389. The Power of Timeboxing with Marc Zao-Sanders

Welcome to episode 389 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy in today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Mark Zhao Sanders, author of Timeboxing. Ready? Let's get started.

You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello. Hello everyone.

My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. In today's conversation, I am joined by Mark Zhao Sanders. Mark is the CEO and co founder of Filter.com, a learning tech company. He regularly writes about algorithms, learning and productivity in Scientific American, Harvard Business Review, and MIT Sloan Management Review. He has followed the practice of time boxing, which is of course the focus of our conversation Today, for over 10 years and now he has written a book about this fantastic practice. This was such an exciting book and conversation for me. If you've been listening for a while now, you know that I've been focused on productivity by means of focused intention for a long time. I've had many guests on the show to talk about this in various capacities, including Niral, Marcy Rader and Nick Sonnenberg. Those episodes and the author's books are all linked for you in the show notes. By the way, as Mark and I will talk about, I'll say that I am definitely not someone who was immediately drawn to the idea of time blocking or time boxing. I've tried it before and always sort of rebelled, telling myself that I need that unpredictability, that I'm more creative and happier when I can let my day flow instead of being so rigid. All sorts of things. My brain told me to avoid the change. And while I've been steadily changing a.

Little bit at a time over the.

Years, picking up tips here and there and seeing improvements, I hit the point that it became of paramount importance to focus on my schedule and how I organize and architect my life and work. The past year to 18 months has been one of great growth in this area, and I'm proud to say I've had real success with timeboxing. I'll share more of my thoughts at the close of the show, but but I wanted to be sure that everyone who said no way or that's not for me to the idea of time blocks or time boxes. I encourage you to think of it as more of a not yet and see the possibility that could be there if you Give it a chance. As we'll hear from Mark, he was not inclined to this at first either.

He had to, you know, go about.

Creating this whole process because of, you know, some situations he was having at work where he was falling behind. So it can work for anyone. You don't have to be naturally organized.

And feel like those blocks are fit from the beginning to have this be a fit for you really quickly.

Before we get into the conversation, I want to be sure you know that there are links in the show notes for everything, including related past episodes, links to articles and books, including Time Boxing and more.

It's all within the app you're listening.

To and at the brainy business.com389 now. Let's jump right in. Mark Zao Sanders, welcome to the Brainy Business Podcast.

Melina, Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. I'm so excited to jump in on this conversation. I know everyone listening is going to be super excited as well. Before we get into the book, if you can share a little bit about your background and the work you do for everyone who doesn't yet know, you.

Sure do you mean my background as in, like, where the career started or what I do for a living? Like the day job?

Yes, to all. I always like, kind of choose your own adventure life. So whatever feels right to you. Whatever. We'd love to hear about it.

Okay. Well, I am 44 years old. I started my career in 2001. I was very disorganized back then. I mean, I was pretty ambitious and hardworking, but really disorganized. And it was getting me into trouble. I mean, literally getting into trouble at work. Performance issues. I was unhappy. I didn't know that there were mental health issues back then. It wasn't so much of a thing in 2001, but I definitely had some. I then stabilized things with my own system of personal productivity, which I called a DWP Daily Work Plan. That was basically a spreadsheet with where I put the important tasks, how long they would take, I added them up, and that stabilized things. That definitely helped me cope better with the working world. But it wasn't perfect because I couldn't share that with others. It wasn't really very collaborative. It also didn't tell me at any given moment what I should do. So it helped things, but it wasn't perfect. Then a few years later, I came across an article in Harvard Business Review called why to Do Lists Don't Work, by a guy called Daniel Markovitz. It basically said, why don't we bring our calendar and to do list together. It didn't use the term time boxing or even time blocking, but it said that let's coalesce the calendar and the to do list and there'll be all of these extra benefits. It resonated immediately with me. I thought, that is so cool, so obvious. Why haven't I been doing that before? I started doing it straight away and for the next five years. And obviously over those five years, you, you adapt it, you make it your own, you, you add some, some tweaks. And over that time, because I thought of a few ways of improving it, I wrote my own article in Harvard Business Review because I, you know, know some of the guys, though I did by then. And it was called Time Boxing. That article was really popular. It was in the most popular pages. It may still be now actually, but for some years it was one of the most popular articles. And though it was popular, it wasn't anywhere near as popular as a viral TikTok video. That came, of course, TikTok video in 2022, someone, not me, made a video using my article, Harvard's name. They put Elon Musk in, there's a bit of Barcelo in the background. And 10 million people saw a version of that video. One of the viewers was Penguin Random House, the big publisher. They got in touch, they said, you wrote this article, it's good, it's been popular on TikTok. How about writing a book? So we agreed a book deal at the start of last year, start of 2023, and then from February, March, April, May, I was deep in my time boxes writing this book, writing 45,000 words. And in the meantime, Penguin was just amazing at selling this concept around the world. I mean clearly it was resonating across cultures, across languages. So consider that I'm a first time author, I don't have a huge platform and yet they were, they sold the rights in or so far 33 languages. So the book is going to be translated into at least 33 languages, which says something about the transferability of the concept, the simplicity of the concept of timeboxing. It just came out January 11th in the UK, comes out shortly in the US. The pub date is March 19th. But to come back to your original question of what I actually do. So that's all to do with timeboxing in the book. The reason that timeboxing is useful to me is that I just have a full life like almost all of us do. But my version of that full life is a large ish Family, We've got three kids, my wife, two dogs that you might hopefully not hear in the next few minutes, two cats as well. So there's just a lot going on domestically. And I run a learning technology business as well called Filtered, which sells AI technology to enterprise clients. So I'm the CEO of that company and one of the founders. So obviously, you know, I've got to manage my time very carefully with, with regard to all of the above and timeboxing is the, the way that I do it.

