Time Management HACKS for 2020 to help you succeed!

Hello and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negative mindsets so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches you want in life. Join us here live every Tuesday at noon Eastern and dialogue with us at 818-572-2910. You can also chat with us at blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch or share your stories on our website at sheddingthebitch.com. Whatever the bitch is that's holding you back from living your life to the fullest, it's not worth giving up the riches in life that you deserve. So call in now and let Bernadette Boas know what's holding you back.

818-572-2910. Good day, good day, good day everyone! How are you? It is a fabulous fabulous day. It is freezing cold here in Atlanta. It's like 20-something, but it's a nice chill. It's a nice, you know, kind of getting under your skin and keeping you awake, which I was feeling when I woke up this morning that I might need. I might need a little cold rush in order to get me awake and energized, but I am, and I love, love the topic of conversation we're going to have today. Around time management hacks. But I'm going to give you a different perspective on it because I've gained just in the last year, I would say, a whole different perspective on it as well. And if any of you are regular listeners or, you know, members of our community, you'll know that I talk about some very standard time management, purely time management tips and techniques, and yet I was given a new perspective on just what time management is all about and what it isn't. So we're going to talk about all of that. And you know, you can get your pen and journal ready, you can get your ears, and/or it'll be out on our Shedding the Bitch blog this afternoon, so you can certainly go there and pull down the hacks and actually the episode so you can listen and share it. With others that you might feel need also to kind of get some nice hacks for how to be more productive and successful in life. And actually, it really comes down to two. It's not even that for me anymore. It's more peace of mind. It's more relaxation. It's feeling more free and unburdened as opposed to all the kind of business lingo. Of being productive, efficient, effective, all that kind of good stuff. So we're going to get into all of that. And next week we're going to talk about— and it ties very nicely in this week's conversation— but we're going to talk about the power of habits. Habits. So, you know, individuals at all levels of success, let's call it, you know, kind of always discuss how their disciplines are what has helped them through all the highs and lows. And I thought that would be a really powerful conversation to have. So we'll be talking the power of habits. So think about yours. And as you do, think about are they powerful in that they propel you forward or are they powerful in holding you down, holding you down. Because some of our habits, okay, especially those of us with a bit of OCD, they can be detrimental as much as instrumental in our lives. Of course, we've had some great past episodes. Last week we talked about a formula for success, and it's our Shift to Riches formula, a 5-step process that you can use any day of the week, you know, any time of the year, dealing with whatever situation in life. You know, it walks you through the steps that you really need to do to become more self-aware, to become more transparent and authentic, and to really just work your way through a situation— good, bad, or indifferent— maybe a decision you have to make, something you need to overcome. That was our Shift to Riches conversation last week. Our Ask Bernadette episode, which is an episode devoted totally to your questions, stories, and challenges. We do it every— the first Tuesday of every month. You can certainly Facebook and tweet us or LinkedIn message me any question, story, and challenge you have at any time, and I will respond to it as quickly as possible. But then what we like to do is other people might be dealing with that situation, with that experience, with that question. So we bring it here to the show the first Tuesday of each month, and we dive into it even deeper. You also have an opportunity to jump on to the program and talk to me directly about it so we can dive into it more specifically and more personal to you. And so our Ask Bernadette for the first Tuesday of 2020, we talked about assessing your business. We talk about assessing yourself a lot. Assessing your year, assessing your goals. Specifically, a business owner had asked me about, okay, what specific steps do I need to do to really assess my business, good, bad, or indifferent, of last year and carry it into this year? We talked about how to start a podcast, and even before starting it, you know, figuring out if it's even relevant for you, because it's not for everybody. And also, we address the number one most awkward interview question, but at the same time it could be, you know, if you're out on a date and that is the number one most awkward question, you'll have to listen to know what it is and to get some insights as to how to handle it. Uh, let's see, the week before, and this is important, so the week before that, it was coming out as we came into 2020, we talked through our Shift to Riches plan So we have a formula, and then from that, a plan. It involves both your goal setting and your victory plan setting, and it all ties in together. You can go back to that episode to listen to that as well. Go on to sheddingthebitch.com and pull down the template that we walked through and that I made available to you out on sheddingthebitch.com. And it's a great template for, again, setting your SMART goals for 2020, as well as walking through a victory plan of which really ties in not only your goals but everything that's going to impact your ability to pursue and achieve those goals. And so we call it your victory plan, or your, your vision to victorious achievements, we also call it. And as well, just go to blogtalkradio.com sheddingthebitch.com or Apple Podcast and download any of our past episodes. Okay, so today we're diving into some hacks for a more productive— actually, let's call it a happier, more relaxed, unburdened you. So the rich question I want you to be thinking about— and rich questions are a question that specifically to you on this subject that you could be thinking about and grounding yourself in as you start to listen and, and learn from the program. And so the rich question in regards to time management is: What is the greatest distraction to your focus, energy, and productivity on any given day? So consider that, because we're also going to talk about what you need to be doing in one of the hacks that you need to be doing in regards to becoming aware of what your greatest distraction is to your focus, energy, and productivity. If you are Facebooking or tweeting with us, feel free to do that with our tag #timemanagement or tag #Hacks or of course hashtag #ShedTheBitch. All right, we're going to take a very quick commercial break and when we get back we are going to dive into how you can be more productive, happier, and successful in your life. We'll be right back.

