January 27, 2025 • 14 mins
Happy New Year, listeners! In this episode, we dive into one of the toughest New Year’s resolutions: improving time management. Joined by Travis Mountain, UGA Cooperative Extension specialist in financial planning, we break down 10 practical strategies from the popular UGA Extension publication 10 Strategies for Better Time Management. From tracking how you spend your time to delegating tasks and conquering procrastination, this episode is packed with actionable tips to help you make the most of 2025.
Resources:
- 10 Strategies for Better Time Management (UGA Cooperative Extension publication)
- Travis Mountain's faculty profile
- UGA Extension publications by Travis Mountain
- UGA Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sound Effect (00:00):
[music]
Jordan Powers (00:00):
Welcome to Cultivating Curiosity where we
get down and dirty with theexperts on all the ways science
and agriculture touch our lives,from what we eat to how we live.
I'm Jordan Powers.
Emily Cabrera (00:12):
And I'm Emily Cabrera. We're from the
University of Georgia's Collegeof Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences.
Sound Effect (00:19):
[chime]
Jordan Powers (00:20):
Happy New Year listeners, we hope you're
settling well into 2025. Forthose of you who set resolutions
or create goals for yourself, weknow that improving time
management might be one of thehardest commitments to keep.
Emily Cabrera (00:32):
In fact, one of our UGA Cooperative Extension
publications, 10 Strategies forBetter Time Management, is
consistently a top viewedresource. It's a quick read and
provides concrete, actionablesteps to help you learn how to
manage time more efficiently.
Jordan Powers (00:47):
UGA Extension extends lifelong learning to the
public through unbiasedresearch-based education in
agriculture, the environment,communities, youth and families.
UGA Extension publications, orpubs, are peer-reviewed and
connect residents to the resultsof university research.
Emily Cabrera (01:04):
We spoke with the reviewer of this popular pub,
Travis Mountain, an assistantprofessor in the College of
Family and Consumer Sciences atthe University of Georgia, and a
UGA Cooperative Extensionspecialist in financial
planning. We hope you can pickup a few strategies that help
you stay committed to your timemanagement goals this year.
Sound Effect (01:21):
[chime]
Emily Cabrera (01:23):
Travis, thank you for taking the time to join us
today. Before we dive into theten strategies, tell us why time
management is a misnomer.
Travis Mountain (01:31):
With time management, everyone has the
same amount of time in a minute,in a day in a year, right?
There's nothing we can do toaffect that time. What we can do
is affect how we use that time,and that's really what we're
trying to get at when we saytime management is a misnomer.
That said, I'll probably use theterm time management several
times throughout thisdiscussion.
Jordan Powers (01:50):
Well, in the spirit of best managing our time
and our listeners time, let's doa bit of a lightning round,
highlighting the ten strategiesthat are in this Extension
publication. Starting withnumber one, Know How You Spend
Your Time.
Travis Mountain (02:02):
This is a really big step, and a lot of
people don't take this firststep. It doesn't matter if we
were talking about somebody whowanted to lose weight, somebody
who wanted to save more money,or somebody that wants to make
better use of their time, weneed to first know, how are you
using that time? So really, whatwe encourage people to do is to
track their time. Maybe it'sjust during 15 minute
increments, you're just tryingto figure out, what were you
doing during that time? You'regoing to track what you did. How
(02:24):
do you feel about how you usedthat time? Was that productive
use of your time? Or do you wishthat you were doing something
else? And then you can justextend that to longer periods of
time.
Emily Cabrera (02:32):
Number two, Set Priorities.
Travis Mountain (02:34):
This is also really important. In our
publication, we have a nicelittle section there where it
says things that are important,things that are urgent, things
that aren't important, and alsothings that are not urgent. It's
really important for you to tryto figure out what tasks you
have, where they fit in thattable, and it's also important
to remember something that mightbe urgent from somebody else
might not be urgent for you,right? And that's where we have
(02:57):
to decide, can I say no to thisparticular task? We need to
balance, what are the pros andcons of doing something like
that.
Jordan Powers (03:03):
And we will definitely make sure to link to
the publication as we alreadymentioned. Let's move on to
number three, Use a PlanningTool.
Travis Mountain (03:09):
In this publication, we have a lot of
different options that peoplecan use, and we encourage people
to see what works best for them.
