Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Donata White on How to Get the Most Out of Every Day

Episode Date: May 25, 2017

If you’re like a lot of my readers and listeners, you more or less always feel like there isn’t enough time in the day to do everything that you want to do. You might even feel that your life is totally out of balance and walk around in a constant state of anxiety about what you’re doing, not doing, should be doing, shouldn’t be doing, and so forth. Well, I know how that goes, what with writing a new book, running several businesses, raising a family, and so forth, and while there are deeper discussions that can be had about purposes, priorities, and perspectives, a great place to start on the problem is simply time management.  In short, if you make a few simple changes to how you spend your time every day, you might be shocked at how much more you can get done and how effortless and enjoyable it can feel. As you’ll see in this interview, this is really low-hanging, common sensical stuff that, for whatever reason, very few people actually do. And to break it all down for us, I’ve recruited personal trainer, attorney, and time management coach Donata White to explain how we can get far more out of the 24 hours that we get every day than we’re used to or even thought possible. As you’ll see, she outlines a simple productivity strategy that starts with asking yourself a few questions and learning to prioritize your time, and then moves into implementing a few basic but powerful productivity strategies like time blocking, minimizing transitions, eliminating distractions, and more. We also talk a bit about how all these things apply to health and fitness, namely meal planning and building a sustainable exercise routine. So, if you could use more productivity and less stress in your life, I think you’ll find this interview helpful. Here it is... 8:54 - What is your personal story that led you to create good time management practices? 12:02 - What is the first step of creating good time management practices?  15:15 - What are the common mistakes people do that eat up their free time?  22:30 - What is time-blocking and transitions? 28:25 - What are some meal-prepping tips to create even more free time? 33:24 - How are people underestimating their transition times? How can transition times improve? 40:42 - What are the benefits of good time management practices? 50:34 - What are the best apps and services that help time organization? 58:50 - How does your health and fitness affect your time management? 1:01:31 - What are some practices people can do to help them focus more on their current task? 1:10:34 - How can people connect with you and find your work? Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, it's Mike, and this podcast is brought to you by my books. Seriously, though, it actually is. I make my living as a writer, so as long as I keep selling books, I can keep writing articles over at Muscle for Life and Legion and recording podcasts and videos like this and all that fun stuff. Now, I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger Leaner Stronger if you're a guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger if you're a girl. Now, these books, they basically teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build

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Now, as you probably know, I'm not a fan of the supplement industry. I mean, I've wasted who knows how many thousands of dollars over the years on worthless supplements that really do nothing. And I've always had trouble finding products that I actually thought were worth buying and recommending. And well, basically I had been complaining about this for years and I decided to finally do something about it and start making my own products. And not just any products, but really the exact products that I myself have always wanted. So a few of the things that make my supplements unique are one, they're a hundred percent naturally sweetened and flavored. Two, all ingredients are backed by peer reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because

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something, use the coupon code podcast, P O D C A S T, and you'll save 10% on your order. All right. Thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast, and let's get to the show. Hello, everyone. This is Mike Matthews and I'm back with yet another episode of the Most Full Life Podcast. Now, if you're like a lot of my readers and listeners, you more or less always feel like there isn't enough time in the day to do everything that you want to do. You might even feel like your life is totally out of balance and you kind of just walk around in more or less a constant state of anxiety about what you're doing, not doing, should be doing, shouldn't be doing, and so forth. Well, I'll say

that I personally know how that goes, what with writing a new book, running several businesses, raising a family, and so forth. And while there are deeper discussions that can be had about purposes and priorities and perspectives, I think a great place to start in on the problem is just time management. In short, what I've found is if you just make a few simple changes to how you spend your time every day, you might be shocked at how much more you can get done and how much more effortless and enjoyable everything can be. As you'll see in this interview, this is really just low-hanging, commonsensical stuff that, for whatever reason, very few people actually do. And to break it all down for us, I've recruited personal trainer, attorney, and time management

coach Donata White to explain how we can get far more out of the 24 hours that we get every day than we're used to or even thought possible. In this interview, Donata outlines a simple productivity strategy that starts with asking yourself a few questions and learning to prioritize your time, and then moves into implementing a few basic but powerful productivity strategies like time blocking, eliminating distractions, and more. We also talk a bit about how these things apply to health and fitness in particular, namely meal planning and building a sustainable exercise routine. So if you could use more productivity and less stress in your life, then I think you're

going to find this interview helpful. And here it is. Hey, Donata, thanks for coming on my show. I appreciate you taking the time. And thanks so much for having me. Mike, I've got to tell you, you and your books helped me and my husband get in shape for our wedding. So we want to thank you for that three years later. That's awesome. It's an honor to be here. of emails from people like at least once a month, something like that. Like, Hey, check it out. Or it's either, it's either check it out. You know, we got, we got in great shape for our wedding or it's starting the process. It's like, Hey, you know, I'm going to get married in six months and want to want to be in great shape and so forth. So that's, that's fun to see. So little do you know, you're part of the big wedding industry as well.

There's probably, there's probably opportunity that that's probably a niche that could be specifically write that one down. There's probably opportunity. That's probably a niche that could be specifically... Write that one down. Targeted. Million dollar idea. All right. So we're here to talk about time management, which I'm excited to have you want to talk about because something again, I've probably touched on it here and there and things that I've written or spoken about, but haven't really kind of dove into it, which is that's why when we were emailing, I was like, oh about, but haven't really kind of dove into it, which is, that's why, that's why when we were emailing, I was like, oh yeah, I definitely want to do this because now that I think about it, it's something I do get asked about fairly frequently, especially

me personally, actually, where people are like, so how do you manage your time? How, and I feel like my advice isn't even that great because I honestly, and I joke that I'm not a great role model in, in, if I, I mean, maybe if I sat down and really kind of reverse engineered psychologically, what do I do to do what I do? Because for me, and again, so like my advice has been like, oh, well, you know, I don't know. I, I sleep about six or six and a half hours. That's all I, that's, I wake up now, like I don't need more sleep than that. And I just get up and I go to the gym and then I work for about 12 hours. And then, uh, I'm very structured in my work and I, you know, and I, and I spend a little time with my family. I read and I go to sleep and I do it again. And that's pretty much it. You know,

it's not very helpful is my point because people ask me, well, how do you, how do you deal with this problem or that? How do you, in a lot of the times my answer is, if I say, if I'm going to be honest, I don't really run into that. So I can't be like, sure. I could maybe come up with a, something, an idea that might help, but I can't say that I myself, you know, have, have gone through that. So, um, I suspect that this interview is going to be more helpful than I've been. Well, you know, just listening to you talk about some of what you've been doing, you're doing a lot of the things that we'll talk about today, but I suspect you're doing it kind of subconsciously. You don't really know how to put it into words for someone else. So hopefully our conversation

today will kind of help some people out with that. Yeah, exactly. And that's the thing. I haven't read much. It's not an area that I've read much on or really spent much time even thinking about because, again, looking at it now, I mean, not just looking at your outline, but of course, I come across things mainly in reading about business and entrepreneurship. reading, where then I'm like, well, yeah, I guess I guess I'm kind of doing a lot of those things. And it's what just kind of, it seems like common sense to me, that's just the way to go about it, right. But you know, it's not always common sense is not always common. That's unfortunately true. So let's just jump in. Let's so so let's just assume that you're talking to people, a lot of the people that are listening, or can relate more with people like you and me, that are listening can relate more with people like you and me who have busy lifestyles.

