- It's time to burn your to-do list. ("All In My Head" by Viktor Hallman) What's up, Socials? Welcome back to AmyTV. Time is our most precious asset. You can't get more of it and everyone on the planet
has the same amount of it. It's kinda crazy to think of it that way. What you decide to do with your time is completely up to you. It may not seem like that, but it's true. Probably one of the reasons
that you're watching this video right now is
you're not making the most out of the time that you have. You know it and you're kinda
beating yourself up about it and you want to learn
what it actually means to do something about it. You wish you were accomplishing more and the really great news about this is you have all the time that you need if you want to accomplish more. Today I wanna share with
you the time management tips that have completely changed my life, allowed me to get a lot more done in shorter amount of time
or at least get as focused as possible in the time that I am allotted in order to accomplish more and I'm actually gonna call
on my friend Chris Ducker to chime in on this as well. Before we dive in I
just wanna double check, are you subscribed to this channel? Are you? You know if you subscribe
and you turn on notifications I am telling you, I promise, and you can ask any Social
that's been around for awhile, I will make it well worth your time starting right now. So you wanna get more done. People are not magical. They are not born productive. None of us are really born productive. It's a culture and that
instant change cannot happen until you make that big first step that's critical to this process and that is your mindset shift. What does that mean? That's like super buzzy. People are talking about that
mindset shift all the time. What does that actually mean? Well, first you kind of need to look at how you ask questions right now. If you're asking questions like, "Why should I wake up early? "Why do I need to use a calendar? "What's the importance of planning ahead?" You're probably not in the space right now to get more productive because
you're holding yourself up with the mindset that you currently have as to what the point of
that would be anyway. The people that have
made that mindset shift are less likely to ask, "Should I wake up "early in the morning?" And are more likely to ask,
"How much time do I have "in the morning before
my first appointment "to myself that I can get things done?" Or maybe they're asking, "When should I schedule
my workouts this week?" Or how about "What can
I do in this 30 minute "pocket of time between
dropping the kids off "and going to the next thing?" When you're questioning why you
would go ahead of the curve, why you would plan ahead, why all of those things are important you're not as likely to be able to make that instant change because
you don't see the value in time the way somebody who understands what it means to be productive, not for the sake of saying the word is, but because of how much
they're able to get done and they see every moment in time as a very valuable asset, as a vehicle to move forward. So you'll really know when you've had this mindset shift when you start
to reframe your questions, when you start to notice yourself
moving in that direction. If you feel that shift, if you're there, then we can move forward and
I'm so excited about that because now it's time for
you to use your calendar. I don't care if your calendar
is on the refrigerator, on your desktop, in your
bullet journal, on your phone. It does not matter, you need to use it. I like to quote Peter
Drucker in this case because, "If you can't measure it
you can't improve it." The calendar is where you're gonna plan and track your time. This is the best place to do it because it's quite literally a list of all of the hours in
the day that you have and how much of it you can use and how much of it you should be sleeping, how much you've given
away to other people. You have to be able to
analyze it and look at it. I've talked to you in a previous video about a specific tactic
that I use on my calendar which is calendar blocking. You can go watch that to
get more of a synopsis of how exactly this happens, but the overall takeaway here
is track every single thing that you do on the calendar. It kinda goes to like dieting. You know how they say you
should track everything you eat so you can get a feel for
what you're doing wrong, what you're doing right, where
you can make small changes to make all the difference
and lose a few lbs? That's basically what we're doing here so if you're not quite
sure about planning ahead or using your calendar yet, you could at least start at this moment where you can just block out the time that you spend doing things so that when you see that two hour, let's be real maybe it's
three or four hours, of time that you spent in the evening after work vegging out in front of the TV and Instagram-stalking you have to fully take
that in because you are typing it in or writing it
down as something you did for two to three to four hours. Tomorrow when you're tracking your time you're probably gonna think to yourself, "What could I have done in
that amount of time yesterday "that I could do instead today?" Is it finish the laundry? Is it write a blog post? Is it search for a new job? Even taking an hour out
of that chunk of time and doing something
more productive with it moves you so much further ahead and then you still get the
