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Barrier Busting
The Barrier Busting podcast offers insights, strategies, and inspiring stories that explore practical tips and powerful tools for unlocking our full potential.
Barrier Busting
Mastering Time Management: Strategies to Boost Productivity and Well-Being
Want less stress? Improve your time management skills! On this episode of the Barrier Busting Podcast, Matt Brooks explores why poor time management is a silent saboteur of our mental and physical health. As you tune in, discover personalized strategies to amplify productivity, enhance your reputation, and cultivate a balanced work-life dynamic. We unravel common misconceptions, and instead, guide you towards crafting time management techniques tailored to your unique strengths and circumstances.
Ever find yourself drowning in distractions, procrastination, or the relentless pursuit of perfection? You're not alone. Together, we navigate these common pitfalls, exploring how personalized approaches can transform your relationship with time. By conducting time and energy audits, you'll gain insights into your daily rhythms, allowing for a more strategic allocation of your most precious resource: time. Learn how to tackle low-value tasks during low-energy periods and embrace the power of saying 'no' to unnecessary stressors. We lay out actionable strategies that align with your goals and uphold your mental well-being.
Break free from the myth that productivity means working nonstop. Recognize when your body and mind need respite and allow yourself the grace to pause. Embracing breaks isn't just recommended—it's essential for maintaining focus and overall well-being. As we close this episode, anticipate next week's dive into more tips that will further hone your time management skills.
Are you feeling stuck? Is something holding you back? Are there obstacles in your way? Well, let's smash through those obstacles so that you can live your best life. Hi, I'm Matt Brooks, founder of Matt Brooks Coaching, and I'm fascinated with how people overcome barriers and achieve success. Join me for insights, strategies and inspiring stories as we explore practical tips and powerful tools to unlock your full potential. This is the Barrier Busting Podcast. Hi everybody, it's Matt Brooks and welcome back to the Barrier Busting Podcast.
Speaker 1:Do you know what the biggest cause or the most common cause of burnout is? I know you're probably thinking overwork, too many projects thrown at me by my boss, too many catastrophes in my personal life that happened suddenly All these things that do contribute to burnout. But do you know what the most common cause is? It's poor time management. I'm serious. Poor time management skills are the most common cause of burnout. Sure, those other things are powerful contributors, but if your time management skills are sound, you'll be able to handle more than you realize, period, and you will be prepared when life throws you a curveball. So listen, the fact is, when the shit hits the fan, you're better off if you're on top of things, and that comes from good time management skills. Face it if your time management skills aren't sound, you're flying by the seat of your pants most of the time, right? Sure, under normal circumstances you can usually get by. But what happens when things go wrong or you suddenly need to come through with extra projects on a short timeline? Well, be honest, you freak the fuck out, right. You get really stressed. This isn't the case if your time management skills are sound. In fact, do you know one of the best outcomes of good time management skills? I know you're thinking efficient productivity, right, and surely that's one of them. But one of the best is less stress. That's right, less stress. Good time management skills create less stress.
Speaker 1:Time management isn't just about productivity. It's also about your mental and physical health. They don't talk about that part enough, but poor time management skills lead to, among other things, stress, and stress doesn't just affect your mental health. It can also have a debilitating effect on your physical health. Stress is bad and we want to get rid of it. We want to get rid of as much stress as possible in our lives. We can't avoid it, but we want to keep it at a minimum. Good time management skills are going to help you with that Trust me.
Speaker 1:So what are some of the benefits of good time management skills? Right? Yes, one of the main benefits is increased productivity, for sure. However, completing projects in a timely fashion has many benefits. You improve your personal and professional reputation. You can save time and energy. You will have more energy in general, because there's I don't know like an endorphin-like high sensation to getting more things done right. When you check things off your list, you feel good. Something makes your whole self feel better. Right, and, as a result, you're going to relate more in positive ways to the people around you. You're going to be more positive and you will project more and I love this one. You're going to project more of an image of confidence because you're generally going to feel more confident. Best of all, good time management skills will allow you to have are you ready? More free time, and the benefits for your mental and physical health are many, not to mention your career. Free time gives you more of a chance to have a proper work-life balance. So yet another good reason for good time management skills.