And we feel like we have way more things, not just work-wise, but way more things that we need to do in our life than we have time for. A lot of people listening probably have kids. They're probably married with kids and have careers. Their life is not just fitness. They don't have time to sit in the gym two hours a day or even the inclination to sit in the gym for two hours a day. And, you know, everything is, sleep is kind of tight. Everything is tight. And so that's who you're talking to. And with that in mind, let's just kind of, kind of jump in. And if you want to jump in with maybe a quick

little overview of, it doesn't have to be necessarily your backstory, but where you are at, like that people are going to relate with, or they're going to be like, those are, yes, those are the problems that I run into. And those are the things that I've tried that haven't worked. You know what I mean? Right. Of course. Um, so let's start kind of where I started realizing this was a problem was sort of late into my college career and at the beginning of law school. Um, so prior to kind of honing my time management skills, I was a little bit stuck in this cycle, which I suspect many of your listeners might be in or just people in general, of being overworked, getting exhausted, falling behind because I was exhausted, having to hustle to get caught up, and then getting overworked again.

So it was just this big cycle that I didn't know how to stop. There was never enough time to do anything. And I was exhausted. I wasn't sleeping. I was breaking down in tears at least once a week at law school, especially. And I wasn't working or doing things to kind of the standard that I thought I should be doing them. Things weren't getting done the right way. And it was very frustrating because I knew I could do better and I knew I could feel better. I just didn't know how. So once I kind of did a little reading, figuring things out and, you know, really just structuring

my schedule, my productivity like went through the roof and I suddenly had time to go to the gym and meal prep and, you know, join an acapella group. I'm a singer, so that's like a fun fact. I had time to start a business. I landed a job at one of the top litigation law firms in the country and while I was working there, I got my personal training certification while I had a full-time job. So once you figure this stuff out, there's a lot more time out there to do the things that you actually want to do and to do them to the standard that you expect to do. That's great. And I'm sure that is going to resonate again with that's where a lot of people are at and that's what they want.

We all have that point where we feel like we've bitten off more than we can chew in life. And I think anybody that is trying to push themselves and achieve more in any area in just life in general, you reach that point eventually, right? You reach that level where, what is it in business? They call it the Peter principle that you tend to rise to the level of your incompetence basically. So you'll make it as far and there is a point where what got you to this point is no longer going to take you any further.

So for some people, you know, some people maybe can delay that longer than others, but I think we all hit it eventually. Right. And I think that, you know, my goal, especially with my time management clients, you know, I have personal training and time management clients. My goal with them is to not necessarily pack more productivity into every single minute of every single day. Like people need breathing space. So some of the stuff we'll talk about gives you that little bit of like, not every minute is packed. And suddenly, you still have time for all the stuff that you want to do to rise to that next level like you were saying. But it's not wake up productivity for 16 hours, fall asleep.

I'm listening. All right. Please fill me in. All right. So let's start at the top then. So where do we start with this discussion? Let's probably start with how much time there really is, right? I mean, there are real world constraints. My clients with a little bit of an exercise, and this is kind of a light bulb moment for a lot of people, so I've got a little demonstrative here. For those of you listening and not watching, I'll describe it for you. I've got a piece of paper with the number 168 at the top. I don't know if that's a little washed out, but I've written 168 at the top, and that is the number of hours in a week. So I'm basically just going to do a big subtraction problem here.

What you want to do is write down next is 56 and that is eight times seven for all of you people out there who don't sleep eight hours a night and that is for sleep. Then you want to write down, you know, how many hours a week do I spend working? For most people that's 40. You write down work, you know, how many hours a week do I spend commuting? How many hours a week do I spend at the gym, meal prepping? All of those necessities, you want to write down a number for each of those. So sleep, work, commute, especially is one people forget. Driving their kids around, include that in there. All of the necessities you want to account for and account for how many hours a week you spend doing each of these things. And then you just subtract all of those numbers from 168. And there's kind of two camps of people at the end

of this. One of them, a very rare type, is the people who actually have a negative number at the end. And they've way overcommitted there. You're, if you're one of those people, you're only human, there's absolutely no way you can get everything done that you have written down. So you need to figure out how to take some of this stuff off of your plate. But most people fall into this other category, which is, wow, that's a large number. Where's it all going? The first time I did this, I was in law school and the number was, I think somewhere between 25 and 35 hours I was left with. And that's after accounting for studying, sleep, gym, cooking, you know, all the stuff that you basically are saying,

I will not, I can't drop this out of my life. Right, exactly. I can't, this is a necessity. These are my non-negotiables. I have to do these things. And, you know, I was, you know, let's just say 30 hours to make it easy. I had 30 hours left that I was able to, you know, go out with friends or read a book for something other than school. You know, just, you could do whatever you want with these 30 hours. And I had to figure out number one, where it was going. And number two, what I wanted to do with it, because that's a lot of time and you could really make a huge impact with that. So that's

what we'll talk about going forward in this in this conversation. But that's that's kind of where where people should start is figuring out how exactly how much time do you really have if you you were to lump it all together, what would be the number of hours per week that you have to do whatever you want with? Okay, great. So everyone listening, uh, pause and go do that. And let's move forward now. It's assuming people, okay, so they have their number, um, where, what are the, what are the most common, you know, mistakes that a lot of people are going to are, are where, where it goes from here. Okay. So they have some time.

Where's that time now going as opposed to where they want it to go and so forth. Right. So I think there are three areas where people kind of go wrong with this. The first one, and this is probably going to be near and dear to your heart. Thinking of sleep, exercise and nutrition as optional, that is the number one mistake people make. And you know, after you go through this exercise, please account for sleep, like real, a real amount of sleep. Please account. I'm just, I'm just going to, I'm just going to cat cat just, I mean, this is actually, this is, this is going to be posted after the interview. I think actually the interview I do

with Sean Stevenson just went up now. So all on the subject of sleep. He's the coolest. Yeah, yeah. He's a super cool guy and it was a great talk. And he coaches, I mean amongst many things he does, he works with people to get their sleep down. I mean he mentions it in the podcast with – I guess he mentions executives and the type of people that care enough to pay someone to say, Hey, I don't want to have to sleep eight hours a night. I'm going to pay you money. And you tell

me how I can only have to be in bed for six and a half hours a night, but not be sleep deprived. And he breaks it down for people listening. If you happen to not have heard, you know, the Sean Stevenson interview, by the time listening to this, I'd recommend you go check it out because he kind of breaks it down and shows that if you have, let's say nine out of 10 or 10 out of 10 sleep efficiency or sleep quality, you shouldn't need to, physiologically speaking, unless there's something else going on or whatever, you shouldn't need to really be sleeping more than maybe six and a half hours, because that gives your body the three to four full sleep cycles that it needs, including the deep sleep and blah, blah, blah. So, you know, I guess in talking with him and he kind of works, walks through really the, I guess the key strategies that you can use. Those are things

that I, again, I just happened to be doing. I was doing a lot of things right to where, yeah, I mean, I'll fall asleep very quickly and I'm like full coma mode until I wake up until I wake up six or six and a half hours later, I open my eyes and I'm like, okay, and that's it. And that's sleep. So, and that's, you know, how it, again, I kind of lucked out in that regard, but I'm just throwing it out there. I don't recommend everybody to just cut your sleep down and be like, oh, well, I don't know. Mike says he sleeps six hours. So I'll just do that. You can, but you, you have to, there's a strategy and you have to make sure that, I even use sleep trackers to see how much deep sleep am I getting to make sure that I'm not just diluting myself. But anyways, I just wanted to throw that out there as a caveat.