Oh, thank you for the explanation and.

The backstory is so helpful and congratulations on just everything the, you know, any of those things you mentioned. I think people would be so delighted to have. Right. And really awesome to have kind of stumbled upon something that you've built into a thing that really can help a lot of people. I think is just exciting. And to see that, like you said, 33 languages already. How cool. How exciting.

Yeah, 33. And presumably counting. I mean, there are some other countries in the world, so hopefully that count will go up. When you say stumbled into, I mean, yeah, it is exactly that. I mean, I literally came across this article. I think I used the phrase happened upon in the book. And that is very much how. I certainly wasn't looking for an article about time boxing or time management even. I just really just came across it. But the funny thing is that it really is such a basic idea. I mean, it's a person making a decision that, okay, this is something that's important for me to do. These are some things that are important for me to do. Setting a time to do them and then doing them. And of course, everyone does this all the time anyway. I mean, the meeting for this podcast was pre arranged. There was a time box, a calendar appointment in our both of our respective calendars. And so almost everyone does some version of this to some extent. Really. Timeboxing is just an extension of that already existent ubiquitous practice so that we actually are more intentional about more of our time, more of our waking hours and get more of what really matters to us done.

Yeah, for sure. Well, and I know that for so many of us that are not naturally time organized, we'll say, right. You would think that someone who comes up with something like timeboxing is someone who was super organized their entire life. It's, you know, you look at, I actually am a big fan of Marie Kondo and you know, the life changing magic of tidying up. And we know like that is a naturally super someone who's really organized, who's good at Getting rid of things and so teaching other people to say, it's super easy. Right. This is just how it is. Someone who was really organized with their time, their whole life, and never missed a deadline ever, and is like perfect in all the ways then saying this is how easy it is, you just do. It doesn't resonate in the same way as someone who had a problem that they dug into and really stuck with to look to solve. And so I think that is a big reason why it resonates so much with people, because many of us don't naturally look to Timebox, I think, but it can help all of us.

Yeah. I mean, that's why I stressed the point about being a disorganized mess at the start of my career. I mean, that it's, you know, that's not just marketing spiel. It really was the case. I mean, it was, you know, I was a mess back then. Just didn't have an idea of the benefits of systemizing anything. I mean, even that. That word systemizing just wasn't. Or being systematic wasn't part of my vocabulary back then. I mean, look, I was in my early 20s, right. So it's probably just as. Just as well I was able to kind of enjoy life a little bit more back back then. But hopefully, yeah, that does resonate with other people because it's not like I'm some naturally super organized person. That's actually why it's made such a big difference to my life. There's been this delta from back then and being. Being a mess to. To now, just being a lot more in control, a lot more productive. And most of all, actually, for me, it's. It's feeling like I'm in control. It. There's very. It's a very strong mental health component to this, which is that if you feel like you're getting the right kinds of things done more or less on time, that is extraordinarily beneficial from a. From a mental health point of view and just, you know, feeling. Feeling agency and intention and a degree of control in a world where so little is, you know, we can control so little.

Effy. Definitely. I know it's. It's kind of funny. So I'm a person who. I appreciate so. Nira Al was one of the first guests on the podcast. So, so lucky that he came to join. So, like, indistractable we talk about all the time. His episode has been listened to by lots and lots of. Of those who follow the show. And, you know, definitely a big fan of all of that and in that process, like turning off notifications, you know, we've been through talking through a lot of that and I've always sort of. I don't know that rebelled is the right word, but it's like felt ruffled by like. As a, as an entrepreneur and running my own business, there's a lot of this, like, I like to have the freedom of the day. Right. I want the world to sort of like wash over me and I can do what I want to do sort of mentality. And I know that that does not work. And my husband is like the, a much more organized sort of person. And we've been having lots of. I've slowly getting into and then entered into like more of a time blocking sort of space and knowing that it's different than time boxing. But like, I'm getting there. Before we get into a transition of how we can help people like me, which the book does a really good job with. Can you share a little bit on some of those definitions? Like what's the difference between a time block, a time box, what are some other things we need to know and like why this is, is so important?

