Jeff and Shawn discuss the importance of identifying and executing critical tasks to enhance productivity and achieve personal and professional goals. Key points include defining critical tasks versus habits, the need for intentionality in planning, and the benefits of maintaining momentum in projects. The conversation also touches on personal anecdotes about developing handy skills, learning new tasks, and the challenges of maintaining property and equipment effectively. The hosts encourage viewers to join their online community for further discussions and support.
In this episode of 'The Tactical Empire,' Jeff Smith and Shawn Rider discuss overcoming challenges and distractions to lead a life of abundance, discipline, and high achievement. They share personal stories about becoming more handy and self-reliant, then dive deep into the concept of critical tasks—what they are, how to identify them, and their importance in driving business and personal growth. The hosts emphasize the difference between daily habits and critical tasks, stressing the need for intentionality and consistency to avoid stagnation. They offer practical advice for implementing critical tasks into daily routines to boost productivity and ensure continuous progress, even during busy or distracted times.
00:00 Introduction: Finding the Will to Fight Back
00:27 Casual Chat: Lawn Mowing and DIY Projects
04:02 The Importance of Critical Tasks
05:03 Implementing Critical Tasks in Daily Life
08:05 Maintaining Momentum and Avoiding Drift
12:05 Clarifying Critical Tasks
15:52 Final Thoughts and Community Invitation
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[00:00:00] How do you find the will to fight back against the world that wants to keep you sedated? S stuck plates? Join us for the tools and strategies you need to create a life of abundance, discipline, and high achievement. This, this is the tactical implied with Jeff Smith.
Shawn Rider: What's up man? I am. Good. It's lawn mowing season, so I gotta charge that. My battery's dead. I sat, sat it outside all winter. So went to turn it on the other day and lo and behold, battery's dead again. So decided to buy me a little battery charger waiting for that to come in and, and be a man and charge my own battery.
Jeff Smith: There you go. There you go man. I had a good recommendation for you. I've got a really good one. Um. It's like six inches long and it can start my diesel truck. [00:01:00] It's just a little thing that fits in my console.
Shawn Rider: Well, maybe it was the same one. I, I had to ship at the Home Depot, whatever it was. It wasn't too expensive, but, uh, it was the one that was used in YouTube videos.
I'm just, I'm just trying to learn how to be a little bit more handy around the house instead of lying on other people. Finally, at the age of 36, I'm gonna be trying to learn me some things.
Jeff Smith: That's a worthwhile endeavor. That's a worthwhile endeavor. I'll tell you what. I was the opposite. I used to like flip houses and do my own, like sweat equity in my early twenties.
And then I completely stopped doing anything and I feel like my skills completely atrophied. And now that we RV full-time, like things break all the time. So you, like, you're forced to be handy in the RV space because like you have to fix things and, uh, so it's kind of a different environment and I'm like, oh.
This is really testing my skillset right now and, uh, kind of [00:02:00] my mindset too, because like I'd gone years with like, I'm not touching that. Yeah. Like, no, just hire somebody. Have somebody come in. And I still do that to an extent. 'cause like I. I mean, I'm trying to protect our asset and things like that. I'm not fucking doing that.
So like we just had our bearings packed on on the rig and so it's got like six wheels and you pull 'em off and you pack the bearings, whatever that that entails. But we hired some guy to do it. He was there. It took him six or seven hours and I was like, I am so glad I did not sign up for that job and say, Hey, let's learn on the fly to do that.
But like. That's just the type of thing I don't really want to do. 'cause there's too much risk involved in it. Like if I fuck it up and like it, it's a big problem. That's, yeah. It's, it's expensive too.
Shawn Rider: Yeah. We got, we got like a $1,500 AC repair coil that's gonna be coming next week and it's like, yeah, I'm not gonna touch that.
But I will, you know, I, [00:03:00] I realized like paying a plumber 350 bucks every year to come change my UV light and, and filter system. I'm like, I can, I can do that. So I did that for the first time this year. Then last week, a big storm came through and the one Airbnb that, that we own on the other side of the mountain, a tree fell perfectly across the driveway.
So the, uh, the guests could not get out and I was like. Someone's gonna charge me 500 bucks to cut this thing up minimum. And so I don't have, I don't have a chainsaw. So I asked my neighbor if they had one, they said yes, and I drove 45 minutes out there. First time in my life I ever used a chainsaw. So when you're talking about danger, probably dangerous.
Uh, but it took me less than an hour to. Cut that thing into five pieces and roll the logs off to the side of the driveway. I'm like, all right. That saved me 500 bucks. And I, I learned a skillset. So, uh, I'm gonna pick and choose the things that I learned how to do, but, uh, the big ticket items, yeah.
Someone's gonna be paid for that. I would not mess with the RV support that you don't wanna wheel flying on the
Jeff Smith: highway. [00:04:00] Exactly. Exactly. So what do we talk about today?
