Root Ready
A podcast for growth-minded financial advisors
Root Ready
Become a Highly Effective Advisor: Time Management & Productivity Tools
Struggling to get meaningful work done despite your technical expertise and people skills? You're not alone. Every financial advisor knows the frustration of ending a busy day feeling like nothing important was accomplished.
The culprit? It's not your ability – it's how you're managing your time and attention in a world designed to fragment both. In this eye-opening episode, I reveal why your morning routine holds the key to transforming your productivity and effectiveness as an advisor.
You'll discover why checking email first thing literally rewires your brain for distraction and turns your day into someone else's to-do list. I share the exact framework we use at Root Financial to ensure daily tasks connect directly to our larger purpose – from our mission and vision down to the three things I prioritize each morning.
The most successful advisors understand that effectiveness goes beyond just getting things done; it means doing the right things at the right time. Learn the four simple steps you can implement immediately to reclaim control of your day and accomplish what truly matters.
Whether you're feeling overwhelmed by notifications or simply want to elevate your impact, this episode provides actionable strategies to ensure your time management becomes your competitive advantage rather than your greatest obstacle. The difference between good advisors and great ones often comes down to this hidden dimension of success.
Welcome back to the fifth episode of the Root Ready podcast. I'm your James Conole. It is not uncommon for a lot of people to get into this industry and they think that to be a great advisor, all it takes is being both a master of the technical skills and, of course, being really great with people. And I thought that same thing, and as I started getting into the industry and becoming an advisor, I started to realize there's so much more and so much of what makes a great advisor a great advisor. Yes, it has to do with the technical stuff. Yes, it has to do with their skill set with people, but it also has to do with their ability to be a great project manager. You are running so many different planning points as you're working on things for clients. It has to do with great time management. It has to do with the ability to prioritize what's most important and then execute on those things. And what I came to realize is one of the biggest things you can actually do to improve your effectiveness as an advisor is to manage your time really well, which is gonna help you do all those things I mentioned above. But what's the challenge? Well, the challenge is we have so many awesome tools that make communication really easy, especially in remote work environments, but that's also the downside is how common is it to open up your laptop, whether you're in the office or working remotely, and you have Slack messages or Teams messages and emails and calls?
James Conole:If you're in the office, maybe you have drop-ins, you have notifications coming from every which direction and it's not uncommon for a lot of you to feel like man, I'm really smart, I really care about my clients, I really know my stuff. I get to the end of the workday and I feel like I got nothing accomplished. And if we're honest with ourselves, we'll realize that we get nothing accomplished nothing of significant accomplished on many days because we're so busy tending to our Slack messages, our emails, our calls, our drop-ins, our notifications, that we never actually prioritize the most important thing that we need to do. And what we come to realize is the only time we're actually getting stuff done is when we have urgent deadlines that are almost imposed upon us. It's a client meeting, it's a check-in with your boss, it's some other externally imposed deadline and you know that before that meeting you're going to get your stuff done because that deadline forces you to do it, but otherwise you feel like you're doing stuff all day with nothing to show for this.
James Conole:So what's not going to fix this? What's not going to fix this? Is a better app or a new tool. Well, apps are tools. They're not solutions. We like to use this analogy all the time as an advisor. If we know people that maybe all they do is sell a certain product, everything to them looks like a nail if they're a hammer. Well, same thing here. Products are tools. Apps are tools. Don't focus on the tool. Don't focus on the product. Focus on the plan, focus on the bigger picture. Same thing applies here.
James Conole:Also, it doesn't matter what app you have, whether it's an app that prevents you from accessing social media or it's an app that helps you track your time. These can be helpful, but the underlying problem remains even when you have these, and the underlying problem is that time management issues stem from deeper challenges. Oftentimes, it's a lack of clarity on what your true priority is. If you don't know what's really important, no app can magically prioritize for you. We tend to have procrastination habits. An app cannot force you to overcome procrastination. You need to develop the discipline and the strategies to tackle the tasks. You need to tackle Poor planning. Apps can help with planning, but they can't replace the thinking required, the deep thinking required to create realistic and effective schedules to accomplish what you need to do. And apps can't always prevent distraction, overload. Apps can help with focus, but they can also become distractions themselves.
