Transcription
If you could talk to billionaires, Olympic athletes, students, and world-famous CEOs and collect their best tips on time management, then you would get this book, "15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management," written by New York Times best-selling author Kevin Cruz. I've picked 12 of the best lessons from the book, so let's get started.
Lesson number one: The power of 1440. Imagine you're 25 years old and you have the power to switch places with a 90-year-old billionaire. The billionaire will have your age and your wealth, and you will have his wealth and, of course, his age. Would you switch places? I'm sure your answer would be no, because that old billionaire has run out of time, and there's no amount of money that can buy him more time. So, if your time is so valuable and you wouldn't sell it for billions of dollars, then how come we often waste it as if it's worth nothing? How come many of us treat time as if it's an endless resource? We all know that time is precious, but how can we start using it wisely?
The author of the book has an interesting method for that. He says that in the office, everyone wanted to ask him something all the time. Constant interruptions ended up costing him a lot of valuable time every day. So, he decided to print a paper that said "1440" and hang it in his office. What does that number mean? Well, 1440 is the number of minutes in a day. The author found that viewing his day as 1440 minutes helped him focus on the most important tasks. It acted as a reminder for him, and when people asked what it was all about, he simply explained that he was trying to make the best use of his time. Pretty soon, those "Do you have a minute?" meetings got reduced or eliminated completely.
To you, a brief one-minute interruption might not seem like much compared to all the time we have available each day, but regardless of how brief they are, accumulated one after another, they begin to turn into a serious amount of time each day. Time is your most valuable and scarce resource. Once it's gone, it's gone. If you lose money, you can earn it back, but not time.
Imagine it this way: Every day when you wake up, fourteen hundred forty dollars are deposited into your life account. How you invest that money defines your future success or failure in life. Successful people see time differently and invest it differently. When we are evaluating an investment or business opportunity, the first thing most of us try to calculate is the return on each dollar invested. Successful people do that as well, but not as a first thing. The first thing they do is calculate how much time they are going to invest. They create a "dollar per minute" analysis and accept the projects or investments that have the highest return on each minute they are going to invest.
How much attention you give to your money working hard to make money, tracking your money, researching the best ways to invest your money, reading about ways to make more money, worrying that somebody might steal your money. You would never leave your wallet sitting out in the open. You'd never give your ATM card and password to a bunch of strangers. And yet, we typically think little about our time. We routinely let people steal our time, even though it's our most valuable possession.
Lesson number two: Time management isn't about time, it's about energy. You can't manage time. No matter what you do, you will have the same 24 hours tomorrow that you had today. When people talk about time management, what they really want is to get more energy, not the time. Time management is not about time, it's about energy. You don't believe me? Then answer this: Have you ever been reading a book and find yourself reading the same sentence over and over? Do you get sleepy an hour or two after lunch? How productive are you then? Have you ever been working on a task and find yourself staring into space for minutes? Have you ever actually fallen asleep at your desk or in a meeting? If you've said yes to most of these questions, then you would agree that the most important thing is the energy, not the time.
You need to manage your energy so that it lasts longer during the day. You don't want to be productive for two hours in the morning and very tired in the afternoon. And how do you do that? How do you have more energy across the day? How do you go from being 20% productive to 80%? I have several tips to do that, but one of the simplest ones is this: Take more breaks during the day.
Let me tell you a story from one of my friends, and you'll understand how powerful the breaks are. My friend's an amateur boxer, and he enjoyed his boxing training, but he said, "I hated the ending part." After the intense 90 minutes of training, the coach made them split into pairs and compete against each other on an air bike for three minutes. In case you don't know, this is what an airbike looks like. It involves almost all the large muscles in your body. If you do it for just three minutes intensively, you'll feel so much pain in your legs and body that you'll not be able to walk or breathe. You'll just want to lie down.
