This is the Thirteenth Lesson in “My 21 Lessons in 21 Years” Series

To celebrate 21 years in business, based on what I have learned from working with accountants, bookkeepers and tax advisors over 21 years I am sharing my journey and some of the lessons I learned along the way. I hope you join me on this journey and maybe learn something along the way too.

LESSON 13: THE 21-YEAR JOURNEY TO UNDERSTANDING WHAT TIME ACTUALLY IS

December 2025

Twenty-one years ago, I thought I had a time problem.

Turns out, I had a thinking problem.

It was 2004, and I was just starting out. Running around like a headless chicken, saying yes to everything, trying to be everywhere at once. I remember sitting in my home office at 11pm on a Tuesday night, absolutely exhausted, staring at a to-do list that hadn’t gotten any shorter despite working a 14-hour day. Something had to change, but I had no idea what.

That moment became the beginning of a 21-year obsession with understanding time, energy, priorities, and what actually makes someone productive versus just busy.

And here’s the thing that might surprise you – I’m still learning. Still refining. Still discovering new ways to create space and leverage in my life and business. But the frameworks I’ve learned over these two decades have fundamentally transformed everything about how I work and live.

The Stephen Covey Years (2004-2007)

My first real breakthrough came from Stephen Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” You’ve probably heard of it, maybe even read it, but I’m not sure everyone truly absorbs what Covey is teaching. The rocks in the jar analogy completely changed how I thought about my day.

You know the story – big rocks, small rocks, sand, water. If you put the sand in first, the big rocks won’t fit. But if you put the big rocks in first, everything else somehow finds its place around them. It’s simple, but it’s also profound in a way that only becomes clear when you actually apply it.

I started blocking time for my “big rocks” first – client strategy sessions, business development work, team leadership. Everything else – the endless emails, the administrative tasks, the “quick calls” that were never quick – had to fit around the big rocks. And you know what? It worked. For a while at least. I was getting more of the important work done, but I was still drowning in tasks, still feeling like I was perpetually behind.

The GTD Revolution (2008-2010)

Then I discovered David Allen’s “Getting Things Done,” and it felt like someone had finally given me a system that matched how my brain actually worked. Allen gave me a way to capture everything, process everything, organize everything without it all living in my head and creating this constant background anxiety.

His system was built around three simple questions for anything that crossed my desk: Do it if it takes less than 2 minutes. Delegate it if someone else can do it. Defer it if it needs to be done later but not now. I set up the whole GTD system – the folders, the contexts, the next actions, the someday/maybe lists. Inbox zero became my religion. Weekly reviews became sacred time that I protected like my life depended on it.

The mental clarity was incredible, honestly. My stress levels dropped dramatically because I knew with absolute certainty that nothing was falling through the cracks. Every commitment was captured. Every project had a next action. But here’s the problem – I was still working 60-hour weeks. I was organized, yes, but I was still exhausted.

The Eat That Frog Years (2011-2013)

Brian Tracy’s “Eat That Frog” added the next critical layer to my thinking. The entire book is built around one principle that sounds almost stupidly simple: Do the hardest thing first. Every single morning. No exceptions.

The thing you’re dreading, the thing you’re avoiding, the thing that’s actually going to move the needle but feels uncomfortable or difficult – that’s your frog. And you eat it first, before you do anything else. Before you check email. Before you take calls. Before you let the day’s distractions and urgencies take over.

I started waking up at 6am and making sure my frog was eaten by 8am. The psychological effect was remarkable – the rest of the day felt easy by comparison. And the big things, the scary things, the important things that I used to procrastinate on for weeks, were actually getting done. But I still felt like I was always behind, always chasing, always reactive to whatever came at me.

The Energy Breakthrough (2014-2016)

Everything shifted again when I read Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz’s “The Power of Full Engagement.” This book destroyed everything I thought I knew about productivity, and I mean that in the best possible way.

The central insight hit me like a freight train: Managing energy, not time, is the key to high performance. Time is finite and it passes whether you’re productive or not. But energy? Energy is renewable. Energy can be managed, expanded, protected, restored. Corporate athletes don’t work longer hours than everyone else – they manage their energy better than everyone else.

