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Welcome to the six figure tradesmen. Podcast. This is Season one Episode three The show is titled Five Daily Habits to increase your bidding production. I am your host, Jamie Henry, creator of the estimating Business in a box. My mission is to inspire you and educate you and hopefully help you make a better version of yourself. So I have a question. Would you like to get more done each day without increasing the odds of making mistakes? You know, I would like to think hopefully your answer to that is yes. So if so, I've got five daily habits that I use. It's gonna help you increase how much you can get done every day and at the same time, probably help you reduce how many mistakes she made on these jobs. So as an estimator, you know, we kind of get overwhelmed. Sometimes we let the stress of what we do get to us. If we don't check ourselves in our stress level, you know, they can kind of take over it can. It can run pretty much your entire day. These things are gonna help you put those things in check. Keep him in perspective with you implementing five habits here that I implement, you can get a little more done. So number one, the very first thing that I do every single day when I come in, Um, are you not come in. If you've got a home office when you go to your home office, whatever, wherever you're at the first thing you want to D'oh, you want to open up and take a look at your your bid calendar because you know your big calendar is kind of your Bible. That's that's everything you've got going on and when everything is due. And so it kind of drives the entire engine of your business. Hopefully, you don't have a big calendar that's on a white board or in Excel spreadsheet or, in a word document, or even worst of all, written down in a notebook somewhere. Okay, with today's technology, you need to be using some kind of a digital calendar online for your bid calendar. This is where you're gonna put every single project that you've gotten your schedule, that you've got to get done and what day it's doing it what time? Because if you're not doing that, you're gonna miss something, you're gonna drop the ball and you're just gonna create way too much stress on yourself. And, you know, one of the biggest advantages to having a digital bid calendar is the fact that you can access it from anywhere. So, you know, if you're not in your office or if you're not at home and you need to take a look at the big calendar, you know you can log in to wherever you host that, and you can check it out. So, I mean, if you're not doing that, you really need to start doing that. And if you want to be really good at this, you need to take advantage of all the tools that are out there these days for what we do as mechanical outsource estimators. There are many tools available today that were not available even just five years ago. There are people out there who have an entire suite of software, me included. I have created one of those myself estimator locator dot com, and it has the bid calendar. It has a place for you to store all of your digital documents for every project, your blueprints, your specifications, you know, the addendums, the proposals, all that needs to be kept together inside of that big calendar section because you need access to all that when you're reviewing things. Um, and if it's really good, like like minus, it's gonna also have resource is in there that can help you get better at what you do. Like maybe it'll track the past projects that you've been, and you can keep track of that data so that you could make sure you can beat your competition in the future. So there's just a multitude of tools out there. I know there are many manufacturers who make it beyond me, So go out there and do some research and find somebody like. And if you don't want to have all the software, that's fine. Absolutely. Must have the bid calendar and a digital file. So Google, you know you can use a Google calendar or whatever you want. I don't care. Just use something to make sure that calendar is digital, and then take a look at it every single day. First thing, and the reason why if you start every single day by looking at that big calendar, yeah, number one, you know right here and now, as you look at it, what you've got to do for today and tomorrow, the next day in the near future. Okay, so you could easily look and see that and that'll remind you very quickly. But what about when you're not in front that big calendar? What about this evening when you get home and you start thinking about things and you can't remember what you've seen? If you look at the big calendar every single day, first thing and don't just look at today, look at the whole calendar for the month. Your mind over time is going to start learning to do have it. And life is all about creating new and improved habits of how we do things. So if you let your mind get ah, look at that calendar every single morning and everything in it your mind will start to put itself on autopilot. The mind will start to take over to where even though you don't think you can remember And you may not be ableto specifically think and you can't specifically remember what day something is. Dio your mind kind of knows when it iss and remembers that it knows all of this. Even if it can't bring it to the forefront for you to see it's there. And so what this does This gets into a little bit of psychology and I'm not a psychologist and we're not gonna go there. But on the psychology side of this, what happens is your mind starts to reroute its network and it starts to say, OK, I seem this information. I've seen it five days in a row, and even though I may not remember, exactly, I really I know in the back of my mind somewhere that this is what's happening. And so I can tell you because I'm the mind that controls everything you do. I'm telling you, you need to speed up. Or it might tell you Hey, we're okay. You can be comfortable, you can slow down and you don't really understand emotionally what's happening because your mind control of your emotions and so give your mind a chance to see what lies in front of you. Don't hide that from your mind. Let's reminds I see it because it can tell you when you need to speed up in when you need to slow down and relax. So every single day, the very first thing you want to do is you wanna look at