Joe: Imagine you have a jar, and in that jar you have to place some big rocks, some pebbles, sand, and water. The jar represents your life. The big rocks are the most important things in your life. Your family, health, your personal passions. The pebbles are other things that matter, like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else, the small stuff and the water is just filler.
Curt: If you put sand or water into.
Joe: The jar first, there's no room for.
Curt: Your rocks or your pebbles.
Joe: The most important things.
Curt: This is like spending all of your time and energy on the small stuff.
Joe: And not having time for what's truly important. But if you put the big rocks in first, then the pebbles, and finally the sand, and then fill everything else with water, the same goes for life.
Curt: If you spend time on what's important.
Joe: The rest finds its place.
Curt: This story illustrates the importance of prioritizing.
Joe: The big, meaningful tasks in your life before filling up your schedule with lesser important things. I'm Joe. My pal over there is Kurt, and we are dudes in progress.
Curt: Hey, Kurt.
Hey, Joe. Good morning.
Curt: What's going on, my friend?
Great analogy story. I know where you got that from, too. I have a sneaky suspicion.
Curt: I've probably read it in three or four different books, probably saw a couple videos on it. The video that stands out in my mind is I think it was a science teacher in front of a classroom that was loading up rocks and sand and water and everything else. So I've seen it a couple of different places, but I love the analogy.
Joe: And it is so true.
Curt: You got to put the big rocks.
Joe: In first, because if you try to.
Curt: Fill up your life with all the.
Joe: Small stuff, there's going to be no room for the big rocks.
Our friend Clay has been talking about this for the last three weeks on our Saturday mornings. That's where I figured it reminded you.
Curt: We do talk about how we're spending.
Joe: Our time a lot, what we're doing.
Curt: With our time and so forth.
Joe: So, yeah, I thought this was a.
Curt: Good time of year, good time in our life. A good time to talk about time.
Joe: And how we manage our time, what.
Curt: We do with our time, and how we plan it out.
Joe: We always do this kind of planning.
Curt: Stuff at the beginning of the year.
I think this is a great topic.
I am excited about this.
It's something I've worked on over the years, and I think I'm pretty good at it. There's times when we are better than.
Other times, and it's a great time to think about because it's been kind of a lull at work during the holidays.
And when you come back into January, everybody wants to get their stuff done. You're part of their plan. Yeah.
Curt: You're going to be part of somebody's plan unless you plan it yourself.
Right.
Curt: Your life is going to be planned. Your life, your days are going to be planned whether you do it or somebody else does it for you.
I love this topic.
Curt: You think you have a pretty good plan and you're good at it.
Joe: I'm good at it when I'm good at it.
Curt: I have fits and spurts with this kind of stuff. I'm in love with the concept of productivity and time management, and I just love messing with little tools and little.
Joe: Hacks and little shortcuts to help me.
Curt: Be more efficient and help me manage my time.
Joe: But sometimes, many times, that can be.
Curt: A time suck itself, right?
Yeah.
Curt: Just trying to figure out how to manage your time. You can't get caught up in the.
Joe: Mess of that either.
Curt: But I do like the idea of time management and getting the most out of your time and your day and.
Joe: Your week without killing yourself.
Curt: There's some tools that I use and some concepts that I use that we'll definitely talk about, and I'm sure you have some that you'll want to talk about. But off the top of your head, do you have a favorite time management tool?
I wrote down four things.
Can I cheat?
Joe: Sure.
All right. I was really inspired by David Allen's book getting things done, subtitled the Art of Stress Free productivity.
I actually had a chance to meet David Allen in person during a conference down in Disney World, one of my several that I went to early in my Disney world career, and he was using some software. That was what I was there for.
The developer and him did a really good speech. But I always say when you read.
A book, if you can get a.
Couple of tips from that book, that's great. And you said, sometimes this is hard to do. I think if you make it really.
Part of your habits and how you.
Operate, the more you do this, the more it works.
But that was really influential to me.
And there's a bunch of particular things in his philosophy. And I think the one that I.
Really did was zero email inbox, and I won't get into that really deeply yet. But the other one we've talked about, Joe and I, Kanban boards, there's an agile, and even David Allen talks about.
Creating lists, prioritizing lists, and Kanban boards.
Is a more formal way of doing that. And I enjoy having this visual board up in front of me where I can look at what my priorities are. And there's a whole philosophy around that. It's something we do at work and I've at times done it at home. I like to coach and teach others.
How to do things.
So I'll write blog articles, I'll present video learning events. I flow questions to electronic discussion boards.
So I default those when I'm being my best self.
That's a book I'm reading right now. I'm deflecting those questions to a place where all the support goes to and then others can answer those questions.
Or we also have weekly meetings, open time.
We have open office hours where we answer questions for people.
So if they don't disrupt me, when.
I'm in the middle of something that's really important, so that's really helpful. I tell people to request my time on my calendar. Those are things I'm used to doing at work especially. And then the other one, the big one that Joe has taught me and the importance of. So Joe sent me a Christmas present. That is an electronic no button, but remind you, yeah, learn what's important to you and then say no.
So those are my four things that came into mind.
Curt: Yeah, I like those tools. I'm not yet using some kind of.
Joe: Kanban system, but it's something that we've.
Curt: Talked about and something I'm going to try to integrate at a very simple.
