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December 9, 2024 26 mins

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Want less stress? Improve your time management skills! On this episode of the Barrier Busting Podcast, Matt Brooks explores why poor time management is a silent saboteur of our mental and physical health. As you tune in, discover personalized strategies to amplify productivity, enhance your reputation, and cultivate a balanced work-life dynamic. We unravel common misconceptions,  and instead, guide you towards crafting time management techniques tailored to your unique strengths and circumstances.

Ever find yourself drowning in distractions, procrastination, or the relentless pursuit of perfection? You're not alone. Together, we navigate these common pitfalls, exploring how personalized approaches can transform your relationship with time. By conducting time and energy audits, you'll gain insights into your daily rhythms, allowing for a more strategic allocation of your most precious resource: time. Learn how to tackle low-value tasks during low-energy periods and embrace the power of saying 'no' to unnecessary stressors. We lay out actionable strategies that align with your goals and uphold your mental well-being.

Break free from the myth that productivity means working nonstop. Recognize when your body and mind need respite and allow yourself the grace to pause. Embracing breaks isn't just recommended—it's essential for maintaining focus and overall well-being. As we close this episode, anticipate next week's dive into more tips that will further hone your time management skills. 

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Are you feeling stuck ?
Is something holding you back?
Are there obstacles in your way?
Well, let's smash through thoseobstacles so that you can live
your best life.
Hi, I'm Matt Brooks, founder ofMatt Brooks Coaching, and I'm
fascinated with how peopleovercome barriers and achieve
success.
Join me for insights,strategies and inspiring stories

(00:34):
as we explore practical tipsand powerful tools to unlock
your full potential.
This is the Barrier BustingPodcast.
Hi everybody, it's Matt Brooksand welcome back to the Barrier

(00:58):
Busting Podcast.
Do you know what the biggestcause or the most common cause
of burnout is?
I know you're probably thinkingoverwork, too many projects
thrown at me by my boss, toomany catastrophes in my personal
life that happened suddenly Allthese things that do contribute
to burnout.
But do you know what the mostcommon cause is?

(01:18):
It's poor time management.
I'm serious.
Poor time management skills arethe most common cause of
burnout.
Sure, those other things arepowerful contributors, but if
your time management skills aresound, you'll be able to handle
more than you realize, period,and you will be prepared when
life throws you a curveball.

(01:39):
So listen, the fact is, whenthe shit hits the fan, you're
better off if you're on top ofthings, and that comes from good
time management skills.
Face it if your time managementskills aren't sound, you're
flying by the seat of your pantsmost of the time, right?
Sure, under normalcircumstances you can usually
get by.
But what happens when things gowrong or you suddenly need to

(02:02):
come through with extra projectson a short timeline?
Well, be honest, you freak thefuck out, right.
You get really stressed.
This isn't the case if yourtime management skills are sound
.
In fact, do you know one of thebest outcomes of good time
management skills?
I know you're thinkingefficient productivity, right,

(02:23):
and surely that's one of them.
But one of the best is lessstress.
That's right, less stress.
Good time management skillscreate less stress.
Time management isn't just aboutproductivity.
It's also about your mental andphysical health.
They don't talk about that partenough, but poor time
management skills lead to, amongother things, stress, and

(02:45):
stress doesn't just affect yourmental health.
It can also have a debilitatingeffect on your physical health.
Stress is bad and we want toget rid of it.
We want to get rid of as muchstress as possible in our lives.
We can't avoid it, but we wantto keep it at a minimum.
Good time management skills aregoing to help you with that
Trust me.
So what are some of the benefitsof good time management skills?

(03:07):
Right?
Yes, one of the main benefitsis increased productivity, for
sure.
However, completing projects ina timely fashion has many
benefits.
You improve your personal andprofessional reputation.
You can save time and energy.
You will have more energy ingeneral, because there's I don't
know like an endorphin-likehigh sensation to getting more

(03:28):
things done right.
When you check things off yourlist, you feel good.
Something makes your whole selffeel better.
Right, and, as a result, you'regoing to relate more in
positive ways to the peoplearound you.
You're going to be morepositive and you will project
more and I love this one.
You're going to project more ofan image of confidence because

(03:48):
you're generally going to feelmore confident.
Best of all, good timemanagement skills will allow you
to have are you ready?
More free time, and thebenefits for your mental and
physical health are many, not tomention your career.
Free time gives you more of achance to have a proper
work-life balance.
So yet another good reason forgood time management skills.

