September 9, 2026 • 29 mins
There's a specific kind of exhaustion that comes not from working hard, but from never quite feeling like you've worked on the right things. You finish a full day, maybe a long one, and yet the projects that actually matter haven't moved. The inbox is cleaner, the meetings are done, but the needle hasn't shifted.
Cyril Peupion has spent two decades coaching executives on exactly this problem, and his diagnosis is consistent: the issue is the gap between where leaders want to go and what they actually spend their time on.
In this episode, I sit down with Cyril, author of Work Smarter, Live Better and his latest book Less Achieves More, to work through his practical framework for closing that gap. He has trained more than 5,000 people across 19 countries.
Cyril and I discuss:
- Why high performers prioritise by impact rather than by deadline, and how to train yourself to do the same
- The quarterly big rocks process: how to choose two or three genuine priorities and find the courage to subtract everything else
- The weekly planning ritual Cyril recommends, including why you should look at your big rocks before you ever open your calendar
- The ideal week exercise that helps leaders reclaim 40% of their time without guilt
- How to plan for the unplanned by deliberately blocking reactive time in your day
- The four Ds (delete, decrease, defer, delegate) for handling the urgent stuff without sacrificing what matters most
Key quotes
"If you work 10 hours a day, you cannot plan 10 hours per day. It's a recipe for disaster."
"I'd rather start my planning from the ideal and then adapt it than start my planning from an open sheet and let everything take control."
Connect with Cyril Peupion on LinkedIn and his website. Check out his latest book Less Achieves More.
If this episode resonated, I also recommend my conversation with Sabri Suby on the subtraction method, where he shares how he ruthlessly outsources anything that isn't his highest value work. You can listen here.
My latest book The Energy Game is out now. You can order a copy here: https://amzn.to/48ID29M
Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)
Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)
If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you work 10 hours a day, you cannot plan
10 hours per day. It's a recipe for disaster. You
know what's going to happen. You're going to end up
working 12 to 13 hours per day.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
That was Cyril Popion. So here's a quick question for you.
When did you last say, I'm leaving the office at
5 tonight and then look up and it's 6 or
7 p.m.? Or maybe you tell yourself, I'm not going
to check email after hours.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
And there you are replying from the couch at 9pm anyway.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Cyriel has coached thousands of executives and he says almost
every single one of them does this. It starts as
an exception, just tonight, just this once. And then without
anyone deciding it, it becomes the new normal. Cyriel is
the author of the bestselling book, Work Smarter, Live Better,
and has trained over 5,000 people across 19 countries on
(00:58):
this exact problem. If your week keeps running you instead
of the other way around, then I think you're going
to love this episode because there are a ton of
practical tips that Cyriel shares to help you manage your
time very, very differently. Welcome to How I Work, a
(01:25):
show about habits, rituals, and strategies for optimizing your day.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I'm your host, Dr. Amantha Imber.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Cyril, you have coached thousands of executives on work habits
at this point in your career.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I want to know, what's the most common thing that
they get wrong?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
So look, they're all different, but if I have to
say a common theme that I've seen in a lot
of them is what I call when the exception becomes
the norm. Quite often at the start, when I meet
them or when I started training with them, I ask
a very simple question. And the question is the, have
you ever? And have you ever goes like this. Have
you ever stayed later in the office than expected? You know,
(02:08):
one of those days where you said, tonight I'm going
to leave the office at six o'clock. I want to
be home on time for the kids or whatever. And
then there was one more email. There was one more
little things to do. And suddenly you look at your
watch and it's seven o'clock. And when asked this question,
they all say, yeah, 100% of them raise their hand.
Then ask a second question. And the second one is,
(02:31):
have you ever checked work email outside of work hours?
And they were all off their head off. They were like, duh, yes, 100%,
define work hours. And what's really interesting is not only
the fact that they all unanimously say yes, is that
(02:51):
also they all started saying that this has become their
new way of working, their new norms. And this is
what I call when the exception become the norm. It
is the thing that at the beginning they say, I'm
going to leave every day at six, but if there
is a hard, you know, something to push, I'll stay
once in a while and it become the norm. I'll
be very good and not check my email or not
(03:13):
do work at home. And they all bring work at home.
It slowly becomes the norm. I don't know if you've
seen the same thing in your world and your research,
but that's one thing that I've seen very often happen
with those leaders.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I so relate. And I definitely hear those things a lot.
And I'm guilty of those things myself. So I am
really keen to unpack how can we do things better?
And one of the things I love about your approach
is how you think about planning. I think you say
think quarterly, plan weekly, and act daily. And I want
(03:47):
to break that down. I want to understand how do
you plan your year and kind of going from there down?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
We all have a bias for more. I mean, look
at our wardrobes today. Look at number of files that
everyone keeps in. The biggest have always been the winners,
the biggest civilization. And you see, even economical, all companies
talk about growth. And so growing, doing more, become the norm.
But is that right when we talk about working? Actually,
(04:16):
it leads to the opposite. Imagine that you're a very
busy leader in a large organization. Out of five days
in the office, if I accumulate things, one day is
gone for email. One day is gone for what I
call coaching. day-to-day operation, business as usual. And I'm being
very generous there. One day is gone for meeting. And
(04:37):
one of my friend, Anthony, who's a leader of one
of the big insurance company here said to me, Cyril,
one day for meeting, you're mad. It's more three or four.
What I'm trying to say is the amount of time
you can spend on your key project might be one
or two days per week. And so by taking too
much on, you're actually making no progress and you're actually
performing far less than if you have the courage to
(05:00):
choose a few priorities. And that's, in my view, the
heart of what we need to think of.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And I feel like I come across this so often
in my work where I'll get approached by an organization
and they'll say, we're struggling with prioritization as if prioritizing
It's not about dropping the 20 things. It's like, well,
let's order them from importance so we know which of
those 20 things to do today. And I just think
that is not going to help with workload and people's
(05:29):
stress and the really long hours that they're working. So
what is that next step then in your planning process
where you get people to actually subtract as opposed to
just reorder the many, many things that they say are
their priorities?
