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- All right.
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So over the past 10 years,
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I have read basically all of the books
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around productivity and time management.
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And in that time, there are 10 things
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that I still use in my life, genuinely use
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to help make my time
management more efficient.
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Let's talk about them in this video.
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Tip number one is that we
absolutely own all of our time.
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Now, this is like a big one.
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When I first had this realization,
my life genuinely changed
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because I used to think I
don't have time to do stuff.
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And I don't know where I read it,
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but I came across this like,
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probably like a fortune cookie somewhere
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which said something like
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at any given moment you are doing
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what you most want to be doing.
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And that was a very
empowering thing for me
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because I was obviously
in native empowerment
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and it helped me realize
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that my time is entirely
within my control.
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Like right now I'm filming this video
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because I want to be.
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Earlier today, I spent six hours
playing "World of Warcraft"
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because that's what I wanted to do.
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I could not have said
I don't have the time
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to work out today,
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instead, it was a case of
I'm actively choosing not
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to make the time to work out today.
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And so when it comes to time management
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like step one is always to recognize
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that we are always in
control of our own time.
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Yes. You might have a boss.
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Yes, you might have parents
telling you what to do
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but fundamentally you are
in control of your own time
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and you can choose to do
whatever you want with that time.
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If you don't have the
time to do something,
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that something it's just not a priority,
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which is fine but don't pretend
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like the reason you're not doing it
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is 'cause you genuinely
don't have the time.
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Point number two is the title of this book
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by Derek Sivers "Hell Yeah
Or No What's Worth Doing."
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Now, the vibe here, "Hell Yeah Or No"
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it kind of says it all in the title
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that when we're young
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and we don't have very many
opportunities in our lives,
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we should probably say yes
to the majority of things
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that are coming our way.
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But as soon as we get to a point
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where we're starting to
get more inbound leads
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than we have time available,
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we start operating with
a hell yes or no maxim.
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And the idea there is something
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is either a hell yes or it's a no.
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And so if I get an email
from someone saying,
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"Hey, do you wanna do this thing?"
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And I'm thinking, maybe it
sounds kind of all right
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then my default position is gonna be no.
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If I get an email from someone saying,
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"Hey, do you wanna do this thing?
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And I'm like, "Hell yeah."
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Then I'm gonna do the thing.
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And I'm trying to get better
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at using this principle in my life.
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Because even now my calendar is full
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of a lot of things where
I'm like, oh yeah, kind of
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rather than hell yeah, too.
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And now it was regret doing
it when it comes down.
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So hell yeah or no,
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just like learning to be
okay with saying no to stuff
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is another really important
principle of time management.
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Thirdly, there's a tip I
picked up from this book
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called "Make Time" by Jake
Knapp and John Zeratsky.
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And this tip is called
the daily highlight.
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This is like deviously simple.
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Basically, the idea is that
every day we decide this thing,
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this one thing is gonna be
my highlight of the day.
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This is the only thing I
need to get done today.
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And on the days where
I set a daily highlight
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and I try and do this every day,
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I always get the thing done.
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And I'm always really happy
at the end of the day.
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But if I have a day where I
don't set my daily highlight
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then I kind of drown in my to-do list
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and I have this just
image in my head of like,
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oh yeah, I need to do this
and this and this and that.
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And it's a lot harder to get stuff done.
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Whereas on days where I
have the daily highlight,
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I have that just one thing
that I'm focusing on,
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this is the most urgent
or the most satisfying
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or the most fun thing I have to do today.
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And then it just really helps
with my time management.
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Tip number four for time
management is to use a to-do list.
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And these days are use
a physical to-do list
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with this analog by Ugmonk.
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It's very nice.
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And it's like, you get
these like note cards
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and then you'd get this like wooden thing.
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And you're like put the
note card in the thing
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and it looks like this.
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And that means like every morning,
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once I figured out what
my daily highlight is,
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I make a list of the other stuff
that I have to do that day.
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And I shove it on a list
and then I tick them off
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and cross them off with physical pen
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as I go throughout my day.
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It doesn't really matter
what system you use
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for it to-do list.
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But again, there's a general
principle of productivity
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which is that our brain
is for having ideas
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not for holding them and a big part
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of why we let stuff
slip through the cracks
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when it comes to managing our time
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and managing our productivity
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is 'cause we haven't written them down.
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And so anytime I need to do something,
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I write it down into an app.
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These days I use Roam.
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But then when I figured
out my daily to-do list,
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it's all based on this
analog system by Ugmonk
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which is very nice.
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And it's kind of cool
having a physical to-do list
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in front of me that I can
cross things off of it
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and it just feels nice.
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And yeah, even at work,
when I'm working as a doctor
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I use physical to-do lists
to manage my patient list,
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to manage my list of tasks.
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There's something incredibly satisfying
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about crossing something off,
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which you just don't
get when you use an app.
