December 25, 2024 • 25 mins
Unlock the secrets of time management and transform the way you tackle both your professional and personal responsibilities. Tune in as we explore how prioritizing tasks, setting realistic deadlines, and identifying your most productive hours can dramatically increase your job satisfaction and efficiency. We shared the insights from Sophie Lee Reiter of Culture Amp article , while Greg takes us back in time with a historical perspective, spotlighting Benjamin Franklin's timeless advice on the art of preparation. We'll also discuss Hiram W. Smith's Franklin Day Planner and how his values-driven seminars laid the groundwork for Stephen Covey's influential contributions.
Our episode doesn't stop at history; we dive into practical techniques guaranteed to enhance your productivity. From Parkinson's Law to the Getting Things Done method by David Allen, discover how these strategies can reshape your approach to work. Learn how Tony Robbins' Rapid Planning Method and the Pickle Jar Theory can help you prioritize like a pro. Plus, tackle your toughest tasks with the Eat That Frog technique. We also hash out the importance of teamwork and open communication in time management, sharing a personal story about charting management activities with a structured tool. Don't miss out on these insights that promise to redefine your approach to modern management.
Presented by John Wandolowski and Greg Powell
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello everyone and welcome to Success Secrets and
Stories.
I'm your host, john Monoloski.
I'm here with my co-host andfriend, greg Powell.
Greg, hey everybody.
Greg Powell, greg, heyeverybody.
Yeah, so today we're going to betalking about a subject that I
think is pretty interesting interms of management, and it's
(00:35):
time management.
To give you a little bit ofbackground, why is time
management important?
It's a very important skill.
Sophie Lee Reiter from CultureAmp gave this interesting quote
as a manager, you have a lot onyour plate Between overseeing
direct reports and attendingmeetings.
You barely have time to work ondeliverables, let alone address
(00:58):
your personal and professionaldevelopment.
With all these competingdemands, how do you perform the
duties of a good manager whilemanaging your own productivity
and sustainability or yourwell-being?
Effective time management canlead to increased productivity
and efficiency.
Very easy to say.
(01:19):
Very hard to actually produce,hard to actually produce.
So one of the keys is toprioritize the task and setting
realistic delivery, realisticdeadlines, that you can focus
your energy on the mostimportant and urgent tasks to
accomplish them in a timelyfashion.
In this, you will increase youroverall job satisfaction and
(01:43):
you increase your productivityat the same time.
Now an interesting concept interms of time management is
regarding the differentpriorities and scheduling and
reminders and alerts and all thethings that are coming to us
every day in terms of a regularjob.
(02:07):
Typical time management tips formanagers is to block off
calendar time, like if you'regoing to go for lunch, then
block off the time.
Don't be surprised if peopleinterfere with your lunch
because you didn't block off thetime.
Identify the most productiveworking hours.
Carve out time and space todecompress.
Use the time.
Identify the most productiveworking hours.
Carve out time and space todecompress.
(02:27):
Use the tools and, probably themost important element of it,
ask for help when you'reoverwhelmed.
More type of tips that arehelpful is to set reminders for
all your tasks, not the onesthat you think are important,
because there's nothing worsethan being late for trying to
get something done, especially ameeting.
(02:48):
Create a daily planner.
I remember I had a Palm Pilotand when they first came out and
it was a godsend I was usingthe Franklin Planner long before
the Palm Pilot, and these tipsare really associated with that
whole process of planning.
Give each task a time limit.
(03:13):
Don't have it as open-ended,block out distractions and
establish a routine.
Now, all these things arepretty common, but there's a
place in time where they camefrom.
Greg, maybe you can talk alittle bit about the history of
time management that is a littlebit more relative to modern
(03:35):
times.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Thanks, john.
As we do oftentimes on thesepodcasts is give you a history
lesson, I'm going to talk alittle bit about the Franklin
planner phenomenon.
Benjamin Franklin, that's right.
He lived from 1706 to 1790.
And he had a famous quote.
He said by failing to prepare,you are preparing to fail.
(03:57):
Very sage wisdom indeed.
So this was back in 1726.
Young Ben Franklin wasreturning from London to his
home in Philadelphia.
It was an 80-day voyage.
During that journey hecontemplated the direction he
wanted to take his life.
He wrote down his values, orvirtues as he liked to call them
, in a small black book that hecarried with him, listing 13
(04:20):
virtues he wanted to develop.
So I'm going to take youthrough some of those virtues,
because I think they're reallyrelevant to time management.
One of them was silence.
Speak not but what may benefitothers or yourself.
Avoid trifling conversation.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
I love the terminology from that space and
time, the 1700s.
Yeah, so good luck.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Thank you, john.
Order, let all your things havetheir places.
Let each part of your businesshave its time.
Resolution Resolve to performwhat you ought.
Perform without fail what youresolve.
Looking at the industry, lose notime.
Be always employed in somethinguseful.
(05:06):
Cut off all unnecessary actions.
One of my favorites moderation.
Avoid extremes.
Forbear resenting injuries somuch as you think they deserve.
How about tranquility?
Be not disturbed at strifefulsor at accidents, common or
(05:27):
unavoidable.
