Transcript of the Top 10 FAQ and SAQ's About Time Management Videos by Framework Consulting

Transcript The Top 10 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) About Time Management and The Top 10 Questions You Should Be Asking (SAQ’s) About Time Management

To access the full video series by email, register at http://mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow To see the slides that correspond to this series see http://mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow/10FAQSlides.pdf and http://mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow/10SAQSlides.pdf

FAQ 1 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) that People About Time Management. Why should I care about time management? The reason is, anything that is worth accomplishing in life requires time; any of the results that we want, requires time to produce, such as peace of mind, such as being more productive. Grabbing opportunities as they come; taking care of our health. Making the type of money that we need; or having the kind of relationship with loved ones that we want—that we all want, to get to the end of the day and feel good. We want to feel like we‘re growing, using the latest technology, and that we can complete the projects that we start. Time management though, is a bit of a misnomer. There‘s no such thing as time management; anymore than there is a thing called ‗planet management‘. You can‘t manage the planets no matter what you do—try. In the same way there‘s no way to manage time because time actually moves on whether you do anything about it or not. But there is something that you can manage if you have a time management system—but it‘s not time. Instead it‘s habits; you can manage your habits. Secondly, it could be your rituals, things that you do on a consistent basis; and the third thing is practices that you can manage over time. Let‘s look at habits. What does it take to manage habits? Well the first, is to understand which habit you need to change to effect a new time management system. The second is to get rid some of the habits that don‘t work for you after you‘ve done some kind of analysis. The third is to learn some new habits that will help you to accomplish your goals; and the fourth is to practice these changes until they become automatic—until the habits become ingrained into your system. Most people are concerned though because they end up failing when it comes to managing their time, but what they don‘t know how to do is to be successful in what I call ‗habit management‘. If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ‘s), or questions that you Should Ask (SAQ‘s), visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow. I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.

FAQ 2 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) that People About Time Management. Why do I procrastinate so much? Let‘s take a look at what‘s behind the assumption, maybe there‘s nothing wrong. Okay. I know that‘s radical, because everyone knows that there‘s something wrong with procrastination. But according to Webster‘s, procrastination is putting off from day to day. Delaying—deferring to a future time. Now you and I have to do that to get through each day. We have to put things off into the future. The opposite of that, is you try to do everything at once, and that‘s crazy. We get too many emails, voicemails, paper in the mail—too many things to be able to try to do it all at once. We have to use advance scheduling techniques, computers or diaries, or so forth, to put things off to the future. So where is the problem with procrastination? Why is it such an issue? Why do people feel so badly when they think that that‘s what they‘re doing? The problem is, it‘s something that we tell ourselves. Something that we put on ourselves; as a matter of fact, there‘s a way in which we blame ourselves for being procrastinators, when in fact, there‘s nothing wrong with procrastinating. If you don‘t believe me let‘s take a look at this example. So, there‘s a guy who procrastinates about paying his taxes until April 15th. Then there‘s the same guy who schedules his taxes for completion on April 15th. The only difference is one word, procrastination. You see, we believe that we procrastinate, we blame ourselves. We say we should stop, we need to quit, the only difference is, underlying all of it, we think we need to be different from the way that we are. The only way out of this is to take that thought that we tell ourselves to stop procrastinating and analyze it in the moment. That‘s what would reduce its impact and give us some freedom. If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ‘s), or questions that you Should Ask (SAQ‘s), visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow. I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.

FAQ 3

Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) that People About Time Management. How can I improve my time management skills? As it turns out there are actually two different ways that people use, right now, to learn new time management skills. The first is called ‗mimic me‘ which is basically to copy someone else, the way they do their time management skills, and there are four ways you can do that. One way is to work directly with someone who‘s pretty skillful, and to sit beside them and do what they do on a daily basis. It works really well. The second is to read someone‘s book and to copy the system that they‘ve developed for themselves. The third is to take a program which is pretty similar to the second, copying someone else‘s approach. Then there will be the website, which is essentially the same thing, copying an approach that someone else is using. The problem is, that only about five percent of us, I think, that can copy someone else‘s approach and use it effectively, especially when you take into account the cultural difference. You know, a guy in Bangalore can‘t copy the system that a guy in Nairobi has developed. Ninety-five percent of us, I think, have a problem copying someone else‘s approach. So what are we supposed to do? Simple, start with our own habits, that the second way. In this case we analyze or understand our current time management system. We take a look at the habits, practices, rituals that make up our own system. So we start with an analysis of what we‘re currently doing. The chances are there are some things in what we‘re currently doing that are actually working right now. Then we look to make some smart changes. So we look at the habits and practices and rituals that we are using now, and we change them making some smart decisions. The thing is; there are two schools of thought. One is that changing habits is easy; the other is that changing habits is tough. It‘s our choice as to what approach do you use. If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ‘s), or questions that you Should Ask (SAQ‘s), visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow.