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Principle number five for time management
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is the concept of time blocking.
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Apparently, this is something
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that Elon Musk does all the time.
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And basically the idea there
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is any time we need to do something,
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we put a block for it in our calendar.
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So I don't like doing this
for absolutely everything
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because I'm a bit of a waste man.
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And I think the more time I spend
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managing my productivity system,
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the less time I spend
actually getting stuff done.
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And then it's just all
completely pointless.
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But the one thing that I always
schedule into my calendar
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at the start of the day
is my daily highlight.
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So if I've decided my daily highlight
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is filming this video
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usually, well, I'll try
my best to schedule it
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into my calendar at the time
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when I know I'm gonna film the video.
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If my daily highlight is call my grandma,
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I will literally scroll
schedule it into my calendar.
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If my daily highlight is
make changes to my website,
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I will schedule it at like
for a block in my calendar.
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And that's like really nice and reassuring
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because it means that that one thing
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that I've decided is
really, really important
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is always gonna get done
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because it's always on the schedule.
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And then if I need to move it around,
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I'll move it around if something comes up
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but at least it's there on
the schedule by default.
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And this thing where you
combine the daily highlight
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with time-blocking in the calendar
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is just incredibly useful.
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Everyone always kind of thinks that like,
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oh, but only one thing a day?
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Don't you have to do more than that.
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And yeah, you do kind of have to do more
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than that in most of our lives.
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But imagine if every single
day for the next year
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you could actually do the one thing,
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the one most important
thing to do that day,
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you'd make a hell of a lot of progress
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over the course of the year.
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And it would just be
absolutely game changing.
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Principle number six
is related to something
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called Parkinson's Law,
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which is that work
expands to fill the time
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that we allocate to it.
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So if I have to film a
YouTube video in a day
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and I give myself the whole
day to film that YouTube video,
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inevitably, it's gonna take all day
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to film the YouTube video.
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Whereas, if I only give
myself half an hour
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or an hour to film the YouTube video
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and I fill my day up with other things,
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then inevitably I get the video done
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in that small amount of time.
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And so the actionable advice here
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is to leverage artificial deadlines,
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even when it's something
like filming a new course.
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Like I'm working on a course
for YouTube for beginners
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where I kinda filming,
took you to everything
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about my YouTube video production process.
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And this doesn't really have a deadline.
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Like I could literally
do it whenever I want.
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I don't have to do it.
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It's purely optional project
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but I've set myself the goal
that, okay, you know what?
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I'm gonna film all of
this course next weekend.
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And I've blocked out time
in my calendar next weekend
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to film the course.
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And that's an artificial deadline
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which means the course is gonna get done.
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Whereas if I just had it in my mind
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or in my to do list without a
deadline, without a schedule,
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it would just inevitably
never, ever get done.
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Point number seven is one
I've started applying recently
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and that is having protected time.
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When you were an entrepreneur
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and you were like working for yourself
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and all that kind of stuff,
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you end up basically being able to set
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whatever schedule you want
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but like, if you're like, man
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and you're like making
connections and making friends
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with people all around the internet,
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you get to a point
where your day is filled
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with lots and lots of Zoom calls.
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And I realized that for me,
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I need to keep my mornings completely free
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of any obligations or any Zoom calls.
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And this has been an absolute game changer
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because in the morning
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that means I can wake up whenever I want.
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Usually it's half past eight these days.
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And it means that for a solid
like four hours at least
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I've got uninterrupted time
where I can do whatever I want.
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So these days I'm working
on writing my book.
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And so the morning is my
protected time for writing.
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But even on days where I'm
not working on the book
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it's just genuinely so nice to have that
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like timestamp where I can
think about the business
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or plan some more videos
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or do the things that help move me forward
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in my work career.
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And sometimes if I'm
not really feeling it,
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I'll just decide, you know what?
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I'm gonna use this protected time
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to play "World of Warcraft"
or to just kind of relax
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and read a book on the sofa.
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So if you're interested
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in better ways to managing your time,
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I would recommend figuring out
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what your protected time is gonna be,
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time that is just for you and you alone
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or "World of Warcraft"
and not for anyone else
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where no one is allowed to book
something in your schedule.
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All right, principle
number eight is delegation.
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Now this one is a little bit weird
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because normally when you
say the word delegate,
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people imagine that,
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"Oh, well I can't afford
to delegate something.
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I don't have enough money to
delegate to hire someone."
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And sure, that's probably true
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but the way that I think of it,
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even when the YouTube
channel wasn't successful
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was like, what is actually
the dollar value of my time?
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How much is my time actually worth?
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And when it came to running my business,
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I decided that, okay, my time
is worth 20 pounds an hour
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or $25 an hour.
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And that means that anything I'm doing
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that I don't enjoy, that I
can outsource to someone,
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that I can delegate for
less than $25 an hour
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I absolutely should do that.
