Episode 23: The Time Management Myth With Russ, Sky and Andy

In episode 23 of the Professional Builders Secrets podcast, we’re joined by Co-founders of the Association of Professional Builders Russ Stephens and Sky Stephens, along with APB’s Head Coach, Andy Skarda. Throughout this episode, the trio reveal how builders can manage their most valuable resource: Time.

During this episode, Russ, Sky and Andy share some of the tips and secrets behind buying more time as a builder, the form of hiring support and employees, so you can get the most out of your day. The trio share how builders can “beat the clock.”

As a builder, are you constantly solving everyone else's problems and putting out fires, rather than working on the activities that will actually grow your building company? By empowering your team and bringing on strong talent, you are able to spend more time ON the business rather than in it.

Throughout episode 23, Russ, Sky and Andy also uncover how builders can become better time managers, technology and software that can save you time, the #1 thing you need if you want to make the most of your time, why you need to start weighing up opportunity cost and SO much more.

Listen to the full episode as Russ, Sky and Andy debunk the time management myths for builders.

Russ Stephens - Co-founder

Russ Stephens is a Co-founder of the Association of Professional Builders, a business coaching company dedicated to improving the residential construction industry for both builders and consumers. Russ is a data analysis expert who has introduced data-driven decision making to the residential construction industry. Russ is also a proud member of the Forbes Business Development Council.

Connect with Russ

Sky Stephens - Co-founder

Sky Stephens is a Co-founder of the Association of Professional Builders, a business coaching company dedicated to improving the residential construction industry for both builders and consumers. Sky is a proud member of The National Association of Women in Construction and she was also recognised as one of 2021’s Top 100 Women.

Connect with Sky

Andy Skarda - Head Coach 

Andy Skarda has owned and led businesses in South Africa, the United States, South-East Asia, and for the last decade, Australia. With 30+ years of business experience, Andy heads up the coaching team at the Association of Professional Builders (APB), helping business owners in the building industry identify and implement the skills and systems they need to be successful, without needing to go back to school or more importantly, without going bust.

Connect with Andy

Timeline

1:02 Can builders beat the clock when it comes to time management?

3:03 The biggest cause of your lack of time. 

7:01 How to become a better time manager.

11:37 Techniques to make the most of your time.

18:34 How technology can save you time. 

27:11 The #1 thing you need if you want to make the most of your time. 

29:37 Why you need to start weighing up opportunity cost. 

34:02 The mindset obstacles you need to overcome.

37:33 How a builder in our Private Mentoring program transformed their time management. 

Links, Resources & More

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Bosco Anthony:

Hello and welcome to the Professional Builders Secrets podcast, a podcast by the Association of Professional Builders (APB) for building company owners, general managers, VPs and emerging leaders. Here, we discuss all things running a professional building company, from sales processes, financials, operations and marketing. Today, I'm joined by Co-founders Sky and Russ Stephens, as well as Head Coach Andy Skarda, for APB. Welcome everyone. I’m excited to be speaking to you all today.

Bosco Anthony:

I'm going to start off with an interesting question. Can builders beat the clock when it comes to time management?

Russ Stephens:

It's interesting, because I think we all complain at some point that we don't have enough time, but we've all got the same amount of time. We complain we don't have enough time, or we don't have enough money. Enough money is a bit subjective, but time is the one thing where it's a level playing field. We all have the same amount of time, but it all comes down to how we spend it. That's what really matters. Now, I think we have to acknowledge that there is a lot to do when it comes to building homes. But I think, to be truly successful, you really need to master the art of doing less, not more. That's not a case of being lazy, it's just a case of focusing on doing leverage tasks, rather than tasks that can be done by others.

Bosco Anthony:

What you're really saying is it's more about self-management than time management?

Russ Stephens:

Absolutely, yeah. I think time management really is a mindset. It's a psychological challenge to overcome. So that's what you’ve really got to focus on, rather than the physical tasks themselves and how long they take.

Bosco Anthony:

Is time management the most valuable currency for builders today? How would you rank it when it comes to its importance?

Sky Stephens:

Of course. Time is anyone's most valuable resource. We'll take builders out of this for one second. Time is one thing that really, if we take a very simplistic view right now, you can't buy more of. Like Russ said, it's a level playing field. Everyone has the same amount of time, but if we go actually a level deeper, you can buy more of it. This is why scaling up, and buying other people's time in the form of employees and contractors, is how you can get more out of your day. But that's going down really deep now.

Bosco Anthony:

What do you think are the core reasons that builders struggle with time management? I'm sure this is something that comes up in the coaching calls as well. Is it a common trait?