Shedding the Bits Radio is available for download anytime on Apple Podcasts, sheddingthebits.com, and blogtalkradio.com. Be sure to subscribe to the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. I want to thank our sponsors: North Georgia Tax Solutions, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate-sized clients. Go to NGTaxSolutions.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium-sized businesses, including mine. Email Deborah at deborahparker.va@gmail.com.

Would you like to reach our audience as a sponsor or advertiser?

Email us at mediarelations@jettingthebitch.com. Now let's get back to the show.

Welcome back everyone. Alright, so over the last— I want to say it's been about 6 or 7 years— the technology industry has coined a term, time well spent. Now You've probably heard that before, how do you spend your time well spent, or something to that effect. They coined it because they really wanted to ensure that their products were actually freeing you up and being more friendly in that they're helping you to minimize distractions, minimize time you need to be doing certain activities, and hoping that they are actually gonna reduce the amount of time that you spend on their phones, their iPads, whatever the case might be. Are you laughing? 'Cause I certainly was when I kind of came across this. Because according to a number of studies, phone time, and thus distractions, have actually soared. So according to a measurement company, Zenith, American adults spent about 3 hours and 30 minutes a day using their mobile internet in 2019, which was an increase of 20 minutes from the year earlier. Now the firm expects that that time will even grow to 4 hours, so that's a full 30 minutes, in 2021. So within a year, our usage is going to even increase 30 minutes. Now, of course, technology can make our lives easier, happier, and even freer. But I have to question it myself because I know that before I put a certain game on my iPhone, I really didn't spend a lot of time on it. Yes, I would scroll to see my emails and texts and even Facebook and Instagram. But then I got this game and now it's kind of like when I'm sitting on my couch, I won't say bored, but because I'm watching TV or I might have picked up my journal. I actually find myself heads down in this thing for a long time. I'll just leave it at that. So what I want to really talk about is technology is not just the only thing. That was just a really big kind of broad stroke wow that I had seen when I started researching for today's program over the last week or so. Because phones are such instrumental part of our lives. And technology has become— I would even say, you know, in the last 3 to 5 years, it's become so— what would you call it— just embedded, ingrained. It's like another arm in our lives. And so what we need to be able to figure out, whether it's at work or at home, is how do we kind of go back to what the technology industry wanted and find ways to make these things valuable to us as opposed to so detrimental and so time-sucky, which is a very popular term. No, it's not. But anyway, so let's talk about ways that we can become more productive, happier and successful. And we are going to blend in things from a technology perspective, but also things that are just basic day-in, day-out ways to ensure that you are not getting sucked into things that you don't need to be focused on. All right, so the first thing that I've— and this is the realization that I have come to over the past year, when it comes to managing my time is to recognize a couple things. One is just like a balanced life is a myth. So if any of you, you know, hear from Guru that, oh, you just need to find a balanced life, there is no such thing. You know, when one thing's going smooth, all of a sudden something else goes, you know, haywire. Maybe everything seems calm, cool, and collected, but then all of a sudden one area of life just happens to have a hiccup or a major blowup at a particular time. So finding balance— not that it's not a good dream to have, but I'm afraid that it's just a dream. That we— what we have to do is we have to learn to manage what I call the chaos, but to manage the imbalance and be okay with that, and be okay with that. Just have the tools, techniques, and tips that you need in order to do that. But what my realization has been over this past year is that to be free of burden, to be productive, to be unstressed, satisfied, and happy, you— it actually depends on how attentive you are to the activities and the tasks and, and the obligations that you have in life. It's not necessarily about managing your time in it. That's— I would call, even now call that a kind of a technique of, you know, kind of managing your attention, managing your prioritization, because it's those two things, it's attention and prioritization that really dictates how you are willing and able to