Subtitles section Play video
- It's time to burn your to-do list.
("All In My Head" by Viktor Hallman)
What's up, Socials?
Welcome back to AmyTV.
Time is our most precious asset.
You can't get more of it
and everyone on the planet has the same amount of it.
It's kinda crazy to think of it that way.
What you decide to do with your time
is completely up to you.
It may not seem like that, but it's true.
Probably one of the reasons that you're watching
this video right now is you're not making the most
out of the time that you have.
You know it and you're kinda beating yourself up about it
and you want to learn what it actually means
to do something about it.
You wish you were accomplishing more
and the really great news about this
is you have all the time that you need
if you want to accomplish more.
Today I wanna share with you the time management tips
that have completely changed my life,
allowed me to get a lot more done
in shorter amount of time or at least get as focused
as possible in the time that I am allotted
in order to accomplish more
and I'm actually gonna call on my friend Chris Ducker
to chime in on this as well.
Before we dive in I just wanna double check,
are you subscribed to this channel?
Are you?
You know if you subscribe and you turn on notifications
I am telling you, I promise,
and you can ask any Social that's been around for awhile,
I will make it well worth your time
starting right now.
So you wanna get more done.
People are not magical.
They are not born productive.
None of us are really born productive.
It's a culture and that instant change cannot happen
until you make that big first step
that's critical to this process
and that is your mindset shift.
What does that mean?
That's like super buzzy.
People are talking about that mindset shift all the time.
What does that actually mean?
Well, first you kind of need to look
at how you ask questions right now.
If you're asking questions like,
"Why should I wake up early?
"Why do I need to use a calendar?
"What's the importance of planning ahead?"
You're probably not in the space right now
to get more productive because you're holding yourself up
with the mindset that you currently have
as to what the point of that would be anyway.
The people that have made that mindset shift
are less likely to ask, "Should I wake up
"early in the morning?"
And are more likely to ask, "How much time do I have
"in the morning before my first appointment
"to myself that I can get things done?"
Or maybe they're asking,
"When should I schedule my workouts this week?"
Or how about "What can I do in this 30 minute
"pocket of time between dropping the kids off
"and going to the next thing?"
When you're questioning why you would go ahead of the curve,
why you would plan ahead,
why all of those things are important
you're not as likely to be able to make
that instant change because you don't see the value
in time the way somebody who understands
what it means to be productive,
not for the sake of saying the word is,
but because of how much they're able to get done
and they see every moment
in time as a very valuable asset,
as a vehicle to move forward.
So you'll really know when you've had this
mindset shift when you start to reframe your questions,
when you start to notice yourself moving in that direction.
If you feel that shift, if you're there,
then we can move forward and I'm so excited about that
because now it's time for you to use your calendar.
I don't care if your calendar is on the refrigerator,
on your desktop, in your bullet journal, on your phone.
It does not matter, you need to use it.
I like to quote Peter Drucker in this case because,
"If you can't measure it you can't improve it."
The calendar is where you're gonna plan
and track your time.
This is the best place to do it
because it's quite literally a list
of all of the hours in the day that you have
and how much of it you can use
and how much of it you should be sleeping,
how much you've given away to other people.
You have to be able to analyze it and look at it.
I've talked to you in a previous video
about a specific tactic that I use on my calendar
which is calendar blocking.
You can go watch that to get more of a synopsis
of how exactly this happens,
but the overall takeaway here is track every single thing
that you do on the calendar.
It kinda goes to like dieting.
You know how they say you should track everything you eat
so you can get a feel for what you're doing wrong,
what you're doing right, where you can make small changes
to make all the difference and lose a few lbs?
That's basically what we're doing here
so if you're not quite sure about planning ahead
or using your calendar yet,
you could at least start at this moment
where you can just block out the time
that you spend doing things
so that when you see that two hour,
let's be real maybe it's three or four hours,
of time that you spent in the evening
after work vegging out in front of the TV
and Instagram-stalking
you have to fully take that in because you are
typing it in or writing it down as something you did
for two to three to four hours.
Tomorrow when you're tracking your time
you're probably gonna think to yourself,
"What could I have done in that amount of time yesterday
"that I could do instead today?"
Is it finish the laundry?
Is it write a blog post?
