Masterclass conversation (host Darcy Juarez with guest Dan Kennedy) introducing Dan's book "No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs." Dan explains why existing time-management material doesn't serve entrepreneurs, recounts an anecdote illustrating corporate-focused systems, and reframes the book as primarily about autonomy—protecting and asserting it—rather than conventional scheduling techniques.
But it is really a book about how to be autonomous. It is really a book about how to have and protect your autonomy. And it is a book about how to stiffen your spine, your resolve, you know, in order to do that.
Hello and welcome to this month's Masterclass. I'm Darcy Juarez here with Dan Kennedy. And Dan, one of the biggest questions we often get is how do you get so much done? And they're always curious about how you structure your time. So I'm excited about today's class. We're talking about the no BS Time management for entrepreneurs. Why did you write another book on time management?
Most of the, the time management material, be it books or courses or trainings or all of it for, for profit reasons, is, was and is written for everybody but the entrepreneur. It's written for people who live in offices and cubicles and really have already very structured, you know, environments. I bought this company once in 1981 and at the time there was a real popular national time management trading thing. And out of it everybody got a big book and color coded tabs, you know, and so we had a, we had a CEO, we had a CFO briefly. And I'm rummaging through their offices one day when they're out at lunch. And the CFO's time book, which has everything divided in 15 minute increments, you know, stickers launch. So his whole day is lunch, nap. I'm going, a, I don't think he needs the system, right. B, I don't think we need him. So two things have been discovered here at once that really that's true. So if you read most of it, it is because truthfully, they want to create stuff that IBM will buy 5,000 copies of and give to everybody and then bring a trainer in to train everybody. Today it's more about selling software than it is hard goods. But the principle is the same. So somebody wants to put out a time management system that corporate America will fall in love with. I couldn't get corporate America to fall in love with me if I wanted to. If, if, if she and I were the last two living human beings on a desert island, there'd be no sex. So I understand the entrepreneur and the entrepreneur is very different. Time challenges, particularly with protection. So that's one reason. The other sort of the impetus, the provocation to write it was I was getting asked all the time by clients, vendors, associates, by what I call the curious and the furious. So they were either mystified about my methodology or the results. How can you possibly get that much done right? Or how can you possibly get away with X, Y and Z? Or why in the hell are you doing A, B and C? Or they were furious. How dare you. Yeah, you know, et cetera. So I called the curious and the furious and I, I said, well, if I'm going to get asked these questions all this time, why don't I just put it all in a book and then I can either give it to them or I can tell them to go buy one and I can get a royalty. So there's the second impetus. And third, the book is mistitled. Not as badly as, say, the Inflation Reduction act, but. But it is, it is mistitled because people understand time management. They don't immediately understand autonomy, but it is really a book about how to be autonomous. It is really a book about how to have and protect your autonomy. And it is a book about how to stiffen your spine, your resolve, you know, in order to do that.
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