Get Stuff Done & Make More Time: Assessing your time Pt.2

I meant that I'm goingto be giving today.OK, now let's getinto module one, whichis assessing your time, sothis is the first module of 4.And this is the one thatwe're going to focus on today.Oops!so let's first talkabout time, timeis our most preciousnon-renewable resource.I think we forgetabout this time we allhave the same amount of time.We're all stillalive today, luckily.So you survived another day.Congrats to you.The thing with time is sometimeswe don't treat it with respect.We don't treat it like anon-renewable resource.In fact.Sometimes we waste it.So my big questionto you is like, howare you guys currentlyinvest in your time?Are you invest inyour time wisely?And I want to startwith this quote,this is a paraphrasedquote by Ryan holiday,who's paraphrasing thestoic philosopher Seneca.He says if someone wereto steal your property,you would fight to get it back.You would fight reallyhard to get it back.Yet we allow people to stealour time easily or far worse.We wasted ourselves.I think that'sreally interestingto think about if somebodywere to steal your camera,you'd probably go run after themand go search for it, right?You try and hunt them down.Somebody Stole your iPhone.You would look,where's my iPhoneand go try and findthat thing right?You would.You would fight tooth and nailto go get this thing back.Yet we don't do the samething with our time.If somebody or somethingwere to steal our time.Do we chase it down?Do we try and get that back?OK just wanted to prefacethat and start that.So the first exercise thatI want all of you guysto commit to is a time audit.This is something that I'vedone myself in the pastand I started doing this week.So that you guys can get asense of what this looks like.So how do you spend your time?We're going to do atime audit together.So before we begin, if youguys don't have it already,just grab a pen andpaper or be ready to takesome digital notesbecause I'm goingto be asking you todo a couple of thingsand then we're going to do acouple of activities together.So the first partof this exercise,let's just takea moment and thenwrite down all ofour weekly activitiesinto life bucketcategories and whatdo I mean by lifebucket categories?This is something that Igot from the productivityguy, Thomas Frank.He's awesome on YouTube ifyou haven't seen him yet.But life bucketcategories are thingslike work, personaldevelopment, family timeor personal time, self care.These are all categoriesthat are part of your life,and I'll keep breaking it down.So you get an example.So what I'd like you todo is kind of break downthese buckets, as youcan see here on the top,so you'll get work personaldevelopment, healthand self-care, leisure andmeals and then chores and admin.This is how I've brokenup my life buckets.It may look differentto you, or youmight want to compress someof these things together.But ultimately, what I'mgoing to have you break downis we're going towrite these columns.You're going toself-identify with.Your buckets are andthen you're goingto determine what are thetypical tasks that youdo under each bucket.So for instance, if I'mcategorizing a bunch of tasksunder work, it might be theprojects I'm working on,the emails that I have todo day to day admin work,like paperwork orcredit card reports,things like that, timesheets and then workingon the business development.So I want you to startthinking about like,what do you do for work andwhat are some of the tasks?Just write them down andcreate that as a columnso that you can writedown all of these thingsjust so you get a sense ofwhat are the tasks that you'redoing?We'll spend a littlebit of time here.I'll give us about threeminutes so that each of you guyscan write these down.And I'll just talkslowly over the bucketsthat I've determined here,feel free to copy mine exactlyif you want and you coulddo this after the call.I'm giving you timehere, but you could alsodo this after the call andcontinue to develop this.You're not going to get leftbehind if you don't fill thisout.The next thing nextcolumn, I thinkit's reallyimportant that we allhave time forpersonal development,so for me, the way I brokethat down is sometimesI'll consume contentor read a book.And the point of thatis to study and researcha particular subjectthat I am focusing on.other times I'll justdo writing, writingto get my thoughts out, writingto formulate new content,thoughts to give formto all the random thingsthat I'm thinkingabout every week.And then lastly, thatI put in my column hereis inspiration seeking.Sometimes I'll justgo down a rabbit holeand don't reallynecessarily have a subject,but I know I'm going outthere to look for inspiration.Maybe I'm just lookingfor the latest designtrends in packaging or in webdesign or in motion design,for instance.So I might just go down arabbit hole for a little bit.The next column I putis health and self-care,and the only thing Ihave in there is workout.I mean, I do a lotof different thingsfor working