James Conole:So there's a handful of books I'm going to recommend at the end of this podcast, but I'm going to take the principles from a few of them here. The first is a book called Essentialism. There's a few core principles I mean four that I'm going to really highlight here and then talk about how I think you should manage your day, not just to be more productive but to be more effective, and we'll talk about the difference between those. But back to the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown. In the book he talks about discerning the vital few from the trivial. Many Learn to identify the 20% of activities that yield 80% of your results this is called the Pareto Principle and understand what's most important. So you can focus on that as opposed to tending to the slacks, the emails, the calls, everything there. Understand the power of no. And, by the way, I'm just listing these. I'm going to tie this all together into an effective framework that you can use.
James Conole:But going back to just some of the general principles, understanding the power of no especially the more you grow, the higher up you get the ability to say no to things is going to become crucially important. So how do you develop strategies to gracefully decline non-essential commitments? Easy no. So what do you say no to? It's not just saying no to meetings. It's not just saying no to people that want to pick your brain. It's not just saying no to these things that are other people. It's saying no to distractions. It's saying no to email notifications, no phone notifications, no Slack notifications. That's another principle that we're going to tie back to.
James Conole:The third is embrace trade-offs. So recognize that saying yes to one thing means saying no to something else. And then finally and this is the most important piece is create a space for reflection. So how do you schedule regular time for thinking, planning and evaluating? So let's talk about what this can look like. What should your actual day look like?
James Conole:And then I'm going to zoom out even further to discuss how a productive day should fit into the bigger picture, and this is where the difference between productivity and effectiveness comes in. So let's start with productivity. What should you do for a productive day. What you should do and this is probably one of the things I feel most strongly about is block off time, ideally first thing in the morning, to do your most important work.
James Conole:So we have a son who's now eight months old, but the past few months he's been waking up I don't know 3 am, 4 am, sometimes as late as 5 am to feed, and I would get him up, I'd give him to my wife so they could feed, and then I'd put the baby back down to sleep and then I would just stay up for the day. And for the past few months with him waking up anytime between 3 am and 5 am before going back down, I have been as productive as ever, because just getting up and having two hours, three hours, sometimes four hours of no notifications, no distractions, a clear mind it has allowed me to focus so much on the most important things to do, and you don't need to wake up at 3 am or 4 am or 5 am, it does not actually matter. But what you do first thing in the morning really matters. Your mind is clear. It's not yet subject to other people's requests or to-dos. If we're honest with ourselves, our email ends up becoming someone else's to-do list for us. So we're just living there. If we're constantly checking that, if we're constantly checking Slack or Teams or whatever it is, we are operating someone else's to-do list as opposed to prioritizing our own to-do list and starting to get things done. And not just that.
James Conole:But if you start your day, how many of you roll over? You get out of bed, you turn the alarm off on your phone and you check email, you check Instagram, you check Slack, you check the news. What you're actually doing? It seems harmless, but you are programming your mind to be reactive. You're programming your mind even to want those little dopamine hits Even if it's an email, even if it's a Slack message things that are creating work for us. There's something about that notification, there's something about that newness that gives our brain a little bit of that hit of dopamine and you are actually scientifically programming your mind, from the time you wake up, to be reactive and to be craving more of that. So you'll get to all of those. You'll get to the messages, you'll get to the emails, but they cannot be the first thing you do if you want to ensure you're managing your time right. Again, your email inbox and your Slack inbox can quickly become someone else's to-do list.
James Conole:So, instead of doing that, don't work on anything else except for your single most important goal for the day. Do this in the morning. You're going to have so many things on your mind by the afternoon. Now some of you are going to say I'm just not a morning person. Ultimately, this is my recommendation. This is what works for me. Do what works for you. But what I found is it's so much easier to do this in the morning. You're going to have so many things on your coworkers need from you. You have a whole day built up of things that are just stacked up. Not to mention, you probably have a mind that's not as clear as it is in the afternoon, as it is in the morning when you wake up.
James Conole:So how can you set aside ideally up to two hours? Now, maybe your work environment doesn't allow for this, maybe you're in a position where that's just not possible. Start with 30 minutes. Start with 30 minutes and don't just check email and say that's the work that you're going to do Once again. If you do that, you are now again in the trap of someone else's to-do list.