Andy Skarda:

It is Bosco, and I'm going to throw my hat into the ring right now, and say to you that I think we're talking about a subject that is impossible. Russ and Sky have touched on it already; it is a commodity. It is probably our most precious commodity because, as we said, you can't buy it. You can't make it. It doesn't matter how rich you are, how good looking you are, how clever you are. Anybody who’s worked with me will know the magic number is 168. And 168 relates to the number of hours that you have in a week, every week. So, the reality is that, for any business, but here we are talking specifically about builders, they're going to run their entire lives in those 168 hours. That includes sleep, relationships, physical fitness, health and their business.

Andy Skarda:

Unfortunately, whether they like it or not, the clock is ticking. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, every day. That's why I'm saying you can't manage it. It has a mind of its own. No matter what you do, it keeps going. So, what does that mean? Well, that means, as a professional, if you can't manage time, what you have to do is manage focus. Focus starts to get into a place of planning and prioritising the things that are going to give you the biggest bang for your buck, in that minute, or that hour, or that morning, or that afternoon.

Andy Skarda:

It's really almost the lack of planning that forces builders into being reactive, and because they're reactive, they never get anything ever done properly, because the next thing hits them before they finish that first thing. From my perspective, I'm going to come back to it and say: if builders, first of all, take that mindset change that Russ spoke of, and then add to that some strategic planning on a medium- to long-term basis, that'll allow them to happen to their future, instead of their future happening to them. And that puts them in control.

Bosco Anthony:

So, it's really getting them to switch their focus then, because they're coming to you with, "What is the shiny object that's going to make me a better time manager?" And you're actually putting it back on them. They might be pleasantly surprised at this point, when you go through this with them.

Andy Skarda:

Well, absolutely. The piece that Sky has alluded to as well, is that, when we start to analyse what they spend their lives doing, we go looking for the things that they're bad at, and the things that they hate doing, because those are the things that are automatically going to take them longer, whether they like it or not. What I always look for is that kind of Venn diagram of, "If I can get a list of things you hate doing, and a list of things that you're bad at, wherever they meet, that beautiful little middle section of the Venn diagram, if we can automate, delegate, or eliminate those things, you are going to get back an incredible amount of time, mental energy and emotional forward movement, because we've got that stuff out of your life."

Andy Skarda:

That is what starts to win them back the time that they need. Keeping in mind, for everybody who comes into the Private Mentoring Program, we're now adding something to their lives. They were already busy when they came in, and now we are adding more to that. Our primary job, when we start to work with them, is to carve out the time they need in order to be able to do the things they need to do, in order to transform their businesses.

Sky Stephens:

This is really loops all the way back into Russ's point. You’ve got to do less. Make that ‘stop doing list’ of what everything, every task, everything that you seem to do daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, that you need to stop doing. But we can get into how to do that maybe a little bit later.

Bosco Anthony:

It's fascinating, because I came into this interview thinking about procrastination, but you use words like automate, delegate. I'm sitting here thinking, "Wow, I didn't even think about it that way." I'm going to start off with, “How does a builder become a better time manager?” We talked about focus. Let's dig a little bit deeper in here.

Russ Stephens:

I always think, step one – and again, this probably comes back to mindset to a certain degree – is you've got to place a value on your own time. You've got to understand that value, what your time is worth. We have a very good calculator for that, which has helped a lot of builders to calculate their own hourly rate. Understanding the value of your own time really does help with starting to master time, because once you've got that figure, you can then use the DAD process, the delete, automate, delegate process, to start taking stuff off your plate. It's amazing just how many tasks we do. The things that we do out of habit, maybe out of comfort, to a large extent as well, that we do, that we don't really need to be doing anymore, but because first of all, some of them don't need to be done by anyone.

Russ Stephens:

They can be deleted. This happens a lot in software automation that we set up as well. Processes become redundant. So, it's good to be objective and ask yourself, first of all, "Do I need to be doing this? Does anyone need to be doing this? Does it need to be done?" There's a lot of stuff that can be simply deleted. The company grows and simply outgrows those tasks. But if the answer to that question is that it still needs to be done, then the next question to ask yourself is, "Well, can it be automated? How can we automate this so it doesn't impact anyone's time?" If it needs to be done, but it can't be automated, then the only option left is to delegate it. This is where it helps to understand the value of your own time, because you will find that most of the stuff that you're doing can be done by someone else at a lower hourly rate.

Russ Stephens:

There's nothing lazy or wrong with that. That is simply part of business. That's part of growing the business. You have to be able to do it. I love what Andy was saying earlier as well, focus on the stuff that you enjoy doing. That's another great part of this process. Look at the stuff that you really don't like doing. I like to do this at the end of every day. If I'm going through a patch where I feel I'm getting a bit bogged down, and I don't have a lot of time at the end of every day, I'll look back on the day and say, "What didn't I enjoy? Let's get rid of that. Make work a bit more enjoyable." Now, it's not always possible to offload those tasks we don't like, but we can certainly be working towards that process.

