Control Your Time Or It Will Control You

Feeling stretched thin and stuck on a plateau? We dig into a practical method to escape overwhelm, choose one true priority, and plan a week that actually gets finished. Instead of chasing every task with equal urgency, we slow down just enough to ask the three questions that create clarity: what do you really want from the business, why this path instead of another, and how you plan to reach the goal. With that lens, “everything is a priority” stops being the default, and progress becomes visible again.

From there, we map a simple weekly planning system that moves every loose end out of your head and into a trusted workflow. We walk through a complete sweep of email, notes, documents, and personal errands, then apply four decisive actions to each item: trash, file, do in three minutes, or schedule. That process shrinks the pile, eliminates decision fatigue, and gives you a clean slate. Next, we place tasks and appointments into a day-by-day template, rank each day by importance, and set a clear starting point so Monday morning begins with action, not confusion.

Along the way, we share honest confessions about messy digital files, why a blank page kills momentum, and how a weekly cadence beats constant re-prioritizing. Expect tangible benefits: less anxiety, more deep work, and steady revenue growth as your calendar starts reflecting your strategy. If you’ve wanted an approach that’s simple, durable, and easy to maintain, this one will help you reclaim control of your time and energy.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s juggling too much, and leave a quick review to help others find it. Then pick your one priority for the week and tell us what it is.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Purpose Of The Show
• 1:58 Today’s Focus: Organization And Productivity
• 3:12 Find Clarity With Three Core Questions
• 5:23 Priority Means One Thing
• 6:55 Build A Weekly Planning System
• 9:20 Collect Everything In One Place
• 11:18 Process: Trash, File, Do, Or Schedule

