WEBVTT - Realistic time management, with Kelly Nolan 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:09.280 Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning, 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:14.600 This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:17.280 episode will be a longer one part of the series 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:20.520 where I interview fascinating people about how they take their 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:23.159 days from great to awesome and any advice they have 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:26.080 for the rest of us. So today I am excited 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:29.400 to be interviewing Kelly Nolan. Kelly is a time management 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:32.280 expert and the host of the Bright Method podcast. So, Kelly, 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:33.200 welcome to the show. 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:35.200 Thank you so much for having me. It's a joy 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:35.640 to be here. 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:38.120 Yeah, excited to have you. So tell our listeners a 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:39.199 little bit about yourself. 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.120 Sure thing, My name's Kelly Nolan. I was a patent 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:45.840 litigator for years and had been decently organized up until 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:48.879 that point of my life, and quickly got overwhelmed when 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:51.920 I became an attorney and I looked for help, didn't 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:55.560 really find anything. That's stuck at the time, and slowly 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.360 pieced together my own weird little time management system and 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:00.760 kept practicing law. I thought I was kind of creating 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:04.240 a system to get me where everybody else was, and 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:07.000 it wasn't here till years later that I realized other 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:08.960 people felt the way I felt, And so that's the 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.520 time management system I teach now, the Bright Method. In addition, 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:15.200 I'm married to any our physician, so I get very 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:18.360 wacky ever changing schedules. We have two little girls, a 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:19.960 seven year old and a three and a half year old, 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:22.959 and our original baby, our black lab Alice. 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:25.480 That sounds wonderful, so a full house as well. 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:26.440 Well. 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:29.640 It's interesting when you say you know you were feeling overwhelmed, 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:31.720 What was it that made you overwhelmed? I mean, is 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:34.720 it the volume of incoming stuff, the requests like weird hours? 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:36.920 I mean, what was it that? Yeah, when people say 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:40.039 they're overwhelmed, what do they tend to mean? I think 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:40.559 it was the. 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:42.800 First time in my life I just felt like the 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:48.160 input kind of outstepped what my systems could keep track of. 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:50.880 I love paper planners. I'd loved them all the way 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:53.840 through law school. I had worked before becoming a lawyer, 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:57.120 but usually in a little bit more maybe manageable settings 0:01:57.480 --> 0:01:59.760 where people were kind of like looking out for your 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:02.240 work and helping you manage that. And when you become 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:04.840 an attorney, especially in big law, like I worked for 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:07.680 multiple different partners, so no one really had eyes on 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:09.360 everything I was doing. It was up to me to 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:12.120 manage my workload. But I didn't also really realize that. 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:15.359 It sounds silly, but you're just you're like assuming that 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:17.280 what the work coming at you is reasonable, or else 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:20.120 they wouldn't ask you to do it. And so there 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:23.440 was that the volume of email went up exponentially based 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:27.760 on anything I dealt with. And I'm managing multiple matters 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:30.080 that have no relation to each other, so you know, 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:32.960 deadlines are set without worrying about what's going on in 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:36.560 my other matters. And it's just a sheer amount of 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:40.359 volume of managing clients and you know, documents and information 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:42.320 and all this kind of stuff. And then the expectation 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:45.160 that you know you're really supposed to be on. You know, 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:47.160 as a junior associate in big law firm, your job 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:50.200 is make everybody else's life easier. And so there was 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:52.400 just a lot of demand. And I will say that 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:55.560 when I say overwhelmed, I looked like I had it together. 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:58.200 I hit deadlines. You know, it wasn't like I was 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:00.880 a mess, but inside it's how I felt. I just 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:03.520 felt stretched, way too thin, anxious I was going to 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:06.240 drop a ball. I'd be like out with friends and 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:08.680 not able to focus on their stories because I'd be 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:10.800 worrying about work and I just was like, this cannot be. 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:13.680 I reject that this is what adult life feels like. 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.120 Well, what do most people get wrong? Like when they 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:19.080 have a high volume of work? What are they doing 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:20.680 wrong as they're managing it? 