Take 5
3 Steps to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done
With Alyson Lewis
TRT: 5 minutes 49 seconds
Video Transcription

Alyson Lewis directly addresses camera:  The four most dangerous words for your business are I'll do it tomorrow. If you want to kick procrastination to the curb, it's time to Adobe. Just three simple steps to tackle your most important tasks every day. I'm Alison Lewis from Hot Springs, Arkansas.
And I'm the founder and CEO of The Seven Minute Life. We're a time management company that gives professionals like you training and tools to help you define your goals and priorities and align them with your daily tasks. Let's take five minutes to talk about how you can spend just seven minutes in the morning to reduce stress, procrastination and mental clutter so you can improve your time management and your productivity. Real estate professionals have incredibly busy work weeks. Are you frustrated with the results? You're saying the task keep piling up. Clutter is encroaching on your mental space and constant interruptions are fighting for your attention.
One stressful week turns into another, while your pursuit of your long term vision takes a backseat. But life's too short for autopilot. It's time to stop spinning your wheels and gain your traction in your business. So you have more resources and time to enjoy the good things in life.
Ironically, in life, when you postpone a task, your brain won't stop worrying about it. In fact, you're neurologically wired to continue to think about unfinished tasks until they're done. That means that every procrastinated task takes out mental capacity, that you actually need to focus on what's right in front of you.
So here's the question why do so many people procrastinate? Common reasons are indecision, anxiety, apathy and feeling completely overwhelmed when you don't know where you are or how to take the next step. You're much more likely to want to avoid that task when you don't trust yourself to make the right decision.
You'll get stuck before you even know it. But the most common reason people procrastinate is they simply have too much to do and they don't have a system to handle their constant input of tasks. Well, I can relate.  At the age of 43, I had a full time job. I was in the top 11 percent in sales nationwide at Morgan Stanley, and I was raising two small children. I wasn't just a little busy. I felt like busy was killing me.
I was surrounded by clutter, chaos, distraction and interruptions. I had too much to do. I was overwhelmed, stuck and exhausted out of my own desperate need for change. I developed three simple steps to get myself out of this pattern of procrastination.
So here are the steps. The first step is to start every day by taking seven minutes. You're going to set your phone for seven minutes. And during that seven minutes, you're going to think about what you need to do.
You're going to clarify your to do list. And you're going to choose which of those things are going to really make your money. You're going to start taking this time just to do two things. As you create your to do list, I want to know what are your highest value actions that you're going to choose to do today? They're going to make your real estate business grow. The next step is to take a pen and a piece of paper. You're going to want to create a repeatable process to keep you on track. We call that creating a written daily plan of action.
You got to have repeatable systems that work for you. You don't want to reinvent the wheel every morning. And the most basic version of this plan is to first write down everything that you might need to do. The second step is to decide which of these tasks are super high value or going to help you grow your business. Then it gets a little tougher. You're going to have to prioritize those tasks in order of what you will really put a stake in the ground in and choose to do. And the third step is by far the most important.
We call it creating your five before 11 list. This is we're going to look at your to do list and all of those things that you've written down. And you're going to choose the five most important things. And you're going to make a commitment to complete those five things before 11:00 AM.
Now, sometimes it's 11 p.m.. But imagine what would happen if you knew exactly the five most important tasks that you would choose to complete before 11:00 a.m.. Let me share what would happen in just a week if you took five high value tasks and accomplish them every day.
You'd accomplish thirty five steps towards being the best realtor you could be. What would happen if you did it for 90 days? Five high value actions for the next 90 days. It's four hundred and fifty steps. Your world will never be the same.
We talk about procrastination. Don't procrastinate anymore. All you need is a written plan of action. Take seven minutes to create those five before 11 and take it step by step for the next 90 days. This is the perfect way to overcome procrastination, to get rid of the mental clutter, and to really take control of day by day by day. This is all about you improving your time management. I'm Alison Lewis, and we are so glad you took five minutes to learn about our seven minutes. Hope to see you soon.