Épisodes

  • Does Journaling Help You Be More Productive?

    Does Journaling Help You Be More Productive?
    Feb 2 2025
    Should you take up journaling, and if you do, will it help you with your time management and productivity? That’s what we’re exploring this week. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Subscribe to my Substack Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 355 Hello, and welcome to episode 355 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. This year is the 10th anniversary since I took up consistent journaling. And it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever taken up. Not only is it one of the most therapeutic things you can do, it’s also one of the best ways to organise your thoughts, work your way through problems and vent your anger towards those who really wind you up. Over the years, I’ve also found that journaling has helped me to achieve my goals because each day I am writing about how I am doing and if I find myself making excusing, the act of writing out my excuses exposes them for what they really are—excuses. So, this week, I’ve chosen a question related to journaling and I hope it will inspire you to invest in a quality notebook and pen and start doing it yourself. And if I can inspire just one of you to take it up and become a Samuel Pepys, I’ll be very happy. So, to kick ups off, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Tom. Tom asks, hi Carl, I’ve heard you talk about your journaling habit numerous times. Do you think writing a journal has helped or hindered your productivity? Hi Tom, thank you for your question. To answer your question directly, I can say with certainty that journaling has contributed to my overall productivity. To explain further, I write in my journal every morning, no matter where I am. And one of the things I always write down is my two objective tasks for the day. Those objectives are the two non-negotiable tasks for the day and by writing them down at the top of my journal entry, I have a way of ensuring I did them when I write my journal the next day, But more powerfully, writing them down each morning focuses my mind on what needs to be done and how and when I will do them. Those tasks are also in my task manager, but it’s the act of writing them out by hand that gives me the focus. Writing a journal is much more than being an aid to productivity. It’s also a form of therapy. Like most people, I feel frustrated, overwhelmed and stressed at times. Those feelings need an outlet. A negative way to do that is to get angry, shout, and scream. Sure, that blows off steam, but it also transfers your negative feelings to others—your colleagues and family. Not great. Instead, if you have a way to write about these things, you start to find ways to solve whatever the underlying issues are. Writing slows down your thinking, and if you were to step back and analyse why you sometimes feel stressed, frustrated and overwhelmed, it is because you feel—incorrectly—everything has to be done right now. That slowing down helps to bring back some perspective and you can decide when you will do something and what can be left until another day. When it comes to achieving your goals, a journal is perhaps the best way to track progress. It can also help you establish new, positive habits. When I developed my morning routines around eight years ago, I chose to track them in my journal. I always draw a margin on left of the page, and I list out the six items I do as part of my morning routine: make coffee, wash face and teeth, drink lemon water, write my journal, clear my email inbox and do my shoulder stretches. I write them down at the top of my journal entry for the day in the margin. And, for the dopamine hit, I check them off too. I exercise in the late afternoon and, again, I will write out what I did in the margin of my journal. Now, I could spend a lot of money on habit-tracking apps, but with my journal, I’ve found no need. I have my record and can review it at any time. Over the years, I’ve been asked what I write about and if I use any prompts. The answer is no. Well, apart from writing out my objectives for the day. Now, prompts can be helpful when you first start—you can think about them as those little stabilisers we put on kids’ bikes to help them learn to ride. Sooner or later you want to take them off so you can experience the freedom of riding freely. I write whatever’s on my mind that morning. If everything’s going ...
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    13 min
  • What's the Rush? Slow Down and be More Productive.

    What's the Rush? Slow Down and be More Productive.
