WORKWEEK

Nine years ago, Thrill One told Rob Dyrdek he wasn’t someone anyone would invest in. Six years later, he sold them his production company and cleared over $100 million.

“I had to change the way I was living to ultimately create the energy to attract the people, knowledge, the everything I would need to grow into the person that I had designed for myself.”

A few quick data points about our boy Rob:

• Built 17 companies
• Sold 6 of them
• Netted 450 million
• Invests his salary in real estate

Everything is built to sell from the beginning.

After realizing he wasn’t building the life he wanted, he hired coaches and consultants to show him how to get it done. So now he starts every project with the end goal in mind.

This approach has allowed him to master time/energy compacity.

He is so committed to planning and dedicating his time that he hired a developer who built him a Google Calendar plugin to see everything on a dashboard.

Dyrdek starts with his goals—both personal and professional—and then schedules his time to ensure there is alignment.

Here is how he breaks down his life:

• 30% business
• 30% sleeping
• 30% family
• 10% health

What lessons can you learn from Dyrdek?

Effective success roadmaps are built by taking the time to break down your vision and create a plan. It seems simple, but it’s easy to fall into the trap of waking up and focusing on things that seem urgent but won’t get you closer to your goal.

Start with to-do lists, but make sure everything that is important ends up on your calendar. Taking the next step of actually blocking out time to get the work done will force you to prioritize. To-do lists without time blocks lead to overwhelm and over-committing, and as the leader of a team, know that the impacts will, unfortunately, roll downhill to your team.

Clarity of the calendar is clarity of vision.

Clarity builds momentum for both individuals and teams.

So what should you do?

The challenge for you right now will be to not think about if you’ve seen this information before but think about how well you execute it.

• Create STGs: These are Specific Time-bound Goals.
• Define tasks needed to bring each goal to life
• Assign an amount of time needed to complete each task

Next, you need to decide how many hours you will work each day. It might be 8 or 12, whatever is the right number for you. The important thing is to create boundaries based on your priorities and how you want to design your life.

Finally, start putting your time blocks onto your calendar.

Give yourself two rules:

• If the task doesn’t fit into your day, it has to wait until tomorrow.
• Only remove a task if the task replacing it is a higher priority

For the tasks that won’t fit on your calendar, ask yourself these three questions:

1. Can it be automated?
2. Should it be delegated?
3. Does it simply need to wait until tomorrow?

As leaders, we can help our team create priorities by teaching them to do the same. This habit will help you understand their personal priorities and ensure they are not getting overloaded with work they don’t have time for.

Time blocking is also helpful if you work for a boss who likes to drop projects on you last minute. Instead of simply saying “No”, take the time to show them your current workload and ask them which task you’d like the new task to be prioritized over. Time blocking is a great way to protect your boundaries while also excelling at your job.

What is ONE task management time you think all leaders should learn?