Speaker 1:I'm going to share now my methods with you, or my ideas today on time management, my methodology, if you get online and you know, do a Google search on time management, my methodology. If you get online and do a Google search on time management techniques, you'll get pummeled with a ton of information, articles, books, youtube videos you name it, you're gonna find it. Yet most of these things tell you very similar things, very similar techniques. You'll read about time blocking, the Eisenhower matrix, prioritization, goal setting and smart goals. What else? The Pomodoro technique. You're going to read about planning and tracking, delegating and learning to say no. You'll read about avoiding multitasking, and you'll read about using planning tools and apps. Now, I'm not saying these are bad things at all. They work, and, in fact, I use many of them in my own approach. They're all good techniques. What I am saying, though, is that the advice you get from these articles is generic, and, let's be real, there's nothing generic about us as human beings. Standardized advice isn't always applicable because, frankly, there's just nothing standard about us.
Speaker 1:One of the truths that I keep on the fore of my mind when I'm working with my clients is that we are all truly unique, right? We're individuals. We are who we are. We become who we become based on thousands and thousands of unique experiences that we have in our own lives, so it's impossible truly to categorize this. I mean, it's one of the things when I go to a convention or a workshop or something and they give you those personality tests, right, that ultimately puts you into one of four, eight or 16 categories, depending on which test you're taking. Are you kidding me? Four, eight or 16? So you're telling me there's the most? There's only 16 different kinds of people on this planet? Come on, we are all a combination of our own unique experiences, and we come out of those our own unique person, so I like to focus on the uniqueness of an individual when I'm working with a client, because I like to harness that person's unique strengths as a foundation for overcoming obstacles and achieving goals.
Speaker 1:It's gotta come from within you, and within you is your own unique strength, okay, that being said, though, the best time management strategy revolves around how you work best, how you operate, how you think your time management strategy needs to be tailor-made for you. Let me give you an example why, when you read this advice online, one of the things you're going to see that commonly comes up is that you should do the tasks you need to be most productive at the most high value tasks early in the day when you're freshest, because as the day goes on you're going to fade right and that sounds it makes total sense, unless you're not one of those people. I'm not one of those people. I'm a mess first thing in the morning. I mean I'm just useless for a while in the morning. For some reason I've always been a night person. I work nights for most of my career.
Speaker 1:So morning time for me is not productive at all. The afternoon kicks in I start getting productive. Evening kicks in I am on fire. That's my own rhythm. So getting the most productive things done first thing in the morning really doesn't work for me. I mean, my wife is one of those. She can just roll out of bed and hop in the shower. I can't even think of that Water on my face before I've had like three cups of coffee, come on. But she's one of those so she can get up and work out in the morning. For instance, I need to be up for like an hour or two before I go do a workout. I'm just not. I'm not productive early in the morning. It doesn't work for me and that just goes to prove the point that we're all unique and we function in a unique way. Again, it's what I try to continually remind myself when working with clients that they know themselves best, that their strengths, whatever they may be, are their strongest asset to overcoming barriers. They know the demands of their lives and their own capacities to deal with those demands. Again, my clients are individuals.
Speaker 1:There truly is no one-size-fits-all for anything, in my opinion, but certainly not time management. So I'm going to give you my own thoughts on this today and share what I think is most important to consider when managing our time. Some of them are standard, some of them are the things you read about if you do a Google search, and some of them deviate a bit from conventional advice. Understand, however, that the reason this is so important that we should all find an effective method for managing our time is that and I read this somewhere, I can't remember where, so I apologize to whoever originally said this phrase but time is the great equalizer. We may not all have equal amounts of money or the same size house or be living in the same type of environment, but we do all have the same exact amount of time every day. Some people are extremely productive with that time and others are not, but that's our great equalizer.
