Your Time, Your Way

By: Carl Pullein
Listen for free

  • Summary

  • Showing you ways to get control of your time through tested techniques that will give you more time to do the things you want to do.
    Copyright 2024 Carl Pullein International. All rights reserved.
    Show More Show Less
Economics Management Personal Success
Show More Show Less
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2
Episodes
  • Don't Copy. Find Your Own Style.

    Don't Copy. Find Your Own Style.
    Nov 24 2024
    This week, why you should not be copying other people’s systems. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Subscribe to my Substack Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 347 Hello, and welcome to episode 347 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. There is a lot of advice on managing your to-dos, organising your notes and controlling your calendar. And it can be tempting to copy whatever you have seen, believing if it worked for someone else, it must work for you. Well, not so fast. One thing I’ve learned from coaching hundreds of people is that no individual is the same. We think differently, have different jobs, and have different family lives and interests. One example is Tiago Forte’s PARA method. It’s a great way to organise your notes, and many people swear by it. However, it never worked for me. I’m a goal-orientated person. Goals motivate me. I also define Areas of Focus differently from how Tiago defines an area. This is why I settled on GAPRA (Goals, Areas of Focus, Projects, Resources and Archive.) This does not mean that PARA does not work. It works, for some people. Similarly, I have coaching clients who find GAPRA works better. It all depends on how you think, like to organise things and do your work. So, what can you do with so much conflicting advice? How can you find the methods for you? Well, before I get to that, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Frank. Frank asks, hi Carl. I’ve been a life-long follower of productivity systems and have struggled to find a system that works for me. How would you advise someone to find a way that works for them? Hi Frank, thank you for your question. Around 20 years ago, I began my career as an English teacher in Korea. I had come from working a typical 9 til 5 office job and suddenly I was on the other side of the world, working from 6:30 am to 12:00 pm and 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm. It was tough. I’m not a natural morning person—never have been—so waking up at 5:00 am was a shock to my system. It wasn’t long before I began taking naps. I would get home at 12:30, and go straight back to bed for two hours. For the next ten years, that’s what I continued to do. I had learned about the power of taking naps from none other than Winston Churchill. He believed that if you took a solid 90 minute nap every afternoon you would be able to get at least a day and half’s worth of work done in a day. He wasn’t wrong. By taking an afternoon nap I found I was full of energy when teaching in the evening and was able to spend an hour preparing for my next day’s classes when I got home in the evening. Yet, I knew Churchill took his naps between 3:30 pm and 5:00 pm. That didn’t work for me. So I adapted it to work better for me. Likewise, back in 2016 or so, I read Robin Sharma’s brilliant 5 AM Club book. I was sold. I thought, okay, let’s give this a try. For those of you not familiar with the 5 AM Club, this is where you wake up at 5:00 AM and do twenty minutes of exercise, then 20 minutes planning and finally 20 minutes of learning. It’s solid way to begin your day. Yet, I had a problem. I’ve never been comfortable exercising in the morning. So, I adapted it. I did twenty minutes journal writing, then ten minutes planning the day and finally studied Korean for thirty minutes. And it worked. I was consistent for around eighteen months and I loved it. But then I hit a problem. My coaching business began taking off and I was doing coaching calls late at night—sometimes not finishing until midnight. This meant I was trying to survive on four or five hours of sleep. Not a good thing if you want to be productive. It then occurred to me, the “secret” to the 5 am club is not waking up at 5 am. It’s what you do immediately on waking up that matters. Today, I wake up around 8:00 am, and start my day with a solid set of morning routines that include journal writing, some stretches and learning my email inbox. It works perfect for me. It sets me up for mostly productive days. And that’s the key point. Whatever you learn about productivity, time management and living life doesn’t have to be followed exactly as described. We all live different lives and it can be modified to better work for you. However, there are a few caveats here. The first is you will not be able to break basic principles. For ...
    Show More Show Less
    13 mins
  • Deep Dive With Dr Kourosh Dini

    Deep Dive With Dr Kourosh Dini
    Nov 17 2024

    This week, I have a special episode for you.