Andy Skarda:

I think, Russ, you raised a word there that is critical, and that's the word comfort. We all regress back to the things that we're comfortable to do, and the reality is, if we're not honest with ourselves, those aren't always the things that are most necessary now, to move the business to the next level. It's one of those things that we are always going to gravitate back to, what's easy for us, and we've got to be able to plan what we are doing in such a way that we're not doing what's easy, we're doing what's expedient now. That will then start to give us back that time we're looking for.

Russ Stephens:

Yeah. We see this a lot in coaching. When we explain a concept and a system and a process, and solve a problem in a building company, the next step is to move forward. And there's a problem elsewhere. But we do find in a lot of instances, the business owner finds comfort in what they've just achieved, and they want to go back and do more of it, and we've got to guide them forward, solving new problems. People like to stay in that comfort zone.

Andy Skarda:

I had a discussion today with one of our clients who’s desperately holding onto nine different spreadsheets that we've replaced with one, but he built them, and he loves them, and they're the colours he wants, in the sequence that he wants. It's like the baby with the soiled diaper (or nappy, depending on whichever part of the world you're in), “It’s mine, and it’s warm, and I’m going to defend it.”

Russ Stephens:

I can still identify with that emotional attachment. Nothing can be as good as what you produce yourself.

Andy Skarda:

Yeah, absolutely.

Bosco Anthony:

Andy, you're full of visuals today, but I'm going to start off with a question about techniques. I learned about the Pomodoro Technique, which is about prioritising and time blocking. What can builders do from a technique perspective with their teams or their colleagues and people who work with them? What can they do on a business level as well to become effective time managers to run their businesses today? We talked about the delete and the automation and the delegation. What are some other techniques that you guys inspire your builders to apply?

Sky Stephens:

Obviously, there's delete, automate and delegate, which we very affectionately call DAD. There's that process in itself. It just has to be constant, because it's not just one workshop that you can do. You constantly have to be reviewing it, and by the way, you should be reviewing it with your entire team, because whether you have a small building company, and maybe it is just yourself, or maybe a couple people at the moment, as soon as you are a leader and leading other people, you are effectively running other resources, and you are running other people's time. Really, everyone is an adult, so they should, can and will be managing their own time, but you are there as their leader to actually enhance it and get them to get the most out of their day.

Sky Stephens:

So, you regularly want to do a triage, so to speak, on their time and get them to do very simple things. We teach a strategy of doing a time audit. You get to write down exactly what it is you are doing in increments of the day. As you change tasks, how long did you spend on that task and what were you doing? Because really, and this is what we even do internally here, if we hear someone is really bogged down and they feel really behind, they just feel like they don't have any more capacity. There's just too much. Everyone knows the first thing we're going to say, straight away, is "Okay. Time audit.” They’ll say, “Yep. I've already started."

Sky Stephens:

So, they start doing a time audit. They start writing down every single activity they are doing and what they're switching between. It's so insightful because we tend to look at it on a two week basis because there's lots of regular work, but – depending where the team member is, or even where you are, like what your role is – you'll be working on some quite big projects versus some very regular work, and it's so revealing. 

Sky Stephens:

When you look at this time audit from a two week period, you're able to immediately see, "Well, why are you doing that?" Or "Why is that taking so long? I didn't know your admin in the mornings is taking 90 minutes. This should be quick; you are checking the social media and replying and engaging. That really is like a 15 minute job. What's blowing it out to 90 minutes?” “Well, this is happening. There are problems over here,” or “I tend to get distracted because this happens."

Sky Stephens:

If you can start writing all that down, you get immediately this long list of information in front of you. That is when you get to do the DAD. Just like Russ said, we start with delete because you want to go into zero based thinking, "Hey, is that even necessary? Does that actually need to get done?" If it doesn't, delete it and move on. If it does, the next question is, "Okay, can we automate it?" 

Sky Stephens:

Why would we go to the financial and the time expense of delegating it to someone, training someone else to do it, finding that other person, and paying them to do it when you can get some very cool software that saves you employing someone to manage clients’ selections? You can get some very advanced project management software that has a client portal that they can log into and do all of their selections.

Sky Stephens:

We hear this from builders all the time. It replaced employing someone. And you know what? They were able to use that money to employ someone else for a role that couldn't be automated. It's why we need software. It's like a CRM system. We've said this before. It's that sales person that doesn't go sick, doesn't go on holidays. They're working 24/7. It's very strategic to assess things in that order. If you know it can't be delegated, okay, move on. Can it be automated? Now, if it can be automated, great. You're done. Now put that in place. If it can't, that's when you go to delegate, but delegate is your last option. You're trying everything else first.

