Time Management
Jason W Womack
Lessons
Introduction
17:50 2What Does it Mean to be Productive?
17:49 3What is your "More"?
25:27 4Opportunity & the Power of the "Undone"
21:53 5Recap & Questions
27:34 6Organizational Systems
28:24 7MITs (Most Important Things)
16:10Sharing MITs & Your Ideal Day
56:53 9Clarifying your own "So That"
27:18 10More "So Thats" & Individual Productivity
33:40 11The Tools of Productivity
31:34 12Identifying You "At Your Best"
11:47 13Three "Influencers"
24:55 14The "So That" Exercise
30:48 15Daily Limitations & Managing Energy
25:44 16Time Management
41:44 173 Kinds of Conversations
1:07:51 18Knowing How You Learn
22:58 19Student Hotseats & Learning Discussion
18:09 20Team You
29:04 21Team You Q&A and Discussion
17:36 22Mentors
27:23Lesson Info
Time Management
And then there's time there's this thing that for years people have been trying to manage trying t get control of I've always found it fascinating to me. I can go to a office supply store, and I convey by yet another system that promises that I will get more done during the day I can download another app for that is goingto tell me the right things to do with the right time during the day who's ever bought a bigger calendar, hoping that would help you know that if I just could see it all right, if I just blew out that calendar so I could see the whole eighteen months on that wall, then that would make it easier. All of these things coming back to howto white manage the time limited time. So when you think about managing time, what comes to mind? What are some things that come to your mind immediately when you say time management, what are some things that you think of some things you've heard or you things that you've said, planners day planners get that day planner set that thing up t...
o do lists and, uh, with deadline up next to it, so also putting the due date with the task so that I can see that externally multitasking toe get errands done at once. All right, let's see how many things we can get done at one time and then that will make us a better time manager delegation of course that's the thing you should be doing more of right? Because if you delegated more than obviously, you'd have more time there's amazing things that we've heard over the years prioritizing that is the key to time management I'm sure you've heard right, right? I mean that's it if you could just get your priorities straight what am I missing you mentioned yesterday, then ninety six fifteen minute blocks blew my mind buzz revolutionary you know when when when I found the math behind it and I've been told since I was a kid there's twenty four hours in a day that you know we don't have enough time that we need we're going to be late all of these things that I heard around time I wanted to look at it a little bit differently. I wanted to find a different way that I had never seen or heard of to talk about it before and tony like you when I when I saw this um is something flipped now first of all, when by ladha a friend of mine dean at dean meisters, his twitter handle dean drew an infographic for the first three chapters of my book what took me ninety pages to write out he did in one a piece of paper, so I'm just amazed at how some people can think that way. Thank you, dean. What I found was by looking at my day in chunks now, my chunks were very on purpose. The way that I look at it, I found that the power of fifteen minutes at a time, tony was huge. Now, obviously, there's some of you are wondering right now in the room or you're wondering online jason, why? Fifteen minutes? I've got three reasons that I can give you why fifteen minutes was so important to meet the first reason that I can give you is fifteen minutes is about my attention span kind will self disclosure here? I mean, also, you give me a book and a couch and you say, jason, go read, I will make it about fifteen minutes before I self destructs self interrupt right before something grabs my attention. On thursday, the dog went to the room. Jodi comes in to say, hi, my mind starts wandering, I read a page, I don't know what I just read about fifteen minutes second reason that fifteen this is so important to me is if all I'm doing is one thing, if I sit down to make those client phone calls, if I sit down to be creative in an area that I haven't looked into lately if I sit down to read a chapter of a book that's been sitting on my nightstand that I said I would read when I had the for nine hundred seconds, I could make some serious progress if all I'm doing is that one thing for fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes is a long time when all I'm doing is that one thing for fifteen minutes for me, the ability to take a look at my day and structure it. One of the things that I shared with you yesterday about my habit of traveling. So I travel quite a bit. I'm on an airplane every few days now and for me, it's much more comfortable to be at the airport ninety minutes before my flight. I know they say an hour is plenty. Some people have a little bit less if they live close to the airport. But for me it was it was that ninety minute period was comfortable. Now, since I travel with other people often I needed an excuse to get to the airport so early. So you remember