How to Manage Your Time as an Entrepreneur - Ali Abdaal - video Dailymotion

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How to Manage Your Time as an Entrepreneur - Ali Abdaal   dailymotion.com/arshian   How to guarantee you regret your life:https : //dai.ly/x93180y   My honest advice to a perfectionist:https : //dai.ly/x9319i4  My honest advice to someone who’s doing too much : https://dai.ly/x9319ty  My honest advice to someone who feels behind in life : https://dai.ly/x931a78  My honest advice to someone who wants financial freedom : https://dai.ly/x931ex2  If I Wanted to Be a Millionaire Before 30, I'd Do This : https://dai.ly/x931gzm  The Best Book I've Ever Read about Making Money : https://dai.ly/x931j9y  How to Go From $0 to $10,000 a Month in 4 Steps : https://dai.ly/x931kb6  How to Make $10,000 Month Writing Online : https://dai.ly/x931l42  How to 10x Your Income The 4 Ladders of Wealth : https://dai.ly/x931ldm  Why You Feel Lost in Life by Ali Abdaal : https://dai.ly/x933252  How to Figure Out What You Really Want in Life : https://dai.ly/x933hm8  How to Change your Life in a Year - 3 Simple Ideas : https://dai.ly/x933u78

Transcript

00:00Okay, so before I read this book about a year ago,

00:02I pretty much always felt like I didn't have enough time

00:05while I was growing my business.

00:06I was feeling pretty stressed and burned out

00:07and my business was often suffering

00:09because I didn't really know how to manage my time.

00:10I started this business so that I could get freedom

00:13and do what I want, but then, like I looked at my calendar

00:15and it will always be rammed with things

00:17that I didn't particularly want to do.

00:18But then, about a year ago,

00:19I came across this absolutely incredible book,

00:21Buy Back Your Time, where Dan Martell explains

00:23how growing a business does not actually have to mean

00:25working harder.

00:26According to Dan, you can in fact work less,

00:28but you have to understand the principles

00:30of time management that he lays out in his book to do that.

00:32Now, Dan Martell is a Canadian entrepreneur

00:34and the founder of Clarity FM and Flowtown

00:36and has apparently made hundreds of millions of dollars

00:38in software businesses.

00:39And so in this video, we are gonna go through

00:40three key ideas and three strategies from this book,

00:44Buy Back Your Time, which is what we are discussing

00:46in this episode of Book Club, the ongoing series,

00:48where for the last four years, I have been distilling

00:50and discussing highlights and learnings

00:51from some of my favourite books.

00:52Oh, and by the way, if you're new here, my name is Ali.

00:54I'm a doctor turned entrepreneur

00:56and also the author of this book, Feel Good Productivity,

00:59which is about how to do more of what matters to you

01:00in a way that's actually enjoyable,

01:01meaningful, and sustainable.

01:02And here on this YouTube channel,

01:03I make videos about how to build a life you love.

01:05Some of them are about productivity,

01:06some about personal development,

01:07and increasingly, I'm making a lot of videos

01:09aimed at entrepreneurs like me and maybe like you as well

01:12about how to grow your business,

01:13but in a way that doesn't completely ruin your life.

01:18Okay, so before we talk about the three key ideas

01:20and the three strategies,

01:22let's start by talking about the pain line.

01:24And I think this is pretty good.

01:25It's basically that as an entrepreneur,

01:27when your business gets to a particular size

01:29or a particular scale,

01:30you end up feeling quite a lot of pain.

01:32And one or a combination of three things can happen

01:34when you hit this pain line.

01:35So Dan writes, when you hit your own pain line,

01:38where the daily pain of working on tasks and projects

01:40you hate is too great,

01:41you either change by embracing new belief systems

01:44and tactics, or you stop growing.

01:46Your growth halts because of an emergency,

01:48or more likely you subconsciously stop your own growth

01:50by doing one of three things.

01:51And those three things are sell, or sabotage, or stall.

01:55Now it's worth kind of double clicking on some of these.

01:58Sell is the first one.

01:59Now this is actually what I did in 2019

02:01when I sold my first business, Six Med.

