"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."

That’s a famous quote from Groucho Marx and encapsulates perfectly what this episode is about

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Script | 390

Hello, and welcome to episode 390 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. 

I’ve been coaching people one-on-one for seven years, and in that time, I picked up some ideas that, when adopted by clients, almost always guarantee they will transform their time management and productivity. 

None of these ideas is revolutionary, which isn’t surprising since people have long struggled with time management and productivity issues. 

Our attitude to time and the expectations of others has changed, but the amount of time we have hasn’t. 

Technology, rather than helping us to do more in less time, has elevated the amount we are expected to do. 

Fifty years ago, we might have received thirty letters; today, technology has elevated the number of digital letters and messages we receive into the hundreds. And while we may be quicker at responding, we’re not realistically able to respond to hundreds of emails and messages each day and still produce work. 

(Even though I know a number of you are trying)

It goes back to what I wrote and spoke about two or three years ago, fashions may change, but the principles don’t. 

AI and ChatGPT are all the rage today. If you’ve gone down that rabbit hole, you will have been blown away by what it can do. It’s incredible. 

Yet what is it doing? It is making some parts of our work faster. Yet, most people still don’t have enough time to do all their work. What’s happening? 

Well, telling everyone that you can now produce a sales review presentation in less than twenty minutes with the help of ChatGPT means you are now expected to create more presentations. 

That sales review presentation may have taken you two days before, but now, if you can do it in twenty minutes, boom! Your boss can give you more work to do! 

So what are the traits, best practices and ideas that do work that the people who have seen a massive increase in their time management and productivity follow? 

Well, that’s the subject of this week’s question. And that means it’s time for me to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.

This week’s question comes from Lauren. Lauren asks, “Hi Carl, I know you have been coaching people for a long time, and I am curious to know what the most productive people you meet do that is different from those less successful at it.” 

Hi Lauren, thank you for your question. 

As I eluded to, the most productive people I’ve coached follow principles, not fashions, and are ruthless with their time allocation. 

Those principles are to collect everything, process what you gathered, eliminate unnecessary things, and allocate time for doing what’s left. 

But it goes a little deeper than that. 

First, you need to know what is important to you. That relates to your Areas of Focus. Those are the eight areas of life we all share but will define and prioritise differently. 

Things like, your family and relationships, career, finances, health and fitness and self-development. 

Knowing what these mean to you and what priority they are in your life goes a long way to helping you to build productive days. 

Almost every client of mine that has significantly improved their time management have gone through the Areas of Focus exercise and defined each one. 

The second part to this is to be clear about what your core work is. This is the work you are employed to do. 

What I found interesting is that my YouTube Short video with the fewest views is the one asking the question: What are you employed to do?” 

That doesn’t surprise me.

Going through and defining your Areas of Focus and core work is not sexy. Quick fixes, new tools and apps are the sexy things, yet none of those will ever help you regain control of your time. 

Sure, they are fun, exciting and interesting to explore. But they are distractions that will never help you be better at managing your time. 

(I learned that one the hard way. I used to waste so much time each week playing with new apps, programmes and tools) 

Speaking of tools, I have noticed that the most productive people use simple tools. Often it’s Microsoft ToDo or Apple’s Reminders. Quite a few use Todoist, but I suspect that’s because I have done nearly four hundred videos on Todoist and many of my clients found me through YouTube. 

People who struggle the most are using project management tools like ClickUp or Monday.com.

Those types of tools require far too much maintenance to keep them up-to-date and that takes time away from you doing the work you are organising. 

It’s as the old saying goes, you’re trying to crack a nut by using a sledge hammer. 

But, the stand out change that people make that has the biggest impact on their time management and overall productivity is they get ruthless with their time allocation. 

And I mean ruthless. 

For example, one long term client, now a senior executive in his company, will not allow any meetings on a Monday morning or a Friday afternoon. Those times are blocked on his calendar. 

He uses that time for doing his most important work for that week. 

Three hours Monday morning and three hours Friday afternoon. That’s six hours he knows will not be interrupted and so he can confidently allocate work to those times.

I remember when we first started. He was all over the place. He had meetings lined up Monday through Friday and couldn’t even find a hour to quietly get on with his work. 

His default answer to any request was “yes” and it was destroying him. 

Now, not only does he have greater respect for his own time, his colleagues also do. Nobody even bothers to ask for a meeting on a Monday morning or Friday afternoon because they know he will say no. 

The key here is to get control of your calendar. (Another principle). If you’re not in control there, it doesn’t matter what you do elsewhere because you’ve lost control in the one area that determines what you do and when. 

Everyone will be different here. 

I have one client who’s a surgeon and a professor. She has to divide her time between the operating room and the classroom. 

Her surgery hours are fixed. So, she knows she will be in the operating room on a Tuesday and Thursday. Her teaching hours vary according to each semester, but once the academic year begins, her lecture times are fixed. 

These times are locked into her calendar. But she goes further. She knows that she will have to meet with patients and students. So, Wednesdays are dedicated for patients. She will visit the patients she will be operating on the next day and deal with any out-patient clinics on a Wednesday. 

So three days a week are dedicated to her role as a surgeon. 

She will do her academic work on Mondays and Fridays. Most of her lectures are in the mornings, and she will stay in her office in the afternoons so she’s available for students if they need her. 

What she has done is to become ruthless with how she allocates her time each week. Her calendar is sacred territory. 

She does open Saturday mornings during exam times so students can access her if needed, and she can do any outstanding admin work in between. 

What got her back in control was taking back control of her calendar and saying “no” to requests that did not fit in with her priorities. 

And this is where it’s hard for most people. Getting control of their calendar. The easy part is organising and reorganising your task manager. Really all you are doing there is moving things around. 

When it comes to getting con