GA 654 | Escaping Time Poverty with Peggy Sullivan

And we need to start thinking about this whole concept of prioritization, focus, subtraction. How can we eliminate all this energy, time, and resources we spend on things that don't matter so we have time for the things that do?

Today, I am excited to welcome Peggy Sullivan to the show. Now, Peggy has a really interesting background, and as you'll hear, the things that she's talking about, it's not exactly Exactly. She doesn't call them Lean or continuous improvement, but they're very, very aligned with the things that we're all about within our Lean community, which is why I was really excited for this episode. But she is really all focused on something that she has coined time poverty. And so we really kind of talk a little bit in the beginning, like, what do you mean by time poverty? What is it? And how do we sort of measure it? How do we gauge it? And then we kind of spend the rest of the time talking about, like, well, what do you do about it? And then what are some practical ways that we can sort of work to conquer time poverty so it's not in control of us. So I think you're going to enjoy this one. I know I did. Show notes can be found over at gembapodcast.com. This is episode 654. Again, gembapodcast.com and look for episode 654. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Peggy, welcome to the show. How are you?

I'm doing terrific. And you?

I'm well, thank you. Where are you calling in from?

Palm Beach, Florida.

Ooh, beautiful part of the country. All right.

We're in thunderstorm seasons, which is an amazing time of year. I love it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My grandparents, when they were alive, they used to vacation in Florida. I can't remember what town it was, but my gosh, we would go visit them and I just loved it. It's such a beautiful part of the country. So yeah, good stuff. All right. Well, hey, Peggy, as you know, we like to begin all of our episodes with our guests sharing a quote. So what do you got?

Yeah, my favorite quote is one I learned from my father. And he always used to say to me, Toots, a day without learning something new is a lost opportunity.

What's that mean to you?

And for me, I always used to ask him because he would tell me that when I was a very young child. And I always used to say, Dad, you know, I really hate learning things, arithmetic tables, memorizing states. You know, for me, that's what it was back in the day. And he said, When you learn something new, your skill set expands and you learn resiliency. You learn that you can do hard things, and that is a skill you will need the rest of your life. And he's right. Our world is moving so quickly. Everything's changing so quickly. And if we have resiliency and the ability to pivot with all these change, it's really a great skill.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. All right. Well, so Peggy, I'm excited to have you on. I just actually earlier this morning, I just got done watching you on the internet. I was watching a couple of TEDx talks that you did and well done on those talks, by the way. Well, and we'll link them in the show notes so everybody can go check those out. But I guess really one of the key themes running through your work, as far as I could tell from those talks at least, was this whole idea of something that we would call Time poverty. So I'm wondering if you could maybe just, I don't know, but let's just open up with a general question. Like, what do you mean by time poverty?

Time poverty is this sense that we have too much to do and too little time. Try to think about it like this. It's about your capacity, trying to put 5 pounds of sugar in a 1-pound bag. It doesn't fit. And yet we just keep on trying. And we've been conditioned to believe that time poverty is a time management challenge, right? If we get better at time management, then we'll get everything done. But it's really not a time management challenge. We spend $20 billion on time management, and yet 94% of the population doesn't have time for what's important. So it's a capacity challenge, and we need to start thinking about this whole concept So, this concept of prioritization, focus, subtraction, how can we eliminate all this energy, time, and resources we spend on things that don't matter so we have time for the things that do? Yeah.

What's interesting about— I don't know how familiar you are with what we would primarily focus on here is called lean manufacturing and Six Sigma continuous improvement. And it was really modeled after the Toyota Production System. And one of the key tenets of of Lean is to, is really focusing on what is value added and, and then removing those things that are not value added, right? And, like, as you say, it's so easy to, you know, just kind of get trapped in, this is how we've always done it. And, yeah, so, yeah.

I have a great story that goes along with that. I can remember working in a manufacturing organization and it was a precious metal company. And so we would always have to go through security whenever we entered team meetings in the morning. And there was usually a long line. It was kind of like at the airport, the line backs up. And, you know, some days 15, 20 minutes. We'd take off our metal, go through the metal detectors, and get to the meeting. And finally, somebody said, hey, you know, can't we do these meetings virtual? I mean, when you think about all the time we're spending at the metal detectors, we can still communicate, we can still talk verbally. And once we started doing that, we realized that the entire senior management team had gotten over 3 hours collectively back in their time. You think about what the management team could be doing with those 3 hours. One small thing, it started a long time ago, it made sense then, Didn't continue to make sense.

Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. All right. Well, hey, um, I wonder if we could just jump in a little bit and you have something called Performance by Design. It's a method. I'm wondering what's that all about?

