Time Hacking Radio

As I have confessed before, I am not the most organized of individuals.  

I try to start to be organized all the time, each time starting with a little notebook to jot my thoughts throughout the day.  But, inevitably, I misplace the notebook.  The other thing that happens is I will assign a separate notebook to a certain topic.  Then, when it is time to record some deep and insightful idea about a given topic I can't find that specific notebook. I'm left recording this earth-shattering thought in the nearest available notebook, and that deep thought is lost forever because I have no idea where I recorded it.  Sheesh!  The hard life of a disorganized fool!

So my historical solution is to go to technology.  The problem is that technology sucks the creativity out of me.  In order to be creative, I require a pencil.

In my quest for a solution, I found this super cool notebook called the Rocketbook.  It is a real live notebook that you use a regular pen to write in.  Here are the steps to use this awesomeness:

1. Download the app
2. Assign where the icons go in the app
3. Write something in your notebook
4. Mark the icon on the page where you want your notes to go
5. Scan the page with the app
6. The app automatically sends your notes to where you want them to go

The benefits are infinite!!!!!

To access more of my tips and tools, check it all out on my resource page at resources.timehackingradio.com.

In need of a podcast editor?  Might I suggest mine?  He's super cool and you can find him here: https://fiverr.com/jay717/

If you're having a hard time because you're not seeing the results you're looking for, I would like you to think about your definition of success.

A few years ago, I attended a teleconference by Michael Bernoff.  He is a very dynamic speaker who gets his audience to take massive action.  

His former definition for success was "getting to do what you want, when you want, where you want, with whoever you want."  However, the hack that he proposed was to change your wording.  Instead of having to get all of these things aligned to be a success, instead, he proposed using the word "or".  So, the new definition of success is, "getting to do what you want when you want, OR where you want, OR with whoever you want."  

I love this definition as a time hack because it gives you a short cut to how you think of success.  It is now so much easier to reach a level of success without requiring an entire list of things to be done first.

If you would like to know about my favorite tips and tools, check out my resource page at resources.timehackingradio.com. 

If you need a podcast editor, mine is rad and I'm willing to share.  You can find him at https://fiverr.com/jay717/.

In order to combat my anxiety, I realized that the best thing I can do is to nail down my morning routine.

For me, I had been starting with reading or learning and a kid on my lap.

However, this little routine hasn't been working.  Instead, I'm getting back to my daily highlight. Just focusing on the highlight helps to slow things down and put things back into perspective.

If you're interested in any of the tools I swear by, check out my resource page at resources.timehackingradio.com.

I highly recommend my podcast editor, if you need one.  Check him out here: https://fiverr.com/jay717/

For us, since we don't have everyone together in one place, in general, even more so during a pandemic, so we've set up a virtual safety program.

To start, OSHA has a billion free resources that you can use for your company's safety program and I downloaded them all.

To time hack this, I made a massive folder in Google Drive where all of these OSHA documents live.  I grouped them by category and created quick quizzes about what I had asked my team to read.  The quizzes are Google forms that are easily referenced and the answers are put together in a nice, tidy spreadsheet, should any incident arise.

Also, all of our upcoming topics are in the drive.  The best part is that if there is any reason to check on a safety topic, our team can go into the drive and see what OSHA has to say about any of the covered topics.

I share my link to all of the OSHA documents on my resource page at resources.timehackingradio.com.

If you need a podcast editor, check out mine.  He's great!  https://fiverr.com/jay717/

Here are the steps I took to time hack my studying:

1. Get the reading material...don't stress about reading it.
2. Peruse YouTube.  Watch or listen to some free tutorials.
3. Take some open-book practice tests early on.  Take your time and figure out the right answer.
4. Go back over your practice test and figure out why you got the answers wrong that you missed.
5. Take the mandatory class.
6. Study the numbers that are important.  In my case, clearances were very important.

I spent a week studying for my exams using this method.  Seriously, it was so fast.

If you want to know more about the resources I swear by, check out my resources page at resources.timehackingradio.com.  

If you're looking for podcast help, go see my favorite podcast editor at https://fiverr.com/jay717/.  He's great!

Rand Fishkin, creator of Moz has created SparkToro.  It is the coolest online marketing tool that I've ever encountered.

For those of you who don't know, Dream 100 is a way to build traffic into your business.  The idea is that by making real connections with your "Dream 100" the traffic that those people have coming to their business will help you with your business. Basically, it's a way to leverage relationships to drive traffic to what you're doing.