    Jan 26 2025
    Do you feel you are rushing from one task to another while not getting anything important done? Well, this week, I’m going to share with you a few ways to change that. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Subscribe to my Substack Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 353 Hello, and welcome to episode 354 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. What’s the rush? This is one of those powerful questions you can ask yourself when processing the things you have collected in your inboxes. It’s easy today to feel that everything you are asked to do must be done immediately. While there is a category of tasks that require quick action, most of what comes across your desk (or pops up on your screen) does not fall into that category. The trick, of course, is knowing which is which. This is where developing confidence in your judgement and abilities helps. But that can only come from establishing some “rules”. In a way, automating your decision-making. I recently heard an interview with President J F Kennedy, in which he said as president, the kind of decisions you make are always high-level. Anything smaller will be dealt with at a lower level and rarely reach your desk. That’s an example of government in action. The president or Prime Minister cannot decide everything. Lower-level, less urgent things can and should be handled at a department level. That’s the same for you. Most of your decisions should be automated. What kind of emails are actionable, and what can be archived or deleted, for example. So, without further ado, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Edward. Edward asks, Hi Carl, I recently read your newsletter in which you wrote about slowing down. Could you explain a little more how to slow down and still be productive? Hi Richard, thank you for your question. One of the disadvantages of technology and how it has advanced over the last twenty years is the speed at which tasks can now be done. While technology has speeded up incredibly, our human brains have not. That causes us many issues. The biggest issue is because everyone knows how quickly we can reply to an email, they expect almost instant replies which ignores the fact we might being doing something else. For example, when I am driving or in a meeting or on a call, I cannot reply to an “urgent” email or message. I am doing something else. In the days before email, there was a natural delay. I remember when I was working in a law firm, email was very new and lawyers didn’t trust it. So, we continued writing letters. This meant, if we received a letter in the morning, we had until 4 pm to reply—that was when the mail went to the post office. If we missed the post, that was okay, we could blame the post office. And that was accepted. Other lawyers knew this as did our clients and the clients of the other lawyers. This also meant we had time to think about our response, talk to a colleague if necessary or escalate to our boss if the issue was complex. Today, we often don’t feel we have that time. The truth is you do. One thing I’ve learned is when someone sends you something they are secretly hoping you do not respond quickly. They’re snowed under with work too. If you reply quickly, you’ve just given them more work to do today. You’re not going to be their favourite person. One of the easiest ways to reduce some of this anxiety is to put in place some rules. Let me give you an example. I receive around 100 to 150 emails a day. Most of the mail I receive comes through the night. I therefore process my inbox each morning before I start my work. The goal of processing my inbox is to clear it as fast as possible. There’s no time for applying the legendary two-minute rule (where anything that can be done in two minutes or less should be done). All I need is ten emails where I could apply the two-minute rule and I’ve lost twenty minutes. No thank you. I want a cleared inbox as quickly as possible. I’ve applied this rule for over ten years now and can clear 150 emails in less than twenty minutes. My record is 380 (ish) emails cleared in 36 minutes. Then around 4 pm, I will go to my email’s Action This Day folder. Begin with the oldest email and work my way through that for an hour. I aim to respond to any actionable email within 24 hours. And I would say I have a 95% success rate ...
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    12 min
  • MPP - Maximum Procratination Protection

    MPP - Maximum Procratination Protection
    Jan 19 2025
    This week, how to reduce procrastination and why you don’t want to completely remove it. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Subscribe to my Substack Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 353 Hello, and welcome to episode 353 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. We recently asked what’s the biggest thing that ruins your productivity on my YouTube community page. 58% of participants said procrastination. In a way, that doesn’t surprise me. When you see the statistics on how many people spend time planning their days and weeks, I am actually surprised that the number isn’t higher. I’ll explain shortly. Now, procrastination has been around for a very long time. Leonardo Da Vinci only managed to finish a small number of paintings. Of the twenty paintings attributed to him, around five were finished. Leonardo was a serial procrastinator. Yet, it was that procrastination that led to many of his inventions. If he had not procrastinated as much as he did, we would have many more of his paintings but very few of his notebooks full of drawings and diagrams. The good news is, there are a few practices you can do that will reduce procrastination and enable you to be more internal about your days. To get us started, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Carlos. Carlos asks, Hi Carl, what advice do you have for overcoming procrastination? Hi Carlos, thank you for your question. As I alluded to, procrastination and daily and weekly planning are linked. When you are clear about what needs to be accomplished you will procrastinate less. The problem when you have no plan is you waste a lot of time trying to decide what needs to be done. And then, it’s likely you will pick the easiest thing to do in the hope it will get you started. It’s true, you will get started, but you will be doing low value tasks leaving behind the higher value ones. The ones you don’t know what needs to be done or what the first action is because you don’t have a plan. And that leaves you at the end of the day looking at a list of important, high value things you didn’t do. One way to overcome this is to be very clear about what the next action is. In my next YouTube video, coming out on Thursday, I explain why “think about” tasks are not really tasks and will be the ones you will sacrifice the moment your day becomes busy. The reason why these get put off is because it’s not clear what the real action is. For example, if I had a task like “think about what to buy mum for her birthday”, I would procrastinate. It’s too much effort and is not the real task. The real task might be to talk to my brother and sister about what they re getting my mum. Or I could talk to my father and ask him what he thinks she would like. Which task would you most likely do: Think about what to buy mum for her birthday, or, call my brother and ask him what he’s getting mum for her birthday? One is actionable the other is wishy washy. The wishy washy task is the one you will procrastinate on. You will procrastinate because it’s not clear what needs to be done. This is where planning comes in. When you have a plan for the day and are clear about what needs to be done, you will be less likely to procrastinate because your brain is subconsciously planning ahead for you. You’re doing one task and your brain is thinking, subconsciously, about what you will do next and how to complete the task. This prevents your brain from going offline and procrastinating. However, when you don’t have a plan for the day, none of that happens. Instead, you procrastinate. You are always on the lookout for something interesting to do, and anything that does not fit the mood you’re in will be skipped for something more interesting. So, the first practice to develop is to plan your day. This does not take a long time. It can be done in five minutes. And the ideal time for maximum procrastination protection is to do it before you finish the day. There’s something more intentional about starting your day knowing exactly what it is you want to get accomplished. Now, there is a caveat here. If you are an early riser, you can do your planning for the day as part of your morning routine. After all, it’s only five minutes. So how do you effectively plan your day? Step one. Look at your appointments for the day. How much ...
