Speaker 1: Just prioritize better. It's kind of like, don't worry. It's
Speaker 1: not a very helpful thing to say to people, right,
Speaker 1: Like if someone.
Speaker 2: Is worried, you just don't don't worry. Oh I'm not
Speaker 2: worried now, right, you know.
Speaker 3: My guest today is New York Times best selling author
Speaker 3: CRUs Gillibo, and today I am so excited to be
Speaker 3: talking to him about his new book, Time Anxiety, and
Speaker 3: the brilliant strategies that he has developed to help us
Speaker 3: break free from time guilt, deadline dread, and chronic rushing.
Speaker 1: If we say the time is our most precious resource,
Speaker 1: like we should be even more attentive, you know, to
Speaker 1: like cleaning up the calendar and removing things where we can.
Speaker 3: Tell me what is email? Bankruptcy?
Speaker 1: So I've got all of these messages, you know, in
Speaker 1: my in box. It's not like a huge number. I
Speaker 1: mean some people that have thousands. But sometimes things just
Speaker 1: get too far behind and it's not really going to
Speaker 1: be that helpful. If somebody wrote three months ago needing
Speaker 1: something urgently but just dealing with whatever they were asking about,
Speaker 1: they don't clearly don't need it now.
Speaker 2: So I just.
Speaker 3: Welcome to how I work a show about habits, rituals,
Speaker 3: and strategies for optimizing your date. I'm your host, doctor
Speaker 3: Amantha imber.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: Chris, you have written a book about time anxiety, which
Speaker 3: is like, when I picked it up, I thought, Wow,
Speaker 3: that sounds like an interesting concept, but what is it?
Speaker 3: So can you tell me what is time anxiety?
Speaker 1: I think of it as the fear of running out
Speaker 1: of time while simultaneously feeling really uncertain or hesitant over
Speaker 1: how to spend the time that we have, and so
Speaker 1: this kind of manifests in different ways and such. But
Speaker 1: I noticed when I was just writing the book and
Speaker 1: talking with people about it, not even formally, but informally,
Speaker 1: I was just be chatting with people and they would say,
Speaker 1: what are you doing. I'm like, oh, I'm working on
Speaker 1: this thing called time anxiety. And there would be almost
Speaker 1: a very very strong visceral response to it. And so
Speaker 1: many people would say, like, I don't know what it is,
Speaker 1: but I have that Like that's me, right, And so
Speaker 1: there's lots of different ways that people experience it, but
Speaker 1: I think generally speaking, it's like just some uncertainty or
Speaker 1: hesitation or even dread around how we spend our time
Speaker 1: and maybe I'm running out of time or I'm too
Speaker 1: late for something.
Speaker 3: How was it showing up in your life when you
Speaker 3: first started working on this book.
Speaker 1: I would say it was the overarching problem of my life.
Speaker 1: It was something that affected me just all the time.
Speaker 1: I thought about it all the time, and I constantly thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm too late, I feel regret over choices I've made or.
Speaker 2: Have not made, or it's just like a whole lot
Speaker 2: of things. Right.
Speaker 1: It's like, I feel like there's so much I want
Speaker 1: to do. And you know, a lot of like books
Speaker 1: and tools and systems are all about how to optimize
Speaker 1: and to delegate or outsource or like to get rid
Speaker 1: of all the things that you don't want to do.
Speaker 1: And I think that's helpful, you know, to a point.
Speaker 1: But for me, it was like, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things I want to do, Like there's still things like
Speaker 1: there's more that I want to do than I'm able
Speaker 1: to do, clearly, and that's ultimately how it is for.
Speaker 2: All of us.
Speaker 1: But I just felt like, there's this phrase that I
Speaker 1: use in the book, and it's not even my own phrase.
Speaker 1: This is something that I heard from a lot of
Speaker 1: people over and over, but once I heard it, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh yeah, I latched onto it. It was
Speaker 1: there's something I should be doing, but I don't know
Speaker 1: what it is, Like there's something that I right now
Speaker 1: I feel like I should be doing something or maybe
Speaker 1: working towards something, but I can't quite tell what it is.