Yeah. I mean, I'm a research geek and so much of my research led me to everybody's in the same position. We all feel this pressure of time poverty, but we don't know how to escape it. So I spent the last 10 years researching it and coming up with a methodology That's right. And I've created a methodology that on average gives individuals 5 hours back of time each and every week. And the methodology, the framework is called Performance by Design, and it has 3 elements to it. Step 1 is subtraction, which is eliminating low-value activities. Step 2 is stepping into your energy. It's about mojo-making. And step 3 is making sure that you have a system to align your priorities with what's important. I call it values management.

What do you think is the, perhaps the hardest part of those 3 steps?

I think it's very important to start with subtraction. If you don't take some things off your plate, you don't have the mental capacity, you don't have the physical capacity, you don't have the brain space to focus on what's important. And we keep on saying, oh, well, it's just one more small thing. I'll add it to my to-do list. One more thing. You know, and I think about a meeting that I had yesterday with an executive, and I was asking him about his priorities. And I asked him, you know, just quickly jot down your top priorities. He took a minute. He had 12 things on his paper. And I said, well, What are you going to do first? He said, I don't know, all 12 are important. I said, they can't be all equally important because you're going to be in this conundrum of not knowing where to begin. Right. And so I do believe that it's difficult for people to take a step back and say, not everything is important. Will the world end if I don't check email 5 times a day? Will the world end if I don't go to every team meeting? Do I really need to do forecasting and reporting twice a day? You know, we need to start to ask ourselves those questions, and it's perfect in today's day and age because we have things like automation that, that can help us. If we can't eliminate the task, many times we can simplify it or automate it. So, that's where we begin is subtracting the low-value activities.

Yeah. And our audience is, everybody's violently shaking their head yes. You know? Yeah. When it's one of the tools that we use within our lean movement is something called value stream mapping. And we do what is called like a current state value stream map where you sort of like map out like how you do some particular Process or activity or whatever it is. And you just literally put it up on a wall kind of thing and just not how it should be, but exactly how it is. And when you get it up there, you're like, oh my gosh, that's what we do. You know? And it's shocking, right? When you put it up there, like all of the things that, to your point, don't add value. And you just, I don't know what it is about the human species, but we just find odd ways of thinking and behaving. And until you, to your point, put it up and write it down on a piece of paper or put it up on a wall, you know?

Yeah, it's, it's, it's a choice. I think it involves a lot of self-discipline to look back and say, okay, this is the way that I'm doing it. But is there a way for me to get to the finish line without having to put so much energy, effort, thought into it? And many times there is, we're just accustomed to doing what What we do. I mean, how many days have you gotten up in the morning, the first thing you do is you open up your email? Why do we do that? We start our day off with a level of stress, and then we feel this need to respond, and then check our calendar and look into things, and before you know it, we're already distracted from the things that we decided were most important to start first thing in the morning. morning. It's, it's really about discipline and really focusing on what's important, and this is where I'm gonna put my time and energy. I'm a big fan of time blocking and knowing your energy flow and when you have the most capacity and planning your activities around, around them. Mm-hmm. And not letting other things get in your way, let other things distract you from doing the things that are most important.

Not to pry too much into your personal life, but I'm curious to know, like, if you're comfortable sharing any aspect of it, like, what does your morning routine look like? Do you have like a system that you follow, or is it different on a Saturday versus a Monday, something like that?

Yeah, for me, what works is I actually work 7 days a week.

Oh, wow.

But I only work 4 or 5 hours a day. And for me, that's perfect because it allows me in my extra hours To do things that recharge, replenish, renew my creativity, renew my energy, make sure that I'm spending time with the people I love, and making sure that I have time to grow and to learn new things. So my average day, I'll get up usually around 6:00, 6:30 in the morning. First thing I do is spend quality time with my— Aww.

Okay.

I do that because he's so appreciative of me petting him, of me giving him food. I can hear him purr, and it just starts my day off in a very calm, very relaxed, very simple way. That's 5 minutes worth of activity, and yet it helps. And then I, I Put on my oxygen mask. I eat my breakfast. I go for a walk around the block. I clear my head. And then right after that, I take a look at the priorities that I've established for the day. And I start to evaluate, do they need to remain the same? Has anything happened? Has anything shifted? And that's usually when I'll put together my list. Then, I'll go to my email, look at reality, see what's pulling at me, and I'll compare those things against the things that I said were most important. And always, I'll end up eliminating something because it's not a priority.

Oh, I love it. I love it. All right. Well, let's jump back into the whole idea of this time poverty. So, I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about, I don't know, maybe the different types of people who might benefit from this way of thinking.

