The Art of Manliness - #140： Invest Your Time Like Money With Elizabeth Grace Saunders

00:00:00.000 we're at mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so

00:00:18.540 we often say that time is money but do you really treat your time like money well my guest on the

00:00:24.000 podcast today says that well no most people don't actually treat their time like money but if they

00:00:28.260 did make this paradigm shift thinking of their time as money it would actually help them be more wise

00:00:34.520 stewards of their time her name is elizabeth grace saunders she's the author of the book how to invest

00:00:39.980 your time like money and today on the podcast we discuss time debt right that feeling where you

00:00:44.300 just don't have enough time to do the things that are important to you then we also talked about

00:00:48.560 strategies you can use to treat your time more like money and actually invest time right now so you have

00:00:54.320 more time in the future to do the things that you want to do a really great practical podcast with

00:00:59.200 lots of great actionable points that you can start implementing today so without further ado elizabeth

00:01:04.720 grace saunders how to invest your time like money elizabeth grace saunders welcome to the show why

00:01:19.240 thank you delighted to be here so you have a book out that's called invest your time like money

00:01:24.040 read that title i'm like wait a minute time is finite i can understand money's fungible you can

00:01:30.240 it can grow exponentially the power of compounding uh how can you invest your time like money when time

00:01:37.300 you're just have 24 hours a day that's it well the concept behind this is that what what's so funny

00:01:45.880 and so ironic about what you just said is that even though it's true that in many ways you can get

00:01:52.880 more money and you can't get more time people often think the opposite they're super careful

00:01:59.980 about what they spend money on um like on a macro level maybe a company might say we can't pursue this

00:02:06.920 initiative because we don't have the financial budget for it but they won't stop to think about

00:02:12.040 if they actually have the people hours for it in the same way with our lives so often we're quick to say

00:02:18.080 oh yeah sure i can do that for you or i can volunteer for this thing or i can take on that

00:02:23.020 project without ever thinking about the fact that time is finite so number one people actually need to

00:02:29.880 start thinking about time as the finite resource it is even more than money and then number two when

00:02:36.400 we're looking at investing time like money we're saying where's the return on investment so just like

00:02:45.600 when you are thinking about your financial assets and there are certain things where you might get a

00:02:51.940 10 or 20 return if you're lucky you know maybe you bought a bought a house at the low in the real

00:02:57.780 estate market and it it went up a lot in terms of value um versus something where it's just an added

00:03:04.560 expense for you so maybe your insurance premiums go up but you don't get more bang for your buck

00:03:10.720 in the same way with our time there are certain things that when we put time into it it really

00:03:18.260 pays off in terms of the benefits in our lives both now and in the future and there's other things where

00:03:23.940 you know there's not much of a payoff it's about a one-to-one ratio and other things in our lives

00:03:29.640 we're spending even more time on them really leads to absolutely no benefits and so the whole point

00:03:35.980 about how to invest your time like money is let's start thinking about what's the roi and stop just

00:03:42.260 like pretending that we have this bottomless pit of hours in a day and really wasting it on things

00:03:48.240 we don't really care about okay so when you're when you're talking about roi with time investment

00:03:52.560 you're looking the value that you're looking for is just value in your life in general like better

00:03:56.620 health better relationships i mean can you actually free up more time uh by investing your time

00:04:02.640 yes and yes yes and yes so uh for the first point in terms of your relationships health

00:04:11.680 for example getting enough sleep is an awesome investment of your time if you accept the fact

00:04:20.820 of however many hours of sleep you need which of course varies from person to person um you're going

00:04:26.940 to have more energy better health better mood probably be nicer to the people around you which

00:04:33.240 will improve your relationship so yes investing time and getting enough sleep or getting exercise

00:04:39.760 will improve your quality of life at present however um the second point you made is also true

00:04:46.520 so when we invest time in certain things it pays off in the future in terms of saving us time that we can use

00:04:53.820 elsewhere okay so so like for example uh finances if we automate our bill pay automate meet retirement

00:05:03.020 savings it's going to cost us a few hours up front we're going to save ourselves hours and hours of

00:05:08.080 time later and hopefully also if it's our retirement plan have some pretty awesome increases in our finances

00:05:13.600 so no it's funny i this is my own personal experience and you talk to other people they feel the same way

