Your Time, Your Way

Why Your System Must Start At An Area of Focus Level

The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System

Script

Episode 154

Hello and welcome to episode 154 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.

So, if you are listening to this podcast you obviously have some interest in becoming better organised and more productive. And, I guess you have set up a system… Hopefully, that system is based around COD (Collecting, organising and doing).

Now if you are also doing your weekly planning, how many of you are able to stick with your weekly plan? In theory, if you sit down on the weekend and give yourself twenty to thirty minutes to plan out what you want to accomplish in the week, then you should be getting a lot of your important work done… In theory. In practice, that’s a lot harder to do, and it takes a lot of effort and focus to accomplish.

But it is possible and this week I will share with you some of the strategies I use to make sure I stay focused on my plan throughout the week.

Now, before we get to the question, If you haven’t already done so, you can download my annual planning sheet as well as my areas of focus worksheet (for free) so you can begin planning out next year. Yep, 2020 has not turned out how we expected, and I am sure many of you have had to make some pretty dramatic changes to your plans, but no matter how well or badly this year has gone for you, we all get another chance next year and taking the time over the next three months to plan out what you want to accomplish next year will reap some incredible rewards.

So, head over to my website, carlpullein.com and download these very helpful planning sheets and make sure you are setting yourself up for an incredible 2021.

Okay, on with the show and that means it’s time for me now to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.

This week’s question comes from Beth. Beth asks: Hi Carl, I’ve followed David Allen’s Getting Things Done and recently your Time Sector System and the problem I have is no matter how well I plan out the week, I very rarely do what I plan to do. I am constantly interrupted by my colleagues and staff as well as my customers. Is this normal or is there anything I can do to help me stay focused on my plans?

Hi Beth, thank you for your question.

I think we all struggle here. It’s very easy to make a plan on a Sunday afternoon when we are away from our normal environment and then arrive at work on a Monday morning and thrown into the emergencies and crises of the day and our carefully crafted plan is thrown out of the window.

As Mike Tyson apparently famously said: “We all have a plan until we get punched in the face”.

So how can we stay focused on our plan for the week and still manage the emergencies and crises that will inevitably come up in the week?

The first thing to do is plan to do less.

It’s very easy to plan things out when our phones are not ringing and our colleagues and staff are not asking questions all day. This often leads us into a false sense that we can do a lot more than we really can. If I am being truthful to myself I know that I can realistically only focus on one or two projects each week.

Sure, I would love to be able to work on five or six projects, but realistically, with everything being thrown at me, as well as my core work, no matter how much I want to work on those five or six projects it just isn’t going to happen.

That said, in my team, there is only one person. Me. It might be different if you manage a team of people where you can delegate responsibility to your team members, but even then there is only a limited amount of work you can focus on each week.

It is far better to focus on one or two things each week and make sure they are done to the highest possible standard than to try and do everything and find your standards fall and you miss very important tasks.

So, when you are doing your weekly plan, choose the projects that are the most important or urgent and prioritise those for the week.

If you have a lot of projects falling due around the same time, you may need to renegotiate the deadlines. Never be afraid of doing this. This is not a reflection on your abilities to do your work. This is you demonstrating you are in control of your time and if you renegotiate a deadline giving your customer or boss enough notice you are unlikely to be refused.

Problems occur when you call your customer or your boss the day before the deadline and inform them you are not going to make the deadline. Then you are asking for trouble and you are going upset your customer and your boss.

So when doing your weekly plan make sure you review your project deadlines and take care not to have too many deadlines at the same time.

Next up, is to put some structure into your day. Now by this, I mean set aside two or three hours each day for focused work. This is usually best done first thing in the morning. If you start work at 8:30 AM, then set aside 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM for your focused work.

By “focused work” I mean you turn off notifications and email and just focus on the work you have planned to do for the day. If you can get yourself those two to three hours each day, you are going to get a lot done. Problems happen when we allow ourselves to be interrupted by every notification we receive—it’s just not conducive to getting important work.

I know we think we have to be available 24/7, but that is just not true, no matter who you are.

When it comes to email the way I see it is, if my house was on fire, my neighbour is never going to email me to tell me. They are either going to call me or bang on my door. Real emergencies are never communicated to via email so stop thinking email (or Slack or MS Teams etc) are emergency channels. They are not. Real emergencies are delivered either in person or via your phone.

If you do lead a team, explain the communication channels to your team. Make sure they understand that between certain times of the day you should not be interrupted unless it is a real emergency and make sure you explain what a ‘real emergency’ is.

Another tip I would give you is to set aside some time towards the end of the day for communications. I find if I dedicate an hour or so towards the end of the day to deal with my communications I can stay on top of all my email and messages without much effort. You will find trying to stay on top of all your communications sporadically throughout the day tiresome and things will inevitably slip through the net.

There’s no problem doing two or three processing sessions through the day, I generally process first thing in the morning, just after lunch and before I start my evening coaching calls. Here to emphasis is on processing, not doing.

What I mean is I go through my inbox and move any actionable emails to my Action This Day folder. Then, when I finish my coaching calls for the day, I sit down for an hour and do my communications. I respond to my actionable emails and messages in one go.

One of the advantages of this method is you do not get caught up in email ping pong. You are only sending one reply to an individual per day. And remember, if something is urgent, then don’t use email as the main method of communication. Jump on a call, explain what needs to be done and if necessary follow up the action steps by email. But don’t rely on email as the main source of communication.

Another area that helps to keep you focused on your plan for the week is to do a daily mini-review. Now the keyword here is “mini”. It should not take you more than ten to fifteen minutes to review what you have done for the day, making sure you are moving forward on your plan for the week and make any adjustments required in order to put you back on or keep you on track for the week.

You see, no matter how well we plan our week, as I mentioned at the beginning, your plan is going to change once it hits the emergencies and urgencies of the week and sometimes you are going to have to drop everything to deal with those emergency. By having a few minutes at the end of the day to reassess and adjust the plan, you are going to find you get a lot more done than if you just give up the plan and allow the week’s events to drag you each day.

So, when planning the week, make sure you plan less than you think you can do. If you do have an incredible week, you can always add more work later.

Have a structure to your week. Give yourself two to three hours each day for focused work and some time towards the end of the day for dealing with your communications. In between those times, keep things as flexible as you can soy do have time each day to deal with the unknowns.

Make sure you are clear about how to communicate with you. Keep only a few channels open—you do not have to be available on all channels. Make sure the key people you work with understand exactly how to communicate with you in an emergency.

And finally, set aside ten to fifteen minutes each day to review progress against your plan so you can make any necessary adjustments.

It’s not difficult, but you do need to commit to maintaining a structure and to resist the temptation to let everything fall down once the inevitable crises of the week begin.

Thank you, Beth, for sending in your question and thank you to all of you for listening. Remember, if you have a question you would like answering all you need do is email me—carl@carlpullein.com or DM me on Facebook or Twitter.

It just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.

Monday Oct 05, 2020

Here's My Weekly Workflow and The Tools I Use.

Monday Oct 05, 2020

So, you have all your tools—great notes apps, great writing apps and a fantastic system set up but how do all these tools come together and work for you rather than the other way round? That’s the question I am answering this week.

You can subscribe to this podcast on:

Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN

Links:

Why Your System Must Start At An Area of Focus Level

The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System

Script

Episode 153

Hello and welcome to episode 153 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.

Well, 2020 is into its final leg now. The final quarter has begun and it is this time of year that I love. Not only because we get to see amazing autumnal colours here in Korea, but I also start my planning for the next year. And while 2020 has not worked out exactly how I expected—I think we have all found that—it does mean things can get better and we will one day be able to start travelling and seeing this amazing world.

What I mean by beginning my planning season is I use a templated note I keep in Evernote that covers different areas of my life and encourages me to think about ways I can improve those areas. Areas such as my business, my family life, my health and fitness and my goals. It’s a review of where I am and where I want to be and I seek ways to bridge the gap.

The next two months is where I brainstorm ideas and in December I start to make decisions about which of those areas I will focus on and how I will achieve the outcomes I want. Because I give myself plenty of time to plan things out, it means I am not scrambling at the end of December to put together a list of New Year's resolutions, instead, I have a carefully curated list of real areas I want to improve and grow.

I have put a link in the show notes to my downloads page where you can get yourself a copy of this planning sheet and you too can start the process of making those improvements to your life that you feel need improving.

Okay, on with the show and that means it’s time for me now to hand you over to the mystery podcast voice for this week’s question.

This week’s question comes from Gustav. Gustav asks: Hi Carl, I am a great fan of your COD system and in terms of collecting and organising things, my system fits like a glove. But when it comes to the “Do“part where I produce articles, conference papers, blog posts etc. I still encounter difficulties.

Would you mind giving some insights of your content production flow and handover between your tools as this where I find the biggest difficulties?

Hi Gustav. Thank you for your question.

I thought the best way to answer your question would be to go through how I develop different types of content starting with my regular content such as this podcast, my blog and YouTube videos and then onto bigger content such as an online course.

So, let’s start with my blog as I think this is the easiest one.

I write a blog post every week, and so I need a consistent stream of topics and for that, I have a simple note in Evernote where I keep all topics. Now, the problem I encountered when I began writing regularly was getting my topic ideas into the note in Evernote. That problem was solved by the brilliant app, Drafts. Drafts is a simple, yet very powerful notes app. Now, it’s not really your traditional notes app in that while you can keep your notes in Drafts, Drafts is at it’s best when you use it as a launcher for your other apps.

Drafts makes it incredibly easy to grab an idea into your iPhone or iPad (or desktop) and then send it to a predetermined note in Evernote. So let’s say as I am driving, I get an idea for a blog post. All I need do is tap the bottom left of my Apple Watch and that will start the dictation feature of the Drafts app on my watch and I can dictate the idea straight into Drafts. Later, I can then pull up the actions sheet in Drafts and append that idea to a note in Evernote. I never need to open Evernote.

This saves so much time and reduces the resistance. When you have thousands of notes in Evernote it can be difficult to find the note you want to add an idea to. With Drafts, you don’t need to find the note as it does it all for you.

This means on a Sunday night before I go to bed, I look at my blog post ideas list in Evernote and choose the topic I want to write about tomorrow.

And that nicely brings me on to the writing process. I write my blog posts every Monday morning. Once my morning calls are complete, I open up my writing App, Ulysses and I begin writing. As I have already chosen the topic I will write about, I don’t need to go looking for a topic. I just begin writing and for the next ninety minutes, that’s what I do.

As I am writing, if I find a statement or example requires a link, I will look for a suitable link as I am writing or as I am editing the article.

Editing is done the next day. I like to leave the first draft for 24 hours to settle. I also find when I come back to an article the next day I see more mistakes than I would if I tried editing the article immediately after writing it.

Once edited, I will select the image using Unsplash.com or Pexels, create a duotone image from the file and then schedule the article to be published at 10 AM on a Wednesday (that’s Korean time) and it’s done.

That really is pretty much the process I follow for all my content. This podcast script is written on a Tuesday morning and edited on a Wednesday or Thursday. The script is written again in Ulysses and the questions I get from you wonderful listeners are kept in a note in… You guessed it, Evernote.

Now, for my YouTube videos, the process is slightly different. I have a note in Evernote that has space for three videos. I write out the topic for each video into a table in the note and then add notes and ideas for the video.

The capturing process is the same as everything else. Ideas begin in Drafts then get moved to Evernote and then that Evernote note is my reference material for when I am preparing the content. If I find any links, images, videos or anything else I want to include in any of this content, it is added to the note.

Why I do things this way is because I have everything I need to write the article or record the video in one place instead of having everything all over the place. It reduces the chance I will be side-tracked by a distraction and allows me to just get started and create.

For the bigger projects such as writing a book, again, all my research materials are in Evernote. Now for a project like writing a book, I would create a notebook for the project. That way I can clip webpages, create project timelines and a separate note for chapter ideas.

Now, for online courses, I use Apple’s Numbers spreadsheets. That’s because each lesson in the course requires a lot of notes and learning points and I want to be able to add additional information such as whether something would be a talking head lesson, a presentation slide or a demonstration. An online course takes a lot of work to make sure it fits logically together and having an outline in Numbers helps me to see the bigger picture plus I can drill down into details when I am developing the course.

However, again, the outcome for the course will be contained in a note in Evernote as well as anything else that may be relevant to creating the course.

The way I see things is Evernote is my project support app. I can keep all relevant reference materials, links, screenshots and anything else I may want to develop the content I am creating.

For written work, I use Ulysses where I have a drafts folder for all the content I am working in developing and once it has been completed I move the article to an archive folder. My goal is to keep things as simple as I possibly can with as few steps as I can make it. So, having two apps—Drafts for collecting materials on the fly, Evernote for storing all that material and Ulysses for writing the actual content does that for me.

So where does Todoist come into this? Todoist is my to-do list, so all Todoist is doing is telling me what to work on. So, on a Monday morning, I have a recurring task called “write blog post” which is linked to my blog post ideas Evernote note. My calendar has a block between 9:00 AM and 10:30 AM called “Writing time” and Ulysses is where I write.

I find structuring my days and weeks in this way ensures all the content I want to create each week is done. I keep Thursdays and Fridays as free as I can for content creation such as videos recording and editing and Wednesdays are for online course development. But everything starts and ends using these apps: Drafts, Evernote and Ulysses for writing.

Now, I use Ulysses because it’s a simple writing app with a lot of power. It also syncs seamlessly between my devices. I often begin writing my podcast script while on a bus or train and as Ulysses on my iPhone is fantastic I often find I have written over a thousand words before I get home and I can finish it off on my computer. Trying to write in Microsoft Word on a phone is not the easiest task.

Hopefully, that has given you some food for thought, Gustav. The key is to try and keep things as simple as you possibly can and use tools that work for you. Trying to use a lot of different tools because they promise to do one thing well, might not always be the best solution. Evernote can do many things, in fact, I could use it for writing my blog posts, but getting content out of Evernote is it’s Achilles heel. Ulysses has some incredibly powerful export features which makes it so much better for writing.

Thank you, Gustav, for the question and thank you to all of you for listening.

It just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.

Monday Sep 28, 2020

How To Manage Your Files And Notes

Monday Sep 28, 2020

This week’s question is about once you have collected your ideas, tasks and commitments how do you know where to put those collected items?

You can subscribe to this podcast on:

Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN

Links:

Why Your System Must Start At An Area of Focus Level

The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System

Script

Episode 152

Hello and welcome to episode 152 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.

One of the fundamental parts of the whole COD system (that’s Collect, Organise and Do) is the collection part. After all, if you are not collecting the stuff that gets thrown at you each day, you get nothing into your system and you will continue to rely on your brain to remember things and we all know—well, I hope you do—that your brain is a terrible place to try and remember everything.

But, if you are throwing everything into your inboxes, how do you manage those inputs and decide where everything goes? That’s the question I am answering this week.

Now before we get to the question and answer, I just want to let you know that I have added the areas of focus sample and workbook to the Time Sector course now. So, you have a new video lesson explaining why your areas of focus are important, and you also have a downloadable workbook to help you set these up in your notes app.

If you are already enrolled in the course, you can find these new resources in the final section of the course, and if you have not enrolled in the TIme Sector Course… Err why not? (Hahaha)—seriously, if you want a simple, easy to maintain time management system that is built for the way we work today, then the Time Sector System is for you. And at only $49.99, it’s incredible value for something that will change your life and put you back in control of your time. You can get yourself enrolled by clicking on the links in the show notes.

Okay, on with the show, which means it’s time for me now to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast voice for this week’s question.

This week’s question comes from Jörg. Jörg asks: Hi Carl, two cornerstones of your productivity system are a note app and cloud storage. When using Evernote as a notes app, how do you distinguish which material goes in which channel and where to place your created files?

Hi Jörg, thank you for your question.

I think the best way to start with this is to run through where things should go in general.

Events, appointments and anything where you need to be and with someone at a specific time and a specific place should go on your calendar. So these are your meetings, appointments and time blocks for you to do some focused work—appointments with yourself so you are not disturbed.

Tasks—that’s things you need to do should go into your task manager. These could be your routines like take the garbage out, do your expenses etc. Or project tasks such as work on a presentation or call Phil about the soundtrack to a new marketing campaign.

Then we have your notes app and here is where you keep your project notes, ideas, links to reference materials and anything that you need to quickly access in order to do your work.

Finally, we have your cloud storage. This is where you put your files such as PowerPoint or Keynote presentations or Word documents, Photoshop and Illustrator files etc.

Now the great thing about using cloud storage is you can generate links directly to the files you need which can be put in your project notes so you can access the right files when you need them.

Why is this important?

What we are trying to avoid is having project files all over the place. What we want is one file that is accessible with just one click whether we are in our project note or to-do list.

Now, most cloud storage such as iCloud and Dropbox have something called version history which means that if you want to go back to a previous version of your document, you can using the history feature. I think Microsoft OneDrive has this feature too, but I am not sure about Google Drive. So, you do not have to keep multiple iterations of the same file, you can always go back if you need to.

So, how this all comes together is your task manager, tells you on a day to day basis what work you should or need to do. Ideally, you want to start each day with a prioritised list of your tasks for the day. To achieve this, you do your daily planning and use the 2+8 Prioritisation method to prioritise your two objectives for the day—the two tasks that you will complete no matter what, and eight other should do tasks—tasks that you will do your best to do, but it would not be the end of the world if you cannot complete them all.

Your calendar is telling you where you need to be and with who and at what time and it tells you how much time you have available to do your project and task work. Your calendar is also where you can block time off for uninterrupted focus work should you need it.

For me, I block 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM for my focus work each morning. I avoid scheduling meetings and appointments at that time… if I can—of course, that is not always possible, but by having that goal—to keep those two hours free each day for focused work, I achieve it more often than not.

