Ask These 2 Questions to Take Control of Your Schedule

I was on a coaching call the other day with an entrepreneur, runs a very successful business, has a great team around him, and we were looking at his calendar, doing a little bit of a schedule audit, because I like to see, if you show me your calendar, you show me your bank accounts, I can tell you exactly what you value and exactly the results that you’re going to get out of your life. And he had done a pretty good job of time blocking his week. Each individual day. There was dedicated blocks for his creative work, specifically in the mornings, and doing the things that only he can move forward. He had times in the afternoons for his meetings. Great. He was kind of living that maker manager schedule. But what I noticed is that there was a lot of white space in his calendar.

And when I asked him why there was so much white space in the middle of the day, he said, well, I need to leave that open because there’s typically things that come up throughout the day. My team needs things from me, and so I leave that blank. So I have enough bandwidth to be able to help them with that. And I want to share with you two questions that I like to ask that have helped me get out of that mode, because really, you should not be having anything come up on your calendar that’s not time blocked on the calendar. There really are very few fires that need to be put out in the moment, that need you to reschedule, to improvise in the moment. I like to say, if it’s not on my calendar by 07:00 a.m. it’s not getting done today. I’m not doing that thing because I’ve already made a decision that these are the priorities, and that one didn’t get on there in time.

And so for that to get on the list, it means something else has to leave. Right. And usually the things that come up on the day to day basis, they’re not so important as to necessitate moving the really important big object off of my calendar in favor of putting out this fire. So the first question I like to ask myself, is this a now thing? Is this a now thing? Does this fire actually need to be put out right now, or could I just let it burn for a little bit? You’d be surprised how often we believe that we need to solve problems in this moment, and it feels so much more urgent and important as a result that it needs to be done in the moment. And so we put everything aside, even the things that we said were the most important, but maybe not the most urgent. Suddenly, this thing that’s urgent becomes escalated in our minds. But the reality is, in business, there are very, very few fires that actually need to be put out in the moment. Incredibly few, actually.

Most fires, most issues, most things that come up throughout the course of a day, they can be pushed either to later in the day, or they could be pushed till the next day or even later in the week. You would be surprised by just asking yourself, does this actually need to be solved right now? If you just ask yourself that question, you’d be surprised by how often you answer, no, it doesn’t. It doesn’t need to be answered right now. And so what I like to do then, is to leave a dedicated time spot at the end of my day for those types of random things. So my team knows, if you have things, bring it to me at this time. Don’t bring it to me at 10:00 a.m. when you know I’m in the middle of writing, or you know, I’m in the middle of some creative endeavor, or don’t bring it to me at two, when I’m in the middle of a meeting, bring it to me at the end of the day with what I call, like, my slush time. Then we can decide, okay, here’s the fires that came up today.

We need to put these out or we need to delegate when they get done. Right. So, is this a now thing? That’s number one. Never let somebody just call you on the phone to make their current problem your current problem. There is almost no fire that your team needs to call you about in the moment. And if they do, it means that you did not train them properly on how to solve it for themselves. You didn’t set explaining expectations appropriately, that you do not want to be interrupted, and that you expect them to solve the problem in these different ways. So this could be an opportunity for you to improve the operations of the business, to standardize your operating procedures.
Right. So if somebody is reaching out to you, it’s usually because you didn’t train them well enough and then give them the tools and resources to make the decision on their own. Second question I like to ask, is this a me thing? Is this a me thing? You’d be surprised how often your team will escalate something to you simply because they know they can get the answer from you quicker than trying to figure it out on their own. The problem with this is it makes you the linchpin. It makes you the constraint in the system. It means everybody’s always coming to you and making their problems your problem because you used to wear their hat. You know your business better than they do. You know all the nuances.
You know how to solve the problem faster and better than they do, and so you could give them the right answer. But I. All they are then is an extension of your brain. You are the genius with a thousand hands rather than a business of a thousand geniuses. So if you keep answering the questions for your team, you make it so that you are the singular brain and they are just an extension of your will. That is not a great way to build a business that works without you. I will tell you that you will grow to hate that business very quickly. So when people bring me a problem, I ask myself, is this a me thing? Is this something that I need to be the one to solve 99% of the time? It’s not.

I just take the Socratic method and I start asking them questions to help them understand that they could problem solve this on their own. So, a was it the one three one method where they bring one problem, you ask them for their three proposed solutions and their one recommendation. So they come with this problem. Cool. What. What are your three options for solving this? What have you thought through already? Why? I thought about this, this and this. Cool. What’s your one recommendation? This.

And you help them frame how they came to that decision. And even if it’s not the decision you would have made, you need to give them the bandwidth, the. The rope to go out there and hang themselves with it, because it’s only in hanging themselves that they learn. Right. We learn more from our failures and our successes. And by giving them the answer, you are denying your team the opportunity to learn and to grow. You are doing them service. You think you’re helping them by telling them what to do and giving them the answer when they come to you every single time, because you’re saving them time, you’re making their job easier.

I am telling you, you are denying them the opportunity to become the greatest versions of themselves. So stop helping them by telling them what to do. Help them by asking them questions that bring out the answer from inside of them, and then trust them to go and execute it, even if that means that they’re going to do it wrong. Okay, so those are the two questions I encourage you to ask. Is this a now thing, or could this go till later? Almost always. It can wait. Is this a me thing? In practically every scenario where somebody on the team is bringing you a problem that you did not generate yourself, it is not a you thing. If you are building the machine that builds the machine, that is, you are building the team that builds the machine.

You need to be very clear about what are the problems that you need to be solving. And you have created your calendar, your schedule as a result of that, the decision that you have made, the judgment you have deployed to say, this is my highest and best use of my time. Do not let things come up from the bottom to solve other people’s problems or to put out their fires right now, do not do that. You need to stay operating on the highest level of the business. You cannot go to the bottom of the mountain and help bring up all the tools and the resources, right? You need to stay up there and keep pointing the direction that is your most valuable job as the founder. So ask yourself those two questions. Buy back your time. Stop getting sucked into things that aren’t actually moving you towards your goals.

And I think you will notice that your calendar starts to feel a whole lot better. You start to resent your team a whole lot less because they’re stuck bringing you all the problems to solve in the moment. Then you have more bandwidth and time to focus uninterrupted, undistracted on the things that actually matter most. So take that and run with it. I appreciate you guys being here. We’ll catch you in the next episode. Until then, stay hyper focused, my friends.