I started paying real attention to my circadian rhythms, to when my brain was sharpest and when it wasn’t. Turns out I’m a morning person – my peak performance window is between 6am and 11am. That’s when my brain is sharpest, when I’m most creative, when I do my best strategic thinking. So that became sacred time that I protected like my business depended on it, because it did.

No meetings before noon unless it was absolutely critical. No email before my most important work was done. No compromises. The afternoon became for meetings, calls, administrative work, reactive tasks – all the things that needed to get done but didn’t require peak mental energy. My energy was naturally lower in the afternoons anyway, so it was a perfect match.

I also started implementing real recovery periods instead of just powering through. Thirty-minute walks after lunch. Weekend mornings completely off with no work thoughts allowed. Actual vacations where I didn’t check email every hour. The counterintuitive result? I got more done by working less. Significantly more.

The Dan Sullivan Transformation (2017-2018)

Strategic Coach changed my life in ways I’m still discovering. Dan Sullivan introduced me to concepts that fundamentally shifted not just how I managed my time, but how I thought about what I should be doing with that time in the first place.

Sullivan teaches you to think about your calendar in three types of days:

Free Days – Days with absolutely zero work, complete rejuvenation, total mental break.

Focus Days – Days dedicated entirely to activities that create value and are in your Unique Ability.

Buffer Days – Days for administration, planning, preparation, and clean-up work.

But it was the Unique Ability concept that really hit me like a truck. Sullivan has you map out all your activities across four levels: Incompetent Activities where you consistently fail, Competent Activities that you can do but that drain your energy, Excellent Activities where you have superior skills but no real passion, and Unique Ability Activities where you not only have superior skills but limitless energy because you’re passionate about them.

I did the exercise honestly, and I realized with shocking clarity that I was spending about 60% of my time in Competent and Excellent activities. No wonder I was exhausted all the time, even when I was being “productive.” My mission became crystal clear: shift to 80% Unique Ability time. That meant building systems. Hiring people. Letting go of control over things I was good at but that drained me. It meant ruthlessly automating, delegating, and eliminating.

One of the most beautiful simple learnings I got from Dan was “The Not to Do List” what do you need to Delegate, Automate or Eliminate.

We all have the same 1440 minutes a day. The real secret is working out What NOT TO DO.

The ONE Thing (2019-2020)

Gary Keller’s “The ONE Thing” brought everything into brutal, crystalline focus. The entire book is built around one focusing question that cuts through all the noise, all the distractions, all the things that seem important but really aren’t:

“What is the ONE Thing I can do, such that by doing it, will make everything else easier or unnecessary?”

Not ten things. Not five things. Not even three things. ONE thing.

I started applying this question at every level of my business and life. What’s my ONE Thing for this year? For this quarter? For this month? For this week? For today? Everything else became supporting cast. This was the extreme Pareto Principle in action – not just finding the 80/20, but finding the 20% of the 20%, the ONE Thing that dominates and drives everything else.

This is when OmniPro really started to scale in a way it hadn’t before. Because I stopped spreading myself thin across dozens of initiatives and started driving depth and focus into the one thing that mattered most. The compound effect of that sustained focus was extraordinary.

I still use the focussing question every day

What is the ONE Thing, I can do, such that by doing it, everything else, be easier or unnecessary?

Essentialism (2020-2022)

Greg McKeown’s “Essentialism” gave me the philosophy and permission structure I needed to make peace with everything I was saying no to. McKeown teaches the disciplined pursuit of less, and one quote from his book changed everything for me:

“….if you do not consciously prioritize your life, other people’s agendas will end up doing it for you instead.”
I was saying yes to everything – every opportunity, every request, every “quick favor” that people asked for. And in doing so, I was saying no to the things that actually mattered. McKeown taught me that essentialism isn’t about getting more done, it’s about getting the right things done. It’s about creating space for what’s truly essential by ruthlessly eliminating everything else.

I started saying no. A lot. No to speaking engagements that didn’t align with my goals. No to clients who weren’t a good fit. No to partnerships that seemed interesting but weren’t strategic. No to 90% of the opportunities that crossed my desk. And something magical happened to the 10% I said yes to – those opportunities exploded because I could give them my full attention, my full energy, my very best work.