Joe: Level into my life.
Curt: I'll just use simple postit notes on a wall.
Right.
Curt: And start from there because I like the concept and there's a philosophy behind it and there's a simplicity to it that I just love. But how do you feel about time.
Management generally when you say that?
The way you put that question reminds me of David Allen's book.
I think he, somewhere in that beginning of the book, he's like saying, that.
Sounds like such a dirty word, time management. And that you want this to flow like water. You don't want this to be a.
Chore, you want to be part of your routine. That's the goal.
Time management just sounds horrible.
Curt: I can't think of a better name for it. But you're right. Just the word causes me a little bit of anxiety, a little bit of stress. And I love David Allen's book, getting things done. The whole of took it took the productivity world by storm when it first came out.
Joe: And when you read it, there is.
Curt: Absolutely nothing in there that is groundbreaking. It almost feels like an old school, very simple, duh kind of method.
Joe: Right?
Curt: Yeah, but the most profound things in life sometimes are the things that we already know and are the simplest. But it takes work. His process takes work. If you really want to go into the GTD method, you have to really design your life with it and around.
Joe: It and follow it and make sure that you have your trusted inboxes, those.
Curt: Places that you know that you will connect with whatever those might be. And I know that we didn't completely flesh out GTD and we're not going to do it here. But if you check out GTD, getting things done by David Allen, you will definitely know what we're talking about.
I think whatever system you come up with, this is one of his philosophies.
Is you got to learn to trust it.
And people you talk to, anybody most people won't trust zero email inbox. They think they have to have everything.
In that email box right in front.
Of them as if they can actually scan that thing and find what they're looking for.
Joe: Right.
They're trusting something that is not trustworthy. And until you work a system and whatever works for you, I've learned to really enjoy this. And he's got, like I said, there's very certain steps that I follow. And of course when I'm being my best self, I'm doing it the best. But yeah, I think it has given me and lessened my anxiety with my email.
Curt: The way I manage my email box is pretty simple.
Joe: I get to inbox zero every day.
Curt: At the beginning, usually early in my day.
That's great.
I didn't know you did that.
Joe: Yeah. And how I do it is I have three folders.
Curt: I think it's three folders set up that I almost have to look right now to make sure because when I'm looking at them, I understand them.
Joe: My three folders that I set up.
Curt: In fact, let me just take a peek at these right now to see if I can pull them.
Funny you say that, because I have three folders. I think it is also at work.
That are primary to me moving my email into.
Joe: If I look at an email and.
Curt: I can respond to it within a.
Joe: Minute, I respond to it, right?
Curt: I go ahead and respond to it. If I can respond to it in a minute, right. If I can't respond to it within a minute and it's something that I've decided I'm going to respond to, many.
Joe: Things I just throw out, well, that's.
The best thing to do.
Curt: Here's my philosophy on that, Kurt.
Joe: If I got rid of it and.
Curt: It was important, and I didn't realize it was important. It'll bubble back up.
That's the trust that you have to learn in this.
Yeah.
Curt: And I know we didn't plan on kind of getting into this, but I do like this system that I use. I have my inbox. That's where everything kind of gets dumped at first, right? We have our email inbox. Then I have an archive, an archive inbox. That's where everything gets thrown into.
Joe: Once I've decided I'm done with it.
Curt: I throw it into that archive inbox. So that way if there is something I need to, that's the beauty of digital, right? If there's something that needs to be referenced later, I can reference later, and then I have an active folder. Those are emails that require some kind of response from me or some kind of activity. What also goes into that email is when I send somebody an email, I automatically copy myself.
Joe: All right?
Curt: I automatically copy myself.
Joe: And then if I'm waiting on a response from that person, I tag that as waiting.
Okay.
Curt: And I put a waiting tag on it.
Joe: And I put it in my active. My active folder. And then I have a folder marked today and a folder marked now.
Okay. Yeah.
Curt: The things that I have to handle.
Joe: Today, I throw in today, the things.
Curt: That I'm working on at that second, in that millisecond right now, meaning literally right now, I put into the now email box.
Right.
Curt: And that just helps me focus on that one single thing. And then in the active folder, all.
Joe: The things that I have to take action on. But also in that active folder are.
Curt: My emails that I tagged as waiting. So if I'm waiting on a response for somebody, I'm waiting on a report, or I'm waiting on something connected to.
Joe: That email, I look at those once a week, every Friday, and we're recording.
Curt: This on a Friday morning, and I'll.
Joe: Look at it today sometime.
Curt: I'll look at that once a week, and I will follow up on all my waiting if necessary, and see what active items still need to stay active. I didn't intend to go that deeply.
Joe: Into it, but that process took me.
Curt: A little while to kind of figure.
Joe: Out and sure what works well for me.
Curt: I don't know what to do with.
Joe: Time management because I think the first step for me in time management is to set aside time to not manage my time. Here's what I mean by that is.
Curt: The biggest rock that I can put into my week is, well, if you come from a christian faith or a christian philosophy or a Judeo christian philosophy.
Joe: It's the sabbath, right?
Curt: It's the day that you set aside to not do anything or to only.
Joe: Do those free kind of things that.
Curt: Are not structured or managed by a schedule or time and things like that. Now, I go to church on Sunday, so that's about the only thing that.
Joe: I have scheduled on a Sunday. Yeah, right.