(04:14):
I'm going to share now mymethods with you, or my ideas
today on time management, mymethodology, if you get online
and you know, do a Google searchon time management, my
methodology.
If you get online and do aGoogle search on time management
techniques, you'll get pummeledwith a ton of information,
articles, books, youtube videosyou name it, you're gonna find
it.
Yet most of these things tellyou very similar things, very

(04:36):
similar techniques.
You'll read about time blocking, the Eisenhower matrix,
prioritization, goal setting andsmart goals.
What else?
The Pomodoro technique.
You're going to read aboutplanning and tracking,
delegating and learning to sayno.
You'll read about avoidingmultitasking, and you'll read

(04:57):
about using planning tools andapps.
Now, I'm not saying these arebad things at all.
They work, and, in fact, I usemany of them in my own approach.
They're all good techniques.
What I am saying, though, isthat the advice you get from
these articles is generic, and,let's be real, there's nothing
generic about us as human beings.
Standardized advice isn'talways applicable because,

(05:21):
frankly, there's just nothingstandard about us.
One of the truths that I keep onthe fore of my mind when I'm
working with my clients is thatwe are all truly unique, right?
We're individuals.
We are who we are.
We become who we become basedon thousands and thousands of
unique experiences that we havein our own lives, so it's

(05:44):
impossible truly to categorizethis.
I mean, it's one of the thingswhen I go to a convention or a
workshop or something and theygive you those personality tests
, right, that ultimately putsyou into one of four, eight or
16 categories, depending onwhich test you're taking.
Are you kidding me?
Four, eight or 16?
So you're telling me there'sthe most?

(06:06):
There's only 16 different kindsof people on this planet?
Come on, we are all acombination of our own unique
experiences, and we come out ofthose our own unique person, so
I like to focus on theuniqueness of an individual when
I'm working with a client,because I like to harness that
person's unique strengths as afoundation for overcoming

(06:29):
obstacles and achieving goals.
It's gotta come from within you,and within you is your own
unique strength, okay, thatbeing said, though, the best
time management strategyrevolves around how you work
best, how you operate, how youthink your time management
strategy needs to be tailor-madefor you.

(06:51):
Let me give you an example why,when you read this advice
online, one of the things you'regoing to see that commonly
comes up is that you should dothe tasks you need to be most
productive at the most highvalue tasks early in the day
when you're freshest, because asthe day goes on you're going to
fade right and that sounds itmakes total sense, unless you're

(07:12):
not one of those people.
I'm not one of those people.
I'm a mess first thing in themorning.
I mean I'm just useless for awhile in the morning.
For some reason I've alwaysbeen a night person.
I work nights for most of mycareer.
So morning time for me is notproductive at all.
The afternoon kicks in I startgetting productive.
Evening kicks in I am on fire.

(07:33):
That's my own rhythm.
So getting the most productivethings done first thing in the
morning really doesn't work forme.
I mean, my wife is one of those.
She can just roll out of bedand hop in the shower.
I can't even think of thatWater on my face before I've had
like three cups of coffee, comeon.
But she's one of those so shecan get up and work out in the
morning.
For instance, I need to be upfor like an hour or two before I

(07:56):
go do a workout.
I'm just not.
I'm not productive early in themorning.
It doesn't work for me and thatjust goes to prove the point
that we're all unique and wefunction in a unique way.
Again, it's what I try tocontinually remind myself when
working with clients that theyknow themselves best, that their
strengths, whatever they may be, are their strongest asset to

(08:17):
overcoming barriers.
They know the demands of theirlives and their own capacities
to deal with those demands.
Again, my clients areindividuals.
There truly is noone-size-fits-all for anything,
in my opinion, but certainly nottime management.
So I'm going to give you my ownthoughts on this today and

(08:38):
share what I think is mostimportant to consider when
managing our time.
Some of them are standard, someof them are the things you read
about if you do a Google search, and some of them deviate a bit
from conventional advice.
Understand, however, that thereason this is so important that
we should all find an effectivemethod for managing our time is

(08:58):
that and I read this somewhere,I can't remember where, so I
apologize to whoever originallysaid this phrase but time is the
great equalizer.
We may not all have equalamounts of money or the same
size house or be living in thesame type of environment, but we
do all have the same exactamount of time every day.