Sure. Okay, so let me give a definition of time boxing first of all and then I'll differentiate versus time blocking. The two are obviously pretty similar, but timeboxing just does a little bit more. So I have a four part definition to timeboxing, which I remember by what when one. Enough. So let me go through each of those four a little bit slower. So the what is deciding carefully, intentionally what it is that you should do. Usually at the start of the day. I mean, it could be the night before, but for me it's at the start of the day and importantly at a time when you're not bothered by the maelstrom of the day. So you can, you can make some good decisions. You talked about decisions earlier and that's a big part of it. A big part of time boxing is making those decisions which are the most important, what you're actually going to spend your time on, when you're not harried and hustled by everything that's going on. So that's the what the when is obviously start times, end times, making sure that you're sufficiently ambitious about how much time you give yourself for a given task. I noticed one of your podcasts, your episodes is about time pressure and maybe we'll come back to that at a certain point. But the when is really key and to put that in your calendar. So it's visually there, there's a commitment to yourself to do it. There's also potentially with a shared calendar, commitment to, to others. So that's the second part of it is the when one is saying you're going to do that one thing and nothing else, you're going to single task, you're not going to multitask. There is some nuance to that. And again, maybe we come back to that, but for now I just make the point that it's you do one thing and then the last word there was enough. So that means in that time box, let's say it's half an hour, you're going to get that. Let's say it's a blog post of 250 words. So a short blog post done and you're going to get it done well enough to an acceptable standard. It's not going to be perfect, it may not be brilliant, but it's going to be good enough that you can share it, pass the baton on and others can, can use it. So that's the definition that I, that I go with with time blocking. It's really, it's the first three of those. So you're blocking out time. You're definitely single tasking. It's in the calendar. It's deliberate, it's intentional. You're choosing what to do, but you're not giving yourself a box in which to make sure that the thing gets done and then is usefully shareable. I mean, you've read the book, so you would have seen that term usefully shareable so that you can pass that baton on. That's the key thing about timeboxing. It's a lot more productive and satisfying because you are committing to getting something done within the time box. You're not just protecting your time, you're protecting your time in order to achieve a certain outcome in that, in that half hour, one hour, 45 minute burst.

Right. And definitely helping you talk about Parkinson's Law of triviality in the book. And so we have a whole episode on bike shedding for those. You know, I love the term bike shedding over which is part of Parkinson's Law. There's the, you know, things take up as much time as we allow them to take and then also, you know, really unimportant things seem to feel super important when we're trying to avoid something we should be working on. We end up doing those bike shits.

Well, just on, on the first of those. So, yeah, this is the Parkinson's Law. The idea that, or a version of it is the Idea that, you know, the work expands into the time that you allow it. I think there's even a worse version of it for a lot of people just practically speaking, which is to use the same example, the blog post, well, what if you don't set a deadline at all? You don't give yourself any time. The real danger there is that it just becomes this endless task that is frustrating. So again, mental health, it can affect how you're feeling about the task as well. But it's not just that you, you waste time and spend two hours on something that you might spend half an hour on, it might just be like almost indefinite and just not get done at all. So yeah, I think that there's a lot of truth in that. And timeboxing is, you know, is an antidote to exactly that kind of behavior. It's just, look, what's the thing that needs to get done? How long do you need get it done in that time and doesn't need to be perfect. Move on.

Yeah, well, and I know I've definitely learned over time that the, like I say, rebellion is not the right word. But where I've felt fear about doing the time boxing in the past is because I don't, I, I worry I won't be able to stick to it. Right. I don't want to let myself down when I end up with things that, you know, stay for longer on the to do list and whatnot. And like I said, I've, I've been working on this for years. So it where you had the like you say, mess from 2001 and on. I feel like I'm in a, in a good place with it now as you've learned about the science and things. But I'm sure that that resonates with some people that are listening where you can realize like not knowing how long it's going to take. Where I would say, like, well, I don't know, like how am I supposed to know how long it will take me to do X? I want to do it. Right, right. That's the excuse of like, so I couldn't possibly know. I'm going to give it as much time as it needs. I love that you have a section in and it's talking a little bit about things. There are some things that are easy to quantify of how long it's going to take to do a thing and there are some things where it's easy to get and say I, well, I don't even know. So I'll just give it some time and Let it breathe or something. Right. Which again was sort of my natural inclination. And if you don't commit though kind of all the way into the time box, then it doesn't all fall apart, right? Maybe it does. You can elaborate there, but you need to block it right. Box it in really well.