Speaker 1:Now we're always hearing about these corporate CEOs and these mega successful people and how they manage their time right. They have rigid daily schedules, they're consistent, they're driven, they're driven, they're efficient. We hear about this all the time, but what they always leave out when they talk about people at that level of success and wealth is that they have massive resources at their disposal to help them achieve the rigidity in their daily schedule. Right? I mean, do you think they're taking their own shirts to the dry cleaners or mowing their own lawns or sitting in the parent pickup lane at their kid's school? No, they farm that shit out. They got people for that and they can pay for people to do those things.
Speaker 1:Do you think that they experience the same kind of stress due to financial worries because they have to miss work when there's a family emergency or some tragedy in their lives? No, so it's not a fair comparison and it sets us regular folks I say that in quotes up for feelings of inadequacy. That doesn't help anybody. We can't just delegate away all the stuff that typically gets in the way. Most of us don't have the resources for that. We don't have the kind of life they do. Yes, us don't have the resources for that. We don't have the kind of life they do. Yes, we should be inspired by them, of course, but we should also be more realistic and not allow it to make us feel worthless and weak. Right? Comparing our lives to theirs is just not a fair comparison at all. Well, you don't have to do it like they do. Again, we're each unique. The circumstances, expectations and stressors in our lives are equally unique. We need to design techniques that work for us in our individual circumstances. That's what I'm going to share with you how I do for myself. Hopefully, it'll give you some ideas.
Speaker 1:First, though, let's take a brief look at common mistakes or factors that lead to unsuccessful time management. Okay, what are things that contribute to the wheels falling off the wagon? Right? What gets in the way? Well, of course, emergencies get in the way. There's nothing that we can do to avoid that. They do get in the way, although I will talk about how to use our time during the emergencies to make it maybe have less of an impact on our a negative impact on our time management, but emergencies for sure, poor planning and lack of organization, procrastination gets in the way. Okay, how about interruptions? Right? Your mother calls next thing, you know, a half an hour of your day is gone. It happens. Here's another one Unnecessary collaborations.
Speaker 1:You know this. There's a project that you can get done with no trouble whatsoever, but you've got to work with a few other people at work who maybe don't share the same work ethic as you. I recently did an MSW. I went back to graduate school in my 50s and I had to do some group projects and I learned very quickly who was who. Okay, because here I am now doing some group projects with some young people, some of whom didn't have their poop in a group man, they just didn't have it together and it I'm sorry it sucked, because you know I'm waiting for them to finish their work so I can finish mine Makes me so much less productive. You know what. I'm waiting for them to finish their work so I can finish mine Makes me so much less productive. You know what I'm talking about. So unnecessary collaborations can really get in the way.
Speaker 1:Other things that get in the way how about distractions? And we've got many. We're going to talk about, in fact, digital distractions at some point in these episodes. Believe it or not, multitasking actually makes you less efficient. All the advice tells you that?
Speaker 1:Then there's, of course, the old lack of self-discipline, whatever that means for each of us individually. But if you have no self-discipline, you're not going to have time management skills right. Bad habits they get in the way, because good time management stems from good habits, plain and simple. Another one is the inability to say no. If you can't say no to people sometimes, you're always going to be stuck in the mud. Then there's perfectionism. Perfectionism, believe it or not, can really be a time killer, because you can get so uber focused on something. That way, much more time goes by than what needed to be spent on that and therefore you're hurting to make up for that time on other things as you get through the day.
Speaker 1:But the biggest of all, the biggest thing that gets in our way and it's, in my opinion and in my practice, something that is probably the biggest thing that gets in our way with everything is fear, fear. We all have some fear. Let's be honest. It's something I commonly address with my clients. We fear failure, we fear success. Some of us we fear embarrassment, we fear being criticized, we fear rejection. There's a lot of things we fear, but all fear does is drain us of energy that we need to fulfill our goals. It distracts us from focusing on our goals and tasks and weakens our self-confidence. It serves no good whatsoever For what it's worth addressing. And overcoming fear is a good thing to work on with a life coach or a therapist whoever you want to work with but if you're having trouble with fear, give one of us a call. We can help. It's what we do. Let's take a quick break and when we return, I'll share my specific tips for creating better time management skills.
