Episodes

  • A Good Productivity System Knows How To have A Bad Day.

    A Good Productivity System Knows How To have A Bad Day.
    Oct 18 2026
    Are you trying to build a productivity system, or are you building something more resilient? This week, we’re looking at why even the most organised systems break down and how to build resiliency into your own systems. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin You can join the Get Back On Track Course here Learn more about the Productivity Academy Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 438 Hello, and welcome to episode 438 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. Whenever I take on a new coaching client, the first steps we take are usually to get things organised so we can clear the decks, so to speak. In other words, in order to build a system, we need clear space on which to build. It’s the same if you were rebuilding a house. Before you can build the new house, you will need to clear away the old house and start with the ground levelled, while leaving the essentials such as the power, water and gas inputs. Well, it’s the same with building, or rebuilding, a productivity system; we need to retain the basics—a calendar, a task manager and somewhere to keep information, such as a notes app. Once we have a clear space to work with, we can go to work on the more important aspects of getting organised and being able to better manage the workload that is coming at us. This week’s question is about how to do just that. Clear the decks and then build some resiliency into your system so that whenever you have a challenging day, and we all have those, your system does not break down again, but instead supports you. So, without further ado, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Kelly. Kelly asks: Hi Carl, how would you go about doing a complete reset of your system? I’ve been trying to stay organised for years and have never found anything I can stay consistent with. What would you advise someone who needed to do a complete reset? Hi Kelly, thank you for your question. As a coach, it’s easy for me to give someone ways to simplify their system, keep their task manager clean and remove conflicting meetings on their calendar. I can also help them clean up their notes and files and build wonderful ways to organise their workload. I can introduce time blocking techniques that work and a lot of other remedies. I have a whole cabinet full of productivity medicine I could prescribe. But often that’s not the real problem. It can be a symptom of an underlying problem. Having a wonderfully organised system that looks pretty and clean may not always help you make the decision about what to work on next. As the saying goes, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig The problem, though, Kelly, might not be your system. It might be something a little simpler than that. In the past, I’ve talked a lot about building processes for doing your most important work. These are important because they remove one of the most common reasons why any system may break down. Never being completely confident that what you are working on is the right thing. A process allows you to pre-decide what to do and how to do it. The more you run the process, the faster and more efficient you become at running it. Take email and message management as an example. The process is simple: Clear your inbox early, then later in the day, as late as you feel comfortable, allocate some time to go through your actionable messages. There are some variables in this process. Depending on the kind of work you do, you may find you need to respond to messages a little more frequently. Many of my coaching clients manage teams of people, where some messages, such as an urgent decision, need to be made. These messages can be built into the process so they are dealt with two or three times a day. The good thing about building processes is that you can add these variables to your own processes. Take, for example, some of the professors I have as clients. Many of them have to write and submit grant applications two or three times a year. These can be complex documents that require research, collaboration and a lot of time. If this is something you often need to do, then building a process to write and submit your applications would mean that you would know when to start, what needs to be done, and you would be able to protect sufficient time for completing the application. Some of these applications can take three or four months to complete and submit. With these, you would be able to trigger the process at ...
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    14 mins
  • Are You Busy With Things You No Longer Care About?

    Are You Busy With Things You No Longer Care About?
    Oct 11 2026

    What if the routines you have today are not the routines that will get you to where you want to be?

    You can join the Get Back On Track Course here

    This is something that’s popped up from quite a few of you who have recently taken my new How To Get Back On Track Course. Let’s look at what’s happening and what you can do to alter your routines to move towards the life you want to live.