You need to set the right box sizes. That is helpful for it. But you're never going to get it perfectly right even if you've been doing it for over a decade like I have. So you make an important distinction there Molina, about you know, between those tasks that you just haven't done before, there is no data that you can draw on to say how long such. I mean if you've never written a blog post before, how are you supposed to know how long it's going to take you? You could look at online about some, you know, some averages that other people might take to, to write 250 words or 500 words, but that's not you. So I think in the case of a brand new task, I would be very careful of. I would be, you know, personally I would be reticent about timeboxing that I think if people are getting started with timeboxing and that'll be, you know, for a lot of the, the listeners here just be take some baby steps. So you know, set a 15 minute calendar appointment, maybe make it half an hour actually to plan tomorrow. So when tomorrow comes around and it's I don't know, 7:30 or 9:00 clock or whenever you want to plan your day, take a look at your to do list. If you don't have a to do list, well you've probably got some version of a to do list. I mean 80 something percent of people have some version of a to do list. Or think about some of the positive activities that you know, you want to spend time on that day. Like I used this mnemonic Mr. ELF to remember some just always positive activities. So Mr. ELF stands for meditation, reading, exercise, learning and friends and family. So you can draw some inspiration from that and put in two to three items in your, in your day. And you know, so if it's a, let's say it's meditation. Well very often people will meditate for half an hour. So a 30 minute meditation definitely lasts 30 minutes. Right? There is just no question of that. And we ditto with a lot of exercise. Or you can set the time for learning rather than putting in a task where there is some sort of outcome that you need to achieve like a blog post. If you haven't done one before. So start really small. You don't want to have an early failure with it. Of course, that's not helpful, but it's not necessary either, because you can just start with a couple of small tasks that you know are going to take however long you're setting for them, because by definition, they're set to last that long. And then there's close to no chance of failure. That will feel good. You'll start to associate timeboxing with feeling good. You want to do it some more, and you will come back the next day and probably make some more time boxes.

Definitely. And I'm all about the. Like you say, we speak the same language on so much of this. I've been talking about similar things for years. And the doing one thing and to be having more intentionality with what you're working on so you don't end up with a bunch of the trivial stuff that just inevitably can suck the whole day away. It's totally gone before you realize it.

I mean. Molina, sorry to interrupt, but I just want to say about the one thing that you've picked up on there. So, I mean, it's a tagline of the. Of the book. It's also, if you can see my cap otaat. One thing at a time. That's what that stands for.

Nice.

Thank you. The reason that I really emphasize that point is that I really strongly believe that almost all of us, if we focus on one thing at a time, we get so much done that by far the biggest reason that we don't get stuff done is that we go from thing to thing to thing. And people call it multitasking. It's not really multitasking. It's just bringing down the amount of time you work on each thing to 60 seconds or 90 seconds. And that is stressful. You're hugely unproductive. At the end of the day, you don't feel like you know what you've been working on and you probably haven't done very much. So. So, yeah, one thing at a time is. Is the. Is the mantra. I actually, that's the thing that I say out loud when I start getting lost and distracted by something. I have a icky feeling that something's not right. And I have managed to. I associate that feeling with the action of coming back to my calendar. And I actually say out loud one thing at a time. As I utter that mantra, I immediately feel calmer. I know where I am. I know where I need to be. It's a couple of clicks away because it's almost always the leftmost browser tab, which is where my digital calendar is. And it's just, it makes me feel better every single time. That's the benefit that I get from time boxing every single, every single day.

Oh, for sure.

I was just looking at a note here of. So I am very delighted I'm going to be doing my first TEDx is scheduled to be actually just before this episode comes out by serendipity happenstance, what have you. And I'm actually talking about some really similar stuff to this and layering in the importance of doing one thing and how we don't want to be bike shedding and looking at time discounting and things that I'm excited to share about. With that though, one of the problems that I know, at least at this current version of the script of what's in there. We'll see how it all lands. It has, you know, looking at where. When we have too many things on the to do list and we were just talking about bike shedding, right. And I mentioned a little bit about dopamine, which of course you talk about in some of the book, but where you can just look at the start, right? If you start a new goal, you jump into something, you get the little dopamine hit of like, oh, I did something. I. I wrote it on the list. I got a little that. And if you have too many things, you can just be jumping from little hits that never get you anywhere and it feels like you're getting, you're productive but you're just not. But taking the piece with time boxing, where you step away, you are in like you talked about the, you know, this hot cold empathy gap where we're able to be in that cold state to be thinking about what we really want to do, what actually matters. Taking that 15 minutes in the morning to prioritize the day when you're not in the moment and think, oh, I really want to answer that email or I'm going to go do this other thing and you can I like in the book you talk about kind of that almost it's not retreating to but like knowing that you can always have this like touchstone of of importance for your like a centering point in the, the calendar in the time box to know where you should be and that it can help like you say like steady the ship or something, right. That it's a, a place of that intentionalism all comes in together. So I just holistically love all of what's. What's in there and how that can help people to do the things that they really aspire to do, that their brain may keep them from doing if they aren't aware of these aspects.

