In This Edition
I’m back after a bit of a hiatus. A long vacation and a flurry of projects caused me to hit pause on the newsletter for a few weeks. Clearly, I need to improve my time management skills!
Actually, that leads us right into this week’s focus…
🕑 Our Most Valuable resource
Over the years, I’ve realized one undeniable truth: my most valuable resource is time. Unlike budget or knowledge, time is finite. We can’t add more hours to the day, no matter how much we sacrifice (and believe me, I’ve sacrificed plenty of sleep already!).
Refining how I spend my time has become a daily mission, so much so that I’ve got this quote stuck to my monitor:
"Business is a form of laziness. Lazy thinking and indiscriminate time management.”
It’s a daily reminder to focus on being productive, not just busy. Yet, I’ll admit—I’ve still got work to do. But I’m committed. And I’m confident that incremental growth will compound into outsized gains over time.
It’s strangely comforting to know that I’m not alone in this struggle. Nearly every team I’ve worked with (both within my office and with the clients we serve) cites time or bandwidth as their biggest constraint. What’s surprising is that the solution isn’t cutting-edge technology (though it helps!). Instead, the solution lies in a mindset shift and laser focus.
Enter the Pareto Principle—the most powerful tool I’ve found for managing time effectively.
🤏 Focus on the Few, Not the Many
The Pareto Principle (aka the 80/20 Rule) tells us that 80% of our results come from 20% of our efforts. So while it might feel satisfying to cross off every task on your to-do list, the reality is that not every task deserves equal attention.
Which 20% of your tasks produce 80% of your results? Ask yourself that regularly. You’ll likely find that a small portion of your daily work drives the bulk of your department’s success.
🏆 Finding Your Top 20%
To identify what tasks should be your 20%, start by asking yourself (and your team) a few questions. On the surface, these are simple questions. But think far beyond surface level when putting together your answers to make sure that you really get to the essence of the question.
Ask yourself:
Which tasks directly impact our primary goals?
Where do our most successful team members/peers spend their time?
If I had to cut my work hours in half, what tasks would I prioritize?
Where do we get the highest return on time and effort?
What is THE thing I need to work that would most improve the results in my department?
What brings in the most payments or responses from consumers?
What tasks are essential for compliance?
These questions will guide you to your Top 20%—the high-impact tasks that deserve your focus.The other fun part: From my experience, these are typically the tasks that I find the most rewarding. It’s fun to have the purpose behind passion projects validated!
🔑 Managing the Other 80%
What about the remaining 80% of tasks? They still may need to get done, but they don’t directly drive your key results. The goal here is to eliminate, streamline or delegate them.
"It’s not the daily increase but the daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.”
Here’s a practical approach (visualized here):
Eliminate: Identify "zombie tasks" that don’t serve a real purpose. Get rid of them - just be sure they aren’t compliance-related first.
Automate: I’m not sure how, but I find that automating tasks feels even better than deleting them. Progress is addicting when it is easier than ever to automate tasks using tech, robotic process automation and AI.
Delegate: If a task can’t be eliminated or automated, delegate it. But remember—delegation doesn’t mean abdication.
Batch/Specialize: Complete similar tasks together to create a smoother workflow. For example, I’ve seen the Documentation Specialist role grow in popularity within the collection departments at financial institutions. This allows consumer-facing team members to focus more on helping people find solutions and less on detail-intensive paperwork.
I also strongly recommend the Eisenhower Matrix as a tool to help you prioritize your work and find your top 20%.
Interested in finding ways to spend less time on the “Other 80%”? I created a free course outlining intelligent workflow design and cheap/free tools that anyone can use to streamline their operations.
Remember: Just because something IS in the Top 20% doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be automated or made as efficient as possible.
Your goal with the Top 20% is to find ways to do MORE and to double down on what is most impactful. Naturally, you can do this by decreasing how much time you spend on the Other 80%. But you can also do it by making your Top 20% activities even more efficient.
✨ Maximizing Efficiency
Once you’ve identified your Top 20% priorities and strategized what tasks can be eliminated, automated or delegated or delegated away
Time Blocking: Dedicate specific blocks of time for the high-impact tasks. This could be the first hour of every shift focused solely on contacting your highest-priority projects or accounts. Time blocking reduces distractions and helps your team go deep on the most important work.
Delegate or Outsource: Consider outsourcing tasks that aren’t core to your department. For example, use vendors for mailings or skip tracing, and explore business process outsourcing for tasks outside your core focus/competency.
Account/Workflow Prioritization: Products that analyze portfolios of accounts to evaluate propensity to pay, risk of delinquency, preferred communication channel and optimal outreach time are everywhere and surprisingly affordable. From my experience, they are highly effective and require less volume scale to find positive ROI than you’d expect.
Leverage Technology (examples):
Use project management software like Monday or Notion to keep your team organized and reduce your reliance on meetings and redundant communication.
Use video recording software like Loom to replace meetings and lengthy emails.
Use Large Language Models like ChatGPT to spur creativity, automate repetitive tasks and decrease your problem-solving time. For example, ask it to read the CPFPB’s latest lengthy compliance bulletin and share highlights before diving in and reading every word.
Use build-yourself API tools like Zapier or Make to end-to-end automate repetitive tasks.
📢 Call to Action
By focusing on the 20% of tasks that deliver 80% of results—and streamlining the rest—you’ll reclaim your time and increase your productivity. Your team will also enjoy more clarity, and perhaps a bit more work-life balance, too.
So here’s my challenge: start with one small change. Identify one high-impact task, and make it a priority. Then, find one low-impact task to eliminate or automate. Feel the satisfaction of crossing it off for good.
Small wins, stacked over time, lead to big results. And in collections, just like life, working smarter always beats working harder.
🎓 Links for the Learners
📖 I’ll keep shouting this from the rooftops until everyone understands. Yet another reminder that ringless voicemails DO trigger TCPA liability even if an ATDS isn’t used.
💡Tip of the Week
Using Reg F’s procedures to establish safe harbor against 3rd party disclosure violations in email communications helps reduce risk AND gives creditors an opportunity to collect more before referring accounts to outside collection agencies. Get a free, step-by-step walkthrough here.
Consistently stacking small marginal improvements compounds to create an outsided impact. Click here to view the entire post.
Are we on the same wavelength? Check out EngageARM.com for free resources, networking, and in-depth tutorials to help you build a highly-effective recovery department.
I’d like to close this with a quick ask. If you enjoyed this, please share with a colleague. Even better, take advantage of the referral program (linked below). If you disliked it, let me know why. All feedback is good feedback, after all.
Cheers,
Nate