Russ Stephens:

I think another good tip for builders, because they're always looking to make time to work on their business rather than being stuck working in the business, is a technique that we've used successfully over the years and that is working in sprints. So, when you do your planning, whether it's quarterly or annual, you end up with your rocks, and then you end up with the challenge of, “How do I execute this?” It's very easy for your time to just slip away from you, but by putting blocks of time in your calendar for what we call sprints, and then working in 50 minute blocks or 60 minute blocks on those sprints that can really help you get through those rocks and those tasks working on the business, which will help you work towards mastering time at some point.

Sky Stephens:

There's a great book called Deep Work, by Cal Newport, that actually explains this concept very well. Like most books, it's littered with stories to really get the point across. I definitely recommend picking up a copy or having a listen to it, because it actually explains why we need to work in sprints like Russ just said. It's not just about getting through 20 different tasks in one day. What if you could carve out your day? Maybe you could save a lot of the regular stuff; maybe a lot of the working in the business that has to get done can be saved for certain blocks of the day, maybe when you're at your freshest in the morning or maybe just after lunch, or whenever is best for you, carve out that deep work time, that sprint that Russ just explained.

Sky Stephens:

That is how you can be more effective, because you are actually shutting yourself off from every possible interruption. It is a known thing in the team, even with our builders who implement this strategy, that when you're in a sprint, you turn off all notifications. Your phone is on silent, not even on vibrate. You're turning off every notification; your phone's in another room. Shut your office door; put a sign on it, like "Do not disturb." You are closing down your email. You are closing down everything except for the one thing you are working on.

Sky Stephens:

Truly, this is how you can get started working on your building company and get into that deep work and set a timer. This is a really big tip, actually. If you're doing a sprint and say it is 50 minutes, like Russ just said, set a timer, maybe on your phone, so maybe that's the one thing in your office. In Cal Newport’s book, he talks about how it takes something like 27 minutes to get into a deep flow of concentration, but it takes one second to break it and it takes 27 minutes to get back into that state.

Sky Stephens:

Obviously, you want to get into that state as quickly as possible. If you can go and get in there in 27 minutes, wonderful, because you've not had a single interruption. What you'll find is when that timer goes off at 50 minutes or whatever, you are flowing by that point and you are so enjoying what you're working on because you've made that much progress. You can actually keep going and it's that compound effect. It just does so well for you because you are winning. We all know what it's like when we are winning. We do want to keep going.

Bosco Anthony:

Let's talk a little bit about technology because you're talking about so many different insights here. You were talking about personal assessment, measuring your own personal data. We're talking about sprints. How does technology play a part in this process? What are some of the resources that our builders could potentially apply?

Andy Skarda:

This is a ‘how long is a piece of string?’ question, unfortunately, and it's got to be kept in its context. We're talking about DAD: delete, automate, delegate. Really, technology slips into that automate portion of that process. The reality is that we need to be planning. We need to be proactive not reactive. If we’re planning, we can then utilise a variety of different types of technology. The most obvious one is an online calendar/scheduler, whatever you want to call it.

Andy Skarda:

The idea is that we start off with a template of what our ideal week should look like. What that allows us to do is to then prioritise, relative to the stuff we've got to get through, what needs to be done first, second, third, fourth. We also recommend people to then schedule those things into their day according to the amount of energy, both physical and mental, that those things require. 

Andy Skarda:

That might sound like I haven't spoken about technology at all. All I'm saying in this is it's not really going to help if I to start rattling off names of different programs that people could buy or software systems they could go to. What I'm really saying here is whatever technology will serve that process best for you and you can afford, if it's going to make you more efficient in that process, that's the technology you want to implement.

Russ Stephens:

There's a great bit of functionality on the project management software that's available now, software like CoConstruct for instance, where you can have all your call forwards completely automated where an email or a text message will go out to subcontractors and get them to confirm that they're going to be on site on a day and then they can respond to that. Imagine how much time that saves supervisors with those outbound calls of an evening, then waiting for the call-backs. It's just incredible. It’s important to be aware of all these different things that are coming out now that can leverage up your time.

Sky Stephens:

It's a good point. Rather than focusing on productivity software, which so often is what people are looking for, time management, software productivity software, dump that for a second. Try to systemise the things that you're actually working on that are taking up your time. Use the DAD process there. I love what Andy was saying though, it's protecting your time, and if there was one thing you could implement very, very quickly an online calendar, like a scheduler, is what you were saying. People schedule in time with you. They don't just get to call you whenever. Be so stingy with your time because it's your most valuable commodity.

