June 18, 2025 • 38 mins
Unlock the secrets to peak efficiency with Ed Watters on the Dead America Podcast as he interviews productivity consultant and Time Quarter device inventor Mark Ellwood. From his early days as an 11-year-old newspaper boy optimizing deliveries to designing a revolutionary tool that helps employees track and manage their time, Mark’s journey is packed with valuable insights.
Discover how the TimeCorder device surpasses modern productivity apps by providing a simple yet effective way to analyze time usage and boost work efficiency. Learn why data-driven strategies matter, how small adjustments lead to big results, and why Mark believes women excel in time management.
This episode offers practical tips on task organization, time-blocking techniques, and ways to maximize output without burnout. Whether you're an entrepreneur, a busy professional, or simply looking to improve daily workflow, Mark’s expertise provides actionable takeaways.
Tune in for a fascinating conversation that blends real-world experience with innovative productivity solutions. Like, share, and subscribe for more insightful discussions that help you take control of your time and work smarter.
00:00 Introduction and Simplifying Data
00:54 Meet Mark Ellwood: Productivity Consultant
02:09 The Origin Story: From Newspaper Boy to Productivity Expert
05:55 The TimeCorder Device: Concept and Development
06:54 Why Not an App? The Case for a Separate Device
11:10 Employee Participation and Data Insights
17:36 Women and Time Management: Key Findings
23:33 The Importance of Data-Driven Productivity
33:51 Practical Tips for Better Time Management
35:58 Conclusion and Contact Information
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
That's right.
That's what I do, and Ipresent it really simply.
Here's a pie chart, here's a bar chart.
I've got detailed exhibitsthat go on for pages and pages,
but they're all summarized inthose pictorial, uh, diagrams.
And, and if you can do that with apicture or a pie chart or something
that simplifies it for people.
(00:54):
Today, I'm speaking with Mark Ellwood.
Mark is a productivity consultant.
His most recent book, The PoeticPath to Getting More Done and he's
got a website, getmoredone.com.
Mark, could you please introduce yourself?
Let people know just a littlemore about you, please.
(01:16):
Well, thanks, uh, for being here, Ed.
Uh, I'm a productivityconsultant, as you said.
A little while back, I invented a smallelectronic device called Time Quarter.
For those who are watching, itlooks like this and it allows you
to track how you spend your timeworking on different activities.
So I lend that out to employees,they really enjoy using these
(01:38):
to track their own time.
I analyze the results and showorganizations how their employees can
get an extra hour per day to spendon their top priority activities.
Well, we all need a new device that givesus an hour a day more for each of us.
That would be excellent, Mark.
Uh, what, what did you startdoing this for, tracking time?
(02:07):
What got you into that?
Well, you know, there's a lot ofspecialists and experts out there
who said, uh, You know, my lifewas really in shambles, I was
struggling, I didn't know anything.
And that was the case for me.
I was eleven years old.
So, um, back when I was eleven,I started delivering newspapers.
(02:29):
And maybe lots of your audience doesn'tknow a bunch about that business,
but we would go to a depot and, uh,seven or eight of us, and all the
papers would get delivered there.
And then we'd gather them up and thentake them in our bags and deliver
them to people's houses or apartments.
Well, on the weekend, the newspaper alwayscame with a colored magazine insert.
(02:50):
They were published separately andyou had to put the inserts inside the
newspapers to deliver them together.
And so I watched these other guys andthen kind of struggle and put this
piece here and open that up there.
And I thought, This isclassic time and motion stuff.
Well, not that I knew that termat the time, um, but I thought,
How could I do this faster?
(03:12):
So organizing the work, the magazinesand the paper and the completed pile,
was important to me to figure out how Icould do that as fast as, as possible.
Well, I learned lots of otherthings as a newspaper boy as well.
So for instance, uh, lugging alot around those big heavy bags, I
thought, Let's invest in technology.
(03:34):
So I bought a wagon and it was mucheasier to take the papers around and
deliver them on a wagon than by hand.
You also get into what's calledoperations research, how you
organize tasks and how things happen.
So imagine this, you're draggingthe wagon up one side of the street,
but you gotta deliver papers tothe other side of the street.
So do you take one withyou and then come back?
(03:55):
Or do you take two or three?
And so that was a fascinatingexercise for me to figure out
what's the fastest way with, Iguess the shortest number of steps.
Another thing you could do isyou could fold the papers up.
You've seen kids in movies, tossingpapers at people's houses from bikes.
So you can fold the papers up, ittakes three seconds or four seconds,
(04:17):
and then walk and throw the paper.
Or there is a way to throw a newspaperunderhand with the paper not folded and
you can kind of toss it up and hopefullyit would slide into somebody's door.
So, okay, so you've gottamake some calculations there.
Do I fold the papers?
Or just, do I save steps?
Or do I throw them by hand?
So all that was thinkingabout productivity.
(04:40):
And then on my last paper route, I hadabout 130 customers and uh, I had to
go and collect every week from them.
You gotta knock on someone'sdoor on Tuesday night.
Hi, it's Mark from thepaper, I'm collecting.
And it occurred to me thatwas taking a lot of time.
So I divided the root in half, I went tohalf of the people on weeks one and three
(05:03):
and half of them on weeks two and four.
And instead of collecting for one week,I collected for two weeks at a time.
And I could manage my cashflow and that worked fine.
So that was kind ofbatching tasks together.
So all these different approaches, uh,got me thinking about productivity.
There was one other, some of thepeople paid at the office, so to speak.
(05:24):
So, um, everyone does that today, right?
You pay electronically.
Um, and I suppose in retrospect, Imight've encouraged more customers
to pay directly at the office.
I wouldn't have had toknock on their door.
But by knocking on doors,you got better tips.
So there's a bit of a trade off there.
Um, and so all these things weregetting me to think about productivity.
(05:46):
I mean, I didn't, I didn't considermyself an expert at the time.
I was just trying to figure outhow to deliver the papers quickly.
And so maybe that's my origin story.
Many years later, I'll just continue,uh, briefly, uh, in the corporate life, I
was in a meeting and everybody was late.
And, uh, I thought, Oh man, you know,we're spending a lot of time here
(06:07):
waiting for everybody to show up.
Boy, if you add up your time, and his,and hers, and mine, and I just had
this kind of aha moment that you couldmeasure that and have a little device
and a way you can measure meeting time,and waiting, and paperwork, and so on.
So the aha went off of about developingthe Time Quarter, which is kind
of like a chess clock in reverse.
(06:28):
You've got two clocksthat tick down the time.
Instead you're ticking up thetime, you're adding it up.
and instead of two, you've gottwenty-five, or thirty, or whatever.
So that was the aha moment forthe Time Quarter device, uh, to
continue my journey of trying tobe more productive with the world.
Yeah.
It, it's interesting.
(06:49):
I really like the idea of this TimeQuarter device that you put together.
Uh, the big question is, in, intoday's world, we use a phone for
everything and everyone wants toknow why it's not an app instead of
the coder device that you hand out.
(07:12):
Yep.
Well, I can tell you, I, Ilaunched the device way before
any of these smartphones or apps.
I mean, originally 1989 withthe previous version, and it
turned out to be the world's mostpopular product that everybody
thought somebody else should buy.
So I, I originally targeted for lawyers.
And I went to them, they said, Eh,you know, not quite right for us.
(07:34):
Maybe you should talk toaccountants 'cause that's gonna
really work for their business.
So we did a test, in fact, it wason national TV and people were
trying the device and it turned out,they said, You know, independent
consultants are really gonna like this.
So I went to the independentconsultants and they said,
Have you talked to the lawyers yet?
So it was a big circle.
(07:55):
So I pivoted and instead of, uh,trying to sell the device, I lent it
out and used it as a consulting tool.
It's much more profitable that way.
But you asked about the app.
Well, we did a project for the Ontariogovernment here in Canada a while back.
