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Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the next generation people and profits podcast. I want to thank you for joining us for today’s episode. If you have not yet gone over to our NG cheer and gymnastics owners, Facebook group, make sure you do that join that group. also head over to nextgenerationgymowners.com Check out our website and all the amazing offerings we have there. And lastly, if you have not liked, shared, subscribed this podcast do that now so you don’t miss any future episodes. We have a lot of great content that we put out. We put out new episodes every week, twice a week and you don’t want to miss them. So make sure you are subscribe so you get notifications and know when that next episode launches. All right, everyone that today’s episode we are talking about the reason that you are not accomplishing anything is because you are trying to do everything you are overwhelmed and under delivering. So the three key topics we are going to talk about today is there are 1 million things to do as an owner and they all feel important. Number two, you cannot multitask. Let me say that again. You cannot multitask. And one more time you cannot multitask. And number three, we are going to pick one thing and dominate it and move on to the next thing.

So why are we talking about this today? Well, if you’ve listened to the podcast for a little bit, you know that I work a lot like I work way way too many hours. I’ve talked about an episode in a previous episode, how I’m looking at changing some things about that, but I work a ton and I have three different businesses that I am an owner in and I’m involved in running as well as working a full time job. And there was a day about two months ago where I was gearing up for my summer camp season. I had a bunch of work to do with Dream camps. I had some work I had to do for my gym and I also had work I had to do for next gen and I had all these different things on my plate. And Friday right now on my current schedule is kind of a dedicated just at home work day. And that Friday, I worked for 10 hours straight I took like a really brief lunch break. But I was in my office on my computer working for 10 hours with just bathroom breaks and long enough to eat some food and then get right back in front of the computer and working except I worked 10 hours and I accomplished basically nothing I finished nothing. I worked all day. I spun my, my wheels but I didn’t really get anywhere. And I have been thinking about it and that doesn’t always happen. But I spent some time thinking about why that was the way it was. And it was because I didn’t follow the systems that I already know work because just like I’ve talked about in previous episodes, just because you know the information doesn’t mean you are always going to do it. It’s the implementation is the key. And this was a day where I didn’t implement things that I knew I needed to do. So I think it’s a really important thing to revisit and remind people of because it can make a huge difference in how productive you are with your day because we all have the same amount of time and we’ve got to produce better results with that amount of time. than our competitors. So number one topic that I mentioned is there’s 1 million things to do as an owner and they all feel important right and didn’t say they’re all important but they all feel important. And as an owner it can be really distracting we can get focused on I need to be marketing I need to be growing in members I need to increase my average revenue per member per month. I need to make sure my members are staying longer. I need to hire a new staff member I need to respond to these emails.

I need I need I need I need I need and they’re all things that you feel like you really have to do. On top of that we have all the standard distractions that exist in today’s world. So we have phone calls, we have emails, we have Facebook, we have Instagram. I hope you don’t have it but we have tick tock or Snapchat or those kinds of things as well to just be another time suck away from the things that you need to accomplish. And maybe you’re a parent and you have kids at home and they take time, which they should. Family is very important. So I don’t want you to ignore those things. But we have all of these things that we need to be doing and they all feel really important. And so we try to do all of them at the same time. And we end up accomplishing nothing. We end up not actually making any progress on anything because we’re constantly shifting our mindset and changing what we’re doing and working on a different thing. So if you’re one of those serial tab openers, and you’re one of those people who has 22 tabs open in your browser at any to any given time, and you may even have three browsers open and you’re bouncing back and forth between all of them because you get to a pause point on I can’t have a document so then you go and check your emails which then leads you into logging into jabot or iCLASS or whatever and enrolling someone which then leads you into an A you just keep going down that rabbit trail then you check Facebook and you forgot what you were working on in Canva until you come back from lunch and realize you were midway through designing and marketing graphic and you go back to that right? And you just you’re just throwing darts all over the place and you’re not actually accomplishing anything productive. Right? So we have to be really diligent in what we choose. To do. Now, this takes us into you cannot multitask and I say this fully knowing that Shelley will tell me that she can multitask. Now I’ve told her that that is not true. And her argument is she likes to have a TV show on or something like that. That’s on in the background while she’s working and therefore she’s multitasking but one that is a distraction.

But two she’s not actually multitasking. One is your sub thoughts brain right that that side of your brain that’s just processing information in the background at all times. And then you’re actively using your slow thinking brain that actually takes effort to make thoughts come together and and put things together your your brain that you would need to use to complete a math problem, right you’re using those two different brains at the same time essentially. It would be like saying you can multitask because you’re listening to music while you write a book that you’re listening to the music it’s it’s impacting you but you’re not creating music while also sending an email, right like those that would be truly multitasking. If I was writing a song and playing the guitar, while also being able to send an email to enroll someone into classes. That’s multitasking. So I can’t actually truly multitask and set up a marketing campaign. Respond to a set of emails, serve Facebook, edit, promotional video, and Bill clients all at the same time. That would be what multitasking is what we really think of as multitasking is the ability to switch trains of thought very quickly and be able to do it efficiently. Now some people can do it more efficiently than others. But no matter what you’re not as efficient as you would be simply focusing on the one task at hand. So that brings us to point number 33 which is pick one thing and dominate that thing. And once you’ve dominated it, move on to the next thing, right take instead of trying to do five different things, pick one thing and do it and you have two options. You can do it until you’re done. Right now that may not be possible because you maybe you’re writing a book, right? If I’m writing a book, I’m not going to write a book in one sitting and I certainly can’t ignore all my other responsibilities. Because I haven’t finished my book and I set the mindset I’m gonna pick one thing and I’m going to do it until it’s done. Now there are certain things where you can do it like that. I am going to create a marketing campaign and I’m going to do it until it’s done. That may be possible. But something like writing a book it’s not so you have two options. One is do it until completion. And two is that you can set a specific time requirement or allotment for yourself that you only have this amount of time to do it. And then once you’re out of that time it’s done. You can’t go back to that thing until your next allotted amount of time. And so you you’re focusing on that with 100% focus for the period of time that you’re working on it and then you end that you get up you go for a walk, you do something physical, you do some push ups, you let your mind get somewhere else and then you come back to your new task and you start that task. You will be more productive, you will get more done and you will at the end of the day actually accomplish things.