Some people really like trackingthings with pen and paper. Other
people like using Excel. Moreand more people now are using
technology. So they may haveapps right on their phone or on
their tablet or even right intheir computer, different
softwares that's going to trackhow much time they spent on a
particular activity. And youknow now with a lot of people's
(03:30):
smartphones, you might get aweekly update that says you
spent so much time on the screenthis particular week. And you
can get into more details ofokay, of that five hours that
you spent on a particular day.
Where did you spend that fivehours? Right? And this isn't
even an app. This is justsomething that a lot of people
have by default in theirsmartphones right now. So it's
really just a matter of lookingat, are you tracking your time,
(03:52):
and are you using the best useof your time?
Emily Cabrera (03:54):
Okay, this next one, I feel quite seen, Getting
Organized.
Travis Mountain (03:58):
In this theme, we're really kind of talking
about two different things.
We're talking about trying to benot so cluttered, and also
trying to be efficient, right?
So we know that people who areworking in cluttered
environments, or living incluttered environments,
oftentimes time managementbecomes a problem for them
because they have these otherthings that they're preoccupied
with. It takes them longer to doa particular task because they
may need to find where the itemsare for that task. If we're
(04:21):
thinking about somebody who'sworking for email, for example,
right? I may have a reallyimportant email. Maybe I didn't
categorize that. Maybe I justhave it in my long list of 2000
emails, it might be difficultfor me to search for that. So
the idea here would be makingsure that you have particular
folders or some type of codingmechanism so that you can easily
find what you're looking for.
Emily Cabrera (04:39):
Our colleague, Maria Lameiras, just
collaborated recently with someof your colleagues in Family and
Consumer Sciences on a reallyfantastic article that we'll
link in the show notes, FreeingYour Mind and Space from Clutter
in the New Year.
Travis Mountain (04:51):
Oh, nice.
Jordan Powers (04:52):
Look at that (laughter, all), love when those
things just flow together. Sospeaking of flowing together,
this next one seems to flowquite a bit with planning tools
and getting organized. Numberfive, Schedule Appropriately.
Travis Mountain (05:02):
This goes beyond just having a list of
tasks that you need to try toaccomplish in a day or in a week
or whatever your time period is,but it's knowing when are you
most productive, right? Sopersonally, I'm most productive
in the morning. So my mostdifficult tasks and the most
important and urgent tasks,those are what I try to do in
the morning. My tasks that Iknow I need to get done, but
they have lower priority, I setthose aside for the afternoon.
(05:23):
So if I have to work on aresearch paper or I need to prep
for class, that's something I'mgoing to do in the morning. If I
have to reply to some emails,that's more something that I'm
going to do later in the day.
Emily Cabrera (05:32):
Alright, this next one might be a hard one for
people that like to maintaincontrol or do it themselves, but
it is Delegate, Getting Helpfrom Others.
Travis Mountain (05:40):
Yeah, I really like talking about this one. And
you're right. Some people have areally difficult time delegating
different activities, but we alldo this, right? If I have to get
a medical procedure done, I'mnot going to spend 2000 hours
trying to figure out how to dothe procedure, right? I'm going
to go to the doctor. If I haveto have a cavity filled, I'm
going to go to the dentist. I'mnot going to try to do that
myself. But a lot of us don'tthink about delegating in those
(06:01):
types of ways. Instead, we'rethinking about, well, maybe
there's some household chores.
With household chores, you couldstill delegate some of them,
right? So, for instance, I paysomebody to mow my lawn. I never
thought that I would do that,right? Growing up, my dad had a
small landscape business. Iworked for him. It's something
that that I can clearly do. Butthen I looked into how expensive
would it be for me to buy a lawnmower. How long would this take
me to to actually mow my lawn?
(06:24):
What would be the upkeep andmaintenance on on my lawnmower,
that kind of stuff, right? So Iwas looking into that, and then
I sought out people who wouldmow my lawn. What are they
charging? And I did the analysisof, okay, based on what they're
charging, it makes a lot moresense for me to delegate that
task, because now, instead ofmowing my lawn for four hours,
or however long it's gonna take,I can do something that's more
productive with my time.
Emily Cabrera (06:44):
Yeah, one area I've used this approach, and
Jordan, I know you've done thesame, is with ordering groceries
through an app, which saves me aton of time.