02:03I sold a majority stake in that

02:04to a guy who is now a friend of mine.

02:05And I sold it because I hit this pain line.

02:07And I didn't recognise this at the time,

02:09but I was kind of growing my YouTube channel

02:11and I also had this business that was doing okay,

02:13but it was sucking up a lot of time and energy

02:15and attention.

02:15And I didn't really feel the passion

02:17for that business anymore.

02:18And so when the opportunity came to sell that business,

02:20I jumped on it and I felt like a wave of relief,

02:22like, oh, I don't need to worry about this business anymore.

02:24It's in the hands of someone else

02:25who's gonna grow it, et cetera, et cetera.

02:26Option number two that can happen is sabotage.

02:28You suddenly decide to launch a new product

02:30or a new line of business.

02:31You urgently feel the need to overhaul your website.

02:33You keep replacing key team players for small mistakes.

02:35You drag your feet on business decisions

02:36until the opportunity slides by.

02:38And then option number three

02:39that we actually see quite a lot of here on YouTube

02:41is stall.

02:42Stalling is what happens when you confess,

02:44I'd rather have a smaller company.

02:46It's making a conscious decision not to grow.

02:48When you're so overwhelmed managing

02:50your current company size,

02:52growth can feel downright exhausting.

02:54But, you know, I somewhat disagree

02:56with Dan's perspective on this,

02:57but like I'm gonna say anyway,

02:59here is the dirty secret about stalling.

03:01A decision to not grow is a decision to slowly die.

03:03We've seen this quite a lot on YouTube

03:05where a lot of times a YouTuber will get to a certain size.

03:07They'll hire a team.

03:09They'll realize, oh crap,

03:10I don't wanna deal with the management of this team.

03:13It's taken the joy away from the craft,

03:14you know, that I really enjoyed making videos

03:16and now I have to be a leader and a manager.

03:18I don't really like that.

03:19Some YouTubers push through that

03:20and come out on the other side

03:22where they now have a business that really lights them up,

03:25that lets them do exactly what they want on their own terms.

03:27But a lot of other YouTubers and business owners

03:29will sort of pull back from that line and decide,

03:31you know what, I'm gonna fire everyone

03:32and I'm gonna go back to just me.

03:34I personally think either of these options

03:36are totally reasonable depending on what your goals are

03:37and what you actually want.

03:39But something that Dan would say is that,

03:40well, if you've hit that pain line and then you stall,

03:43it's because you weren't able to level up

03:44and get beyond that pain line to your Nirvana place

03:47where you can genuinely do whatever you want with a team

03:49rather than feeling like you're

03:51sort of in this painful position

03:52of having to call things back.

03:53So you either sell or you sabotage or you stall.

03:56And his whole philosophy in this book

03:57is that at the point where you hit this pain line,

03:59this is where you start buying back your time.

04:02And in theory, by following this philosophy,

04:04you can then move past the pain line,

04:05your business can grow while you stay happy and fulfilled

04:09and passionate about the entire process of doing it,

04:11but you don't have to stall growth

04:12just because you've hit this point

04:14where it feels particularly painful.

04:15Okay, so let's move on to talking about key idea number one,

04:17which is the buyback loop.

04:20And this is the idea behind the buyback loop.

04:22You hit the pain line, and then there are three things.

04:24You audit, you transfer, and you fill.

04:27So what he says in the book is this.

04:29A buyback loop occurs as you continually audit your time

04:33to determine the low value tasks

04:34that are sucking your energy.

04:35Then you transfer those tasks optimally

04:38to someone who's better at them and enjoys them.

04:40Lastly, you fill your time with higher value tasks

04:43that light you up and make you more money.

04:46Then you start the process over again.

04:47And the whole philosophy here is that you are buying back

04:49your time when you hit that pain line,

04:50you're figuring out, okay, what are the things

04:52I no longer want to do or need to do?

04:54How do I transfer those things to someone else

04:56who enjoys them and is probably actually better

04:57than me at them?

