Andrew Hartman | From Overwhelm to Overachiever: How to Master Your Schedule Like a Boss

[00:00:09] Hey everyone, welcome to the latest installment of MSP Business School. As always, I'm Brian Doyle here with you today. This is going to be a fun subject for all of us, I think, today. I think if we all look at ourselves clearly in the mirror, I think we all agree we could probably do a better job with time management and how we structure our day. So I'm really excited to have our guest joining us today. Our guest is Andrew Hartman of TimeBoss and he's going to help us with the time management.

[00:00:39] Let's hopefully get a little tighter with our time and give us some tactics or at least kind of introduce us to some tactics that we might be able to leverage. So with that, welcome, Andrew. Thanks for joining. Awesome, Brian. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here. So we want to kick things off first with learning a little bit about you. Tell us a little bit about your journey, your backstory and what brought you to where you are today running TimeBoss. Yeah, absolutely. So my background was in an early stage software companies.

[00:01:05] And a lot like MSPs, everyone has way more to do than they have time to do it. You have high expectations, short runways, you got to make things happen. Clients have heavy demands. And I found myself in that environment pretty much overwhelmed. You know, I had great parents. I went to a great school and I realized once I got there, I'm like, wow, I no one has ever taught me how to actually manage my time. And what was weird is I looked around all around me and everyone else was kind of overwhelmed as well.

[00:01:34] And I thought, is this just how it is? And for a lot of years, that's just how it was. But it was taking a toll on me. It was impacting my sleep. It was impacting my health. Actually, I was the overwhelm at one point was so strong. I actually lost my sense of smell for six months, believe it or not, pre-COVID, long time ago. But stress will do weird things to us. I mean, truly, it's a it's a yellow flashing light that something needs to change. Well, it does.

[00:02:00] And, you know, this is an industry that's wrought with stress because to your point, right, there's a lot of technical founders who are also, you know, have a servant mentality, which is great for the business. But it also makes them feel that they need to get everything done now. Right. And when we're wearing that chief cook and bottle washer, you know, hat and trying to attend everything, it can wane on us. I mean, I've gone through periods of stress. I love when you talk about the losing your smell.

[00:02:24] I remember, you know, at one point I hit stress and it I went into like a 36 hour coma and came out with a point where I didn't have the same level of stamina for a period after that. So adjustments had to happen. So I'm interested on a personal level to hear what you say today as well. Man, I so Brian, thank you for sharing that. That's I mean, it's very transparent. I appreciate it. And and you know what? If you ask every person, most people have a story like that. Yeah. IBS, headaches, hypertension. It's real.

[00:02:54] And it's and it's our body saying this is not working. Something needs to change. But if we look around, everybody's running the same playback. I mean, in playbook, in some ways, if you ask someone how they're doing and they don't say busy, you feel like they're doing it wrong. Right. We just we think stress has to be a part of the equation. Well, I think when we get older and you hear somebody is not busy, that's the guy that you're usually reaching to going, how are you doing it differently? So why so why do we why do we build our lives that way? Right. We just think if I'm not feeling stressed, I'm not doing it right.

[00:03:23] And so for me, again, I mentioned my health impacted my sleep. It was impacting my family. I would come home late or I'd be at dinner physically present emotionally somewhere else. I had a wife and young kids and I and I just felt myself missing the best years. And I think that's one of the toughest parts there, because, you know, again, when I made some changes in my life, it was based on the same thing you were talking about there. Right.

[00:03:46] Young kids, what your reflection, you know, what you were mirroring for them and what you were projecting to them not being sometimes healthy because your stress would weigh on them. And you do got to make those changes. But we are in an industry that, you know, the biggest problem is the problem is the one that's lurking around the door. We can wake up perfectly sunny day and our circumstances will change quickly by some announcement for Microsoft or something else that just makes the day go sideways.