Yeah. And you bring up a good point. You may not need eight full hours of sleep, especially if you're doing all of the right things. In fact, I think Sean, I've read a lot of his stuff and listened to his podcast all the time. He mentions that sleep cycles are around 90 minutes long. So technically you should need seven and a half hours of sleep if you're like going full sleep cycles. But be conservative with your numbers when you're doing the exercise we just talked about. Just so, you know, if you're surprised with extra time, you know, that's exciting. But if you, you know, if you, I think you're right. I think you're actually right. Four to five is what he was

saying. Four to five sleep cycles. Right. So I think if, um, you know, if you're a little more conservative with, with your numbers and how long things take you, you'll be surprised with extra time versus, you know, still in the same situation as you are now, like kind of trying to cram things in where they don't fit. Would you also, and this is something again, just kind of top of the mind for me, when people are estimating, err on the side of overestimating, you know, it's something like I've learned in business when you're, when you're trying to estimate budgets and, you know, timelines and schedules, always overestimate, always. Always just do your best to drill something down and then just add 20% on top of it just because.

Right. I do that all the time, especially with some of the time management stuff. I leave myself a little bit of a buffer, but we'll talk about buffers in a second. Um, but, uh, yeah, I, I would agree with that totally. Just whenever you're doing something money wise, you know, time wise, just pro you know, a big project you're working on, just give yourself a little bit of a buffer there. It's probably going to serve you well. Yeah. Okay. So sorry, I pulled you off track, but where do people generally go wrong here? So, yeah, the first one was thinking of sleep, exercise and nutrition as kind of optional when they're busy. I think that's a huge mistake. It drives performance down and we'll talk about that in a little more detail in a second. The

second huge mistake is putting their daily tasks in the wrong order and creating too many transitions in their schedule. That's the third one. So doing things in the wrong order and then also creating too many transitions in their schedule. So those are my three biggest mistakes that I see people making over and over and over again. And the way you were describing your schedule earlier, it seems like you're not doing these things, which is really great. But, you know, it's not like you ever drilled it down and, you know, sat down on paper and scheduled everything out. Or maybe you did, I don't know. Uh, I mean, I've done transitions. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's the, again, I, to be fair, actually, I'm a bit more educated in this maybe than I've let on. I haven't,

I haven't, I don't have, let's see, I've read getting things done. I've read maybe a few books related to productivity, uh, and time management, but it's not something I've really kind of – I wouldn't say I'm very well read in it, but I've picked up things more reading other stuff like time blocking and transition stuff. I know about that. So yeah, and I do actually – what I have for a schedule, I don't know. I'm kind of curious how you've gone about it. So I've tried different things. I've tried to be very specific in terms of time I'm going to spend from this time to this time. I'm going to be working on writing this, doing that or whatever. And I found that that just didn't, it didn't, it didn't play out. It wasn't, it wasn't flexible enough for reality, especially running a business and having people and things come up. So what I now have that seems to work best for me is I have a kind of a morning, afternoon, evening slot for – and I have here the key things that I need to get done.

And here's the order in which I want to do them. And sometimes I do get pulled off. There are like, oh, shit, something is – there's no – like I don't have an option. Life happens. Or even stuff like this where I have like, okay, so I'll, you know, uh, I'll be recording a podcast either. Sometimes it's Wednesday, sometimes it's Thursday. So right now I would normally be doing something that's going to be moved to tomorrow's afternoon slot. But I found that that more modular approach works best for me. And then I don't have to be looking at the clock and looking at my schedule and from nine to nine to 1030, I'm doing this. And you know what I mean? I use my calendar for that, for appointments.

Right. And I think that's how most people are. That's how I am as well. I don't advocate for scheduling every minute of every single day. I think I'm trying to free most people from that. I think once you internalize these concepts, it's a little less structured. I think you're right on the right track there. But we can talk a little bit about the time blocking and the transitions if that's what you want to hit next. Yeah. I mean, so yeah, why don't you explain what you mean by those things? So in terms of order and then transitions. Okay. So I like to think of these as two separate concepts, but they kind of work together. So if you were to block out your schedule, like you were just mentioning, you would have blocks of time where you were doing things, and then you have a line in between them. And the line in between them is the transition time, which is the amount of, you know, however many minutes it takes you to switch from either your morning to your afternoon or your afternoon to your evening. And the blocks themselves are the time blocks.

So I like to group tasks generally together by location or by type. So the way you would do that is for a time block where you're running errands, for example, you would do all of your errands on one side of town, like the west side of town first, and then you would commute, however you commute, to the east side of town and do all of your errands on that side. You wouldn't go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And that's, I think, the easiest illustration for people to kind of get. So in that instance, you're grouping things by location because you're going to save time in transition going back and forth between the two. Or it could also be like at the computer. So if you're going to have a block of time and you're going to be paying your bills at the computer and then what else, okay, going through maybe personal email, stuff like that.

Exactly, exactly. And that's a little more of an in-between example, which I actually really like that example. I'm going to use that one. So that's kind of grouping activities by type. So the one I like to use for this is if you're cleaning your house, it's really inefficient to do what a lot of people do, which is like, oh, I'll wipe down the mirrors today. And then like, maybe I'll get to the shower tomorrow. Maybe I'll vacuum the next day. If you're going to be doing a cleaning activity, it's really great to kind of condense all of it into one time block, which, you know, you've got to find the hour or two time block to clean everything. But once you do, you'll spend less time cleaning overall throughout the week because you won't have to drag everything out and put it back and then drag everything out again and put it back. So that is grouping tasks by type or whatever resources they require of you. The example you just gave, you're required to sit at your computer and type things and be at your desk.

So that's nice to get all of your computer-based activities done at the same time. Cleaning's the same way. You pull out all of your cleaning supplies and just do everything at once, and then you put it all back. You don't have to keep dragging it out. There's probably also something to be said for, and this is, I mean, one of the many benefits of doing things right, which you can kind of just sprinkle in as we go through these strategies, but you get a sense of accomplishment as well. You're going to get less out of what you were saying, I'll clean the mirror today and I'll clean that tomorrow, as opposed to, you know, because then basically your shit's

always dirty. You know what I mean? If that's how you go about it. So you're going to spend time cleaning. The amount of time that you spend is more or less the same, but you don't really get the satisfaction of everything looks nice, everything is clean. And then, yeah, it gets dirty, dirty, dirty to where, again, it's kind of like the same, you know um, you know, the, the same level of, uh, dissatisfaction, but then you can just fix it all and be truly satisfied at least for a period of time, as opposed to always being kind of dissatisfied because only one fifth of anything

is clean at any given time. Exactly. And I would actually argue that it does take you longer to do it the other way. You know, you said time's more or less the same. I'd actually argue it does take you longer. Yeah, that's true. I thought you were saying, yeah, get your stuff out and bring it back. And, you know, maybe you get interrupted during, you know, when you're cleaning mirrors and you have to stop and then start again versus when you're cleaning, you can kind of tell everybody, hey, I'm cleaning now. This is what I'm doing. Don't bother me. It's kind of easy to section off a task that way. And like you said, the satisfaction, and there's a lot to be said for momentum as well. You kind of get in a groove when you group things by type. Another way a lot of business owners like to do this,

and I know you mentioned Sean earlier, he mentioned that he does this as well. He has like a research day for his business. He has a writing day. You know, at work at the law firm. I like to, if I'm going to write a brief or a motion or something, I do it all at once. I kind of try to find a few hours where I can just sit there and bang it out because you get into a groove and can kind of, you know, take advantage of the momentum to get it done more quickly versus if I stopped writing, I would have to come back, kind of read it again to figure out where I was, get my brain back into that space and then start writing again. And then maybe, you know, I get a phone call or something, I'm interrupted, I have to stop and then I have to figure out where

I was. It's just, it takes a lot longer when you don't do it all at once in one big time block. Yeah, no, that's a good point. Actually, it's something again, that I, that I, that I do, um, myself where basically if I'm, if I'm going to sit down and write, it's either something, I mean, some, maybe it's only going to take me 30 minutes or less if it's an email or something, but if it's a longer, like I'm working on a new book, um, so I will want to put at least two to three hours, uh, of focused time into it before moving on to something else. Just because, I mean, I've written a lot at this point and I feel like I get in the groove pretty quickly, but still for the point of momentum

and really in feeling like I've made progress, it would be a lot less productive if I were to say, okay, I'm going to work on this for 20 minutes and then do something else. And I'll come back to it later in 20 minutes and then try to break that out two hours up into 20 minute chunks would absolutely be worse. Right. And I also think that you lose, especially with writing, and this is true for a lot of other, a lot of other activities as well, but I think you lose the ability to kind of see

the bigger picture when you chunk it up into little pieces like that. For writing, especially, I found that if I don't do it in one big, one big chunk, I kind of lose this, the overall structure of, of the piece that I'm working on. So yeah. So you can also tie this into something everybody, this is probably something that they've all either figured out for themselves or have thought about doing, which is meal planning and meal prepping versus just cooking every day. Oh my goodness.