04:58And then how can I fill my time with things

05:00that I actually want to do, that light me up,

05:02that give me energy, and that actually grow my business?

05:03And so he writes, here's how to start thinking,

05:05audit, transfer, fill in your day-to-day

05:07beginning right now.

05:08Audit, what tasks do I hate doing that are easy

05:11and inexpensive to offer someone else?

05:13Transfer, who do I have on my team or who can I hire

05:16even part-time to take these over?

05:17And number three, fill.

05:18What tasks should I focus on that I love doing

05:21that can immediately bring more money to my company?

05:23Audit, transfer, fill is a simple expression

05:25of the buyback principle, but it offers a quick insight

05:28into what may be driving you crazy today.

05:30So for me, what this looks like as I started applying this

05:32once I read the book about a year ago,

05:33is that I was looking at my calendar pretty much every week

05:36and thinking, okay, what is currently on my calendar

05:38that I really shouldn't be doing?

05:40And in terms of shouldn't be doing,

05:41it was like, this thing does not light me up

05:43and or it does not make large amounts of money.

05:44I realised that for me, basically the stuff

05:46that I enjoy doing that also happens to make the most money

05:49for the business is, for example, filming videos

05:52and doing product-related stuff for new products

05:54because I like teaching and I like building cool stuff.

05:56So anytime I'm spending not doing those things,

05:58that is somewhat inefficient and I should try

06:01and delegate those things so that I can operate

06:04in my zone of genius, as it were, where I'm making videos

06:07and doing the product stuff, all of which drives

06:10direct revenue to the business.

06:12Oh, and by the way, another great way to save time

06:13as an entrepreneur is to use Hostinger

06:15for your website needs who are very kindly sponsoring

06:17this video.

06:17Hostinger is the platform that we personally use

06:19to host three of our company websites.

06:21We've got alibdahl.com, we've got ptya.com,

06:23which is our YouTuber Academy,

06:24and we're also moving productivitylab.com

06:26over to Hostinger.

06:27And one of the great things you can do with it

06:28is you can save a lot of time using their AI features.

06:31So I'm gonna show you how this works

06:32by going over to hostinger.com slash alibdahl

06:34and they've got these two plans,

06:35but if you're an entrepreneur,

06:36then I would recommend the business website build.

06:38So I'm gonna hit that.

06:39Okay, so now that I've logged in,

06:40I'm gonna create a website

06:41and I'm gonna use the Hostinger website builder.

06:43This is the Hostinger website builder.

06:44Let AI create your website in minutes.

06:46Perfect.

06:47I'm gonna do a landing page for VoicePal,

06:49which is a new software product that we're working on.

06:51VoicePal is the ghostwriter in your pocket.

06:53It's an iOS app that lets you record,

06:54listens to whatever you say,

06:55asks you sensible follow-up questions,

06:56and generates a first draft that sounds exactly like you.

06:59And let's surprise me in terms of color palette.

07:02Now we're gonna edit site.

07:03Ghostwriter in your pocket.

07:06I can use their AI logo generator.

07:07I can say ghost friendly emoji.

07:10Oh, that's actually not bad.

07:11That's a pretty good starting point

07:13for a cute friendly ghost icon

07:15for this new app that I'm building.

07:16Anyway, the whole point of all these AI tools

07:18is not that it just sort of completely

07:19creates a website for you,

07:20but it saves time in creating your first draft.

07:22In the plan as well, you get a free domain,

07:24which is your website address,

07:25which is essential when building a website.

07:26You get a free email address to use

07:27that's attached to that domain.

07:28And you can set up up to 100 websites on the same account,

07:31which is all very nice and secure.

07:32So if you're looking to build a website,

07:34I would definitely recommend Hostinger.

07:35We use it for our own stuff.

07:36There'll be a link to sign up in the video description.

07:38And if you use the coupon code Ali Abdaal at checkout,

07:40they will give you an additional 10% off the paid plans.

07:43And they also have a 30 day money back guarantee

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07:47So thank you Hostinger for sponsoring this video.

07:50All right, key idea number two is the drip matrix.