[00:04:15] Absolutely. Absolutely. And I should say, so I am currently a fractional COO for an MSP, 40 employee MSP in Southern California. So I get the pressures of everyone listening. I feel the weight of it. Service manager reports to me, solutions manager reports to me. I know, I know the pressures that they're feeling and the strategies that we're going to talk about today work in those environments. So, you know, for me, where it started, Brian, was I hit a red line like we all hit. You hit a red line when you were in that coma for three days.

[00:04:45] And I said, it can't be this way. And I said, I know I look around and I don't see anyone else doing it, but I am going to figure out a way to get the results that I want and do it without overwhelm. I'm going to build a system. I was a COO. I was an ops and product person. So I knew I am the customer and the solution I'm looking for, the boundary requirements have to be I continue to deliver because I wasn't going to step down. I wasn't going to quit. I wasn't going to go get a new job. I wanted to continue to deliver, but I was going to do it without overwhelm being a part of the equation.

[00:05:15] And it it took me 10 years to figure that out on my own test after test after test iteration after iteration after iteration. But I solved it. And once I solved it, I solved it for my team. And then I went on to new companies and it would work in new companies and they went on to other companies. They'd asked me to come train them on the framework. And what I realized was that this wasn't a solution for Andrew Hartman's overwhelm. This is the solution for time and everybody's overwhelm. And that's what's led me into doing time boss with all with half my time.

[00:05:43] Now, again, another half my time, I'm a fractional COO at that MSP. Yeah. And, you know, that's interesting that you talk about that because I think a lot of folks wonder, OK, Andrew's here. He's telling me how he solved his time management problem. How does that translate? And I think it's really important to share, you know, when you brought it out to others and they bought into it, that cycle was able to repeat itself with others. Right. Because that's a moment for you, obviously. Hey, there's something here more than me. But it's also important to say this is a tried and true method that you've put together. Yes. And it's been battle proven.

[00:06:12] Yes. 100 percent. So dozens of teams, hundreds of leaders running on this framework and it just works. And it's and what's interesting is, I mean, as we can get into the weeds of it, but it works in any area of life. So any area of life where you have more to do than you have time to do it could be your your MSP, could be personal projects, could be that side hustle you're trying to get going. If you have more to do than time to do it, you've got to have a framework to think about time or you're going to be overwhelmed.

[00:06:38] You're going to constantly feel behind and nobody two things. Nobody wants to live that way. And two, when we feel that way, when we feel the stress and the stress and the pressure and the overwhelm, it actually fundamentally changes the way we work. We're less creative. We don't seek best practices and creative solutions. We don't collaborate with others because we don't feel like we have time. We don't delegate because we don't feel like we have time or we don't think they can do it as well as us. And so the work that we do actually gets worse.

[00:07:07] So we both get worse results like we're not making the impact we want to make and our experience of life sucks. Why would we why would we operate that way? But that is the playbook that's been handed to us. And that's what MSP leaders just think they have to do. Yeah. And I think the worst part is when you reach some of those stages, at least for my own personal thing, is you retreat to the work that keeps you busy. So you're still justifying, hey, I'm doing the time I'm putting in that, but it's not the things that push the needle because the things that push the needle are hard. Absolutely. They're absolutely hard.

[00:07:37] And so again, if we don't. So the whole idea of time boss is this. You need sober moments every single week where you were stepping out of the fray. You're dealing with all the trade offs. You're kind of feeling the feels of all the trade offs in that reflective moment and saying next week, these are the things I must work on to move the needle for my business, to move the needle for my values. And then do the work once you decide what those things are. Do the work to protect them. Figure out the things that don't fit. Figure out the things that you need to delegate.

[00:08:06] Figure out the things that you need to defer. And there's a there's a lot that goes into that. But again, we just need those sober moments. Otherwise, to your point, we're just going to keep ourselves busy. We're going to dive into email. We're going to dive into teams. We're going to feel productive all day long and go home at 6 p.m. and say, what the heck did I work on all day? I know I was busy, but I couldn't even tell you what I did all day. Yeah. And, you know, and that's that is the challenge point. Right. Because I think there's also a lot of business owners that have a tough time taking the work on the business. Right.