This is a huge one. And I always want to shake the people that say that they don't have time to meal prep. I'm like, you don't have time not to, you have to meal prep. Unless you're picking up, unless every meal gets delivered to your mouth, you're doing it anyway. Right. Exactly. Um, and I actually have, I can even go into more detail about this cause I've, I've done classes in my private Facebook group about like specifically how to make meal prep the most efficient. If you meal prep, you can get, I would say a week's worth of meals for me and my husband takes me about an hour and a half. And you know, admittedly, we don't eat the most like gourmet food. We eat a lot of the same things

over and over again, which I'm sure you used to, you know, chicken, broccoli, rice, all that kind of, you know. I mean, I kind of just joke around the office because I'm like, yeah, eating like an adult, like you're not a child anymore. You eat mainly protein and fruit and vegetables and whole grains and it's not a prepackaged shit and it's not, you know, yeah, yeah. It's not, you know, 15 sauces on one meal or whatever. It's like, you know, I shake some seasoning on my chicken and I'm good to go. But you know, it takes an hour and a half over the week and me and my husband both have all of our meals and that's including breakfast, you know, you know, I'll make oatmeal the day of fine. It's, but that takes a minute and a half in the microwave. Um, but you can,

you can get it down to where you're cooking much less time on one day than you would throughout the whole week because you would be cooking for two people probably at least 20 minutes every day if you were to split it all up. At least. I mean if you also factor in cleaning up, it's probably more. Oh, yeah. Oh, I would agree with that. And side note in terms of cleaning up meal prep, aluminum foil is your best friend. If you're not putting aluminum foil on every single pan you use, you're wasting a ton of time. You know, environmentalists out there are going to hate me, but you know. Something's got to give. Straight up.

but um any any other quick tips you want to share that honestly would probably be a good a good just episode unto itself because it is a bit of an art to good meal prep but that's that's a clever little tip i actually haven't heard that before i was like that's good i like that i mean i've heard of course baking stuff in aluminum foil and that's like a i think a lot of people do that but great but especially if you're switching pans um you know or if you're using the same pan for multiple things it's easy to like clean it up and put another layer on if you're switching pans um you know or if you're using the same pan for multiple things it's easy to like clean it up and put another layer on so you're not washing it in between but i can i can actually give your your audience the kind of the short version of the quick meal prep if you think that'll be helpful yeah let's do all right so um there are three

kind of rounds of things you want to start so i always like to start with like the long cooking items these are things like stuff that goes in a crock pot sweet potatoes which take forever of rounds of things you want to start. So I always like to start with like the long cooking items. These are things like stuff that goes in a crock pot, sweet potatoes, which take forever, you know, large cuts of meat. You want to get that stuff started first because it's going to take the longest and you could kind of just set it and forget it, right? You just put it in and you leave it there and you could go do other stuff until it's done. So that's not the first thing you want to start. The second thing you want to start is kind of the in between maybe takes 20 minutes kind of items, roasted veggies, you know, maybe smaller cuts of meat that you're like going to throw on the grill and maybe have

to flip over once the kind of medium set it, but like keep an eye on it kind of items. And then the third thing you start are the more intensive recipes or things you have to keep an eye on while they're actually physically cooking. Like, yeah, sauces. If you're going to like saute some vegetables on the stove and you don't want to light your house on fire, probably a good thing to keep an eye on. And if you do it in that order, long cooking, kind of middle of the road, 20 minutes, and then things I need to keep my eye on. If you start them in that order, you'll end up with kind of everything done at the same time and there'll be no waiting. You're not just sitting around in the kitchen, tapping your foot and like looking at your watch, waiting for things to be

done because you've started them in kind of rounds and then everything's all done at once and you can just package it and clean it up. So that's how I kind of got it down to an hour and a half. That's great. That's good. So that's how I kind of got it down to an hour and a half. That's great. That's good. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth.

So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. Twitter at Muscle for Life and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. The next thing that we were going to talk about before I like went off on my Tangerine Malt Meal prep was transition time. And that's the time in between the time blocks. So I think where a lot of people go wrong with this is you can lose up to like hours

a day if you don't do this right. If you have longer time blocks and fewer transitions, you'll lose less time. But where a lot of people go wrong is they have shorter time blocks and more frequent transitions, and they lose 10 or 15 minutes each time, which is a killer. Because if you have six transitions. I want to give a few examples of like what a mistake, a lot of people listening probably have made or are making. Oh, the biggest one I see is when they are finished getting ready in the morning to when they actually pull out of the driveway or when they actually like leave for work or wherever they're going. Like maybe you haven't experienced this, but a lot of people tell me they've had this moment where they're like ready for work and they're ready to put their coat on and shoes and get their stuff.

And they pull out of the driveway and all of a sudden it's like 12 minutes later. Like where did that 12 minutes go? I was ready. Time warp. Exactly. So I think what helps with this is making your time blocks longer and making your transition times shorter and less frequent. So routines help a lot with this, you know, maybe, maybe with your, your soon to be two children, you, you've gotten a lot

of routines down, um, to where, you know, getting them to bed at this kind of a process. So I hear, I don't have any children of my own, but if you get a routine going, you kind of know how long that's going to take. And you could say, oh, I've got to start the routine now. So they could be in bed by, you know, 8 PM or whenever it is, kids go to bed. I don't know what he's like, goes to bed. Yeah. Um, he's, he's funny in that he's, I don't know, he's, he's easy in many regards.

And that's one where he actually kind of puts himself to bed. Like he just kind of gets out. Yeah. I mean, we had to pay on the, on the front end though, cause he didn't sleep well as a baby. Uh, and cause he, he had a bit of a, what are they? Is it colic? Uh, so, you know, his stomach would be upset and he just didn't, I don't know. He wouldn't fall asleep easily. He just didn't sleep long as a baby, but now, okay. So we had to get through that. But now, yeah, he's very easy to put to bed. If he doesn't put himself to bed,

it's kind of just me saying, okay, Lennox, let's go to bed. And he's like, okay. And then I just take him to his bed. And then I don't even – I'll lay with him just for – just because I like it. But he doesn't care. I can just put him in the bed and he's like, all right, good night. And that's it. Can you shut off the light, dad?

I'm trying to sleep. Yeah. Well, that's lucky. I'm sure a lot of parents out there envy you. No, I know that's not normal. Normally, it is very much like'm sure a lot of parents out there envy you. No, I know that's not normal. Normally it is very much like, okay, you've got to have the bath and we got to have the book reading and then we got to have the whole routine. Right. And if you, and if you know how long the routine takes, it's a little bit easier to gauge how long it'll take to get from like real

life to bedtime. And the same thing with adults, you know, if we want to talk about adults, since I'm sure there are not many children listening to the podcast, you know, if you know how long it takes you to kind of gather your stuff, including the meals that you prepped for yourself, put your shoes on, get your coat on, you know, make sure you didn't forget your cell phone, lock not even 12 minutes it's probably around you know five yeah um if you have kind of a process for it that you kind of know what's going to happen in what order right almost like a checklist in your head basically right exactly like my mom maybe maybe a lot of people out there had the same thing or they do this my mom always would be like crap i forgot to lock the door of course she didn't but it but it was part of her routine that she would just do kind of without thinking. Sometimes I'll do it with even locking my car. I'll hit the lock button and then I'll be walking away and I'm like, I don't remember.