what I did. I assure this tactic this technique with you yesterday I schedule a phone call with a client. For about ninety minutes before the flight. So from flying at three p m I go to my calendar, I reach out to the clients of hey, I'll call you at one thirty now, if I call the one thirty and that phone call goes for an hour, there's no way I'll make the flight when I tell a call legal I'm traveling with oh, I have a phone call at one thirty r flights at three they say great let's get to the airport at one. Now I'm leading this clock behind me tick and those of you watching online, if you can see this video tick down, one of the things you're probably wondering is oh my goodness, is he going to talk about fifteen minutes for fifteen minutes? No, but I need you to know if all I'm doing is talking about fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes seems like a long time. I'll mention this website again later on one of my favorites. E dot, g timer, dot com what I do is while I'm working, I type in the amount of time that I think I should be focused on this one thing that might be fifteen minutes, it might be one hour, it might be two hours. And when I click, go notice it fills my screen with a count down timer how many of you run the potential of working in a collaborative environment physically of other people who come into your space? Who are you? So what I love I love this is well, this is ticking down someone comes into my space, they see that I'm counting down something if we work well enough together, I can actually train people that when I've set the countdown timer that means that I'm in can they give me a little bit of time? We've got lots of people are using time is it's really interesting? And then so many people sharing a saying that the fifteen minutes is a long time ago my mom when I was a school a you know, a single math lesson was thirty minutes and that seemed interminable I went for a number fifteen minutes is a long time but we got lost a great comments about you know what you do when you think about time management? Well, what comes to mind is yes, and girls says that it's having a giant clock uh oh, I'm sorry that's floor and then emily bronte says I struggled to say no to interruptions it's almost like I look for interruptions when when my focus starts to break like, oh what's new in my inbox but then it's like why calendars timers do seem to be of the most most used flores saying, I liked I leave the phone on silent and I believe it do not disturb sign on the door that I hope that works. I've got to go with this. What comes to mind when you think about time management? Yes. And gold. This is yuck! Very sick state. I hope I said that, right? We'll turn that corner a little bit so yes. And girl, let me see if I could give you a couple of things to think about it's. Generally, there are three reasons. Why fifteen minutes. So by where you watching this? You get me when all I'm doing is one thing, it seems like it takes a long time. First reason is it's about my attention span. Second reason. If I'm fully focused for nine hundred seconds, I can make progress on something and here's the third one. Your universe will gift you multiple fifteen minute sessions during a week. Those of you who meet with clients quick show of hands how many of you could meet with clients? Could be a vendor? Could be a client to be internal could be external. Have you ever had at about nine fifty six on a day when you had a ten a m meeting planned at nine fifty six nine fifty seven you get a text message, you get an instant message someone calls you and says we've cancelled the ten o'clock meeting and it has happened to anybody in this room besides me now it winds up happening is remember from yesterday your brain wants to answer the questions you give it when a meeting gets canceled last minute we tend to ask this terrible question that your mind answers immediately meetings canceled. We have four minutes until we were going to be offline focused on a project meeting with the person, and in those four minutes our brain asks this question it says, what should I do now? And why do I say to the terrible questions? A temple question because your brain is designed to answer the questions you give it and it'll come up with these silly answers like let's, go check email let's to go bother somebody let's go move through one of my social media profile not that those air bad answers, but my question myself is await images and I had planned to be away from email away from a colleague or away from my social media for an hour the question I'd love you to ask for yourself is with that cancelled meeting question I would love for you to ask yourself is how could I move the mission forward? How could I engage in my own more? How could I activate one of my so that's so as this element thiss productivity element in our portfolio as this element shows up right we have I want to make sure that you saw this one we have ninety six of these things in a day with ninety six on that's it that's it so you know, the next time someone says oh, I wish I had more time you can just giggle I do all the time it's like oh, how cute of you, right? Because if tomorrow I gave you ninety eight fifteen minute blocks you still