So, what happens, is I start my project work for the day from my task manager. That task is a clickable link that takes me directly to my project note in my notes app. That gives me all the relevant information related to that project. The note has links to the file or files I am working on, any important information that I may have added from my own ideas or an email or Twist message I have received. I also have my project timeline in there so I can see where I am, where I need to be and be reminded of the project deadline.

It all works seamlessly together.

So, in the example above, I do my daily planning the evening before. I review the tasks I need to complete, clear my inbox and prioritise my tasks for the next day based on what appointments I have in my calendar—if I have a busy day of back to back meetings and classes, I will reduce the number of tasks I have for the day. Because I am planning the week ahead, I can reschedule any tasks that are not urgent and make sure the work I have assigned myself for the day is manageable.

When I start the day, I already know what I am going to focus on and so I can just get started. No procrastination, no time wasted planning the day—it’s already done. This means by the time I need to look at my task manager for the first time, it’s usually after 11 AM.

By having a link directly to my project note, I avoid the risk of going down a rabbit hole looking for work. It’s all directly linked together and all I need do is click and start. Simple.

Now, what goes in Evernote and what goes in my cloud storage is quite straight forward. Files, PDFs and documents go into my cloud storage in the correct project folder. Notes, copy and pasted email references and links to files go into Evernote. And I am very strict with this.

Now, what do I do with documents that I need to annotate? Usually, these will be PDFs (or images) and for that, I use an app called GoodNotes. GoodNotes is brilliant on the iPad with Apple Pencil and so I can bring a document into GoodNotes, annotate it and once finished I can save a copy of the annotation file to my cloud storage.

I would like to be able to do this in Evernote, but Evernote’s annotation features are terrible and it would mean I would have multiple copies of the same file. The very thing I am trying to avoid. So, I don’t mind bringing the document out of my usual system to annotate it with a great annotation tool and then send it back. It only takes a few seconds to save the file to my cloud folder so it’s not much of an inconvenience.

Because of that, I am currently testing out OneNote as a possible replacement to Evernote in the future, but for now, I am sticking with Evernote. We’ll see what happens with my test in the future.

The key to making this work is to have strict boundaries for where things go. You want to be able to access your work files from wherever you are so having these in a dedicated current projects folder in your cloud storage ticks that box. I don’t separate my work and personal projects because to me a project is a project it doesn’t matter whether it is personal. I want to have a folder that. I can access quickly that has all my current projects in one place.

Once a project is complete I put the cloud project folder into my completed projects folder, I put the project note into my notes’ archive notebook and that’s it. All done. All organised and I know exactly where everything is.

At the end of the year, I will move most of those completed projects on to an external hard drive for future reference although if I think I might need to reference an old project I will leave it in my cloud storage.

So there you go, Jörg. I hope that helps and gives you some ideas about how best to manage your work. Thank you for your question.

And thank you to all of you for listening. Don’t forget, if you have a question you would like me to answer, all you need do is email me, carl@carlpullein.com or DM me on Twitter or Facebook.

It just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.

Monday Sep 21, 2020

How To Manage 'Millions' of Projects

Monday Sep 21, 2020

This week’s question is all about managing multiple projects, a full calendar and incessant daily interruptions so that you stay on top of what’s important.

You can subscribe to this podcast on:

Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN

Links:

Why Your System Must Start At An Area of Focus Level

The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System

Script

Episode 151

Hello and welcome to episode 151 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.

Now, this week I have a fantastic question about how to manage essentially a ton of stuff being thrown at you every day as well as making sure multiple projects are moving forward.

Now before I get to the question, just a heads up for those of you who are enrolled in the Time Sector Course. Last week, I added a new lesson on bringing your areas of focus into the daily mix of tasks. In that lesson, I take you through how to create your areas of focus and how they need to be filtering into the Time Sector System.

Of course, if you are not enrolled in the course, then you can still do so. It’s an amazing course and will transform the way you manage your work by simplifying your structure and making sure that you are focused on what is important today, and not worrying about what’s coming up next week, later this month or next month. After all, what matters is the here and now. As long as you have done your weekly planning session, you should not be needing to worry about next week and beyond.

Anyway. I hope you do join in the course. Full details are in the show notes.

Okay, it’s time for me now to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast voice, for this week’s question.

This week’s question comes from Heather. Heather asks: Hi Carl, I’ve watched your videos and agree that separating projects from to-dos would simplify my life significantly. However, as a school principal I have a million projects, some new and some repeating quarterly, and a full calendar. How do you advise using a notes app to help prioritise and see next actions that should go into your task manager?

Hi Heather, thank you for this question.

Let’s start at the foundations. There is only a certain amount of time each day for us to do our work. We are not able to work 24 hours a day seven days a week. Aside from the need to sleep and eat it is neither sustainable nor healthy. So, what we need to do is to build some structure into our day and really understand what our core work is.

You see, knowing what work only we can do and what work we can delegate to our team helps with prioritising. If there is some work only you can do, as a principle, then, of course, this is going to be your priority. Nobody else can do it, so if you do not do it, nobody else will.

This goes for any team leader or manager. If there is work your team can do, then you need to let go of that work and delegate it. This means, of course, you must trust your team. You must also ensure they are shown exactly what you want and that means you will need to allocate some time to train your team.

Now, I’ve come across a few people who say “yeah yeah I know that, but I just don’t have any time to train my staff”. Sure, it’s a dilemma, isn’t it? But, if you are unable to manage your workload now, what is going to happen in the long-term? Something important is going to get missed, or you’re just going to have a breakdown. Either option is not a good option.

In this case, what I would do, is schedule a day for training.

How do you do this? first, decide what work you can and will delegate, to whom and have a clear set of outcomes for that work.

Then set up a training day. For that, you schedule appointments with your team individually and allocate the work you have decided to delegate and make sure the people you are delegating the work to know exactly what you want—the outcomes—and when it is due each week or month etc.

Can you afford to spend a day training your team? How about asking a different question: can you continue doing your work with its current workload?

Okay, so how do you manage all this in a notes app.

Of course, this is going to depend on which notes app you use. The best ones are Microsoft OneNote, Evernote and Notion for this kind of thing.

So, the first thing you will need to do is create a notebook called “Current Projects”. Inside there you create a new note or section for the project you are working on.

Now, what you put inside that note or section depends on the type of project it is. For your delegated projects you can create a table to manage key information such as who you delegated the work to and when you expect the work to be done. You can also create tables to manage the outcomes and anything else you need that will be related to that project.

I have a pinned note that lists all my active projects and where they are at, as well as information such as what the expected outcome is and milestones and deadlines. This note is used for reviewing and planning.

With this note, I am very careful. Sure it would be very nice to be able to add all my projects and say they are all due this quarter, but the reality is you are unlikely to be able to complete all your projects in one quarter. So, I get realistic and spread these out so they are manageable and doable. And, yes, sometimes I do need to renegotiate deadlines. You need to get okay with that. Renegotiating a deadline can be done if you give the project owner enough time. Trying to renegotiate a project deadline one week before it is due is not going to help you.

Just having a master projects list (for that is what I call this note) gives me a big picture view of what is due and when and that highlights any projects that I feel are just not going to get done by the deadline. I can then negotiate a new deadline.

For example, I do a lot of online workshops and conferences. For these events, I deliver a lecture or presentation and I also give each participant a workbook. Now sometimes a conference organiser will ask me to provide the workbook materials a few weeks before the event. Sometimes that is no problem, but last month I had several of these workshops and getting the materials to the organisers by their deadline was going to be very difficult. So, I asked the organisers if I could provide the workbook a couple of weeks later.

How did I know this was going to be difficult? It was because every week when I do my weekly planning, I review this master project list. I know what my core work is—the work only I can do—and I have that already blocked off in my calendar. So when I look at my week, I can see very clearly how much time I have available to work on these projects. As soon as I saw that in one week I had to prepare four workbooks I knew that was not going happen—well not if I wanted to complete my core work, which is non-negotiable—so I contacted the organisers and negotiated a few extra days to get the materials to them. In all cases, they were happy to accommodate me and I got the workbooks to them within the new deadline.

This is one reason why your notes app helps. It gives you the big picture view that a task list manager cannot do.

Another advantage of having this master projects list is you have a place where all the information you want to see, and in the way, you want to see it can be stored. A task list manager forces you to follow a template—which may not provide you with the information you want. Your notes app allows you to create the format you want. You have complete freedom.

So how, and when, do you move next actions over to your task manager?

For this, again I do it when I do my weekly planning session. But I also will add tasks when I am working on the project.

For example, imagine I am doing some work on a new online course. Now, a lot of the prep work for that involves a spreadsheet. This is my outline document and so a lot of information is added to that. As I am working on it, I may decide I need to research something. I will add that task to my task manager immediately. I will decide what needs researching and when I will do it. For something like this, I will add it to either my “this week” or “next week” folder in my task manager. The details of what needs researching will be added to the project note if necessary.