    Links:

    Learn more about the Productivity Academy

    Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived

    The Working With… Weekly Newsletter

    Carl Pullein Learning Centre

    Carl’s YouTube Channel

    Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes

    Subscribe to my Substack

    The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page
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    14 mins
  • How to Get Back On Track When the Wheels Come Off

    How to Get Back On Track When the Wheels Come Off
    Oct 4 2026
    Podcast 436 Learn more about the How To Get Back On Track Course here: https://www.carlpullein.com/blog/when-things-fall-apart/2/10/2026 Perhaps the biggest difficulty people face when managing their work is not creating a system or building processes. It’s maintaining those systems and processes when they become overloaded by work and personal commitments. In this week’s episode, I’m sharing a few ideas that have helped me regain control over the years when things have become a little bit frazzled, and the work coming in is greater than the amount of work getting done. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin You can join the Get Back On Track Course here Learn more about the Productivity Academy Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 436 Hello, and welcome to episode 436 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. You may have read the books, taken the courses and watched the YouTube videos. You know what’s needed to create a way to manage your workload, and you have all the tools to contain everything. Then, something goes wrong. A major client threatens to go to a competitor, your boss decides to change your responsibilities, or your son or daughter gets sick, and you need to stay at home for a couple of days while they recover, and you have to start cancelling meetings and postponing deadlines. It happens to all of us from time to time. The stress this creates just adds to the sense of overwhelm and leaves us not knowing which way to turn. Suddenly, our system and processes no longer seem to work, and we’re running around in circles, not knowing which way to turn. And yet, it’s times like these that our systems are built for. This week I launched a brand-new course called How to Get Back on Track, and the inspiration for developing this course was my coaching clients. My clients come to me when they are stuck and don’t know how to get out and back on track. And over the years, I’ve developed a few ideas that have helped hundreds of my clients get back on track quickly and without adding more stress or hours to their already busy schedules. The first thing to do when you find yourself off track, so to speak, is to stop. Yes, I know that seems to be the last thing you should do, but there is an old saying that goes, “if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging” And it’s true. Running around in circles not knowing what you should work on means nothing is getting done. The pile of work is growing, and all you are doing is looking at a growing list of things to do, and nothing is happening. Stopping gives you time to look at everything coming in and make a decision about what needs your attention right now. You can only give one thing your attention at a time. If you’ve hundreds of unread emails and messages sitting in your inbox, several quotes to get out, and a boss who wants you to send her a list of all the quotes in play today, you’re not going to be able to do all of those things at the same time. You are going to need to decide which one deserves your attention right now. Stopping allows your brain to slow down for a moment to look at what you have and to decide objectively what you should begin with. Often we will pick the easiest thing because that gives us a sense of progress, yet the easiest thing is likely to be the least important. (Unless you’re lucky.) Now, when I say stop, I don’t mean stop for long. All you need is five to ten minutes where you stop, look at what’s on your list of things to do and make a decision about what you will work on for the next hour or two. Ultimately, what matters is what you can do today to begin reducing the list. And that will depend on how many meetings and appointments you have today. There’s an interesting human behavioural instinct that comes into play when we are faced with declining an invitation from someone. There’s the easy way out; that’s to say, “Yes, I can meet with you.”, even though we know the best thing to do is to say no and offer an alternative time next week. Or the alternative is to say, unfortunately, I’m very busy this week; could we meet next week instead? The “fear” of having to negotiate with someone overcomes the common-sense answer of “no, not this week”. So we add more commitments to an already full schedule. Now you have to move some other things around, allowing your emails and messages to continue to grow; after all, you’ve got no time for dealing with that, but you’d better keep checking them to see ...
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    13 mins
  • The Annual Planning Season Kick Off