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:23.080 You know that took me a while. I mean for 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:25.360 a long time, I really blamed myself. I'd had these 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:28.520 systems that got me far, and I was kind of like, well, 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.360 these systems work, so it must be me, and I 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.120 think what I So for a long time I beat 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:36.400 up myself. I was like a character flaw in my head, 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:38.560 where in reality it was just a system failure that 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:41.680 couldn't keep up anymore. And I think that the biggest 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:44.880 thing we get wrong on time management is assuming we 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:47.280 should know how to do it naturally, and so when 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:50.840 we struggle, we blame ourselves and in reality we just 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:52.840 need to change some things up. In terms of what 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:56.120 to change up, I just think that the amount that 0:03:56.200 --> 0:04:01.320 we juggle in our heads is amazing but also weighs 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:03.200 down our brain from the stuff that we should be 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:06.080 doing with it. And so a starting point that I 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:07.560 like to work on with clients. That I had to 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:09.560 do myself is just get it all out of your 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:12.280 head and into a tool that helps you manage time, 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:14.080 because all of these things come back to time, and 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.560 for me, that's I really lean on a digital calendar now, 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:20.000 despite being a paper lover. I just think that it 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:23.920 really helps with that organization in an efficient way, and 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.160 it's really getting everything out of your head into the calendar, 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.479 so you know down to yes, the tasks that we 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:32.159 do at work, but also when do you shower and 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:34.560 get ready? When do you cook meals? When if you 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:36.240 have little kids, do you do bed and bath time 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:38.080 with kids? If you have older kids, when do you 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:40.800 do homework? What are all the activities when you drive? 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:43.720 Between all the activities? Like lay it all out, because 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:46.800 I think that that gives you a better sense of 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:50.039 what your actual capacity is to take on anything else. 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.080 And I think that's the tricky part is when I 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:55.960 was drowning at work, I knew I was drowning. I 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:59.120 knew that I was overwhelmed, but I didn't know if 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:01.760 it was reasonable for me to feel that way given 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:04.880 my workload. And it wasn't until I made everything in 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:07.880 my life and everything in work visual that I had 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:11.400 a more objective understanding of what my workload was in 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:15.160 relation to my capacity, which helped me manage my workload 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.120 and also helped me feel far more confident in drawing 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:21.080 workload boundaries at work and dealing with the pushback and 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:21.680 managing that. 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:24.600 Well, what is it about a digital calendar that makes 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:26.120 that more effective? I mean, I can tell you I 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:28.160 use a paper calendar, and I know I'm a bit 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.000 of a dinosaur that way. I mean, people send me 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:33.200 invites like calendar invites. I'm like, they go somewhere. 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:33.640 I don't know. 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:38.240 I just but you know, I tend to manage my 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:41.679 life on paper and that has worked for me. But honestly, 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:43.160 I know if I were in a big corporation that 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:45.560 would just be a no go. But what is it 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:47.960 about the digital part, as opposed to it being a 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:50.560 necessary evil being in an organization that you think helps 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:52.960 make it easier to organize yourself? 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:56.000 Well, first things first, I never my position is not 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:59.279 everybody should be using my method. So paper is working 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.200 for you know, obviously you and anyone listening stick with it. 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:04.400 You know, I'm not saying no, you should use mine 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.599 if you have struggled with it, and you were like 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.120 me who had used paper and it just couldn't keep up. 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.000 To your point, I mean, half of my work was 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:15.000 on already in an outlook calendar being scheduled for me 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.680 and moved around, and it just became inefficient to also 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:19.880 write it on paper and keep up with it. There. 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:22.520 There are a couple of reasons. One, the communication factor 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:25.560 is awesome. So you know, obviously in a work environment, 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:29.080 digital allows you to send calendar invites, share calendars, all 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:30.320 that kind of stuff, and you can do that at 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.720 home as well. So I particularly work with women, and 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:35.919 that helps a lot with sharing the mental load is 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.839 having these calendars that partners also see, so you're not 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:41.760 like the house I think a lot of women tend 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:45.400 to still be very generally speaking in heterosexual couples, tend 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:47.919 to be the quarterbacks of the calendar and the house management. 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:50.080 But they're also not the secretaries and the keeper, like 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:52.800 the only person who has the information when you'd use digital, 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:58.080 you know, going to the calendaring, like the invisible to 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:00.920 do list stuff. I was talking about something that you can, 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:04.400 you know, schedule repetitively every workday or every Monday Wednesday, 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:06.400 Thursday or all that kind of stuff, and then drag 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:08.720 them around and move them around as you need. I'm 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:12.440 a very firm proponent of flexible time blocking and moving 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:15.160 things around. But I just find that if you were 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:17.239 going to write out, let's say, shower and get ready 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:19.640 every day when you're gonna do it, that would get 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.600 really tedious at a calendar, in a paper calendar, and 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:24.200 I would not judge you for being like, this is 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:26.080 a waste of my time. But you can do that 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:28.360 easily in a digital one and then move it around 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:31.880 other things like backups is one thing. I've had a 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:35.240 client who lost a paper planner and that stinks, you know, 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:37.080 And there are just some other reasons like that, But 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:40.080 on the whole, it's just that, like, for me, that 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:43.280 efficiency of calendaring everything and being able to move it 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:46.240 around quickly into new plans is really where a digital 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:47.239 calendar really shines. 