Back to The Drawing Board - S3 E4 - Decluttering Your Desk and Mind for Peak Productivity

Ever feel like your to-do list is managing you instead of the other way around? Strap in as I, Phil, and my quick-witted intern Theo, embark on a rollicking journey through the time management wilderness, with Zhana, our  live audience to keep things lively. We dissect the Eisenhower Matrix, tackling the quandary of urgency versus importance and why some tasks feel like they're all dressed up with nowhere to go. We'll let you in on our personal battles with the 'busy work' beast and offer a peek behind the curtain at the recording dynamic in our office-turned-studio, where the laughter is as abundant as the time management tips.

Imagine your workspace as a sanctuary of productivity — we do, and we're spilling our secrets on how to achieve that Zen. With anecdotes galore, we'll guide you through the minefield of distractions and how a decluttered desk can be your ticket to focus heaven. We're not just talking physical space; your digital realm needs love too, and we've got the hacks to make your computer desktop as pristine as a Marie Kondo-ed sock drawer. From the art of the natural workflow break to transitioning tasks without breaking a sweat, we talk ADHD-friendly approaches and why sometimes the best delegation is to your future self.

Closing out with a bang, we share how self-care isn't just bubble baths and yoga mats; it's about carving out time to prioritize your well-being and how it can lead to feats like pulling championship wins (true story, you'll want to hear this one). Weekly planning isn't just for the office — we're dishing out organization tips that span from your bank account to your sandwich prep. And for those who've ever contemplated a checklist tattoo, you're not alone. I reveal my own off-the-wall methods for staying on top of tasks and how an arm can double as a notepad. It's all here, wrapped up in our signature blend of strategy and sass, ready to help you turn your days from chaotic to choreographed.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:02

I didn't pick up. I have the power to fire.

Speaker 2 0:05

Yes, but not over this. What was she doing? We were doing an extra curricular work.

Speaker 1 0:10

I don't like it Really, I hate this.

Speaker 2 0:13

Don't look at it. Don't look at it For anybody who's wondering now that we're going to address the audience. But the audience exists.

Speaker 1 0:19

Bring the fourth wall, do it.

Speaker 2 0:21

Hello the audience. We have more audience today and we're feeling timid. You're the scary one. I tell you what we've got tips about preparing for this kind of thing, just the tips. We've got all sorts of time management advice. If only we had an episode of oh we do, phil, would you like to introduce? I hate this.

Speaker 1 0:42

This is the most uncomfortable I think I've ever been.

Speaker 2 0:44

The dogs were watching ones, and that was bad. You need to do the introduction.

Speaker 1 0:47

I do Well, and welcome back to the drawing board of an architecture podcast hosted by me, phil Wotmismith, architect and director at PWS Architecture and Design, and this is my intern, theo. Hello, today we thought we'd have a quick and thus very long conversation on the idea of adding hours to your week in a time management episode. So, while you can't actually add more time to a 24-hour day, there are several techniques you can use to maximize those 24 hours as best you can.

Speaker 2 1:35

I hate this, I do too. I can just see you staring at me. A little bit of extra context for all of our long-term viewers.

Speaker 1 1:42

Mum how you doing.

Speaker 2 1:44

I'm good We've got an actual little guest in the studio today. By studio we do mean the office. We're a studio, studio, we're a studio. We should stop saying we're going at no office. Anyway, jahn is here.

Speaker 3 2:00

Yeah it's going to be cool. No one's going to hear that.

Speaker 2 2:05

In the very background, you'll see.

Speaker 1 2:08

Just wax the volume straight up. So it's a good segue from. That would be the first point of prioritizing tasks.

Speaker 2 2:16

Yeah, she's currently watching us instead of working. God, we're going to get about three episodes into this and there's going to be another microphone set up. Yeah for sure. I was thinking of buying one anyway for the interviews.

Time Management and Task Prioritization

Speaker 1 2:29

So the first section will be prioritizing tasks, which I think is probably the most basic and straightforward of them. Determine the most important tasks you have and tackle them first. There are things like the Eisenhower Matrix, the Eisenhower Matrix here we go.

Speaker 2 2:45

Oh, as everyone may have noticed, the screen just changed. Oh, what the hell? No, this is new to us, but this will be episode three and we're using a lot of episode two. So anyone who's watching is going to be thinking what are they so surprised about? I was just intrigued by it. Ok, first of all, I didn't realize you were doing the. Second of all, there is no way anyone looking through over there is going to be able to see what's going on.

Speaker 3 3:09

But OK, maybe they can, if the quality is all right.

Speaker 2 3:16

You just have to describe it a bit better. Yeah, well, we're a podcast, so a lot of this is going to be audio. Anyway, fair point For anyone listening. That's how it works. Yeah, eisenhower Matrix. Basically, we've got these big four-row squares. It's in order of what's important and what's not important, what's urgent and what's not urgent. So where it's important and urgent, you've got things that you have to do, so you can put that on your to-do list. Things that are important but not urgent, you can schedule to do them later. Things that are urgent but not important, you can delegate them. So if, basically, if you're in a position of management, you can delegate the task, thinking it's urgent but I don't have time to prioritize it myself, and if it's not urgent and not important, then delete that, get it in the bin.

Speaker 1 4:00

Yeah, my only problem with this is I deem everything that I do important. That's what I thought when I saw it.

Speaker 2 4:05

I thought I'm not going to put it on that to-do list.

Speaker 1 4:09

What's not important, pay Theo.

Speaker 2 4:13

Yeah, I got my student loan the other day, so now I'm only 400 quid in debt. Richest person in the office.

Speaker 2 4:18

He's just a very, very good point. Yeah, but I kind of thought that's a bit of a pointless square because yeah, if I don't need to do it, it's not on my list, if it's not urgent, if it's going on the schedule, that's kind of saying it doesn't need to be done now, so it doesn't need to be done in my mind, thinking, well, if it's not on urgent to-do, it's not really happening to me because I'm not in a position to really delegate stuff. I'm having stuff delegated to me. You're the one who says to do that one.

Speaker 1 4:44

I delegate you something and you go oh Phil, I need to delegate this task. Do you want to take it?

Speaker 2 4:48

Yeah, I need you to do this for me. I'll suddenly be sat there going crap. I've got no work. Phil, crack on with making this coffee, will you? Yeah?

Speaker 1 4:53

You're supposed-.

Speaker 2 4:56

So it's clearly a thing for people who are in a position of management. Yeah, but even then, as you say, if it's in the delete file, why is it on your to-do list in the first place? I suppose that's more of a question.

Speaker 1 5:04

I suppose that's more of a workout the bits that you don't actually need to Just hiding up. Yeah, essentially it's workout the bits that you don't actually need to do.

Speaker 2 5:11

I was looking for some examples of this. Now just this crackin' one on the urgent, important one. It had a list crying baby. That's important and urgent.

Speaker 1 5:20

You need to see to it why do you put this much effort into your actual?