(09:20):
Some people are extremelyproductive with that time and
others are not, but that's ourgreat equalizer.
Now we're always hearing aboutthese corporate CEOs and these
mega successful people and howthey manage their time right.
They have rigid daily schedules, they're consistent, they're

(09:42):
driven, they're driven, they'reefficient.
We hear about this all the time, but what they always leave out
when they talk about people atthat level of success and wealth
is that they have massiveresources at their disposal to
help them achieve the rigidityin their daily schedule.
Right?
I mean, do you think they'retaking their own shirts to the
dry cleaners or mowing their ownlawns or sitting in the parent

(10:02):
pickup lane at their kid'sschool?
No, they farm that shit out.
They got people for that andthey can pay for people to do
those things.
Do you think that theyexperience the same kind of
stress due to financial worriesbecause they have to miss work
when there's a family emergencyor some tragedy in their lives?
No, so it's not a faircomparison and it sets us

(10:25):
regular folks I say that inquotes up for feelings of
inadequacy.
That doesn't help anybody.
We can't just delegate away allthe stuff that typically gets
in the way.
Most of us don't have theresources for that.
We don't have the kind of lifethey do.
Yes, us don't have theresources for that.
We don't have the kind of lifethey do.
Yes, we should be inspired bythem, of course, but we should

(10:46):
also be more realistic and notallow it to make us feel
worthless and weak.
Right?
Comparing our lives to theirsis just not a fair comparison at
all.
Well, you don't have to do itlike they do.
Again, we're each unique.
The circumstances, expectationsand stressors in our lives are
equally unique.
We need to design techniquesthat work for us in our

(11:07):
individual circumstances.
That's what I'm going to sharewith you how I do for myself.
Hopefully, it'll give you someideas.
First, though, let's take abrief look at common mistakes or
factors that lead tounsuccessful time management.
Okay, what are things thatcontribute to the wheels falling
off the wagon?
Right?
What gets in the way?

(11:28):
Well, of course, emergenciesget in the way.
There's nothing that we can doto avoid that.
They do get in the way,although I will talk about how
to use our time during theemergencies to make it maybe
have less of an impact on our anegative impact on our time
management, but emergencies forsure, poor planning and lack of
organization, procrastinationgets in the way.

(11:48):
Okay, how about interruptions?
Right?
Your mother calls next thing,you know, a half an hour of your
day is gone.
It happens.
Here's another one Unnecessarycollaborations.
You know this.
There's a project that you canget done with no trouble
whatsoever, but you've got towork with a few other people at
work who maybe don't share thesame work ethic as you.
I recently did an MSW.

(12:12):
I went back to graduate schoolin my 50s and I had to do some
group projects and I learnedvery quickly who was who.
Okay, because here I am nowdoing some group projects with
some young people, some of whomdidn't have their poop in a
group man, they just didn't haveit together and it I'm sorry it

(12:35):
sucked, because you know I'mwaiting for them to finish their
work so I can finish mine Makesme so much less productive.
You know what.
I'm waiting for them to finishtheir work so I can finish mine
Makes me so much less productive.
You know what I'm talking about.
So unnecessary collaborationscan really get in the way.
Other things that get in the wayhow about distractions?
And we've got many.
We're going to talk about, infact, digital distractions at
some point in these episodes.

(12:56):
Believe it or not, multitaskingactually makes you less
efficient.
All the advice tells you that?
Then there's, of course, the oldlack of self-discipline,
whatever that means for each ofus individually.
But if you have noself-discipline, you're not
going to have time managementskills right.
Bad habits they get in the way,because good time management

(13:17):
stems from good habits, plainand simple.
Another one is the inability tosay no.
If you can't say no to peoplesometimes, you're always going
to be stuck in the mud.
Then there's perfectionism.
Perfectionism, believe it ornot, can really be a time killer
, because you can get so uberfocused on something.
That way, much more time goesby than what needed to be spent

(13:41):
on that and therefore you'rehurting to make up for that time
on other things as you getthrough the day.
But the biggest of all, thebiggest thing that gets in our
way and it's, in my opinion andin my practice, something that
is probably the biggest thingthat gets in our way with
everything is fear, fear.

(14:04):
We all have some fear.
Let's be honest.
It's something I commonlyaddress with my clients.
We fear failure, we fearsuccess.
Some of us we fearembarrassment, we fear being
criticized, we fear rejection.
There's a lot of things we fear, but all fear does is drain us
of energy that we need tofulfill our goals.
It distracts us from focusingon our goals and tasks and

(14:27):
weakens our self-confidence.
It serves no good whatsoeverFor what it's worth addressing.
And overcoming fear is a goodthing to work on with a life
coach or a therapist whoever youwant to work with but if you're
having trouble with fear, giveone of us a call.
We can help.
It's what we do.
Let's take a quick break andwhen we return, I'll share my

(14:48):
specific tips for creatingbetter time management skills.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
Feeling overwhelmed, Struggling to find balance in
your daily life?
At Matt Brooks Coaching, we getit and we can help.
With over 25 years ofnon-profit executive experience
and an MSW with a clinical focus, Matt Brooks offers
personalized coaching designedto help you rise above your
challenges and live your bestlife.

