If it isn’t on my calendar at a certain time, most likely it will not get done that day, even if that was my best intention from the suggested side list. If I want my windows washed, a task, then I need to commit to a time to dedicate to that task even if I don’t get it all done or I end up, adjusting another task to complete it. The ethereal side list makes me feel like I never have free time because I always have those three or four things just waiting to be plugged in somewhere but once I have a specific time on the calendar, I can also find and make time to not have any tasks to do or events or meetings. Visually I think it’s empowering to know when you’re done and that you are capable based on your best estimations rather than having a side list that is not visually on the calendar at any specific time. Thank you for sharing your vision because even if it doesn’t work for me, it helps me to clarify my own. Best wishes.
Carl, thank you. Your videos are a breath of fresh air amidst all the other busybody productivity gurus out there who make my head spin with all their complex Notion setups. You are realistic and have put a lot of things into perspective. I appreciate you making these videos to help us see things differently, or remind us of things we already know to be true, but often forget.
I can see people complaining about sound effects. I, on the other hand, was so focused on what you were speaking that I didn't even notice the sound effects! Selective attention 😂
@@Carl_Pullein I agree with @cognitive_yoddha I found the effects made it lighter and more easy to follow. And yes I was focused on what you are saying
As a freelancer with a somewhat unpredictable schedule, I like this approach. Time boxing doesn't work for me most of the time because I set up a block of tasks only to have work come in that must take priority over those tasks. I keep an event calendar plus a daily list of frogs that must get eaten (water plants, get groceries when the fridge is empty, answer essential emails, etc.). Everything else is in the "I'll get to it if I have time, otherwise I'll push it to tomorrow" category. This also works if you have health conditions (or household members with health issues) that make your energy levels/available time unpredictable, which is another hurdle I sometimes face. Thanks for the validation!
You're so right, Patricia. It's always a struggle. I have to remind myself each day to focus on the important and let everything else take care of itself.
I think Time Blocking/Boxing approaches are missing a major concept. Each of the hours of the day are not constant equivalents when it comes to scheduling Tasks, regardless of their "category" or even Priority. Productivity during a specific hour of the day is relative to that person’s unique peak cognitive durations, which can be for most people rising and falling throughout the day. We do know this. Task should be scheduled, time blocked and boxed, etc. FIRST based on the cognitive demand they require, and THEN based on Priority, Category, etc. If you regularly start your day in a fog, but are in a peak cognitive state for example from 10AM to 12PM, would it still be wise to schedule your most demanding P1’s at 8AM when you start your day, or just because you have an 8AM category or Priority type time block at that early hour irrespective of the cognitive demand of the specific category item? I think Time Blocking/Boxes for hours in the day mostly ignore your unique circadian rhythm. I try to apply Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to Productivity, where your unique productivity and cognitive cycle throughout the day is Einstein’s Observer’s Frame of Reference, which alters our perception of time and the different hours in the day. All hours in the day are not equivalents, we know this to be true. Time is relative, but most Task/Calendar systems acts as if time is constant with each hour of the day being an equivalent. Again, we know they are not. I think, similar to Einstein's Relativity, Productivity is a Function of Time relative to the time of day, based on our unique circadian rhythm, and not all writing, emailing, meetings, tasks in the same category, require the same level of cognitive focus.
I may be the only one who would argue that if you really want to be productive and accomplish great things you should have everything important to you on your calendar. This is after 20+ years of trying all kinds of different systems and reading many productivity books. When I hear the word Tasks ( I hear to do list, which is what has failed me in the past). if a task takes longer than scheduled move on to the next scheduled task or next day schedule appropriately. Parkinson's law - trust me I learned this the hard way, if you give yourself too much time, time will expand and you will be working on less important tasks or are being less productive. push yourself. it is better to schedule free times on calendar than to have to do list run your life.