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.440 Yeah, well, it's getting at this idea that all tasks 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.720 take time, and so you have to give them a time. 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:55.920 And if there isn't a time within your twenty four 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:57.520 hour day and one hundred and sixty eight hour week, 0:07:57.520 --> 0:07:58.440 well we have a problem. 0:07:58.560 --> 0:07:58.760 Yep. 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:00.960 So we're gonna take a quick ad break, and then 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:10.120 I will be back with more from Kelly Nolan. Well, 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:12.600 I am back talking with Kelly Nolan, who is a 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.119 time management expert. She's the founder of the Bright Method, 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.280 which we are now going to talk about. We've been 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:19.520 learning about, you know, calendaring all our stuff, and I 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:21.360 know that that is a important first step in this, 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:23.600 but why don't you talk about what the Bright method 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:26.440 is so people have a sense of what you're talking 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:26.840 about here? 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:29.480 Sure thing? So I think that a tricky part with 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:32.360 time management that I know you know, Laura, is I 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:34.560 think a lot of these concepts are talked about as 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.400 if they're relatively easy, and then you go to implement 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:40.520 it can be kind of challenging. And so really what 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:43.040 the Bright Method is is walking people through how to 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:45.839 use a lot of these tools at our disposal. You know, 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:47.520 I'm a tennis player. I wouldn't give you a top 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:49.480 of the line tennis racket and be like now you're set, 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:51.600 Like you have to learn the strategy and like how 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:55.439 you will employ it to have success. And so basically 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:59.000 what we do is we leverage digital calendars, whether it's Outlook, Google, Apple, 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:02.480 some combination of them, and then walk through kind of 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.560 four pillars. The first pillar is getting clear on that 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:08.240 invisible to do list. I already talked about calendaring that 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.200 out and also setting up the calendar to be able 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:12.960 to do that. That can be its own headache and 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:14.600 my least favorite part of it, but it is what 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.120 it is. So we tackle it at the outset and 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:19.520 then really get clear on those invisible to dos and 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:24.040 make sure your baseline works, and also issue spot challenges 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.120 and adapt those so you might You know, it could 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:29.080 be something as simple as, oh, I'm trying to squeeze 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:30.840 an hour and a half of stuff into an hour 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:33.079 every morning, and that's why every morning feels the way 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.440 it does. And if I showered the night before four 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:38.640 times a week, that would be great, and then it 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.320 just kind of frees up space. The next step is 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.240 doing somewhat the same in the work environment, so figuring 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:47.320 out email, when you hold meetings, the repetitive work things 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:48.960 you do, like if you know, set up for board 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:51.840 meetings or you know, do financial reviews at times, like 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:55.199 building out those repetitive work tasks, and then again that 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:57.760 then shows you the white space of what actual time 0:09:57.880 --> 0:09:59.840 you have to give to the more one off stuff, 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:02.040 assuming you have white space. I know a lot of 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:04.680 people in corporate America are like, it's like a whole 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:06.920 day of meetings. I don't have any white space. But 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:09.640 then we can work on blocking availability to give you 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.640 that white space in there. That then in the third 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:15.320 pillar we turn to the one off to dos and 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:18.000 start filling in that white space with the plans of 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:19.920 what you're going to do. And I'll just note here 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:22.880 that when people talk time blocking, this is often where 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:24.960 people start. They take their to do list and very 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:28.120 understandably start time blocking. But if you have an accountant 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:30.480 for all the things that we talked about before, that 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.240 can lead to a lot of frustration because you calendar 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:35.800 eight hours of beautiful things to do, but you never 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.000 had eight hours to begin with to do it. And 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:40.720 so that helps with that element of it. And then 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.559 the final component is planning. I teach a couple different 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.360 planning sessions. The main one is a weekly planning session, 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:49.680 where essentially you take all the inputs that have flown 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.320 at you over the course of a week, calendar them out, 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:54.720 and then review the next two weeks. And it's also 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:56.760 in that first step you know time to check in 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:59.440 on all your major projects, look ahead at major deadlines, 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:01.920 make sure you've act everything out so you have game 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:04.480 plans laid out in your calendar to hit those, and 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:07.160 then really I like smoothing out the next two weeks 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:09.080 at a time, just so that you know you're looking 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:11.120 ahead a little bit farther than just the next week. 