Shawn Rider: Yeah. When we talk about picking and choosing, um, every Monday. In the inner circle, uh, you make a post about the men posting their critical tasks for the week.
So I want you to talk about critical tasks. I want you to talk about the importance of critical tasks, but I do wanna acknowledge that, um. After being with you for a few years now, the critical tasks have filtered into other areas of my life. So like when I'm talking with other metabolic franchise owners, I'm like, well, what are you focusing on this week?
And I'm trying to get like a little group of them, uh, together and like support each other. And it's actually starting with critical tasks on Monday to get all them focused. 'cause I feel like as, as. First time business owners, they can fly by the seat of their pants. So I, I wanted to feed into the people today and educate them on, uh, why critical tasks, why are they important?
How to establish them and, and just the importance of being consistent with [00:05:00] them. 'cause it's definitely added a lot of clarity to me.
Jeff Smith: Yeah. This is something I've imp implemented in every group I've ran, as you know. Um, and it, because I think that it is that important. Um. It most, most entrepreneurs by nature are reactionary, um, and especially the visionary type.
If you're a visionary type owner, you, you don't really have the planning skills, the structure skills, things like that. And, um, critical tasks have ap absolutely change my life. Um, I, I do them every day, so I write them down every single day. But on Monday in our groups, the way we run it is. We're like, Hey, what are your critical tasks for the week?
And what that means for those of you that have never heard this before, is like, what are the meaningful things that you're going to do this week that are gonna move you forward in every area? Of life, whether it's business, fitness, I mean, we [00:06:00] post dates for our wives, we're gonna take our wives on a date or whatever.
Um, all, all that stuff is included. I mean, it's the four Fs, if you will. You would have critical tasks for each of them to make sure that you're expanding each and every one of them. Um, but ultimately the purpose behind them is just like. Training yourself to move with intentionality. So these are not like minuscule things, like, I'm gonna walk 10,000 steps.
I mean, that, that may be part of your habits, but that's not actually a critical task. It's like, I'm gonna build out a, a funnel. I. For this particular lead magnet and implement it. So like that could be a critical task. I mean, it, it's a meaningful activity that is going to move your business, financial life, relationships, whatever your, your freedom.
Like, it, it may be like absolute downtime. I'm gonna read for six hours in a day or something [00:07:00] crazy. I don't know. But, um, I. Ultimately it's, it's just being thoughtful about planning your week and then what you're gonna execute on because time moves by so quickly and we're so busy between technology and the actual shit we're obligated to do and our families and everything else, that it can eat you up very quickly.
You can get lost in wasting quarters, months, years, very, very quickly. And that's how you remain in the same place three years down the road and you're like, what the fuck happened? And, and the way that happens is like not being intentional about actually moving things forward. And, and so critical tasks just keep you on a cadence of like.
Being thoughtful about where we're at, like taking stock of, of where we're at, and then what's the next piece that needs to move to [00:08:00] keep up the momentum that we are creating. And, and ultimately that's what it does. It, it avoids these like. A three week, six week, four week breaks where you just drift and nothing really changes because that is very easy to get into, especially summertime.
Like, especially if you're a sports fan, like your season starts and you're fucking consumed by baseball, football, whatever, boating you're hanging out at the park like, or the beach and drinking too much or doing whatever, right? Like you, you can settle into these periods where. You end up drifting to the point where it's five weeks later and you, you've had a lot of fucking fun, but nothing has actually moved forward for you.
You're still making the exact same money. Your business is still in the exact same place. You haven't signed up any new clients. You have no structure on the back end, like you haven't bought any new real estate or invested any more [00:09:00] money. And, uh. And we don't want that 'cause because like the, the importance of what we do is like support everybody to continue to take action constantly so that you are never in that same spot even 12 months from now.
Like you're a completely different human being. So that that's the in, that's the intention behind them, but also that's also the results it produces.
Shawn Rider: Yeah. I think for me the biggest. Uh, change when viewing critical tasks, kind of what you mentioned about something that's a habit versus critical tasks.
Because I found myself probably a year, year and a half ago where like my critical tasks were the same thing every week, and that was probably the catalyst for you calling out the group and be like, Hey guys. Uh. Your exercise program is not a critical task. It's critical to your life and being healthy, but that's a habit for the four F.
That's not a critical task to accelerate and move the four F forward. And so, uh, [00:10:00] when you explained that, that changed my perception on it. I. Um, but really only probably the last three to six months I've been more, uh, cognizant about putting an effort into what the critical tasks are for me on a weekly basis.
And I just try and focus on one, no more than two per business. Um, so I only really, really only have two businesses that require proactive focus and work from me. Mm-hmm. And then, so if I do one to two for those, that's. Anywhere from two to four critical tasks. And if, if I get, if I get four, that would be enough for me usually.
