Success Secrets and Stories
To share management leadership concepts that actually work.
You are responsible for your development as a leader. Don't expect the boss to invest the training budget in your career. Consider this podcast as an investment of time in your career, with a bit of management humor added at the same time.
Success Secrets and Stories
Time Bandits: Identify and Eliminate What's Stealing Your Productivity
Are you trapped in the long-hours fallacy? One host confesses he once wore 12-hour workdays as a badge of honor until a colleague bluntly pointed out: "The last thing I'd do is brag about taking 12 hours to do your job. You're just incompetent." This wake-up call revolutionized his approach to time management—and can transform yours too.
Time management isn't just about squeezing more into your day; it's about strategic prioritization that reduces stress while amplifying results. Through the deceptively simple ABC method, you'll learn to categorize tasks into must-do (A), should-do (B), and nice-to-do (C) priorities. Most professionals make the critical mistake of tackling numerous C-level tasks while procrastinating on the A-level responsibilities that actually move the needle.
Delegation emerges as another cornerstone skill, not merely for offloading work but for strategic team development. When you delegate effectively, you simultaneously free yourself for higher-level thinking while creating growth opportunities that build trust and improve team morale. The podcast delivers actionable strategies for setting clear expectations, providing necessary tools, and coaching team members toward independence.
Digital distractions receive special attention as modern productivity killers. From the Pomodoro Technique (25-minute focused work intervals) to implementing meeting-free days, you'll discover practical approaches to reclaiming your focus in an interruption-driven workplace. One host shares how his organization's meeting-free Thursdays dramatically improved both productivity and employee satisfaction.
Whether you're struggling with meeting overload, digital notifications, chatty coworkers, or your own procrastination tendencies, this episode provides battle-tested techniques from seasoned executives who've mastered the art of accomplishing more by doing less. Ready to transform your relationship with time? Listen now and start working smarter, not longer.
Presented by John Wandolowski and Greg Powell
Well, hello and welcome to our podcast Success Secrets and Stories. I'm your host, john Wondoloski, and I'm here with my co-host and friend, greg Powell. Greg, hey, everybody. And when we put together this podcast, we wanted to put out a helping hand and help that next generation and help answer the question of what does it mean to be a leader? Today, we want to talk about a subject that I think supports that concept, about a subject that I think supports that concept. So today we wanted to talk about a subject that is near and dear to my heart when I was in management Time management.
Speaker 2:How do you effectively talk about using your time well, reducing stress, increasing your energy, achieving your goals and really trying to do a productive job? It will really help you in terms of career, because time management is one of those keys that a lot of people really don't understand the strength of it. At one point I was working 12 hours a day and one of the other managers told me you know, the last thing I'd do is brag about how you're taking 12 hours a day to do your job. You're just incompetent. And my first flash that went across my head was what? But the more I thought about it, he was right. I was really not using my time well and it was a hard lesson to learn.
Speaker 2:I thought it was a point of sort of like from the football days, whenever you hear about the coach, the last one to turn off the lights, or the quarterback was there working with just the receivers until the lights had to come on and they had to scoot them off the field. That really doesn't work. That's not a wise approach. You can be effective and still be able to do things that you have at home, and you don't have to sacrifice that if you understand time management. So some of the core things we're going to talk about in this podcast we're going to talk about prioritizing, about planning, about delegation very key point in terms of time management About delegation very key point in terms of time management. Managing time wasters another really important subject to talk about Goal setting and tools and techniques. So, greg, why don't you start us off?
Speaker 1:All right, thanks, john. So let's start off with prioritization. Think about ABCs, right, when we were younger. Abc easy as one, two, three. It's that basic, right? It's that simple.
Speaker 1:The ABC method is a simple prioritization technique that involves categorizing tasks into three levels of importance. Okay, we're going to talk about how to apply the ABC method, looking at things that are high priority, very important and a major significance. Those are A items. B items have medium priority. They're important, but they have medium significance. And then the C items low priority, less important, minor significance, which means if you don't necessarily get them done, it's not necessarily a big deal.
Speaker 1:So the first thing you do is make a list of all of your tasks, assign a priority level A, b or C to each one. So an A, as we said earlier, is a must-do. High priority tasks that are critical, urgent, they're time-sensitive and have significant consequences if you don't complete them. These directly contribute to the company's goals. B these are the things you should do. They're important but not as urgent as an A-TAS. They contribute to the progress but lack severe immediate consequences if you postpone them. And yes, cs, those are those nice to-dos, low-priority tasks that are neither important nor urgent and can be done anytime time allows.