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.079 Yeah, So let's talk about a couple of things with here. 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:18.320 I mean, one is, we're trying to calendar everything, and 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:22.559 as we all know, life changes and and you know, 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:26.640 we had white space from two to four in the afternoon, 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:29.760 and then the magic happens and there's no white space 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:33.240 between two and four beca something you know, urgent came 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:36.760 up that we have to deal with. So how do 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:39.640 how often do we need to recalibrate? Like how far 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:41.640 can we plan out with these things? I mean, what 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:43.880 what do we do to make sure that we are 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:47.800 giving tasks time but acknowledging that we cannot one hundred 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:50.079 percent control what time will be available. 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:54.720 Absolutely absolutely, So one of the big things I would 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:56.520 say is just like take a step, and this is 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:58.760 not perfect. It's not going to like solve all the issues. 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:00.600 You know, a sick kid home for or five days 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:02.960 is going to derail the best of plans, but we 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:05.920 do what we can. And in a lot of work environments, 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:09.480 a lot of people spend their day dealing with the curveballs, 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:13.320 the fires, the reactive stuff, and there are different ways 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.360 we can get at that. I really like thinking about, 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.800 especially for people managers, that might be where your value is. 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:22.839 Your company wants you in that firefighting role versus the 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:26.120 headstone work, and so we just need to acknowledge where 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:28.600 our value is. First of all, we can work to 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.280 eliminate some of the curve balls, but it's not realistic 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:33.840 to eliminate all of them. So what I like doing 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:38.959 is thinking about even though the curveballs are unpredictable in substance, 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:42.720 they are predictable and that we know they're coming usually 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:45.320 not Again, it's harder in the personal life, but in 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.120 our work life. Most people will say I deal with 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:50.360 thirty minutes of curveballs a day. I deal with five 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:52.680 hours of curveballs a day. But there's some sort of 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:57.040 awareness of how many curveballs hours of curveballs you might 0:12:57.120 --> 0:12:59.640 deal with, and so we just plot those into the calendar. 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.240 And I know that sounds weird, but essentially what I 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:06.560 like doing is making visual your curve balls three hours, 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:08.880 five hours, two hours, half an hour, whatever it is, 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:11.040 and kind of putting it towards the end of your day. 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:13.920 And you can move them around as those blocks, as 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:17.480 like meetings get booked or things like that. But it's 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.080 a visual reminder to you that about that much time 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:22.200 of curveballs is coming, and do not fill up the 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:25.240 rest of the day or else this plan, you know, 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:27.960 isn't going to work. And if you don't have it 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:30.199 every day, some people more like you know, it's more 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:32.760 like three to four hours a week, and so maybe 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:36.560 block a Thursday afternoon and all this curveball is is 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:39.320 obviously you're not only dealing with curve balls at the 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:41.960 end of your day or on Thursday afternoons, but you're 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:44.560 building in the cushion in the rest of your schedule 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:46.840 for everything else to get pushed into as they go. 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:48.640 So again, it's just in one of those things we're 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:50.800 making visual that we usually are trying to juggle in 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:52.559 our head that kind of trips us up when we're 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:53.680 planning well. 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.000 And of course the million dollar question there is how 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:59.600 do I create open space for this this buffer. I 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:02.600 mean a lot of people are very booked. As you said, 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:04.840 you get everything out of your head, you may realize 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:10.040 that you're dealing with many tasks that could occupy all 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:13.360 eight or more hours of the day. So what should 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:16.880 we do to set boundaries or to get more open 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:18.200 space in our schedules. 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:21.320 Well, one is just to start blocking it now and 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:23.880 know that if you block it now and repeat it 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:27.800 on a weekly basis over time, hopefully it shakes out. 