During my weekly planning session, I go through all my active projects. Inactive projects don’t need reviewing if they are not moving forward, but sometimes I do need to add a start date. That can be created as a task and added to one of my longer-term time sectors. For instance, I have a task in my task manager in my Next month folder that is dated that says “start work on Time And Life Mastery update” That task will come up on the day I have allocated and I can then decide if I want to, or need to, start right then. If not, I can re-date the task or I can start the project by moving the project note to my active projects list.

So for the most part, my task manager tells me what work I need to work on today. Today, I have a task that says “Write podcast script”. When I did my daily planning session last night, I saw that on my list and I flagged it as a morning task because morning is when I do my focused work.

Saturday mornings are when I work on my online courses. I have a recurring task in my task manager that tells me “work on online courses” and I have a direct link to the project note for the online course I am currently working on. So I see the task, click it and I am transported directly to the project note to start work on it.

The glue that brings everything together is the daily and weekly planning sessions. Seriously, if you are not doing those you will never feel you are on top of everything coming at you. These sessions do not need to be long. The daily one, once you have a settled routine should only take you around ten to fifteen minutes. And the weekly planning session normally takes around thirty minutes or so. It could be longer if you have a lot of active projects, but remember, you only have 168 hours each week, and not all of those will be spent working. On average you will be working between forty and fifty hours. So, for your weekly planning session, you are only able to allocate so much time for your projects.

That’s why your calendar is important too. If your calendar is already full, then there’s no hope. Sorry to be so blunt. But if you want to have time to work on your projects, you are not going to be able to change the laws of physics. Time just is. So, get control of your calendar. Do you really have to attend every meeting you are invited to? Would it not be possible to delegate some of those meetings to other people?

As a school principal, Heather, you should be able to block some time out for focused work sessions. Choose those times carefully. Often the best time for focused work is in the morning when you are at your freshest, but here we are all different. Find a time slot that you can block each day for your own focused work. Ideally, two hours each day where everyone who works with you knows you are not available.

Setting some boundaries is important. If you have no boundaries then other people will fill your time. In a typical working day, not being available for two hours is not a lot of time. But it is a lot of time to get focused work done.

I hope that has helped in some way, Heather. Good luck and thank you for your question.

Thank you to all of you for listening too. It just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.

Monday Sep 14, 2020

Why Everything Must Start From Your Areas of Focus.

Monday Sep 14, 2020

We’ve reached a rather special milestone this week. This is the 150th episode of the Working With… Podcast so I thought this week I would explain something important about how great productivity systems are built.

You can subscribe to this podcast on:

Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN

Links:

Why Your System Must Start At An Area of Focus Level

Steve Jobs’s Crazy Ones recording

The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System

Script

Episode 150

Hello and welcome to episode 150 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.

So, in a little change from the usual format, today I want to explain how to build your very own productivity system from the basic foundations.

As with all building, it starts with solid foundations and most people’s productivity systems fall apart not because of a lack of discipline but because the foundations on which the system is built are not strong.

There are three essential parts to any productivity system. There is the daily level—the tasks you complete. There is the project level, the group of connected tasks that when completed results is a finished project and then there is the areas of focus—the foundations of the system.

Now, It does not matter about the app you are using, it does not matter what industry you are working in. What matters are the foundations on which your whole system is built. I actually think this is a weakness in the Getting Things Done methodology. In the GTD book, there is a lot of stuff about collecting, managing your stuff and creating file folders for the different projects you create as a result of what you collected, but there is very little on why you are collecting that stuff. GTD focuses too much on the daily and project level and not enough on the foundational level.

You see, everything begins with your areas of focus or areas of responsibility. (There are many different ways of describing these). Essentially what this means are the very things you consider to be important in your life.

For most people, these will be things like:

Family and relationships
Your career
Your health
Your spirituality
Personal development
Life experiences — the places you want to visit, the things you want to experience.
Your finances
And your purpose in life.

There are more, but essentially most people would consider these areas of life as being important.

Now the funny thing is each of these areas will have a different level of importance depending on where you are in your life. If you are in your twenties, your relationships, career and life experiences are likely to be your top priorities. In your thirties, your family, life experiences and career. In your forties, it’s likely to be your personal development, finances and purpose in life. Fifties; finances will be near the top, your health and your family and so on. It changes with us and we are all different so the mix will be different for each of us.

But wherever you are in life, if you have not got these down, your system will be built on a foundation of sand. You will have no direction, no levels of importance that match where you are in life and so you will be operating from the level of your projects. Essentially your daily to-do list will be just that. A daily to-do list of tasks that are not connected in any way to what is really important to you.

And if you don’t know what your areas of focus are, where will your projects generally come from? Your work projects are likely to come from your company and boss. Your family projects will be a compromise with your partner. Only about a quarter of your projects will be self-generated, so you operate your daily life on other people’s agendas.

And if you are operating from the task level, then almost all your time is spent on small insignificant gains, fire fighting and other people’s requests. Rarely, if ever, do you do anything for your long-term self.

I’ve noticed another problem with operating a system from a project or task level. You will never be satisfied with your apps either. You will be constantly changing them, playing around with dangerous apps like Notion where there are so many bells and whistles you are led to believe that if only you can find the right database, then everything will start to work for you. It won’t, of course, because the app is never a substitute for what is important to you.

What apps you use is not important. What really matters is you have a place where your areas of focus are written down and that can be anywhere. A notebook, a simple notes app, or Notion, Evernote, OneNote or Apple Notes. It really doesn’t matter where you write these down. All that matters is you have them written down. So apps like Notion can be great, but only if you use them so they serve you instead of the other way round.

And that means you start by clearly defining your areas of focus.

Start with the framework of:

Family and relationships
career
health
spirituality
Personal development
Life experiences
finances
And purpose in life.

Now, the reason you start here is that all your projects and goals need to start from here. What do I mean by that?

Well, any project given to you by your boss, will be related to your career area. If you do a great job in doing your part of the project, you will help advance your career.

If you decide you want to learn a new skill or a foreign language, these could be related to your personal development or your career or both. Saving money will be related to your finances, embarking on a regular fitness programme is related to your health and so on.

So building your system from the foundation of your areas of focus creates a solid foundation on which to build your goals and your projects.

So what do you put in your areas of focus? Well, here you want to be writing out a sentence or two on what is important to you. For example, your family and relationships could be something like:

“I provide a stable, caring and loving home for my family and I am always there for my friends and family when they need me.”

For your career, you can write out the kind of employee or employer you want to be. Perhaps write out where you want your career to go.

What you will notice is your areas of focus are like your big overreaching goals and values.

Looking back over my own productivity journey, the first book on productivity I read was a book by a gentleman called Hyrum Smith called 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management. It’s a great book and is still available today.

The book begins with getting you to identify your governing values. Before identifying your goals and then your tasks. (Sound familiar?)

I also studied Tony Robbins’ time management system which is explained in his course Time of Your Life. Again, where does it start? It starts with your areas of focus, your life’s purpose, goals and of course your values.

All great systems begin at your areas level because without knowing what your values, life goals and what is important to you is, you will always be operating at a superficial level. You will feel unfulfilled and your days will pass in a blur of “what the hell happened today?”

Now, I don’t know what system Elon Musk uses, but watch any interview with him and you can see he is operating from his values. In particular, he’s operating at his life purpose level. Everything he does is focused on achieving his life’s purpose. To colonise Mars. Space X will provide him with the means to get to Mars. The Boring Company will provide him with the tools to build a way to sustainably live on Mars, and Teslar will provide a way to transport people around Mars.

Steve Jobs was the same. He operated at his areas of focus level. To provide tools for creative people to change to world for the better. His values were clearly centred around simplicity, ease of use and beauty. The whole Think Different campaign was built around what Steve Jobs valued most.

“The people crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do”

If you’ve never seen the original ad that Apple recorded with Steve’s voice saying the above quote you should. You can hear the passion, the drive and purpose in his voice. I’ve put a link in the show notes for you… Well worth a minute of your time.

Now, if your projects and daily tasks are not being driven from your areas of focus you are not going to be motivated to do either a good job or complete them. It’s the same with your goals. If your goals are not built on your areas of focus you are just not going to motivated enough to keep going when things get boring, difficult and monotonous.

Let’s take an example.

If you have in your health area of focus a sentence that states:

“I take care of my health and maintain a high level of fitness so I can continue to enjoy playing with my kids and grandkids long into my life”

And one day, you notice your waistline has expanded a little and it feels like an effort to get up a flight of stairs. That should alert you to your area of focus on health.

Now you can create a goal that will reduce your weight down to a level you are happy with, change your lifestyle a little so you move more and find more time to exercise.

Because that goal is coming from an area of focus you have identified as being important to you, you are much more likely to stick with it.

However, let’s say you are happy with your weight, and fitness is not something you particularly enjoy, but your co-workers persuade you to join them in a fitness and weight loss drive.

