We all know that it’s impossible to get back lost time. But what if, going forward, we put some methods into place that help us maximize our time? According to our guest, Karen Leland, it’s possible to get the most out of the day as long as we’re willing to make some simple changes. Author of her new book, No Nonsense: Time Management: 50 Tips to Hack Your Time and Get Everything Done, Karen gives podcast listeners the scoop on time management techniques that will truly make a difference.

GUEST AT A GLANCE

Karen Leland, President of Sterling Consulting and Marketing Group, is a branding and marketing expert passionate about helping her clients achieve their goals. When it comes to the topic of time-management, Karen has written two books and has years of experience leading workshops that help people stay focused on what matters and scrap what doesn’t. 

A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST

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🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws

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MANAGING OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH TIME

“Our relationship with time has really shifted over time. Forgive the pun.” Karen explained. She then added, “I think people’s relationship with time used to be more defined by time itself. Meaning the clock. Most people went to work and they went to work nine to five, and that was how you related to time. […] I think obviously in the last two decades, that’s changed tremendously.” Now, according to Karen, it’s more about managing energy and our relationship with time.

But there’s more to time-management than just time itself. In recent years, there’s been an added shift toward focus- and attention-management. This makes us beg the questions: “Am I really using the time in my day?” or “Do I have enough time but not enough focus?”

PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

The ugly truth 

“Think of all the things we do that waste our time, our focus, our attention. I’m not being judgemental. I think people have a right to use it any way they want, but I think we’re somewhat unconscious about where we spend our time and our attention and the actual, unintended consequences of that on what we get done or don’t get done.”

Valuing your attention

“It’s going to sound very archaic, but honestly, I’ve gone back to desk calendars. I bought one of them and each page is a week. And I write down my appointments that I have for every day, the time, and who the appointment is with. And then I circle all the appointments that are potential clients. And I [make note of] all the appointments that are with friends. Then I can look at my week and I ask, ‘Where am I putting my attention? Where am I putting my time?’ And it’s a very interesting way for me to see at a glance how I am valuing my attention.” 

Category “B” goals

“A lot of our goals fall into the “B” category, which are things that aren’t urgent, but they’re important. Because they’re not nagging at us, we don’t often make the time to get them done. […] I find a lot of marketing and branding and business development items tend to fall into that category. I find a lot of self-care items tend to fall into it as well. I don’t have time to exercise self-care items. So I think it’s a matter of recognizing that, if you’re not doing something every day to move one of your most important goals forward by taking some action on it, that they are not going to happen.”

Chipping away at a goal

“Because I have this new book out, I had to do a little bit more work on reaching out to podcasters. So I sat down, I just got out my list, and I reached out to them. […] But you know, it’s not sexy work. You send an email, you compose an email, listen to their podcast. You get a sense of who they are. You follow up. You schedule. It’s the kind of work that, putting in five or six hours on that, produced an outcome of being booked on six or seven podcasts, including your own.”

“But the work itself wasn’t urgent and nothing bad was going to happen if I didn’t do it. It’s just my relationship with the time I took to focus on doing it is what had to be there.” 

Narrowing it down 

“So you set a goal, and then you write a list of the 20 things you’re going to do to make that goal happen. Well, I don’t know if you’re like I am, but that just immediately overwhelms me and makes me feel like a deer in the headlights. I just won’t get it done. So I’ve learned to say, okay, this is my goal, but for this year, here are the two things I’m going to make sure happen with regards to that goal.”

Entry and exit time

“Everything takes at least twice as long as you think it does. There’s also an entry time before you get into that zone. There’s the zone time of working, which is the optimal focus time. And then there’s the entry and exit time. So you have to really bookend that work with those entry and exit times. And I think that’s why I call it magical thinking because almost no one does that.”

Dealing with interruptions

“And I think then there are some structural things like being able to say to your spouse or your kids, ‘I’m going to put this sign up or this piece of paper up for this period of time. Unless it’s an emergency, I’m going to ask you not to interrupt me because I really need to focus.’ It could be turning off your phone or putting your phone in another room. It could be making sure that you use one of those pieces of software or nothing can come through on your computer, except for the thing you’re working on. It could be setting a timer so that the timer goes off after a certain period of time.”

LEARN MORE

Go get Karen’s latest book, No Nonsense: Time Management: 50 Tips to Hack Your Time and Get Everything Done or go to karenleland.com to find more workplace resources and links.