Mastering Time Management as an Entrepreneur (with Kevin Hoover)

Angela Frank: 00:00:00

Today on the podcast we have Kevin Hoover.

Kevin is the founder of Next Crest, a consulting company that helps business leaders, coaches and visionaries overcome burnout, lagging sales and the low life balance so they can do the work great leaders are here to do. Kevin, welcome to the podcast.

Kevin Hoover: 00:00:17

Thank you, Angela. It's great to be here.

Angela Frank: 00:00:20

I'm so excited for our discussion today. You are going to teach us how to manage our time effectively as entrepreneurs. But before we get into that, I want to know, is work life balance real?

Does it really exist?

Kevin Hoover: 00:00:34

Oh, the million dollar question. I think it is real, but I think there's a big misconception around it. I think balance is probably a word that is not what most of us are seeking.

You know, balance being equal parts on equal ends of the spectrum. And I think most people are working very hard so that they can have a more life in their work life balance.

And so I think having an understanding about what it is really helps you achieve whatever that version of it is for you.

So I think globally, when hear work life balance on social media in an article or something, that is not something that I consider as a real life scenario. But I do think that there is more. You can achieve more life out of your work if you choose to.

Angela Frank: 00:01:17

I love that bridging off of that. You have come to this understanding of work life balance in a really interesting way and your backstory is so inspiring.

So what is it that helped you discover, you know, managing your time at effectively to play around with this scale, this sliding scale of work life balance that works for you as an entrepreneur? Can you tell us a little bit about how you got to this point?

Kevin Hoover: 00:01:46

Yeah, I'll try to tell a short version of a long story, but I was, I was what I consider to be like anyone else in business, came through corporate. So, you know, working more was something you were expected to do if you wanted the promotion.

If you wanted to get ahead, you had to be at the office, you know, pulling. Sometimes it was 70 or 80 hour weeks and I'm sure people can relate to that being a necessity during seasons of corporate life. So I was there.

Then I got an entrepreneurship and I just kept the same attitude. I was working six, seven days a week.

not really there. And then in: 2019

He's in the next room. He's nine. He's an honorable third grader, so he's doing great.

So the story has a happy ending, but it really was when you, when it comes to time management, for me, it was out of necessity. We went in a matter of three hours. We went from having a tummy ache to having cancer. And I went from having two businesses.

I had a really successful real estate company and a coaching business. And we weren't going to be home for what turned out to be four months out of that first year. So the real estate kind of went, went away immediately.

And I was kind of left with about a day and a half a week to work. And that was completely foreign to me. I was the, you know, I grew up in a blue collar family.

If you work hard, you get compensated for that hard work. And so it really was just this boot camp of what is time and how do I pull off a full work week in a day and a half? And it just wasn't.

I just couldn't comprehend how this was going to go. But I had to do it anyway because my son was counting on me, my wife was counting on me, I was counting on me.

And so as I started to plug away and continue to do business on a day and a half, what I ultimately realized over the next probably, I don't know, it was probably three or four months. To be real, it was that I was allocating 40, 50, 60 hours a week to do things that I could get done working three or four hours a day.

And so it was all the little things that started to compound that took my time. And when I really got down to focus and I was like, I've got a day and a half to pull this off.

I was incredibly focused, highly intentional, leading with revenue. And my business tripled and I was floored. I couldn't believe it.

I said, okay, well, now that we've got, you know, so once we beat cancer and everything was out of the way, and I was like, well, if this is how life is going to go, what if I take that?

I told my wife, I remember sitting in our kitchen and I said, I think it would be a shame to go back to what we were doing now that we've been through all this and we've, you know, had the emotions around it. But also I've learned how to run a business in a day and a half a week.

And I think it would be a shame to go back to living a life where we were working 60, 70 hours a week and not enjoying time with our son. So we kind of got a second chance in a lot of ways. And I used the lessons that I learned just by doing it. So I didn't.

I never really consulted on time management or worked with CEOs or entrepreneurs.

