Why Everything Feels Like It Needs to Be Done Today.
Have you ever wondered if your time management and productivity issues might not be about the amount of work you have to do, but rather the way you think about that work?
That’s what we’re looking at today.
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Script |430
Hello, and welcome to episode 430 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show.
Since I began helping people directly with time management and productivity, I would say that around 60% of people’s struggles come down to the way they organise their work, around 35% come down to the way they think about it, and only 5% come down to the volume of work coming in.
Talk to practically anyone today, and they will tell you they are busy. It’s almost like a badge of honour.
The number one reason people say they don’t exercise is that they don’t have enough time. Is that really true, or is it that they value doing something else more?
I’m reminded of something the legendary Jim Rohn used to say: “Don't mistake movement for achievement. It's easy to get faked out by being busy. The question is: Busy doing what?”
If I look at my to-do list right now, I guess I am busy. I have this script, a newsletter and a long-form article to write. I also have to record three YouTube Shorts videos, edit them and record this podcast.
I have around five pieces of feedback to write for my coaching clients, do my exercise, take Louis for a walk, and cook dinner.
Yet, I don’t feel busy. The reason is that I understand that it doesn’t all have to be done today. All I have to do is decide what can be done today and do that.
The truth is, we all have far more to do than we can do at any one time. And equally true is that it doesn’t have to be done right now or even today.
So, with all that said, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.
This week’s question comes from Elaine. Elaine asks, hi Carl, what advice would you give to someone who is always busy and never has time to do their most important work?
Hi Elaine, love the question. Short and sweet.
I would first refer you to the Jim Rohn question ” Busy doing what?”
If you feel constantly busy from the moment you wake up until you go to bed, the first thing I would suggest is to look at what you are doing during your waking hours.
Write down what you are doing over a period of 48 hours or so. Not just your professional work, but your personal things too.
I would also add that you write out what you would prefer to be doing instead. Write these down side by side. Draw a vertical line down the middle of a page, and on the left write what you spend your days doing, and on the right what you would prefer to be doing instead.
Be completely honest. If you discover, for example, that you spend 90 minutes a day on social media and a further 2 hours watching TV, write that down.
You’re not going to necessarily remove those. Instead, what you want to be asking yourself is whether spending time on the activities you currently spend time on is worthwhile.
Initially, you will try to justify spending time on these activities. This is the same response we have when someone challenges one of our opinions. Our natural instinct is to defend ourselves.
When you first write down these activities. Don’t judge. Just write them down. All you want to know is precisely where your time goes.
I’ve found that if you leave it for a few days and come back to it, you will begin to look at things a little more objectively. Instead of trying to justify the expense of your time, you begin to ask questions such as: Do I really need to do that? And is this regular event I attend worth all the extra work it produces?
Often, the problem for many people is that everything they want to do requires time. Just sitting and thinking requires time, as does making a cup of coffee. Time never stands still.
And the problem with time, or rather, the way we measure time, is that we have 24 hours each day. That’s the one immovable part we have to deal with each day, but at least that gives us one constant. That can be worked with.
If you were to study the habits and routines of highly productive people, you would notice that they all have strong barriers between the three basics of their lives.
There’s time for work, time for family and social life, and time for self.
There’s no discipline involved. It’s just a strict division of time between the three.
Their wake-up time is consistent. For example, if they wake up at 7:30 am, they wake up at that time every day, including weekends. Then they do something that I find most unproductive people don’t do. They follow the same routine.
It’s their morning routine.
Morning routines are interesting because each person’s is different.
Yet, the most stressed-out, overwhelmed and exhausted people I work with have no morning routine. They crawl out of bed, rush out the door and start on their work. There’s no moment for themselves.
These are the people who immediately pick up their phones to check for messages and start replying.
No tea or coffee or even a bathroom break. Just open eyes, open phone, start the workday.
Think about what’s happening there. You come into the conscious world, and before anything else, you allow other people’s priorities to take control of your day.
And if you have young kids, when you leave the bedroom, your kids need attention; perhaps you need to get them ready for school, make their breakfast, all this with a brain full of all those messages you just read from your phone before you left the bedroom.
One of my favourite YouTube channels is Harry’s Garage. The channel is about cars, and Harry often reviews very expensive Rolls-Royces, Ferraris, Range Rovers, and Aston Martins.