(15:19):
Whether you aim to advance yourcareer, enhance your skills or
simply find more clarity andpeace, Matt is here to be your
partner and ally.
Visit mattbrookscoachingcom tobook your free discovery session
today.
Take the first step towards abrighter tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
All right, so let's get into my tips for time
management.
Okay, I'm going to share someof them today and I'll continue
with the rest of them in nextweek's episode.
So we'll get some done todayand the rest next week.
Tip number one my first tip and, in my opinion, the most
important tip for creatingeffective time management skills
Know yourself and once you'vegot that figured out, surrender

(16:10):
to yourself.
Do not try to change what is inyour core.
Instead, adapt the standardtechniques you've read to you.
Again, that morning issue is aperfect example.
I'm not going to get my bestwork done in the morning, so
I've got to think about what isbehind the advice of do it in

(16:32):
the morning, and what's behindit is do it when you're most
energetic.
Do it when you're most fresh.
When am I most fresh?
When am I most energetic?
Not in the morning.
So I'm going to adapt.
I'm going to look at thatadvice for what it's really
getting at, but adapt it to me.
You should do the same thing.
Time management is an organicprocess and, as such, we must

(16:54):
let it unfold in a constantlyevolving manner that fits with
our unique circumstances,personalities, etc.
But also with our unique waysof thinking and processing
information which comes from alife of our own experiences, for
instance.
Our lives and the decisions wemake are so deeply affected by

(17:15):
our life's experiences, as I'vealready discussed, but in
particular, our lives areaffected by the negative
feedback we've gotten throughoutour lives.
It's why people often becomeless gregarious as they get
older, because that feedbackthat we've gotten, that negative
feedback that's been stuffedinto our minds, it builds like a
wall that holds us back.

(17:38):
So, if we're going to getthrough this, this is part of
what I mean by knowing yourself.
The second part of that iswhat's your body clock?
What's your circadian rhythmlike?
What time of day or night areyou most fired up and what times
are you least inspired?
What are your high and lowenergy points through the day?

(17:58):
Like I said, I'm a mess in themorning, especially early
morning, but I'm pretty onthroughout the afternoon and on
fire in the evening.
How about you?
So assessing your energy levelis a good place to start, and
you can do this by conductingwhat's called an energy audit.
Okay, just simply pay attention, for I'd say three to four days

(18:19):
in a row, and I mean really payattention.
Okay, you can find a list or atemplate that accounts for, you
know, every hour of the day.
That's what you want to do isfind a list or a template, or
create one on a yellow pad whereeach line, like, accounts for
every hour of the day.
Okay, throughout the day, writea number on each line for each
hour and that number beingbetween one and 10, with 10

(18:42):
representing your highest energypoints.
When do you feel the most alert?
When do you feel the mostinspired?
When do you feel blah?
Okay, write that on a list forI'd say, like I said, three or
four days, so you can see someconsistency and look at it
carefully.
Okay, you'll probably alreadyknow most of the information you

(19:02):
will see, but you might besurprised by some things.
So Start out by conducting anenergy audit know your body
rhythm.
Number two Assess your existingapproach to time management.
Yes, I'm asking you to track asecond thing, and I know it's a
pain in the ass, but it's reallyimportant to gather this data

(19:25):
If you want to know how toultimately design a custom-made
system that will maximize yourtime in your own way and make
you more efficient in life.
You need to know this data, soyou need to conduct what's
called a time audit, something Ido with my clients.
This is simply writing downwhat you do during the day and I
mean everything you do duringthe day and then tracking how

(19:47):
much time it takes.
You can easily find templatesfor this online with a simple
Google search, so look for them,pull one off and again, you
know, do this for three or fourdays.
Be vigilant in your recording.
So, between your energy auditand your time audit, you're
going to have some reallyimportant information as to how
to shape and form your own timemanagement skills.

(20:09):
What will work best for you.
What you're doing here,basically, is seeing where you
waste time and on what types oftasks and activities you waste
time.
You'll also see what you aren'tspending enough time on, like,
say, working out or personalgrowth or who knows what, but
you'll see all that throughthose two audits.

