Sales reps can get overwhelmed with administrative tasks without even realizing it. In this episode, Anthony Iannarino talks about ways to ensure that admin tasks don’t overwhelm your day. The black hole of admin tasks Growing in sales means more non-sales related work can find its way to your desk. With more success comes more clients and execution can become a challenge as sales reps have to learn to manage all the new information. As a result, a lot of people end up feeling busy but not productive. Busy means you’re running from one thing to the next while being productive means making progress towards your goal.  What can happen is that people get tied up in the transactional work of selling.  Sales reps and sales leaders are the ones who look for prospective clients. We sit down with people and have a conversation about the impact our services or products can make on their business. We create the opportunity. When you’re stuck with admin tasks, however, you’re unable to pick up the phone and make cold calls. Too much of this can cause opportunities to be non-existent.  You can get caught up helping other people with their tasks and assisting clients but only do so after you’ve completed the tasks that are going to help you move toward your own goals. Not deciding how to spend your time well can put you at risk to be in the bottom 50%. Prioritize the activities that create and capture opportunities.  The blocking system  Anthony encourages sales reps and leaders to have a 90-minute block where all they do is focus on creating opportunity When the time is up, they can check their inbox for anything interesting. Afterwards, they give themselves a second 90-minute block for additional tasks that are important in the work day.  You become more proactive when you learn to focus on a task and not get distracted by emails and calls. Make sure those are separate from your task time.  When you're doing the work you need to do, you owe the work your best effort and energy.  Aggregate all the admin tasks you need to do. Organize your tasks according to category and then designate time for them. Don’t go back and forth between different tasks as that takes too much time and energy.  Selling comes from opportunity creation and opportunity to capture. Everything else that we do is secondary to that. The only things you’re going to get paid for is creating opportunities.  Everyday, do what’s most important first, without fail, and don’t negotiate with yourself. Get to the point where whatever the worst task is, you do it without hesitation.  “Productivity: How to Ensure that Admin Tasks Don’t Overwhelm Your Day” episode resources  Follow Anthony Iannarino on LinkedIn.  Speak with Donald directly for more sales talks. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns.  Try Pipedrive today for FREE! As a TSE listener, PipeDrive is offering you an EXTEND trial beyond the typical 30 days + 25% off your first three months after trial. Try it today at  → https://pipedrive.live/tse use your code: pipedrivetse.  This episode is also partly brought to you by Wingman. Wingman uses AI-software to empower remote sales teams with conversation intelligence, actionable insights on successful playbooks, and delivers real-time coaching. This course is brought to you in part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It’s a course designed to help new and struggling sellers to master the fundamentals of sales and close more deals. It will help them elevate their sales game. Sign up now and get the first two modules free! You can go and visit www.thesalesevangelist.com/closemoredeals also call us at (561) 570-5077. "We value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our 2 mins survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes so tune in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. You can also leave comments, sugge