wouldn't have enough time you fill them in with a couple of things that you need to do. We have ninety six of these things now ninety six I know is not exact but I consider fifteen minutes to be one percent of my day remember I wanted to share with you. I want to find ways of thinking about things that maybe you had. I thought about these weigh these things before now if someone could come into my world come into my life and if they could offer me a one percent return on anything, especially in this market, I'd take it even one percent back here all right, here's my energy here's my focus here's my cash here's my time here's you could get me back a one percent return on that, okay? One, ninety six years ago within on the math. Ok, we'll get along with this one. So then we just do what we might do at the beginning of a year or when we take on a new project with a new client or when we're sitting down with our partner, our spouse or our family talk about the next year, we'll do some kind of a budget and I'm going to feed you a couple of things that I always want to look at with clients, but you're going to have more. But as you're thinking about your budget about this limited bucket of what you have, I want you to think about things like how many fifteen minute chunks is the best for you to be asleep not how many hours are we supposed to get by some fda doctor surgeon but for you, how many of those fifteen minute blocks if you know if you know internally that you need eight hours of sleep than you do eight times for you, come with thirty two and you start there, the next one that I have to have everybody I work with go through is how many of those fifteen minute chunks of time they're not going to all be together by the way, for this next one, but how many of those fifteen minute chunks do I want to dedicate to what I call self care and how you define self care? That's completely up to you? I define it as exercise downtime, meditating, and then I put etcetera just so I could have etcetera in my slides. For those of us who move around the planet for for our work, for our life, how many fifteen minute chunks do you put aside for the commute now, obviously, to think, oh, the commute to work while working out of a home office. I kind of go from this room to that room, but now I want to put in there and buy commuting to that coffee shop or by commuting to that co working space on my commuting from santa cruz to san francisco, another one that I want to take a look at, and this is just a little more self disclosure about how I am is fuel. I love to eat, and I have to find new places to eat, and I want to try new recipes to cook, and I love to actually sit down and eat my food I've worked with people around the world who I don't think they like to eat. I mean, they dio but I see them sitting at a desk kind of moving their mouths around shoveling food into their mouth is there trying to organize their emails or something and I go hold on you know what? If we actually parked that off to the side, you need to take a look at how many fifteen minute chunks are you working and I'm gonna put that in quotes always because, you know, some people ask me, jason, are you ever not working? And I understand their question, but no, I mean pretty much for me I'm looking around and when I'm on there's, that section of the day now is working out working and that's why I've separated these things out, right? So it's almost like if I put up there on the on the screen how many fifteen minute chunks today are you engaged? That would be ninety six someone trying to do something to separate these out other okay, don't write other write down what yours is because we have another other then we have what yours is now the reason I called this a budgeting exercise and again, how often do you do this season on lee is usually good for me I like seasons because things change it's colder outside it's warmer outside this days or shorter with light, the days are longer with light I shared with you yesterday that I'm in the middle of the thirty four day run where I mean, I'm in hotels and countries for I think sixteen more days right now and I know as I set myself up for this exercise, I reconfigured my ninety six chunks, I know some of you that know me, rick, we're talking, you know, you know me as a triathlete and an athlete and always moving over these thirty four days have actually decreased my amount of exercise per day because I know that I can't do it all I'm not gonna have ninety eight chunks tomorrow now I came up with just in working what I was working through, just going through the ones that I can share with you up here on my left, out the two others but already spoken for on a typical day of this run that I'm on right now eighty two of ninety six chunks are already spoken for anybody in the room ever had a difficult time saying no to a project to a task to an opportunity to an invitation anyone ever said, oh, but I want to do all both I want when I look at it this way all of a sudden becomes this filter, I have fourteen more times yeah, math I'm a social scientist that's math I have I have fourteen more of these things so when we leave the studio this afternoon and jodi says, hey, jason, do you want to go here and here or