🐇 Unfollow The White Rabbit - Time Tracking Tips

"I’m late, I’m late! For a very important date! No time to say ‘hello, goodbye,’ I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!”
-The White Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland

“Listen Tina, I know I need to start tracking my time if I want more time freedom but the thing is… I just don’t have the time to do it.”
-Almost ninety-five percent of all franchise owners I've spoken to. 

Ah, the eternal time freedom paradox. Sometimes we can be in love with the idea of time freedom, but internally we don’t have a strong enough reason to go after it. In this week’s post, I’ll be expanding on the topic of Time Tracking as part of the Spark Freedom path to business automation. I’ll also be coaching on this topic during the IAKF Zoom call on February 23rd, 2024, so make sure you join if you’re interested in how to track your time more effectively!

Recap:

Time tracking is an important first step when it comes to determining how to automate your business.

Here’s what the process looks like when it’s laid out:

• Track time spent on completing tasks for one week →

• Review and categorize each task completed →

• Consider what tasks to eliminate completely and which ones to cut down (Trash and Trim) →

• Increase the amount of high leverage activities and minimize the low level ones. Example: If your goal is to create a robust training process for new staff members then determine which activity yields the greatest output towards this goal. (Follow the 80/20 Rule).

If you don’t set an intention to work towards a specific project or goal on a daily basis, you’ll find yourself constantly falling victim to the distractions that are brought to your plate almost every hour. At the end of the day you’ll feel as though you were incredibly busy, but there’s still so much more that you wanted to accomplish.

💫Today’s Spark: Busy ≠ Productive

Time to hop off the hamster wheel of life — that’s where you’re running quickly and working hard, but the reality is you’re not really going anywhere. This generally leads to the never-ending cycle of time loss or never “having enough” time, and being stuck in what Tony Robbins refers to as “The Tyranny of How” — there’s so much you wish to accomplish but you’re stuck on the HOW, not the now. And so you tell yourself, “I’ll figure out how to do things whenever I have the time.” … which is, like, never.

🔥Ignite Action:

•  Make the decision today to map out how you’d like to ideally spend your time every day.

• What would your ideal morning routine look like? How much time would you like to spend in your center? How much time would you like to spend on taking care of yourself?

• Ex. Ideally I’d like to spend time every day working on my coaching business. I also want to make sure I get at least seven hours of sleep every night.

•  Start your Time Tracking process. Download the Spark Freedom Time Tracker sheet and start recording the activities that you find yourself completing on a daily basis for the next week.
  (Make sure you click “File → Make a copy”)
  
  

Tandem💫Tips For Time Management:

•  Think of what you want your ideal day week to look like. Here’s mine for reference:
  

It doesn’t matter if you use a physical calendar or a digital one, just start by listing out your ideal activities based on your current goals, and then frame how much time you want to spend on those activities. Remember, this is just a screenshot of what my ideal week looks like, it’s not a 100% reflection of my current reality… yet (although it's pretty close).

Can’t make the time for that? OK, baby steps... map out what an ideal DAY would look like for you instead. Start by looking at your day in three hour blocks of time (6am-9am, 9am-12pm, 12pm-3pm etc.)

•  Review and Reflect. At the end of each day, I’ll review and reflect upon how my actual activities mirrored the activities I set in My Ideal Week, and make notes on what might have distracted me and how I can simplify things to get close to My Ideal Day/Week.

  Activity:	Goal Today:	Actual:	How I can Improve:
  Work on Tandem Spark newsletter.	2 Hours	30 Min	I need to break things down to break through the overwhelm.
  Sleep	7 Hours	5 Hours 40 Min.	Follow 3-2-1 bedtime rules: 3 hours before bed - No food. 2 hours before bed - No work. 1 hour before bed - No screens.

•  In order to stay focused and productive, here are some of my favorite methods to use when it comes to intentional time tracking:
  •  The 3-3-3 Method
    •  Block time on your calendar for 3 hours of deep, focused work on one of your projects/goals.
    •  Think of 3 small and short tasks that you can complete for the day. Bonus points if these tasks are related to your projects/goals.
    •  Block time for 3 activities that will maintain a smooth flow of your personal or professional life (movie nights with the fam, brisk morning walks, meal prep etc). This is to help you build essential routines, and to also remind you that life exists OUTSIDE of work too.

In next week’s post I’ll be covering why it’s so important to be clear with what we want and the feelings we want to generate in order to maintain motivation when it comes to completing tasks. This is especially important when it comes down to having your team generate the highest levels of output in your business, and when it comes to answering the most commonly asked question we receive from parents, “How can I get my child to stay motivated to do their homework?”