Speaker 1 (05:45):
You've probably, like me, Rhett, The Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People from Stephen Covey, great book. And the interesting
research from Franklin Covey, the organization behind. And it's called
the Eisenhower Matrix, where they talk about importance and the adjunction.
What's really interesting to understand is Franklin Covey asked this question,
(06:05):
how do people prioritize? And what they found is most
of us prioritize because of deadline. Let's be really honest.
If you have two things to do, one is due tonight,
Someone is shouting for it. The other one, you have
three weeks to do. Which one would most people do first?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
The one due tonight. 100%.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
And then what Franklin Covey did is they interviewed top performers,
the high, highly effective people. And what they found was
something different. High performer prioritized by impact. So most people
have four words in the back of their brain. And
the four words are, when is it due? It's due tonight.
(06:53):
I've got three weeks. Here are my prioritization. High performer.
And if I can, that's the first thing I try
to shift in those leaders. I say, if I can
take those four words and replace them by four other words,
and they're probably the most important word for them. What
impact long-term? High performer looks at those two and they say,
(07:14):
I know this one is due tonight. I know I
have got three weeks to do the other one, but
which one will have the most impact long term? And
if the answer is number two, they say, we'll start
today when our brain is fresh with number two. And
if I've got a bit of time at the end
of the day, I'll manage number one. Easy to understand,
super hard to do. And Amantha, this is the core
(07:37):
of my planning. So to come back to your question,
When I work with the leadership team, most leaders have
done the five yearly planning and the yearly planning and
so on. And most of those leaders, they've either on
their own or work with a big BCG McKinsey and
Bain of the world or taking these executives to an offsite.
And they've thought about, hey, what is going to be
(07:59):
a five-year strategy? What is going to be a short-term strategy? Fine,
they've done that. The issue they have is if you
look at where they're going in a year time or
five years times. And what they're doing today, there's a
huge gap between those two. I think it was Ram
Shahram and Larry Bossidy who wrote this great book. So
(08:20):
Ram Shahram is probably one of the most famous executive
coach in the world. Larry Bossidy, ex-GE executive, wrote a
book called Execution. And the whole purpose of the book
to say, we spent so much time in strategy, in thinking,
but execution is a poor parent. And so my logic
on this one, great, you have those long-term view, great,
you have those five years and when you're planning, but
(08:43):
that's not enough. My logic is think quarterly, plan weekly,
act daily. Think quarterly. Every quarter, look at this strategy
and ask for each person and yourself and your team,
what does it mean for me? Choose your priority there.
Plan weekly. Every week, you prioritize what matters. And act daily.
(09:05):
Every day, you protect what matters. Clarify what matters. Think quarterly.
Prioritize what matters. Plan weekly. Protect what matters.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
So what does that look like for you in your
life when you're thinking about the quarter ahead? Take me
through what that looks like for you.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Every quarter, I block maybe half an hour, maybe an hour,
and ask myself two questions. The first question is, what
are the the project, what are the things, it could
be a project, could be an ongoing responsibility, but what
are the, it's not a task, it's something a bit
more complex than that, that if I really focus on now,
(09:49):
will make a difference long term. So I imagine myself
being in a year, two years, three years down the track.
One of the things that I do now, that into
or three years, maybe even a year and a half,
would really matter. For people like you and I, it
could be, hey, developing a new program that will bring
(10:11):
no benefit now, but in two years might be a bestseller.
Could be writing a book, and I know you've written
quite a few successful books, Ematha. Book between the time
you start writing it to the start it brings benefits,
it might be a gap of two or three years.
But two or three years down the track, oh my God,
you are very happy that you made this decision. So
(10:32):
this is the logic here. So first I think about
that and I make a list of maybe five, 10, 15.
I'm just brainstorming. Once I've done that, then I go
into the sub track. Steve Jobs had this mantra that
led in my view, was one of the mantra that
led to the success of Apple. And the mantra was forward.
(10:55):
Focus means saying no. Focus means saying no. So I
look at this long list and I say, that would
be amazing if I could work on all that. But
if I take too much on, I will fail. If
everything is important, nothing is important. And so I choose
only two or three. And they become my big rock.
(11:16):
They become the thing. And I have a process that
I call a compass plan where I go and really
clarify those two or three things. But I choose only
two or three, knowing that there could be another 10
things that I could be doing, but I can't do
too many things. That's my quarterly process.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
I feel like that sounds very sensible. I do love
the sound of it. But I know for myself I
really struggle with that and I imagine other people would
as well to go, how do I know what to subtract?
Like let me give you a real example from my
life where I'm For maybe two years, I have known
(11:55):
that I need to invest in YouTube because that is
the way podcasts are moving. I have released a few
episodes on YouTube, but it adds a real complexity to
the production of the show and the post-production. It's always
floating around in the back of my head, I must
do YouTube. I've just deprioritized that, but it's still sitting there.
(12:21):
And I feel like I need someone like you to
just go, just subtract it, just subtract it. It's not
going to move the needle sufficiently, you know, without investing
a whole lot of time, which means you're going to
be stealing time from other things. So, I mean, that
is a real example for me. What advice would you
give me?
Speaker 1 (12:38):
First, we would look at everything else you've decided to do.
And the funny thing is, Ametha, you've already answered your
question in your question. You've already said, I haven't said anything.
You said, yes, but it will distract me from other
things and I will have to invest a lot of
time and I'm not sure and so on. So you've
already inside questioned it. Are you going to choose perfectly?
Speaker 3 (13:02):
No.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
But choosing, actually blocking this one hour to be intentional
about choosing, it's much better than not choosing at all.