The Habit Framework (2022-2024)

Charles Duhigg’s “The Power of Habit” helped me systematize everything I’d learned and turn it into automatic behaviour that didn’t require constant willpower. Duhigg teaches that habits are the invisible architecture of daily life, and that about 40% of our actions aren’t really decisions at all – they’re habits running on autopilot.

So the question became: What habits do I need to build to support my ONE Thing? I mapped out my growth habits versus my non-growth habits with brutal honesty.

Growth habits: 6am wake-up, ONE Thing work before 8am, weekly planning on Sunday nights, monthly reviews, quarterly 90-day sprints.

Non-growth habits: Checking email first thing, taking reactive meetings, saying yes without thinking, working late into the evening, skipping recovery periods.

Then I got strategic about changing the habit architecture. I increased friction for the bad habits – removed email from my phone, set calendar rules that automatically blocked my mornings, created scripts for saying no politely but firmly. I reduced friction for the good habits – set out workout clothes the night before, pre-wrote my weekly planning template, automated reminders for my quarterly reviews. The compound effect over time has been extraordinary.

Where I Am Today (2024)

Twenty-one years into this journey, here’s what I know with absolute certainty: Time management is a myth. You can’t actually manage time. It passes at exactly the same rate whether you’re productive or wasting it. What you can manage are three things:

Your Priorities. What you choose to focus on.

Your Energy. How you show up to do that work.

Your Habits. The automatic systems that support or sabotage your priorities.

Get those three things right, and everything else follows naturally.

My Current System

People regularly ask me how I run 8 divisions of OmniPro, heading rapidly toward 8 figures in revenue, while still having space for strategy, learning, recovery, and actually living my life. The answer is simpler than you might think: I don’t manage my time. I manage my priorities, my energy, and my habits.

Every Saturday, I review last week against my ONE Thing, set one priority for the coming week, and block time in my calendar for that priority first. Everything else has to fit around it. My daily routine protects my peak performance windows: 5 am wake-up, walk, exercise and me time.  ONE Thing work from 7am to 9am while my brain is freshest,  strategic work from 9am to 1pm, lunch and a recovery walk, then meetings and reactive work from 2pm to 5pm with a hard stop at 6pm.

Every week I review what my ONE Thing was, whether I completed it, what got in the way, what I need to say no to next week, and what my ONE Thing for next week needs to be. Every quarter I focus on one major goal in a 90-day sprint where everything else becomes supporting cast and I ruthlessly eliminate non-essential activities to drive deep focus on what moves the needle.

The Frameworks I Use Every Single Day

These aren’t theoretical concepts I read about and thought were interesting. They’re the actual operating system for how I run my business and my life, applied daily with discipline and intention.

I ask The Focusing Question from The ONE Thing multiple times every day: What is the ONE Thing I can do right now, such that by doing it, everything else  will be easier or unnecessary?

I process every task through The GTD Triage from Getting Things Done: Do it, delegate it, or defer it. No task sits in limbo.

I filter every activity through The Unique Ability Filter from Strategic Coach: Is this Incompetent, Competent, Excellent, or Unique Ability work? If it’s not Unique Ability, can I automate it, delegate it, or eliminate it entirely?

I constantly check The Energy Map from The Power of Full Engagement: What’s my energy level right now? What type of work matches this energy level? Am I protecting my peak performance windows or letting them get eaten by low-value activities?

I apply The Essentialist Question from Essentialism to every commitment: If I wasn’t already committed to this, would I commit to it now? If the answer is no, it’s time to eliminate it.

I use The Habit Stack from The Power of Habit: What habits do I need to build to support my ONE Thing? What habits do I need to eliminate that are actively sabotaging my progress?

Here is the most important thing. I am still a work in porgress and this will be a lifelong journey of exploration for me

Why This Matters for You

Here’s what I know about accountants, bookkeepers, and tax advisors after working with thousands of you over 21 years: Scarcity of time is your biggest challenge. It’s my biggest challenge too. You’re drowning in client work, compliance deadlines, staff issues, and constantly putting out fires. You’re working long hours but not making real progress on what actually matters for your business. You’re busy, frantically busy, but not productive. You’re running hard but not moving forward.