When you are feeling hungry a week or two into the drive and it’s raining outside but you are supposed to go out for a thirty-minute walk, how likely are you going to stick with your plan? Not likely. You just won’t have the motivation because the goal is not coming from your areas of focus. (Unless one of your values is related to being the best at everything you do—that would give you the motivation to complete the goal)

This is one of the reasons I spent time in my Time Sector course getting you to write out your core work—the work that is important to you. It’s also why the Time Sector System has a unique, dedicated folder for ‘recurring areas of focus’. These are the tasks that if you do consistently every day, week or month you are maintaining the areas of your life you identified as being important to you. It is such an important part of building a solid, sustainable productivity system.

So I urge you to take a little time this week to really think about your areas of focus. Write them down in your notes app, journal or notebook. I’ve given you a list in this podcast of where you can start with your areas but feel free to add others. We are all different but we all have one thing in common, to live a life of fulfilment, joy and happiness you need to be spending more of your valuable time nurturing and growing at your areas of focus and values level, not the projects and daily task level.

If you have a strong set of motivating and—more importantly, true to you—areas of focus, then 90% of what you do each day will be fulfilling and you will not be ending your day asking “what the hell happened today?”

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope you found it motivating enough for you to begin writing out your areas of focus. Last week, I wrote a blog post on this topic and again, I’ve linked that in the show notes. In that post, I shared a few diagrams that show you how a productivity system should be working. Take a look, it will help you with your areas of focus development.

Now go build that fulfilling life.

It just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.

Monday Sep 07, 2020

How To Manage Change in a Fast Changing Environment.

Monday Sep 07, 2020

This week the question I am answering is all about managing change in a rapidly changing, and uncertain, world. Something most of us are experiencing right now.

Links:

The Super 10 PLUS Course Bundle

The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System

You can subscribe to this podcast on:

Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN

Script

Episode 149

Hello and welcome to episode 149 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.

How have you been affected by COVID-19? Has the way you do your work changed dramatically? Are your productivity tools living up to your expectations? And how are things likely to change in the coming months?

We do live in unprecedented times, changes to the way we live and work have not changed this fast in the Second World War and yet, as humans, we have done a remarkable job in adapting to new ways of living and working. We always will, That’s part of the human condition. We are exceptional when it comes to adapting.

This week, the question I am answering is how to manage all this change so we remain focused on what is important, stay on top of our core work and deliver our work to outstanding levels of quality and on time.

Now, before we get to the question, I wanted to give you a heads up on a new bundle in my Learning Centre. I have been asked numerous times over the last few years if it was possible to create a bundle of my courses that includes a personal one on one coaching element. Well, I have found a way to do and that bundle is now available in my learning centre.

You can now buy all ten of my courses AND get three months of one on one coaching included. Now, I understand this bundle is not going to be for everyone. But if you are searching for a way to change the way you work. To prepare yourself for what comes in the post-pandemic world and want to start 2021 knowing you have the skills to adapt and create and produce outstanding work, then this bundle is for you.

You will get everything you need to build your own productivity system. To create achievable goals and bring everything together so you are in complete control of your time and life. It is an amazing package and will save you over $400 off the full price. And once you have learnt the systems, you then get three months with me personally as your coach to implement everything you have learned so that at the end of the process you will have changed your habits, built an amazing system and be ready to face whatever comes in the new world in 2021.

Full details of this bundle are in the show notes.

Okay, it’s time for me now to hand you over to the mystery podcast voice for this week’s question.

This week’s question comes from Joseph. Joseph asks: Hi Carl, in May this year our company told us to work from home until further notice. This was hard for me as I have always liked the camaraderie of working in my office. We are still working from home and my company has told us we shall be continuing to work from home until March next year. Do you have any tips and tricks on managing change because I am worried everything I have set up now will change again in March?

Hi Joseph. Thank you for sending me your question.

I suspect a lot of people are facing the same disruption you are, Joseph. And it’s one of the inevitabilities of life that things will change. Change never stops. The difference now is the speed of change has gone from manageable to, for most, unmanageable and incredibly disruptive and it has left us with a lot of unanswered questions about the future.

For one, will we ever go back to the way we worked before March 2020? My feeling on this is no we won’t. If we take the changes to the way people lived their lives before 1939 and the way they lived after 1945, the huge changes that occurred in societies across the world and the changes in technology that were developed for the war effort, filtered into our lives very quickly changing the way we went about our lives forever. And the same is happening now.

Just six months ago, many companies believed it was impossible for them to allow their staff to work from home. Now, because of the varying degrees of lockdowns around the world, they discovered it was possible to allow their staff to work from home.

Online communications have dramatically improved in just the last four months. Many people had never heard of Zoom before March, now almost everyone knows what Zoom is and have used it in one form or another. Microsoft and Google have upgraded their video communication tools to such a level that jumping on a call is quick, simple and very fast.

The thing about technology is once it has been adopted, we don’t abandon it and go back to the way we were before. The reverse happens, we advance it. It gets better, faster and more tools come along that improve the experience.

Think back to 2007 when the iPhone was first launched. There was no App Store, you couldn’t copy and paste and share files. Compare that today to the phones we all carry around with us. Sharing files is easy, doing a video call is as simple as clicking a button and the app stores offer us millions of apps to solve our immediate needs.

So, there’s no way we will be going back to the way we worked pre-March 2020. But, that does not mean the office is dead. We will still have offices, but rather than being places we have to be between 9 AM and 5 PM, they will be places we go when we have a reason to be there. In-person meetings, or because we need to use something that is only available in the office for example.

So how can you build a system that will manage this disruption and be as future proof as you can make it?

Well, the key to that is in the question itself. “Build a system”. It’s your system that needs to be flexible, and more importantly mobile. You see, when you no longer have a fixed place to work, keeping your files and documents in an offline format is not going to work. You are going to need access to those files wherever you are working from and that means embracing cloud storage.

My whole system works around iCloud. As I am in the Apple ecosystem, it makes sense for me to keep all the documents I am working on in iCloud. Yesterday, I was working on a spreadsheet updating the outline for my Time And Life Mastery course. That file is in the cloud, and so when I went to a local coffee shop to spend a couple of hours in deep focused work, I did not have to worry about whether I had the file. It was in iCloud and I could open it up immediately on my iPad to work on it.

When I got back home, it was there on my laptop to do a little more work on. There was no lag, no refreshing to do. It was just there. It’s something I no longer need to think about.

Now, for you, you may work in the Microsoft or Google ecosystem. Whichever system you work in, look at those tools first. They may not meet your needs, and with cloud storage, you have other options such as Dropbox. Choose one that you like and feel confident with.

Next, look at your todo list. Is your chosen to-do list available everywhere? You see, you may not always have your personal laptop with you and find yourself in your office using a different computer. Can you access your todo list from a strange computer? One thing I like about Todoist is I can access it through the built-in apps (my preferred choice) as well as through the web which means it does not matter whether I am using a Mac or a Windows machine, as long as I have a browser and an internet connection I have access to my todos for the day.

The same goes with apps such as Evernote, Apple Notes, OneNote and Google Keep, all of these notes apps are available whether you are using a dedicated app or a browser.

Making sure your tools can be accessed anywhere from any machine gives you the flexibility you will need to navigate the future way of working.

How have you got your working environment at home set up? This is important because no matter what happens to the way we work in the future, one element that will become very common is more working from home.

Now, here the key is where you do your work and in that respect, one of the most important items you will need is a good chair. Using your old wooden dining chair might be okay for paying bills and filling in your kid’s Judo class joining form, but for hours of sitting down and doing your work, they are going to do untold damage to your back and neck. Invest in a good quality chair. Seriously, do not go cheap here. Spend a little less on your computer and desktop accessories and a little more on your chair.

That’s a lesson I learned a few years ago when I started doing a lot more work from home. It was only a few weeks before I was waking up with a very stiff back and neck.

I listened to the warning signs and invested in a proper office chair. That solved those back and neck issues very quickly.

Another issue you will soon find with working from home is you move a lot less. There’s been a lot of discussion on the so-called ‘pandemic weight’—the weight many people have gained because, while they are still eating the same amount of food they usually do, they are moving a lot less.

You need to become very intentional about moving. I advise people to take at least an hour off for lunch and make part of your lunchtime a thirty-minute walk. You can do your chores—go to the shops, or if you are lucky and have a dog, take your dog for a walk.

What I found very useful was my Apple Watch—any smartwatch will do this though. A smartwatch tracks your movement and your steps. Set yourself a goal of walking at least 10,000 steps each day. That way you are making sure you are moving.

You can also do your housework during your breaks. So rather than checking Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, do some housework. Clean the breakfast dishes, make your bed, sweep the house. Just do something that does not involve sitting down. Move.

If you don’t have a smartwatch, then use your phone’s alarm to remind you to get up and move every hour or so. Your waistline will thank you for it.

A funny thing here, as we generally wear less smart clothes when we work from home—well, at least the bottom half —we wear loose-fitting clothes which means we are often not aware our waistline is expanding. So, try to wear something that involves a belt. That way you can monitor your waistline. When things start to feel a little more tight than usual, it’s time to either reduce your food intake or move more… Or both.