FAQ 4 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) that People About Time Management. Why do people forget the time management stuff they learn so quickly? Well, is it because they have bad memories, they‘re just getting old, learned a bunch of stuff and forgot about it afterwards? Well I don‘t think so. I think it‘s because the typical time management training involves learning a brand new system that includes all the above. Lots of new habits, rituals, a slew of practices, unfamiliar tools, some actually get into new software, paper products, and new electronic gadgets. Also, the typical trainer tends to underplay how hard it is to learn brand new habits. There are lots of new habits. They‘re giving learners a new system, but they don‘t tell them how hard it is to make the transition. And they don‘t tell them that their current habit pattern is going to get in the way of what they‘re trying to implement. So, good luck. Research tells us that learning these new habits is pretty easy, actually at most time management classes they are saying the same thing. But putting them into practice is tough and most people fail. You know, I cut my hair off about three years ago, and I still found myself, for months afterwards, carrying around – traveling with my comb. Why? Because I still had that habit of needing to have something to comb my hair. But I didn‘t have any hair to comb. The problem is that right after we learn a new habit, our old life rushes in to squash the new habit, squash the new practice or ritual, and then we fail. You see, we need help to put in place these new habits if we‘re serious about changing our time management habits and for some people it could mean human support. But for other people it could be new systems, new automation—new tools, we all need different kinds of help. If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ‘s), or questions that you Should Ask (SAQ‘s), visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow. I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.

FAQ 5 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) that People About Time Management. How do I make permanent changes to my time management system? Well the short answer is—not very quickly. It doesn‘t happen overnight, but there are some who will tell you that there‘s some magical process by which they can transform your current time management system, and change it to a thing of beauty in just in instant. Sorry, it doesn‘t happen that way. The fact is, habits and changing habits is slow, hard work; and we know this from the experience that many have had changing addictive habits such as drinking caffeine. What does work, however, is the right blend of support. Alcoholics Anonymous is the number one method for changing alcoholism, but we‘re not talking about addictive habits, we‘re talking about time management habits, and what I know from being in time management programs is that the support that you‘ll need is an individual matter. Not the same support that the person sitting next to you will need when it comes to changing these habits. Let‘s look at an example. This is Joe‘s habit support system. So Joe has used, or is using monetary incentives, public announcement, he has a buddy system, he‘s using continuous tracking, group meetings, and he has some backup plans. He‘s not using everything though. He‘s not using automatic reminders, live coaching, and there are many other systems he‘s not using. We also know that, when it comes to Joe‘s habit management system, he‘s likely to change it over time. The way he uses his support is going to change. We also know, as I said, it won‘t work for anyone else. If he‘s smart, Joe will be looking at ways to improve the support system, and it‘s based on his own knowledge of himself. The fact is, when you‘re able to put in new habits and make them automatic, then you‘d have made a permanent change. If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ‘s), or questions that you Should Ask (SAQ‘s), visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow. I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.