James Conole:Prioritize the most important thing that you can do for the day, even if it's just one single thing that you do. If you can knock that out in the first 30 minutes, the first hour, the first two hours of the day, how much better is the rest of the day going to go? So that's super simple. It's not a whole lot of steps, it's just can you, before you look at your phone, before you check anything, can you work on the single most important thing you want to do? Ideally, set aside one to two hours. If you cannot do that, set aside 30 minutes, much less than that, and you're just not gonna be able to be effective.
James Conole:There's a lot of research that shows that ultimately, if you want to get into a flow state a flow state being you are fully focused, fully immersed in that problem solving and that challenging work it takes 10, 15 minutes or so just to get into that state. So if you only give yourself 20 minutes, it's going to take 10 minutes, 15 minutes of really thinking, of really intentional thought, to wrap your mind about around what you're working on, and then, five minutes later, your time is done. There's really not a lot that you're going to get done. So start with 30 minutes if that's all you can get. But try to grow to one hour, to two hour of. If you're just focused on the most important thing, think of how productive you could be, think of how much you could get done if, every day, you dedicated that time to getting done the single most important thing. That's going to lead to your success.
James Conole:Now, that's just about productivity. That's just about getting stuff done. Really, you don't just want productive work, you want your work to be effective. And there's correlation here, there's a relationship here, but they're not necessarily the same thing. How do we make sure that we're not just setting up the most important thing to create a large volume of work? Sure, we're getting a lot done, but maybe it's not the right stuff, maybe it's not the stuff that's actually effectively moving us to where we want to go. Well, the difference there is we need to start working backwards. So if you want that morning time, that focus time, to be effective, we'll start working backwards.
James Conole:Successful days start the evening before. At the end of the previous workday, set your next day top three tasks. So I'm recording this on a Wednesday At the end of today, at the end of this Wednesday, before I leave for the day. I'm going to write down what are the top three things I want to accomplish tomorrow morning. I'm doing that because I'm in the work today. I'm seeing what needs to be worked upon, I'm seeing the things in front of me and, if I can identify, spend a few minutes in deep thought, think through what's the most important thing.
James Conole:One of the books I'm going to reference in a little bit was called the One Thing, and the One Thing has this quote that I come back to all the time and it's what's the one thing that you can do such that, by doing it, everything else becomes easier or irrelevant. It's almost like what's that big domino that if that can fall, everything else becomes easier. Everything else starts falling into place because of that. That's the thing that I'm thinking At the end of today. I'm going to think what's the one thing tomorrow such that, by doing it, everything else becomes easier or irrelevant. Sometimes that's a big, major thing, sometimes it's a little thing, but I'm going to set my top three tasks for tomorrow today so that tomorrow, when I wake up, I know exactly what I need to focus on and I don't spend the first 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes combing through things to say what should I really be working on? Now? Let's take another step back. Today, I'm going to set my top three tasks for tomorrow. That's going to be driven by my weekly priorities. So at the end of each week, I do a reflection of what worked, what didn't work, what are the big three things I want to accomplish next week? And those weekly top three should be driven by even longer term goals, all of which are going to move us closer, move me closer, move you closer to where you ultimately want to be your vision for your life, your career, whatever it might be.
James Conole:So let me walk you through how we do at Root Financial. What does this look like internally? So that we can work on not just being productive and getting a lot done, but being effective and actually pursuing what we want to pursue. So here's what we do at Root Every single day. I am doing something. I'm doing my top three, but this doesn't start with just a random what do I want to do today? This starts from very long-term thinking.
James Conole:This starts with our mission, our purpose, our vision. Why do we exist and where are we going? So I'll read to you our purpose, our vision, our mission, our purpose is. So that's our purpose. That includes both clients of Root as well as team members at Root Be the go-to place where people seek to become the better version of themselves. Our vision is to build a globally recognized platform where every single person in the world can have access to the financial tools and guidance they need to live with confidence. And our mission is to give our team and clients the processes, the people and the purpose they need to make the most out of their life with their money. So that's our North Star. That's why do we exist and where are we going. We use that. We use that MVP, that mission, vision, purpose, to define what are root financials annual goals.
James Conole:This year we have a framework we think about inward, outward, upward. Inward is how do we prioritize team growth? How do we create the environment that fosters the best growth, the best opportunities, the best team, the best environment all that stuff inward first. From there, how do we create the best possible services? So outward is all about service growth and then upward is about revenue growth, asset growth. What can we do to make sure that we're growing in a sustainable way, to continue to reinvest into our team experience and our client experience? So we have root annual goals.
