Success in your direct sales business often depends on how effective you are with your time management and strategic planning. One tool that I use ALL THE TIME is the most basic of to do lists. Throughout this blog post we will talk about ways that you can determine the best TRADE for your time. The most effective use of your time as a direct seller is making sure that your tasks align with your goals, and you won’t know if that is happening unless you spend time organizing. We are going to use the brain dropbox we just learned about to create our task list. We are going to create the guide to effective to do lists: knowing what to TRADE your time for and how to best make use of the time you want to spend on your business to move closer to your goals.

Now friends. I have read Brian Tracy’s book Eat That Frog about a million times, and I absolutely adore it, but I needed something a little more structured then the woulds, the coulds and the shoulds. I needed to have an acronym that would get me super organized and get that task list under control. This is why I developed the TRADE Method. It is an easy way for me to remember the bits and pieces of organizing my task list on a regular basis. 

T – Top Three:

This one is super easy!!! It is taking a look at your brain dropbox and determining what your top three tasks for the day or week are. This is usually going to be revolve around the goals you have set for your business. If you set your goals based on The 12 Week Year by Brian Moran than you understand the importance of having action based tactics to do each week for your business in order to move closer to your goals.

R – Routine:

These are the routine tasks in your day. This will include, all of the business tasks that you do on a regular basis like; checking your back office, follow up, checking your email, social warm-up and other daily tasks you should or could be doing with your business. These are things that I have listed on a tip-in (shown in this Tula XII video: HERE) that I can easily look at each day throughout the day and then tip to the next day.

A – Action:

These are the tasks that require you to take some kind of action and fill in the other nooks and crannies in your day. Writing blog posts, making YouTube videos, doing happy mail, writing content, creating reels, writing emails. These are all action steps. They may not be the most important things that need to be done for your business (like your top three), but they are still things that you can be doing in your business for growth. These are also things that you could be outsourcing to a VA and spending your time writing workshops, and developing courses for your direct sales business.

D – Delegate:

This is where I hop back into Brian Tracy’s book, Eat That Frog, because I think these last two steps are super important because they help to make the planning process more balanced. The first is to delegate. If there are tasks on your to do list that can be done by others that can alleviate some stress from your day then it is okay to ask for some assistance. If you are a team leader, delegating tasks can help your teammates grow in their own experiences and skills as they grow to become leaders themselves. One eye opening thought shared with me, is that when you fail to delegate you are stealing an opportunity for someone else to learn a skill. Such a huge point to make. As someone is learning they may not do it just like you, but they will learn in their own way and eventually have that skill to add to their resume.

E – Eliminate:

This doesn’t mean to eliminate it completely. What it means is to take stock of the thought as it comes to you, and file it on a task list that is further out than the current one you are working with. If you have a thought come to mind about something you want to do in the future, don’t dismiss it, knowledge that it came, find it a more permanent home on a To Do Later list, and save room in your head for more pressing issues. The elimination part is super important for this process because if you don’t take into consideration that thought it will keep nagging at you until you give it space in your mind. And if you aren’t in a place where you can do anything about it, all it is doing is adding to anxiety and overwhelm. Bless and release it to a new home.

This method of to do list organization is something that I use everyday with my Tula XII inserts. I am mindful in my Brain Drop Box, and take into consideration each of these steps when I am organizing my task list for the day. My favorite insert to use for this is the Brain Dump Weekly, but there is also the Top Three Weekly which will serve the same purpose. You can also use a To Do List or a To Do Now/Later List as well to help gets those tasks organized into a more approachable manner. Check them out below: