10 Time Management Tips That Actually Work [0:00:00]
In today’s video, we’re talking about ten time management tips that actually work.
[Music] Tip number one.
Make time to think.
Notice I didn’t say find time to think.
No, you’ve got to make it a party.
You’ve got to know what do I want to get out of this life, where am I going, what is
my purpose, what do I stand for.
So many people go through life like zombies.
They’re not even thinking that they’re sleepwalking through life and they haven’t
thought about what they want to get out of it.
Now, where to find time and when to find time to think?
For me, it is the early mornings.
Wake up at 5:00 AM.
I actually just put out a video on this.
I will link to it down in the description.
I’ve got this time for myself and I can read.
I can actually go on and do things which are about self-development.
I can go to the gym and exercise and not feel guilty, but that me time that time for me
to dedicate to myself development for me to think about where I’m going in life is so
important.
Tip two.
Understand you cannot have it al.
You can’t do everything.
And whoever told you that, I’m sorry they – they were lying to you.
They’re – I mean because there’s just no way to do everything.
So, if you know you cannot do everything, then take the path of the essentialist and
actually just spend a little bit more time looking at the landscape.
Look at what else is out there and then decide what do you really want.
What is it you really want to go after in your life that’s going to make you happy
and then go deep.
There’s a great book by Cal Newport called Deep Work and he talks about, you know, identify
what is important and work on that.
The book Essentialism by Greg McKeown.
I’ve talked about this before.
Understand that most things in life are noise.
If you are getting too many people wanting to take your time, make your default answer
no.
It’s very, very rare that something is, oh, yeah, I want to jump on this.
And when it is, I am able to go do it with enthusiasm because I freed myself up by saying
no to most things.
Tip three.
Identify what’s important to you and be honest with yourself.
And let me be straight here.
Most of you are lying to yourselves about what’s important.
Don’t believe me?
Okay.
What do you not have time for?
I don’t have time to play with my kids.
I don’t have time to have coffee with my wife in the morning.
I don’t have time to spend with my friends.
Say it’s not important.
It’s not something that is a priority for me.
And if not playing with your kids isn’t a priority, well, let’s be honest with yourself
or ask yourself the hard questions, why aren’t they more important?
Yeah, you’re spending all that time at work.
You’re spending all that time on maybe a hobby.
I don’t know what is the real problem here, but let’s face the truth which is that you’re
not spending time on what’s important in your life.
And, if you’re spending a lot of time at work, you may have to actually say, hey, I
need to cut back my hours and that takes a lot of courage.
But, what are you working for?
Aren’t you working to spend and have a quality relationship with that person in your life?
With those around you that depend on you?
Guys, think about what’s truly important in your life and be honest to what it is.
Tip four.
Cut out the fat.
There was so much non-essential things in our life.
Go to and do an audit of how you spend your time.
Actually, track your time.
Yes, measure your time and you’re going to be amazed at how much time you are wasting,
I don’t know, maybe playing video games.
But maybe video games are important.
Now, I’m not – I don’t want to hit on that.
Maybe you’re spending, again, two hours commuting and you need to find a job that
maybe pays a little bit less, but is actually right around the corner and is going to allow
you to spend more time with those that are important, but identify and measure your time
so that you can identify those areas that are just sucking your life away.
My next tip, have a routine.
Have a morning routine, have an evening routine, have a day routine.
Have a set of systems that you follow.
When you measure when you have a process you can improve upon that system and process.
But if you have no routine if you just do things haphazardly, you can’t improve them.
And this is key if you want to figure out, okay, how can I sleep better?
I wake up every morning and I’m groggy, I don’t feel great.
Well, maybe you need to adjust your routine in the evening, so you’re spending less
time on social media.
Because, again, if you have no routine here, then you can’t actually measure what’s
happening, you can’t see ways to improve it.
Tip number six.
Get started.
Guys, just like many of you I am a procrastinator.
You’ve got to find something that’s going to motivate you to take action.
Sometimes setting an artificial deadline, that’s going to work.
Guys, a Pomodore Technique, if you haven’t heard of this, this is basically when you
use a timer.
You set it maybe to like twenty five minutes.
You work intensely for twenty five minutes.
The timer goes off, you can take a break.
I find this kitchen timer, cost $5.
It works pretty well.
But, guys, you can set your phone, you can find something that, again, gets you started
on what you want to do.
Tip seven.
An accountability partner.