These are highly tuned performance cars, yet Harry will always remind us that when you start a car cold, before you can put it through its paces, you need to give it time to reach optimal operating temperature.
Funnily enough, that’s the same for you and me. You’re not going to be at your best the moment you wake up, which means any decision you make first thing is unlikely to be the best decision you make.
So, try starting your day slowly. Give yourself thirty minutes and make sure those thirty minutes are focused on you.
When it comes to work, set a strict start time for yourself.
So, to keep the examples in line, let’s imagine you start your work at 9:00 am. Then do not consider work before then. That may take a little adjusting to, but if you develop a strong set of morning routines, you won’t be thinking about work until it’s time for work.
Then, here’s a trick. Do not allow anything to be scheduled for the first 30 minutes of your day. This is your getting a heads up on the day time. It’s when you can say hello and chat with your co-workers, deal with any emergencies and check to make sure there are no fires lurking in your inbox.
Those thirty minutes are also a great time to review your plan for the day.
Now, when I say “plan,” I simply mean making sure you know where your appointments are and what your must-do tasks for the day are. It’s a simple two-minute review and gives you time to map out your day.
Mapping out your day is just about deciding when you will do your must-do tasks. Your meetings are fixed, so what you are looking for is the gaps in between and deciding what you will do in those gaps.
Now here’s the thing: just as it’s important to have a strict start time, there also needs to be a strict closing time for work.
Let’s imagine that you set 6:00 pm as your end-of-work time; this means that around 5:50 pm, you stop what you’re doing, review what you’ve done, and reschedule anything you didn’t get to.
Then look at what you have on your calendar for tomorrow, and decide on your two must-do tasks. That’s it. Done.
Then it’s family and social time.
Now, as you listen to these words, it may sound like a lot. But is it?
What you are doing is automating as much as you can so you are not rushing around trying to decide what to do next. It’s all this decision-making that’s mentally exhausting you.
If you can automate these decisions by having a morning routine, a work closing-down sequence, and mapping out your workday, you’ll find that you feel less busy, more in control and much less tired at the end of the day.
We feel so busy all the time because we tend to look at long lists of things to do. For example, if you look at your Slack messages or email, you are looking at each individual message. It’s natural. It’s a long list of stuff you feel you must attend to.
Yet, if you were to treat your Slack or Teams messages and email as one task, all you need to decide is when you will handle them.
For example, if you decide that at 4:30 pm you will work on your messages and spend an hour on them, then it doesn’t matter how many messages you have in there. You will respond to as many as you can.
Another quick tip: start with the oldest first. These can often be dealt with much faster than messages that have just come in. Don’t worry, if you stay consistent with this, you’ll soon find yourself getting back on top of them.
Now, for those of you who tend to procrastinate, the science behind it is fascinating. Procrastination is a perfectly normal human reaction. It has nothing to do with laziness or any other human condition. It’s actually what psychologists call an “emotional regulation response”.
When you look at a long report or a messy inbox, your brain sees a threat. It anticipates boredom, failure, or making a fool of yourself. And so your brain sets off an alarm to protect you.
And how does it protect you? By pushing you towards easier tasks. Cleaning your desk or looking at social media, for example. (Or, in my case, cleaning a fountain pen and refilling it)
Incredibly productive people aren’t immune to these negative emotions. Instead, what they have done is build systems and processes to do their work. “It’s 4:30 pm, time to do my communications.” Oh, it’s time to work on that report”.
These systems make it extremely difficult to not do the work.
This is why putting in place strict barriers around your personal, social and professional life works. You are not allowing your brain to set off an emotional response. You turn up, you know what to do and do it.
And this planning does not take much time. Planning the day may take 5 minutes; reviewing your plan in the first 30 minutes of your workday may take 2 minutes. That’s it.
Then you follow your plan. Sure, there will be interruptions, distractions and other people’s emergencies. Deal with them as best you can, then get back to your plan. If you have to revise your plan, do so. This does not mean you’ve failed. All it means is you’ve adjusted your plan.
I hope that helps, Elaine. Thank you for your question, and thank you to you too for listening.
It just remains for me now to wish you all a very, very productive week.