The old version of myself would obsess over the Chicago Cubs. I would watch on TV, listen on the radio or attend 90% of their games. I always had it on in the background. I didn’t know better. It was a habit that I created out of lack of knowledge and focus. It was my status quo of that time.
I was reminded yesterday of a change that I made in 2009 that completely set me on a different path. I came across an old audio of Zig Zigler, a popular motivational speaker in the 80’s and 90’s, and he talked about the importance of “automobile university” and that you could use that time in your car, in the office to listen to material that would improve your skills and education.
Opening day of the MLB recently reminded me of a major change I made that really advanced my learning and skills. I did the math at one point and I estimated the pre-2009 version of myself spent over 400 hours a year watching, listening to or attending Cubs games which equated to TEN 40-hour work weeks of complete lack of focus. Now, I’ll admit, I’m a season ticket holder, I love my Cubbies but I stopped my consistent obsession of all thing CUBS.
So I went “all in” towards this “automobile university” concept and started by changing my routine “all things Cubs” to listening to the Tony Robbins, Darren Hardy, Jim Rohn’s of the world. I listened to the Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale over 50 times. Their words became my words. I stopped counting at 5,000 hours I’ve put towards my self-development and much of that has come while driving from appointment to appointment.
That time in the car became the most valuable time for me after I inserted this concept. It made perfect sense. I would not be on this call today if I had not made that one simple change.
The owner of Spanx, Sarah Blakely, lives 5 minutes from her office complex in Atlanta but creates a 30 minute “commute” just to have that quiet time in the car for learning and creating focus for each day.
It also made me quite aware of other inefficient parts of my day, my routines, etc. I literally started putting a value on my time.
Thanks to Darren Hardy’s Insane Productivity course, I realized that my annual income divided by 2,200 hours was my “hourly value.” He suggests that everyone should start looking for ways to outsource an action that is below one’s hourly rate and replace it with revenue generating actions or time for reflection.
For example, if your rate is $45 ($100,000/yr), you should not do things like clean your house or laundry if someone could do that for you for $25/hr. Take that 2-3 hours a week and put it right back into your business. How many of your clients and prospects can you call in 3 hours? What a great investment.
…or if you spend 2 hours a week at the grocery store, do your bulk ordering via a service like Instacart or Amazon Prime. You can pick up that 2 hours just by not having to get in your car, drive to the grocery store, purchase more than you need, drive home. Re-invest that time back into your business…..or go to the gym.
Most of you have gone through my “Take Flight” course. I’ve estimated that the time needed to fully execute my game plan each week is 10 hours max for a mature business. Chances are you have twice that in your schedule right now of wasted time.
Time should be looked at like an asset, if used wisely, it will benefit you greatly. When wasted, it is gone forever. You cannot replace time.
Making small changes in how you “Manage Time” and your productivity, can arguably have the biggest net impact on your business than any other area of focus.
Consider listening to an audiobook or PODCAST instead of the radio. Look for ways to improve your time efficiency. These two small productivity hacks have made all of the difference in the world to me.