For the rest of his life,benjamin Franklin worked on one
of those virtues every week, ofthose 13, making incremental
improvements in his personalcharacter.
The results showed in hishistoric life, where he is now
revered as a philosopher,inventor and statesman life,
where he is now revered as aphilosopher, inventor and
(05:48):
statesman.
So let's build that FranklinPlanner story from Ben Franklin,
a gentleman by the name ofHiram W Smith.
He said there is no chance, nofate, no destiny that can
circumvent or hinder or controlthe firm resolve of a determined
soul.
Right, that's what we'retalking about time management.
Now just a little bit on HiramSmith.
(06:09):
About two and a half centurieslater from Ben Franklin and this
was in 1981, hiram Smith readBenjamin Franklin's biography
and he was struck by Franklin'simpressive self-improvement and
time management systems, and sohe created some seminars to go
around the United States and, Ithink, the world to help people
with time management.
And the goal of those seminarswas simple Help clients identify
(06:32):
what they really want toaccomplish, do the right things
for the right reasons and staymotivated until they completed
their goal.
Word of mouth spread and by1983, smith teamed up with Dick
Winwood, dennis Webb and LynnWebb to form the Franklin
Institute, and during this timeSmith accepted every opportunity
to speak, blocking more thanfour and a half years traveling
(06:53):
around the world.
Smith introduced the FranklinDay Planner in 1984, right Isn't
that about a year before theBears won the Super Bowl?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, that was history.
Yes, we're talking history here.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
But he wanted to help his seminar participants put
values-based time managementinto practice.
And as time went on, thesuccess of values-based planning
helped the Franklin Institutegrow into an international
business.
Now let's take it one more step.
Somebody, I think we all knowand love Stephen Covey.
So Stephen said stop settinggoals.
(07:29):
Goals are pure fantasy unlessyou have a specific plan to
achieve them.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
So Durs said if you don't have a goal, it's a wish.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, yeah, and that is so true.
And so Mr Covey said a coupleof things.
He did a book I'm sure most ofyou have heard about the Seven
Habits of Highly EffectivePeople, and he built his own
professional trainingorganization based on the
landmark ideas of personalgrowth and professional
cooperation.
But in 1997, franklin Questmerged with Covey Leadership
(08:06):
Institute to become the famousFranklin Covey.
So, 290 years after BenjaminFranklin wrote his book about
virtues and how to get themaccomplished, and then, 30 years
later, after the creation ofFranklin Day Planner, the
practice of value-based planningstill changes a lot.
And if you can remember putthis in your mind's eye those
famous green pages, the famousFranklin Planner pages, on the
(08:28):
left side you put all your tasksfor the day and you would list
how important they were, andthen calendar notice, there in
the middle and on the right youtake notes so that all that
information was in one easy tofind place, john.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
And it was kind of interesting.
John, and it was kind ofinteresting.
Again, sophie Lee from CultureAmp, on September 6th of 2024,
had more to her text rather thanjust the opening.
Her first comment was take anhonest look at your workload,
(09:02):
you know.
Consider exactly what it isthat you're trying to get done
strategically.
Address the workloads in termsof breaking it down or, more
importantly, how you candelegate.
Take an honest look at wherethe workload is and where the
stress is coming from in orderto try to get those projects
done.
Her second key was to block offtime in the calendar, like I
(09:24):
was mentioning, lunch orwhenever you have a break to
decompress, that you're puttingthose times in so that you can
pull yourself back together andmove forward or at least have
some private time.
It can fall into the trap ofsaying yes, and then you never
have that time to yourself.
(09:46):
You put in the whole day andthen you're basically arguing
with yourself that you're notplanning your time.
Her third idea was identifyingthe most productive working
hours and, if you've never donethis before, writing down what
you do during the day tounderstand when you're most
productive, like keeping a listalongside your desks and just.
(10:10):
You're not going to do thatevery day, but you do it as a
sample and you do it as an ideaof when you do more work and
when you're more effective, andsometimes you set aside time for
productivity, time to socialize.
All those things are kind oflike planning and they all fall
into the same suit.
But for me, if I really want totry to get something
(10:32):
productively done, it was 6 amto 11 am.
I could affect more people, Icould talk to more people and I
would be able to go from.
Actually, I had the positionwhere I had to go to multiple
locations.
I would communicate whatlocation I was going to be, at
what time of the week or whattime of the month so that they
(10:53):
could be prepared when I wasgoing to visit and review their
activities.
There's a point here you have toidentify your most productive
time and then use it accordingly.
That whole thing about planningis really what Benjamin was
(11:15):
talking about and I'm going torepeat again carving out time
for yourself, building in breaks, and the humor they also found
doing the planning side of it isyou have to put in travel time,
because sometimes people thinkyou're actually going from
meeting to meeting and you'regoing from building to building.
You have to also include thingslike travel time, and it helps
(11:35):
other people when they look atyour schedule which, okay,
welcome to 2024.
People can see your schedule,so use the tools.
Use the things that can helpyou in terms of technology.
Zoom meetings and electronicsare a valuable tool that helps
you with time management.
Reserve things for one-on-onemeetings and if you're
(11:58):
comfortable with electronics,great.