07:53And there is a nice quote that teased this off,

07:55which is successful people aren't doing what they love

07:58because they're rich.

07:59They're rich because they've learned to do what they love

08:01and only what they love.

08:03This is kind of the philosophy of my own book,

08:04Feel Good Productivity.

08:05When you can find a way to spend your time doing stuff

08:08that you genuinely enjoy,

08:09you are way more productive at that thing,

08:11you're way more creative, you're way less stressed,

08:13and you also have more energy to give

08:14to the other important areas of your life.

08:16My friend Joe Hudson, who's an executive coach,

08:17says basically, enjoyment is efficiency.

08:20When you're enjoying the thing,

08:21you are very efficient at it and you can do it very well.

08:23And so as entrepreneurs,

08:24really the thing we're trying to do

08:25is to be operating in this enjoyment zone

08:27where we genuinely love the thing that we're doing.

08:29And we find that the more we're in that zone,

08:31the more our business is likely to grow.

08:32And so the drip matrix is one way to kind of visualize this.

08:35And so here's the idea.

08:36It's like a two-by-two matrix, as you can see here.

08:37On the X-axis, on the bottom here,

08:39we've got it lights you up.

08:40So these are things that light you up a lot.

08:42These are things that don't really light you up.

08:43And then on the Y-axis, we have makes you money.

08:46So stuff over here makes you lots of money.

08:48Stuff over here makes you not very much money.

08:49Now, if something does not light you up

08:51and does not make you a lot of money,

08:53that should be delegated.

08:54It probably has to be done, but you don't enjoy it.

08:56And it's not making that much money,

08:57so that's an easy thing you can delegate.

08:58These are things that you should really get rid of ASAP.

09:01There's no reason not to get rid of these things.

09:0280% done by someone else is 100% freaking awesome.

09:06I love this quote.

09:06Whenever it comes to delegation,

09:09the fear is always like, oh, but if I delegate this thing,

09:11they won't be able to do it

09:13as well as I could do it myself.

09:14And that is always true.

09:15Well, it's not always true, but it's often true.

09:17You not having to come in on the weekend

09:18to get caught up is 100% awesome.

09:20You not having to miss your kid's game

09:21or a friend's birthday party is 100% awesome.

09:24You not having to spend half of your week

09:25doing something you hate for the 100th time

09:27is 100% awesome.

09:28Then you've got R for replacement.

09:30This is where it is harder to get rid of stuff

09:33because the stuff is making you money,

09:34but it's draining your energy.

09:35And it becomes harder to find someone to replace you

09:38in doing those particular tasks.

09:39Here's a nice quote as well.

09:40That's why sometimes I call this the pitfall quadrant.

09:43You can get stuck in here,

09:44working on sales or marketing or delivery

09:45or managing big teams

09:47because these tasks do make you more money,

09:49but they don't light you up.

09:50These tasks are better to do

09:51than working on low value tasks

09:53that neither make you money nor light you up,

09:54but I want you to shoot for something higher,

09:56something better.

09:57I want you to shoot for Oprah or Buffett.

09:59And he's referring to Oprah Winfrey and Warren Buffett

10:01who spend all of their time

10:02only doing things that light them up.

10:04And these people are also extremely rich.

10:05And his argument is that they're not doing that

10:07just because they're rich.

10:08They actually got rich by virtue of the fact

10:09that they found ways to spend all of their time

10:11only doing things that light them up.

10:13This quadrant, this replacement quadrant,

10:15when I speak to entrepreneurs who are struggling

10:17and if they come to me for advice or anything

10:18like friends or team members or whatever,

10:20this is really where the problem is,

10:22where it's like, ah, I don't enjoy doing this thing,

10:25but it makes lots of money.

10:27And that is always a problem.

10:28Whenever I find myself saying,

10:30I don't enjoy doing this thing,

10:31but it makes a lot of money,

10:32I realise, uh-oh, that is actually

10:34a very, very dangerous place to be

10:36because if you don't enjoy it, but it makes money,

10:37you can actually get stuck there for a very long time.

10:40I realised with some corporate speaking gigs, for example,

10:42they make a load of money,

10:43but I don't particularly enjoy doing them.