[00:08:35] Those topics and putting priority to them because they feel like they're self-serving and they're not really doing what the mission of the organization is. Right. Even though it is the biggest part of the mission and that becomes a stressor, too, I find, because that's the can that gets kicked down the road, which, of course, brings more pressure and more stress, you know, at different junctions. I'd love to get your take on, you know, kind of what's the first step somebody that's feeling all this overwhelm can do to kind of slow down.

[00:09:02] Yeah. So I think the first thing anyone should do is separate out the chaos from the priorities. So to your point, I'm with you, Brian. Like I have felt it. I have felt the Microsoft update and everything changes. Right. It is what it is. And it's not just it's not just that. Right. It's meetings that go long. It's emails and phone calls, client needs. My spouse needs me. My kids sick. The water needs. Right. Yeah. It's chaos everywhere. Right. It's just and we we think when it's quiet, I'll get work done.

[00:09:30] And it's a lie that we tell ourselves because the chaos is here to stay. Right. And once we get comfortable with that, again, catch up to reality of a mantra in my program is reality is our friend. Once we catch up to reality that the chaos isn't going anywhere, the most rational thing that we can do is create time every day where we are expecting that chaos to happen. Literally buffer in our calendar where it doesn't mean it's going to happen at that perfect time, like right when we put it on our calendar, but we're at least making room for it.

[00:09:57] So we know, hey, I'm not in full control. I work an eight hour day, but realistically, I have about four hours every day I can control because I know there's going to be four hours of staff needs, client needs, unexpected things, whatever. Spouse needs me, all the things we mentioned. And so a powerful thing people can do is separate out those times. So when they're planning out their week, they don't over plan. And what it allows them to do two things. One, it allows them to really protect time for priorities that are going to move their business forward.

[00:10:27] And the reason why it protects it is because the reason we allow ourselves to be interrupted, the reason we go into email, whatever, is because we're afraid if we don't, we don't know when it's going to get done. So when that when that employee taps us on the shoulder, when the client calls, we think I have to do this right now or I don't know when I'm going to get back to it because my to do list is a mile long.

[00:10:46] But when we separate out the buffer for that unexpected chaos and time for priorities, it makes us so much more likely to be committed to our priorities because we know time is going to be available for those other items that we need to care for. So really, we're just we're just creating two lanes for work, one lane to move the business forward, one lane to deal with the responsive, urgent and important. We're not saying those things aren't important. They are urgent and important, but we're just planning two lanes for those things to happen.

[00:11:12] That that alone will dramatically reduce the overwhelm of anyone listening to this podcast. But it's a hard step to take. People think like, oh, like I already have so much to do. I don't want to add buffer to my calendar. But the reality is you're not getting high quality work done when you're operating the way that you're currently operating. Now, you said another key thing that I'd like to dive into a little bit during that. We have eight hours to work each day. And I think, you know, when you talk to the traditional entrepreneur, it's almost being worn like a badge of honor.

[00:11:42] I work 12, 14, 16 hours every day on my business for a number of years. But as I've gotten a little bit older, I've believed more into you've got to have balance and you've got to make your time more productive. So I really came to that eight hours. That kind of a guiding tempo in the world of time, boss, that you want to kind of carve your day to a really workable. You know what's fascinating about that, Brian, is that time has no bearing on our overwhelm. Isn't that fascinating? We think like a 40-hour work week is a totally arbitrary number.

[00:12:11] And so is 12 hours. So is 16 hours. In my worst, I would stop when I just had to sleep. And what I realized was it is completely illogical that for me to be successful in this role, it takes exactly every waking hour I have. There's no way. It's impossible, right? Totally arbitrary as well, right? Totally arbitrary. So what the MSP leaders that are feeling that wear 12 hours or 16 hours as a badge of honor is they're feeling the delta between them and everyone else.

[00:12:39] So they feel like they're working more. That's all it is. So the answer is not, I'm going to work five minutes a week. And the answer is not, I'm going to work every waking hour that I have. So really this whole idea of time boss, you decide how much of your life do you want to give to your MSP? Do you want to give to work? And you might say eight hours or 10 hours or six hours. Totally arbitrary. But this is in time boss, we talk about time math. There is so much that needs to get done for our business to be successful.