manage your time. First, kind of get your head around that, agree or disagree with it, or what I'd ask you to do is consider it, to say, yes, I don't have any more hours in the day. I don't have any more or different hours than the next person does. And yet when I look around, you know, the next person is so far more productive than I am, or maybe even more chaotic than you are. And what does it really come down to? It doesn't come down to, necessarily managing your time. It's more about the attention and the prioritization that you put toward the tasks that you have, which will then dictate the time that you're willing and able to put toward it. All right, so first I'd like you to kind of consider that. But like the rich question that I asked you about your number one distraction, the next thing I would want you to do as a hack, call it, is to really become self-aware and very, very honest with yourself about the 1, 2, or even 3 distractions, interruptions, or frustrations that cause you to become unproductive. You know, when I started really thinking about it and looking at it and realizing that, you know, this game was a major— even if I was sitting on my couch doing nothing, it still was a major distraction from me being able to be productive or creative or preparing for the next day. And not to say I shouldn't be able to sit back, relax, and play a game on my iPhone. You know, I'm not saying that at all. It's a matter of when it becomes detrimental. So consider and even make note, literally write down, what those 1 to 3 distractions is. Is it, excuse me, is it, you know, is it your work environment? Is it your colleagues? Is it your kids at home? Is it your, you know, your technologies? Is it the fact that you just get bored? Is it the fact that you can blame it on, you know, being ADD? But is it just because you're not really even interested in whatever it is you're supposed to be doing? It's all about getting to know yourself. Now, another part of getting to know yourself is how best do you work. There are some of us that are very good at working by ourselves. So when people talk, oh, you know, it'd be great to work from home. Well, you know, be careful what you wish for because a lot of people struggle working remotely and working by themselves. I deal with that a lot with my clients, and it's not even business owner clients, it's corporate clients who happen to work not only in their home, but they're also working away from, you know, corporate headquarters or their satellite office, and they're trying to figure out how to, you know, get— stay connected or even get connected. But other people are like, oh, that's great, I keep me as far away from other people as possible. But you really need to learn how best you work. I would have told you, I would say like 7 or 8 years, 7 or 8 years ago, that I much preferred being, you know, in a, in an office with other people as opposed to working on my own. And yet that has changed. Now that could be because of my change in priority and my attention. But that has changed. So, it— you just really want to focus first on who you are and how best you operate, even before you get into trying to manage all the chaos that might be going on around you. And then what you want to do is— oh, and I'm sorry, another part of really understanding and being aware and honest about how best you work. That also pertains to when you are most productive. So you hear of these, you know, these successful business leaders, entertainers, you know, they're up at 4:30, 5 o'clock in the morning, you know, either working out before they go to work or they're just getting into their workday. While others are, oh, I don't even get started until later in the day, and I'd rather work all the way into the night. I hear a lot of writers that actually will sit at their desk until 2:00, 3:00 in the morning. That's great for them, but is that the way you operate? Is that the way you best function? My worst time of the day— I get up relatively early. I get up at like 6:30. Many of you parents out there get up much earlier than that without even having to go off to a job, but you're having to go off to your home job. Of taking care of the house. But my worst time is between about 4 to 7 is my lull. I'm really productive until about 3:30, 3:45, and then it's like, okay, I need to go do something. And then I can come back and I'm happy to work from like 7 to 10, but I'm an 8 hours a night sleep— sleeper, so I need to be in bed by 10. So get to know who you are and how best you operate because, one, it will save you tremendous amount of frustration, but it also will positively or negatively impact the people around you. All right. I have a friend in the office.

Hold on one minute.

Okay.

We're just going to hear Jasper. He's a beautiful Ridgeback. Gorgeous. But he does have a mouth on him. Coco is just lying next to me very quietly.

Okay.