Maybe those are the times whereyou make that extra effort to
actually have one-on-ones.
That would be my recommendation.
But you can plan your tools andyou can use the tools that are
available and, most of all, askfor help.
Sometimes, no matter how strongyour management skills are,
(12:20):
there's just too much to do.
You need to understand, whenyou are in the organization, who
you can help, who you can askfor help and how they can take
some of the things off yourplate.
Be prepared for thatconversation.
If you're going to walk in andask your boss for help, you want
to be a little bit morespecific so that they know what
(12:41):
it is that you're trying toaccomplish, so that when you
don't walk out of the roomsaying I don't think he gets it.
You never spelled it out.
Spell it out.
Help them to help you Probablyone of the more important tips.
Greg, I think you have a fewother things to add to that idea
of helping.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
I do indeed, John, Thank you.
I've got nine types of timemanagement techniques, tips, et
cetera, whatever you would liketo call them.
I got a lot of this from theUniversity of St Augustine for
Health Sciences, and some of thefolks that contributed to that
information were Jennifer Allenabout the 10 methods of time
management at work, Daniel Tay,the 10 popular time management
techniques, and Eric Johnsonfull Q&A.
(13:23):
Tesla and SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, on recode decode.
So achieving work-life balanceis possible when effective time
management is in place.
Learning time management tipswill not only help you manage
your time better, but also boostpersonal productivity.
With that said, here are sometime management strategies, tips
(13:44):
, techniques that you can use,so let's talk about some of
these tools.
Now.
Some of you, especially theengineers, have probably heard
about the Pareto analysis right,the famous 80-20 rule.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yeah, man.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Right.
80-20 rule is a techniquecreated by an Italian economist
by the name of Vilfredo Pareto.
It's the idea that 20% ofactions are responsible for 80%
of outcomes, and the goal ofPareto analysis is to help you
prioritize tasks that are mosteffective at solving problems.
I can remember years ago I wasin a sales position and we used
to say the 80-20 rule for sure,that 80% of our profitable
(14:19):
business came from 20% of ourclients, and so, even though you
might have those othercounselors or nice folks to talk
to and whatever, they weren'tgenerating the big sales.
So you have to put in thattechnique and that thought about
what is the bang for the buck.
The next technique is calledPomodoro technique.
It was created by anentrepreneur and author,
francesco Cirillo.
This technique uses a timer tobreak down your work into
(14:42):
intervals.
Each interval is known as apomodoro, named after the
tomato-shaped timer that MrCirillo created.
So again, a way of breakingthings into bite-sized pieces.
Remember the old joke about howdo you eat an elephant?
You dip them in chocolate andeat it in pieces, right?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
I'm just glad this guy didn't invent some clock
that looked like a potato.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yes.
So now there's something that'scalled the Eisenhower Matrix.
So before Dwight Eisenhowerbecame president in 1953, he
served in the US Army as anAllied Forces commander during
World War II.
He was faced with difficultdecisions all the time, every
day.
That led him to invent what isnow called the Eisenhower Matrix
(15:27):
, and it's that famoustwo-by-two box what's urgent,
what's important and you come upwith that model to help you
decide what should you beworking on now and what can wait
till later.
So not everything is bothurgent and important.
So you have to put some mentalthinking into figuring out what
that is, what those differencesare.
The next one's calledParkinson's Law.
(15:49):
British historian CyrilNorthcote Parkinson became
famous for the phrase workexpands so as to fill the time
available for its completion.
Let me say that again.
It's interesting.
The phrase is work expands soas to fill the time available
for its completion.
In other words, the amount oftime you give yourself to
complete a specific task is theamount of time it will take you
(16:11):
to complete that task.
Not illogical, right?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
That make some sense, oh yeah, yeah, I've also heard
it that if you don't restrictthe time, they'll just consume
the time if you don't put adeadline on it.
So that's forcing that conceptof deadlines, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
That's right, john.
The next one is called the timeblocking method.
So inventor Elon Musk is knownfor being very productive, right
?
He manages his time soefficiently that he can work
over 80 hours a week and stillmake time for himself.
What's his secret?
Something John talked aboutearlier time blocking.
Blocking out on your calendarbecause, like he said, everybody
(16:49):
can see your calendar thesedays, whether it's a lunchtime
or you need some quiet time orsome creative energy or strategy
time.
You've got to make that timeand get that cemented in your
calendar.
The next one's called gettingthings done GTD.
This method was created byauthor David Allen.
This process helps you getthings done by recording tasks
on paper and then breaking themdown into actual work items,
(17:13):
right, so it's kind of a, youknow, divide things up and
divide and conquer, but it helpsfor those that think that way
there are folks that that's thebest way for them to accomplish
things Right.
Rapid planning method RPM isanother technique.
It stands for rapid planningmethod or result purpose.
It's a massive action plan.
It was developed bymotivational speaker Tony
(17:34):
Robbins as a way to train yourbrain to focus on a vision of
what you want to accomplish soyou can make it real.
All right, here's one of myfavorite titles.
Number eight is the pickle jartheory.
This theory helps you figureout what's useful and what is
not useful in your daily life.