Jordan Powers (06:52):
Exactly. I'm already spending enough time
meal planning, building agrocery list, but being able to
delegate the actual shoppingallows me to swing by and pick
up the order and recuperate thattime to pick up the kids from
school, jump into homework,dinner prep, and all the other
things that parents do that wecan't delegate.
Emily Cabrera (07:09):
All the things
Jordan Powers (07:10):
So many. So in addition to delegating another
thing that I know that I'mguilty of because I'm thinking
of all the things I need to do,is not doing any of them. So
that leads to number seven, StopProcrastinating.
Travis Mountain (07:21):
Procrastinating is really easy for people to do,
right? And the idea withprocrastinating would be, maybe
you have some time allocatedthis afternoon to work on a
project, but you don't do it.
You put it off till tomorrow.
Tomorrow comes along and youkeep on doing that. That would
be what we're talking about withprocrastination. And this is bad
from a lot of different fronts,right? It kind of can lower your
self esteem, because you knowthat this is something that you
(07:41):
said that you were going to do acouple days ago and you haven't
gotten it done. It's justsomething that's always going to
be nagging you until youactually get that done. That's a
little bit different than whenwe were talking about earlier,
about setting priorities, right?
You might have something that isan important task for you to do,
but it's okay if you're going tosay, Okay, this task, I'm going
to do it next week from now,right? That wouldn't be
procrastinating as long as youactually get it done next week.
Emily Cabrera (08:03):
And the next one, Managing Time Wasters?
Travis Mountain (08:06):
That's a really good one. And this kind of comes
back to number one, where we'retrying to figure out, you know,
what are you actually spendingyour time on? So time wasters
could be something such asemail, right? A lot of people,
they get to the office firstthing on Monday, and they're
looking at, okay, I have allthese emails, I need to get
through them. But the questionis, Do I really need to get
through all those emails? Right?
How important are they? It couldtake an hour for you to get
(08:27):
through some of your emails,right, and you get to check off
that nice box that says, Okay, Igot through all these emails.
But how important was that? Howurgent was that, right? Also
thinking about the differenttypes of meetings that you're
gonna have. Since COVID-19, alot of us now have these virtual
meetings via Zoom or via Teams,something like that. And a lot
of people like to schedule thesemeetings. But the question is,
Do I really need to have thismeeting via Zoom? Do I have to
(08:49):
have it via Teams or some othertype of virtual programming?
Could it be that we're going toactually talk on the phone and
I'm going to walk and do some,you know, health exercise or
something like that, while I'mon the call? Right? Those types
of things. Try to make sure thatyou are using your time as
efficiently as possible.
Emily Cabrera (09:04):
You saying all of this, and I'm realizing I have
so many time wasters.
Jordan Powers (09:09):
Another one that I think a lot of us were raised
saying is a good thing, right?
But we're seeing number nine,Avoid Multitasking.
Travis Mountain (09:17):
Yeah, that's something that I thought growing
up too, was something that Ishould get good at, proficient
at, and be doing. But more andmore research is coming out
saying that we are not able todo that very well, right? You're
much better off doing some typeof bucketing system where you're
going to say, Okay, for the nexthalf an hour, the next hour, I'm
going to work on this project.
Once that time is up or thatproject's done, then I'm going
to go on to the next project.
It's really a better way oftrying to accomplish these
(09:38):
goals, as opposed to saying I'mgonna try to work on these two
things simultaneously for thenext two hours, or whatever your
time period is. Research showsthat chances are you're not
gonna get either of them done,or if you do, neither of them
are gonna be done very well.
Emily Cabrera (09:50):
All right. And finally, Stay Healthy.
Travis Mountain (09:53):
The whole idea here is just trying to figure
out, you know, how well are youmanaging your time? What are the
trade offs for different thingsthat you're doing? Do you have a
pretty good work life balance? Iknow that term kind of gets
thrown out a lot, but somepeople really stress out over
some things that aren't thaturgent or aren't that important,
right? It's the ability ofsaying, Okay, this is everything
that I want to get done today,right? Do the things that I have
(10:14):
on this agenda or this task listthat I have, are they really
important? And what happens if Idon't get those things done?
Right? And kind of the trade offbetween my work time my family
time, how do I feel about thetime that I've actually spent if
I'm looking back over a periodof time?
