5 Tips to Master Your Time and Be More Present with Brad Telepo
In This Episode You Will Learn About:
Own your inflows, rather than them owning you.
Stop interruptions, so you can have focus and presence, and time saved in completing tasks.
Trust all your inflows are handled, and nothing falls through the cracks.
Have settings and best practices so you can save tons of time when processing new emails.
"Time Mastery is creating a life of Freedom. Giving yourself back time to focus on the most important things in your life." - Brad Telepo
Show Notes:
More than 80% of individuals are buried under the busyness of their businesses or life. So much information, all over the place, running their lives. In this episode, you learn how to get control of this information, by getting it all out of your head, into a simple set of tools, with best practices, agreements, and routines to keep it all together, so you can focus on what matters most. Experience a massive shift from being disorganized and overwhelmed, to being in control, confident, with peace of mind, and trust that it will all get done.
Resources:
Website: https://www.daniellecobo.com/
Newsletter: https://www.daniellecobo.com/connect
Book Recommendations: https://www.amazon.com/shop/influencer-de49157c
Career Accelerator Workbook: https://www.daniellecobo.com/career-acceleration
Crush Your Quota Workbook: https://www.daniellecobo.com/sales-performance
Amazon Store: https://www.amazon.com/shop/influencer-de49157c
Time Mastery Online Course: https://timemastery.teachable.com/
Promo Code: COBO
Discount: 70% off
Connect with Elite Career Coach, Danielle Cobo
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellecobo/
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About the Guest:
Brad Telepo serves as Chief Operating Officer in residence with his clients, with a strategic strength in financial tooling and productivity and efficiency coaching for entrepreneurs, business owners, and teams. Brad started his first online retail company at the age of 22 while working in construction. From bringing on his first hire at 28, Brad reached the Top 200 in Sales in the music supply and instrument industry within three years, and set industry productivity records among the Top 200. He then acquired a failing retail company in 2004 and turned it around, migrating two companies for further efficiencies and economies of scale. All the while, Brad also partnered in an internet marketing company, specializing in maximizing ROI from cost per click.
Brad has conducted ongoing studies of systems and the impact on increasing time and mental bandwidth, generating marked profits growth through operational efficiencies. As a Partner at CXO Solutions, Brad specializes in co-piloting with entrepreneurs and management teams in implementing learned and best practices to greatly increase team mental and emotional bandwidth, cost savings, and scalability.
Linked in profile link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brad-telepo-b
Struggles with Having (Enough) Time
A lot of the listeners are sales reps. And so when they're in sales, often what they're doing is they get up in the morning, get the kids ready, then get ready. And they're out and they're meeting with clients all day. And what happens is, is you're on the road, the road warrior, so they're on the road, they're meeting with clients, they're getting text messages from clients, they're getting emails and phone calls. And there are so many different avenues that these customers are taking to contact these reps. But oftentimes, they're in meetings. And so then what happens is, then they get home. And by the time that they're done cooking dinner and all that, then they're getting caught up on emails at night or text messages at night.
Then there's the other type of person that's listening, who they're in a management position. And I can relate to some of these struggles where I covered five states as a manager. And so I was either on a plane or I was driving and I'd be driving for four hours, obviously trying not to be on my phone and text messaging while I was driving, not safe. So I would be on the road all the time. And then I would be in the car with a team member and want to be very cognizant that our time is limited. And so I didn't want to be on my phone a lot. But then what would happen is that I get to my hotel room, and I beat up on emails all night. And now as a business owner, this is becoming a little bit I used to be very good about mastering my email and time and productivity. But with each change in your career, and each evolution in your career, things change. So now I've got, I'm trying to manage Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn, I've got messages coming from me from all three platforms, emails coming from me text messages, and also some other communication platforms that I use right now. On average, I get about 100 messages a day between LinkedIn and just email just alone from that. And so these are kind of some of the struggles which I'm sure you deal with all the time. So I'm so excited to have you on as a guest and really talk about how we can be masters of time.
What Do We Own? Or Are We Owned?
Underneath that is really, what do we own like, do emails own us? Or do we own it? Do our inboxes own us or do we own them? And one thing you spoke into whether if you are in a job, or you're a manager or you're an owner, as time and technology has gone on, or your desire to grow, the number of communication mediums that you have to deal with, as well as the amount of information coming down those mediums, it's only getting worse. We're no longer in the days of like the rotary phone, and the one conversation to be like, cool, I can handle that pipeline. And what I see is underneath this is when I hear words like anxiety, overwhelmed, it's information overwhelm. And we can only handle so much upstairs with this limited brain that we got, like, but how do we get it out? So Danielle, what you spoke into is, if you're with your clients, or if you're with your kid, or if you're with your job, how can you be more present and focused with that in the meantime?