I teamed up with, um,PricewaterhouseCoopers and we would not
(08:17):
have got anywhere close to winning thatcontract had we had a downloadable app.
These are union people and they werereally concerned about the anonymity
of the studies, which we promise.
And, um, asking them to take yourpersonal phone and download Mark
Ellwood's app thing on it where he'sgot access to your phone and all your
(08:38):
data, that just wouldn't have gone over.
So they really liked the ideathat it was a separate device.
In fact, the funniest story I tell iswhen we first presented to, it to them.
Uh, we had already won the contract,PricewaterhouseCoopers and myself, but
we presented to, to them and I just, youknow, had to show them how it worked.
And the union person said,You know, that little list of
(08:58):
activities you've got there?
Could you make the fonta little bit bigger?
And I thought, Okay, fine.
We're good with that.
So, uh, turns out that worked really well.
Um, there's other reasons besides privacy.
Um, the Time Quarter's alwayson, your phone is not always on.
It's giving you constant feedback,the batteries will last 200 hours.
(09:20):
Your phone has to get charged in sevenor eight hours, and so you, you've gotta
take it away and charge it and so on.
Our device is always constantlygiving you feedback, it's measuring
the stuff you're doing on your phone,um, and it's ergonomically simple.
On your phone, you'd have to pullup the app and scroll through,
and this and that, whatever.
The Time Quarter device is just slightlyless complicated to use than a doorbell.
(09:47):
So, um, doorbell, you never,did, did it ring or not?
But the Time Quarter gives youaudio tactile and visual feedback.
You can see that it's on,that it's ticking away.
People really like it, and mostlybecause we promise anonymity.
And so when you get people involved,when you get them to help create this
list of activities, when you tellthem you're gonna measure all this
(10:10):
non-value added stuff that's slowingthem down, then they say, Oh, okay, good.
And promise anonymity.
So I don't use any individual'snames in any of our reports.
In some of our recent studies, I didn'teven know who the people were at all.
I just had to use code numbers.
So, um, that's whatencourages them to get keen.
(10:31):
And, you know, I work part-time as a,as a ski instructor on the weekends and
they're pushing hard for us to fill outour employee satisfaction surveys and
they're getting up to maybe 70 or 80%.
And that's a stretch 'causethey're really pushing hard.
This, we get a participation ratewith the Time Quarter device of 94%.
(10:53):
People really like using it'cause it gives them feedback
and they can see what's going on.
So that's kind of unheard of for,uh, you know, employee surveys.
And so when you give them, youknow, one of these to use, they
like it, it's fun, it's simple,and that's, that's how it works.
So what type of activities doemployers like to track to make
(11:18):
sure their time is managed properly?
I think I've measured more than just aboutany, uh, any other person on the planet.
Uh, I have a database of 3000 activities.
Now some of them are kind of similarto each other, Uh, calling about a
mortgage renewal, uh, calling about, uh,you know, uh, loan renewal, and so on.
(11:39):
Any of those are sort of similar.
Um, but the activities really aretwo major, you know, categories.
One, what are the things youneed to be doing in your job?
What are your most important priorities?
And two, what is everything else?
Uh, the administrative tasks,uh, personal time, you know,
dealing with complaints, whatever.
(11:59):
Uh, so we're trying to see, how dowe get people to focus on what's
important and what are those things.
Some people call themtime wasters, I don't.
Uh, they're just necessary parts ofthe job, but they're the less, uh, uh,
important or the non-value added tasks.
Interesting.
(12:20):
So how did the app come,err, it's not an app.
See, here I am modernizing you, Mark.
How, how does thisdevice get put together?
Uh, it, it had to be aprocess to come up with this.
Did you have a team ofengineers help you with this?
(12:41):
Or how did that come about?
Kind of, yes.
I mean, I sometimes call myself aninventor, but you know, inventors
tend to be a little outside of thenorm, but I guess I invented it.
So first, you know, I had thisidea, I mean, again, it's sort
of chess clock in reverse.
Uh, and so, so that was sort ofalready an idea that was out there.
(13:03):
Uh, but then I had to figure, okay,well how do I build this thing?
So I found an engineer, an old buddyof mine who built the two prototypes
for me, and then we had anotherengineer further modify those.
I had an industrial designer, thoseare people who figure out, you know,
what is this container look like?
How does everything fit together?
(13:24):
Had a graphic designer design, youknow, what the graphics look like.
But there's also the user interface,
that was me.
You know, I'd sit around with a padat night thinking, Okay, you push
this button, and then that happens.
So it's real simple, you just push onebutton and it begins tracking your time.
But we needed a couple of other buttonsif you needed to make a manual adjustment.
(13:47):
Okay, what would this series ofbutton pushes for that look like?
Um, what if you wanted to scroll throughand look at how you're spending your
time on all these different activities?
So there are only, well, eight othersort of function buttons, but I
wanted to keep that to a, a minimum.
It occurred to me, you know, I used togo to trade shows and watching people
on computers and say, Look at ourcomputer program, or an app, or whatever.
(14:10):
And they go, Well, you simplypush this and just add that.
And the words simply and just,were always worrisome to me.
Because the person who developedthis thing, you know, they, they
eat, drink, and sleep with the thingand they know it inside out and they
really know how to work it well.
Whereas I thought, No, peoplehaven't used this device.
(14:31):
You've gotta make it dead simple for them.
Turn it on, push one buttonand it's tracking your time.
Now there's a list of activitiesthat, that's corresponding to those,
uh, letters of the alphabet, sowe give that to people as well.
So I used to say, You could learnto use it in about five seconds.
And then there's doing some of the manualadjustments, it takes a little longer.
(14:51):
But you've gotta make it simple.
And so, you know, you look atAmazon and they've tried to, you
know, get rid of all those sort ofimpediments, they've done that well.
But there's a lot of products and servicesout there where you have to press a
whole bunch of buttons and things.
Um, and I've seen people complaining aboutthat recently with, uh, Bill Maher on his
(15:12):
late night show, talked about a valet app.
So he's parking his car at a restaurantand he wants to go retrieve his car.
Well, you gotta download theapp, and create a password and an
account number, and this and that.
He goes, I just wanna get my car back.
And we've seen that with many othertypes of apps that complicate things.
Uh, sure you're gathering data, sure it'sin a secure space and you can analyze
(15:35):
that data, but it's gotta be kept simple.
And so with the Time Quarterdevice, I think we've got it, um, by
experimenting a little bit, by doingsome of those thought experiments.
We kept the,
we kept it simple to use.
And, and giving instantfeedback and uncomplicated.
When I, early on, when I tried tosell it to lawyers and that didn't
work, they said, Well, we need it todo this and we need it to do that.
(15:58):
And I thought, If you add up allof those features that they wanted,
it's gonna get way too complicated.
Think about the stuff you use, youknow, uh, Microsoft Office, there's
lots and lots of functions onthere people don't know how to use.
And I suppose for the power users, that'sgreat, but you've gotta keep it simple.
And Apple did that with their productsby keeping the user interface simple.
(16:23):
Yeah, I like that a lot.
So what's the acceptance rate fromthe employees when they take on
this, uh, study from the employer?
What, how do they feel about it?
Yep.
Well, that's the numberI mentioned early, 94%.
So if we give out a hundreddevices, yeah, 94 will come back
(16:46):
with high quality detailed data.
The other six, maybe somebody justdidn't start for some reason 'cause
they were about to leave or quit,or maternity leave, or something.
Um, sometimes in that six, uh, youcan make manual adjustments and
people just make way too many manualadjustments or they do them incorrectly.
And so I've got some algorithms toshow me, uh, maybe I shouldn't keep
(17:09):
that data and just put it aside.
But 94% is pretty amazing and peopleare tracking hundreds of activities
over the course of two weekswhen we normally do the studies.
So, yeah, every time they come back,I'm surprised at how detailed people
were with, with their, uh, tracking.
Some of the information thatyou've accumulated over the
(17:32):
years is pretty interesting.
