August 26, 2025 • 22 mins
We explore the concept of time as our most precious resource with Andrew Hartman, founder of TimeBoss, who shares a framework for achieving results without overwhelm and burnout.
• Andrew's journey began when work stress caused him to lose his sense of smell for six months
• 77% of knowledge workers experienced burnout in the past year, up from 75% pre-COVID
• The "always on" work culture has eliminated boundaries between professional and personal life
• Most people treat time like credit instead of cash, creating debt for their future selves
• Setting a work hour constraint (Andrew uses 50 hours) forces better prioritization
• Weekly planning meetings help identify the 20% of tasks that yield 80% of results
• Implementing strategic time management can reclaim 4-10 hours per week
• "Comeback time" after interruptions can take up to 23 minutes of productivity
• Creating "commitment plans" and finding "vacation shields" allows for true rest
• Working at your "highest sustainable pace" enables sustained peak performance
This episode is sponsored by Benepower, the platform of choice for a modern benefits experience. Benepower is an AI-powered benefits platform offering access to top products and services, enabling consultants and employers to create customized plans, optimize usage, and measure effectiveness. www.benepower.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
David Saltzman (00:00):
What is the one thing everyone has?
Everyone gets the same amountof.
No one can make more of, andeveryone wishes they had more of
.
We'll find out on this episodeof Shift Shapers.
Announcer (00:12):
This is the Shift Shapers podcast, Connecting
benefits advisors with thoughtleaders and entrepreneurs who
are shaping the shifts in theindustry.
And now here's your host, DavidSaltzman.
David Saltzman (00:26):
And to help us answer that question, we've
invited Andrew Hartman.
Andrew is founder of TimeBoss.
Hey, Andrew, how you doing?
Andrew Hartman (00:33):
Good David, Thank you so much for having me.
I'm really great to be here,our pleasure.
David Saltzman (00:37):
Tell us a little bit about your journey.
How'd you come to be doing whatyou're doing?
Andrew Hartman (00:41):
Yeah, great question.
So I, like lots of leaders, gotstarted my career mid-20s, came
out of college, great family,great education, ended up in a
role where I had more to do thanI had time to do it and
suddenly realized I had no cluehow to manage my time.
I had someone that showed mehow to use a calendar.
I knew how to use a to-do list.
(01:01):
I knew how to prioritize stuff,but I had no way to deal with
being that much over capacity.
Like most people that end up inthat situation, I just went on
the grind.
I just tried to shovel as fastas I could and long nights,
early mornings, skip workouts,you know, work past dinner, all
the thing, wake up in the middleof the night, stressed out from
(01:22):
things I might be forgetting,trying to write down on a
post-it note next to my bed,only to see wake up in the
morning and see it was utterchicken scratch.
You know it wasn't even solvingthe problem to begin with.
So super overwhelmed, supersuccessful at my job was being
promoted as a function of what Iwas able to get done.
People loved the results I wasgetting, but it was costing me
so much personally led to myfirst real red line where I was,
(01:46):
as I would feel stress.
I would feel these heat flashes, and it ultimately led me to
lose my sense of smell.
For six months I couldn't smellanything and I knew it was a
function of stress.
I could feel it coming on and Italked to a lot of people about
time.
You'll hear people say things.
Like you know, I have Bell'spalsy.
Half my face went numb.
I have chronic headaches fromstress.
I've got irritable bowelsyndrome all the time because of
(02:08):
stress, and stress is reallyour body's way of saying like
hey, buddy, whatever you'redoing is not working, you are
dysregulated, something needs tochange.
And it took me hitting a redlight like that for me to really
start to make an adjustment.
So for me, the path became gosh.
I want to continue to deliver,I want to continue to contribute
at a level that I believe in.
(02:29):
I want to do great work, I wantto get great results, but I've
got to figure out how to do thatwithout this level of overwhelm
.
I've got a family that I careabout, I've got kids that I care
about, I have health that Iwant to maintain and even my
results.
You know, the thing that peopledon't realize about stress is
that burdensome stress,anxiety-ridden stress over time
(02:49):
actually impacts the resultsthat we're getting.
We perform poorer as a functionof that stress, and so, for all
those reasons, I got to work onbuilding a framework for myself
, like I've got to figure out away to get the results that I
want without overwhelm.
And it took me a long time,david, like weekly iterations
for a long time, and ultimatelyit worked.
(03:10):
I developed this framework thathelped me get incredible
results without overwhelm.
Other individuals asked me tocoach them on it and I just kind
of rode the horse in thedirection it's going and
formalized it into thisframework that I now train
leaders and teams to adopt andfor them to get the results that
they want without overwhelm.
David Saltzman (03:28):
Jumping around a little bit.
This maybe isn't fair, but Iwas reading some of the blogs on
your website.
Since you mentioned anxiety,why is it that anxiety sometimes
feels productive, even thoughintellectually we know it's not?
Andrew Hartman (03:42):
Yeah, it's really hard.
Anxiety is tough.
Yeah, I've recently wrote thatone on the blog.
So the thing about anxiety isthat we know how to solve it.
So what we think we do, andit's check items off our list
Like gosh.
If I check that item off mylist, I feel a little bit of
dopamine, I feel a little bit ofrelief and it feels good Like
we like that feeling, we likethe feeling of progress.