I like this new format with summarizing your key points in pop ups very much Carl 😅! Besides the sound effects which - as mentioned multiple times - distract. 😂
Hi Carl, your time sector system is so good that it can be applied in any calendar and task app together.for example ,I'm using Evernote calendar events and evernote tasks for this .I'm creating tasks inside Evernote as admin|task , communication|task , work|task etc (I'm using this since Evernote not as good a task manager as todoist but I have it's professional subscription )
As a chronic procastinator, I don't like to call myself that, but i tend to underestimate how long it would take me to complete tasks or projects. And tend to overcommit. Say i have a deadline by Monday, I might commit to a hangout with Friends on Sunday, forgetting I have a deadline the folowing day. Having my tasks timed and specified in my calendar, and me knowing at the back of my mind that I likely underestimated doing so, helps me visualise my todos, deadlines and actual free time. And it helps me take away the guess work of what i should be doing next. At the end of the day I can move tasks around on my calendar when more important things come up or if i just decided not to do them atall and just wanted to take a break off or something. But that way they remain in my radar. I can't seem to function efficiently otherwise.
Your first few sentences sound exactly like something I would have said a few years ago until my daughter suggested to me that she got her ADHD from me. After learning more about how inattentive ADHD presents, I sought out and got an official diagnosis and have learned that for me my lifelong issues with procastination all stem from undiagnosed ADHD. It may be something you want to think about if you haven't already.
I have to admit, I also don't like all the sound effects and some of the graphics feel they add nothing to the video. The sound effects are jarring to the point of being nearly painful to the ear as well. I appreciate your content for its straight to the point, clean, education. Adding a lot of edits detract attention from you speaking and make me try to read the graphics in time
Hi Carl I think it always good to experiment as a fan of your content. I think the animation may have been over used and watching on my IPad and think the noises were a bit louder that your voice. I think your content is good with minimum special effects. For me I obtain most value by listening to you and see worked examples. For example you showed your setup on screen while talking and so that provided relevant context. So I think you should use animation or show visuals if it compliments it. But otherwise i found it hard to concentrate and when I looked at what was shown on screen it was just repeating what you were saying. But I guess play around with it and ask us. I’m sure you have it has provided mixed results 😊. Some of my feedback is based on working with UX and accessibility in the past.
We'll get it right in the next week or two. It's a balance to curb my video editor and I's enthusiasm with the viewing pleasure of the people who watch my videos. Work in progress 🙂
I do agree with the general approach but let me light an other aspect: if some works with a corporate setup an other important role for the calendar is to protect your time. In this line of work, people easely drive you away from your individual contribution if there are too many empty spots in your calendar. What I do in order to avoid this: I do use "area oriented" blocks, like "focus work" or "admin block" which by themselves define ceratin rules for myself (like during focus work blocks I turn off all kinds of notifications, most of the non-essential websites are being blocked and such), and I can use these blocks to work on specific tasks without predefining the exact tasks. Also, with this approach I can aim for a ballpark ratio of the kind of works I am willing to do. In order to be somewhat flexible and keep up some time for meetings and unforeseen things, what I do is I have a schema for the week, so I prefill the whole week with timeboxes, up to around 60% of my time. I usually do not leave much free time for the forenoons, as this is when most of my deep work happens. In the other hand, expect some cornerstones, the bigger partion of my afternoon is empty. This is how I start the week, but every morning as part of the first admin block, I do fill up my day expect a 30 minutes "for emergencies" block. By this "last-minute-super-urgent" meetings hopping in during the day really have to have a good reason to change my calendar. All-in-all this is not perfect but balances between flexibility, predictability and time guarding pretty well for me. I can also suggest Cal Newport's books in the matter.
Ah, that's the conflict between management (meetings are good) and producers (focused, quiet work is good). Until that conflict is resolved, there will always be productivity challenges inside large corporations.
@@Carl_Pullein Indeed. What I wanted to highlight is that, for a high amount of people, the blocking (and work organization in general) is not happening in vacuum, but has very strong external agents. Thus, sometimes it must diverge from the possibly optimal path.
@@vv1nst0n Yet we are faced with the choice of delegating our time to others or maintaining a degree of control. I've discovered the less stress and most organised people never consider delegating their time to others. It's always a choice.
I am a working mom , aspiting domestic goddess with a special need child who throws the day in a whirlpool regularly. I want some guidance on time blocking.... that most time blocking videos dont answer. A) If i am within a certain block of time but the tasks assigned have not quite finished. Do i extend the block od cut the work short? This may be intuituve for many... but i want to know what other people do. 2) my first time block is very early in the morning. But what if i oversleep? Do i keep to the routine chronology or cut to the decided block. Again, i would like to know how others do it.
