The Tech Leader's Toolbox
The Tech Leader's Toolbox
What To Do Instead of Managing Your Time
Our time is in great demand and it can be frustrating to hit the end of your day and yet things are left unfinished. Yet, TIME MANAGEMENT DOESN'T WORK! Learn why and what you should do instead with Paul Simkins, Trainer and Coach.
Plus, Paul shares a recipe for Garlic Chicken on the Grill. You can find the recipe, and many more, on the Smoke and Ash Facebook group or by emailing TLToolbox@BoldlyLead.com.
You can get a copy of Paul's eBook 15 Innovative Ways to Show Employees You Care and Not Break the Bank by emailing him at paul@BoldlyLead.com.
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The Tech Leader's Toolbox podcast is brought to you by Paul Simkins and the bully LEAD program, focusing on helping tech leaders like you, and the frustration of low performing teams, and losing excellent employees, so they can increase productivity by 50%. Go home on time, and sleep better at nights.
Paul Simkins :Hello, and welcome to The Tech Leader's Toolbox. I'm Paul Simkins. And we're here because how you lead today determines how your team succeeds tomorrow, and you are definitely a leader, because leadership is all about influence. And the good leaders know that they need to have a positive influence over their people. great leaders know that in order to maintain that they have to grow and they grow by a commitment to become better each and every day. Now, this is Episode 34 of the podcast We've talked about it before how working from home isn't really the freedom we thought. It can be draining at times. And today we're going to talk about some things you can do instead of trying to manage your time. Are you ready? Let's go. There's all kinds of information out there today about time management. There's training programs, there's blogs, there's people have got all kinds of writings video, you can go out on YouTube, you do a search on time management, there will be no end of stuff that you will see about time management, how to find more time how to get the best out of your available time. And in our world, this can be important because there's a lot of things that demand our time and want a piece of our day. For example, our workweek can take 40 hours or more out of our week, we have our house if you have wherever you live demands that we clean it on occasion, our family which would like meals every now and then, are that kid that would like us to take them to dance class, the other kid that would like us to take them to football practice. And then the other kid who would also like a playdate, or elderly parents who would like to like to have us drop by and help them with something. Our church committee that wants us to volunteer to help out with rummage sale, the spouse who would like us to pay a little attention to them every once in a while they tell us about their day, and the dog who would like to go out for a walk the laundry that needs to be washed, the friend who would like to catch up over coffee or beer or a local charity that wants us to participate in a fundraiser and the list goes on. From the moment we rise until we collapse exhausted in our bed. There are demands on our time. And they come at us from all directions. And they call us to action on their behalf. And we respond, because we are people of action. And people of action will take action when called upon in the service of others, right. And at the end of the day, we're exhausted. And yet we have a little trouble sleeping, because we seem to have missed getting some important things done during the day.
Paul Simkins :Have you felt like that? How do you deal with all that? How do I get everything in it? There's some super secrets technique or something that I can apply that will help me manage and free up my time. Well, actually, there is. And with this episode, and one of the episodes coming up in the future, I'm going to present some things to you that I know No are going to help you because they have helped many, many others before. These are secrets that have actually been around for a while. But many people never learned them or when they do, they kind of forget them in the midst of putting out all the fires and rushing around. And the one I want to talk about today is I want to talk about the whole concept of time management. Here's what I'm going to tell you. throw that out the window, stop worrying about managing your time. Instead, focus on managing priorities. Now here's one of the arguments why I think that you want to stop worrying about managing your time. First of all, as Zig Ziglar used to say we all have the same 24 hours in a day, right? Let's say you sleep for Six to eight hours a day, let's say eight. being generous, you probably don't get that much you should, but you probably don't. So if you got eight hours out of your 24, what does that leave you? That leaves you with 16 hours, right? You've got work, work is going to take a minimum probably of eight hours a day. So now what are you left with, out of your waking time, you're left with eight hours, take meals out of that. Now you're down to about five hours. You see where this is going. So much time limited. And what happens often is we end up giving up the wrong things. We we skip a meal, we short work or things like that, to try and get other priorities in or we short our family because we've got to get that work in and we're constantly running that cycle. We're running in this just like a hamster wheel just going and going and going and never really getting anywhere. Because we're trying to manage time, which is a finitemeasurement, we