Speaker 2: It's this vague sense of discontent.
Speaker 3: I completely and utterly relate to that. I was thinking
Speaker 3: about you, like I was reading the book and like
Speaker 3: it's just so great. I love what you have created.
Speaker 3: I was wondering, like about Chris. Now when you wake
Speaker 3: up the book is written all the concepts that hopefully
Speaker 3: absorbed into your bloodstream, Like do you still experience time anxiety?
Speaker 3: And is it showing up in a different way for you?
Speaker 1: I mean, I haven't solved all the problems of the world,
Speaker 1: or even all my own problems, for sure. I think
Speaker 1: what I have is a lot more understanding and insight,
Speaker 1: you know. I started writing the book out of a
Speaker 1: place of discontent and dissatisfaction, and not quite like hopelessness,
Speaker 1: but a little bit of despair, you know, or a
Speaker 1: little bit like creeping towards despair. And I think I
Speaker 1: ended the process, which is like a two year process
Speaker 1: of research and writing. I ended it feeling much more helpful.
Speaker 1: So that's something you know, that's not nothing, as.
Speaker 3: We could say, definitely, what do you do now? Like
Speaker 3: if you wake up and you're thinking about the day
Speaker 3: ahead and you're feeling that sense of, oh my goodness,
Speaker 3: I just feel like I've got so much to do
Speaker 3: and I don't know how I'm going to fit it
Speaker 3: in this day. What have become your go to habits
Speaker 3: or rituals or strategies When you wake up with that
Speaker 3: sense of I don't know how I'm going to get
Speaker 3: it all done today, you're.
Speaker 2: Feeling a little twitchy. At least that's how I feel sometimes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean there's like two different directions there, and the
Speaker 1: first one is like, so there are two types of
Speaker 1: time anxiety, and one is existential of like, you know,
Speaker 1: time is running out in my life. And for that
Speaker 1: I kind of learned to reframe my thinking around legacy.
Speaker 1: I used to be into this concept of like leave
Speaker 1: a legacy, and that was like an operating principle or
Speaker 1: a driver for me, and I've kind of let go
Speaker 1: of that, like to a large degree, just because I
Speaker 1: like so much about legacy is outside of our control,
Speaker 1: and it's also a lot of pressure, you know, whereas
Speaker 1: if we can focus on living well, like whatever that
Speaker 1: looks like, and that still includes like being of service
Speaker 1: to others and hopefully trying to build something and you know,
Speaker 1: all those things, it just it feels a lot better
Speaker 1: to me. So that's like the bigger picture. But then
Speaker 1: you know, to your point about you wake up and
Speaker 1: it's like, oh what do I do? I'm still somewhat
Speaker 1: kind of triaging, which I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: are like, Oh, I've got all this stuff and this
Speaker 1: goes here and this goes there. But maybe I just
Speaker 1: understand a little bit more that I have to create
Speaker 1: constraints and limitations. One of the key parts of the
Speaker 1: book is like you have to decide for yourself what
Speaker 1: is enough, you know, for any particular day or any
Speaker 1: particular project, or you know, whatever cycle that you think on.
Speaker 1: And so I have to understand that there are some
Speaker 1: limitations out there, like I have a limited amount of
Speaker 1: cognitive attention and there's only so many things I can do,
Speaker 1: So I have to somehow set these constraints and live
Speaker 1: with them. And I think what I was trying to
Speaker 1: do before, So I'm still goal oriented. I still like
Speaker 1: to work on things like I haven't become like a
Speaker 1: complete minimalist or a monk, you know, but I think
Speaker 1: like understanding, Okay, there's only so much I can commit to,
Speaker 1: and I try to avoid those situations I guess in
Speaker 1: the first place of like feeling over committed. And if
Speaker 1: I do get into them, and it's like, okay, what
Speaker 1: can I do to kind of like unpack myself back
Speaker 1: to a place of more stability as opposed to how
Speaker 1: do I get all of it done? You know, because
Speaker 1: that's probably not going to happen.
