Why You’re Not Productive | How to Manage Your Time Better | Terri Savelle Foy

Hey, it's Terri Savelle Foy, your cheerleader of dreams. I wanna share with you a $25,000 tip to triple your productivity and skyrocket your progress to achieve every goal in life. And I'm not just making up some random price tag for this information. Someone truly paid that much money, not to me, but to hear this tip today. This is a true story. And let me say real quick why you need to increase your productivity. Because you have a dream in your heart. You have goals that you need to achieve. And you have an assignment from God. He wants you to fulfill during your time here on earth. But you gotta learn how to manage your time or you'll end up wasting it just being busy. So how do you get everything done plus go after your dreams and goals? Well, listen to this story. I once read that in the early 20th century, Charles Schwab, president of Bethlehem Steel, met with public relations and management consultant, Ivy Lee, because he wanted to improve his company's productivity. Well, Schwab said, we know what we should be doing. Now, if you can show us a better way of getting it done, he said to Ivy, I'll listen to you and I'll pay you anything within reason. Well, Lee said that he could help him and that it would take him only 20 minutes of his time. So what he did was he handed Charles Schwab a blank piece of paper and he said, write down the six most important things you have to do tomorrow. That's all he said. Well, then he went on to say this. Now number them in the order of their importance to you and the company. When Schwab had finished, Lee continued. He said, now put that paper in your pocket and first thing tomorrow morning, take it out and look at item number one. Then he said this, don't look at the others, just number one and start working on it and stay with it until it's completed. Then take item number two the same way, then number three and so on until you have to quit for the day. He said, don't worry if you've only finished one or two because you'll be working on the most important ones. He said the others could not have been finished without any other method and without some kind of system, you'd probably take you 10 times as long to finish them, he said. He said, you might not even finish them in the order of their importance, but he said, do this every workday. Here's what he said. After you're convinced of the value of this system, have your people try it out. He said, try it as long as you like and then just send me a check for whatever you think the idea is worth. In a few weeks, Schwab sent Lee a check for $25,000 along with a letter saying it was the most profitable lesson he had ever learned. Well, not long after that, Bethlehem Steel became the largest independent steel producer of its day. So why you're not productive from this story right here, five reasons to help you out. First, let me just say, I put together a free download based on this principle. It is the most effective productivity system I have ever used to manage my team and help me live my dreams. And I want you to have that sample time map. Here's kind of what it looks like, like this right here. So you can truly see how to block time and how you can get started today. So click the link in the description and you'll get my productivity time map and get yours to start filling in the blanks. So let's go through our five real quick. Number five, the reasons why is you're not writing down your priorities. You know, first of all, it feels great to get all this stuff out of your head and onto paper. It's one of the best things you can do to just relieve stress and overwhelm. And second, it is so much fun just checking things off. You know, Mary Kay Ash of Mary Kay Cosmetics, same thing. She attributed her success to the fact that every single day she wrote down her six most important things to do every day. Whatever she didn't finish, she carried it over to the next day. I'm starting to see a pattern here, aren't you? You know, a recent study found that if you just spend five minutes writing your to-do list the night before, actually leads to more peaceful sleep. So never go to bed without planning your next day. Number four, the reason you're not being productive is you have too many distractions. You know, calling and texting is one thing, but oh my gosh, social media is another. And I'm guilty too. You know, studies show that we lose two days a month just on Facebook. That's how much time we're wasting. And we're not even talking about you on Instagram or doing your TikTok and, you see my shoulders? So set timers on your phone or get a little timer and just make a decision to check your social media every 90 minutes. And a real quick tip. Did you know that successful people don't check their emails first thing in the morning? If they did, that means they're starting their day reactive instead of proactive. No, they devote blocked time first thing in the morning to their MIT, most important task. And when the alarm goes off after 90 minutes of focus work, they take a break. They get on social media. They answer emails. They may set a time to answer emails for 30 minutes. So remove distractions. Take the notifications off your phone or silence your phone during your focus time. You know, ask your coworkers or family to just give you 90 minutes of no interruptions if possible. Or start with, you know, a 30 minute block of focus time. Number three, you're multitasking. In other words, not staying focused. We used to think, at least I used to think multitasking is like the key to success. Well, they've proven when you're doing this, you're not doing multiple tasks at the same time. What you're doing is you're temporarily giving partial focus to a single task while giving the majority of your focus to the act of switching tasks. Does that make sense? In other words, most of your energy is being devoted to the switching of the task, not completing them. So finish what you start. Don't let yourself take on another project until one is finished. Just stay focused. You know, Warren Buffet and, who was it? Bill Gates and Bill Gates Senior. They were having dinner in Seattle one night and someone asked them, there's two of the top five wealthiest people in the world. And they asked him, what would you consider the number one skill for success? You know what they all three said? Focus. With focus, you can do anything. Without it, you can't do anything. So focus. Okay, number two, you're not starting the day with your MIT, your most important task. Here's the key to one of the most successful people in the world. This is what they do. Do your most challenging, most important, and even most dreaded task first. Michael Hyatt calls it slaying your dragons before breakfast. In other words, get that big thing done first and you're gonna feel amazing the rest of the day. Otherwise, you're consumed with guilt and this dreading feeling of, I know I should be doing that. Here's the side note. Start timing yourself. You know, you need to know how long your projects take so you can give yourself enough time. And this is huge because we assume we can do 53 things in one day and we only do 11 and we feel unproductive. Well, you might think that stopping to time yourself is going a little overboard, but the truth is, this is one of the secrets of the best time managers. See, if you consistently miscalculate how long your tasks are taking, you will find yourself just constantly taking on more than you can handle, which leads to overwhelm and disappointment. In fact, when you get your free download this week, you'll see exactly how I manage my time. I block time and even how I've learned to be realistic with how much I can take on, how long tasks take. Plus, I want you to get this sample template to get an idea of what you can realistically do in a day. So be sure to click the link in the description and get yours real quick. Bottom line, most of us are very unrealistic about what we can accomplish in a single day. And most people are shocked to see how much longer things take than they expected, which again leads to my final point. You know, they did a study where two groups of college students were given an assignment to write three papers in three weeks. One group was given the opportunity to turn in all three papers at any given time during those three weeks. Group two had a very strict deadline for every single paper. Ultimately, the ones who did the best on the papers were the ones who were given the strict deadlines. Group one did very poorly. Why? We aren't good at motivating ourselves to get things done unless there's a deadline. So the reason you're not productive, number one, is you're not setting a timer or a deadline. Deadlines are motivating. They create a sense of urgency. They say the best way to get your house clean is to invite company over. Why? There's a deadline. Oh my gosh, they're coming. So implement these five tactics to increase your productivity. And you might just send me a check for 25,000. I'm just kidding. But get your free printable time map to get started today. And I'm telling you, your productivity is gonna skyrocket. And don't forget, I'm cheering you on to live your dreams. Hey YouTube, don't forget to subscribe to my channel. And for more inspirational content, click one of the two videos right there. And remember, I'm cheering you on to live your dreams.