Speaker 1:So the first thing you do you start with those A-TAS, get away from those C-TAS, start with those A-TAS. After you're completing the A-TAS, then move on to your B tasks as we said, still really important and then finally address your C tasks. Regular review of your list to reevaluate priorities, because we know they change sometimes and adjust as new tasks arise or circumstances change. So how do you apply the ABC method? The real power of this tool is, if you're only addressing the C-level assignments, you have a problem. You've got a big problem. Get in there, make the extra effort to get the difficult tasks done first, otherwise the goals are miscoded and those tasks are and you're going to avoid any real or important tasks that are normally a priority to accomplish your job, john.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and just talking about that for a second, I had people prioritize their work and prioritize in our facilities environment. They had A, b and C work orders and it was humorous when they say that I've done, at least you know, 35 hours of work orders this particular week and I would pull all the work orders up and said, yes, every one of them was a C-level work order. Congratulations, you did the stuff that people kind of was interested in. But the things that were really important, like a water leak currently staining the top of the ceiling that might be actually a failure of a water line that you're putting off to next week Not a good idea. That was an A. You should be doing the A's. So it's a great focusing tool and the other part is it helps them in terms of not getting overwhelmed. It reduces that sense that I have issues and I guess the most important part in terms of being overwhelmed, if an individual has nothing but A's on their list, you need to help them and that's something we're going to be talking about a little bit later. You need to help delegate some of those A's so that you're not overwhelming one individual and the person next to them is just doing the C's. It's, you know, looking at that balance to improve the efficiencies, to make sure that you're getting the A's completed. A little bit of that is also called proactive planning, and when I was using it for a work order system, I would actually do that on a Monday and I would review it with the teams on a Friday. Do that on a Monday and I would review it with the teams on a Friday, and it was interesting because there was an engagement on how those priorities were set and they would alter the priorities in order to make it an accomplishment. It was really a good team building skill as well as teaching someone how to plan their job.
Speaker 2:So another way of something that we talked about is delegating and understanding how to handle that delegation. If you're the manager, you should be involved in the process enough to be able to delegate to other teams, to understand their skill sets, to engage with the workforce, to make sure that they're capable, and that also means you might have a training requirement. There might be a way of teaming people up to be more productive. All that's that exchange of information to see how they're handling their tasks. Not only that, but it also builds trust and improves morale because you're engaged in the conversation. It's a culture of sharing that team load and it really opens up the opportunity for innovation. If you have that kind of exchange, you're going to see the team actually grow and if you're a manager, that's the key. This creates at least a platform for communication.
Speaker 2:Some of the benefits of doing this kind of ABC approach and being engaged. It frees up time for you as a manager to work on strategic work, to understand that you need to get to high activity, like five-year planning goals and strategic planning goals. Those are the things that you should be working on at a manager's level To maximize personal and team productivity. In being a manager and understanding the art of delegating, you're going to see a return on that investment of time. You're going to see people grow in terms of strength and maybe you start looking at how you can cross train people at the same time. It is a powerful tool to help leaders to demonstrate that they understand how to grow a team and be able to be competitive. You're not going to be sitting back waiting for something to happen and be reactive. You want to be proactive. Other things in terms of empowerment or helping that team member taking a sense of ownership, that skill level and development and growth all kind of interface interfaces at the same time so that you're helping people to develop new skills, new capacities. That cross-training mentality is probably one of the better times to put two people together and have it as almost like a semi-training moment. That's when you're engaged in making the process work. It increases confidence and motivation with the team because then all of a sudden you're developing that trust and it boosts their responsibility and their confidence at the same time and they'll start volunteering for taking on some of the harder work and it's amazing how that piece of using their skill sets and their own personal involvement feeds on that ability to plan work.
Speaker 2:But the key for me was learning the skills of delegating, and one of my biggest challenges doing that was setting clear expectations. You have to be able to understand what you're asking your team to do and be able to take a look at the larger picture. That may not be one of the things you can do when you first start, but over time that's the key to understand that you're being effective. And you need to make sure that they have the tools in order to succeed, whether it be training or an actual physical component, that whole thing about making an assessment of what they need. I would ask the question at the beginning of the shift is there any tool that you don't have that I need to purchase in order to do the work?
