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Speaking on Broker Daily's Business Accelerator podcast, Back said many brokers believe they have a time problem, when in reality they have a prioritisation problem.
"We need to think much harder about how we prioritise the activities that we try and put into the time that we have," Back said.
"I think brokers have to realise that being busy isn't the same as being productive.
"You don't control time, you control the activities that you put into the time that you have," he said.
More than a productivity hack
The practice of time blocking is nearly as old as the use of calendars themselves, with the likes of Benjamin Franklin being counted as an early adopter.
Most generally, time blocking requires dividing your day into dedicated calendar segments, allocating each block exclusively to a specific task or group of tasks.
While time blocking is certainly not a new strategy, it has become an increasingly popular productivity technique, and Back said its value extends well beyond colour-coding a calendar.
Instead, he described it as a framework for building consistency and protecting the activities that generate the greatest value.
"Time blocking has been around a long time," Back said.
"I've been using it for decades potentially, that clear visual, colour-coded calendar that sits in front of me, where I can see everything from my client appointments, my revenue generating activities, my travel, my administration, my time that we call our CEO time, or the business working on business time. Everything has a place."
Back said that a big mistake that many new brokers make is constantly reshuffling their schedules to suit everyone else.
"You can't just be moving things around to suit other people. Put your own oxygen mask on first.
"So when it comes to time blocking, be really clear on these times need to be protected."
Overall, he said success comes from consistency rather than finding the perfect scheduling system.
"If I had to put it down to it, it's not about building the perfect calendar, it's about building better habits.
"The systems matter far less than the habits... Great businesses aren't built on just one perfect week, they're built on hundreds of perfect, consistent weeks."
Protecting high-value work
Back said brokers should begin by auditing how they currently spend their time before making changes to their calendar.
"What created value? What could someone else do? What shouldn't I be doing at all?" he said.
"What we don't want to do is we don't want to take bad habits into the next phase of creating good habits."
From there, brokers should prioritise their highest-value activities rather than simply filling every available gap.
"When I look at diaries, I'm expecting to see everything in there... B2B partner relationship time... content creation time... compliance... team meetings... client appointments.
"But remember, you can't put everything in there."
"So what we've got to prioritise in your business again, what are the $10,000-an-hour activities? What are the $10 activities? Should you be doing these things?"
Back argued that the key was to lead each day with intention rather than simply reacting to whatever appeared next.
"It's not about finding the time. It's about leading with intention," he said.
"We've all got 168 hours in a week. So why is it that some people can do way more than I do? I think you'll find a lot of the time it's because they're not leading with intention."
Making time to lead
Back also encouraged business owners to schedule dedicated "CEO time" each week to step away from client files and focus on improving the business itself.
"This is the opportunity to reflect. This is the time to go, okay, what's working, what isn't working, reviewing numbers, reviewing processes, planning your next move," he said.
"It doesn't have to be... heaps of time, could just be one hour, just where it's uninterrupted."
"It's the time to think about the business, not time to think about a client file... it's the time to think about the bigger picture issues."
Back said that protected thinking time becomes even more important as technology continues to automate administrative work, creating new opportunities for brokers to focus on higher-value activities.
"I think we talk a lot about Parkinson's Law. That time will expand and contract depending on how you allocate it."
"We'll get that time leakage... where it just gets absorbed back in and then no real change happens."
"I think you need to be really deliberate."
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