that calendar all the projects and at what? Dating with time, so that you know what's going on. Okay, The second thing you want to dio and this is what I do every day after I looked at my bed calendar. You want to look for any addendums that air in any of your projects? Okay, so every project in your calendar now you need to go to wherever you got the invite from or wherever you downloaded the documents from. You know, wherever the sources of this project, you need to go look for the addendums. I don't know if it's a major hosting side or directly from a G C wherever, but you need to look for him because if there's a denims and here's the number. One thing you're looking for, of course, changes to your project. But you're hoping that maybe a bid bid date got moved. Maybe there's three or four projects this week that are really stressing you out. You know, there's a pretty good chance that one of those might get moved because it's quite often in our world for projects to have an addendum come out on the project, get extended. So the sooner you know that the sooner you can relax, the sooner your mind can tell you we're on autopilot here, and I know Thursdays jobs got moved. So I'm telling you, stay busy and diligent, but relax, Aiken de stress you a little bit because that's the power of your mind, knowing these things. So look for those addendums and then move him in your bid calendar if they need to be moved, and then a gesture your entire schedule accordingly. You know, maybe this will allow you to make some more money, take on extra project or just relieve some stress because you had too much going on. But that's the second thing you want to do every single day. Don't skip it. So here's the 3rd 1 and the 3rd 1 I know it's going to sound to some people is going to sound crazy every single day. These air What I do okay, these air implements that I have done now for many years, and I've had to find ways that allow me to de stress, get more done, make less mistakes and become the best at what I do. So these are the habits that I myself implement that I'm sharing with you and this 3rd 1 I can't stress this one Enough. This is probably more important than any of the rest. Number three is to make yourself take a one hour lunch every day. I know that sounds crazy because you've got a really busy schedule. You've got a lot going on. Look, man, you gotta decompress. You gotta de stress if you're if you're like me and you do everything yourself and you're just a small operation and you just want to try to keep control of everything and do it all yourself, you have got to de stress. You can't just keep yourself running on on full steam ahead 100% 12 hours a day, 567 days a week because I can guarantee you you're going to crash and burn. But before you crash and burn, you're going to make a huge mistake for a major client somewhere along the way. And that's gonna cost you a fortune. So take that. Our lunch. Because during that hour lunch. You know, for anybody who knows me, they know I work out five days a week. Okay, I'm into fitness. I love the lift. I go to the gym every day and I lift for about two hours. And nutrition is Justus. Important is lifting. So in order for your nutrition to work, it has to digest. You gotta eat a good meal, and then you got to give that meal just a few minutes to be digested properly so that your body can absorb the nutrients that it needs. Your brain is a muscle, and that thing really needs a lot of nutrition when you're working it hard. So if you don't give it that our to enjoy its lunch and to digest the nutrients that it needs, I can guarantee you you're gonna get less done from day to day than if you would have taken a one hour lunch to enjoy the meal and relax just a little bit. And if you think I'm wrong and maybe I am, maybe you're that one in a 1,000,000 person that can actually get more done by skipping their meal and and not taking any breaks. But I want you to try it. I challenge you to try it. I implore you to take the next five days and give yourself that one hour lunch every day. And after five days, I want you to reevaluate your workload. And how you felt. How did you feel at the end of every day? Did you feel better? Did you? Even if you didn't get more done to Jeff, felt like you got more done, you know, because your mindset is 50%. What you got done is one thing. But how you felt about what you did is Justus important. So take that one hour lunch. I challenge you to do that. If you don't do it already every single day. No exceptions. I don't care. When you take it. I don't care if you work two hours and then take lunch. Or you wanna work six hours and then take lunch. Whatever works that's up to you. But take that our lunch. If you want to be a professional outsource estimator, you're gonna find that there are some days when you were 12 and 14 hours. You can't possibly go 14 hours between meals. It's just not healthy. I don't want you to do it. I'd hate to see you try. And I want you to let me know if I'm wrong. I want you to send me an email, and you can email. You can always email at anytime with any questions, any advice or any input. I love to get e mails, so let me know what you're thinking. You can send those to the six figure tradesmen dot com e mail and tell me, you know that it didn't work for you. I'd love to hear that because I have not yet heard it. But I'm sure there's somebody out there thinking it. So you try and let me know how it goes. This is the number four thing. There's only five. So we're almost there. Your time is almost up. I'm not gonna keep you too long. Today, number four is how you can avoid any and all distractions. Why performing the takeoff process of the take off that you doing your projects? Um, you know, that is absolutely the most critical part. And in order to do that accurately to make sure you don't lose track of where you're at her or forget what you did or didn't do because you got distracted. Um, obviously you're using digital one screen software. If you're not using digital onscreen takeoff software, you're doing it all wrong. Go find some. But even with that, you can't be distracted. So, what you want to do if you've got a home office, especially if you've got a home office, you need to set this office up somewhere in the home, away from everybody else, and it must have a door. If you don't have a door, you can't