The fact that women are better at timemanagement than men is one of those facts.
How did you come up with that fact andhow much data did it take to compile
to ultimately decide this is factual?
(17:59):
So I go to, uh, conferences everyyear or so, the International
Association of Time Use Research.
These are a lot of academics andpeople working for government,
uh, operations, the US Bureau ofLabor Statistics, uh, among others.
And they do a lot ofstudies of, uh, time use.
And so what we found out is, acrossa large number of typically Western
(18:23):
countries, um, at home, uh, anddomestically, women are more responsible
for domestic chores than men.
So that's childcare, cooking, cleaning,uh, shopping, and a couple of others.
And so I thought, Well, what doesit look like in the workplace?
And so those time studiesdon't tend to get that granular
(18:44):
as I do in the workplace.
So I thought, Well, let's see,uh, if there's differences.
So I have a database, 'causeI've been gathering all this data
for, well, thirty-five years.
And I thought, Okay, uh, it's 500,000hours of data from, you know, dozens
and dozens of corporations and thousandsof individuals who've done this.
(19:05):
So all the way along, I knew mydatabase was gonna be of some value.
So I have a lot of differentanalysis that I'm able to look at.
So I'm working for this client, but Ican compare the results to that claim.
So looking across the wholedatabase, I first decided,
well, let's split it in two.
Let's have a men database and a women one.
So I did that by names, Susan is awoman, Uh, you know, Samuel is a man.
(19:29):
And I had to go through all thenames and kind of sort them 'cause
I had people's names, we don'tgive them back to the clients.
Uh, but nonetheless, I had them.
Where I didn't have names,I just put that data aside.
So I started to look at,what are the differences?
And I concluded, as you mentioned,that women are better at
managing their time than men.
(19:50):
There were four major findings and wecould go through those if you like,
uh, one at a time to, to explainhow I came up with that conclusion.
Sure we'd love to hear that, Mark.
Well, let's start, startwith the first one.
Um, first I discovered, uh, that womenworked fewer hours per week than men.
(20:11):
Now these are knowledge workers,they're people like sales reps, and
managers, and customer service reps,and construction supervisors and so on.
Uh, but they're largely working inoffices, it's not people on the retail.
I've done a few retail studies, uh,or they're not manufacturing jobs.
Um, and, uh, I include personal time.
(20:32):
Because if you go to the office,while you're there at the office and
whether you eat in the food court orthe cafeteria, or at your desk, you
know, you're, you're still there.
And similarly, for people working fromhome, we count personal time as well.
So if you add all that up, it'sabout forty-six hours per week.
Uh, so personal plus, personal isonly about three hours per week.
(20:53):
So women are at forty-five hours,men are at forty-eight hours, and
that's the total number of hours.
And you say, Well, why is that?
Well, guess who's gotta get home topick people up, uh, children up from
daycare, and cook dinner, and so on.
So that was the first of the findings.
Um, the second one isa little more complex.
(21:15):
Um, if you read time managementbooks, they always talk about working
on your most important activities.
They don't really define what those are.
Um, Stephen Covey talked about his,um, important, uh, urgent matrix,
which is called the Eisenhower Matrix.
It wasn't really President Eisenhower,he was in fact, uh, quoting a
(21:38):
university dean who had come upwith that urgent important idea.
And then Eisenhower continuedit and Covey popularized it.
So you wanna work onso-called quadrant two.
Those are your, uh, important but noturgent activities compared to urgent.
But important and so on, soimportant but not urgent.
(21:58):
And so again, Covey didn'treally define those.
I thought, Well, maybe I can.
Turns out before we do our time studies,we ask people, What are the most important
things you need to do in your job?
I thought, Ah, that's it.
Okay, I'll use that.
So if you ask sales reps, they'll tellyou processing orders, and taking care of
customers, and dealing with complaints.
(22:20):
But the number one item isprospecting for new business.
I thought, Okay.
That's the most important activity, noturgent, for sales reps. So I looked at
about a dozen different jobs and mappedall those for those different jobs.
And then thought, Okay.
Well, how are they spending their time?
If prospecting is what you're sayingyou need to do as a sales rep or
(22:44):
managing and coaching employees is whatyou say you should do as a manager,
how is your time compared to that?
So across the wholedatabase, I looked at that.
And found out, this is key,the average is only 20%.
So for top priority activities, peopleare only spending 20% of their time.
(23:04):
That sounds like that, thatPareto number, 20/80 rule.
It's not, that's a little bit different.
It's just coincidentalthat the number's the same.
Turns out for women, it's22% and men are only at 18%.
So women are working fewer hours andwithin those hours they're spending
(23:24):
a higher percentage of their timeon their top priority activities.
And there you go.
That's very interesting, Mark.
So all of this data sifting is verycomplicated for so many people, they
don't even like to look at data.
So when you're compiling these reportsfor people, you're the one that actually
(23:48):
is sifting through and the client doesn'tnecessarily have to get their hands dirty
with all of the complicated data sets.
That's right, that's what I do.
And I present it really simply, here'sa pie chart, here's a bar chart.
I've got detailed exhibitsthat go on for pages and pages,
(24:09):
but they're all summarized inthose pictorial, uh, diagrams.
And, and if you can do that with apicture, or a pie chart, or something,
that simplifies it for people.
And so that's my job is to use mydifferent tools to analyze that.
I've got three or fourdifferent analytical tools
to, to look at all that data.
Uh, you gotta keep it simple for people.
(24:30):
I guess also, I don't know where orwhen, but I got this idea that science
is important, that data is important.
And so if you look at a lot ofpopular speakers or trainers,
you know, they talk about,in my area, time management.
But it could be leadership andcommunication skills, and they kind
of say things that make some sense.
(24:52):
Uh, and maybe that's based on personalexperience, or observations, or whatever.
But if you can root it in real data,that to me is the better way to go.
Because, uh, it, there's just ahigher credibility layer there.
It, it's science ratherthan stuff that I made up.
And again, you go on LinkedInfor instance, you hear people
(25:12):
talking about all kinds of ideas.
I think it has, not really true interms of a, a, a, based on data.
So that's, that's the way Ilike to approach the world.
So, so who should be using this type oftechnology to perfect their organizations?
(25:38):
Well, I, I say anyone should.
Um, I've come to a kind of a newconclusion that kinda, uh, pulls the rug
out of a lot of what I've been saying.
But organizations have kind of gottena free ride from their employees,
certainly knowledge workers.
Hourly paid workers, when someoneworks extra, you pay them extra.
(26:00):
Either just an extra hour or two or maybe
time and a half for overtime.
So there's a real cost there.
But when you look at knowledgeworkers, your managers for
instance, and maybe they're sort ofcontracted to, for like forty-two
hours per week, is sort of typical.
Uh, and that includes lunch and whatnot.
So, okay, you, we want youthere from nine to five.
(26:21):
And if you show up at noon, well,you're gonna get a talking to.
But come in between nine to fiveor the equivalent, eight to four.
But if they stay longer,nobody says anything.
They stay longer because they want toget promoted, because they enjoy the
work, some people don't wanna go home.
Uh, and, and they really, you know,embrace that and that's terrific.
(26:42):
But corporations are gettinga free ride from that.
So, as I mentioned, the averageis not forty hours per week,
it's forty-six hours.
And people are working longer than that.
Managers, for instance, tendto be around forty-nine hours.
So corporations are gettingfree labor from those, um, from,
from those knowledge workers.
The problem is that free labor ends upturning into resentment, or bad morale, or
(27:08):
stress, uh, or, you know, problems at home'cause they're not getting home on time.
So there's a huge cost to that in termsof turnover, and retention, and so on.
But for the most part, corporationsare saying, Well, this is great.
Having said that, for those whorealize that productivity is
important, this is where this kicks in.
(27:29):
So, all right, your people are workingforty, or forty-five, or fifty hours
per week, but they're spending twentyhours on that non-value added work.