Number one. Number two, when I work with those leaders,
so I was with a big mining company recently. And
we took that to the next level because they were
asking exactly the same question. And I said, OK, now
(13:24):
that you've understood the process at the personal level, I
will lead a meeting every quarter and all of you
will come and prepared with all your potential big rocks.
And I'm going to put you in small groups and
you're going to argue your big rocks and you're going
to argue what you want.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
To focus on.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Why you want to focus on it, and what impact
it will have for you and for the company and
the team. And you're open-minded to get all your colleagues
to criticize, to challenge you.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Why?
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Because 10 brains are always better than one. And so
what I would do in your case is I would,
first of all, you listing all the potential one, you
having the first pass of which one you think would
be right, but then getting to your team and having
a discussion with the people you trust, And having them
challenge you and say, Amentha, you're kidding yourself. This YouTube
(14:17):
thing is something that's a bit of a fantasy for you.
Or the opposite. Amentha, why on earth are you not
doing it? It could bring great benefits. So you start
at a personal level. And then you bring at least
your leader, at best your whole team, to help you
to choose your big rocks. But at least you start
with yourself.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Coming up next, Cyriel takes us from the big picture
into the weekly grind. We get into his fortnightly planning ritual,
why he looks at his three big rocks before he
ever even opens his calendar, and the ideal week exercise
he runs with leaders who swear their diary is already full.
(15:00):
He also explains why he only ever plans 60% of
his day and exactly what happens to the leaders.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Who try to plan more than that.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
If you're looking for more tips to improve the way
you work and live, I write a short weekly newsletter
that contains tactics I've discovered that have helped me personally.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
You can sign up for that at Amantha.com. That's Amantha.com.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Okay, let's talk about weekly. So we plan weekly. Tell me,
what does this look like in your life? Do you
have a start of week or end of week ritual?
And what does that involve?
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So I have a start of the week ritual and
I do that every two weeks. So every two weeks
on Monday morning, I do this. But I'm more an exception.
Most of my clients, because they work in big business
and so on, do that mostly on Thursday or on
Friday morning.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
It varies.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
You need to block probably at least, I would say,
20 minutes to half an hour, roughly. And at a
time where you know you're likely to do it. For me,
this is one of the most important time investment you
can do. This half an hour will generate 10 times
the benefit that you do. What do I do every,
(16:21):
for me, every two weeks because I plan in two
weeks batch. And some people, I say, start weekly and
see if you want to move to the fortnightly. And
I have with some of my clients what I call
the rolling fortnight, where every week you do it looking
at the next two weeks, but you find your next one.
Let's make it very simple. Let's say on Thursday or
on Friday morning, you look at your next week. The
start of the process is not your week. It's your
(16:44):
big rocks. Remembering that we agreed that where you're going
to bring the most value are those two or three
big rocks that you've chosen. So I don't look at
my week first. I look at what I call my
compass plan. which have clarified my big rocks. So I
look at my three big rocks and ask myself a
very simple question. What do I need next week to
(17:06):
progress this big rocks? As simple as this. I take
one big rocks and I said, I call that be
agile with your big rocks. I don't plan my, when
I do my quarterly planning, I don't use one big
rocks and try to plan it for the next three months.
Because I've got a good idea what I need to
do for this big box the next week or four weeks.
(17:27):
But if I take your YouTube project, if you were
to start working on that in one month's time or
in two months' time, you have no idea what you're
going to have to be working on. There's too many variables.
The Agile methodology is the logic of rather than trying
to plan as much as you can, you do a
sprint every week or every two weeks and you review.
(17:47):
So I do this every week. I ask myself this question.
I take my first big rocks. What do I need
to do next week to progress these big rocks? And
I break these big rocks into four, five manageable tasks.
I do that for my second big rocks. I do
that for my third big rocks. And I do that
for my personal big rocks as well. Because of course,
(18:10):
I clarify my business big rocks every quarter, but also
my personal big rocks. So I simply, and it's super simple.
It's very simple because every week, I'm talking about three
or four tasks per big rocks, nothing big. And then, Amantha,
once I've done that, all of that will be the
first thing that go to my calendar. I book specific
(18:34):
meeting with myself. So all those tasks will be put
in my calendar, a specific meeting with myself.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Okay, which then brings us to act daily. And I read,
and I think I read this in your latest book,
Less Achieves More. that you recommend planning for only 60%
of your day. Can you tell me, did I get
that percentage right and why?
Speaker 1 (18:58):
All right. When I work with those leaders that we
spoke about, when I talk to them about this plan weekly,
they say, Cyril, it's great. But when I sit down
on Friday to plan my next week, my next week
is full. They already have meetings. So then we go to,
and I say, fantastic, all good. Then we go to
(19:18):
a concept that I call the ideal week. I make
them think about a week where you are your best
at work and at home. And I literally make them
take an empty week and we design it. And the
first thing I ask them to do is to block
time for the important personal things. Sport, lunch, taking the
(19:40):
kids to school, coming home on time. And we design it. Second,
I make them block time for their big rocks. And
I say, okay, on average, most of the big rock
time with others, the meeting happen. The poor parents is
the meeting with yourself. So I say, okay, I suggest
you block an hour and a half to two hours
(20:00):
per day at a time that really think you should
be working for you. And we block it as a
record meeting with yourself. And so in your case, I
don't know, a month out, it could be every Monday
from 8 to 9.30, you have an hour and a
half block as a record meeting forever, call, big rock time.
But Cyril, what if I have a very important meeting
(20:22):
with a client? That's okay, you'll move that meeting, but
it's there, it's protected. So we do that with this,
we do that with a weekly plan, we include all
the triage for emails and so on, we do this.
And in doing that, we block probably 40% of their time.
My logic is to say, to everything else, to all
the other meetings you want to organize, to all the
(20:42):
business as usual. I give you access to my calendar,
but I don't give you access to 100% of my calendar.