So, back to my friend and his competition. The rules of competition were simple: you split into pairs and compete for three minutes. Whoever burns more calories within the three minutes wins, and the person who loses has to do 20 extra push-ups. As soon as the time is over, my friend said, "At the beginning, I lost almost all the time, and I was one of the lowest performers on average. I could burn 40 calories when others burned around 55 calories." He said, "I hated it because it hurts so much, plus I was losing all the time, mainly because I was out of shape, and the rest of the guys were quite in shape, relatively bigger and muscular."
But despite this, after just a few training sessions, he said, "I figured out a way to increase my results from 40 calories to 66 and almost beat everyone else." And after a few more training sessions, I even increased my results to 72 calories. At that point, no one believed the results, and they came and checked the screen to make sure that I wasn't lying.
So, how did he do it? How did it go from 40 calories to 72 calories? Obviously, he didn't get more muscular and stronger within a few days. His secret was that he took more breaks and distributed his energy evenly across the three minutes. He said, "At the beginning, I would just pedal non-stop for three minutes like everyone else. However, I realized that during the first minute, I performed well, but the remaining two minutes, the results were awful." So, he decided to break this one big task into smaller tasks.
"In my mind, I had broken this three-minute session into six smaller sessions, each consisting of 30 seconds. In each session, I was working for 25 seconds and resting for five seconds. And for each session, I had set a goal, which was burning 11 calories, and that was the game-changer for him."
The reason it worked so well is because:
1. He took breaks, which helped him to spread his energy across a longer period of time. Spreading and maintaining the energy is important. Many of us can't do it. That is why we end up being productive for a few hours until lunch, and then it goes downhill from there.
Tony Schwartz, founder of the Energy Project, says that humans naturally move from full focus and energy to physiological fatigue every 90 minutes. Our body sends us signals to rest and renew, but we override those signals with coffee, energy drinks, and sugar. Schwartz suggests that we need to purposely take short breaks throughout the day to drink water, walk, or to eat healthy snacks.
2. You broke down the task. Suddenly, it wasn't one big, scary task. It was six smaller tasks with the rest at the end. Psychologically, that made it easier for him.
3. He set goals for each session. He knew that in order to succeed, he needed to burn 11 calories and not think about the rest. If you just did that, then the rest would be fine.
4. He made the time work for him, not against him. What I mean is this: When you have one big session and your body hurts like hell, the only thing you want is to be done with it because it hurts. You just keep looking at time and thinking, "When will it be over so that I can get off and rest?" On the other hand, when you have a smaller session with a break and a goal, you don't want the time to finish before you reach your goal. You wish that seconds last a little longer so that you can reach your goal. Suddenly, reaching the goal is the center of your attention, not the pain or thinking, "When will this hell be over?"
Even though this was an example from sport, I believe there are a lot of similarities between that three-minute session on an air bike and our days. In both, we want to get more done. In both, we want our energy to last longer. And finally, in both, we want to win. That's why I think the principles that worked for my friend will work for you as well if you apply it to your day. How do I know it? Well, I've been doing it for years, and it is called the Pomodoro Technique.
If you've heard about the Pomodoro Technique, then you have already noticed that the principles are almost identical. With the Pomodoro Technique, you set a timer for 25 minutes, work on a single task with your full focus, then take a five-minute break. And after every four cycles, you take a longer break for 30 minutes. Then you repeat the process.
So, lesson two is to pay attention to your energy and maintain it by taking more breaks during the day. Besides that, you also need to look at your life and see the things you are doing that are draining your energy and slowing you down. For example, lack of sleep is a huge factor for many people. Also, lack of exercise and lack of healthy food, to name a few.
Lesson number three: Identify your most important task and do it first in the morning. Successful people focus on their top priority goals first thing in the morning, after they are fully awake. Every day, they concentrate on completing all or part of their most important tasks (MITs) before they go on to other activities. Many savvy CEOs confirm that the brain functions at its fullest capacity during the first two hours each morning. Finishing a portion of an MIT first thing in the morning will also give you peace of mind before daily problems arise.