Sky Stephens:

Be stingy, not in so much that you wouldn't give your time to anyone, but just protect it at all costs. You can send out a calendar link when people can talk to you, absolutely. Schedule a meeting, but you have blocks of availability. Every time you've blocked out your time to work on the building company or do sprints or whatever, that's already blocked out as busy on the calendar. No one can talk to you on Mondays eight till 12, or whatever.

Andy Skarda:

We often have a builder who says, "Look, I just don't have the time. I really wish I could do it. But I just don't have the time." My response to that is always, "Suppose you and I went out for a shrimp dinner last night. We were a long way from the sea, and that shrimp had taken a while to get there. In fact, we shouldn't have eaten it at all, but we did. The natural consequence of that was that we weren't feeling so great this morning. What would we do about the stuff that we'd scheduled between 8am and 10am this morning?” The answer is it just wouldn't happen. We'd have to be taking care of business in other areas because of the bad shrimp that we ate.

Andy Skarda:

What that really says is it's not that it couldn't happen. It's just you didn't put enough of a priority on that thing. Really, that comes back to what we said earlier about planning and prioritising what's important and making sure that the main thing remains the main thing and that it gets done first. We have this wonderful process that we institute in our daily huddles where we talk about the rock, the thing for today that must happen to allow me to go home feeling like I've had a successful day. The mental change that happens when you get to tick that thing off, even if that's the only thing you tick off today, it's ticked off and it's done, setting yourself up for that level of success will give you immense energy in terms of creating that extra time.

Sky Stephens:

I'm going to throw out another book recommendation here. That idea comes from that really good book The One Thing, by Gary Keller.

Andy Skarda:

Yes.

Sky Stephens:

Basically, it's talking about the idea that there's 400 things every builder can name that have to be done. Everything seems important. Everyone has that. "I've got this big old list that I need to get through today." This happens internally in our team and when we're working with builders as well. The thing is, "Okay, what is the most important thing for you to get done today, this week, this quarter, whatever?" Everyone does this, it’s human nature, we rattle out about 20 things. 

Sky Stephens:

Just challenge yourself to ask, "Okay. What's the most important of that list and then the next most important?" Usually, you can boil it down to the one most important thing. If you achieve that one thing today, you’ll know that today was successful. You've got to be able to find your wins every day, otherwise it just gets very demoralising. So, boil it down to that one most important thing. The One Thing is a great book. I would highly recommend it.

Andy Skarda:

Just to pick up on that, there are two things that jump to mind when we talk about technology. I don't know whether Russ and Sky even know this, but I was one of South Africa's first ever facsimile sales people. In fact, Sky probably doesn't know what a fax machine even is. She's not old enough.

Sky Stephens:

Thank goodness!

Andy Skarda:

Bosco, you probably don't know what a fax machine is, either. 

Bosco Anthony:

I actually do. 

Andy Skarda:

Okay. When they were first released, they probably weighed about 40 kilograms, so 100 pounds, and they were a fairly hefty piece of equipment.

Sky Stephens:

Tell me you went door to door.

Andy Skarda:

I pretty much went door to door, and I'm 90% certain that they employed me not because of my selling skills, but because I can carry heavy things. That's, I think, how I got the job. But I remember saying this to people: "This is going to save you an immense amount of time. The fact that you've got this technology in your office is going to win you back hours every week." If I think back since the day of the fax machine, virtually every iteration of technology has been to save us time. Well, by my calculation, we should now be working two days a week and having five-day weekends if all of that technology had actually worked.

Andy Skarda:

The secret is it will work if we've done the planning and the prioritisation beforehand, so that it gets properly applied. That is really part of the key here. Sky summed up it beautifully: it’s not going and looking for time management software. Most builders I know end up complaining that it takes them longer to implement the time management software than what they had available in the first place. So, get the planning done, and then go from there to the next level.

Sky Stephens:

To piggyback on something Andy just said, because builders do say this to us all the time, "I don't have time. I just don't have time right now." It's an excuse we tell ourselves. It's an excuse we use when we don't achieve what we should have achieved. But actually, think about it like this: when you say to yourself you don't have time or you genuinely believe that it's just the wrong time of year for you or it's just a particularly busy period, if you say to yourself, "I don't have time. I'm too busy," when will you? 

Sky Stephens:

If you genuinely think it's going to get easier without you changing anything, not much can be done, unfortunately. So, be super honest with yourself. When are you genuinely thinking you're going to have more time? Think back to all the times you've said this in the past – it doesn't happen that way. We have to actually carve out our time to put systems in place, to work on the company, to work in sprints, to use DAD, to do time audits, to improve things, to get more time and free up more time for ourselves.

