[00:00] Welcome back to the Focus B show.

[00:04] This is Katie Sudddart here, aka The.

[00:07] Focus B, and on this show, I interview high performers and leaders around the world to discover their secrets on peak performance, productivity, mindfulness, and leadership. So if you want to take your performance and your leadership to the next level, then you're in the right place. Listen up and connect with the magic.

[00:41] I'm really excited to announce that in the upcoming weeks, I am launching my new program to help you to optimize your time and your energy to reach the results and impact you want in your business and in your life.

[00:55] If you want to find out more.

[00:56] About my new program, check out thefocusbee.com program.

[01:03] This is the last episode on time for this season on Tea and Pi time, energy, attention, for profit, impact and expertise. This episode I've decided to dedicate to the most common and useful productivity tools that I know. First, a brief recap of a couple that I've mentioned in the previous episodes. Firstly, Parkinson Law work expands to fill the allotted time. This is so incredibly useful, especially if you're a perfectionist, but also if you're a procrastinator, it can really help you to overcome a lot. Another tool that I've already mentioned is time blocking or time slotting, which is basically putting in place certain blocks of time that you want to dedicate to different activities. So those were a couple that I've already mentioned, and I'd like to explore a few others. One of my favorites is the most important task MIT or Eat that frog, as Brian Tracy refers it to. That's the idea that you start the day with your most important task. The reason why I believe this is so incredibly powerful is because that it sets the tone for the day as productive. And it also means that you begin the day with important work, proactively and not urgent work and being reactive. Moving on to the next tool, because I want to cover quite a few in this ten minute episode. Another one is based on Derek Siera's book. Anything you want. And it's Hell yeah or no because of what I mentioned around boundaries and people pleaser and saying yes a lot. If instead you just embrace, is this a Hell yeah or a no? And the idea here is that instead of just saying yes to everything and.

[02:55] Adding so much to your to do.

[02:56] List, instead just choose what feels super aligned and feels great and you feel excited and energized about then you don't have to do everything and you have less things that you need to do and you're more happy and excited about them. This is one way I've used to simplify and eliminate a lot of things in my life. Okay, lot of more tools coming up. I hope you're following. We've said Parkinson Law, we've said time blocking, the use of Hell yeah or no and yes. Now we're moving to the next tool and this is using automatic scheduling. So if you don't have a calendly link already get one, you'll save a lot of time instead of doing back and forth emails around scheduling things. There are other equivalents to calendly and they're not sponsoring this episode. But I found this tremendously useful and this is a huge gain of time. Delegation is also really important. If you notice that there are things that you can start to delegate and you're not then start delegating them. Find someone that you can get delegated to and this will make a huge difference in the way that you manage your time. Now you might think that a to do list is a great tool for productivity. I prefer to think of it as.

[04:25] Outcome list or outcome driven.

[04:28] And this is something I learned on Tony Robbins program and he explains that if we instead of thinking of the ton of little things we have to do, we group them into main outcomes.

[04:42] And we are outcome driven, then a.

[04:47] Lot of things happen, then we're more focused, we have led things to remember. It's just incredibly powerful. So instead, and I've shifted the way I work from a lot of to do lists to two, three main goals for the day.

[05:01] And in these outcomes, in these goals.

[05:03] You'Ll have 510 things to do. So for instance, me recording podcasts this afternoon, it will include different things, I'll make notes around it and I'll prepare beforehand and afterwards.

[05:19] But if I just write podcasts afternoon.

[05:22] Solo shows, I know the work that's entitled behind it. So I won't write all the mini to do lists within that main outcome.

[05:31] So functioning, outcome driven, hugely powerful, an.

[05:36] Absolute must and this is a total game changer.

[05:41] And another aspect that maybe you don't.

[05:45] Think about as much or in terms of time management or productivity and I've mentioned it in other episodes so if you are listening regularly, you might have heard me mentioning this before.

[05:58] It's the idea of the Pareto principle.

[06:01] And the Pareto principle basically just says that if you spend 20% of your time on activities that give you 80%.

[06:15] Of the results, that's pretty cool.

[06:19] What it actually says is that 20% of your time do does give you 80% of the results and so you want to find out what that 20% is and do more of it. This episode wouldn't be complete without talking about time tracking. How much time tracking has helped me in my life is absolutely astounding and all it really comes down to is noticing and tracking how long it takes you to do different tasks and activities. You can use tools such as Toggle or Clockify to do this or you can just do the way I do, which is look at the time when I begin or write it down and then see how long it takes me. And this has helped me over the years to really know how long does it take me to record a podcast episode or to write a blog article, or to write a proposal and an invoice and to be able to schedule time accordingly. Because one of the mistakes that is so common is to over plan the day and to feel that you don't achieve everything you want to. But if you know how long things take and how long things typically take you, then you're far less likely to end up down that rabbit hole. Down the rabbit hole of being stuck and not having done everything that you wanted during the day. So time tracking has been tremendously, tremendously useful. Yes, in so many ways. And you'll start to get a really good feeling for time and for your relationship with time and how long things take and how much time you need to allocate to it and start to think of it in a more balanced way. It also wouldn't be fair to finish this episode on productivity tools and tips without talking about prioritizing. So I realized that in the last few episodes I haven't discussed this. This is a tricky topic to just cover in an episode because I feel it's highly individual. In the balanced episode it was similar because it discussed your relationship with balanced and what balance looks like and how will you know when you're feeling balanced. And this is a way to support you in prioritizing. And of course you can use tools such as the eidenhower matrix and a lot of different systems to find out what a priority is. But most of the time it comes down to experiencing and experimenting.

[08:51] So if you experiment and start to notice.

[08:57] What'S important, how long are you spending on different activities? And did that really contribute? Was that your pareto? Did that actually add up? Then you'll see that maybe certain things deserve less priority than others and it's also letting go of that perfectionism. There isn't a perfect way to manage your day or your week. There's some more optimal ways and some less optimal ways, but there's never a perfect scenario. I feel that this is where I got stuck a lot of the time is I used to think that there was this perfect way I should manage my day and somehow I just wasn't doing it perfectly and maybe I was prioritizing the wrong things and I could do something else instead and let go. Let go of this idea of the perfect way to plan your day or your week and start to look instead at how are your daily goals and activities contributing to your long term goals and vision. Because this is really where time can shift and make a difference. It's when you're actually spending it on things that add up to your long term goals and your long term aspirations. This is really where the magic happens. I hope this episode has been useful for you. I know we've covered several tools here, probably some you've heard of before, maybe the most important task, or Parks and Law I've mentioned, or Pareto, and in this case time tracking, which is so, so valuable and prioritizing you obviously know about. And it comes down to, as I said, experimenting and seeing what works best for you in the different cases. And if you think of another tool that you think I should have mentioned, I can do another episode all on it. Or you could write a comment to me on different podcasts or interfaces and.

[10:53] Yes, and be in touch.

[10:54] Send me a message on social media, let me know what you've enjoyed and what is most valuable for you and write a comment, a review, so other people can find this episode and other people can benefit from hearing to it. Hope you've enjoyed it and that you are implementing some of these tools on time management, even though we know that's not a term, and on effectively building a healthy relationship with time. Hope you've enjoyed this series on time and the next episodes are being dedicated to energy. Wishing you all a wonderful, fantastic, fantastic day.

[11:40] Thank you so much for tuning in today to the Focus Bee Show. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback. So let me know in an Apple review or YouTube comment what was most valuable for you and feel free to share this episode with a friend or a family member. Wishing you a wonderful, magical and focused day ahead. Sam.