00:05:19.160 we have all these technologies and services that can free up time right we no longer have to do laundry

00:05:26.920 by hand um you have email that can just send messages lickety split you can do i mean i've done

00:05:33.560 really you know business deals that just that would have taken weeks you can do it in a few hours

00:05:38.420 yep yet people still feel like they're time poor they just don't have enough time in the day

00:05:45.620 my question is i often ask myself am i as busy as i think i am or is there something going on the way

00:05:52.260 i'm approaching time and managing my time that makes me feel busier than i really am great question

00:05:58.560 and this actually goes back to something i really emphasize in my first book um which is the three

00:06:04.600 secrets to effective time investment and the second secret is it's all about having realistic

00:06:11.360 expectations and how you feel about your time and about how busy you are and whether your success

00:06:19.320 or failure is based on your expectations of what you thought would or wouldn't happen so like you said

00:06:26.740 in the past there's business deals where you would just not expect to hear back from someone for a day

00:06:32.720 or a couple of days because something needed to go in postal mail and they had to wait for that to

00:06:39.180 happen and there wasn't even fedex overnight and so your expectation of how much you would get done

00:06:44.440 or accomplish in a day or a week was much lower than it is now and so you're going to feel feel time

00:06:51.680 poor if your internal and external expectations of what you're going to get done within a certain amount

00:06:58.960 of time exceed that 24 hours in a day minus self-care so the the real key to how you're going to feel

00:07:08.340 about things is what are your expectations and if you're feeling time poor it's because you've

00:07:14.340 over committed and it's time to start making some choices about what you're going to expect of

00:07:21.320 yourself personally professionally all different sorts of ways so you can get things into balance

00:07:26.600 and actually enjoy the fact that like you said we've got all these amazing modern conveniences

00:07:31.580 experiences that we didn't have before that save us time but we often just stuff it with more stuff

00:07:38.680 and more expectations instead of actually savoring that so we'll get back to over commitment and how

00:07:43.620 we can manage that but i'm curious are there types of time management approaches that encourage

00:07:50.840 that sort of over commitment and that actually lead to us being frustrated and failing is there a certain

00:07:58.080 way that most people manage their time that results in that absolutely well i mean one of the reasons i

00:08:04.000 really talk about time investment versus time management is i think most time management systems

00:08:10.120 only focus on efficiency instead of effectiveness and so what they um really encourage you to do is

00:08:19.900 they're like well brett if you're feeling over committed at work that just means that you need to get

00:08:26.820 you know two seconds more efficient at every single email that you're you're emailing or you need to

00:08:32.860 manage outlook better or um you need to do this or you need to do that instead of stepping back and saying

00:08:40.460 wait a second maybe there's whole parts of what you're doing at work that aren't as significant and

00:08:46.780 you need to just stop doing them put them aside and allow yourself to have permission to focus on what

00:08:52.680 really matters and to do it in a way that you have breathing room so that you're not worried about

00:08:58.100 like every second being absolutely optimized so we usually the typical response is like taylorism

00:09:03.680 right like be more efficient okay gotcha exactly it's be more efficient and it's also forgetting the

00:09:10.660 fact that you're human you're not a machine and if you want to enjoy life you need to have some

00:09:17.780 flex and some flow and time management systems that fail to account for that really leave you

00:09:24.860 feeling rather hollow even if you're quite efficient in what you do so uh let's i love this idea of not

00:09:31.600 you're not managing your time you're investing your time uh and you have a formula uh so what is the time

00:09:37.800 management formula absolutely so the formula is um similar to what i was talking about before

00:09:44.640 and that is when you're seeing okay am i over and committed am i in time debt you look at your

00:09:51.460 external expectations so that would be things that you've told other people you would do

00:09:57.620 and then you add to that your internal expectations so that's commitments you've made to yourself

00:10:04.540 and that's one side of this time investment formula on the other side you've got the 24 hours in a day

00:10:11.660 which is obviously a fixed variable and then you have you subtract the amount you need for self-care

00:10:17.460 which depends on the person how much sleep exercise eating they need and what happens is that you then

00:10:24.620 have these numbers on either side of the equation and if the amount of expectations you have exceeds

00:10:33.160 24 hours minus self-care that's when you start getting stressed out because you're either failing to make