    The Annual Planning Season Kick Off
    Sep 27 2026
    This week's episode is a special one. Taken from my Annual Planning episode last year, this will show you how to make next year a productive, focused one that will leave you energised and fulfilled. “I used to say, ‘I sure hope things will change, ' then I learned that the only way things are going to change for me is when I change." That’s a quote from the wonderful Jim Rohn. A strong proponent of developing a plan for your life, and a part of that is creating a strong plan for the new year. In this special episode, I’ll walk you through the steps for the Annual Planning Season, which began on October 1st. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Join the Time And Life Mastery Programme here. Use the coupon code: codisgreat to get 50% off. Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Time Sector System 5th Year Anniversary The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 388 Hello, and welcome to episode 388 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. A mistake I used to make was to come up with some ideas about what I would like to change in the new year in that gap between Christmas and the New Year. The only reason I ever did that was because my friends were asking, “What are your New Year’s resolutions?” I never really had any, so I used to quickly think up some cool-sounding ideas and say that was what I was going to do. And yet, it wasn’t always like that. When I was a competitive athlete in my teens, each year in December, I would sit down with my coach and plan what we would achieve the following year. What times we were going for and which races were to be the “big ones”. I still remember the year I broke 2 minutes for the 800 metres and 4 minutes for the 1,500 metres. We knew I was close, having ended the previous year at 2 minutes 3 seconds for the 800 and 4 minutes 6 seconds for the 1,500. All that was needed was a good, strong winter and pre-season training. I remember going into 1986 in one of the most positive frames of mind ever. Then, when I stopped running competitively—one of my biggest regrets—I stopped planning the year. And that coincided with my not achieving very much. I drifted from one job to another. Had no idea what I wanted to do, and I remember feeling unfulfilled and lost. Fortunately, I rediscovered annual planning. The sitting down and thinking about what I wanted to accomplish. It was that restart that resulted in me coming to Korea, and discovering my passion—teaching. Everything I have achieved over the last 23 years can be traced back to following my annual planning method. From finding a career I loved, to getting married and moving to the East Coast of Korea—one of the most beautiful places in the world—and starting the company I run today, now employing four people. All of these ideas began with the annual planning method. So, what is the annual planning method? Well, it’s five simple questions you ask yourself and give some thought to over two months—October and November. Those five questions are: What would you like to change about yourself?What would you like to change about your lifestyle?What would you like to change about the way you work?What could you do to challenge yourself?What goals would you like to achieve? Let me explain the kind of things you can think about. What would you like to change about yourself? This is about you. Your current habits and routines. Are these delivering the results you want? When I sat down to write Your Time, Your Way, I knew I had to sacrifice some exercise time in order to write. I was okay with that, and I also knew a consequence of reducing my exercise time would be a gain in weight. Two years later, I had gained eight kilograms (about 17 ½ pounds)! Not good. If my weight exceeds 83 kilograms, I feel sluggish and quickly become tired. So, in my planning last year, I made it a non-negotiable to get my weight back to my regular weight of 80 kilograms (about 176 pounds or 12 ½ stone) Today, as I write this, my weight is 80.5 kgs. Well within my weight window. That all started with asking myself, “What do I want to change about myself?” The answer was to get back into my regular exercise routine. So, what would you like to change about yourself? Are you doing things that are not contributing to the results you want? Are you not consistently planning your days or weeks? Are you not moving enough? Are you spending too much time sitting down in front of a screen and ...
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    17 mins
  • Why Time Blocking Keeps Failing You

