Hello, everyone and welcome to another episode of the next generation people and profits podcast. I’m your host, Dan cotton. And before we get started, I need to ask you a favor. I would love if you enjoy this episode. If you would like and subscribe to the podcast we determine our future episodes based on the performance of our previous ones. So your likes and your subscriptions will help us to plan future content. And if you’re subscribed, you’ll get a notification at the drop of each episode and I don’t want you to miss out on any other great content that you really really are going to enjoy and is going to help you grow and change your business. Alright, so in this episode, we are talking about how one hour a day can change your business. So the big three topics here are we all have the same amount of time in our day. It’s what we do with that time that really makes the difference.

Number two is that the E Myth which is most people are really skilled technicians who know nothing about running a business. And then the last thing is we’re going to dive into the Pomodoro Technique of time management. So if you haven’t guessed yet, I am fascinated with time management, which ironically sometimes leads me down a not productive trail of researching time management when I should be working on other projects. But I’m always looking for how I can become more efficient with my time I really like efficiency. And I like to be really, really productive and that comes from the fact that I own multiple businesses. I have own businesses and worked full time at the same time. I have kids, I have a wife and so I want to be productive with my time. And I very much value the hours that I’m given in each day. So I want to be as productive and as successful with those hours as I possibly can be. So I really really take time management. To Heart I’m always looking for new stuff. And I was listening to a YouTube video and the person the Creator making the video mentioned that he had a really short period of time to do some work. And he had gone to a Starbucks to get internet because he was in the process of moving in a very limited amount of time. And he only had one hour to do work and he used the pro Maduro technique, which was something I had never heard of and he was like a pro Maduro technique is really, really great for getting a lot of work done in a really short period of time and keeping you on task. And so of course hearing this I was like I’ve got to I’ve got to learn what that is. I’ve never heard of this technique.

So if you listened to last week’s episode, I talked about how oftentimes as owners, we accomplish nothing because we’re trying to do everything. And we all have the same amount of time in a given day. And it’s what we do in that given day. That makes the biggest difference as an owner, you know, how we are, how our business is growing. We just we need to make the right decisions on how to use our time and how to be efficient with that time as a business owner and what most business owners struggle with is the feeling of overwhelm. There are so many things to do and we can’t just do them all, which leads to either kind of running in circles trying to do all the things like I talked about on the last episode where you’re you’re responding to emails or responding to phone calls and answering the phone and sending text messages and putting someone into Jackrabbit or iCLASS or Amelia or whatever it is you use and then sending out and trying to send out an email campaign or you’re just doing everything all at once all at the same time. And you really are accomplishing nothing and you’re kind of running in circles, or what I also see a lot with clients in and other business owners I’ve talked to is just not doing anything. Because the concept of starting something is just too overwhelming. They don’t feel like they can even start the process because it’s just too much for them and so they just don’t do anything productive. And that kind of leads to the E Myth concept. Which if you haven’t read the E Myth or the E Myth revisited. You absolutely should. The number one kind of point in that the author asserts is that most people who go into business aren’t actually great business minds are great business owners. They’re people who are great technicians. They were good at doing the thing that their business does. And they decided to start their own business they decided that they can do something better or they’re ready to be their own boss, or any number of reasons people kind of go out on their own and start their own business. However, the challenge is, as the business gets more and more complicated, oftentimes owners like this, just drill down into doing what they know which is doing the thing and being a technician so they work in the business rather than working on the business. So like in this industry of after school. Sports cheer, gymnastics, those kinds of things. We as coaches will, when we start to get into this mode and we start to feel overwhelmed and staffing is difficult and all of the working on the business stuff is not satisfying and not fun and it’s really hard. What we do is we default to coaching more. We take on more private lessons we coach more teams we do more working in the gym and coaching because that’s where why we started this stuff. That’s where we get the joy is working with kids impacting kids lives, and it’s not in running payroll and looking at p&l statements and doing all those things. That’s not where we get the joy and excitement. So we kind of default to doing that. So how do we work through those two problems that we have and feeling overwhelmed and knowing that most of us got into this as technicians and now we want to be successful business owners because we’ve worked really hard to build our businesses into what it is and we want deserve for it to be successful and we can impact more people in a better way if it is successful. So it goes back to my previous episode, where I said, Pick one thing and do that thing. Now this is going to be a slight deviation from that. But we’re going to be talking about using this promo adoro method and it’s actually what I’m using to do my work today. I’m I’m using it right now. I’ve slightly deviated from it. Just because recording the podcast takes a little bit longer than the amount of time you get in the pre appointment or method but I’ve been using it for everything else. So I’m essentially beta testing it and I’ve been really enjoying it and I really like it. Especially when time is scarce. Like if you are on a short timeframe day where you have a million things going on. Like you’ve got to pick the kids up from school and you got to go to the store and shop for the house. And you do have to coach a couple classes and you just don’t have a lot of time you maybe only have an hour or an hour and a half to work as an owner. The Pomodoro method is a really good method to get a lot accomplished in a short period of time. Now if you’re an established gym owner, established business owner with great time management, this will most likely feel like not a useful every day product because a lot of my tasks do take more than an hour more than the allotted time like they might take an hour to do to really get done and you are capable of starting a project and finishing that project without getting distracted. I actually use my one tab technique to accomplish this but that’s a conversation for another day.