It allows you to plan taskswith time to spare and set
(17:56):
priorities for your day.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
But the next one is my favorite.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
This is John's favorite Number nine eat that
frog technique.
So this technique is namedafter a Mark Twain quote Eat a
live frog the first thing in themorning and nothing worse will
happen to you the rest of theday.
Start your day by doing themost onerous tasks first and
getting them out of the way.
So we got a visual with thisone, right?
(18:21):
You could probably see this 8am you're eating frog, right?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Well, that's it.
But I mean that kind of fallsinto for me from going through
company and going through theplanning process and going
through MBR.
They had the A, the B and the Cpriorities Right, everybody
wanted to do the C prioritiesbecause you know there was that
satisfaction.
You did the easy ones but youdid three of your priorities, or
(18:48):
you did eight of yourpriorities today, none of them
was an a priority.
That was the eat the frog one.
Okay, it's the hard one.
It's the one that takes more ofyour effort, more of your
resources, more of your time andit might not get done in a day.
It might take you three days,four days to get that a priority
off your list.
A day it might take you threedays, four days to get that a
(19:10):
priority off your list.
But the only way the a prioritygets off your list here's a
hint is you have to work on thea priority.
So eat the frog, take, take,take the hard one, get the hard
one out of the way.
What I found is that I would.
I would do my list and I wouldhave a weekly list and anything
that was a B priority turnedinto an A priority of the
(19:31):
following week, but I had tohave no A priorities that made
it from week to week.
If I could, if I get minimizedor eliminated, that was my key
to time management, and I used.
I used these conceptsthroughout my career and are
really critical in order to tryto do multitasking working on
(19:54):
different priorities at the sametime, being able to possibly
segregate or prioritize.
I would do things like on acertain day I would do
construction, another day Iwould do facilities work.
There's many different ways toslice the pie.
Have a plan, though.
That's the key.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
All right.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
John.
And then the other component ofit is when I was in
construction, I was responsiblefor $500 million worth of
construction, but it wasn't me,it was my team and we all looked
at the team priorities.
We looked at the A priorities.
We all talked about the samelanguage.
(20:35):
That's the other element ofwhat we're talking about.
The team should be able to seeyour activities, to see your
plan at the same time, tounderstand that if it isn't on
their calendar, it's going to bebecause you're expecting them
to be able to communicate to youon those subjects.
It's a wonderful way to keepthem engaged with what you're
(20:58):
trying to get done at the sametime, and they have the ability
to alter your schedule.
That whole thing about opencommunication and that's how it
kind of interacts.
That whole thing about opencommunication and that's how it
kind of interacts.
Time management isn't just aone-way street.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
If you're listening, you know how to adapt, greg.
Thanks, john.
I got a story from maybe 10years ago, maybe 12 years ago,
about a time management activity.
So my manager had his team usea tool that was designed to
chart our management activitiesfor one month, for 30 days, and
it was based off the premise ofa 40 hour week.
We all know that we work morethan 40 hours a week.
Just a way to get a baseline,so this chart included weekly
(21:41):
business meetings, strategy time, employee development and
hopefully some personaldevelopment in there, team
building exercises, reflectiontime, project time and, yes, the
ever-famous firefighting time,because that's going to happen
as well.
So did our best to record allthat for a month and we assumed
that most of our time was spenton things like developing our
(22:03):
people and prioritizing projectsthat would be more effective
for the organization, thoseoutcomes.
But guess what?
The analysis was definitelydifferent than what we thought.
So we took a hard look.
You could do things like colorcode department meetings yellow
and project time meeting red.
Whatever.
It turned out that we didn'tspend the time on what we
(22:25):
thought we spent time on.
We all thought peopledevelopment that's where we're
spending our time.
Mentoring, coaching, engagingteam building.
That's what we're doing.
We're spending our time on thatand, yes, task work.
But what really we found outwas we weren't prioritizing as
well as we thought and ourschedule quickly got filled up
with unplanned low value, someof those things John's talking
(22:45):
about that you just you know,they're easy to say, I got them
done, but they don't provide youa lot of value and a lot of
satisfaction and didn't reallyreflect what you thought your
focus was on.
So you have to be verydeliberate about your time
management practices, review theresults and change course when
needed.
And, as engineers and othershave said, that which gets
measured gets done.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, and the thing that I found when I was going
through that whole keeping trackof my time how many hours I was
burning between accounting,purchasing and HR that actually
pulled time away from myschedule and how effective they
were and it drove other people'srequirements.
(23:27):
But only until you startdocumenting how much time that
those kind of activities werepulling away from your core
responsibilities did uppermanagement start to understand
how those things actuallyinteracted and how they were
affecting the organization.
Especially in my case, in athree-year period we had four,
(23:49):
I'm sorry, in a four-year periodwe had three different software
systems for accounting.
You're learning these processesover and over and over and none
of it is really effectivebecause you need time with any
of these things to understandtheir nuances.
So, yeah, understanding timemanagement and understanding
(24:10):
what those results mean reallyaffect you as an individual and
it really you can use it to bemore an effective group, more of
an effective organization.
So, if you like what you'veheard, yeah, my book Building
your Leadership Toolbox Toolsfor Success is available on
(24:34):
Amazoncom.