here? And here in my mind, I'm doing this exercise well, that one's going to take three of our fifteen minute chunks to get to that was going to take two of our fifteen minute chunks to get to I'm you know, I don't know how I'll make the decision until I get there, but I want to have pre thought that I'll connect a couple of things from yesterday knowing your tools in your gear and those kinds of things, and then I'll just start subtracting, can I get through my email a little bit faster? What if I could turn that thirty six of working into thirty five? All right, as an athlete, you, you and I both know if I have fifteen extra minutes dad to a workout that's a different workout versus the days when I on ly have fifteen minutes to work out. I'm going to go with this health and fitness thing just cause it's kind of a part of my life these days. One of the biggest challenges the mohr senior my clients get in organizations, the more staff they bring into the organization, one of the first things to go, the busier they get is health and wellness. That's the first on the second one to go is sleep and then third one that goes and this is just what I've seen over the past sixteen, seventeen years the third one that goes his family relationships is generally in that order, by the way and one of the reasons I think that happens it's a start with I'm going to stay with the health and fitness one because those other two are different seminars and I don't want to get into today well, let's start with that one health and fitness the people who are the movers, the shakers, they're going to move to an organization they're going toe co found a company, sell that one and then go confront another one they are the ones who have been active most of their lives meaning in their mind they had an image of what active meant so no with me here what winds up happening is there are people who think workout equals sixty minutes lifting weights, high intensity aerobic at the end and then what happens the first promotion that they get where they have to pull a sixty minute lifting weights hard workout aerobic at the end when they pull that out, they don't reconfigure what a workout means to them I do this all the time with clients with weekly meetings and whenever worked in organization we had a weekly meeting, a weekly status update sixty minutes on the calendar every tuesday, two p m this clockwork they send the meeting invitation you hit, accept and for the rest of your life it's there on tuesday. So what I've done with companies? We've taken a look and if they meet four times a month tuesday, tuesday, tuesday, tuesday, every seven days we actually move the meetings around. We meet every ten days. We got three in a month, but what do I tell her? I said, look it in a year, I just gave you back twelve hours, twelve times for we've now got forty eight, fifteen minute chunks, and then I just put it in the manager's hand, I'll say, are you telling me that if your people had an extra forty eight, fifteen minute chunks, they wouldn't move something forward that couldn't be a little more creative? They wouldn't be ableto have that conversation of a collaboration that's just outside the wall of what they're working on. The power of fifteen minutes for me was huge, and as soon as I say that, I'm going to follow it up with this, find your number, if you know intuitively that yours is a little bit longer, if you know intuitively that yours is a little bit shorter, but find yours mine happened to be fifteen minutes where I could actually see and experience and final because I think fifteen minutes resonates with everybody on. I'm actually blanking. Never. We had an instructor in a few weeks ago who was saying that if a meeting is going to be longer than fifteen minutes, he won't take it because then it's no, it's, no longer a meeting. It's just going suck up so much time. You have some comments about thank you. Yes, actually, sonia is really latching onto the fifteen minutes. Jason. Yes. Fifteen minutes a day can mean the difference between being fit or not. And then let me expand upon that she's already incorporating the fifteen minutes, using it a lot already. She says her kids have a reward system where they can earn tickets for things like fifteen minutes on the computer. Fifteen minutes with mom. And then I asked her I said, well, for doing what you know. And so that reward came in from her noticing good behavior that they had or for good manners or for going above and beyond. So yeah. And then, um, I think that was first thing is also saying one of her children as hdd. So she actually spends fifteen minutes on his homework within many, then she makes them take a break. Actually knows that's what I concentrate for that he does something else when he comes back and does another fifteen minutes. This's a number that seems to be a magic number for everybody. Well, that I think people are horrified to discover there in ninety six fifteen minute in a day. Just sounds like such a huge, huge number. Yeah. And then actually, regina says that her boyfriend also has a dhd and she does the same thing, but with no tokens. Just the bank's, honey. So any any kind of way to acknowledge? Yeah, he had the attack. The tool that I use are those