This depends. If you have buffer time beyond the original time block and would like to continue, then do so. If not, then you will need to stop. I always try to allow 30 mins buffer time between my blocks. (not always possible, though) If you oversleep, remove the time block. These things happen (you're human, not a machine). If you consistently block time, you can reschedule. The important thing is you are flexible, so if you need to reschedule or move blocks around, you can. The trick I've found that works best, though is to be consistent. I know, for example, that between 9:30 and 11:30am I will be doing some creative work.
I would agree with everything except generalizing peeps in desert. Some has balls in the air, some built a city. While we watching video how time blocking. Thanks for a vdeo. Very logical.
Thats 100% what i thought, there are a few sites out there that NEVER stop dinging , its even when worse when you know you subscribed years ago. So yes, stay with the visual request for likes etc but please, NO dinging :) haha
first of all thanks for this video , can you please name the application or the logicial that you used in the video for time boxing , and thank you in advantage
Sorry mate but I don't agree. Having dead space in calendar will just end up with me not knowing what I should be doing which gives me anxiety and is even more overwhelming. Maybe it's my OCD or ADHD kicking in, but not having a packed up calendar is a nightmare.
Most projects cannot be managed in categories. For example, most projects involve preparation, resource management, planning, communication, and writing. It is entirely unnecessary to break them down by category. Should I then make the calls needed for different projects in one communication hour, regardless of the context? This doesn't make much sense to me.
Carl I have a problem... I want to use Evernote as my task application despite what you have said in other videos... but for certain tasks I have to prepare them days in advance, that is, I need time days before to study or write about them tasks... in that case should I block my Google calendar with said activities associated with that task?
Hey Carl, More recently, I see you're moving away from the time sector system and more inline with traditional GTD with contexts for your types of work. I'm a bit confused though because i can still see you use This_Week and Next_Week as well as P1 and P2 etc. I'm getting a bit confused about how i should be setting things up 🤔
Hmm, interesting observation, Mike. The types of work (or categories) are more in line with Tony Robbins's RPM system. GTD is very task-focused, while my system is time-focused. I use Todoist's labels to connect it to my calendar.
Hi Carl, Love your content. I have been following your advise around categorizing work and putting in the calendar only the categories and I think it is the most realistic system to manage time. The problem I am facing though is specifically around the core work. So, suppose I block between 2:00 and 4:00 to do core work and then on 4:00 I am supposed to move to communication. What really happens is that the core works takes longer than expected, there is always a deadline ahead, so I will continue the core work and eventually my inbox gets overflowed, I don't have time to manage the tasks so they just accumulated there. Also, sometimes, there is just something urgent at work, and then these "lower value" categories I don't have time to do. I'm pretty sure this happens to others as well. What is your advise here? (maybe you could do a video about that 🙂) Thanks
Great question. The trick is to allow some buffer time between sessions of work. Remember, we're planning the week, two hours of core work per day gives you 10 hours per week. (Not being able to allow buffer time because there's not enough time for all the work that needs to be done is a separate issue that involves processes and fine-tuning how you do the work)
I love this video ofcourse, but why have so many cuts? :( And it still mutch faster than before (I mean: speach). So, slow down and don't cut so mutch, please 🙏🏻
We're working on it. It's challenging to curb my video editor and my enthusiasm with what the viewers want. We will get there in the next week or two. Always a work in progress 🙂
All these sound affects do not contribute to improving productivity. Why distract from what you are saying with sound. text on the screen is enough. Do not need the sounds.
My apologies, Don. I’m updating the style and currently we are trying to find the right balance. It’s proving more difficult than anticipated. (Doesn’t it always?)
The comments are correct. The sound effects are more than distracting, they are annoying. Annoying to the point, that about half-way through, I wanted to turn off this video. The cuts were also annoying. Good information, but I am distracted writing this comment rather than watching the video.
My apologies. I'm trying to make a few changes to keep things fresh. It's a work in progress and proving quite challenging. However, I will get it right in the next week or two.
I stopped worrying about that a long time ago. People are a lot more accomodating than many imagine. Offering alternative times generally works. Saying "no" also works. and, for the most part all I take from "the world" is two hours a day.
@@Carl_Pullein A lot of this stuff works OK if you are self-employed. When you have a boss and are part of a team that depends on each other to meet deadlines, you don't always have the luxury of saying no.