FAQ 6 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) that People About Time Management. How do I figure out what to change? Frequently Asked Question No. 6 is: How do I figure out what to change? As it turns out that figuring out what to change isn‘t so hard once you know what you have right now. But you need to take a deep look, you know, beneath a really pretty smile. If you have someone who could take a deeper look, and someone who can do an X-ray, you could find that there are actually three cavities. So our time management systems might look good, but we need more to find out some information. When you get a trained observer, a good instrument, some measurable output data, and we need someone who can interpret the results. The good news is that you can be the person who‘s the trained observer, and you can also interpret the results. But you do need to have some good instruments and here are the three primary instruments that I use. The first is the fundamentals of time management. I use the six fundamentals. Now each fundamental has something that‘s observable, tangible, and measurable. And if you want more information about the six fundamentals, check my website at www.TwoTime-Sys.com In football, there are three fundamentals, perhaps, and there‘s a competition that focuses on the fundamentals: punt, passing and kicking. In this particular competition kids compete against each other and the one who comes up with the grandest total—or the biggest total wins. So here‘s an example of a spreadsheet or a score sheet from a punt-pass-kick competition. So the fundamentals of football could be boiled down to punting, passing and kicking; and this particular competition enhances their ability in each area. The second instrument could be a personal score card. So a person who scores the card looks like the one for the punt, pass and kick, except that it‘s applied to time management, and there‘s a grade for each of the fundamentals, an overall grade. The third plan takes the grade and translates it into an improvement effort which could go for several months, when you can improve each fundamental over time. If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ‘s), or questions that you Should Ask (SAQ‘s), visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow.

I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.

FAQ 7 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) that People About Time Management. What if I am already using a system? Well the truth is, if you you‘re already using a system, the question you need to answer for yourself is whose system is it? Are you using a system that‘s yours or is it someone else‘s? Because I‘ll tell you this, if it‘s their system, or someone else‘s, it‘s unlikely to change much in the future to suit you. It wasn‘t meant for you. It‘s generic, it‘s really meant for one or two persons who developed it, and it wasn‘t developed for you. Your system, on the other hand, if you think of it this way, is flexible and custombuilt for your needs. So back up, it‘s your system stupid, the fact is; everyone is already using a time management system. Everyone is already using a personalized system, even if they were inspired by a course program or a book from some time in the past. So here are a couple of questions to ask yourself when it comes to upgrading. Are you satisfied? Is your current system giving you the peace of mind and the productivity that you want and need? So if the answer to that is yes, then there is no need to change anything, keep on doing what you‘re doing. On the other hand, if you are interested in an upgrade and it‘s not giving you the peace of mind and the productivity that you want and need, then here‘s the particular logic that you could follow. The first piece: You should start with a complete analysis of your current system, because you‘re already using something, you need to understand it in a way that allows you to upgrade it. The second is to use the right instruments to determine the right changes to make. And the third is to come with a plan that‘s realistic and organic. The last piece is to look for ideas wherever you can find them. If you‘re already using a system, there are other systems out there that you can use, and other sources of information—use them.

If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ‘s), or questions that you Should Ask (SAQ‘s), visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow. I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.

FAQ 8 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) that People About Time Management. Can I triple my productivity and profits? While working less? Wishful thinking. The answer is no. You can‘t get these results without putting in the hard work, but if you want to believe it, listen, there‘s a [bridge?] I want to sell you, it‘s real cheap and it‘s coming in at a discount. But you might say why not, well let‘s take a look at it. When it comes to profits, if you had an improvement in your profits in your business there‘s no way you could trace it back to an improvement in your time management skills. It could be as a result of the economy. Your customers changing, your products changing; you have no idea of knowing whether or not it comes all the way down to your time management skills. How about productivity? Well, surely there will be a way. Fortunately, there is no way to measure an increase in personal output, so that doesn‘t help either. How about working less? Well, you know, there are some real good basketball players called Michael Jordan, Larry Byrd and Magic Johnson who would tell you that to be really good, you‘ve got to work harder than the other guy. You‘ve got to develop the habits and practices that other people don‘t have and become really good at them. Upgrading your time management system involves making changes to your habits, rituals, and practices, the same stuff Mr. Smith told you all the way back in Grade School. So here‘s my advice: Don‘t be distracted by silly tips in creating shortcuts; instead, focus on the fundamentals of your time management system, and put the time in. When it comes to golf—the fundamentals of chipping, putting and driving are the ones that you want to focus on. If you want to improve your cooking you look to improve your baking, your frying, your boiling, your seasoning. You don‘t notice, it‘s not possible to get good without focusing on the fundamentals.

So what are the fundamentals of time management, well SAQ number 8 takes care of that—I‘ll cover the Fundamentals of Time Management in SAQ Number 8—Stay tuned! If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ‘s), or questions that you Should Ask (SAQ‘s), visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow. I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.