Curt: But other than that, it's just kind.
Joe: Of whatever happens, happens, and I need.
Curt: A day like that personally. So I make sure I set aside time to not manage my time.
I like that one, and that's a good one to protect. And I think I've been doing that a little bit.
But, yeah, it's been my day to.
Do whatever I want.
Lately, it's been football. Like, I made Sunday football.
I enjoy my fantasy football. And, yeah, I'm not scheduling anything.
Couch potato for Sunday afternoon.
Yeah.
Curt: I mean, Sunday afternoon during football season.
Joe: You might find me watching football, eating.
Curt: A bowl of chili, scrolling on something on my phone and talking to my wife, or if my kids are over all at the same time.
Right.
Curt: All the priorities. That's typical for me. And that's what kind of setting that time aside to not manage my time, that segment of time where it's just whatever happens, happens, man.
Just for. Yep.
Curt: Many, many years ago, I latched on to a time management philosophy or concept from Stephen Covey. Now, Stephen Covey wrote the book first things first in seven habits of highly effective people. That seven habits of highly effective people is almost like the grandfather of recent productivity books and personal development books. It's meaty. I mean, it takes a bit to kind of latch onto.
Joe: He put together this, and I don't.
Curt: Know if he put it together, but this is where I learned it, this quadrant thinking when it comes to time management. And imagine four boxes in a quadrant. Okay? So you have four squares. You have one square and separate it by four squares. So you have a four square quadrant, four quadrants in a box.
Joe: Right?
Curt: So on the top left hand quadrant.
Joe: The top left hand box would be quadrant one, which is urgent and important.
Curt: An example of quadrant one would be your house is on fire.
Extreme.
Curt: Yeah, of course. Use extreme to demonstrate another, deeper concept. But the idea is these are things.
Joe: That you have to do. It's both urgent and important.
Curt: Your house is on fire. You get a call from your kid that needs your help with something that's important. Just stuff that you can't. These are things that, these are cris that you have to deal with.
Yeah.
Joe does this to me when his.
Daughter'S car dies in the middle of the street.
It's happened a couple of times.
Curt: It's happened a couple of times. But also at work, it's just firefighting. It's dealing with crisis. It's something that requires immediate attention. If you're at work and your best customer calls, your best customer calls and.
Joe: He says, hey, listen, I have this.
Curt: Problem that only you can fix.
Joe: Yeah, well, that's your best customer.
Curt: It's urgent and important. So that's quadrant one. Those are things that you have to do.
Joe: Non negotiable, quadrant one. All right.
Curt: Because they're urgent and they're important. They're pressing on you now. That's the top left hand corner. The top right hand corner is not urgent but important. This is the quadrant that is, of all the four quadrants, is the most important quadrant. These are activities that contribute to long term success, missions, goals, value, things like exercise, things like planning.
Joe: Not urgent but important.
Curt: Nobody's going to make you do these.
Joe: Things, but they're very, very important to do.
Right.
Curt: Nothing's going to press on you to do these things, but they're very important to do.
I think those are your rocks.
Those are your big rocks that you talked about before.
Curt: This is where we struggle to spend.
Joe: The most time, but this is where we need to spend the most time, right?
Yeah.
Joe: In quadrant three, that would be the.
Curt: Bottom left hand corner.
Joe: The urgent but not important.
Curt: This is stuff that seems important because it presses on you right away.
Joe: But if you quickly think about it, it's not important.
Curt: It doesn't bring value to your larger purpose or your values or even the task at hand. Right. We can easily get caught up in.
Joe: Quadrant three, urgent but not important because.
Curt: It allows us to do stuff to.
Joe: Feel like we're getting something done and.
Curt: We'Re not really doing anything important. These are most emails and phone calls. Quite honestly, somebody stops at your desks and asks for a favor. Right. This is the time to pull out that no button.
Joe: Right.
Curt: This is the time to say no. So this is urgent but not important. And unfortunately, we can find ourselves spending.
Joe: Most of our day in this quadrant.
Curt: The urgent but not important. And then finally you have the not urgent, not important. This is no brainer. These are activities that offer little to.
Joe: No value, just mindless scrolling on social media.
Curt: An hour now, there may, we can't discount the relaxation benefit of watching tv or maybe spending a little bit of time on YouTube and stuff like that. I'm not talking about that, but this is stuff that just does bring it brings no value to you whatsoever. It's not urgent, it's not important. You just need to stay away from.
These elaborate and give some examples. So that third one you talked about.
That'S urgent but not important.
I had an example I was thinking of this past week, and I do that. This happens when I'm again playing my best self in this time management space. Somebody messaged me with something that was.
Important to them, and I could immediately react and get them on a phone.
Call and answer that.
Now, I happened to be into the.
Middle of something really important to me that needed to get done by the end of the day, as far as.
I was concerned, and I was really.
Technical, really needs my concentration, and I'm working on it. I'm doing well. I was able to.
Now I could have. So I deferred her to a session we had scheduled the next day where we take care of open questions. And the funny thing about she says, oh, thank you so much. I didn't expect that.
I thought she might be offended.
Right.
But come to find out the problem.
She had, I couldn't have solved anyway.
Because when she came on the call the next day, one of my engineers that was with me had the ability to. I didn't even have the ability to solve the problem.