Speaker 2:Feeling overwhelmed, Struggling to find balance in your daily life? At Matt Brooks Coaching, we get it and we can help. With over 25 years of non-profit executive experience and an MSW with a clinical focus, Matt Brooks offers personalized coaching designed to help you rise above your challenges and live your best life. Whether you aim to advance your career, enhance your skills or simply find more clarity and peace, Matt is here to be your partner and ally. Visit mattbrookscoachingcom to book your free discovery session today. Take the first step towards a brighter tomorrow.
Speaker 1:All right, so let's get into my tips for time management. Okay, I'm going to share some of them today and I'll continue with the rest of them in next week's episode. So we'll get some done today and the rest next week. Tip number one my first tip and, in my opinion, the most important tip for creating effective time management skills Know yourself and once you've got that figured out, surrender to yourself. Do not try to change what is in your core. Instead, adapt the standard techniques you've read to you. Again, that morning issue is a perfect example. I'm not going to get my best work done in the morning, so I've got to think about what is behind the advice of do it in the morning, and what's behind it is do it when you're most energetic. Do it when you're most fresh. When am I most fresh? When am I most energetic? Not in the morning. So I'm going to adapt. I'm going to look at that advice for what it's really getting at, but adapt it to me. You should do the same thing.
Speaker 1:Time management is an organic process and, as such, we must let it unfold in a constantly evolving manner that fits with our unique circumstances, personalities, etc. But also with our unique ways of thinking and processing information which comes from a life of our own experiences, for instance. Our lives and the decisions we make are so deeply affected by our life's experiences, as I've already discussed, but in particular, our lives are affected by the negative feedback we've gotten throughout our lives. It's why people often become less gregarious as they get older, because that feedback that we've gotten, that negative feedback that's been stuffed into our minds, it builds like a wall that holds us back. So, if we're going to get through this, this is part of what I mean by knowing yourself. The second part of that is what's your body clock? What's your circadian rhythm like? What time of day or night are you most fired up and what times are you least inspired? What are your high and low energy points through the day? Like I said, I'm a mess in the morning, especially early morning, but I'm pretty on throughout the afternoon and on fire in the evening. How about you? So assessing your energy level is a good place to start, and you can do this by conducting what's called an energy audit. Okay, just simply pay attention, for I'd say three to four days in a row, and I mean really pay attention. Okay, you can find a list or a template that accounts for, you know, every hour of the day. That's what you want to do is find a list or a template, or create one on a yellow pad where each line, like, accounts for every hour of the day. Okay, throughout the day, write a number on each line for each hour and that number being between one and 10, with 10 representing your highest energy points. When do you feel the most alert? When do you feel the most inspired? When do you feel blah? Okay, write that on a list for I'd say, like I said, three or four days, so you can see some consistency and look at it carefully. Okay, you'll probably already know most of the information you will see, but you might be surprised by some things. So Start out by conducting an energy audit know your body rhythm.
Speaker 1:Number two Assess your existing approach to time management. Yes, I'm asking you to track a second thing, and I know it's a pain in the ass, but it's really important to gather this data If you want to know how to ultimately design a custom-made system that will maximize your time in your own way and make you more efficient in life. You need to know this data, so you need to conduct what's called a time audit, something I do with my clients. This is simply writing down what you do during the day and I mean everything you do during the day and then tracking how much time it takes. You can easily find templates for this online with a simple Google search, so look for them, pull one off and again, you know, do this for three or four days. Be vigilant in your recording. So, between your energy audit and your time audit, you're going to have some really important information as to how to shape and form your own time management skills. What will work best for you. What you're doing here, basically, is seeing where you waste time and on what types of tasks and activities you waste time. You'll also see what you aren't spending enough time on, like, say, working out or personal growth or who knows what, but you'll see all that through those two audits.
