282 | 7 Time Management Tips for Social Entrepreneurs with Paul Zelizer
This week on the pod is our montly solo episode with Paul Zelizer. Paul is the Founder & CEO of Awarepreneurs and the host of the popular Awarepreneurs podcast. He's also been a coach for social entrepreneurs and conscious business owners for more than 16 years.
7 Time Management Tips for Social Entrepreneurs: Episode with Paul Zelizer
NOTE: While it’s not perfect, we offer this transcription by Otter.ai for those who are hearing impaired or who don’t find listening to a podcast enjoyable or possible.
SPEAKERS
Paul Zelizer
0:02
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to the Awarepreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help increase your positive impact your profits and your quality of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have one request. If you get hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app, it helps more people learn how to have positive impact or values based business. Thank you so much. Today is our monthly solo episode. I'm here Paul Zelizer, the founder of Awarepreneurs, and I am a social entrepreneur coach for 16 years now. Our topic is 7 Time Management Tips for Social Entrepreneurs. And why are we talking about time management? Well, here we are recording this in February and kind of like all the New Years, like spiffy 2023 is like wearing off. And now I'm back to hearing founders and social entrepreneurs and business owners say things like I'm overwhelmed, I got too much to do, I can't possibly do it all in a day. You're like I'm burning out, or I'm worried I'm gonna burn out. And I can't do it all. So if you're somebody who's heard those things coming out of your mouth, or it's in yourself, Doc, this episode is for you. So seven tips, I'm going to go through them pretty quick. And if you have other suggestions, or you have questions, feel free to reach out. Let's just talk about three buckets of these tips. Some of these tips are going to be about self care and things that we do kind of within our own being. Some of these tips are going to be systems and how do we design things in our business in our enterprise, that they work more effectively and more efficiently, especially as we scale. And the third one is going to be about our network and the people that we're hanging out with our communities has a huge impact on what it feels like to be a leader in an impact focus business. So in the self care space, three suggestions, number one, work intentionally on your mental focus. For me, I now do seven minutes a day of meditation, using a very simple app, you can use headspace or calm, or I use Insight Timer. There's research that says even one minute of quiet mindfulness time makes a big difference for the rest of the day. So when people say, but Paul, I don't have time to meditate, I say you don't have a minute. Well, we I don't think you're very serious. Right, I'm just gonna push back. I'm not asking you to do an hour, I'm not asking you to even do 20 minutes, find some time that where you're just sitting quietly, and kind of finding that neutral place has an impact for the rest of the day. Again, for me, it's seven minutes, but make it work for you. But the research is off the charts. Spending that time building focus for one minute or two minutes or five minutes a day has an impact on how effective you are. With what you get done for every other moment that you're working during your day. I can't recommend it enough. Let's move on. Similarly, exercise physical activity leads towards better productivity, more creativity, more innovation, we just get more done. We have more energy, right? Again, maybe I'm an ultra marathoner and a trail runner, right most of the year I, you know, do at least an hour a day exercise, but that's not what I'm talking about. Right? You don't have to go to the gym, you don't have to go out into the wilderness today. I did a big run. I was out there with a buddy for four hours today, right? Didn't get to work till noon. That's not what I'm talking about. If you can work that in, awesome. I've been in business 16 years, right? So I have a little leeway. I've made space like this. I'm talking about 10 minutes of let's say some you know, flow yoga that's you know, gets your blood moving. Or maybe it's, you know, Chi Gong or Tai Chi for you or, you know, I have a rowing machine in my living room. It's one of the best purchases I've ever made, right? That's fairly expensive. That's a quick like, I can do a 10 minute workout on there on really busy days or kettlebell, like just, you know, a yoga mat, right? Something, there are YouTube videos, it doesn't have to cost you anything. Just doing some exercise every day, even if it's 10 minutes. It's gonna have your energy, your clarity, you're going to be more effective for the rest of the day.