There's 40% who's already blocked. So you do have access
to my calendar, but not 100%, only 60%, or 50%,
or whatever is left. So that on Friday, when they
plan their week, the space has been protected for the
(21:06):
thing that matters. That's the first thing about that.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
I'm wondering how much pushback do you get from leaders
who are saying, well, I'm here to serve my team.
I'm here to serve the organization. That feels really selfish.
Just like blocking out all this time where people can't
access me.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
The funny thing is, it's almost so logical. I started
this process, Samantha, by saying, where can you bring most value?
And so I asked them, where can you bring most value?
To your organization, to your team. to your clients. In
asking this question, you've chosen your big rocks. So I'm
only talking about value here. I'm only trying to protect
(21:46):
time for the thing that matter the most, where you
bring most value. So you are bringing the most value.
So I'm saying to you, I'm gonna protect 40% of
your time or 30% of your time for what brings
best value and still keep the rest open. And I
was like, that's up to you. I didn't come and say,
you need to protect time to plan. I said, where
can you bring most value? How much time do you
(22:08):
need to protect for those most valued? Now let's protect it.
I have no pushback on the logic. None. They all
like 100% make sense. My wiki is never ideal, Amantha.
The reality strike. But I'd rather start my planning from
the ideal and then adapt it, than start my planning
(22:29):
from an open sheet and let everything take control.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
I want to know where urgent things fit in because
I feel like this all sounds very good in practice,
but knowing how these leaders' lives work, I think about
my own life, where just stuff that you cannot predict
hijacks your day. So how do we try to stick
to what we know is valuable, what is going to
(22:52):
really shift the dial in terms of the impact that
we want to have, but the reality is unpredictable stuff happens.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
100%. When we do the weekly plan, one of the
things we do is called be realistic with your time.
Most people are completely unrealistic with their time. And one
of the key principles that I call that plan the unplanned.
So let me give you your example, Amanda. You've been
doing this job for a while. You know it fairly well.
(23:22):
How many hours do you work per day on average, roughly?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Probably about eight hours. Okay, good.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Out of those eight hours... How much, I'm talking unplanned,
things you could not plan, do you have on average
per day?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Oh, that is so hard to estimate, isn't it? Because
I feel like the more time I spend in my inbox,
which is my Achilles heel when it comes to productivity,
like I'm quite good at taking my own advice and
having my own medicine and I still do struggle with
my inbox. And that is where the reactive stuff tends
(23:58):
to live and where I get sucked in.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Would you say it's an hour, two hours, five hours?
Tell me, give me an idea.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I think somewhere between one to two hours.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Then I would say to you, Amantha, very simple. When
you do your planning, you don't have eight hours per
day to plan. We've already put in your planning, your
big rocks. We're going to put your triage and so on.
But when you do your planning, I want you to
keep an hour and a half open every day. That's
(24:28):
plan for the unplanned.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
And how do I do that in practice? Because I'm
a big fan of time boxing or time blocking where
you book a meeting with yourself to do the thing.
And I know you're a big fan of that as well.
And I know that if I was working in a
large organization, I mean, my diary is at the mercy
of everyone else. So how am I protecting that time?
Am I literally just having a two-hour block of time
(24:50):
that says, Urgent reactive stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
You're planning. I mean, I always say most of the
leaders that I work with work on average 10 hours
per day. And I always say to them, if you
work 10 hours a day, you cannot plan 10 hours
per day. It's a recipe for disaster. Because if you
plan 10 hours per day, you know what's going to happen.
You're going to end up working 12 to 13 hours
per day. You can only plan eight or seven or
(25:17):
whatever we decide. is the time you need for reactiveness.
So that minus your reactiveness time. And you need to
block it. And even more for those leaders, we have
a whole discussion. I have a whole session when I
work with them called Work Smarter With Your EA, where
their EA, we need their EA to understand this principle
as well and understand that they need this time for
other things rather than just giving it away. So that's
(25:41):
the thing.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Can you tell me about the four Ds that you
write about in Less Achieves More?
Speaker 1 (25:48):
So that's actually my second suggestion with hey I'm struggling
with all those urgency and so on when someone said
to me I can't say no I'm actually saying to
you to them you are lying to yourself you say
no all the time and the point I'm making is
whenever you say yes to something so someone come to
(26:08):
you a month out and say I need to I
need your time I need to do this can we
book this and you say yes by saying yes to
this you've probably said no to five or 10 other
things you could have done during that time. So you
do say no all the time. I always need more
time than I have available. And those leaders, 90% of
the time are in the same case. And that's the
(26:28):
time to make tough decision. And that's what I call
my 4D. I look at everything that I have in
my calendar or the meeting I've gone or what I've
committed and in my list, and I have to decide
one of those 4D. I can either delete it. Delete it,
I'm not doing it. You decrease it. I'm not going
to spend two hours on this one. I'm only going
to spend one hour. I'm not going to go to
(26:51):
this whole meeting. I'm only going to spend 45 minutes
in this meeting. You defer it. I'm not going to
do this week. I want to do it next week.