Wouldn't you wanna reduce that sothat your knowledge workers can
spend their highest amount of time,whether it's overtime or not, on
their highest priority activities.
So this is a diagnostic tool.
(27:50):
Now it's interesting, during Covid therewere all kinds of employee monitoring,
uh, software and apps and so on thatcame out and people didn't like that.
Um, so they were tracking keystrokes orthey were tracking websites you visited.
You know, if somebody's workingon Word, are they writing a note
to their friend, or their weddinginvitation, or a thank you note?
(28:13):
Or are they doing a report, uh,or doing something important
that you want them to do?
So, um, just tracking the type ofprogram they're using, uh, doesn't
give you all that many indications.
Now for websites, okay,
if you go to an educationalwebsite, you're using that.
Whereas it's of a shopping site,well, clearly that's not what
(28:34):
you're supposed to be doing.
But nonetheless, um, the employeesfound these systems kind of, uh,
they were, they were intrusive, andthey didn't know what was going on,
and it was kind of making employeeswrong for, you know, working at home.
I don't care about that stuff.
There will be some personal time andwe measure that just to keep people
(28:55):
in the rhythm of using the device.
But if they're shopping, or callingtheir daycare, it really doesn't matter
to me 'cause it's how much time you'respending on those important activities.
That's what's, counts the most.
And we don't use employee names.
So, um, this whole world ofmeasurement got kind of a bad rap
(29:15):
with, uh, those covid measuring tools.
And so I'm not in that world at all.
I'm just doing quick two weekstudies that diagnose where that
non-value added time is going.
So, uh, lots of corporations could benefitfrom it, individuals could as well.
The challenge is getting peopleover that hump of wanting to
actually analyze where they are.
(29:37):
Yeah.
And, and you know, even thougha lot of people feel that's
intimidating, it can actually saveyou a lot of time and time is money.
And money can do a lot of things.
So it's interestingwhat you've done, Mark.
So your book, The Poetic Path to GettingMore Done, it's poems, uh, poetry?
(30:05):
Could you tell us about this?
Yes, I will.
a while back I was, I was, uh, I,you know, tweets were quite short
and I realized I could do a rhymingcouplet in a tweet when the, the
short of 140 characters existed.
So, uh, I did some rhyming tweets andI thought, Well, let's do a book about
this cause I've written poetry for ages.
(30:25):
Um, I haven't sold many copies, Idon't know if Amazon even has it.
But nonetheless, I, I quote those at, uh,workshops and I give out copies and so on.
Because if you're gonna read up,if you're gonna learn about goal
setting, uh, why not do it with, uh,a little bit of a, a poem rather than,
uh, just somebody lecturing at you.
So, uh, it's, it's not grabbed,uh, all over the world, but, uh,
(30:49):
nonetheless, I'm proud of those poems.
You mentioned, um, measuring a moment ago.
And it seems to me that there are threeareas of our lives where there's kind of
an embarrassment factor that kicks in.
And so one of them is finances.
You mentioned time'smoney, finances, right?
And you get peoplesaying, Oh, I don't know.
(31:10):
I don't wanna know where I spendall my money, uh, my credit card's
over and I'm paying this and that.
And, and there's this sort ofembarrassment about finances.
We know where we need to be, uh, but we'renot taking those steps to getting there.
The second one is body image.
Oh, I ate a whole, you know,bucket of ice cream last night.
I'm overweight, or I'mnot in shape, or whatever.
(31:31):
And people know what they want to doto have a healthy life, but they're
not always taking those steps.
You know, in both of thosecases, measuring makes sense.
For the finances, measure how youspend your money last week and
you're gonna learn some things about
how much you spend on coffee,for instance, every day.
Um, and, and for body image, whetherit's weight, or, uh, how fast you can
(31:56):
run half a marathon, or how many pushupsyou can do, or it doesn't matter, uh,
but, but getting some measurements canhelp us diagnose where we wanna be.
It can measure your heart rate,it can measure your oxygen intake.
And so finally the third oneis this one, time management.
Oh, I waste my time.
Oh, don't tell me.
I know I waste my time.
(32:17):
Yeah, but you said you wannaspend more time with your family.
You said you wanted to get a promotion,so why not measure what's going on?
So in each of those three areas, uh,and I'm not in the, in the weight loss
business, but nonetheless, you know,
get some data, measure your own time.
And whether you use, uh, Time Quarter orjust a piece of paper, doesn't matter.
(32:38):
But get some data so you cansay, Oh, that's what's going on.
Here's where I wanna be andhere's where I am and I can make
the adjustments to get there.
So, um, I, you know, I wishmore people were doing this.
Many of the time management booksencourage you to do a, a diary
study or write down your time use.
But what they don't do is they don'ttalk about where time is spent.
(33:01):
I do, uh, because I've got that data andI can see where people need to be going
and what their ideal profiles look like.
This is ultimatelypersonal accountability.
And making sure that you use yourtime properly and efficiently can
actually make you feel so muchbetter about yourself overall.
(33:25):
So I, I really enjoy, you know,learning about these things.
And once we start implementing timemanagement and tools into our life to
simplify, it, it does make a difference.
Mark, it's, it's always greatto talk about this stuff.
(33:46):
Is there anything that we've missed thatyou think we should highlight today?
Well, uh, we haven't talkedabout how to do better and I'll
give people one terrific tip.
Uh, everyone knows that you shouldbe writing a daily to-do list.
And if you don't, try it.
Write on a post-it note, or back of anenvelope, or use an app, or whatever
you wanna do, but create a to-do list.
(34:09):
Here's how I differ, uh, fromothers in that, I tell people,
Start with a blank slate.
You've got nothing to do today,no emails, no meetings, nothing.
Or at least pretend as if you didn't.
And ask yourself, If I had nothingto do today, what would I do to
affect my results a month from now?
(34:30):
I'll repeat that.
If I had nothing to do today, what would Ido to affect my results a month from now?
Well, that salespeople would make somesales calls, the manager would do some
performance reviews, or introduce that,uh, get that new, uh, project moving.
Uh, the engineer would be doingsome design work and so on.
Okay, those are things that affectyour long-term goals and so those
(34:53):
are your highest priority activities.
And you should write down the thingsyou can actually complete today.
For a manager who wants tohire a new employee, you
can't do all that in one day.
But you can, you know, review the, thejob description, or you can put it up on
a website, or you can do some interviews.
So, what can I complete today?
And then at the end of the day, youcan check those off and say, Yep,
(35:15):
got those done.
So that, those are your highestpriority activities, the things that
affect your results a month from now.
Put those first on your to-do listand then fill in all the other stuff.
And make time for the priorities first.
Maybe that's early in the morning,maybe a block off time during
the day between eleven and oneo'clock, or something like that.
(35:37):
Those are gonna be 20% ofyour time, we know that.
So you've gotta make sure thatthat time is available to do
those high priority tasks and letthe other stuff fill in later.
So start with those first.
That's my tip for how to organizeyourself and do a to-do list
when you're overwhelmed by allthese tasks that come your way.
(35:58):
Mark, you, you've got people excited.
You're loaded with information.
So could you tell people how to get aholdof you and how they can work with you?
As I said, uh, or you said,the simplest way is through
my website, getmoredone.com.
(36:19):
So it's mark@getmoredone.com.
Just remember, get more done.
There's a, there's a, youknow, contact page there.
And, uh, lately I've been saying, Ifsomebody wanted just a consultation,
I'm not a coach as such, but ifsomebody wanted a quick coaching
session, I'll do that pro bono,uh, just to help people out.
And then if you think you wannause the Time Quarter device, I'm
(36:41):
actually doing, sponsoring a studyof female women executives who are
managing large departments and so on.
And they don't pay for thatbecause I wanna present that
data at an upcoming conference.
So I'm looking forsenior female executives.
