Start With A Win - Busy vs. Productive: Tips for Successful Time Management

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

Everyone is busy, but not everyone is productive. Time is a precious resource that many squander away on social media or mindless entertainment. Rather than being the victim of time, successful people view time as a currency which can be used intentionally to accomplish daily goals.In order to gain clarity on how to most effectively use time, leaders and entrepreneurs must learn the value of saying no. Saying no to some opportunities frees up resources so that people can say yes to the things that matter.  Adam encourages listeners to document their use of time each day to create accountability. Use this data to reflect on how time is currently being used and set goals for increasing production. This is also a helpful tool for tracking an individual’s circadian rhythm, which is the internal clock that helps the body carry out its daily functions. Working with the body’s ebb and flow of energy allows people to make informed decisions for scheduling activities throughout the day. Establishing a schedule fuels productivity for those willing to consistently practice focus and willpower. Main TopicsThe difference between busy and productive (02:10)Harnessing the power of saying “No” (03:30)Utilizing a time audit system to evaluate daily time management (8:00)The importance of reflection and gratitude at the end of the day (13:34)Using your circadian rhythm to build an effective daily schedule (15:12)Episode Links:Adam’s Fool-Proof Time Management System Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://www.instagram.com/adamcontosceo/Listen, rate, and subscribe!Apple PodcastsSpotifyGoogle Podcasts

Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success. Are you ready? Let's do this. I call that one the Adam Shuffle. That's right. And coming to you from Brand Viva Media Headquarters in Denver, Colorado, it's Adam Kanto's Start With a Win. Producer Mark, how are you doing? Hey, fantabulous. I love fantabulous. That's right.

So that's like fantastic and fabulous at the same time. That's right, all together. Twice as good. That's right. How are you, Ben? I'm doing great. Yeah, staying productive. I'm staying productive. Twice as good. That's right. How have you been? I'm doing great. Yeah? Staying productive?

I'm staying productive. Okay, good. But it's a struggle to choose between productive and busy, isn't it? It is. You know, busyness is just an excuse for laziness. Whoa. You better listen to it and start with a win. Yeah, I don't like when people say busy.

I'm not a fan either. I try to avoid it. You know, when it's like, how are things going? It's like, okay, I have a lot of things say busy. I'm not a fan either. I try to avoid it. You know, when it's like, how are things going? It's like, okay, I have a lot of things going on. I'm so busy. Yeah, and it just annoys the crap out of me. I mean, why do you think that is? Is it because they just don't understand how to appropriately deal with their time?

I think it probably is, you know, because I feel like if you are productive and you manage your time properly, you're not busy. You're just activated and accomplishing things. Activated and accomplishing things. So you are, you're focused on what you've planned to do and taking the actions in order to facilitate that. Yeah. And so to me, I'm like, well, how is that a negative thing? Oh, I'm busy. It's like, what? Too busy to watch Netflix or too busy to scroll through Facebook for an hour or too busy to watch TikToks? It's like you're getting work done. You're having

success. Why is this a negative thing? Well, you've got all these time killers, like what you're talking about. It was interesting. A few years ago, I don't know what the validity to this number is. It's probably even more than this by now. When you talk about people scrolling, thumb surfing or whatever, climbing the ladder with their thumbs, the average person, and I believe this is like a 2016 or 2018 number, the average person climbs the height of the Statue of Liberty, 305 feet every single day

on social media. With their thumbs? Just one inch at a time. Can you imagine that? That's crazy. That's nuts. Yeah. But what else can you get done in that amount of time that it takes you to drag yourself 305 feet with your thumbs? I'm sure you can accomplish a lot. When you think about it that way, you're like, whoa, I've got a lot of time on my hands. Yeah, totally. You do if you make the choice. That's right. So we're going to talk about that today. You were talking to me earlier, like, hey, let's

talk about time management. And I love the term time management, but I actually learned that, or I like the term choice management even better. Because back to your statement of, are you busy or productive? Wait a sec. Busy is you're a victim. Productive is a choice, right? That's right. Yeah. So let's make these choices.