    Why Time Blocking Keeps Failing You
    Sep 20 2026
    "It was Hercule Poirot’s custom to open his morning mail using a small letter-opener with an ivory handle, making a neat slice along the top edge of each envelope... Each letter was then extracted, unfolded, smoothed flat with the palm of his hand, and read with deliberate, unhurried precision. Only when one piece of correspondence was thoroughly digested and placed in its neat, appointed stack would he permit himself to move on to the next." That’s an extract from Sophie Hannah’s Hercule Poirot’s continuation novel, The Monogram Murders, which captures a part of Hercule Poirot’s morning routine with his letter-opening ritual. Something he did at the same time each day, at the breakfast table. And it connects nicely with today’s episode. So let’s begin. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Learn more about the Productivity Academy Discover my Apple Productivity Programme Use the early-bird discount code caps27eb to get $25.00 off Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 434 Hello, and welcome to episode 434 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. Before we begin, with Apple launching their latest operating systems last Monday, I have updated my Apple Productivity Course. The course is not about tips and tricks; you can get all those on YouTube. This course is about helping you to build a 100% Apple productivity system that will keep you focused on what matters, when it matters and help keep and store important information so you know where to find it when you need it. No subscriptions to third-party apps, just a simple set of productivity tools that do exactly what they were designed to do. Keep you on time and organised. I will put a link in the show notes to where you can learn more about this; if I may say so, fantastic course. Okay, on with the episode. Something that many people miss about time blocking is that it’s not just another way to organise your calendar. It’s actually a way to reframe how you approach your work. Over the last 26 years or so, certainly since the explosion of digital task managers, many people have become focused on the number of things they have to do. Yet, that wasn’t always the case. For example, if you had to go into town to buy something, you would also naturally look for other things you may have to do while you were in town. Perhaps drop some dry cleaning off, or buy some stamps at the post office. You would do as many of these chores as you could in the time that you had available. I’ve spoken before about how the likes of Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill and CS Lewis had time set aside for dealing with their correspondence. It was never about how many letters they replied to. It was simply spending an hour or so each day writing replies. If they didn’t get through their pile of letters in the time they had, they would leave what was left until the next day when they replied to their letters. Yet today, I find that so many people are stressed out and worried about the number of things they have on their lists and the size of their backlogs. Yet, it really doesn’t matter how many things you’ve got to do; if you’re like most people, you will have far more things than you will ever have the time to do anyway. What really matters is how you use the time you have available to do the things that really matter. That leads me nicely on to this week’s question. Unfortunately, the Mystery Podcast Voice is locked away in a room preparing for an important exam tomorrow, so once again, you’re stuck with me asking the question. This week’s question comes from Jim. Jim asks, “ Hi Carl, I’ve tried organising my calendar and protecting time, as you call it, for doing my email and messages and focused work. Yet, I really struggle. I find I ignore the time blocks and then feel guilty at the end of the day because I didn’t get done what I wanted to do. What am I doing wrong? Hi Jim, thank you for your question. Well, the simple answer, and I know this will be a bit harsh, is that you are ignoring your protected time. Time blocking only works if you respect the time blocks you set for yourself. However, let me take you back to the opening of this podcast and the excerpt I shared from Sophie Hannah’s Hercule Poirot continuation novel. “It was Hercule Poirot’s custom to open his morning mail using a small letter-opener with an ivory handle, making a neat slice along the top edge of each envelope…” The key part of this was “it was Hercule Poirot’s custom…” The key ...
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    14 mins
  • The Productive Power Of A Proper Tea Break

    The Productive Power Of A Proper Tea Break
    Sep 13 2026
    How often do you take a mid-morning tea break? I mean a proper break, where you stop work for fifteen minutes or so mid-morning? It turns out very few people do this these days. And if they do get themselves a cup of tea or coffee, it’s done on the go or at their desks while continuing to work. Complete madness. Is it any wonder why so many people feel burnt out, exhausted and unable to spend any quality time with their nearest and dearest? This week, we’re looking at why bringing back your mid-morning and afternoon breaks might be the most productive thing you could do. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Learn more about the Productivity Academy Learn more about my private coaching programmes here Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 433 Hello, and welcome to episode 432 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. Back in the day, in traditional knowledge work jobs, most people had to be at their workplace by 9 AM. You would get a tea break mid-morning, usually around 11 or 11:15, then you would get a lunch break, probably 12:30 or 1 PM, then in the afternoon there'd be another tea break around 3:00 pm, and finally you would finish work, perhaps at 5:30 PM Our days were structured. Time anchors marked our day: start times, mid-morning breaks, lunchtimes, afternoon breaks, and when we finished work. Over the last few years or so, and certainly since the pandemic, these natural time anchors have been disappearing. Working from home, having more flexible working times, and working across multiple different time zones have all accelerated the erosion of these natural breaks. But these time anchors mattered. They told your brain to take a rest. Today, because those time anchors have practically disappeared, we end up switching our attention from one problem to the next. To an email or a message, back to the report we’re supposed to finish today, then to the presentation due next week, a quick check of a project that we're working on to answer a question. It's just non-stop. No time for a tea break or sometimes even a lunch break. Now, because there are no natural rhythms in our days, and no time anchors to give us a break, we end up feeling completely exhausted at the end of them. But it didn't just happen at work. We also had time anchors at home too. We would wake up at the same time, go to bed at the same time, and sit down to watch our favourite TV shows at the same time. We'd also eat our lunch, breakfast, and dinner at the same time. These were mini time anchors that told our brain to rest. When you remove those anchors, your brain doesn't know when to rest, and it just gets completely worn out. This week’s question is about why you feel so exhausted and tired, with no energy left to even decide what to have for dinner and what to do about it to bring some sense of calm back into your days So, without further ado. I’d like to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s Question, but she’s once again on one of her little holidays. So, I’m afraid you’re stuck with my voice this week. This week’s question comes from Paul. Paul asks, hi Carl, I was recently promoted, and now my days just feel like a blur, and I struggle to see if I have done anything important or not. It just feels like I spend all day putting out other people’s fires. I rarely get time for a proper lunch break, and I feel completely worn out by the time I get home. What can I do to bring some focus back to my days? Hi Paul, thank you for your question. To get us started, let’s step back in time a little. Office work in the 1950s and 60s in the UK was pretty structured for most people. You were expected to arrive at your desk on time every day. Habitual lateness was a serious disciplinary offence. Then there were recognised mid-morning and afternoon breaks, where we’d meet colleagues from other departments and talk football, cricket or what was on the TV last night. We rarely talked about work during those 15 minutes or so. Those anchors were like shared signals. You started together, breaked together, and finished together. Now, everything is blurred. Remote work, flexible hours, global teams, all great in theory. But in practice, it means people are never really off. And never really on either. It's just a permanent in-between. That mushiness can really wear you down. We’ve lost that daily rhythm. Even if it felt rigid, there was a kind of contained calm. A boundary around tasks. Now we just dip in and out all day. Messages, calls, ...
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    16 mins
  • How To Fix The Top 5 Productivity and Time Management Pain Points