One of the most common complaints I hear is this: "My top priority goal is too big, and I don't know where to start and what to do, so I rather postpone working on it." Well, it doesn't matter how big or complicated the goal is. You can always break it down and work on it at least five minutes a day. For example, let's say you want to buy an investment property. So, how do you break it down? Well, let me ask you this: What is the first thing you need to do to buy a property? You would answer, "The first thing I would probably need to do is find a great real estate agent." Okay, good. And what is the first thing you can do to find a real estate agent? Answer: "There are many ways, but one of the simplest things you can do today is just make a post on your Facebook page and ask your friends if they can recommend any good agent." How long do you think it will take you to make that post? Probably five minutes. Here you go, you are one step closer to achieving your goal if you make that post.
So, if you have a goal and you don't know how to break it down, always ask yourself, "What is the first thing I can do today?" and do it as a first thing every day. Even if it's a tiny thing, do it as a first thing. Again, successful people always focus on their most important goals before they do anything else.
There's another technique which isn't in this book, but the idea behind it is very similar to this one. The name of the technique is 90/90, if I'm not mistaken. You choose one area of your life that you would like to improve. Work on it for the next 90 days in the first 90 minutes of your day. This has been quite a game-changer for me personally. For example, my entire life, I've struggled with losing weight and being in shape. Even though this was quite an important goal for me, I never achieved it. When I looked at how my day was organized, I realized that I exercised at the end of the day, when I finished my work. And you probably know how hard it is to exercise after a very busy day at work, right? Sometimes, even if you have the time, you just run out of willpower and want to lie down and play dead so that no one touches you or asks you anything.
So, I decided to change things a little bit and dedicate the first 90 minutes of every day to myself, to my physical and mental health. Which means the first 60 minutes is spent on exercising at home, and the remaining 30 minutes on meditation. I'm halfway through, and I've gotten great results. Plus, I've realized that when my physical and mental health is in good shape, the rest of the day comes really easy. I tend to eat healthy, have a clear mind, problems at work don't piss me off, I make less mistakes, and overall, I feel good.
I'm not saying that you should do the same; it's just an example, but you can apply this technique to other areas of your life, such as working on your side business before you start your regular job. Why give the best hours of your day to someone else when you can give it to yourself? Most of us take care of everybody else and every task, and if some time is left, we spend it on ourselves. We get the salary and pay everybody else, but not ourselves. Don't you think it's time to put yourself first? If you are one of the most important people in your life, if you don't take care of yourself, who is going to do it for you?
Some of you might say that you are being too selfish here, but I think becoming selfish leads to becoming more generous. For example, when you put yourself first and exercise, you feel good about yourself. When you feel good and confident, you are more successful at your job. And when you are doing great at your job, you don't come home exhausted, which means you can spend more quality time with your kids. If you didn't put yourself first, you would probably come home exhausted and maybe spend a few minutes with your kids, and then the rest of the evening would be spent lying down on the couch.
The same thing applies to your finances. When you pay yourself first, it means you are better prepared financially to take care of your loved ones and help a family member or friend when they are in financial trouble. All these wouldn't happen if you didn't start putting yourself first. So, lesson number three is: Find one thing that matters the most and work on it in the first two hours of your day.
Lesson number four: No more to-do lists. According to the author, there are surveys that show that more than 40% of the tasks on to-do lists are never completed. Nevertheless, they are used all the time in many, many companies and by many entrepreneurs. But what about successful people? Do you really think millionaires and billionaires walk around with a to-do list? Do you really think Bill Gates or Warren Buffett write a long and complex to-do list and carry them around with them all day long? Think about your case. If you make a long list of tasks every day, what's your success rate? Hasn't it ever happened to you that there are tasks you never complete, and days and months go by, and you never do them?
According to the author, the problem with to-do lists is that they often confuse us with what is urgent and what is really important. The author says to-do lists also cause unnecessary stress, anxiety, and end up hurting your productivity, sleep habits, and overall health. Although to-do lists work well as reminders, they also become a nuisance during the day, even somewhat intimidating. They'll lead you to avoid certain tasks, procrastinate, and therefore not complete the expected goals.
