Chris Bello has figured out how to really master making the most of your time and actually turning it into a system that benefits you as an entrepreneur. He started with getting a degree and working on different things along the way where he always asked how he can improve things for the company he was working for at the moment. When he quit his job, he tried 500 different things when he finally landed in the real estate agency. This field allowed him to fall in love with how to make a business, how to manage it productively, and how he can help other people to do the same. Now, he uses his passion for doing something that he loves to teach other people to do the same thing. He teaches productivity, business tips, time management, making a system for your business, and how to take action for your business. 

The Importance of Making a System for your Business

The first Monday after I quit my job, I didn’t know what to do. My girlfriend went to work and I was in the house alone. So, I started making coffee. Then, I started reading a book and watching videos. I had no real schedule. I had so much time. 

This is something that I think a lot of people now are struggling with, especially with working from home as well. And now that people are working from home, you see them working and doing a load of laundry, then drying it. Then, they get up to cook, and they keep interrupting themselves from working. They're getting constantly interrupted by different distractions and things like that, that maybe we didn't have back at the office back before COVID time. 

That was really when I started to wonder if I need to come up with a schedule for myself if I need to come up with a game plan. 

How can we know if we’re wasting our time in our business? 

Don't necessarily measure the outcomes. Measure your actions, which will determine the outcome. For example, in sales, don't measure how many sales you made, because that's the outcome. Instead, measure how many calls you made, or how many posts you made, or videos or podcasts interviews, because you can't really gauge how much outcome or output you're gonna have from that. You can only control how much input you're putting in. 

We can all fill the day with things that we think are productive. And sometimes we're wasting time or maybe not even working on stuff that is productive. For example, if you're starting a business, and you spend all day making a logo and a business card, but you haven't gotten any sales, you're focused on the wrong stuff. You've got to get the business and I know that's a little bit of a chicken in the egg situation. If you don't have cards, how are you going to market your business? But if you don't have a business, why are you wasting time making cards? You have to make a scorecard to measure the activities and define what you think is the most important. 

But, always remember to keep your scorecard in alignment with your goals. List all of the activities that could achieve the desired outcome. Once you have that list, pick the ones that you enjoy doing the most. 

Keeping a Scorecard as s System for your Business 

Set a goal of how many points you would like to achieve based on your goal. List out the things that you think are the most important. If you're in real estate, for example, maybe you want to make cold calls or host open houses. But of course, with COVID, a lot of things are a little bit different. You could do live videos, create collaborative posts, and do zoom calls with other people, or maybe jump on Clubhouse.

So, those the things in the scorecard can be evolving, because you put something on there that you thought was important, and you're spending time on it, you're getting the points done, and you're finding that it's not really resulting in what you're thinking it would, you can take that off the scorecard. And then you can check those things off, give yourself points. 

The whole reason that I wanted to create this was that I could never unplug myself from the business that I was building. I could always check emails. I could join a Zoom call. I could make another podcast that wasn’t on the agenda. And that really started to cut into my personal life. 

Your you're late to dinner, your girlfriend's like your spouse or significant others wondering, hey, So, you need to actually set those priorities in your life, otherwise things will tend to fill up on your calendar that may not even be that important to you or your goals, which definitely leads to burnout, resentment, anger, frustration. 

A lot of people want to become entrepreneurs. They’re looking for that freedom and control of their time. They don't want a boss nor a desk job. But of course, if you don't have anyone telling you when to stop, it's very easy to just go the other way and just burn yourself out. 

Separate time to batch content create 

List all of the things that you do recur in your week. Do you have meetings, sales calls, conferences? List them out. If you can, try to put all the similarities in one place or one day. I do my sales calls on one day. I do my content creation on Tuesdays and I keep my agenda clean for Fridays and Saturdays just in case something happens. To help me keep on track of things I need to do those days, I time block. 

Set Boundaries 

Set the expectations up front.  I built that into my systems in my processes, I immediately sent an email. After we do the intro call. And everybody's all happy and excited to work together. I send a little email with a video saying: 

“Hey, thank you so much for your interest. This is how I work. You're definitely welcome to call me but I prefer text or email. And I also kind of work with it. 9 am to 9 pm. Ideally, you know, if I don't get back to you right away, please allow up to 24 hours for a response to an email”. 

And that way they know because if you start answering your phone every two seconds, they're going to think that you're available all the time, and they're going to be upset if you don't answer your phone at 10 pm or at 7 am. 

You have to set those expectations upfront. You can do it in a nice way. And maybe kindly remind them if they forget down the road, remind them. Set the expectations up front, and then actually honor your boundaries, because if you break your boundaries, they're gonna do it too.

Sometimes it's hard because you want to serve your clients they're paying you and you feel like you need to go above and beyond for them. But when you do that, you burn yourself out, which also impacts your credibility and the way you show up for your other clients. So it kind of just brings your performance down overall.

Listen to the Full Episode on Apple Podcasts & Spotify.