Yeah. So, I mean, I know that you spent a lot of time thinking about this, and you put a lot of energy into kind of a system and process that you've this. I got to do that. By the way, I don't like being late. You know that. I know that. When I'm walking in the studio or a meeting or whatever, you're like, I know he's on time. Or five to ten minutes early. Correct. Yeah. Early's on time.

On time's late. Late is inexcusable. That's right. It just shows me that you don't value my time. Ooh. Ah, yeah. That's right. All right. It just shows me that you don't value my time. Ooh. Ah, yeah. That's sharp. I like that. But you're right. I mean, when you're late to meet with somebody else, that means you do not value their time, unfortunately. So let's talk about our time here real quick. Because I do write down what I'm doing. I have a very, very strict schedule that I adhere to.

And I'm also very particular about what I put on it. So the first part of this, the first groundwork that we're going to lay when it comes to being productive versus being busy is saying no. Saying no. I mean, no is probably the most powerful word that you can possibly learn. But you have to learn to say it correctly because how did we grow up? No was like this, you know, I'm attacking you because I don't want you to do or continue something. And your parents would be like, no.

Can I? No, you can't. Exactly. You're like, oh, I'm getting beat down. No. Or, you know, you look at your dog. And what do people do when they get elevated in their emotions? They start yelling it. No. Or you look at your dog and what do people do when they get elevated in their emotions? They start yelling it. No. Snapping. No. Exactly. But what if we use no as a

tool, a tool of gratitude and a tool of really appreciation for our time, if you look at it that way? So no is really a tool of appreciation, because what it does is it saves your time for what's best. Because when you say no to things, you're saying yes to other opportunities. But when you say yes to everything, you're saying no to the opportunities that you need to be selective about. Really, it's kind of an interesting paradigm when we talk about it. And I talk about this with my kids because some of them have difficulty saying no. They're like, my friends are saying, let's go out. I'm like, well, what are you telling them? Okay. And you go, well, why? Well, because they're my friends. I don't want to say no to them.

Your friends need to be said no to because if you can be the very best you can be, then you can go have the most fun with them because you don't have to worry about the other items that are in the back of your mind. and really that's what emotional maturity is or choice management is impulse control. Hello, everybody. Don't be impulsive when it comes to your time. We get to say yes to the things that matter. That's right. It's fascinating when you think about that. No allows you to say yes. Interesting.

Yeah, that's a big one. It seems so counterintuitive. It is. But the reality is we're not shooting for busy. We're shooting for productive here. That's your thing? Yeah, that's a big one. It seems so counterintuitive. It is. But the reality is we're not shooting for busy. We're shooting for productive here. That's right. And all this is obviously in Start With A Win, my book. But the reality is I want you to think about this every single day.

And like our last guest we had on the show, Rick Hogg, he talked about writing down your daily tasks in your notebook. I've got my little notebook. I like that one. That's like the pocket-sized one. The pocket-sized. It's just always back there ready to... That's it, yeah. You're like, bam, I need to write something down. Like, I'm going to do this,

or no, don't do that. It's good to remind yourself of things not to do as well as things to do, because as soon as you write down, I'm not doing that, guess what? You've just made a commitment. Don't let it slip in there. Like if you think about picking up your phone and flipping on social media, pick up your notebook and write, I am not going to get on social media until 6 p.m. or whatever, and I'll give myself a half hour. Whoa. Time commitment right there.

Just made a contract with yourself. Don't break it. So how do we say no? How do we say yes? The first way to make these commitments in your time, in your impulse control, in your choice management, really is to take an audit of your day. And this is interesting. Nobody likes the word audit. But let's take a snapshot of it. Let's call it that. A snapshot. A snapshot. Okay. I like that better than audit.

Yeah. A fun snapshot. Yeah. A fun snapshot. Yeah. Yeah, there we go. Yeah. So the IRS is like, we're just going to do a fun snapshot of your finances. Exactly. No, thank you. And if you go to, I think my calendar is up on the adamcontos.com.

So if you guys want to go there, you can download this. It's my daily time audit sheet. And it's two pages. The first one is the Today Is daily calendar. And then the second one is a circadian rhythm tracker. I'm going to talk about that briefly here because we want to know when we're most effective. And that's the best way to do it. But ultimately, if you take a look at this daily calendar, it talks about a quote for the day.

I love a quote. Go find yourself a good quote and write it down here. Why? Because you're going to live that quote during the day if you write it down. It's a commitment to yourself. And then a productivity tip. Maybe it's say no more than you say yes. Or maybe it's get the little things done quick.

Or maybe it's don't forget about X, Y, Z. You know, register your car or, you know, write down your finances or double check your grades in school. Whatever it might be, whatever you're doing, give me a productivity tip. So just what we're doing is we're just stimulating our mind to be productive here. Yeah, my quote for today was don't let your bad days trick you into thinking you have a bad life. Wow. I love that. Yeah, my quote for today was, don't let your bad days trick you into thinking you have a bad life. Wow. I love that. That's incredible. So one of my favorite quotes that I repeatedly reuse is the Aristotle, we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit. Yeah, it's true. It's a habit. That's what we're doing here. That's right. Building

habits, time habits. That's right. So when we dig deeper into this, take, and what I recommend is everybody download this, print out seven copies, and write down what you do every day for seven days. And you might be like, whoa. I mean, this is pretty revealing. And what we do

is we have this list of time from basically 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. And every half hour, we write down what we did, and then P or NP. P is productive. NP is not productive. Remember back to this productive thing? Busy, productive. So you could even say not productive would just be busy work. But ultimately, is it productive or is it not? Productive is the big question that we have to hold ourselves accountable to. Now, what is accountability, real quick? Accountability is witnessing without judgment. So we're not judging ourselves based on this. We're just witnessing what we write down. And for instance,

if it says, what is your weight, which it doesn't say on here, what is your weight, but let's say you write down the number of your weight. You're not judging it. You're not writing fat your weight, it would be a number. That is accounting. It's like how many dollars are in your wallet. It's a number. It's just accounting for that number. And this is accounting for what you did and whether or not it was productive or not productive. So we're not judging here. There's no judgment. There's no judgment zone. Although I will tell you, if you have no productivity, I'm going to be a little bit judgmental. Because you're really hurting yourself. So we've got that on there where you write down what you did each hour. You don't have to cram stuff in here,

but take a good shot of it and see, what am I doing? Am I doing good? Am I doing bad? And then the right column of this is kind of your to-dos. And I filled in a few for people. Did you exercise?

Yes or no. What was the intensity? One through 10. Because I filled in a few for people. Did you exercise? Yes or no? What was the intensity, one through 10? Because I don't want you to just show up. I want you to show up with some vigor, with some intensity to really break a sweat, to pump up those muscles, to push yourself to your limits, things like that. That's what exercising is. It's not going through the motions. It's making yourself better. So list that out. And then, of course, there's one for your nutrition and some of your macros, protein, carbs, calories, if you track those things. How many ounces of water do you drink?

Everybody, by the way, on this podcast should be drinking over a gallon of water a day. You're like, that's a lot. It's not a lot after you've done it for like a week. And you're like, I'm thirsty. Because you're just thirsty all the time. Right. You've got your big jug of water here thirsty. Because you're just thirsty all the time. Right. You got your big jug of water here always. I got the big jug.