Speaker 1:Number three don't discredit low value activities. This is really important, I think. Anyways, we want to place our focus, naturally, on high value activities. Right, we want to focus most on things that are going to reap the most benefits. However, those low-value tasks will really get in the way if they accumulate. Okay, cleaning out your car, fixing that leaky bathroom sink, are actually more important to get out of the way than you may think. They have a place, and it turns out there is also a time for them as well. When is that time? When your brain is not firing in all cylinders and your energy level is low, that's the time to do those low-value tasks.
Speaker 1:Now, in my next show, I'm gonna talk about lists, making lists okay, and one of the things I'll discuss is keeping side lists, one of which is comprised of non-urgent tasks that should get done at some point. Low energy periods are a great time to start checking these types of things off your list. I'll give you more information on that next week. The main takeaway here is that you aren't wasting time or being unproductive if you aren't always working on the most high-value tasks. Being unproductive if you aren't always working on the most high-value tasks. Again, there are only so many hours in the day and those low-value tasks will eventually usurp a ton of your time if you don't get them out of the way, so you might as well bang those out when you're not really on top of your game, okay, number four stress management.
Speaker 1:What do we need more in our lives than efficient time management? We need less stress, and not just for our peace of mind, but for our long-term health. Okay, I remember being at an annual checkup about I don't know 15 years ago with my doctor, and it was during a period of my life when I was under enormous stress and he could tell my life when I was under enormous stress and he could tell. So he leaned into me and he said, matthew, stress is really bad. I mean really really bad. I knew what he was saying. He was saying that stress, and in particular, long-term or chronic stress, would ultimately have serious health implications.
Speaker 1:So, more than anything, all of us need to try to reduce stress whenever possible. This has to be a priority. So we want better time management to reduce our stress, but we also don't want to have our focus on time management actually cause more stress. Right, we can't expect perfection and if we hold ourselves to that, two things are most assuredly going to happen. One, we're definitely going to become more stressed and two, we'll most likely fail at achieving our goals. Remember, we're humans, man we're not computers. Okay, we need to remember that our imperfections are an integral part of what makes us who we are, and we should embrace them and give ourselves some grace. It's good to hold ourselves to standards no question we should. But if it causes excessive stress, well, that ain't no good. Nope, no, sir.
Speaker 1:There are days when we just don't have it in us. I don't know about you, but there are days where I wake up and, within about an hour, two hours a day, I know it's going to be an off day. It happens right, you just got to roll with it when it happens. I'm speaking in particular to those out there that are like me, that are solopreneurs okay, running their own business on their own. You're the ones that have to constantly motivate yourselves throughout your day. You don't have a boss telling you what to do. You don't have a board of directors telling you what to do. You have to motivate yourself, and that can be really hard to maintain day in and day out, and there will be days where you just don't have it. So let it go. Roll with it on those days.
Speaker 1:Okay. Some days just don't work. Let it be. Accept it and don't work. Let it be. Accept it and don't stress it. You might just need a little time to recharge your battery or recover from something that wore you out. Submit to it and let it be it's okay and, frankly, fighting it's not going to do you any good.
Speaker 1:Anyways, it's these days that are particularly good, though, for what you might consider to be unimportant tasks. Do some sporadically throughout the day and allow yourself time for your brain to chill. You'll be back in fighting form soon enough. Just remember that days like this don't have to be a total loss. Get some of those annoying minor tasks off your plate. Get them out of the way. You'll still be moving forward. Just think of it as driving in heavy traffic. You'll keep moving forward, but it might be slow for a period.
Speaker 1:In this case, that period rarely lasts for more than a day, so just don't freak out about it. Release yourself to it. Let go Give your body and your mind a break that it's telling you it needs, because that's what's really going on in those days your body and mind are telling you what it needs. All right, well, that's enough for today. I got a lot more to discuss on this topic, but I'll put it off until next week, when I will get into a list of more practical tips for developing better time management skills. So I really hope you're going to join me for that. For now, thanks for listening and please hit that subscribe button. Be well, and I'll catch you next time on the Barrier Busting Podcast. Thank you,