10:45It's like now you're balancing up enjoyment and money.

10:48It feels when you're in scarcity mindset

10:50and when your business is like small

10:51or maybe it's not growing as fast as you like,

10:52that like, I have to do those things

10:54that are making money that I don't enjoy

10:56because they're making the money.

10:57And it's like, we get fixated on the money thing.

10:59But what we need to recognise is that,

11:01you know, as Dan calls it, it's a pitfall quadrant.

11:03It is a siren's call of trading money for enjoyment.

11:05And you can, in fact, have it both ways.

11:07You can have your proverbial cake and eat it too.

11:10And in fact, if you find a way to just focus on things

11:12that you genuinely enjoy,

11:13you can find ways to monetise those things.

11:15And this is a constant battle

11:16that me and every other entrepreneur I know

11:18goes through on an almost daily basis,

11:20this trade-off between enjoyment and money.

11:21Anyway, next we have I for investment.

11:24This is where something gives you a lot of energy,

11:26it really lights you up,

11:27but it does not make you very much money.

11:29This is a good place to spend your time

11:30because it's lighting you up,

11:31it doesn't have to make money.

11:32And then you have the production quadrant.

11:34These are things that light you up

11:35and make you lots of money.

11:36So for me, the production quadrant

11:38would be filming YouTube videos,

11:40doing talks, creating new products.

11:42Those are basically the three things that light me up

11:44and also make lots of money.

11:45But then the investment quadrant

11:46is things that light me up or give me energy,

11:48but they don't make very much money.

11:49These are things like going to the gym

11:51or spending time with my friends and family

11:52or like playing video games every now and then

11:54or reading fiction books.

11:56This is an important quadrant

11:57to be spending a decent amount of time in.

12:00Because the other mistake that entrepreneurs make

12:01is they spend all their time in the production quadrant

12:04and the replacement quadrant,

12:05essentially doing the high value monetization tasks,

12:08but they let their health, their hobbies,

12:10their relationships fall by the wayside.

12:12And so I've fallen into this trap

12:14a bunch of different times.

12:15It's always a bit of a balancing act,

12:17but I like Dan's way of framing this as the drip matrix.

12:20And basically what he's saying is that

12:21these two quadrants are a good place to spend our time.

12:24This is a terrible place to spend our time

12:26in terms of like, this is the stuff

12:27that should be delegated.

12:29And the replacement quadrant

12:30is also a bad place to spend our time.

12:32And really we're aiming for all of the things we do

12:33to be giving us energy and lighting us up

12:35in some way as entrepreneurs.

12:37If any of this is resonating with you,

12:38100% would recommend you get the book.

12:40And yeah, it's actually, it is very good.

12:41All right, and now we come to key idea number three,

12:43which is the only three trades that matter.

12:48There are three trades available to everyone.

12:50You, me, Richard Branson, and Andre.

12:53Who's Andre?

12:54Andre is like this friend, whatever.

12:56There are three trades available to everyone,

12:58but most people never realise they're making them.

13:00You can be a level one trader as an employee,

13:03a level two trader as an entrepreneur,

13:05and a level three trader as an empire builder.

13:07Okay, so what the hell does that mean?

13:08Well, a level one trader is an employee

13:11who trades their time for money.

13:13This is where most people are at.

13:15We are working for usually one employer

13:18and we are trading our time for money.

13:20That is a level one trader.

13:21When you become an entrepreneur

13:22and you start doing a good job with it,

13:24you start trading your money for more time.

13:27That is your second trade.

13:28And there's a nice little diagram here.

13:29Level one trade is time for money,

13:31and this is called income.

13:32A level two trade is money for time,

13:34and this is called leverage.

13:35And then the place where we're all trying to get to,

13:37a lot of entrepreneurs are trying to get to,

13:38is where you're trading money for more money,

13:40and this is freedom.

13:42This is where you're not even having

13:43to trade your time for it.

13:44Your money is making more money.

13:45This is how investors get rich,

13:47because they're putting their capital to use

13:48rather than their time to use.