outlike boxing and rockclimbing and lifting weights.I just put it asgeneric workout.Some of you guysmight do other thingslike like, meditate orjournal stuff like that.So think about what fallsunder that category,because I think it's reallyimportant that you do have timeto focus on your healthand take care of yourself.Next category, my next lifebucket is leisure and meals,so these are thingsthat I do for fun.These are thingsthat I do eitherwith no agenda or theagenda is to not work.So these are things like justtaking breaks and in the day,playing video games or watchingNetflix or Hulu or somethinglike that or DisneyPlus now gettingsucked into the Mandalorian.This also includes familytime or personal time.So if you have aspouse or a familylike you could putthis in there like,I think it's important toalso block out time for that.And then I just lumped inmeals in there because meals.For some reason alsohas to do with familyor just personal time.These are things youhave to do, but also youdo this kind of on yourfree time on your leisure.And then the lastlife bucket that Ihave was chores and admin.And really, thisis just adulting.Anything you do as an adultlike cleaning the house,paying your credit cardbills, paying your taxes.That's my last bucket there,which is just chores and admin.Does that makesense, do you guysunderstand the conceptof life bucketsand then the tasks thatmight fall underneath each?OK, so what I'dlike you to do nextafter you've determinedthese things,and if you don't have allthe tests to figure it outjust yet, that's OK.Again, you could fill that in.Now I want you at the bottomof each of those columnsis to assign a percentage ofhow you think you're currentlyinvesting your time, and I'llgive you an example here.So this is my best guess ofhow I'm investing my time.I think that 50% of mytime is going towards work.I think that 10%of my time is goingtowards personal development.I think 5% is going tohealth and self care,and then I would say that 25%of my time is spent on leisure.And then the last 10% is goingtowards chores and admin.Make sure all thesethings add up to 100%But this is just yourbest guess, right?So just look at thosethings and just thinkabout how you think yourtime is currently spent now.Not what you'd like it to be,just how you feel like it'sspent right now.OK these are my guesses.So the next partof this exercise,once you have an idea of allthe different tasks that youdo now, we're going to takeinventory of how we actuallyspend our day.So this is theassignment that I'd likeyou to do post this lecture.And we're going to takeinventory of our time.And essentially, what I wantyou to do for the next sevendays is to record everythingyou do in 15 minute increments.So you might take allof these columns again.And then if you're really fancy,you can make a spreadsheetdocument or you just get aruled notebook or notepadand then just write thewaking time that you have.And then every 15 minutes, justwrite down what you're doing.Every time you switchcontexts or switch tasks,log it in and writethat in there.It doesn't have tobe super precise.They just wantyou to get a senseof where your time is going.And this is a veryimportant exercise.I've done this before.I started it yesterdayagain, and itwas pretty revealing forwhere my time was going.So I'll give you an exampleof what this might look like.So in here, you mightjust write down the taskand just use a few words.So if you see this wasyesterday, for instance,I woke up at around sixAM with no real agenda.Then around six 15, Iwas making coffee coffeeand then at six 30,I started scrollingthrough my social media.And then after that,after I finished thataround six, 40 five, Istarted doing the dishesbecause I left a wholebunch from the night before.And then as soon as 7:00 AM hit,I started consuming content.I started researchingsome of the thingsthat I wanted to focus on.So this is just the firsthour, 15 minutes of my dayand what that looks like.So if you guys arestarting to log your time,just do it the same way.It's like you're clockinginto life right here, right?You're clockingin and you're justgetting a sense of whereall of your time is going.And by the end of the day,what I'd like you to dois to tally allof that stuff up,because when youtally it up and youstart to see this justby simply recording,you'll realize yourtime is not goingwhere you think it's going.I made all thoseassumptions up front,and I hope you guys have madesome assumptions about whereyour time is going,but they didn't quitego where I thoughtI was going to go.So by the end of yesterday,this is what 15 hours of my daylooked like.This is how it broke down.So if I look at the very,very end of the day,I stop recordingaround like 10 or 11.45% of my time went to work.Only 3% of my time wentinto personal development.Which is pretty sad to me.10% went into self care andhealth, I did a lot of workout yesterday, which is great.I actually feel prettygood about that.The next column,leisure and meals.37% of my time