Now, the hardest part of all this as an owner is triaging, right. What how do we pick right we already know that there’s a million things as an owner to do and they all feel important. So how do we triage what we are supposed to do? How do we pick that thing? Because it’s not easy. And then on top of that, how do we hold ourselves accountable when we don’t follow the plan? Now it’s it’s not an easy thing to figure out on your own. This is one of the biggest benefits our clients see that work with us that have a coach is that coach is giving them things to do and guiding them on do these things first, because it’s really easy to see all of the things that are going on out in the world right you see someone has created a really amazing website that allows people to to buy something, well, maybe you’re not there. Maybe you need to fix holes in your system in your gym because your staff doesn’t even know how to efficiently open the gym or close the gym or enroll a member. So you don’t need to create a website that is going to pull in 100,000 members in 10 minutes. When if you actually did that you wouldn’t be able to process those people. So you have to be able to triage things and this is where you need a coach to help you do that. If you can’t get a coach right now, which you can you can simply use next gen or any other services that are out there. There’s a lot of great ones. We just happen to be one of the best, but you also can get an accountability partner. Okay, you can find someone who at least is going to hold you accountable to the things you said you were going to do. Are you following your schedule that you set for yourself? Now your accountability partner can be a co owner, it I wouldn’t recommend having an employee be an accountability partner. That’s not as good that’s kind of messing with a power dynamic that I wouldn’t recommend going into. But you can if you really really need to. It can be a mom or a dad or a fellow business owner. That you’re friends with. There’s a lot of options when you look at accountability partners. But at the end of the day, the best thing is an actual business coach who knows the right steps to take and knows the right things to do to help you be successful in your business. So you’ve got to triage you’ve got to triage and set yourself up for success by doing one thing at a time. That’s really what it comes down to do one thing at a time or do one thing for an allotted period of time.

You’ve got to get away from the idea of trying to do all the things at the same time. You’re just not going to accomplish nearly as much as you can by single mindedly focusing on something right it’s just it’s just the way it is. Now you may not like that, but that is just the facts. And trust me I come from a profession where we talk about multitasking all the time. When you’re driving a patrol car, you are driving a car you’re talking on a radio you’re processing information that’s happening as you’re you’re pursuing a suspect vehicle or you’re going to a call thinking through possibilities. You’re working on computer and you’re doing all of those things and in the reality you’re not multitasking. You’re just focusing on doing things really quickly for a very short period of time. And you’re looking at a computer and looking at a computer screen and reading a computer screen while driving and hoping that out of the corner of your eye your peripheral vision you’re tracking anything that you should be tracking, which is like one of the most dangerous things you can do and we’re not supposed to and we try and avoid doing it but that’s what I mean that is literally something that I had as a training officer had my training officers be like you need to be able to multitask. You need to be able to handle the radio and you need to be able to follow the car and you need to be able to see the red light. Like you can’t actually do that you just essentially are keeping your head on a swivel and trying to do all the things at the same time for very short periods of time. Now that is a very limited circumstance, of an ability to divide attention when we’re talking about what we do as business owners. It’s not the same because we have to complete tasks. We have to get things done so we can move forward. And the best way to get them done is to focus single mindedly on that thing for that period of time or until it is done. So leaving this episode, what I want you to do is I want you to pick one thing, one thing that you are going to do and you’re going to do it to completion, put it on your schedule for tomorrow or the next day or sitting down to do work and do it and I want you to time yourself and I want you to see how long it takes you and then set another task and do that one and time yourself and see what is a reasonable amount of time like see what is a reasonable amount of time to get to inbox zero where you don’t have any messages in your inbox. You’ve sorted everything and responded. How long does that take if you actually are staying up on it?

Do you need 30 minutes in a day? 45 minutes do you need to check your email 22 times a day? My my answer is no you don’t. Right. You can check it every you can check it twice a day to three times a day and you won’t lose clients. You don’t have to be on it at all times. So pick that thing that you’re going to do and do it and to completion and see how long it takes. And then from there utilize that to make a plan for yourself moving forward. So instead of trying to do 8 million things, instead of not accomplishing anything because you’re trying to do everything. Do everything by doing one thing at a time. All right everyone I want to thank you for listening to this episode. If you’re looking for another great cheer podcast to listen to check out the let’s talk to your podcast with Jason Larkins. Great content. I’ve actually got him coming on as a guest next week. Super excited to have him on again. We always have great conversations about staffing and cheerleading and all the amazing things that are going on inside the business that he runs, and all the cool things happening in the cheer world. So make sure you check out his podcast. It’s phenomenal. I’ve also got a couple other podcasts that I’m going to be going on as a guest and I’ve got a couple other special guests I’m really excited about getting booked and on this podcast for you all. I think you’re really really going to enjoy it. So make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss those episodes. And you get the alerts when we post new ones. Make sure that you’ve joined our Facebook group. You’ve checked out our website and with that, we’ll see you on the next episode. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the next generation gym owners people and profits.