Yeah, with their brain preventing them or our brains preventing us with the distractions, there's internal thoughts that just occur. But it's also, you know, our smartphones and our inbox and colleagues and you know, other stresses and strains of life. So there are so many reasons that you're going to be pulled away from doing the things that really matter. Unless you have some kind of a system to ensure that. No, look, I'm saying early on in the day when no one's bothering me, these are the three things or the five things or the 15 things that I really that are really important to me. And you get them done. That is the reason that that's satisfying is that you're seeing that plan through. That is your own plan coming together. I mean that is exactly what agency is. It's you taking control of your behavior and not being pulled and pushed in any sort of direction by some demand from out there in cyberspace. Which is, you know, just a real, a real shame. You mentioned there earlier, Melina, the fact that some people have a to do list and it's vast and that can be off putting. I do wanted to say something about that. So a lot of people raise that as an objection to to do lists, but also to time boxing which kind of relies on to do lists to, you know, get, get some of these tasks. What I'd say is if you've got a very long list, a to do list that is just, you know, overwhelming and unattractive, unappealing and you're just too long. Stick it into a spreadsheet, paste it into a spreadsheet, go alongside each item and just give it a to do with urgency and importance between 0 and 10. It doesn't need to be super accurate, but just calibrator, you know, 10 is just like really, really need to do this soon. 5 is somewhere in the middle and 0, you can probably delete it from the list. Go through the list. It won't take more than 10 minutes. I mean you'd have to have thousands of items for it to really be take a long time. So you can definitely get this done in, let's say it's a 15 minute time box and then you just sort it on the numbers that you've just put in. And it is just an amazing feeling when you look at that list because you'll see. Well, first of all, there's just a bunch of zeros and ones that you just can delete or certainly kind of file away separately and get rid of. So immediately it's a much shorter list. And then at the top there won't be that many that are eights, nines and tens, but those that are, that feeds then a. I mean what I would say is you put that into your, into your calendar, make the appropriate time boxes, but immediately you've basically dealt with the entire to do list because you're making use of spreadsheeting functionality and really the 8020 rule where 20%, maybe less than that of the tasks on your to do list are actually going to make a big difference to your life or 80% of the difference to your life. So you're honing in on those like super, super fast. So don't think, don't let a long to do list be the enemy of time boxing or indeed maintaining a to do list. Use Excel and rank the items.

Perfect. I have follow up thoughts slash questions that I'm guessing the audience has as well. So one, do you recommend sorting like when you're doing the ranking on that, would there be one column of a 1 to 10 for urgent, another for important to separate those out in the scaling or do we put that into one number for the entire thoughtfulness to that that's piece one piece. Two, do you recommend having a in that like cold state setting some sort of a plan that like anything less than a three is like delete it. Right. It goes away, it comes off the list and you put on a don't do it sort of a list or do you allow yourself to go and look at those things and go well, maybe this should have been a five of those options where you pull things up the last thought, and I know this is overwhelming number of things I'm thinking here, but I had to get them out to help you. Is for those people who, where you say it should be just a few things that are 8 or above for someone who gets into the point that they say, well everything is an 8 or above, you know, what sort of advice do you have for them to help to kind of tease out or prioritize items when you're really heavily weighting those pieces.

All right, so to deal with these three things at a time, which is really anathema to me. But okay, so the first was whether you just collapse urgency and importance. Yeah, I do personally. I mean, look, it's rare that my list gets that long, but sometimes it does and then I just want to get to a fast answer. There is some nuance. Of course, there's a difference between urgency and importance. But I just sort of mushed the two together in my head as I'm going. As I'm going through. Then on the less than three, delete. No, I just have a. If it's zero, that means delete. And that's the kind of the definition for me of it getting a zero. So anything that gets even a one, I'm probably not going to delete because there's some value to it still, but probably for a later date. So that's the rule that I have. But obviously, you know, there's lots of ways of doing this. This is more. I'm giving the sort of overarching method. And, you know, the, the tweaks are up to, you know, individuals to. To make. And then on the last point of, okay, so I. I put tens for everything. I've got the same list. All right, well, okay, so obviously there's a. There's a problem there. That's where calibration needs to. To come in. I mean, you do need to be committed to what's the purpose of this exercise? It is to reduce and prioritize the. The list. Right? So you do need to be kind of looking for an opportunity to put a zero. I mean, putting a zero by one of these items is a win. So you kind of got to have that attitude as you're going through it that the more zeros I can put meaningfully, obviously you can't be just deleting important items, but the more zeros you put, the better. And I suppose the other thing I would say is that if you still have just too many at the top, maybe it is worth differentiating then between importance and urgency, because then you just have, you know, you're asking yourself an extra question, and there's more opportunity for one of the two schools to not be a. Not be a 10. But in my experience, I've not really felt that this is. This found that this has been a problem. Like, for most people, they run this exercise and they'll be suddenly aware of 20% of the to do list that is most important. And they appreciate that.