Speaker 3: There's a practice that you talk about in the book
Speaker 3: where you recommend looking I think at the week ahead
Speaker 3: in your calendar and asking yourself, what are just two
Speaker 3: things that I could take out? Tell me about, like
Speaker 3: if you were to do that today looking ahead. We're
Speaker 3: recording this on a Tuesday. Tell me how you go
Speaker 3: through that process.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I call it time decluttering, because you know, everybody's familiar
Speaker 1: with like tidying up your office or your home or
Speaker 1: your space and like getting rid of objects that don't
Speaker 1: bring you joy or whatever.
Speaker 2: And I think that's good and helpful.
Speaker 1: But you know, if we say the time is our
Speaker 1: most precious resource, like we should be even more attentive,
Speaker 1: you know, to like cleaning up the calendar and removing
Speaker 1: things where we can. So what would it look like
Speaker 1: for me? I guess I would just scan forward a
Speaker 1: little bit and see, you know, is there anything I
Speaker 1: was added to that I don't need to be added to.
Speaker 1: Is there anything that I have set up that I
Speaker 1: can say, actually, this could be handled another way. It's
Speaker 1: not only work things too, it's also like other life things.
Speaker 1: If I'm not as excited about this thing, do I
Speaker 1: have to do it? And it's just kind of like
Speaker 1: some questions that I ask.
Speaker 3: I know that something else that you do is you
Speaker 3: arrive ten to fifteen minutes early before things, which I
Speaker 3: could relate to. Because I'm an early person, I.
Speaker 2: Can see that. I imagine that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so often I'll arrive five minutes early. But when
Speaker 3: I read that, I thought, oh, ten to fifteen minutes early.
Speaker 3: I can see why that is appealing, because if you
Speaker 3: aim to arrive five minutes early, it's very easy for
Speaker 3: traffic to be unpredictable and for that five minutes early
Speaker 3: to become five minutes late. And I get very stressed
Speaker 3: out when I'm late, like in anordinate amount of stress
Speaker 3: considering how little it will affect the other person. But
Speaker 3: arriving ten to fifteen minutes early for appointments, is this
Speaker 3: something that you do religiously, Like when you look at
Speaker 3: your diary, are you always that early? What does that
Speaker 3: look like?
Speaker 1: No, I'm not always that early and been late to things,
Speaker 1: and it's very stressful. I think actually most people find
Speaker 1: it stressful to be late, even those who are chronically late.
Speaker 1: And we all like have those friends you know who
Speaker 1: are like always late to meet or maybe we are
Speaker 1: that friend sometimes. I don't think anybody likes it. I
Speaker 1: think it does create a disproportionate amount of stress, and
Speaker 1: it's a pretty simple way to fix it, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's hard for people. It's hard for people to
Speaker 1: like leave ten to fifteen minutes earlier. It's not so
Speaker 1: much about always arriving ten to fifteen minutes early for something,
Speaker 1: it's just adding that buffer of time between transitions, like
Speaker 1: giving yourself more time for transitions.
Speaker 2: I think is something that can.
Speaker 1: Bring a lot of relief to people, like a disproportionate
Speaker 1: amount of relief. And so if you're feeling like a
Speaker 1: high amount of stress for always being late. Here's a
Speaker 1: high amount of relief giving yourself more time, and I
Speaker 1: think people are often reluctant to do it because they
Speaker 1: feel like, oh, I just I can get one more
Speaker 1: thing done, you know, and it's really hard for them
Speaker 1: to let go of that one more thing. But if
Speaker 1: you're always being ten to fifteen minutes late, and then
Speaker 1: you start giving yourself ten to fifteen minutes more time,
Speaker 1: you're just going.
Speaker 2: To be on time. You're actually not going to be
Speaker 2: like super early. Right.
Speaker 1: Most people don't go from being like a chronically late
Speaker 1: person to being always fifteen minutes early?
Speaker 3: Are you chronically early?