Success Secrets and Storiespodcast is available on what
you're listening to, thank you.
It's also available on popularpodcast formats like Apple,
google and Spotify To learn moreabout Dr Durst and his MBR
program.
It's on successgrowthacademycom.
If you'd like to get a hold ofGreg and I, you can get a hold
(24:56):
of us on the websitewwwauthorjawcom.
And.
The music is brought to you bymy grandson, so we want to hear
from you.
Drop us a line, let us know howwe're doing.
Well, greg, it's been fun.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Thanks, John, as always Next time.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yeah.
Hello everyone and welcome to Success Secrets and
Stories.
I'm your host, john Monoloski.
I'm here with my co-host andfriend, greg Powell.
Greg, hey everybody.
Greg Powell, greg, heyeverybody.
Yeah, so today we're going to betalking about a subject that I
think is pretty interesting interms of management, and it's
(00:35):
time management.
To give you a little bit ofbackground, why is time
management important?
It's a very important skill.
Sophie Lee Reiter from CultureAmp gave this interesting quote
as a manager, you have a lot onyour plate Between overseeing
direct reports and attendingmeetings.
You barely have time to work ondeliverables, let alone address
(00:58):
your personal and professionaldevelopment.
With all these competingdemands, how do you perform the
duties of a good manager whilemanaging your own productivity
and sustainability or yourwell-being?
Effective time management canlead to increased productivity
and efficiency.
Very easy to say.
(01:19):
Very hard to actually produce,hard to actually produce.
So one of the keys is toprioritize the task and setting
realistic delivery, realisticdeadlines, that you can focus
your energy on the mostimportant and urgent tasks to
accomplish them in a timelyfashion.
In this, you will increase youroverall job satisfaction and
(01:43):
you increase your productivityat the same time.
Now an interesting concept interms of time management is
regarding the differentpriorities and scheduling and
reminders and alerts and all thethings that are coming to us
every day in terms of a regularjob.
(02:07):
Typical time management tips formanagers is to block off
calendar time, like if you'regoing to go for lunch, then
block off the time.
Don't be surprised if peopleinterfere with your lunch
because you didn't block off thetime.
Identify the most productiveworking hours.
Carve out time and space todecompress.
Use the time.
Identify the most productiveworking hours.
Carve out time and space todecompress.
(02:27):
Use the tools and, probably themost important element of it,
ask for help when you'reoverwhelmed.
More type of tips that arehelpful is to set reminders for
all your tasks, not the onesthat you think are important,
because there's nothing worsethan being late for trying to
get something done, especially ameeting.
(02:48):
Create a daily planner.
I remember I had a Palm Pilotand when they first came out and
it was a godsend I was usingthe Franklin Planner long before
the Palm Pilot, and these tipsare really associated with that
whole process of planning.
Give each task a time limit.
(03:13):
Don't have it as open-ended,block out distractions and
establish a routine.
Now, all these things arepretty common, but there's a
place in time where they camefrom.
Greg, maybe you can talk alittle bit about the history of
time management that is a littlebit more relative to modern
(03:35):
times.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Thanks, john.
As we do oftentimes on thesepodcasts is give you a history
lesson, I'm going to talk alittle bit about the Franklin
planner phenomenon.
Benjamin Franklin, that's right.
He lived from 1706 to 1790.
And he had a famous quote.
He said by failing to prepare,you are preparing to fail.
(03:57):
Very sage wisdom indeed.
So this was back in 1726.
Young Ben Franklin wasreturning from London to his
home in Philadelphia.
It was an 80-day voyage.
During that journey hecontemplated the direction he
wanted to take his life.
He wrote down his values, orvirtues as he liked to call them
, in a small black book that hecarried with him, listing 13
(04:20):
virtues he wanted to develop.
So I'm going to take youthrough some of those virtues,
because I think they're reallyrelevant to time management.
One of them was silence.
Speak not but what may benefitothers or yourself.
Avoid trifling conversation.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
I love the terminology from that space and
time, the 1700s.
Yeah, so good luck.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Thank you, john.
Order, let all your things havetheir places.
Let each part of your businesshave its time.
Resolution Resolve to performwhat you ought.
Perform without fail what youresolve.
Looking at the industry, lose notime.
Be always employed in somethinguseful.
(05:06):
Cut off all unnecessary actions.
One of my favorites moderation.
Avoid extremes.
Forbear resenting injuries somuch as you think they deserve.
How about tranquility?
Be not disturbed at strifefulsor at accidents, common or
(05:27):
unavoidable.
For the rest of his life,benjamin Franklin worked on one
of those virtues every week, ofthose 13, making incremental
improvements in his personalcharacter.
The results showed in hishistoric life, where he is now
revered as a philosopher,inventor and statesman life,
where he is now revered as aphilosopher, inventor and
(05:48):
statesman.
So let's build that FranklinPlanner story from Ben Franklin,
a gentleman by the name ofHiram W Smith.
He said there is no chance, nofate, no destiny that can
circumvent or hinder or controlthe firm resolve of a determined
soul.
Right, that's what we'retalking about time management.
Now just a little bit on HiramSmith.