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    13 min
  • The Lessons I Learned From My Minimalist Project

    The Lessons I Learned From My Minimalist Project
    Jan 12 2025
    What happened to my 2020/21 minimalist project, and where am I today? That’s the question I am answering today. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Subscribe to my Substack Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 352 Hello, and welcome to episode 352 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. Towards the end of 2019, I decided that in 2020, I would go all in on a minimalist project. I had played around with it for a number of years, but it wasn’t until 2020 that I formally turned it into a project and began the process of clearing out a lot of stuff I had collected that was no longer benefiting me. And yes, four or five years ago, minimalism was a thing. Everyone was talking about it, and there were thousands of videos of people showcasing how bare and minimal their workspaces were. It was a trend, and while that trend appears to be forgotten, I learned many things that I still practice today. So, it was a nice surprise to find a question about it in my inbox a few weeks ago. I realised it was a good time to tell you about what I learned and what I am still practising today. So, without further ado, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question… Which I realise I’ve already told you. This week’s question comes from Milos. Milos asks, hi Carl, I remember a few years ago, you mentioned that you were about to start a minimalist project. How did it go, and are you still a minimalist? Hi Milos, thank you for your wonderful question. Like most projects, or goals, designed to change how you do things, once you complete them, it’s easy to forget you ever did them. My minimalist project was such a project. I changed a lot of things that I do automatically today, so your question caused me to reminisce on how things used to be. I should point out that I wasn’t into extreme consumerism. I would replace my phone, iPads and computers when they stopped functioning in a way I needed them to do. For example, my old Intel computer became very slow over a year when Apple switched from Intel chips to their M series. So much so that it took up to an hour to render a fifteen-minute YouTube video. When I changed my computer to an M series one, that time came down to around six minutes. However, I think I am a bit of a hoarder, and I had boxes of old papers from my teaching days I no longer needed. I was always reluctant to throw away old clothes, believing one day I might regain the weight I had lost and would require those bigger sizes again. My wardrobe, drawers and other cupboards were full of stuff I no longer needed and would never need again. So that was where the project began. Clearing out old clothes and papers I no longer needed. As with all endeavours like this, I did go a little extreme. My desk, for instance, was stripped of its soul—well, it felt like it. All I had on there was my computer, keyboard and trackpad. I found it became an uninspiring place to work. So, gradually, I added some things back. An analogue clock—a tool I use to prevent time blindness when I get into a focused zone and a few little mementoes to bring some character back. The biggest part of the project was clearing out drawers, cupboards and my wardrobe. That was liberating and I was surprised how much space I had once everything was cleared and either thrown away or taken to the recycling. I moved house at the end of 2021, and that was an opportunity to complete the project—well, the clearing out of the old part of the project. However, the biggest change was in the way I approached purchasing. I stopped buying electronic gadgets. I am in the Apple ecosystem and Apple’s products, on the whole, last a long time. For example, I have an iPad mini for reading ebooks, magazines and the newspaper. I’ve had the same iPad mini for the last five years. And I have no intention of replacing it any time soon. Another change was to apply some rules to my purchasing. This was inspired from how the British gentry in the early 1900s approached buying clothes and personal consumption items. In the 1920s (and 30s), aristocrats bought clothes and necessities once. For instance, a young aristocrat would purchase a set of luggage that would last a lifetime. If something broke or the leather tore, they would fix it. A new suitcase was not necessary. These repairs added character and gave these items a unique look. It was also a much more ...