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:30.520 I will say it depends on the culture. I have 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:33.480 had clients who've had to instead of blocking like a 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:37.200 two hour block for focused heads down work, they'll block 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:39.680 four half hour blocks, so they look like meetings and 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.400 are a little bit more camouflaged and less people are 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:44.880 apt to take it over. I wish that weren't the case, 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:48.000 but you know, we work with reality here and so 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:50.760 there's that I will. But you know, a lot of 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.840 people I work with realize, whether it's meetings taking up 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.040 your time or just sheer workload volume, that they have 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:59.040 too much on their plate, and it's the first time. 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:01.320 I mean that is the simple elegance of any calendar 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:04.960 you use, paper or digital. If those boxes don't fit 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:07.760 in a day, you're objectively trying to do too much 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:11.120 and so making it all visual can flag that for you. 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:16.000 When that happens, I like people starting to think about 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:18.480 the conversation. I mean, if you can make the decisions 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:19.840 you know, to latter like go for it. A lot 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.960 of people have to have conversations with leadership around workload 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:26.880 and really getting clear on you know, as I sit 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:28.920 here today, this is what I view as like our 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:31.880 departments or our companies or whatever's top priority, these are 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:34.680 the three projects that will serve that I therefore recommend 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.080 we you know, work on these. We table these for 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:39.680 you know, next quarter, six months from now, whatever it is. 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:41.800 This will free up you know, ten hours a day 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.720 for me, for my team whatever to really ensure that 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:46.680 we hit the you know, knock these projects out of 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:49.080 the park and see what they say. You know, I've 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:54.080 had I've been pleasantly surprised at how many clients go 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:56.440 to their bosses and have those conversations and the bosses 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:57.760 are like, I had no idea you were in this 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.520 many meetings every day, or I didn't know you had 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:03.120 twelve priorities set across four departments that are pulling on 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:07.240 our department and help them prioritize I've also had clients 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:09.240 and I've been in it myself where they're like, figure 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:13.280 it out, and that answer, while very frustrating to hear, 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:17.080 it does something to your brain. You stop, you know, selling, 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:19.160 like putting work as your number one when you're like, 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:21.040 these people are not going to work. Look out for me. 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:24.400 I gotta start redefining what success looks like for me. 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:26.120 I'm not saying you have to leave. I know in 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:29.320 this work environment it's totally wacky, but there are It 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:31.440 just does something to you in terms of what you 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:34.200 are willing to do for a company that's not if 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.520 you know that you cannot you literally cannot win by 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:39.360 their rules. So you define your own rules of what 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:40.120 winning looks like. 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:43.080 Absolutely, well, we should always be defining our own rules 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:45.440 of what wedding looks like. Big fan of that around here. 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:47.120 All right, We're going to take one more quick ad 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:48.560 break and then I will be back with more from 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:58.000 Kelly Nolan. Well, I am back with Kelly Nolan, who 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:00.280 is the time management expert and the founder of the 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:04.159 Bright Method. So Kelly, let's pivot to you and your 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.560 own personal productivity practices. I'm curious if you have any 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:09.840 routines that help make you more productive. 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:12.840 You know, I think about routines. A lot of mine 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:15.840 are born out of the principle of just like embracing 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:20.040 reality and the reality of my own brain myself. I 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:22.439 think a lot of times we demand that we change 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:24.320 and you know, get more discipline and all that kind 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:27.400 of stuff, and for me, that's never been very effective, 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:30.040 and so it's more like, Okay, my brain is not 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:31.800 going to remember all this stuff on my own. And 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:35.359 that's where the bright method came out of. Another one is, 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:38.960 you know, social media and phones are highly addictive, and 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:41.240 they're designed to be by a lot of very smart people. 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:44.600 And so instead of just demanding I have more discipline 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:46.800 and failing at that every day and beating myself up, 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:49.560 it's using also other apps that are designed to help. 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:54.240 So I personally love opal Opa l it blocks me 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:57.280 out of social media. I have it blocked me out 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:01.440 of Instagram, Facebook, and I also Safari browser every day 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:04.159 from four fifteen I think to five thirty when I 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:06.760 want to be really focused on my kids, and eight 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:09.679 pm to five am to protect my sleep. And so 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:12.000 it's just you know, acknowledging I don't do this on 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:14.439 my own, so let me help myself out doing it. 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:16.359 And the last thing that came to mind is I 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:18.879 was thinking about this was you know, in terms of 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:20.960 just building these routines and figuring out what fits in 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:23.480 your life, is just really acknowledging what phase of life 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:25.920