00:10:39.040 commitments or you're contracting self-care to make everything fit however if your internal and

00:10:47.180 external expectations are either equal to or less than 24 hours minus self-care that's when you're feeling

00:10:54.180 really awesome about what you're doing and you are able to keep your commitments and not

00:11:01.060 compromise what you're doing in terms of your self-care gotcha so i love the analogy of you know

00:11:07.660 thinking time is money in a lot of ways literally time is money um one thing that helps me manage my

00:11:13.740 time is like wow uh if i could be earning x amount of dollars or like this is costing me x amount of

00:11:19.820 dollars uh because i'm doing this instead of that um but yeah in in personal finance books oftentimes one

00:11:29.620 of the first tips that they give to get a handle on your personal finances is tracking how much you

00:11:36.880 spend is that something we should do with our time to like actually track how we use our time because

00:11:42.320 that make us more aware and mindful of the time we have or how we're spending it so absolutely tracking

00:11:50.080 your time can be extremely valuable in terms of how detailed you want to get with that it really

00:11:55.740 depends on your personality type so there are certain people that i work with who absolutely

00:12:00.860 love to track their time and it's essential so they'll do things like maybe wear a fit bit and

00:12:06.800 that will let them know how much they're sleeping each night um or they'll use a tool like toggle or time

00:12:12.380 doctor and get these cool reports about how much time they spent in different categories there's other

00:12:18.940 people where that can get a little bit overwhelming to them so they're better with a few broader

00:12:24.740 categories so for example maybe tracking how much time they're spending on productive work in general

00:12:31.100 and then their investment in a few key categories so maybe for them doing project work or making sales

00:12:38.500 call is a key indicator of success so they want to make sure to track that but if they tracked every

00:12:43.940 little thing they start to get really overwhelmed overwhelmed yeah i've noticed that whenever i track my

00:12:48.840 time uh just by tracking my time i use my time more effectively because you're suddenly aware wow i

00:12:56.840 spent you know an hour surfing the web mindlessly i shouldn't do that and then you try to do better

00:13:03.520 the next time sort of a feedback feedback system absolutely absolutely okay so you track your your time

00:13:09.700 expenses or how you're spending that and then usually in the personal finance world the next thing is

00:13:13.000 you got to create a budget is is there a similar time budget that we can create absolutely and that

00:13:19.820 goes back to our external and internal expectations so what you can do is list out what those different

00:13:27.580 things are um and in my book i have a lot of different bullet points that can help jog your memory about

00:13:34.180 what might be going on um but for many people it will include things like work commute um time with

00:13:40.540 family volunteer activities any classes you're taking all of that and then you can connect those

00:13:48.520 to the related time cost and one of the things that people often neglect to consider are some of the

00:13:56.780 softer parts of that so let's say you decided i really want to take a class to improve my skills in some

00:14:03.980 area so you think about the class time but you don't think about the fact oh i'm going to have a

00:14:08.400 commute on either end or i'm going to have this homework that i need to do and so you want to really

00:14:14.380 in your time budget try to include all of those those time costs and after you've done that then add up

00:14:22.480 the numbers to see where you're at and you can do this for your whole overall life or you can even do this

00:14:27.840 for part of your life so if you're feeling really overwhelmed at work you could list out what are the

00:14:33.260 projects i'm working on what are the recurring events i just kind of have to do for maintenance

00:14:37.800 activities in terms of meetings or answering emails and that will give you a sense of whether

00:14:42.620 the time cost of all you're expecting of yourself is aligned with the number of hours you want to spend

00:14:49.420 or if it's out of alignment and once you have those numbers you can start to make cuts and this is what

00:14:55.860 really frees you to feel like a success because you're not constantly running out of deficit and feeling like a

00:15:02.520 failure and really setting yourself up where the amount of time that each item you want to do

00:15:08.740 costs ends up being the amount of time you actually have to get things done okay i want to come back to

00:15:13.680 this how we can cut things but here's a question i have so one thing that i have trouble with is

00:15:19.300 planning for the future or managing expectations for the future okay so for example i'll commit to

00:15:27.000 something you know three months right the event's not three isn't three months out and when you plan

00:15:33.100 when you schedule like oh yeah not a problem that'll be great but then i the thing finally