Speaker 2 5:23

work. Some I'm impressed. Some phone calls that's important and urgent Kitchen fire, right, I think that's it's fair to say. That's as important as some calls.

Speaker 1 5:42

I don't know. I think if my kitchen was on fire and Hannah was calling me, I'd pick up the phone.

Speaker 2 5:47

And it's clear that some calls are more important than my vocation. Yep, Not important are distractions and interruptions. Which? Why would you delegate that, Theo? I need you to handle all the distractions and interruptions today.

Speaker 1 6:02

Yeah, Theo, do us a favour. I really would like to learn this song on the guitar. Yeah, Other calls Just anyone I can't be asked talking to.

Speaker 2 6:13

Will you deal with all the other calls, as opposed to some calls and then not urgent things to delete from your to-do list if you were planning on doing any trivia?

Speaker 1 6:23

Oh yeah, as we all know, I have a special star role on the Chase. Yeah, busy work that's so important.

Speaker 2 6:33

Time wastes. Delete your busy work. Is your band called the Time Wasters? Yeah, it is Speaking of which.

Speaker 1 6:38

go listen to that you best take that off of your list to-do then.

Speaker 2 6:41

Delete Time Wasters. Yeah, oh yeah. It's good to know that busy work is so much less important than some calls.

Speaker 1 6:51

It must mean something Like a colloquial term Work that keeps a person busy but has little value in itself. It's actually a thing busy work, Delete your busy work. Delete your busy work. Back to the graphic. Was that the only set of slides you had for this?

Speaker 2 7:11

No, it's just when we're not strictly discussing a slide, we can look at that. I have never been more impressed by you. Thank you. There's three slides. That's two of them. The awards one which, again, hopefully everyone else knows about, but you won't. Yet it has 90.

Speaker 1 7:35

Yeah, I've not had a chance to look at them, so it's now going to be a bit.

Speaker 2 7:37

I don't want you to look at them. I'm happy for you to look at the notes, but I don't want you to see you want me to be surprised by what comes up.

Speaker 1 7:43

Yeah, I think there'll be some we're going to have to cut this bit out because it's not in time sequence, because we're doing an episode two after episode three yeah, but they'll all know what we're talking about Anyway. So second one, with time blocking. Schedule your day in blocks, assigning specific tasks to each period. This helps to focus on one task at a time and reduces multitasking. Well, I'm waiting for a slide to pop up now. I'm on edge of my seat, thinking he's got something I haven't seen yet.

Speaker 2 8:09

Yeah. So I was thinking this sounds like the standard time management tool which is something I've done a lot where you put it into squares and you have a bit of just a daily planner. So I was kind of, when we were writing this episode, I was also, at the same time, writing up my time. I think I saw this and got inspired to do mine and I was looking at it and I was thinking this is like my 10th millionth ever time management tool, and so I was setting mine up and I thought, oh, you're looking down at the wrong time there. Who the hell? I thought, well, maybe we could have a look and see Awakened. See what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 8:43

Rise from my slumber.

Speaker 2 8:45

Yeah, Shower eat dress. Therefore, obviously all days of the week. As you can see, I've used colours. I can't see that. I'm not sure you can.

Speaker 1 8:55

If anyone wants to follow Theo's professional Instagram, it's the colourblind architect.

Speaker 2 9:02

Not an architect.

Speaker 1 9:04

Not an architect One. Thing because there's reflections I'm getting from the outside so I can't see it properly. What are the colours?

Speaker 2 9:10

Because I can see the code, the key, but I can't read what it says I started travelling because that's the first thing I looked at, but I'll start from the top. Blue is lectures, orange is exercise. Or travelling between tasks it takes me half an hour to get in Wherever it's green. Is me going from home to uni or from uni to home?

Speaker 1 9:29

When you said travel, I was like so he travels for half an hour to where? Yeah, yeah, it's a short hall of light.

Speaker 2 9:35

Red is music. Yep, yeah, green travel. I know it's grey, which I can see is purple from here, but I know I said it is grey. I'm pretty sure I put right off. So that's when I'm really tired in the evening or when I'm doing socialising or when I'm asleep. So on my Monday when I get in I'm finished everything at nine o'clock and I've just scheduled and cry and followed by grey time because I know I'm not going to do any work at that point. Yeah, it's a bit useless for me to pretend anything. Same with Saturday and Sunday before 12,. I basically know I'm not going to do useful stuff. It's a weekend. I'm going to be out the night before. I know I'm not doing anything. So there's no appointment. Guilt trip myself saying I think that's an important thing is making sure You'll be realistic with it.

Speaker 1 10:21

Yeah, you've got to be.

Speaker 2 10:22

It's not even like scheduling your own breaks, but like being realistic about when you're not going to work, Because to say I'm going to work from 8am every single day, for me I know that's not happening, and also like finishing at the same time every day isn't happening. People will schedule until like 5pm and then I'm like well, there's stuff going on after that, but also you might not work those times every single day.

Speaker 1 10:42

Yeah, there's also like oh, just finish this task, that takes another 45 an hour Then the next thing you know at six o'clock that you're finishing.

Speaker 2 10:48

I think that's the fundamental with floor, with this, is it leaves no room for flexibility. Yeah, obviously, mine's in kind of in half an hour blocks, but it's an hours, but there's two lines between it. And yeah, as you say, if something takes a bit longer or if it's a bit shorter, then suddenly my days thrown off. But that's kind of the most realistic thing I've managed to come up with.

Speaker 1 11:12

Yeah, I mean I've seen sometimes where people do like they have like a system for morning is when we do all the design work. I think it's called I'm sure it's called like the make and manage thing. Where you're during, say, the first, it's not like what is it?

Speaker 2 11:25

Like, not specific.

Speaker 1 11:27

Yeah, so you would make. So you would be doing your design work, model, making all that kind of stuff between, say, nine and one, and then from one till five you might have the manage side of things. So you deal with phone calls. I know there are some places that say you get one hour's worth of phone call with the director or your architect a week.

Speaker 2 11:44

Oh, who does that?

Speaker 1 11:45

That's what I'm trying to implement at the moment. Yeah, trying to have set times. Unless it's an emergency, like if someone's house starts collapsing, they can get in touch with us. I'm not going to ignore it.

Speaker 2 11:54

I think the problem in architecture is when you're dealing with people who are outside of the office, you can't control when they want to get in touch with you. If you're saying, well, I'm only doing management in the afternoon, but a client or a builder or a contractor wants to get in touch in the morning, you can't say sorry, call me back this afternoon, Like this isn't my management time, because what if? Because they've obviously got their lives to live as well and they need to know things at certain times.

Speaker 1 12:14

So it's like yeah, I suppose it's giving them that you can call me at Tuesday at four o'clock. Yeah, that's your hour.

Speaker 1 12:20

But then what if they realize that, like Tuesday at four o'clock they're at the doctors, you know or they missed it that week then, or they can reschedule it, I suppose by email, but we're trying to implement a bit more of something like that. So the biggest problem isn't necessarily wasting time or anything wasting time or anything like that. It's more, actually, that amount of distraction that I get from people constantly calling and trying to get my attention all day long. Jesus, nicely on to number three, which is reduce distractions, so turn off notifications, find a quiet place to work and inform others of your focused work time. To minimize, maximize, to minimize interruptions.