That would be something I'd love to know more about. Because, like you said, as you are scaling your business or as you are growing, whether you're working for an organization or not, there's just so much information that is coming to us at any given time. And especially as the past couple of years, there's been a lot of change. And anytime that there's change going on, there's even additional information that's coming out to you because things are constantly adapting through that change. And one of the struggles isn't I hate it when my mind is not present. It's either I'm at work, and I'm, you know, thinking about wanting to be with my kids, or I'm with my kids, and I'm thinking about work, it's just these thoughts are in my mind. So funny. I'm working with a coach right now on a speaking coach, and we're working on my TEDx. And she's like, You are a creative factory. She's like, the thoughts that just flow through your head all the time. And I said yes, which is great. But at the same time, it can get very challenging to be focused at times, because there's so much thought going through the head.
What's underneath all of that overwhelm that anxiety, that lack of presence, Danielle, you're just speaking into your creative machine, And the worst thing we can do is the managing our life in our head, whether if it's our calendar, our projects and tasks like all of that, and the more we're managing in our heads, the more or less actually present, and creative we can be. Our like, logical mind is only meant to hold so much. So when we get it out, literally start getting out all the goop, then all of a sudden, creativity happens and focus can happen.
So a lot of the fundamentals of this, whether it's email, or managing your job, or being the manager with it all it is, number one rule is you got to be out of the head, you got to be out of the head. And a lot of people are looking for the latest tech, you know, what am I using for Gmail? Is it outlook? Is it? Is it Gmail? What do I need to use for projects and tasks? Is it Asana is it Trello? People are looking for that all the time. But the solution isn't technological. It's behavioral. So you spoken to Danielle, which is like how do we create the time with it. And if you don't have the routines, the behaviors that are telling you what to do and how often to keep it all together, then things are just falling through the cracks. Because Danielle is probably like, oh my gosh, I gotta get to my emails at home. I need to check in this person tomorrow. Oh, my gosh, I forgot about this client. How do I check on this person? Good to go to so we're managing so much, right? You have all this going on? And you've got all these inflows hitting you and you're just like, stop. How do I get a grip on actually what's going on? And it gets crazy.
It does get crazy. I mean, then now of stuff that you're trying to remember, I'm thinking at any given time, okay kind of follow up with people on LinkedIn, God do finish up with the email. Oh, and I got follow up with that client. And oh, yes, my kids have this week. My kids have had dress up every single day this week. So I'm thinking like, okay, so what am I going to do their costume for tomorrow? Yeah, and it's, it's information overload, and that's what creates anxiety and overwhelm and the nine takes in a motional, physical kind of just inks on our bodies. So yeah, what are some steps that you recommend that we can take to master our time?
So if you're open to it, I can focus on all the crazy inbound message communications that we have coming at us. So once again, either you own them Are they own you? So the first step that I do with everyone is turn off, like what can we stop doing? That's not serving us. Turn off all those notifications on your phone, and your computer, except phone and text. You can go back to turning them on. But what do you think happens Danielle? Like if we're here right now? Or if you're with your colleague or your with your kid? What's happening? If you're getting pinged, and these notifications going off, how is that happening? How is that helping your flow? Or lack thereof? Yeah, it's like having five to 10 kids around you being like, check out this, Hey, look at my costume. Can we go here and do this?
And it's just fracturing, our focus causes a lot more stress causes a lot more, creates a lot more time in order to get things done and what it is. So the first thing is you got to stop those notifications. But the reasons why we have those notifications going on, is we don't trust that we actually have it all covered, we're worried we're going to forget something. So that's what we have going on. So that next phase is this is the number one rule is being out of the head. Then if you don't want to forget something, then you can take two minutes right now to brainstorm on what are all of your inflows. And the game that I like to play with people is take two minutes to brainstorm on them all. And 100% of time. 100% of people do not have their full list. People might be missing paper mail, they're missing social media notifications, they're forgetting about their text or WhatsApp. Next thing you know, they're on their LinkedIn, we probably have 15 to 25 especially how driven your audience is, think about that. You cannot tell me back right now, from your head. Tell me all the info you gotta manage? You can't know.