enjoyment of the scroll. So meanwhile you probably
have this other tactic that hasn't really been working
for you, the to-do list, which is actually in my opinion
called the should-do list and you know how I feel about
shoulding all over yourself. That list is staring you in the face not becoming a reality,
but more guilt tripping you on the things that you're not doing which is just not
productive all on its own because you're just beating
yourself up over it. The goal here is to take that to-do list if that is an easy way
for you to track things that you have to get
done, fine, into time, into real spaces of time that
you can work and get it done and hopefully in a short amount of time because just looking
at it is taking longer than probably achieving
a lot of the stuff. Some of the tough conversation
that we've had here on this channel in the comments
is pushback from parents. I don't have that perspective to offer. I don't have kids. I have a really high-maintenance dog, but that's as difficult
as my life gets lately so I understand that can
be a little bit difficult to listen to me and go, "Yeah sure, "I'm just gonna block out my
time and follow it verbatim." When the reality is how
can you be more strict and more rigid with your
time when you have kids who tend to make your life a
little bit more of a variable which, although is not a
part of my personal life at this point in time,
is absolutely something I can understand that you
would be grappling with and maybe one of those mindset barriers that's holding you back. But what if we could just call children that urgency in your life
that could happen to anyone like someone's boss taking
somebody out of a project and saying this is more important or maybe somebody has a client and they don't show up for their session because they don't feel like it today, but you planned on it
and now all of the sudden you have this gaping hole of time that you didn't apply for something else. Planning your time is
never going to be perfect, but planning on these
moments that are variable that move around is so vital
for you being able to swoop in in that moment and be able
to move things around. Speaking of that I'm just gonna
bring Chris into this now. Chris Ducker is a serial entrepreneur, best-selling author. He is an event coordinator of some of the coolest events I've
ever spoken at and been to. He is a father and a very,
very dear friend of mine. I sat down with him while I was
at a conference in San Diego because I thought maybe he
could offer a little bit more of this perspective that
would be useful for you. Chris I know you're gonna get this because I talk about this so much. The value of a calendar. I'm actually starting to
wonder if it's a weakness how much I use my calendar. I'm very rigid with my time, but I think you're similar to me so I kinda wanna break
this down on a level that makes more sense, right? Using your calendar to
schedule everything, but, like, emphasis on
the word everything. - Yes. - You have accomplished a lot. You've done a lot of things. You have books and businesses
and you're moving here and there and you're launching events. I mean like there's so
much that goes into that and it can feel very overwhelming
to get there someday. Scheduling everything got you there. - Yes. - What does that mean to you? Like when you say you schedule everything, what does that actually look like? - It means I'm acutely aware that when I say yes to something I'm at the very same time instantly saying no to something else. - Oh my gosh. - Oh my gosh.
- I don't, I, but I don't think I have
I don't think I realize the impact of that until maybe
in the last couple of years because when you're first getting started it's very yes to say
every, yes to everything. - Well, no, you have to. Kind of you have to say yes to everything because you don't wanna say, you don't wanna say no
to the opportunities. - So you don't realize
the impact of saying, what you're saying no to at that time. - That's it. - You and I have, well,
you're further ahead, you're further ahead than me, but you and I I think really feel like the impact of saying
yes now means saying no because it's feeling much more like you're being pulled
in different directions. - What happens though is
this and it's beautiful. When you, when you're
acutely aware of that and you start doing it regularly, you realize that the things
that you're saying yes to. - Yeah. - Are so much powerful. - Oh and they're exciting. - Yeah and they're more
important to your life and your growth and your
work and your family and all that fun stuff. - Yeah this is a good example actually because I was like I think
I'm gonna just have Chris try to deliver in a different way the same thing that I've been
trying to tell you, right? And we're gonna schedule it for 4:30 at Social Media Marketing
World and we're gonna fit it in and it was so hard just for us to sit here not be talking to a bunch of people, but because it was on
my calendar and I knew like this is the only
time I'm gonna be able to see my British friend for awhile, to be able to have this moment, this moment I would not be
able to document otherwise. - Yeah. - If I don't draw the line there
no one's gonna do it for me and the same goes for everything else. If it's writing a blog post
and you need a half hour, if it's working out and you need an hour, blocking it out. Do you do blocking the same
way that I do blocking? Like literally I remove the time.