Speaker 2:We have here today, and it's interesting that there were tools that I would constantly have to buy not really that many, but they had to take ownership of making sure that if there was something that they needed, they had to stand up.
Speaker 2:They had to ask for the tool, and it was a wonderful time to exchange, and other people would say well, you know, I need that tool too. Well, that's the whole idea of having that meeting, that trying to work with the teams and develop them at the same time, if you noticed, I'm coaching, and that's the other part of doing this is delegating is also coaching and helping them to help find their own solutions. Not to provide answers, but to ask them challenging questions. Quite often you know that they have the skill set, but they've never worked in a particular part or that particular environment. Show them that you have the confidence in them being able to handle it and it's amazing that that built trust starts to build their confidence and all of a sudden, you fostered a better team. So, greg, what if we want to talk about another challenge in terms of time management?
Speaker 1:Sure thing, john. How about managing time wasters? Sure thing, john. How about managing time wasters? To manage time wasters, minimize distractions by blocking focus and creating a quiet workspace. Reduce interruptions by setting boundaries and using do not disturb modes. There's a lot of electronic devices out there now that will help you protect your time.
Speaker 1:You want to improve meetings by setting clear agendas right Meeting management 101, clear agendas, time limits, shorter default durations, or by implementing a meeting-free day, which I've seen happen in a company I worked at which the employees thought were fantastic and it really did help them manage wasted time, because there's a lot of social media distractions out there, right? So what can we do to help you take care of that? Let's minimize distractions. So block focus time, schedule dedicated blocks of your time on your calendar for focused work and protect that time from interruptions, because we have electronic calendars now. If you don't block it out, somebody can ride in over you and take some of your time for a meeting. Create a productive workspace. Adjust your physical workspace to reduce distractions and improve your focus so it shouldn't be cluttered, chairs should be comfortable, the computer should be set up All those ergonomic things. They do make a difference for keeping you from being distracted. Turn off notifications, that ching, that chime, whatever you hear all the time. My friend John's got a watch that'll do that for him. Silence those notifications on your phone. Computer during focus work periods. Use do not disturb modes. Utilize those do not disturb or voicemail messages to minimize external interruptions.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk about reducing interruptions. First thing you do is you set boundaries, politely set boundaries with coworkers who frequently drop in. We say the drop by, fly by just to chit chat with you. Sometimes that's good, but if you're really focused on something it's not going to be as helpful. So if it's not urgent, you'll catch them at a later time. You'll catch them at lunch, catch them after work. You got to communicate. Let others know when you are unavailable for interruptions and when you can be reached right and give them an out because it might be important or semi-important, probably a B, but it's probably not an A. Give them a chance to make that determination on how to get on your calendar. When to John sent this already.
Speaker 1:Delegate and automate. Identify tasks that can be delegated to others or automated with technology because you're trying to free up your time. Talk a little bit about this in other podcasts, but it's still a big issue Improving meeting efficiency. Set clear agendas and goals. Ensure every meeting has a clear purpose there's an agenda that everybody's been exposed to and define the objectives to keep it focused Right. So good meeting management, john.
Speaker 2:And don't think it's a problem if you write it at the top of the whiteboard before everybody comes in so that they don't get off the subject that they're concentrating on the subject. Make it simple. The more focused you can make that meeting, the better off it's going to be.
Speaker 1:That's right. Also, you want to keep meetings short. You don't have a two-hour meeting just to have a two-hour meeting. If you've got content for a half-hour meeting, then have a half-hour meeting, but run it effectively. Limit meetings to a maximum of 30 minutes or even use a 25-minute default to allow for processing and preparation and also time for people to go to another session, but keep them short.
Speaker 1:Question necessity Regularly assess whether a meeting is truly necessary. Just because you've been having this meeting every month for the last three years, is it getting you anywhere? Is it effective? It's okay to call and say you know what, let's shelve this meeting and do something different. Or if the information could be conveyed through another method, like email or another kind of communication. If you have meetings just to communicate, that may not always be the most effective way to be efficient. Consider meeting-free days. I worked at a company that did that. I remember we had an IT group that loved it and it was incredible. I think it was Thursday and they were so productive on that day. Their spirits were lifted because it was like hey, I can really focus, I can really get some things done, I can knock out that big assignment or put a big dent in it, and that's what you want.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk a little bit about some common distractions. Digital notifications, constant alerts from your email, social media chat apps all that stuff takes you out of your focused work thinking. Social media it's a gift and it's a curse. Right, the habit of mindlessly scrolling through social media feeds is a major productivity drain. It's just not a good way to spend all your time.