    How To Fix The Top 5 Productivity and Time Management Pain Points
    Sep 6 2026
    What are the top 5 pain points with time management and productivity that over 400 of my past and current coaching clients have faced? The results may, or may not, surprise you. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin You can learn more about the Planning Course here Use the coupon code: planning26 Learn more about the Productivity Academy Learn more about my private coaching programmes here Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 432 Hello, and welcome to episode 432 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. Before we get started, and linked somewhat to today’s topic, one of the top issues among the people I work with is inconsistency in planning weeks and days. Now, I understand why it can be a challenge to plan your week consistently. Life often gets in the way, and really, what’s the point of planning when, too often, whatever plan you set gets destroyed by an inconsiderate boss or client? Yet it still remains the case that those who consistently plan their weeks and allow a little time each day to plan the next day are the ones who get the right things done on time and have more time to do the things they want to do. So, over the last few weeks, I’ve been updating my Planning Course. It’s not a long course, and it now focuses on three main areas of planning. Daily, weekly, and project planning. Plus, given the time of year, I’ve added a bonus section on the Annual Planning Template. If you want to take a significant step up in your time management and productivity, I highly recommend this course. You can get it as part of my Productivity Academy Membership or buy it as a standalone course. And if you’re fast, you can get the standalone course for just $50.00 with the early bird discount. (I’ll put the link and the code in the show notes for you) And a quick tip. Get the course today and do the Weekly Planning Section. It will take you around 15 minutes to do the section, will give you a downloadable Weekly Planning Matrix sheet and will inspire you to do a proper, practical Weekly Planning Session today. Okay, on with the episode. Last week, I hosted the inaugural live training of my Productivity Academy. In that session, I shared some research I had done on around 500 of my past and present coaching clients. The question I asked was: “What were the top five struggles (or pain points) they faced?” The results were not unsurprising, or not that I thought. What surprised me was that the cause of those pain points almost always comes from the same place. Let me explain. First, what were the five? They were: In 5th place, Tool overload and fragmented workflows This means using multiple apps, duplicating task lists, having unclear homes for information, and excessive system tweaking, which undermined trust in their productivity setup. All of this results in information all over the place, which causes a sense that they lack clarity and control. In 4th place, Interruptions and lack of protected focus time Meetings, emails, messages, emergencies, and context switching push deep or important work out, leaving no time for doing that important work. Yet one irony is that if the focused, strategic work were prioritised over interruptions, there would be fewer interruptions. Nobody chasing you, telling you something was urgent, and less time for meetings because the work was getting done instead of being talked about. In 3rd place, Unclear priorities If you don’t know what matters most, the urgent or “loud” work of other people will always crowd out meaningful progress. If you do not know what your priorities are, then someone else’s priorities will do. At least they appear to be urgent, right? In 2nd place, Planning and review routines that don’t stick When daily and weekly planning are skipped because, perhaps, life gets busy, it causes your system to break, which then requires repeated restarts. Restarts are time-consuming, often overwhelming and never address the underlying problem. (Which we will come to in a moment) And in 1st place… Wait for it… Overwhelm from competing tasks and projects My clients face large backlogs, scattered lists, frequent rescheduling, and a persistent sense of being behind. Now, as I said those five issues, I am sure you were nodding along to many of them. But the question is, why? Why do these pain points keep popping up? The simple answer is a lack of clarity on what is important to you. Let me explain. I value punctuality. It is a standard I have had since it was ...
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    18 mins
  • Are You Overcommitted Without Realising It?