The author recommends solving this problem by working with calendars instead of to-do lists. Highly successful people don't have a to-do list, but they do have a very detailed calendar. So, use a calendar and schedule your day in blocks of time of at least 15 minutes. According to the author, simply scheduling tasks on your calendar rather than writing them on a to-do list will free your mind, reduce stress, and increase your cognitive performance. Schedule time for everything that's important to you. Deciding which tasks deserve calendar space or blocks of time keeps you from wasting time. For example, if you really value being healthy and have decided that a daily 30-minute workout is your primary goal, then don't put it on your to-do list. Put it on your calendar as a first task to be completed. Schedule it as a recurring appointment. If you value client communication as a business strategy and have a goal of talking to at least two clients a day, then schedule a daily client call appointment.
Lesson number five: How to finish work at 5 PM guilt-free. How can the world's most important people always seem so calm, stress-free, and fully present in the moment? How could President George Bush read 95 books a year while he was the president of America? How does Virgin Group founder Richard Branson have over 400 companies in his conglomerate, yet he always seems to be hanging out on his private island or breaking some crazy world record as an adventurer? I know you're probably wondering how they do it, right? You can't even finish your work on time so that you can go to the gym or come home on time. But here's George Bush reading 95 books a year while running one of the most powerful countries in the world.
Well, here's the secret, and I hate to use the word secret because the idea is so simple, and it's this: Work never ends. There is always more to do. Andy Grove, the author of a book called "High Output Management," puts it very nicely: "My day ends when I'm tired and ready to go home, not when I'm done. I'm never done." Like a housewife, a manager's work is never done. There's always more to be done, more that should be done, always more that can be done. Super successful people don't just burn hour after hour trying to cross off more items from their task list. Instead, they think through their priorities, schedule time for each, and then, enough is enough. This is one of the simplest ideas, but if you truly let it sink in, it will dramatically change your life.
So, lesson number five is: Accept the fact that there will always be more to do and more that can be done, and then work on time and do the things you enjoy, spend time with family, etc. This is one of the areas I need to work on personally because I'm a workaholic, and I often end up in a situation where I'm trying to cross off as many tasks as possible from my to-do list so that there are fewer tasks left for tomorrow. But somehow, magically, there is always more work to do tomorrow.
Lesson number six: Know the magical word that can free a lot of time. Warren Buffett once said, "The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything." Saying yes to something is equivalent to saying no to something else. Every yes to one thing is a no to another. I remember once I agreed to a meeting, even though it wasn't that interesting for me to have the meeting. I said yes because I checked my calendar and saw that I was free, plus the meeting was almost in a month, so I didn't see much problem saying yes. However, when the meeting day came, my daughter got sick. I had other personal problems that I had to solve immediately. I couldn't cancel the meeting because, first of all, I had promised, and second, the person had traveled a long way to meet me. Canceling wasn't really an option, so I had to attend the meeting even though I didn't want to be there that day.
The moral of the story is this: Even if your calendar looks empty now, it doesn't mean you should say yes, because when the time comes, kids will get sick, the car will break, the dog will get sick, something will stop working in your business. You get the point. That yes will hold you back.
Here is a good rule of thumb for saying yes to things: If something is not a "hell yes," then it's a no. Another problem with saying yes is that most of the time, we think that it will not require much time from us. We think that it's just a small request, but that small request turns into two requests, pretty soon another big request follows, and then you find yourself spending almost half the day on that small request. They say that in the distance, even giant elephants at first look small. Unfortunately, many small things turn into big things when they actually arrive. So, reserve your yeses for things that really matter. And never forget: this simple "no" answer is enough. You don't owe it to anybody to say more than that. Let me repeat: You don't owe it to anybody to explain why you said no.
