- In this video, I wanna talk
about how to create more time in your life.
Most people go about time management backwards.
They think about the whole goal walking habit
that they wanna embrace.
They talk about the tasks that they were assigned
in the meeting last week.
And then they think about the goal that they have
to be a young adult fantasy author
by age 30, getting awfully specific.
And then they take all of those things
and they stuff them into that calendar,
but inevitably, things fade and then they wait
until they get another burst of motivation
that makes them wanna take control of their time again.
And the main way that people go wrong when they're planning
out their time, they're planning out their goals
is that they picture their future self
in like a month to be the absolute ideal self.
They're planning for this ideal future version of them,
not the current them.
Their future self is filled with resilience,
motivation, endless energy,
never has circumstances come up that mess with that plans.
So in this video, I wanna talk about creating more time
in your life by managing yourself first,
doing it the right way around.
Step one, manage yourself, step two, manage your time.
The first thing that you can do to create more time
in your life, by managing yourself
and managing your energy is to give yourself options.
The biggest way that we fall down
when we're managing our time
we're managing for this aspirational self.
I believe you'll going to be your aspirational self.
And I also think that you are your aspirational self
on some days, some nights you wake up
and you are filled with motivation and you can
do all of the things, like you are on top of the world.
But some days you will wake up
with no motivation and you will just wanna stay in bed.
And you will just wanna scroll on your phone
and not do your tasks for the day.
You need to accommodate
for both of those versions of yourself.
One way that you can do this
is by creating an, if then chart.
So start by writing a list of all the things
that you can do that make you feel on top of life.
Don't chuck in a bunch of tasks that you genuinely don't do.
So don't write meditation on there
if you're not someone who meditates.
These are just the things that keep you on top of life,
that sometimes you probably don't do as it is.
Then give yourself if then options for each of those things.
Option one is your aspirational self.
If you will feeling amazing,
so for example, the habit of tidying everyday,
maybe tidying makes you feel peaceful.
It makes you feel productive.
It makes you feel clearheaded.
Write down option one, if I feel amazing,
if I am my aspirational self,
then I will clean the whole house
including the fridge and the pantry.
If I'm feeling average, then I'm just going to set
a 10 minute timer and clean what I can.
If I'm feeling really crap,
if I'm the opposite of my aspirational self
then I'm going to just tidy the bench
because that's the thing that has the biggest impact on me.
In Stephen Guise's book, Elastic Habits,
he talks about one of the reasons
why having range goals can be impactful,
is because of a comparison.
You'll look at your aspirational version of the habit
and be like, oh my God, that's way too much.
And then you'll look at your average version,
you'll be like, oh, I can do that.
Particularly in comparison to that, typically when it comes
to your life management, when it comes to habit management,
people are all about discipline, having one standard
that you must stick to every single day.
And it's very robotic and it leads
to you not hitting that high standard one day.
And then you kind of dip.
You just don't, you choose not to.
And because you plan for your future self
like they were a robot and like they didn't have bad days,
your future self then has to deal
with the consequences of you dipping out on that habit
and you ultimately lose time.
The next way to create more time in your life
is to plan in restorative tasks first
and then productive tasks second.
Imagine that you plan a week of solid doing.
You time block time for meetings, calls, project work admin,
and then by mid week you hit this wall.
You're low energy and you get way less done
during the end of the week.
And on Friday, you're kind of just clicking around
to look like you're doing something
as opposed to actually doing something.
Reimagine that and instead,
you plan in restorative tasks first.
So exercise goes in because you know that gives you energy.
Connection is really important too,
you are absolutely restored
when you hang out with your friends.
So you're making sure that you have a night or two
in the week while you're doing that.
You put in a walk in nature at lunchtime,
when you go out for your break.
You really value, growth and learning,
so you schedule out some time
to learn how to build a Squarespace website.
And then you put in all of your more productive tasks.
You hit mid week and you feel good
because you just connected with your friends.
You've been exercising, on Friday, you're on a high
because you finished your Squarespace website.
And it was really easy to do,
because of all these restorative tasks that you've put in,
your mid arvery dip is just less dippy.
You essentially balanced your time
with energy giving activities and energy taking activities.
And as a result, your week was more balanced in general.
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If you take the last point, restorative tasks first
and this point, you are going to be creating more time
and more energy in your life.
All of the points in this video are great,
but just these two will do so much.
Take regular restorative breaks throughout the day.
Our brain gets really tired
once it's been doing something for a long time.
As our brain gets tired,
it just gets it's super vulnerable to distractions,
and as a result, we waste time.
Instead of recognizing that our brain is tired,
we're vulnerable to distractions.
It's time to take a responsible break.
We just keep on powering on.
And as a result, the time
that we could have spent taking these intentional,
refreshing, restorative breaks gets wasted
on web surfing, on going through social media,
on excessively checking email.
And your brain is always going to tire.
You're never going to be as sharp
at 3:00 PM as you were at 8:00 AM,
unless you're one of those people with just endless energy
but breaks will replenish you enough
that you'll be able to get more done in your day
with more purpose and with more clarity.