I never really did that until we were all the way through it, and I reflected and I said, okay, well, what worked and what didn't work, you know, where was my. Where was. That process was easy, and that process was hard. And so that was.

That was kind of how I got kind of thrown into the area of using time wisely and managing your time and focus and work life balance and all of that. It was.

en't worked a full week since: 2019

Angela Frank: 00:05:21

Wow.

Kevin Hoover: 00:05:22

And that's. That feels amazing.

Angela Frank: 00:05:24

Yeah, I bet. So it's this really. It was this really shocking, you know, drastic reason why you needed to get into, you know, managing your time.

But not only did you strike this great work life balance, but you were able to increase your revenue by three times. I think you said you tripled your revenue just because.

What it sounds like is you were putting your time where it mattered and where it was most impactful in your business. So because of these time management tricks that you were learning, a lot of what you ended up doing through Next Crest was helping.

And this is what you still do. Business leaders, entrepreneurs, and visionaries build their businesses in less time.

So I'm guessing that a large portion of your work ties back to this concept of time management and making sure that your efforts are. And your focus is put in the right place. Can you share your approach to helping entrepreneurs manage their time more meaningfully?

Kevin Hoover: 00:06:23

It's a. I can. It's a brutal process at first because we're having to reprogram and relearn everything that we're taught about time. And so it is.

The perception of time is really where we start. And how do you perceive your time as being spent or experienced? How do you. How were you taught about time? And normally it starts in school where we.

We have to go to school, and we go to school for X number of hours, and in those hours, we learn X number of things. And that's sort of the metric that we carry with us through our life. So we really start with, how do you perceive time and what do you want?

Your time.

But then when we actually get into the nuts and bolts of planning, the shocking thing that most of my clients Find is that we don't plan the work schedule first. We plan the sleep schedule first. And so it is the first thing that we tackle when it comes to time is how many hours do you need to sleep?

A And, you know, everyone has 24 hours. And so we approach the crafting the day and building the time and building the hours and filling out the calendars and all that.

The first stop is which hours a day are you going to be asleep? And it can be any hours. I don't care if you sleep from noon to 6.

I don't care as long as that doesn't hurt anyone in your family or the people you care for or your business, as long as it works for you. But when we do that, we really start to put ourself first. And then it.

The next thing we do is we really craft the life around our business that we want. And let's say we do that, and at the end of it, we have six hours on a weekday left that we're going to now look at our work and say.

And look at that six hours and ask questions about what we need to be doing in those six hours of work that move the needle based on our vision for the business. And that's kind of the process that we go through. And for a lot of people, it's counterintuitive to, you know, I want to get things done.

Hustle, grind, let's, you know, work all the time.

And the truth of the matter is, you know, many, many studies have been done that show that, you know, if you're rested and you're working at your optimal potential, you get more done than if you're working from depletion or just getting through it or just get through the day kind of mentality. So it is that perception of time that we really have to tackle first.

And we have to adjust that and realize that we can accomplish more in a year than we give ourselves credit for. But even on a micro level, we can accomplish more in an hour than we give ourselves credit for.

And so we really start there and retooling the mindset around time, but really caring for the body, caring for the mind, and then actually getting the rewards first before we actually get into the work is where we always begin there. And it's served us very well.

Angela Frank: 00:08:54

Yeah, it seems like it's this huge shift that entrepreneurs and the people that you're consulting with need to make.

Um, I know personally, I've been trying to rest a lot more, but I have a lot of guilt that I feel during my off time or the time that I've set aside for relaxing, you know, because, you know, I grew up in, like, hustle culture and putting in long hours and just like you mentioned.

So how do you help your clients through that if they come to you and they're like, you know, it's great that I have all this extra time now, but I still just. My mind is racing. I feel so guilty taking this time. I feel like I should be using it to build my business.

Kevin Hoover: 00:09:34

It's. Well, it really depends on the person and sort of the backstory of where that mentality came from. You know, for me, it was.