(20:29):
Number three don't discredit lowvalue activities.
This is really important, Ithink.
Anyways, we want to place ourfocus, naturally, on high value
activities.
Right, we want to focus most onthings that are going to reap
the most benefits.
However, those low-value taskswill really get in the way if

(20:52):
they accumulate.
Okay, cleaning out your car,fixing that leaky bathroom sink,
are actually more important toget out of the way than you may
think.
They have a place, and it turnsout there is also a time for
them as well.
When is that time?
When your brain is not firingin all cylinders and your energy
level is low, that's the timeto do those low-value tasks.

(21:15):
Now, in my next show, I'm gonnatalk about lists, making lists
okay, and one of the things I'lldiscuss is keeping side lists,
one of which is comprised ofnon-urgent tasks that should get
done at some point.
Low energy periods are a greattime to start checking these
types of things off your list.
I'll give you more informationon that next week.
The main takeaway here is thatyou aren't wasting time or being

(21:39):
unproductive if you aren'talways working on the most
high-value tasks.
Being unproductive if youaren't always working on the
most high-value tasks.
Again, there are only so manyhours in the day and those
low-value tasks will eventuallyusurp a ton of your time if you
don't get them out of the way,so you might as well bang those
out when you're not really ontop of your game, okay, number
four stress management.

(22:02):
What do we need more in ourlives than efficient time
management?
We need less stress, and notjust for our peace of mind, but
for our long-term health.
Okay, I remember being at anannual checkup about I don't
know 15 years ago with my doctor, and it was during a period of
my life when I was underenormous stress and he could
tell my life when I was underenormous stress and he could

(22:23):
tell.
So he leaned into me and hesaid, matthew, stress is really
bad.
I mean really really bad.
I knew what he was saying.
He was saying that stress, andin particular, long-term or
chronic stress, would ultimatelyhave serious health

(22:45):
implications.
So, more than anything, all ofus need to try to reduce stress
whenever possible.
This has to be a priority.
So we want better timemanagement to reduce our stress,
but we also don't want to haveour focus on time management
actually cause more stress.
Right, we can't expectperfection and if we hold
ourselves to that, two thingsare most assuredly going to

(23:06):
happen.
One, we're definitely going tobecome more stressed and two,
we'll most likely fail atachieving our goals.
Remember, we're humans, manwe're not computers.
Okay, we need to remember thatour imperfections are an
integral part of what makes uswho we are, and we should
embrace them and give ourselvessome grace.

(23:27):
It's good to hold ourselves tostandards no question we should.
But if it causes excessivestress, well, that ain't no good
.
Nope, no, sir.
There are days when we justdon't have it in us.
I don't know about you, butthere are days where I wake up
and, within about an hour, twohours a day, I know it's going
to be an off day.

(23:47):
It happens right, you just gotto roll with it when it happens.
I'm speaking in particular tothose out there that are like me
, that are solopreneurs okay,running their own business on
their own.
You're the ones that have toconstantly motivate yourselves
throughout your day.
You don't have a boss tellingyou what to do.
You don't have a board ofdirectors telling you what to do

(24:07):
.
You have to motivate yourself,and that can be really hard to
maintain day in and day out, andthere will be days where you
just don't have it.
So let it go.
Roll with it on those days.
Okay.
Some days just don't work.
Let it be.
Accept it and don't work.
Let it be.
Accept it and don't stress it.

(24:28):
You might just need a littletime to recharge your battery or
recover from something thatwore you out.
Submit to it and let it be it'sokay and, frankly, fighting
it's not going to do you anygood.
Anyways, it's these days thatare particularly good, though,
for what you might consider tobe unimportant tasks.
Do some sporadically throughoutthe day and allow yourself time
for your brain to chill.

(24:48):
You'll be back in fighting formsoon enough.
Just remember that days likethis don't have to be a total
loss.
Get some of those annoyingminor tasks off your plate.
Get them out of the way.
You'll still be moving forward.
Just think of it as driving inheavy traffic.
You'll keep moving forward, butit might be slow for a period.
In this case, that period rarelylasts for more than a day, so

(25:10):
just don't freak out about it.
Release yourself to it.
Let go Give your body and yourmind a break that it's telling
you it needs, because that'swhat's really going on in those
days your body and mind aretelling you what it needs.
All right, well, that's enoughfor today.
I got a lot more to discuss onthis topic, but I'll put it off
until next week, when I will getinto a list of more practical

(25:33):
tips for developing better timemanagement skills.
So I really hope you're goingto join me for that.
For now, thanks for listeningand please hit that subscribe
button.
Be well, and I'll catch younext time on the Barrier Busting

(26:13):
Podcast.
Thank you,
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