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 second segment, The Level, Alex dives into the best ways to plan before you delegate work for the day. You’ll learn how to sharpen your goals, by asking questions like: What are the most urgent tasks at hand? What are the most important?
Tune into our next segment, The Foundation, where 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!
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 my friends. Welcome back to episode nine. We are in the level where we're gonna really begin to talk about leveling the playing field, and you being a phenomenal planner. Right now, understand this, we said in our last segment that it's very, very, very important that you understand the power of planning.
[00:00:27] Alex: And a crazy, crazy, fun fact for you was that for every one minute you spend on the front end planning it saves you seven on the back end. So, so you wanna be a hell of a plant, but how do you do that? How do you do it? Well? Well, before I jump into it, there's a couple steps I want you to think about. And number one is you have to write down your plan.
[00:00:46] Alex: Oftentimes in construction, I ask my leaders, Hey, do you have a plan? They say, oh dude, I have a plan, bro. I have a plan. I'm like, where is it? It's right here, dude. It's right. I'm like, that's the damn worst place in the world. You can keep a plan. Trust me. Look, you have pen and pan for a reason. It does much better at remembering things than you do because understand this.
[00:01:09] Alex: In the construction industry, we are bombarded with distraction after distraction after distraction every single day. Understand that's a lot of mental pressure and stress here. If I have everything here, you want to put it here, dammit. You want to write it down so that you can have a plan. It's like, it's like calling plays, right?
[00:01:29] Alex: Just like a coach who call plays, they have things scripted out of what they want, what they're trying to do. So number one, you have to write it down. Number two. Next brainstorm on what needs to be done. So, so I need to write it down and I need to really begin to brainstorm on what needs to get done, so, so by writing it down, it helps me pause for a second to think about all the moving parts of my day that are very, very important.
[00:01:51] Alex: Now, understand there's two parts of your day in construction that you can control. What two parts of those? My friends? Any takers on that? Well, It's when you get there and usually when you leave. Now I know when you leave, it's kind of iffy. Uh, so really can control one part. That's when you show up. Now, writing your plan down is very, very, very important that you write it down before you get out the damn truck.
[00:02:19] Alex: Yes, I'm gonna say it again. Write shit down before you get out of the truck, because as soon as you step foot on the job site and open the door to get out of the truck. You are going to be bombarded and you lose total control of your day. Now just sitting in your truck for a few seconds. Writing down some rough notes, rough notes, Hey, okay, well I think, hey, hey, I need to order material.
[00:02:43] Alex: Hey, I need to do a job site, uh, review and, and a job site walk. I need to have that conversation with this person. I need to send an email to the gc. All of those things I could write down. Why, why is that important? Because it allows me to know what my roadmap is for today, right? And it helps me out with that.
[00:02:59] Alex: Now, once you begin to brainstorm what needs to get done, the next key piece. In order to be able to delegate really, really well and master your time is to do a phenomenal job of putting those activities in order so you can do what I like to call stack 'em. You can be begin to stack things or what do I mean by that?
[00:03:17] Alex: Well, if you realize that you need to do a job site walkthrough. But at the same time, you need to talk to Sarah, who's on that same damn job site, I can say. Oh wow. So at this time, I'm gonna walk through the job site, and at the same time I do that, I'm gonna schedule some time to talk to Sarah so I can knock these two things out with one.
[00:03:36] Alex: Go through with that. Now, at the very, very top, you need to next identify who's gonna get it done. As in the last segment, when you understand that 20%. Understand what it is you need to do, how you need to do it, what you're going to do, and what only you can do. The next thing on your list, my friends, you can begin to, uh, pass that stuff off because, you know, uh, no.
[00:03:55] Alex: Look, magic Johnson passed to somebody else because you understand what you can delegate. Now, last but not least, you need to build milestones and checkpoints into your plan. Well, let me say this. Let me slow down for a second. As you can see, man, I get hyped in here and think about that. I'm in here all by myself.
[00:04:13] Alex: Excited and hyped right now. But as we're talking about milestones for your plan, understand every sport, for the most part, for the most part, has a halftime. Has a halftime. Why? Why do most sports have a, well, usually it's so that coaches and players can go over things and regroup. And to be honest, the great coaches are coaches who make phenomenal halftime adjustments.
[00:04:41] Alex: Those who go in the locker room after having a tough first few quarters, go in the locker room, see what's going on, make adjustments, and come back out the second half and win. We need to view ourselves as corporate athletes and do the exact same thing. So, so I want you to think about incorporating halftime into your day and say, Hey, wait a minute.
[00:05:05] Alex: Where am I? What am I doing? Am I doing a great job of delegating some of the tasks and responsibilities that I can? Am I doing a great job of managing my time? What do I need to do better? Where do I need to make those halftime adjustments so that I can come out doing a phenomenal job right now? In order to do this, you have to understand.
[00:05:22] Alex: This thing that comes from a, a phenomenal book. Old school. Old school, old school, but it's called The Seven Habits of Highly Affected People right now in the book. They have a phenomenal graph and you don't get a chance to see the graph. So if you're watching on YouTube, check the graph out. But the graph is urgent versus important, right?