(06:09):
About two and a half centurieslater from Ben Franklin and this
was in 1981, hiram Smith readBenjamin Franklin's biography
and he was struck by Franklin'simpressive self-improvement and
time management systems, and sohe created some seminars to go
around the United States and, Ithink, the world to help people
with time management.
And the goal of those seminarswas simple Help clients identify
(06:32):
what they really want toaccomplish, do the right things
for the right reasons and staymotivated until they completed
their goal.
Word of mouth spread and by1983, smith teamed up with Dick
Winwood, dennis Webb and LynnWebb to form the Franklin
Institute, and during this timeSmith accepted every opportunity
to speak, blocking more thanfour and a half years traveling
(06:53):
around the world.
Smith introduced the FranklinDay Planner in 1984, right Isn't
that about a year before theBears won the Super Bowl?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yeah, that was history.
Yes, we're talking history here.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
But he wanted to help his seminar participants put
values-based time managementinto practice.
And as time went on, thesuccess of values-based planning
helped the Franklin Institutegrow into an international
business.
Now let's take it one more step.
Somebody, I think we all knowand love Stephen Covey.
So Stephen said stop settinggoals.
(07:29):
Goals are pure fantasy unlessyou have a specific plan to
achieve them.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
So Durs said if you don't have a goal, it's a wish.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, yeah, and that is so true.
And so Mr Covey said a coupleof things.
He did a book I'm sure most ofyou have heard about the Seven
Habits of Highly EffectivePeople, and he built his own
professional trainingorganization based on the
landmark ideas of personalgrowth and professional
cooperation.
But in 1997, franklin Questmerged with Covey Leadership
(08:06):
Institute to become the famousFranklin Covey.
So, 290 years after BenjaminFranklin wrote his book about
virtues and how to get themaccomplished, and then, 30 years
later, after the creation ofFranklin Day Planner, the
practice of value-based planningstill changes a lot.
And if you can remember putthis in your mind's eye those
famous green pages, the famousFranklin Planner pages, on the
(08:28):
left side you put all your tasksfor the day and you would list
how important they were, andthen calendar notice, there in
the middle and on the right youtake notes so that all that
information was in one easy tofind place, john.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
And it was kind of interesting.
John, and it was kind ofinteresting.
Again, sophie Lee from CultureAmp, on September 6th of 2024,
had more to her text rather thanjust the opening.
Her first comment was take anhonest look at your workload,
(09:02):
you know.
Consider exactly what it isthat you're trying to get done
strategically.
Address the workloads in termsof breaking it down or, more
importantly, how you candelegate.
Take an honest look at wherethe workload is and where the
stress is coming from in orderto try to get those projects
done.
Her second key was to block offtime in the calendar, like I
(09:24):
was mentioning, lunch orwhenever you have a break to
decompress, that you're puttingthose times in so that you can
pull yourself back together andmove forward or at least have
some private time.
It can fall into the trap ofsaying yes, and then you never
have that time to yourself.
(09:46):
You put in the whole day andthen you're basically arguing
with yourself that you're notplanning your time.
Her third idea was identifyingthe most productive working
hours and, if you've never donethis before, writing down what
you do during the day tounderstand when you're most
productive, like keeping a listalongside your desks and just.
(10:10):
You're not going to do thatevery day, but you do it as a
sample and you do it as an ideaof when you do more work and
when you're more effective, andsometimes you set aside time for
productivity, time to socialize.
All those things are kind oflike planning and they all fall
into the same suit.
But for me, if I really want totry to get something
(10:32):
productively done, it was 6 amto 11 am.
I could affect more people, Icould talk to more people and I
would be able to go from.
Actually, I had the positionwhere I had to go to multiple
locations.
I would communicate whatlocation I was going to be, at
what time of the week or whattime of the month so that they
(10:53):
could be prepared when I wasgoing to visit and review their
activities.
There's a point here you have toidentify your most productive
time and then use it accordingly.
That whole thing about planningis really what Benjamin was
(11:15):
talking about and I'm going torepeat again carving out time
for yourself, building in breaks, and the humor they also found
doing the planning side of it isyou have to put in travel time,
because sometimes people thinkyou're actually going from
meeting to meeting and you'regoing from building to building.
You have to also include thingslike travel time, and it helps
(11:35):
other people when they look atyour schedule which, okay,
welcome to 2024.
People can see your schedule,so use the tools.
Use the things that can helpyou in terms of technology.
Zoom meetings and electronicsare a valuable tool that helps
you with time management.
Reserve things for one-on-onemeetings and if you're
(11:58):
comfortable with electronics,great.
Maybe those are the times whereyou make that extra effort to
actually have one-on-ones.
That would be my recommendation.
But you can plan your tools andyou can use the tools that are
available and, most of all, askfor help.
Sometimes, no matter how strongyour management skills are,
(12:20):
there's just too much to do.
You need to understand, whenyou are in the organization, who
you can help, who you can askfor help and how they can take
some of the things off yourplate.
Be prepared for thatconversation.
If you're going to walk in andask your boss for help, you want
to be a little bit morespecific so that they know what
(12:41):
it is that you're trying toaccomplish, so that when you
don't walk out of the roomsaying I don't think he gets it.