So really take time to even know about yourself before you start worrying about how to get out from all the burden and the stress that you might be feeling around managing your time. Another thing to consider is create distraction-free days. Once you understand kind of what distracts you, what frustrates you, what interrupts you, take those things, and maybe you're not able to break those bad habits right away. So say to yourself, okay, then every Saturday I'm going to go without X, or I'm not going to allow this to interrupt me, or, you know, I'm going to take that day to be my no day. We'll talk about that in a in a minute or so. So, you know, create kind of distraction-free, or you can call them productive, overly productive days. And those are when you recognize those 1 to 3 frustrations and you decide that you're going to do whatever you can to get rid of them. As you learn to then change your habits and change your mode of operation to be able to effectively eliminate them, out of your, out of your daily being, so to speak. All right, then what I have my clients do, and this drives them crazy, but it's a great exercise for you to do, is take a blank piece of paper, journal, legal pad, doesn't matter. And even if you have a standard one, I want you to start from scratch and detail out all your tasks and obligations and to-dos for any given day and week. So I want you— want it for 7 days. You don't necessarily have to break it down by day, but what are those things that you tend to, you know, kind of have to do, uh, whether it is your family, your friends, the community? What, what are all the different things that you have to do? I want you to then I want you to determine if they are either must-dos or not so much to do. But more so, you can even categorize them as what from this list, for a number of reasons which we'll get into, can I delete off my list? Can I delegate? Or that I have to do it. So it's delete, delegate, or do. Now when it comes to deleting, there are just some things that we just don't need to be doing. And of course I'm drawing a blank right now as to what that is. But there are, if you looked at your list, there's probably something that you can go, you know what, I really don't need to be doing that. Someone else can do it. And again, this is at work or at home. There could be where you can delegate. Now this is where technology has greatly helped in regards to being able to delegate. Now delegate often means giving it to someone else to do. Of course, that's what it means. Now at work, that could be a coworker, that could be another team, that could be another group within your organization. Maybe it is something that you and/or your team don't need to be working on. But where technology has really, really helped and supported is really also at home. You can take that list, and there's things in there like grocery shopping, dry cleaning, landscaping, getting gas, picking up prescriptions, you know, dropping off the laundry. I said dry cleaning, didn't I? Well, there are now services, thus technologies, for you to be able to do that. For instance, I can't tell you how much time I save because I don't get gas anymore, and I think I've mentioned it to you in the past. I have a service, it's called Yoshi. I have a service, they were just here actually, that every Tuesday between 9 and 1 they come to my house. I have opened the flap to my gas tank and they fill up my tank. They can change the— or rotate— not rotate the tires, blow up the tires. They can change out the windshield wipers. They can clean it. So when you think about the amount of time that all of those things take, now I sit in my house and I'm talking to you and they're out there filling up my tank. So that is where, you know, a beautiful thing where technology has helped. Even grocery shopping. You don't have to do that anymore.