Jordan Powers (10:27):
It is interesting. You know, I think
in the new year, we hear a lothealth focused as far as like,
I'm gonna get on track with myfitness, but our time management
is part of our health. So it'sreally interesting to hear that
talked about a little bit more.
So now that we know the tenstrategies, let's talk about the
"so what." Many listeners,sometimes, myself included,
think that they're doing justfine on the time management
front. But what do we gain byputting a more intentional focus
(10:48):
on our personal time managementpractices?
Travis Mountain (10:51):
So that's a really good question, right? And
a lot of people do think thatthey're doing things that are
fine, just like when I'm talkingto people about their finances.
A lot of people do think thatthey're doing things fine, but
really, until we evaluate and wedo kind of a retrospective
analysis of how we're using thattime, it's really hard for us to
say how good are we at timemanagement, or how good are we
at tracking our calories or ourbudget, those types of things.
(11:12):
There's research out there thatshows that people who have
better time management, they'remore productive, they have more
energy for things they need toaccomplish. They feel less
stressed. They have more time todo things that they really want
to do. They get more thingsdone. They relate more
positively to others, and theyfeel better about themselves.
Emily Cabrera (11:27):
All of this is incredibly helpful information,
and I'm just sitting herelistening like, Okay, I will
work these ten steps as soon aswe're done recording (laughing).
Jordan Powers (11:36):
Sponge mode (laughing).
Emily Cabrera (11:37):
Yeah, we know that time management is only a
portion of your research andExtension education interests.
Can we continue our lightninground with a bit more detail on
some of your other work?
Travis Mountain (11:46):
Yeah. So I have a couple different projects.
Some of my Extension activitiesare looking at trying to improve
people's credit scores. So wegot a grant through the Small
Business Development Center,which got money from the
Treasury to try to improvepeople's credit scores. And the
whole idea with this is theseare people who want to be small
business owners. They have goodideas. They want to have this
business but their credit scoresaren't high enough, so they
(12:07):
can't get these business loans.
So we go around the statethrough myself and also through
Extension agents, we try toeducate people to try to improve
their scores. So that's one ofthe big factors, and we know
that there's a lot ofmisunderstanding about scores.
Some people, you know, they'vehad credit cards or they've had
loans for decades, and they'remismanaging those, right? So
there's a lot of information outthere that's wrong. If I just do
a quick internet search, I maybe searching for something
(12:30):
related to credit scores.
There's a decent chance thatit's wrong, right? So a lot of
people are just unsure aboutcredit scores. I'm also heavily
involved with VITA, and VITA isthe Volunteer Income Tax
Assistance Program, and thereare many different Vita
locations across the state andacross the country. University
of Georgia is involved withVITA. We have done approximately
(12:50):
1200 tax returns just on campuslast year. So anyone who's in
the area, they can come tocampus, they can get their taxes
done. But then, throughExtension, we've also done a
little over 1000 tax returnslast year. So this upcoming
year, tax year 2025, there'sover 20 Extension agents in
different counties who arewilling to help you with your
taxes. So that's also a greatservice that we provide on the
(13:12):
Extension front.
Emily Cabrera (13:13):
And we'll be sure to link to VITA and some of
those publications that you haveworked on that really get at
credit scores and otherfinancial planning tips.
Travis Mountain (13:22):
Yeah, that'd be great.
Jordan Powers (13:23):
Absolutely, incredibly important and an
amazing resource that'savailable. And now with the time
management focus, I'm like, Ineed to put taxes on my calendar
so that I make them priority andurgent (laughing). Well, Travis,
thank you for your time today.
We really appreciate you comingin and talking to us. This is a
topic that, of course, we wereinterested in in the new year,
because people do put a renewedfocus on their priorities and
their time, but it's somethingthat I think is a really good
(13:46):
reminder throughout the year. Sohopefully this is an episode
that people can keep coming backto, and we will, of course, link
to all those amazing resources,and we're just very appreciative
of your time.
Travis Mountain (13:55):
Great. Yeah, I'm glad to be here, and maybe
people are going to listen to itat one and a half times speed
just to get more of that timeback (all laughing).
Jordan Powers (14:01):
I love it. I'm glad I'm glad I'm not the only
one who does that.
Emily Cabrera (14:04):
Thanks Travis.