00:15:38.320 comes up and it's like man i don't have time for this i've got other stuff that came up that has taken

00:15:44.560 a priority how do you get over because i guess human beings like we're really bad about we're not very

00:15:49.680 good at thinking about the future because it's so abstract so fuzzy and you don't think about these

00:15:54.500 contingencies that are going to come up how do you manage time expectations with this sort of

00:16:01.240 psychological handicap that we have where we don't we don't think about all the other commitments that

00:16:07.000 are going to come up after we commit to something right absolutely so again this comes back to kind of

00:16:13.100 the finance point of view so let's say a similar situation but we were looking at finances you said

00:16:19.140 okay a year from now i want to buy a house or i want to buy a car well that'd be great for you to say

00:16:24.480 i want to buy a house or buy a car but if you don't then set aside money each month to have that

00:16:30.560 down payment or you know to put down money for your car you're not going to have it when the time comes

00:16:36.660 so the same thing is true when something comes across your path and someone asks you for something

00:16:42.620 let's say it's three months out what i do is i pull up my calendar my google calendar and i try to

00:16:50.980 make a rough estimate of how long i think something will take so let's say it's a presentation and i need

00:16:56.540 to work on the powerpoint uh you know shoot it through some revisions with some other people and

00:17:02.300 have time to practice so then i'll look on my calendar and see if the time is actually available

00:17:09.640 for that if i can't find the time on my calendar then that's the number one trigger for me to say okay

00:17:16.660 wait a second either i can't do this or i need to get something off of my calendar that i currently

00:17:24.360 have on that's a lower priority so that's one way to do it however for some of these things in terms

00:17:29.360 of overall relative priorities so maybe your calendar is open for the next you have time in the next three

00:17:36.360 months but this may not end up being the top priority you want to be looking at a bigger life

00:17:42.640 picture in terms of priorities based decision making so even for you and your work what do i

00:17:49.460 consider to be the high value investment activities that really move the business forward and then what

00:17:55.180 are some of the activities that may become lower on the stream of priorities and if this thing that

00:18:03.520 i'm getting asked to commit to three months out is one of the lower level priorities i might just

00:18:09.220 decide carte blanche to either not accept it or only accept it a certain number of times per year

00:18:16.340 like maybe you do free speaking engagements three times a year and that's all once you've got that you

00:18:23.080 stop because you recognize that there are going to be higher level priorities that you will want to

00:18:29.780 take precedence in terms of your overall time investment for your work calendar okay um i love that that was

00:18:36.640 useful uh for me personally but then you said something also i'm curious about is estimating

00:18:43.660 or figuring out how long a project is going to take because that i think causes probably causes a lot of

00:18:50.080 uh time investment frustrations is that you think something's not going to take that long

00:18:55.740 right and then you plan for it but then it ends up taking even longer so my question is how do you

00:19:02.320 acquire the skill of estimating as close as possible how long a project will actually take

00:19:09.600 great question so a few things one is past the past results you've had is a good indicator of future

00:19:17.920 results so if you have similar sorts of things you do whether it's writing an article doing certain

00:19:24.400 presentations um certain sorts of projects if you're doing your time tracking you have data to show you

00:19:32.320 what things look like and if the last three times you wrote this sort of article it took 10 hours

00:19:37.300 it's a good chance that the next time you do it it's going to take 10 and not five

00:19:41.560 so that's one of your best indicators of how long something will take

00:19:45.720 if you're you either don't have data on how long projects have taken you or you're in a situation where you

00:19:54.320 um have a new project that you haven't done before the best thing to do is to break it down to the

00:20:02.000 smallest parts possible not only will that help you with your estimates but also will help you with

00:20:06.900 actually getting the project done so it's helpful to get really granular so like i was talking about

00:20:13.380 with the presentation you might say ah step one will be looking for past presentations

00:20:20.180 past similar presentations step two uh compiling the powerpoint step three uh you know sending to

00:20:29.140 graphic designer to redesign step four coming up with a script step five practicing step six blah blah

00:20:34.760 and so you do each one of those and then our minds are actually pretty good at estimating

00:20:40.040 once you get down to those smaller parts and so that can be something that can help you with being

00:20:45.660 more accurate and then finally if you're looking at a huge massive project like a website redesign or