You can—

and I— it's funny, when I was considering my gas, you know, gas delivery at home, and I thought about grocery shopping, gosh, this was like 15 years ago. I happened to be working on a massive project in South Florida and didn't have time at all because I would travel like Sunday night, Monday morning from Atlanta down to down to Florida, be there all week, and then, you know, come back here. So I didn't have time to grocery shop down there because the minute I got down there, I was at the client and I was working, you know, whether it's 9 to 12-hour days. So they had a service where I had a townhouse. They had a service where a concierge would— that did your grocery shopping. They left you, you know, a template or, you know, a list to fill out every week that you get in, and it's actually for the next week. And then when you leave, you turn it in, and then by the time you get back, your groceries are in your house and even put away. It was a beautiful, beautiful thing. So again, how much time could that save for you? Okay, just think of all those things on your list that you could be deleting off of it because you just don't need to be doing it, delegating it, family, friends, coworkers, apps, and outsourcing, or it is something that you need to do. Now, before we get into once you do have to do it, how can you improve your productivity around it, let me just say one big thing when you look at your list and you decide to delete, delegate, or do. You also need to decide from that list of what are those things that you've taken on because you just couldn't say no, because you just felt obligated, because maybe it's traditional or standard that you should do it versus having somebody else do it. And not only should you start saying no to those things, but you just need to start saying no when you're becoming overwhelmed, when you're becoming overworked, When you're really wanting to find that free time, whether it's for yourself or your family or friends, it doesn't matter, or even at work, you have to then say no. And I work, you know, a number of my clients are workhorses, overachievers, very ambitious, and, you know, they feel as if they need to say yes and need to take on more and more work because it will get them promoted or get them advanced. And I'll be honest with you, the question I often ask them is, "So how's that working for you?" Because also the one reason why they're hiring me is to also help them get advanced, help them break through where they haven't been able to. So, you know, they need to look at whether or not what they're doing is actually helping them, propelling them forward, or holding them back. And you'll be— you won't be surprised, but they're often surprised when I show them that not less, not less that they do, but when they do it based on the priority of the work and the ability for them to get it done versus just taking it on and then therefore dragging themselves down and dragging the work down with them. They're always shocked to realize that what they should be focused on is less and more quality versus more and less quality. So, and especially for women, you know, when it comes to family, when it comes to, you know, community, when it comes to your boss, workload, proving yourself, not feeling like a fraud, you know, no comes very difficult. To you, and you have to learn to be able to say no. Trust me when I say it will be the most freeing and most propelling thing to your success is learning to say no. All right, now you have this list, and what I want you to do is, based on our previous discussion, you have set your yearly goals. And now this is one thing that I'm very well known for, and it helps tremendously with my clients. So I help them on their rich plan. We talked about that earlier. I help them map out their yearly goals, and then especially corporate clients, they tend to get yearly goals, and then, you know, they're measured on a quarterly basis. But trust me, they're measured daily and weekly. So I suggest that you have your yearly goals, Take them down to quarterly. What do you want to achieve first quarter, by the end of second quarter, by the end of third quarter, by the end of the year? Take that quarterly. Okay, now what do I need to do in the first month of the, of the quarter in order to achieve that quarterly goal? And then that month down to a week, and of course that week down to a day. So we're going to focus on the week to a day. Okay, so you're looking over all your to-dos and your obligation list, and I want you to Consider all of that against your goals because that's going to help you with your delegate— I'm sorry, your delete, delegate, or do. If there's things on there that you are, you know, it's not helping and contributing to your goals, then you absolutely need to consider deleting or delegating, not doing. If they have something to do with your goals, then it will help you to identify those and decide, okay then, is that a priority for me to be doing this week and thus this day? So your goal setting should, you know, I like to do mine for a week, kind of like Sunday night. I like to get it out of the way. So I set my goal for the week and then I lay out, all right, what am I going to be doing at least Monday and Tuesday? What are the 1 to 3 things— pick 1 to 3 things that you need to be doing when you wake up Monday morning. So then now you have a goal, you have an objective, you have a reason for getting up in the morning. And you're now very clear, you're already clear and focused on what it is that needs to get done. And you're not waiting until you wake up and you're fumbling through, you're getting yourself to work, and you're still kind of playing through your head what needs to get done. And you have no real plan in place. This, you know, attention, time management is all around plans and knowing what it is that you need to do and how to get it done and what then will help you stay focused. All right. So you have your weekly goal. You looked at it at the beginning of the week. You laid out at least Monday and Tuesday is my hack suggestion. And then you start working on them come Monday when, you know, when you get to work, when you wake up at home, whatever the case might be. Now, especially women, we tend to have this belief that we can multitask, we can do two things at once. I'm here to tell you that it's not— it can't be done. I always thought I was a huge multitasker, and then I realized, you know what, that was just one, untrue, but two, creating more havoc than it was creating support and creating results. You can only do one thing at one time. Yes, you can, you know, walk and chew gum at the same time. Yes, you can work and pick up the phone at the same time, but you actually can't. You actually have to stop one thing and do another. Walking and chewing gum, you can do that, you know, simultaneously, but apart from that, there's not many things that you could be doing. You have to turn your attention, turn your focus on onto that other task, and therefore something else is suffering as a result of it. So what you want to be able to do is from that weekly to-do list based on your goal, you pick 1 to 3 things. You then have to determine which of those 3 things are the most important to get done to be able to achieve your goal, and then just focus on that one thing. Now I'm not going to say anymore you focus on that one thing until it's done. Because I've just found, especially over the past year between my writing and my client work, there are going to be necessary— let's make sure I say necessary— interruptions and distractions as a result of those two differing goals. And therefore, I can't commit. I can plan it, but I can't commit. I need to be flexible that all of a sudden between, you know, 9 and 12 when I plan to write, I'm going to get disrupted. And so you want to plan to work on that number one goal until it's done. And then be prepared that when the distraction comes, you can then just readjust that plan and plot out when you need to continue working on it until completion. The key is that the 1 to 3 that you're picking, you're not just kind of nitpicking and working on all 3 of those things to where nothing gets done. That's just the whole objective of being able to lay out and plan out working on that number 1 priority because that's what you've determined is going to be key to you achieving your weekly goal, which then leads to your monthly, quarterly, and yearly. But what you want to ensure of is that you're not doing number 3 in front of number 1 or 2 because maybe it's harder, maybe it's more time-consuming, maybe you have to go out, you know, and do research or meet with people, and you just feel that 2 and 3 can get done so much, you know, easier and faster. Yes, you could choose to do that because it's easier and faster. At the same time, that number one goal is meant to be able to support your overall achievement and success, and therefore avoiding it is not going to be beneficial to you. Working it to the point of being able to complete it is just going to be key for you in that regard. All right, okay, we're going to— we have to kind of elaborate on that a little bit more around your goals and your tasks and priorities, but we're going to take a short break. When we get back, we're going to continue and dive into the balance of these, uh, hacks for improving your success. We'll be right back.

