The calendar. Invented in 4AD and has helped people schedule their day for centuries. Okay, so I’m exaggerating…but the calendar has been around for the non-literal forever and STILL people are not using it! If you find that you’re constantly losing time or there are “just not enough hours in the day.” It’s not that you are too busy; it’s more that you need to organize your day. The calendar is your friend so start scheduling your day!
Take back the time that’s rightfully yours!
There are constant outside forces lurking around you offering distractions from your daily objectives. This includes distractions form coworkers, emails, social media alerts, and everything else that makes your computer and phone ‘ding’. To avoid these common distractions start scheduling what you need to get done. (If it’s in the calendar, it will get done!) Your scheduling should include your 3 main goals for the day (See our previous Productivity Article) and the daily activities that you need to get done.
Here’s an example of my workday on Monday:
My goal was to get 3 to-dos done by the early afternoon:
- Finish the summer promo design
- Teach our intern how to post a blog to our website
- Call my agents
As you can see above I schedule in what I need to get done in combination of what I do every day, such as check email, send out daily eblast, and a 30 minute meeting with the Marketing Team. While the tasks are on my calendar back to back I know that 30 minutes really is 20 minutes and 60 minutes is really 45 minutes. This gives me some wiggle room to deal with any daily interruptions to my schedule such as a new agent calling in about a particular product (not that I’m complaining, we love to hear from you!)
….Start Scheduling Your Week
I shared my typical Monday schedule, but I highly suggest you start scheduling your entire week. If you’re not one for scheduling, the best way to start is by writing down all the things you want or need to accomplish in your work week. For example you might decide that some of your weekly work goals are:
- Call Medicare Supplement leads
- Schedule 5 appointments
- Follow up with existing clients
- Work on letters to clients
- Study one new insurance product
Look at your calendar and decide when the goals listed above should be accomplished. If you want to schedule 5 appointments then this should start earlier in your week. So on Monday write in “call client leads” from 10 – 11:30am and 1:30 – 3pm. If your calls are successful and you have appointments, make sure you add them to the calendar and remember to give yourself traveling time (if necessary). If you find you’re out in an area where your warm leads are and you couldn’t get them on the phone, then schedule time to stop by their home if you’re the door-knocking type!
We find that most agents are scheduling their appointments on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. This opens up your Friday to studying an insurance product, or working on letters about a Medicare Supplement review, or calling your existing clients. It’s also helpful to have “extra time” in case everything doesn’t go 100% according to plan.
Of course these are just ideas for how to schedule your day and your day might be completely different from what I just discussed. Just remember what I told you in the beginning of this article, Take back the time that is rightfully yours! And you’ll start see an increase in productivity and better time spent on making your business more successful!