Minute to talk about the elephant in the room and just drop it in the chat box what do you think the elephant in the room is as we uh sit here in our fresh new year anybody what's the elephant in the room cell phones yes that's the small elephant that's a baby elephant telework yeah not enough time in the day yeah yeah working from home meetings yes.
Spaceships i love that coven thank you omicron there you go yeah uh everybody's got their challenges right now everybody agree with that everybody's going through something and we here in the united states we just marked the one year anniversary of a violent armed insurrection where people tried to throw overthrow the government we've seen unprecedented climate events all around the planet social and political turmoil economic turmoil all.
Around the planet we are now in our 22nd month 22nd month at least here in the u.s of the pandemic and so from covet original to the current total of 12 12 variants covet is like the dj khaled of viruses here's another one another one right almost everybody on the planet is currently experiencing prolonged uncertainty stress.
And trauma anybody agree with that and you know the the truth is nobody knows when all this is going to end and so while you know there might be a tool or a structure or format to manage your time the elephant in the room is all of this before we get to that we need to focus on managing our uncertainty managing our stress and managing our trauma some of.
Us need to be in therapy right now some of us need to be in counseling some of us might need some medical attention some of us might need a vacation is this resonating with anybody control yes alfred control what you can control so if you feel like you are at or beyond your capacity to manage it all i would seriously invite you to do whatever you can do within your control.
Life so uh i i am uh throwing down the gauntlet i am making a plea for you to in 2020 2022 write this down prioritize self-care prioritize self-care you feel me i know everybody's got a different situation do what you can do what you can within your world ask for help make time for healing whether that's.
Vacation or exercise meditation medication get professional help consult a professional all right i want to share one more elephant in this room that's in the room and it's it's the reason why i think so many people are struggling right now and it's it's not not all the others it's all the other stuff that i mentioned but it's that they're trying to do what they've always done and life has flipped the script on them.
Does that make sense pre-covet we all got into our habits our patterns of doing things right we got up at a certain time we did certain things and we went to work and then we did stuff and then we came back home and we do family stuff and personal stuff we got into our habit we got into our groove kovit pops up on the scene and says hold my beard i'm going to wreck all of that for virtually everybody maybe there's a tribe somewhere on an.
Island that has been largely untouched by this but for most of the rest of us on the planet covet has wrecked everything and it has been uh from a mild inconvenience on one end of the spectrum of impact all the way to absolute catastrophe and fatality on the other end of the spectrum and everything in between and i think one of the things that people are struggling with right now is how how do i keep doing the same thing when life is telling me i can't.
Is this resonating with anybody i'm used to getting up and doing a certain thing but now i can't go to work because if we do i could die or i could get sick or i could infect other people and so i think one of the big struggles that many people are having right now is how do i fit this square peg into a round hole you can't you have to adapt and one of the things i think covet has done it is catalyzed a social evolutionary era we are in the middle of.
An evolutionary cycle folks this is not just pandemic this is evolution covet is forcing us to evolve it's
Forced us to change how we work when we work where we work it has given us forced us to experiment to change to examine all of that yes or no in the chat box how many of you would say yes i actually like working from home either full time or most of the time who likes working from home who does not like working from home at all say no in the chat box.Really enjoy prefer hybrid love that carly and hybrid is one thing a lot of organizations are are working on it's like okay how do we you know do some work from home some work in the office right oh i gotta move that over there yeah and so this is what i think part of the struggle is and and again i'd be remiss if i didn't talk about this is we talk about trying to manage time what we're trying to manage is our evolution how do we change the.
Nature of where we work while working from home has a lot of advantages like yay no commute and i don't have to worry about what i wear necessarily and i can just get to work immediately and i can work whenever i want it also has some downsides like if you're trying to manage a small child by yourself if you're trying to manage you know other people uh if you're trying to figure out schedules uh yeah it's been a challenge for a lot of folks right all right see many of you love working from home one.
Person says they hate working from home hard to do when you have to juggle a lot at the same time yeah it's not the panacea for everybody so i want you to keep this in mind this is our opportunity to reinvent how we do work and to design it in a way that works better for us right that's going to take a minute and by a minute i mean months or a couple of years right but remember what darwin said darwin said it is not the strongest of the species that survive nor the most.
Intelligent but the one most responsive to change he never said survival of the fittest he said it was survival of the most adaptable and that's what we have to do if we're going to manage our time our week our lives our work our families better we have to put adaptation first we have to be able to adapt all right let's talk about the truth about time management here's the truth about time management ready ready here we go.
There's no such thing as time management wait a minute i thought i was going to get some tools and tips around how to manage time better yeah i'm trying to be honest with you here there's no such thing as time management time doesn't exist in nature we made it up it's not like there's a robin sitting on a tree with a rolex going hey if i'm really early i'll get the worm no time does not exist in nature we created it with sundials and grandfather clocks and rolexes and the master clock the the.