Shedding the Bits Radio is available for download anytime on Apple Podcasts, SheddingTheBits.com and LawTalkRadio.com. Be sure to subscribe to the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. I want to thank our sponsors, North Georgia Tax Solutions, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate size clients. Go to NGTaxSolutions.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium-sized businesses, including mine. Email deborah@deborahparker.va@gmail.com. Would you like to reach our audience as a sponsor or advertiser? Email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Now let's get back to the show.

Welcome back everyone. We're talking about ways for you to become less burdened, more free, peace— peace— peaceful and happier this year as a result of really paying attention, putting focus and energy and priority on your day-in day-out activities. So where you are more productive, hence time management. But I had mentioned at the, close to the top of the hour that my view on time management has changed to where, you know what, I can give you hacks on managing your time, but it really comes down to attention, and it comes down to priority. And so there, that's where I want to kind of get you focused is it's really not about managing your time. It's really about managing how much attention and what focus you put on the things that you need to do, and ensuring that it's based on priority, not just on a laundry list of tasks and to-dos. All right? So we've talked about kind of taking your yearly goals, breaking them all the way down even to a week, which then helps you take that to-do list and pick out the ones that are going to feed that weekly goal. And then from that list, you're going to pick 1 to 3 to work on the next day. And then obviously interruptions and distractions will come along, hopefully only from, you know, things that are out of your control, not things that you're able to manage, which we'll get into more. And therefore, you're working towards, you know, working on each one of those tasks activities or tasks until they are completed, because you determine the priority of those 1 to 3 toward that weekly goal that's been defined. Now, another thing to consider when it comes to your to-dos is you might look at that— let's keep it down at the weekly level— and you might say, well, there are things here that I don't necessarily need to do alone. And this has nothing to do with whether you work at home alone or in an office, or you're at home alone, or whatnot. It really has to do with, do I really need to take on the burden of this task or activity, you know, myself? Or is it something that can be shared and I can then delegate or even just share some of the responsibility and some of the activity that needs to get done? So always be considering that as well as you're working on as you're working on your goals, or actually your to-do list. Is there something here that I could be sharing and collaborating with someone else? All right? Now, I have been known over the years for a technique called time blocking. And that's basically taking that whole to-do list that you've gotten down to a weekly based on the goal that you've determined, and making sure that there is time blocked out on your calendar to do whatever it is that you need to get done in that week. Now, it includes the 1 to 3 that you'd be working on, on any given day. But you're looking at it more proactively so you can block out your calendar to ensure that by the end of the week you've gotten all of the things done that you need to work on to achieve that weekly goal. Then placing appointments on your calendar, whether it's for 5 minutes or it's for an hour or multiple hours, but placing all of that on your calendar. Therefore, I call it time blocking. Basically, what your calendar would then look like, I use different colors for different things. So sales and marketing are one thing. Client work is another thing. The dog park is another thing. The gym, playing pickleball is another color. So you can, you know, if that, if you're a visual person, that could help you. But put everything and treat everything that's on that list as if it's an appointment. Because rarely do we ever break appointments. Yes, we might have to change them around. Yes, we might have to, you know, reschedule. But we tend to, as beings, if we have a doctor's appointment, if we have a PTA appointment, if we have a meeting with our boss, if we have a client meeting, if we have a networking meeting, we tend to keep them. And therefore, if you can get into a habit, which we'll talk about next week, but if you can get into a habit of even taking the smallest thing like grocery shopping, if you haven't outsourced this, or going to the park or the gym or going to, you know, a client meeting or, you know, I have only certain hours time blocks that I work with clients. Now, of course, that could change. They might not be available. But that's my intention going in. That's the way I prioritize and give focus to what it is I need to do in a given week. So I consider it to be time blocking. Now, technology has helped here greatly because if you were to put all those things on your calendar, And say that you share your calendars with your family or your friends or coworkers, people at work. Obviously, they don't see the detail of that appointment, but they do see your calendar blocked out. And therefore, they can see that you're unavailable, and therefore helping to minimize the distractions, the interruptions. The intrusions on your time. All right, so consider that as well. I'm sorry, I just had a blank. The other, the other simple thing that you could be doing when it comes to distractions, disruptions, and managing your time and attention and priority is to really, as you start your workday, Really be conscious and aware of your work environment. If you have a messy desk, clean it. If your phone messages and your