Sound Effect (14:05):
[music]
Jordan Powers (14:06):
Thanks for listening to Cultivating
Curiosity, a podcast produced bythe UGA College of Agricultural
and Environmental Sciences. Aspecial thanks to Mason
McClintock for our music andsound effects. Find more
episodes wherever you get yourpodcasts.
[music]
Jordan Powers (00:00):
Welcome to Cultivating Curiosity where we
get down and dirty with theexperts on all the ways science
and agriculture touch our lives,from what we eat to how we live.
I'm Jordan Powers.
Emily Cabrera (00:12):
And I'm Emily Cabrera. We're from the
University of Georgia's Collegeof Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences.
Sound Effect (00:19):
[chime]
Jordan Powers (00:20):
Happy New Year listeners, we hope you're
settling well into 2025. Forthose of you who set resolutions
or create goals for yourself, weknow that improving time
management might be one of thehardest commitments to keep.
Emily Cabrera (00:32):
In fact, one of our UGA Cooperative Extension
publications, 10 Strategies forBetter Time Management, is
consistently a top viewedresource. It's a quick read and
provides concrete, actionablesteps to help you learn how to
manage time more efficiently.
Jordan Powers (00:47):
UGA Extension extends lifelong learning to the
public through unbiasedresearch-based education in
agriculture, the environment,communities, youth and families.
UGA Extension publications, orpubs, are peer-reviewed and
connect residents to the resultsof university research.
Emily Cabrera (01:04):
We spoke with the reviewer of this popular pub,
Travis Mountain, an assistantprofessor in the College of
Family and Consumer Sciences atthe University of Georgia, and a
UGA Cooperative Extensionspecialist in financial
planning. We hope you can pickup a few strategies that help
you stay committed to your timemanagement goals this year.
Sound Effect (01:21):
[chime]
Emily Cabrera (01:23):
Travis, thank you for taking the time to join us
today. Before we dive into theten strategies, tell us why time
management is a misnomer.
Travis Mountain (01:31):
With time management, everyone has the
same amount of time in a minute,in a day in a year, right?
There's nothing we can do toaffect that time. What we can do
is affect how we use that time,and that's really what we're
trying to get at when we saytime management is a misnomer.
That said, I'll probably use theterm time management several
times throughout thisdiscussion.
Jordan Powers (01:50):
Well, in the spirit of best managing our time
and our listeners time, let's doa bit of a lightning round,
highlighting the ten strategiesthat are in this Extension
publication. Starting withnumber one, Know How You Spend
Your Time.
Travis Mountain (02:02):
This is a really big step, and a lot of
people don't take this firststep. It doesn't matter if we
were talking about somebody whowanted to lose weight, somebody
who wanted to save more money,or somebody that wants to make
better use of their time, weneed to first know, how are you
using that time? So really, whatwe encourage people to do is to
track their time. Maybe it'sjust during 15 minute
increments, you're just tryingto figure out, what were you
doing during that time? You'regoing to track what you did. How
(02:24):
do you feel about how you usedthat time? Was that productive
use of your time? Or do you wishthat you were doing something
else? And then you can justextend that to longer periods of
time.
Emily Cabrera (02:32):
Number two, Set Priorities.
Travis Mountain (02:34):
This is also really important. In our
publication, we have a nicelittle section there where it
says things that are important,things that are urgent, things
that aren't important, and alsothings that are not urgent. It's
really important for you to tryto figure out what tasks you
have, where they fit in thattable, and it's also important
to remember something that mightbe urgent from somebody else
might not be urgent for you,right? And that's where we have
(02:57):
to decide, can I say no to thisparticular task? We need to
balance, what are the pros andcons of doing something like
that.
Jordan Powers (03:03):
And we will definitely make sure to link to
the publication as we alreadymentioned. Let's move on to
number three, Use a PlanningTool.
Travis Mountain (03:09):
In this publication, we have a lot of
different options that peoplecan use, and we encourage people
to see what works best for them.
Some people really like trackingthings with pen and paper. Other
people like using Excel. Moreand more people now are using
technology. So they may haveapps right on their phone or on
their tablet or even right intheir computer, different
softwares that's going to trackhow much time they spent on a
particular activity. And youknow now with a lot of people's
(03:30):
smartphones, you might get aweekly update that says you
spent so much time on the screenthis particular week. And you
can get into more details ofokay, of that five hours that
you spent on a particular day.