Speaker 1: I try to be and I always have things to do, right,
Speaker 1: I guess that's the thing. Like you, Like you have
Speaker 1: your phone, I have my bag, I usually have my laptop.
Speaker 1: I have a book, Like I have papers and things.
Speaker 1: So it's not like I'm worried about what will I
Speaker 1: do if I get to the restaurant ten minutes before
Speaker 1: the person I'm supposed to meet. There's always some way
Speaker 1: to occupy one's time.
Speaker 3: We will be back with Chris soon, and when we're back,
Speaker 3: we will get into how Chris sorts his priorities when
Speaker 3: everything feels important and the bold email strategy he uses
Speaker 3: to fight time anxiety even if it ticks people off,
Speaker 3: and why he's completely fine with that. If you're looking
Speaker 3: for more tips to improve the way you work live,
Speaker 3: I write a short weekly newsletter that contains tactics I've
Speaker 3: discovered that have helped me personally. You can sign up
Speaker 3: for that at Amantha dot com. That's Amantha dot com.
Speaker 3: Email is such a time waster for so many people,
Speaker 3: and I feel like there are quite a few interesting
Speaker 3: ways and innovative ways that you've thought about just how
Speaker 3: people can contact you and spending less futile hours in
Speaker 3: the inbox. Tell me what's been most impactful for you
Speaker 3: in terms of reducing the time anxiety with email.
Speaker 2: I feel like I.
Speaker 1: Should first say that, you know, we talked about like
Speaker 1: what was my greatest problem or what was that? What
Speaker 1: was I experiencing? You know, as I came to the
Speaker 1: research project behind this book, guilt about my email and
Speaker 1: my inbox was just so powerful and so overwhelming. It
Speaker 1: was probably the thing I felt the most guilty about
Speaker 1: for you, because I would begin almost every sentence of
Speaker 1: every email with like it's like I'm so sorry for
Speaker 1: the delay in reply, you know, it's like that's just
Speaker 1: like my introduction, that's just could be just templated. And
Speaker 1: then I noticed I was either very fast or very
Speaker 1: very slow and getting back to people, like I would
Speaker 1: try to be fast, but if I didn't respond the
Speaker 1: same day, it was going to.
Speaker 2: Be days or weeks I would and I would just
Speaker 2: keep thinking about it.
Speaker 1: It's not like I had forgotten, you know, it wasn't
Speaker 1: out of sight, out of mind, but I would feel
Speaker 1: this great resistance, you know, to going back to it.
Speaker 1: So I feel like what a lot of systems and
Speaker 1: productivity methods do is they're providing like some tools and things,
Speaker 1: but they're not really addressing the psychological problems behind why
Speaker 1: we have resistance towards email, for example, or why it's
Speaker 1: hard for people to be on time, or many other
Speaker 1: examples that we could talk about. And so for me,
Speaker 1: some of it is just kind of grace and understanding,
Speaker 1: like I'm not going to be like a great email ninja.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people that I'm probably not going
Speaker 1: to be able to get back to. Like I used
Speaker 1: to really prize responsiveness and equate responsiveness with excellence, and
Speaker 1: maybe I've just kind of shifted in that because if
Speaker 1: I am always responsive, that means I'm not doing other things,
Speaker 1: and I want to be writing books and you know,
Speaker 1: creating projects and doing other work. So maybe that's the
Speaker 1: first thing. It's just understanding like I can't do it all,
Speaker 1: creating little buckets of time where I'm like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: just going to go in and spend twenty minutes and try.
Speaker 2: To respond to as much as possible.
Speaker 1: But I don't have like like have you seen these
Speaker 1: Like well, of course you have like the auto responders
Speaker 1: people always have, like I only check email between you know,
Speaker 1: four fifteen and four twenty five PM or whatever, but
Speaker 1: I'll get back to you.
Speaker 2: Then people that use those, I feel like they never
Speaker 2: actually get back to you during that time.
Speaker 1: They've set this up for themselves and some like they
Speaker 1: think this is going to be you know, a great
Speaker 1: thing's true, right, but that doesn't actually work for them.
