Time management secrets of a multi-business entrepreneur

A message came in from a follower the other day, and it deserved a real answer. The question was about time management. How do you keep every moment valuable and meaningful, geared toward progress, growth, and maximum value? Because it is challenging as hell to stay on target.

Here is the starting point for everything I am about to tell you. Not everything is created equal. Some things are more important than others, and I have to have a priority of what I am trying to do. Every system I run is just machinery for enforcing that one idea.

And I will tell you up front, I do not do this alone. I have five executive assistants helping me in every area of life, and they are invaluable. One full-time guy runs the house. A young lady helps me with my personal life. Two more keep everything moving back in Florida, and a full-time assistant drives me crazy with all this social media work. Good. That is exactly what the machinery is for.

Every order goes in writing

I have a phenomenal number of juniors, people reporting to me across these companies, and I make sure every order I give them is in writing. We have a policy for it. When I issue an order, the person has to type up in an email what they think I said and send it to me, with a copy to my personal assistant.

She puts it on the order log. I approve the order, and then it goes into the log as a sequence of events, so we keep track of every single thing I am trying to get done. I have two full-time ladies whose whole job is keeping track of everything I am doing.

Notice what that policy kills. It kills the argument about what I actually said. It kills the order that evaporates the moment I walk out of the room. And it kills the false idea that a busy executive can carry his own follow-up in his head. He cannot. Write it down and log it.

One calendar, not four

At some point I came to realize I had all these different email accounts. Four of them: my personal one, plus three more for the different companies I am heavily involved in. Four inboxes means four places for a schedule to hide, and that is how you miss things.

So I took one of them, the account from my Italian company, we just chose it, and now one hundred percent of my scheduling runs through that single email. One calendar. One place to look.

That matters because I travel all over the world, and every move changes the math. Europe to America is a six hour difference. Fly to Los Angeles and it is nine hours. Go up to the UK and it is one. Every time I move, all the schedules change, and I have to stay on my game so nothing slips when the clocks shift. Tight scheduling is a key element of the whole system.

Time goes to what deserves it

The harder question is how deep to dive into each company. American Power and Gas does what it needs to do. I am not involved in the day-to-day operations there. I am chairman of the board, maybe four or five communications a week come in, and then I am done with it.

The company in Italy is the opposite. It takes a tremendous amount of my attention units. I work on the reports, I read everything, I answer everybody's emails, I stay scheduled on what I am supposed to do. A couple of companies in the UK get the same treatment, and there are a few more in America I stay in close communication with. One of those UK companies is absolutely on fire right now, and it has earned its place on my calendar.

So how do I decide who gets how much of me? My company in Italy does network marketing, and there is a guy named Eric Worre who wrote a book for that profession called Go Pro. The most genius thing I got out of that book is one line: dedicate your time to those that deserve it, not those that demand it. So I really look at what I am getting from each area, and I assign the most time to the elements that are giving me the most back. I keep that as a golden rule.

And I keep working on it. I spoke to a very smart lady recently who really works on scheduling out her entire day. I do it too, but talking to her I could see I could take it to a higher level. There is always a higher level.

The human version of a dog leash

One last thing, and sometimes it keeps me up until eleven or twelve at night. I keep track of all my emails, and I work very, very hard to make sure that before I end the night, everything is done. I call it the human version of a dog leash. The communications do not get to run loose on me.

It drops off a little on the weekend, I will admit that. But before Sunday is over, everything has been answered. Every time. I work diligently to stay on top of my communications, and I never allow them to go past the end of the weekend.

It was a great question, and it deserved a fair amount of answer. Not everything is created equal. Put your orders in writing, run one calendar, give your time to what deserves it, and never let the backlog live past Sunday. Hope it helps.