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    14 min
  • The Only Time Management Strategy That Works

    The Only Time Management Strategy That Works
    Jan 5 2025
    What one thing could you do this month that would transform your productivity? That’s what I’m answering this week. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Subscribe to my Substack Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 351 Hello, and welcome to episode 351 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. It’s one of the strange quirks of human nature to overcomplicate things. This is particularly so when things start to go wrong. In my favourite sport, rugby league—as in most team-based ball sports—the basics of winning a game are possession of the ball and territory. If you can consistently complete your sets in your opponent’s half of the field, you will likely win the game. Drop the ball or give away silly penalties by overcomplicating moves, and you’ll make it very difficult to win the game. Teams that lack confidence are particularly guilty of these mistakes. Watch any winning team, and you will see they stick to the basics and never panic when they go a try or goal behind. You can see this in any workplace, too. Those people who rarely appear stressed or overwhelmed stick to the basics. They have processes for getting their core work done—the work they are employed to do. Top salespeople dedicate time daily to prospecting and following up with their customers. CEOs ensure they have time for meeting with their leadership team weekly so they are aware of what’s going on and know where the potential issues are. So, what can you do to ensure you stick to the basics each day to avoid those pernicious backlogs? Well, before I answer that, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from George. George asks, hi Carl, are there any strategies you know of that guarantees someone will always be on top of their work? Hi George, thank you for your question. I’ve always found it fascinating to look at occupations where mistakes can lead to a loss of life—airline pilots and surgeons, for example. Before any flight, a pilot goes through a checklist to ensure the plane is in working order. They check the weather and the weight of the cargo—both of which can affect how the aircraft will fly. They calculate the speed they need to reach before taking off and plot their flight path to avoid storms or dangerous weather fronts. No pilot would ever consider not doing these checks. Indeed, not doing them would be an act of gross negligence and could potentially be career-ending. Similarly, surgeons follow a checklist. They check the patient’s name, the type of surgery being carried out, and, if necessary, which side they will be operating on. They also check the patient’s blood pressure and other measurements. Again, failure to do so would be considered gross negligence, and a doctor could be fired for not doing them. Now, perhaps lives do not depend on you doing your job correctly, but approaching your work in the same way a pilot or surgeon does can ensure that your work gets done without missing essential tasks. The first step is to identify your core work. The work you are employed to do at a micro-level. For example, if you manage a team of people, what do you need to do at a task level to manage your team? That could be to prepare for and hold a weekly team meeting. It may involve setting aside time each month for a thirty-minute one-to-one session with each team member. That would translate into weekly tasks for preparing for the team meeting and scheduling appointments with your team. A journalist’s core work may be to research a story and then write the story before the deadline. Imagine their deadline is 1 pm on Thursday; then the journalist could ensure sufficient time is protected before Thursday to get the story written and submitted before the deadline. What are your core work tasks? Next comes the all important communications and admin tasks. We all have them. The problem with these tasks is we cannot accurately estimate how much will come in. Each morning, when I start my day, I have no idea how many emails I will have. Some days, it’s 80; other days, it can be as high as 150. Yet, one thing I can guarantee is that I will have email to deal with. So, I protect an hour a day for dealing with communications. This way, I know that no backlogs will ever build, and nobody is waiting longer than 24 hours for my response. Somedays, I need the whole hour; I may only need ...