(04:06):
And so the challenge is wherethis goes sideways is when we
just let anxiety become the truenorth and we just keep pointing
ourselves at the hottest fires.
It does a couple of things.
One, we will always work on thehottest fire, not necessarily
the thing that is most strategicfor us to move our businesses
forward and things we care aboutforward.
Two, we will settle into wherewe don't really know how to
operate if it's not on fire,because that has become the way
(04:28):
that we get directed towardsthings.
It's like that feels reallyscary.
I should go tackle that rightnow.
But what we're really lookingfor as leaders, what we want, is
space to operate.
We really want you know, wetalk about urgent and important,
not urgent and important weactually want to operate in the
not urgent and important bucket,because that's when we feel
like we have room to work.
There's time for us to seecreative solutions.
(04:49):
There's time for us tocollaborate with others.
There's times for us to thinkexpansively.
We don't feel like the ax isabove our neck and it's about to
drop.
We have the ability to reallyget the best results possible,
and so, for me, I think anxiety,letting anxiety become true
north is not ultimately the mostproductive.
You're not going to get theresults that you want.
You may, in the short term,over the next five minutes, feel
incredibly effective, but Ithink if you look back over a
(05:10):
year, you're going to be reallydisappointed with the results
you got by letting anxiety betrue north.
David Saltzman (05:15):
So let's dial back a little bit.
Do you have any stats?
I mean, how bad is this problem?
Andrew Hartman (05:19):
It's horrific.
So pre-COVID, it was 75% ofknowledge workers experienced
burnout in the last 12 months.
Burnout meaning that they nolonger have the motivation to do
the work that they previouslydid.
And so, if you think about it,motivation is a core belief for,
like your entire self beingsaying, I have the ability to
pull this thing off.
(05:39):
And so when motivation getssubtracted, it's literally your
subconscious declaringbankruptcy on the way you're
approaching your time.
It's saying whatever you'redoing, buddy, is not working.
This absolutely has to change.
So pre-COVID it was 75%.
Post-covid these are Gallupstudies it's 77%.
So it's actually worsepost-COVID.
And you can point to all natureof things post-pandemic, I think
(06:03):
.
Personally, the one that iswreaking the most havoc in
people's psyche is always on,always available work.
There is no distinction of Iclose my laptop, shut the office
door and go home for the night.
That no longer exists andpeople don't have the habits or
the ways of thinking about timethat allow them to have freedom
(06:24):
where they can actually rest andrecover.
What most people do with theirevenings is cope.
They they feel incrediblystressed and they either just
keep working right, they justthey go in fight mode from the
stress.
I'm just going to keep working.
I'm going to skip workouts, I'mgoing to skip dinner, I'm going
to work late or they go intoflight mode where they are doom
scrolling or alcohol or icecream, or you name it.
(06:46):
They're just finding somethingto get out of their head for a
little bit.
They're not actually restingand recovering, and so the
situation is really bad.
It's really bad, and there'snot a common knowledge of time
in our current society to dealwith the current societal
structure in terms of how weapproach our work.
David Saltzman (07:06):
So what are some of the symptoms that we could
look for?
Could you give us the top twoor three that you know?
You have this problem if kindof an answer no-transcript, but
(07:43):
isn't actually good for you.
Andrew Hartman (07:44):
Those are the things that we're looking for.
It's, it's your body announcingto you like there is something
not right here.
David Saltzman (07:53):
So what are some of the things that you teach
that help people manage this?
Always on 24-7 work, work, work, work, work.
Phenomenon.
Andrew Hartman (08:05):
Yeah.
So I think the first move youhave to make is you have to make
a decision of how much yourlife you're willing to give to
work, because your to-do list isinfinite.
Whether you believe it or not,check items off your list.
There's always going to be more.
Solve all the problems.
Your brain is a problem-seekingmachine.
You'll go find more problems,so you're never going to get to
the end of your to-do list.
So just trying to grind to thebottom of your to-do list isn't
(08:28):
rational.
It really isn't.
You have to make a decision andsay this is my budget, this is
how much of my life I'm willingto give for work.
For me it's 50 hours.
I've made the decision that I'mwilling to give 50 hours to
income generating activities forTimeBoss, and it's
counterintuitive, but it'sincredibly powerful if you think
about it.
We have to treat our time likecash, and just like cash.
(08:50):
Let's say I have a milliondollars of capital to deploy.
If I have a million dollars ofcapital to deploy, I'm gonna be
very judicious about deployingit to the activities that are
going to or the investments thatare going to give me the
highest ROI.
And the same is true with ourtime.
If we build that constraint forme, I'd build in that
constraint of 50 hours.
I have to become incrediblyjudicious in light of the
results that I'm trying toachieve and trying to avoid the
(09:13):
overwhelm that I've talked about.
I have to be incrediblyjudicious with what I allow to
get on my calendar to help meget those results.
And so I think move number oneis put a constraint to say this
is how much of my life I'mwilling to give Now.
That doesn't mean your work'sgoing to fit in that.
There's obvious next steps thatwe have to take, but I do think
that is the first move.
(09:33):
It's just like having apersonal financial budget.
If you decide I'm going tospend $500 on groceries and
you're consistently spending$1,000 on groceries, you should
probably make some adjustmentsright?