Speaker 1:Multitasking, jogging multiple tasks at once actually reduces concentration and increases errors, making you less productive. Because there's been a lot of talk about that hey, I'm a multitasker. That's good. Well, sometimes multitasking is not so good. Disorganization and you know who I'm talking about I might be talking about you. A cluttered physical or digital workspace can make that very difficult to find what you need when you need it. It just wastes time. Chatty co -workers we all have a couple of those, not just on the Monday morning thing or Friday afternoon, but that gossip. It can disrupt your flow and take up significant time. You just have to avoid that. Probably my biggest sin procrastination. This internal time washer involves delaying important tasks. We talked about those A tasks. Don't procrastinate on A tasks, right, that's going to lead to more stress and probably a missed deadline. John.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, we're not trying to be too repetitive, but if the first thing that runs to your mind is I got to minimize the distractions and that's just what Greg has been talking about, let me just reinforce it Schedule a deep work time, a block of time, uninterrupted, and put it on the calendar for everybody to see that you're busy uninterrupted, and put it on the calendar for everybody to see that you're busy. I used to do this, usually between 10 and 12. And then the other piece of it is I wanted to eat lunch and I would put lunch for 30 minutes just for the sake of saying don't call me during my lunch. Now, if you end up, we can make contact, so be it, but that is my time, and there were many occasions where I would go a number of days where I never had lunch. I never took a break. It was from the time I opened the door to the time I left. Those days happen, but it makes more sense to put it on the schedule Control notifications. Disable non-essential notifications on your phone, on your email and on the other apps, because it's just disrupting you and it's going to throw you off that concentration that you're trying to use to get something done like an a-priority. You don't need to be pulled off every five minutes with a distraction. Create a focused environment. Now. Sometimes you cannot create the environment, put up walls and change the physical world, but you can put on noise-canceling headphones or you can do a few things in terms of making a more quiet environment. That's probably the first place to go if you're looking to be able to focus Now.
Speaker 2:This one, I thought, was interesting in researching for this podcast. I haven't heard this one before. A predermal technique. Am I pronouncing it right, greg Pomodoro? Oh, thank you. Okay, I wasn't even close. Well, this is a method that they talk about to focus for 25 minute intervals and then take a break, and it trains your brain to concentrate. I love this technique. This makes a lot of sense because it's probably being more realistic to a work environment and if you can spend that 25 minutes and really, really, really concentrate, you're probably going to see that list at the end of the day that you were doing A and B items, not just C items. That's the key.
Speaker 2:Last one is something that we are repeating again block the websites, block the interference. There's, I guess, apps for that. I know that doesn't surprise anybody that's listening. I don't even want to try to give you the names because it changes like every three months, but there are website blockers that make sense, especially if it becomes really a nuisance. But I think I want to pull back and actually talk about a subject that makes much more sense if you're trying to be effective in terms of time management. It makes much more sense if you're trying to be effective in terms of time management.
Speaker 2:Do the homework. Spend the time in a meeting to set it up so that it can be done effectively and quickly. And what do I mean by that? First, before the meeting, you're sending out the invite and you're telling them. You're giving them the information beforehand and hopefully like the teasers of the presentation, if not the actual presentation, so that your time would be most effective. They know what it is that they're talking about. Put together an agenda. Sometimes people don't do that. Sometimes they talk about it being old school. If you have a complicated issue and you want to try to get it to be a productive 25-minute meeting, spelling out your objectives is an agenda kind of format. Do it, trust me? Next is only invite the right people and limit it. I personally found that meetings that had 10, 12, 15 people were counterproductive. The closer you can be to the core of what you need to get something done. Three to five people is usually the number that worked out the best, greg.
Speaker 1:Yeah, john, just going to mention some podcasts. Ago I mentioned what we used to call one pizza or two pizza meetings.
Speaker 2:Is this a one?
Speaker 1:pizza meeting. Right, there's enough one large pizza, so we need three or four people. Or is this a two pizza meeting? We need a lot more. That's another way to look at limiting the size.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Yeah, yeah, there's more people that go to meetings just to fill in the time and, I think, sometimes get a donut and a cup of coffee. They productively did nothing in the meetings and it's just fascinating to see that actually taking place. The other thing is expectations setting the goals that you're expecting somebody to be able to help with. Not just attend and say that they heard the presentation, but an assignment. What are you supposed to be doing when you are coming to this meeting? We're looking for your help, your decision, your assistance. That's before the meeting.
