The Struggle is Real Part 1 with Camille Clemons and Vince Fowler

Rethink The Way You Sell

While we’re on hiatus preparing for a new season of Rethink the Way You Sell, we wanted to bring you some content from Jeff you probably haven’t heard before. Jeff produced a premium podcast called Deeper Thought from 2020-2022 and you’re about to hear one of those episodes. Enjoy!

This is an enhanced audio version of the Deeper Thought article The Struggle is Real Part 1 by Camille Clemons including an interview with the author and Vince Fowler. To struggle is to be human and Camille opens up about her struggles in her new Deeper Thought series "The Struggle is Real." In Part 1, her struggle with time management and what she's doing about it.

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The Struggle is Real, Part 1

Vince reminded us earlier in the week that to struggle is to be human. I couldn't agree more and about to share a struggle I'm working through that may be helpful.

This could go a lot of ways, but I'm going to ease in to this series by starting with my struggle of time management. When I say the struggle is real, I am not kidding you. One may think that by this time in my life and career I would have this figured out - not true. I've tried:

Time blocking (love it - just not practical for my job - I don't think)

Using a planner (two weeks MAX)

To-do lists (47 to-dos later and I feel overwhelmed)

Calendar reminders (often something else take precedent)

Limiting distractions (LinkedIn what?)

Do not disturb signs (tell that to the family lurking outside the french doors)

Working in isolation (I need interaction!)

A lot has been written on the subject and wading through the sheer number of titles on the topic is a time suck in itself. So my journey continues, but, I'm happy to report, things are looking up and below are a few tools to consider:

Read or listen to Indistractable by Nir Eyal (also a video presentation)

Talk to Mike Simmons about his 15 Day Sprints, this really helped me find focus when it comes to strategy

Consider using a tool like Ten Percent Happier, this one has been a game changer for me, there is even a free podcast

Take a walk or at minimum a few deep breaths

In addition to the tools above, one of the biggest (and super easy) things I've done to get this problem under control become more aware, is to track how I spend my time. I've started categorizing my time using Outlook calendar as my tool. By creating categories that tie back to my Go to Market Strategy, I can track how I'm spending my time to become more aware. My categories are: {See Deeper Thought article}

Once I had the categories in place, anything that was added to my calendar was immediately color coded to one of these areas of focus. I'm working on a couple of things (and learning a lot in the process) like what is a target balance for time spent in each category? How do I keep track of the white space? Does it have to be measured or is simply being aware the most important? Here is what a typical week looks like now: {See Deeper Thought article}

As I work through this, I'm seeing that I need to intentionally spend more time in the green bucket of New Business and less time in the red bucket of Other. It is definitely a work in progress.

My biggest takeaway from all of this is in order to manage my time I first needed to understand how I was spending it. When I say the struggle was real, that was a gross understatement. With this program in place, I am better able to track - week to week - my progress toward my goal while understanding how much time I spend participating in the other areas as well. Knowledge is power.

I hope this has been helpful, be on the lookout for Part 2 of The Struggle is Real series.

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