Andy Skarda:

Yeah.

Bosco Anthony:

There's an old saying that success leaves blueprints. At the end of the day, I think you've created all this transformation for all these different builders from different parts of the world. Is there a common blueprint? What is a successful builder doing today to stay on top of their schedule and create this prioritisation?

Russ Stephens:

They're definitely utilising software, such as the project management software, CRM software, calendar booking, et cetera, all the things that we've mentioned. They're definitely utilising all those tools that are available to them, but they're also protecting their time by building strong teams. Now, probably one of the most common objections we hear from builders to making change is the belief and the thought pattern that, "It's just too hard to train other people to do what I'm doing. It's quicker to just do it myself." If you have that mindset, that way of thinking, then you are going to be trapped on the hamster wheel forever. Sure, no one will do anything as well as you, or in some cases, and they won't do it as fast as you for sure, because you are the owner of the company. They won't have your drive and passion.

Russ Stephens:

However, it's a big mistake to think that no one else can do this task, because the reality is they can. Even if they only do it 80% as well and 80% as fast, that's good enough. That frees up your time to focus on doing other things, higher leverage tasks. It's a really important mindset to have, and that's what we see the successful guys having, is that mindset that they will delegate. There are other people who can do what they do. The reality is we are all replaceable. Everything we do can be done by someone else in some form.

Russ Stephens:

Another thing that really separates successful builders and really does help them to stay in control of their time is just finding some time, some breathing space to consider a request for their time. How many times does it happen, when someone asks, “Can I meet with you tomorrow?” or whatever. The knee-jerk reaction is always, “Yes.” Builders are helpful. They’re accommodating. They’re there to support their team, to provide great service to consumers. It’s always a knee-jerk reaction to say yes. But just buy yourself some time. Take a moment to consider the request. Is this meeting necessary? Is it going to be a good use of your time? If you automatically respond with a yes to every request for your time, you’re going to spend it very, very quickly.

Andy Skarda:

That leads into the automatic discussion of opportunity cost. Value your time enough to make sure that what you give to something is the best thing you could be doing with that time, because despite what all of our wives tell us, nobody can multitask. That has now been scientifically proven. I’ve checked it. So, what does that mean? The brain can only focus on one thing at a time. What most of us think about as multitasking is our brain’s ability to flick from subject to subject very, very quickly. But the truth is, it’s only dealing with one thing at one time. If you are dealing with one thing, you’re not dealing with anything else. So, it comes back to making sure that we value our time enough that we are giving it to the most important thing ’e could be doing right now.

Sky Stephens:

But also, if that request for your time is valid and you’re thinking, “Yeah, I do want to help you with this,” or, “That is actually a very important thing you’re asking questions on,” you could even run it through another version of DAD. You’re trying to get rid of it, delete it. Is it even necessary? Could they just look this up? Could they Google it? Could they go into your manuals, your sales manual, your company manual, or whatever? Could they go into the software tutorial videos that the software company provides? If not, delegate. Can someone else on the team help them with this? Who else can do that meeting? So, take that moment to consider it. Run through another version of DAD on literally everything.

Russ Stephens:

I love that. That’s just another part of the process, isn’t it? A request for your time, you run through the DAD process, and you buy yourself time. But I love what Andy was saying as well, about the opportunity cost. This is so often overlooked, isn’t it? The more time we spend in our comfort zone doing these tasks, these unleveraged tasks, we might be comforted by the fact that we’re busy, but the opportunity cost is huge. We’ve got to be pushing the boundaries, challenging ourselves and working on things that are not in our comfort zone. That's where growth comes from.

Andy Skarda:

There are two important words there: one is that four-letter word: ‘busy’. Busy doesn’t help you as a builder. You need to be effective; that’s the other important word. There’s a huge difference between occupying your time and doing something that makes a difference. That’s critically important. We’ve got to get to a place where we understand that with every single thing we do, that time is gone forever. We don’t get it back. It’s not that the clock resets and we start again tomorrow. Yesterday’s gone. There’s nothing we can do about it. We’ve literally got to be making sure that everything we are doing is the most important thing we could be doing right now.

Russ Stephens:

I love it. Too many of us use the word ‘busy’ as a badge of honour, and it’s not. We need to change the way we look at this. Remember that story about the little kid who said to his mother, “Is Daddy going to get fired?” She said, “No, no, Daddy’s working hard. That’s why he’s always home late.” The kid said, “Yes, but is he going to get fired because he can’t get all his work done on time each day?”

Sky Stephens:

Speaking of children, if you’re actually looking for a strategy, at a very high level, we’re analysing some of our most successful clients, and even some of the most successful business people out there. I tell you what they all have in common: they’ve got a lot of children. I think that’s how you can ultimately master time management, if you put all that together, there’s something about it. It was by force, you have to get good at time management, and obviously I’m being a bit facetious here, but it’s quite interesting to actually see a trend.

