Lessons

Lesson Info

Time Management Struggles Part 2

What about outside of email? Just in your day to day interactions, setting tactics for setting boundaries so that you're still a team player and you're still trying, teo, you know, get things done and say yes when you can, but you're also setting your own boundaries when it comes to that again, you wee have what I like to talk to people that want it when we talk about those kind of anders that get side of email, the calendar, that counter tool I talked about, you know, making sure that you've got a blocked out time for yourself. If you decide you want to work on those bigger projects, making those happen and places where you feel that it's gonna work and again making it movable, maybe not saying from one to three everyday, but saying hey, for two hours every day, I'm gonna work on this so you can move it so that we've got that flexibility where it's still within your boundaries, you set some limits saying, hey, I know I need these two hours or three hours, and I'm just going to move th...

em because maybe there's a meeting at one o'clock today the team wants to have, so I'm going to shift it from one to three to two to four. Right so that's one area and another area is of course again when it comes to communication I know a lot of you know what they'll do and this is this is uh in an office environment is they'll put headphones on I worked in an office where our graphic designer uh put headphones on and not like your buds like cans and you know what was going through those cans nothing exactly nothing there's nothing playing it was just but there's that visual representation of oh clearly he's listening to something or clearly he's you know, engaged in something and he's not he's just trying to block out the rest of the stuff so he could get his real work done and he was able to really mitigate his distractions and any disruptions I mean, of course, if a fire alarm went off like clearly he's getting up right? Because that's a disruption that you definitely don't want to ignore but something along those lines khun b very helpful too, especially in an office environment. So if so anyone who's that who's fronting you know, anyone here if you see a whole bunch of co workers show up tomorrow we're in kansas like, oh man, I'm not going to talk to anybody so that that's that's another area in setting office hours another world was setting office hours I know that uh it's a foursome mayor from meat from think she's from yahoo now uh, there was there was somebody that was working for google. What they would do is when they went on vacation, then auto respond to email that would say, uh, I'm away on vacation for two weeks. Uh, any email I received over those two weeks will be promptly deleted upon my return. Not not. I will answer gone and what that does I mean, she's in a luxurious position where she could do that, and I'm not suggesting every but what that does is that allows her to actually go on vacation because she knows she set that limit off. I'm not getting an e mail on the way, even if people are sending her emails and in some cases, if you were to do something along those lines, I'm away on vacation or I'm going to be out of the office for the weekend. I will respond within seventy two hours probable block you get a real sense of who you want to work with, especially if your soul a primary or working with clients versus who you don't like. Yesterday we had that person I was emailing fifteen times in an hour, sorry, that's a client I probably don't want to work with. Because they're stealing focus away from all the other clients that I'm that I'm trying to work on right? So unless you can manage that and get them to say hey, you know what? Fifteen e mails in an hour how much work you actually get it done so those air those air, some tactics there's a lot of little tricks you khun d'oh but those are ones that I think kind of, you know, I know we live like I said, we live in an era where time is almost irrelevant to a certain extent because we've got time zones all over the place and you could talk to anybody anywhere at any given time, right nearest your from cyprus, right? So I mean, we're from all over the place people in chat room are from all over the place so time is is not it's the blends together it's really relevant so you getting an e mail at three in the morning from somebody in australia and responding to it because it showed up between the morning says guess what? Three in the morning? And now if you would respond later saying, by the way, this was an exception, not the rule I was up you happen to catch me that's great because then you're showing you're going a little bit out of your way, but if you keep that wheel going I mean if you called your back in the back in the day back in the day if you called your lawyer at the home on your home phone on their home phones after hours and they picked and they first off they say how did you get my home number and secondly they would say this is now costing you overtime this is now costing you three times what the no one would dare do that now right uh same thing when the phone rings at dinner how many of you how many of you here answer the phone when you're eating dinner like you pick up like you're eating or you doing something like dinner breakfast lunch and the phone rings you pick it up so you looked you actually steve take focus away now geum voicemail yeah your voicemail okay just check see that's that's that's a catch right there and this is why I talk about like a lot of the mindful practices when it comes to technology allows us this it gives us this luxury a tool like away find gives us this luxury a tool like otto responders give us the answering machine