Work smarter: Time management tips for advisers

Health surveys from Gallup, Ipsos, and WIN reveal that 40 to 62 percent of people worldwide are stressed. As a medical scheme adviser, you likely feel the stress even more since it’s difficult to overlook the healthcare and financial concerns of your clients. Although the stress that comes with your job may be unavoidable, it is certainly manageable. Especially with these effective tools, tips, and software.

Four productivity tools to try out

1. The Eisenhower Matrix

The Eisenhower Matrix was designed to help busy people distinguish between tasks that are important or urgent and those that are neither.

The 34th US president, Dwight Eisenhower (1890 to 1969), famously said, “I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.” Jokes aside, it’s only when the urgent and the important overlap in the matrix that you’ll really be clear about what to do next!

“It’s only when the urgent and the important overlap in the matrix that you’ll really be clear about what to do next!”

Source: https://slab.com/blog/eisenhower-matrix/

2. The SMART method

Accredited to George Doran, author, consultant, and former Director of Corporate Planning at Washington Water Power Company, the SMART method’s framework (where SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely), ensures that the goals you set are clear, focused, and practical. This turns your chaotic day into one over which you have perfect control.

Source: https://www.bitesizelearning.co.uk/resources/smart-goals-meaning-examples

3. Time batching

Productivity Guy describes time batching as a time-management technique in which you group similar tasks together and allocate each group a time slot.

The reasons it’s so effective? Because it:

• Gives you more focus for deep-thinking work,

• Makes you more structured, and

• Saves time because you don’t need so many transition periods (which happen when constantly switching between vastly different tasks).

4. The Pomodoro technique

The word “pomodoro” means tomato in Italian. It is associated with better focus and increased productivity because it works by slicing tasks into manageable chunks.

The technique involves tackling one task for 25 minutes, then taking a five-minute break. Every four work intervals, breaks are longer.

Source: https://bharatividyapeethonline.com/what-is-the-pomodoro-technique/

Harnessing the power of tech to your advantage

Rather than becoming a slave to every app and piece of software you can lay your hands on, be selective. Check in to see what your most productive colleagues are using. Then, try out their go-to platforms to see if they could make your life easier too. Founders of the LifeHack Method, Demir and Carey Bentley, recommend these tech aids:

• Asana to visually track workflow and manage tasks

• Docusign to make the signing process paperless and more secure

• Toggl Track to help you see where you’re wasting minutes so you can repurpose the lost time

• A customer relationship management (CRM) platform like Salesforce, HubSpot, or Zoho to help you organise and manage all customer interactions in a centralised way

• Artificial intelligence (AI) like Spotfire or Tableau to automate reports, analyse trends, and generate insights more rapidly than is humanly possible

Putting productivity into practice

How else can you make the best possible use of your time while optimising your work-life balance in this workload-heavy profession?

“I started Freedom Financial Planning in 2023, and it’s been full speed ahead since day one,” says lifestyle financial planner Bryan Nicol, CFP®. “Early on, I realised the workload was too much for me to manage solo. I was burning out.

“So, I outsourced my admin, which made a massive difference. I bought time back and could focus on running the business, growing it, and clients’ financial planning and servicing.

“I then implemented strict calendar management protocols to regulate workload. We schedule client meetings weekly, Tuesdays to Thursdays, leaving two days to get the rest done. And for three months a year, we don’t have pre-scheduled client meetings, allowing for holidays and strategy work.

“We are 100% virtual, with meetings recorded using Fathom AI. It records and transcribes minutes, summarises meetings, drafts action item lists, and sends post-meeting emails to clients. This saves a lot of time and mental energy.

“I train early every morning. As Dan Martell says, “Exhaust the body, tame the mind”. It’s true! A game changer has also been to have our dinners delivered to us. They are healthy meals that are ready to eat. This helps with decision fatigue and the pressure we all feel at the end of a busy day. Instead of cooking, my wife and I go for a walk after work – fresh air, exercise, and conversation.”

“As Dan Martell says, ‘Exhaust the body, tame the mind’.”

Written for Medihelp by Vanessa Rogers