your own time. Oftentimes, you’ve got hidden minutes and hours during your workday to use to your advantage!
Tune into our final segment, The Frame Out, where we take our to-do lists and learn how to delegate them to others. Alex provides crucial tips for respecting everyone’s time, and shows you how to automate and simplify your processes!
Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts as well as the YouTube channel to watch full video episodes and be notified as soon as the next episode is live.
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[00:00:00] Alex: Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back. My friends to episode nine, the Foundation. Oh, in the last episode, I left you in box one and three, and I told you if you're in box one and three, you are working long hours. You are stressed out. You are doing all the work yourself. And for those who are wondering what the hell box one and three is, you have to go tune into the last segment, the level to find out so that you'll know what that means and you'll know where you are.
[00:00:36] Alex: Ooh, I know. Left. Another clip. Hang a da, da da. All right. Right. So, hey, with that being said, how do you get outta box one and three? Well, here's how, here's how, here's how. Let me slow down for a sec. If you really begin to analyze those who are phenomenal at what they do, Think about that. I'm talking about business owners, people who are phenomenal at what they do in the trades, athletes, you name it.
[00:01:01] Alex: Anybody who's great, who's at the top of their game, they all have one thing. They all have one thing, and that one thing is this. They have extreme discipline. Extreme discipline. So, so how do you get outta box one and three? Here's how. You have to be phenomenal at creating rituals. Yeah. And you have to be disciplined to stick to those rituals no matter what.
[00:01:28] Alex: You have to be extremely disciplined. Right. So what do I mean by that? Well, a ritual is something that you do every day at the same time. That day, no matter what, the one ritual that will help you delegate better, save time and get outta box one and three, as it pertains to how you run your day, is you have to be.
[00:01:48] Alex: Extremely disciplined at creating that to-do list. And I'm not talking about a to-do list, like, ah, I got it up here, dude. Yeah. Bullshit. That will mess you up every single time. You have to write it down, my friends, right? I need something written down on paper that you begin to think through, right? Anoint exactly what you're going to do.
[00:02:06] Alex: Now for those out there, how many of you have daily to-do lists? Think about that. I love it. I love it. For those who do have it, for those who don't, I want you to start incorporating it. It will save your life. So before you get out of the truck, before you let begin to let someone blow up your day, take a step back, jot it down really quickly.
[00:02:25] Alex: That's the foundation of you getting out of box one and three, starting a simple to-do list. Now, I wanna take it a step further though. How do you begin to take that to-do list and make it even better? Because if we're being honest, Most people who create to-do lists, their to-do list runs over every single time.
[00:02:42] Alex: So it's a to-do list that spills over every single day, day after day, after day after day. And the reason that ends is because we do a horrible job of creating that list. What do I mean by that? Well, most people only write the task or the activities that they're going to do on that list. Here's why that's a problem, my friends.
[00:03:00] Alex: It's a problem because you really need to slow down and ask yourself after you writing the task. Actually assign a estimated time that you think is going to take you to do each and every one of those tasks. Why is that important? Well, the first time I ever did this, my friends, I realized that my day. If I did all the tasks I said I wanted to accomplish that day on that list, the shit came up to 36 hours.
[00:03:24] Alex: Good luck, Alex, on trying to do that, right? No wonder my list was running over day after day. For most of you who are watching and listening, you are in the same position. Your tasks are running over because you never assign estimated times to it. Right. Now, when you begin to sign estimated times to it, that does two things.
[00:03:41] Alex: Number one. You understand what you're in for that day, because at the end of that list, you can come up with a total time knowing, Hey, I am in for a 8, 12, 14, 16 hour day. So mentally, from the start of your day, you can gear to know what you're in for. Number two, our mind tend to love the competition all time.
[00:04:03] Alex: What do I mean by that? Well, when your mind knows it has a time to get a certain thing done, it's amazing what you can get done in that time in. Right, so, so understand that helps you a ton. This is you delegating your day using a to-do list. So understand all delegation doesn't have to be with people.
[00:04:21] Alex: We're delegating our tasks out of our head down to the paper so that I know what it is I need to do, how much time I think it's gonna take me right now. The next thing I want you to do is then begin to prioritize those things and say, well, you know what? I think I can do this. This needs to be done first.
[00:04:37] Alex: This needs to be second. This needs to be third. The reason you do that is because you know someone's going to blow up your day for sure. And you may not get to all of those things you say you need to get done. So in your mind, you need to know the way that you are going to get 'em done so that if you could only get done too, if you only can, could get to two of those things.
[00:04:55] Alex: You know what too you're gonna get to and how much time it's going to take you to get it done right? The next thing is you need to give it a home. What do I mean by that? Every task needs a home. All right? Yeah. Task need homes. What do I mean by that? Well put it on your schedule for a certain time of when you're going to do it.
[00:05:12] Alex: Now understand, don't carve it in stone, so it may get moved around, but at least starting your day, you can say, I think around 12 o'clock I'm gonna be able to walk the job site. Now you may have to come back and change it, and I get it, but understand. A plan is better than no plan at all. Right? So, so coming into the day with a game plan helps you begin to delegate certain things, when you're gonna do it, how much time it's gonna take.
[00:05:37] Alex: And this is one area that most people don't think about with delegation. It's a nice delegation with a twist, right? And it will help you out with. And now a couple things I need you thinking about on this to-do list though. Number one, don't put too much on most people. Get too damn aggressive. I mean, you list shouldn't have 42 items on the list.