Strategies for Decluttering and Focus

Speaker 2 12:58

Yeah, that one fair enough. It can only help. I was thinking about that and I thought it's not like an end all and be all, but it's like. It certainly is something you can never say. I'm giving myself less distractions, but that won't help.

Speaker 1 13:12

Like it will. Yeah, it's kind of inevitable. I think it's then assessing, for example.

Speaker 2 13:15

It's more thinking about what is the distraction that I need to get rid of? What can't I get rid of? Yeah, I can put my phone away and I think I'm looking. I'm one of the few people who doesn't necessarily need it as a distraction, which is funny considering my condition, whereas a lot of people, like all those TikTok kids, will be like just on it constantly. Yeah, what's a TikTok?

Speaker 1 13:38

Yeah, genuinely, I don't actually have. I never have had TikTok. Okay, good, you're 30. That's a fair point. I think the police had turned up my door immediately. Yeah, one of the main distractions that I had when we had the office in the house was the kids coming to and from school, or if they were off for a week with school holidays or they were off for school. It just made kind of that environment impossible to work in. So it's one of the main reasons we ended up moving to the office. So, yeah, it's finding what those distractions are and then finding a way around it. Phone I wish I could find a way to get away from, but it's the main source of people actually getting in touch for important things.

Speaker 1 14:09

Yeah, but then when you're using it actually as a phone, but the other side, on the flip side, I'm looking in now getting an office separate to a home phone so that I've got, because it's the, it's not. I'm now just stepping out of distractions from work.

Speaker 2 14:22

I'm now thinking distractions from my whole life, from work where I'm stepping out of their life, because at the minute, if a builder wants to talk to me at 10 o'clock at night and they call me.

Speaker 1 14:28

I have chances, I'll pick up.

Speaker 2 14:30

Yeah, exactly that's what I'm thinking.

Speaker 1 14:32

Or I'll be thinking why they call in there for the rest of the day.

Speaker 2 14:34

Yeah, so when you're at home you can actually have that separate. Yeah.

Speaker 1 14:39

So there's declutter your space. A clean and organized workspace can reduce stress and improve focus. I am actually genuinely trying that. I do normally work in complete chaos, like organized chaos, but I'm trying to do the last thing we do on a Friday we shut down a bit earlier and we clean our desks so that there's like less people.

Speaker 2 14:59

Are you sure about that? I try. Are you sure about that?

Speaker 1 15:03

Look at my desk now, compared to what it used to be.

Speaker 2 15:07

Yeah, used to be covered in Christmas cards, didn't it?

Speaker 1 15:09

Haha, I hate you both, but yeah my desk's like completely clear compared to what used to be, where you couldn't actually move or see anything or do anything. Hers is a nightmare. I'm not even going to make high content with her.

Speaker 2 15:21

Jon has plants. That's different. Plants isn't clutter.

Speaker 3 15:23

It's not the plants, you just don't like joy in your life.

Speaker 1 15:26

It's not the plants, it's the plants that are like for jobs that she's finished and gone from. Oh, yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 15:33

So, speaking of organized chaos, I had a small pile of pages next to my desk, but I just, I was just, I didn't have much space, so I just put them out of the way. And I came in the other day and realized it's turning into a waste paper pile. I was looking for it, like whatever my plants got. We don't have a recycling bin. You saw some paper on the floor and you went yeah, that's the new bin.

Speaker 1 15:53

Right next to Theo's desk.

Speaker 2 15:55

Well, that's why the bin wasn't.

Speaker 1 15:56

Your desk's not so bad, though that's because I don't have that much stuff.

Speaker 2 15:59

Half of the clutter on my desk is Jardus. That's a very good point.

Speaker 1 16:04

I love it when she's got it Adam's pencil.

Speaker 2 16:06

When she's not here to defend herself. So I just get the angry faces off the side, yeah.

Speaker 1 16:11

The worst thing is is I can see it in my like peripheral vision. I'm like, well, this guy's going to die.

Speaker 2 16:15

Yeah, half of the stuff on my desk isn't mine.

Speaker 1 16:19

Wait, I mean I tried to clear my desk down on a Friday. The other thing I tried to do is clear my desktop, because nothing should be on the desktop. It should all be on the drive On the like cloud server Computer and I also tried to clear out my, so my literal desktop, my desktop and my download folder, because inevitably I've downloaded approved applications details things.

Speaker 2 16:40

Yeah, Like engineers drawings City that you don't need.

Speaker 1 16:43

And I'm referencing them through the week. But I keep them in the downloads folder because that's, in my head, the easiest place to get to when really they should be in. Example engineers drawings should be in the project folder. Info received structural engineer. It's working that process through and making sure at the end of the week everything's cleared up. Yeah, much easier than having 795 million things in your downloads folder and going oh, I downloaded that four years ago. Let's see if I can find it.

Speaker 2 17:06

You know, anything I have is I. I obviously, when I download stuff, I'll put it into the appropriate folder. I'm pretty good at putting it immediately into the appropriate folder, but then I seem to just duplicate it. So I look into my downloads folder I'm like, well, I've already got them the right folder, so if I delete it, is it going to delete it there? And then I end up with a big long list because I get the fear of actually deleting anything Fear of fear of relation.

Speaker 2 17:27

It's like when I've got like five different copies of the same photo on my phone. I'm like, well, what if I get rid of all of them? And actually it's a picture of my dog having a turd in the back garden and I never needed it.

Speaker 1 17:39

What do you mean you never needed it? So number five on the suggestion list is the Pomodoro technique which, if I'm being honest, I thought Pomodoro was a pasta. I mean I can see that your your notes on this art and you'll have to bleep this song to enjoy it. Can you just say ffffck like that, no, I'm going to go, pomodoro can go, ffffck itself in big capital letters.

Speaker 2 18:04

Yeah, let's make it clear, that's capital letters.

Managing Time and Tasks Efficiently

Speaker 1 18:06

Yeah, which again I think I'm on the same page. I'm not sure that it really works in our environment.

Speaker 2 18:11

If you say to someone oh, I think I've got another thing. But if you say to someone I've got ADHD, they go oh, have you made a list? Have you checked it twice and have you tried the Pomodoro effect? I go, I have more lists than the Pomodoro effect?

Speaker 1 18:25

Is it like the butterfly?

Speaker 2 18:26

effect. I'm more lists than you could ever dream of and I don't know where a single one of them is. Yep and right. Oh, there's so many reasons For normal people. I imagine it would work For people who can, who've like maybe got a short attention span but have the ability to just turn on the concentration. Great, do it. 25 minutes working. Five minute break Gives you that bit of a thing. But for me, if I in that 25 minutes get concentration and then give it up, I'm not getting that back. And secondly, in that 25 minutes, what I'm going to be thinking about is when's my timer going up? It turns as soon as you put your, because you put your phone away. But then all you're thinking about is when's that alarm in my phone going to go off, and it's like you want to reach for it just to check the time. It'd be like, okay, I've still got time to do something.

