Waitresses take their trees spin around. And this was on a recent trip to Egypt where I was speaking at a conference and our driver
years of working here never danced by the pyramids first time ever convinced by the viewer and they walk like an Egyptian.
Before I love being the first, why does it take a near death experience for us to wake up and understand we can't borrow time that time is so precious. And it's priceless. Today I'm going to share with you a framework that we've been using for the past two decades at GSD, creative, stop, drop, and roll I invite you to put your phone down and be 100% present because you are on a journey to get your time under control. And it is the most amazing feeling once you actually get it under control. If I can do it with ADHD, you can do it too. I grew up a dancer and I always try to attribute fun and dance and songs to remembering things. That's how I made it through school. And so we use trending sounds to teach people how to remember things. And so today I'm going to share with you the stop drop and roll method. So the first step is I want you to stop because your time is priceless. Stop saying yes to everything. You don't really realize how priceless Your time is, until you have a parent or a loved one that passes away drop. I want you to drop the mindset of Tom is money. And in my 20s and even in my 30s I heard that over and over but shifting your mindset to understand that what you're saying yes to and being present and showing up 100% You are so much more happy when you say yes to the right things really evaluate what is the ROI at what is the return on time? What is the value that you're going to be getting? From saying yes to some things drop the mentality that time is money. And now we're going to roll if you've ever rolled out a new product or launched a book or a podcast or had a really big project at work or a big project at home, and when you roll something new out, you're really excited and so you're just gonna roll it out and dance and again, when you're rolling something out. We're rolling out a plan here that is the whole point of you taking time out of your busy day in your life away from your loved ones and away from your team so that you can learn how to better yourself and roll out something new. And that's what you're gonna get today a plan on how to roll out your time. This is Just a quick example of how we time block internally, we have been blocking for over a decade, it was the most powerful thing to get control of my time. And also to potty train the brain, you're going to notice a few things here where there's big chunks of time. And I'm going to get into a little bit more of how we do this and what the colors mean. And yes, it's blurry for confidentiality purposes. But I want you to know, everything that I'm sharing with you today, we eat, live and breathe it here at GSD. If you think back to the most painful situation that you've ever been in, and I'm going to share a few of mine, there's no compass telling us which direction to go, how to feel, how to deal with the emotions, how to plan for unexpected things that come up in family and in work, we frankly, have to figure it out on our own, which makes life a little bit difficult when you don't know where you're going. And you don't know where you're headed. But when you know the value of your time, and you know that you say yes, and you show up to the things that you want to do, it's a completely different outcome. Today, I'm going to give you the tools, all the tools you need and the know how to pack it in that backpack, just like your mom might have packed it for you when you were a little kid with all of your food and your favorite snacks and things that we want people to feel good about going out and doing something and trying something new. So today you're going to get the backpack full of how to GSD we have an opportunity to slow down the pandemic was a great way for all of us to take a step back and reevaluate. How are we spending our time? What are we doing with our time? What are our goals in life? What do we really want to be known for every time I get in my car and I go to hit the sport button and I go 100 miles an hour, I have to remember that it's best and it's safest. If I slow down, I want to encourage you to stop and think and slow down and process what you're actually committing to on your calendar. So I want you to stand up. And this is where we stop drop enroll. So I'm gonna walk you through it. First thing is going to be you're going to stop because your time is priceless. And you never will get it back. You can never buy it back. You can always make more money, you can never buy your time back drop drop the mindset that time is money. I realize sometimes you have to think that way. But I want you to go a bit deeper and think about the why. Why is this money important? And does it serve the mission? And does it serve the purpose and does it fuel your passion and to roll it out your time is so precious. So this is what it looks like.
Just remember, if you're on fire, stop, drop, and roll. One more time say
remember to stop and think about how priceless Your time is. Drop the mindset of Time is money and roll out a plan to protect your time because your time is precious. Let's jump into the why my why I went to school to be a psychologist, I worked in a mental hospital and thought that I would be a nurse or a doctor and I would work in a hospital forever because I love love taking care of people. But that wasn't the path that I was meant to stay on forever. And I'm very thankful that I did it for a very short period of time when I was in healthcare, it helped me really understand people. And it also has made me into who I am today as a business leader and an entrepreneur backstory, my family had a venue my uncle for 35 years. So I grew up around weddings and events and celebrations and special things and creating memories. I never thought that I would do it as an actual career traveling the world. Nor did I ever think I would be speaking about productivity. That wasn't even a thing when I went to college. Now what you're about to see is a video of several events. I say my voicemails from that weekend and we mash the voicemails together, I want you to imagine waking up just one Saturday. And this just being one weekend where you have all these events, and all of these people calling and all of these things that need to be done and all of these things that are going wrong, and then you can't control the weather. It's so much stuff, I'll take care of it. Hi, Angela, Angela, and we're gonna have a three o'clock call and it's like free.