The Principle of the Leakproof Bucket
How hard is it trying to remember? So if that fundamental rule is being out of the head, if you take two minutes to write them down, all of a sudden, what happens is, you have this leakproof bucket, you're no longer worried about if things are going to fall through the cracks. You can trust that they're actually there. And when you're ready. If you want to own it, you're ready to flip on that switch. You know which ones to go to. And you can actually get from them. Like, does that make sense?
Danielle Cobo
So what I'm hearing you say, cuz this is like, right now, what I'm hearing you say is I'm going to write a list of all the different areas that I've got information coming to me. So if I have one checklist, and it's like, each morning, I've got 30 minutes set aside, I'm going to check my email, my LinkedIn, my Facebook, my Instagram, my text messages, my Telegram, my WhatsApp, all these different inflows of information I'm coming, but I have a checklist to go, okay, I'm gonna go do and then once I go through them, I'm like, Ah, that's all done. I don't have to think about oh, wait, did I check this? Did I check that I just go down my checklist?
Yeah. And that's what that feeling is, it's the feeling of being current, that nothing's falling through the cracks. So a lot of this is how do you create a leakproof system so that you're not thinking about it. So if I was to look at like my browser right now, like I just clicked on my inboxes folder, just like, you know, Voxer my Asana, my work email, personal email, my Discord, my WhatsApp, LinkedIn, that the inbox, Slack, Duo. But I have those in a good power tip, Danielle, then once you write those down, just circle the ones that really matter which is probably only 5% to 10% of those. And when that's part of your morning routine, that way, you're only checking things that matter in the morning, because the worst thing I think a bad habit is checking emails first thing in the morning that doesn't matter if you ever heard of Brendan Broussard? Yeah, so his quote is an inbox is nothing but a convenient, organized structure for other people's agenda for your life. So what happens when you go to read that thing and think about that thing when you've already declared what you want to do in your morning?
The Checklist Manifesto
One of the things I always try to be very mindful of is to not check my email for the first hour of my morning my first hour of my morning is knee time it is I get on my peloton. I typically like listening to a podcast or watch a TEDx because it's just my daily boost of inspiration, drinking my ketones, and then it's like getting some time with the kids getting ready. But I really try not to check my email in the morning because immediately started thinking of like, oh, yeah, I gotta do this. Oh, yeah, I gotta do this. And it just creates an overwhelming feeling.
Yeah, it's like a Checklist Manifesto, Danielle, because you have your morning routine, like, I firmly believe that, like what matters most in life, it's like health. So how do you create more time, not only for you in the morning to set yourself up, but also more time for the kids more time to be working on your clients, or with your people, rather than it running you? So? Yeah.
So what are some other steps in addition? So what I'm hearing, the first step would be the checklist. Write down all the different areas that information is coming to you kind of prioritize what you're going to start with turn the notifications off, what are some other tips that you have for our listeners?
Yeah, perfect. So I'm just gonna go through my head. So it's like being out of the head into a simple tool. So I don't care if it's digital, or a piece of paper, you can reference that inflows list like that, right. So now what's happening to best practice agreements, on what's the best way to handle it. So I set it up for the second half of the day to review my inflows. I do have my priority ones so that my morning, I can actually move forward things that are most valuable. Otherwise, I'm just going to get squirreled out, I'm just another human being, I'm going to lose focus and things are going to happen.
So that best practice is to have it in the second half of the day, and maybe it close. The next one is batshit, meaning do the entire list to zero. Because what do you think the difference is, if you're trying to do them all sporadically throughout the day? I'm trying to get caught up here, here, here, here and there. What do you think the difference is in time and mental energy, then? Exhausting? Yeah. It's very exhausting. extremely exhausting. So it's like it's control. You want to own it. And then when you want to do a flip on that switch and open up your world to your email and your inflows, you can be like, great I got. And then you can turn off the switch and go back.
Owning Your Time and Actions
The final step with it is what is the behaviors and the routines to keep this together. So I have a notification just for the middle of the day and the end of the day to actually go do them. Because a healthy system will tell you what to do and how often you can move it around. It doesn't always have to happen at 12. But by having that calendar, set up your nervous system that tells you what to do, click the calendar, you got all your inflows. And next thing you know you're going to handle them. But you can say no, Danielle, like you can say no, I don't want to review your right now. No, later. No, I don't have the time. No, I'd rather be with my kids. So you get to be an owner of actually when you're handling stuff. Does that make sense?