FAQ 9 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) that People About Time Management. How quickly can I produce results? Well, it all depends. How quickly can you change the habits that underlie your time management system? You spent years putting together these habits and they don‘t change easily. I found three things: one is that that some habits are easy to break. One I had when I went to school as an undergraduate, was I would eat everything that was on my plate, and eat as much as I could. The result was 10 to 15 lbs within the first semester. That habit was easy to break because clothes were expensive. The second habit was that of twittering, I found this one hard to learn, and I started twittering in 2009. I had to set up a structure for myself to remind myself to twitter each day, because it was difficult to think in these terms of talking to these people I didn‘t really know. And the third discovery is that there‘s a surprising loss of habits when you move. I moved three months ago and out the window went a bunch of my habits I had carefully put together. I had to re-craft them in the new physical location. So what‘s the point? The point is, habits are confusing, habits are tricky. They take a long time to put together, but they‘re difficult to change. The problem is, when you go to change a time management system, you‘re essentially looking at a list of brand new habits, and how fast you put them in place depends on how aware you are of yourself. Or how well you can answer questions like these: Which habits are easy for me to change and why? Which habits are challenging to adopt—why? Which habits will I likely need to upgrade when I undergo a big life change? What‘s the current rating of my time management system? You know, changing your system depends on your current pattern, also the habits that you decide to

implement. Also it depends on the order in which you decide to implement them, and how well you understand your capacity to work with new habits. If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ‘s), or questions that you Should Ask (SAQ‘s), visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow. I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.

FAQ 10 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) that People About Time Management. Is there any system that works for everyone? Well here‘s good news: the answer is yes, there is one. Which one is it? Is it the one that I offer at My Time Design? Is it the one that‘s in the book? Does it come from some 3-day program, or is it just some online course or a website that fits everyone‘s needs? Well that‘s a bit of a trick question. The real answer is that the perfect time management system that fits everyone‘s needs is the one that each person consciously custom-designs for him or herself. It matches their habit pattern, it matches the way they change their habits, and it starts with their current way of doing their time management. However, I don‘t want you to be a Lone Ranger, I don‘t want you to go out there and try to invent something from scratch. The fact is, there have never been more time management resources available than there are now. And they exist all over the place. The point is, to use them. Put yourself in control, put yourself in the driver‘s seat and use these different systems—pull from them liberally. So if per chance you‘ve gotten to this point, you‘ve listened to all the Frequently Asked Questions, and I think you‘d really get a lot from listening to the questions that you should be asking about time management. Here‘s how: If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ‘s), or questions that you Should Ask (SAQ‘s), visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow. I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.

Transcript of the Top 10 Questions that People Should be Asking (SAQ‘s) About Time Management SAQ 1 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Questions that People Should be Asking (SAQ’s) About Time Management.

Is it my time management system or theirs? Well if you are the one asking the question, it‘s yours. It belongs to you, but a lot of people have this very, very wrong. They‘ll tell you, if you ask them what are they doing for their time management? They‘d say they‘re using ACME, the ACME time management system is the newest, latest and greatest. But you know what? From my point of view, they‘re just very, very, very wrong, and to understand why they‘re wrong, let‘s look at what happens when you develop your own time management system, the history of your time management system. You became aware of time when you‘re maybe three, four, five, six years old, or so. You added some habits in when you were a teenager. As you went through high school, as you went through college, and into your early job. You added more habits in to what became what you had today which is a time management system. Now, most of this was done unconsciously, and some of you may have gone the next step and taken a time management program so that much of it is now conscious, but for most of us, our time management systems are created unconsciously and we don‘t even know that we have them. But regardless of how we got to where we are, the underlying building block of all of our time management systems are our habits, they are the smallest sort of element that it takes to build up a time management system, and if we‘re out to change the time management system, we‘ve got to start with the habits. But even before that, we‘ve got to own that the habits that we now have are ours and belong to us. Kind of like pieces of knowledge; so we need to do a little bit of translation here. If someone says, ―I‘m using the ACME system;‖ really mean to say, ―I‘ve changed some of my habits based on what I‘ve learned from the ACME approach.‖ In other words, the focus is on us and our system, and not on ACME. However if the system is yours, then, guess what? The habits are yours, they are yours to manage, yours to upgrade, yours to measure, and ACME and the others are just useful inputs. In other words, you are responsible, not ACME.