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And that principle of delegation
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has encouraged me to get a cleaner
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which has been great
because now we have someone
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who comes in to clean the
house every other week
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which means I don't have to do it myself.
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And back in the day when I
was building my businesses
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from the ground up,
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and there was lots of things
that needed to be done,
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like data entry or things like that.
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I was able to delegate
those to freelancers
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in like the Philippines or
in Bangladesh or in India
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through upwork.com or fiverr.com
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and like paying them like $7 an hour
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is an amazing like wage for someone,
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for work in the Philippines.
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But it was fantastic for me
because it freed up my time
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to do things that were adding
more value to the business
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and to my life than doing
data entry, for example.
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And so whatever your circumstances are,
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I'd encourage you to think about
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what is the dollar value of your time.
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And potentially if you want,
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can you delegate stuff
that's cheaper than that
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to other people potentially.
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Tip number nine for time management
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is to try and automate
scheduling as much as possible.
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Now that we're in the
world of like Zoom calls
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and like chatting to
people over the internet
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basically every day, I found
I was wasting a lot of time
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in scheduling back and
forth where it'd be like,
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"Hey, I wanna talk to you,
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but like, are you free this time,
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Pacific time, this time, Eastern time
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this time, British Standard
time," all this kind of stuff.
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And we'd go back and forth with emails
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for like a solid 10 days
before anything would get done.
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But then I discovered
an app called Calendly,
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and Calendly is great.
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It's free for like the free version.
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I pay for the pro version these days.
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It's not sponsoring this video
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or anything like that unfortunately.
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Calendly if watching this, let me know.
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But the idea behind Calendly
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is you conditionally send someone a link
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and it has like all of your availability
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and they can just book
a slot in your calendar.
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Now this feels a little bit weird to do.
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Initially, it feels like a
bit of a power move that,
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"Hey, book a slot on my calendar."
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But anytime I get the Calendly
link from someone I'm like,
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"Oh my God, I'm so grateful."
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Because this has literally
saved me 20 minutes of my life ,
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time that I'm never gonna get back
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and not having to worry about scheduling
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back and forth emails.
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Even sometimes these days when it comes to
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like catching up with friends,
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I just send them a calendar link
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and I'm like, "Look, so
hey man, I'm really sorry.
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But like here's the Calendly link.
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I know we're never gonna talk
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because the schedules
are never gonna align.
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But if there's a time that works for you
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click on this link."
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And he books a time and we have cool.
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And it's nice.
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'Cause I've caught up
with so many more friends
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in the last few months
through using Calendly links
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than I did in the last like three years
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of having to schedule back and
forth with WhatsApp messages.
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And finally, principle number
10 for time management.
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And this is something I've only recently
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started to appreciate, which is that like
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when you're like a productivity nerd
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and you're interested in like efficiency
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and getting more done.
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It's very easy for us to
get to the end of the day
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and to just feel chronically dissatisfied
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with what we've accomplished.
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Like at the end of the day, it's like,
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"Oh, well, I filmed one video today
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but I could have filmed five videos.
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What's wrong with me? Such a waste man."
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And kind of internally beating
ourselves up about this.
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But one thing I've started to
kind of tell myself recently
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is that I can choose to be
satisfied at the end of the day.
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At the end of this day,
I'll have filmed this video.
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I was planning to film three more videos,
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but I didn't get around to doing those.
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That's fine. I filmed one.
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I can choose to be satisfied
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with what I've done and that's all good.
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And like, it doesn't change
how much work I've done
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by me beating myself up about it.
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It just makes me feel bad.
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And therefore, I can choose to feel good
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with how I've managed my time.
00:11:01
If you're interested in more strategies
00:11:02
on how to manage your time,
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I actually have three whole online courses
00:11:05
themed around productivity
and time management
00:11:07
that are hosted on Skillshare.
00:11:08
No, they're not sponsoring this video,
00:11:09
but if you hit the link
in the video description,
00:11:11
there'll be a link that gives
you a free trial to Skillshare
00:11:14
where you can check out my
three classes on productivity.
00:11:16
One of them is about the
fundamentals of productivity.
00:11:18
One of them is about the
productivity equation
00:11:20
which is my personal mental
model for productivity.
00:11:22
And the third one is one that
I've released very recently
00:11:24
like last week around
productivity for creators
00:11:26
and how we manage our time doing this
00:11:28
like creative high side hustle
entrepreneur type stuff.
00:11:31
So check that out with the
links in the video description.
00:11:33
And if you want more
tips for time management
00:11:35
and general productivity,
00:11:35
you should check out my book review
00:11:37
and summary of the book "Make Time"
00:11:38
which is one of my favorite
productivity books of all time.
00:11:40
And that will be linked right over there.
00:11:42
So thank you so much for watching.
00:11:43
Have a great day and I'll
see you in the next video.
00:11:45
Bye, bye