three by five note cards because they come in one hundred pack and let's. Just see if we can combine a couple of things that we've talked about over the day and a half together. But what I'll do is I'll show up to a client site with a couple of these one hundred packs of three by five note cards. And if you remember earlier this morning I shared with you that you can have different ideal days. I do. I have an ideal day that's, a seminar day of an ideal davis. A travel they have an ideal day of a vacation day. And what we do is we take those one hundred some of you know, where I'm going with this already. We take those one hundred note cards, we unpack it, we put four off to the side, leaves us with when we actually fill out ninety six, fifteen minute blocks of time. Now, there's going to be some big chunks, that's, why I always start with sleep. That was the easiest one for me to start with, and that just takes out of the equation, and I know that people have different numbers I was sharing with his exercise when jodi and I moved to alaska, and I let myself have thirty days just to kind of see what my sleep number wass part of the story that I left out is that my wife sleep number is different, so where I came up with by going to sleep when I was tired and getting up when I was awake, I can't with six hours and fifteen minutes on average over those thirty mornings, jodi's was different. So all of a sudden, kind of like the comment that we got from the online community about the now nes in the verbs and people, I mean, I mean, that was that was awesome for me to hear that all beyond that was thank you for sharing. But the fact that she could sit down and know that oh, they're just approaching it from a now perspective and their disapprove ching it from a verb perspective. Jodi and I can do that now, and we can wire up our days to know well, I need a good six hours, seven hours and jodi's numbers different and the on ly way, we knew that was by testing it, and I've had people going back to another thing that I just heard on the from the online community was asking that person what an ideal day was, I think it was their daughter, right? It was actually the teacher, yeah, what what is your ideal day to the teacher after handing a thank you card in a biscotti? And and, you know, a couple of things about that when I've done this exercise with people that I've worked with with jodi with clients that I know and I asked them, I say, when are you at your best or what is an ideal day? Sometimes they'll say something is like, oh my god, that's it I could do that, I could help facilitate that, you know, I'll tell a story of when I when I did a seminar and jodi was in the room with me and I was leading the audience through the at my best when exercise and in the seminars that I do we always have down time so I'll give the audience five or seven minutes just to quietly think through and for whatever reason this one seminar jodi started taking a look and I know she was writing and I mean she's heard this seminar for the past twenty one years so you know was also is like, wow she's actually doing something that cool I swung around and one of the things I read on jodi's list she says I'm at my best win it says there are fresh flowers in the house I looked at that and I kind of this thought is like, I mean, we've been together for twenty one years I know she likes flowers we have a beautiful garden because of jodi that's definitely not me but then I had this thought like she's at her best when there's flowers allowed bet she's at her best and I just started taking a look at oh my goodness, if I paid attention to the people around we could I pick anything up from them in the client world when I hear that there's a client and they sure he tells me that they're at their best and there's something about being in the know are being khun connected or being on top of information these days, what I'll do is I'll look in that two or three day conversation and I'll find a magazine that supports their interests aa book title that supports their interests ah movie that they could download and I'll give him that subscription on by that book and send it through the post all I'll buy them that download of the movie uh oh and by the way those of us who were involved in client relationships as our livelihood the magazine's awesome I buy you a magazine subscription and every month for the next year you have to think of me is his works right? All that jason thinking to me again not really but I can drop that idea and when are you at your best really knowing that really recognizing that now I know there's a few of you in the room who have been practicing with the fifteen minute methodology since you've read the book in the past or since we've been connecting before here a creative life I'd love to get a couple of we'll call him testimonials but I love some stories of how you're using the fifteen minutes concept and then I'm gonna pass this back over to the online audience to see what they're envisioning for that so we'll just take a couple of examples well I'm only using one fifteen minute chunk which has been an experiment the last couple of weeks of meditating which is a huge kind of effort to get a roll out of bed into a chair, set