[00:13:08] And I only have so much time and I'm going to decide how much time I give. The delta between those things we just have to deal with. Do you need more resources? Do you need to delegate better for people to help you? Do you need to decide that you're going to do less? You know, we said it was this much, but you know what? We're going to remove these two strategic priorities to really focus our priorities. And oh, all of a sudden we have enough time with me only working eight hours a day or 10 hours a day or six hours a day. So again, you just have to systematically think about what is it that I'm trying to achieve?

[00:13:38] What resources do I have, including my time? And what adjustments do I need to make? Again, for those to match reality, this is that idea that reality is our friend. We just need to catch up to reality of what is required for our MSP to be successful. Do you find that, you know, when folks start taking this time boxing exercise a little bit more seriously, that they find that they're getting the same results in less time because they're getting more focused? They get better. They actually get better results and less overwhelmed. So we lose.

[00:14:05] Microsoft did a study post-COVID because Microsoft realized that all of their tools were interrupting us like crazy. Yeah. They did a study post-COVID where they looked at the impact of multitasking or multifocus, particularly in the function of teams. But I think you can extrapolate the study out to anything. And what they found was we were losing 20% to 40% of our productive week as a function of multitasking. And this is why. They called it comeback time.

[00:14:31] It's the amount of time it takes me to come back to the task if I switch off it. And so think of it like writing an email. Let's say I was writing an email right before we jumped on this podcast, Brian, and I was in the middle of a paragraph. When we're done with the podcast, I'm not going to go back and type the next word in the middle of that sentence, right? I have to read that entire email to boot up the context again so I can effectively continue the email. How much worse if we're working on a strategic plan or an Excel document with complicated formulas or trying to troubleshoot a tough issue?

[00:15:02] And so when we allow ourselves to be constantly overwhelmed and we don't do the work to really protect our priorities, we lose so much of our week. So simply protecting our time will dramatically increase our output. You know, it's funny. I think, you know, when I think of that, I think a problem that many MSP owners might have shared when you'd get the technician that would be out at a job, right? And they'd be working on something. And because it's arbitrarily five o'clock, they would step away and work on it. And they were like, you know, and I'd hear from all the time, oh, I only got to go back there tomorrow and it's going to take me an hour.

[00:15:31] And I'm like, no, it's going to take you three hours. It would have taken you an hour to finish today because you were already in that work zone. But tomorrow you're going to have to get there, reacquaint yourself, reacquaint what's going on, make sure you're not going to disrupt anybody else and then go do this work. And now it's three hours and you're going to fall behind on the rest of your day. So it's a simple principle, but it's a tough one sometimes to absorb, right? Because you think all of us think we're master multitaskers, right? You know, that's part of the entrepreneur aura, I think. But, you know, as I get older, I agree with you.

[00:16:00] You realize if you jump from too many tasks, none get done. Absolutely. Yeah, and it just wears out your brain. By the end of the day, you're exhausted. You're not doing great work. I mean, that entrepreneur that's staying up, that's doing 12, 16-hour days, if they can look at the results and be satisfied with the results, awesome. God bless you. If it works for the stakeholders in your life, do it. But my guess is if you pay close attention, you are getting diminishing returns later and later in the day where simply by focusing, protecting your time,

[00:16:28] you might be able to get the same work output of that 12, 16-hour day in eight hours simply by protecting your time. You know, it's amazing. And again, it doesn't mean that you can't do your 12-hour days too. No. I know personally for me, you know, there are weeks where I budget after hours to do some of the creative work because I need to know that there's going to be no distraction during that period. And I'm happy to do a 12-hour day then. And I do feel like I've accomplished. But when it becomes the norm, it does weigh on you, right?