Finally, have a morning routine. One of the things about having to wake up at a certain time and prepare to go to our workplace is we all had a morning routine of some sort whether we were aware of it or not. When I worked in a language institute several years ago, my first class was at 6:30 AM. This meant for me to have a shower, shave and a coffee before I went to teach, I needed to get up at 5:30 AM. It was not an intentional morning routine back then, but it was still something I did every morning.

Now, I am much more intentional. No matter where I am working, I wake up, make coffee, drink a glass of lemon juice and take my probiotic. Then I do a series of stretches for my shoulders and back before sitting down to write my journal and check my email. Once that is done, I take a shower and then prepare for the day. It takes around 45 minutes to do. So, whether my day starts at home or I go out to teach, I know I need to wake up 45 minutes before I start.

Having that routine gives me a structure to the day. If I just rolled out of bed, sat at my computer and started work, I would be starting the day in an unhealthy way. Health is vital if you want to perform at your best, so create a morning routine for yourself that involves some quiet time for you and your health. It will put you in a much better mood and give you the energy to begin the day.

One more tip before we end. Every day I read blogs from McKinsey, KPMG and EY. These companies specialise in change management and have some excellent resources on the future of work. Being aware of how different industries are changing to meet the new environment will better help you see what is likely to come and help you to make better decisions about what will work best for you.

Well, I hope that answers your question, Joseph. Thank you for the question and thank you to all of you for listening.

Don’t forget, if you have a question you would like answering, then all you need do is email me: carl@calrpullein.com or DM me on Facebook or Twitter. All the links are in the show notes.

It just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.

Monday Aug 31, 2020

How My Systems Fit Together Into A Daily Workflow.

Monday Aug 31, 2020

Podcast 148

Over the last few weeks, I’ve received a number of questions about how my whole productivity fits together. From COD to The Time Sector System to PACT. So.,this week that’s the question I will answer.

Links:

The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System

You can subscribe to this podcast on:

Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN

Script

Episode 148

Hello and welcome to episode 148 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.

Over the last three or four years, I have introduced a number of concepts, models and systems and the question is, how do all these fit together to make a workable, effective productivity system? That’s a great question because there are a lot of different ways you can manage your work, but for me, ultimately it’s less about the actual system and more about the workflow that you use.

Ultimately, how you manage your work in the time you have available is the key. It does not matter how brilliantly you have all your stuff organised if you don’t know where to start, or even how or when to start, you will not have an effective system. You workflow—the way to start your day, how you manage your work throughout the day and how you end the day is where everything comes together. And the best workflows need little thought or decision making. It’s just what you do. So that’s what I will be explaining in this week’s episode.

Now, before we get to the question, don’t forget, for those of you already enrolled in the Your Digital Life 2.0 course, you now have a brand new update waiting for you. All you need do is go to your dashboard on my Learning Centre and you will find everything there.

This year, you get the Time Sector System, and almost all the classes have been updated with better content and better explanations.

PLUS… You also get my Email productivity and goal planning courses absolutely free!

Now would be a great time re-take the course so you can refocus your system and workflows and go into the final quarter of 2020 refreshed and working at your most productive.

And, of course, if you have not joined the Your Digital Life programme, you can do so. For just $74.99, you get a complete course that will give you everything you need to become better organised and more productive. You learn how to build your own digital system as well as how to manage your email and goals and bring everything together in a fantastic workflow. Full details of the course are in the show notes.

Okay, it’s time for me now to hand you over to the mystery podcast voice for this week’s question.

This week’s question comes from Angela. Angela asks: Hi Carl, I’ve been following your on YouTube for quite some time now, and I have seen you talk about COD, PACT, the Golden 10 and now the TIme Sector System. Is this just an evolution of your system or do al these things play an important part in the way you do your work each day?

Hi Angela, thank you for your question.

To answer your question, I thought it would be a good idea to explain how everything works and how each part fits together.

So let’s start with COD. COD stands for “Collect, Organise and Do”, it’s the foundation of every great productivity system. You see, you need to collect everything that comes your way that you feel is important or something you need to do something about. You then need to organise all that stuff you collect and of course, you need to do your work.

So, whenever you start building a productivity system you need to start with COD. How are you going to collect your stuff? Will you use your phone, computer or a paper notebook? Or, will you use a combination of all of those?

The key is to develop a collection system that is quick and easy. Having a complex method to collect stuff might look cool, but if it’s complex you will resist. It needs to be fast and you need to think carefully about how you will do that.

I use an app called Drafts to collect around 95% of my stuff. Drafts is an app on my phone, Watch, iPad and computer and when I open it up, it starts off with a blank sheet and I can type or dictate whatever I want to collect. It’s incredibly fast.

Now once I have an item in Drafts, I can then choose where to send it. The two main areas are Todoist for a task I have to do or Evernote for an idea or a note.

I’ve been using Drafts for years now, and it’s just automatic for me to open it and add an item whenever the thought comes to me. There’s no thinking. It’s now intuitive and automatic.

Next comes the organising. Organising means where will you process what you collected? For this, you need a to-do list manager and a notes app. So, tasks go into the folders you have set up in your task manager. You can organise your folders in whatever way you want. The simplest would be a “home” folder and a “work” folder. So anything related to your work goes into your work folder and anything related to your personal life goes to your home folder.

Now, the reason you need folders is to prevent your task manager’s inbox from becoming overwhelming. You need somewhere to put your tasks.

Personally, I use the Time Sector System, this is where I organise my tasks by “when” I will do them. That could be this week, next week, this month, next month or long-term. But you may prefer to organise things differently. The key is to have a place where you can group similar tasks together.

If you are a Getting Things Done person, you will organise by context, that’s by people, place or thing. For example, you would have folders called Home, office, computer, phone, boss, spouse etc.

How you organise your tasks is up to you.

The key to the organising part of your system is you want to spend as little time as you can organising. You see, organising can become a productivity drain if your structure is too complex or you have too many apps. You will spend too much time adding folders, sub-folders, labels, tags and trying to decide where to put something.

The simpler you can make it, the less time you will spend organising and that is a good thing. I would say, that the goal is to spend around 5% of your time organising each day. That works out at around 20 minutes a day cleaning up your inboxes and managing your tasks and notes.

The rest of the time you want to be doing the work. That’s the “D” part of COD. Do. If your organisation structure is simple, then each day you will have a list of things you want or need to do and you just get on and do them.

And that’s where the Golden 10 comes in.

A few years ago, I decided to find out what the optimum number of tasks a person could reasonably expect to be able to complete each day. I discovered that number to be about ten.

When you take into consideration all the unknowns in a day, the unexpected urgencies and emergencies from customers, bosses and co-workers, then realistically you will only be able to complete around ten meaningful tasks a day.

I say meaningful because there are always little routines we have to do—take the dog for a walk, do the grocery shopping, clean the house etc. These just have to be done when they need doing. I don’t include these in the 10 meaningful tasks. These just have to be done when they need doing.

So, before you finish the day, you do your Golden 10. That means you look at your calendar and your task list and see what you have scheduled for tomorrow. You assign the ten most important tasks a flag or something that highlights them for you. This should take you no more than ten minutes.

Now the ten comes from the 2+8 Prioritisation method. This is where you choose two objective tasks—the two tasks you absolutely must do tomorrow whatever happens. No excuses. These could be something important for your work, or they could be goal-related. You get to choose. The eight other tasks are the eight tasks you would like to get done—the should dos if you like—but it would not be the end of the world if you did not manage to complete them.

Finally, where does PACT come into it? Well, PACT is; patience, action, consistency and time. To get good at anything you need to have patience, you need to take action consistently over a period of time.

This works for your goals and for developing your own productivity system. If you want to build a functional, productivity system then you will need to be patient. It does not come together overnight and it takes time to get used to managing your tasks, processing and organising things. But you do need to take action and you do need to consistently do it.

I’ve found if you consistently do your Golden ten at the end of the day, you are 95% of the way there. You see the Golden Ten gives you an opportunity each day to step back and look at what you have on your plate. It allows you a little time each day to prioritise what you need to get done and focuses you on the 20% of tasks that will give you 80% of your results.

When you do not do any planning, you find you pick the low hanging fruit—the 80% that only gives you 20% of your results. When you do that, you will feel busy all the time, but also feel you are making little to no progress on the things you have identified as being important.

So that in a nutshell, is how everything comes together. Start with COD. Look at how you are collecting your stuff. Is it easy, fast and not feel like a burden or too much effort? Make sure you organise everything you collected consistently. I generally do that every 24 to 48 hours and spend at least 90% of your time each day doing the work.

At the end of the day, spend ten minutes planning tomorrow. Decide what your ten most important tasks for the day will be. And don’t worry if you don’t have ten. The less you have to do the better. I often start days with only six or seven tasks for the day.

And most important of all, if you are serious about becoming better organised and more productive, be PACT. Be patient, take action consistently over time and soon you will find you intuitively follow a workflow that grows with you and removes a lot of stress, keeps you focused on the work you have identified is important and you start to feel each day you have completed a lot of meaningful work.