Did I actually hit it? It's just unconscious. Sometimes you have to pay a little bit more attention, but these routines become so ingrained that you can kind of do them without thinking. And maybe forget if you locked the door or not. these routines become so ingrained that you can kind of do them without thinking. And, you know, maybe forget if you lock the door or not, but that gets the transition time very, very short. And if you have routines for the times that you experience most frequently, I think that helps a lot. And also, again, making the time blocks longer and making the transitions less frequent. So, you know, if you have to go out and run errands and also pick your

kid up from soccer, you kind of want to do that all at the same time. Again, these, these go hand in hand. You, you want to make sure the time block of being out of your house is as long as possible, you know, run your errands and pick your kid up or pick your kid up and then take them on errands or they'll, you know, that might make it longer. I don't know. Um, and then drive out once, do everything that you need to do and then drive out once, do everything that you need to do and then drive back again. Don't, you know, go out, do your errands, come back, go out, pick your kid up, come back. Cause that's created two extra transitions that didn't need to be there. I mean, also something you can supply this even with the gym where some people, um,

they'll, they'll go in the morning to lift weights and then they'll drive back later to do cardio. Yeah. I mean, I understand from a pure, just purely from a muscle and strength gain perspective, that may be a little bit better, but from a time management perspective, it's absolutely not better. Right. And lift and then, and then do your cardio and then leave and don't come back to the gym or, or do what I do. Have a, have an upright bike in your basement and go do that. That's, That's another option. I tell my clients the same thing. What if I have to lift and, you know, I always get the question, what if I have to lift and do cardio on the same day?

I'm like, just do your cardio after. Like, you're not competing. You're a real person. You only have an hour. It's not a huge deal. And that's why I like your stuff so much. Like, you're realistic about this. It's not like spend, you know, an hour and 15 minutes lifting weights and then go back to the gym later for your 45 minutes of cardio. It's not realistic for a lot of people.

And I think, like you said, it creates transitions where there shouldn't be any. Just go to the gym once, come back. Or, you know, if you're like me, we have one in the apartment building, which is really nice. But that's another way you can cut your transitions. You know, this may not be possible for a lot of people, but if your commute is long, you know, maybe, maybe that's something you could change. Or if your gym is one, that's pretty far away. Maybe you can look for one closer. There are ways you can kind of finagle these things to make the transitions a lot shorter and save yourself a lot of time and it adds up. Totally. So I want to throw this out to you then. So for some people

listening, this might sound like a lot of work, a lot of things to stay on top of. And whereas it's more comfortable, so to speak, just to kind of keep doing whatever it is you do and not really kind of go about things with a plan. What are the big benefits of, I mean, because it's also a matter of with everything that people have on their plates going, okay, I have them. I'm going to allot some mental bandwidth to this. I'm going to really sit down. I'm going to look where my time is. I'm going to put together a schedule. I'm going to time block my stuff in terms of, you know, whether it be types of activities or types of work. I think that's also something that helps love me. Like I only do my email really once a day and I do it in a, in a time block.

And otherwise I, sometimes I do have to go to my email to get something for what I'm doing, but I do not just sit and leave email open and go back and forth, you know, all that kind of stuff. But so what are the big benefits for, you know, adding this as another thing that you have to stay on top of and, you know, requires probably for some people a bit of self-control and self-discipline because you kind of have to break some habits that you've ingrained and it's going to feel a little bit uncomfortable at first and you're going to kind of probably just want to default back to whatever you've always been doing. Right.

It sounds like from a lot of what I hear clients tell me that what they're doing is not really much of anything in terms of like scheduling. It's just like, this is what's on my list today and whatever order I wrote it down in is kind of how it's going to happen. Because it's kind of the laziest way to go about it. You know what I mean? And that's where all humans, we all tend to just default. I think even biologically, you could argue, we're kind of like more inclined toward laziness.

And so it's – but it plays out in many ways. That is like the least effort. I would say to define lazy, we always want to get the most benefit out of the least effort. So it's like that's kind of the least effort way of going about living. At least there is a plan. At least there is a list. In some cases, maybe there's nothing. It's really just wake up and be like whatever pops in my head today is what I'm going to do today.

But so to go from that to the other way around where I'm going to put real concerted effort into organizing my shit, you know what I mean? Right. And, and I think this is kind of a carrot I, I dangle in front of those people. What is that carrot? You get so much more time back if you just do a little bit on the front end. I think maybe now it takes me five minutes to like, look at my planner, see when I have appointments, you know, build my other time blocks around those. And then that's it. I don't have to mentally think about what needs to be done next. I'm never

surprised by things that come up because I've put a plan in place ahead of time. So it's not like, you know, I'm at work, you know, banging, banging out emotion or a complaint or whatever. And I'm like shocked that there's a meeting in five minutes that I haven't prepared for. Like it's, I never run into those situations anymore because if you just put a little bit of effort in on the front end, you get that time and that mental space back. It's a lot less stressful and that helps you perform better on whatever it is that you're doing. So, um, you know, it does seem like a lot of, a lot of information to absorb at first and a lot of, and a lot of, maybe a lot of change as well for, right, exactly. And a lot of new techniques to kind of internalize and really get your, get your hands on. But I think if you do it, it's

ultimately saves you a lot of headache and a lot of time later on. And you do get that little bit of breathing space. Like toward the end of the day, there's nothing better than just being able to sit on the couch and watch a bunch of like stupid YouTube videos. Because there really is truly nothing to be done. I've done it all. And that's like the most satisfying feeling when you're just like, it's over. Yeah, I mean there's something to be said specifically for that. I can speak to that personally where you don't, you can do something that's not necessarily directly related to productivity. For me, I'd say it's, you know,

whatever work kind of related stuff, you can do something else, but, but actually feel like it's okay that you're doing something else as opposed to having attention on all the other things that didn't get done that you felt should have gotten done because of mismanaged time. And also mistakes, mistakes that you're making because of mismanaged time. If you don't prepare for the meeting, it's not as productive as it should have been and then you have to go back and have another meeting so now you've wasted the time with the second meeting when you could have just, you know, had, had your shit together in

the first time. Um, so you're, you're doing a lot less correction if you just put the little bit, you know, maybe five, 10 minutes in the morning. We're not talking about a lot of time here. It's, you know, it is a big change, like you said, but it's really not, you're not sitting down for hours and scheduling out your day. It's a few minutes in the morning, you know, drink your coffee while you're doing it, have the news on in the background. It's really not a huge deal. If you just put that little bit of time in up front, you'll get it all back and more later in just aggravation and not having to repeat things and not forgetting things. It's, it's totally worth the investment. Just like, just like a monetary investment. You know, you put in a little at first and then you wait a little bit and you get the return later.