Studies have shown that breaks done the right way
replenish the energy that you're losing
from using all this mental energy doing work.
They increase your self-control, your willpower,
your decision-making abilities.
Taking restorative breaks is a much better way
to approach it than just letting yourself get distracted
and then waste time.
Some breaks don't restore you
the way that all the breaks do.
For me personally, a break spent on social media
makes my head feel kind of fuzzy.
It could just be in my head,
but I find that it almost de-energizes me.
Whereas at break spent cuddling my cat,
doing some plus just stretches
that I found on the internet.
Those kind of breaks just help far more.
I try to actively stay off my phone during my breaks,
if I'm not coddling my cat, doing weird exercises,
I'm doing little tasks around the house
that are really low effort,
low energy tasks that just take my mind
off the thing I was doing.
It gives your brain a break, and then you also
are getting little tiny things done around the house.
They're gonna make you feel good at the end of the day.
To take action on this,
start enforcing some kind of Pomodoro.
You can go for a longer Pomodoros, like 90 minutes,
and then a break or 25 minutes with a five minute break.
The next way to create time and to create energy
is to do work that you enjoy
and to do work that you do well.
Think back to a day recently, or in the past,
where you spent the day using your strengths,
doing things that not only you enjoyed
but also you were pretty good at.
It's likely that you were energized,
you were floating, you were flowing through the day,
things were easy, you got lots done.
Then think back to a day where you had to do a bunch
of stuff that you just didn't enjoy.
Maybe it's administrative tasks,
but maybe it's creative tasks, whatever is not your bag.
There were lots of distractions along the way.
You probably slugged your way through.
There was an ease, there wasn't flow,
you were less tired and low energy.
Just like you schedule in restorative tasks
like exercise, connection, and values-based activities,
you should be scheduling in time
to do the work that energizes you.
And that makes you feel
like you've done something worthwhile in your day.
For me, if I have a day filled with administrative tasks,
with little bits and bobs that don't feel meaningful
I will end that day, despite having maybe done quite a bit,
I just won't feel energized.
I'll feel like what was that day?
But if I schedule in writing,
creation or reading, I'm energized.
And sometimes you have to mix those things in.
Sometimes you do have to do the crap tasks,
the tasks that you don't enjoy,
the tasks that you aren't good at.
But so long as you're scheduling
the stuff that you are good at,
the stuff that does make you feel creative,
the stuff that does make you feel in flow,
you're going to contribute
to your overall energy levels throughout your days.
Work tasks that make you feel good
and work tasks that you are good at.
Ideally, a combination of those two things.
Those are the things that you should be scheduling
within your days.
The next way to create time in your life
is to have task buckets
for your different levels of energy.
This is similar to the first thing that I talked about.
You are not going to be
at the same level of energy every day.
You're also not going to be at the same level
of energy throughout your whole day.
If you wanna learn more about the when of productivity,
so when you're most productive,
I have a whole video on that and it's really helpful.
It will help you to shape your days
in the best way possible.
I'm gonna have that link down below
as well as on the screen.
For me, I know I worked best early moaning.
I know that in the afternoon,
I get the real strong mid-aubary dip.
As much as you want to schedule high energy tasks
throughout your entire day,
it doesn't make sense for your mind to do that.
Instead, have your tasks split up by energy,
you don't have to explicitly state,
these are high energy tasks, these are low energy tasks.
You might just know that your admin tasks
are for when you're low energy
and your high impact, high effort tasks,
those are for when you are high energy.
Sometimes even at your most high energy times,
you simply won't have the energy
because every day is different.
If you've got a terrible sleep, if you had a fight
with your partner, if your PMS-ing,
if you're just having a low day,
you just need to accommodate for it.
And I think sometimes,
when we don't consider energy management
and when all we consider is time management.
When we are having an off day where like, okay,
well I just won't do anything, which is fine.
And you need those days.
But what if instead of that, on those low energy days,
you had the approach of, well look,
it's a bad day, got a terrible sleep.
I'm gonna just totally focus
on my low energy tasks today
'cause I know that I can do those.
It doesn't require too much mind energy
and I'll still feel like I'm contributing.
And I still feel like I'm moving forward
on my goals, my tasks.
I think a lot of the point of this video
boils down to the fact that you are not a robot.
You need to consider your energy.
You need to consider yourself
when it comes to planning in your time.
And the more that you consider yourself,
the more compassionate you are to your needs.
And the fact that you're not a robot,
the more time that you will end up creating in your life.
If you like these kinds of videos,
I have a whole playlist that is focused on productivity.
I talk about things like when to be productive,
how to be your most productive, how to simplify.
I'm gonna have that playlist listed
on the screen as well as down below.
If you wanna go on a bit of a productivity binge
to get your motivation levels high,
to start managing your energy, managing yourself
verse just managing your time.
I appreciate you so very much.
Subscribe to this channel if you haven't already,
and I will see you soon.