Russ Stephens:

I think they’re just showing, off aren’t? They have seven kids and a multinational company.

Sky Stephens:

Feels like it.

Andy Skarda:

To go back to Bosco’s question about technology, I still believe that Foxtel is the absolute best contraceptive method Australia’s ever created, so there’s some technology you can use.

Bosco Anthony:

I feel like that’s another podcast episode on its own. Tell me a little bit about obstacles, and the mindset of a builder. They come to you, they’ve got all these challenges, you’ve now opened their eyes up to assessing what they’re doing. What are some of these mindset obstacles that they have to really overcome to become more effective?

Sky Stephens:

Can I be harsh? I think honestly, a lot of it is the builders themselves. To be honest, a lot of it is just excuses. This whole excuse of, “I don’t have the time,” or, “I’m just too busy for that,” like we were just talking about. It’s not a badge of honour; they’re just excuses we tell ourselves. And you know what? When we are selling and we’re trying to get prospects over the line into a contract, or prelims, or anything, we get annoyed with their excuses. We get annoyed when they procrastinate. We get very frustrated when they fob us off.

Sky Stephens:

But, often, we are doing that to ourselves, every time we say we are too busy. “You know what? I’m going to start working on my business next year, when I have more time.” Or next month, or next week, even. They’re just lies we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better about why we’re not doing something right now. That’s very harsh, and probably not where you wanted me to go, Bosco, but genuinely I think it comes back to ourselves. We’ve got to get out of our own way, just be relentless with ourselves, and we need to aspire for more, to hold ourselves to a higher account.

Sky Stephens:

A higher standard, I think.

Bosco Anthony:

It takes a lot of courage to look in the mirror and assess yourself and say, “These are the excuses and the lies that I need to part way with to become more effective.” 

Sky Stephens:

It really does, and this is why – in our Private Mentoring Program, our private accountability program – it’s a lot to do with mindset and actually helping the person. We’ve got systems for days; they’re all plug and play, they’re ready to deploy, that’s the easy part. It’s actually dealing with the human in front of you, or the human looking back at you in the mirror, and getting them to work, and getting them to build those habits and good behaviour patterns that you’re looking for.

Andy Skarda:

Just to add to that, Russ and Sky have been very kind about saying somebody can do something 80% as well as you can, or whatever. Sometimes it takes us admitting that somebody can do something 120% better than we can, and acknowledging that. That healthy dose of self-reality and self-assessment will often show you exactly where the areas are that you could delete, automate, delegate, and then that obviously wins you back the time.

Andy Skarda:

The other thing that is critical for us to remember here is that a lot of builders start early in the morning, work all day on site, come home, get a fleeting amount of time with their families, and then work on the administrative side of the business later. One of the major reasons to get back time is to get back that work-life balance, and literally be a present husband, be a present father or a present mother. Let’s actually get this thing called life back in balance, so that work sits in its true place, and it serves the rest of our lives rather than being our lives.

Sky Stephens:

It’s ended up being joke, hasn’t it? You’ve seen it online. It’s like, “I didn’t want to be stuck working nine to five for someone else, so I started my own company, and now I work 24/7.” It’s become the butt of a joke. But again, that’s not a badge of honour, that’s not a good thing.

Andy Skarda:

No.

Sky Stephens:

Not at all.

Andy Skarda:

Don’t boast about it.

Sky Stephens:

Yeah.

Andy Skarda:

That’s not something to brag about.

Bosco Anthony:

It’s definitely the wrong brag tag. You know, you talked about coaching and creating transformation as well. Can you share a story about a builder who’s completely transformed their business through the coaching and some of the tools and assessments that you’ve given them, to really have an effective time management system?

Andy Skarda:

How long have you got? The most recent example that I can think of is wonderfully prickly, in that it was one of those coaching sessions where a client that I get on with, I think very well, was very serious to start off a conversation: “How you doing?” “I’m fine, but I need to talk to you about something.” I said, “Okay, what?” And he said, “I have to cancel my Private Mentoring Program.” I said, “Oh, wow, what’s happened?” “I just don’t have the time. I’m not getting to it.” As he said those words to me, I said to him, "Just stop for one second. You want to cancel the thing that you’re not doing to get back some time?” He literally sat there like a deer in headlights and said, “Oh yeah, that doesn’t make sense, does it?" I said, "No, it doesn't make any sense at all. Let's get to the real root of this problem.”