    Are You Overcommitted Without Realising It?
    Aug 30 2026
    An overflowing task manager and a crowded-out calendar are rarely ever caused by using the wrong tools. The problem happened well before you entered the task or added the appointment to your task manager or calendar. And that’s what we’re looking at this week. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Learn more about my Productivity Academy Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Apollo 13 Lunar Module Start-up Procedures The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script |431 Hello, and welcome to episode 431 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. If you were to look at your appointments for tomorrow right now, how much time do you have that is not already committed? Two, three, four hours? Now look at your task manager: how many tasks are overdue or scheduled for tomorrow? In the uncommitted time you have tomorrow, are you confident you can complete all those tasks? Most people who do this little exercise, if they are being honest with themselves, will answer “no chance”. And this is the top reason why so many people are struggling with time management and productivity today. And there is a word for it: Overcommitted. It’s not the tools they use or any other complex reason. It’s simply because they’ve allowed themselves to become overcommitted. This week, I’m looking at how this happens and what you can do to unravel the problem so you are operating within your natural capacity, not overworked or under pressure, and not feeling like you are sinking under the weight of unrealistic deadlines and commitments. So, to get us started, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Douglas. Douglas asks, “Hi, Carl, I know you tell people to keep their task manager clean and tight, but I find that impossible. I’m collecting 20 or more things into my inbox each day; I often have 4 or 5 hours of meetings, and I have to deal with at least 130 emails and messages each day. How would you get all that under control?” Hi Douglas, thank you for your question. I did some quick maths on the numbers you provided and noticed that if you are collecting, on average, 25 new tasks a day, have 130 emails and messages to deal with and only have 3 ½ hours of non-meeting time each day, that would mean you would have only 1 minute and 13 seconds to spend on each item. Yet those numbers assume you are not taking time for lunch or coffee or a glass of water. If you were to include a 30-minute lunch break and 15 minutes to get water and coffee each day, that would leave you with less than a minute available for each email, message, and task. Is that realistic? Based on that quick calculation, the issue here is one of capacity. You’ve no capacity left. All that’s needed to completely destroy your day is an urgent, last-minute meeting request, an issue that prevents you from doing any of your planned work or simply an IT problem that doesn’t allow you to do the work you planned. I can assure you, Douglas, you are not alone here. There are millions of people all around the world struggling with the same thing. They’re overcommitted. Which is why it’s completely irrelevant what tools you’re using. The first thing I would advise someone in this situation is to do the maths I did above. Now, I know I do not have all the information. I don’t know what work you do, your position in the company, or whether you lead a team. But what I do know is you’ve gone beyond your natural capacity, and now you will be building up enormous backlogs. You will be struggling to meet your deadlines, and I bet when you get home you’re exhausted. This exercise will tell you how much capacity you have. If the meetings you attend each day are non-negotiable, you will need to find a way to reduce the number of tasks you receive. Which means you will likely have to do something uncomfortable. Reject requests. Now I know this is very hard to do. Nobody likes disappointing someone. But the choice is: either you disappoint them when they ask, or you disappoint them when you cannot deliver what you promised on time. And I think failing to deliver on your commitments is the bigger disappointment. Think of it this way. If you say no and they ask someone else who can deliver, then you’ve actually helped them. Sure, your pride may be slightly hurt, but this isn’t about your pride. This is about setting yourself realistic expectations on what you can and cannot do. However, there is another possible solution. Cap your daily meetings....
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    13 mins