PZ
Paul Zelizer
4:55
The last one is your nutrition. Huge fan. You know, let your food be your Medicine and your medicine be your food, right? So eating well has a big impact. I know people are busy. And again, like there's simple solutions here beyond the scope of this podcast, but you know, whether it's a, you know, hummus sandwich with sprouts, you know, or, you know, having an instapot, finding some way to eat quality meals has a massive impact on your clarity on your productivity throughout the whole day. So those three things, again, in the self care bucket are some kind of mental focus activity. Number two is exercise. And number three, is really pay attention to your nutrition. The second bucket is in the realm of systems. And this is a much bigger conversation, we're just going to touch on a couple right here, some base level systems. But when I'm working with entrepreneurs who are looking at scaling and don't want to be overwhelmed, just working harder and harder and harder and more hours, systems are a huge the it's like, the longer I've been in business, the more I appreciate systems, celebrate them and work hard to build them in my business. They don't have to be complicated, it depends on the size of your team. Are you using an app? Well, you know, or some sort of platform, like Asana, or Trello, or Basecamp, right, like, you know, some task management software, I don't, I'm mostly solo with some contract help. So for me, I use a system called time blocking. And the big part of that, for me is what's called scheduling deep work. A lot of times when people are feeling overwhelmed, what I find is, number one, they don't always pay attention to what's most important. A mentor of mine says, if everything is urgent, then nothing is important. So knowing what the most important things are in a day or a week, and really prioritizing those. And time blocking is literally what it sounds like. For me, I use Google Calendar, I have different color codes, everything gets put into my calendar. And the beautiful thing is, if I don't get to something in a day, I could literally just click and drag it to another day. It's not like putting pressure on yourself, it's making space for the things that are important, whether that is meeting with a potential client or an investor or writing your newsletter, or working on your product or your service. Time blocking is simply putting it in your calendar and being really honest with yourself about what you can do it a day. And that system really works for me, that isn't about like time blocking is the best. But the idea of having a system a productivity system, how are you going to prioritize your time. And when it comes to two o'clock on a Monday or 9am on a Wednesday, you know what you're doing not like just staring at a long list of things, trying to figure it out. So something that helps you prioritize what you're doing, and have a sense of like, what's your priority for this day, and accomplish it and move on, if it doesn't get done a system for tracking those things. And scheduling. Another point, time blocking is the most effective one for me, but there are many, many systems, the idea is pick one and start to use it if it doesn't work for you, okay, acknowledge it and find another system. But people who are doing time management, well, I find that they have some way that they do this prioritization, scheduling, and, you know, tracking what God's done, what needs follow up and moving on. People who don't have them tend to hear things from them more like there's so much to do, I'm overwhelmed. So have a productivity system and use it. Number five, have an intentional social media system, a lot of the folks that I'm hearing are overwhelmed, or feeling like they can't get to it all. There's a lot of screen time involved in some significant portion of that screen time is not very productive. It's not really moving the needle on making a better product or serving a client or doing you know, creating content that's going to bring in more folks kind of staring at a screen in a way that maybe isn't very, you know, it's a lot of receptivity. It's like, it kind of goes back to the nutrition like what are you taking in? So for me social media as I've gotten further along in my business, it's like something that I'm in a couple times a day I'm there for a very particular reason. Maybe I'm going to post something or I have 10 minutes before a client Okay, I'm going to spend some time interacting, commenting on other people's posts. And then it's move on. If you're spending hours a day on social or you're spending hours a day consuming other people's content, there's a good chance that that's not really in your best interest. And that can contribute to that sense of overwhelm. And it also does things in our brains and our nervous systems, that contributes to not being at our best not operating in a peak performance kind of way. So huge fan of social but just be really intentional have your systems beyond the scope of this podcast to go too far down that rabbit hole for people who have them in my experience, them being social media systems, people have a clear strategy and know what they're doing there and then move on to other things where there's more leverage, more creativity, more generating something that brings revenue into your company, those folks tend to feel better about how they spent their time. And folks who are doing a lot of screen time, with less focus with less clarity