can't add hours to the day. All we can do is sacrifice something else in order to add time over here. And plus even if we had it all planned out to the minute do this do that. And I'm have a lot of this amount of time with it. And what often happens is is something comes along that interrupts that schedule throws the whole thing off. So I've talked before about blocking your calendar out with time blocks to do things and that's still a great practice to do with the understanding that it is a guidance for you and not something that you are hard and fast about in terms of two hours in two hours only doing this you allocate time as you need to based on Instead of time, think about priorities, managing priorities. How do you do that? How do you decide what a priority is? Well, one of my mentors, john Maxwell, one of the leading leadership grew in the world. JOHN Maxwell talks about what he calls the three R's, requirement, return and reward. So what needs to be done is evaluated based on those three things. So what you can do is you kind of set up use either the last thing before you go to bed at night, or the first thing when you get up in the morning. And how you do that depends entirely on you. If you're an early riser and you have alone time in the morning, it's a great time to do it. For some until they've put to mind put their mind to rest that they've planned out what's happening tomorrow, they're not going to get any sleep. So it's better to do it right before you go to bed. When you do it is entirely up to you. But what you're going to do is you need to write out things that are priorities, things that need to be done, and you're going to evaluate them like this. Think about requirements, what is required of me. In other words, and here's the key thing on that. When we think about what's required of me, what needs to be done, that only I can do. One of the clients I've worked with on some management training was and leadership training was talking about when we talked about this concept. I talked about how you want to take things that aren't that don't necessarily require you to do them. They need to be done, but they don't necessarily require You and you need to get rid of them. Well, one of the things they counted with there are some things within a medical concern, record keeping of certain kind that only the manager can do. And if that's the case, that's a requirement. That's a priority. But most of the time, what happens is what we consider to be requirements are things that are on our list of things to be done. And we've foisted it upon ourselves as something that only we can do, when that's not really true. So how do you evaluate that? Well, one of the measurements is you take a look at everything that you think is required of you. And first of all, you ask the question, is absolutely positively written in stone that I'm the only one who can do this. Again, going back to that reference with the medical company, there was something the manager was the only one authorized to do that. And if that's the case, yeah, that's a requirement. But in most cases, that's not true. So we, if I'm, am I absolutely the only one who's authorized to do it? Well, if that's not the case, then the next thing I want to take a look at is, is there somebody on my team who can do that at least 80% as good as I can? 80% we're not looking for 100% because first of all, we're going to we're going to evaluate ourselves in favor of ourselves on that we're going to nobody can do it like I can. That's a problem a lot of entrepreneurs have is when they start having to delegate out responsibilities. They worry that nobody else is going to do it exactly like they are and exactly as good as they are. And so they keep everything to themselves. And that's a mistake. So you look at people who can do this at least 80% as good as I can. And if there is absolutely nobody that you see can do it at least 80% as good as I can right now, then you also take a look at who has the potential with a little bit of training, to be able to do it at least 80% as good as I can. And then commit yourself to training that person up. So you can then delegate that out. So you knew that word was coming. That's the key there. When we look at requirement, we want to look at what is it things that only I can do? And if it's not something that only I can do? Who can I pass it off to? Who else can take on that responsibility so I can focus on the things that really are required of me. So that's our first guidance. What is required wired of me, those become priorities. The next thing we look at is what gives me the greatest return. We've talked about, you've heard talk about return on investment. And what a return on investment basically is, is that for what you put into it, whatever that investment is, whether it's money, whether it's time, whether it's skill sets, whatever you put into something, then you get something back from that, and that there is a return that provides a benefit. Whether that benefit is whether the time you put into a sales process is getting a customer, the time you put into programming a code set is something that works and that can be sold or provided to your clients and provide a benefit. The time you put into one on ones with every one of your team members weekly provides a return on investment and people that are more committed to the team success is what provides the greatest return when I do it, and how we evaluate that is we base that on what are my greatest strengths. You need to be able to identify your greatest strengths. And you need to know your weaknesses as well. But where a lot of people