13:50And that is where you have the level three trader,

13:52which is the empire builder.

13:53An empire builder trades their money for more money.

13:56Now, I'm personally still at level two,

13:57where I'm trading money for time,

13:59and also, in some ways, still trading time for money.

14:02So, making YouTube videos is a high income thing.

14:05It's fairly leveraged,

14:06but I haven't really gotten to level three, empire builder,

14:08where it's money that I'm trading for more money.

14:11I'd like to get to there someday.

14:12That is where you have total freedom,

14:14where you then don't even have to work,

14:16or don't even have to work for your money.

14:17Your money is simply making more money

14:19by virtue of the different assets you're putting into,

14:21and the people that you're hiring, and stuff.

14:23And you have to go through levels one and two

14:25before you can get to level three.

14:26Quick heads up, by the way,

14:27if you would like to read summaries of other books,

14:29then you should definitely check out Shortform.

14:30There will be an affiliate link

14:32with a 20% discount in the video description.

14:34They're not sponsoring this, but that is an affiliate link.

14:36I've been using them for years.

14:37It's an amazing service that summarizes

14:38over a thousand nonfiction books.

14:40And you might like to also check out

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14:45and you wanna do it in a time efficient way,

14:47you should definitely check out Shortform.

14:48Okay, so those were three key ideas

14:49that really resonated with me.

14:50And I wanna talk about three practical strategies

14:53that you can apply as an entrepreneur

14:54to help you manage your time better.

14:56And the first one is to get an assistant.

15:00If you're an entrepreneur,

15:01and you do not yet have an assistant,

15:02then you are missing out on a large amount of stuff.

15:05And this whole chapter six, Clone Yourself,

15:07is a really good chapter.

15:08Basically all about why and how to hire

15:10and work with an assistant.

15:12Now, as a quick aside, if you're at this part of the video

15:13and you're interested in learning more about this,

15:15you should absolutely sign up

15:16to my completely free business class newsletter.

15:18This is basically where me and my team

15:19share behind the scenes insights

15:21from what's worked to grow our business

15:23from zero to 5 million in revenue,

15:25and what we're learning actively

15:26to try and get it from 5 million to 10 million in revenue.

15:29And I personally had an assistant since like 2020.

15:32So for the last four years,

15:33I've been working with various virtual assistants

15:35and personal assistants.

15:36And I'm gonna do some issues of that newsletter

15:39where me and my assistant share the methods

15:40that we use to work together.

15:42It is completely free.

15:42It's aimed at entrepreneurs.

15:43You can check it out.

15:44There's a link down below

15:45if you wanna check it out for whatever reason.

15:46And so this whole shtick in this chapter,

15:48which I completely agree with,

15:49is that every entrepreneur

15:50needs an administrative assistant.

15:52There are two major thing

15:53that an assistant can get off your plate,

15:55and that is your calendar and your email inbox.

15:57He writes, an administrative assistant

15:59is the easiest way to begin

16:00transferring delegation quadrant tasks today.

16:03Every entrepreneur should have one, no exceptions.

16:05Even if you can't afford a full-time traditional assistant,

16:08determine your buyback rate

16:09and consider a virtual assistant.

16:11He defines buyback rate, by the way,

16:12as how much money are you making per year

16:13in terms of profit and everything else,

16:15divided by 2000 to get your hourly rate,

16:17and then divided by four to get your buyback rate.

16:20In my case, let's say I make a million in profit

16:22divided by 2000, that's, what is that, $500 an hour?

16:25And therefore my buyback rate is 500 divided by four,

16:27so anything that I can delegate

16:29for less than $125 an hour

16:31is stuff that I should delegate,

16:32because you wanna get at least a 4X ROI on your time.

16:34So that would be the buyback rate situation.

16:36An assistant can help execute on tasks

16:38because they don't execute

16:39with the same emotional baggage that you do.

16:41Typically, they won't be scared to tell a customer no,

16:44like you would be, because it's not really their company.

16:46Use that to your advantage by setting rules

16:48and then expecting your assistant to execute.