He had to get involved, and he was on the call.
So, so many good things about that example.
Right.
But it fits in that quadrant three.
You were talking about.
Curt: And we need to plan in advance how to say no and when to say no and what to do with it.
We support this product with a community of five or six people with technical ability to solve the problems. But we share that responsibility and we deflect it to these other resources to get the answer first. So that is our plan.
Joe: The issue is those urgent but not important situations.
Curt: Satisfies an itch in us, though.
Yes.
Curt: It gives us a little boost of dopamine, feeling like, hey, we've helped somebody. I'm important to that person.
Absolutely.
Curt: I'm contributing, and I've made their life better, and all these things that we really want to be, and they're honorable things to desire.
Joe: But if it's not important to our.
Curt: Values and our goals and the most important things that we have to accomplish, we have to set that aside and realize that the other work that we.
Joe: Need to concentrate on is more important.
In the software support area that I live in, I don't know if you.
Can relate to this. So in the fourth quadrant that you.
Mentioned, things that are unimportant. This is just like day to day support, like password resets.
Right.
If we're managing our time properly in the work that we do, we are.
Giving that off to another group of people.
That's why you have help desks.
They're the first line of defense to.
Do all that busy work.
It does not move the organization any further along.
If your most talented technical people are.
Spend their time on those tasks.
Those are everyday problems that happen that need to be. A lot of times, there is a how to that.
You just have to give that information out to somebody.
Right.
Joe: That's a really good point, because something that may be quadrant four for you.
Curt: May indeed be quadrant two for somebody else.
Very true. Yes.
Curt: And you have to honor that in a way. Right.
Yeah.
Curt: But if it's not quadrant two for you, then you got to figure out a way out of it.
And it's a great learning place for those people that are on the help desk as an example.
It's a great learning opportunity for people.
Who are getting into the industry and they're solving those problems day in and day out.
And, yeah, it's a great tool, but.
If I'm responsible for bringing new technology into the company and training and showing people how to use it, it shouldn't be wasting my time on day to day activities.
Curt: Absolutely. So, I love this concept, the quadrant concept, urgent and important, not urgent and important. Urgent, not important and not urgent. Not important. I love that way of thinking. I really do, and it helps me focus.
Yeah.
Curt: You do have some tools that you use on a day to day basis.
Joe: What's your favorite of those?
Well, I didn't talk a lot about.
It, but I've said this to you again. It is the Kanban board that I use at work.
And really, there's a couple of reasons that I really like that tool, and.
We have software that we do it on. I think it is really good when you're learning this framework, to have it visual. You don't have to complicate these things. Like you said, they can be right.
Up on your board.
Matter of fact, that's one of the principles when you're starting to learn this stuff, do sticky notes on your wall.
Or on a magnetic board or some.
Kind of thing and have columns that do this.
But the biggest thing for me, it reduces stress for me, it visualizes everything that is on our plate that we're working on.
And another philosophy there, you want to.
Limit the work in process, and you.
Have agreements with your team that, for.
Example, we could have.
I think ours is like two or.
Three items we have in process.
You can't move something in process until you move something out of in process. And everybody knows what the priority is.
Everyone's agreed.
These three things that Kurt is working on is what he's working.
Curt: Would you, if you were to counsel.
Joe: Somebody on their columns of a Kanban board? I know we didn't say we'd go.
Curt: Deep into this, but I do want to maybe flesh this out for a minute.
Joe: So the Kanban board, you have columns, right?
Curt: Columns. And each column has items in that column.
Joe: Action items, goals, things that you need.
Curt: To do or think about or whatever.
Joe: Is that right?
Yes. Right.
Joe: Okay.
And here's one of the concepts with this is, and if you want to.
Do this electronically, there's a tool called Trello.
And you can learn all about this.
And use it electronically, but you create your own columns. They'll have some suggestions and templates. But it all depends on what you're doing. And you can build this as something that's just for a project that you're working on, or you can do it for your complete workflow and all the input that you're getting. So the first column would be kind of your inbox.
Thoughts, ideas, emails that came in, phone call, whatever. And it's got to go in that first box. You can't really move it along until.
Everyone'S kind of looked at it. So every Monday we look at all the incoming work and start to look at it.
And I think we have a next one. I'm trying to remember what the column is, but this one's been vetted out. So these are prioritized items that we've vetted out that are going to happen eventually. And then you have your, like you.
Said, like in process what you're working on right now.
You mentioned that in your inbox. These are the ones you're working on right now. And we have a step after it's completed. You could just have a completed one.
As a simple, I think we have.
A step in between where we've completed.
It, but we haven't reviewed it yet. So we actually have a step in between there.
It's completed but not reviewed yet.
So we have a step there, but.
Then eventually it's done.
Joe: Yeah.
Curt: When it comes to this kind of.
Joe: Stuff, especially like a kanban system, the.
Curt: Simpler the better, right?
Joe: Yeah.
Curt: Simplify, simplify, simplify. Because we could have a dozen different columns and if then we were going to do this and then all that other stuff. And don't muddy up the process keep it as simple as possible. Do you think that's good advice?
Yeah. And you want these to be things that you can get done in a reasonable amount of time, and you determine these rules. For instance, if something comes in and it's bigger, it's going to take multiple tasks to get this done.
You want to break it down also.