James Conole:That then drives quarterly department what we call OKRs, objectives and key results. But just call them goals for the sake of this. Every department so, whether it's advisory, whether it's operations, whether it's our people team, whether it's sales, every department has their own goals or objectives and key results on a quarterly basis. Whether it's sales, every department has their own goals or objectives and key results on a quarterly basis. And then each individual has their own personal quarterly OKRs or quarterly goals that they come up with, and those goals align with how that individual can help with the department goal. Then, from there, each week we do a weekly reflection to say if these are my quarterly goals, for me as an individual, what are the top three things that I can be working on this week? And those three things are going to be aligned with. What am I going to try to accomplish this quarter? And from there, so these top three weekly things. That then allows me to set my daily top three. What three things do I want to accomplish today? And that's where, going back to what we started with, how am I now going to turn productivity into effectiveness? Will my daily top three that I'm going to set aside time each morning to accomplish.
James Conole:Those aren't just random things, but those are things that ultimately trickle down from a very high level our company's mission, purpose and vision. So, for example, let me use this podcast as an example. Root has its mission, vision, purpose. We also have our annual company objective and a big part of our long-term mission, as well as our annual objective, is to say how can we create an environment where team members thrive. Big part of that is developing and building out our associate advisor development platform.
James Conole:One of my personal quarterly goals, one of my individual OKRs, was to launch this podcast. This podcast is designed, if you remember from the first episode, to say how can we support associate development here at Root, as well as ultimately use this podcast to attract other growth-minded advisors who want to have a platform, who want to have a home where they know they're going to continue to be developed, and this podcast is also a way to attract those of you out there who fit that mold. So this podcast was one of my quarter one OKRs for quarter one of 2025, but this doesn't happen overnight. My goal I broke it down into different key results, so objective was to launch this podcast. The key results were as follows Number one get feedback from advisors internally about what are some of the biggest developmental challenges. Number two reach out to the top 10 personal financial planning college programs to introduce the podcast and gather student questions that I can answer on the podcast. Number three establish a podcast landing page where listeners can submit questions and be first in line to apply for open roles. And number four record five episodes by the end of the quarter and have them scheduled for release. So there's a lot that actually goes into that. So that's my quarterly goal and what I then do is on a weekly basis, I set my top three. Now that wasn't my only quarterly goal, but that was one of three goals launching this podcast. So at the end of each week I say, okay, what can I do this coming week to stay on track for my quarterly goals? So, for example, this week I have published three episodes of the Root Ready podcast. That's moving me closer to one of my quarterly key results Now on a daily basis.
James Conole:Here's how that translates my top three. One of my daily top three for Monday was to outline three episodes. So set aside the morning, set aside that one to two hours and outline three episodes, this episode that we're recording being one of them. My Wednesday top three was to record three episodes. So walk into the office, don't check email, don't check Slack, don't see what's going on. Tune out all of that. Do not do any of that until three episodes have been recorded so I can be fully focused, fully present, fully doing my top three things or one of my top three things for the day. Knock that out and then I can start to revisit that.
James Conole:So what you see is this subtle nuance here of there's this difference between setting aside a time every morning just to be productive. That is good, but ideally, how do you set aside that time to be productive and translate that productivity into effectiveness? Where productivity is focusing, maybe, on quantity of output how much you're getting done? Ensure that feels good. Feels good to check the boxes. It feels good to take care of your to-do list. But how much you're getting done? Ensure that feels good. Feels good to check the boxes. It feels good to take care of your to-do list, but effectiveness is really measuring the quality of the outputs. Being effective means doing the right things, even if sometimes you're not doing a lot of things. Effectiveness is really connecting the productivity of the day to a bigger, longer term goal, like we talked about here, which is ultimately roots, mission, vision and purpose. So this is an episode, yes, about how to be more productive, and that's a great start, but what we should really be striving for is to be more effective. So what are some action items? So what are some simple key takeaways that you can walk away with and immediately implement after listening to this?
