In this concise No Days Off podcast episode, host Brian Gubernick delivers practical time‑management tactics for 2024. He begins by recommending a structured to‑do system called the 3‑1 method, where each evening the listener circles the three most important tasks for the next day and stars the single must‑do item. He stresses the need for an immovable morning focus block of one to two hours, free from calls, emails, and other distractions, to tackle the starred task and other high‑priority work. Gubernick then ties the 3‑1 list to the Eisenhower Matrix, urging listeners to ensure at least one of the three priorities falls into the “important but not urgent” quadrant, which drives long‑term strategic progress. Finally, he challenges listeners to audit their meeting schedules, shortening typical 30‑ or 60‑minute meetings by 10‑20 minutes or even adopting ultra‑short formats like Gary Vaynerchuk’s 7‑minute meetings, thereby reclaiming focused work time. He quantifies the potential gain (e.g., three 10‑minute cuts per day yielding 2.5 extra hours weekly and over 100 extra hours annually) and closes with a call to apply these small efficiency gains throughout 2024.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick and welcome to the No Days Off podcast where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Today we're going to get better at time management. Now this is an incredibly important topic for all of the No Days Off nation. As we embark on our 2024. We all want to have success. We've gotta get into motion right away, start building momentum so that our year, you know, this year we achieve all of our desired, you know, goals and objectives. We've got to be efficient. We've gotta be purposeful with our time. So on that note, I'm gonna make today a concise, quick-hitting episode around things that you can do to better manage your time and your calendar starting today. Okay. First and foremost, I think we should all be using some sort of time management system or calendar system. And my favorite book, or one of my favorite books, Organize Tomorrow Today, Organize Tomorrow Today. It's a great read. It's a quick read. There are multiple systems described in that book for time management. I'll tell you the one that, that I use on a daily basis. It's called the 3-1. I've talked about it in previous episodes, the 3-1 system. What does that mean? I take my to-do list every day in the afternoon in order to set myself up for success the next day. What I do is circle the 3 most important items on my task list. What are the 3 most important things on my task list. Then of those 3, I star asterisk the one that is the absolute must-do tomorrow. So I know the 3 most important and the one absolute must-do. This is the 3-1 system. There are lots of variations of a system like this, but for me, I found it incredibly effective to have a to-do list, like, right, to jot down. And I literally maintain a like a piece of paper or a notepad with my to-do list. And I, every day I will circle those things that are most important, the 3 most important, no more than 3. And I will star the one must-do. I define whether I won or lost my day by how I performed relative to the most important items and the must-do item that I've notated for myself the day prior. So first and foremost, try out that 3-1 system. Now, in order to be successful, with any system, especially 3-1, I believe that we all, no matter the line of business we're in, have to have some morning time block, a 1-hour to 2-hour block that allows for focused energy, focused time on the things that are most important to you, or the one must-do that has to, that has to get done that day. I think that you're setting yourself up for failure If you do not have a scheduled, regularly occurring blocked time in your calendar where nothing gets in the way of that block— for me, it's a 2-hour window— unless it's absolutely mandatory, and frankly, it's more important than what I'd be doing in those 2 hours. So no phone calls, no emails, no texts, no distractions during that 2-hour block. That 2-hour block for me is is absolutely the most meaningful time of my day. And it's where, where I'm gonna get the 3-1 completed, if I am in fact gonna get it done. And if I leverage that time for something else, okay, but it sure as hell better be for something that's incredibly important. So this is an immovable time in my calendar. So I believe whether you run a 3-1 or any other system, you gotta have some sort of 2-hour block or hour block in the morning where you can find, specifically in the morning, not the afternoon, 'cause it's easy to move it in the afternoon. I want it first thing in the morning ideally. So if you're in sales, this is your lead generation time. If you're not in sales, but you work in an office, this is your focused time to work on that most important project. The next thing that I'm thinking around for time management, I think about that Eisenhower matrix. Uh, we did an episode not too long ago on the Eisenhower Matrix. Go back to that episode and check it out. Uh, but what I want to focus on here, when I look at my 3-1, when I look at my most important things to do, ideally at least one of those most important things to do fall in the Eisenhower Matrix quadrant that's associated with not urgent, but important. In other words, in order to manage your time effectively and manage your career effectively, Not everything you're doing should be urgent. Yes, we have urgent things to attend to. And I believe that when you circle your 3 most important things to do, 1 or 2 of them are likely also incredibly urgent. But I want to encourage you to have at least 1 of them on there that is not urgent, but is incredibly important. Now, why would I say that? Those things that tend to not be urgent, but are incredibly important have to do with your future, have to do with your vision or your plan for where you're going. As a business leader, these are the things that are your strategic tasks that make arguably the greatest difference in the success of the business that you're building. Yes, we all have to do urgent and important things, but if you can get a non-urgent but important thing on that task list and make it a most important, that one of the 3, for, for example, you will be working on the future of your business. And that's critical. Especially in turbulent times. The last, uh, thing I want you thinking around as it pertains to time management is I want you to look at all the meetings that you have scheduled. And I want you to ask yourself, does this meeting require the amount of time that I've currently allotted for it? Or can I shorten this meeting by half or even more? Now, most of us are running meetings still today, Uh, you know, in person or on Zoom. And my guess is you are blocking those meetings for 30 minutes or 60 minutes. And funny thing, whatever you block a meeting for in terms of time, ironically, that meeting fills that block 99% of the time. In other words, if I book something for 30 minutes, that meeting is going wire to wire. It's going all the way to 30 minutes. But it begs the question, what if I booked it for 15 minutes? Now, sure, you might feel like you're running out of time. That's likely to occur, but it'll also make you get to the point and become more efficient. So my challenge for you in terms of time management is to look at all of the meetings that you have on your calendar today and ask yourself, can I cut this by 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes? You know, Gary Vaynerchuk talks about the 7-minute meeting, how he takes all of his longer meetings and makes them 7 minutes. And what does that do? Well, it eliminates the chitchat at the beginning. It eliminates, you know, any sort of, any, any sort of back and forth that's inefficient during the meeting. And it takes the 7 minutes and just maxes it out. Now that might be a huge jump for you and it might be a huge jump for me. But I bet you could take your 30 minutes to 20 minutes. And if you did that 3 times a day, 30 minutes to 20 minutes, you pick up an extra half hour for focused work. How much more might you get done over the course of a week? That's 2.5 more hours of work over the course of the year. That's over 100 more hours of focused work. It, it adds up. So the focusing question for everybody today, how can I be more efficient in my 2024? How can I leverage some of these things that I described here? In the No Days Off podcast episode that you're listening to? How do I take advantage of these things? Or what does this make me think about in terms of my own schedule? Maybe it's not something I said today, but it got you thinking around your efficiency and the things that you can be doing that make you more effective with your time. That's all I have for you today. The No Days Off podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