So that you can see the progress. You can feel yourself making progress. And so you don't want to put.
This monstrous, boil the ocean task in your to do list.
You want to see a flow of things. Now, it could be under a heading.
Of what we call an epic that you're working towards.
There's a sense of accomplishment as you're doing this, a sense of priority.
There's openness, and everyone can see what's happening. Transparency is the word. It's very transparent what's happening.
Curt: I think as we move along, this Kanban system is probably worthy of a whole episode to really flesh it out. So let's be intentional about that. I can talk to you about the tools in my life that I use.
Joe: And they're ever changing.
Curt: But if I'm most productive, as I look back at the moments that I.
Joe: Was most productive, these are the tools that I'm using. All right, first of all is a personal journal. The personal journal.
Curt: When I'm journaling every day, it just helps me flesh out what's most important in life, helps me identify those big rocks, helps me think through things and have a conversation with myself. And that's a part of journaling that I don't do enough of. I can be very technical in my journaling instead of having an open conversation with myself.
Joe: Right.
Curt: So journaling really helps me flesh out what's important in my life. And then I've recently gone back to a wall calendar, a year at a glance wall calendar, where I can look at all twelve months, and I can say, okay, what does my year look like? What does January through December look like? And what am I doing? How does my time look? When am I taking vacation? When am I just taking time off? What are some important deadlines? And the space is small to write in. Small enough that I'm forced to just put a couple of notes that I can't completely flesh it out because these are big rocks, right?
Yeah.
Curt: Something like have a business plan, business plan, due date, something like that.
Joe: Right.
Right.
Curt: So a year at a glance wall calendar, and I have my 2024 year at a glance wall calendar all ready to go and ready to hang. I just came from Amazon and I just now. Got it. I can't believe it took so long. So a year to glance wall calendar. So I have my journal, my year to glance wall calendar, and then some kind of daily planner. Physical daily planner. Now, if we're not careful, these daily planners can lean towards hyper structured and utilitarian. And that kind of stuff locks me up, man. I need a little more free flowing system. In the past, I've used daytimers and Franklin Covey. I know that our pal clay is big on Michael Hyatt's full focus planner. Those are the type of planners that if they work for you, then they work for you. But what works best for me is.
Joe: Just to start with a college ruled composition notebook.
Yeah.
Curt: You know what I'm talking about. The kind that has that weird black and white design on the front of. I can. I can show you in the video here.
I went to Walmart this week and picked up a couple of notebooks and I saw that one.
I've used that one.
Curt: When if I.
Joe: Start off my day, and again, this.
Curt: Is what works for me. If I start off my day and I write down the three things that.
Joe: I want to accomplish that day.
And.
Curt: Then I highlight or I circle the single most important thing that I need to accomplish. That's the non negotiable. I got to get that done. It's almost like if I'm at work.
Joe: If I don't get that done, I'm getting fired.
Curt: It may not be that bad, but you know what I mean. Eventually, actually, that would smack against my quadrant thinking, right?
Yeah.
Curt: Because that would be urgent and important and I need to spend time and not urgent and important. Generally, I think about what's the most important thing I have to get done today. Right. That moves things forward. So I write down three things and I highlight or I circle the one thing, and then I write in my.
Joe: Planner time by time.
Curt: And I use a timer. It's called the Pomodoro method. And I've talked about it here, and you and I have talked about it a lot. In fact, my little timer here is something that I've used as a resource.
Joe: Or a tip or a hack. And what I'll do is I will.
Curt: Set this timer and I block out my time, and I segment my time into 50 minutes blocks with a ten minute break, and I write down what I want to do in the next 50 minutes. And I work for 49 minutes of time focused work. And 49 minutes is important to say.
Joe: Of time focused work. It's a shorter period of time if.
Curt: I'm feeling unfocused or tired or frustrated about something. Sometimes that can be a 20 minutes. I'm just going to work for 20 minutes, and then the alarm goes off at 49 minutes.
Joe: And when that alarm goes off at.
Curt: 49 minutes, I stop and I write down, what do I want to accomplish.
Joe: In the next time block? And then I get up and I take a walk, and I'll walk around. I may go get a snack, I.
Curt: Might go bother other people. But whatever it is, I just take.
Joe: A break from that work and I start over.
Curt: When I time segment like that, Kurt.
Joe: With a timer, those are my most productive days.
Curt: And those are not only productive, but those are days that I really get important stuff.
You know, I was thinking, I did this this morning.
I didn't write down everything, but I think capturing everything definitely is one of these skills.
And I like the notebook.
I went out, like I said, I went out to Walmart. I bought a couple of books.
I have a purpose for each one. I bought two books for two different purposes.
But I had some very specific things this morning I wanted to get done before you and I met one of them.
Prepare for this session.
But I got them all done, and I was quite proud of myself, and I did what you said, but I wasn't as formal with the clock.
Joe: If I'm doing it 80% of the time, I'm winning.
Curt: Sometimes I flake out and I start my day without. Without any plan whatsoever.
Joe: You sit down and you just start rolling into what's not urgent and what's.
Curt: Not important and what's urgent and not important and all that other stuff.
Joe: I know, but you take a step back, be mindful of it, be conscious.
Curt: That you've wandered off and pull yourself back in. But I love the idea of time management, and I think it's important.
Joe: As long as we're not so hyper.