I love that. And I think one thing that can help for people probably too, is just because you're deleting a thing, like you can go put it somewhere in the. Like, whenever I write a book, I have a process. There's a thing where you feel like you don't want to cut something. I spent so much time writing this Thing and it must be so important. And then you cut it. And I have a, you know, it's like a trello board. I have different places where I will save the thing that some, like if I want to bring it back or maybe I care about this into the future. I don't want it to be lost into the abyss forever. And that like, you know, brilliance I wrote is gone. I've. I almost never go back. It's always better having cut those sections out, but knowing that it's not gone into the abyss forever is helpful. So potentially with those tasks, even if they're a reminder of the things that could make you very distracted, I think having something to revisit and say, no, I can't do that because I already marked it as a zero. See, it's over here. You know, that could, could be helpful.

Yeah, that should make it easier. You mentioned Marie Kondo earlier. And in the physical world, it does make a lot of sense to just get rid of the thing because it's taking up physical space. But when we, when you're talking about ideas that can be instantiated digitally, it doesn't make so much sense or you don't have to get rid of it. So. And also the way that search works now, you know, on a Trello board or in a Google Doc or wherever it is, and it's very easy to retrieve something. So, yeah, that might help with some people feeling like, well, it's, yeah, it's a 1 or a 2 or a 3 on the list because if I really want to come back to it, I can find it, it can be stored. That's not an issue.

Yeah. Oh, I'm so glad that you mentioned some of that searchability. I loved your suggestion of using like hashtags and different search terms in the calendar to be able to go back and kind of look at how you spent your time. Can you share a little bit about, you know, just insights from that?

Well, yeah, I mean, because of the. I mean, I use a Google Calendar, but this would apply if you're using Outlook or any digital calendar at all. You know, search is going to be pretty strong for anything that's digital these days. The point here is that this is data. This is actually, this is, these are pieces of work. Each time boxed day. It's got really valuable data about your life on planet Earth. So treat it well and treat it with metadata if you really want to get to, you know, understanding how you're using your time. So I'll give you an example. You might be Managing a team and think, well, it's good for me to run one to ones with the team. So if you add a hashtag of, you know, 1:1 to indicate that you can just do a very, I mean it's crude but you know, account of how many one to ones you've had through the year or the last month or what the trend is, imagine that over five years, which might give an indication then of how you've become more senior. So it tells a story. And that's just one example. Even if you don't do that, and I do think that that is a nuanced way of timeboxing that I think a lot of people wouldn't get involved with. There's a couple of shortcuts you can take. So one is just search within the calendar app and you can find, especially for recurring appointments, you know, how many times you met with certain people or you know, with sales calls, the other thing that you can do. So this is a Google feature, but there is an equivalent with other providers, time insights. So I color code my calendar with just four different types of tasks. So I have blue for standard work, green for high value work. And obviously part of the, part of the ambition is to make there be more green and less blue. Then I have purple for the book and yellow for leisure. So that gives me a snapshot for any given week of how much time I'm spending on these different important areas of my life. And that can help me to, well, one, just have that understanding. But two, make adjustments. And I mean, again, coming back to the intentional life, well, if you're not spending, you know, if you're spending, let's say 11% of your time on leisure, you know, including family and your own breaks and exercise and what have you. Now that might be perfect for some people, it might be not perfect for others, but if you don't know what it is, you can't make the adjustments and lead that more intentional life. So although I use the phrase, you know, lead an intentional life quite a lot, I'm really being quite concrete about it in the book and I'm trying to be in this, in this conversation so people can actually make tangible differences to their lives to, you know, to follow their intentions. Whether it's, you know, more time on this or more time on that.

Absolutely. And I love, you know, we're all about, you know, data and being able to quantify things around here and looking at tests and trends and all of that and being able to, I know you give really good screenshots slash examples throughout the book where it's saying like, here's your calendar where it just has meetings. Here it is where it's got the time time boxes and you can see. And if you are doing color coding, you're using the hashtags, you're able to say, you know, it's one thing to say, I really wish I had more time or I this year I want to read more books or I want to learn more, I want to exercise more, I want to do the thing. But you don't actually build it into the schedule in the way we don't prioritize it well enough often. And so putting in that time for learning and knowing that you can then look and say, okay, in February, I only spent however long. Cause I was able to search and I saw I only spent this much time learning, I want to up that by 10% in March. And so I need to find an extra however long into the time boxes that I'm going to put in for March. And you can just thoughtfully, intentionally be focusing on those things you want to be building up toward. It just allows for, like you were saying, I mean, it brings data and thoughtfulness to an area that we kind of just let happen in a way that's just not valuable. And so I just really love that.