wasleisure and meals.I didn't feel good about that.And I look at that number333 minutes of my timewent to leisure and meals.I don't know howI feel about that.And then the lastcolumn, 42 minuteswhen two chores andadmin, which I'mOK with because I don't reallywant to do that kind of stuffanyway.I don't like doing chores.So what am I looking at here?These are the two thingsthat really alarmedme personal development.I only spent 30 minutes doingpersonal development yesterday.That's not good.I would like to actuallyhave a lot of timewith personal development,I think maybe 10% to 20%of my time I wouldlike to just spendon personal developreading, consuming content,learning new things, and Ithink all of us want this space.So yesterday wassuper busy because Iwas putting this deck together.I was researching alot, but look at that,that's pretty sad for me.So that's very alarming.And this is just only after oneday and then leisure and meals.I think I spent a lot of timejust standing around no agendain between my workoutsand between writing,and that number is kind of high.37% is quite high for me,so that's pretty alarming.So as you guys arerecording, you'regoing to see these things too.You're going to start to seewhere your time is actuallygoing.So here's the comparison, right?The top row.Here's how I thought Ispent my time and thenthe comparison of whereI actually spent my time,and this is just over one day.So I'm going to continuerecording for the next sevendays, and I knowthese percentages aregoing to move around abit, but after one day,this is what I found.And you could see the biggap of where I thought,I'm spending my time and whereI actually spent my time,so work was pretty similarpersonal development.I'm way under healthand health care.I ended up putting more timein their leisure and meals.It's way too much time, I think,in my eyes and then choresand admin.Maybe I spent a littletoo much time there.OK so when you starttracking your own time,you'll realize yourtime is not goingwhere you think it isjust because you make lotsof assumptions, youhave feelings about,oh, I've alwaysproductive today.And then you look at thesheet and then you'll realize,was there that productive?Did I get that much done?I want you guys to record thisagain for the next seven daysand keep it super simple,you can keep it analog,you can just keep a notepadand track every 15 minutesor if you guys wantto get super fancy,you can develop a custom Googlespreadsheet or something,and then you canhave all these macrosready to input your own time.But I also recommend thisapp and it's called now,then and I've used this.This is just a $3 app, Ibelieve, on the iOS store.And it's just a timetracker, so whatit does is basicallyyou could see hereon the right sideand this graphic,basically you can inputall of your custom tasks.So for me, all the thingsthat I had listed earlier,like reading and consumptioncontent creation,I'm listing this all inthe app and the momentI started doing it, I just play.So it's starting totrack all my time.So for instance, writingonce I start writing,I just push play.When I take a break,I push play on break.And the cool thingabout this, it'svery easy, just open it andit's one tap it will break downyour day.So this was my yesterday.This is how it broke downand this was very easyfor me to see.And you can use all kindsof different filtersto view it different ways.But you can see what my sixam all the way up to 11 PMlooked like.And you could color codethese things however you want.All the stuff ingreen is work related.All the purple stuff ispersonal related, meaning kindof the leisure stuff.Red is my workout and then Ihave all the gray stuff, whichis all the leisureand non agenda stuff,so you can see howyour time breaks down.And as I keep addingthis stuff, you'llsee the pie chart,which is really cool.I'll show it to the next slide.This is my favoriteaspect of the app.You can just see as a toplevel where all of your timeis really going, so you cansee that I zoomed in hereon the right side.A lot of the timeyesterday went into writingbecause I was writing thisdeck, so it totally makes senseand this is going toaverage out of her in a weekor however long Idecide to do this,and I expect these to balanceout a little bit more.Maybe because every day looks alittle different, but actually,I think the real reason isjust by simply recording.You start changingyour habits, and Iexperience this when I starteddoing this about a yearand a half ago,when the first dayI started recording, in thesecond day I started recording,I realized that 33% ofmy time went to emails.That was a third of my lifejust gone in emails, it's like,what the hell am Idoing with my life?That was before andimmediately, probablyafter the third or fourthday, my email time went downand it went downand it went down,and then I think Igot it under 5% Sojust by simply being aware ofhow you're spending your time,you start to change your habits.And I think this is why it'simportant that all of you guyscommit