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    13 min
  • Getting Ready for 2025

    Getting Ready for 2025
    Dec 22 2024
    This week, I've delved into my archive to bring you an episode first published on the 1st of January this year. This will help you prepare yourself for an outstanding 2025. ----more---- You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin The CP Learning Centre Membership Programme The Working With… Weekly Newsletter The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 305 Welcome to episode 305 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host for this show. So, 2024 is here. A New Year with a lot of potential new opportunities and plans. The challenge you will face (because we all face this challenge) is executing on all the ideas and plans you have for this year without a loss of enthusiasm or energy. And that will happen because no matter how well you have planned the year, things will not work out as you imagine. Some things will go exactly how you expect them to, but most will not. And that’s the same for everyone. If you deliver all your plans and projects exactly as conceived, you are not ambitious enough to move forward. You’re making things too easy. So how do you avoid the loss of enthusiasm and energy that you will need to see you through the year? Well, that’s the topic of this week’s question, so let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for the question. This week’s question comes from Carrie. Carrie asks, hi Carl, every year I get excited about all the things I want to do, and when it gets to February or March, I lose all my enthusiasm because I haven’t done anything I had planned to do. Do you have any advice on avoiding this? Hi Carrie, thank you for your question and Happy New Year to you too. One thing I can tell you straight up is you are not alone. It turns out 92% of those who set New Year goals or resolutions have given up by 16th February. Only 8% manage to achieve some of their goals. This means we need to learn what those eight percent do that is different from the 92%. The first thing I discovered about the 8% is they have no more than three goals for the year. And those three are very specific. For example, they may have a financial, a physical and perhaps a career goal. And that’s it. If we use these as an example, the financial goal is possibly the easiest. Imagine your financial goal is to save $5,000 this year. You can break that down into twelve months and send $417.00 per month to your savings account. On the 31st of December, you will have a little over $5,000 in it. On a task level, this is a 30-second task once a month where you send the $417.00 to your account. Now, if your finances are tight, you may have to review what you are spending money on and make some changes to what you spend, but the action to take is just thirty seconds per month. Physical goals can be a little more complex. Not everyone does exercise to lose weight. Some just want to improve their overall health; others would like to challenge themselves physically by running a marathon or climbing a big mountain. However, whatever the purpose or “what” the goal is, physical goals mean you need to find time for regular exercise. The essence of the goal is to find the time and do the exercise, and that will almost certainly achieve your goal. The difficulty with these types of goals is the starting point. If you have not exercised for a number of years and are not in great shape, it is going to be hard. This is like pulling a large truck. The hardest part of pulling a truck is the start. When the rope you are attached to takes the strain to get the truck moving, it takes an inordinate amount of strength. However, once the truck begins to move, it gets easier and easier. The difficulty then becomes stopping the truck. Starting an exercise programme is the same. It’s incredibly hard to begin with. The first session’s never that bad until you wake up the following morning. When you step out of bed, your muscles scream out in pain, and you’ll wonder how on earth you will be able to repeat your exercise again today. The thing is, getting fit and staying fit is the same. It’s all about turning up and doing the exercise. But it doesn’t have to be the same exercise each day. Jog one day, walk the next. Then perhaps go for a swim or do some light weights in the gym on other days. Fitness is all about movement, so find time each day for movement. What I’ve discovered about fitness is that it’s all about routine. It needs to be built into your day, and the time of day you do it needs to work for you. Once it becomes a routine and you get through the first fourteen...
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    14 min
  • How To Work With Your Strengths.

    How To Work With Your Strengths.
    Dec 15 2024
    This week, why it’s important to know what kind of person you are. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Subscribe to my Substack Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 350 Hello, and welcome to episode 350 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. WOW! 350 episodes. I never thought this podcast would still be going strong after six years. Thank you to all of you for following me and this podcast and to everyone who has sent in questions. Please keep them coming in—they are the fuel of this podcast. So, back to this episode. One way to destroy your efforts to become better organised and more productive is to fight against yourself. This can manifest itself when you are a deadline-driven person trying to be a carefully planned out person. Let me give you an example: if you struggle to find the motivation to begin a project because the deadline is six months away, yet you pressure yourself to start now. You’ll likely find yourself losing interest and giving up after a few weeks. Then you beat yourself up. But, perhaps you’re not doing anything wrong; you’re just trying to do something you are not wired to do. That’s why it’s important to know what kind of person you are and to figure and what works and what doesn’t. Okay, before we go further, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Matthew. Matthew asks, Hi Carl, What do you recommend to someone who finds it difficult to get motivated unless there the deadline is right on top of them? Ho Matthew. Thank you for your question. I’ve witnessed something like this very close to home. My wife struggles to start work on a project or a task until the deadline is right in front of her. She then pulls out all the stops pulling all nighters if necessary. Yet, she always meets her deadlines. In the twenty + years I’ve known her, I cannot recall a time she missed a deadline. Ever. My mother, on the other-hand is the complete opposite. She will begin getting her holiday items together sever months before she travels. I know, when we travel to visit my family over the Christmas holidays, he will be wanting to plan her next trip to Korea with me. Six months before she’s likely to travel. She even gets her suitcase ready. It would be fruitless to encourage my wife to be more like my mother or vice versa. My mother hates stress—it gives her a headache. My wife doesn’t see the point in over preparing. Yet, we shouldn’t be looking at the methods, instead look at the results. Neither my wife nor my mother miss deadlines. They have different approaches, but still achieve the same results. Some of my coaching clients wake up very early 4:30 - 5:30 am and like to plan their day before they finish their morning routines end. Others find it more beneficial to plan the day the evening before. Yet, as long as you begin your day with a clear idea of what needs to be accomplished that day, does it really matter when you do your daily planning? I recommend if you are an early bird, do your planning in the morning. If you are more of a night owl, do it the evening before. What matters is you plan the day. The benefits of having a clear idea of what you want to get accomplished that day, far outweighs the timing of your planning. I have clients who see Ali Abdaal’s productivity recommendations and wonder how he gets any work done with so many tools being used to organise something as simple as what to do and when. Yet, I have other clients who love using the tools Ali recommends. There’s no right or wrong way to do this as long as you are getting the results you want. In your case, Matthew, the productivity tool that you should master is your calendar. If you are motivated by deadlines, you will need to be very clear about when you deadlines are. Having your deadlines on your calendar in the all-day section and in a colour you cannot fail to see will ensure you know when your deadlines are. All my project deadlines are in my calendar in red. These are hard deadlines and when I am planning my week, all I need to do is look ahead two or three weeks to see what’s coming up. You may also find it helpful to have a Master Projects list in your notes app so when you are planning the week you have a central place where all the information you need is. On your Master Projects list you can have the deadlines, and what needs to happen...