My grandfather owned a gas station, so if he didn't go to work, we didn't get money. And, you know, my, my father's an entrepreneur, so it was a similar mentality.

But I think when you, when you make a drastic shift and you realize that sleep is part of your job, and it's as important as the board meeting, because if you're not taking care of your mind, your body, your spirit, your family, the people you love, the people you care out, if you're not pursuing your hobbies, going on vacation, like, all of that is part of your job. And when you, when you don't compartmentalize that and you recognize that, okay, you know, post. For me, it's like posting on social media.

You know, some people would say that's a waste of time. You're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. I'm like, I make 70% of my money from social media and contacting people and connecting with people.

And so that is my job. So for me, it's actually not a waste of time. And I don't find it to be a distraction.

I don't find it to be a rabbit hole of, you know, watching kitten videos. I find it to be incredibly purposeful. And so when we lump sleep into that category and consider sleep as part of my job, you know, you're.

You're an excellent interviewer, an excellent podcast host, and if you aren't rested, you aren't the best host that you can be.

And I've had experiences with you over the last couple days that indicate to me you're on top of things, you know, and so sleep is part of that job because you have to show up and serve the, the show and everything that goes on with it. So that, that really is. It's just those micro shifts of if something is important to you, but there's any guilt around it.

One that was taught that was, you know, a boss, a teacher, A preacher, a parent, someone in life said something that made it click, that resonated, okay, if I'm, if I'm not working, I'm not being productive. And that's, that's the big corporate. In corporate culture, it's, if you're not here, how can you be productive?

And during COVID a lot of the leadership that I was working with, they were wanting to know, how do we manage a team from afar? And so I think we really have to compartmentalize it a little bit, but not so much that says, you know what? Eating healthy is part of my job.

Sleeping is part of my job. Going on date night with my wife, also part of my job. Being with my son is part of my job.

Obviously, making money, generating revenue, being at the meetings, serving my clients, also part of my job.

But when we consider that, that our existence feeds our job, we can kind of make sense of it to where maybe a 20 minute nap is not so absurd to think about. If it's what you need to do your job better.

Angela Frank: 00:12:08

Yeah, I love that. Thank you.

Reframing it in this way, where you're doing this to show up as the best version of you and everything that you're doing that is so helpful for removing that guilt. So I'm going to take that advice to heart. Thank you.

Building off of this, what are three key areas where you commonly see founders falling into this trap of more is better? We've kind of hit on this a couple of times in our conversation. Feeling like you need to keep going.

So when you see people falling into traps, what are kind of three key areas and how do you help them out of those traps?

Kevin Hoover: 00:12:44

That's an excellent question. There's one big rock in there that I want to talk about, and then there'll probably be a couple from that.

But I did some work with an NFL team a little while back, and I was talking with one of the corporate office folks, not the players so much. And one of the things that he and I were talking about off, you know, offline was just, how do we get here?

How do you get to something like the NFL, which is, you know, the pinnacle of that sport in that industry? And he told me something I'll never forget. He said, you know, the difference between me and someone who's in prison? And I said, no, I have no idea.

And he said, life vision. And I was like, very interesting. So we talked about that. I just, I stuck with that.

And I think, you know, when we get into this idea of more is better, that is A direct indication for me that there's a lack of vision in the business, there's a lack of vision in the founder, there's a lack of vision in the organization. Somewhere the vision has gotten blurry or it never was there at all.

And we need to go back and figure out why we started this thing and get back to that and really reconnect with that vision. Because there's always this idea of more. And I think that's the culture we live in.

If you go to Instagram right now, I'm sure you see it, I certainly see it. Where the carrot that's dangling in front of you is a million dollars. If you don't have a million dollar business, you don't have a business.

That's the sentiment and comparison mode comes in. Imposter syndrome comes in.

And what I really work with people around is, you know what, if you have a vision, you can make $50,000 a year and live an incredible life.

But if you don't have a vision, that $50,000 is going to go very quickly because you're going to be throwing it at things that you're unsure of and you're going to be guessing. And it's the analogy of throwing spaghetti against the wall and hoping one sticks kind of thing.