Is it search for a new job?
Even taking an hour out of that chunk of time
and doing something more productive with it
moves you so much further ahead
and then you still get the enjoyment of the scroll.
So meanwhile you probably have this other tactic
that hasn't really been working for you, the to-do list,
which is actually in my opinion called the should-do list
and you know how I feel about shoulding all over yourself.
That list is staring you in the face
not becoming a reality, but more guilt tripping you
on the things that you're not doing
which is just not productive all on its own
because you're just beating yourself up over it.
The goal here is to take that to-do list
if that is an easy way for you to track things
that you have to get done, fine, into time,
into real spaces of time that you can work and get it done
and hopefully in a short amount of time
because just looking at it is taking longer
than probably achieving a lot of the stuff.
Some of the tough conversation that we've had here
on this channel in the comments is pushback from parents.
I don't have that perspective to offer.
I don't have kids.
I have a really high-maintenance dog,
but that's as difficult as my life gets lately
so I understand that can be a little bit difficult
to listen to me and go, "Yeah sure,
"I'm just gonna block out my time and follow it verbatim."
When the reality is how can you be more strict
and more rigid with your time when you have kids
who tend to make your life a little bit more of a variable
which, although is not a part of my personal life
at this point in time, is absolutely something
I can understand that you would be grappling with
and maybe one of those mindset barriers
that's holding you back.
But what if we could just call children
that urgency in your life that could happen to anyone
like someone's boss taking somebody out of a project
and saying this is more important
or maybe somebody has a client
and they don't show up for their session
because they don't feel like it today,
but you planned on it and now all of the sudden
you have this gaping hole of time
that you didn't apply for something else.
Planning your time is never going to be perfect,
but planning on these moments that are variable
that move around is so vital for you being able to swoop in
in that moment and be able to move things around.
Speaking of that I'm just gonna bring Chris into this now.
Chris Ducker is a serial entrepreneur,
best-selling author.
He is an event coordinator of some
of the coolest events I've ever spoken at and been to.
He is a father and a very, very dear friend of mine.
I sat down with him while I was at a conference in San Diego
because I thought maybe he could offer a little bit more
of this perspective that would be useful for you.
Chris I know you're gonna get this
because I talk about this so much.
The value of a calendar.
I'm actually starting to wonder if it's a weakness
how much I use my calendar.
I'm very rigid with my time,
but I think you're similar to me
so I kinda wanna break this down on a level
that makes more sense, right?
Using your calendar to schedule everything,
but, like, emphasis on the word everything.
- Yes.
- You have accomplished a lot.
You've done a lot of things.
You have books and businesses and you're moving here
and there and you're launching events.
I mean like there's so much that goes into that
and it can feel very overwhelming to get there someday.
Scheduling everything got you there.
- Yes.
- What does that mean to you?
Like when you say you schedule everything,
what does that actually look like?
- It means I'm acutely aware
that when I say yes to something
I'm at the very same time
instantly saying no to something else.
- Oh my gosh.
- Oh my gosh. - I don't,
I, but I don't think I have I don't think I realize
the impact of that until maybe in the last couple of years
because when you're first getting started
it's very yes to say every, yes to everything.
- Well, no, you have to.
Kind of you have to say yes to everything
because you don't wanna say,
you don't wanna say no to the opportunities.
- So you don't realize the impact of saying,
what you're saying no to at that time.
- That's it.
- You and I have, well, you're further ahead,
you're further ahead than me,
but you and I I think really feel like
the impact of saying yes now means saying no
because it's feeling much more
like you're being pulled in different directions.
- What happens though is this and it's beautiful.
When you, when you're acutely aware of that
and you start doing it regularly,
you realize that the things that you're saying yes to.
- Yeah.
- Are so much powerful.
- Oh and they're exciting.
- Yeah and they're more important to your life
and your growth and your work and your family
and all that fun stuff.
- Yeah this is a good example actually
because I was like I think I'm gonna just have Chris
try to deliver in a different way
the same thing that I've been trying to tell you, right?
And we're gonna schedule it for 4:30
at Social Media Marketing World and we're gonna fit it in
and it was so hard just for us to sit here
not be talking to a bunch of people,
but because it was on my calendar and I knew
like this is the only time I'm gonna be able
to see my British friend for awhile,
to be able to have this moment,
this moment I would not be able to document otherwise.