Right. That's just how it works, right? You're just like, yeah, exactly. And okay, so what about technology? Are there any software services, SaaS that you like to use for this stuff? Because there are a billion apps and a billionasses out there and proposed solutions for becoming more productive or managing your time better. I actually mentioned planner. So it sounds like you're old school. Oh, look, and I'm going to sound really old school. I'm only 29. I promise

I'm not like some old lady. Um, I really do believe in the paper and pen planner. I know a lot of people use their phone and that's totally fine. If that works for you, they use it because, you know, it's always with you. It's convenient. It sits in your pocket or your purse and it's always there. But the way our brains work, you're actually more likely to remember something if you physically write it down. And again, that results in a lot fewer surprises than, you know, you're not waking up in the morning with, you know, that little dot on your iPhone calendar, which by the way, what does the dot mean? It just means there's a thing on this day that's not helpful at all. You know, you're not waking up

to that dot and being like, crap, I have, you know, this huge thing that I should have been preparing. That's not just some little dot. That's some big fucking thing. That's a big dot. So I find that the planner, if I can see my whole week on two pages and actually physically write things down, I'm more likely to remember if someone says, hey, can you come to this thing on Thursday? I'm more likely to remember I wrote something down on Thursday. I may not remember exactly what it is, but I know to check. And the dots mean nothing on the iPhone. Like I can't handle the iPhone calendar. So one that I do like, though, is Wunderlist. The reason I like this is it's more for like checklists and stuff that I share with my husband, Jeff.

We put our grocery list on it. And, you know, you can kind of both walk around the grocery store with the phone and checking things off. And that helps maximize our time there um we do it with like chores which sounds you know we have a chore chart where two adults live we're married it's not really a chore it's not really a chore chart but it's like no the things that you get done like what do you want exactly like the dog the dog needs her like tick preventative today okay got it you know and and stuff we need to share i love wonderlist for that but we don't really use it for scheduling. It's more for just checklists of like repeated things that you need reminders for. The smart thing in particular is it comes from

out of getting things done and he swiped it probably from some other person, but, uh, is just that point of don't, you know, get, don't, don't rely on your mind to remember all the random things that you need to do. Get it all out and get it down on paper or down, you know, somewhere digitally. So you can use your mind for, for thinking about things and having ideas and, you know, processing life as opposed to trying to constantly remember, Oh fuck, when, when would you, when did we give the tick medicine? We wouldn't do it. You know what I what I mean? But that's that times 150 different things. And that alone can just kind of, if you don't have that in, can make, I'm sure, can make you just feel like, you know, semi-psychotic half the time. And people don't think about this, but your brain is a physical – like it uses physical energy. Like every time you have to remember something and pull something out of your brain or make a decision or try to do things off the cuff like that without having a plan or having it on paper or on your phone or whatever, it's energy.

And you get worn out and your threshold for like willpower and just your threshold of like giving a shit just gets lowered if you run out of energy too quickly. And that's particularly relevant for people who are maybe trying to lose weight or build muscle or whatever it is. They have this big fitness goal that they're after. Your willpower is very precious because there will be pizza. There will be donuts. There will be a great marathon of Harry Potter movies on will be, you know, a great marathon of like Harry Potter movies on TV that you want to sit and watch instead of going to the gym. I don't know, whatever your thing is, it's going to be there. And as much of that as you can conserve and save

for your efforts toward the goal that you're trying to achieve, the better. I think that, you know, if you just take all this stuff out and, and let your planner kind of tell you what your day looks like instead of you trying to figure it out. Cause you've done all the work ahead of time. Trust yourself. You've written it down. It's there. You thought about it then. And you said, yes, that makes sense. And that, you know, once it passes that, that litmus test, then it goes into the planner, then it's done. You don't have to think about it again. All you have to do is remember the routine is very simple. Check your planner when you get your coffee. So it's done. You don't have to think about it again. All you have to do is remember the routine is very simple. Check your planner when you get your coffee. So it's just like a simple trigger. Exactly. And I kind of leave my planner open next to me on my desk at work, you know, at home,

just so I can jot things down quickly. A lot of them have notes sections. Your phone has a memo section. So it's easy to just, you know, jot down a phone number. It's all in one place. It's not like I have paid posts with phone numbers and posts with reminders over here. And, you know, jot down a phone number. It's all in one place. It's not like I have posts with phone numbers and posts with reminders over here. And, you know, I wrote a note in my phone and then I texted this to some person to remind me later. It's all in one spot. And all of that remembering and scheduling, it's out of my brain and it's in, you know, my mind is a physical planner, but it could be in your phone. And the effort is taken out of it. You can kind of just look and it's taken care of, which is really, really nice and shouldn't be, you know, underestimated in terms of like just your threshold of, you know, wanting to deal with life. That's a good way of putting it.

All right. So Wunderlist, do you like the checklist? Any other apps or, you know, SaaS's that you like for the checklist what any other apps or you know sasses that that you like or that clients of yours like like even you know instead of okay so you you prefer uh paper i mean i don't for example like i like i i use google calendar and i have my little routine same thing though i check it out and i like to use trello for example trello is great for that's what i kind of use for what am I what are my calls today like I have I have my calendar and then at the beginning of the day I have I make a list and I

leave my Trello open all day just so I don't forget because I've had it happen a number of times where I'll get into something like we'd have a 2 p.m okay we're doing the podcast it has happened where I'll start something especially writing stuff at maybe one and then completely forget and then all of a sudden it's four o'clock and I look and I'm like, Oh, what was I supposed to? Uh, so I'll leave it open, but I like Trello for daily to do. Like I have a, you know, I have a lot of repetitive stuff that I need to do throughout the week. So I have little lists that you can copy and move things. Anyways. So what do you like and what are your clients like? I think the best advice I can give because there are so many and I don't want to play favorites or whatever, especially since I don't use any of them on a daily basis.

I think the best advice I can give on this is just pick one that makes sense with how your brain already works. Don't try to fit how you think into a system. Find the system that fits how you think already. So for me, my planner is just set up the way my brain already organizes information. What kind of planner? Because I know there are different templates, right? Yeah. I have an Erin Condren Life Planner. It's like the biggest, girliest, you know, I'm trying to see if I can find it. I know's it's across the room but it's like the biggest girliest planner but inside is a vertical weekly setup with three different sections and I do mine as to-dos events and reminders and that just makes sense like what

do I need to do today where are my time blocks aka where are my events and what do I need to be reminded of that I don't necessarily need to participate in but like you know my know, my husband's work schedule or whose birthday it is. It's not necessarily something I have to do, but it's something I need to remember for that day. And that's just how my brain stored information already. So I can teach that system to somebody else, but if that's not how they think and it's not how it makes sense to them, that planner is going to be totally useless. Some people just think in kind of a stream and they, you know, write my appointment over here, write my to-dos over here. And it's, they prefer like a big block of empty space just to like write in, or they think in pictures or they draw arrows. And it just depends on how, how your brain already

works and what makes sense for you to look at. And when you look at it, is it going to tell you the information that you need is the most important thing. So even with whether it's paper or digital. And if you like using it matters because if you don't, then it's probably not going to work because you're just going to have that friction. There's always going to be that friction there that you don't want to go look at it. You don't want to go open the app or whatever it is. Right. If you don't use it, it's totally useless. So whatever is most enjoyable for you to use, I think, too, is huge because, again, it can't tell you what your day looks like if you're not actually using it. And then, again, you're storing all of it in your brain still, which is kind of the point of getting the app in the first place.

So try out a few. A lot of the ones, you know, the apps, obviously, you can just try because you just download them. Yeah, it rings for me. Right, exactly. just try because you just download them and they're right exactly but a lot of the paper planners if you're not going to like go to a staples and literally flip through them a lot of the ones that you order online have like page previews or printables that you can just kind of give the give the layout a test drive right before you before you commit um so that's that's all i would have to say about that i can't really make any specific recommendations, but don't try to fit the way you think into the planner system.

Just pick the planner system that fits how, whatever makes sense to you. I think that makes sense. Yeah. And I'll throw my hat in the ring and say, for people, if they're wondering, cause again,

I do get asked this kind of thing fairly frequently. So now's a good time to just say, so I have my, my little schedule as I kind of explained it earlier. I just, I just have it in Google Docs, which I love. Or yeah, it's Google Drive. But it's their whole like Docs, spreadsheets and so forth.