16:50This is something that my assistant, Iram, is very good at.

16:52I really struggle to say no to things when people ask me,

16:55because I'm a nice guy and I'm a people pleaser,

16:57and if someone comes up to me and says,

16:58hey, can you be on my podcast?

17:00I'll feel this urge to say,

17:02of course I can be on your podcast,

17:03even though being on someone's podcast

17:05isn't really a high leverage thing, et cetera, et cetera.

17:07And so what Iram always says,

17:09and the advice that I need to follow is,

17:10hey, anytime someone asks you to be on their podcast

17:12or asks you for anything,

17:13I should just direct them to Iram.

17:15So like, yeah, sure, my assistant manages my calendar,

17:17please email her and we'll see what we can do.

17:19And then Iram is much more able to say no to it,

17:21like, sorry, Ali's busy, he doesn't have the time,

17:23like it's not really a priority,

17:24whereas I would feel so bad about saying that.

17:26One of the best uses of an assistant

17:28that I still need to get way better at,

17:29just like directing everything towards the assistant.

17:31He's got a whole system in here of like managing your email

17:34and we're incorporating the system

17:35into our email workflow as well.

17:37And he says, point number three,

17:37an administrative assistant should be fully managing

17:39two responsibilities, your inbox and your calendar.

17:42You should never be the first person answering an email

17:45or scheduling a meeting or anything else on your calendar.

17:48Again, I could definitely take this advice

17:49a little bit more.

17:50And really for me, I think hiring an assistant

17:51has been one of the highest ROI things that I've ever done.

17:54It's now a thing that I'm massively bullish on

17:56anytime I speak to an entrepreneur

17:57who's making enough money to be able to afford an assistant

17:59but does not currently have one.

18:00If you're looking for places to get an assistant,

18:02I have hired from within my own audience every time

18:05for the last one, two, three, four assistants that I've had.

18:07But there is a service called Athena,

18:09which specializes in placing people with virtual assistants,

18:12which I've heard very good things about.

18:13All right, the second strategy is 10-80-10 delegation.

18:18This is quite simple.

18:19This is the 10-80-10 rule.

18:20So the 10-80-10 rule is a simple technique you can use

18:22when you still want to be involved with the end result,

18:25but you don't need to do all the work on your own.

18:27Think of designing the cake versus decorating it.

18:29Then after the majority of the work is done,

18:31you come in to add a few special touches.

18:32This is sort of how I think about delegation within my team

18:35where I'm involved in the first 10%, the ideation.

18:38Coming up with the idea and the skeleton of the thing

18:40of like, hey, we're building a new product.

18:42These are my ideas for the thing.

18:43The first 10% is something I'll do with the team.

18:46Then the team goes away and executes on the next 80%.

18:49And then I will come in to do the final 10% to be like,

18:52yeah, this is good.

18:53This will be tweaked

18:54and just do the final finishing touches often,

18:57which will, in my opinion,

18:58take it from really good to really good

19:00with a cherry on top.

19:01And then the thing is done.

19:02When I heard this 10-80-10 rule,

19:04it just made so much sense

19:05because previously when I've tried doing 100% delegation,

19:08it's like, hey, just team members and do this thing.

19:11That doesn't work because they need some input from me,

19:13some sort of skeleton structure for it to make sense.

19:15And when I haven't had that phase at the end,

19:17when I've been sort of quality checking something,

19:20often I'll see it come out and I'll be like, oh, hello,

19:22I wouldn't have done it that way or that way

19:23or that way or that way.

19:24And then it just sort of feels a bit bad.

19:27I don't know what impact it actually has on our customers,

19:28probably none, but it feels bad for me.

19:29So 10% at the start, 80% done by the team

19:32and then 10% at the end.

19:33And I find that this is a very nice way

19:35of thinking about delegation.

19:36And then strategy number three,

19:37and by the way, there are tons and tons

19:39of good things in this book,

19:40but I'm just trying to keep this video vaguely short.

19:42Strategy number three is the definition of done.

19:46This is something we use in our business all the time.

19:48And Dan writes, there's one thing many entrepreneurs think,

19:50no one ever does it right.