which we've had for what thirty plus years now arm or gives us the luxury to have say you know what the machine will get it and when they first came out way would just let the machine get it even if we weren't doing ah someone called wait let the machine get it and you have those answering machine messages that air like someone doing an impression or those infomercials where they would sell like a tape of celebrity impersonators that would say you know like I'm not home right now whatever you get that now it's like oh I better get it it's that instant right it's that it's that instant I need to I need to grab that words if you're eating dinner you're eating dinner that's your time right? How many of you sit at your desk when you eat lunch? You're not reason you do you try not to think ok don't why why do you say that your desk we need which I'm not I'm not I'm not condemning you although I am but it's because it's a habit right? You just like you know I need to get this stuff done right even when it's not that urgent I'll do it just do it because it's something that you've been doing right and yet I know that when I started to do at this very office where the gentleman was wearing headphones I would sit first day I sat it the lunch table and they all look what do you do it but I'm having lunch you know how you're at your desk like I know that's not my lunch that's not a table it's my desk I'm gonna have my lunch and it now when you try tonight, eat at your desk usually don't okay, so do you have stuff that comes to you while you're having lunch that you that are just like because you're focused on lunch, maybe some really cool idea comes to you or just have that time to decompress a little bit I used need lunch with friend is serious treating some serves you're taking your mind today from the work it's doing some social stuff and in some cases what that could do is that can actually create have some really great that's where really great ideas could be born, right like the shower, right? You know, if you're in the shower, I don't know how many I mean, as a writer, I think that's actually it had, you know, your writer when you have ideas in the shower they're like on you buy that aqua notes thing on amazon and, like, I need to buy that or or for me having kids things, I insist we buyers the soap chalk so so like, oh, I have this idea, my wife look what's this oh, I had this great idea and I don't mind map because that would just get too crazy in the shower look like, what is it the russell crowe film, a beautiful mind on the on the shower wall or whatever, but but eating lunch away from your desk just those little pockets of like hey, this is important time to me it's going to take me away technology still gonna be there right? The email is going to come the work's gonna be there you can look your task manager later the phone let the machine get it you've got voicemail if it's important if it's important and or urgent they'll leave a message but when you start answering it's like, well, you know, all the sudden they expect an answer every time, even and if you have a machine and they get the machine like, oh, something's wrong, I've had that when people say, why do I get my key? Okay, I mean, I was the machine get it, you know, so there's there's little that's, some aspects of technology you could let do that work for you, right? You know? And I think that that's something that we don't do instead of instead of taking on the aps and going wow, these acts are amazing and I'm going to use them to there take on some of the apse that, like, you look at them from a different perspective say how women this half can actually allow me to have some time for myself, you know, emailed the messages were going to be there you know, we're going to talk a bit about the difference of what male at yale actually replaced, and then how we treat it very differently than the thing that replaced, right? So is there anything else out there right now? Before we before we kind of want to share one good example of auto responded? This is from vanessa fall, and she says, my auto responders says that I'm only in the office wednesday through friday and that my delay in responding is due to my limited work week and the fact that I home school, my youngest son but my clients send me notes responding to the auto responded, telling me how much they love my boundaries, so sometimes it can work in your favor and people will respect that. Absolutely, and I think that you'd be surprised. I think a lot of people very surprised that when you do that, that as long as you're courteous about it like it's, the hard stop that people have problems and that's what happens, right? That's when a lot of people, when they're setting boundaries, they go, I'm out, I'm done, I'm tapped out, I'm twenty minutes behind, I made steps behind, I can't do this, you guys are asking me too much of me. And you just hard stop or you close the computer because and you go take a walk, write if you do that I mean there's nothing wrong with doing that but if that's your only no one knowing understands no one on the other side of the equation goes you know what? You probably taking a walk right now because things were getting a little bit too you know, there's, we're asking too much so she's out for a walk they just they don't know that because they're miles and miles away or and there in the cubicle next to me, if something's wrong with jennifer, close your computer and walked away doing a lot of that lately, right? But I mean, if you start to, you know, put something out there to say, hey, I have these appointments to go to every week they take up a lot of my energy and a lot of my time I really wantto work with you on this let's uh, but