Lesson number seven: Theme your days. Jack Dorsey is the co-founder of Twitter and the founder and CEO of Square. For a while, Dorsey worked full-time at both companies, 16 hours a day, eight hours at each. In a 2011 interview, Dorsey explained how theming his days had helped him tremendously. Theming simply means focusing on one activity each day and nothing else. For example, on Monday, at both companies, Dorsey focused on management and running the company. Wednesday was focused on marketing and communications. Thursday was focused on developers and partnerships. Friday was focused on the company culture and recruiting. Saturday, he took time off. Sunday was reflection, feedback, strategy, and getting ready for the week. I've personally tried it, and it's amazing to see how much you can get done when you theme your days. Even if you theme your days, you'll still get interruptions all the time, but the good thing is that when you know that today is, let us say, Tuesday, and it's product day, then it becomes easier to ignore interruptions and refocus on the product.
Lesson number eight: Three questions that will save you tons of time. Let me introduce Bob to you. Bob's programming speed and code quality gave him the "best coder in the building" status. He was a model employee. In his mid-40s, Bob started to work by nine each morning and sent his boss a daily summary of his work before he left at five. If you had been able to secretly peek over Bob's shoulder all day, you would be surprised to discover how he spent his time. On Bob's typical day, he would read Reddit and watch YouTube videos from about 9 to 11:30, which is when he would head out to his 90-minute lunch break. Back at 1 PM, Bob would then spend the next three and a half hours on eBay, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media sites. At 4:30, he would send a report to his boss and go home without writing a single line of code. The next day would be the same.
How could this be? How could Bob be his company's star programmer yet goof off all day? Turns out that Bob was very smart. Instead of asking, "How can I do this?" he asked, "How can this get done?" The answer in Bob's case was that he outsourced his task, actually his job, to a software development company in Shenyang, China. Bob's company gave him approximately two hundred thousand dollars a year to do his work, and he, in turn, gave fifty thousand dollars a year to a programmer in China to do it for him. For the longest time, Bob's company marveled at his productivity and quality. Well, he surfed the internet eight hours a day. Eventually, Bob's company noticed unusual server access from China and, thinking they were being hacked, they stumbled onto Bob's brilliant scheme. They didn't like what Bob was doing and fired him.
The author said, "If I had been the CEO, I would have doubled Bob's salary and promoted him. That way, he could have outsourced all the development work and saved the company millions of dollars." While Bob ultimately got fired for breaking company rules, we can all learn a lot from his approach to getting things done. How? Well, by simply asking three questions:
1. Drop: When performing some tasks, simply stop for a moment and ask yourself, "How valuable is this task to me or to the company? What would happen if I just dropped it completely?" You'd be surprised to find out how much time you spend on activities that don't bring value. There are a lot of tasks that can be dropped. Identifying the things that you shouldn't do and not doing them is as important as identifying and doing the things that you should do.
2. Delegate: Ask yourself, "Am I the only person who could do this task? Who else within or outside the company could accomplish this?" One of the key skills that any entrepreneur needs to learn is how to delegate. It's a painful process because in the early stage, many entrepreneurs think that they are the only one who can do the job right and with high quality. You should especially do your best to delegate the tasks if:
a. You don't enjoy doing them.
b. You're not good at them.
3. Automate: Ask, "How can the same outcome be achieved but with a faster process?" This question is all about creating a system so that work is done automatically or with minimum effort.
Lesson number nine: Follow the 80/20 rule like yourself. I'm also trying to figure out the best routines and tactics that help me be more productive during the day. For example, I've noticed that when I sleep well, then the next day goes almost perfectly. I do all the right things, I exercise, I meditate, I'm more productive, and I'm able to face the day more confidently. And in order to have a good night's sleep, I need to follow a routine before going to bed. For me, a good routine means going to bed at the same time and making sure that I stop working at least 90 minutes before bed. So, instead of focusing on tips and tactics to be productive, I only make sure that I follow a few rules before bed. I know that if I do this one thing right, then the next day will go great. By simply focusing on a small activity, I can influence the entire day, and this is what the 80/20 rule is all about: focusing on a few key activities that bring the biggest results. It's about identifying the 20% of activities that bring the 80% of results and doing them exceptionally well. The rest of the activities that don't fall under the 20% can be ignored or outsourced. This rule is almost like looking for shortcuts in your life. If you truly understand the power of the 80/20 rule, you will work less and at the same time increase your results. I have a detailed video that explains everything, so I don't want to go into too much detail. The link will be in the description.