You never spelled it out.
Spell it out.
Help them to help you Probablyone of the more important tips.
Greg, I think you have a fewother things to add to that idea
of helping.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
I do indeed, John, Thank you.
I've got nine types of timemanagement techniques, tips, et
cetera, whatever you would liketo call them.
I got a lot of this from theUniversity of St Augustine for
Health Sciences, and some of thefolks that contributed to that
information were Jennifer Allenabout the 10 methods of time
management at work, Daniel Tay,the 10 popular time management
techniques, and Eric Johnsonfull Q&A.
(13:23):
Tesla and SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, on recode decode.
So achieving work-life balanceis possible when effective time
management is in place.
Learning time management tipswill not only help you manage
your time better, but also boostpersonal productivity.
With that said, here are sometime management strategies, tips
(13:44):
, techniques that you can use,so let's talk about some of
these tools.
Now.
Some of you, especially theengineers, have probably heard
about the Pareto analysis right,the famous 80-20 rule.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yeah, man.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Right.
80-20 rule is a techniquecreated by an Italian economist
by the name of Vilfredo Pareto.
It's the idea that 20% ofactions are responsible for 80%
of outcomes, and the goal ofPareto analysis is to help you
prioritize tasks that are mosteffective at solving problems.
I can remember years ago I wasin a sales position and we used
to say the 80-20 rule for sure,that 80% of our profitable
(14:19):
business came from 20% of ourclients, and so, even though you
might have those othercounselors or nice folks to talk
to and whatever, they weren'tgenerating the big sales.
So you have to put in thattechnique and that thought about
what is the bang for the buck.
The next technique is calledPomodoro technique.
It was created by anentrepreneur and author,
francesco Cirillo.
This technique uses a timer tobreak down your work into
(14:42):
intervals.
Each interval is known as apomodoro, named after the
tomato-shaped timer that MrCirillo created.
So again, a way of breakingthings into bite-sized pieces.
Remember the old joke about howdo you eat an elephant?
You dip them in chocolate andeat it in pieces, right?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
I'm just glad this guy didn't invent some clock
that looked like a potato.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yes.
So now there's something that'scalled the Eisenhower Matrix.
So before Dwight Eisenhowerbecame president in 1953, he
served in the US Army as anAllied Forces commander during
World War II.
He was faced with difficultdecisions all the time, every
day.
That led him to invent what isnow called the Eisenhower Matrix
(15:27):
, and it's that famoustwo-by-two box what's urgent,
what's important and you come upwith that model to help you
decide what should you beworking on now and what can wait
till later.
So not everything is bothurgent and important.
So you have to put some mentalthinking into figuring out what
that is, what those differencesare.
The next one's calledParkinson's Law.
(15:49):
British historian CyrilNorthcote Parkinson became
famous for the phrase workexpands so as to fill the time
available for its completion.
Let me say that again.
It's interesting.
The phrase is work expands soas to fill the time available
for its completion.
In other words, the amount oftime you give yourself to
complete a specific task is theamount of time it will take you
(16:11):
to complete that task.
Not illogical, right?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
That make some sense, oh yeah, yeah, I've also heard
it that if you don't restrictthe time, they'll just consume
the time if you don't put adeadline on it.
So that's forcing that conceptof deadlines, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
That's right, john.
The next one is called the timeblocking method.
So inventor Elon Musk is knownfor being very productive, right
?
He manages his time soefficiently that he can work
over 80 hours a week and stillmake time for himself.
What's his secret?
Something John talked aboutearlier time blocking.
Blocking out on your calendarbecause, like he said, everybody
(16:49):
can see your calendar thesedays, whether it's a lunchtime
or you need some quiet time orsome creative energy or strategy
time.
You've got to make that timeand get that cemented in your
calendar.
The next one's called gettingthings done GTD.
This method was created byauthor David Allen.
This process helps you getthings done by recording tasks
on paper and then breaking themdown into actual work items,
(17:13):
right, so it's kind of a, youknow, divide things up and
divide and conquer, but it helpsfor those that think that way
there are folks that that's thebest way for them to accomplish
things Right.
Rapid planning method RPM isanother technique.
It stands for rapid planningmethod or result purpose.
It's a massive action plan.
It was developed bymotivational speaker Tony
(17:34):
Robbins as a way to train yourbrain to focus on a vision of
what you want to accomplish soyou can make it real.
All right, here's one of myfavorite titles.
Number eight is the pickle jartheory.
This theory helps you figureout what's useful and what is
not useful in your daily life.
It allows you to plan taskswith time to spare and set
(17:56):
priorities for your day.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
But the next one is my favorite.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
This is John's favorite Number nine eat that
frog technique.
So this technique is namedafter a Mark Twain quote Eat a
live frog the first thing in themorning and nothing worse will
happen to you the rest of theday.
Start your day by doing themost onerous tasks first and
getting them out of the way.
So we got a visual with thisone, right?
(18:21):
You could probably see this 8am you're eating frog, right?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Well, that's it.
But I mean that kind of fallsinto for me from going through
company and going through theplanning process and going
through MBR.