Speaker 1: And they're also the people that tend to be intrusive.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: What's funny is like they they need something from you
Speaker 1: and they're reaching out to you and then you actually respond,
Speaker 1: but then you get kind of told off. They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't emailed to you right now, because this is
Speaker 1: not your email hours.
Speaker 2: So that's another observation.
Speaker 1: But I guess I've just tried to kind of get
Speaker 1: away from being a perfectionist about it.
Speaker 3: You wrote about in time anxiety. I think, did you
Speaker 3: call it email bankruptcy? And I want to know if
Speaker 3: you still do this, if you did this in January?
Speaker 3: Tell me what is email bankruptcy?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I've got all of these messages, you know,
Speaker 1: in my inbox. It's not like a huge number. I
Speaker 1: mean some people that have thousands, but when they get
Speaker 1: to those large numbers, it's not that they have thousands
Speaker 1: of individual messages written to them, Like they're just copied
Speaker 1: on a bunch of stuff, you know, so that you
Speaker 1: can kind of go through and clean out. But so
Speaker 1: it's not a huge number, but there's there's often like
Speaker 1: I don't know, between fifty and one hundred messages that
Speaker 1: I just don't respond to and they actually need something
Speaker 1: from me, And those are the ones that I feel
Speaker 1: really bad about. And so weeks go by and months
Speaker 1: go by, and just you know, thinking about what do
Speaker 1: I do about this? And so sometimes I have like
Speaker 1: a to dread list where I'm like what are all
Speaker 1: the things that I dread that I'm dreading right now.
Speaker 1: I'm going to write that down and try to spend
Speaker 1: some time about that. But with emails specifically, like sometimes
Speaker 1: things just get too far behind and it's not really
Speaker 1: going to be that helpful, you know, for me to
Speaker 1: like if somebody wrote three months ago needing something urgently,
Speaker 1: I mean I could write and apologize, but just dealing
Speaker 1: with whatever they were asking about, they don't clearly don't
Speaker 1: need it now They've solved their problems some other way.
Speaker 1: So I just like every January, it's like I just
Speaker 1: archive everything that's in the inbox that I haven't responded to,
Speaker 1: and I start over, and then I tend to do
Speaker 1: a much better job at least for a while, because
Speaker 1: things are all like fresh and clean. And so I
Speaker 1: think I used to like actually like send out a
Speaker 1: note to people like, hey, so sorry I might have
Speaker 1: missed your message, send it again. But now I just
Speaker 1: don't do that because people don't need another message on
Speaker 1: their end, and if I do that, that's just going
Speaker 1: to have more things coming back to me. So I've
Speaker 1: just tried to like, let's just try to move on.
Speaker 3: So how many years have you done the January email bankruptcy.
Speaker 2: For probably like five or six years now.
Speaker 3: And has there ever been a negative consequence?
Speaker 1: Probably there's probably some negative consequences that I don't know about.
Speaker 1: That's the other thing, right, Yeah, I was going to
Speaker 1: ask you, actually, what do you think about this? Does
Speaker 1: this stress you out?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: Do you seem like a person who is like super
Speaker 1: responsive and always on the ball and I respect that
Speaker 1: so much? Are you like I would never do something
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 3: It's funny when I think about my inbox and I
Speaker 3: preface this because I use Superhuman and I feel like
Speaker 3: if I were to use Outlook or Gmail, and I've
Speaker 3: used both, they stress me out a lot because everything's
Speaker 3: just everywhere and the interface is ugly compared to Superhuman.
Speaker 3: So I'm never in box zero, but I know that
Speaker 3: feeling of having emails that are just sitting in your
Speaker 3: inbox for weeks or months and they just feel too
Speaker 3: hard to respond to. So, you know what has worked
Speaker 3: for me, I've got an amazing Ea gem And the
Speaker 3: longer we've been working together, the more she knows my voice.
