Jason: (00:06)
Broadcasting from a small mountain town high in the Colorado Rockies. My name is Jason Owens and this is the Renewable Confidence Podcast — a show that helps you build confidence in yourself and in your business every day.

Today’s episode is called “Don’t Let People Monopolize Your Time.”

All right, hope you guys are doing well today. We’re going to get this episode started right now. I am thrilled to be coming to you from estos park, Colorado, where I do the majority of my broadcasting and I tell you about, I’m just having a great day today, was able to get into the park, was able to make some videos for you and you should be seeing those come out in the very, very near future. I’m thinking hopefully early next week I should be able to start getting some of those out. So if you are not subscribed, by all means, jump over to renewable confidence.com scroll down to about the middle of the page.

Jason: (00:57)
You’ll see the subscribe area. Would love to go ahead and get those videos out to you. All right, so let’s talk about people monopolizing your time. So my dilemma with titling this, at first I was going to call this, don’t let the wrong people monopolize your time and then it dawns on me that no, it’s not about the wrong people monopolizing your time. You shouldn’t be letting anyone monopolize your time. So here are a couple of things that I, that I want to point out or that I want to give you as a, as a for instance, chances are pretty good if you’re listening to this podcast, you are, you’re, you’re a nice person, you’re a kind person. You are, are not abrupt. And really what I’m trying to say is maybe boundaries, setting boundaries isn’t really your thing, right? So I, I totally, totally understand that you guys have a need to give.

Jason: (01:49)
I feel the same way. I’m sometimes a little bit more giving than I should be. And what I’ve realized here is that, wow, that’s good. That’s very, very admirable. Some of us really need to turn into that shrewd business owner, right? We really need to dial into, they listen. Relationships are great. Of course, this business is built on relationships. Your business is built on relationships. But at some times I know your stories. I know that a lot of us really struggle with having enough time to get stuff done and we don’t have time to sit there for the extra 15, 20, 30 minutes listening about the game, the football game, the this, the who’s doing that. Uh, we, we don’t really have time for it. So my, my advice to you is to, well, this isn’t to you, this is to all of us. This is to me too.

Jason: (02:38)
I’m talking to myself here. We need to do a better job at just setting some boundaries. We need to do a better job of just sticking to our guns and coming up with an agenda for the day, sticking to that agenda and just going for it. And as best as we can, I know that, uh, we can always call this black and white. It’s not perfect, but the best that we can. Let’s go ahead and making it a point to really just dig right in and not let the extraneous outside, excuse me, interruptions really, uh, take us completely off track for that 10 minutes, that 15 minutes, that two hour interruption that we hadn’t really planned on. Hmm, let’s, let’s do our best not to do that. So let me give you some tips that I used that have been really helpful for me. So on my computer I have a do not disturb setting, right?

Jason: (03:26)
Most computers these days have some kind of integration where there’s some kind of chat that will pop up, whether it’s a Facebook messenger or messages. If you happen to be on a Mac, it’s integrated your phone, right? There’s going to be some kind of a of a pop up notification alert that will come up, put your computer on, do not disturb. Likewise on your phone. Put that thing on sleep mode. I’m probably one of the best things that I do with my phone in a given day is put the thing on sleep mode. Now granted there are some times when that bites me in the rear end cause I forget to take it off sleep mode. Uh, but I’ll tell you what it is probably saved me more than it’s cost me. Another technique that I’ve been using here lately is called block scheduling. So the way that I can record these podcasts, I will sit down and I won’t record four or five podcasts in a row.

Jason: (04:14)
In fact, the only way that I can do that is with block scheduling. So I have time set aside to do this. This is my primary outreach activity for the week is doing these podcasts. So I’m going to sit down and record all of them at once so I can just get them queued up in the system and then I’m done. I can take my hands off the wheel for the rest of the week. So I have certain days of the week that I see clients certain days of the week that I try not to see clients and that’s, that’s really how block scheduling has been working for me. I want you guys to start saying no to something at least once a day, right? So whether it’s that volunteering for, Hey, can you come do this? I mean, we’ve got the holidays coming up now you’re going to need to start saying no.