the timer and meditate for fifteen minutes as a way to see like how that would help my focus and you know if I would just know what I needed to do that day I haven't got until also doing that in the evening but it's a goal I have and I think those would be two important chunks just to kind of bring my days and lot life together and again that experiment piece but I'm hearing you know, uh men back to cheryl something you said earlier which was the I'm just going to do this you know, kind of rolling out of bed and saying ok, my next thing is and I tell you what I love about this idea of experiment is I can see an end you know? I might say to myself I'm going to try this once every two days for a month I'm going to give this fifteen fifteen minute blocks I'm going to see if it's worth it to see if it's valuable for me to be doing that and you know you're a couple of weeks and let me know after a couple of weeks you know how how that works for you I mean meditation that's one of those things that now a days here in the silicon valley seems like everybody's talking about the creative live you just had a couple of day course on meditation so there's a little plug for another creative life here the fifteen minute concept yes, I mean to me, it's amazing since I've been experimenting with it to see how much of the test that I sometimes dread that I can get done. So if I if I batch them like for email, for instance, uh, I am sometimes get all the way through my whole inbox, and then if I don't have that fifteen minute time are going, I've personally draw it out past that, and so I'm causing my own pain, I guess you could say and in time management, so I set up, um I said up there fifteen minutes like when I'm doing an application or a process, I do it for fifteen minutes, so that helps me to be really focused in that time and more work done in stop trying to just do it forever and not being productive robotic, so their fifteen minutes helps me a lot that and I also do phone calls. I have a list of people like in my network, forty people I connect with all the time, so when I get those time, I just make one or two phone calls a day that helps me a lot to at least keep up with everybody. Thank you. We had another I haven't tried the fifteen minute um I have tried meditating for fifteen minutes and surprising as it may sound because every time I tell people in the bay area that I'm tibetan this oh, you meditate and I said, no, I don't, but you know, it is actually really difficult to do something for fifteen minutes like that, but what I what I'm looking forward to his experimenting, going through my email inbox with fifteen minute chunk because I tend to get stuck in the email, so I noticed in your day to day you you said your first thing is getting up, checking email and I thought, oh my gosh, once he starts checking email, how does he get all the other things done by ten thirty? Because once I start checking email, you know, it's nine it's nine o'clock before I know it s o I'm definitely looking forward to trying this out this one out, but meditation will have to also be in there somewhere. They may not be fifteen minutes yet, and, you know, two things for me one is the experimental piece, and the other one is recognizing that this is fluid. So what you're seeing that by ten thirty a m we did that, jodi and I did that for this stretch that I'm I'm working as much as I am, and so when I think about what I need to see and when I need to see it I knew that for this stretch I need to put some things a little bit earlier when I have a thirty day stretch in homer alaska and I'm experimenting things likes with sleep and I'm experimenting with things like diet that would completely shift and change I used the fifteen minute approach for things that I don't like doing because that like seven minutes I start feeling really good like this is almost over like all I have to do is hold on another um seven and a half minutes and I could get through it so I'll share with you a couple of tactics little things that I've done relative to this over the years. One is kind of like we heard from the online community someone said that if they have a meeting or was that an instructor a meeting longer than fifteen minutes, they don't take the meeting what I've done relative to that or at least my mind connected to it is I'm I'm starting meetings on the fifteen of the hour so if I'm the invite er of the meeting if I love to chat with you and I need a limited time all invite you to that meeting that will start at one fifteen and go till two or one fifth the three fifteen and go till four in a couple of things that I found about this is it's such a pattern break to people because the first time I do it with a client they always email me back and said, did you mean one? No, no, no I'm at one fifteen and in the second response that if they're honest they send if they're not if they're not honest if they want to push on me they send it or they just talk about it at the desk about me they always email about going to go well my first meeting ended at one and I'm not meeting with you till one fifteen what am I going to do with the extra time? Let me give you another tactic that I use and I made up it's ah pdf it's three pages long