Sometimes, finding your Dream 100 can be challenging.  You might find a company that your audience likes, but it might stop there.  However, SparkToro solves this challenge.

In my case, I know that my dream audience follows a certain social media account.  Based on that social media account, the tool tells me what websites this audience frequents, their favorite YouTube channels, the podcasts they engage with, and the social media accounts they engage with. 

So, my advice to you is, if you're wondering where your customers hang out online, check out my new favorite tool, SparkToro!

If you would like to see my favorite tools and tips, check out my resource page at resources.timehackingradio.com.

My podcast editor makes me happy.  If you need a podcast editor, check him out https://fiverr.com/jay717.

I've actually already been doing this one, but I wanted a win in case all of my other experiments fail.

Due to the fact that I work out of my home and virtual learning is a thing now, I have been having a super difficult time answering the phones.  Because of that, I decided to hire a virtual phone team.

The phone team I hired is certified by Housecall Pro, which is the software we use for scheduling.  Since this team is certified, they already know how to do the scheduling part.  I just had to teach them about chimneys.

Here are the perks: 

1. The amount of money we spend is directly proportional to how much business we have.  So, when we're making more, we can afford to pay for more phone time.
2. When we're lean, this  phone team can be activated to drum up some business for us out of our database.
3. The team is super happy and super nice and keep me up to date.

Here is the one challenge so far:

1. Optimize driving time is difficult to do with a team that doesn't know the area.

I solved this by making a drive time chart that conveys approximate driving time.  Problem solved.

As for my experiment, here's where I started:

I was annoyed because I can't answer the phone all the time.  I was also annoyed because my productivity was down the tube.  I did a horrible job time blocking because I was constantly interrupted by either a family member or a phone call.

My goal for this experiment was to have a team who can help me increase my productivity and be more responsive for my customers.

If you would like to have a gander at the tools Iove, check them out here: resources.timehackingradio.com. 

Looking for a super cool podcast editor?  Look no further!  Here he is: fiverr.com/jay717/

I try really hard not to hang out on social media all day long.  I'm a sucker, especially for Instagram and Pinterest.  

But my challenge is that I still need to publish.  What is a gal to do?

Here's what I want: 

1.  I want to put out content when people are actually online.  
2. I want to put out content without having to actually sign in to my social media accounts.  (I'm careful about when I do that.)
3. I want to publish to four different places online.

As it turns out I found a tool that can help me with most of this.  It's called Buffer.  Buffer allows me to publish at specific times of day without signing into my account and publish to multiple places.  (They do 3 with the free version.)

I'm totally cool with using the free version for now because I'm small potatoes.  Once I'm a massive media conglomerate, you bet your britches I'll be paying to publish to more accounts.

If you're interested in the tools I love, check them out on my resource page.  Go here to find it: resources.timehackingradio.com.

If you're looking for a supreme podcast editor, check out mine!  Here's his link: fiverr.com/jay717/

If you've been listening to my podcasts, you know how much I LOVE Housecall Pro.

They recently released an update that allows their users to send their customers to a different landing page than the standard one.

I've been figuring out how to maximize cart value.  In this case, I made a very simple landing page through Clickfunnels.  

The page thanks the customer for booking an appointment and it mentions some of our other services that they can still add to their appointment.

The customer can then checkboxes for whatever they would like to add.  

Once the customer chooses additional services, an email is autogenerated through Zapier and sent to our office, who then manually adds the extra services into the appointment.

How cool is that?  

If you would like to access my favorite tools, check them out here: resources.timehackingradio.com.

If you're looking for a podcast editor, mine is awesome.  You can find him here: fiverr.com/jay717/

I own a small chimney sweeping company and hiring is tough.

If you've haven't listened to Tommy Mello's podcast it's called The Home Service Expert. (Here's a link to the episode I'm talking about.) He runs a super successful garage door company and he interviews business experts who can speak about running home service companies.  

In one of his episodes, he spoke to an expert named Danny Kerr.  Danny shared how he leverages his network and his team's network for hiring.  Brilliant.  Absolutely brilliant!

So my experiment is to use Facebook messenger to hire my next technician by messaging everyone in my network.  You can even sweeten the pot by incentivizing the employee who brings in the employee.

My starting point is I have a job description and Facebook friends.  That is it but the best part is that is all you really need.

If you want to know what kind of tools I a currently using, you can check them out here: resources.timehackingradio.com.  

If you're looking for a superb podcast editor, I'm willing to share.  You can find him here: https://fiverr.com/jay717/