Maybe you can't make all theadjustments next week, but over
time incremental adjustments I'mgoing to be incrementally
better next week so that I canbe exponentially better six
months from now.
Those incremental adjustmentsbuild up over time and that's
(09:56):
really what we help people do atTimeBoss those incremental
adjustments build up over time,and that's really what we help
people do at TimeBoss.
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And now back to ourconversation.
So do you find that once youset that limit on the number of
hours that you're willing to getgive to work, that you
automatically start prioritizingdifferently.
Andrew Hartman (11:51):
Absolutely, almost instantly, because, if
you, you know people I mentionedearlier treating time like cash
Most people treat time likecredit and they just swipe and
they just say yes Because reallyit's fear that drives us to say
yes.
Two types of fear.
One is we're afraid if we don'tsay yes, we're not going to get
the results that we want.
There's some world that we want.
(12:11):
We think people asking us tohelp them helps us get to that
world.
Or two, we are afraid thatwe're going to let down
relationships, relationshipsthat we care about, and so,
again, we just swipe the creditcard and we're essentially, if I
swipe the credit card, I ampunting to future Andrew, you're
punting to future David, andthat dude's going to pay the
price for it, right?
They're going to be overwhelmed, working late again, impacting
(12:32):
their health, all the things.
And so, when we are judicious Ionly have so much time when
that new request comes in, I'vegot to be thoughtful of how does
this fit into the things I'vealready said yes to, and it
necessarily drives us to makebetter decisions.
So, as leaders, especiallyleaders in scaling companies, if
you think about it, we haveresults.
Again, my treatise is this youhave results that you want and
(12:54):
you actually want to get thatwithout overwhelm.
If those two things are true,people operate at what I call
their highest sustainable pace.
It's the pace that they canmaintain forever to get
incredible results.
And so, when you put in thatconstraint, the first question
is how am I going to get theresults that I need within this
constraint?
And where leaders often gosideways is they think, well, I
don't have enough time to getthe results that I want.
(13:14):
I said 50 hours, but I thinkit's actually going to take me
80.
Well, maybe, but do all those?
Do that net 30, the 30 that youdon't feel like you have?
Do those have to be you?
Can there be other strategiesthat we might look at that might
help you get the resultswithout it costing more on the
back of your time?
It's not linear.
There are ways that we canthink exponentially about how
you might get these results.
Are there people on your teamthat also have time that you're
(13:47):
not delegating to that you needto be delegating to and helping
develop, to help multiply thetime you have available to get
the results you want?
Again, I think when we startwith that constraint, it drives
decision making and I think wemake more powerful decisions
with our time.
Beginning with that constraint,again, we're still trying to
get results.
We're not putting results outthe door, we're just thinking
differently about how we'regoing to get those results.
David Saltzman (14:01):
So it seems like that's a second level
prioritization.
Once you say I'm only going towork X hours a week for my
moneymaking pursuits and youstart prioritizing your tasks,
is it an inevitable consequencethat that happens, that you
start looking at, okay, how canI make this happen, how can I
get my stuff done within thattime period?
And looking at ways to worksmarter, delegate, et cetera.
Andrew Hartman (14:26):
Yeah, absolutely .
I think it happens almostnecessarily in in part of it
comes from what's calledParkinson's law, and it's that
task will fill the time that wegive it.
And so you know, if you askedme the question, david, you say,
hey, describe yourself in 30seconds or less.
I can accomplish that task.
Hey, andrew, we've got fiveminutes.
Tell me about yourself.
I can accomplish that task.
I'll fill the time that I givemyself for a task.
(14:47):
It's Parkinson's law and so Ithink our time is that way.
By starting with that constraintand holding those results
steady, I think necessarilyyou're going to put the right
things onto your calendar.
Part of the process we teach isa weekly planning meeting,
which is this sober momentbefore the bullets start flying,
where you're planning, notexecuting it, and you're just
dealing.
What are all the things that Icould possibly schedule into my
(15:09):
week with the available timethat I have that are going to
make a difference for the goalsthat I'm trying to achieve?
And so, within that process,one of the simple tasks is just
force ranking your priorities.
What are the 20% of tasks herethat are going to make 80% of
the difference?
Let's move those up to the top.
Let's make sure I break thosedown into manageable tasks,
(15:34):
clear definition of done, andthen let's get those into my
calendar where I am committingto those items on my calendar,
as if the president of theUnited States is showing up to
that meeting and you can decidemaybe you don't like the current
president, choose the lastpresident or the president
before that or whoever.
It's up to you, but we have tocommit to these items on our
calendar that are actualpriorities, whether or not
another human is showing up, andoftentimes those are the first
things to go.
You know, those are the firstthings that we'll set aside.
When we get interrupted orpeople ask for things, we'll set
(15:56):
aside these items we know arehigh priority, that are going to
move our business forward inname of this urgent item that
someone's knocking on our doorwith because we're just afraid
of letting them down or we'reafraid, if we don't do it,
something bad's going to happenbecause we're just afraid of
letting them down or we'reafraid if we don't do it,
something bad's going to happen.
David Saltzman (16:11):
So I know this seems kind of oxymoronic, but
you can truncate the amount oftime that you give to work and
get four to 10 hours worth oftime back per week.
I mean, is that real?
Is that a thing?
Andrew Hartman (16:26):
Absolutely real.
I mean across.