here here are my limitations, right? Everyone has limitations, whether they want it to mean, as I said yesterday, david allen's, quote, you can do anything that you can't do everything right, and peter bregman talks about this in his book the eighteen I think it's called eighteen hours where he talks about, you know, like if you try to hyper schedule if you try to do everything and you really don't do anything very well you're just all over the place, right? So yeah, hotter responders are a great way to do that because first off they're efficient and if they're if they're crafted right, they're effective and a service like away find does this very well but again it's all it's all set up work we talked about this yesterday that front and work that time you have to take to set up notebooks and evernote or, you know, map out a priority matrix or set up your tent like we talked about building that structure once you start doing that, you're gonna have the ability to say these are my limitations because right now you don't know right now you're just like I think I think I can do that and when you think you could do something you're going to air on the side of I can do it because you don't want to disappoint people you'll find time but like like evelyn, chris said off the top good that we only have so many hours in the day so mean so if you can find more time that's available, then then please tell us where the time machine is because we would all like to use it at some point time or another is this making sadly means that make he comes to you guys right after I let him overseas who work who works for a large consulting company and then he has all these clients in various locations and he's like working around the clock so he has to I need to tell him to you know, kind of set boundaries is he on an I v and stuff does he walk around like, hold on I got it because I mean, it sounds like we have any time to eat or anything like that but yeah it's like a lot of late night hours in the early morning hours for him it's yeah, I mean that's those kind of those kind of responses like you've got the tickets right? Like you talked about yesterday, you can create a simple auto respond or simple text expander sniff it or previous snippet that I think it's like for people who work like me when you work with clients directly who are like your company but for somebody who's in consulting and the client are other companies, you know they aren't as flexible, I think yeah, if you're if you're aware that that becomes a bit of an issue but again that's where you have to find the place where you can be flexible right that's where you can say ok, this is really like and you're gonna find some rigidity and there's nothing once you identify that then it may allows you to do a little bit more of that like meetings I mean, you're going to standing meeting, right? Some people of standing meetings every monday, which is like the mondays are to me mondays, wednesdays would be a great date at meeting going meetings by wednesday, hump day middle of the week stuff's been done stuff is still to do right in the middle monday it's kind of like the day where you wantto everyone's energy generally is pretty much up there if they're working nine to five job, I'm raring to go to get back to work let's go sitting into our meeting, okay? And no one wants to really do that, you know? So wednesday to me is a day where and if I have meanings minor normally on thursdays, because wednesday's for me is daddy duty. I have a meeting with my son, I guess is that, you know, but thursday's of those days for me because I've already made some forward progress on the stuff. I really want to know if I have a bit of time on thursday tto plan out and have some meetings that's what I'll do it, but yeah, there's some rigidity, some people won't, and as long as you can identify that, then you can work with that, but when you're trying to uh when everything is rigid including what you've got going on like your own stuff when you're too rigid with that then yeah that's when hyper scheduling occurs go ahead you were talking about other people contacting us and kind of putting limits I understand that and I also think I have to deal with me contacting me when I'm socialising I'm out I'm feeling guilty because I'm like I'm supposed to be back home I don't editing these photos the clan is waiting and I don't really have too many clients right now I'm still learning the whole process so I'm quite slow innit it's state it takes all this time so whenever I feel like okay I want to go see my friends or does something else I have this person in my head like you got to be home you should be working on your projects and so I have to block that I think I think what's happened here is you're having this it's a systematic thing that's happened because symptomatic not systematic but it's because you know hey I feel like a meat steps behind her twenty minutes behind therefore I feel guilty if I go do things that are for myself therefore therefore therefore that idea of capturing which we talked about yesterday first step if you mean whether you do it you know, like just have a notebook with you I mean I have a field notes notebook with me not obviously up here because it would show but but I have a field notes open with you wherever I go and actually this pen here field notes ben wherever I go or my multi pen depending on you know how much whether I want that big thing in my pocket or not but if I have those thoughts that come to mind like whatever I need I will actually write down the idea of you know what when I get home I have to do this this is something and that actually can quell it quite a bit you could say you know I'm identifying that I'm having these