If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions, or questions that you Should be Asking (SAQ‘s) visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow. I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.

SAQ 2 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Questions that People Should be Asking (SAQ’s) About Time Management. What is a time management system? What am I trying to change? Well the thing that you‘re trying to change is your habits, your practices and your rituals. These are the building blocks of all time management systems. Now most people would say, ―I already know, that. I already know what those are.‖ But in time management, the distinction is that we focus on habits, practices and rituals that are visible observable and tangible. In other words, they can be seen, they are practical, they are physical. So there are some habits that just aren‘t habits, so when a habit is not observable, tangible or visible, then in time management terms it‘s not a habit. So brushing your teeth everyday is a habit. It passes the test. Thinking well of other people, however, is not a habit because it‘s not observable, tangible or visible. Time management terms is not a habit, so why is that? Why do we have this distinction? The reason is that habits that are observable, tangible and visible can be improved, or can be bettered, or upgraded; and if you just do a quick test and think of a habit, ask yourself, ―Is it tangible, visible, observable? And you‘ll see. Many people who try to improve their time management skills get really confused, and when confused, they end up tricking themselves. When I say tricking themselves, I mean, they think they‘re good at something when in fact, they‘re not. You know, if you ask most people, ―Are you above average?‖ Most people will say, ―Yes, I am;‖ because it‘s nothing measurable. Covey‘s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is made up mostly of habits that aren‘t visible, tangible, and observable. They don‘t pass the test. So for example, if you ask most people, ―Do you begin with the end in mind?‖ Which is one of Covey‘s Seven Habits; most people would say, ―Yes.‖ Then ask them, ―How do they know?‖ Well, ―I don‘t know…‖ It‘s not visible, tangible and observable, so they can fool themselves into thinking that they‘re good at it.

When it‘s clear though people know where they stand. If you ask someone, ―Did you check your calendar for conflicts every morning?‖ The question is answerable with either a yes or a no—it‘s easy to tell. Much in the same way, when there‘s clarity, you can easily improve something. So, here I have an example of a rating tool for baseball players, that a coach can be used to rate a player in different skills. Easy to improve once you have this kind of feedback and this kind of data. So when you have this kind of information, it actually makes the job of a coach much, much easier. They can observe, they can give improvement, make suggestions, and it‘s based on concrete observable, tangible, visible, observable actions. When you have this kind of information, it actually makes the job of the coach much, much easier. The coach can observe, give tangible feedback, have it based on what they actually saw, and as the person receiving it, you‘re much better able to implement the advice that they give you. If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions, or questions that you Should be Asking (SAQ‘s) visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow. I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.

SAQ 3 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Questions that People Should be Asking (SAQ’s) About Time Management. Does everyone have a time management system? The short answer to that is yes. Everyone has one, but not everyone knows that they have one and that they‘re using it. A little bit like asking a teenager, ―What‘s your cholesterol count?‖ A teenager would shrug his or her shoulders and have no idea. They do have a cholesterol count, because they do have cholesterol, but they don‘t know what it is. Most working professionals have a time management system, but they actually don‘t know that they have one. But they have all of the habits that you would expect to find of someone who does have a system. The fact is, all working adults demonstrate what I call ‗Time Management Behaviors‘ and here are a few of the time management behaviors that you see. They follow sets of habits.

They make decisions to do things in the future. They set dates to undertake action. They decline invitations when they have time constraints. They store information for later use, and they make list of items that are alike in some sway. The fact is, they have what I call ‗do it yourself time management systems‘ and most people are happy with them. That is, until there‘s some major life change, like having triplets. Or getting a promotion, or getting married. All of a sudden the number of time demands that they have to deal with explodes, and all they have is a set of habits that they don‘t know they have. Then they run into trouble. The fact that they have a time management system that they don‘t know they have leads them to be unable to upgrade it when they have to deal with this expansion in time demands. They‘re left stuck with their old system trying harder and harder to make it work, and failing. Or, they go the other route, and they try to buy a new system. So they go running out and buy a book, or a new gadget, or a piece of software, a smart phone, a set of tips, and they try to find new habits to implement on top of the old ones that they have. Fortunately, that‘s usually not very successful. If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions, or questions that you Should be Asking (SAQ‘s) visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow. I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.