Yes. And what I like to take is take it a step further, there's two things that are resonating with me that what you're saying right now is one of them is set time and create time on your calendar to do it. It's one thing to have a to do list. I know a lot of us will have sticky notes all over and have Sticky, sticky notes everywhere or we've got like this piece of paper we're writing our to do lists unless you were setting time on your calendar to do this. So one of the features I loved about outlook is if I got an email and it's Richard Branson said, if it takes less than five minutes, respond to it right away, do it right away if it takes more than five minutes and put it on your calendar and scheduled time to do it. So one of the reasons why I loved it outlook is I can drag the email and I can put it on my calendar. And I love how you also talk about setting boundaries. Because it's a matter of saying, when somebody reaches out to you, let's say late at night, sometimes I get people reach out late at night, and they're saying, Oh, can you talk right now? Or I have this question. Yeah, I'm happy to answer that question. Let's set up some time tomorrow. So I'm always leading with Yes, while also creating boundaries, and being very intentional about my family time.
Yeah. And that's what this is about is how can you not only have the time for family time, and for you time, time, and relationships, and the most important, and more importantly, when you're with them, that you can actually be with them. To truly be with them in that moment. And trust, when you're ready to go back to whatever it is, like, we all get slammed, we all get overwhelmed. Like yesterday was an intense day for me, I had a couple hours training a team, and it was admin day. And it was too much computer by the end of the day. And I was like talking to my partner, I'm like I'm tapped. And I had to go back to my own system. I'm like, everything off. Everything Off, everything on pause, turn off the lights, how do I get back to a healthy place, so that I can be my most energetic?
And that's great advice, too. Sometimes, if you're feeling that overwhelm and anxiety, take a pause, and identify what's creating this anxiety, what's creating this overwhelm feeling? And a lot of times, what I'll do is I'll be like, okay, stop, let me really look at my calendar here. And what does it make? Is there things that I can move on my calendar that maybe aren't a priority at right now at this time? Because I have, I have big ideas on what I'm creating in my business. And so does it make sense to try it all? Do it right now? Or can I prioritize things and say, Okay, well, I'm first going to focus my time and energy on this, and then I'm going to move to that, where can I move things around? Or also, where can I be more efficient with in my calendar.
Condensing Your Tasks and Being More Intentional
So I know personally, I like to have one admin day a week. That one day, I just get in the flow of admin, or there's one day that if I'm going to be doing podcast recordings, I'm going to do it, I try to do it all in one day, because that's my flow. Or even this morning, my husband and I were he was like, Why did you block out an entire day to do creating online modules? And I said, because that's when I'm in my flow state. That's the time where once I do want, I just get in the flow of another versus trying to compartmentalize it sporadically throughout the week. That's harder for me, I'd like to kind of be intentional with the tasks and doing similar tasks.
Yeah, in what you're doing there was, like you're saying condensing it. And you're talking about flow? Like, it's hard to get going. We're all like these motorcycles. They haven't been started in the wintertime, almost like every morning. What do I get to do to get going, so when you're in that flow, you don't want to be interrupted, you want to be clear, I think the biggest thing is, like when we're really feeling it, just take a giant step back, pull out a piece of paper and be like, what am I really up to right now? And what's that one thing to move it forward, but to support you in locking in your emails and inflows. If you put a recurring event into your account, let's say it's every day, at 12pm, you can move it a great system is flexible. But at least it's now locked in there for you to say, I'm gonna go review my notes and inflows. So at least it's there. And now your calendar is set up to where you can start moving it around. And the beautiful thing is, is that permission to say no. And it's about working with your time and energy and what's there. But if you're using your head to try to remember what you need to go do, once again, you're dead. Yeah, you're dead. And more than 80% of people are managing more than 80% of the world's in their head. Or if it's out, it's just scattered. So I hope that supports with like, okay, stop the interruptions. Get a clear list. Here's the best practices and lock in the routine to go do that so that you remember. And when you go to engage with it, you can just do it much faster, and then move on to what matters.
Quick Power Tips for Managing Notifications
Everyone has a browser. And normally I use Chrome. If you take the time, the two minutes to add all of those inflows into your browser folder on the top, you can right-click them and be like, open a new window or opening new tabs. How does that support nixing? You know, imagine all of your digital inbox is coming across the front of your computer screen, you're like, dun, dun, dun dun, getting through it all.
The second one, which a lot of people love is setting up the folder on your phone as well. Because sometimes it's nice when you're at the coffee shop. Or all of a sudden you have the space in the meetings to say, okay, I'm going to turn on my inflows, I'm going to engage with the ones that I see that are important.