- Yeah I block every single minute and and like
15 minutes for social, on the calendar.
- Yeah. - 20 minutes for email, on the calendar. By the way I only check email after lunch.
- Oh yeah. - I don't do it in the morning. Creative work first. - Yeah, yeah.
- Plain and simple and you know half an hour for exercise. I hate exercising. - Me too. - But I do it because
I know it's good for me and I'll be around longer
because of the result, right? - How often is Charlie an item that you block on your calendar? - Every single day. - Who's Charlie? - My son. - Yeah, yeah so charlie is literally on your calendar, right? And it could be a variable amount of time? - Yep. - Because I have this conversation a lot and I'm not a parent so I
can't give that perspective of what it's like to block your time and be rigid with your time. The rigidity has to have a scale, right, when you're a parent and the kid's a little bit of a variable? But don't you take Friday's off? - Well, I haven't worked
Friday for five years. - Oh, is it charlie, is
it called Charlie day? - No it's not. Actually it's actually wife day. - Oh, okay. That's good, too.
- Because he's at school. - Somebody needs to take notes on that. (laughing) - No he's at school and so it's our time. You know sometimes we'll just
honestly just stay at home - Yeah. - And just veg out on Netflix, right? - Some days we'll go out and
have a yoga session together, sometimes we'll go get juices, sometimes we'll go to the movies. Whatever it is, it's just me and her. - That's like the coolest
appointment on the calendar ever. It's just like anything like that. - But also there's
something that's very cool is the Monday and Thursday that I work which is a finite amount of time. - Yeah. - I have that blocked out because I know that's what I need to do to
be like really productive in those four days, but come 4:00 p.m. when Charlie gets home,
nothing more on the calendar except Lego time. - Yeah. - Power Ranger time. - Oh my gosh.
- Jedi. Jedi time is fun when
we pretend to be Jedis. - Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about. That's not a thing I do. (laughing) - You should, you should start trying to be a Jedi.
- You kinda, your Instagram stories kinda make me wanna get into Legos,
though, I'm not gonna lie. - Oh, it's so much fun. - I'm like I wanna build something. Thanks, Chris.
- It's fun, right? It's fun. - So yes this is a conversation
that was to entrepreneurs but you don't have to be one in order to follow this advice and get more done. Maybe you just are someone
who wants to say yes to more exciting things, things you want to do in your life. We're gonna have to do
some things we have to do in order to make that happen, but as Chris said, time
management that works is simply being acutely aware
of the time that you have and the things you gotta
get done and we all have it. We can all find it somewhere. It's just a matter of how
and keeping track of it with your calendar. So I want to put this back on you. Just tell me how you're
feeling about this. How are you able to get more done that maybe you haven't identified? After this chat maybe some
things have popped up. Have you had that mindset shift? Is it still difficult for
you to make that shift of why am I planning? Why am I using my calendar? To how can I best use
every moment of time? Share your thoughts on that. What breakthroughs have you had and how are you still struggling
in the comments below. If you enjoyed this video make sure you give it a thumbs up. I gotta know if you like it so we can make more stuff like this and also subscribe if you are into this time management
productivity thing because we tend to do a
lot of that around here. Also, I will leave a
link to Chris's channel. He is crushing it on YouTube. I'm so excited for him
and also you probably wanna check out his book. Ah, you might notice
somebody that's in it. And this is Rise of the Youpreneur so definitely check the book out as well. I'll leave a link in the description. That's all for today, Socials. Thank you so much for tuning in. I appreciate it as always. Make sure you subscribe for good vibes and remember to continue to go after the life that you want. Cheers. ("All In My Head" by Viktor Hallman)