will tell you identify your strengths and your weaknesses and try to make your weaknesses better. I'm going to tell you forget that I'm going to tell you to focus on your strengths because when you you when you do things that require your strengths, you're going to get the greatest return rather than investing time and trying to shore up your weaknesses because if you You try to make your weaknesses better if, if you're weak in an area well, you generally means you're pretty bad at it. If you consider it a weakness, you're pretty bad at it. And if you work really, really, really hard, you can one day become mediocre at it. And that does not provide a return on focus on your strengths. Your greatest return comes from that. And if you're not sure what your strengths and weaknesses are, there are excellent resources out there. Again, you can do internet searches galore. The one I really enjoy that I got a lot out of and provided me with a lot of benefit including helping me identify and shore up my strengths and my weaknesses was now discover your strengths by Marcus Buckingham great book comes with a free survey strength survey so you can identify the strengths and weaknesses. And he also talks about ways where you can To help improve your strengths and overcome your weaknesses. And by the way on that when we talk about I talked about forgetting your weaknesses, you go, Well, what do I do about those then? Well, that's why you have other team members. The really smart leaders, make sure that on their team are people whose strengths, compensate for their weaknesses. If you're terrible with numbers, make sure you got somebody on your team who's good with numbers. I'm terrible with numbers. So I like to have somebody around me who is really good with numbers. You know, it's why I have a CPA on my personal team is because I'm terrible with all the numbers the CPA knows the numbers is going to tell me what's what. So again, we talked about what's required of me what provides the greatest return. And then the other thing is we want to talk about reward. What provides the greatest reward? In other words, what do I really enjoy doing? Because you are going to be your most productive, and your most effective when you are doing what you love. Because you're putting more than just your mind into it, you're putting your heart into it as well. And you want to make sure that you're making time for doing the things that provide you with the greatest reward, the things you enjoy doing. So again, I mentioned you're at your most productive and most effective when you do when you're doing what you love. Well, you know what, that's not just true of you. It's true of everybody. Think about your team members. One of the reasons I encourage you to do one on ones with your team members, is because you're going to discover the things they really love to do and if you can find Way to provide those opportunities for them to do the things they really love that contributes to the team. And guess what it's clicking. Everybody is doing great things, because you've set them up to do great things. And that includes you. I love to speak. I love my family. I love outdoor cooking. So I make the time. I make those a priority in my life, because they provide me well in terms of speaking it provides me the greatest return the greatest reward, it's also what's required of me, because I am a professional speaker and trainer and coach. Going out and speaking is what's required of me I need to make sure I'm doing that and setting that as a priority. My family is a priority to me and I'm going to make sure I'm spending time With my family every day if possible, and spending time with them. I love outdoor cooking. And I've talked about that before. It's why I created the Smoke and Ash Facebook group. It's why I share a recipe on the on the podcast every week is because I love all kinds of outdoor cooking. Because I love doing it, it provides a great reward for me, I'm going to make time to do that. Because it's something I love to do. So create a list of what needs to be done and evaluate the list based on those three Rs requirements get evaluated on whether it must be done today. A lot of times it may be required of us, but is it required of us today? Probably not. Be sure to have at least one return and at least one reward on that list for each day. So you have your Requirements return reward. And what I'm going to recommend is that you not have more than five priorities on the list for the day. Because the expectation of even getting five done is kind of a reach. And if you get five done, that's terrific. But now when you start getting higher numbers than that, if you've got 10 priorities on the day, you're just going to be frustrated because you're not going to get it all done. And learn to live with not being constantly in a fury, you'll find I think you're going to find you have more time out of your day with this. You're going to be more at peace with what you're doing more relaxed, you're going to sleep better, because you will know that each and every day, you have addressed the priorities on the day and you have gotten things done. And that's what we want, right? We want to get things done, we want to be productive. So think about the perito principle. We talked about that earlier. 80%, right. Anything that you that has been that's on your plate that somebody else on your team can do at least 80% as well. Delegate it out. Make it someone else's responsibility. And don't forget, there is a tomorrow. There's always a tomorrow. Stop managing your time. Manage your priorities instead. We'll be back in a moment.