We're I don't even know 35cohorts in now where people
consistently get those results,and it's really simple if you
think about it.
A couple things are happeningthere.
When I have a fixed amount oftime that I have available to me
, I will respond tointerruptions differently,
because I know now that thatinterruption is competing with
(16:47):
these priorities that I'm tryingto make happen, because I know
now that that interruption iscompeting with these priorities
that I'm trying to make happen.
And so one of the one of thebig ideas that we talk about in
time boss, is budgeting time forinterruptions, literally adding
time on your calendar.
We call it whirlwind.
You can think of it like buffer.
Where we are, we are budgetingtime to deal with those items so
that we can really focus in andmake things happen.
Where people are burning timeand losing that four to 10 hours
(17:11):
a week is they are allowingthemselves to be constantly
available and they're beingjerked all over the place by
every last need that's coming.
And here's the deal as teamsscale, it's only getting worse
as you add literally anothernode to the system.
That is one more node that canping you, interrupt you, ask you
questions, have issues that youneed to solve for, and so
(17:31):
sometimes leaders that areincredibly effective in small
teams can't figure out why theycan't get anything done as they
scale, and it's because they'rejust constantly available to
their team.
And so my encouragement topeople is to divide out those
times.
Have times where they are zero,dark, 30, locked in I'm just
making things happen and timeswhen they make themselves
available to the team to behelpful and supportive, and that
(17:52):
activity alone often createsthat four to 10 hours that they
were simply losing before frombeing pulled out, multitasking,
losing what's called comebacktime.
Comeback time is the amount oftime it takes you to come back
to a task once you've switchedoff of it.
Cal Newport in Deep Work.
He talked about deep work isthat focused work that's going
(18:13):
to move our business forward,leveraged work that has
exponential results.
You can't do that by leavingyourself constantly available.
In his book, he said, if you'reworking on those tasks, your
brain has unfolded into thecontext of that task.
If someone interrupts you, youtake a phone call, you go off in
another direction and try tocome back.
It might take you up to 23minutes to come back to that
(18:34):
task.
So, if you think about it, ifwe're allowing that to happen
all day long, likely we're noteven getting to the deep work
because there's just not enoughtime.
And two, we're just burningtime throughout the week and so,
perceptively, people feel likethey get back four to 10 hours
simply from making some verystrategic changes in their day
and then being incrediblyjudicious about what they say
(18:55):
yes to and what they focus on intheir prioritized time.
David Saltzman (18:58):
I know our listeners are entrepreneurs and
solopreneurs and we do have somelarger agencies and some
companies, but we're recordingthis during the summertime.
How do you actually rest onvacation?
Because a lot of us find thatvery difficult.
Even though we are physicallyout of the office, and maybe
even if we shut off ourtechnology, our brains are still
(19:19):
going.
How do you do that?
Andrew Hartman (19:21):
Yeah.
So it's interesting, you knowwhat, what the research that Cal
Newport talked about in DeepWork is, this idea of commitment
plans.
And what's really fascinatedabout a commitment plan is we
intuitively think we mustaccomplish work for us to feel
relief.
And so, if that's true, none ofus are ever going on vacation
because there's always going tobe undone items that we're never
getting to right.
(19:42):
And so what Cal Newport talkedabout, this idea of a commitment
plan, is.
A commitment plan is where I sayI have a plan for when this
work's going to happen, and Ibelieve my brain believes I will
actually follow through.
I'm actually committed to it, Iwill actually follow through if
that happens.
And if that happens, then wedon't fear anymore.
Now, a commitment plan doesn'tmean just me, it could be others
(20:02):
as well, and so, especially forsomeone that's on a small team,
you might say you might findsomeone to trade with where you
say, hey, I'm gonna be onvacation next week.
If anything comes in, could youjust field it and help it along
, make sure that nothing'sbleeding, nothing breaks, and
when I get back in the officeI'll be able to take care of
that.
I call that person a vacationshield.
They are literally shieldingyou from even being aware that
(20:25):
those items are happening.
Now what that does is that's acommitment plan.
I have made a commitment plan.
This person is my plan, where Iknow that the relationships I
care about and the results thatI care about aren't going to
fall through the cracks becausethis person's there Now if it's
bleeding and it's on fire andthe business is going to hurt if
I don't take it.
that person can certainly callme, but what that means is, if
my phone's not ringing, I canactually just detach and rest
(20:47):
and recover, and when thatperson goes on vacation, I can
offer them the very same serviceso that either of us can fully
relax.
Now, offer them the very sameservice so that either of us can
fully relax.
Now, if someone's a solopreneur, they're literally on their own
.
Obviously, you have to mitigateit, right, you've got to
mitigate it.
But what I might say is workwith your stakeholders.
Can you, could you work maybejust an hour in the morning,
minimal things, right, that justkeep things moving and then let
(21:10):
and let people know hey, I'm onvacation.
If it's absolutely on fire,please call me.
I will help you no matter what.
But if you wouldn't mind, justdrop it.
If it's not on fire, drop it inmy email and I'll get back to
you when I get back.
Again, it's a little bit ofretraining, but you're creating
a commitment plan.
You're telling to that personI'm not gonna let you down.
You're still gonna get theresults bit differently with me
(21:30):
over the course of this vacationso I can rest and recover and
come back and be fully ready tosupport you.