@@JimSamuel267 Hi Jim, everything I teach is anchored in what I learned working in a team of under-pressure lawyers with demanding clients and a very angry boss (nicknamed "Mr Angry" hahaha). Doing what I suggested here was the only way to avoid "Mr Angry" from placing his attention on us and keeping our clients happy. There really was no other way. We had to say no sometimes. Afterall, "disappearing" for two hours a day to do the work everyone was demanding from us meant there were a lot fewer demands on our time, and we were still available for everyone for eight hours a day. (we worked 10-hour days back then)
If it isn’t on my calendar at a certain time, most likely it will not get done that day, even if that was my best intention from the suggested side list. If I want my windows washed, a task, then I need to commit to a time to dedicate to that task even if I don’t get it all done or I end up, adjusting another task to complete it. The ethereal side list makes me feel like I never have free time because I always have those three or four things just waiting to be plugged in somewhere but once I have a specific time on the calendar, I can also find and make time to not have any tasks to do or events or meetings. Visually I think it’s empowering to know when you’re done and that you are capable based on your best estimations rather than having a side list that is not visually on the calendar at any specific time. Thank you for sharing your vision because even if it doesn’t work for me, it helps me to clarify my own. Best wishes.
You're very welcome.
Carl, thank you. Your videos are a breath of fresh air amidst all the other busybody productivity gurus out there who make my head spin with all their complex Notion setups. You are realistic and have put a lot of things into perspective. I appreciate you making these videos to help us see things differently, or remind us of things we already know to be true, but often forget.
Thank you 🙏 I'm so glad to hear you like these videos.
Wow , as a student this video was helpful.. i always made schedules like i was a machine and ended up wasting my day
Thank you. Glad to have been able to help.
I can see people complaining about sound effects. I, on the other hand, was so focused on what you were speaking that I didn't even notice the sound effects! Selective attention 😂
Hahaha, thank you 🙂
@@Carl_Pullein I agree with @cognitive_yoddha I found the effects made it lighter and more easy to follow. And yes I was focused on what you are saying
@@Mireille.005it’s all about balance :-) The sound effects in this video were minimal and tasteful.
As a freelancer with a somewhat unpredictable schedule, I like this approach. Time boxing doesn't work for me most of the time because I set up a block of tasks only to have work come in that must take priority over those tasks. I keep an event calendar plus a daily list of frogs that must get eaten (water plants, get groceries when the fridge is empty, answer essential emails, etc.). Everything else is in the "I'll get to it if I have time, otherwise I'll push it to tomorrow" category. This also works if you have health conditions (or household members with health issues) that make your energy levels/available time unpredictable, which is another hurdle I sometimes face. Thanks for the validation!
You're so right, Patricia. It's always a struggle. I have to remind myself each day to focus on the important and let everything else take care of itself.
That video was very helpful. Thank you Carl ✅
Thank you. Glad you liked it.
I think Time Blocking/Boxing approaches are missing a major concept. Each of the hours of the day are not constant equivalents when it comes to scheduling Tasks, regardless of their "category" or even Priority. Productivity during a specific hour of the day is relative to that person’s unique peak cognitive durations, which can be for most people rising and falling throughout the day. We do know this. Task should be scheduled, time blocked and boxed, etc. FIRST based on the cognitive demand they require, and THEN based on Priority, Category, etc. If you regularly start your day in a fog, but are in a peak cognitive state for example from 10AM to 12PM, would it still be wise to schedule your most demanding P1’s at 8AM when you start your day, or just because you have an 8AM category or Priority type time block at that early hour irrespective of the cognitive demand of the specific category item? I think Time Blocking/Boxes for hours in the day mostly ignore your unique circadian rhythm. I try to apply Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to Productivity, where your unique productivity and cognitive cycle throughout the day is Einstein’s Observer’s Frame of Reference, which alters our perception of time and the different hours in the day. All hours in the day are not equivalents, we know this to be true. Time is relative, but most Task/Calendar systems acts as if time is constant with each hour of the day being an equivalent. Again, we know they are not. I think, similar to Einstein's Relativity, Productivity is a Function of Time relative to the time of day, based on our unique circadian rhythm, and not all writing, emailing, meetings, tasks in the same category, require the same level of cognitive focus.
This is true. We're not machines. We are humans with emotions and moods and that has a big impact on how much we can do each day.
I may be the only one who would argue that if you really want to be productive and accomplish great things you should have everything important to you on your calendar. This is after 20+ years of trying all kinds of different systems and reading many productivity books. When I hear the word Tasks ( I hear to do list, which is what has failed me in the past). if a task takes longer than scheduled move on to the next scheduled task or next day schedule appropriately. Parkinson's law - trust me I learned this the hard way, if you give yourself too much time, time will expand and you will be working on less important tasks or are being less productive. push yourself. it is better to schedule free times on calendar than to have to do list run your life.
Absolutely nothing wrong with that approach.
I like this new format with summarizing your key points in pop ups very much Carl 😅! Besides the sound effects which - as mentioned multiple times - distract. 😂
It's a work in progress, We will get there 🙂
Thank you Mr.Carl I will rely on it
Absolutely spot on!
Carl, like the new format of your videos. Always appreciate your advice and insights. Jeff
Thank you, Jeff 🙂
Fabulous! Thank you once again 😃
Sir, if I could like 1000 times in this video😀😀I would gove. I was struggling with this task vs event
Thank you! Glad you liked it.
Hi Carl, your time sector system is so good that it can be applied in any calendar and task app together.for example ,I'm using Evernote calendar events and evernote tasks for this .I'm creating tasks inside Evernote as admin|task , communication|task , work|task etc (I'm using this since Evernote not as good a task manager as todoist but I have it's professional subscription )
That's fantastic! Thank you. Glad you're finding a great way to manage your tasks and appointments.
@@Carl_Pullein thanks Carl,feels so great when your productivity hero replies to you !!
Agree! Tasks should not leave the task manager
As a chronic procastinator, I don't like to call myself that, but i tend to underestimate how long it would take me to complete tasks or projects. And tend to overcommit. Say i have a deadline by Monday, I might commit to a hangout with Friends on Sunday, forgetting I have a deadline the folowing day. Having my tasks timed and specified in my calendar, and me knowing at the back of my mind that I likely underestimated doing so, helps me visualise my todos, deadlines and actual free time. And it helps me take away the guess work of what i should be doing next.
At the end of the day I can move tasks around on my calendar when more important things come up or if i just decided not to do them atall and just wanted to take a break off or something. But that way they remain in my radar. I can't seem to function efficiently otherwise.
Your first few sentences sound exactly like something I would have said a few years ago until my daughter suggested to me that she got her ADHD from me. After learning more about how inattentive ADHD presents, I sought out and got an official diagnosis and have learned that for me my lifelong issues with procastination all stem from undiagnosed ADHD. It may be something you want to think about if you haven't already.
@@sbr8015 Thank you! My husband brought this up with me too. I’m currently in the process of getting a diagnosis for ADHD.
I have to admit, I also don't like all the sound effects and some of the graphics feel they add nothing to the video. The sound effects are jarring to the point of being nearly painful to the ear as well.
I appreciate your content for its straight to the point, clean, education. Adding a lot of edits detract attention from you speaking and make me try to read the graphics in time
My apologies. We're in a little transition at the moment. Finding the balance is difficult, but we will get there very soon.
Hi Carl
I think it always good to experiment as a fan of your content. I think the animation may have been over used and watching on my IPad and think the noises were a bit louder that your voice. I think your content is good with minimum special effects.
For me I obtain most value by listening to you and see worked examples. For example you showed your setup on screen while talking and so that provided relevant context. So I think you should use animation or show visuals if it compliments it. But otherwise i found it hard to concentrate and when I looked at what was shown on screen it was just repeating what you were saying. But I guess play around with it and ask us. I’m sure you have it has provided mixed results 😊. Some of my feedback is based on working with UX and accessibility in the past.
We'll get it right in the next week or two. It's a balance to curb my video editor and I's enthusiasm with the viewing pleasure of the people who watch my videos. Work in progress 🙂
Great content! Very insightful. 🙌 You meant to say "Tasks should never be in your calendar" here though. @7:44
Also, just an FYI, but there were a number of grammar/wording issues in some of the text overlays. Needs a little more QA.
And thank you for all you do! Your RUclips videos and courses are VERY much appreciated.
@@crsmoore Yes. My apologies. We're working on improving things and all being well will get it right in the next week or two.
Hey Carl, thanks for the vid! I love this approach. The sound effects are very distracting. Especially on headphones.
I do agree with the general approach but let me light an other aspect: if some works with a corporate setup an other important role for the calendar is to protect your time. In this line of work, people easely drive you away from your individual contribution if there are too many empty spots in your calendar. What I do in order to avoid this: I do use "area oriented" blocks, like "focus work" or "admin block" which by themselves define ceratin rules for myself (like during focus work blocks I turn off all kinds of notifications, most of the non-essential websites are being blocked and such), and I can use these blocks to work on specific tasks without predefining the exact tasks. Also, with this approach I can aim for a ballpark ratio of the kind of works I am willing to do. In order to be somewhat flexible and keep up some time for meetings and unforeseen things, what I do is I have a schema for the week, so I prefill the whole week with timeboxes, up to around 60% of my time. I usually do not leave much free time for the forenoons, as this is when most of my deep work happens. In the other hand, expect some cornerstones, the bigger partion of my afternoon is empty. This is how I start the week, but every morning as part of the first admin block, I do fill up my day expect a 30 minutes "for emergencies" block. By this "last-minute-super-urgent" meetings hopping in during the day really have to have a good reason to change my calendar. All-in-all this is not perfect but balances between flexibility, predictability and time guarding pretty well for me. I can also suggest Cal Newport's books in the matter.
Ah, that's the conflict between management (meetings are good) and producers (focused, quiet work is good). Until that conflict is resolved, there will always be productivity challenges inside large corporations.
@@Carl_Pullein Indeed. What I wanted to highlight is that, for a high amount of people, the blocking (and work organization in general) is not happening in vacuum, but has very strong external agents. Thus, sometimes it must diverge from the possibly optimal path.
@@vv1nst0n Yet we are faced with the choice of delegating our time to others or maintaining a degree of control. I've discovered the less stress and most organised people never consider delegating their time to others. It's always a choice.
I am a working mom , aspiting domestic goddess with a special need child who throws the day in a whirlpool regularly.
I want some guidance on time blocking.... that most time blocking videos dont answer.
A) If i am within a certain block of time but the tasks assigned have not quite finished. Do i extend the block od cut the work short? This may be intuituve for many... but i want to know what other people do.
2) my first time block is very early in the morning. But what if i oversleep? Do i keep to the routine chronology or cut to the decided block. Again, i would like to know how others do it.
This depends. If you have buffer time beyond the original time block and would like to continue, then do so. If not, then you will need to stop. I always try to allow 30 mins buffer time between my blocks. (not always possible, though)
If you oversleep, remove the time block. These things happen (you're human, not a machine). If you consistently block time, you can reschedule.
The important thing is you are flexible, so if you need to reschedule or move blocks around, you can. The trick I've found that works best, though is to be consistent. I know, for example, that between 9:30 and 11:30am I will be doing some creative work.
Awesome!
I would agree with everything except generalizing peeps in desert. Some has balls in the air, some built a city. While we watching video how time blocking. Thanks for a vdeo. Very logical.
Please no sound effects. They diminish both your expertise and our viewing experience.
Apologies. We're experimenting and going through the hard stage of finding the right balance.
Thats 100% what i thought, there are a few sites out there that NEVER stop dinging , its even when worse when you know you subscribed years ago. So yes, stay with the visual request for likes etc but please, NO dinging :) haha
@@billycurrys Thank you, Billy. No "dings" in this week's video 🙂
@@Carl_Pullein But everything else is perfect, thank you.👍
Literally fine, don’t trust people in the comments
first of all thanks for this video , can you please name the application or the logicial that you used in the video for time boxing , and thank you in advantage
I use Apple Calendar and Todoist as my calendar and task manager.
@@Carl_Pullein thank you sir
Please do a video on the difference between time boxing and time blocking...
There isn't any difference. They both do the same thing. Protect time for doing important work.
Ahh this makes all my issues make sense!
Glad to have been able to help.
This video was very informative but I agree with other comments about all the sound effects - very amateurish
My apologies. We're in a little transition at the moment. Finding the balance is difficult, but we will get there very soon.
Sorry mate but I don't agree. Having dead space in calendar will just end up with me not knowing what I should be doing which gives me anxiety and is even more overwhelming. Maybe it's my OCD or ADHD kicking in, but not having a packed up calendar is a nightmare.
Most projects cannot be managed in categories. For example, most projects involve preparation, resource management, planning, communication, and writing. It is entirely unnecessary to break them down by category. Should I then make the calls needed for different projects in one communication hour, regardless of the context? This doesn't make much sense to me.
Carl I have a problem... I want to use Evernote as my task application despite what you have said in other videos... but for certain tasks I have to prepare them days in advance, that is, I need time days before to study or write about them tasks... in that case should I block my Google calendar with said activities associated with that task?
Totalmente de acuerdo. El bloqueo de tiempo no sirve.
Hey Carl, More recently, I see you're moving away from the time sector system and more inline with traditional GTD with contexts for your types of work. I'm a bit confused though because i can still see you use This_Week and Next_Week as well as P1 and P2 etc. I'm getting a bit confused about how i should be setting things up 🤔
Hmm, interesting observation, Mike. The types of work (or categories) are more in line with Tony Robbins's RPM system. GTD is very task-focused, while my system is time-focused. I use Todoist's labels to connect it to my calendar.
Hi Carl, Love your content.
I have been following your advise around categorizing work and putting in the calendar only the categories and I think it is the most realistic system to manage time.
The problem I am facing though is specifically around the core work. So, suppose I block between 2:00 and 4:00 to do core work and then on 4:00 I am supposed to move to communication. What really happens is that the core works takes longer than expected, there is always a deadline ahead, so I will continue the core work and eventually my inbox gets overflowed, I don't have time to manage the tasks so they just accumulated there. Also, sometimes, there is just something urgent at work, and then these "lower value" categories I don't have time to do.
I'm pretty sure this happens to others as well. What is your advise here? (maybe you could do a video about that 🙂)
Thanks
Great question. The trick is to allow some buffer time between sessions of work. Remember, we're planning the week, two hours of core work per day gives you 10 hours per week.
(Not being able to allow buffer time because there's not enough time for all the work that needs to be done is a separate issue that involves processes and fine-tuning how you do the work)
I love this video ofcourse, but why have so many cuts? :( And it still mutch faster than before (I mean: speach). So, slow down and don't cut so mutch, please 🙏🏻
We're working on it. It's challenging to curb my video editor and my enthusiasm with what the viewers want. We will get there in the next week or two. Always a work in progress 🙂
All these sound affects do not contribute to improving productivity. Why distract from what you are saying with sound. text on the screen is enough. Do not need the sounds.
My apologies, Don. I’m updating the style and currently we are trying to find the right balance. It’s proving more difficult than anticipated. (Doesn’t it always?)
Sound gimmick is distracting. Not sure what you were trying to achieve.
The comments are correct. The sound effects are more than distracting, they are annoying. Annoying to the point, that about half-way through, I wanted to turn off this video. The cuts were also annoying. Good information, but I am distracted writing this comment rather than watching the video.
My apologies. I'm trying to make a few changes to keep things fresh. It's a work in progress and proving quite challenging. However, I will get it right in the next week or two.
How do you get the rest of the world to honor your time blocks?
I stopped worrying about that a long time ago. People are a lot more accomodating than many imagine. Offering alternative times generally works. Saying "no" also works. and, for the most part all I take from "the world" is two hours a day.
Carry a big stick and walk softly... : ))))
They want something from you, they will bend easier and faster than you think.
@@Carl_Pullein A lot of this stuff works OK if you are self-employed. When you have a boss and are part of a team that depends on each other to meet deadlines, you don't always have the luxury of saying no.
@@JimSamuel267 Hi Jim, everything I teach is anchored in what I learned working in a team of under-pressure lawyers with demanding clients and a very angry boss (nicknamed "Mr Angry" hahaha).
Doing what I suggested here was the only way to avoid "Mr Angry" from placing his attention on us and keeping our clients happy. There really was no other way. We had to say no sometimes. Afterall, "disappearing" for two hours a day to do the work everyone was demanding from us meant there were a lot fewer demands on our time, and we were still available for everyone for eight hours a day. (we worked 10-hour days back then)
@Carl_Pullein nice one for trying something new 👏
Thank you, Mike.