Someone else just wants a phone call,happy to share some tips with you in a
quick coaching session without turning onthe meter and the, and the dollar sign and
(37:04):
not trying to upsell you on anything else.
I'm just passionate about doing this stuffand wanna help people, uh, where I can.
And if somebody wants to hireme after that, then they can.
You can see that you're passionateabout what you do, Mark.
And that's always someone that you shouldbe thrilled to get ahold of and work with.
(37:24):
So I appreciate what you do and Isurely appreciate you sharing it
here today with us on the podcast.
Great speaking with you, Ed.
Thank you for joining us today.
If you found this podcast enlightening,entertaining, educational in any way,
(37:46):
please share, like, subscribe, and joinus right back here next week for another
great episode of the Dead America Podcast.
I'm Ed Watters, your host, enjoyyour afternoon wherever you might be.
That's right.
That's what I do, and Ipresent it really simply.
Here's a pie chart, here's a bar chart.
I've got detailed exhibitsthat go on for pages and pages,
but they're all summarized inthose pictorial, uh, diagrams.
And, and if you can do that with apicture or a pie chart or something
that simplifies it for people.
(00:54):
Today, I'm speaking with Mark Ellwood.
Mark is a productivity consultant.
His most recent book, The PoeticPath to Getting More Done and he's
got a website, getmoredone.com.
Mark, could you please introduce yourself?
Let people know just a littlemore about you, please.
(01:16):
Well, thanks, uh, for being here, Ed.
Uh, I'm a productivityconsultant, as you said.
A little while back, I invented a smallelectronic device called Time Quarter.
For those who are watching, itlooks like this and it allows you
to track how you spend your timeworking on different activities.
So I lend that out to employees,they really enjoy using these
(01:38):
to track their own time.
I analyze the results and showorganizations how their employees can
get an extra hour per day to spendon their top priority activities.
Well, we all need a new device that givesus an hour a day more for each of us.
That would be excellent, Mark.
Uh, what, what did you startdoing this for, tracking time?
(02:07):
What got you into that?
Well, you know, there's a lot ofspecialists and experts out there
who said, uh, You know, my lifewas really in shambles, I was
struggling, I didn't know anything.
And that was the case for me.
I was eleven years old.
So, um, back when I was eleven,I started delivering newspapers.
(02:29):
And maybe lots of your audience doesn'tknow a bunch about that business,
but we would go to a depot and, uh,seven or eight of us, and all the
papers would get delivered there.
And then we'd gather them up and thentake them in our bags and deliver
them to people's houses or apartments.
Well, on the weekend, the newspaper alwayscame with a colored magazine insert.
(02:50):
They were published separately andyou had to put the inserts inside the
newspapers to deliver them together.
And so I watched these other guys andthen kind of struggle and put this
piece here and open that up there.
And I thought, This isclassic time and motion stuff.
Well, not that I knew that termat the time, um, but I thought,
How could I do this faster?
(03:12):
So organizing the work, the magazinesand the paper and the completed pile,
was important to me to figure out how Icould do that as fast as, as possible.
Well, I learned lots of otherthings as a newspaper boy as well.
So for instance, uh, lugging alot around those big heavy bags, I
thought, Let's invest in technology.
(03:34):
So I bought a wagon and it was mucheasier to take the papers around and
deliver them on a wagon than by hand.
You also get into what's calledoperations research, how you
organize tasks and how things happen.
So imagine this, you're draggingthe wagon up one side of the street,
but you gotta deliver papers tothe other side of the street.
So do you take one withyou and then come back?
(03:55):
Or do you take two or three?
And so that was a fascinatingexercise for me to figure out
what's the fastest way with, Iguess the shortest number of steps.
Another thing you could do isyou could fold the papers up.
You've seen kids in movies, tossingpapers at people's houses from bikes.
So you can fold the papers up, ittakes three seconds or four seconds,
(04:17):
and then walk and throw the paper.
Or there is a way to throw a newspaperunderhand with the paper not folded and
you can kind of toss it up and hopefullyit would slide into somebody's door.
So, okay, so you've gottamake some calculations there.
Do I fold the papers?
Or just, do I save steps?
Or do I throw them by hand?
So all that was thinkingabout productivity.
(04:40):
And then on my last paper route, I hadabout 130 customers and uh, I had to
go and collect every week from them.
You gotta knock on someone'sdoor on Tuesday night.
Hi, it's Mark from thepaper, I'm collecting.
And it occurred to me thatwas taking a lot of time.
So I divided the root in half, I went tohalf of the people on weeks one and three
(05:03):
and half of them on weeks two and four.
And instead of collecting for one week,I collected for two weeks at a time.
And I could manage my cashflow and that worked fine.
So that was kind ofbatching tasks together.
So all these different approaches, uh,got me thinking about productivity.
There was one other, some of thepeople paid at the office, so to speak.
(05:24):
So, um, everyone does that today, right?
You pay electronically.
Um, and I suppose in retrospect, Imight've encouraged more customers
to pay directly at the office.
I wouldn't have had toknock on their door.
But by knocking on doors,you got better tips.
So there's a bit of a trade off there.
Um, and so all these things weregetting me to think about productivity.
(05:46):
I mean, I didn't, I didn't considermyself an expert at the time.
I was just trying to figure outhow to deliver the papers quickly.
And so maybe that's my origin story.
Many years later, I'll just continue,uh, briefly, uh, in the corporate life, I
was in a meeting and everybody was late.
And, uh, I thought, Oh man, you know,we're spending a lot of time here
(06:07):
waiting for everybody to show up.
Boy, if you add up your time, and his,and hers, and mine, and I just had
this kind of aha moment that you couldmeasure that and have a little device
and a way you can measure meeting time,and waiting, and paperwork, and so on.
So the aha went off of about developingthe Time Quarter, which is kind
of like a chess clock in reverse.
(06:28):
You've got two clocksthat tick down the time.
Instead you're ticking up thetime, you're adding it up.
and instead of two, you've gottwenty-five, or thirty, or whatever.
So that was the aha moment forthe Time Quarter device, uh, to
continue my journey of trying tobe more productive with the world.
Yeah.
It, it's interesting.
(06:49):
I really like the idea of this TimeQuarter device that you put together.
Uh, the big question is, in, intoday's world, we use a phone for
everything and everyone wants toknow why it's not an app instead of
the coder device that you hand out.
(07:12):
Yep.
Well, I can tell you, I, Ilaunched the device way before
any of these smartphones or apps.
I mean, originally 1989 withthe previous version, and it
turned out to be the world's mostpopular product that everybody
thought somebody else should buy.
So I, I originally targeted for lawyers.
And I went to them, they said, Eh,you know, not quite right for us.
(07:34):
Maybe you should talk toaccountants 'cause that's gonna
really work for their business.
So we did a test, in fact, it wason national TV and people were
trying the device and it turned out,they said, You know, independent
consultants are really gonna like this.
So I went to the independentconsultants and they said,
Have you talked to the lawyers yet?
So it was a big circle.
(07:55):
So I pivoted and instead of, uh,trying to sell the device, I lent it
out and used it as a consulting tool.
It's much more profitable that way.
But you asked about the app.
Well, we did a project for the Ontariogovernment here in Canada a while back.
I teamed up with, um,PricewaterhouseCoopers and we would not
(08:17):
have got anywhere close to winning thatcontract had we had a downloadable app.
These are union people and they werereally concerned about the anonymity
of the studies, which we promise.
And, um, asking them to take yourpersonal phone and download Mark
Ellwood's app thing on it where he'sgot access to your phone and all your
(08:38):
data, that just wouldn't have gone over.
So they really liked the ideathat it was a separate device.
In fact, the funniest story I tell iswhen we first presented to, it to them.
Uh, we had already won the contract,PricewaterhouseCoopers and myself, but
we presented to, to them and I just, youknow, had to show them how it worked.
And the union person said,You know, that little list of
(08:58):
activities you've got there?
Could you make the fonta little bit bigger?
And I thought, Okay, fine.