Andy Skarda:

It literally came back to us restructuring. We went back to planning. We sat down, and I said to him, “If you could wave a magic wand, and you could set up your week to be exactly the way you wanted it to be, what would it look like?” And he said, “Oh, on Monday, I’d go to site from this time to that time, then I’d do this, and I’d work on my quotes on a Tuesday afternoon.” I said, “Right, well, when are you going to work on the stuff that you need to be doing through me on the business?” “Oh, I’ll do that on Wednesdays and Fridays between 11am and 1pm.” And literally in the space of 25 minutes, we built a matrix for him that gave him the ideal week.

Andy Skarda:

Now, did it work perfectly the first week? No. It probably only worked 60% as well as we wanted it to. But in week two, it went to 70% and by week three, it went to 80%. When I saw him a month later, he was literally a different human being. There was a brightness and a lightness about him, and he just said, “I cannot believe the difference it has made for me to be in control of my life, rather than having my life running me.”

Andy Skarda:

Now, I’m not going to embarrass him by mentioning his name or the name of his company, but it does rhyme with ‘borth floor’ builders. There you go, somebody will be able to work that out cryptically. But Bosco, really, I could literally go on for an hour. There were probably 25 last year, where that has been the outcome of getting this part of their lives sorted out.

Bosco Anthony:

Amazing, amazing. Any final words of wisdom, from any of you, in regard to this topic? It’s a passionate topic, by the sounds of it, all of you really have brought in so many different insights and personal passions around this, but any parting wise words from any of you?

Andy Skarda:

I’m so glad you asked. I really, I’ve been dying for you to ask that question. Two nuggets from me. One I learned at the APB, I think on my second day, when I came to APB: “Don’t look at your email first thing in the morning.” That’s number one. Literally, again, go back to planning, set aside times in the day where you’ll go and deal with email, but do not do it first thing in the morning. That’s number one. And then number two, just to lift the pressure off everybody listening: “Nobody, it doesn’t matter who it is, not even the guy who wrote the book on time management, nobody gets through their to-do list.” It’s not possible. You will never ever finish your to-do list. Take that pressure off yourself today, and just do the things that are important.

Bosco Anthony:

Wise words. Russ? Sky?

Russ Stephens:

For me, it was something that was touched on earlier. Whenever you take something on, something has to be removed from your plate. I can remember this being spelled out to us by one of our earliest coaches, whenever we talked about a new idea and what we were going to do, he said, “That’s great, so, what are you going to remove from your plate?” It was such common sense. It was so logical and sensible, and it really got us to think all the time. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of just doing more and more. We get excited with these ideas, but we need to then think objectively about what we are doing and remove something; that keeps us balanced.

Sky Stephens:

I love that. I would probably just add planning. The more you can have a structure in place, the more freedom you actually get. Even some of our top clients, some of our most successful builders, when they plan, they schedule in family time. They schedule in their dates.

Bosco Anthony:

Yeah.

Sky Stephens:

So, schedule in all the business stuff, but schedule in your personal life as well, so you actually get the most out of that, otherwise you feel like you don’t have any balance by the time you’ve finished work. Then you just say, “Okay, we’ve got a few hours to do whatever,” and you’re not actually making the most of it. So, schedule all of that. 

Sky Stephens:

If I go at a level deeper on planning, there are two kinds of planning: you need your long-term planning, which is what Andy was talking about earlier, so you need your strategic plan, of where you are actually going, so that you know where you’re going to be in three years, in one year and in 90 days’ time. That’s your long-term planning. 

Sky Stephens:

But then don’t forget all of your short-term, and I mean, really short-term planning. Every single day, get in, look at the plan, what has been scheduled, and then decide how you’re best going to optimise your day for your energy. I think you’ve got to look at both to make it super successful. But I think just to echo what Andy said, it’s a constant work in progress, this is never done. This is a topic that we could just talk about forever because it’s just repetition, and it’s something that you just need to keep going back on so often.

Russ Stephens:

It’s like being a surgeon, isn’t it? You never master it, you just practice.

Sky Stephens:

Exactly.

Andy Skarda:

Spend all that time and all that money.

Bosco Anthony:

I’d like you to be a master if I’m being operated on. I think you’ve brought up some really good thought processes, and a reminder that we need to use time as a tool and not as an excuse. So, with that, I want to thank all three of you for your time and energy today, and I look forward to another insightful talk with you in the near future.

Russ Stephens:

Thanks, Bosco.

Andy Skarda:

Thanks so much, Bosco.

Sky Stephens:

Great conversation. Thanks Bosco.

 Bosco Anthony:

Thank you for listening. Remember to subscribe to Professional Builder's Secrets on your favourite podcast platform, and leave a review. To learn more about how the systems that APB can help you grow your building company, visit associationofprofessionalbuilders.com. See you next time.