Well, you just picked out two of the examples from Mr. Elf, actually. So one was reading and one is learning. And the issue with those two activities compared to say, you know, scrolling on Instagram on your phone, is that that, you know, you don't. It's a, it's a longer feedback loop to get the benefit. And so we don't embrace it and go into it as readily as we, as we do with, you know, our phones and social and social media. So that's a shame. But what we can do about that, I mean, one of the things that timeboxing brings is that, you know, in those 15 minutes at the start of the day, it's very likely that reading for, and not even necessarily very long, but say 15 minutes or half an hour, if you set the time box, you're not guaranteed to then read in that time. But you're so much more likely. I mean, studies show that you're, if you set a time box, there's a 91% chance you're going to, you're going to do it. That's what, you know, scientific papers have said, studies that have run back the last 20, 25 years. It's also just use your common sense. I mean, if you say that to yourself that I'm going to do some reading later on. Are you more likely to do it? Of course you are. You're not certain to do it, but you're much more likely to do it. And what I think a lot of people don't realize about reading in particular is that you can read so much in half an hour if you're actually dedicated about the, about your reading. I mean, we read what, 300 words a page a minute? So in half an hour you can read 30 pages. In a week you can read a whole book. And that's with just a half an hour of, of input, of, of dedication. So, yeah, I'm, I'm really, really into those examples, reading, learning. What are the other ones as? Well, actually, it's just, you know, what is going to be most useful for you? Ask yourself that question.

Well, and I think those are just those aspirational things that we say we want to do. But this is the. So time discounting being the other piece of. I call the I'll start Monday effect as the like. It's so easy to think about the thing in the future. Right. And with that, then. Or I want to travel more, someday I'm going to do these sorts of things. I love the example of how you talk about planning to, to travel more. Can you share a little bit about, about that too?

Yeah. So this again, relates to living a more intentional life. And I think it's the chapter on, on foreign intentional life where I'm saying, well, you know, what does this actually mean? If you sit down and think, okay, what I was really important to me, is it to be kinder to people? Is it to travel? Is it to learn to, to play chess? Okay, so that's something that, that's ultimately an outcome that you want, but there are milestones that you need to get there. And time boxing, carving out some time to do the planning for the travel or the budgeting for the travel itinerary. These are the stepping stones. So nothing's going to just happen unless you do the planning for it. And you can call it time boxing or just setting us outside some time or scheduling or whatever it is you want to call it. But those stepping stones, those milestones towards that goal need to happen at a certain point and not just, I'll do it next week, I'll do it Monday. Manana. Manana. I mean, that's a question I often ask of people when they say, well, I'll do it next week or I'll do it soon. I mean, that word Soon. I mean, what is the use, what is the utility of that word? Soon? When. So when always is the answer. And it sounds a little bit harsh. You know, people are just speaking nicely to each other and you know, and then you're coming in with this harsh when. But you know, eventually, actually that's just, that's more respectful to say, you know, this is when I'm going to do the thing that you might be interested in or you might need. It's much more respectful than to say soon, which is, I mean, okay, but just not very, not specifically helpful. So the idea with the travel was if you put those time boxes in, then in a few months time you might be on that trip. In a few years time, you're this, you're weathered, a weathered traveler with all the stories to tell, and you will have lived some element of that intentional life that you, that you wanted to. What else are we here for?

Well, absolutely. And when you're talking about the when of kind of asking a good thoughtful question to help someone to break through that conditioned response that we've gotten to over time, I'm all about that. And I really loved in the book too. Just I think as the when you think about sharing with other people, of being able to be a. Seen as a reliable team member, being held accountable to yourself. But for others to say, oh yeah, they've got it right. You have the point in the book of, you know, if someone gives you a task and you say, okay, got it. Or like seen or something. Right?

Time box for a certain time.

Right?

Yeah, you, you give me a task. Let's say now that, you know, you want to help some with, with your TEDx talk, and I tell you that I'm going to it's time box for a certain time now, what effect does that have on you? It's really respectful. It's really helpful. It really reassures you that I'm going to do it. And of course it gives you the when as well. So, you know, rather than I could just respond and say what a lot of people say, which is will do or it's coming soon. And that's just, it's not just less helpful in terms of being less precise. It gives you less confidence that it's going to. Going to happen as well. Since you mentioned collaboration, I just wanted to make a point because also on one of your podcasts, you were talking about the Hawthorne effect.

Yes. Yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah.

So a couple of things about timeboxing and collaboration. So if you have a digital calendar and you're sharing it with some, you know, family members or colleagues. So there's a very positive use here, which is that people can just see how busy you are when you're working on certain things and you can see the dependencies and. And come to you with realistic asks of your time. So that's positive and great. There is also a potentially more controversial element of it, which is, well, if you share all of this, then potentially people can see what you're working on and it might feel a bit like you're being viewed and observed, even though in reality, you know, people aren't. People aren't watching each other's shared calendars. But that gives you some of the benefit or the, I think the positive pressure that comes from the Hawthorne Effect, which, I mean, I'm sure your listeners mostly will know, but that our behavior and our performance of the task, if we're being observed, is affected and very often improved by that observation. So, yeah, I think timeboxing does a very light job of providing some of the benefits of the Hawthorne Effect without actually having a human being, Big Brother being on your shoulder.