SAQ 4 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Questions that People Should be Asking (SAQ’s) About Time Management. This is the fourth in the series and the fourth question is: Is it easier to mimic someone's habits or start with your own? Is it easier to start your own management system, or to mimic someone else‘s? Well, it all depends. It depends on the kinds of habits that you‘re interested in learning. In time management there are two kinds of habits: Type-A or Type-B. Type-A habits are those that you‘re learning for the first time. They‘re pretty easy to learn, and if you were to watch small kids, like a small kid learning to do

martial arts for the first time, he‘ll pick it up as if it‘s not a problem; the same for languages. Type-B habits however, are more difficult. They‘re intended to replace or supplement old habits, and they‘re much more difficult to learn. This is the reason why most people have difficulty losing weight because they already have habits that they need to change. Unfortunately, most of our time management habits are Type-B; and there are two kinds of approaches that we could use. The first, is what I call the forceful approach. In the forceful approach you kind of ignore the fact that you already have a time management system; and you push yourself, or you force yourself to copy someone else‘s approach, so you could have learned it from a book, it could be your boss, it could be a program that you took. It could be something that you got from the internet, it could be some tips that you picked up. Whatever it is, you‘re taking their approach and trying to make it yours. I prefer the organic approach. In the organic approach, you get a profile, start by getting a profile of your current habit pattern. You look for the gaps—you know, the obvious holes. If you‘re using some kind of instrument you can find those holes pretty quickly. You figure out which habits you want to change, you can even use external sources of information. Tips, and courses, and so forth, to help you. You‘re not trying to copy them, they‘re trying to help, and you create a plan for changing your habits one at a time, and along a timeline. And as I said, I recommend the organic approach, because it‘s open-ended. You can keep improving your time management system as long as you want, as often as you want, for the rest of your career, and you can take input from any external system. Unfortunately, the forceful approach often leads to a dead-end and does that because after you hit the target that‘s defined in the program there‘s nowhere else to go after that. If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions, or questions that you Should be Asking (SAQ‘s) visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow. I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.

SAQ 5 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Questions that People Should be Asking (SAQ’s) About Time Management. What do I need to have to upgrade my time management system?

There are actually four things that you need to effect an upgrade. You need a method Some data A goal And a plan So let‘s talk about the method first. You need a way to analyze your current time management system so that you can see the fundamental habits that you are doing or not doing. Once you‘ve done that then you need to weigh a way to generate some data around each of the fundamentals—and the way you do that, is by scoring yourself, how well you‘re doing in each of the individual fundamentals. So for example, this particular user analyzed four fundamentals and assigned him or herself, a C-minus, a B-plus, a D and an A to each of the four fundamentals. The third thing you need is a goal. You know, what is the purpose of your time management system? What‘s it meant to provide you? There are no right answers here. It could be productivity, accomplishing more goals. It could be freedom, it could be earning more money; it could be peace of mind, which I really like. Or it could be spending more time with family, or even some other kinds of goals. Once you have those goals, you can then think about, what kind of detailed targets you want to hit with your time management system. For example, you may want to be a ‗B‘ in the first fundamental, and you might want to hit that by January 2010. In fundamental No. 4 you might not want to change it at all, you already have an ‗A‘. So once you have a timeline, you can then put together a plan of the new habits that you want to implement, so let‘s go back to fundamental No. 1. It‘s currently at a C and you want to take it to an A by January 2010, and you want to use Outlook in a particular way to upgrade your time management system; and in fundamental No. 1 you are currently at a ‗C‘, you want to upgrade to a ‗B‘ by January 2010, and the new habit that you want to implement is to use Outlook every day and to use it to plan your schedule. So there you have it, you have a method, you have some data, you have a goal, and you have a plan—all the elements needed to upgrade your time management system. If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions, or questions that you Should be Asking (SAQ‘s) visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow. I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.

