Multi-Millionaire Explains: 3 Rules to Manage Your Time

Stop wasting time. I'm going to share with you the three time rules I followed to go from broke to multi-millionaire. See, when kids come up to me and I'm driving one of my supercars, they always ask, what do you do? And I always say to them, it's not what I do, it's what I did. Starting with rule number one, the 4D framework. Getting Things Done by David Allen is one of the best books ever written on doing more. I fell in love with it. I loved it so much that I actually went to one of seminars. And because of that experience, he taught me a completely different way to work that I want to share with you now. This is the 4D framework. The first D is do it. The rule is, if it takes less than two minutes, you do it now. You don't even write it down. It'll take you more time to write it down than to just get it done. So if that means sending a text message, calling someone, I literally was just talking to somebody and they were like, I wonder if we can make this work on YouTube. I said, one sec, I called the person, asked the question, we got it done right away. We don't even write it down. The second D is delegate it. If someone else can do it, let them. Stop working on stuff you don't need to do. The third D is defer it. This is really important for things that are not now. They need to get done. They're just not a this week and even this month. So I always try to put it in a place where I know I'm going to review it so I don't get bogged down by the pressure of having all these open loops for things that don't need my attention today. The fourth D is deleted. If it doesn't serve your goals, even if you want to do it, you'd like to do it. You've got to learn to say no. Here's the deal. A yes is a no to your goals. A no is a yes to your potential dreams. You have to learn to say no. So you create the space so it's available to you when you have the opportunity to execute to make the thing happen. Ben Newman. Eight, nine years ago, I was still like, I'd be on coaching calls, 10 coaching calls in a day. I mean, just hammering a mutual friend like, dude, you're going to burn out. And he's like, you need to learn to honor the brand and get paid to say no. And I never forgot it. Get paid to say no. Tell me more. He's like, dude, you need to develop other coaches. You need to develop other speakers. So that day I got on the plane. I said, okay, BNC Speakers is born. BNC Coaching is born. There's no other coaches. There's no other speakers. So my biggest focus is only doing the things I love. Yeah, dude, I love that. Change my life. Get paid to say no. Change my life. Here's what I like to tell people. If you don't have a framework for managing time, time will manage you. But time isn't the only thing you need to manage, which brings us to When I first started getting going, I was so worried of missing opportunities that I said yes to everything that my calendar was like a tapestry of meetings that made no sense. I mean, I used to say yes to meetings at 9am in the morning, breaking up my most creative time for some meeting that I could have done in the afternoon. Understanding how you naturally want to flow through your day so that you're available for the work that you need to get done is a game changer in business. That's what the best leaders do. They don't create a scenario where they burn out and then have to reset. A lot of CEOs do that, man. It's actually a self-sabotaging behavior because then it's not their fault that their whole business went back 30, 40, 50 percent. Yeah, it is. Well, no, it's not. I was hustling. No, you did it in a way that was not sustainable. First form is an example of 22 years of nonstop trouble with Kerry Water. Most people don't understand that the results are exponential, but they're not exponential if you don't stay in the game. Charlie Munger said often, he's like, compound growth only works if you don't reset. At the moment you lose the capital, you reset. Rule number one, don't get out of momentum. That's why momentum is so powerful. Once you're in momentum, just stay in it. Here's the mental model to consider. You can't do more if you don't have energy for more. If you're loving this, these are my energy management principles. Number one is schedule for energy. When I look at my day and I think about the three blocks of morning, afternoon, and night, there are certain things that I want to do in the morning that is completely different than my afternoons where I'm scheduling most of my calls because I like to collaborate in the afternoon. And at night I do things like research, review my calendar for the next day. It's a completely different energy. If I tried to do that in the morning and then the creative stuff at night when my brain is wasted, I would have lost my whole day of productivity. The second thing is batch work. The whole idea is to ask yourself, what kind of flow do you need to be in to do certain types of work and put it together? It's a lot of writing. You're right. It's a lot of meetings. You talk and you put them together so that you don't have to pay the cost of context switching. I see people do this all the time. They go from finance meeting to a sales call. When I think of like doing media tours, for example, I'm going to do all the podcast interviews first. Then I'm going to do any speaking or book meetups. And only at the end of the day do I do like a founder's dinner because I want to be in that energy of that work. The third is net time, which stands for no extra time. This is like when I'm flying down to Nashville on the jet, I'm doing a mastermind with other business people. When I'm doing my one-on-ones, I do them on scooters because I really enjoy being out on a scooter. It is a game changer to be more productive and also manage my energy. But