Speaker 1 19:10

Weirdly, after writing the show notes for this, I got an advert on Instagram. It was like a desktop mat, you can put you had all this, these other features. But one of the main features it had was it had a circle on the top corner and you twist it as a timer and it would count down, so you could put 25 minutes on it and calm down.

Speaker 2 19:26

Being able to see it might be good.

Speaker 1 19:28

I don't think it would because I would spend 25 minutes watching 25 minutes count down, Because it'd be going oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. And then watch the sun go down and then come back up, and so on. Like it would just not work for me. It wouldn't work for me, but what I tend to do is I'll just start working. And I do agree with taking gaps, but what I tend to do is take them between tasks.

Speaker 2 19:49

Yeah, between obvious, obvious in an obvious spot, If you finish one planning drawing and then you can go and, as you say well, see your thing, yeah, so I can steal your bit yeah.

Speaker 1 20:01

so often, I'll do something, get to the end of that task, finish it off, and then I'll go make a coffee or some sort of drink if I'm not having caffeine at that particular point of the day presumably this is just before bed or go walk the dogs Walk this bed? Yeah, I'll go. What the dogs are? I'll go do something that's a bit different. Take my mind off it, come back and do the next task. So I agree with taking breaks.

Speaker 2 20:19

I just don't think you can schedule them because, yeah, because then all you're thinking about is when do I get my break?

Speaker 1 20:24

That and after, about If I start really pushing myself into a project. After 10 minutes I'm into the project and I get 15 minutes of solid workout before I have a five minute walk around, come back, get my head into it for 10 minutes.

Speaker 2 20:35

Obviously, when you're in school and you've got an hour long lesson or whatever, it's kind of one of them.

Speaker 1 20:41

You're in the middle of a lecture to stand up, walk around for five minutes and sit back down, no, no, but it's one of them.

Speaker 2 20:46

When they're in set blocks, obviously that's so that the entire establishment can run. But you can often find you're looking, you watch them and, right, I've got like 40 minutes left of this, and then you're just dreading them final 20 minutes and it's like that. Having a timer, it's like it just gets into your head of this is how long I have left. Yeah, so yeah, that's why I hate the Pomodoro.

Speaker 1 21:10

So similar to the Eisenhower Matrix.

Speaker 2 21:12

Well, it's one of the things often yeah point six is delegate tasks.

Speaker 1 21:16

If possible, delegate tasks that others can handle so you can focus on what's most important or requires your expertise.

Speaker 2 21:23

You'll notice I have no comment here because You're a delegate. I've said this to fill the other day. The kind of delegation from my life would be like if I thought, oh, the Hoover needs to be done. If I turn my mom and say, mom, will you do the Hoover and up please, I'm very busy today. You hit with Hoover, I'm gonna get slapped over the face.

Speaker 1 21:38

I mean, you're the I love you mom. You're the delegate as one of our two viewers. You're the delegate, not the delegator in this situation.

Speaker 2 21:45

Yeah, exactly, you've got to be in the position of management for this to be yeah realistically?

Speaker 1 21:50

Yeah, I mean, suppose the thing is is I need to get better at that, because I like to micromanage and then I get anxious that things aren't being done the way I want them.

Speaker 2 21:56

Yeah, you delegate it and then go like just watch and do it yeah. And it's kind of like well, what's the point if you're gonna watch over as well? You're doing it. Yeah, but it's a quit that it's trying to find. Wait, you don't like it.

Speaker 1 22:07

The other thing is trying to. It was in the audience, me and the audience. The audience have won in the corner the audience has won in the house.

Speaker 2 22:14

The audience is enjoying their chance to do some work.

Speaker 1 22:16

Yeah, without us trying to talk to them. Yeah, something I'm definitely working on, I think the thing is, is also finding if you're gonna delegate tasks, especially in a role that I'm in, where it's also bringing people up, the way I see it is if I'm gonna start moving up the ladder in terms of my, the works that I'm doing. Say, on you at the top.

Speaker 1 22:37

Yeah but doing more of the higher level stuff than the low, like doing a bit of everything is. I need to train you and Big Z in the corner there up to that point, so that so I need to find tasks that work for you, that can be taken off my plate to get you up to that point where you can then delegate further down the line, but. I'm working on it. I promise, I'm working on it. So yeah, you can't delegate delegation, but you can try.

Speaker 2 23:02

Yeah, exactly, exactly. That's definitely for being in the right position for that tip.

Speaker 1 23:08

Then next thing is streamlining processes, which is something that I work on hard, so looks.

Speaker 2 23:13

Streamlining is such a corporate word. We need to streamline this job.

Speaker 1 23:17

And then we circle back after the break. I think I'm at that point of the year now where everyone is now circling back and I kind of wish I'd dealt with it.

Speaker 2 23:26

We should have streamlined to begin with.

Speaker 1 23:28

We should have dealt with it at the start. But yeah, look to ways to automate or simplify repetitive tasks and save time, which is a big thing that I do a lot of. Anyway, I'll make a lot of templates for both CAD, sketchup, indesign, photoshop, all these things. I try and template as much as I can not because I want things to look the same, repetitive, over and over again.

Speaker 1 23:49

Right all the way around, not because I want to just save time but because it means I can take the thought process out of certain things like that oh, how big is SOFA? This is how big SOFA is. How big is bed? This is how big. Yeah, how thick is wall? Like? We've even got them down to technical details in dynamic blocks, where you can take a wall, put it in, stretch it out to the desired length and it details the wall.

Speaker 2 24:08

Wall is this big?

Speaker 1 24:09

Yeah, so even at the concept stage, how thick that wall is going to be based on the U value you need to make and the way in which you're going to build it. The other thing, though, that it does really well other than kind of simplify and make things easier is it saves a lot of like the mundane stuff. You can work more on the kind of appearance of it rather than just the layout.

Speaker 2 24:28

One of the things I think is important for that. One of the things that I think is important for that there we go is, as well, kind of recording your inefficiencies, and it's one of the things I was listening to some like how to make money and become really cool podcasts, and they were talking about budgeting and it was you have to record actually your spendings beforehand of like where are you wasting, so you can look at it and you know this is what I want, this is what I like, and it's like when you're looking at what am I?

Speaker 2 24:55

what's taking me more time. So then, once you've kind of had to look at everything that's a problem for you, then you can start streamlining it and making your blocks for it, Because you won't have known that you needed door templates until you've done X amount of jobs and can see oh crap, redoing a door every single time has taken up a lot of my time. So if I just make one block now, save that into a file, I can come back to it whenever I need it.

Speaker 1 25:19

And the other thing with those blocks is we can also make it work double hard by having pre-designed ones that are the specific size of the doors that are available, like as standard. So 711 door, 838 door, things like that. You can then take a look at it and go right, this is a standard sized door. I'll put this throughout the building because I know they're going to be able to pull it off a shelf.