James Conole:Well, here's a very simple thing. Number one set your default homepage to what I'm calling focus center. So I have a page in our work management tool which is called mondaycom. I've titled this page, or this document, focus center. On that. Whenever I open up a new browser, the first thing that pops up at the top of the page is a screenshot of our purpose, our vision, our mission and our core values. Right under that is my quarterly OKRs, my quarterly OKRs, one of which is launching this podcast. So every single day I open my browser, I see that Okay, james, this is your goal. Here's the different key results you've set for yourself. Here's your other two objectives and the key results within that. And then, finally, after seeing the mission, vision, purpose in my quarterly OKRs, I see my weekly top three. I see the three things that I need to get done this week to make sure I'm on track for my quarterly OKRs my quarterly OKRs, or goals, ensuring that we are moving towards our long-term mission vision purpose. So that's a very simple thing. Set your default homepage to that.
James Conole:The second tangible thing you can do is write out your weekly top three. It's great to have it online, but the most important thing you can do the reason things don't get done isn't because they're insanely complex. We don't have the ability to do them. Things don't get done because we get distracted. We lose ourselves in the Slack messages, we lose ourselves in the emails, we lose ourselves in social media and scrolling and these things that we're doing that aren't actually moving as closer to our goal, and sometimes it's just because we don't have those things in front of us. So write out your weekly top three. Yes, have them on your home screen, but write them out. Have a sticky note. Here are the top three things I need to get done this week. So anytime you're thinking about doing a task or a project, filter that through. Is this what I should be doing, or should I be doing one of my weekly top three? Does this task in any way align and move me closer to getting done the things I want to get done this week, and I will tell you if you can knock out your weekly top three by Monday or Tuesday.
James Conole:Sometimes that feels so good. Everything else in the week almost feels like gravy. Everything else in the week feels like you accomplished the most important thing. You walk away feeling so much better and you don't leave the office saying, man, I did so much work that day but I have nothing to show for it. And again, if we're honest with ourselves, was that really work or was that bouncing back and forth? How many times do you reread the same email? How many times do you reread the same Slack message? How many times did you do things that you felt were busy but weren't actually effective, weren't actually productive? So write out on a sticky note or piece of paper that is visible to you what are the top three things you want to accomplish this week.
James Conole:Third thing set your next day top three, the top three things you want to accomplish on a daily basis. And just to remind you, the difference between a weekly top three and a daily top three is you're breaking it down. One of my top three things for this week was to record three podcasts of the Root Ready podcast. On Monday, my daily top three was to outline three episodes. On Wednesday, one of my daily top threes was to record three episodes. So it's just a way of breaking down longer term goals into more manageable and bite-sized pieces, all the way down to a daily basis, and set your next day top three before you leave the office, before you close your laptop for the day.
James Conole:Do this when you're still in work mode and you can prioritize what you should be doing the next day. And then, finally, the fourth thing that you should do set aside an hour each morning, at a minimum 30 minutes If you're at root. Do this for the first two hours of your workday. Now, obviously, this depends upon what your role is and do you have meetings and what does that look like. But the importance of setting aside that time is so crucial and most people look at this like I don't have the time for it, and what I'm going to tell you is you don't have the time not to do this. Make it 30 minutes if you have to. Ideally it's an hour, ideally it's two hours. Don't look at any slacks. Don't look at any emails. Don't look at any social media until you are done. You will feel so much better. You will feel so accomplished after that. First 30 minutes, hour, two hours. If you can get done the most important things. Everything else will then fall into place after that. Then, finally, some recommended reading, if this is something that resonates with you and you really want to get this in order. Just some basic things.
James Conole:Essentialism is an awesome book. We talked about some highlights before Read the one thing. The one thing is that questioning what's the one thing I can do, such that by doing it, everything else will become easier or irrelevant. That was my core takeaway from the book. But there's so many other things that helps you talk through, cutting through distractions and prioritizing the things you should be working on. And then something that's just really tactical.
James Conole:This book was written a while ago, but it's called Getting Things Done. You'll probably see it abbreviated GTD. It's kind of become this cult following in a lot of ways, but talks about all tasks that you have. You should either do it, delete it, delegate it, defer it, and what's a simple framework you can use to work through that. So three great books If you're trying to really get great at this time management thing, because our ability to be great advisors goes beyond our mastery of technical competencies. It goes beyond our ability to relate with clients and ask the right questions. It also has to do with how well, how effectively can we manage our time to make sure we're doing the right things and moving closer to our goals, which ultimately helps clients to move closer to their goals. So that is it for this episode of the Root Ready podcast. Thank you for listening and I'll see you all next time.