David Saltzman (21:36):
Great advice and a great place to end our
conversation for today.
Andrew Hartman, founder ofTimeBoss.
Andrew, thanks for afascinating conversation.
Andrew Hartman (21:44):
Wonderful.
Thanks so much, David.
I was really looking forward tothis.
I appreciate the time with you.
Announcer (21:51):
The Shift Shapers podcast is a production of Shift
Shapers LLC.
The content and images of thispodcast may not be used without
our express written permission.
Copyright 2023.
All rights reserved.
David Saltzman (22:07):
Shift Shapers.
What is the one thing everyone has?
Everyone gets the same amountof.
No one can make more of, andeveryone wishes they had more of
.
We'll find out on this episodeof Shift Shapers.
Announcer (00:12):
This is the Shift Shapers podcast, Connecting
benefits advisors with thoughtleaders and entrepreneurs who
are shaping the shifts in theindustry.
And now here's your host, DavidSaltzman.
David Saltzman (00:26):
And to help us answer that question, we've
invited Andrew Hartman.
Andrew is founder of TimeBoss.
Hey, Andrew, how you doing?
Andrew Hartman (00:33):
Good David, Thank you so much for having me.
I'm really great to be here,our pleasure.
David Saltzman (00:37):
Tell us a little bit about your journey.
How'd you come to be doing whatyou're doing?
Andrew Hartman (00:41):
Yeah, great question.
So I, like lots of leaders, gotstarted my career mid-20s, came
out of college, great family,great education, ended up in a
role where I had more to do thanI had time to do it and
suddenly realized I had no cluehow to manage my time.
I had someone that showed mehow to use a calendar.
I knew how to use a to-do list.
(01:01):
I knew how to prioritize stuff,but I had no way to deal with
being that much over capacity.
Like most people that end up inthat situation, I just went on
the grind.
I just tried to shovel as fastas I could and long nights,
early mornings, skip workouts,you know, work past dinner, all
the thing, wake up in the middleof the night, stressed out from
(01:22):
things I might be forgetting,trying to write down on a
post-it note next to my bed,only to see wake up in the
morning and see it was utterchicken scratch.
You know it wasn't even solvingthe problem to begin with.
So super overwhelmed, supersuccessful at my job was being
promoted as a function of what Iwas able to get done.
People loved the results I wasgetting, but it was costing me
so much personally led to myfirst real red line where I was,
(01:46):
as I would feel stress.
I would feel these heat flashes, and it ultimately led me to
lose my sense of smell.
For six months I couldn't smellanything and I knew it was a
function of stress.
I could feel it coming on and Italked to a lot of people about
time.
You'll hear people say things.
Like you know, I have Bell'spalsy.
Half my face went numb.
I have chronic headaches fromstress.
I've got irritable bowelsyndrome all the time because of
(02:08):
stress, and stress is reallyour body's way of saying like
hey, buddy, whatever you'redoing is not working, you are
dysregulated, something needs tochange.
And it took me hitting a redlight like that for me to really
start to make an adjustment.
So for me, the path became gosh.
I want to continue to deliver,I want to continue to contribute
at a level that I believe in.
(02:29):
I want to do great work, I wantto get great results, but I've
got to figure out how to do thatwithout this level of overwhelm
.
I've got a family that I careabout, I've got kids that I care
about, I have health that Iwant to maintain and even my
results.
You know, the thing that peopledon't realize about stress is
that burdensome stress,anxiety-ridden stress over time
(02:49):
actually impacts the resultsthat we're getting.
We perform poorer as a functionof that stress, and so, for all
those reasons, I got to work onbuilding a framework for myself
, like I've got to figure out away to get the results that I
want without overwhelm.
And it took me a long time,david, like weekly iterations
for a long time, and ultimatelyit worked.
(03:10):
I developed this framework thathelped me get incredible
results without overwhelm.
Other individuals asked me tocoach them on it and I just kind
of rode the horse in thedirection it's going and
formalized it into thisframework that I now train
leaders and teams to adopt andfor them to get the results that
they want without overwhelm.
David Saltzman (03:28):
Jumping around a little bit.
This maybe isn't fair, but Iwas reading some of the blogs on
your website.
Since you mentioned anxiety,why is it that anxiety sometimes
feels productive, even thoughintellectually we know it's not?
Andrew Hartman (03:42):
Yeah, it's really hard.
Anxiety is tough.
Yeah, I've recently wrote thatone on the blog.
So the thing about anxiety isthat we know how to solve it.
So what we think we do, andit's check items off our list
Like gosh.
If I check that item off mylist, I feel a little bit of
dopamine, I feel a little bit ofrelief and it feels good Like
we like that feeling, we likethe feeling of progress.
(04:06):
And so the challenge is wherethis goes sideways is when we
just let anxiety become the truenorth and we just keep pointing
ourselves at the hottest fires.
It does a couple of things.
One, we will always work on thehottest fire, not necessarily
the thing that is most strategicfor us to move our businesses
forward and things we care aboutforward.
Two, we will settle into wherewe don't really know how to
operate if it's not on fire,because that has become the way
(04:28):
that we get directed towardsthings.
It's like that feels reallyscary.
I should go tackle that rightnow.
But what we're really lookingfor as leaders, what we want, is
space to operate.