to.This is because you will startto see where your time is goingand quickly change itand quickly change it.And then those thingswill last with youwell beyond the seven days.OK, so after you'vedone your seven days,come back to this module,which will have on the Academy.And I want you guys toreflect what did youlearn about your time?And I have a fewprompts here, and youcan record it anddocument it howeveryou like, but the firstprompt is how do I feelabout what I've documented?Do you feel great about it?Do you feel down about it?What are what aresome of the thingsthat you initially feltwhen you started recording?The next thing is justhighlighting insights,and again, this is nojudgment right here,this is just most ofmy time is spent here.These are the tasks that Ispend most of my time on,and I just want you towrite these down againwithout judgment, just to writeit down just so you can see itand you just write allthese things down here.Next, this iswhere you can startto make time, which is what areall the low value tasks that Ido during the day thatI can start to reduceor that I could stop doingnow altogether or somethingthat I can delegateto somebody elseor hire somebody else todo or just pay to get done.What are some ofthese low value tasksthat I can get off my plate?For me, it was twoyears ago as emailI realized I wastedtoo much time on email,but I think I really was justlooking for distractions.So those are things that Igreatly reduced in the columnover to the right.I need you to write.What are the high valuetasks I need to prioritize?So for some of you, it mightbe personal development.Some of you might beworking out or some of you.It just might be focusingon your projects.You might realize that you'reonly spending about 10%of your time onprojects, and maybe youneed to spend a lot more.So this will bedifferent for everybody,but you determine the value ofthese things in your own life.All right.What are low value things andwhat are high value thingsthat you need to prioritize?And then again, tally upall of your life buckets,how you're spendingyour time, thisis how my time iscurrently allocated,but then on theright side, here'show I'd like to investmy time instead.So if you want tomake adjustments,you might want to do less work.Actually, you wantto maybe spendmore time onself-development or healthand self care, maybe lesstime on leisure and meals.I know I definitelywant to spenda little less timeon that because Iinvested too much of thatyesterday towards an admin.I want to reduce thatdown to zero if possible.But you know, we allhave responsibilities.So these are things just to helpyou understand where you areand then where you want to be.And once you havethe data, you'llreally be able tounderstand your own lifeand the compositionof your days.And this is a PeterDrucker quote,I think other peoplemight have said as well,but what gets measuredgets improved,and I really believethat just because I'vegone through this onceyesterday was revealingfor me and the next seven daysshould be very revealing for meas well.So again, start measuringsome of these thingsand you'll start to see evenyour life can be measuredand it can be improved.So now it's your turn.This is the end ofwhat this exercise is.Let me recap some ofthe steps for you guysso you can startapplying it rightafter this call,which is number one,is create your life buckets.These are the categoriesand tasks that you do.Sorry for the typo there.It's pretty late last night.The second thing is, I wantyou to track the next sevendays in 15 minute increments.Do it by task and then tallyup your time in percentages.So they get anunderstanding of whatis the average of 1week in your life.And I want you to go back tothe third part of the reflectionaspect of this and thenfill out the promptsand then what I wantyou to do is actuallyto share yourfindings on Facebook.So I'm to put a littleFacebook unit there.And then each of you guyscan just post your findingsas a comment to that thread.And then repeat asneeded, you don'thave to do this just seven days,you can do it for a longer,actually.And you might wantto keep reiteratingor revisit thisevery quarter justso that you get a sense ofhow your time is investing.Because again, my lifeis very different nowthan it was two years ago.And these are things thatit's just a great refresher.OK, so that's justthe end of module 1.I wanted to focusa lot of our timeon that because Iwant to make surethat one you guys understandthe concepts here.One, this is something thatis bite-size that you can do.And I don't want to overloadyou with information.So today we focused on assessingyour time next module, which isprobably going to be next week.I'll figure out theschedule with Chrisis going to be aboutmaking intentional time.So once you havean understandingof where your timeis going and howyou want to attributethat, then we'regoing to be talking aboutmaking intentional timeso that the time youdo spend in the dayis going to be veryimpactful and is ultimatelygoing to reward.