We're good with that.
So, uh, turns out that worked really well.
Um, there's other reasons besides privacy.
Um, the Time Quarter's alwayson, your phone is not always on.
It's giving you constant feedback,the batteries will last 200 hours.
(09:20):
Your phone has to get charged in sevenor eight hours, and so you, you've gotta
take it away and charge it and so on.
Our device is always constantlygiving you feedback, it's measuring
the stuff you're doing on your phone,um, and it's ergonomically simple.
On your phone, you'd have to pullup the app and scroll through,
and this and that, whatever.
The Time Quarter device is just slightlyless complicated to use than a doorbell.
(09:47):
So, um, doorbell, you never,did, did it ring or not?
But the Time Quarter gives youaudio tactile and visual feedback.
You can see that it's on,that it's ticking away.
People really like it, and mostlybecause we promise anonymity.
And so when you get people involved,when you get them to help create this
list of activities, when you tellthem you're gonna measure all this
(10:10):
non-value added stuff that's slowingthem down, then they say, Oh, okay, good.
And promise anonymity.
So I don't use any individual'snames in any of our reports.
In some of our recent studies, I didn'teven know who the people were at all.
I just had to use code numbers.
So, um, that's whatencourages them to get keen.
(10:31):
And, you know, I work part-time as a,as a ski instructor on the weekends and
they're pushing hard for us to fill outour employee satisfaction surveys and
they're getting up to maybe 70 or 80%.
And that's a stretch 'causethey're really pushing hard.
This, we get a participation ratewith the Time Quarter device of 94%.
(10:53):
People really like using it'cause it gives them feedback
and they can see what's going on.
So that's kind of unheard of for,uh, you know, employee surveys.
And so when you give them, youknow, one of these to use, they
like it, it's fun, it's simple,and that's, that's how it works.
So what type of activities doemployers like to track to make
(11:18):
sure their time is managed properly?
I think I've measured more than just aboutany, uh, any other person on the planet.
Uh, I have a database of 3000 activities.
Now some of them are kind of similarto each other, Uh, calling about a
mortgage renewal, uh, calling about, uh,you know, uh, loan renewal, and so on.
(11:39):
Any of those are sort of similar.
Um, but the activities really aretwo major, you know, categories.
One, what are the things youneed to be doing in your job?
What are your most important priorities?
And two, what is everything else?
Uh, the administrative tasks,uh, personal time, you know,
dealing with complaints, whatever.
(11:59):
Uh, so we're trying to see, how dowe get people to focus on what's
important and what are those things.
Some people call themtime wasters, I don't.
Uh, they're just necessary parts ofthe job, but they're the less, uh, uh,
important or the non-value added tasks.
Interesting.
(12:20):
So how did the app come,err, it's not an app.
See, here I am modernizing you, Mark.
How, how does thisdevice get put together?
Uh, it, it had to be aprocess to come up with this.
Did you have a team ofengineers help you with this?
(12:41):
Or how did that come about?
Kind of, yes.
I mean, I sometimes call myself aninventor, but you know, inventors
tend to be a little outside of thenorm, but I guess I invented it.
So first, you know, I had thisidea, I mean, again, it's sort
of chess clock in reverse.
Uh, and so, so that was sort ofalready an idea that was out there.
(13:03):
Uh, but then I had to figure, okay,well how do I build this thing?
So I found an engineer, an old buddyof mine who built the two prototypes
for me, and then we had anotherengineer further modify those.
I had an industrial designer, thoseare people who figure out, you know,
what is this container look like?
How does everything fit together?
(13:24):
Had a graphic designer design, youknow, what the graphics look like.
But there's also the user interface,
that was me.
You know, I'd sit around with a padat night thinking, Okay, you push
this button, and then that happens.
So it's real simple, you just push onebutton and it begins tracking your time.
But we needed a couple of other buttonsif you needed to make a manual adjustment.
(13:47):
Okay, what would this series ofbutton pushes for that look like?
Um, what if you wanted to scroll throughand look at how you're spending your
time on all these different activities?
So there are only, well, eight othersort of function buttons, but I
wanted to keep that to a, a minimum.
It occurred to me, you know, I used togo to trade shows and watching people
on computers and say, Look at ourcomputer program, or an app, or whatever.
(14:10):
And they go, Well, you simplypush this and just add that.
And the words simply and just,were always worrisome to me.
Because the person who developedthis thing, you know, they, they
eat, drink, and sleep with the thingand they know it inside out and they
really know how to work it well.
Whereas I thought, No, peoplehaven't used this device.
(14:31):
You've gotta make it dead simple for them.
Turn it on, push one buttonand it's tracking your time.
Now there's a list of activitiesthat, that's corresponding to those,
uh, letters of the alphabet, sowe give that to people as well.
So I used to say, You could learnto use it in about five seconds.
And then there's doing some of the manualadjustments, it takes a little longer.
(14:51):
But you've gotta make it simple.
And so, you know, you look atAmazon and they've tried to, you
know, get rid of all those sort ofimpediments, they've done that well.
But there's a lot of products and servicesout there where you have to press a
whole bunch of buttons and things.
Um, and I've seen people complaining aboutthat recently with, uh, Bill Maher on his
(15:12):
late night show, talked about a valet app.
So he's parking his car at a restaurantand he wants to go retrieve his car.
Well, you gotta download theapp, and create a password and an
account number, and this and that.
He goes, I just wanna get my car back.
And we've seen that with many othertypes of apps that complicate things.
Uh, sure you're gathering data, sure it'sin a secure space and you can analyze
(15:35):
that data, but it's gotta be kept simple.
And so with the Time Quarterdevice, I think we've got it, um, by
experimenting a little bit, by doingsome of those thought experiments.
We kept the,
we kept it simple to use.
And, and giving instantfeedback and uncomplicated.
When I, early on, when I tried tosell it to lawyers and that didn't
work, they said, Well, we need it todo this and we need it to do that.
(15:58):
And I thought, If you add up allof those features that they wanted,
it's gonna get way too complicated.
Think about the stuff you use, youknow, uh, Microsoft Office, there's
lots and lots of functions onthere people don't know how to use.
And I suppose for the power users, that'sgreat, but you've gotta keep it simple.
And Apple did that with their productsby keeping the user interface simple.
(16:23):
Yeah, I like that a lot.
So what's the acceptance rate fromthe employees when they take on
this, uh, study from the employer?
What, how do they feel about it?
Yep.
Well, that's the numberI mentioned early, 94%.
So if we give out a hundreddevices, yeah, 94 will come back
(16:46):
with high quality detailed data.
The other six, maybe somebody justdidn't start for some reason 'cause
they were about to leave or quit,or maternity leave, or something.
Um, sometimes in that six, uh, youcan make manual adjustments and
people just make way too many manualadjustments or they do them incorrectly.
And so I've got some algorithms toshow me, uh, maybe I shouldn't keep
(17:09):
that data and just put it aside.
But 94% is pretty amazing and peopleare tracking hundreds of activities
over the course of two weekswhen we normally do the studies.
So, yeah, every time they come back,I'm surprised at how detailed people
were with, with their, uh, tracking.
Some of the information thatyou've accumulated over the
(17:32):
years is pretty interesting.
The fact that women are better at timemanagement than men is one of those facts.
How did you come up with that fact andhow much data did it take to compile
to ultimately decide this is factual?
(17:59):
So I go to, uh, conferences everyyear or so, the International
Association of Time Use Research.
These are a lot of academics andpeople working for government,
uh, operations, the US Bureau ofLabor Statistics, uh, among others.
And they do a lot ofstudies of, uh, time use.
And so what we found out is, acrossa large number of typically Western
(18:23):
countries, um, at home, uh, anddomestically, women are more responsible
for domestic chores than men.
So that's childcare, cooking, cleaning,uh, shopping, and a couple of others.
And so I thought, Well, what doesit look like in the workplace?