Speaker 2 25:36

And then down to that, having all the IKEA furniture in your block.

Speaker 1 25:40

Yes, lovely IKEA. Yeah, I swear that's what we should do, because everyone with their furnitures, with their IKEA stuff, but yeah, spoke design. I suppose the big thing number eight is saying no, which is obviously something that I've been. If you've watched episode one of this season is something I've been doing a lot of, because at one point I was saying yes to everything, but now it's saying no. Be selective about which commitments you take and avoid overloading your schedule.

Speaker 2 26:05

I think that's another good point, though it depends on where you're at your comments just yup, yup, I don't have a good point, but you've got to be at a point where you can say, no, we've got that luxury. Yeah, obviously, when you're first starting out your business or when you're at uni, you have to say yes.

Speaker 1 26:20

Well, you'll remember a few years ago, when there were six of us, and it was because I kept saying yes, yeah, so I had to keep getting stuff in.

Speaker 2 26:25

I mean certainly with my uni project last semester. I kept having an idea and in my head saying yes to the idea because I thought that's a good idea, instead of thinking do I have the time and like the time management skills, I guess, to handle designing that idea? And in the end I kind of messed it up a bit. And so it's one of them saying no to your own ideas in the head of. Actually, I can't delve that deep into this concept.

Speaker 1 26:49

Oh, I can't do that, I write it down.

Speaker 2 26:50

Yeah.

Speaker 1 26:51

I write it down, put it to one's own goal. Come back to that one. I've got time.

Speaker 2 26:53

And then you forget about it and it's fine.

Speaker 1 26:54

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 26:56

But yeah, I guess that's another way that can work, aside from even in a management position, of saying no to jobs but saying no to certain concepts and kind of knowing being able to get that idea in your head of how long will this actually take me. Can I realistically act on this? Yeah, I think. I said something there.

Speaker 1 27:14

Yeah, ponyant, you almost opened yourself out to a moment of philosophical realisation.

Speaker 2 27:21

We've got a nod and a clap from the audience.

Speaker 1 27:23

I can see you reflected in that window. Perfect, so number nine, every now and then looking at it Da, yeah, yeah, yeah. So number nine exercise and self care. Taking care of your health can boost energy levels and concentration, making you more efficient during work hours.

Speaker 2 27:48

Yes, it can. You see, I said them yeah.

Speaker 1 27:51

Yeah, Preach, it's been a very long time it's been over a year since my entire routine of self care going to the gym, blah, blah, meal prepping, so it all went down the line.

Time Management and Self-Care Tips

Speaker 2 28:02

I wrote my in case you didn't see it, my routine. I had a very similar routine Last semester. I wrote it and then never looked at it, yeah. But then I got this timetable that was one of the course directors had put together of just a timetable for it, and I printed that out, stuck it on my wall like next to my monitor and put that on with my extra classes and shizzle and I'm being very careful not to have to do any bleeps here. I can see, and schwaas and I was kind of useful of one of them, which is right. What do I have to do today? But then the problem comes along when it's like something I don't have to do, like if I've got a day with no lectures and I'll look up and I'll see it and I'll go. Oh sweet, I don't need to get out of bed until I'm going out this evening.

Speaker 1 28:48

See, in my head it was like I got to when it started to get really busy last year, before we put the advert out for the audience. In my head it was just like, oh, I'm not that important, I'll just not go to the gym this year like this, today, tomorrow, this week, this month this year.

Speaker 2 29:07

Like it's properly snowy, I'm not my own project. And then you think about it and you think, why am I doing everything if it's not selfishly for me?

Speaker 1 29:14

Yeah, I've literally done nothing for me. But then the other bit is when in 2021, when we had everyone in and it was absolute chaos, was when I fluked my way onto a podium at the UK's pulling championships.

Speaker 2 29:28

So maybe just doing nothing is like the best thing for that One of the things is self-care and I think actually timetabling in that is quite a good thing and you'll know it is.

Speaker 1 29:38

You're really proud of this.

Speaker 2 29:39

I'm really proud of having graphics, phil, even if nobody can see it because of the horrible reflections and poor quality. But in my right off time, some of the things I have is cry, and it's not going to be cry, but it's going to. What that means is just take a bit of time before doing anything else.

Speaker 1 29:54

You're just trying to be silly.

Speaker 2 29:57

No, it's one of them of actually timetabling in that time when you know you just need a breath and just a breather, and putting that because I could, in that I could put in there, go for a walk or go to the gym. But then that puts the pressure on me to exercise, which I think is different slightly to self-care. Obviously, go to the gym, you can still go for a walk in that time, but it's no less. Yeah.

Speaker 1 30:17

It's more self-care walk.

Speaker 2 30:18

Yeah, or you could even just lie down and just put on a bit of a meditation thing or literally just have cry or, in my case, turn the death net around just a bit. Yeah just give your ears a breath, but just yeah, actually timetabling in breaks, not breaks, but like self-care.

Speaker 1 30:35

Which I suppose leads us on to tip number 10 from our research, which was sleep well. Ensure you get enough rest. A well rested mind is more efficient than a tired one.

Speaker 2 30:45

Yeah.

Speaker 1 30:45

That's all. It's all. It's all. Well and good saying that, but duty calls.

Speaker 2 30:50

As above. Yeah, easier said than done, if you really. I mean for our profession well, what is sleep?

Speaker 1 30:57

You don't sleep because you stay up all night drinking.

Speaker 2 30:59

I don't know that gets me to sleep a lot easier, which is probably an issue in itself.

Speaker 1 31:04

Yeah, that's something that can be addressed in a different one alcoholism and architecture. Write that down.

Speaker 2 31:11

What is the whole episode? Yeah, but yeah, and it's well, yeah, get sleep guys.

Speaker 1 31:18

Yeah, it's probably quite important. He says no one gets between four and six hours a day.

Speaker 2 31:22

Melatonin gummies dream come true. I used to have real issues getting asleep. They would take me like up to five hours, sometimes seven hours, and this was just like me being problematic. I couldn't sleep and then started having these little melatonin gummies, which are legal they're just vitamins but you can't buy them over the counter in the UK. You have to import them from the US. But yeah, they like helped me so much with just getting to sleep. I obviously just looking into like alternative medicines or sometimes real ones, if it's actually terrible.

Speaker 1 31:56

Yeah, so that was obviously running through kind of the principles of things that overarching you should be doing. But then here's how to maximize your time through the week, through preparation rather than just organization and little obvious tips, I suppose. So the first one is reflect on goals. Clearly define what you want to achieve during the week, aligning daily actions with your larger goals.

Speaker 2 32:18

I did this Good. Next, I want to practice music, which is why I've got drum practice, but I want to see if I can fit more drum practicing but realistically that's going to be more of like a weekend thing.

Speaker 1 32:31

Every time I blink, I'm going to see this.