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    13 min
  • How To Plan The Week in 45 Minutes or Less

    How To Plan The Week in 45 Minutes or Less
    Dec 8 2024
    This week, the question is on how to reduce the time it takes to complete a solid weekly planning session. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Subscribe to my Substack Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 349 Hello, and welcome to episode 349 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. One issue that frequently comes up in my YouTube video comments and email messages is the subject of weekly planning and it taking too long. It’s taken me a while to see how this might be happening, but a recent coaching call pointed me in the right direction. The issue is the difference between what David Allen calls the Weekly Review and planning a week. The Getting Things Done Weekly Review is, about looking backwards. You spend a lot of time looking at what you have done on individual projects. Given that in GTD, anything requiring two or more steps is a project and that by following that definition, you are going to have between, and I quote from the Getting Things Done book, thirty and hundred and fifty projects at any one time, is it any wonder weekly reviews take so long. This is why I do not call my planning session a weekly review. Instead, I am planning the week, not reviewing my work. The word “review”, at least to me, suggests looking at something that happened in the past. Yet, planning is about looking ahead. What’s happened has happened. What matters is what you do in the following seven days, and that will be contingent on appointments and commitments you have in those seven days. So, without further ado, let me turn you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Greg. Greg asks, hi Carl, I’m struggling with doing my weekly plan. I’ve taken your advice to do it on a Saturday morning, but it still takes me almost two hours. Are there any secrets to getting it down to less than an hour? Hi Greg, thank you for your question. The question I would start with is, “Are you planning the week or looking back at the week just gone? If you are following the Time Sector System, one routine task I recommend is to give yourself ten minutes before you close out the day to process your task manager’s inbox. Processing your inbox is about asking three questions: What is it? What do I need to do? When will I do it? The second question, What do I need to do? May give you the answer, nothing. In that case, you can delete the task altogether. When you do a task, will depend on its urgency. It may be something that doesn’t need to be done this week, in which case you can move it directly to your next week, this month or next month folder. If it does need to be done this week, when will you do it this week? You then add the date. Doing this routine task everyday, means when you sit down to do your weekly planning on Saturday morning, you only need look at your next week and this month folders and move anything to your This Week folder if you must or want to do it in the next seven days. In my experience, that only takes ten minutes. Now what about all those projects? Well, if you are still trying to manage you projects in a task manager, good luck. Weekly planning is going to take a long time. You will have to go through each project and make sure nothing has been missed. That’s going to take a long time if you have between thirty and 150 projects. However, if you manage your projects in your notes app, then these won’t need reviewing. Every time you touch a project you update the project note. You can, if you wish, move the next task to your task manager, although if you create tasks that tell you to work on a given project, you should not need to do that. I don’t define a project in the same way as David Allen does. A project for me is something that will take at least three months to complete and will have a lot of tasks to complete. In the Getting Things Done world. My upcoming trip to Europe is a project. Yet, for me, it’s a single task. Book flights. Once that task has been done, I will know exactly what needs to happen next. Do I need to book a hotel? This year, no, but I will need to book bus tickets once I arrive in Dublin. So the next action is to book the bus tickets. The thing is, I didn’t know if I needed to book a hotel or a bus ticket because that depended on what time we arrived at Dublin airport. And I didn’t know that until I had booked the flights. I do have a note in my notes ...
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    14 min