about what they're doing there. So enough about systems, let's move on to the third bucket. Now we're talking about your network, your community who you're spending time with, and I am an neuroscience geek. So if you've been around the podcast for a while, you know that I'm really passionate about neuroscience. And it's amazing to see how human nervous systems sync up with other human nervous systems, whether that's somebody we're dating or a spouse or kids, but it's even true with our colleagues. So to suggestions I have in the realm of the other humans we're spending time with in a work related way, whether we work in the same company, we're whether we're colleagues, they work in a different company, there are somebody in a client or somebody that is a contractor or vendor, right? Two suggestions, I have first be really conscious of being respectful of other people's time. If I want to really get better at time management, what a beautiful practice, I found that this really helped me a lot is to be really intentional. When I meet with somebody, I'm doing a series for instance of market research interviews with high level social entrepreneurs about a new thing for growth stage social entrepreneurs, again, beyond the scope of this podcast, but these are really busy people, I did one right before recording this episode, somebody have been in the social enterprise space for decades. And I was really conscious, I had a clear like, here's the person I'm trying, you know, a little bit of like, relational time at the beginning, but here's the person I'm trying to help. You've been in this space for a very long time. What are some of the challenges? Who do these folks tend to go to when they do get stuck, or they need some suggestions about how to navigate the challenges that they're facing? And the they need some learning? You know, what are some things that have worked really well, for people like this, which some resources you would suggest books, human capital, resources, etc, etc? And then thank you, and, you know, move on, right? 1520 minutes max for an interview like that. And several times, I said, I so appreciate your time. You know, just I don't want to keep you any longer. Let's move on. I'll send you an email about that, because she asked me a question about something that wasn't related to the conversation we were having. So building our own awareness, that time is a very precious resource. And when we're connecting with somebody, if I respect their time, first of all, I am teaching my own nervous system, how to do that. Be respectful of time managing time more skillfully. And to I'm teaching people around me, oh, Paul values time, and I don't want to be in a rush. But I also want to be purposeful. And I find that being really intentional. When I'm asking for time doing a networking call that I have that that's moved up my priority list over the years, let's just say the second suggestion or tip I have in the networking bucket, the last bucket here is to intentionally increase the
PZ
Paul Zelizer
14:41
the resources that the people in your network have. So let me give you an example. I remember back when I started my business 16 years ago, I heard about things like mastermind groups and I eventually wound up maybe, I don't know 14 years ago I was in a networking group for a couple of years, we were newer coaches, you know, dedicated building our businesses. I wasn't as well known, I didn't make as much money back then. But it was, you know, was very supportive. And these folks met me where I was, Well, fast forward two or three years, and I felt like that group wasn't really growing or changing, people were very comfortable spending time with other coaches who had, you know, maybe they were making 50 or $60,000 a year. And you know, that's great. And I had a kid and, you know, when you're an entrepreneur, you have to pay for your own health insurance. And I had goals that I wanted to grow my business beyond the scope of who was in that group. And it stopped working for me, because I really worked hard to grow the kinds of resources this scale and scope of the businesses of the people I was networking with. And eventually I left that group. And I found other mastermind and other coaching, you know, resources of people who had networks, where there were more resources, they were people who are running businesses that were bringing in more revenue had more staff. And if they made an intro, the people they were introducing me to also had more resources, more business acumen were burning more, etc. Now, this can be a little awkward. Not everybody has equal access. We know there's inequity in this podcast, we know we want to be skillful around equality. And, and certainly, if somebody reaches out to me that who's newer in business or, you know, doesn't have as robust and network, that doesn't mean I don't talk to them, I'm pretty much willing to talk to almost anybody. But in terms of like, who am I spending ongoing time with, and how is somebody like being conscious of providing mutual value and, and I have a pretty robust network. And if I introduce somebody, there's a good chance they might get a client. And if they got a client, that would be somebody who, you know, pays pretty well. And they could charge a nice living wage, let's just say. So, sometimes people reach out to me, and they, you know, are newer, they don't have as a robust network, they, we have a conversation, and then they reach out several times, without