Atomic clock etc we made it up right the work week we invented that the 40 hour work week we invented that right and so many of us feel like we're on this giant wheel just spinning spinning spinning ever faster try to get it done get it done get it done get it done get it done right time cannot be managed time is a fixed thing tick tock tick talk you're not going to manage that right what you manage is what you do in the space of those ticks and talks.
So if time can't be managed you were on that spinning wheel i hear you seriously if you can't manage time what can you manage well what can you manage you can manage this and as i go through this list i want you to note which of these you think you want to do a better job need to do a better job with in 2022 number one setting priorities scheduling tasks you can manage that keeping track of what we need to do.
Where we place our attention you can manage that you can manage estimating the time it takes to complete things you can manage how you respond to interruptions what you say yes to what you say no to how you say no without getting your reputation for being someone who says no all the time you can manage your response to other people's urgency you can manage how you deal with email those are things you can manage you're not managing time you're managing those things that happen within the space of.
The construct of time does that make sense folks
I love what sheila said in the chat all of those i need to do better with all of those attention too much time on tick tock i hear you don't be too proud to ask for help absolutely alfred right right all of the above thank you maria lina yes thank you so which of those really needs a bit more focus and what i would invite you to do is pick one of those just pick one of those and work on it this coming week work on.It this coming week if if it's setting priorities then sit down and figure out what's the most important thing for you for your team uh for your company for your family what's the most important thing that you would like to accomplish this next week if it's just sitting down to plan and schedule then carve out a little bit of time every day where you give yourself like 10 minutes and go okay i'm going to plan my day i'm going to plan my week maybe you have a focus right maybe you say.
Sundays will be my personal time family time mondays will be my my focus on budget issues or money tuesday will be my team check-ins wednesday will be my priority uh focus on pr on projects uh thursday will be my uh i don't know customer service or outreach friday will be my uh review and planning for the next week saturday will be my chores day so you can have a theme for each day of the week right i'm not.
Saying this is the the end-all be-all i'm saying it's a way to look at how you do your life how you manage your week have a different theme or focus for each day break your day up into different sections we'll talk more about that in a minute is this making sense folks there you go uh rahul use google calendar and task app right yes the session is recorded will be available on offsite who likes pie anybody like pie.
Pizza counts as pie too right okay i view time as a pie go with me here time is a pie okay there are rules of time pie here are the rules of time pie number one everybody's pie is 24 hours big it's not like i've got a 32-hour pie and carly has an 18-hour pie everybody's pie is 24 hours big rule number two no one knows if they'll get all 24 hours.
Each day we plan like we're gonna be here forever but there were folks who went to sleep last night with a plan for the day and they didn't wake up this morning i don't mean i don't mean to be you know a downer or morose but i'm just saying you don't know if you're going to get all 24 of those hours third rule of time pie you can't get more pie you can't go to your neighborhood hey i'm out of time pie can i borrow a couple of slices of thyme pie from you you can't get more pie the pie you have.
Is the pie you have the only thing you can do the only thing you can do with your time pie is decide how many slices you're going to make each day how big they are and who or what gets a slice that's it how many time pie slices you make how big each slice is and who or what gets a slice of your time pie am i making sense folks.
So get you like this time pie thank you maria so given this as an as a metaphor how many of you are thinking right now ooh there's some parts of my life that need to have a bigger slice of pie drop that in the chat box if you feel like sharing what's one part of your life that you think needs to have a bigger slice of pie wendy because i'm hungry for pie now sleep sheila absolutely elaine yourself.
Uh ocean nike family tim tim uh it's going so fast reading job search on jews school exercise sleep so so whatever you think needs a bigger slice how much bigger should that be 30 minutes an hour hour and a half two hours decide takes a moment after the take a moment after this class and think about what parts of your life deserve are crying for a bigger slice of time pie and then just as an experiment i'm.
Not asking you to change your whole life just as an experiment for this next week give that part of your life that bigger slice of time pie what part of your life deserves a smaller slice of thyme pie what are you giving way too much time pie to you're like i need to put that part of my life on a diet right social media nancy mobile phone sheila cell phone on you tv tv.
Yeah i finished netflix all of it not really but some days it feels like that right netflix right phone so write this down what's one thing for the next week you're just going to experiment with this that you're going to give a smaller slice of time pie too and whatever that is set a limit for it whether it's tv time or social media time or netflix or whatever toxic co-worker there you go no no time no pie for you.
Yes yes and alfred you have a slice available for the unknown did you set aside a slice of time pie for whatever because you know stuff happens so so think about how much time you spend on things like sleep and work and self and family and netflix and those other things i'm not saying netflix is evil i'm just saying this is about balance and proportion if i'm giving a huge slice of time pie to something that i i don't get a huge return from.
I need to put that on a diet right so think about how you want to divide up your time pi and experiment with that next week again there's no such thing as time management here are three things that you absolutely must get a handle on because this is the truth of what you're actually managing number one you're managing energy mental physical and emotional energy.