We really want you know, wetalk about urgent and important,
not urgent and important weactually want to operate in the
not urgent and important bucket,because that's when we feel
like we have room to work.
There's time for us to seecreative solutions.
(04:49):
There's time for us tocollaborate with others.
There's times for us to thinkexpansively.
We don't feel like the ax isabove our neck and it's about to
drop.
We have the ability to reallyget the best results possible,
and so, for me, I think anxiety,letting anxiety become true
north is not ultimately the mostproductive.
You're not going to get theresults that you want.
You may, in the short term,over the next five minutes, feel
incredibly effective, but Ithink if you look back over a
(05:10):
year, you're going to be reallydisappointed with the results
you got by letting anxiety betrue north.
David Saltzman (05:15):
So let's dial back a little bit.
Do you have any stats?
I mean, how bad is this problem?
Andrew Hartman (05:19):
It's horrific.
So pre-COVID, it was 75% ofknowledge workers experienced
burnout in the last 12 months.
Burnout meaning that they nolonger have the motivation to do
the work that they previouslydid.
And so, if you think about it,motivation is a core belief for,
like your entire self beingsaying, I have the ability to
pull this thing off.
(05:39):
And so when motivation getssubtracted, it's literally your
subconscious declaringbankruptcy on the way you're
approaching your time.
It's saying whatever you'redoing, buddy, is not working.
This absolutely has to change.
So pre-COVID it was 75%.
Post-covid these are Gallupstudies it's 77%.
So it's actually worsepost-COVID.
And you can point to all natureof things post-pandemic, I think
(06:03):
.
Personally, the one that iswreaking the most havoc in
people's psyche is always on,always available work.
There is no distinction of Iclose my laptop, shut the office
door and go home for the night.
That no longer exists andpeople don't have the habits or
the ways of thinking about timethat allow them to have freedom
(06:24):
where they can actually rest andrecover.
What most people do with theirevenings is cope.
They they feel incrediblystressed and they either just
keep working right, they justthey go in fight mode from the
stress.
I'm just going to keep working.
I'm going to skip workouts, I'mgoing to skip dinner, I'm going
to work late or they go intoflight mode where they are doom
scrolling or alcohol or icecream, or you name it.
(06:46):
They're just finding somethingto get out of their head for a
little bit.
They're not actually restingand recovering, and so the
situation is really bad.
It's really bad, and there'snot a common knowledge of time
in our current society to dealwith the current societal
structure in terms of how weapproach our work.
David Saltzman (07:06):
So what are some of the symptoms that we could
look for?
Could you give us the top twoor three that you know?
You have this problem if kindof an answer no-transcript, but
(07:43):
isn't actually good for you.
Andrew Hartman (07:44):
Those are the things that we're looking for.
It's, it's your body announcingto you like there is something
not right here.
David Saltzman (07:53):
So what are some of the things that you teach
that help people manage this?
Always on 24-7 work, work, work, work, work.
Phenomenon.
Andrew Hartman (08:05):
Yeah.
So I think the first move youhave to make is you have to make
a decision of how much yourlife you're willing to give to
work, because your to-do list isinfinite.
Whether you believe it or not,check items off your list.
There's always going to be more.
Solve all the problems.
Your brain is a problem-seekingmachine.
You'll go find more problems,so you're never going to get to
the end of your to-do list.
So just trying to grind to thebottom of your to-do list isn't
(08:28):
rational.
It really isn't.
You have to make a decision andsay this is my budget, this is
how much of my life I'm willingto give for work.
For me it's 50 hours.
I've made the decision that I'mwilling to give 50 hours to
income generating activities forTimeBoss, and it's
counterintuitive, but it'sincredibly powerful if you think
about it.
We have to treat our time likecash, and just like cash.
(08:50):
Let's say I have a milliondollars of capital to deploy.
If I have a million dollars ofcapital to deploy, I'm gonna be
very judicious about deployingit to the activities that are
going to or the investments thatare going to give me the
highest ROI.
And the same is true with ourtime.
If we build that constraint forme, I'd build in that
constraint of 50 hours.
I have to become incrediblyjudicious in light of the
results that I'm trying toachieve and trying to avoid the
(09:13):
overwhelm that I've talked about.
I have to be incrediblyjudicious with what I allow to
get on my calendar to help meget those results.
And so I think move number oneis put a constraint to say this
is how much of my life I'mwilling to give Now.
That doesn't mean your work'sgoing to fit in that.
There's obvious next steps thatwe have to take, but I do think
that is the first move.
(09:33):
It's just like having apersonal financial budget.
If you decide I'm going tospend $500 on groceries and
you're consistently spending$1,000 on groceries, you should
probably make some adjustmentsright?
Maybe you can't make all theadjustments next week, but over
time incremental adjustments I'mgoing to be incrementally
better next week so that I canbe exponentially better six
months from now.
Those incremental adjustmentsbuild up over time and that's
(09:56):
really what we help people do atTimeBoss those incremental
adjustments build up over time,and that's really what we help
people do at TimeBoss.
David Saltzman (10:03):
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Find your power with Benapower.
And now back to ourconversation.
So do you find that once youset that limit on the number of
hours that you're willing to getgive to work, that you
automatically start prioritizingdifferently.
Andrew Hartman (11:51):
Absolutely, almost instantly, because, if
you, you know people I mentionedearlier treating time like cash
Most people treat time likecredit and they just swipe and
they just say yes Because reallyit's fear that drives us to say
yes.