And so those time studiesdon't tend to get that granular
(18:44):
as I do in the workplace.
So I thought, Well, let's see,uh, if there's differences.
So I have a database, 'causeI've been gathering all this data
for, well, thirty-five years.
And I thought, Okay, uh, it's 500,000hours of data from, you know, dozens
and dozens of corporations and thousandsof individuals who've done this.
(19:05):
So all the way along, I knew mydatabase was gonna be of some value.
So I have a lot of differentanalysis that I'm able to look at.
So I'm working for this client, but Ican compare the results to that claim.
So looking across the wholedatabase, I first decided,
well, let's split it in two.
Let's have a men database and a women one.
So I did that by names, Susan is awoman, Uh, you know, Samuel is a man.
(19:29):
And I had to go through all thenames and kind of sort them 'cause
I had people's names, we don'tgive them back to the clients.
Uh, but nonetheless, I had them.
Where I didn't have names,I just put that data aside.
So I started to look at,what are the differences?
And I concluded, as you mentioned,that women are better at
managing their time than men.
(19:50):
There were four major findings and wecould go through those if you like,
uh, one at a time to, to explainhow I came up with that conclusion.
Sure we'd love to hear that, Mark.
Well, let's start, startwith the first one.
Um, first I discovered, uh, that womenworked fewer hours per week than men.
(20:11):
Now these are knowledge workers,they're people like sales reps, and
managers, and customer service reps,and construction supervisors and so on.
Uh, but they're largely working inoffices, it's not people on the retail.
I've done a few retail studies, uh,or they're not manufacturing jobs.
Um, and, uh, I include personal time.
(20:32):
Because if you go to the office,while you're there at the office and
whether you eat in the food court orthe cafeteria, or at your desk, you
know, you're, you're still there.
And similarly, for people working fromhome, we count personal time as well.
So if you add all that up, it'sabout forty-six hours per week.
Uh, so personal plus, personal isonly about three hours per week.
(20:53):
So women are at forty-five hours,men are at forty-eight hours, and
that's the total number of hours.
And you say, Well, why is that?
Well, guess who's gotta get home topick people up, uh, children up from
daycare, and cook dinner, and so on.
So that was the first of the findings.
Um, the second one isa little more complex.
(21:15):
Um, if you read time managementbooks, they always talk about working
on your most important activities.
They don't really define what those are.
Um, Stephen Covey talked about his,um, important, uh, urgent matrix,
which is called the Eisenhower Matrix.
It wasn't really President Eisenhower,he was in fact, uh, quoting a
(21:38):
university dean who had come upwith that urgent important idea.
And then Eisenhower continuedit and Covey popularized it.
So you wanna work onso-called quadrant two.
Those are your, uh, important but noturgent activities compared to urgent.
But important and so on, soimportant but not urgent.
(21:58):
And so again, Covey didn'treally define those.
I thought, Well, maybe I can.
Turns out before we do our time studies,we ask people, What are the most important
things you need to do in your job?
I thought, Ah, that's it.
Okay, I'll use that.
So if you ask sales reps, they'll tellyou processing orders, and taking care of
customers, and dealing with complaints.
(22:20):
But the number one item isprospecting for new business.
I thought, Okay.
That's the most important activity, noturgent, for sales reps. So I looked at
about a dozen different jobs and mappedall those for those different jobs.
And then thought, Okay.
Well, how are they spending their time?
If prospecting is what you're sayingyou need to do as a sales rep or
(22:44):
managing and coaching employees is whatyou say you should do as a manager,
how is your time compared to that?
So across the wholedatabase, I looked at that.
And found out, this is key,the average is only 20%.
So for top priority activities, peopleare only spending 20% of their time.
(23:04):
That sounds like that, thatPareto number, 20/80 rule.
It's not, that's a little bit different.
It's just coincidentalthat the number's the same.
Turns out for women, it's22% and men are only at 18%.
So women are working fewer hours andwithin those hours they're spending
(23:24):
a higher percentage of their timeon their top priority activities.
And there you go.
That's very interesting, Mark.
So all of this data sifting is verycomplicated for so many people, they
don't even like to look at data.
So when you're compiling these reportsfor people, you're the one that actually
(23:48):
is sifting through and the client doesn'tnecessarily have to get their hands dirty
with all of the complicated data sets.
That's right, that's what I do.
And I present it really simply, here'sa pie chart, here's a bar chart.
I've got detailed exhibitsthat go on for pages and pages,
(24:09):
but they're all summarized inthose pictorial, uh, diagrams.
And, and if you can do that with apicture, or a pie chart, or something,
that simplifies it for people.
And so that's my job is to use mydifferent tools to analyze that.
I've got three or fourdifferent analytical tools
to, to look at all that data.
Uh, you gotta keep it simple for people.
(24:30):
I guess also, I don't know where orwhen, but I got this idea that science
is important, that data is important.
And so if you look at a lot ofpopular speakers or trainers,
you know, they talk about,in my area, time management.
But it could be leadership andcommunication skills, and they kind
of say things that make some sense.
(24:52):
Uh, and maybe that's based on personalexperience, or observations, or whatever.
But if you can root it in real data,that to me is the better way to go.
Because, uh, it, there's just ahigher credibility layer there.
It, it's science ratherthan stuff that I made up.
And again, you go on LinkedInfor instance, you hear people
(25:12):
talking about all kinds of ideas.
I think it has, not really true interms of a, a, a, based on data.
So that's, that's the way Ilike to approach the world.
So, so who should be using this type oftechnology to perfect their organizations?
(25:38):
Well, I, I say anyone should.
Um, I've come to a kind of a newconclusion that kinda, uh, pulls the rug
out of a lot of what I've been saying.
But organizations have kind of gottena free ride from their employees,
certainly knowledge workers.
Hourly paid workers, when someoneworks extra, you pay them extra.
(26:00):
Either just an extra hour or two or maybe
time and a half for overtime.
So there's a real cost there.
But when you look at knowledgeworkers, your managers for
instance, and maybe they're sort ofcontracted to, for like forty-two
hours per week, is sort of typical.
Uh, and that includes lunch and whatnot.
So, okay, you, we want youthere from nine to five.
(26:21):
And if you show up at noon, well,you're gonna get a talking to.
But come in between nine to fiveor the equivalent, eight to four.
But if they stay longer,nobody says anything.
They stay longer because they want toget promoted, because they enjoy the
work, some people don't wanna go home.
Uh, and, and they really, you know,embrace that and that's terrific.
(26:42):
But corporations are gettinga free ride from that.
So, as I mentioned, the averageis not forty hours per week,
it's forty-six hours.
And people are working longer than that.
Managers, for instance, tendto be around forty-nine hours.
So corporations are gettingfree labor from those, um, from,
from those knowledge workers.
The problem is that free labor ends upturning into resentment, or bad morale, or
(27:08):
stress, uh, or, you know, problems at home'cause they're not getting home on time.
So there's a huge cost to that in termsof turnover, and retention, and so on.
But for the most part, corporationsare saying, Well, this is great.
Having said that, for those whorealize that productivity is
important, this is where this kicks in.
(27:29):
So, all right, your people are workingforty, or forty-five, or fifty hours
per week, but they're spending twentyhours on that non-value added work.
Wouldn't you wanna reduce that sothat your knowledge workers can
spend their highest amount of time,whether it's overtime or not, on
their highest priority activities.
So this is a diagnostic tool.
(27:50):
Now it's interesting, during Covid therewere all kinds of employee monitoring,
uh, software and apps and so on thatcame out and people didn't like that.
Um, so they were tracking keystrokes orthey were tracking websites you visited.
You know, if somebody's workingon Word, are they writing a note
to their friend, or their weddinginvitation, or a thank you note?
(28:13):
Or are they doing a report, uh,or doing something important
that you want them to do?
So, um, just tracking the type ofprogram they're using, uh, doesn't
give you all that many indications.
Now for websites, okay,
if you go to an educationalwebsite, you're using that.