And so I think vision is the number one thing that when people get trapped into the hustle grind mentality, or the more is better mentality, they've lost sight of the vision somehow.

And then on the next thing that I would say is that I think more being better is an overcompensation for a lack of skill set in some area, which is, okay, we're allowed to have deficiencies in our skill set. What we're not allowed to do is think that we're not good at anything because of it.

So I think if you're, if you're feeling like, you know, and I always tell stories, I hope that's okay. But I played soccer through my first couple years of college and I wasn't a great athlete, I wasn't a great soccer player, but I hustled.

And my coaches always told me that I hustled. And so how did I get on the field at all, really, with these, you know, Division 1 athletes? And it was because I hustled and that got me so far.

And then you realize, wow, that works if you're only playing a 90 minute game. Anybody can hustle for 90 minutes, but do that for a whole week and see what you're left with and see what happens.

And so I think there is that perception of having the skill set and developing the skill set that actually brings that vision to fruition. And then I think the last thing would be personal leadership. We get into entrepreneurship to have more money and more time.

And the first two things that we donate are money and time. And we donate all of our time out because we're building the business, and then we donate all the money out because we're building the business.

And we're curious about why all that does is leave us in ashes or in rubble or burnout or overwhelmed. And so I think really from the get, you have to protect your time, because that is the reason you started the business.

And you're training the business how to treat you. You're training the. Your. If you have employees, you're training employees how to treat you and how to treat themselves. You're training your clients.

And so I think we really get into this mode when we start the business. And I can't tell you how many people I've worked with that leave corporate.

They get into entrepreneurship, they start a business, two years later, they come to me and they say, I built exactly what I hated that I left. I built the same. I'm now the boss that I didn't like when I was in corporate. I'm now that boss, and I'm that leader.

And so it really is coming back to that vision.

If you have a solid and consistent and clear vision for your life and business, it really helps you kind of keep it in the lane, so to speak, and you then make different choices with your time and money.

Angela Frank: 00:17:09

Yeah, I love that. I heard something recently about, if you're starting a business, you should always be profitable from the start.

No matter how much you're making, you should take some out and be profitable and give that to yourself.

And I'm hearing a lot of what you're saying, and it makes me realize, wow, not only should you be doing that for money, but you should be doing that for time, for lifestyle style. And it all ties back to this concept of vision that you're talking about where you know, you started the business for a reason. And if you.

It's not too late now, if you've already built the thing, that's what you help people do is now realize, you know, okay, you've gotten off the path. Let's get back on it.

But for a listener who's maybe just getting started, it'd be so powerful for them to go through this vision exercise and say, okay, what does my life, you know, what does my dream life look like and start building that from the beginning and just trying to have this clear, strong vision.

Kevin Hoover: 00:18:03

Yeah, it's much easier if you start that way. You know, I've certainly done it myself in business where I've had to reconnect with my vision midway through.

And while it's possible, it's not always pleasant to go through that process. You know, it's kind of like building a plane when you're flying at 30,000ft, you know, but it, but it is possible. Yeah.

I think if you can start with the vision, it'll kind of help a lot of things.

Angela Frank: 00:18:25

Yeah. Awesome.

So if there's one thing that people listening to your episode today could stop doing to improve their time management, if you're like, okay, I'm bought in. I want to start managing my time, getting good sleep. If there's one thing that you could urge listeners to do today, what would that be?

Kevin Hoover: 00:18:44

Throw away your daily planner. And I'm a daily planner. I'm a daily planner guy. So let me explain that before all the people who are just like me go, wait a minute, hold on.

Not like my planner's right here. But so what I, what I mean by that is I, I think most, most planners and calendars are set up on the half hour or hour long increment.

And the biggest problem I think entrepreneurs have is they, they don't allocate the time it takes to do a task. They allocate the slot that's given to them.

So I did this exercise where I timed how long it takes me to check my email, initial my initial email, check every day. I check my email twice a day, and one is first thing in the morning and one is mid afternoon.