Two types of fear.
One is we're afraid if we don'tsay yes, we're not going to get
the results that we want.
There's some world that we want.
(12:11):
We think people asking us tohelp them helps us get to that
world.
Or two, we are afraid thatwe're going to let down
relationships, relationshipsthat we care about, and so,
again, we just swipe the creditcard and we're essentially, if I
swipe the credit card, I ampunting to future Andrew, you're
punting to future David, andthat dude's going to pay the
price for it, right?
They're going to be overwhelmed, working late again, impacting
(12:32):
their health, all the things.
And so, when we are judicious Ionly have so much time when
that new request comes in, I'vegot to be thoughtful of how does
this fit into the things I'vealready said yes to, and it
necessarily drives us to makebetter decisions.
So, as leaders, especiallyleaders in scaling companies, if
you think about it, we haveresults.
Again, my treatise is this youhave results that you want and
(12:54):
you actually want to get thatwithout overwhelm.
If those two things are true,people operate at what I call
their highest sustainable pace.
It's the pace that they canmaintain forever to get
incredible results.
And so, when you put in thatconstraint, the first question
is how am I going to get theresults that I need within this
constraint?
And where leaders often gosideways is they think, well, I
don't have enough time to getthe results that I want.
(13:14):
I said 50 hours, but I thinkit's actually going to take me
80.
Well, maybe, but do all those?
Do that net 30, the 30 that youdon't feel like you have?
Do those have to be you?
Can there be other strategiesthat we might look at that might
help you get the resultswithout it costing more on the
back of your time?
It's not linear.
There are ways that we canthink exponentially about how
you might get these results.
Are there people on your teamthat also have time that you're
(13:47):
not delegating to that you needto be delegating to and helping
develop, to help multiply thetime you have available to get
the results you want?
Again, I think when we startwith that constraint, it drives
decision making and I think wemake more powerful decisions
with our time.
Beginning with that constraint,again, we're still trying to
get results.
We're not putting results outthe door, we're just thinking
differently about how we'regoing to get those results.
David Saltzman (14:01):
So it seems like that's a second level
prioritization.
Once you say I'm only going towork X hours a week for my
moneymaking pursuits and youstart prioritizing your tasks,
is it an inevitable consequencethat that happens, that you
start looking at, okay, how canI make this happen, how can I
get my stuff done within thattime period?
And looking at ways to worksmarter, delegate, et cetera.
Andrew Hartman (14:26):
Yeah, absolutely .
I think it happens almostnecessarily in in part of it
comes from what's calledParkinson's law, and it's that
task will fill the time that wegive it.
And so you know, if you askedme the question, david, you say,
hey, describe yourself in 30seconds or less.
I can accomplish that task.
Hey, andrew, we've got fiveminutes.
Tell me about yourself.
I can accomplish that task.
I'll fill the time that I givemyself for a task.
(14:47):
It's Parkinson's law and so Ithink our time is that way.
By starting with that constraintand holding those results
steady, I think necessarilyyou're going to put the right
things onto your calendar.
Part of the process we teach isa weekly planning meeting,
which is this sober momentbefore the bullets start flying,
where you're planning, notexecuting it, and you're just
dealing.
What are all the things that Icould possibly schedule into my
(15:09):
week with the available timethat I have that are going to
make a difference for the goalsthat I'm trying to achieve?
And so, within that process,one of the simple tasks is just
force ranking your priorities.
What are the 20% of tasks herethat are going to make 80% of
the difference?
Let's move those up to the top.
Let's make sure I break thosedown into manageable tasks,
(15:34):
clear definition of done, andthen let's get those into my
calendar where I am committingto those items on my calendar,
as if the president of theUnited States is showing up to
that meeting and you can decidemaybe you don't like the current
president, choose the lastpresident or the president
before that or whoever.
It's up to you, but we have tocommit to these items on our
calendar that are actualpriorities, whether or not
another human is showing up, andoftentimes those are the first
things to go.
You know, those are the firstthings that we'll set aside.
When we get interrupted orpeople ask for things, we'll set
(15:56):
aside these items we know arehigh priority, that are going to
move our business forward inname of this urgent item that
someone's knocking on our doorwith because we're just afraid
of letting them down or we'reafraid, if we don't do it,
something bad's going to happenbecause we're just afraid of
letting them down or we'reafraid if we don't do it,
something bad's going to happen.
David Saltzman (16:11):
So I know this seems kind of oxymoronic, but
you can truncate the amount oftime that you give to work and
get four to 10 hours worth oftime back per week.
I mean, is that real?
Is that a thing?
Andrew Hartman (16:26):
Absolutely real.
I mean across.
We're I don't even know 35cohorts in now where people
consistently get those results,and it's really simple if you
think about it.
A couple things are happeningthere.
When I have a fixed amount oftime that I have available to me
, I will respond tointerruptions differently,
because I know now that thatinterruption is competing with
(16:47):
these priorities that I'm tryingto make happen, because I know
now that that interruption iscompeting with these priorities
that I'm trying to make happen.
And so one of the one of thebig ideas that we talk about in
time boss, is budgeting time forinterruptions, literally adding
time on your calendar.
We call it whirlwind.
You can think of it like buffer.