00:20:51.380 something like that i would say just expect everything's going to take a really long time

00:20:56.760 put in tons of buffer and you might not want to set a really specific deadline until you get quite

00:21:02.880 close to the end because there's certain things that no matter how much you try to estimate out

00:21:08.380 probably aren't going to go as expected and putting too much constraints on yourself can be really

00:21:13.660 frustrating for you and your team awesome um so related to expectations uh you write about in your book

00:21:21.340 this idea of maximizing and satisficing how does maximizing or can you first can you explain what

00:21:28.060 the concepts are and then how do they help or hinder time investment great question so first of all

00:21:36.500 maximizing or maximizing or maximizers are people who try to really do everything in the best way

00:21:44.760 possible so they don't just buy a toothbrush they buy the best toothbrush that they have researched and

00:21:52.520 has the highest amazon reviews you know where satisficers say okay i need a toothbrush what's the first one

00:21:58.420 that pops up or what's the one i see at the store that works and satisficers just aren't trying to

00:22:04.180 maximize every single task they're doing or the roi and why this is significant is that

00:22:11.540 um there's a saying that some people say is how you do anything is how you do everything and what

00:22:19.740 this can create is a lot of perfectionism when it really doesn't count so that could be sending

00:22:25.480 perfect emails that could be doing every project to the absolute max even when it doesn't really matter

00:22:32.020 whereas satisficers are saying okay when i'm looking let's say at my day where can i provide

00:22:40.260 the most impact where does it really matter for me to do something awesome and i'll have a big roi

00:22:45.300 and where is just getting it done all that matters so some things where you might be able to cut time

00:22:51.000 would be answering emails more quickly um maybe some basic paperwork that just kind of needs to get done

00:22:57.560 and out doesn't need to be perfect some places where you might want to spend more time and it

00:23:02.740 actually really is worth it to maximize the roi might be a project that you're doing for a new

00:23:09.040 client where doing a really wonderful job on it is going to cause them to get you more work or if

00:23:16.100 you're working within a corporation might lead to a promotion and why this is important is that

00:23:22.920 if you try to do everything perfectly you're either not going to get everything done

00:23:28.020 or you're going to miss deadlines whereas if you're willing to satisfy in the areas where it

00:23:34.020 doesn't really count as much then you're going to be able to really push more time into the things

00:23:40.360 where you're going to get a big payoff and you're going to be able to make your deadlines okay now i'm

00:23:45.500 probably opening up a can of worms here but i'm curious um in the people you've worked with lots of

00:23:50.000 people uh managing their time and coaching them and investing their time yep uh are there differences

00:23:54.640 in the way men and women approach time management that you've noticed just like very general i know

00:24:00.020 it's broad strokes yeah yeah yeah no great question um i would say that they're obviously each

00:24:10.240 person is unique so i'll preface it that way of course but in general i find that um women tend to

00:24:18.880 be more i think more women are planners naturally than men whereas men i think can tend to be more

00:24:27.900 towards the spontaneous side although there are definitely men who are planners so i'm not

00:24:32.480 not precluding that um and then in terms of i think some of the psychology again this is changing but

00:24:41.740 men and i think this is a wonderful thing good thing and i don't think it should change

00:24:47.300 but i think men naturally tend to really feel how they prove their worth and particularly how they

00:24:55.580 you know love their families is through their work and so sometimes in an attempt to really show their

00:25:03.500 love for their families their you know wives their children they can spend a lot more time at work

00:25:09.380 because they're afraid that if they don't they can't provide for their family in the way that they

00:25:14.640 want to um whereas i think women don't tend to feel that pressure as much and i don't not that no

00:25:21.100 women do but it's it's different and i think it's good and it's natural and so i guess one thing i would

00:25:27.480 just say in that is sometimes um in terms of just being aware of time investment if men can be aware of one of

00:25:38.620 the big ways they can love their family is just being present for you know even if you have to work

00:25:44.560 at night being present for dinner or being present for certain kids activities that can make huge

00:25:49.980 difference in how loved and appreciated your family feels um and it can particularly help you know your

00:25:56.700 wife or your children to really feel like you're there and i think that's one just kind of significant

00:26:01.880 difference i see most women um i think more naturally recognized that the time they spend with

00:26:07.920 their family is um really valuable and it's not just by work that they show their love but i think men

