It’s helped me and it will help you too.
Over the years eight simple words have saved me over 1,000 hours in time and potential lost productivity. Don’t believe me? These 8 words can be used across all different jobs and periods of life.
Whether you’re in an office job, an administrative position, or still in school, you can use this technique to save time. I’m going to change your life with eight words.
In my life I’ve worn many different hats, from fundraising to recruitment to campaigns, to marketing to event logistics to bookkeeping, or personal training to owning multiple gyms. In all of these jobs, whether they’ve been political, manufacturing, or overseeing people’s health and fitness, I’ve been in a position to receive requests and sales iniquiries, much like I have when I’ve been the one promoting my business or companies.
Almost every single day someone has mesaged me to pitched an idea they have for a new program, a new project, a new piece of software, a item or service they want to sell… Or sometimes they just want to “connect” or “get my feedback” or “start a dialogue.” It’s pretty common, and you’ve undoubtedly had the same.
“But I’m not in sales, Steve”… you’re saying. But… Do you work for a company that has employees? Are you a teacher communicating with other teachers? Do you walk dogs and have the occassional leash supplier each out to you? I’d bet no matter what job you have, you have multiple people and other companies reaching out to you in the hopes of doing business together.
Over the past 10 years I’d estimate that an average of 30 minutes a day has or would have, been spent reading these memos, taking these calls, or following through on these requests. How full does your inbox (or mailbox!) get from companies or people reach out to you? How often do you have co-workers around your desk, message you to ask questions, or request a meeting to cover ideas and concepts?
I’m going to save you more time than you can ever imagine with only eight words. Are you ready?
The value of your time cannot be understated.
After starting my first job out of college, originally my goal was to take each request. “Of course I’ll talk with you for 30 minutes as you tell me about your bobble-head toy that our company will be able to use. Tell me more.” My heart was in the right place, I wanted to give everyone equal time.
But eventually I realized that what I was doing was not being wise with the time my company was giving me. I was in essence getting paid to listen to pitches instead of organizing the business, cutting costs, or making money.
Each person wanted a conference call, or wanted me to read a 50 page guidebook, or wanted me to watch a “quick” half hour video they assembled. Every co-worker wanted to have a “quick” meeting or wanted to plan our and schedule time to brainstorm.
After a year and a half, by the time I was about 23 or 24, I had experienced enough of this to realize I needed to devise a better plan.
I saw people in other departments and other fields, almost all older than me, who were engaging in this time wasting as well and didn’t seem to have any way out.
But I figured out the answer. Using only eight words, I’ve saved myself thousands of hours in wasted time.
Surely there had to be a better way, and I knew I could find it.
I believed in working hard, but I believed much more in working smart. I realized I had to get the systems in place that would maximize my time and improve the performance I could give my company.
And that’s when I began to utter the eight words that changed everything.
“Can you send me an email on that?”
10 seconds into a phone call I began asking, “Hey that’s great, can you send me an email on that?”… “Hey I’m right in the middle of something, can you send me an email on that and I’ll check it out?”
For every call, or Facebook message or impromptu visit, I began asking for fully detailed written proposals via email about what it included and what it would do.
“What purpose does this serve? Why are you contacting me? If you want me to buy your $100,000 system, put in writing what it does. Can you send me an email on that?”
“Ahh, fellow co-worker you want to go over ideas? Sure! Can you send me an email on that?”
And you know what? With a snap of my fingers, the entire dynamic changed. Right away about 4/5 of the time wasters vanished. 80% of people realized that idea they thought was so great wasn’t so great after all. That meeting that was so important, really wasn’t.
They didn’t want to put the work into assembling an official proposal, or even sending an email, so I never heard from them again.
The results were unbelievable.
And another 15% who did email me sent me quick messages, proving even further they weren’t willing to devote any time to their, “Great Idea.”
They’d message me, “Hey good to talk with you, check out this website if you’re interested…” and that was it. They completely ignored what I asked them for, and just forwarded me a link or pasted in someone else’s ideas.
I was actually pretty amazed at this. This idea that was so great five minutes before, apparently wasn’t great enough to warrant them taking the time to sit down and write an actual email to me. Maybe that meeting wasn’t so important after all.
The sheer fact of throwing the ball back into their court and making them take the effort and initiative and do the work to put something together for me, led to them not sending anything of value.
And I now had the top 5% of proposals from people who believed in their idea and really wanted me to listen to them. The ideas that really did have the potential to take off. The meetings that truly were important because the co-workers requesting them believed in what they wanted to discuss with me.
With eight simple words I’d removed 95% of the time wasters and had the top 5%, cream of the crop to examine.
So how did eight simple words save over 1,000 hours of my time?
There’s so math esimates here though I’m not exaggerating. I’ve been able to save 1,000 hours of my life and live them to the fullest.
I can honestly say that when I first started I had been spending about 30 minutes per day following up on these types of proposals. I bet the average person spends the same regardless of your job.
Somewhere in your daily work there is something that’s taking up 10 or 20 or 30 minutes per day, that you could get rid of if you really set your mind to it.
Ask yourself honestly, how much time do you spend on these types of things? Don’t tell me there isn’t anything. There’s definitely something. I’d wager robably much more than 30 minutes but we’ll stick with 30.
Regardless of the job or the field you’re in. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but it adds up.
30 minutes a day times 5 working days a week = 150 minutes a week on average.
150 minutes a week times 50 weeks (assume two weeks of the year are vacation, holidays, sick days, etc) = 7,500 minutes a year
This comes out to 125 hours or 5.2 DAYS!
In this example for myself, 7,500 minutes a year times about 10 years since I made this switch = 75,000 minutes over a 10 year span.
And (big finish) 75,000 minutes divided by 60 minutes in an hour = 1,250 hours.
Wow!
1,250 hours. Thats 50 days…
Had I not made this simple change, then over the past 10 years I would have spent approximately 1,250 hours merely trying to wade through these types of requests. Seriously check my math again, 1,250 hours!
Figure in the time that it actually took to take the call or message, talk for a moment and finally say the words, “Can you send me an email on that?” And there’s no question I’ve saved about 100 hours each year.
Let that sink in. 1,250 hours. That’s over 50 DAYS of my life that I didn’t waste, just by repeating a simple question. And I then improved my interaction with the top 5% who were serious about their idea or product. And this still works today.
Just as I’ve written this, TODAY, one person emailed me asking for a conference call to discuss a mobile phone app, a woman emailed me to discuss a new business she was starting, and a colleague requested a 30 minute conference call to bounce ideas around. That was just today alone, seriously, all in one day.
1,250 hours. That’s time I’ve been able to channel directly into creating more products, saving my companies more money, or improving systems within my businesses.
It’s time that I’ve been able to devote to moving other work around so I could grab lunch with a friend, call my mother, or finish my work ahead of time and leave a few minutes early to spend time enjoying a hobby or improving myself.
Eight simple words gave me over 1,000 hours of my life back. And it can do the same for you. Get started and keep me posted on the results.
