Brian Gubernick shares practical time management strategies including time blocking, creating a distraction-free workspace, and the "hell-yeah" rule from Derek Sivers: only commit to tasks that genuinely excite you. He also uses the "3-1" planning method, circling three important tasks each evening and starring the single must-do item.
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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 each day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get into today's topic. Today I'm going to be discussing time management. Time management. This is always a big topic. It's always a hot topic. We all can get better at how we're managing our time. The fact of the matter is, if you're committed to this No Days Off movement, which means every day we're gonna spend some time getting better at something in our life, in our world, well, you need to have the time to actually do it, right? So today we'll be discussing how to create more space, how to create more time. Some of the basics I'll share, some of the things we've all probably heard or read before, but then I'll also share a couple of the things that that I've incorporated into my world that have made a huge difference so that I can go commit to these other areas of my life that I wanna spend time in. So let's start with the obvious one, the one that's chatted around most often, I think, in business, which is time blocking. I'm not gonna go any further on that. I think that in order to be efficient with your time, you need to actually block it, you need to manage it, In other words, you need to operate on a calendar, on a schedule. And when you time block, for me, I want everybody around me to know my blocks. Everybody that I work with or that I spend time with, not my personal world, but in my business world, I want them to know that I in fact do have a calendar. And it's my hope that they honor that calendar, that they recognize there's things going on and that we can block time together if and when necessary. So time blocking, It's always the first thing to mention. Building a bunker, right? Like making sure you're protecting your workspace. For me, I do build a bunker. I do lock myself in an office so I could focus and do deep work. And that includes having to make sure that I have water and food and whatever else I need in there so that I don't have to leave and maybe find myself walking into a new project or a new conversation and taking my focus away from where it should be spent. Other things that, that oftentimes we discuss, you may want to consider if you're not doing it. If you're focusing, if you're working on something that requires all of your attention, leave your phone somewhere else. At a minimum, turn off all the notifications. We've heard these things. Are we actually doing them though? I think most everybody's had this conversation before, but are you actually leaving your phone elsewhere or turning off your notifications? For many of our listeners, maybe you've called me before personally. You may find something interesting if I don't answer, which honestly is most of the time, you won't find a voicemail system for me. I do get texts now and again that say, "Hey, Brian, you didn't set up your voicemail," and I know that. And why don't I have a voicemail? Well, because most anybody that needs to get ahold of me, if it's important enough, they're either gonna call back or they're going to shoot me a text. Voicemails take me time to listen to and even more time to call back or, or worry about calling back. And so while, while not all of us can do this, my business, my world allows for me to not have voicemail. That is just another example of me kind of putting my phone somewhere else, not letting my phone control me. The next two things I want to talk about though are the two things that have made the greatest difference in my world as it pertains to time management. Things that maybe you should consider if you're not already in fact doing it. The first one I learned about from, I believe it was Tools of Titans or Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss, and Tim describes his or talks about his buddy Derek Sivers. And Derek is the individual in the book or one of those books that says, if he's not saying hell yeah, about something, then he says no. So when deciding whether to do something, if he feels anything less than, wow, like, that would be amazing, or I should, I should definitely do that, or I'm excited to do that, hell yeah, let's do it— if he doesn't feel that way, then it's a firm no for him. So when you say no to most things and you really kind of leave room in your life to throw yourself into that, that rare thing that you actually say hell yeah around. So as silly or simple as that may sound, if it's on your calendar and it doesn't give you energy, it doesn't make you kind of look at it and say hell yeah, I can't wait to do that, maybe, just maybe, it should come off of your calendar. Now don't get me wrong, we all have things on our calendar from time to time that we're probably not incredibly excited about, but that's just necessary for sake of our roles, our careers, our families, whatever it may be. But if you can be saying hell yeah around the majority of things on your calendar, you're probably effectively managing your time. But if you find yourself lacking energy or saying, I wish I didn't have that, it might be time to reevaluate. So number 1 for me, if it's a hell yeah, it stays on my calendar. And if it's not that, I strongly consider getting rid of it or not placing it there at all. The next thing that I incorporated a few years ago that I think many of you may wanna take a look at, there's a great book called Organize Tomorrow Today by Dr. Jason Selk and one other partner whose name I'm forgetting, but Dr. Jason Selk, Organize Tomorrow Today. And there's, I don't know, 7 or 8 tips in that book around time management. The biggest one, the one that I utilize every single day, is known as the 3-1. Every day we all have these task lists. We probably all have like, you know, notes, whether it be in our phone or a notebook or whatever it is you carry around. You probably have a to-do list. The 3-1 works like this. Every afternoon or every night, I will look at my to-do list and I'm going to circle the the 3 most important things that I've got to get done tomorrow. I circle the 3 most important things that I really need to get done tomorrow. Then I circle or I star the one must, the one that must get done tomorrow. So I circle the 3 most important and I star the one that must get done. So I have a to-do list that probably has 40 things on it, but I'm only circling the 3 most important and the one must. In summary, provided that I don't go to sleep until those top 3 are done and at a minimum the one must has been done. In summary, I find myself very productive when I utilize this program, this system, and it helps me sleep at night knowing that I got the most important things done. At the end of the day, we're focusing on being more productive and not just being busier. So that's all I really have for you today. I think the focusing question, the focusing question, what you should be asking yourself today, what can you start doing today that would make you more efficient with your time? What can you start doing if you're on your way to the office right now and you're listening to this podcast, the second you get in the office, what can you do today that makes you a little bit better with respect to how your calendar looks or how you're managing your time? Thank you all for joining me, the No Days Off Podcast. Remember, every day brings a new opportunity to get better, so let's go get after it. Thank you.