00:26:14.740 just tend to fall more into that category is it wrong or bad they feel compelled to be providers no i think

00:26:20.800 it's awesome and that it's a wonderful quality but it's just something to consider that you might

00:26:25.940 unintentionally undermine your relationships in an attempt to provide financially but maybe not be

00:26:33.020 present like emotionally or physically yeah i think it's interesting too how cultural norms can change

00:26:40.640 and can change our expectations so i was reading a book about sort of like a sociologist wrote a book

00:26:47.660 why we feel so pressed for time and i thought it was interesting that our our rising levels of what we

00:26:54.320 expect what we think clean is has caused us to spend more time cleaning than like our grandmas did

00:27:01.780 um yeah yeah and so like yeah women you know they're they're they're getting in the workforce but they

00:27:06.880 still feel like they have to keep their house immaculate and spotless but like their grandmas even

00:27:13.100 though they worked even though they were homemakers like they just didn't they were satisficers

00:27:17.460 oftentimes when they came to a clean house like okay yeah there's mud prints on the kitchen floor and

00:27:22.860 there's clutter big deal i gotta go make dinner nowadays there's a lot of pressure with uh women

00:27:27.940 and men uh to be like well no i gotta keep the yard awesome and house has got to be spotless and so i

00:27:34.100 feel like these expectations from the wider culture uh can make us miserable oh yeah and homes are way

00:27:41.380 bigger than they used to be i mean it used to be natural to have like a you know maybe two three

00:27:46.580 bedroom home for a family of four you know like that was just normal well now it's like everyone has to

00:27:52.600 have their own bedroom and we've got a family room and a living room and a this and a that and a yard

00:27:57.860 that's huge and you're right i think there's a lot of a lot of differences in terms of cultural norms

00:28:04.040 and to their credit i really see like in my coaching clients and then just in men in general

00:28:09.040 an enormous care and desire to be present and to be involved and to help with things around the house

00:28:15.800 and help with children and be active and participate and so i actually think that i think that's a good

00:28:22.000 thing and it's a healthy thing but i also know that creates a lot more pressure on men than before

00:28:27.520 because when it just in our culture and society you know when most women were at home and it was just

00:28:34.720 expected that they do the cleaning the shopping uh you know the cooking whatever many men not all men

00:28:41.580 but many you know it was just work and come home and that was what you had to do um you know maybe

00:28:46.220 throw on a baseball um whereas now i think men have a lot more expectations on themselves in terms of

00:28:53.160 how active and participating they're in the home and it isn't i don't think it's necessarily a problem

00:28:58.300 but it is something to realize be easy on yourself like you're you're doing a lot and um you have to

00:29:06.540 still keep things in balance about what is actually realistic or not realistic and make sure that you

00:29:12.380 don't lose sight of self-care because i see with both men and women particularly when they have

00:29:18.600 children there can be a lot of guilt around doing anything that you just enjoy and just for pleasure

00:29:24.420 whether it's watching sports or playing sports or um reading or playing an instrument or whatever it is

00:29:32.540 and those are actually things that are really important for you to be happy and healthy and

00:29:37.540 shouldn't be a cause of guilt that you're investing time in them and i actually see those as great

00:29:43.700 investments in terms of quality of life you maintaining your sanity and uh being the best

00:29:49.260 person that you can be yeah and making more productive at work in the long run absolutely and

00:29:54.440 just a happier healthier person particularly if you're an introvert um you need that time alone to

00:30:00.880 recharge and you can't necessarily go straight from like work to family or work to friends or whatever

00:30:06.100 and and really be in a good place so we're big advocates of planning time planning on the site

00:30:14.580 i'm curious uh what you talk about in your book but what's what's something when someone's sitting

00:30:19.960 down to plan their week out what should that planning session look like definitely so the weekly

00:30:27.680 planning session at its most basic level is where we're trying so the end goal what are we trying

00:30:34.960 to achieve is number one you want to have a sense of the hard landscape of the week so what does this

00:30:40.260 look like and number two you want clarity on what your big goals are so in a practical point of view why

00:30:47.860 do those two things matter having a sense of the landscape helps you with not missing things and not

00:30:53.580 being blindsided by things you weren't expecting and having clarity on your goals helps to make sure