Jason: (04:55)
And I think if you just try to say no to something at least once a day, that’s going to free you up to where, Hey, I told that person no, even though they’re a really good friend of mine, or I told that person no, and they’re a complete stranger. And you know what? It’s okay because I know they’re still gonna like me tomorrow. Or even if they decide they don’t like me, I’m okay with that, right? You have to protect your business, have to protect some of your time. Uh, another one that I use is an appointment center on appointment calendar. So some of you have even seen this link. People of you who have worked with me, um, I will send out a link that says, Hey, listen, go over here to this link and go ahead and find some time on my calendar.

Jason: (05:33)
And I have office hours. Basically, there are times of my calendar per week. Again, going back to block scheduling that I will allow a meeting to come in, right? That’s no problem. I love it and I’m set aside for it and mentally I’m ready for that. But if nothing shows up, no problem. But what I try not to have happen is times that I have blocked out to do things like this, right. Sit down and record a bunch of podcasts. I try to have a meeting right in the middle of it because that just really disrupts the recording. Right? For those of you who have shops, Oh my word. And by shops I mean like a brick and mortar place that people can physically come into. Oh my word. A worked with my uncle and my uncle’s store. Years ago, years and years and years ago I worked with my uncle.

Jason: (06:17)
He had a bait and tackle shop in North Carolina and I was there helping him. And I tell you what, I’m not kidding you. I think some people who would come in, some of the regulars, I think they were there just to socialize. I mean, I honest to goodness thing that these people were lonely. They had no other reason to be in the shop. They would come in, shoot the breeze for 10, 15, 20 minutes. And you know, my uncle doesn’t want to make these people upset or anger them, you know, he wants to shoot the breeze. Right. Cause people are gonna need to spend money at some point, right? So they’re not going to come into the store. But at the same time I can look back in the back room and the repair room and I know what kind of workload my uncle has and I know that he would rather be in through that work to get it done.

Jason: (07:01)
Um, but you know, sometimes it’s hard. So a couple tricks that I’ve found for that. When people want to come by your shop just to socialize, this is diabolical, but you can do it. It is so, so easy to do on your phone. What you can do is you can go ahead and schedule yourself half hour meetings or schedule yourself on a blocked time on your calendar every half hour. Set that alarm set. Set an alarm on that meeting. Okay, so it’s half an hour or half every half hour. On the half hour you’re going to have some kind of alarm go off on your phone. So if somebody comes in 10 minutes into your half an hour time block there, okay, great. You’re going to shoot the breeze a little bit. You’re not going to be abrupt, you’re not going to kick them out of the shop and all that. Um, but gosh, you’re going to have this alarm go off on your phone and then you can say, Oh, you know what?

Jason: (07:54)
I’ve got to get to this. Thank you so much for stopping by. Let me go ahead over here and grab this. Right? And then you pick up your phone and let that alarm ring until you walk into the back room. Right. Um, and that could be a way hopefully to give somebody the social cue that it’s time for them to go. Worst comes to worse. You can simply say, Hey, thanks so much for stopping by for a quick chat. I have a ton of work that I need to get through, so I just, I have to get to it. So anyway, I just, I want to encourage you to whether it is blocking out time on your calendar, uh, like I mentioned there with those half hour blocks, you know, and you want to stack those. Let’s just say that you have a, you’ve got a three hour block where you’re going to schedule starting at eight o’clock, eight 30, nine o’clock, nine 30, you’re going to schedule those appointments with yourself and it’s going to have an alarm that way in case anybody comes in, bam, that alarm is going to save you.

Jason: (08:47)
Right? It’s the same old trick of if you used to work in an office and you know that you’re about to go into a client meeting that’s just to go forever and you have your buddy say, Hey, look at a quarter after, will you come rescue me and tell me that my next appointment is here? Right? I mean, same scenario, same strategy. You’re just doing it for yourself and you’re using your phone. So there are tons of ways out there that you can free up your time, and I’ve gone over several of them here. Do not be afraid. In fact, be very diligent about blocking out time for yourself because it will save you and give you that time back that you would otherwise lose. All right everyone, my name is Jason Owens. Thank you so much for joining me. Stay tuned for our next episode and Hey, if you are binge listening right now as you’re driving down the road, I love you. Just let that podcast keep playing, and let the next one roll right through. All right, take care everyone.