And so I time myself to check my email first thing in the morning. Now you can consider Mondays are a little different than Thursdays because we've had all weekend and all this.

But on average, it took me about 12 minutes to check my email. And so, but if you go to my calendar, at that time I was allocating 30 minutes to check my email.

So I went 30 days and I timed it every time, start to finish, and just took the average of that. And so every day I was wasting 18 minutes just on one task that was check my email. Right.

And so I was like, oh, well, where else am I allocating more time than is needed for me to do a task? You know? And then I started saying, well, okay, I've got a meeting. Should that be a meeting, a phone call, an email, a text? Or do we Need a meeting.

And I realized that probably 75% of the meetings that I was going to outside of my client meetings could have been done in an email. And that those meetings themselves had no vision and no purpose. We were going to just talk things out a little bit, you know.

And so I think the number one thing is if you're going to set up your day, set it up with real time. How long does it take me to check my email? How long does it take me to do my client list? How long does it take me to do reach outs?

I never do a lunch meeting. I say no to 100% of the lunch meetings that people ask me on because it takes three hours.

You know, by the time you drive there, get there, order your food, how's the weather, how's the family, all that stuff. And so I think it is that allocation of time is where most people go wrong from the start.

And if you just start by saying, you know, how long does this take? Like, I know how long the calendar says to allocate for it, but actually how long does this take?

And I want to allocate that amount of time for it, that's a game for me. That was a game changer.

Angela Frank: 00:20:59

I love that. Do you. So for the email example, you had 12 extra minutes that you had allocated. What do you do with that time?

Kevin Hoover: 00:21:10

I do something else, really. It's a compound effect. So if you think about it, I noticed and then I went back and looked at my behavior. I said, all right, so it takes, takes me.

We will, we will take the time we allocate. If you set a five year goal, it will take you five years.

Now, the goal itself might be able to be done in a year and a half or a year, but if you allow yourself five years, you'll spend the first year not even thinking about it. The second year going, I should really get on that. The third year going, oh, I don't have a lot of time left.

The fourth year going, oh no, here it is. And then the fifth year going, I don't understand why we didn't do it right. So it is a compound. So it's not just that.

It's like, okay, So I saved 18 minutes on email, then I saved 24 minutes on this. And let me do the math for you. This is, this math was really what led me to this.

You know, I, I did a program called 10, 10 more vacation days or something. I forget what it's called, but the whole premise of it was if I could get you 10 more vacation days a year starting now, would you take it?

And everyone's like, absolutely, of course I would. Who wouldn't, right?

And so the math is this all we have to do, if you work five days a week, 48 weeks a year, all we have to do is save one hour per day to get you 10 more full days a year in your life.

Angela Frank: 00:22:23

One hour.

Kevin Hoover: 00:22:23

So if you take the 18 minutes I'm saving on email, that's 18 of that one hour. You take the seven minutes I'm doing on the phone calls, you take the, you know, the website, I'm outsourcing that, so I'm not doing any of that.

So there's 30 minutes. So it takes a very small amount of time to get to that hour savings per day.

And then you look at it and you're like, okay, that hour savings per day just accumulated to 240 hours a year that I just saved simply by being productive and, you know, methodical about how I use my time.

And so when you paint it like that, it's like, okay, it's not the 12 minutes, the 12 minutes we can throw away, but if we were finishing our email and then scrolling Facebook for 12 minutes or going, look at that over there, that should really do that. Or I should straighten up a little bit. Hey, no problem. But you're taking up your vacation days, in my opinion, at that point.

You know, so when we, when you compound those, those 12 and 18 minutes and seven min here and eight minutes there and 20 minutes here, really all we're looking for is that one hour a day to save and we add 10 days to do whatever we want with. And I'm like, that's a, that's a life I want to live. And so that was really how, how it came about, how it all made sense to me.

I was like, oh, this has got to change immediately.

Angela Frank: 00:23:35

Yeah, that makes sense. So the purpose isn't to be uber productive and cram 10 more days of work in your year.