They had the A, the B and the Cpriorities Right, everybody
wanted to do the C prioritiesbecause you know there was that
satisfaction.
You did the easy ones but youdid three of your priorities, or
(18:48):
you did eight of yourpriorities today, none of them
was an a priority.
That was the eat the frog one.
Okay, it's the hard one.
It's the one that takes more ofyour effort, more of your
resources, more of your time andit might not get done in a day.
It might take you three days,four days to get that a priority
off your list.
A day it might take you threedays, four days to get that a
(19:10):
priority off your list.
But the only way the a prioritygets off your list here's a
hint is you have to work on thea priority.
So eat the frog, take, take,take the hard one, get the hard
one out of the way.
What I found is that I would.
I would do my list and I wouldhave a weekly list and anything
that was a B priority turnedinto an A priority of the
(19:31):
following week, but I had tohave no A priorities that made
it from week to week.
If I could, if I get minimizedor eliminated, that was my key
to time management, and I used.
I used these conceptsthroughout my career and are
really critical in order to tryto do multitasking working on
(19:54):
different priorities at the sametime, being able to possibly
segregate or prioritize.
I would do things like on acertain day I would do
construction, another day Iwould do facilities work.
There's many different ways toslice the pie.
Have a plan, though.
That's the key.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
All right.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
John.
And then the other component ofit is when I was in
construction, I was responsiblefor $500 million worth of
construction, but it wasn't me,it was my team and we all looked
at the team priorities.
We looked at the A priorities.
We all talked about the samelanguage.
(20:35):
That's the other element ofwhat we're talking about.
The team should be able to seeyour activities, to see your
plan at the same time, tounderstand that if it isn't on
their calendar, it's going to bebecause you're expecting them
to be able to communicate to youon those subjects.
It's a wonderful way to keepthem engaged with what you're
(20:58):
trying to get done at the sametime, and they have the ability
to alter your schedule.
That whole thing about opencommunication and that's how it
kind of interacts.
That whole thing about opencommunication and that's how it
kind of interacts.
Time management isn't just aone-way street.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
If you're listening, you know how to adapt, greg.
Thanks, john.
I got a story from maybe 10years ago, maybe 12 years ago,
about a time management activity.
So my manager had his team usea tool that was designed to
chart our management activitiesfor one month, for 30 days, and
it was based off the premise ofa 40 hour week.
We all know that we work morethan 40 hours a week.
Just a way to get a baseline,so this chart included weekly
(21:41):
business meetings, strategy time, employee development and
hopefully some personaldevelopment in there, team
building exercises, reflectiontime, project time and, yes, the
ever-famous firefighting time,because that's going to happen
as well.
So did our best to record allthat for a month and we assumed
that most of our time was spenton things like developing our
(22:03):
people and prioritizing projectsthat would be more effective
for the organization, thoseoutcomes.
But guess what?
The analysis was definitelydifferent than what we thought.
So we took a hard look.
You could do things like colorcode department meetings yellow
and project time meeting red.
Whatever.
It turned out that we didn'tspend the time on what we
(22:25):
thought we spent time on.
We all thought peopledevelopment that's where we're
spending our time.
Mentoring, coaching, engagingteam building.
That's what we're doing.
We're spending our time on thatand, yes, task work.
But what really we found outwas we weren't prioritizing as
well as we thought and ourschedule quickly got filled up
with unplanned low value, someof those things John's talking
(22:45):
about that you just you know,they're easy to say, I got them
done, but they don't provide youa lot of value and a lot of
satisfaction and didn't reallyreflect what you thought your
focus was on.
So you have to be verydeliberate about your time
management practices, review theresults and change course when
needed.
And, as engineers and othershave said, that which gets
measured gets done.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, and the thing that I found when I was going
through that whole keeping trackof my time how many hours I was
burning between accounting,purchasing and HR that actually
pulled time away from myschedule and how effective they
were and it drove other people'srequirements.
(23:27):
But only until you startdocumenting how much time that
those kind of activities werepulling away from your core
responsibilities did uppermanagement start to understand
how those things actuallyinteracted and how they were
affecting the organization.
Especially in my case, in athree-year period we had four,
(23:49):
I'm sorry, in a four-year periodwe had three different software
systems for accounting.
You're learning these processesover and over and over and none
of it is really effectivebecause you need time with any
of these things to understandtheir nuances.
So, yeah, understanding timemanagement and understanding
(24:10):
what those results mean reallyaffect you as an individual and
it really you can use it to bemore an effective group, more of
an effective organization.
So, if you like what you'veheard, yeah, my book Building
your Leadership Toolbox Toolsfor Success is available on
(24:34):
Amazoncom.
Success Secrets and Storiespodcast is available on what
you're listening to, thank you.
It's also available on popularpodcast formats like Apple,
google and Spotify To learn moreabout Dr Durst and his MBR
program.
It's on successgrowthacademycom.
If you'd like to get a hold ofGreg and I, you can get a hold
(24:56):
of us on the websitewwwauthorjawcom.
And.
The music is brought to you bymy grandson, so we want to hear
from you.
Drop us a line, let us know howwe're doing.
Well, greg, it's been fun.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Thanks, John, as always Next time.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yeah.
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