Speaker 3: She can write like me. She understands the context of
Speaker 3: most of what's going on in my inbox, and so
Speaker 3: I would say she does so much for me, but
Speaker 3: I reckon the single most valuable thing she does for
Speaker 3: me to remove email stress is she will notice the
Speaker 3: emails that are just lurking in my inbox and have
Speaker 3: been there for a while, and she will draft a response.
Speaker 3: And I could have done that, it probably would have
Speaker 3: taken me less time than JEM. But the fact that
Speaker 3: she has done that work where there's been some kind
Speaker 3: of a mental block, and I obviously read the draft
Speaker 3: and will make any edits that I need to, and
Speaker 3: then hitting send on that email feels so good. So
Speaker 3: I haven't really thought about this as one of the
Speaker 3: things that has solved a lot of the email anxiety
Speaker 3: that I feel, but I think that that is probably
Speaker 3: the thing that has had a very very big impact.
Speaker 3: The other thing that has had a big impact on me,
Speaker 3: and I remember this advice. I imagine you've come across
Speaker 3: Laura may martin Google's executive productivity advice. I feel like
Speaker 3: she's sort of in the same sort of area as us,
Speaker 3: and she said to me, you know, stop trying to
Speaker 3: follow the classic productivity advice where just be in your
Speaker 3: in books two or three times a day, and I
Speaker 3: have been guilty of giving that advice and getting a
Speaker 3: lot of pushback from clients, and I think far more
Speaker 3: practical advice is just closing your inbox for a couple
Speaker 3: of hours a day. Otherwise, leave it open, procrastinate as
Speaker 3: much as you want, be as responsive as you want.
Speaker 3: But for me, I just know I'm going to in
Speaker 3: the mornings close Superhuman. It will be not open probably
Speaker 3: between the hours of eight am and eleven am thereabouts,
Speaker 3: and that serves me really well. But otherwise I think
Speaker 3: I'm guilty of responding to quickly because obviously the quicker
Speaker 3: you respond, the more email you're getting back at you
Speaker 3: very quickly.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, chat, Well you can use the you know
Speaker 1: superhuman has to send later feature?
Speaker 2: Yes, right, so you can.
Speaker 1: You can be really responsive, but just say send two
Speaker 1: hours later, right or whatever you know.
Speaker 3: Yes, which I'll often do if I'm emailing after hours
Speaker 3: because I actually I try not to, but I also
Speaker 3: don't like to be seen emailing after hours because I
Speaker 3: feel like it's just it's creating interruptions for other people
Speaker 3: at times when I don't want to. But yeah, I do.
Speaker 3: You send later a lot, but not during the day.
Speaker 3: That's a good tip. I'm going to take that now.
Speaker 3: I know that productivity advice that you hate is someone
Speaker 3: saying just prioritize better or just you know, get your
Speaker 3: priorities straight. And prioritization is something that I think about
Speaker 3: quite a lot, and I've tried different strategies. I would
Speaker 3: love to know, like what works for you, because I
Speaker 3: think a big part of time anxiety is not knowing
Speaker 3: what matters the most and where our time is best spent.
Speaker 1: So what do you do, Chris, Yeah, just prioritize better.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like don't worry.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like it's not a very helpful thing to say
Speaker 1: to people, right, Like if someone.
Speaker 2: Is worried, you just don't don't worry. Oh I'm not
Speaker 2: worried now, right, you know.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to priorities, it's like it's also
Speaker 1: this very big nebulous concept. It's like who's priorities? Like
Speaker 1: I'm prioritizing, but what if I have competing priorities? And
Speaker 1: what if I have priorities in this part of my
Speaker 1: life or this part of my work, And it like
Speaker 1: doesn't everything.
Speaker 2: Cross over one way or another?
Speaker 1: And how do I make these decisions like where is
Speaker 1: the like prioritized button, you know, like that we'll just
Speaker 1: be like, oh, okay, here it is. You know, everything
Speaker 1: is perfectly ordered, right. So let's see your question was what.
Speaker 2: Do I do?
Speaker 1: I think something that is really intuitive for most people,
Speaker 1: like for like almost all of us, if we just
Speaker 1: stop and ask ourselves what matters and you can say, like, what.