Where did you spend that fivehours? Right? And this isn't
even an app. This is justsomething that a lot of people
have by default in theirsmartphones right now. So it's
really just a matter of lookingat, are you tracking your time,
(03:52):
and are you using the best useof your time?
Emily Cabrera (03:54):
Okay, this next one, I feel quite seen, Getting
Organized.
Travis Mountain (03:58):
In this theme, we're really kind of talking
about two different things.
We're talking about trying to benot so cluttered, and also
trying to be efficient, right?
So we know that people who areworking in cluttered
environments, or living incluttered environments,
oftentimes time managementbecomes a problem for them
because they have these otherthings that they're preoccupied
with. It takes them longer to doa particular task because they
may need to find where the itemsare for that task. If we're
(04:21):
thinking about somebody who'sworking for email, for example,
right? I may have a reallyimportant email. Maybe I didn't
categorize that. Maybe I justhave it in my long list of 2000
emails, it might be difficultfor me to search for that. So
the idea here would be makingsure that you have particular
folders or some type of codingmechanism so that you can easily
find what you're looking for.
Emily Cabrera (04:39):
Our colleague, Maria Lameiras, just
collaborated recently with someof your colleagues in Family and
Consumer Sciences on a reallyfantastic article that we'll
link in the show notes, FreeingYour Mind and Space from Clutter
in the New Year.
Travis Mountain (04:51):
Oh, nice.
Jordan Powers (04:52):
Look at that (laughter, all), love when those
things just flow together. Sospeaking of flowing together,
this next one seems to flowquite a bit with planning tools
and getting organized. Numberfive, Schedule Appropriately.
Travis Mountain (05:02):
This goes beyond just having a list of
tasks that you need to try toaccomplish in a day or in a week
or whatever your time period is,but it's knowing when are you
most productive, right? Sopersonally, I'm most productive
in the morning. So my mostdifficult tasks and the most
important and urgent tasks,those are what I try to do in
the morning. My tasks that Iknow I need to get done, but
they have lower priority, I setthose aside for the afternoon.
(05:23):
So if I have to work on aresearch paper or I need to prep
for class, that's something I'mgoing to do in the morning. If I
have to reply to some emails,that's more something that I'm
going to do later in the day.
Emily Cabrera (05:32):
Alright, this next one might be a hard one for
people that like to maintaincontrol or do it themselves, but
it is Delegate, Getting Helpfrom Others.
Travis Mountain (05:40):
Yeah, I really like talking about this one. And
you're right. Some people have areally difficult time delegating
different activities, but we alldo this, right? If I have to get
a medical procedure done, I'mnot going to spend 2000 hours
trying to figure out how to dothe procedure, right? I'm going
to go to the doctor. If I haveto have a cavity filled, I'm
going to go to the dentist. I'mnot going to try to do that
myself. But a lot of us don'tthink about delegating in those
(06:01):
types of ways. Instead, we'rethinking about, well, maybe
there's some household chores.
With household chores, you couldstill delegate some of them,
right? So, for instance, I paysomebody to mow my lawn. I never
thought that I would do that,right? Growing up, my dad had a
small landscape business. Iworked for him. It's something
that that I can clearly do. Butthen I looked into how expensive
would it be for me to buy a lawnmower. How long would this take
me to to actually mow my lawn?
(06:24):
What would be the upkeep andmaintenance on on my lawnmower,
that kind of stuff, right? So Iwas looking into that, and then
I sought out people who wouldmow my lawn. What are they
charging? And I did the analysisof, okay, based on what they're
charging, it makes a lot moresense for me to delegate that
task, because now, instead ofmowing my lawn for four hours,
or however long it's gonna take,I can do something that's more
productive with my time.
Emily Cabrera (06:44):
Yeah, one area I've used this approach, and
Jordan, I know you've done thesame, is with ordering groceries
through an app, which saves me aton of time.
Jordan Powers (06:52):
Exactly. I'm already spending enough time
meal planning, building agrocery list, but being able to
delegate the actual shoppingallows me to swing by and pick
up the order and recuperate thattime to pick up the kids from
school, jump into homework,dinner prep, and all the other
things that parents do that wecan't delegate.