I can send it to anybody who wants just email me and I'll send you a copy and up on top you ready for this up on top? The pdf says if I had an extra fifteen minutes I could and the next three pages are seventy five lines but a blank I'll send you this pdf, you print it out and you put that three sheets system across the table and what I want to do is to come up with and these aren't two duis, these aren't projects, these aren't things that you have to do for the upcoming event, they're not things that you have to do for the class you're taking, they are literally extras there extras of things it would take you about fifteen minutes and you make this list of seventy five things you probably wondering jason wife seventy five why not? Well, actually the first twelve be really easy the first twelve right? The next time you have a one hour meeting that gets canceled you just had four fifteen minute blocks show up the online class that they scheduled suddenly the professor is whatever they have to cancel that class boom the first twelve options they will be so fast check email, get some food, call somebody go play with a dog do something the first twelve are going to be easy. I'm really, really interested in what your thirty second option would be if you had an extra fifteen minutes. What is the forty seven thing that you thought of that if you had an extra fifteen minutes you would do, you would engage and you would try you would practice with now I've been doing this for a while. As you can imagine I try and you know I do everything before I teach it and it takes me what I found is about ninety days to get through my current list of seventy five so what I do is I print out these three pages by the way usually takes me a couple of days to fill in all seventy five kind of put it in my folder and they'll take it out I'll add ten fifteen twenty I'll put it away I'll go at ten fifteen twenty the day that I come up with those seventy five I date stamp it carry it with me if I'm working at the home office it's off to the side where I can see it if I'm working on the road it's in my backpack in that one folder and then when a flight is delayed when a client is late when a seminar has an extra break in between because the sales team suddenly has to go put out a fire and the universe gave me three, two or one extra fifteen minute chunks, I've stopped asking myself that habit question what could I do now? And I start looking at what did I come up with when I do want to check it off now down to seventy four and seventy three and then thirty four then six and then wu and I've been keeping these over the years so I'm a little file at home and I could go back and look at hey what was I thinking would be extra so long ago? Oh, by the way, when something shows up as if I had fifteen minutes I would could or should if that keeps on showing up keeps on showing up that's one I'm gonna go see if I can automate I used to have one of these where it was if I had an extra fifteen minutes I would update my podcasts, clean out my space on my computer and have that available when I kept finding that I was spending time every sixty eighty, ninety days cleaning up my podcast updating everything it's like how can I automate this? How can I not have this come across any more so it can open up in that year a little bit of extra time so as we start our break toward lunch today what I'm going to ask you to think about is over the next twenty four, forty eight, seventy two hours when you get an extra fifteen minute block a time practice with that question how could I move the mission forward and then let yourself come up with that answer and sometimes it is doing no thing there have been times when I've been at the airport where suddenly we get the thirty minute delay and literally the best thing that I can do the most amazing thing I can do with my mind best thing for me to do in those thirty minutes just watch people just not have to look at something or think for thirty minutes alternatively other times something will come to go hey let's go read chapter one of that book that my friend just told me that he thought or she thought I would like and I can send anybody who wants I'll get you that seventy five lives, just a piece of paper, seventy five lines. You could totally do that in your notebook, but if you want the one that I made off totally send that to you. Computer freezes toe have the non technical ones, which seems to happen a lot these days with me, but it's rewarding too have something productive to dio or unproductive. You open the door, so I'll step on inside. What I've done over the years is I actually break things up into context and even energy level. And so, as I think about that list of seventy five, which I usually have at hand, you have either just made one or about to make one, I actually do break them up. What are the non technical ones? What are the technical one? What are the connected ones? What do that by myself once and being able to move through that? So I I love thinking about that so that later on I don't have to. I mean, I guess the real net for me of all of this is I want to get to the end of the day and fewer times a week say I wish I would have, I will say that. I mean there's thirty days in a