Lesson number 10: How to clean your email inbox quickly and focus on productive work. According to a survey conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute, office workers spend 2.6 hours per day reading and answering emails, which equates to 33% of a 40-hour work week. Okay, okay, nobody works 40 hours anymore, but it's still a big chunk of an average work week. Clearly, people send too much email at work, and as the dominant form of professional communication, it's hard to ignore. But you have to take responsibility for your part. Email and all social media platforms produce dopamine every time a message or notification appears on your screen, which is very addictive. Most of the time, it's nothing important, but every now and then, "ding ding ding!" "Oh, look, an interesting article!" or "Oh, someone has a question I can answer in only five minutes. I'm so helpful and productive!" This makes us come back to check our inbox again and again.
Here are six tips to manage your inbox wisely:
1. Unsubscribe from email newsletters. Come on, do you really need to subscribe to all those fashion websites, those flash deals of the day offers, those viral clickbait news headlines? They're trying hard to get into your head, but they can't if they're not in your inbox to begin with. Just go into your email and search for "unsubscribe" and then unsubscribe from all the email newsletters that you find.
2. Turn off all email notifications. Emails are not intended to be an urgent form of communication, and especially in these times when most of us are getting 50 to 500 emails a day, getting email notifications is a sin. Notifications interrupt your concentration, your work, and your ability to be present during meetings and conversations. Whether you have an audible ding, a phone vibration, or a little window that pops up with every new email, turn all that off.
3. Only process email three times a day using the 3210 system. Schedule three times a day to process your email: morning, noon, night. Set the timer on your phone for 21 minutes and try to get your inbox to zero in that time. Make a game out of it. 21 minutes is intentionally not enough time, but it will keep you focused. Ensure that your responses are short and that you don't start clicking links out onto the wonderful world of internet distractions immediately. Apply one of these four actions every time you open an email: Do it right away, delegate it, defer it to someone else, or delete it. You can also archive instead of deleting.
4. Keep emails short, really short. Realize that being brief isn't rude; it's a sign of respect for the other person's time, in addition to your own. There is even a movement that suggests we consider email messages to be similar to text messages.
5. Use the subject line to indicate the action required. An ideal subject line doesn't just indicate the subject of the email but also the type of action it requires. This helps email recipients to process your email in less time, and they'll learn to reciprocate and do the same for you.
6. Think twice before you forward or CC someone. Too often, we forward or CC someone in the spirit of keeping them in the loop, but in reality, we are contributing to the information overload problem. Remember, every email you send and every CC you include means you are likely going to get a reply back into your own email box. You send less email, you'll also receive less email.
Lesson number 11: Richard Branson's secret productivity tool. Richard Branson is the founder of Virgin Group. By the time the book was written, Branson was reportedly worth $4.8 billion. According to Branson, the most important thing for him is to always carry a small notebook in his pocket. In his own words, "I could never have built Virgin Group to the size it is without those few pieces of paper." Keeping all those fleeting ideas, thoughts, and things to remember only in the mind can contribute to fatigue. There is a way to free the mind. So, the author's advice is simply to always carry a notebook with you. Maybe the foundations of your empire will be written down there.
Lesson number 12: Meetings are the last option. According to many surveys in the corporate world, most meetings are a waste of time. Despite this, every day, many companies hold meetings. In the book, the author gives some reasons why he thinks meetings suck:
1. Most meetings start late.
2. Most of the wrong people are present at the meeting.
3. Most of the meeting's time is spent on trivia.
4. The wrong people dominate meetings. Often, those who spend most of the meeting time are overconfident, extroverted, attention-seeking people who don't necessarily have anything really important to contribute.
Therefore, the author recommends not scheduling or attending meetings unless all other forms of communication are not working. If you must have a meeting, highly successful people know that effective meetings start with effective agendas, which are distributed in advance.
This was a long video. Thanks for watching to the end. I have more interesting books summarized on the channel, so check out the playlist you see on your screen if interested.