Emily Cabrera (07:09):
All the things
Jordan Powers (07:10):
So many. So in addition to delegating another
thing that I know that I'mguilty of because I'm thinking
of all the things I need to do,is not doing any of them. So
that leads to number seven, StopProcrastinating.
Travis Mountain (07:21):
Procrastinating is really easy for people to do,
right? And the idea withprocrastinating would be, maybe
you have some time allocatedthis afternoon to work on a
project, but you don't do it.
You put it off till tomorrow.
Tomorrow comes along and youkeep on doing that. That would
be what we're talking about withprocrastination. And this is bad
from a lot of different fronts,right? It kind of can lower your
self esteem, because you knowthat this is something that you
(07:41):
said that you were going to do acouple days ago and you haven't
gotten it done. It's justsomething that's always going to
be nagging you until youactually get that done. That's a
little bit different than whenwe were talking about earlier,
about setting priorities, right?
You might have something that isan important task for you to do,
but it's okay if you're going tosay, Okay, this task, I'm going
to do it next week from now,right? That wouldn't be
procrastinating as long as youactually get it done next week.
Emily Cabrera (08:03):
And the next one, Managing Time Wasters?
Travis Mountain (08:06):
That's a really good one. And this kind of comes
back to number one, where we'retrying to figure out, you know,
what are you actually spendingyour time on? So time wasters
could be something such asemail, right? A lot of people,
they get to the office firstthing on Monday, and they're
looking at, okay, I have allthese emails, I need to get
through them. But the questionis, Do I really need to get
through all those emails? Right?
How important are they? It couldtake an hour for you to get
(08:27):
through some of your emails,right, and you get to check off
that nice box that says, Okay, Igot through all these emails.
But how important was that? Howurgent was that, right? Also
thinking about the differenttypes of meetings that you're
gonna have. Since COVID-19, alot of us now have these virtual
meetings via Zoom or via Teams,something like that. And a lot
of people like to schedule thesemeetings. But the question is,
Do I really need to have thismeeting via Zoom? Do I have to
(08:49):
have it via Teams or some othertype of virtual programming?
Could it be that we're going toactually talk on the phone and
I'm going to walk and do some,you know, health exercise or
something like that, while I'mon the call? Right? Those types
of things. Try to make sure thatyou are using your time as
efficiently as possible.
Emily Cabrera (09:04):
You saying all of this, and I'm realizing I have
so many time wasters.
Jordan Powers (09:09):
Another one that I think a lot of us were raised
saying is a good thing, right?
But we're seeing number nine,Avoid Multitasking.
Travis Mountain (09:17):
Yeah, that's something that I thought growing
up too, was something that Ishould get good at, proficient
at, and be doing. But more andmore research is coming out
saying that we are not able todo that very well, right? You're
much better off doing some typeof bucketing system where you're
going to say, Okay, for the nexthalf an hour, the next hour, I'm
going to work on this project.
Once that time is up or thatproject's done, then I'm going
to go on to the next project.
It's really a better way oftrying to accomplish these
(09:38):
goals, as opposed to saying I'mgonna try to work on these two
things simultaneously for thenext two hours, or whatever your
time period is. Research showsthat chances are you're not
gonna get either of them done,or if you do, neither of them
are gonna be done very well.
Emily Cabrera (09:50):
All right. And finally, Stay Healthy.
Travis Mountain (09:53):
The whole idea here is just trying to figure
out, you know, how well are youmanaging your time? What are the
trade offs for different thingsthat you're doing? Do you have a
pretty good work life balance? Iknow that term kind of gets
thrown out a lot, but somepeople really stress out over
some things that aren't thaturgent or aren't that important,
right? It's the ability ofsaying, Okay, this is everything
that I want to get done today,right? Do the things that I have
(10:14):
on this agenda or this task listthat I have, are they really
important? And what happens if Idon't get those things done?
Right? And kind of the trade offbetween my work time my family
time, how do I feel about thetime that I've actually spent if
I'm looking back over a periodof time?
Jordan Powers (10:27):
It is interesting. You know, I think
in the new year, we hear a lothealth focused as far as like,
I'm gonna get on track with myfitness, but our time management
is part of our health. So it'sreally interesting to hear that
talked about a little bit more.