[00:16:55] Brian, you said the operative term, I feel like I'm accomplished. So here's the, we have been lied to about time management over the past. We really have. Really have. It's like getting more done in less time, but that's not it at all. Really what it comes down to is your relationship time will work when the story you tell yourself about that time works for you. So you said, I loved it. I got to do creative work. I felt accomplished. And it worked for you. It wasn't happening to you.

[00:17:24] Your MSP wasn't punching you in the face and saying, work late, Brian, you have to. You're like, no, I'm choosing this. This is my life. And I love this. So story is one. And the other is stakeholders. If it works for your spouse, your kids, your boss, your teammates, if those two things line up, you can work as many hours as you want or as few hours as you want. But if you don't get the story right, if you think it's happening to you, you're not choosing it. And it doesn't work for the stakeholders in your life, you're going to feel overwhelmed and you're going to get worse results as a function of it.

[00:17:54] I can see that completely. So with that being said, we've talked a little bit about identifying where you might be feeling stress and where you might be having problems with time management. Now let's get maybe a little bit more prescriptive into where Time Boss comes into play. Right. So now, you know, now I'm at this point and I know I need to reach out to Andrew because I heard this podcast. What should I be prepared to do? And how do I prepare to jump into an engagement with you and your team?

[00:18:25] Yeah, it's a really great question. I think, one, you have to be prepared for habit change. So this is not a light switch. You have lived into whatever habits you have related to time, likely over decades of your life. And it's built your recipe for survival. But here's the thing. Whatever results you're currently getting and whatever your experience of life you're currently getting are a direct function of your habits. The system is perfectly tuned to the results that you're getting.

[00:18:51] So if you want that to be different, you have to anticipate your habits are going to have to change. So you have to be ready for that. If you're not ready for that, if you're not willing to make change, we shouldn't. It's not the right time for a conversation. You've got to have a spirit of openness at this point. If you're still resisting to making change, it's probably not the right time for you. Not the right time. You haven't felt enough pain yet. And that's fine. I mean, we want to help people that are ready to change. So that's one. Two, you have to be ready to do it as a team.

[00:19:20] So you can certainly come as an individual. That's absolutely fine. I call those missionaries where they get their relationship with time right and they go back and they have to convince people. But likely what you need to do is think through how would my leadership team or my management team do this together, where we develop common languages about how we're going to manage time. We develop empathy with each other that we all have priorities that we're trying to get done.

[00:19:41] We learn how to really coordinate and lift together as a team to both make ongoing operations happen and rocks if you're on EOS or strategic priorities or whatever you're working on. But anticipate doing that together and just going to a whole new level. Teams that do this can expect a 30% increase in productivity. The average person reports getting four hours back a week. That's the equivalent of a whole additional work week if you work a 40 to 50 hour week in a year.

[00:20:10] And 97, everybody reports their overwhelm decreasing and their piece increasing. So it's there. It's ready for you. But you've got to be ready to do the work. That's really how it is. Now, from an engagement standpoint, is it generally the business owners themselves working with you and then cascading to the teams? Are you working with teams? Do you take both approaches? How do you engage with clients? We recommend doing leadership teams and management teams together.

[00:20:38] So every once in a while, we'll do one-on-one coaching with that MSP owner, that key executive to start. I call that disarming the bomb where they're so afraid of changing anything that it's going to break. And I say, okay, let me come in and work with you individually. But we love working with leadership teams, management teams together. And so we take them through a group coaching experience. It's an eight-week process. We meet synchronously an hour a week. And then the rest of the week, they're simply running the time boss habits.

[00:21:05] And we're helping them work through the friction of change to go from wherever they are today to getting those results that they want without overwhelm. So you mentioned EOS earlier as kind of an operating system. And really here, we're talking about almost a time operating system. So do you find by having those coaches in play, it's also making sure the team spell is speaking the same language as it relates to time management and approach to tasks and time overall? Exactly.

[00:21:33] Because I think that's where a big disconnect happens in a lot of businesses as well. You get that seriously type A owner who really lives, breathes, and eats this 24-7. And then you have all the different personalities on the team which all have different stress drivers but also have different wants and desires for their careers. Some just want to make the paycheck and do a good job when they're there and contribute. But this isn't their life, right? And others are looking to climb the corporate ladder.