00:30:59.260 that you're investing in those high importance investment activities when you sit down to do this

00:31:06.120 you need to have in front of you your data set so for most people that will look like having their calendar

00:31:13.100 and then wherever you capture to-do items or goals or things you're working on

00:31:17.700 and then you i recommend looking back over the past week for myself when i do this i have my google

00:31:24.800 calendar and week view but you want to look back over the past week to make sure you have a complete

00:31:30.300 capture so did you do those meeting follow-ups is there something that needs to be rescheduled

00:31:35.180 did you promise someone something after a meeting that you need to do then you want to look ahead over

00:31:41.840 the coming week and this is a chance to really scrub your calendar and since i'm an advocate of time

00:31:47.440 investment especially for my clients that are managers i recommend they this is a time for them

00:31:52.820 to decline or reschedule meetings if necessary so often people are in far more meetings than they

00:31:59.060 need to be and it's also a time for you to clarify and put in any prep work so let's say you have a

00:32:05.780 meeting on friday that you're going to need to get a report ready for you should be putting in some time

00:32:11.220 earlier in the week to get that done so you're not surprised or crunched by that at the last minute

00:32:16.520 and then finally you're going to look at your task or to-do list or projects people have them

00:32:22.980 categorized in different ways and decide what are the big items for the week typically for most people

00:32:29.400 given what's going on there's about two or three projects that they can move forward in a substantial

00:32:34.920 way sometimes there's more if they're smaller but for most people it's two or three you want to

00:32:41.040 clearly define those write those at the top of your to-do list or put them at the top of your calendar

00:32:45.860 and then for a lot of people it can help to also block in time on their schedule so maybe it's

00:32:52.500 tuesday afternoon i'm going to work on writing this report or wednesday morning i'm going to call

00:32:57.480 prospective clients whatever it is so that you've already established from the get-go this is what

00:33:03.660 you're wanting to achieve and with this weekly plan when you're done you should have a roadmap of

00:33:11.180 what your firm commitments are what are the big goals you're trying to achieve and how everything

00:33:16.980 fits together if you already notice then it doesn't all fit it's time to make cuts um and then if you it

00:33:24.420 does fit but you're really squeezing everything in you don't have any flex time i also recommend taking

00:33:30.380 a little out of your schedule ideally we want to try to have fridays pretty flexible so that when life

00:33:37.320 happens and things take longer than expected and kind of flow throughout the week you can catch that

00:33:42.460 spillover on friday and still get things done instead of having to work over the weekend or not really

00:33:47.280 feeling like you accomplished your goals how do you cut uh sometimes you can cut something but it still

00:33:52.800 has to be done um so are there methods of eliminating things from your calendar but still find ways to get them

00:33:59.980 done um so i mean obviously depends on the situation but uh i mean sometimes it's just delaying it to a

00:34:07.820 different week um other times it's delegating it to someone else which is often a great point or the other

00:34:14.320 way to do it which works often is just satisficing so you would be amazed people that are good at

00:34:21.000 satisficing wow they can get done in probably five minutes what might take maximizers an hour

00:34:28.000 because let's say they get a form they need to fill out they fill out like the minimum amount they

00:34:33.160 can fill out may not even use complete sentences shoot it back and figure if something's wrong

00:34:39.580 they'll they'll get back to me and tell me versus maximizers will write these like three or four

00:34:44.600 paragraph answers to every single question with perfect punctuation and so sometimes if you just

00:34:50.360 need to get something done giving yourself 15 minutes and saying the best i can do in this amount of time

00:34:55.940 is what's going to happen can help you with that and then how does uh daily planning uh build off of

00:35:02.360 your weekly plan perfect so weekly plan is the overall roadmap to give you a strategy daily planning

00:35:09.740 is your tactical um decisions on your operating system for the day so with daily planning if you've

00:35:17.860 done your weekly planning it should be super quick like five ten minutes what you're doing is take a

00:35:23.480 quick glance over the day before you don't have to do a complete capture and move everything but

00:35:28.180 just a real quick okay anything that didn't happen that i've got to follow up on now i can't wait until

00:35:34.820 weekly planning then you want to look over the over the coming day so this is a chance to take note of any

00:35:41.140 meetings you have make sure there's a reminder pop-ups on your calendar if you want put alarms on your