Speaker 2 32:32

Obviously, I've got my MMA up there. That's set classes, so I you know great, but I've got my swimming and my gym in, which is optional, and those goals of getting fitter. I had something else on there which was definitely a goals based thing, never mind.

Speaker 1 32:51

The way I do it is. I write my to-do list over there on. You know those pieces of paper that you complain about. I tear those, open, those into a five sheets and bind them together with a bulldog clip. Basically, I recycle our like red lined rawrens and turn them into little handy notepads for us all to use in the office. But on those do you not have one?

Speaker 2 33:12

No, I don't have one. Oh, the intern doesn't get one. You're not worth it. Oh sorry, next time I won't put together all of these fantastic graphics, or all three of them, one, two of which I stole, and one of which we paid for to have designed Anyway. So and one I did on Google Sheets.

Speaker 1 33:33

So what I do is I pull together it as a I'll have like my monthly to-do list and then I have a separate one which stays like in the pad, which has like what I need to do every week. So I'll give myself a month of week commencing and then I'll have notes on the side or daily tasks if anything pops up at surgeon. That's how I tend to do it, because it means that I can do, like, by the end of the month I must do x, y and z, but then during the week I can do x.1, x.2, because it might be do concept A, refine the site plan, add trees to the model, like things like that you can do as like little separate bits, and that's how I tend to do it, and then reflect every at the end of the week I go. Did I do this one? No, it must be carried on to next week. Did I do this one? I don't know. Theo can do it, I can delegate it. See, I'm already taking my own tips, so yeah, pretty good.

Speaker 2 34:19

So last year in first year, while I was at uni, I went through a bit of a bad mental health patch and I'd be doing my to-do list and the amount of times I just couldn't get anything done. It kind of helps. I would write the day at the top and even if I would just get the end of day and just cross that off, it'd be like okay, I've done something, I've done the day and it's like I'd move the stuff on in the next day. But I found that was quite nice. But maybe that was really sad, but it moved everything, but it was literally. Sometimes I was like, oh, you know, command.

Speaker 2 34:49

C Command E yeah, if I was getting nothing done, I could say you know, I've done Wednesday. I survived Wednesday there was something yeah and that was but to do to-do list for me. I just I'll do them on my notes sometimes and it's like before I go to bed I'll think, right, what do I have to do tomorrow? And I'll write it down and leave it on my notes. So when I turn my phone on the morning, it's the first thing I see and it's the first thing I ignore, because you've got oh.

Speaker 2 35:15

Phil sent me loads of memes, yeah, and at the end of the day, when I come to my weekly reflection, it's the first 100 things that delete from my notes. It's all of my to-do lists, and it's like, oh, I was going back to my point of if to-do lists could solve my problem, I would not have the problem because I have so many to-do lists. To-do list right, a to-do list Mate. Yes, like that has been on it so many times when I've gone. I needed to do this, but right now I need to have breakfast, so I'm just gonna write right to-do list. Now, look at it. I think, oh, that looks like a lot of effort.

Speaker 1 35:43

So I write Wednesday and go to it, right, and then I suppose that leads us on to point two, which is monthly or weekly reviews. Look at the previous weeks, accomplishments and pending tasks, not what went well and what could be improved. I think we've pretty much covered it in the last one as we've rambled, but yeah, hence why I do the monthly thing.

Speaker 2 36:02

Yeah, so actually one thing that I was meant to say in the previous point but didn't look at my notes at any point because I was talking about to-do lists is yeah, obviously on there it says weekly, you do monthly, I like to do fortnightly. Yeah, in that obviously, one week isn't a very long time, but it feels like a kind of a short term term, a period. A month feels like a much longer time, certainly for me, where my semesters are like one and a half month, two and a half months long yeah if I do it one month every month, then I'm not gonna see much progress.

Speaker 2 36:31

But if I do a review or like a set of goals for every two weeks, that's a decent amount of time. And if I do a review at the end of every week, then I can see right, I'm now halfway through. How much have I got done? Am I far ahead? Am I far behind? If I'm behind, I'm not stressing, I've still got a whole extra week. But if I'm ahead, I can kind of relax a bit. Or if I'm exactly on target, I can go fantastic. And yeah, I did that for the final month of last semester and it worked quite well, I think.

Speaker 2 36:58

I think the problem was I was already about two months behind.

Weekly Planning and Organization Tips

Speaker 1 37:03

Got there in the end, yeah. But I think the other thing, though, is when it says, obviously set those monthly, weekly reviews. I tend to keep like quarterly reviews as well, because I manage the cash flow of the business. I need to know when things are gonna have to go out for us to not sink. So a lot of the time I'll have like I'll have my weekly, monthly quarterly. Then I've got bloody annual at the beginning of the year when I set the cash flow up for the year based on what jobs we've got in and what needs to be done when and you know this job's gonna come back here, because that's when the planning determination is blah blah blah.

Speaker 2 37:34

Yeah, I think that's definitely. That's a good point of like.

Speaker 1 37:38

And then just reviewing those every.

Speaker 2 37:40

Yeah, what time period you need for each individual set of jobs.

Speaker 1 37:43

I think you said in the notes that you do it as a fortnightly thing. Yeah, and it's like, yeah, if that works for you, if monthly works, if fortnightly works.

Speaker 2 37:51

I think just make sure it's not too short an amount of time between every set.

Speaker 1 37:55

of course, there's nothing that gets done.

Speaker 2 37:56

Yeah, exactly if it's one week and you get to the end of it and don't Do more reviews than you do Goals like in terms of like set, do a review more often than you set goals, because if you, if, you, oh yeah. If you do review every time you set your goal, then you're never gonna have time to get ahead.

Speaker 1 38:14

I'll never know, catch up. You'll probably get a bit sad looking at the same goal over over again.

Speaker 2 38:18

Yeah, if I did a review every two weeks, then I'd get to the end of my two weeks realize I hadn't done it, and then I wouldn't set my next set of goals because I wouldn't like have completed the first set. But if you get a week in and you go crap, I need to pick up the pace.

Speaker 1 38:34

So the next suggestion is prepare materials and this one's pretty obvious gather any documents, tools, information You'll need for your tasks ahead of time, to avoid searching for them during work hours. I Think that's pretty much goes without any comment, because neither of us have written comments underneath that, but it kind of comes under that organization thing in the first one, like yeah, yeah, exactly my clear of my desk at the beginning.

Speaker 1 38:57

At the end of the week means when I come in on Monday. Everything that I actually need is where I need it to be. I think this is gonna come in, hence why we leave the coffee grinder set.

Speaker 2 39:05

Perfectly, we drink this is gonna be very similar to point six and seven. Yeah, oh, point four and five. However, we've done it and but it's one of them, things of you have to be organized enough to know to prepare and you have to organize your organ and that's looking forward.

Speaker 1 39:22

Having that overarching scope of this is what needs to get done in this time period.

Speaker 2 39:26

So what do I need to do to ensure I can get?