But the Pomodoro method is really simple. It’s just this so number one you pick a task, ie you would pick getting to inbox zero which is a great task for someone who feels overwhelmed. If you don’t know what Inbox Zero is the real down and dirty of it is it’s getting to when you open your inbox unless you’ve received a new email since the last time you were in it you have zero messages that haven’t been dealt with whether that be thrown in the trash or sorted into an archive or responded to but they’re everything is taken care of. You don’t have a bunch of just junk sitting in your inbox that you have to deal with. So it’s a great task for someone who feels overwhelmed. So you pick that task and then you set a timer for 25 minutes, set that timer for 25 minutes and then you pick that task for that 25 minutes. You work on the task and you aggressively work on that task until the timer goes off. Once the timer goes off, you stop. You take a five minute break. I recommend doing something physical like just walking or standing up or moving and moving around. You don’t have to go do a full workout because it’s only five minutes and then pick up another task and do it again. And so with the Pomodoro method, if you’re doing it for an hour you would do two tasks in a day for 25 minutes. You would knock those things out counting in the five to five minute breaks. If you are going to go for more than three or for promo Doros the recommendation from the people who kind of created the system is that you take a 15 to 30 minute break every three or four promo Doros so you’re getting a little bit more of a cleansing of the mental palate. So you can come back into things fresh and ready. Now this will result if you use this on working exclusively on your business for one hour a day with zero distractions.

Just using this method you will work exclusively on your business for one hour a day. With zero distractions. Now the devils in the details you must put your phone away or put it on Do Not Disturb or get it away from you. You must get off of Facebook and off of social media and all other distractions and then you must do that one task for 25 minutes. You also can’t click Quit early and bounce around on tasks. That’s not what you should be doing. If you are picking too easy of a task that is not going to take 25 minutes, then pick something more challenging that should take around 25 minutes so once you’ve accomplished inbox zero risk doing emails should take 25 minutes or less. It really should be and now maybe you get unless you get 25 to 30 emails a day and you’re only doing it once a day then it might consistently take you around 25 minutes to manage emails but this will result in you working for that one hour and you will be amazed you will be absolutely amazed and how much you can get done with that time.

So whether or not you use the promo Dora technique, setting aside one hour to work exclusively on your business and not be a technician in your business is a compounding effect. Working one hour each day turns into seven hours each week, which turns into 28 hours each month, which turns into around 336 hours a year.

Imagine if I told you that I’m going to teach you how to get 336 hours more of work done every year on your business.

Guess what I just did that.

We just talked about a way to do exactly that. And I promise you if you actually use the technique of I’m going to work for an hour exclusively on my business on one task at a time whether that be for 25 minutes or for that hour. You will get more done in that week than you were getting done previously working four hours a day on the business but trying to do all the things at the same time.

So we are using our time more efficiently by being really really conscientious on what we’re dedicating our time to and the pro Maduro method the Pomodoro Technique. can help you figure out how to do that it can really help dealing with overwhelm. So my challenge to you is give it a try.

Maybe you try it with something within your family. Use a promo method to work on your family budget or shopping list or dinners for the month. You don’t have to try it out first on your business but I think you should.

If you’re not going to use the method then 100% set aside one hour and then pick one to two tasks and work on only those things for that hour. do that every day and see how big the changes.

Right really simple. And by the way, I do know that I said you get 336 hours extra a year and I do know there are 365 days in a year. But I am factoring in that there should be days that you’re not working. So that’s why I said 336 hours rather than 365. There should be at least some days that you take off and you are not working on your business and you’re relaxing and completely cleansing your mind. So that’s why those numbers were a slight discrepancy. I should have said that before. But do this every day minus the days you take off and see how big the change is.

To be a great business owner you have to act like a great business owner.

You have to carry yourself like a great business owner.

So use these techniques use this method. Let me know how it goes for you. Comment if you thought this was great. If you have not gone over to ng chair in gymnastics owners Facebook group, make sure you join that if you have not checked out next gen owners.com do that as well get on our email list so you can get our blogs and other great content. And again reminder make sure you are liking and subscribing to this podcast for more great content just like this. Alright everyone, if you are looking for another good cheer podcast, please go check out my friend Jason Larkins. The let’s talk to your podcast. They talk about all things cheer on that podcast. A lot of really, really good stuff. I’m going to be having him on the podcast again as a guest and I imagine I’ll be on his here soon to enlighten some current events. We definitely have some things to talk about. But check out his podcast. It is awesome. Great conversation was really good content and you’re gonna love listening to him. So make sure you check that out. All right, everyone, thank you for your time. I hope you’re having a wonderful day. Whether you’re listening to this on heading into Labor Day weekend, like I’m recording it or you’re listening to it later. If you’re having a wonderful one. Enjoy some time off. Make sure you take care of yourself and your family as well. And we will catch you on the next episode.