But then you'd say, my third business is the real estate. And as people know, if they listen to the podcast, I'm trying to like re I'm trying to sell some properties so I can invest in something else. So the critical tasks there are just kind of like one step at a time. If I'm on pace to close on a property or if I have an offer on the commercial building or if I have to have a conversation with someone about the commercial [00:11:00] building.
Um, but those are few and far between. So. That's what I would like to reinforce to the people is like your daily habits, uh, your weekly habits, dating your wife, versus a daily habit of working out and hitting 180 grams of protein. Like those are not critical tasks. Uh, those are critical habits. The critical tasks should be the larger things that you need to complete to move a project forward, to take you to the next level, to take your business to the next level.
Um, and you know, you just don't want one of those critical tasks that requires. Your attention and something that's in your control to be a critical task for more than like two or three weeks at a time. 'cause then you're just dragging your feet. Mm-hmm. Like you said right there, there are times where we're there, there are times where we are waiting on other people and, but if you're in a to four week, uh, maintain, uh, waiting mode and you've done what you can do, then you need to find something else to add to your critical task list.
So, um, [00:12:00] it's something that I feel Yeah. The, the men are taking more serious, so Go ahead, Jeff.
Jeff Smith: I, I think of them as projects, and then the way I break them down into daily critical tasks is like, okay, what is the first, whatever, three, like. Execution points that we can do to move us in that direction. Okay, I've gotta find a vendor to take care of that.
I gotta find something else. Like what are the questions that you can answer? I think another thing that people struggle with big time when they're on the investment side of things is like a lot of it's out of your hands, but the. Like, so if you're trying to do a refinance for example or something, and it's gonna be 45 days and you, you, you kind of set yourself up for that.
But the thing is like, that still is probably one of my critical tasks, I would tell you because you need to keep that process moving or check in on it so that you don't lose momentum. 'cause momentum [00:13:00] applies to investments, it applies to like these, these paperwork shuffling things. That the potentially you really can't do anything about, but you still need to check in on them so that you keep the ball moving for the whole overall thing.
And, and I think people have a real hard time conceptualizing that. 'cause they're like, well, I'm, I'm doing a refinance and like, I have nothing to do with it. But I, I'll tell you what, I've got experience where I didn't. Touch it for three weeks and nothing got done on it because I didn't ask the question or they come back to me and said, I sent you the last email, you never sent me that.
And I'm like, holy fucking shit like that. Sat there for three weeks and you've been waiting on whatever for me. And like that's absolutely like. Maybe it happened, maybe I didn't answer, but fucking Jesus Christ like, and that, that stuff happens. And if you talk about wasting [00:14:00] 21 days, that's infuriating.
And so, so for, for me, I still make sure all those things are critical tasks because they are critical to what I'm doing. Like if I'm refinancing $2 million worth of debt, like that's a, that is, if we're actively participating in that right now, that is a critical task. I don't know what needs done on it.
It's probably not a lot of work. Send a fucking email. You're done. Okay. Like, but for me, it's something I need to keep my finger on until it's done. So it may not be this huge like effort or it, it might not be building the funnel to, for the lead magnet, which is a lot more labor intensive. Right. But it may be, check in on this and make sure it's pushing forward.
Because like, that's how you lose momentum, and we're trying to maintain our momentum over time.
Shawn Rider: I like that clarification too. Uh, I think sometimes a critical task of mine is just clean up, clean up the accounting, clean up the [00:15:00] books, um, because it, it, it, it may not move the needle for anything in that moment, but it'll alleviate.
Some, some pressure or weight off your back because it's, it's something that you've been putting off on the side. It's definitely something that you could outsource as well. So I like that clarification on critical tasks are important, but they don't necessarily need to be huge, large, relatively speaking.
Uh, it could be as simple as sending an email, like closing on a property. It, it really requires emails and communication and, uh, right. I could argue that communication is the most critical. So where are you? Where are you losing, dropping the ball on, on communication. So find those, add those to your list.
Uh, Jeff, I appreciate the insight. Is there anything else you wanna say about that before you send the people out?
Jeff Smith: No, guys. Yeah. I mean, if you commit to. To doing this and, and do critical tasks for yourself. I, I, I promise you, you will, you will [00:16:00] change your production level. You should do 'em now because you're starting Q2.
If you haven't done this, implement it for the rest of the second quarter and see how it changes your level of production and how far you move the needle within the second quarter versus before you did them or before you, when you weren't doing them, if you will. So that's it. Oh yeah. If you guys want to join our Facebook community, we've got a free Facebook group on the Tactical Empire community, uh, and we're the tactical empire on every other platform to include Facebook.
Uh, if you have any questions about any of this stuff or you want to talk more about critical tasks, I'd love to help get you on track so that you have the best year ever and you can take advantage of these turbulent economic times. Shoot us a message, DM us. Send us any questions you've got and kick ass this week and execute on your critical tasks, and we will see you next week [00:17:00] folks.