Speaker 2:Now, when you're in the actual meeting, here is the newsflash, and it sometimes is a hard thing for a lot of people to get used to Start on time, especially if you want to do 25 minutes. It is respectful of everybody else's agendas, everybody else's time, everybody else's conversations. Don't let the conversations drift. Stay on the subject and usually telling people we want to make this quick, let's pull it back in and boom, you're back on your subject. It really does help in order to get something productive Nine times out of 10,. The reason that you're pulling a team together is you're giving out assignments, which is called action items, and you're going to give them not only just a blank sheet of paper. It's an action item. It's an expectation of when it's going to be done. It talks about key deliverables. This is a document that is also supported in terms of you writing up what was talked about in the meeting. You see how that kind of combines. It's. Also when it's written, people can have convenient memory when they were given an assignment and never did it. And by putting simple documentation and if you're spending more than 100 words on your documentation, you're not using your time. Well, make it short, make it brief, make it to the point.
Speaker 2:Next is encourage participation. Don't be sitting and telling people. It's supposed to be an exchange. You want to make sure that you're facilitating the process and the other part is trying to maybe manage the overly vocal people that have their opinion, that want to drive a net result. Unless you think that deviation from your original plan for the meeting makes sense, you have to pull them back.
Speaker 2:Last point of in the meeting is banning those interrupters again. Banning phones, banning pagers. Yes, everybody's important. The only time that I've seen this not work very well is in the hospital environment and the doctor gets a call. Sorry, trump card. They have to answer that call. It could be about their pizza, you wouldn't know, but they have life and death decisions.
Speaker 2:That's not the time to talk about your rules of the meeting. And then, after the meeting this is the part that I think is most frustrating Send a follow-up to make sure that the action items and the key points that were talked about during the meeting were clear, that people understand the next step, they understand the timetables that are associated with it. It promotes accountability. And then something that I've seen that sometimes in the meetings, when they have enough time, but after the meetings, is ask for feedback what did we do? How did we do? What did we miss? What did you like? What didn't you like? Anything to try to get that feedback, to say that there's somebody out there and they're receiving your message. That's really important to know that you're doing a good job. Greg, I think you have one last point.
Speaker 1:I do, john. The meeting after the meeting. So I worked in a situation where we had a fairly senior person, had their staff meetings on Friday afternoon, working on projects that were going to how they were going to handle them, and they would wrestle around and come up with a decision, a united agreement on okay, here's the way we're going. People went home for the weekend, come back in on Monday morning and the senior leader said no, I thought about it all weekend. I don't want to go that route, I want to go a whole different route. And it was very frustrating for the team, and I suspect that the senior leader really didn't get his agenda in place the way he wanted, and so it was very disruptive. It was very challenging for folks. We worked through it, we found a way to make sure that it didn't happen again, but it's just a waste of time. It was just really a waste of time.
Speaker 2:I think when we were talking about this offline, it was kind of funny because, like, the entire team was like what is he doing? Yes, it's the executive and you're getting the pushback in the HR department going. What are you doing? You had to call up the executive. It's like no, that's not how meetings work.
Speaker 1:Yes, and sadly, john, it wasn't just one meeting, this was a frequent kind of action.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's even worse. Yes, so meetings are important in terms of time management and time wasters. If you do it right, it's a it's a great tool. If you don't do it to the point where it's exhausting, it's an effective tool. Um, so hopefully you like what you've heard. I've written a book called building your leadership toolbox and we talk about tools like this and it's available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and other sites.
Speaker 2:The podcast is what you've been listening to. Thank you so much. It's also available on Apple, google and Spotify. A lot of what we talk about is from Dr Durst and his MBR program. If you'd like to know more about Dr Durst and his MBR program. If you'd like to know more about Dr Durst, you can find out on successgrowthacademycom and if you'd like to contact us, please send me a line. That's wando75.jw at gmailcom, and the music has been brought to you by my grandson, so we want to hear from you. Drop me a line, tell me what's going on, what you like and what you would like to hear about. It has always helped us to create content. Thanks, greg, this was fun.
Speaker 1:Thanks, john, as always.
Speaker 2:Next time yeah.