[00:05:56] Alex: I mean, damn it, that's just a lot. Think about the 20% that's gonna give you 80% result. Those are things that need to go on the list. Number two, overestimate commute time. Oftentimes there are two things that we forget to add to that list. Number one, commute time. I was in Portland, Oregon with a phenomenal company out there working with them, and I was talking with the leader and he said, you know what?
[00:06:15] Alex: Part of my 20% of my job is to do site visits, and I go and walk sites just to see where we are with the project, what's going on to check it out. I said, awesome, man. That's awesome. He said, so Alice, I do a great job of putting how much time I think it's gonna take me to do it. I said, well, that's great. I followed up and said, Hey listen, do you put your commute time on there?
[00:06:33] Alex: No. No. I never thought about that. I'm like, well dude, how much time does it take you to commute? Well, normally 30 minutes there, 30 minutes back to the office. I'm like, well, damn, that's an hour that you haven't thought about in your day that you're losing. Right? So I want you to incorporate commute time.
[00:06:50] Alex: I want you to add interruption time. Look, my friends, you know you're going to get interrupted in your day. So why do you pack your day with all of this shit as if you're going to keep it rolling when you know you're not right? Look, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, but expecting different results.
[00:07:10] Alex: So if you get interrupted every damn day, dude, call an audible. Add interruption time, say in the beginning of your day, before you get started, before you get outta the trucks. When you write that simple to-do list down, say, you know what? I'm gonna add interruption time Between two and three. Between two and three.
[00:07:25] Alex: I got interruption time. I have an hour to play with if I get interrupted. Here's why that's important. Number one, if you don't get interrupted, you can keep going forward with doing your daily tasks. Easy. No problem. Then it get interrupted. Perfect. I can get do business as usual. If you do get interrupted, let's just say someone walks into your office at 10:00 AM Oh my God, I have a burning fire.
[00:07:45] Alex: Here's what's going on. Let me tell you. You can ask them two questions. Number one. Is it extremely important? Does it have to be done now? Number two, can it wait now, hear me out. If it can wait, tell the person, Hey, listen, come back at two o'clock. I have a time slot for you between two and three where we can get shit done.
[00:08:07] Alex: You've delegated that emergency crisis situation to the time slot that you had scheduled for to get it done. You can continue going back to your job and your work, right? So that's number one. Number two. Let's just say, yep, it's urgent. You gotta do it. No problem. Hey, you know what? I'm going to set the task that I'm working on aside.
[00:08:27] Alex: Put this task that I'm working on right now in that two to three time slot to get it done so that I can focus on the urgent thing that needs to be done right now. What have you done? Well, you've given your task that you were working on a home. You've delegated it to that time slot that you set aside because you were thinking about interruption time, right?
[00:08:47] Alex: So those are ways that a lot of people don't think about ways to use delegation now. So, so what are some other rules with the to-do list? Don't carve things in stone. Be very flexible. Don't think you just gotta do it at that time when you said you were going to do it. No, no, no. Priorities change times change.
[00:09:02] Alex: I get it. So be very, very flexible, right? Order creatively, try your best to stack it. If you see those things, try your best to kind of group 'em together so you don't have to do a lot of moving around to go from this side of the office to that side of the office. Hey, try to kind of coordinate it where all things are right together with that.
[00:09:19] Alex: And then last but not least, you gotta schedule breaks, man. You, you have to schedule breaks because most people think they could just kind of churn through the day. You can't, you can't trust me. No one works a horn. Eight hours. Yeah. You don't trust me. You typically have about 90 minutes of focus time.
[00:09:38] Alex: After 90 minutes of focus time, your attention span tends to start to decrease, and your production level starts to decrease. Yeah, you may be doing things, but you start moving at a snail's pace. The longer you stay. Over that 90 minutes, it really begins to slow down my friends, right? So you wanna think about taking breaks, and that's something as simple as going to talk to people, walking around, let's just say two to five minutes, and then coming back you can do a phenomenal job of picking the pace back up and doing a great job with that right there.
[00:10:07] Alex: So in this last piece in the foundation, what do I want to remind you? Well, the not to do list, right? What should not make it on that list? Well, all low priority activities. Don't put it on your list. If it's low priority, don't put it on the list. Anything that you could delegate. Once you realize you could delegate it, get it off your list.
[00:10:23] Alex: Put somebody's name on it. Ah, call em, email it, send it to them to delegate. Thoughtless inappropriate demands from others. Don't put it on your list. Errands with low consequences. If, if it's not going to hurt you, ignore it. Get it off that list. And then last but not least, anything that someone could do for themselves, get it off the list, my friends, if you do that.
[00:10:41] Alex: You begin to do a phenomenal job of delegating, getting some things over to you and giving you some time back because not only have you mastered delegation of yourself, Understanding your 20%, you begin to give it away to other people because you've used your calendar, you've used your to-do list to delegate things well.
[00:10:59] Alex: So in the last piece, we going frame it out and how you can begin to do a phenomenal job of delegating to people, right? So we save the best last, where we begin to frame it out. And talk to you about how to delegate using people. So I'll see you in the last segment, the frame out. See you soon. Hey, I want to thank you for tuning in to No Bullshit with Alex Willis, the number one go-to source for leadership development in the construction industry.
[00:11:30] Alex: Hey, make sure you subscribe wherever you watch or listen to your podcast. And hey, make sure to hit play on that next segment.