223: Five Principles That Helped Me Buy Back My Time

Welcome to the She Thinks Big! Podcast. Get ready to level up your thinking and expand your horizons. I’m your host, Andrea Liebross, your guide on this journey of big ideas and bold moves. I am the best-selling author of She Thinks Big: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and Into the Extraordinary.

I support women like you with the insights and mindset you need to think bigger and the strategies and systems you need to turn that thinking into action and make it all a reality. Are you ready to stop thinking small and start thinking big? Let’s dive in.

Hello, there, my friends, and welcome back to the She Thinks Big Podcast. I thought maybe I should reintroduce myself because I just assume everybody knows who I am out there, but that's not true. If this is the first episode ever that you are tuning into, welcome.

I am Andrea Liebross. I am a coach and author. I am someone who is obsessed with helping women think bigger and build businesses that don't just grow, but actually scale without sucking up all of their time and energy. Today, actually, we are really diving into, right to that last little part without sucking up all of your time and energy, we're diving into five principles that really completely changed the way I work, hire, and lead.

These come straight from one of my favorite books of all time, Dan Martell's Buy Back Your Time. But I have taken them, these five principles, and actually implemented them, first, in my own business, and then now helping my clients implement them in their businesses.

Let me tell you, they work. In fact, I believe in these so much that I've created quick, easy-to-watch videos on each of these principles that I require every new contractor or team member I work with to watch. Why? Because when my team gets buy-in on these ideas, not only do they work more efficiently, but they grow, they grow into better leaders, better managers, and better decision-makers.

If you are hiring or thinking about hiring, start thinking about how you can set your team up for success from day one. Wherever you're tuning in from, a walk, the car, the kitchen, the soccer field, you might want to get your notes up out or your pencil because we're going to get into it and we're going to go through these and I think they're truly game changers.

All right, you ready to dig in? Here we go. Number one. The definition of done. Start with the end in mind. One of the biggest time sucks is not knowing when something is actually finished. Here is a real-life example. A few months ago, I asked a contractor, 1099s—all my people are really 1099s at this point—to create a client report template.

Now when she sent it back to me, it was not at all what I expected. But you know what? That was really on me. I hadn't defined what done looks like. I learned from that. Now before any task starts, my team and I agree on the definition of done, meaning the final version that meets all requirements.

What's the final version going to look like, and what are my requirements for it to be the final version? For any task to be done, it needs to have been reviewed and approved. For any task to be done, it's ready to be used without me needing to jump back in and fix it. Okay, now this small little shift has really eliminated back-and-forth revisions. It's eliminated misunderstandings. It's eliminated wasted time. So before you start anything, I want you to ask yourself, “What does done actually mean here?” If it's not clear, then you're setting yourself up for a headache. Number one is to define done.

Number two, the one-three-one rule. The one-three-one rule really brings to light solutions and not just problems. Here's the picture, which infuriates me. Team member, we use Slack sometimes, Slacks me and says, “Okay, here's the situation, I think we have a problem.” That is not what I want to read because I then think like, “Great, now what?” I have to rush in and be the problem solver.

This is really where the one-three-one rule comes in. Instead of just bringing a problem, I really require my team to bring one problem, three possible solutions, and one recommended course of action. Here's the problem. Here are three ways we could deal with it, but here's the one way that I am going to recommend that we move forward.

Example, my assistant messaged me saying, “Andrea, the automation for booking consult calls isn't working.” The automation for booking calls wasn't working. That was the problem. But what she messaged me instead of panicking, she followed the one-three-one rule and presented three possible fixes, so that I didn't have to solve the problem. I just had to approve the best solution.

When you train your team to think like problem solvers, you stop being the bottleneck. If you always are bringing your team problems instead of solutions, it's time to flip the script. Another way to deal with this is if you identify a problem, you might want to go to your team and say, "Hey, here's the problem. Here are three ways I think we could fix this. Will you research and come back to me with a recommendation on which one you think is best?"

That's following, actually, I believe, level three of the five levels of delegation. If you have not listened to the five levels of delegation podcasts, there's actually a whole Spotify playlist on delegation. You should dive in there because this one-three-one rule aligns with that, which brings me to the third thing that Dan Martell talks about in his book, or the third rule that I make my team abide by is these five levels of delegation and handing off work the right way.

Delegation is not just about dumping work on people. It's about giving the right level of autonomy. I once made the mistake of delegating at level one, which is, “Do exactly as I say,” when I really should have been at level four, “Make a decision, then tell me what you did.”