How many of you have tried to do something on your to-do list but mentally physically or emotionally you were just not there you did not have the juice for it anybody on fumes right alfred often right dave and so here's the thing if you don't have the mental physical or emotional energy for it it doesn't matter how beautiful your schedule is doesn't matter how how perfect your to-do list or your priority list is you don't have the juice for it.
Here's a set so what energizes you spending time in nature exercise getting more sleep what brings you energy and i'm not talking about artificial stuff like caffeine and sugar i mean we can sugar rate and caffeinate all we want and all that does is agitate you crash hard after the caffeine with the sugar quiet time dave says right alfred pie so think about what naturally energizes you purpose exercise music love that.
Right and then try to work some more of that in as an experiment this next week try to work some more of those things and that naturally energize you right here's the second thing that you have to get a handle on it's focus let's say you have the mental physical and emotional energy you have this part down now where do you focus that energy where do you focus your attention right do you focus it on things that uh that allow you to complete the task that make you happy right that that re-energize.
You or do you focus on things that are draining for you right where you put your focus determines in large part how productive how efficient how happy you are so what in this next week experiment needs your focus take a moment jot it down what in the next week needs your focus family sleep health a work project something around the house.
You have something on fire you need to put out in your life you have something you'd like to fine-tune a little bit write down a couple of things you'd like to give some more focus to in this coming week right love that home billing service health all right write down at least a couple of things you'd like to put focus on a little extra focus on this week here's the third thing you are managing emotions you are managing emotions right and so the thing to think about is what.
Would make you happy what would give you a greater sense of of satisfaction if you check that off your list what's something that you could start or make progress on or finish that would make you happy because here's the thing most of us at the end of the day you know we're not going through that big spreadsheet that says oh i spent 20 minutes here and 15 minutes there and 12 minutes there no no at the end of the day we're saying wow i'm really glad i got that done today or we're saying uh.
Oh man i'm bummed out that i didn't get that done folks that's all about managing your satisfaction how happy you are with how you spent your focus and your energy in the space of a thing called time am i making any kind of sense to you all this resonating okay so here's one thing that you can do this week yes three things that lead to new habits.
We either have habits that support us or we spend time in energy supporting our habits there's a difference so somebody mentioned this earlier and i'm going to talk about this there's a thing called the circadian cycle right it's the 24-hour cycle that includes physiological and behavioral rhythms like sleeping for example right we all have a different cycle how many of you know your morning people that's when you have your peak energy if you are you were born that way you will die.
That way you are a morning person that's when you naturally have uh your peak energy that's not everybody some people are kind of an afternoon person right they're later in the day person some people like me and michelle are night people so if you get an email from us at 11 o'clock at night midnight one in the morning that's us we're night people if you get one five in the morning that's gary gary's a boarding person leah morning.
Person right kim morning person oh i know kim isn't that horrible you got to work third shift and you're a morning person ooh that's a special kind of hell anyway and work doesn't help because work has this cookie-cutter approach that says everybody's gonna work you know eight to five monday through friday blah blah blah you know in a lot of places not all jobs obviously so so here's the thing it's important for you to figure out when you have your peak energy in the.
Day and when you're in the valley of your energy during the day you're not managing time you're managing managing energy that's one of the three things right so figure out when in the day you're at your peak energy and when you're in your valley now there's another thing called the ultradian rhythms they're actually four different uh aspects of your your your energetic rhythm cycle um and one of them is called ultradian this is a biological rhythm with a shorter period and a higher frequency than the.
Circadian rhythms uh and the theory here is that we as human beings run in 90 to 120 minute cycles right so there's this part where you know you're going to ramp up your energy and then boom you're at the peak and you're going to get a lot of stuff done because you've got high energy and then there's stress and then you've got to have a cool down period like athletes right and then you're gonna ramp up again you're gonna high performance oh getting it done checking it off the list and then there's stress and so you got to.
Have a cool down again 20 minutes and you ramp up and most of us do this kind of cycle throughout the day like a fine-tuned engine absolutely offered right but what some people try to do what some people try to do is they just they just try to to ramp up and then just stay up all day and that's not natural that's not how fine-tuned machines work that's not how human beings work right so we've we've got to understand when these peaks and valleys are for us.
During the day then here's how you apply this in your life uh how do you figure this out do it on a spreadsheet if you have access to a spreadsheet and you know how to use one and that's probably most of you right or you can do it on a slip of paper and sticky notes whatever works analog or digital every day for the next seven days if you have a phone or a timer just have an alarm on the hour from when you wake to when you go to sleep every day for.
The next seven days at the top of every hour write down put your energy level low medium or high low medium or high every day the next seven days from when you wake up to when you go to bed at the top of every hour just write down low medium or high what's your energy level right just sit and go how am i feeling right now medium energy okay boom medium energy chart that out right if you can plot it out on a spreadsheet at the end of the week you should be able to see.
What your energy cycle is right now how do you use that you take your calendar and you start blocking off the times of day when you have your peak energy and during those times that's when you schedule work on your highest priority items because you need the most juice for the most important things any of you ever try to do the most important things when you didn't have the energy.