Market. And so getting control of my time and understanding how I communicate with my team was imperative for us. These are things that you can't buy in stores. Some of our clients unfortunately, think when you throw an event or you host a party or a wedding that you can pay for these things that you can pay for love, and dreams and friends, and a wish come true and happiness. But the one thing that you can't buy is Time, money does not bring you happiness. And we've worked with 1000s of couples all over the world. But yes, it's a tool that you have to learn how to be happy with yourself and a lot of clients that we work with that foundation of happiness comes with time and understanding how you're spending your time but I say why time block it is very personal to me frankly, it saved my life. I've it saved a lot of relationships not only with my family and some of my friends, but it helped me really understand why time blocking and why work life balance was so important. A few things have happened to me along the way. A week before college graduation, my computer crashed. This was back in the day when we had the big towers. I didn't really know what a virus was. So I took my computer in and I'll never forget, I was in Pensacola, Florida doing my rotations in a psychology ward. And he said, Honey, did you not back up on a floppy drive. And I'm like, What the heck is a floppy drive, I went to Walmart and bought a whole box of all these floppy drives. The only thing was all of my notes for six months of my rotations were gone, completely gone. I never wanted to lose my pictures and my emails and fill that empty out of a feeling that I never wanted to feel again, I became a tech geek. A few weeks later, my car was broken into my cute planner that my parents got me for college graduation with my monogram because I'm from the south of monogram, everything gone. Everything that I wrote down, I thought my life was so important. It wasn't God was preparing me to manage millions and millions of details and dollars many years later. So it was the pain that I was feeling that forced me to learn what a paperless office meant I didn't even own a business back then. But then in 2010, Nashville where I'm from our town completely flooded. This is a picture of interstate 24 cars, box trucks, we had eight displaced weddings and events, it was a complete nightmare. And we had venues and homes completely underwater. But one thing that set us apart from everybody else in the events industry, not just in Nashville, but we were a paperless company. And I learned that through EMR through electronical medical records when I was in healthcare, and I really started to understand the power of being able to carry my phone and make money from it every single day. When tragedies happen like this, you are a little bit more prepared when your notebooks and all your things float away and you have nothing to refer back to it's again, it's a very empty feeling. Now fast forward, here we are a decade later with COVID. Another business crisis is a very stressful time for us figuring out how we're going to reallocate all of these events which are focused more on strategy and productivity for companies. And we were able to shift but unfortunately, I was sitting a lot everyone was looking at me what was I supposed to do? And all the pressure was on me going back to Timewalking and understanding where am I going to communicate with clients? When am I going to be putting together a plan in place? When am I going to be able to learn how to build 3d events, I blinked my eyes I gained 100 pounds. It was just crazy during COVID and actually got COVID and almost died from it because I was so unhealthy. I wasn't taking care of myself. And so I use myself as a case study to share with people and this is very uncomfortable for me. You can see in the transformation where I started, there was one goal that I had every single day. And I don't even have to time block it because I'm doing it while I'm working. I'm just walking at a treadmill desk when you
almost die from COVID and wake up thinking how do you make a change? Set a goal of 10k steps a day 90 Day transformation. Here's so
we came up with something where you could transform if you follow this pattern for 90 days, you see what can happen. Let's jump in and talk a little bit more specifically about time blocking how to do it. I'm Angela Proffitt, a productivity expert and an entrepreneur. I got my degree in psychology I quickly learned in working at a morgue and in a mental hospital and helping people that I wanted to help people in a very different way. So just for fun on this side at church, we would plan weddings and me My sister did it for years for free. And then through word of mouth, people started to ask I'm not getting getting married in Nashville. Can you come here and then that turned into I'm getting married on a private Alan, can you come here this is all before social media and just by communication and doing a good job and understanding your capacity. We were able to provide a customer service like no other planner based on psychology in the entire world. I knew that because I started to travel and speak and teach and because of the flood we started another company productivity company in 2012. I joined an organization that absolutely changed my life called the entrepreneur organization. I've been in the Nashville chapter since 2012. I've served on the board in multiple capacities. In 2013. I wrote a book about psychology for the events industry and became a facilitator in 2017 started a podcast we've still been doing it weekly never missed a week in 2019 had the opportunity to co found a co working space for women in Nashville. After I went through my own health and wellness journey. We decided to change one of our business pillars completely to wellness, we've done weddings and events all over the world. What I've learned is not to take things personal Naevus antiga lots of stuff in the Caribbean, Europe, New York and when someone says no, it just means no not right now because it's