Well, I think that everybody is in a state of time poverty. I think corporate America right now, there's so much pressure with AI. There's so much pressure to automate. So many people in sales fields are having trouble reaching quota. Many people with logistics and in manufacturing situations have very complex logistics that make ordering materials and supplies and delivering on time. So we have all these things getting in the way, and we have to take a step back and think about, does every hand really need to touch that? Do I really need all these levels of approval? Is there a better way to get it done? Mm-hmm. Do I really need to babysit my customer service department, or can I finally trust them to do the right thing, train them to do the right thing? These are all the things. So everybody has an opportunity to eliminate low value. If you're a real estate agent, it's focusing on prospecting and time. If you're person that's in an executive position, it's making sure that your people, your support staff, have the tools that they need to deliver. It's something different for everybody, but the concept is pretty germane. Mm-hmm. We all are in a state of time poverty, and we all need to take control and say, not everything that That's going on in our world needs our attention. I think another reality is also about interruptions. It's very easy to let interruptions in. The phone rings, there's a ding, there's a computer, these things that cause us to stop and start. I know I'm a writer. I love to write. For me, writing has creativity. It demands my attention. So whenever I'm sitting at a computer and writing, I try not to let interruptions in. I even have this rule with my husband, don't knock on the door, don't come in, don't disturb me. The door's shut, that means I'm writing. But the other day, he knocked on the door and I opened it because I thought, wow, this must be really important. And he told me we were out of ketchup. Ketchup. That wasn't really earth-shattering, but yet I stopped, I looked at him, I was distracted, I was actually annoyed. I sent him away saying, we'll talk about the ketchup situation later. And then I went back to my work and I couldn't remember where I left off. And that creative flow had been disturbed. So one of the biggest things that we can do to stay on task is to be present, is to not let all of those distractions in, any of those distractions in. There's a study that shows— it was done by Irving California University that said every interruption takes us 23 minutes to recalibrate and get back to the speed that we were originally at.

Wow. Wow. That's shocking. But I believe it. I totally believe it. So, one of the things that I was hoping to ask you about, and as I did watch your TED Talk videos and well done on those. So there was a kind of a personal story that you shared about your mother, and it's not necessarily related to things that we've been talking about, or perhaps it is, but I'm wondering if you could just share a little bit about that moment. Again, if you're comfortable, you actually talked about this moment where your mom was holding your hand as a terminal, and she was terminal at the time, I guess. Yeah.

Let me share. It's a quick story and I'll share it with you. You've teased it up. Yeah. So when I was younger, my mom was really sick, and I could remember going to the hospital, and I knew it was towards the end, so I went there on a regular basis, even though it wasn't the most pleasant thing. I can remember the smells of the disinfectant, all those loud noises clanking around me. And for me, her room was way up top in way in the back, so it took me 7 minutes to get there. So those 7 minutes, my mind was always churning. I'd hear a code blue, I'd hear somebody rustling, I hear medical equipment, and it just put me in the state of panic. And when I would ever get to a room, I would just sit there and take a deep breath before I entered because I never knew what I was going to see. I always expected to see her being disengaged. She was so despondent. She'd be looking out the dirty window. But this one day in particular, she had her boombox on, those old-school cassette players. Oh, yeah. And she was playing a song, a Frank Sinatra song. And she was singing Fly Me to the Moon, and she was finger dancing. And as I And as I watched my mom, I noticed that her whole mindset had really changed from being despondent to being happy. And I asked her what changed, and she said, you know, I was thinking to myself that it's time that I choose meaning over mayhem. This is my life. This is what's going on. I'm terminally ill, but I can make a choice to be And I would much rather stand here, hold your hand, enjoy my time with you, and give you some memories for the rest of your life. And that moment made me think a lot about our capacity to choose meaning over mayhem, no matter how hard things are, no matter what is going on in your life. It's a choice. It's a stop, it's a pause. And to say, I got this and I choose to be present. I choose to make this work. I have what I need to solve this problem.

Yeah, it's a beautiful story. I, you know, none of us get out of this thing called life alive, right? And I think it's a good reminder for us really to hear stories like this. Thinking about my, my own Personal life. Like, my mother passed away a few years ago and I was very close to her. And yeah, it was really difficult for me, you know, thinking about— I used to call her every day. She was in Ohio and I would call her every day just to check in on you, I would say. And gosh, not being able to make that call was really difficult, right? Like the day after she passed away. And so it reminded me of like with my own children, you know, like put your stupid phone down. Ron, and look at your son who's talking to you. You know what I mean? It's like these little moments in life that we just really take for granted. And I personally screw up more times than I'd like to admit, right? But I think it's, I don't know, it's examples like this and stories like this that maybe are good reminders for all of us.