19:52There is an easy hack to solve that problem,

19:53a definition of done, or as I like to call it, a DOD.

19:57For instance, when I ask my admin assistant

19:59to purchase a whiteboard, I give them a DOD.

20:01This task is done when the whiteboard

20:02is hanging on the wall in my office.

20:03There are four colored markers, red, green, blue, and black,

20:05and there is a dry erase marker handy.

20:07That is a very clear definition of done.

20:09It's like, oh, okay,

20:09it doesn't leave any room for ambiguity.

20:11But if it's a bigger project,

20:12and we use this in our team all the time,

20:14there are three Fs.

20:15This has been probably the single biggest thing

20:17I've taken away from this book.

20:18Facts, feelings, and functionality.

20:20Facts, what are the hard metrics that must be accomplished?

20:23What measurement in your business must be improved?

20:25What are the facts?

20:26Feelings, how must you and others feel

20:28for this task to be considered complete?

20:30And functionality, when this task is finished,

20:32what must it enable others to do?

20:35So in other words, what is the thing?

20:36How does it feel?

20:37And then why are we actually doing the thing?

20:39Now, ever since I came across this definition of done,

20:41it immediately sort of lit a light bulb in my mind,

20:43because I was very bad at giving people clear instructions

20:47about like, hey, let's build this thing.

20:49Because in my mind,

20:50building this product is like a clear thing.

20:51But in my team members' mind,

20:53building this product is not at all a clear thing,

20:54and we weren't actually on the same page

20:56about any of this stuff.

20:56So when we started specifically incorporating the DoD,

21:00the facts, feelings, and functionality,

21:01suddenly it made everything a lot more clear.

21:04Now the way that we run our team

21:05is that every quarter we set quarterly quests,

21:07and people come up with different projects

21:09they're working on,

21:10and each project must have a definition of done,

21:11including facts, feelings, and functionality.

21:13Facts are like, okay, by the end of this project,

21:15we will have presented a Loom presentation

21:18showing our book marketing strategy for 2024.

21:20Functionality might be something like,

21:21this book marketing strategy for 2024

21:23will enable our content teams and commercial teams

21:25to work better together

21:27and understand exactly what's needed to be done

21:28in order to drive increased book sales.

21:31And feelings is my favorite part of this,

21:33which is when Ali sees this presentation,

21:35he will feel profound confidence

21:37in whoever is doing that presentation,

21:39and he'll be thinking, OMG, this person is amazing.

21:42I need to give them a 2X salary raise

21:44because this is just such a banging presentation.

21:46The feelings thing is something that's often underrepresented

21:48in those other goal-setting methods,

21:50but deciding, being like, hey, this is the task,

21:53and these are the feelings I or the team want to have

21:56when the task is done,

21:57gives the other person a real sense of,

21:59oh, that's the level that we're talking about,

22:01whereas otherwise there would be a bit of ambiguity in that.

22:03So yeah, this is the thing that we started incorporating.

22:05It's in our Notion template.

22:06By the way, if you're an entrepreneur,

22:08you should sign up to our business class newsletter.

22:09We'll be sharing a bunch of these templates

22:11over the next few months as me and the team

22:13write little things about like,

22:14oh, here's how we manage our OKRs,

22:15here's how we do our quests,

22:16here's how we do our definition of done.

22:17If you're interested, link down below.

22:18Now, if you enjoyed this video,

22:19you should definitely check out the book,

22:20Buy Back Your Time.

22:21It is wonderful.

22:22There'll be a link down below.

22:23And if you want more strategies on how to manage your time,

22:24check out this video over here,

22:26which is my trident method for time management

22:27that I still use to this day.

22:29It's awesome.

22:29I've had a bunch of entrepreneurs say to me

22:30that that method, they started incorporating it,

22:32and it's changed the way they manage their time.

22:34And I'll be linked right over here.

22:35Thank you so much for watching,

22:36and I'll see you hopefully in the next video.

22:37Bye-bye.

How to Manage Your Time as an Entrepreneur - Ali Abdaal

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