The wealthiest people have a secret. They don't work harder than everyone else. They [music] just manage their time in unexpected ways.
I used to be constantly overwhelmed, never making any real progress, and trying to work harder than everyone else just to get ahead until I realized that I didn't need more time. I needed to manage my time better. And once I did, I made so much money and literally built [music] my dream life.
So, if you want to do the same, these are the six unexpected ways to manage [music] your time. First up is a principle that successful people live by. they aren't available to everyone.
If you're always available to everyone, no one will ever respect you. And this was a hard one for me because I used to be available to everyone 24/7. People had my phone number, my email, and I would encourage people that I worked with to reach out to me at any time.
But the problem was that people actually did reach out to me anytime and [music] all the time. So much so that I ended up having no time to work on what I needed to do in order to move the business forward. And I think part of this that isn't really talked about is it almost feels a little bit shameful not to be approachable to your team.
Like I would actually feel bad if I wasn't giving them the time that they needed. So I just allowed myself to be available and make sure that everybody knew I was there for them. But I had to change my approach the moment that I realized that if the people in your environment can't make things work when you're unavailable, they probably were the wrong person to begin with.
[music] And if you own a business or manage other people in your current role, being constantly accessible is actually one of the biggest leadership traps. Harvard research shows that professionals who guard their time are viewed as more effective [music] and high value. So just remember that if you're always reachable, you're a responder.
If you have boundaries, you are a leader. [music] And the top CEOs protect their time because scarcity creates value. So, starting tomorrow, relook at how you respond.
Batch [music] your emails, your return phone calls, your messages into just a couple of windows instead of constantly checking. I like the cadence of the middle of the morning and the end of the day. I'm not a huge fan of checking my emails first thing in the morning because it sets you down a different path.
But midm morning allows me to work on the most important things first and then later in the day allows me to get all of the emails that have piled up. Here's the thing you have to remember. Every person does not deserve immediate access to you.
I guarantee that when you create space with the other people who depend on you, they will actually start solving their own problems. So protect your time by being [music] less available and fill that time up with the things that you need to do. Next is number two.
Successful people set up their strategy at the start of the week. There is a reason why you're always overwhelmed on Monday. And [music] the good news is you can change that.
If you're always reacting in the day or the moment to the latest problem, you will end up losing entire control of your week. So every Sunday night, try setting up your own game day strategy. [music] List out all of the priorities for the week.
Think about your week in quarters. Every single day has a very specific purpose. What has [music] to happen on Monday for you to know that by the end of the day on Friday, you are successful.
What about Tuesday, Wednesday, [music] Thursday, Friday? The more you think about your week like a game and that you need to move into having confidence that you are going to win every single week, the more intentional you're going to be about the way you spend [music] your time. This means that Monday can't just be you firefighting, Tuesday having meetings to Wednesday being able to do deep work.
It won't get you to where you're trying to go. And once you have these priorities, everything else doesn't get done. When you decide the play before the game starts, you stop reacting and start using your time effectively.
Next is number three. If you want to be more productive, you need to stop treating your health like it's optional. I don't find time for my health.
[music] I make it an active part of my day. I don't schedule workouts in the evening hoping to make them happen, but maybe allowing the door to be open if a dinner pops up or something more important is going to take place. I schedule the workouts first [music] thing in the morning to get them done because it's my job to be in peak state and peak condition and to feel good about myself.
The most successful people know this. If you don't feel good about yourself, how helpful are you going to be to your team? If you don't do the things that you say that you're going to do, how confident are you going to show up to a meeting that matters?
There's a lot of limiting beliefs about people who are successful and trading [music] off their health for their success. But let me shoot this to you straight. You can have both.
It is not one or the other. In fact, your health, if you truly do prioritize it and use it as your foundation, amplifies what you're able to do every day. I had to cut [music] out drinking Diet Coke.
I cut out caffeine. I cut out gluten. I cut out dairy.
[music] I started working out three to four times a week. And I sleep 8 hours every single night. And what this has reminded me of is I don't need to squeeze more in the day.
I need to prioritize my sleep. [music] I need to prioritize eating right. And I need to make those things happen because it creates a better outcome in the workplace.
It is not a detractor from the workplace. I refuse to use being [music] too busy at work as the reason to let myself go in all those areas. And the big unlock of managing your personal time and your priorities with your work is to understand that your health isn't optional.
When your job requires you to be in a [music] peak state, high performers, they don't squeeze in their life after work. They build their life to include the components that are important. Health being one of the main [music] ones.
They know that being exhausted and feeling like leads to bad decisions. [music] And this costs way more than the hour that you saved by skipping the workout. So, schedule it.
Schedule your movement. Schedule your workout. Schedule your sleep.
Schedule your eating times. Populate [music] those things in your calendar and then protect those times like business meetings. Block your workout in the morning.
Set a bedtime alarm for 9:30. My phone goes to sleep every single night at 9:30 alongside me. And that allows me to get up at 5:30 so I get a solid 7 to 8 hours of sleep every single [music] night.
When you think about your food, how do you take the randomity out of not knowing what to eat every single day? You can batch meal prep or you can know exactly where you're going to order food from, [music] but you have to have a game plan. and the little time that it takes to plan these things has a disproportionate effect on your ability to actually [music] do them.
I guarantee that when your health is stable, everything else runs better, your energy, your focus, your patience with your team, your decision-making, and high [music] pressure moments. Health shouldn't come last. It's the foundation.
Next up is number four. Successful people treat their calendar like an asset, not a suggestion. If you're constantly busy but never making any real progress, let's be honest, it's because you're letting other people spend your time like it's their time.
And [music] I used to get stuck in this all the time. So, I really do understand why this is such a hard thing to get out of. The perfect example of this, and I'm a little embarrassed to say how recent this was, is me with my inbox.