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

You have so many priorities, you don't know what to focus on, so it's difficult to make progress on everything all at once. And that causes stress and anxiety. Right? Well, that happens to all of us. It certainly happens to me over and over again. And I've got to do something about it. Clarity is the first step toward fixing that. Welcome to the Commission Code Podcast. We're here to help you overcome the challenges that most of us face in our business from time to time. You know, it seems like feeling like you're on a plateau and you just need to grow your business or maybe feeling overwhelmed again. It seems like you're always working. Maybe you've done quite well for a while, but you know, nothing seems to be working anymore. Well, we want to help you solve those problems and many more. Our objective is to provide you with practical solutions so you can grow your business and have more time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. My name is Morris Times, and I'm going to be your host for this show. It's been years. In the corporate world, teaching business owners want to increase their revenue and use professional sales processes and run their business more effectively and efficiently. I've started my own consultant running business about seven years ago again. I'm helping my clients do just exactly that. Get more revenue, increase their revenue, and have more time to enjoy the fruits of their labor. I gotta tell you, I'm having more fun than ever helping people build successful businesses. So, with all that said, let's get on with today's episode of the Commission Code for your success. Hi, everybody, welcome to the Friday Commission Code podcast. It's a short one, but it's gonna be a good one. Today, we're gonna talk about being organized and productive. So it's time. Everybody, stand up, put your hand over your heart, and repeat after me. I confess that I'm not as organized as I would like to be, and I pledge to do something about it starting today. Because when I'm organized, I have more free time and I earn more money. Okay, you can sit back down now. Let's get right into the practical stuff. Here's what you can do to get more organized starting today, okay? First of all, you have so many priorities, you don't know what to focus on, so it's difficult to make progress on everything all at once, and that causes stress and anxiety, right? Well, that happens to all of us. It certainly happens to me over and over again, and I've got to do something about it. Clarity is the first step toward fixing that. So you've got to ask those quite those three questions. You've probably heard me come up with before. What do you really want from your business? What do you really want from your business? The second question is, why are you in this business and not in some other business? There have been a lot of folks I've looked at and said, you know, if sales is so hard and so bad, maybe you ought to go find something that you really do want to do that you can be absolutely outstanding at doing. So why are you in this business and not in something else? And finally, how do you plan to get what you want? How do you plan to get there? What's your strategy? So when you answer those three questions, you can take the next step, which is to decide is to decide which one of all of those things on the list is the real priority for today or for this week. Then you can focus on that one thing and create your action plan, which is the next part of the whole deal. See, everything can't be a priority. So you have to decide which one you need to focus on right now, and then do it. Priority is not really a word that can be made plural. There is only one priority. There can be a next thing to do after that priority, and it might become the priority, but it's not the first priority, it's not the priority for today. So, what's the priority for today? To determine that, you answer those three questions. That other thing you choose, well, that may be the priority for another day. The third thing is have a system. Have a system to make these decisions once a week and be done with it. Once you have your week planned and you know what you're gonna do each day, then you just go down the list and you do it. Well, Morris, how do you do that? Great question. Great question. Here's how. We call this your weekly planning system. Step one collect all the communications that you have not been able to complete and they haven't been taken off your radar. There's still things that are are on your to-do list, if you will. There's still things that are in your mind, and that's really the big piece is all the stuff that's in your head. Paper on your desk, emails in your inbox, and any other place that you might be collecting stuff that you want to do, but you don't have time to do it when you got it. It it wasn't a pro it wasn't the priority for that day. So you put it off and say, gee, I'm gonna look at that later. Well, collect all that stuff, everything you need to do, and that includes all the personal stuff too: doctor's appointments, school activities, getting a haircut, going to the dentist. Everything, personal and business. Collect it, put it in a list. Step two, go through the stuff you've collected one piece at a time and choose one of these actions. First, trash it. You either don't want it, don't need it, or you don't need it now. And if you ignore it, somebody's gonna bring it back to you when it becomes something that's more important. Secondly, if it's something you need for a project, file it. Then you can go back to it when you need it for the project. And if it's in the project file, it's in a place where it belongs, and it's in a place, more importantly, it's in a place for me. More importantly, it's in a place where I can find it. Because I file stuff and lose it rapidly. The third step, if it's something you go, you go down to it and you're looking at it and you can do in less than three minutes, do it. Just do it and get it off your pile of stuff to do. Carla is forever, my wife Carla is forever telling me, Why don't you just do it so you don't have to think about it anymore? And she's right. And that's how the trash gets taken out to the street every week. Sometimes you find something that's just not doable on your list. And if you can't wait until the project team gets to it, but it's too big for you today to do today in three minutes, or it's a new project that you need to start, schedule the time to work on it on your calendar and then file the item under a new project so that you'll have it at the appropriate time and you can find it. Unlike me. Here's the good news if you go through this process in the future as stuff comes up, it won't take so much time each week. You're gonna reduce the piles significantly. And if you're able to, and and piles by piles, I mean piles of paper in the old days, but today it's piles of electronic stuff. I have one of these days, it's on my list, but it ain't a priority just yet. I gotta clear out all the dead gum electronic files that I've got on iCloud and in my email. I've got files for my files. It's it's just not very productive. Okay, that's my confession for the day. But if you'll do this regularly, it will help to make it easier to do in the first in uh in the future. Third thing you do is this list all the things that you do need in the coming week. In other words, stuff you haven't filed, stuff that can't be done right now, stuff that you didn't trash, it's still on the list, right? You take all of those things, everything, personal, business, hobbies, haircuts, doctors, everything on your calendar and stuff you want to get done this week, and now go through that list. And again, eliminate anything that is really not important or urgent for you or your boss. If it's not, put it away where you can schedule it in the future sometime, or chunk it. If it's important, it'll come back to the surface later. For the rest of the items on the list, make a template with a column for each day of the week. I have mine in in Microsoft OneNote, and I I absolutely love it. I've been living with it for years, and it works great. So you have a place for each day, and under that day, you put the rest of the items on the list. That way you have a column for each day of the week. And for the stuff I want to do on Monday that comes off that list, it goes under Monday. Tuesday goes under Tuesday, Wednesday goes under Wednesday, obviously, right? But it includes any appointments on my calendar. They're all in that list for that day. You put each item in the column for the day that you want to work on it. Everything from the list gets put on a day for this week. Or you make the decision that this is not something I can do this week. I'm gonna put it off until a future date. Then organize each day. You've got a list for the day, but organize it by what's most important to be completed. What are the most important things on that list that you want to make sure you get done? That way, when you start your week and it's Monday morning, you can look at your list and say, okay, I start with number one, then I'll go to number two, then I'll go to number three. So, what does this provide you with? What does this help you with? Well, it gives you a weekly plan that has specific activities, appointments, and things that you want to do, and the day that you're gonna do them on, your mind doesn't have to remember it all. It's all in the system. And at the end of the day, you don't have to plan tomorrow. You remember that old adage, always plan tomorrow today before you leave the office or before you go to bed. Make sure you have your plan for tomorrow. Well, if you've already got a plan for tomorrow, then all you have to do is tweak that plan based on what you accomplished today and all the other changes that come up. But you have a place to start. You have a dirty piece of paper. There's nothing harder than to sit down to write something or plan something on a blank piece of paper. If you've got something that's that's on there to begin with, boy, it really helps, doesn't it? So there you have it. The weekly planning system to help you stay organized and productive. I've got another confession for you. The basis of this system is from Darren Hardy. Darren calls it the Sunday planning system. And it's different than what I've created to some extent, but the premise is still the same. Look at your week. What do I have to do this week? After I've after I've gone through and cleaned up that list, what's left? Now I'm gonna plan it and I'm gonna put on each day the things that I'd like to get accomplished that day. The weekly planning system. It's gonna help you stay organized and productive. And you know what? It's the only thing we have we can absolutely, well, maybe not the only thing, but it's certainly one of those things that we can absolutely and completely control is what we choose to do with every moment of our time. Have a great weekend. I'll see you again next time. Well, that does it for this episode of the Commission Code Podcast. This is the place where we want to help you find the commission code to success in your business. Remember, go to Morris Sims.com for more information. And in the meantime, hey, have a great week. Get out there and meet somebody new, and we'll see you again next time right here on the Commission Code. Best wishes, I'm Morris Sims.