[00:05:40] Alex: Urgent versus importantness. So I'll try my best for those who are listening to explain this to you. But on what axis of the graph you have, what's important, right? So the higher an activity is on that graph. The more important it is. Now on the bottom axis, right, you have what's urgent, so the farther out light a task goes on that graph.
[00:06:02] Alex: The more urgent it is, right? So now this graph is broken up into four boxes, right? So, so the first box of our friends, which is in the upper right corner, upper right. So think about that. That means it's all the way to the top. So it's very, very, very important. It's all the way to the right, so it's very, very urgent.
[00:06:21] Alex: What do we find in that box? Well, usually we find things like crisis, present problems, as well as deadline driven goals. Deadline driven. Now that box stresses a lot of people out. That's box number one up there in the top right corner. Now let's, let's go kind of down, kind corner to that. In the bottom left corner at the very bottom left corner, it's all the way at the bottom.
[00:06:47] Alex: So it's not important. It's all the way to the left, so it's not urgent at all. What do you find in that category? Well, you find things like. Bullshitting on social media, watching cat videos from YouTube, as well as texting friends, family unimportant calls at times. It falls down there in that category, right?
[00:07:07] Alex: Not urgent at all. Not important at all. Now, the next one, the next one, if we go directly above that one, that is in the top left corner, right top, left corner, which means because it's high up on that important. It is, it is very, very, very important because at the very top high left, but it's all the way over to the left, which means it's not urgent.
[00:07:30] Alex: That's, this is what we call box two. What do you find in that box? Well, you find things like planning, right? Ooh, that big P word planning, right? As well as developing great relationships and empowering your team, right? So you're gonna spend time planning. Developing key relationships and empowering your team.
[00:07:49] Alex: Now, the last box, which is at the very, very bottom, all the way to the right box number three, right? So because it's at the very, very bottom, it is not important, but because it's all the way up to the right, it is extremely urgent right now. What do you find in that box? Well, you find things like interruptions.
[00:08:06] Alex: People coming in all the time. Hey, hey, hey, we got a problem, right? Interruptions, phone calls. Emails, reports that you have to do bullshit meetings, all of those things in that lower bracket, right? So if you think about these four quadrants, right? Quadrant 1, 2, 3, and four, where do you spend most of your time?
[00:08:24] Alex: Right? Where do you spend most of your time? Do you spend most of your time dealing with crisis, present problems and deadlines? If so, that means you're in box one. Do you spend most of your time planning, building key relationships and empowering others? If so, in box two, Do you spend time dealing with interruptions, phone calls, meetings, reports, emails that sold box three, or do you spend time watching cat videos, Instagram and that kind of stuff?
[00:08:51] Alex: If so, you're in box four now. Hear me out. My friends, for most of our people in construction, they spend most of their time in box one and three dealing with crisis problems, deadlines, interruptions, phone calls, and meetings. Now, hear me on this. If you spend most of your times in this box, One and three.
[00:09:10] Alex: You are extremely stressed out, extremely under pressure because your stuff never gets done. The others around you are controlling your day and your schedule. What I wanna challenge you to do is spend more time in box two and in box two. Highly important but not urgent. What? What's box two? It's planning, relationships and empowerment.
[00:09:34] Alex: And if you could spend more time there. You could really begin to develop your team and you could begin to delegate some of those things and responsibilities in box one and three. Right now, let's be honest, the majority of challenges and problems that come your way, so that person who's bringing it, it's urgent and important, but when you really begin to pull the covers back, if you're being honest, most of it is not urgent and important.
[00:09:59] Alex: The fire, the house isn't burning down. So you have to be able un understand how to do that and do that really, really well. So how do you spend more time in box number two is the question. How do you spend more time planning? How do you spend more time delegating as well as building key relationships? So your team has the power and the function to be able to do it right?
[00:10:18] Alex: How do you do it? Well, here's how. You do it by tuning in to the next segment, the foundation where we're going to give you the foundation. I know I set you up on that one, right? Yeah, I know. I'm, I'm leaving your ass in box one and three right now, so that you have to tune in to the next segment, the foundation to see how do you move out.
[00:10:41] Alex: Right now? In the next segment, we're gonna really begin to break it down. To show you how you move out of that stress, high pressure, never getting shit done. Everybody controlling your schedule and your time to a place where mad. You have a team, you become a phenomenal coach. You begin to delegate. Give those no look Joce Magic passes to other people because they have the ability and the skill.
[00:11:08] Alex: And you as a leader have the ability and the skill to communicate very clearly, to talk about the expectation, to set the specific goal. As well as making it very, very measurable. So you don't wanna miss that because I left you in box one and three. If you stay there, you don't wanna die in the wilderness in box one and three.
[00:11:26] Alex: So tune into the foundation where we break it down. I'll see you soon, my friends. Hey, I want to thank you for tuning in to No Bullshit with Alex Willington. Number one, go-to source. For leadership development into the construction industry. Hey, make sure you subscribe wherever you watch or listen to your podcast.
[00:11:44] Alex: And hey, make sure to hit play on that next segment.