Here's what happened. When I delegated at level one, the project stalled because the person on the other end kept waiting for my approval. Now I really train my team on these five levels of delegation, which are level one, “Do exactly as I say, for tasks that really require no creativity.” Number two, level two, would be, “Research and report back for when I need info before I can make a decision.”

Level three is, “Give opinions and recommend a solution.” That's for problem-solving. Number four is, “Make a decision and then just tell me what you did,” for when I trust their judgment. Level five is, “Just handle it,” like complete ownership. If you're still making every decision, then you're not delegating. You're just off-boarding tasks.

That's exhausting. Then you're micro-managing. If you haven't listened to the episode about the “let them, let me” theory, I talk a little bit about micro-managing, and there are ways to deal with that. This is one way. Go and listen to that episode for another way.

We've got to become much better delegators in order to buy back your time and Dan Martell does lots of talking about that in his book. Go read that. I'm giving you lots of homework, aren't I? All right, here's number four. Impact filter, which is what we could apply to this homework.

Make sure what you're doing actually matters. Are you doing homework that's going to help you? Raise your hand—I mean, I'm going to see this virtually—raise your hand if you've ever spent hours on something only to just realize later, it didn't even matter. If you're in the carpool line, raise your hand. If you're folding laundry, stop folding, raise your hand. Yeah, I've been there. That's why before taking action on anything new, I now run it through the impact filter. It's really a simple way to ask, “What does success look like here? Who benefits from this? What's the worst-case scenario if we don't do it?”

Example, I was debating whether to start a weekly live video series, but when I ran it through the impact filter, I realized it really wasn't the best use of my time. It wouldn't generate the ROI I needed, and instead, I focused on improving my podcast content because that's what actually moves the needle.

If the impact isn't clear, so those live videos, it wasn't clear the impact it was going to make, you gotta rethink it. No more busy work disguised as productivity. Social media is a huge culprit of this. What is the impact filter there? I'd be super curious. Which brings me to the fifth thing that Dan Martell talks about in his Buy Back Your Time book, which is your ROI on time.

It is the most important metric in your business. At the end of the day, your most valuable resource isn't money. It is time. A few years ago, I caught myself spending hours scheduling social media posts, something that I could easily outsource for not a ton of money. In the moment that I let that go and focused on high-value work, my business scaled.

Ask yourself, if someone else can do it for $50 an hour or less, should you be doing it? Is this task moving you toward your big goals? Is this the highest and best use of your time? If the answer is no, go literally buy back your time. Let's sum this up. There you have it.

You get five principles that I think Dan does a great job of talking about in his book that I believe will change the way you hire, work, and lead. They're the five principles that I make my team adhere to. I have little videos on each one of them. I actually probably can share the videos in the show notes, so go grab them. I will try to find a link to that and put that in there.

Remember principle number one, get crystal clear on the definition of done, so you don't waste your time fixing mistakes. Number two, use that one-three-one rule so you're always bringing solutions not just problems to the table. Number three, delegate using the five levels of delegation, so your team is set up for success.

Number four, run everything through that impact filter, so you stay focused on what really matters. Number five, protect your ROI on time because it's the most valuable asset you have. If you take one thing from today's episode, let it be this: Time is really the only thing you can't make more of. Time is really the only thing that you can't make more of literally, but figuratively, if you use these five principles, you can make more of it.

When I ask people, “What do you think of the four most valuable resources, time, money, brain power, or people, which is the most valuable?” a lot of times they say time, but I actually think it's brain power because if you use brain power to use these five principles, you can create more time for yourself and then use that time wisely.

If this episode got you thinking about how you run your business and what if you're ready to actually scale instead of just grow, I would love to help you. Okay, book a call with me. Let's figure out how I can help you and work with you to create more time.

I like to say, let's double your revenue and double your time. That's going to mean that we're going to have to get you out of the grind of day-to-day and into real sustainable growth. If you haven't already booked a call with me, there's no reason not to. The worst thing that could happen, you come away with some insight, some aha moments.

Head over to andreaslinks.com, and click the book of call button. Let's do it. If you haven't already, click the subscribe button for this podcast so we can do it, so we can keep having these big thinking conversations. All right, check out the show notes for links to Dan's book, links to those five videos, links to Andrea's links.

That's it for today. Go out there, my friends, make some smart decisions, and buy back your time. Until next week, keep thinking big. Can't wait to hear what you're doing. See you next time.

Thanks for tuning into the She Thinks Big! Podcast. If you're ready to learn the secret to unleashing your full potential, don't forget to grab a copy of my book, She Thinks Big: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and Into the Extraordinary. It's available on Amazon and at your favorite bookstore.

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