So now that we know the tenstrategies, let's talk about the
"so what." Many listeners,sometimes, myself included,
think that they're doing justfine on the time management
front. But what do we gain byputting a more intentional focus
(10:48):
on our personal time managementpractices?
Travis Mountain (10:51):
So that's a really good question, right? And
a lot of people do think thatthey're doing things that are
fine, just like when I'm talkingto people about their finances.
A lot of people do think thatthey're doing things fine, but
really, until we evaluate and wedo kind of a retrospective
analysis of how we're using thattime, it's really hard for us to
say how good are we at timemanagement, or how good are we
at tracking our calories or ourbudget, those types of things.
(11:12):
There's research out there thatshows that people who have
better time management, they'remore productive, they have more
energy for things they need toaccomplish. They feel less
stressed. They have more time todo things that they really want
to do. They get more thingsdone. They relate more
positively to others, and theyfeel better about themselves.
Emily Cabrera (11:27):
All of this is incredibly helpful information,
and I'm just sitting herelistening like, Okay, I will
work these ten steps as soon aswe're done recording (laughing).
Jordan Powers (11:36):
Sponge mode (laughing).
Emily Cabrera (11:37):
Yeah, we know that time management is only a
portion of your research andExtension education interests.
Can we continue our lightninground with a bit more detail on
some of your other work?
Travis Mountain (11:46):
Yeah. So I have a couple different projects.
Some of my Extension activitiesare looking at trying to improve
people's credit scores. So wegot a grant through the Small
Business Development Center,which got money from the
Treasury to try to improvepeople's credit scores. And the
whole idea with this is theseare people who want to be small
business owners. They have goodideas. They want to have this
business but their credit scoresaren't high enough, so they
(12:07):
can't get these business loans.
So we go around the statethrough myself and also through
Extension agents, we try toeducate people to try to improve
their scores. So that's one ofthe big factors, and we know
that there's a lot ofmisunderstanding about scores.
Some people, you know, they'vehad credit cards or they've had
loans for decades, and they'remismanaging those, right? So
there's a lot of information outthere that's wrong. If I just do
a quick internet search, I maybe searching for something
(12:30):
related to credit scores.
There's a decent chance thatit's wrong, right? So a lot of
people are just unsure aboutcredit scores. I'm also heavily
involved with VITA, and VITA isthe Volunteer Income Tax
Assistance Program, and thereare many different Vita
locations across the state andacross the country. University
of Georgia is involved withVITA. We have done approximately
(12:50):
1200 tax returns just on campuslast year. So anyone who's in
the area, they can come tocampus, they can get their taxes
done. But then, throughExtension, we've also done a
little over 1000 tax returnslast year. So this upcoming
year, tax year 2025, there'sover 20 Extension agents in
different counties who arewilling to help you with your
taxes. So that's also a greatservice that we provide on the
(13:12):
Extension front.
Emily Cabrera (13:13):
And we'll be sure to link to VITA and some of
those publications that you haveworked on that really get at
credit scores and otherfinancial planning tips.
Travis Mountain (13:22):
Yeah, that'd be great.
Jordan Powers (13:23):
Absolutely, incredibly important and an
amazing resource that'savailable. And now with the time
management focus, I'm like, Ineed to put taxes on my calendar
so that I make them priority andurgent (laughing). Well, Travis,
thank you for your time today.
We really appreciate you comingin and talking to us. This is a
topic that, of course, we wereinterested in in the new year,
because people do put a renewedfocus on their priorities and
their time, but it's somethingthat I think is a really good
(13:46):
reminder throughout the year. Sohopefully this is an episode
that people can keep coming backto, and we will, of course, link
to all those amazing resources,and we're just very appreciative
of your time.
Travis Mountain (13:55):
Great. Yeah, I'm glad to be here, and maybe
people are going to listen to itat one and a half times speed
just to get more of that timeback (all laughing).
Jordan Powers (14:01):
I love it. I'm glad I'm glad I'm not the only
one who does that.
Emily Cabrera (14:04):
Thanks Travis.
Sound Effect (14:05):
[music]
Jordan Powers (14:06):
Thanks for listening to Cultivating
Curiosity, a podcast produced bythe UGA College of Agricultural
and Environmental Sciences. Aspecial thanks to Mason
McClintock for our music andsound effects. Find more
episodes wherever you get yourpodcasts.
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