Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell
Welcome to my 1st book review and recommendation email. My hope is that this short review serves as a distilled version of my top takeaways from the last book that I read. I promise it is short.
Why am I doing this?
I love reading and I especially enjoy the books that help me grow, develop, or just make me think. I also enjoy recommending books to others. And, since I am coaching business leaders again, I am looking for ways to help others succeed. I hope you can apply something from my takeaways. Here we go!
The Book: Buy Back Your Time
The Author: Dan Martell
The Subject: Time Management and Productivity
Favourite quotable line: “My Goal is to build a life I don’t need a vacation from” Rob Hill
About the Author:
Dan Martell is a good ole Canadian from Moncton NB. Dan is a coach, mega-successful entrepreneur and spends a ton of time biking, running, swimming, with his family, and giving to his community. An all around good dude, and this comes out in his writing.
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My top 5 applicable takeaways from this book:
​1. Martell’s DRIP matrix for categorizing your tasks by how valuable they are in terms of money and energy. 4 different zones. Delegation, Replacement, Investment, Production
The basis of this time matrix is to determine what lights you up (gives you energy) and makes you the most money. This is the Production Zone. Plan to spend more time in that zone and less time in the others. Makes sense right?! We love doing those tasks, and it's good for business.
2. ​Delegation is hard for most of us. But, what I found applicable in this book is that he relates delegation to not getting the task done 100% perfect like we would. Accept that 80% is a win. Just like Pareto’s principle. 80-20 applies here too. We can’t clone ourselves, so aim for an 8/10 on the things you delegate. That is good enough for anyone to expect.
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3. Nobody’s Perfect! What are you holding onto that you can delegate this with less expectation of perfection?
Martell defines a Buyback rate. Which is basically this: determine what your hourly rate is based on your pay, then you divide it by 4 and that is what you can afford to pay someone else to do a task that you shouldn’t be doing.
For example, if you make $200K a year that works out to $100/hour Your Buy Back rate is $25/hour.
Anything you are doing that is worth that buyback rate ($25/hour), you should not be doing. The greatest example in the book is that he recommends that you shouldn’t let your email own you. Someone else should be handling your emails first and categorizing them for you. Email sorting is a job worth less than $100/hour.
4. Interruption help. The 1:3:1 rule. You know all those interruptions you get when you have an
"open door" policy. When someone comes to you for help, use this rule for them. 1:3:1
They define the 1 problem that needs to be solved.
They offer 3 viable solutions
They make 1 suggestion from the list of possible solutions
"In the simplest way possible, this passes on the ability for people to think for themselves and to solve problems." We all want to solve problems, but this way, you can teach others how to do it.
Who on your team can you share this with this week?
5. The bonus chapter in the book. The 7 Pillars of Life - A cheat sheet. I tend to gravitate to these teachings, and if I ever write a book, this will be my first chapter. The book says to prioritize Health, Hobbies, Spirituality, Friends, Love, Finances, and Mission. Work shouldn’t rule your life. How can you prioritize these pillars in your life and put your mask on first this month? What lights you up, that you want to do more of?
There are many other great concepts and thoughts in this book. All of them have a common sense approach, and he has a great way of simplifying them into repeatable systems. I recommend this to anyone wanting to gain control of their time. Buy it!
Thank you Dan Martell for this great book.
Let me know if you gained any value from this, or if you have any thoughts. I would love to hear from you. Feel free to forward this to anyone, or feel free to unsubscribe below.
I plan to do this every month.
What book should I read next?
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