Thank you, Angela, for your wonderful question and for all you for listening. I feel so honoured to be able to help you in whatever way I can each week.

It just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.

Monday Aug 24, 2020

How To Use Your Task List With Your Calendar.

Monday Aug 24, 2020

This week’s question is all about managing your tasks and managing your events. Where does everything go? Your calendar or your task list?

Links:

The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System

You can subscribe to this podcast on:

Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN

Script

Episode 147

Hello and welcome to episode 147 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.

So, I’ve had a few questions recently on how best to schedule your day and what should be on a task list and what should go on your calendar. It’s a good question and it goes to the heart of managing your time and your days and weeks.

Now, before we get to that, If you are sick and tired of endlessly rescheduling tasks and starting the day with a lot of overdue tasks, it may be time for you to consider the Time Sector System.

The Time Sector System shows you a different way to manage your tasks, a way of being more realistic about what you can get done each day and each week. It encourages you to become better at prioritising your time and the work you have to do and it makes your daily and weekly planning easier and faster and a lot less complex.

It’s a system designed in the 21st century for the 21 century and will help you eliminate all those overdue tasks and give you a simple time management system that you can build on and learn new habits that will ultimately put you back in charge of your time.

Full details of the course are in the show notes.

Okay, its time for me now to hand you over to the mystery podcast voice for this week’s question,

This week’s question comes from Benjamin. Benjamin asks: Hi Carl, I’ve seen a few of your videos recently on using your calendar but I’m a bit confused. Are you saying you should manage everything from your calendar or from both your calendar and your task list?

Hi Benjamin, thank you for your question and I’m sorry for any confusion. Hopefully, in this episode I can clear things up for you.

So let’s start with the calendar. Your calendar is your most powerful productivity tool because it is the one tool you have that will never lie to you. It shows you the number of hours you have each day and it will not allow you to over-schedule yourself. Well, I suppose you could do that, but you would very quickly see the impossible situation you have created for yourself.

So, how do you use your calendar? First, you want to schedule your non-negotiable events. These could be meetings, family commitments, your exercise time and classes or other commitments you have that are important to you.

For me, each week, I have a number of classes that are at the same time each week. These are on my calendar as repeating events. They are non-negotiable for the most part—although from time to time I will cancel these if I need some time to record a course or if I need to take a few days break for thinking and planning.

I also schedule my exercise time on my calendar too. I do this at the beginning of the week because each week the type of exercise I do is likely to be different. To do some weights at home—because at the moment gyms are not the safest of places to be— takes around 45 minutes. And a quick shower afterwards means I need an hour. But there’s no travel time or cooling off time—which I usually need if I have been out for a run or to the gym.

If I go out for a run, I usually need ninety minutes. So I schedule my exercise when I do my weekly planning.

That takes care of my core commitments for the week.

And that’s what you should be doing when you plan the week. Start with your calendar. Make sure you non-negotiable commitments are on there first. After all, they are non-negotiable. They must happen at a specific time and on a specific day.

Once your non-negotiables are on your calendar, look for blocks of time you can block off for focused work. Now when I say “focused work” I mean projects or goals you know you need to commit a certain amount of time in order to get them done.

Here it will be up to you how and when you do this work. Because my week is largely fixed, I have recurring blocks of time for writing, recording and creating. For example, Monday morning I have an online class between 8 AM and 9 AM and once that is finished I have a block between 9:15 AM and 11 AM for writing my blog post for the week. It’s fixed and it’s recurring every week. I do the same on a Tuesday morning. Every Tuesday I have an outside class at 7:30AM and I get home around 9:30AM. So between 9:30 AM and 11:30 AM I have a recurring block of time for writing this podcast script.

These ‘events’ are fixed and recur every week. They are non-negotiable. If I did not block these times, my blog post and podcast script would not get done, or I would find it difficult to find the time to do them. I need that structure and I need that consistency to do it.

You could do the same. If you have a regular meeting that requires planning for, you can block time on your calendar to prepare for the meeting. Once it’s blocked and it recurs at the same time each week, you know you have the time available to prepare for your meeting. Of course, if you ignore the time block, then it won’t work and you would quickly find you run out of time because other, less important but louder things will inevitably crop up.

This is also how I have time each week to prepare and record my videos for YouTube and write the two newsletters I produce each week. Each piece of content has a block of time scheduled on my calendar that recurs. So, my newsletters are written on a Wednesday and Friday morning. My videos are recorded on a Thursday afternoon and a Friday morning and edited on a Friday afternoon. Producing and publishing content each week is important to me and the work I do. So, it is non-negotiable and is fixed on my calendar each week.

The way to look at it is if it is important and must get done, then schedule the time required to do it on your calendar when you do your weekly plan. If you are not scheduling the time to do the work that is a “must’ how will you find the time to do it when your week starts? There will always be ‘emergencies’, demands on your time and requests from bosses, colleagues and customers. These demands are often loud, but not really important—unless you think every request you get at work is important (seriously, that is not true at all)

So, what goes on your task list?

Your task list is for all the little things that need to be done on a daily or weekly basis. The things that come up and gets added to your inbox. Let me give you a few examples.

Yesterday, as I was feeding my dog, I used that last of his supplement tablets. That went into my inbox; “Buy Barney some more heart supplements”. Another one was from this morning, I said I would send my students a link to a video I was watching last night. So I added that to my inbox.

Now, let’s take those two examples. They are now in my task list inbox. Do I need to schedule a time to do them? No. They just need doing. My dog’s vet is a ten-minute walk from my house and I already know I will need to drop into the supermarket at some point in the day today anyway. So, when I go to the supermarket I will take a small detour and call into the vet to get the supplement.

Sending the video to my students will take less than two minutes, so I will do that this evening when I process my inbox. I do not need to schedule these on my calendar. I will do them when I get a break in my day.

Now of course, there are other things in my task list. I have an amendment to do to a proposal I sent out for a workshop. It’s a small amendment and I was asked to do it last week. It was not urgent and I scheduled it in my task list to do this afternoon. It will take me around ten to fifteen minutes to do and it is non-urgent. So, it is on my list of tasks to do today and I will probably do it after I finish my exercise today. It is not on my calendar—it does not need to be. It will get done later today when I have some free time.

Now I have other recurring tasks on my task list. Things like do my admin, write my journal, clear my action today folder in my email etc. All these tasks do not need time scheduling on my calendar, they can be anytime throughout the day when I get a moment. And there will always be moments of time to do these things.

And that’s an important point. You should not be blocking out your whole calendar with work. You need space to do your regular tasks, deal with things that come up throughout the day and anything else that just needs doing.

For me, I generally use the morning to block time out for important work that needs an hour or two of focused time. I try to keep late afternoons free so I can deal with anything on my task list that needs doing.

You see, morning times for me is when Europe is asleep and the US is preparing to go to sleep, so very little comes in at that time. Late afternoons Europe is waking up, but as so many people check email in the morning I know I am unlikely to be disturbed by anything urgent, and the US is fast asleep.

And that’s a good point. If you are going to do this and block time out on your calendar for your important focused work, block times out when you are least likely to be disturbed. If you get the majority of your calls and emails in the morning, then do your focused work after lunch. Likewise, if you find late afternoons are your quietest times, when Slack, Twist and emails are quiet, then schedule your time blocks late afternoon. Find the right times for you.

This is why planning the week really helps. You should know what your important work is. Your core work. The work you are paid to do before you start the week. Make sure you have time scheduled each week to do that work. If you are not doing the rod you are paid to do consistently, you are not going to have a job for much longer. That work needs scheduling. Anything else does not need scheduling and can be kept in your task list to be done when you get a few moments in the day.

I hope that helps, Benjamin. I hope it has cleared up some of the confusion.

Thank you for the question and thank you to you for listening.

It just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.

Monday Aug 17, 2020

Why I Don't Use A Task manager As A Project Manager

Monday Aug 17, 2020

What are the benefits of managing your projects in a notes app as apposed to a to-do list manager? That’s what I’ll be answering in this week’s episode of the Working With Podcast.

Links:

The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System

You can subscribe to this podcast on:

Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN

Script

Hello and welcome to episode 146 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.

This week, I have a question about why I manage my projects in a notes app (and occasionally a spreadsheet—but you didn’t know that did you?) So, what I decided to do to answer this question is to take you through why I find to-do list managers are a terrible place to manage projects and to challenge some preconceived ideas about how best to use a to-do list manager and a notes app as well as other tools.

Now, before we get to the question and the answer, if you have missed it in the last couple of weeks, my Your Digital Life 2.0 course has become Your Digital Life 3.0 and it is practically re-recorded from the ground up. You now have the Time Sector System in there as well as how to manage your files, your email, your goals and your notes. It’s pack full of great tips and tricks.

So if you are looking at building new ways of working for the post-pandemic work life, then now would be a great time to get yourself enrolled. It’s a great course and will set you up wonderfully with a productivity system that works for you so you take full advantage of the digital tools we all carry around with us every day.