So I have a little spreadsheet that's just kind of laid out simply that I also have. I usually will leave it open. I even have my own little system for tabs on Chrome. So I have my tabs that I like to leave open and then I have my Google Drive and then from there, the stuff I'm working on and whatever. So just so I can go back to it and say, oh, it's Wednesday afternoon. What am I supposed to be doing? Oh, that's right. So I have a podcast slot and then after this, I have to work on an article.

That's right. That's what I'm doing Wednesday afternoon. Cool. And then I use Trello for my daily – it's not just to-dos, but it's my calls and meetings. Again, just pulled from my calendar just to have it again right there so I can't miss it. And then my key kind of work, my key to-dos that I need to get done today is next to that. And then I have a column for things that are in progress I need to stay on top of. So that's more business-related stuff.

There's a lot of projects between Legion Muscle for Life, the app, books, and things that other people are doing. And I have to make sure I don't forget. And I just need to make sure things are getting done. So I kind of keep that. And then I have a next up, which is kind of next up to-dos for me that are eventually going to get moved over to my, oh, I forgot I have a weekly as well. So I kind of like make a list of my weekly. And then what I like about Trello is that you can move little cards around. So, so I have things, for example, I'm working on this week that are not, I can't get done in one day. You know, so like there's a series of meetings, kind of like quarterly reviews I'm having with everybody. I can't do them all in one day. So that was on my weekly. I can move the card

over to my daily and say, cool, I'm going to be working on that today, but it's not done. So I can then move the card back to the weekly until it's done. And then I can find the archive it when it's done. So I like that about Trello. It's left to right, which just kind of works. I don't know. I read a lot. So I think left to right. I don't know. I just like, I like the about Trello it's left to right which just kind of works I don't know I read a lot so I think left to right I don't know I just like I like the flow of it left to right and then it's visual like that I like that I can move cards around and I can just quickly scan and see basically like here's my entire week and then here's really honestly with the next up and on top of it's like this here's here's my next month really these are the things I have to make sure that I get done um so for everyone listening if that helps at all that's kind of what I it

works well for me and it doesn't take much time so yeah I think whatever whatever you do that's a good point that you made whatever you do or choose make sure it doesn't you know if it's not working for you after about a week or two, just try something else. And by working for you, I'd say like you like it where you go, you like it and it doesn't take you time to use. Like you were saying, it doesn't take you much time to flip things back and forth, pull lists around and make it visually make sense for you. Um, I think if you're, you know, a lot of people do this with bullet journaling is very popular one. I don't know if you've heard about this, but bullet journaling is a system in like a grid notebook.

And it just never worked for me because I would get distracted by my handwriting. It took me too long to set up. And it just, it wasn't working. Yes, the information was all there and I could see everything, but it was sucking. It was a time suck itself versus, you itself versus this system that you're talking about sounds like it works well for you. It's not actually taking its own time block, like setting up my planner is not my own time block.

It's five minutes in the morning and I go, cool, now I can get to work. Right. And I don't mean to knock bullet journaling. It works well for many, many people. It just never worked for me. And so that's the example I used is that it was a time suck in and of itself because I couldn't set it up quickly and I couldn't take the information out that I needed in a timely manner.

So it needed to go free. Yeah. Awesome. Well, I think that kind of covers all the major points. Are there any other, you know, quick tip, kind of quick start things that you wanted to share or have we, have we covered them all? Sure. Just, uh, just, uh, just a few. Um, I think the one thing I really wanted to hammer home is like your, your health and your fitness and stuff. It's not optional. You know, we put time in there for working out for meal prep

and for good sleep for a reason. If you don't do these things, you're not going to have as much energy throughout the day. You're going to be making more mistakes. You're not going to have a positive attitude. It's, it's ultimately ends up costing you time. If you don't again, invest that time in the front end and good sleep, good food and good, you know, and exercise, like move your body around. Don't sit in a chair for, you know, 12 hours a day. Um, you'll, you'll end up just reaping the rewards of that. And those benefits compound over time. I mean, you can get away with shit when you're 20 that you can't get away with when you're 30 that you can get away with shit when you're 30 that you can't get away with when you're 40. So get ahead of it now is my, that's kind of like how I, how I like to look at it and just know that like you are, it is an investment in your

personal future. Uh, it sounds cheesy, but it's true. Right. And if you're concerned about the productivity end of it, what I would say is just be more productive. You're, you have energy, your mind is clear. You're not making as many mistakes, but you then have to go back and correct. So you're not suffering from all of these, like, I don't know, mistakes or unfortunate side effects of being worn down and unhealthy and eating crap and not moving. You know, there's no aches and pains. You're not, you know, cloudy in your mind and you're not, you know, crabby at all of your coworkers because you feel good. So I don't think that could be underestimated. So that's like when you are kind of putting together your

schedule, don't pull from those basics to make more time for stuff that's less important. And work is, and I agree that, I mean, things obviously sometimes circumstances demand, oh shit, there's a fire. We have to put this out. But if you're talking, that's, you know, that's just, those are exceptions. If we're, if you want to lay down the rules, I would agree that, you know, an extra hour of work a day isn't worth more than an hour of exercise in the long, in the longterm. It's just not. I would absolutely agree with that. And you're right. There are times, you know, especially when we go to trial where we're, you know, litigators at my law firm. And, you know, I stayed up for two and a half days once. It was not pretty,

you know, and by the end of it, my work was suffering. So I had they like put me to bed. They were like, no, you need to go to sleep. You know, there are circumstances under which you have to change the rules a little bit for that particular scenario. But I wouldn't recommend as a rule just like, oh, I'm busy in life, so I'm not going to work out and I'm going to just get all my food delivered to me. Like, that's not a good idea. In terms of stuff that people can do like today and start, you know, up leveling their productivity right now, turn off all the notifications on your phone. It's, you know, the leveling their productivity right now. Turn off all the notifications on your phone. It's, you know, the ringer only don't get Instagram notifications, Facebook notifications,

text message, my text messages don't even make a noise. I actually permanently my phone is permanently on vibrate. And I have I get notified texts and calls. And that's it. Right? I only have the ringer on on and sometimes I don't have the ringer on because I'm, you know, somewhere where I can't have the sound on. And I just forget that it's, my phone will be silent for like three days. And my husband always makes fun of me that he can't ever reach me like right on time, like when he calls, because my phone is always on silent and never picking up. So remember to, you know, keep your ringer on for when your loved ones call you. But I don't get Facebook notifications. I So remember to, you know, keep your ringer on for when your loved ones call you.

But I don't get Facebook notifications. I don't get, you know, any social media notifications. You can block them all. Everyone listening. You can go in, some of the people, if they're not like savvy,

you can go into settings and apps and so on. You can say no notifications, block all, even if the app doesn't have the option. Some apps try, they don't give you the option to turn notifications off.