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Paul Simkins :All right, so we're back to the portion of the show where again, I love outdoor cooking. I do all kinds of outdoor cooking, I've got a smoker, I've got a grill, I've got Dutch ovens and I like cooking over open fire. I will do just about any kind of cooking outdoors you can do. And just love it and I love finding the recipes and I have a lot of friends that like to do that as well. And if you're one of those friends if you love outdoor cooking, or you just want to get introduced to the joys of outdoor cooking, come out and join us on my Smoke and Ash Facebook group. That's the Smoke and Ash Facebook group. And out there me and all of my friends are in outdoor cooking we share recipes, we share ideas about gear, we show off our cookers and usually a lot of people are showing off what they They've done over the weekend or what they've done tonight, and all that out there. And, and again, come out and join us and you'll learn all kinds of things in there. It's good for the beginner, it's good for the advanced person. It's the Smoke and Ash Facebook group. And like I said, I like to share a recipe on every episode. And it's an outdoor cooking recipe, but a lot of them can also be utilized indoors as well. So if you're not in outdoor cooking, you can still do a lot of these recipes that work well indoors as well. All of the recipes I share on the episode are also posted out in that smoking ash Facebook group. So if you want the recipe in a written form, you can go out there and get it or just send me an email at TLToolbox@boldlylead.com. The recipe I want to share with you today is garlic, chicken, garlic chicken and this is a recipe for use on the grill. But you could also do this and then oven if you want it to, but I like it on the grill, it just adds a little bit extra flavor to it. Now the way I do this recipe and I've adapted this recipe actually from a recipe I learned on a website called WLS Daily Plate and that's at WWW.WLSdailyplate.com. And it's got some great recipes out there and this recipe is for garlic chicken. And what I use for this is I use chicken leg quarters. They work out real well I'll get the chicken leg quarters. You could also do this with a whole cut up chicken if you wanted to. Or you could do it with just chicken breast for this recipe. You could do it with boneless breast of chicken or boneless thighs, but I think it works better. When you have the chicken still on the bone. You get a little extra flavor to it, especially with grilling And it doesn't tend not to dry out as much. But again, I'm doing this usually with leg quarters. And what you're also going to need in addition to the leg quarters, is you're going to need about two lemons, two whole lemons and four cloves of garlic. Now I usually will use more than that but I love garlic. So I'll usually use something like six or seven cloves of garlic but that's me. four cloves of garlic. And then you also want about one and a half tablespoons of olive oil. And then you're gonna get one or two tablespoons of either Mrs. Dash or if you have your favorite kind of barbecue rub seasoning or something like that, anything like that a herb seasoning or a barbecue rub seasoning and you want about one or two tablespoons of that. You're going to take the garlic, you're going to cut it up into thin slices and What I do is I put this in a big old Ziploc bag. You could also put it in real large glass bowl if you wanted to. I'll take the put the garlic in there, I'll throw in the seasoning, I'll throw in the olive oil, and I'll take the lemons and I'll cut them in half, squeeze as much of the juice out of them as I can. So usually what I'll do is I'll throw the chickens in the bowl, throw all these ingredients over top of them or throw them in a Ziploc bag and throw all the ingredients over top of them. Squeeze that lemon juice overtop of the chicken and then just throw the rest of the lemon in the bag and zip the bag up, shake it real good. And then put it in the refrigerator. Let it sit there for a minimum of 30 minutes. This is one of those things where you could do it first thing in the morning, let it sit all day and then grill it later in the day. The more time in there the better. And then if you're once you're ready once it's had the chance to marinate. If you're going to grill it, you're going to get get your grill fired up. You want it to be a pretty hot grill. And then you're going to go ahead and put your chicken quarters out there on the grill. Turn them every couple of minutes, one side to the other, turning them over and over until they're done. If you're going to do this inside and an oven, get your oven up to about 450 greet 450 degrees and bake it in the oven for about 10 to 12 minutes. This would be really tasty. you're really gonna like it's got a great flavor to it. And again, this is a garlic chicken. And again, if you want this recipe just going out to the smoke and ash Facebook group, and you can find it out there. Alright, so this week, we talked about thing to do instead of managing your time and the first thing we talked about is to stop managing your time and manage your priorities instead. And remember, we talked about what's required of me, what provides the greatest return? What provides the greatest reward. And that's that little thing from John Maxwell that we talked about. And that's about it about it for this week. If you're listening to this on a podcast app, don't forget to give us some five stars and to leave us a review so that others can benefit from this. Otherwise, if you have any questions or anything you'd like to find out about us, just send me an email at TLtoolbox@boldlylead.com or come on out to The Tech Leader's Toolbox Facebook group, and until next time, go out and be the leader you were meant to be. Transcribed by https://otter.ai