text notifications and your Facebook notifications and your emails, whether it's your laptop or your phone or your iPad, then shut them off. Turn them off. Now, I'm not saying you have to do that for the full day unless you want to, but say you're sitting down and you definitely have a key project that you need to get done by a certain hour, then turn off all those notifications that pop up. I was sitting, actually I was doing some work on Sunday with someone that I had offered up my Sunday my Sunday time to. And so I had her come over to my place because that was going to save me time because I had an obligation later on that afternoon. And as I was sitting here, her— we were using multiple phones to do some recording, and yet on those phones kept popping up notifications that was distracting both of us. And then it would interrupt us, and then it would cause us frustrations because we'd have to restart the restart the recording and/or, you know, just hit it to continue on. And I was like, well, wait a minute, we should have just been cognizant of turning all of those off before we even got started because then that would never would have happened. Now keep in mind that you might say, oh, that's no big deal, it was only a couple seconds. They tell you, studies have proven that a 5-minute distraction can actually cause or create a delay of like 23 to 25 minutes, let's say. 23 minutes to get you back focused on what it was that you're working on. So anytime you get a 5-minute interruption distraction, it's going to take you between 23 and 25 minutes to get refocused. To get back to doing what it is that you were doing. So, you don't have, you can't afford a lot of 5-minute interruptions, distractions. We couldn't afford a couple of minutes. It sounds like it's no big deal, but that did kind of create, okay, so where were we, what were we talking about, let me repeat where we were and the question that I was asking you. It does, it didn't cost 23 minutes, but it did cost a good number of minutes of distraction. So, keep that in mind, because that's where it really hurts. So, you know, turn off all those things, clean your desk, shut the door, show up to work early or stay later if, you know, if you're working in a coworking space especially, and/or if you have a lot of team members who always, you know, require your time, and you can't get it done without disruption during the day, then consider coming in early or staying late. Consider calling in and saying you're going to be working from home, or you're going to go to another, you know, shared workspace, you know, externally from your office. Get creative as far as if, you know, if you know that there's immediate disruptions to your work, then what can you be doing to minimize that and to mitigate it? Another key, because we talked about the fact that time management is really about attention of priority. So if you're losing attention and focus, you're probably also losing energy behind that work that needs to get done, or that activity or task or obligation that you need to do. So once you've planned it out, try to keep to that, commit to keeping to that schedule, keeping that appointment. Making it a priority, make it to anybody and everybody around you, not just to yourself. Because you can make it a priority and someone else decides that it's not important of a priority, you know, to them, and therefore you should change it. Well, this goes back to saying no. This goes back to, you know, ensuring that everything else has been removed to interrupting your priority and your focus. Now, another key thing to people's productivity is really knowing when to stop, not just to say no, but when to stop. Make a commitment. It's kind of early in the new year. Make a commitment that when you leave work, when you leave, you know, kind of a community obligation, when you, you know, go to sleep, you kind of leave and you turn it all off and you don't take it with you and you don't carry it forward in your day. We all need breaks. And I'm not talking 5 minutes. I'm not even talking an hour. We also need vacation. And I can't tell you how many times I hear from my clients that they're not taking vacation. Well, there's too much work to do. You know, they're not going to be able to manage this without me. I need to, I need to, you know, not take vacations because, you know, that could impede on, you know, the big project that I want, the advancement that I want. You know, then we get to the end of the year, like we had, we just got to the end of the year, and they have 3 or 4 weeks left, and yet they can't take all of it, and they can't carry it over. We all need breaks. We all need to just slow down. We all need to stop, whether it's for 5 minutes, an hour, or a vacation. And trust me when I say that you overlooking yourself and what you deserve and what you've earned and that includes vacations, that includes days off, that includes just lunch. Because I've had clients that have told me that they don't even take lunch, or that if they do, it's like a 20-minute lunch. Trust me when I say, though, you know, those other people aren't doing those— that other people aren't making those sacrifices. And when you're gone, and I mean like say you leave the job or you move on to a different group or different team, they're not going to remember that you never took vacations and that you worked until midnight and that you, you know, brought lunch in and ate at your desk. They're not going to remember any of that. And so the best way for you to kind of free yourself, be unburdened, be stress-free, be happy, be peaceful, be productive and successful, is for you to really take care of yourself. And that is to also take the time, leave things behind, be fully present, fully present and fully aware when you're with, you know, your family, your friends, your community, even with your peers. And the only way to do that is to take care of yourself first. All