Curt: Structured and utilitarian about it.
Yeah.
Mistakes are going to happen.
Life happens.
Joe: And don't beat yourself up. Right in everything. Offer yourself some grace.
Our management team and our team, we.
Recognize when things are getting chaotic and we sit down together and go, okay.
Guys, this is going to be a chaotic time, and we're going to have.
To manage our time really well. Now we're going to have to say no to this and that, and just.
Tell people, we've got this project that's.
Front and center, and it has to be done.
And that happens.
I haven't had this, but I've seen organization. You'll have a security breach.
Everybody's got to stop what they're doing.
And focus on that.
Curt: That's urgent and important.
Joe: Right.
Yeah. So there's times when you're out of.
You've got to take care of the fire.
Absolutely. Yeah. Love it.
Curt: So these are the things that, when I'm most productive in my life, this is how I do it. But one thing I'm going to add to my system, for lack of a better way of putting it, is some kind of kanban system, some kind of physical process. In fact, I've already bought my postit notes and I've already cleared a space on my wall because we've talked about this in the past, some kind of physical process. And that's something else that I found, is we all want to go digital, right? We want to use Trello whatever in digital programs and todoist and evernote and all those things. What I'm finding is I love those digital resources, but I need a combination. I need a hybrid system. I need some kind of physical process. I need a physical timer. I need to lay something physically out on the wall to just help me think and look at it. And if it's in my computer somewhere, it just gets lost in the shuffle sometimes.
Well, that is the recommended way to go, if you can. The problem is if you have teams and people you're working with that are.
Remote, you could still do it if.
You put a camera on it, and.
They'Ll tell you that's even the best thing to do.
Still have a physical board, but have.
A camera on it and people move.
Curt: Yeah, that's actually not a bad idea.
Joe: Yeah, that's not a bad idea.
I'll tell you the one. I've wanted to implement this with my wife.
Curt: You know she's going to listen to this episode, right?
And I tease because I would love.
To have all the priorities that are.
In her head, out on the refrigerator or the living room or somewhere on a board, before I get another honeydew that we have in an agreement, a.
New one doesn't come in until I finish this one.
Right.
That's a dream. But we haven't gotten there yet.
Curt: Time management is important.
Joe: You just can't. Don't. Don't let yourself get crazy.
Curt: Offer yourself some grace, but definitely have a plan.
Joe: Definitely have a plan.
Good session, Joe.
Joe: Kurt, do you have a win for the week?
One of the things I want to do was get back into social media.
With my podcast and promotion and posts.
And I started one.
And here's the thing. You've mentioned this, Joe.
My overall goal is to grow my podcast, let's say.
And that can be overwhelming.
One thing I wanted to say while.
You were going through this time management was break these things down. Like, what could you get started?
Simple.
Just to get some momentum.
So I started doing. I had this thought.
I don't remember where I came from.
But Disney has a quick service dining plan that's coming out this year, and.
I saw some conversations about people. Is it worth it? Is it really worth it for the.
Cost that you pay? If you would just pay out of pocket, maybe you could keep the cost down. And so I'm challenging that, and I.
Have a little challenge going on in.
My group, and I'm analyzing the cost.
And I'm putting out samples of menus I'm going to do. And it's been really fun and getting.
Lots of engagement, and I'm really excited.
So this is going to continue from planning this through what my actual results are into after my trip to Disney, which is at the end of the.
Joe: Awesome.
Curt: Yeah, awesome. So where are you posting Facebook, Twitter, x or.
Right.
And that was important to try to figure.
So I have a private Facebook group I'm kicking it off in.
I also have a Facebook page, which I've not used in a long time, so I'm looking to build the Facebook page, and then I'm also doing Instagram. So I'm adding Instagram. I've had an Instagram account, but that seems to get some eyes on it. So I'm putting it out in three places. It's hard to do it in more than that, I'm trying to figure out the time management part of this, too.
Can I do this every day?
Curt: It's funny you bring up Instagram because Instagram is something that I don't know how to navigate. In fact, the times that I've tried.
Joe: To use Instagram, I've gotten frustrated and I just quit.
Okay.
Curt: I need to pull in one of my kids to teach me how to use Instagram.
Joe: And that's a little prideful for me.
Curt: Because I like to consider myself somewhat technologically astute.
Joe: But Instagram just locks me up, so.
Curt: Yeah, good stuff, man.
Joe: Yeah.
Curt: Your social media challenges are moving you in the right direction.
I like it.
I like the conversations that are coming.
Out of it, and it's creating some engagement in my group.
And perfect so far.
It's doing what I wanted to do, so I'm enjoying that. And I've kept it fairly simple and productive. I'm learning different skills in doing that.
Like you said, I don't know Instagram that well either. Awesome.
Curt: My win for the week is interesting.
Joe: I didn't go to church this past Sunday. I guess I'm going to hell.
Curt: I didn't go to church this past Sunday.
Joe: In fact, my wife and I kind of slept in. We slept in, stayed in bed for.
Curt: A while, talked and chatted, and it.
Joe: Was really a nice, very slow, pleasant, low key day on Sunday.
Nice.
Joe: I always get up before my wife every single day. I'm talking hours before my wife.
Yeah.
Joe: And that's okay.
I like that.
Curt: I like that quiet time by myself. This was nice, too.
Joe: Just stay in bed.