[00:21:58] So do you find any of those personality types become a big part of the mission when you're doing this as well? Yeah, absolutely. And really, it's about creating a common language around that, right? We're all, you know, we're saying like, these are our priorities. Let me show you. When I run the time boss habits, I can show you how my calendar were literally aligned to my priorities. And we all can see that together. Managers can see that from employees, team members on the same level can see it from each other. So it creates a real common language to make it happen.

[00:22:27] Your EOS analogy, Brian, is perfect. EOS handles that 90-day window. How do we be successful over the next 90 days? Time boss partners perfectly with EOS to say, what do we need to do the next seven days to make those 90-day goals happen? Because what happens, right? We all crush rocks the last two weeks of the quarter. I live in a world. BCIO toolbox is a perfect example. I can see at the end of every quarter, I get all these people that have been dragging their feet throughout the quarter.

[00:22:54] We'll be going, okay, I need to get aligned now because I got a rock I got to commit to on Friday, right? And they do crappy work or it's not done. It doesn't match the completion criteria they set up on. And they didn't de-risk it early to figure out that it wasn't possible or it wasn't going to work the way they wanted it anyways. So time boss is, think about time boss just like beating the drum for a business. Week over week over week, we are making the results that we want without overwhelm.

[00:23:22] The language we use is highest sustainable pace. How do we help that team run at the highest sustainable pace? Like a distance runner running a marathon. Every distance runner knows their mile time because they know they'll get the best ultimate result on that marathon if they maintain their mile time. And they're always trying to optimize that and increase it or decrease it in that metaphor if they can. So that's really what we're trying to help businesses come to. So we're getting near the end of our time, Andrew, but I certainly want to make sure that we cover off on any points that you want to share before we wrap up today.

[00:23:52] Any closing thoughts? Any topic we haven't delved into that you want to share before we leave our listeners? You know, the thing I would say to the MSP owner or to the executives listening is this is your life. Your life is happening right now. And if you're not happy with the results or you're not happy with your level of overwhelm, you have to make change. If you don't change anything, nothing changes. And so if you're concerned about you... Definition of insanity, right? It is. If you're concerned about you or you're looking at your leadership team, your management team and saying, man, those people are cooking.

[00:24:22] They are burning too bright. I'm afraid I might lose someone. I would reach out. Let's have a conversation. If you want something to be different, you got to make a change. Awesome. Well, Andrew, I really thank you for joining us today. You know, we're going to be putting in your LinkedIn profile and certainly your website. But if you've got anything else you'd like to direct anybody to, please feel free to share now. Yeah. We've got a couple of great resources that are free on the website. So website is timeboss.us. You'll see under resources we have...

[00:24:50] Talking about EOS, we've got a guide to how to use Timeboss to accomplish your quarterly rocks, your quarterly goals. So if you're running EOS or you're running quarterly goals, it's a great tool for that. We've got a 90-minute masterclass that walks through the entire model start to finish so you can see how Timeboss works. We are firm believers in information being free. And if you need help with the implementation, we'd love to help. Yeah. Awesome, Andrew. So we'll put those links up in the show notes as well, make sure that those are available to you.

[00:25:19] I really want to thank you for coming on today, Andrew. I think this is an underserved conversation that comes up. You know, we speak a lot about sales, marketing, development, business drivers, M&A here. But we don't talk a lot about getting ourselves organized and taking care of ourselves in the process. So really appreciate what you are putting together here with Timeboss. And thank you for joining me today. Awesome. Thanks so much for having me, Brian. Appreciate it. You bet.

[00:25:44] For the listeners, as you know, you can get this podcast anywhere you get your podcasts or subscribe up on YouTube where you can see the video format of this as well. And if you want to learn more from Andrew, as I said before, we'll have his LinkedIn, his website, and certainly go grab those resources afterward. Andrew, thank you again for joining us. And we hope to see you again down the line. Thanks, Brian. Take care.