Or you delegate it. Ideally, I would have loved to
do it myself, but I can't. So rather than spending
an hour, I'm going to spend 10 minutes briefing someone
in my team so they can do it. That's my
(27:12):
four Ds.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Well, Cyril, thank you for not using the four Ds
on this interview and for choosing to spend some of
your precious time with me. I love all the practical
stuff in your work. And gosh, thank you for coming
on and sharing so much of that with listeners. I
have no doubt that people are going to really start
rethinking how they plan their time. So thank you.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Thanks very much for having me. I'll leave you with
one little thought. When I started Work Smartly Better 20
years ago, I thought it was a business journey. And
then I started realizing that all those principles are as important,
not even more, in your personal life. And for me,
every quarter I think about my personal big rocks, what
(28:00):
really matters and will make a big difference at the
personal level. Every week I prioritize what really matters at
the personal level. And every day I protect what really
matters at the personal level. And I know that on
my desk bed, if you ask me what was more important,
focusing on your business big rocks or focusing on your
personal big rocks, I know what I will say. And
(28:22):
those principles are exactly the same.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Thank you so much for listening. Cyreel's latest book, Less Achieves.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
More, is out now.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
And if this episode resonated with you, I highly recommend
going back and listening to my chat with Sabri Subi
on the subtraction method.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
He takes similar ideas even.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Further and talks about how he ruthlessly outsources anything that
isn't his highest value work.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
I'll pop a link to that in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
If you like today's show, make sure you hit follow
on your podcast app to be alerted when new episodes drop.
How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of
the Wurundjeri people, part of the Kulin Nation.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Music
If you work 10 hours a day, you cannot plan
10 hours per day. It's a recipe for disaster. You
know what's going to happen. You're going to end up
working 12 to 13 hours per day.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
That was Cyril Popion. So here's a quick question for you.
When did you last say, I'm leaving the office at
5 tonight and then look up and it's 6 or
7 p.m.? Or maybe you tell yourself, I'm not going
to check email after hours.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
And there you are replying from the couch at 9pm anyway.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Cyriel has coached thousands of executives and he says almost
every single one of them does this. It starts as
an exception, just tonight, just this once. And then without
anyone deciding it, it becomes the new normal. Cyriel is
the author of the bestselling book, Work Smarter, Live Better,
and has trained over 5,000 people across 19 countries on
(00:58):
this exact problem. If your week keeps running you instead
of the other way around, then I think you're going
to love this episode because there are a ton of
practical tips that Cyriel shares to help you manage your
time very, very differently. Welcome to How I Work, a
(01:25):
show about habits, rituals, and strategies for optimizing your day.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I'm your host, Dr. Amantha Imber.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Cyril, you have coached thousands of executives on work habits
at this point in your career.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I want to know, what's the most common thing that
they get wrong?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
So look, they're all different, but if I have to
say a common theme that I've seen in a lot
of them is what I call when the exception becomes
the norm. Quite often at the start, when I meet
them or when I started training with them, I ask
a very simple question. And the question is the, have
you ever? And have you ever goes like this. Have
you ever stayed later in the office than expected? You know,
(02:08):
one of those days where you said, tonight I'm going
to leave the office at six o'clock. I want to
be home on time for the kids or whatever. And
then there was one more email. There was one more
little things to do. And suddenly you look at your
watch and it's seven o'clock. And when asked this question,
they all say, yeah, 100% of them raise their hand.
Then ask a second question. And the second one is,
(02:31):
have you ever checked work email outside of work hours?
And they were all off their head off. They were like, duh, yes, 100%,
define work hours. And what's really interesting is not only
the fact that they all unanimously say yes, is that
(02:51):
also they all started saying that this has become their
new way of working, their new norms. And this is
what I call when the exception become the norm. It
is the thing that at the beginning they say, I'm
going to leave every day at six, but if there
is a hard, you know, something to push, I'll stay
once in a while and it become the norm. I'll
be very good and not check my email or not
(03:13):
do work at home. And they all bring work at home.
It slowly becomes the norm. I don't know if you've
seen the same thing in your world and your research,
but that's one thing that I've seen very often happen
with those leaders.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I so relate. And I definitely hear those things a lot.
And I'm guilty of those things myself. So I am
really keen to unpack how can we do things better?
And one of the things I love about your approach
is how you think about planning. I think you say
think quarterly, plan weekly, and act daily. And I want
(03:47):
to break that down. I want to understand how do
you plan your year and kind of going from there down?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
We all have a bias for more. I mean, look
at our wardrobes today. Look at number of files that
everyone keeps in. The biggest have always been the winners,
the biggest civilization. And you see, even economical, all companies
talk about growth. And so growing, doing more, become the norm.
But is that right when we talk about working? Actually,
(04:16):
it leads to the opposite. Imagine that you're a very
busy leader in a large organization. Out of five days
in the office, if I accumulate things, one day is
gone for email. One day is gone for what I
call coaching. day-to-day operation, business as usual. And I'm being
very generous there. One day is gone for meeting. And
(04:37):
one of my friend, Anthony, who's a leader of one
of the big insurance company here said to me, Cyril,
one day for meeting, you're mad. It's more three or four.
What I'm trying to say is the amount of time
you can spend on your key project might be one
or two days per week. And so by taking too
much on, you're actually making no progress and you're actually
performing far less than if you have the courage to
(05:00):
choose a few priorities. And that's, in my view, the
heart of what we need to think of.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And I feel like I come across this so often
in my work where I'll get approached by an organization
and they'll say, we're struggling with prioritization as if prioritizing
It's not about dropping the 20 things. It's like, well,
let's order them from importance so we know which of
those 20 things to do today. And I just think
that is not going to help with workload and people's
(05:29):
stress and the really long hours that they're working. So
what is that next step then in your planning process
where you get people to actually subtract as opposed to
just reorder the many, many things that they say are
their priorities?
Speaker 1 (05:45):
You've probably, like me, Rhett, The Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People from Stephen Covey, great book. And the interesting
research from Franklin Covey, the organization behind. And it's called
the Eisenhower Matrix, where they talk about importance and the adjunction.
What's really interesting to understand is Franklin Covey asked this question,
(06:05):
how do people prioritize? And what they found is most
of us prioritize because of deadline. Let's be really honest.
If you have two things to do, one is due tonight,
Someone is shouting for it. The other one, you have
three weeks to do. Which one would most people do first?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
The one due tonight. 100%.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
And then what Franklin Covey did is they interviewed top performers,
the high, highly effective people. And what they found was
something different. High performer prioritized by impact. So most people
have four words in the back of their brain. And
the four words are, when is it due? It's due tonight.