I get it completely, because I’ve been there. And here’s what I’ve learned through two decades of experimentation, study, and refinement: You don’t have a time problem. You have a priority problem, an energy problem, and a habit problem. And those problems can absolutely be solved, but not by finding more time. You have to solve them by getting ruthlessly clear on what matters, protecting your energy like your business depends on it, and building the habit architecture that supports your success.

The Questions You Need to Ask

Not “How do I find more time?” but “What am I saying yes to that’s defending me from my most important work?”

Not “How do I get more done?” but “What can I stop doing completely so I can focus on what actually matters?”

Not “How do I work longer hours?” but “How do I bring more energy to the hours I already have?”

Not “How do I manage my time better?” but “What’s my ONE Thing, and how do I ruthlessly protect time for it?”

The Honest Truth

I’m still learning. Still refining. Still making mistakes and discovering new things about how I work best. I still over-commit sometimes, still say yes when I should say no, still get pulled into the weeds on things that aren’t my Unique Ability. But I’m better than I was last year, and last year I was better than the year before. That’s the entire point.

This isn’t about achieving perfection. It’s about making progress. It’s about building systems that support your ONE Thing instead of sabotaging it. It’s about protecting your energy like your business depends on it, because it absolutely does.

The Real Transformation

The transformation isn’t in the frameworks themselves, as valuable as they are. The transformation is in how you consistently apply them. It’s in the daily discipline of asking the focusing question. It’s in the courage to say no to good opportunities so you can say yes to great ones. It’s in the wisdom to know when to sprint and when to recover. It’s in the humility to admit you can’t do everything and you shouldn’t even try.

Your Turn

Here’s what I want you to do, not someday but this week:

First, answer the Focusing Question: What is the ONE Thing you can do in Q1 2025, such that by doing it to completion, will make everything else easier or unnecessary? Not three things, not five things, just ONE thing.

Second, map your Unique Ability: What percentage of your time are you currently spending in Incompetent Activities, Competent Activities, Excellent Activities, and Unique Ability Activities? What needs to change dramatically for you to shift toward 80% Unique Ability time?

Third, audit your energy: When are your peak performance windows during the day? What are you currently doing during those precious windows? What needs to be protected immediately?

Fourth, identify your habits: What growth habits do you need to build to support your ONE Thing? What non-growth habits do you need to eliminate that are actively sabotaging you?

Fifth, practice essentialism: What are you currently committed to that, if you weren’t already committed to it, you wouldn’t commit to it now? What needs to be eliminated from your calendar and your commitments?

The Real Question

After 21 years of studying this relentlessly, experimenting constantly, failing repeatedly, learning continuously, and refining persistently, here’s what I’ve concluded with absolute certainty: The scarcity of time isn’t the real problem. The real problem is the scarcity of clarity.

When you’re clear on your ONE Thing, when you’re ruthless about protecting your energy, when you’re disciplined about your habits, when you’re courageous about saying no to almost everything – time stops being the constraint that’s holding you back. Clarity becomes the breakthrough that changes everything.

What’s Your ONE Thing?

That’s not a rhetorical question, and I’m not just asking it to sound engaging. I really want to know. Reply to this email and tell me: What’s your ONE Thing for Q1 2025? What are you going to stop doing to make room for it? What’s blocking you from making it your absolute priority?

I read every single response that comes in. And I reply to every one personally. Because this is the work that actually matters. This is the conversation that transforms businesses. This is what separates the accountants who are drowning from the ones who are thriving.

Let’s Go

Twenty-one years. Hundreds of books read and re-read. Thousands of experiments conducted. Millions of euros invested in my own development and education. And it all comes down to this simple truth:

Focus on your ONE Thing.

Protect your energy like everything depends on it.

Build the right habits systematically.

Say no to everything else without guilt.

And watch what happens to your business and your life.

Tomorrow: Lesson 14 – COVID Pivot—150 Events to Zero (March 2020)