thoughts kind like a meditation right now and we know when you meditate and jamie would you you know leave you comes in you acknowledge it and then you let it go and that's kind of a form of meditation that's what journaling is for me to write it gets and it actually works for a lot more people in terms of I don't want imitate meditations kind of like you know some people are averse to it but to me that's a form of meditation running to me is a form of meditation right if I'm running if I'm going for a for a run I don't bring this I don't bring paper I just go and yeah maybe I should be home working on a block post you know, I mean, last night when I got back to the back to the room, I was watching the football game and, like, have a block post too, right? I want to get this block post up, I really should do this game landed eight thirty I'll get it done after I wrote it down get that post on soon as I did that I was fine, so that maybe something that works for you, but you have to have the system to support it, too, right? And if you don't have that foundation so something that, you know, a trusted system, as david allen calls it to put it into then you're basically going to be your all you're gonna end up having is a whole bunch of notes with nowhere to put them. So so you need to have that, like, a digital system is ideal for that because it deals with more of the long tail stuff like the long term projects where's papers that, like I say yesterday, it's that great gateway and brooks may beg to differ. Actually, I think you'll agree, but but it's a great gateway, right? Um and ever know has those more like every note has the little, many more skins now. So you could capture it take a picture with ever know to be on your way or just you know I mean there's there's lots of things and in a lot of cases something like that like evernote having the moleskin which I'll show you ah during the paper session uh and actually probably bring it up for the workflow session as well but even having the evernote logo on this thing reminds me of where it's going to end up you know what I mean? It's like that silly visual trigger and and on the front of my field notes notebooks I'll actually put like what it is that's going like so I'll put like a big check mark it's goingto only focus or asano put like two three dot like all use identify irs to allow me to go oh, this is what this is for like the colors and stuff like that so you're a visual I mean your photographer I think it's safe to say your visual person yeah, they'll be there any affairs and I like okay, that would be a fair assessment then that's what I would do is utilize is that you know another great way to make sure that you can really connect with these things that you're capturing especially if you're like I'm out doing something else and oh, I feel really crappy that I'm doing this I want to get something down is ah friend of mine who actually did a lot of the illustration for the thirty seven signals books and has his own book. Mike rhody the sketch note handbook have you guys heard of this? Uh, it's a way to put notes out that are more artistic mme or, like, you know, and that's what I've done, I will actually want to take notes I will sketch note them because they have a bit more importance, and if I'm sometimes when I'm stuck with the stuff I've captured, another tool uses, I'll sketch note it, and I'll make the tasks that I really think are important, big and small, and it'll look like a big, like a typography, like the poster that is included with bonuses like a big thing like, oh, I can look at this and kind of see what really is important to me right now, and you could have done that sitting at a restaurant like the whole back of the napkin thing that we've seen before I said a restaurant and like what you doing? I'm just getting the stuff out of my head down so that I can really have and when you're honest about it, I have a really have a great lunch with you so we can enjoy this beer, actually, field notes, beer, notebooks now to feel notes as like the beer siri's so that that's so I mean, any little cues that work, and there are no shortage of them out there and again, different strokes for different folks, right? Jamie, you're going to say something? I don't know if it works, hiving it hold this many years ago because I was having so much on my plate, and I am trying to imagine with me guys, um, you know, when we actually goto work, we are assuming lee to wear uniforms, you know, way actually, I know some of them were in uniform, some of us are not, but assuming we are you wearing a uniform, so when we go down to the lockers in what place we're thinking off our uniforms, as a husband has the wise as a child, you know, like whatever that you bafin at home, you put that in the closet in there when you go to work and you put on your work, you know, like today I'm actually the manager of the day I'm going to be fit this role, and I'm actually my task is to be what I befit that right when I imagine everyone it's a mindset, yeah, your mindset. So when you actually leave what you know, you go back to that lot going in, you put your what clocks there, so now I am a wife. I'm now my daughter or whatever, you know, like road that you be fitted absolutely, I know you go back and it becomes your mind will be, like, shifted that way and, you know, things are more like, kind of like, you know, that that the distinction between the both rather than having to muddle up into one a road that you cannot that's that's the shifting I was talking about, like, when I worked at costco what's one thing you see on every single costco employees just it's a name tag right? When I took that name tag off, you know, now, as a manager