Time Management Tips for Insurance Agents | Mental Rockstar

Time Management Tips for Insurance Agents: Getting More Work Done in Less Time

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Ever feel like you don’t have enough time to do everything you want in life? You’re not alone. Especially for people who have so many passions and interests, there are simply not enough hours in the day to make progress in your hobbies, maintain healthy social relationships and still stay on top of work.

After working 15-hour days as a lawyer and investment banker, I learned that filling my days with work, work, and more work is not how I want to spend my life. Wondering how I took back control of my life amidst my crazy schedule? Here are some of my favourite strategies for boosting productivity and achieving peak performance.

Keep to a schedule

“How you spend your days is how you spend your life,” Pulitzer Prize-Winning author, Annie Dillard, once ardently expressed as she talked about the importance of keeping a schedule to protect us from chaos. 

Not having a schedule for the day is like not having a map towards your destination. Sure, it can be an exciting journey, but do you really want to spend so much time looking for the local post office? Or do you want to get to your destination quickly so you can go home to your loving family and spend some quality night in?

I usually schedule a workout in the morning and my top three most important tasks early in the day. Scheduling the things I have to do pushes me to do them, no matter my energy or motivation levels for the day. 

Track all your non-scheduled activities in your calendar

The most effective strategy to effectively track where all your time is going is to input all your activities in your calendar. Sure, it can be tedious to track every little thing such as a 10-minute walk, 5-minute meditation, and sudden 15-minute meetings. However, the more diligent you are at tracking things, the more data you can use to track and analyse where all your time is going. 

When you start tracking even the littlest thing, you’ll soon realise “harmless timewasters” that compound and eat away your energy. That 5-minute coffee break that turns into 15-minute work chitchat. That hour-long meeting that could be cut down to 30 minutes. That 45-minute “social break” where you mindlessly check the news or your social feeds. These are activities that eat a chunk of our time without us noticing.

Practice deep work 

I’ve mentioned the importance of focused work to successfully accomplish your important tasks. Most people today are so distracted by notifications that their ability to analyse complex information is starting to deteriorate. Multitasking is one of the biggest enemies of productivity. 

Focus is a highly coveted skill in these disruptive times. Your ability to get in the zone and perform at your maximum level daily is crucial to your career growth. You want to consistently be able to hit your daily goals through your ability to give 100% focus on a single task. 

Try blocking your calendar for client prospecting and focus only on that. Don’t let yourself be distracted by other things. Your genuine attention shows and you can truly focus on the needs of your clients. You can also schedule an admin time for yourself where you just review your tasks. 

Whenever you’re doing something, set aside the time to do only that one task, mark yourself as busy and turn off your notifications. See how much work you can accomplish in one focused hour. 

Here Are My Mental Rockstar Strategies for Time Management:

  1. Automate tasks
  2. Organise your workspace
  3. Delegate as much as you can
  4. Don’t multitask
  5. Schedule focused work

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