Okay onto this week’s question which means it time to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question:

This week’s question comes from Abigail. Abigail asks, Hi Carl, I have been watching some of your videos on YouTube and your approach to using a to-do list seems very different from other people I have watched. My question is why do you manage your projects in your notes app and not your to-do list? Isn’t that what a to-do list is for?

Hi Abigail, thank you for your question.

Now, I spend a lot of time each day reading productivity and time management forums, blog posts and books and the biggest mistake I see is people creating elaborate and complicated systems. Complexity is the number one productivity killer. No matter how busy you are—or think you are—building yourself an elaborate and complex system is just going to make you feel even busier. it does not solve your problem.

The only way to become more productive and bring some kind of balance into your life is by creating a system where you spend very little time inside your to-do list. Your to-do list only needs to tell you what you need to do today.

Now here’s the biggest mistake I see. people trying to manage projects inside their to-do list. Now I know where this came from. It came from a misinterpretation of GTD—that’s Getting Things Done, by David Allen.

Now GTD never said manage your projects inside your to-do list. GTD is all about creating folders based on your contexts. That’s people, place or thing. What that means is you create a list of folders based on a place, which could be your office or home, a person, your partner, your boss or colleagues or a thing, which could be a computer, your phone or iPad.

So if you had a task that required you to use a computer, you would put that task inside your “Computer” folder. If you had a task that required you to do it at home, then you would put the task inside your “home” folder etc.

Now, you can create an additional list for your projects, but it is only a list of projects, not a list of tasks associated with those projects and this list is only used for review purposes.

All your project support materials, your plans, mind maps and documents related to your projects go into your project folders which are kept nearby.

Now GTD was written in the pre-digital age—or pre-smartphone age--and things have changed a lot since then.

What has happened now is people are trying to manage everything from their to-do list and all that does is create every increasing list of tasks that only the loudest and most urgent get done. Everything else often gets lost somewhere inside a folder and only be discovered once a task bankruptcy is declared—which when you try to manage everything from inside a to-do list will inevitably happen.

In talking with some very productive people I discovered this approach to task management is not a very efficient or effective way to manage your work.

Let’s look at a better way.

The first step I would advise anyone is to look at where you do most of your work. For me, I work out of my little studio in my home. So for the most part of the day, I am working at my desk with my laptop. I write there, plan there and do all my admin. So, my primary work tool is my laptop. If I go out for a class or a meeting I take my iPad with me so I have my teaching materials with me and I can write any meeting notes (and, of course, I always have my phone with me.)

Now, once you know where you do most of your work and you know what devices you have, the next thing to look at is software.

This is where things can get complicated very quickly. The best thing here is to use the tools built into your computer. So if you are a Windows user, use Microsoft’s tools. That would be Outlook for your email and calendar. OneNote for your notes and project support materials, To-Do for your task list and OneDrive for your documents.

Now, if you don’t like Microsoft’s software, and I know a few people don’t, then you always have the option of using Google’s suite of apps. Gmail, of course, and Google Keep and Tasks—although Google tasks is very very basic and may not meet your needs over time.

If you are an Apple user, you have some excellent apps in Apple Notes, Reminders and iCloud.

So there’s quite a lot of choice. If you are starting out on building your own productivity system, stick with the built-in apps first. As you develop your system, you can look for third-party alternatives, but I would not recommend you do that initially. You want to be focused on creating a system first and looking for the best third party alternatives will only distract you from that endeavour and likely force you into arranging things in a way that may not meet your needs.

Now how do you build a system that works for you?

Well, this depends on the type of work you do. For example, I have quite a lot of coaching clients that I need to manage. For that, I use a simple spreadsheet. I maintain all admin details related to those clients in a spreadsheet that contains their email address, how they prefer to communicate, when they started their coaching programme and when the programme is due to finish. I also can add a few notes there too just in case I need to be reminded of something later. It’s a kind of customised CRM system

For the actual notes from my calls with my clients, I keep all that in my notes app in a folder called “coaching”. That means when I have a call with the client, I can quickly find the note and have that ready on my screen so I can add notes during the call. It also means I can do a review of our previous call and remind myself of their deliverables.

Ideas for this podcast and my YouTube videos are all kept in my notes app as well as the content schedule for this week.

Each client also has a folder in my cloud storage drive too. Inside there are any documents related to that client as well as the feedback I send them after each call.

One thing I don’t do is have a project folder for each client in my to-do list as well. That would just create a huge list of unnecessary folders. Instead, if I have to do something for a client all I need do is add a task such as “send Mike Smith a copy of my email workflow” - that would go to my inbox and later when I do my planning for tomorrow, I will process that by deciding when I need to do it. For something like sending a copy of my email workflow, I would probably do it directly from my inbox as it would only take a few seconds to do.

So what you are trying to do really is build a workflow with clean, clear boundaries. Your calendar will tell you where you need to be and with who and at what time. Your to-do list will tell you what tasks you need to perform today and your notes will give you the details of those tasks and any supporting information you may need in order to do the task.

So, for example, I may have a task today to clean up my website. Now that could be a very big task with a lot of different parts to it. I may want to change some images, I may wish to rewrite some text and I may wish to change the fonts or colour scheme. Having all that in my to-do list would just be crazy. I can’t put sample images in my to-do list, I can’t have all the text changes I want to make in my to-do list because to-do lists were never designed to hold that kind of information.

Instead, all that information is contained inside my notes app (or a document in my writing app)

This means I see on my to-do list a task that says “clean up my website” and I will have linked the note related to that directly to the task—all I have to do is click on the task and I will be taken straight to the note. From there I am ready to begin work.

And yes, quite often there is a master task list in my notes app. Why? because when I check off a task in my notes app, the task stays there and is crossed out. It doesn’t disappear as it would do in a task manager. This means when I want to review progress on the project, I can quickly see what has been done, what still needs doing and any communications I have had with partners or clients about deadlines and milestones.

Everything is in one place which makes deciding what needs doing next simple.

So for me, a to-do list is exactly that. It’s a to-do list, not a project management tool. For me, there’s too much going on inside a project to effectively manage it from a to-do list. There’s too much information for one, and it is very hard to see what has been done. All a to-do list will tell you is what needs to happen next and that can be very misleading as each task is treated equally inside a task manager. There’s no indication of how long a task will take unless you start adding labels with time estimates, which starts you down the road of complexity creep.

Inside my notes app, I can create a timeline for when the different parts of a project need to be completed by. This great when I do my weekly planning because I can instantly see which projects I need to push forward next week and I can then add tasks to my to-do list based on that knowledge. For example: “work on Time and Life Mastery update” and link that task to my note related to that project. All I have to do is check my calendar to see which days I have time to it, and then add the date to my task.

The glue that brings all this together is my master projects list. This again is inside my notes app and every Sunday, when I do my weekly planning session, I check this list and review deadline dates. All this is in a single note with a table that lists all my active projects, with their deadline dates, where they currently are and what still needs to happen to complete the project. It’s simple, very quick to read, as my projects are organised by deadline date, and I find making decisions about what I need to work on next week is quick.

As I use Evernote as my projects notes app, I also link my master projects list to the individual project’s note so I all I need do is click on the note link and be instantly in the project’s note.

So, the reason I do not use my to-do list to manage projects is first, to-do lists are not project management tools. They are just task managers. There’s just far too much information required to maintain projects effectively for a to-do list. I’ve found—through a lot of trial and error—that the best place to manage projects is in a notes app, which is a modern-day equivalent to the GTD project support folders.

It also means I have instant access to what has happened on a project and what still needs to be done and a timeline that tells me how much more time I need, or if I need to extend a deadline and if I am on target to complete the project on time. A to-do list is never going to give you that kind of instant information or feedback. All it will ever do is give you a list of tasks with varying degrees of difficulty and not tell you what you have already done (unless you go hunting for your completed tasks which is an incredible waste of time)

Now I know it is hard to let go of old habits. There is a perverse comfort seeing a long list of tasks to do because it makes us feel busy. But I for one do not want to feel busy. I want to feel in control and know that what I am working on right now is exactly what I need to be working on right now and not have to worry about other things that may have got lost inside a task list manager that is full of tasks and I don’t know where they all are.

So there you go. Abigail. I hope that has explained how and why I do not use a task list manager to manage my projects. I just found it never worked well with the more longer projects I have to do. Managing a simple home improvement project could be done quite easily inside a to-do list, but the type of projects I and most people are working on, there is just far too much additional information coming in to be able to effectively manage all that from a to-do list manager. They were not built for that level of information.

I do get a lot of questions about this system—a system I call the Time Sector System—where your to-do list manager is organised by time sectors. If you want to learn more about this, then I wrote a Blog post about the basics of the system which I have linked to in the show notes and if you want to build a similar system for yourself I do have the Time Sector Course—again the link to this is in the show notes.

Thank you for your question, Abigail and thank you to all of you for listening. It just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.

Monday Aug 10, 2020

How To Prioritise Your Work

Monday Aug 10, 2020

Podcast 145

This week, I am answering a question on priorities and more specifically, how to prioritise your days and your weeks in an increasingly distracting world.

Links:

The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System