Within this article, you will learn:

• The Saint 45 Rule
• The Time Slot method

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These Saint tips may seem simple and you will by now have many to choose from, it's for when you come in from Site and then sit at your desk and get the “where do I start feeling”.

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Use them to get you back into the office mindset and once you start you will be on your way so it is like an anchor or disrupter of the site mindset to get to the new office mindset that is sometimes needed.

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Firstly we will look at the Saint 45 minute rule and then mix it up with the Time Slot method at the end so you're getting DOUBLE TIPS this week!

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🚧 The Saint 45 Rule

At Saint, we try to work in 45 minute slots and then break for 15 min/tea  break etc or take an enquiry from a colleague for example.

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The idea behind this came from a survey carried out at the top UK universities and it found among many other things as it was a very broad survey that the student who studied in 45 min spans had better results and data retention.

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So we tried it as a way to get optimum output during that period in our operations and as we are data nuts we could run it as observers on different sets of staff and see it play out and after a bit of training tweaking it worked.

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The idea is you split your work day into say 8 x  45 min slots in effect. You have to work solidly for 45 minutes at a time.

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When you’re working and you’re tempted to look up or check the phone but it's 38 minutes into the hour you now press on and focus to finish as much as you can until the 45 minutes are up.

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When you get to the 45th Minute then check the phone, get up or look up for that person who has waited for you to become free if not urgent of course.

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We also try not to just walk up to someone’s desk while they are midway through their own task and hijack them with our question but we wait until the magic 15 minutes towards the end of the hour and then catch people as they come free.

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This has a massive improvement on performance but also in our own staff survey across the offices people felt more calmness and less stress.

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If someone calls or walks up to your desk prodding you with a drawing or  interrupts you while you are in the middle of doing a price etc for example it takes a good 20 minutes to get back to the same level of concentration that you had before the interruption. Now imagine having a call, an email and 3 quick texts in that hour and not even notice the loss of focus.

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Do you ever have a day where you think you are not getting anywhere? It’s not all to do with your output it's also to do with you knowing in your heart you're not doing enough and realising you’re not getting anywhere, no traction and then frustration kicks in which brings its own cloud.

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This alone needs to be considered.

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Multi-tasking only works when you are past learning the subject and doing it out of habit, answering a new difficult technical query or a pressured call will just disrupt the mental state you need to be in to get the best result with the task at hand.

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Tell the sites to try to call you or expect a reply to a response or email in the last 15 mins of every hour, they then get used to the way you work and most of the time it can wait but they now also know the best time to call and you are more open to talking and don’t bite their heads off.

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We train our staff in systems and one of the factors or stages of that is what we call “Assurity”. It means if they take on a task it comes enveloped with a promise of assuring them to finish the task or part they are involved in. We know if someone is working on something we can be assured they will see it through. To achieve this they need to focus and concentrate and this has sadly become a lost art with all the devices and interruptions in today's world.

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We realise the importance of this and work on concentration techniques like the Saint 45 Minute Rule and others to improve people's concentration levels.

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Just the awareness alone of this in a team or company that try to work like this and respect it is so important to get the best results consistently.

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Yes, we still get a Boss storm up and start waving folders but then they catch themselves and know to come back so the staff can get on. It’s not a law but the more you just consider operating this way it has an effect and Bosses are the worst as everything they are involved in is to them a priority but just stop to think.

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If the task is big just do multiple chunks but still stick to the 45 min rule or even if no one is calling, break and then go again, it's usually during this downtime some thought drops in to do it a better way for example.

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⌛ The Time Slot method

What was born out of the 45 Minute Rule as a much better working practice was a new method which we just stumbled upon which we call the Time Slot Method.

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In the main, people write a To Do list, listing all the stuff they have to do and again you can see more of our previous Saint Sundays or in the Construction Insider Magazine about the Night Before List etc which is really simple yet effective.

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Please do take a moment to visit the Construction Insider magazine where we are building over time a knowledge hub for construction industry business owners, it's more on how to run a business rather than what van or roof light etc, here is a handy link to Construction Insider.

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What was a real game changer was we found the To Do List really worked well when we wrote it into the time slots.

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You could have a combined 2 x 45 for one price and 3 x 15 calls allowed in one 45 minute slot to say call a wholesaler and then maybe call a site to say it will be there on this day and then speak to that person who was waiting at your desk with a drawing.

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Most tasks take longer than you think so you start to learn and plan in a more honest way about where your time goes as well.

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If the site wants a chat then put it into a 45 min slot so you dedicate 30 mins of that time and maybe a 15 minute follow up email in that time and then move on to your next task/time slot.

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The Time Slot method means you now have a timed to do list, it works. Stop the messing about cherry picking what you want to do, work, start putting the shift in and lead by example.

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As the staff go through their day they are ticking off what they have completed as each hour passes and they really start to motor through their workload and do not feel so pulled about.

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All those ticks now give staff a much better job satisfaction, yes job satisfaction does exist when you tap into working with Saint, people like it as they see and feel they are doing ok and they are organising their day and their staff better.

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💪 Either you run your day or your day will run you!

We want to work with you and help you quickly implement the above tips and many other easy to learn tactics into your company making it start to work for you. If you are in the Trade, contact us today and let’s get that smile back, let’s get that time back and most of all, let’s get that peace of mind back, knowing by joining Saint you're making all the right moves again and again.

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We know the trade so well it separates us from the others be it Tax, Media, Admin or Business Development etc. We have stopped and thought about this and what does that really mean. I think it means we see things from your point of view. The others may say they do but we mean it.

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🎉 That's a wrap!

I hope you found this useful! If you would like to go over anything we discussed within this email, please get in touch with us via this simple form.

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We have had people who have called in for a chat and left it and then come back after 6 weeks or even a year later and just join knowing it makes sense... No sales, just high quality information helping you when and where you need it to operate and grow as a business and an owner remember Saint stay with you.

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All The Best!