obviously represented when I was in a building, I had a really great connection I goto a costco anywhere like there's a costco here I'm like you guys sell wine at the costco down here, check it out, we don't have that up in canada, right? Like he's, not where I live, so I mean there's there's certain things you're right, like again and identify or something along those lines do have it is there anything any discussion, the children that we wantto address at all right now or is it just again that will less thing decompressed together there's, there's, lots of discussion and that there are a few questions kind of all over all over the place from yesterday. You know, I want to find there's one way we got a question about if I think it was doctor show me said I get so many automated feeds from industry news sites like linkedin, etcetera, is there any suggestions for feeding those two that those don't block up his email? Uh, okay, so we're gonna get that email section for sure we're gonna get that, but I will say that the big tip is going to be email filters. I have a totally different way of approaching email filters that will allow that to happen fairly seamlessly. It does again required front and work, but I mean, basically, uh, that mindset thing we're just talking about that's going to be key when it comes to female, so I don't wantto don't want to spoil it too much, but there's definitely a way that you could do that that'll allow it because, I mean, when I was working for life hack, uh, they post, like, five, six times a day, and I had our ss feeds, right, so I like his big rs for for those who don't know what our ss is like. Really simple syndication so I would have feeds for all the biggest sites with all the tricks and all that stuff so we could write post for life hack on guy had to go through that feed every single day I remember yesterday I told you how many productivity websites there are out there to point where they actually they have a term for it productivity porn is what they call it because there's so much there's so much so what I would do is I would filter I would look at this and I'd look at the I r s s feet and try to figure it out but that was a completely separate feed for my for my own for my own interest stuff my own interest stuff was completely in a different area so when I was able to look at it I go okay this is it. This is my this is my jacket this in my uniform right now and then this is my other unit for this one I take off my uniform I can look at you know how well the cincinnati bangles are doing and maybe what how injured is gino atkins right now that I think so is there anything else over there that one more question? Yeah there's a good comment here from chiluba batman who says I'm a huge fan of evernote field notes mole skins the whole shebang that mike's mentioned but I'm curious if mike has any secret tips or tricks for keeping ever no organized an effective for multiple uses maybe we'll get into this later but so far so good with all those things you mentioned perfect so so for me every night we talked a little bit about this yesterday jennifer is for me it's about and context I'm going to deal with the tagging component never note during that section but I said no books, no books there so he to me you, the notebooks feature and ever now because you can share them too so you can share them with teams so that allows you to share notebooks if you decide that you want to share it with somebody across the miles. So if axl and I were gonna work on a book together we could share a notebook uh michael schecter and I who host mikes on mike we haven't ever know shared notebook it's the on ly notebook I share with them but we have it and that notebook is inside my professional notebook stack, right? So is so is the the notebook called creative live time management one oh one I've created a completely separate notebook for that and for any other courses I'll do or for any other projects I'll create a notebook simply for that and put it inside the notebook stack called professional personal notes go into personal I have a share notebook called beer cellar because I keep a beer cellar at home. I know it sounds a bit weird, but I do on. I've shared that, and I've shared that with some of the people who are in the productivity community who happened to like beer, so I've shared that and that's in my personal section it's not my professional stack, so to me, more notebooks, less tags that's one way, because you can really search better with the tagging feature if you have fewer tags, whereas the notebooks, you can kind of go inside that notebook and search within that notebook with those tags. So that's one way and the other big thing, as I mentioned yesterday, is create an evernote notebook called inbox because as you process stuff into every note and if you're not using the web clipper, which allows you to put it to where you want it to go immediately, you can actually have that default notebook where, okay, I'm not going to process my avenue in box, and then then you can put it into those places so that those air too big, big ways you can really organize ever known simply actually went home into that last night and it was amazing sure effective it was I had the default notebook was just called like jennifer I had no idea what it meant as soon as I put it in box things like crystal clear it's true and I mean I know people like I said, daniel gold uses it for for hgtv and I have no idea how he does it I really don't and it's not because I don't understand gt ever read the book like I said five times but I just it doesn't to me it doesn't resonate right it's more of that that information or ideation tool for me that more than anything else and that's where