Curt: I was definitely awake before she was.
Joe: But stayed in bed, slept in a bit.
Curt: In fact, I dozed off one or two times while I was still in.
Joe: Bed, talked while we were in there.
Curt: Still in bed, and just talked about the day and what's going on and things like that.
Joe: And it was just a nice, like I said, pleasant, low key day.
Was it intentional?
Curt: Did I know Saturday night when I.
Joe: Went to bed that I was going to do that?
No.
Curt: But when I woke up Sunday morning.
Joe: I thought, I'm just going to stay in bed.
You say it wasn't intentional, but I.
Wonder some of the things we write in our journal or we say we're going to do. I think our subconscious reminds us of those things when it's time to know and remember those things.
Curt: Absolutely.
Awesome.
Joe: All right, cool. What do you have for a resource for us, Kurt?
Well, this won't be any surprise.
It's the book getting things done by David Allen.
That book came out, boy, that has.
To be like 20 years old or more.
Joe: It's been around for a while, but.
I spent plenty of time talking about.
It in the concepts there.
Check it out again.
My recommendation is take what you can and try to incorporate those things into your time saving ideas and hacks and processes. And I think if you can get.
A couple of things implemented, that would.
Be worth its while.
Curt: So when I first read getting things.
Joe: Done by David Allen, he was 100% analog. Physical folders, physical processes, a physical inbox, 100%.
Curt: I don't think he mentioned anything in.
Joe: His book about digital.
Curt: I'd be curious to look at his newest version of getting things done because I think he did an updated version.
Joe: Just a couple of years ago to.
Curt: See if there's any digital resources that he recommends and digital processes that he recommends. Because I went all in for a long time with the whole getting things.
Joe: Done process, and while it worked generally, it was too overwhelming for me. In the moment.
In the moment.
Joe: But like you said, kurt, if you.
Curt: Get just a handful of tips from.
Joe: This book, it's a really good book.
Curt: To help reset your mind on how you get things done.
That was funny you say that, because the conference I went to, they were promoting the software that he built with his developer to do it all digitally. Yeah, that was 20 years ago. So the book's got to be really. It's got to be from the.
Joe: Yeah, I mean, it was a long time ago that I read the book.
Curt: Now, he may have been working on.
Joe: Something, but in his book, I don't.
Curt: Remember any mention of digital.
I think you're right.
Yeah, definitely.
It was all about the paper hitting.
Your desk and where you put it in the folder drawer, right? Yeah.
Curt: Right. And putting the other projects. I love his idea that if anything requires more than two steps, it's a project or two steps or more, it's a project, and you need to treat it as a project and work on it as a project.
Joe: Right.
Yeah. Takes away the stress, and I think.
Curt: That'S where I got from his book.
Joe: That's where I got the idea of handling something.
Curt: If it can be handled in a minute.
Yes.
Curt: Handle it now.
Yes. Or delete it.
Yeah. Best thing to do is delete it.
Joe: Absolutely right. The beauty of digital is you can.
Curt: Have the satisfaction of getting rid of.
Joe: Something, deleting something, and it's never really gone.
The other thing is like that.
Joe: I do like that I'll get a.
Recommendation or a training or something that I want to read later. And honest, if I'm honest with myself.
Do I ever read it later?
So that goes into a folder of resources.
Yeah.
Curt: I have a read folder or information folder in my inbox, and it's my least accessed folder.
Someday, somehow.
Yeah.
Curt: So my resource is interesting. I've brought up Android Auto before as a resource. I don't think I brought up this feature of Android auto that I think I just discovered. I'm pretty sure I just discovered it myself.
Joe: Of course I didn't discover it.
Curt: I mean, it was put into Android Auto as a feature. I just discovered that it's there.
Joe: Android Auto.
Curt: And I'm sure Apple Play has Apple car or what is it? I don't know what the Apple version is, but if you have a newer.
Joe: Car, let's say 2016 or newer.
Curt: All right, you very likely have either Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. I have Android Auto in my car, and that's where Google Maps shows up on your screen, and it connects with your phone. And you can make a phone call through your phone, and you can access. I access my podcast app a lot, and it's just kind of a general command station, right? Using your Android phone. Well, what I discovered is I can press a little button on my steering.
Joe: Wheel and say, take a note, and it'll prompt me with a little beep, and I'll start talking about a note.
Curt: And it saves it into my Android note app.
Oh, yeah, nice.
Joe: It saves it right there. And I can say, make a reminder.
Curt: And I can say, make a reminder.
Joe: For tomorrow and spit out the reminder and it'll save it right to my phone. And this is just a beautiful thing.
Curt: For me because how many ideas do we have or thoughts that we have or reminders come into our head as we're driving home from work or driving to work or whatever it might be.
Joe: And this little resource, man, this little.
Curt: Feature in Android Auto, take a note and make a reminder, is right there. And it's probably been there the whole time, and it will definitely make my life easier.
Yeah, I love this one. I know you have like a 45.
Minutes commute, don't you?
Curt: It can be, yeah.
So you're in the car for a.
Good amount of the time, and of.
Course you don't want to text while you drive, but yeah, not just that.
Just basically using that speech to text on my phone. I need to do more of that. I did a little bit that with you this week when you were texting me, I was on my way out.
The door, and instead of even stopping.
The text, hit the little microphone and talk.