not a priority. And so when you change the mindset of the things that you say to people when they ask you, can you do this? Or can you do that now we all do shit we don't want to do sometimes there's obligations and things that we have to do. But when you're celebrating something happy, something that truly lights, your passion. And if you can do it at 20, your life will drastically change. Let's jump right into the framework. If you don't know where you're going, how are you going to get there. And that's what time blocking does, it helps you know where you're going week to week. So we're going to dive into the four P's to GSD. In phase one, you really want to understand the people around you, and how can you best communicate with them having a process phase two, which is time blocking, phase three is productivity. It's all about movement, all about wellness, and profit. So phase four for us is how to create content and block your time and know how much time it's going to take you to do all of these things, to expand your community and to reach other people and to help other people and you can monetize your social media views. You can have brand deals, what we've realized through all of the ups and downs in business and in life, working smarter, not harder, and using science back strategies to make sure that you are working and surrounding yourself with the right people to GSD. And you can skyrocket your productivity. And guess what when your productivity skyrockets and you're you're happiest, and you're taking care of your sleep, everyone else's productivity goes up around you. Now phase one is people it's all about communication. So understanding yourself and understanding your quirks and your habits. And this is where it takes some discipline because understanding yourself and then understanding others in the way they need to hear it optimizes communication, which saves so much time when you understand the personality of the person that you're talking to that can pay is processes, which time blocking is the foundation to everything we do here at GSD. One personal goal, one professional goal and one relationship goal have one goal that you can stick to and create a habit. The reason we don't finish goals is because some of us we try to do too much we're overachievers when you assess and segment your activities and you understand where your time is going. You can better plan and prioritize so much better. When you plant a seed that you have to water it or it needs sun and it's going to grow depending on what kind of a plant it is. So if you think of your time as time pots, and you're going to drop specific times in a specific pot, and when you plant a seed that is going to grow. We all have meetings in life that our face we have to show up and maybe in person it may be on Zoom, if it's in person put the drive time on the calendar before and after. Are you going to have a phone call before and after understanding the capacity and being prepared is so important, I'm referring to work your work time pot more is your to do list, what is the work that you need to create time in your calendar and create space to actually do the work that comes out of all of these meetings. And then GSD this is what I call growth mode. This is like when you want to get shit done and do something fun for you. The third P is productivity. It's all about wellness, movement, mindset, nutrition. And I already mentioned the case study, I came up with a pattern A you are more productive when you are moving, putting time on the calendar coming up with this framework and then actually sticking to it 12 month transformation. But the best part is, is when people start to ask I wasn't even planning on bringing wellness into any of our pillars, we would do a lot of strategy for automation and software, which isn't fun or sexy. But it definitely is needed. This is where we completely change that pillar and over to movement and wellness because we are all more productive when we feel well. And the fourth P is profit. What strategy do you need to reach more people, whether that be content creation, building an online community, whether it's a leadership role, or GST framework, again, we start with our podcast called Business unveiled, we put a blog out on it, we tease it all over social media, we send it to our email community or text community. And then oftentimes we give away free lead magnets to help people who genuinely want to learn the subject that we're teaching. And then we just keep Wash, rinse repeating that material. This is just a quick behind the scenes shot of what time blocking can do and what it looks like. So for example, if you need a strategy for content creation, for social media, there's a few things step one was, as you see on the screen, we took a bunch of paper and went to the beach, where we were super inspired and literally gridded out all the things that we needed for the next 90 days for this client. And then you're going to notice an actual template where we took everything and created the process for the posting schedule. But all the videos were done, they were edited, they were approved. This was all done in full days, where we blocked two days for this client to do the strategy, and then come up with the process and then talk about the posting schedule and talk about what the consumer is seeing. And so over here on the right, I know it just looks like a bunch of green, blue and red circles, but I'm going to use my own profile as an example. Consistency matters. It matters so much now it may look to you, if you look on Tik Tok or Instagram that I just travel the world and dance in front of really cool places. But there's an industry, there's a community that we are serving the circles means something. So in every single row, there is a green circle, a blue circle and a red circle, which I'm going to share in a moment with you what that means. But it's really important to understand as a consumer, you don't know the strategy behind the scenes of what's going on. That takes time. That takes focus, that takes