I mean, Ron, you hit a really important point, and that's too many of us wait for this wake-up call. Mm-hmm. To align our priorities. I know I often tell a story about one day coming home from work, being exhausted and ravenous, and going to the cupboard, grabbing a bag of pistachio nuts. My cat, a different cat at the time, started pulling at my leg. He was hungry. I fed him. I ran over to the couch and I heard this gagging noise. And I look over and it's my cat throwing up pistachio nuts. And I look down and I realize in all my hustle and bustle, I just ate cat food for dinner. Oh my. I didn't even realize it. And I even remembered thinking to myself, these nuts are salty, these nuts are stale, I better get to the store and get some new ones. But I was on autopilot, and we're often on autopilot. And I think that's why it's so important to be here, to be present, to realize what you have in front of you. Because when it's gone, when it's done, when it's over, it's gone. Like you said about your mother, you can't— you can't— you can talk to her now, but, um, you know, that is never gonna change.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Hey, I'm wondering, I didn't ask you at the beginning, but I'll ask you now as we kind of come towards the end, tell us a little bit about the work that you do and sort of the problems that you're trying to solve.

Well, I work with organizations and individuals to help them uncover their busy traps so that they have more capacity for the things that are their Priorities. I have a tool that I call the Time Capacity Tool that goes through and interviews an organization that helps them identify their low-value busy traps. Oftentimes, it's things that people don't even think about. Too many handoffs, the obvious. too many meetings. Actually, the average person spends 3/4 of their day in meetings. Are all of those meetings necessary? So I work with individuals to identify their busy traps, to eliminate them. But then I think the work that I do that's really different is then I help them ignite their energy. I wrote my first book about the neuroscience of happiness, and what I learned is that when we're happy, we have more energy. Our brain has more capacity to focus, to think at a much greater, deeper level. And we're trained as individuals to think happiness is a destination, it's a place. I'll be happy when I get through this project, when I get to the weekend, you know, when I'm on vacation. But actually, if we can invoke little happiness rituals throughout the day, we can press restart every single day. So many times I'm teaching people how to add what I call these 2 or 3-minute happiness rituals throughout their day so they can refocus. And it could be something— for me, it's eating dark chocolate. I eat dark chocolate at 11 AM. every single day. I take a moment, I smell it. The smell of it, just the aroma, it just changes everything. I take 60 seconds to really taste it, to chew it, and at the end of that 90 seconds, one piece of dark chocolate later, and I feel like I pushed the reset button. And so I also love to teach people how to do And then lastly, I think one of the things that we spend a lot of time is really understanding our values. We live in a world where 79% of people feel as though they don't have purpose, they don't have meaning, and it's so important to feel like what you do has meaning. So instead of time management, I teach people a concept I call value And that's aligning what is uttermost important with your calendar.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a big fan of sort of like writing down kind of like my day. Like, I like to actually write it and I'll even like check it off, you know, kind of as I do it or whatever. It's a good way to look back on the week that was and, oh gosh, what did I do? But yeah, without that, it's like if you try to think about, gosh, what did I do this week? You know, it's It can be difficult, right? Because there's so many things going on professionally, personally, and so on.

Yeah. I mean, I take my 3 values and they're on a poster board right in front of me every single day. And they connect to work, they connect to my personal life, they connect to my relationships. It's that thing about growth we talked about in the beginning, about always learning. able to be prepared no matter what life has for you. So I'm always trying to learn something new. Human connection— human connection is the first thing to go when we get busy. We push everybody to the side. We don't have time for friends and family. But human connection is one of the most important emotions in our life. It fuels us and it helps us Think about things in a different way. A team can solve a problem much better than an individual can. Yeah. And then lastly is just this whole concept of energy management and making sure that your cup is full with things like self-care, getting good night's sleep, managing your mood, knowing that the mood that you walk into a room with is one that everybody else You walk into a room all doom and gloom, and it's contagious, just like the flu. You walk into a room and you're positive and you're happy, and that is contagious in a positive way. And then everybody rolls up our sleeves. So I think it's important to know what are the things that light you up.

I love that. What a beautiful way to end. Peggy, if people wanted to connect with you, what is the— what's the best way?

Yeah, the best way is to go to my website, peggiesullivanspeaker.com. There's a way to contact me directly on that. I spend my life either speaking or workshopping, consulting, writing. I'm in the middle of writing my 4th book, which I'm really excited about. It's about why success has so many potholes and the road it takes to get to be successful and what we can do so that we're not always paying that price tag. So I'd love to hear from your audience. They can go buy a book on Amazon, Beyond Busyness, lots of ways to, uh, to contact me.

Awesome. All right, well, thanks again for coming on. This has been a lot of fun.

Great, thank you.

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