It's to find those pockets of time where you can be more productive, more focused, more effective, and then spend the time doing things that fill your cup. Time with your family, time on vacations, time on your hobbies. I love that message. And I think that's really what we try to get to.

At the heart of this podcast is you can build a business and enjoy your life outside of the business. It doesn't have to, like, you own the business. The business does not own you.

Kevin Hoover: 00:24:09

Exactly. And I think there's a, there's a big Misconception of productivity. Being productive doesn't mean doing more.

It means doing what works right in my book. In my world, it's so clients come to me, I want to be more productive. Well, what, what would you like to do that you're not getting done?

What, what is it? And almost always it's, I need to get more done in my day.

And it's like, okay, I understand that, but are the things you're going to be getting done moving the needle of the vision of the business? Almost always the answer is no. You can cut half that out and nothing's going to change. You're going to change the font on your website again.

Okay, well, how much are you spending to drive traffic to your website? How many visitors do you get a day? Well, I get four visitors a day. Wonderful. Don't worry about the font on your website. It's not a revenue generator.

Right. So I think, I think productivity is not, is not something where you get more done.

It's where you get the correct things done in a smaller amount of time.

Angela Frank: 00:25:03

Absolutely. I think that's such a powerful message. So what's next for you?

Kevin Hoover: 00:25:13

That's. Well, you know, it's funny when people ask that, I'm like, I named my company Next Crest. What's next for me?

Yeah, so the funny story, I was horseback riding in Utah and our tour guide, there was probably a 12 or 13 year old young man on the tour and he kept saying, when are we going to get to insert whatever was Next here? And 100% of the time the guide was like, it's just over that Next Crest.

And it just kept this little guy engaged, it kept this guy like looking forward to something. And I was like, this is brilliant. This is brilliant. I need to do that.

And so hence I named my company Next Crest because we always look for what's next for us.

And honestly the next thing for me is I'm leveraging to help more people, but I'm doing it without automation on the where you might think, you know, a lot of people would say take my digital course or something and I love that stuff too. But really this kind of thing is where I make the biggest impact.

And so I'm really figuring figuring out what the business looks like as far as me having a higher touch rate and more consulting from the top down. You know, working with more CEOs, working with more organizations on a global level, working with more entrepreneurs who are helping entrepreneurs.

I think that's probably what's next for me. So I always keep My head on the horizon, like, what is next for me? What is coming up? And I'm on a really crazy health journey right now.

That's always fun to be on, but that's part of my job as well, like I said. And so it's that. That's a big focus for the. What's next for me is I'm doing a lot of yoga, doing a lot of meditation.

I'm doing a lot of just reconnecting and getting. Getting my feet under me and trying to figure out how to be a better person, a better husband, a better father.

And that personal growth always leads to something in business that is like, oh, aha, I get it. I see it now. So that's. That's kind of what's next for me right now.

Angela Frank: 00:26:58

Yeah, I think that when we're able to get out and just experience new things and start new hobbies, there's always this weird connection that you see in your business. Like, for me, I started gardening, and it got a lot of, like, great ideas. I got a lot of great ideas from that that I could implement in my business.

And so you just don't realize. So I love that you're on health journey, yoga, meditation, all of that.

If one of our listeners wants to partner with you so they can get over their next crest, where can they learn more about you?

Kevin Hoover: 00:27:33

My website is the absolute best place. I like to own my own real estate, even in the digital space.

So mynextcrest.com is where you go in that there's a lot of options to connect with me on any level that you're ready for or any questions.

You might have a lot of information, but it kind of really gives you the whole story of why I think the work that I do is important and why some clients think it's important, and that's the absolute best place to go.

Angela Frank: 00:27:57

Awesome. Well, thank you, Kevin, for your time today on the podcast.

I know that you've shared so many insights that I got a lot out of, and I'm sure our listeners did as well. Thanks to all the listeners for listening to this episode of the Growth Pod. I look forward to seeing you in the next one.