Yep. So, and I easily surpass a gallon of water. I'll be done drinking a gallon of water by like three or four in the afternoon. It's easy too if you exert yourself a little bit first thing. Totally. Then you're thirsty. Well, if you're working out

and you take like a 32-ounce bottle or something with you and you're in the gym, there's 32 ounces already. And you're like, quarter of the way there. So you're almost done by the time you're done with your morning after you have a protein shake or whatever. I mean, for crying out loud, you're like 50 ounces. So yeah, you're right. It's not hard if you work on it. And then also to do for your family itself. I want to know what you want to do for your family, what you want to do for yourself. Something you should be talking about with your family. Love. I love you. How you doing? You know, how can we do better for whatever, X, Y, Z, you know, help you do better on your grades, your school, your exercise,

you know, how do you feel about it, whatever it is. Yeah. One of our guests misty lone yeah she she had said um uh asking like you know at dinner if you're all together like specifically like what are you grateful for today yes you know like something that's like specific to today you know which helps you again get out of that thankful for my house my car you know it's like totally being specific about it which i think is powerful so actually at the bottom of that sheet, I have, I am grateful for. So wrap up your day at the bottom of that sheet. And I have some room for some other goals and things like that. And then weekly goals, daily tasks, things like that. Just some empty space that you can take notes. But at the bottom in the green is the end of the day when you're celebrating.

Here are my successes. Were you productive? Be honest. I'm grateful for, and then I did this for myself and my family today. I'll tell you, when we reflect on the things that we do for other people and for ourselves, we get a good dopamine hit, a good feel good, because it's an accomplishment for ourselves. And also, it reminds you why you're a good person. Because sometimes we see the worst in society. All you got to do is turn on the news, read the newspaper, whatever it might be, read some website. And you're like, why? Because they put the bad junk on there because that's what gets eyeballs. And the endorphins go on in your body

and it creates addiction to the cycle of negativity. Right. So anyhow, do this, be grateful and understand it. Now, the second page of this, this is where the magic happens. I like magic.

I'm using my magic hands right now. There we go. So the idea behind this is when are you the most productive? When is your brain and your body functioning together to get stuff done? That's a good question. And there's three ways of measuring this. So we have the first way, which is focus. Obviously, how distracted are you versus how intently looking at it? How focused are you on it on a scale of one to five? How much enthusiasm? How much enthusiasm? Are you excited about it? And the last one is how much energy? Can you feel the energy going? I mean, are you able to bring all these things together? Because I mean, ultimately, this comes down to willpower and focus combined

together in here to really give your best effort towards this particular thing. This is called your circadian rhythm. Your circadian rhythm is when are you most effective with these things. And then what we do is as we look at, we measure these from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., call it. And I started at 6 a.m. on that. I started at 7 a.m. on the other, because I want to know how you feel when you wake up. Most people get up at roughly 6. So how do you feel when you get up versus the end of the day? And ultimately, it's kind of fun because you can look at this and go, hey, over this week, this time and this time, I was the most effective. I had these three ranked the highest. Guess what? What do you put in there? Those are the things that you want to make the most from. So maybe they're money-making, maybe they're

productivity items. I wouldn't put your workout in there because your workout, you can fit one of these other places when you can go physically exert yourself intentionally. But I want your focus and your enthusiasm and your energy all together in these areas. Typically, people have, call it three to five hours a day when they come up with this. Identify those and then go back to that page one and figure out what needs to be the most productive, what makes me the most money, does the best for my business, my family, my relationships, whatever I'm trying to work on, and put those items in those circadian rhythm times.

So that's how we take and manage our time. We start with no back there from being busy to what should we be working on? Let's document it and account for it. And let's figure out when we're the best at it. And then guess what? You get the most done the most effectively in the right amount of time. And then you also get all the garbage out of your day. And you actually have some more time back.

That's how you run your day. There you go. Then you're no longer busy. Yeah. And you actually find time to relax, to spend with your family, to go ride your bike, I don't know, do whatever,

read a book, make some music. I don't know. Yeah. You got time. You got options. You got options. That's right. If you go to foolprooftimesystem.com, you can get that PDF download as well directly.

Foolprooftimesystem.com. That's right. So head over there, grab that PDF, evaluate your time and manage it and move from busy to productive and start starting with a win. All right. That was productive. That was very productive. Thanks, Adam. You're welcome, Mark. All right. All right, guys. Thanks so much for tuning in foolproof timesystem.com head over there grab that pdf and until next time remember start with a win