Speaker 2: Matters right now? What matters to me right now?
Speaker 1: Like when you do that, I think just about everybody
Speaker 1: I can identify, Oh okay, there's like a few things
Speaker 1: that come to mind in terms of what matters right now.
Speaker 1: And so you might think of people in your life.
Speaker 1: You might think of something that you're working on. There
Speaker 1: might be some recurring task or some urgent task that
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, actually, I really do need to actually
Speaker 1: get back to this person about this thing or make
Speaker 1: a decision about this. But you probably won't think of
Speaker 1: too many things. When you do that, You're going to
Speaker 1: think of like, you know, three to five most likely.
Speaker 1: And I think that is a help just a very simple,
Speaker 1: helpful way to understand like what are the priorities of
Speaker 1: the moment. And it's probably also helpful to kind of
Speaker 1: think long term and like what do I want from
Speaker 1: my life? And how do I structure that? You know,
Speaker 1: all those other kinds of things. But I guess if
Speaker 1: you're like in a state of distress or even just
Speaker 1: like how do I spend my time today or tomorrow?
Speaker 1: I think asking yourself like what matters will be a
Speaker 1: very helpful starting point. And then as you go forward,
Speaker 1: you kind of notice like what is bringing you joy
Speaker 1: and what is bringing you good energy versus what is
Speaker 1: draining your energy? And I think that's also a good
Speaker 1: direction to pay attention to. It's not meant to be
Speaker 1: like a woo woo thing. It's meant to be like
Speaker 1: actually very grounded in logic and analysis and in what
Speaker 1: we really want to do and find you know, meaning
Speaker 1: and purpose in.
Speaker 3: Do you have any annual or monthly or weekly rituals
Speaker 3: around just reminding you to go what matters? What matters
Speaker 3: this week? Where should my time go? Do you have
Speaker 3: anything like that in place?
Speaker 1: I do have like an annual review that I've been
Speaker 1: doing for like twenty years, so I've changed that a
Speaker 1: few times over the years, but it is like the
Speaker 1: better part of a week of thinking through like what
Speaker 1: was the year look like? The past year and what
Speaker 1: are some goals for next year based on different categories
Speaker 1: and such. But it's a little bit less intensive than
Speaker 1: it used to be because now I am more thinking.
Speaker 1: I'm not really in the moment because I am kind
Speaker 1: of future minded, but it is more like I know
Speaker 1: more or less what I want to be doing most
Speaker 1: of the time, and it's really only when I get
Speaker 1: off track that I have to like refocus a bit.
Speaker 1: And also I like projects like you. I like to
Speaker 1: write books and so other projects like books. I host
Speaker 1: an annual event, and so with these kinds of things,
Speaker 1: it has like a built in timeline for it, and
Speaker 1: I like that. Actually I like knowing, Okay, seasonally or cyclically,
Speaker 1: here's what I need to be doing, and here's how
Speaker 1: I can prioritize those things.
Speaker 3: If you've enjoyed everything Chris just shared, then I have
Speaker 3: good news. This was just part one of a two
Speaker 3: part chat, and next week we're going to be releasing
Speaker 3: part two. So do make sure that you hit follow
Speaker 3: or subscribe to How I Work wherever you're listening to
Speaker 3: this podcast. So I hope you liked this chat with
Speaker 3: Chris today, and my goodness, I have personally lapped up
Speaker 3: everything he has said. I just love how practical his
Speaker 3: advice is, and personally, I've even started to put some
Speaker 3: of these strategies into practice since recording this epis. If
Speaker 3: you want to learn more about Chris, I highly recommend
Speaker 3: checking out his book Time Anxiety, and the links to
Speaker 3: that are in the show notes. See you next week
Speaker 3: for part two. If you like today's show, make sure
Speaker 3: you hit follow on your podcast app to be alerted
Speaker 3: when new episodes drop. How I Work was recorded on
Speaker 3: the traditional land of the warrangery people, part of the
Speaker 3: Cool And Nation