Oh, yeah. And that reminded me, just for everyone as they go get their book, make sure you know, this also shares about things like transparency, being open with the calendar in a way that, that can build trust with members of the team. We talked about vulnerability loops and trust a lot on the show and that openness. Also, if you want to portray and help to remind yourself to have some fun, you know, you talk about using emoji in the time boxes, which I love to help remind you and you get to do the checkbox. I. I don't know why I've never thought about using emoji in my calendar naming. And it's happening now. I'm making it happen.

That is the one thing you're picking out from this book of wisdom and advice is implementing emojis. I mean, it's funny I thought about whether to even include that in the book or not because this sounds sort of trivial and like nonsense. But for me there is an element of. I mean, it's a little bit tongue in cheek as well, but there is just. The whole process feels a little bit more pleasant with tongue firmly in cheek and just. And visually as well. Those emojis kind of, you know, that's nice too. So, yeah, that's why they're in. And I'm glad that that's going to be influencing your behavior.

Well, I love it. In what your employees need and Can't Tell youl My second book, I had a very long section about emoji is one of the things I had to cut back a little bit. I still talk about emojis in the book. It has some. And talking about how they work with our brain. Fascinating stuff. But I loved seeing it there and I'm so excited to go and emoji my. My time boxes and. And my calendar for sure.

Love to see it.

Yay. Love it. And see, now I'm pre committed that like you're going to help hold me accountable. I've got to do it to send you the screenshot.

Love it.

When are you going to send it?

Oh, oh. I'm traveling next week, but I can. Oh my gosh.

The week after. Okay.

Yes, I will. I'm super excited. I will find a committed time. I'll email you back tomorrow to let you know when I'm gonna do that.

We're moving in the right direction. Milena. This is awesome.

I love it. Well, again, we'll have links in the show notes for people to get their own copies of Time Boxing. Sharing with friends and team members and all the languages and all the things. What's the best way for people if they want to learn more about you and your work or to connect to follow you? What should they do for that?

They can go to Mark Zal Sanders. So my name without the hyphen, MarkZal Sanders.com and sign up to a newsletter, free newsletter where in which I talk every Wednesday about time, time management, time boxing, intention, this sort of stuff.

Perfect. We will link to that in the show notes as well, of course, for everyone. And yeah, just thank you again. Look forward to our next conversation because I'm sure I could just. I won't take too many boxes out of your day, but I could talk to you forever. So thank you for the time.

Me too, Melina. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you.

Thank you again to Mark Zao Sanders for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, as I said at the start of the show, I've been focused.

On productivity for a while now.

But not just productivity for the sake of getting anything done. Thoughtful productivity, where you get the right things done. As Mark said, it's about being intentional, about designing a life you truly love. And that's heading a little bit each day toward a destination of your choosing instead of just waking up one day and not knowing how you got to wherever you are. It's so serendipitous that this episode will air the week after, I will have had the absolute honor to have taken the stage at TEDx Portland talking about a very aligned subject. I know the video won't be ready just yet. Thank you to any listeners who attended. Whether we got a chance to connect or not, there should be over 3,000 people there live. I'm really excited. My talk is about how there's nothing magical about Monday. Many of you have heard me talk.

About this before or read it in one of my books, but it's so.

Easy to dream big and say you'll do something that you can't wait to start on Monday.

But then when Monday comes, you get.

All wrapped up in the minutia and before you know it, the whole day or entire week has passed you by. In my talk, I share why this happens and how to overcome it so you can do more of the right things for you, whatever they may be. I'm so excited to have it out in the world and I love that I've been able to implement things like time boxing into my work while preparing for the event and balancing family and client work and everything else that really matters. More time for the stuff I want, less for the clutter that can be a black hole. That's what time boxing and understanding the brain so I can be intentional has done for me. What can it do for you? I can't wait to hear about it. Please share it with me on social media. You'll find me as the brainy biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. That's of course linked for you in the show notes along with my top related past episodes and books including Time Boxing, Ways to Connect with Mark and more. And for anyone who's wondering, yes, that when question that Mark asked me right at the end was super impactful.

I felt very motivated to go in.

And do the thing I said I.

Was gonna do right away.

I've already sent him a screenshot of.

A test of including some emoji into.

My calendar and some of the colors.

And things I was trying out and.

We'Ve had some interactions on it so that when Question really works, it kind.

Of puts you gets your heart going to where you feel like you really got to commit to it. Anyway, all that stuff I was just talking about, it's waiting for you in.

The show notes which are found within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com389 and thank you again to Mark Zhao Sanders for joining me on the show today.

It was a delight to chat with.

And learn from you. Join me Tuesday for another brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast.

It's going to be a lot of fun.

You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me, and remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.