    A second interview with Dr Kourosh Dini.

    In this episode, we talk about rationalisation and how to change our approach to many of the false beliefs that come from it.

    We also discussed pens and paper and a little more about managing ADHD.

    Here's how you can learn more about Dr Dini's work.

    Newsletter: https://wavesoffocus.com/Your-First-Step-to-Breaking-Free-from-Force-Based%20Work/ Waves of Focus https://wavesoffocus.com/ on SMART goals https://www.kouroshdini.com/lay-off-the-goals-a-bit-would-you/
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 3 mins
  • How To Find Time.

    How To Find Time.
    Nov 10 2024
    Is it possible to expand time? Literally, no. But there is a way to find more time if you’re willing to use these techniques. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Subscribe to my Substack Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 345 Hello, and welcome to episode 345 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. Common phrases you will hear are “I don’t have time” or “I wish I had more time”, and yet you already have all the time you need. The problem is not time, the problem is often the amount of things we want to do in the time we have. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, life was simple. Find food and water, make babies and stay safe. Neglecting either of those three things would result in some serious issues—the biggest of which would be death. Given that human evolution is slow, we are not best suited to deal with hundreds of emails and messages, requests from bosses, finding child care, commuting to and from work and all the other modern-day accessories we’ve chosen to add to our lives. We cannot expand time, yet if we are unwilling to reduce what we want to do, we will feel overwhelmed and that more modern ailment, the fear of missing out, or FOMO. However, there are a few techniques you can use that will give you enough time for the things you want to do if you are willing to try them. But before I get to how, allow me to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Giles. Giles asks, Hi Carl, I’ve done your “perfect week” exercise and realise that my problem is I want to do too much. There isn’t enough time in the day. Do you have any tips on fitting in hobbies and still get enough sleep? Hi Giles, thank you for your question. The good thing is you’ve discovered that no matter what you want to do or feel you must do, you will always be limited by the amount of time available. And, now that you’ve done the Perfect Week calendar exercise, you can see what you have left after taking care of your work and family obligations. One of the first realisations about finding time was when I learned of Ian Fleming’s writing routine. Ian Fleming wrote a new book each year from 1952 to his death in 1964. He never missed a year, even in the year he had his first heart attack in 1961. In the early years, Fleming worked For The Sunday Times as their foreign editor, yet he negotiated a two-month vacation each January and February. During those two months, he would fly off to his Jamaican home, Goldeneye and almost from the first day, would begin writing the next book from 9:30 to 12:30. After lunch, he would nap, and then the day’s socialising would begin. Around 4 pm, he would go back to his writing desk for an hour to review what he had written that morning, and that would be it. Four hours a day for six weeks. That produced the first draft of his next book. For the rest of the year, he worked his regular job in London. Dealt with any rewrites and began marketing the book that was being published that year. If you were to analyse how Ian Fleming managed his time, he wasn’t looking at the day-to-day. He looked at the year as a whole. He knew he needed six weeks to write a new novel each year, so he made sure those six weeks were blocked out in his diary before the new year began. That’s just six weeks out of fifty-two. This is similar to blocking time out for your core work. If you know you need ten hours a week to do your core work, hoping you will find the time is not a sustainable strategy. You won’t, so it will be more a case of hoping you will find the time. Those ten hours need to be locked in each week. Ian Fleming would never have written fourteen James Bond novels if he had “hoped” to find the time to do so. He had to find the time and then protect it. You have 168 hours a week and twenty-four each day. Squeezing everything into those twenty-four hours will be tough—almost impossible. Yet, if you were to schedule for the week, where you have 168 hours, things become possible. I see many people anxiously trying to find family time every day. It would be nice if you could do that, but you are dealing with other people and your 6 to 9 pm might not be convenient for them. Instead, you could agree with your family that certain days or evenings are for family time. For instance, my wife and I ensure that Wednesday afternoons and Saturday evenings are ...
    Show More Show Less
    12 mins

What listeners say about Your Time, Your Way

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.co.uk reviews

Amazon reviews
No Reviews are Available