SAQ 6 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Questions that People Should be Asking (SAQ’s) About Time Management. How will I know that I'm successful? Well here is the truth, you can‘t really know if you‘re successful. Not definitively. That‘s why I put a blank there. The fact is, the existing metrics for assessing how well your time management system is working are terribly lacking. They‘re weak, pitiful; but what can you use? Well, you can use some soft measures; like how you feel at the end of the day. Whether or not you have peace of mind, whether you feel as if you‘re getting a lot done, and whether or not you‘re energized and unburdened by the stuff you have to do. Some people also like to measure whether or not they‘re focused. But these are soft metrics, they‘re not precise, they‘re kind of vague and you can‘t really use them for any means of comparison, and people could trick themselves into thinking that they are what they are not. So they‘re not soft metrics. Are there any hard metrics? Well, there are some. There are a number of emails, for example, that you answer each day. There a number of items on average in your email inbox, but what kinds of things are these measuring? The fact is, there is no standard way of measuring your productivity. So when you make a change to your time management system, you can‘t boast that you‘ve increased it by 5.7 percent. There‘s isn‘t even agreement of what should be measured. Frankly it‘s appalling. We can‘t look for a standard way to measure, instead what we can do—the best we can do is to create our own soft and hard targets. Our own measurements and decide for ourselves how close we‘re getting to them, and we‘ve just got to live with—that these are the best measurements that we can come up with. If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions, or questions that you Should be Asking (SAQ‘s) visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow. I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.

SAQ 7 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Questions that People Should be Asking (SAQ’s) About Time Management. What kinds of supports do I need? Now what you need is a customized set of supports, and to explain why you need that, let me first look at the time management resources that exist. There are a lot out there right now, so here‘s a partial list. There are: books, programs, websites—some you have to pay to get, many are for free. They are all widely available, and the good news is that many of the ideas that they are sharing are starting to look the same. So there‘s no one out there—or very few that are out there that are saying anything radically different. They‘re mostly saying the same things, which is a good thing; which means there‘s some convergence in the best practices that they‘re recommending; they‘re borrowing from each other, and they are lining up and saying, ―Here are the things that you need to do.‖ So there‘s not much to argue with when you go to a time management course or read a book. You know, learning the points is simple, they make sense, they‘re said in other places. It‘s kind of tough to argue with the logic of what you hear in these programs. They‘re borrowing from each other; they‘re well put together, well delivered. So learning is pretty straightforward. My research though, tells me that where people have the greatest difficulty is not in the class, but what happens afterwards, and most people, according to what I can see, don‘t implement the ideas that they learn. The problem is, when the class is over, the first bit of stress that they hit in their life, sends them back into their old habits. Somewhere between two days to two weeks. Why does that happen? Well, simple, learning is different from implementing. In order to implement well, what you need, again, you need these custom supports, something that will hold you up, prop you up when the stress starts to hit. Luckily, there are some stuff that we can grab from the most recent research on habit change, which tells us that habits are best changed when the supports are there. They also recommend that we do one at a time. We have some kind of overall plan and even a backup strategy to kick in when there are some possible failure. So here are some possible supports that I‘m aware of: One is to have a coach that you work with live, in person, or by phone or by email. Another is to have a buddy. Someone that you work with side by side, or by phone again—someone who can hold you accountable.

There‘s also a small class, or a group that you could join, everybody working on the same thing. There‘s a great website I found called StikkIt.com where you can actually bet some money on your success. You can create a habit tracker, a graphic representation to track your progress. You can share your goals publicly to friends who care. And you can set up auto-reminders, using email, text, anything that would remind you to keep on track. The bottom line is that you need to know yourself because you‘re essentially trying to trick yourself into adopting these new habits, and that takes some insight. If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions, or questions that you Should be Asking (SAQ‘s) visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow. I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.

SAQ 8 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Questions that People Should be Asking (SAQ’s) About Time Management. What are the fundamentals of time management that I have heard about? There happens to be eleven fundamentals when it comes to time management, but first let me back up. A ‗fundamental‘ is the basic, physical activity that underlies every single field of human endeavor. So when it comes to ballet for example, there are certain fundamentals. In driving there‘s starting, stopping and maneuvering, those are fundaments. In tennis, there‘s forehand, backhand and the volley. So everyone has to master these fundamentals and continue to practice them if you‘re going to be good. If you‘re going to be an expert, you have to be better than other people at the fundamentals. So Michael Jordan, Larry Byrd, and Magic Johnson were known for their willingness to improve the way they did the fundamentals to the point where they became world class. They were the ones who‘d be seen at the court

on weekends practicing the fundamentals over and over again, even when they were winning MBA championships. So it wasn‘t the sneakers. It actually was their practice. So in time management, we‘re not taught the eleven fundamentals, or that there even are fundamentals, but they happen to be all be similar, for example, to dribbling, shooting, passing—the fundamentals of basketball, in that they are physical activities; and also that they are inescapable that you have to do them to do time management. So here are the eleven fundamentals: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)