I used to spend [music] hours a day in my inbox. And my mindset around this that was so broken was that if my team members had something that they needed me to see, I had to [music] review every single detail. I couldn't let something go out there that I didn't approve and I didn't review cuz what if they did it wrong and I always find things.
[music] And so I would just get mired stuck to my email and not able to do more networking events or feel the weight of having to come home early from networking events so that I could respond to all of these incoming messages. So about 6 months ago, I told my team that I don't want to spend any more than 15 minutes a day going through my emails. So my team has actively had to change the communication around me to be able to get me down to where I'm actually only spending 15 minutes a day in my inbox.
And since then, my time has freed [music] up and I can actually spend more time writing LinkedIn posts, creating more content, working on my new podcast. I just went to Paris last week and had time to talk to people without having this worry that I was missing something. And I came across a study from the Harvard Business School where they analyzed 27 executives and found that the top performers spend about 43% of their time on pre-planned strategic moves while the rest of the world spends their day in reactive mode answering emails, Slack pings, and all of the ad hoc requests.
So, let's talk about this week. [music] Look at your calendar as if it is your own money visualized. Look at every meeting, every commitment, every time block and ask, [music] "If this time was money, would I spend it here?
" Maybe it's a daily stand-up call that could actually [music] be an email. Maybe it's a lunch meeting or never leads anywhere. When you identify those things that are wasting your time as if they are wasting your money, you either delegate them or delete them entirely.
[music] anything that doesn't actually earn what you are investing. You will find at least 5 to 10 hours that you're wasting on [music] things that don't move your goals forward. Now, we're on to number five.
Successful people review and adjust. They don't just grind. You have to stop repeating the same unproductive week over and over wondering why nothing changes.
To understand this, just like we talked about previously, think of a football game. You've started with the game plan, but by the third quarter or nearing the end of your week, if your strategy isn't working, you'd have to adjust. You don't keep running the same play and the same play and the same [music] play and failing.
Your schedule works the same way. When you set your schedule, there will be problems that come up. There will be priorities that have shifted or there will be quote unquote fires at work.
And so the more you can in real time adjust not to be reactive, but to ensure that the priorities are still being met, the more you're actually going to be able to create the growth you want. I mentioned earlier the weekly review that happens on Sundays, but at the end of every day, I also do a review that makes me twice as productive. [music] I review the day I just had and I adjust my plan for the next day.
A Harvard Business School study found that workers who spent just 15 minutes at the end of each day reflecting on what they learned performed 23% better after just 10 days. So just taking a few minutes to review your day actually gets [music] you better results the next day. And the cost of not doing this is repeating the same mistakes and wondering why you're stuck in the same place 6 months [music] from now.
So at the end of each day, block out 15 minutes to reflect on what you actually learned or did that day and then look at tomorrow. And when you do this, ask yourself, what worked today? What didn't [music] work?
And what am I going to move around tomorrow to make sure that I have a phenomenally successful day? Maybe you've discovered that morning deep [music] work sessions are when you're sharpest. Maybe you realize that backto-back meetings kill your focus.
Maybe you found that responding to Slack immediately [music] derails your momentum. Write it down, then apply those lessons tomorrow. That's how you consistently review and adjust to make sure your tomorrow is always better than today.
Lastly, number six, successful people protect their deep work time. If you're struggling with your focus, your attention, or getting all of the things on your list done every single day, you should mute your notifications during deep work time. For me, this looks like showing up in the morning and having a book, an article, or a whole research project that I need to do with chat GPT.
And during that time, I [music] don't want any distractions. I don't want my husband talking to me. I don't want a text coming through.
And so I immediately put my phone on do not disturb. But what ends up happening when I'm not disciplined about this or when I'm feeling mentally lazy is I'm working through this problem. It's like coming together.
It's unraveling and I'm figuring things out and then all of a sudden I have this urge to check my email or to check Instagram. But instead of allowing myself to do that, I stop myself. Because there have been so many times in the past where I didn't stop myself.
And I had [music] this protected time for let's say 2 hours. And for the first 30 minutes, I was doing a great job of getting really into the problem. But then I allowed myself to get derailed.
And all of a sudden, the 90 minutes that I had [music] protected turned into me randomly researching some ex best friend's daughter that I once knew and seeing how much she's grown up. And now I'm totally distracted. [music] So for me, I always block deep work time in my calendar in the morning because that is when I'm the most rested.
I'm excited and I'm focused. And I know that nothing can touch that time. And this deep work looks like spending time reading, doing projects that I know are going to get me to the goals that I have, career goals, business goals, all the things.
And most people really struggle with deep work because they get interrupted. They put it at a time when they know that people are going to come into their office, talk to them, which entirely defeats the purpose of deep work. I read something yesterday from the [music] University of California that blew my mind.
Once people are interrupted, it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to return to their original task. That means if you're getting interrupted even just a few times during your deep work time, you're losing 23 minutes. So deep work isn't something that you just squeeze into leftover time.
It should be first. It should be scheduled or it will never happen. Remember, the most successful people don't get paid to be busy.
They get [music] paid to think, to decide, and to create. But most people treat deep work like a nice to have instead of the actual job. So tomorrow morning, block one sacred window for deep work before you check your email, before you have any calls or do any messages.
Make it a 90inute [music] block. Maybe it's from 6:00 a. m.
to 7:30 before anyone's awake. Maybe it's 9:00 a. m.
to 10:30 after your first cup of coffee. During this time, [music] avoid any interruptions by turning off all of your notifications. Close Slack.
Put your phone in another room, shut down your inbox, and protect this time like your goals depend on it, because they do. If you apply one of these, you'll immediately buy back hours in your week [music] that you can now redirect towards money, towards impact, and ideally towards the life that you want.