Where we are, we are budgetingtime to deal with those items so
that we can really focus in andmake things happen.
Where people are burning timeand losing that four to 10 hours
(17:11):
a week is they are allowingthemselves to be constantly
available and they're beingjerked all over the place by
every last need that's coming.
And here's the deal as teamsscale, it's only getting worse
as you add literally anothernode to the system.
That is one more node that canping you, interrupt you, ask you
questions, have issues that youneed to solve for, and so
(17:31):
sometimes leaders that areincredibly effective in small
teams can't figure out why theycan't get anything done as they
scale, and it's because they'rejust constantly available to
their team.
And so my encouragement topeople is to divide out those
times.
Have times where they are zero,dark, 30, locked in I'm just
making things happen and timeswhen they make themselves
available to the team to behelpful and supportive, and that
(17:52):
activity alone often createsthat four to 10 hours that they
were simply losing before frombeing pulled out, multitasking,
losing what's called comebacktime.
Comeback time is the amount oftime it takes you to come back
to a task once you've switchedoff of it.
Cal Newport in Deep Work.
He talked about deep work isthat focused work that's going
(18:13):
to move our business forward,leveraged work that has
exponential results.
You can't do that by leavingyourself constantly available.
In his book, he said, if you'reworking on those tasks, your
brain has unfolded into thecontext of that task.
If someone interrupts you, youtake a phone call, you go off in
another direction and try tocome back.
It might take you up to 23minutes to come back to that
(18:34):
task.
So, if you think about it, ifwe're allowing that to happen
all day long, likely we're noteven getting to the deep work
because there's just not enoughtime.
And two, we're just burningtime throughout the week and so,
perceptively, people feel likethey get back four to 10 hours
simply from making some verystrategic changes in their day
and then being incrediblyjudicious about what they say
(18:55):
yes to and what they focus on intheir prioritized time.
David Saltzman (18:58):
I know our listeners are entrepreneurs and
solopreneurs and we do have somelarger agencies and some
companies, but we're recordingthis during the summertime.
How do you actually rest onvacation?
Because a lot of us find thatvery difficult.
Even though we are physicallyout of the office, and maybe
even if we shut off ourtechnology, our brains are still
(19:19):
going.
How do you do that?
Andrew Hartman (19:21):
Yeah.
So it's interesting, you knowwhat, what the research that Cal
Newport talked about in DeepWork is, this idea of commitment
plans.
And what's really fascinatedabout a commitment plan is we
intuitively think we mustaccomplish work for us to feel
relief.
And so, if that's true, none ofus are ever going on vacation
because there's always going tobe undone items that we're never
getting to right.
(19:42):
And so what Cal Newport talkedabout, this idea of a commitment
plan, is.
A commitment plan is where I sayI have a plan for when this
work's going to happen, and Ibelieve my brain believes I will
actually follow through.
I'm actually committed to it, Iwill actually follow through if
that happens.
And if that happens, then wedon't fear anymore.
Now, a commitment plan doesn'tmean just me, it could be others
(20:02):
as well, and so, especially forsomeone that's on a small team,
you might say you might findsomeone to trade with where you
say, hey, I'm gonna be onvacation next week.
If anything comes in, could youjust field it and help it along
, make sure that nothing'sbleeding, nothing breaks, and
when I get back in the officeI'll be able to take care of
that.
I call that person a vacationshield.
They are literally shieldingyou from even being aware that
(20:25):
those items are happening.
Now what that does is that's acommitment plan.
I have made a commitment plan.
This person is my plan, where Iknow that the relationships I
care about and the results thatI care about aren't going to
fall through the cracks becausethis person's there Now if it's
bleeding and it's on fire andthe business is going to hurt if
I don't take it.
that person can certainly callme, but what that means is, if
my phone's not ringing, I canactually just detach and rest
(20:47):
and recover, and when thatperson goes on vacation, I can
offer them the very same serviceso that either of us can fully
relax.
Now, offer them the very sameservice so that either of us can
fully relax.
Now, if someone's a solopreneur, they're literally on their own
.
Obviously, you have to mitigateit, right, you've got to
mitigate it.
But what I might say is workwith your stakeholders.
Can you, could you work maybejust an hour in the morning,
minimal things, right, that justkeep things moving and then let
(21:10):
and let people know hey, I'm onvacation.
If it's absolutely on fire,please call me.
I will help you no matter what.
But if you wouldn't mind, justdrop it.
If it's not on fire, drop it inmy email and I'll get back to
you when I get back.
Again, it's a little bit ofretraining, but you're creating
a commitment plan.
You're telling to that personI'm not gonna let you down.
You're still gonna get theresults bit differently with me
(21:30):
over the course of this vacationso I can rest and recover and
come back and be fully ready tosupport you.
David Saltzman (21:36):
Great advice and a great place to end our
conversation for today.
Andrew Hartman, founder ofTimeBoss.
Andrew, thanks for afascinating conversation.
Andrew Hartman (21:44):
Wonderful.
Thanks so much, David.
I was really looking forward tothis.
I appreciate the time with you.
Announcer (21:51):
The Shift Shapers podcast is a production of Shift
Shapers LLC.
The content and images of thispodcast may not be used without
our express written permission.
Copyright 2023.
All rights reserved.
David Saltzman (22:07):
Shift Shapers.
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