It does such a great job. And that's all about capturing those thoughts. In journaling, it's a little bit of journaling, like you said.
Sure, you get a lot of those.
Just, they come popping in your head while you're walking, doing a walk or driving along.
Curt: And David Allen talks about that in the book, too. Is capturing those thoughts and having a process, a trusted process for reviewing and capturing those thoughts. So this will be a part of my trusted process for capturing and reviewing and processing those thoughts.
Joe: It's funny because both of our interactions were voice prompts. I was driving in the car, texting.
Curt: You through Android Auto and speaking the text. And in fact, there was a couple of things, there was something that I said that I thought I didn't say right, so I had to go back and correct it. Yeah, I do like this technology. This is where technology really helps. So my resource is the take a note and make a reminder for feature of Android Auto and I'm sure Apple.
Joe: CarPlay has it as well. Do you have a quote for us?
Most people feel best about their work.
The week before their vacation, but it's.
Not because of the vacation itself.
What do you do the last week before you leave on a big trip? You clean up, close up, clarify, and.
Renegotiate all your agreements with yourself and others.
I just suggest that you do this weekly instead of yearly.
Joe: David Allen, we know we can be productive, right, Kurt?
Curt: We know we can get stuff. Know, we know we can do it.
Joe: Because we do it the week before.
Curt: We leave for vacation.
Joe: Suddenly we become this productivity animal, right? And we get all this stuff done and it's crazy.
Curt: And we button it up Friday so we can.
Joe: Because what do we want?
Curt: We want peace when we leave for vacation, right?
Right. Yeah.
That's a huge goal of mine.
Curt: Yeah.
I don't want to leave a lot.
Of dangling things when I'm off a.
Vacation as much as possible.
Joe: I'm the same way.
I'm the same way.
Curt: I love that. And today is Friday as we're recording this. And this needs to be part of my Friday, right? Yeah, this needs to be part of our Friday. So we can go into the weekend or whatever period of time that we're taking a break. We can go into that period of.
Joe: Time with just peace and clarity and.
Curt: Where we know that Monday is coming and we've taken care of what needs to be taken care of.
Joe: Right?
Yeah, good point.
Joe: Love it.
Curt: Good stuff. Man. I like David. I need to go revisit that book because I get the sense that it's time, right, for me to just re engage some of this stuff. Well, my quote comes from none other than Abraham Lincoln, and I don't know if this is Abraham Lincoln or it's attributed to Abraham Lincoln or if it's kind of lore, right? But, boy, it sure sounds a lot like Abraham Lincoln. And I love this quote because this is a core part of being productive and getting things done.
Joe: Abraham Lincoln said, give me 6 hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. That's beautiful, isn't it? I love it.
Why do you love that so much, Joe?
Joe: I love it because I'm the type.
Curt: Of guy that will take a spoon.
Joe: And try to just chop down that.
Curt: Tree because I just want to get it done.
Joe: I want to go into it like.
Curt: Some crazy maniac and just take action. Take action. Take action. Take action. And that's good.
Joe: You got to take action. But, man, if I would spend the.
Curt: First period of time, just sharpening that axe, making sure it's got a good, clean cut.
Joe: I'll get it done in no time.
Curt: I'll take 12 hours to do something that it should have taken me six to do because I didn't start off.
Joe: With a sharp axe.
Wow, this really fits my bathroom renovation project so well because I could go.
Down a path of thinking I know.
How to do something.
Not really because I'm not that experienced making mistakes, but if I spend time talking to friends, talking to you guys.
On Saturdays, and my trusted source, YouTube source, and getting some ideas, and it.
Can take a while to get the right resource before you hit that one.
That's really what you do if you make a mistake and got to rip something out or cause a lot of damage. Yeah.
It's so much better to sharpen that saw first.
Joe: It's all part of sharpening that axe, right?
Do you mean I got to read.
The instructions before I build something?
Who does that?
Curt: Good luck.
That's weakness, Joe.
Curt: I consider that the learning process, right? If I read the instructions, I'm not.
Joe: Going to learn a thing. That's what I told my wife.
Curt: How can I learn to do this by reading the instructions? You got to do it to learn it.
That's for wimps only.
Wimps.
Read the instructions.
Curt: If you guys have a productivity tip or a time management tool that you use, we would love to hear from you. Send us an email. Dudes@dudesandprogress.com. Dudes@dudesinprogress.com. And our website is just that, dudesinprogress.com. There you'll find our podcast, links to our podcast and how to get in contact with us. And if you want to support us via Patreon, you can go to dudesandprogress.com slash support. If you want to check out our Facebook group, it's dudesinprogress.com slash Facebook. It'll all take you right there. Just remember, dudesinprogress.com. We'll get you there, and we'll get you taken care of.
Joe: Curtis, we wrap up, man.
Curt: We do want to manage our time, right? We do want to do a good job of planning our days and planning our weeks and planning our years and planning our activity. But as long as we're moving in the right direction, that's the most important thing.
Joe: Progress.
Curt: Progress is better than perfection. We can't do this perfectly, but we can certainly do it better. So let's make progress. Progress is better than perfection. So we got to keep moving forward.
Where I'm being my best self. Joe, I am doing these things we talked about today. So I'm going to try to do this better next week.
Curt: We all will talk to you soon, my friend.