How a Surgeon, CEO, and Financial Advisor Mastered Their Time

"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others." That’s a famous quote from Groucho Marx and encapsulates perfectly what this episode is about You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Join the Time And Life Mastery Programme here. Use the coupon code: codisgreat to get 50% off. Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Time Sector System 5th Year Anniversary The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 390 Hello, and welcome to episode 390 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. I’ve been coaching people one-on-one for seven years, and in that time, I picked up some ideas that, when adopted by clients, almost always guarantee they will transform their time management and productivity. None of these ideas is revolutionary, which isn’t surprising since people have long struggled with time management and productivity issues. Our attitude to time and the expectations of others has changed, but the amount of time we have hasn’t. Technology, rather than helping us to do more in less time, has elevated the amount we are expected to do. Fifty years ago, we might have received thirty letters; today, technology has elevated the number of digital letters and messages we receive into the hundreds. And while we may be quicker at responding, we’re not realistically able to respond to hundreds of emails and messages each day and still produce work. (Even though I know a number of you are trying) It goes back to what I wrote and spoke about two or three years ago, fashions may change, but the principles don’t. AI and ChatGPT are all the rage today. If you’ve gone down that rabbit hole, you will have been blown away by what it can do. It’s incredible. Yet what is it doing? It is making some parts of our work faster. Yet, most people still don’t have enough time to do all their work. What’s happening? Well, telling everyone that you can now produce a sales review presentation in less than twenty minutes with the help of ChatGPT means you are now expected to create more presentations. That sales review presentation may have taken you two days before, but now, if you can do it in twenty minutes, boom! Your boss can give you more work to do! So what are the traits, best practices and ideas that do work that the people who have seen a massive increase in their time management and productivity follow? Well, that’s the subject of this week’s question. And that means it’s time for me to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Lauren. Lauren asks, “Hi Carl, I know you have been coaching people for a long time, and I am curious to know what the most productive people you meet do that is different from those less successful at it.” Hi Lauren, thank you for your question. As I eluded to, the most productive people I’ve coached follow principles, not fashions, and are ruthless with their time allocation. Those principles are to collect everything, process what you gathered, eliminate unnecessary things, and allocate time for doing what’s left. But it goes a little deeper than that. First, you need to know what is important to you. That relates to your Areas of Focus. Those are the eight areas of life we all share but will define and prioritise differently. Things like, your family and relationships, career, finances, health and fitness and self-development. Knowing what these mean to you and what priority they are in your life goes a long way to helping you to build product