(06:53):
I've got three weeks. Here are my prioritization. High performer.
And if I can, that's the first thing I try
to shift in those leaders. I say, if I can
take those four words and replace them by four other words,
and they're probably the most important word for them. What
impact long-term? High performer looks at those two and they say,
(07:14):
I know this one is due tonight. I know I
have got three weeks to do the other one, but
which one will have the most impact long term? And
if the answer is number two, they say, we'll start
today when our brain is fresh with number two. And
if I've got a bit of time at the end
of the day, I'll manage number one. Easy to understand,
super hard to do. And Amantha, this is the core
(07:37):
of my planning. So to come back to your question,
When I work with the leadership team, most leaders have
done the five yearly planning and the yearly planning and
so on. And most of those leaders, they've either on
their own or work with a big BCG McKinsey and
Bain of the world or taking these executives to an offsite.
And they've thought about, hey, what is going to be
(07:59):
a five-year strategy? What is going to be a short-term strategy? Fine,
they've done that. The issue they have is if you
look at where they're going in a year time or
five years times. And what they're doing today, there's a
huge gap between those two. I think it was Ram
Shahram and Larry Bossidy who wrote this great book. So
(08:20):
Ram Shahram is probably one of the most famous executive
coach in the world. Larry Bossidy, ex-GE executive, wrote a
book called Execution. And the whole purpose of the book
to say, we spent so much time in strategy, in thinking,
but execution is a poor parent. And so my logic
on this one, great, you have those long-term view, great,
you have those five years and when you're planning, but
(08:43):
that's not enough. My logic is think quarterly, plan weekly,
act daily. Think quarterly. Every quarter, look at this strategy
and ask for each person and yourself and your team,
what does it mean for me? Choose your priority there.
Plan weekly. Every week, you prioritize what matters. And act daily.
(09:05):
Every day, you protect what matters. Clarify what matters. Think quarterly.
Prioritize what matters. Plan weekly. Protect what matters.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
So what does that look like for you in your
life when you're thinking about the quarter ahead? Take me
through what that looks like for you.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Every quarter, I block maybe half an hour, maybe an hour,
and ask myself two questions. The first question is, what
are the the project, what are the things, it could
be a project, could be an ongoing responsibility, but what
are the, it's not a task, it's something a bit
more complex than that, that if I really focus on now,
(09:49):
will make a difference long term. So I imagine myself
being in a year, two years, three years down the track.
One of the things that I do now, that into
or three years, maybe even a year and a half,
would really matter. For people like you and I, it
could be, hey, developing a new program that will bring
(10:11):
no benefit now, but in two years might be a bestseller.
Could be writing a book, and I know you've written
quite a few successful books, Ematha. Book between the time
you start writing it to the start it brings benefits,
it might be a gap of two or three years.
But two or three years down the track, oh my God,
you are very happy that you made this decision. So
(10:32):
this is the logic here. So first I think about
that and I make a list of maybe five, 10, 15.
I'm just brainstorming. Once I've done that, then I go
into the sub track. Steve Jobs had this mantra that
led in my view, was one of the mantra that
led to the success of Apple. And the mantra was forward.
(10:55):
Focus means saying no. Focus means saying no. So I
look at this long list and I say, that would
be amazing if I could work on all that. But
if I take too much on, I will fail. If
everything is important, nothing is important. And so I choose
only two or three. And they become my big rock.
(11:16):
They become the thing. And I have a process that
I call a compass plan where I go and really
clarify those two or three things. But I choose only
two or three, knowing that there could be another 10
things that I could be doing, but I can't do
too many things. That's my quarterly process.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
I feel like that sounds very sensible. I do love
the sound of it. But I know for myself I
really struggle with that and I imagine other people would
as well to go, how do I know what to subtract?
Like let me give you a real example from my
life where I'm For maybe two years, I have known
(11:55):
that I need to invest in YouTube because that is
the way podcasts are moving. I have released a few
episodes on YouTube, but it adds a real complexity to
the production of the show and the post-production. It's always
floating around in the back of my head, I must
do YouTube. I've just deprioritized that, but it's still sitting there.
(12:21):
And I feel like I need someone like you to
just go, just subtract it, just subtract it. It's not
going to move the needle sufficiently, you know, without investing
a whole lot of time, which means you're going to
be stealing time from other things. So, I mean, that
is a real example for me. What advice would you
give me?
Speaker 1 (12:38):
First, we would look at everything else you've decided to do.
And the funny thing is, Ametha, you've already answered your
question in your question. You've already said, I haven't said anything.
You said, yes, but it will distract me from other
things and I will have to invest a lot of
time and I'm not sure and so on. So you've
already inside questioned it. Are you going to choose perfectly?
Speaker 3 (13:02):
No.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
But choosing, actually blocking this one hour to be intentional
about choosing, it's much better than not choosing at all.
Number one. Number two, when I work with those leaders,
so I was with a big mining company recently. And
we took that to the next level because they were
asking exactly the same question. And I said, OK, now
(13:24):
that you've understood the process at the personal level, I
will lead a meeting every quarter and all of you
will come and prepared with all your potential big rocks.
And I'm going to put you in small groups and
you're going to argue your big rocks and you're going
to argue what you want.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
To focus on.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Why you want to focus on it, and what impact
it will have for you and for the company and
the team. And you're open-minded to get all your colleagues
to criticize, to challenge you.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Why?
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Because 10 brains are always better than one. And so
what I would do in your case is I would,
first of all, you listing all the potential one, you
having the first pass of which one you think would
be right, but then getting to your team and having
a discussion with the people you trust, And having them
challenge you and say, Amentha, you're kidding yourself. This YouTube
(14:17):
thing is something that's a bit of a fantasy for you.