- Yeah.
- If I don't draw the line there no one's gonna do it for me
and the same goes for everything else.
If it's writing a blog post and you need a half hour,
if it's working out and you need an hour,
blocking it out.
Do you do blocking the same way that I do blocking?
Like literally
I remove the time. - Yeah I block every
single minute and and like 15 minutes for social,
on the calendar. - Yeah.
- 20 minutes for email, on the calendar.
By the way I only check email
after lunch. - Oh yeah.
- I don't do it in the morning.
Creative work first.
- Yeah, yeah. - Plain and simple
and you know half an hour for exercise.
I hate exercising.
- Me too.
- But I do it because I know it's good for me
and I'll be around longer because of the result, right?
- How often is Charlie an item
that you block on your calendar?
- Every single day.
- Who's Charlie?
- My son.
- Yeah, yeah so charlie is literally
on your calendar, right?
And it could be a variable amount of time?
- Yep.
- Because I have this conversation a lot
and I'm not a parent so I can't give that perspective
of what it's like to block your time
and be rigid with your time.
The rigidity has to have a scale, right,
when you're a parent and the kid's
a little bit of a variable?
But don't you take Friday's off?
- Well, I haven't worked Friday for five years.
- Oh, is it charlie, is it called Charlie day?
- No it's not.
Actually it's actually wife day.
- Oh, okay.
That's good, too. - Because he's at school.
- Somebody needs to take notes on that.
(laughing)
- No he's at school and so it's our time.
You know sometimes we'll just honestly just stay at home
- Yeah.
- And just veg out on Netflix, right?
- Some days we'll go out and have a yoga session together,
sometimes we'll go get juices,
sometimes we'll go to the movies.
Whatever it is, it's just me and her.
- That's like the coolest appointment on the calendar ever.
It's just like anything like that.
- But also there's something that's very cool
is the Monday and Thursday that I work
which is a finite amount of time.
- Yeah.
- I have that blocked out because I know
that's what I need to do to be like really productive
in those four days, but come 4:00 p.m.
when Charlie gets home, nothing more on the calendar
except Lego time.
- Yeah.
- Power Ranger time.
- Oh my gosh. - Jedi.
Jedi time is fun when we pretend to be Jedis.
- Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
I don't know what you're talking about.
That's not a thing I do.
(laughing)
- You should, you should start
trying to be a Jedi. - You kinda,
your Instagram stories kinda make me
wanna get into Legos, though, I'm not gonna lie.
- Oh, it's so much fun.
- I'm like I wanna build something.
Thanks, Chris. - It's fun, right?
It's fun.
- So yes this is a conversation that was to entrepreneurs
but you don't have to be one in order
to follow this advice and get more done.
Maybe you just are someone who wants to say yes
to more exciting things,
things you want to do in your life.
We're gonna have to do some things we have to do
in order to make that happen,
but as Chris said, time management that works
is simply being acutely aware of the time that you have
and the things you gotta get done and we all have it.
We can all find it somewhere.
It's just a matter of how and keeping track of it
with your calendar.
So I want to put this back on you.
Just tell me how you're feeling about this.
How are you able to get more done
that maybe you haven't identified?
After this chat maybe some things have popped up.
Have you had that mindset shift?
Is it still difficult for you to make that shift
of why am I planning?
Why am I using my calendar?
To how can I best use every moment of time?
Share your thoughts on that.
What breakthroughs have you had
and how are you still struggling in the comments below.
If you enjoyed this video make sure
you give it a thumbs up.
I gotta know if you like it
so we can make more stuff like this
and also subscribe if you are
into this time management productivity thing
because we tend to do a lot of that around here.
Also, I will leave a link to Chris's channel.
He is crushing it on YouTube.
I'm so excited for him and also you probably
wanna check out his book.
Ah, you might notice somebody that's in it.
And this is Rise of the Youpreneur
so definitely check the book out as well.
I'll leave a link in the description.
That's all for today, Socials.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
I appreciate it as always.
Make sure you subscribe for good vibes
and remember to continue to go
after the life that you want.
Cheers.
("All In My Head" by Viktor Hallman)