You have a lot more time than you think you have! Every single time that your phone rings or you check a text, every time you look at a Facebook post or a notification or you answer the phone. I encourage you to answer your phone but if you time block things it won't be as bad.
Distractions Are A Time Waste
Some people call you, you're in the middle of doing something and you're super heavily engaged in what you're doing and then you'll get a text message. You'll answer that text message and then your mind gets distracted and half the time you forget what it was that you were talking about.
Research and science shows that it takes about 23 minutes for you to actually get back into action with what you were doing. So evidently, you lose 23 minutes of your time.
Don't Let Someone Else's Crisis Become Yours
Just because your phone is ringing, just because a text message is coming through, it doesn't mean that at that very second you need to stop what you're doing and answer it.
Our society thinks that everything has to be immediate. It's doesn't. It's about properly setting expectations to people, it's about properly letting them know when you answer your phone, when you answer your text messages. It doesn't have to be right this very second every time because the more that you continue to let somebody else be in charge of your time, the less time that you're going to have.
Now, I know that some of you are going, “Oh my gosh, I have to answer the phone right away. I might lose a deal or lose a client or whatever it might be.” Anybody can wait 30 minutes or an hour or two hours for god's sakes.
I know that's not the best response time for a lead but it is for your life and for your time. If you are finding it that you don't have a lot of time, start setting proper expectations with your clients. Let them know when you call back and what they can expect.
Nine times out of ten they respect you for that. If they don't and they say, “Oh, you need to call me back immediately” then you don't want to work with that client anyways, they're going to make your life not so nice.
What Are Your Time Wasters?
Are you spending two hours a day on Facebook, are you spending two hours a day in group chats messaging back and forth and sending videos and this and that to your friends? What are you doing with your time?
Really analyze it and then think about ways that you can actually make improvements and make changes so that you actually do have more time and segment and time block. Don't let anything else during those time blocking events come in the way between you and what your mission is. Because every text message and every phone that you get, it deviates you away from what you're doing, it takes away your mental focus, it makes you less productive.
We're getting less done now than we ever have before in history because of our cell phones, because of all the distractions, the text messaging, the dinging, the notifications from Instagram, SnapChat, your messages, Facebook, all these things.
Conclusion
It's not helping you. Just because everyone does it doesn't mean that it's right. You have the ability to set proper expectations up with your clients so that they know when they can expect to hear from you and also so that you can actually set expectations up with yourself and get into a different habit, get into a different of being so reactive. You're being reactive. Every time that you just jump because somebody else rings you or dings you or pings you or messages you, you are being reactive.