00:35:46.820 phone as a double reminder for you and clarify whether what you intended to do is still the top

00:35:53.040 priority so let's say initially on tuesday afternoon you had planned on working on a report

00:35:58.720 but your time got switched around so you only had an hour to work on the report instead of three

00:36:04.940 when you're looking at your daily plan for wednesday you might have thought you were going to start

00:36:10.700 the day by reaching out to prospective clients but the report really needs to get done so when your

00:36:15.920 daily plan is where you make that choice and you say you know what no i'm going to start by finishing

00:36:20.060 the report squeeze down the time a little bit i'm spending calling prospective clients and um you know

00:36:27.440 that's okay that's how it's going to be so it's basically your recalibration so that you're staying

00:36:32.860 in alignment with what's most important instead of just assuming that your weekly plan will go as

00:36:38.280 exactly as planned which isn't realistic so you talk about how we we kind of been dogging on maximizing

00:36:44.920 lately but you talk about the ino technique for maximizing your time investment can you explain

00:36:51.200 what that is absolutely so ino is for investment neutral and optimized and this can be something

00:37:01.600 when you're doing your daily planning that can help you really clearly recognize where to focus

00:37:07.600 so investment activities are like we were talking about before this is where they're they're high

00:37:14.320 impact it could be project you're working on that could transform your business it could be maybe

00:37:20.320 meeting with prospective clients or you know meeting with colleagues to build momentum for a project

00:37:26.380 you spending more time here is a good idea and these are activities you may spend hours and hours on

00:37:32.460 neutral activities are things that are more or less a one-to-one ratio so let's say you have a staff

00:37:39.880 meeting needs to get done you don't necessarily want to do it as quickly as possible and like

00:37:45.660 totally cut any fat in the meeting um but spending a lot more time on it isn't a high priority so with

00:37:54.680 these activities you want to get them done get them done well but you don't necessarily want to turn a

00:37:59.780 one-hour staff meeting a two-hour staff meeting there's no real huge return on investment for

00:38:05.560 that and then finally the o stands for optimize and these are activities where it costs you when they

00:38:12.460 take more time so filling out response reports answering non like critical emails um anything where

00:38:22.800 any more time you spend on it is just keeping you from spending time on your neutral or investment

00:38:29.280 activities is something where you want to automate delegate um delay or do as quickly as possible

00:38:35.920 so you don't get consumed in them and by simply making a note on your daily plan like what's the

00:38:43.520 investment activity like put an eye by it or what's neutral or what's optimized can start to train your

00:38:48.620 brain differently in terms of how you approach them with the hope that the optimized ones you can get

00:38:53.980 through as quickly as possible and the investment ones really give yourself permission to to spend

00:38:59.660 that extra time to get things done well this is awesome well elizabeth this has been a jam-packed

00:39:05.560 uh podcast but where can people learn more about uh your work and your book absolutely so my website

00:39:13.200 i'll say it and then i'll spell it because i know it can be a little confusing um is real life

00:39:19.980 e.com so that is r e a l l i f e and then another e.com and that's the name of my business and there

00:39:32.480 you can find out more about the coaching i offer uh training and then also about my books and i've got

00:39:40.080 a whole ton of resources on effective time investment and how to really feel more accomplished and more

00:39:47.020 peaceful and confident at the same time awesome well elizabeth grace saunders thank you so much

00:39:51.100 for your time it's been a pleasure absolutely my pleasure also my guest today was elizabeth

00:39:55.780 grace saunders she's the author of the book how to invest your time like money it's available on

00:40:00.180 amazon kindle just five dollars and 38 cents really great deal full of practical information and you

00:40:05.120 find out more information about elizabeth's work at her website reallifee.com that's r e a l l i f e e

00:40:13.160 dot com well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and

00:40:21.040 advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at art of manliness.com and if you enjoy

00:40:24.880 the podcast i'd really appreciate it if you'd give us a review on itunes or stitcher or whatever it is

00:40:28.940 you use those in the podcast that'll help get the word out about the podcast as well as give us

00:40:33.260 feedback that'll help us improve the show until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay

00:40:37.500 manly

The Art of Manliness - September 22, 2015

#140： Invest Your Time Like Money With Elizabeth Grace Saunders

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