right. Now, another thing proven, you know, medically is that we all need our sleep. And again, this goes back to the very first thing we talked about is knowing yourself. And I had mentioned, I know myself, if I don't get my 8 hours of sleep, I am not a pretty person in the morning. And I have a lot of adjustments to do before I get out of bed to shift myself into a state of being that, you know, that, you know, people will want to deal with, let alone to be with. So know yourself when it comes to how much sleep do you need in order to be productive. How much sleep do you need in order to be fresh, in order to be clear, in order to be creative, in order to really be present and engaged? And whatever that timeframe is, ensure you're getting it. Now, some people are really good taking naps in the afternoon and getting very few hours of sleep. You know, I do have friends and colleagues who work on 4 hours of sleep, and they're perfectly fine. And then they might take a nap in the afternoon, or they close their eyes, or they go for a walk. Yet at the same time, you know, I know those, you know, people like myself who need a lot of sleep. So figure out what it is that you need and then commit to it. And commit to it to where, you know, I'm not saying, you know, you need 8 hours, 4 hours of sleep, but yet your phone's still on, your email notifications are still popping up. There's noise in your world. I'm talking about a good, solid, uninterrupted, undistracted sleep in order for you to really, really have the attention, the focus, and the priority you need to be effective during any given day. Now, there was one thing I overlooked, and I want to go back and mention it in our last couple of minutes. When it comes to having your to-do list and deciding what you're going to delete, delegate, or do, okay, there's one little method, technique I take clients through to really help them understand what that is. Because I'll never forget, and I've mentioned it to him before, I had a client who had pages of his legal pad full of what it is that he had to do in any given week. And I thought, yes, you're not getting anything done. And I had to start questioning whether or not I was even going to be able to help him. But what we did was this: I had him take that list, I had him break it into delete, delegate, and do. And even when he did that, he still challenged every single one of them. But one, one simple method helped him tremendously, and that is this: So you have an hourly value, let's call it. It could be a salary. It could be a rate if you work for yourself or a product cost if you want to look at it that way. It could be, you know, even if you're a stay-at-home, you put a value to your activity into your contribution. So consider that. So say it's $100 an hour. So the easiest way I get people, especially corporate clients and business owners actually, I should say, to really prioritize or delegate, delete, or do, is I have them look over each one of them and tell me, because it's for a week, remember? We did it for a week. Tell me how much time does each one of those tasks or activities take? Takes? And, you know, they'll say 5 minutes. Okay, so how many times a week do you do this particular thing? Well, you know, 3 or 4 times. Okay, so that's 20, 25 minutes. All right, so how much do you make in an hour? $100. Okay, so 20 minutes of $100, you know, 20 minutes of an hour is a fifth. So of $100, that's $20. So, what on this list costs $20 if you were to delegate it, like outsource it? This became really relevant to me a number of years ago now, close to 12, 13 years ago, when I moved into my current house. It has a decent-sized backyard, and I was doing my own landscaping. I went and bought all the fancy equipment. I thought, no, I'll just do my own blowing of leaves and pack, you know, bagging those leaves. And I felt like I wanted a green thumb. And the next thing you know, I find myself not even, not even like a third of the way through on the very first time I go to do this. And I'm like, no way, I cannot take this much time to do something that I could be putting and give it to someone else to do based on what I'm losing by doing this work in, you know, in income, in consulting work. And so that's where I kind of got to this, you know, this method of really getting people to see what their value is of this to-do list that they, you know, they happen to create, whether it's big or small. And it's the most logical way I get them to say, you know what, you're absolutely right. If I'm spending, you know, $20 of my time doing certain things like the dry cleaning or the grocery shopping or the getting gas, you know, those type of things that you can now outsource very easily for something even less than that, then, you know, that is a much better use of your time, and it just frees you up and gives you that opportunity to breathe. Okay, so I wanted to throw that in there because I noticed and I highlighted that I didn't cover it, and that is a great hack that clients and friends have used and have proven to be very effective for them. So that is my list of the ways that you could become more productive, happier, and successful. I am happy to put this out on our Shedding the Bitch blog post. You can also go to ballofireconsulting.com and find it there as well, as well as the full episode that you can listen at any future time for yourself or to share it with friends. And again, a reminder, next week we'll be talking about the power of habits, which ties very nicely into this conversation today. So thank you everybody for joining, and I'll look forward to having you right back here next week. Have a rich, productive prosperous week. Take care.

Thank you for listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. Join Bernadette every Tuesday at noon Eastern as she helps you shift your bitches to riches. And the dialogue is always going on at sheddingthebitch.com. See you next week.