teamwork. And so setting the time aside to work on the business, not in it matters and the return on time. When you invest the time in these things, the things that come back to you and you're focused, are tenfold versus dive a little bit deeper, and just face to the processes. So you have to have a plan, you have to have a plan. And I'm a big quote person, if you fail to prepare, you are preparing to fail. So quote, by Benjamin Franklin, one of my favorite quotes, you've got to plan if you don't have a plan, you don't know where you're going. And if you're confused, your audience is confused. This is the biggest one, move your to do list to your calendar, and create a color on your calendar. That is also your to do list. Now if you're using an electronical calendar, which of course I'm going to highly recommend you do it if you still need that paper calendar. And you still need to see things which I do when I'm doing strategy, I need to see it big I color code things. But then I take a picture and I put it in the cloud and know that it's backed up or put in the clients Dropbox, but moving your list to your calendar, and color coding it. So you actually understand your capacity is a game changer. So to get started using this method I want you to think about I am suggesting put up some big post it notes on the wall and list out what demands your attention and your focus. What do you love doing and what demands your attention focus and the things that you're doing that you don't want to do or you're not passionate about it? If that list starts to fill up a lot more, that means it's time to do something different. And that's where you're going to get into your time pots, and what are your time pots going to look like? Where do you want to put your time, you can design your life, you can design how you spend your time, it may take a little bit of change, it may taking you working with a consultant or a coach or somebody who's done it. But 41% 41% of To Do List never get done. Can you imagine if you spent a million plus dollars on your wedding and 41% of the things on the to do list never got done. That would not work out? Well. Let's think about your time pot have a personal time pot is all the things that you have to do personally, your meetings, the stuff that you want to do to learn and grow as a person or a business leader like the stuff that you wanted to you want to be more productive and get shit done doing the stuff that you love doing. And then what work do you have to do? So these are going to be the four time pots that are referred to priorities?
What are your priorities prioritizing your time? Is everything say yes to the right things, the things that you want to be doing? It is okay to say no, it just means not right now. First, I want you to start what is reoccurring and block that first. So you've got monthly things, birthdays, you've got weekly, you've got daily list out so you can see all of your priorities. Under personal you've got family time you time meetings with clients, your team members GSD this could be a special project. It could be a book you're writing a book you're reading a podcast you're listening to or podcasts that you're launching. It's really your to do list and your client work. So I'm going to dive in a little bit deeper family time you Tom holidays, birthdays, vacations, Jim Tom church, grocery shop blowouts, hair appointments, whatever you do for you personal time, that's a color meetings, client strategy days, we do design days, priority days, team meetings, GSD days. Again, these are just examples of things that I personally do. What is GST mean to you? What are things that you're personally working on? And then move your to do list to your calendar productivity? What does that really mean? So Tim Ferriss says focus on being productive instead of busy. When you think about it like that. It's really a different way of looking at it consider color coding. So at a week's glance, you can really see the balance, I would choose colors, things that mean something to you. So for me, Orange is personal. I went to UT Knoxville, those are that was our color red, very urgent. Those are meetings, I have to show up. My face has to be there. A team member cannot do it. GSD is in blue. Those are the things that I'm working on for the business are working on just that I personally want to do and then work in green. Green means money. A lot of our green work is billable client time. You want to make sure that you're putting holidays and birthdays and the important things in life and the people that you love the most be present for them and I go back to our exam. Well have a calendar, the more that you can make sure that you have some balance in each of your weeks, it will change your life, it will change your life, it will change your life. So here's an example for content creation, you got to plan it, prioritize it, you want it, you want to make sure you're productive. And if you procrastinate, than the payoff that you're looking for, you're not going to get it to put all of your limiting beliefs aside, and I've heard everything like I'm not a dancer, it's not about that if your feet work, if your legs work, you can move. It's about having fun, or people saying, I hate my voice. Well, guess what I hate the way I look or it's not about you. It's about all the knowledge that you have that you could share with others. It's not about your voice. It's not about your hair, it's not about your makeup. Ladies and gentleman, it is more about how you can help the person on the other side of the screen. And then biggest limiting belief. Oh, everybody knows that what you do every day, we take it for granted, because we're experts at what we do. But not everyone knows some of the most simple basic things. And time blocking is one of the most simple, basic things that you can do to get your time back and to be present. One of my biggest limiting beliefs was I can't make an impact in 15 seconds or less, but then tick tock, prove me wrong. Consistency is everything. If you are consistent, at least for 30 