Or the opposite. Amentha, why on earth are you not
doing it? It could bring great benefits. So you start
at a personal level. And then you bring at least
your leader, at best your whole team, to help you
to choose your big rocks. But at least you start
with yourself.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Coming up next, Cyriel takes us from the big picture
into the weekly grind. We get into his fortnightly planning ritual,
why he looks at his three big rocks before he
ever even opens his calendar, and the ideal week exercise
he runs with leaders who swear their diary is already full.
(15:00):
He also explains why he only ever plans 60% of
his day and exactly what happens to the leaders.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Who try to plan more than that.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
If you're looking for more tips to improve the way
you work and live, I write a short weekly newsletter
that contains tactics I've discovered that have helped me personally.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
You can sign up for that at Amantha.com. That's Amantha.com.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Okay, let's talk about weekly. So we plan weekly. Tell me,
what does this look like in your life? Do you
have a start of week or end of week ritual?
And what does that involve?
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So I have a start of the week ritual and
I do that every two weeks. So every two weeks
on Monday morning, I do this. But I'm more an exception.
Most of my clients, because they work in big business
and so on, do that mostly on Thursday or on
Friday morning.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
It varies.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
You need to block probably at least, I would say,
20 minutes to half an hour, roughly. And at a
time where you know you're likely to do it. For me,
this is one of the most important time investment you
can do. This half an hour will generate 10 times
the benefit that you do. What do I do every,
(16:21):
for me, every two weeks because I plan in two
weeks batch. And some people, I say, start weekly and
see if you want to move to the fortnightly. And
I have with some of my clients what I call
the rolling fortnight, where every week you do it looking
at the next two weeks, but you find your next one.
Let's make it very simple. Let's say on Thursday or
on Friday morning, you look at your next week. The
start of the process is not your week. It's your
(16:44):
big rocks. Remembering that we agreed that where you're going
to bring the most value are those two or three
big rocks that you've chosen. So I don't look at
my week first. I look at what I call my
compass plan. which have clarified my big rocks. So I
look at my three big rocks and ask myself a
very simple question. What do I need next week to
(17:06):
progress this big rocks? As simple as this. I take
one big rocks and I said, I call that be
agile with your big rocks. I don't plan my, when
I do my quarterly planning, I don't use one big
rocks and try to plan it for the next three months.
Because I've got a good idea what I need to
do for this big box the next week or four weeks.
(17:27):
But if I take your YouTube project, if you were
to start working on that in one month's time or
in two months' time, you have no idea what you're
going to have to be working on. There's too many variables.
The Agile methodology is the logic of rather than trying
to plan as much as you can, you do a
sprint every week or every two weeks and you review.
(17:47):
So I do this every week. I ask myself this question.
I take my first big rocks. What do I need
to do next week to progress these big rocks? And
I break these big rocks into four, five manageable tasks.
I do that for my second big rocks. I do
that for my third big rocks. And I do that
for my personal big rocks as well. Because of course,
(18:10):
I clarify my business big rocks every quarter, but also
my personal big rocks. So I simply, and it's super simple.
It's very simple because every week, I'm talking about three
or four tasks per big rocks, nothing big. And then, Amantha,
once I've done that, all of that will be the
first thing that go to my calendar. I book specific
(18:34):
meeting with myself. So all those tasks will be put
in my calendar, a specific meeting with myself.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Okay, which then brings us to act daily. And I read,
and I think I read this in your latest book,
Less Achieves More. that you recommend planning for only 60%
of your day. Can you tell me, did I get
that percentage right and why?
Speaker 1 (18:58):
All right. When I work with those leaders that we
spoke about, when I talk to them about this plan weekly,
they say, Cyril, it's great. But when I sit down
on Friday to plan my next week, my next week
is full. They already have meetings. So then we go to,
and I say, fantastic, all good. Then we go to
(19:18):
a concept that I call the ideal week. I make
them think about a week where you are your best
at work and at home. And I literally make them
take an empty week and we design it. And the
first thing I ask them to do is to block
time for the important personal things. Sport, lunch, taking the
(19:40):
kids to school, coming home on time. And we design it. Second,
I make them block time for their big rocks. And
I say, okay, on average, most of the big rock
time with others, the meeting happen. The poor parents is
the meeting with yourself. So I say, okay, I suggest
you block an hour and a half to two hours
(20:00):
per day at a time that really think you should
be working for you. And we block it as a
record meeting with yourself. And so in your case, I
don't know, a month out, it could be every Monday
from 8 to 9.30, you have an hour and a
half block as a record meeting forever, call, big rock time.
But Cyril, what if I have a very important meeting
(20:22):
with a client? That's okay, you'll move that meeting, but
it's there, it's protected. So we do that with this,
we do that with a weekly plan, we include all
the triage for emails and so on, we do this.
And in doing that, we block probably 40% of their time.
My logic is to say, to everything else, to all
the other meetings you want to organize, to all the
(20:42):
business as usual. I give you access to my calendar,
but I don't give you access to 100% of my calendar.
There's 40% who's already blocked. So you do have access
to my calendar, but not 100%, only 60%, or 50%,
or whatever is left. So that on Friday, when they
plan their week, the space has been protected for the
(21:06):
thing that matters. That's the first thing about that.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
I'm wondering how much pushback do you get from leaders
who are saying, well, I'm here to serve my team.
I'm here to serve the organization. That feels really selfish.
Just like blocking out all this time where people can't
access me.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
The funny thing is, it's almost so logical. I started
this process, Samantha, by saying, where can you bring most value?
And so I asked them, where can you bring most value?
To your organization, to your team. to your clients. In
asking this question, you've chosen your big rocks. So I'm
only talking about value here. I'm only trying to protect
(21:46):
time for the thing that matter the most, where you
bring most value. So you are bringing the most value.