I find that someone holding you accountable to what you say you’re going to do is incredibly
powerful, much more powerful than any other app out there and, it can be something like
a phone call.
For me, I’ve got a gentleman, a trainer who meets me at the gym every morning and
he is there whether – and I paid him in advance.
I will lose my money if I don’t show up.
He will call me if I don’t show up.
I don’t want to let him down.
I don’t want to waste my money.
And so, I go to the gym. [0:05:01]
Guys, find a way for someone to hold you accountable.
There are masterminds that you can put together in which other people who are maybe peers
they can hold you accountable to things that you say you’re going to do.
And when you put it out there for everyone to see, you’d be surprised to how much action
you’re going to take.
Tip number eight.
Schedule everything both your personal and professional events.
For me, I found that I was always showing up to the meetings that I had scheduled, but
what’s funny is I was missing dinner.
I was showing up late to things I promised my wife I would be at.
So, getting back to one of my earlier points, obviously, I wasn’t making her important
in my life and so, I said you know what?
I need to schedule dinner, I need to schedule bedtime, I need to schedule these things.
Do I always follow them?
No.
But, they’re in my calendar, I get that reminder.
I see these notifications, I’m like, okay, I need to – I need to stay on track.
But, again, when it’s in my scheduler, I find it gets done.
Tip number nine to improve your time management skills.
Ditch a lot of your bad time timing estimates.
And what I mean is when you think it takes you twenty five minutes to get to work, understand
that oftentimes that is your best case scenario and normally though it takes you thirty minutes,
it takes you thirty five minutes, forty minutes if you hit a little bit of traffic and that’s
when the problem happens because you start showing up late when you run into traffic.
Oh, it’s not my fault.
I didn’t, you know, expect traffic.
Well, here’s the deal is that you’ve got your timing messed up and we do this all,
as human beings, we go for the best time estimates.
So, you need to say, okay, does it really take me five minutes to get ready?
No, it really takes me twenty five minutes.
Just be honest with those time estimates and get rid of those false estimates that oftentimes
just stick in our head.
Now, this next time management tip, I alluded to earlier but I want to go into a lot more
detail and that is the use of deadlines especially artificial deadlines because most things in
life they really don’t have a deadline, we could get them done here or there and so
we dilly dally we procrastinate we don’t get it done.
And oftentimes in life we need deadlines So, I know for me if I got a meeting with
somebody, I always set a deadline.
You know they’re coming in to meet with me, we’ve got a twenty-minute, it fits right
there in twenty minutes.
We’re able to get what is needed to be done in twenty minutes.
If we need longer and really do need longer, I’ll extend it, but for most times you can
talk about what needs to be talked about in that twenty-minute.
Now, when you’re talking with someone and you’re starting to engage with them and
you don’t have much time, set the expectation, set a deadline.
Sorry, I’ve only got five minutes to talk about this, is that cool or should we set
up another time later so I can get this my full attention?
But when you set that deadline, you set the expectation.
All right.
So, this next time management tip is a bonus.
It is especially useful if you’re a sought after expert in your industry or you’re
a popular guy, a lot of people are trying to reach out to you.
Guys, set up barriers.
So, find a way to become hard to reach because most people are going to be distracted by
a barrier.
They’re going to say, oh, it’s not worth it, my contact form at Real Men Real Style.
I’m actually pretty proud of this, I ask people first up did you actually search Google
for ten minutes to try to answer that question you’re about to submit to me because for
me if you are actually going to – go out there and look for the answer yourself, why
are you going to waste my time if you don’t want to spend a little bit of time yourself.
So, by setting up these barriers, you can protect your time and you can better manage
it.
All right, guys, now it’s your turn.
I want to hear from you down in the comments.
What did you find useful?
What would you have added to this video to make it better?
What time management tip am I missing?
Let me know down in the comments.
I love to hear from you guys.
And if you like this video, if you find it useful, please pass it around to a man that
can use this information.
[Bleeping sound] You’re still here.
Okay.
This one is a double secret bonus to time management and that is, wear and use a watch.
I know it seems obvious, but if you wear and use a watch, there are studies that show that
you’re more conscientious about time not only how you spend your time, you’re more
likely to be on time and you care about the time of others.
When you don’t wear a watch, well, you’re just not tracking time.
Yes, you may have it on your phone, but you are less likely to check it.
So, have a nice wristwatch.
Boom!
[0:09:02] End of Audio