I mean, Facebook does, but some don't. So if that's the case, you can actually manually block them. Right, exactly. And a couple of more things that go along with this, close your email tab. Don't keep your email just open on your screen and don't keep a bunch of tabs open in your internet browser. Keep the one or two open that you're working on and then don't, you know, keep Facebook up or whatever it is, this other shopping site that you were looking at earlier. Don't keep all that stuff up and active on your computer. And the reason is when you get these notifications or you get a new email or you get something flashing in the tab up in the corner, your brain, the way it works, it's always scanning for danger

and always scanning for information. So, um, you know, if you see a little ding or, you know, you hear a ding or you see a little flash, you're going to stop the momentum that you have and you're going to look over and whether, even if you choose not to respond to it, you've already stopped. So, and depending on what it is, it can be a little dopamine hit. You know what I mean? Oh, it's a notification on Facebook. Oh, someone commented on my picture. And so it has that, where now it's a double whammy of where there's a 90% chance you're going to click that now. You know what I mean? Right. Exactly. Exactly. Or, you know, those shoes went on sale. It's time. So you're going to stop and you're going to take care of

this other thing that's really not as important as what you're working on. So the best thing I can say is if you want to start just being more productive on a regular basis, turn off all of these notifications. Check your email when you're ready to check your email. And for people who communicate at work primarily via email, we do this. I check more frequently. I don't just do the one time a day that you do. I kind of check every maybe 45 minutes. So you kind of use it if you're transitioning or taking a quick little break from something. Right. So I actually take breaks in my time blocks and

this is something that could deserve, you know, its own whole episode, but the Pomodoro technique where you... Sure. People are going to screw with that, right? I mean, that's a, yeah, I mean, just... the Pomodoro technique where you, so within an hour time block, you know, you work for 45 or 50 minutes and you take a 10 minute break. So right before I take the break, I'll check the email and then I'll do the break, walk around, get some water, whatever, come back. And then I'll start again. And that keeps your, that keeps your mind fresh within a time block. But that's when I check email. I don't really do it in one big time block. But I only check it when I'm ready for it. I don't just leave it there waiting, hanging out in my riff, you know, just waiting to like flash new emails at me because I will stop.

I'm just as susceptible to this stuff as anybody else. So, you know, if I see a Facebook notification or, you know, new text messages. I keep my phone face down just so I don't see it light up. Um, you know, if I see this stuff, I'll look at it. I'm a human. So, uh, the, the key is to kind of minimize those distractions and to keep your focus on your undivided focus on whatever it is you're working on. That's the other thing. Multitasking is not real. It's really not a real thing. If you're trying to multitask you know watch tv and work on something you know or even listen to a podcast and work like i right people in the office have tried that and i've had to tell them like don't bullshit me there's no fucking way you can you know do that

kind of work listening to a podcast sorry no it's not real this is one of these little rules where if you're doing you know there's maybe a few mindless type tasks that you can do with any sort of speed and accuracy, but most work that matters, you know, if you have a podcast going on in the background, your efficiency is cut by at least 20%, if not more. Oh, absolutely. Way more than that, I would say, because your brain is actually, your brain can't do two things at once. So it's actually flipping back and forth between the podcast and the work or, you know, the television show and whatever it is you're doing on your computer. It's flipping back and forth very the podcast and the work or, you know, the television show and whatever it is you're doing on your computer. It's flipping back and forth very quickly instead of

doing two things at once. So true multitasking is not real. What you can do is you can kind of condense things into the same time block by listening to podcasts while you work out, for example, because you can do a purely physical activity, right? Or while you clean, you can do a purely physical activity and a? Or while you clean, you can do a purely physical activity and a mental activity pair. You can pair them together, but that's not true multitasking. That's sort of, you know,

using your brain and your body simultaneously, but it's not brain multitasking. So that's, if you really want to condense your time blocks and kind of save a little bit of time, you can do that. Listen to books on tape while you work out or, you know, have your social time with your friend while you're at the gym or going on a walk or something like that. You can do

those types of things, but you can't, like you said, listen to a podcast and do real work at the same time. Totally. So those would be my quick start things. Cool. I'll throw one out there too, is if, uh, just working out first thing in the morning, if it's possible, if any, if, if you can do that, Mr. And Mrs. Listener, if that, if it's possible, give it a go. And yeah, you might have to go to bed, go to bed a little bit early, get wake up a little bit early, but I think you'll find that you just like it a lot more for multiple reasons. One, there's just the fact that it's done. So you don't have to have your attention on it and there's nothing that can get in the way to, you're going to have, even though maybe when you get going in the morning at first, it's like dragging yourself around, you know, get moving around, have some caffeine. And by the time you're in the gym,

you're ready to go. And then you get into your workout and it's not morning workouts. In my experience, just working with a lot of people that feel like they weren't morning people are not as difficult as they thought they were going to be once they kind of got into the groove of it um and then another benefit is you're going to have higher energy levels throughout the day you're going to find both both both you know mental and physical energy levels are going to be higher um and and and then also there's the speaking about of caffeine it allows you to actually have caffeine before workout which makes for a better workout, no question. Whereas, you know, if you're training at six or seven, you can risk it, I guess, but it's, it's going to fuck with your sleep to one degree or another, even if, I mean, I've even noticed it.

And I know that from, from just genetic testing that my body processes toxins, poisons very quickly. So I work, well, yeah, but, but what's interesting. So like the point of that is like caffeine doesn't hit me. It'll, it'll, it'll be out of my system a lot, a lot, a lot sooner than it would be out of somebody else's who has slower metabolizing. Uh, I mean, it's enzymes really, but it also, the, the byproducts, then the amount of, uh, like, I mean, caffeine is, is less in this regard than let's say alcohol, right? I don't drink alcohol at all because I don't really care. But if I did, so like what they were telling me is you could drink a lot, you know, and you would not get super drunk. Like you'd be a person that could just drink a lot of alcohol, right? My dad's side of his family, the family's Irish.

Maybe that's where I get it from. But they said you probably would get bad hangovers though because, you know, the byproducts, I mean, alcohol is aovers though because the byproducts, I mean alcohol is a poison and then the byproducts are poisonous as well. So essentially your body would be processing alcohol very quickly, but it would give it an extra hard punch of aftershock basically. So you could drink a lot and then have a really bad hangover. That's kind of how it would go. Congratulations. Yeah, exactly. But the point of that is you can have caffeine then before your workouts and have enough caffeine to have it impact your training without having to sacrifice any sleep quality. Right. And I also think, um, and maybe this is something you talked

about with Sean morning, morning exercisers sleep better. Yes. So if you just get into a groove of this, you'll find that you're not so groggy before your morning workout because you'll be getting better sleep at night as well. Very true. It takes, in my experience working with people, it takes a good two or three weeks for them to become believers. In the beginning, it's usually like, fuck, this sucks. I don't know what you're talking about. You're wired differently than I am. But then after a few weeks, it's usually, you know, where they go, Oh yeah, this is way better. No, I totally agree with that. I think that if you can work out in the morning, it's probably a big productivity booster,

not just for the workout, but for the rest of the day as well. So that was a good one. Right. Okay. Awesome. So let's just wrap up with where people can find you and your work. And if you have anything in particular that, you know, you want to promote or that you're working on, now's your chance to let everybody know. Sure. Actually, I'm going to do a nifty thing. I am going to create a page on my website just for your people so that everything is all in one place. You can find me at donatawhite.com slash muscle for life. And there is going to be a welcome video for you guys. And every link that you could for life. And there is going to be a welcome video for you guys. And every link that you could possibly want, it's all going to be in one place. I'm not going to

send you a bunch of different, like find me on Instagram, find me on this place, just donatawhite.com slash muscle for life and everything will be there. It's one place to go. It'll be super convenient for everybody. Awesome. I like it. Okay. Well, thanks again for taking the time Donata. I thought, I thought this was great. I think people are really going to like it. I'm sure you're going to get a good response. A lot of useful information and stuff that I haven't spoken about already ad nauseum. So thank you again. I appreciate it. And, um, maybe we can get it, get another one scheduled for, for the art of meal prep. Oh, wow. I would love to do that. Thank you so much for having me and definitely keep me in

mind for that meal prep one because that's like my jam. That's my favorite. Awesome. Great. Okay. Hey, it's Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast.

If you did, go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also head over to my website at www.muscleforlife.com where you'll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you'll also find a bunch of different articles that I've written. I release a new one almost every day. Actually, I release kind of four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I'm involved in over at muscleforlife.com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.