you can't keep the same schedule every day and expect exponential results. Which brings us to rule number three, you're allowed to adjust. I remember the other one of my friends came to me and he was like overwhelmed and stressed out. And I was like, dude, calm down. What's going on? And what happened was, is that he had said yes to a bunch of things months ago and his calendar was just slammed. He had all these commitments. He didn't know what to do. And what I suggested that he do that I want you to consider is to make a list of things that you wouldn't have said yes to if they were today and renegotiate those commitments. So for example, at the book meetup, somebody can ask a question about like being overwhelmed and they said their calendar was slammed and they have all these commitments and they don't know what to do. And I just gave them the feedback. The truth is, is that you're allowed to adjust. You're allowed to renegotiate. You're allowed to sit down, reprioritize and say to somebody, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be able to do that. You're allowed to hold that truth. Do you think you'd miss out on getting these big opportunities if you didn't protect your time? Yes. It's called death by a thousand paper cuts. There's this great quote that says, don't trust a man that never says no because a man that never says no will eventually say yes to too many people and let people down. Somebody that says no tells you they know what they're after. And when they say yes, it's a yes. I've never not shown up. I'll be there for a keynote. I'll be there for a webinar. I'll be there for your team. I'll be there for dinner. I can't remember a time I didn't show up, but if I'm not feeling it, it's also a no. You guys have been with me and people are like, I got this idea and I really like to have you involved. And I go appreciate the interest, but probably not going to fit. Sorry. Heads down, locked table. What I like to tell people is if you don't take your time seriously, nobody else will. So here are three strategies that I use to get the most out of my calendar. The first point is to review. I look through my calendar on Sunday for the week. And I asked myself, is this something I should still be doing? I know maybe I said yes, six months ago, but I'm allowed to review and decide, does this align with my goals? Things that used to give me energy, you know, might've turned into things that are mediocre or worse. They take my energy. You're allowed to change your mind. The second part is to adjust, actually renegotiate those commitments, have those tough conversations. One quick strategy that changed the game for my wife and I is that if the thing somebody's asking me was tonight, and I would say no, then it's a no, even if it's three months into the future. So just say no today, if you wouldn't go tonight. Number three is expand. Once you've got that new time, think about the goals you want, the relationships you want to build, the skills you got to acquire and add the new. And my favorite thing is to figure out what would make me the most uncomfortable starting or creating. Whatever gives me anxiety is usually the right path. Most people stay away from that. I use it as feedback to say, go forward. The question I ask myself is what will grow me even more? I choose goals to grow me, which is what I put in my account. Wear that one. Do you know what that is? I would guess it's a $30,000 swatch. This is a Tissot, it's nice. Guess what it is though, for real. 30k? Now I'm thinking more 60, 70, 100, 120, 150, I'm very self-aware that that looks like a swatch and it could be a $25 watch. I don't take it off. I worked out with it. I wear it all the time. That's like a GKTRS on my wrist. That's the McLaren mindset. Don't let your possessions hold you prison. Wear it because you want to wear it. I want you to wear it. What if one of my truck team drivers that I pay, I can't pay them $90 an hour, but if they see it and it's like, I guess the answer is who gives a ----. Again, McLaren mindset. It's not who gives a ----. I want you to make $90 an hour. Go create it. If you have the mindset that anything is possible for any person and they actually think, oh, you got a half a million dollar watch, give me a raise. I'd love to give you a raise. Talk to me. Tell me what you're going to do to create more value. How are you going to be more efficient? The reason why I got it because my next big goal is a billion. If you divide a billion by 2000, that's 2000 amount of hours in a year most people work. You know what the number is? A billion divided by 2000, 500,000. Every time I look down, I ask myself, is this hour reducing that level of value or trending towards it? If it's not, I cannot continue to entertain this. And you did it. You guys just went and saw it. Isn't that cool? You literally just saw that personified in person. You saw the organization. You saw the people, you saw the culture. You saw what I'm talking about in real life that that is going to represent. Yeah. That was worth the trip. Oh yeah. When I think about people taking their time more seriously, I always go back to, if you don't value your own time, nobody else will value yours. And most people don't realize decisions around partnerships that cause issues, or even saying yes to commitments that you know really should be a no. The people you love the most are on the receiving end. So I always go back to reminding myself, if I say yes to this, I'm saying no to time with my kids. I'm saying no to time with my wife. I'm saying no to calling my brother. I'm saying no to hanging out with my dad. And when I put that into context, it allows me to feel okay in deciding to do something different. If you want to learn how CEOs manage their inbox, click the video and I'll see you on the other side.