Speaker 1 39:30

So the next one is yeah, no, the next one to set yourself up. I've run out of coffee, so I'm getting. The next one is something to set you up for the week is meal preparation. Considered preparing meals ahead of time to save daily cooking and decision-making time. I do this now. I used to do it a lot and then I stopped last year. I don't a Spiralled into a chaotic like scheme of just getting takeaways all the time because I couldn't be asked to cook. I didn't have the time.

Speaker 2 39:58

I've done it by mistake before and it's. It's amazing when you think right, I've got a whole day in tomorrow. I need to take lunch with me. I'll set a breakfast ready for tomorrow overnight. Oh, it's something amazing.

Speaker 2 40:09

Yeah out of the night before, open the fridge and go, oh breakfast, and just start eating it and breakfast. But like it's one of them, things that kind of, I'll do it by mistake. And then some days I'll go in and I'm like crap, I haven't got any food ready. I don't have any bread, so I'm not making a sandwich. I could take a noodle and just put it under the boiling water. One singular noodle. Yeah, I'm poor. I get in a 15 pence pack of noodles and I take two hours. That will do it in half.

Speaker 1 40:37

That'll keep you 3p of a mouse meme of him slicing that, oh, that's not public. Yet it's not Mickey Mouse, is it?

Speaker 2 40:45

I was Donald ducking.

Speaker 1 40:46

Yeah, we slice it as you can see through the bread. Yeah, no, I did. To be fair, there's a few things that actually taste better when they've been prepared in advance, like curries, bolognese fried rice, fried rice, yes, but I try not to do that thing where you wait an entire day on like a Sunday, cooking 47 meals for the rest of the week. I tried to yeah, I try to do it as like as many slow cooker meals as I can, or have something like Prepare, prepare out like shredded chicken and then just add sauce as you go slow cook as a for adults.

Speaker 2 41:17

So I never want to get to that point.

Speaker 3 41:19

But yeah, we're real boring.

Speaker 2 41:21

Yeah or even even like if it's just something that you've got time the night before. Yeah to set it up because you don't. You might not want it done the week before, but you might think I'm gonna need a sandwich tomorrow. Yeah so make yourself some which, and? But then that's preparing your meals for the year, materials for the week, knowing you're gonna need to be able to create Meals for the week. Materials, yeah, materials, ingredients, whatever, I don't care.

Speaker 1 41:43

Good thing about that Is, it saves you some money. Buying things in bulk. It is cheaper than buying one-off individual ones. Cause cool, save yourself some money. Costco is not actually that cheap, but that's a whole other conversation for us to have, not on the podcast an episode, cost goes, not that Cheek isn't this isn't this an architecture podcast for architecture professionals and students. Cost goes, not that cheap.

Speaker 2 42:06

What if you want a table in chairs? Yeah, why just what if?

Speaker 1 42:11

what if you could ever want one?

Speaker 2 42:12

and sell it to clients yes.

Speaker 1 42:14

So the next one is wardrobe planning. Decide on and arrange your outfits for the week to reduce daily decision fatigue.

Speaker 2 42:22

I did this. You'll notice I've worn the same outfit for the past three days. I thought I'm gonna wear these clothes. Yep, I ran out of shirts on the first day, and by that I mean I put a dirty shit on first day back to work because I Forgot to wash them. You see, I'm really I don't know how many I have those. So I get to a point where I look at my Come like, oh, there's none left, they're all in the wash. But I won't look in the cupboard in advance.

Speaker 1 42:45

I literally have a t-shirt full of genre does. Of course she does. It's Shana. Yeah, she's the only one in the office is prepared, but I just only one in the office with the clue. I just have like a row of shirts, a row of these types of things, and then I'm gonna say I've seen about five of them shack at the hoodies.

Speaker 1 43:02

I only got one of these, oh, but I've got, like I've got that red and black one I wore on the intro to this season episode and then I've got a different, but it's different to this. That makes sense.

Speaker 2 43:12

I made. I made the clever decision of not wearing the gray.

Speaker 3 43:15

I walk in cargoes again and also turn in this radiator off so I'm not sweating through every, all of my five layers in terms of milk wrapping, if you buy chicken in both like you suggest, and then you cut it in Like chunks and then you freeze it. So I usually buy what two kilograms Split it.

Speaker 2 43:33

I don't have to put my hand up. I run this thing. I've also like five kilos a week. My problem with chicken you eat more than I do. Chicken's got to be. As someone who worries about budget a lot, chicken's got to be one of the best things for like price per kilo, but the problem is remembering to defrost it like the day before Necessarily no, you can quick defrost things. I don't have a microwave. Didn't see you did a microwave. How do you quick defrost something without a microwave?

Speaker 1 44:04

You just fill up a sink with or a bowl with boiling water and plonk it in for a while.

Speaker 2 44:07

What if I want to wash my cup Bugs to your?

Speaker 1 44:09

cup. Stop being a little bitch.

Speaker 3 44:12

Yeah what I was going to say was just cut them in cubes, put them in bags of 500 grams or 750, depends how many people you're cooking for just me, just me. You work for me, but and then that's it, and then you're, you're settled. You don't have to cut the chicken. You cut on at least 10 15 minutes from the cooking time.

Speaker 2 44:32

Yeah, I think as well. Me and Matt have free Tupperware dishes between us, and which is definitely an O's problem, but that's, that's one of them, things that go and right, matt, I'm gonna be using a Tupperware dish this week.

Speaker 1 44:46

No, we've got loads. I've got those glass ones because the plastic ones get getting wrecked. Yeah, that's a usable log. It would be usable if we had her microphone.

Speaker 2 44:55

Well, audience, if you real audience will put a poll sorry metaphor if you give us money, like we've got a hundred percent says no. You're all could like pay us.

Speaker 1 45:09

You subscribe to our patreon for as little as one pound a month, which works out a three-period day. It goes out in tears from one, three, five and ten pounds a month.

Speaker 3 45:16

I'm gonna reduce yourself. You want to?

Speaker 1 45:18

reduce yourself some tax bill. But also it can be included as part of the ARB and RIBA informal CPD training.

Speaker 2 45:26

So you know do it, so, mike.

Speaker 1 45:31

Sponsors with some free copy, even though we are currently in. If I just move this coaster, that's got his name on it.

Speaker 2 45:38

Oh, oh, oh.

Speaker 1 45:40

We have to see that. So the next one is set clear objectives for each day. Have a clear set of achievable objectives, folks, almost necessary. I know we've covered this before, but I kind of feel like I may have already said yeah, because they're not an actual numerical order.

Speaker 3 45:56

I keep a list but it's an ever-growing problem.

Speaker 1 46:01

Yeah, anyway, yeah sorry but yeah, we've kind of covered this I know previously, but I was was it worth reading on a weekly basis? You should be like setting your objectives up.

Speaker 2 46:10

So, for each day, have a clear set that you so I put laughing emoji.

Time Management and Overcoming Obstacles

Speaker 1 46:15

No, he's actually written laughing emoji. Laughing emoji on.