any sense of like, hey, maybe this isn't going to be as mutual, I'm going to be really careful. In a certain point, I might bring up the conversation. Look, this is the work that I do the work I get paid for. Right. But that's what I mean, it's a little awkward at times, I wanted to say that out loud. And I tried to do things to provide value like this podcast when I do my solo episodes, in particular, if there's people that are newer in the journey, and there's a way I can be helpful, either by writing a blog post on Paul zelizer.com, or doing a solo episode, or I'm doing more guest, podcasting, right. Those are opportunities where I intentionally try to create leverage resources to share with people, but one on one unpaid time, over and over and over again, from somebody who's newer on the journey. That's not a skillful use of my time. And that is uncomfortable to acknowledge in a society where there's inequality. And yet, when I was being less intentional, my time my business grew much slower. And I was saying things like, I feel overwhelmed. I have too much to do. I can't do it all much more often than I said today. So be intentional about who you're spending your business time with. Pay attention to how many meetings are scheduling are going to how many networking events? Are you really getting return on your time invested. And for me, at least, it's gotten clear that I tend to get more return, I find more value, when I'm spending time with people who've done some of the lifting about creating networks themselves, that, you know, have more resources are a little more robust networks, because they're the folks that can say, Oh, I know, Paul. Yeah, yeah. Like let me introduce you and I get more referrals from them, or opportunities to be a guest on a podcast or other good things that are aligned with the outcomes I'm looking for, than the people who when I was earlier on in my business, I was spending time you know, we had some common interest professionally and shared some values, a lot of values that there was more robust energy coming from me Build My networks to make referrals to be a good citizen in the space. And then I was feeling burnt out and not getting much return versus when I'm in that same kind of relational, let's collaborate, here's an opportunity to guest on my friends podcast, or here's a potential client for you, or let me post on LinkedIn about this awesome thing you're doing. When I'm doing that, with people who've also spent time building a more robust network, the return on that is much higher than when I wasn't paying attention to that. So that's number seven. The last one is a bonus one, number eight, I said seven tips. But I always try to over deliver. Number eight, try to spend time with people who have a more spacious relationship with time. So if you're hanging out with people who are constantly saying things like how overwhelmed they are, and how much they feel like, they can't do it all, and they're hurrying, and that tends to have, it's just like, you know, being exposed to somebody who has a cold, right, that's going to be in the air, your body is probably going to pick up on it. And, you know, just if you can find people who have businesses that are inspiring to you, and there's values, let's say there's two people and one of them feels constantly overwhelmed has the, you know, calendar, like maxed out all the time, always stressed and person be just like, you know, they're doing really good in their business, but they're calmer. They just when you talk to them, they feel spacious, they take time off, they make time for family and friends and self care. If you can spend more time with people who have a more spacious relationship with time, they're going to learn things, both consciously and unconsciously, that are probably going to help with this intention of you know, being good with time management. And if you're spending time with people who constantly are overwhelmed and feel like they're running right to the edge, like they just go right up until the moment they go to bed, and then it has fall into bed exhausted, that's probably that likely is going to have an impact on how you think and how you relate to time as well. So eight tips for time management for social entrepreneurs. And just a reminder that I do one on one coaching for people who want to move the needle, make the world a better place have a positive impact for your business. And if you could use some help with some of these things like building out robust systems, like how do you find people who both have a successful impacted business and have robust networks and do mutuality really, really well. These are the kinds of things I work with my clients. So take a look at Paul zelizer.com. Take a look at some of my coaching offerings. And if you think I might be able to be of service or at least these are the kinds of issues that you're working with and could use some help. Let's talk I do a free chat. You can schedule that on my site, Paul zelizer.com. Thank you for listening. I do want to remind you, we love listeners suggested topics and guests. So if you have an idea for a guest episode, please go to a word printers.com. Go to our contact page, take a look at our three simple guidelines. And if it seems like it's a fit, please send in your idea. So for now, I just want to say thank you so much for the city. Please take really good care in these intense times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.