Capturing Emptying Tossing Acting now Storing Scheduling And listing

Make up the essentials, while— 1) 2) 3) 4)

Interrupting Switching Warning And reviewing

These make up the advanced. Most people focus on the essentials first before moving on to the advanced, simply because they are easier to learn and more essential, more basic. Each fundamental is seen as separate from the others. You can optimize any particular one, you can also become very good at each one and have a separate score in each fundamental, which can be combined to give you an overall score. You could start off as a novice and work your way to be an expert. The truth is, they all fit together and someone can actually observe you and tell you how good you are on each fundamental. So for details, which I can‘t go into in this video, on each of these fundamentals—check my website: www.2timesys.com and check the ‗Articles’ section. If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions, or questions that you Should be Asking (SAQ‘s) visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow. I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.

SAQ 9 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Questions that People Should be Asking (SAQ’s) About Time Management. What will a finished plan for upgrading my system look like? Well, a finished plan for your time management system—your new one, would be: doable, it would be realistic, and it would be yours. It would look like something that you developed for you. Not something that you got from a book or from a website. It would match your current habit pattern. Unfortunately, most people fail to implement time management techniques. Some 90 percent, I estimate, and the reason they fail is not because the ideas are bad, or because they don‘t understand them. As a matter of fact they love the ideas, the problem is they can‘t implement them in their own lives and one of the problems that they have is they don‘t put together a decent plan for implementation. So here‘s what an indecent plan looks like, it‘s likely the one that most people use. They come from the program brimming with confidence. They try to express their habits all at once. It works for a couple of days, then they hit a snag when all of a sudden they run into some new stress at work, and they fall back into their old habits and then they blame the program, because they say the program just doesn‘t work. The problem isn‘t with the program though, the problem is they don‘t have a plan. So here‘s what the good plan would look like: It would start with your current habit pattern, it would outline individual habits to be learned. It would sequence the habits over time on a calendar. Give enough time for you to learn them, and include some kind of support system. So here‘s what a plan might look like for upgrading your habits. So on the left you‘ll see the individual habits, and on the right you‘ll see some different time schedules for upgrading them. And here‘s what a support plan would like. On the left you‘ll see different support elements, and then different ways in which you‘d get that support over time. So in the long term, what a professional can expect is that they would continuously upgrade their time management systems over time. They‘d implement new habits, whatever speed they decide on, and that new technology would be brought in to help wherever it can.

SAQ 10 Hi, my name is Francis Wade, and welcome to another in the series of Questions that People Should be Asking (SAQ’s) About Time Management. Should I keep looking for new techniques? Well I have some advice here. Be quick to look but slow to change. Why would I say that? Well, I think looking for and finding new ideas and new technologies are different from implementing them. Many of us are gadget freaks, we love the latest software, hardware, and the latest invention; and unfortunately, many of us don‘t realize that people who come up with these systems don‘t do them according to out specs. So we rush to try to implement the new thing that‘s come along. A lot of us love the Top Ten Tips, the latest book—but again, the question is, is the person who puts these systems together, do they have our lifestyle in mind; our time management systems and out habit patterns? Well of course, the answer is no because these are all generic. There‘s nothing wrong with these upgrades, they all have really – many have really good ideas, but you need to be very careful about whether or not they cut our current time management system, and fit our current habit patterns. The underlying assumption of many of them, is that we‘ll throw away what we currently have and adopt the new system that they recommend wholesale. Unfortunately it never works. You can never abandon your current time management system, and it‘s a bad idea to pretend it doesn‘t exist. It will only backfire on us, and the reason that happens is that we already have a time management system that‘s built on old habits that have been developed over the years, and it‘s just waiting to come in and reassert itself once we hit a bump in the road. So we can‘t implement without accounting for what we currently have. If you would like to hear the other 19 videos in this particular series of Frequently Asked Questions, or questions that you Should be Asking (SAQ‘s) visit my website: www.mytimedesign.com/20vidsnow. I look forward to seeing you—take care, bye-bye.