Speaker 2 46:18

I write a to-do list and then instantly forget about the to-do list. It's got so diet that I write. Oh yeah, I write my to-do list on my arm, yep, and I do in those pens we've got, which are really good. So, like after three showers it's starting to wash off and it's one of them like I keep looking at and eventually I'm going to do it like I have to do it eventually, and it's got to the point where I'm tempted, half tempted, to get a tattoo of like a picture frame of like dotted lines so I can write on it more clearly couple of squares of the tick to go in.

Speaker 2 46:47

Yeah, my only. My only problem there is it limits the amount of arm I can write on.

Speaker 1 46:51

The problem is I can't write on any part of me Because I've got tattoos anyway, so it doesn't work, but I'm very tempted with just a picture frame.

Speaker 2 46:57

There is a diary, but I need more pop-eye arms so I can have like more space.

Speaker 1 47:02

Which is part of the self care.

Speaker 2 47:04

Yeah, go to the gym so you have a bigger space for to do. It's a whole circuit.

Speaker 1 47:07

Yeah, so. And then the last one is Anticipating obstacles. Yeah, again, I have. I tend to have a plan of what needs to be done in a month, what needs to be done in the year, blah, blah. The only problem I seem to have is constantly getting other things pop up. I can anticipate as many Obstacles as I like by saying like, okay, I'll fact. We factor in things like the detail of how we're gonna put a building together at the concept stage. We kind of we assess the design and understand that there's going to be obstacles at this point, and having a clear idea of, or a rough idea of, what we're gonna do, that's obviously months in advance. For the week it makes it a bit more difficult. But the biggest problem I have is the obstacles tend to be ones I can't anticipate. Like I get a phone call saying, oh, we've come to dig the foundations and there's something in the way, or visit they accidentally blew the house up.

Speaker 1 48:09

What Anyway? So sometimes there are a lot of things, especially in our industry, when projects, when projects begin, there's a lot of things that you can't really anticipate. Like I always say this to clients when we meet with them is, I can tell you the problems from the outside and things that both there are things in the floor and in the ceiling and I can't predict, and then you and some clients aren't prepared to pay the extra money to find out what those problems are up front so a lot of the time it's there are voices in the walls Difficult to anticipate some of the obstacles To the sweat drip anyway.

Speaker 2 48:46

Yeah, I have a response to that.

Speaker 1 48:49

The other thing is I'll daisy chain my meetings now. So if I've got a meeting in, say, whitley Bay tomorrow and someone calls me up and says, oh, I need to, can you come meet, as my, my property is in Whitley Bay and I'll go? Yep, I'm there tomorrow, or my next free slot is in three, four weeks time.

Speaker 1 49:07

If they say yeah, if they say right, okay, well, I can't do tomorrow, can we do three or four weeks time? I set that in, so say it's in four weeks time and then for the next four weeks. Every time someone either between now between me, where I am in the office, and Whitley Bay gets in touch, I just daisy chain it along. If someone else in Whitley Bay gets in touch, I go to Whitley Bay. Sometimes if I've got free like time or a spare hour, I'll swing by the other job sites in Whitley Bay whilst I'm there just to, kind of one, say hi to the clients and see how things are going and, two, just to make sure everything's on track If I'm not on site that day.

Speaker 2 49:38

My biggest obstacle that I anticipate but really struggle to overcome is me.

Speaker 1 49:46

You are like six foot seven. You are quite a difficult, physically sure.

Speaker 2 49:53

Metaphorically also. I'm aware of the fact that my time management isn't good and I do a lot to try and solve that, but the problem is my time management isn't very good and despite all the resources that I've throw at it and effort that I put into it. Fundamentally, it comes to trying to set a habit, which I'm pretty sure there are lots of books about. I would love to read one of them, but I would have to put the time aside to read a book, so the problem with me getting there is the fact that I can't currently get there. Audio book Great.

Speaker 1 50:25

Fantastic. That was a great suggestion, Phil.

Speaker 2 50:27

I'm currently listening to Frankenstein. So later Did you call me Phil, but okay, but yeah, it's like when you, I know that one of my biggest promises, I've anticipated that my time management isn't good, but when I kind of go, well, what can I do to plan around? Not having good planning? That's a bit of an issue.

Speaker 1 50:49

Yeah, that means I need someone external pushing you forward. Yeah, and it's one of them things of why you get more work done at work than you do at uni, for the same, Well, last year, last semester, when I started going into studio, it was great because I was with other people.

Speaker 2 51:03

I was really getting on everyone's nerves. But I could not imagine that. Yeah right, anyone who's listening from uni don't tell me. But also don't worry, everyone gets it here as well. But yeah, it's one of them things. What was I saying? Oh dear, the ADHD's happened.

Speaker 1 51:22

You go into the studio and it's helped you, even though you annoy people.

Speaker 2 51:25

Yeah, I feel like there's something just before that.

Speaker 1 51:29

Imagine you were going to go down the route of. You can see other people doing work and you're trying to no, I think, because when I can right.

Speaker 2 51:36

So last semester I got to a point of like I kind of was planning my time and then just had a mental like everything went, no matter how much of a plan I had. I just had to think I started three weeks of nothing happened, just spiral, yeah. And I was thinking I need to do something, I need to do something, yeah. It's literally that spiral of I want it. It's when you get that unplanned moment of no matter how good your planning is, you can't get out of it.

Speaker 1 52:03

And the annoying thing is when you're the obstacle and then you just get yourself worked up Using some of that or those other techniques, the prioritizing tasks, and yeah.

Speaker 2 52:12

I think that's kind of like almost. Maybe better meditation would come in if, like knowing you've got yourself in a bit of a quick. Oh, I've clicked on something else.

Speaker 1 52:21

No, where's the mouse? Where's the mouse? Using your cry time efficiently? You do it. Yeah, she's using your cry time efficiently.

Speaker 2 52:29

Yeah, so like um, yeah, I think it's one of them. Yeah, literally like that's where your self care comes in and if you can see, you'll go into one of them spirals if you get that, um, having a way of getting out of it or being able to just look and go. Okay, I'm in a bit of a dizzy at the minute. How am I going to, like, sort myself? Out oh even if I have like a few days away and like really yeah, focus focusing, sometimes doing something completely different for a bit.

Speaker 2 52:59

Yeah, and not even just like a different task, like completely different. Yeah, go shopping for like three days.

Speaker 1 53:06

Spend all your money become homeless, yeah, living a.

Speaker 2 53:09

I've spent all, but that's the thing. That's the great thing about being broke is you can't run out with money. They don't have any to lose. I can't.

Speaker 1 53:16

You know that gif of Zach Gaffer Laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, laughless, where he's like doing the math in his head. Yeah, pretty much wraps up this one, doesn't it?

Speaker 2 53:26

Yeah, thanks for joining us this episode. If you're listening on any podcast and platform, please consider leaving us a review. If you're watching us on YouTube, please like and subscribe and leave a comment.

Speaker 1 53:36

Follow us on Instagram at back to the drawing board, I do please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus content, longer episodes and to help build our community.

Speaker 2 53:45

We'll see you next time when we return back to the drawing board.