month and three are sixty five million year I'm going to get to the end of the dango I wish I would have meditated worked out called that one client I just didn't get to it, but if I could bring that to two a week instead of five or one a week instead of three, then I feel like I'm making that progress fifteen minutes who knew that it would it would kind of erupt that way. So very interesting is it's it's a great thought? And actually jason fill it from belt was asking this maybe too, because we don't have an awful lot of time so we can come back to this but he was asking maybe a recap for the elements for the talk it could be a help of this time. I think quite a few people were trying to get it all down. Is that something want to handle now should we wait to do that? When we come back from lunch, I'll go through today's elements and then at the end of the course, I thought we would do a wrap up with all absolutely perfectly well get well, yes, that definitely maybe very quick question sure well, a compliment and a question if that's okay, so sonia actually ended with the compliment I'm kidding blend in uh, sonia is actually complimenting you on your communication skills, and this is a question from palo photo who asked if you can clarify how to gain people's trust in a short period of time. If you might not believe in selling a product such as a car cleaning products like, how do you gain people's trust, which is a communication skill? Do you have any insights on that talk about a hot seat? Yes, I have many thoughts on that, and I'll see how I can weave in some answers in the afternoon. The short one that I can give you is the easiest thing for me to sell that is when it doesn't feel like I'm selling is when it's what I believe and the easiest way for me to believe in something and this is where it gets interesting and why we need more time with this. The easiest way for me to believe something is to have found out how it serves the other, and that changes it for me. I'm I may not believe what I say this I may not if I can find out how it serves you, and I can ask you the questions that that product or service would answer it takes me out of it, yeah, it's it's, not about me anymore. I mean, I I'd venture to say, and I'm going to step on thin ice here. But there may be classes that creative live offers that some people that creative live wouldn't need. But what the people here, a creative live no. Is that there's someone in the audience who needed that so that's, how they can stay so attentive on the video camera, who can move the boom? Whatever this awesome think that's, totally cool, who are in the student, the back office right now, they're in it because of what these people are experiencing, so that would be my initial answer to that one.
Class Materials
Ratings and Reviews
Lisa Lloyd
As a staunchly creative person, I have never been that interested in many of the business-minded productivity books, blogs and websites out there. I find them too dry and too focused on doing less and making more (money). I am at a point in my life where I want to do more and hopefully make some money doing it. But the “more” is the most important element. Jason Womack is the first person to help me encapsulate and identify just what “more” means to me. I have always been great at envisioning the big picture and I’m constantly daydreaming about my Ideal Day, but I get hung up on the details of how to get there. For me, the envisioning and organizing myself in a way to make it happen, seem like utilizing two sides of my brain and I find it nearly impossible to make the two halves work together. A stalemate ensues, and once again, I’ll find I’ve done nothing to advance my own cause. Jason’s method of unpacking, and breaking things down into elements, each with its own set of exercises, is perfect for my type of mindset. Even though there are exercises to complete, they are part of an ongoing process of organization and behavior modification. There are no cookie cutter answers here, and last time I checked, life didn’t work that way. The exercises are meant to be ongoing and fulfilling; teaching you why you do the things you do, as well as understanding the people around you. The methodology here can be applied to any business, including, and probably most importantly, the business of you, creative or otherwise. The workshop is, at times, an emotional experience, forcing you to really dig down to what matters and why. It reminds me of being a child, daydreaming about what I wanted to be when I grew up, never once thinking that anything would ever stand in my way. I feel the wall breaking down, and the two halves are talking. Thank you, Jason, for helping me get out of my own way.
a Creativelive Student
LOVED this presentation by Jason Womack. Inspiring, encouraging and achievable.
a Creativelive Student
If you want to make more time in your life and you want to create more of what you've been wanting -- whatever it is -- this course is for you. Jason has created some very doable tools, even for the non-habit-prone, ADD-minded, to help you prioritize, focus and get more of what you want (yes, by thinking bigger!) I attended the live program and have turned much of what I learned into habits, something I rarely do!