days, then that will turn into 60 days, which turns into 90 days. When you are consistent with your message and where you are going, you will get there so much faster. Speed is clarity. And when you're clear, you could go faster, not only with yourself, but with your team. So you'll notice one thing about this video, I'm in different countries doing the exact same dance. The bigger picture here is that blocking is hung on my calendar to make sure that there's three things happening from a strategic perspective on what a consumer is seen of what we're doing. And so that's a signature dance that is supporting travel, we travel around the world, I'm dancing with other people dancing in groups, because I lead workshops, I lead fun, I lead movement with other people, people need to see what you do and how you're interacting. And then we're always using something that's trending that week. And something that shows fun, because that is the number one thing we get from our community is thank you for reminding me to smile and to be happy and to have fun. The secret sauce to all of those things is time blocking. For example, we block time a whole day dedicated quarterly to what is our audience asking us what is the idea? What is the emotion? What what are people feeling? What is the education in the story, so we make sure it's entertaining, and what does that one call to action. And then there's notes, and then there's research. And then there's keywords. And there's all these things that go on. Behind the scenes. When you start with a blank template, you start to fill it out, you start to have direction, you end up with something like this, where there's actually a plan, there's playlists, things are color coded, and then you can share it with your team. This is what focus and time blocking can do procrastination. Sometimes it's okay to procrastinate on purpose. It just means it's not a priority right now. And you don't have to see the whole staircase, you just have to take the first step Martin Luther King, Jr. But the first step is to stop the distractions, stop the distractions. If you don't know what I'm specifically talking about, if your phone or your iPad, or your computer, or whatever magical device you have that you communicate with the outside world, if you have bubbles that look like this, I promise you, they will be there. When you look at your phone. Again, it is the kiss of death. It is the kiss of death, allowing the distractions and the notifications in on your Apple Watch on your Apple phone. There are all types of really quick, easy things that you can do to set up your notification set up your alarms to help yourself better focus and manage your time. It does take discipline. And I would say your next step is to schedule everything. We schedule everything we scheduled phone calls, we schedule every thing. I thought I would lose business from it, it actually did the opposite. People show up very differently now. They're prepared. They're ready. We know we're not here to be us a few apps that can help of course you have Microsoft Outlook, you've got iCal that comes native to the apt to Apple products. You've got Google calendars, which all of these can integrate. And one of our favorite tools is Calendly where we actually hook our calendar up to Calendly. And we set aside specific days for discovery calls and strategy days for clients to sign up for. And so having that link in your email signature is a game changer. It eliminates all the back and forth life happens. You have to be flexible, but also remember that someone else has emerged See is not your emergency. So what is really worth moving on your schedule. And of course, there's payoffs. We've had lots of clients tell us that they feel less anxiety intention, they're less stressed, they have more patients, the happiness, the happiness is the biggest payoff is because when you actually can show up and be present, you can be happy. And if you're not consider what you're saying yes to, and what you're committing your time to more peace, more profit, more sleep. These are business owners that we've worked with, they just feel more peaceful. When you're peaceful and productive. And you're running a business and you have a team, you've got to turn a profit. And if you're not sleeping, and you're not healthy, you're not taking care of yourself, you know, the same, it starts from the top and goes down. So two of my very favorite apps that we engage with to help streamline communication is loom and Marco Polo. It's a video texting app. And with loom, you can record your screen and show your face and it builds rapport. And when you can see my face because I'm a super sarcastic person. You know, when I'm being serious, there's no misunderstandings because you can see my face you can you can hear the tone of my voice and how you say things and how you make people feel matters. So a GSD. To wrap it up, we provide solutions for getting shit done. We have workshops, I do a lot of speaking, consulting training has podcast content creation, and we still have the events company in 2022. Alone, we were in 14 countries, three of those I returned to and five states where we have an international impact guiding leaders all over the world on how to be present. Thank you so much for your precious time today. That's it for this week's episode of business unveiled. Now that you have all the tools that you need to conquer the world and GSD get shit done. Would you share this with your friends and fellow business leaders? One thing that would really really help us and help new listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a comment and Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you tune in and listen to business unveiled. You can check out the show notes at Angela proffitt.com/podcast and link up with us on social media so you can share your biggest insights and I want to know your aha moments. Until next week, remember the profitable shifts and structures you're creating in your business help you be more present in your life. So get out there and GSD