Whereas it's of a shopping site,well, clearly that's not what
(28:34):
you're supposed to be doing.
But nonetheless, um, the employeesfound these systems kind of, uh,
they were, they were intrusive, andthey didn't know what was going on,
and it was kind of making employeeswrong for, you know, working at home.
I don't care about that stuff.
There will be some personal time andwe measure that just to keep people
(28:55):
in the rhythm of using the device.
But if they're shopping, or callingtheir daycare, it really doesn't matter
to me 'cause it's how much time you'respending on those important activities.
That's what's, counts the most.
And we don't use employee names.
So, um, this whole world ofmeasurement got kind of a bad rap
(29:15):
with, uh, those covid measuring tools.
And so I'm not in that world at all.
I'm just doing quick two weekstudies that diagnose where that
non-value added time is going.
So, uh, lots of corporations could benefitfrom it, individuals could as well.
The challenge is getting peopleover that hump of wanting to
actually analyze where they are.
(29:37):
Yeah.
And, and you know, even thougha lot of people feel that's
intimidating, it can actually saveyou a lot of time and time is money.
And money can do a lot of things.
So it's interestingwhat you've done, Mark.
So your book, The Poetic Path to GettingMore Done, it's poems, uh, poetry?
(30:05):
Could you tell us about this?
Yes, I will.
a while back I was, I was, uh, I,you know, tweets were quite short
and I realized I could do a rhymingcouplet in a tweet when the, the
short of 140 characters existed.
So, uh, I did some rhyming tweets andI thought, Well, let's do a book about
this cause I've written poetry for ages.
(30:25):
Um, I haven't sold many copies, Idon't know if Amazon even has it.
But nonetheless, I, I quote those at, uh,workshops and I give out copies and so on.
Because if you're gonna read up,if you're gonna learn about goal
setting, uh, why not do it with, uh,a little bit of a, a poem rather than,
uh, just somebody lecturing at you.
So, uh, it's, it's not grabbed,uh, all over the world, but, uh,
(30:49):
nonetheless, I'm proud of those poems.
You mentioned, um, measuring a moment ago.
And it seems to me that there are threeareas of our lives where there's kind of
an embarrassment factor that kicks in.
And so one of them is finances.
You mentioned time'smoney, finances, right?
And you get peoplesaying, Oh, I don't know.
(31:10):
I don't wanna know where I spendall my money, uh, my credit card's
over and I'm paying this and that.
And, and there's this sort ofembarrassment about finances.
We know where we need to be, uh, but we'renot taking those steps to getting there.
The second one is body image.
Oh, I ate a whole, you know,bucket of ice cream last night.
I'm overweight, or I'mnot in shape, or whatever.
(31:31):
And people know what they want to doto have a healthy life, but they're
not always taking those steps.
You know, in both of thosecases, measuring makes sense.
For the finances, measure how youspend your money last week and
you're gonna learn some things about
how much you spend on coffee,for instance, every day.
Um, and, and for body image, whetherit's weight, or, uh, how fast you can
(31:56):
run half a marathon, or how many pushupsyou can do, or it doesn't matter, uh,
but, but getting some measurements canhelp us diagnose where we wanna be.
It can measure your heart rate,it can measure your oxygen intake.
And so finally the third oneis this one, time management.
Oh, I waste my time.
Oh, don't tell me.
I know I waste my time.
(32:17):
Yeah, but you said you wannaspend more time with your family.
You said you wanted to get a promotion,so why not measure what's going on?
So in each of those three areas, uh,and I'm not in the, in the weight loss
business, but nonetheless, you know,
get some data, measure your own time.
And whether you use, uh, Time Quarter orjust a piece of paper, doesn't matter.
(32:38):
But get some data so you cansay, Oh, that's what's going on.
Here's where I wanna be andhere's where I am and I can make
the adjustments to get there.
So, um, I, you know, I wishmore people were doing this.
Many of the time management booksencourage you to do a, a diary
study or write down your time use.
But what they don't do is they don'ttalk about where time is spent.
(33:01):
I do, uh, because I've got that data andI can see where people need to be going
and what their ideal profiles look like.
This is ultimatelypersonal accountability.
And making sure that you use yourtime properly and efficiently can
actually make you feel so muchbetter about yourself overall.
(33:25):
So I, I really enjoy, you know,learning about these things.
And once we start implementing timemanagement and tools into our life to
simplify, it, it does make a difference.
Mark, it's, it's always greatto talk about this stuff.
(33:46):
Is there anything that we've missed thatyou think we should highlight today?
Well, uh, we haven't talkedabout how to do better and I'll
give people one terrific tip.
Uh, everyone knows that you shouldbe writing a daily to-do list.
And if you don't, try it.
Write on a post-it note, or back of anenvelope, or use an app, or whatever
you wanna do, but create a to-do list.
(34:09):
Here's how I differ, uh, fromothers in that, I tell people,
Start with a blank slate.
You've got nothing to do today,no emails, no meetings, nothing.
Or at least pretend as if you didn't.
And ask yourself, If I had nothingto do today, what would I do to
affect my results a month from now?
(34:30):
I'll repeat that.
If I had nothing to do today, what would Ido to affect my results a month from now?
Well, that salespeople would make somesales calls, the manager would do some
performance reviews, or introduce that,uh, get that new, uh, project moving.
Uh, the engineer would be doingsome design work and so on.
Okay, those are things that affectyour long-term goals and so those
(34:53):
are your highest priority activities.
And you should write down the thingsyou can actually complete today.
For a manager who wants tohire a new employee, you
can't do all that in one day.
But you can, you know, review the, thejob description, or you can put it up on
a website, or you can do some interviews.
So, what can I complete today?
And then at the end of the day, youcan check those off and say, Yep,
(35:15):
got those done.
So that, those are your highestpriority activities, the things that
affect your results a month from now.
Put those first on your to-do listand then fill in all the other stuff.
And make time for the priorities first.
Maybe that's early in the morning,maybe a block off time during
the day between eleven and oneo'clock, or something like that.
(35:37):
Those are gonna be 20% ofyour time, we know that.
So you've gotta make sure thatthat time is available to do
those high priority tasks and letthe other stuff fill in later.
So start with those first.
That's my tip for how to organizeyourself and do a to-do list
when you're overwhelmed by allthese tasks that come your way.
(35:58):
Mark, you, you've got people excited.
You're loaded with information.
So could you tell people how to get aholdof you and how they can work with you?
As I said, uh, or you said,the simplest way is through
my website, getmoredone.com.
(36:19):
So it's mark@getmoredone.com.
Just remember, get more done.
There's a, there's a, youknow, contact page there.
And, uh, lately I've been saying, Ifsomebody wanted just a consultation,
I'm not a coach as such, but ifsomebody wanted a quick coaching
session, I'll do that pro bono,uh, just to help people out.
And then if you think you wannause the Time Quarter device, I'm
(36:41):
actually doing, sponsoring a studyof female women executives who are
managing large departments and so on.
And they don't pay for thatbecause I wanna present that
data at an upcoming conference.
So I'm looking forsenior female executives.
Someone else just wants a phone call,happy to share some tips with you in a
quick coaching session without turning onthe meter and the, and the dollar sign and
(37:04):
not trying to upsell you on anything else.
I'm just passionate about doing this stuffand wanna help people, uh, where I can.
And if somebody wants to hireme after that, then they can.
You can see that you're passionateabout what you do, Mark.
And that's always someone that you shouldbe thrilled to get ahold of and work with.
(37:24):
So I appreciate what you do and Isurely appreciate you sharing it
here today with us on the podcast.
Great speaking with you, Ed.
Thank you for joining us today.
If you found this podcast enlightening,entertaining, educational in any way,
(37:46):
please share, like, subscribe, and joinus right back here next week for another
great episode of the Dead America Podcast.
I'm Ed Watters, your host, enjoyyour afternoon wherever you might be.
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