when I capture that stuff whether it's on paper, the email or whatever by using every note the common convention of inbox at least understand what is in there it's like, oh, this is stuff that needs to go somewhere else where is yeah for a long time I had mike's notebook that's great congrats and basically that that didn't give me the different identifiers it didn't give me the ability to share that with anybody all that stuff so again it's that front and working that didn't take you very long at all I kind of organize all my notebooks there was all scattered all over the place, but now I just have like five or six notebooks they like notes, presentations, notes recipes right? And you and you feel good about it like you're like and that that our spent last night will create hours days well long as you maintain it and that's the thing right it's like all right and that's why a simple, simple setup works process to inbox in box to the notebook that's the three people can get that it's when you start to add more things that complicated or more aps to the equation which we're going to talk a bit more on day three once you start to add too many aps and I know you guys want explore more aps I think that's great, but there's a there's a point where you have to do the same thing limits you have to kind of say okay, this is working let's let's put the brakes on um we're going to get into that but more in day three uh, do we have any of you guys I want to get anything else that really resonated with you that you want to? Because, you know, we've decompressed a lot and I think that that it was that helpful because now now we can kind of go into the rest with the ok mike, I feel now now I've processed this is what we kind of processed our inboxes just now go ahead out so we can complete about uh, now, let's, hear how you got here, park. So, like, since I got into it and I started being more organized, I'm it somebody who's sort of a mentor to me and work. I introduced him to ever note, and he introduced me to harmony focus. There you go. Yeah, and then now I have, like, way more stuff going on, you know, with, like, working out more regularly, and now I'm married to so that's, more responsibility, and then but my toast master is learning more at work, more responsibility. So I think it all fits in, like, one to start being productive. It kind of gives you more time to focus on what you want to get done on. And the thing is, is that whenever I ask somebody when they start adopting these tools, I say, so you've got more that you've got on your plate now, right? And most of you do because you have a place, you have an organizational component there that allows you to do that so you don't feel is like, oh, I can't do this or I can't, you know oh, there's, my tent there's, my there's, my home base there's my anchor that's where I have known to look when I'm trying to figure out what the next action is or what I want that and a lot of you say what's, the next action that's a great, great idea, but for me, I like to go what do I want the next action to be, right, right proactive and you're saying, what do you want to do rather than what other people are telling you to do? So it's like you're focusing on, what do you want to focus on? And, you know, of course we'll take input from other people too, but but by putting that focus out their period, you're going to be able to do a lot more for everybody just great great it's no it's not being selfish leg by focusing on yourself, you're better able to serve others. Absolutely, absolutely you're going to say something. Jamie was doing what he said because like, you know, self care, you take care of yourself us that you mentioned on the first day you say internal first and I was tryingto synchronize when you say in turner and I kind of joined a dot sent over yesterday and now I understand a bit more clearer having taken care of internal site off you, it actually allows you to connect better be like taking two steps backward instead of being the person that keep us anymore but rather a type person, you know you look at it oh, I don't have to be that person in wolf I can be a bystander to look at myself and said, oh, this is what this actually getting me down so I'm not going to let that put me down you see, I create space that you say for yourself and it kind of opened a bit more in a bit more and then but I mean, before you know it you're really pass ammunition rather than time management absolute way and we talked about yesterday my buddy brad kelly's quote, future dumb you that's what you're doing is you're taking a step back going okay? The person that's coming along later does not is going to be thinking in the moment and doesn't have the information right at hand and what it really means they're going to make a snap decision, so I'm going to inform the future dumb you that is me that that is coming down the pipe here's here's the stuff here's where it is here's where your focus you know, here's where your tent is hears all this stuff so when you show up, you're going to be able to deal with it, okay? Jennifer, do you have anything else that you want to add in terms of, you know, like uh where you think how not just how you got here but like maybe what you're hoping where you're hoping to go next like I'm not sure we went over this yesterday but I'd like to know a little bit more about good task schedule er's like you shoot much name like ever note as you said is good for a long term notes or information storage and I have you know my capture everything notebook is there there is a middle thing way didn't we kind of I've glossed over a little bit yesterday some of the apse like the hybrid team and solo task management abs when we talk about