So I'm saying to you, I'm gonna protect 40% of
your time or 30% of your time for what brings
best value and still keep the rest open. And I
was like, that's up to you. I didn't come and say,
you need to protect time to plan. I said, where
can you bring most value? How much time do you
(22:08):
need to protect for those most valued? Now let's protect it.
I have no pushback on the logic. None. They all
like 100% make sense. My wiki is never ideal, Amantha.
The reality strike. But I'd rather start my planning from
the ideal and then adapt it, than start my planning
(22:29):
from an open sheet and let everything take control.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
I want to know where urgent things fit in because
I feel like this all sounds very good in practice,
but knowing how these leaders' lives work, I think about
my own life, where just stuff that you cannot predict
hijacks your day. So how do we try to stick
to what we know is valuable, what is going to
(22:52):
really shift the dial in terms of the impact that
we want to have, but the reality is unpredictable stuff happens.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
100%. When we do the weekly plan, one of the
things we do is called be realistic with your time.
Most people are completely unrealistic with their time. And one
of the key principles that I call that plan the unplanned.
So let me give you your example, Amanda. You've been
doing this job for a while. You know it fairly well.
(23:22):
How many hours do you work per day on average, roughly?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Probably about eight hours. Okay, good.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Out of those eight hours... How much, I'm talking unplanned,
things you could not plan, do you have on average
per day?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Oh, that is so hard to estimate, isn't it? Because
I feel like the more time I spend in my inbox,
which is my Achilles heel when it comes to productivity,
like I'm quite good at taking my own advice and
having my own medicine and I still do struggle with
my inbox. And that is where the reactive stuff tends
(23:58):
to live and where I get sucked in.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Would you say it's an hour, two hours, five hours?
Tell me, give me an idea.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I think somewhere between one to two hours.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Then I would say to you, Amantha, very simple. When
you do your planning, you don't have eight hours per
day to plan. We've already put in your planning, your
big rocks. We're going to put your triage and so on.
But when you do your planning, I want you to
keep an hour and a half open every day. That's
(24:28):
plan for the unplanned.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
And how do I do that in practice? Because I'm
a big fan of time boxing or time blocking where
you book a meeting with yourself to do the thing.
And I know you're a big fan of that as well.
And I know that if I was working in a
large organization, I mean, my diary is at the mercy
of everyone else. So how am I protecting that time?
Am I literally just having a two-hour block of time
(24:50):
that says, Urgent reactive stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
You're planning. I mean, I always say most of the
leaders that I work with work on average 10 hours
per day. And I always say to them, if you
work 10 hours a day, you cannot plan 10 hours
per day. It's a recipe for disaster. Because if you
plan 10 hours per day, you know what's going to happen.
You're going to end up working 12 to 13 hours
per day. You can only plan eight or seven or
(25:17):
whatever we decide. is the time you need for reactiveness.
So that minus your reactiveness time. And you need to
block it. And even more for those leaders, we have
a whole discussion. I have a whole session when I
work with them called Work Smarter With Your EA, where
their EA, we need their EA to understand this principle
as well and understand that they need this time for
other things rather than just giving it away. So that's
(25:41):
the thing.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Can you tell me about the four Ds that you
write about in Less Achieves More?
Speaker 1 (25:48):
So that's actually my second suggestion with hey I'm struggling
with all those urgency and so on when someone said
to me I can't say no I'm actually saying to
you to them you are lying to yourself you say
no all the time and the point I'm making is
whenever you say yes to something so someone come to
(26:08):
you a month out and say I need to I
need your time I need to do this can we
book this and you say yes by saying yes to
this you've probably said no to five or 10 other
things you could have done during that time. So you
do say no all the time. I always need more
time than I have available. And those leaders, 90% of
the time are in the same case. And that's the
(26:28):
time to make tough decision. And that's what I call
my 4D. I look at everything that I have in
my calendar or the meeting I've gone or what I've
committed and in my list, and I have to decide
one of those 4D. I can either delete it. Delete it,
I'm not doing it. You decrease it. I'm not going
to spend two hours on this one. I'm only going
to spend one hour. I'm not going to go to
(26:51):
this whole meeting. I'm only going to spend 45 minutes
in this meeting. You defer it. I'm not going to
do this week. I want to do it next week.
Or you delegate it. Ideally, I would have loved to
do it myself, but I can't. So rather than spending
an hour, I'm going to spend 10 minutes briefing someone
in my team so they can do it. That's my
(27:12):
four Ds.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Well, Cyril, thank you for not using the four Ds
on this interview and for choosing to spend some of
your precious time with me. I love all the practical
stuff in your work. And gosh, thank you for coming
on and sharing so much of that with listeners. I
have no doubt that people are going to really start
rethinking how they plan their time. So thank you.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Thanks very much for having me. I'll leave you with
one little thought. When I started Work Smartly Better 20
years ago, I thought it was a business journey. And
then I started realizing that all those principles are as important,
not even more, in your personal life. And for me,
every quarter I think about my personal big rocks, what
(28:00):
really matters and will make a big difference at the
personal level. Every week I prioritize what really matters at
the personal level. And every day I protect what really
matters at the personal level. And I know that on
my desk bed, if you ask me what was more important,
focusing on your business big rocks or focusing on your
personal big rocks, I know what I will say. And
(28:22):
those principles are exactly the same.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Thank you so much for listening. Cyreel's latest book, Less Achieves.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
More, is out now.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
And if this episode resonated with you, I highly recommend
going back and listening to my chat with Sabri Subi
on the subtraction method.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
He takes similar ideas even.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Further and talks about how he ruthlessly outsources anything that
isn't his highest value work.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
I'll pop a link to that in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
If you like today's show, make sure you hit follow
on your podcast app to be alerted when new episodes drop.
How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of
the Wurundjeri people, part of the Kulin Nation.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Music
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.