control your distractions. You know, unless you're in the house by yourself and there's nobody else there, then you're okay. But if you're like most people, if you've got ah, spouse at home or a sibling or you've got Children, whatever you know, if you've got anybody around the constructed, you better have a door. So you want to make sure the door's always closed and locked, and it's got a nice, polite note on their do not disturb. And, of course, you're gonna want to turn off your cell phone and there isn't a phone call in the world. Very few that can't wait until you get done to pick it up and get the voicemail. You know, there is that rare exception. Somebody really needs to get a hold of you right now, but nine times out of 10 anything anybody's calling you about can probably wait. So you owe it to your client. They've trusted you to do this. Turn your phones off and put it aside. Lock your door and do the take off, all right? And don't let yourself get distracted with any other type of media. Rather, it's the radio I have suggest you don't listen to a radio. I know some people say they work better with it. If that's true. Good luck. I can't do that. You're better than me. Um, don't be looking at your e mails. Don't be looking on the social accounts. If you're on your computer, the only thing you want to have open is that digital takeoff software. Close everything else, turn off all the alerts and go to work. That's how you're going to avoid the distractions. There's no other way. If you don't avoid the distractions and you allow them in, your mind is going to find, and it's got a program to say that that's okay, and it's not gonna feel that that the process of the takeoff is as important as it should be. So make sure you get rid of those distractions. Well, the last one last one's really simple. It's no rocket. Science number five. I want you to play in your next day's activities before you quit for the day. So if you got a home office, you know, before you shut down your computer and leave or for you go home. Don't put it off. Don't take it to the supper table. Don't think you can do it on your commute. Don't think you'll do it tonight when you're sitting there watching TV before you quit. Plan your next day's activities. If you've got a job bidding at two o'clock tomorrow, that's a no brainer. You know what you're doing tomorrow? Two o'clock. But what about from 7 a.m. To 11? What are you doing? What you gotta fill your morning with. You should already had to take off. Done a day or two before. You shouldn't be doing the takeoff one big day. What are you gonna be doing? And then after the bed's done it too, one or two whenever it is. What's your plan? You're just gonna kick back and relax and say, Okay, I got another job out today. Now I can relax. Um, if you're trying to get somewhere, if you want to be successful, it doesn't work that way. You can't just shut your mind off after the bid time and say I'm done for the day because you know that that stress is gone for the day, and now I need to decompress. You know, if that's how you feel, you're not doing this right. You're not taking that Our lunch. You're not getting yourself organized. You don't have that digital bid calendar. So, you know, put these things together. Give yourself that That relief of stress that you need so that you can become a professional one of the best cream of the crop, getting paid big money doing this because that's why we're all in it. I'm not here. Just tea as a hobby or just to make a few bucks. I'm bringing you everything I got that can help you make a fortune. So that's it. That's the five things you're gonna start each day By revealing that bid calendar. You're gonna look for any addendums on every project that's in that bid calendar, and then you're gonna make yourself take a one hour lunch. You've gotta decompress. Come back from lunch and when you're done, do everything you got to do to get rid of all your distractions, locked the door, shut off the phone and do those takeoffs of whatever projects you've got in your near future when that's done, before you go home or not, after you get home, not on the way home. Now, if you got a home office, don't think you can do it at the supper table while you eat before you leave that room, plan your next day's activities. It's a simple is that these five things are so small and simple and become such commonplace. Once you implement those, you're like, I can't imagine any other way without this. If you don't implement, um, I can guarantee you you're stressed. Your stress level is gonna be there and it into the day. You're not going to be the professional. You could be like I say all the time. I want to make you a better version of yourself, right so This is how I'm gonna help you do that. Implement these. Let me know how it goes. Give me some feedback. I want you right now. If you're not driving, if you're sitting at a desk or if you're sitting anywhere and you got a pen and paper, I want you right now to plan out every hour of tomorrow. Now, by that I mean, not the not the whole day, just your working day. So if you work from 8 to 5, I want I want you to sit down and figure out what you're gonna do at eight o'clock, not a toe one, not 805 What you're gonna do at eight o'clock? Unless you're like me? Because I started 7 55 for eight o'clock. So that way you know exactly what's going on and and try that starting right now. I don't want you to wait, because this right here is gonna change your life. If I haven't touched anything new, I hope I reminded you something you already knew. And something you can start implementing again. Because, you know, I want to make you a better version of yourself. I want to motivate you and so hopefully I'm doing that. I hope you love these podcast. Keep checking them out. They're gonna keep coming. If you ever want to know how to start your own estimating business and you don't know how to get started, I have created estimating business in a box six figure tradesmen dot com. You can go by that course, download that course. It'll teach you everything you need to know. So if you're interested in that that's available to you. Our next episode is gonna be episode for And in that what I'm gonna cover how ethics as an outsource estimator are so important. And I appreciate you listening. I'm Jamie Henry, creator of estimating business in a box.