context today, we're definitely getting more that because that's where those things really can help you out because there's filtration tools and all that stuff so any anything else from the chat room before we get close to wrapping up questions that I thought might be useful just kind of more clarification of things we touched on yesterday um doctor show me who was with us all day yesterday as well we appreciate him being back here um it's just a point of clarification on time chungking says the commitment is to plan to do a task and not to commit to a fixed amount of time to do it but what happens if it takes way longer to execute than we plan or than we, you know, thought of even if you're not thinking in terms of time don't we generally have a sense of how long something will take and can we get into trouble if things take much longer you can there are ways to mitigate that as well like remember we get in that state of flow that we talked about yeah you'd be like oh where'd the day go I forgot to eat lunch and I'm at my desk which is where I normally eat lunch that's weird uh but yeah, you can get to that point where flo kind of takes you on or it's such a big project but that's where if you're using a digital task manager you can look at the project and go okay what the what of the components? One of the tasks that are in this thing that I can work on over this this time champ period so like for example on the focus or asana were actually many of them let's let's let's be honest you can say I want to work on this project right now and it gives you all the tasks that aaron that so during that two hour period let's say you could say ok here the task that I want to work on and by doing that you're going to see the different check boxes that you're knocking off in that in that project set sail look the five things I got done during that time another method you can use um is uh a lot and you could do a modified version of this how many of you guys have heard of the pomodoro technique? I knew something welcome to the okay so the palme d'or technique what it is I'm going to paraphrase it because what it is is basically pomodoro is a chunk of time ah and it's named after a tomato I don't know why but it is and what it is it's a twenty five minute chunks of time and what you want to do is you want to do for pomodoro is is an entire siri's of him so for example uh you'll do a pomodoro which is twenty five minutes then we'll take a five minute break then you'll do another pomodoro take another five minute break then another one and a five minute break and then another one and then you'll take a longer break your lunch break and when you actually break that down it ends up being about every two and a half hours that you're going there about you going to take a lunch break but you khun again hack the convention of it creatives can't I mean I don't know about any of you guys out here but I know that if I'm trying to write a block post in twenty five minutes good luck no so I can say instead of doing twenty five minutes I'll do an hour so I'll use that as the breakdown but again I won't schedule that I want seo from nine to one I'm going to do paul maduro's I'm going I can schedule that and secondly the other the critical thing about the poem adore technique no matter whether you hack it or not is that you need to do something different in the second for each pomodoro so for example if your first pomodoro is and it photographs then your second plumadore should be something completely different right? So that's what that should be and then your third one again you can hack the convention and go back to editing photos if that's something that you really want to make mark progress on or you do something else completely different but the the main crocks is a chunks of time be not the same task to two times in a row and all those tasks could be related to a project to write and it photos uh crop our email marketing to so and so like they could all be related to a singular project but they have to be different components of that project they can't be the same in a row so that's another convention that's another tool you can use and that's one that mean they're zaps for that I think this poem adorable on the mac there is an app called thirty thirty that's for ios and for for iphone and ipad and it's free I know there's an app purchases you can use I've used that many times the reason I like that one is that I can say it's not twenty five minutes it's an hour I think you could schedule up to three hours and then you can create lists so what I've done for that as I've created ongoing list called daley and I've got yoga right book and those are the two tasks that I have in there and I was like one hour of work out one hour of yoga, that kind of thing so there are ways you can hack that that convention and make that work for you the danger is a zay said earlier when you have too many apse on the go or too many techniques just make sure you know you have your like a productivity pencil case I guess or your geometry set right when we go to school we oughta geometry set and then remember we'd lose like the protractor we'd lose the ruler the ruler would be the thing you'd lose right? And then you like ah, what do you use this protractor for? I don't to measure angles oh, I'll turn it upside down and use the back end like you've got these tools that are versatile so basically have like a geometry set of like these task management or time management tools that you could say, you know what? This isn't gonna work right now, or this isn't something I have close at hand. I'm going to use this instead. So if you have about four or five of those just to get you moving or to get you going, that that's helpful.