Mastering Time Management Through Systematic Task Protection

What one thing could you do this month that would transform your productivity? That’s what I’m answering this week. 

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Script | 351

Hello, and welcome to episode 351 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.

It’s one of the strange quirks of human nature to overcomplicate things. This is particularly so when things start to go wrong. 

In my favourite sport, rugby league—as in most team-based ball sports—the basics of winning a game are possession of the ball and territory. If you can consistently complete your sets in your opponent’s half of the field, you will likely win the game. 

Drop the ball or give away silly penalties by overcomplicating moves, and you’ll make it very difficult to win the game. 

Teams that lack confidence are particularly guilty of these mistakes. Watch any winning team, and you will see they stick to the basics and never panic when they go a try or goal behind. 

You can see this in any workplace, too. Those people who rarely appear stressed or overwhelmed stick to the basics. They have processes for getting their core work done—the work they are employed to do. 

Top salespeople dedicate time daily to prospecting and following up with their customers. CEOs ensure they have time for meeting with their leadership team weekly so they are aware of what’s going on and know where the potential issues are. 

So, what can you do to ensure you stick to the basics each day to avoid those pernicious backlogs? 

Well, before I answer that, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.

This week’s question comes from George. George asks, hi Carl, are there any strategies you know of that guarantees someone will always be on top of their work?

Hi George, thank you for your question.

I’ve always found it fascinating to look at occupations where mistakes can lead to a loss of life—airline pilots and surgeons, for example. 

Before any flight, a pilot goes through a checklist to ensure the plane is in working order. They check the weather and the weight of the cargo—both of which can affect how the aircraft will fly. 

They calculate the speed they need to reach before taking off and plot their flight path to avoid storms or dangerous weather fronts. 

No pilot would ever consider not doing these checks. Indeed, not doing them would be an act of gross negligence and could potentially be career-ending. 

Similarly, surgeons follow a checklist. They check the patient’s name, the type of surgery being carried out, and, if necessary, which side they will be operating on. They also check the patient’s blood pressure and other measurements. 

Again, failure to do so would be considered gross negligence, and a doctor could be fired for not doing them. 

Now, perhaps lives do not depend on you doing your job correctly, but approaching your work in the same way a pilot or surgeon does can ensure that your work gets done without missing essential tasks. 

The first step is to identify your core work. The work you are employed to do at a micro-level. For example, if you manage a team of people, what do you need to do at a task level to manage your team? 

That could be to prepare for and hold a weekly team meeting. It may involve setting aside time each month for a thirty-minute one-to-one session with each team member. That would translate into weekly tasks for preparing for the team meeting and scheduling appointments with your team. 

A journalist’s core work may be to research a story and then write the story before the deadline. Imagine their deadline is 1 pm on Thursday; then the journalist could ensure sufficient time is protected before Thursday to get the story written and submitted before the deadline. 

What are your core work tasks? 

Next comes the all important communications and admin tasks. We all have them. The problem with these tasks is we cannot accurately estimate how much will come in. 

Each morning, when I start my day, I have no idea how many emails I will have. Some days, it’s 80; other days, it can be as high as 150. Yet, one thing I can guarantee is that I will have email to deal with. 

So, I protect an hour a day for dealing with communications. This way, I know that no backlogs will ever build, and nobody is waiting longer than 24 hours for my response. 

Somedays, I need the whole hour; I may only need thirty minutes on other days. Yet I still protect an hour. 

It’s no good “hoping” you will find the time to respond to your communications. You won’t find the time, and if you do not have a consistent amount of time to do it, backlogs will soon build. 

You mentioned strategies, George, and the strategy is ensuring you have enough time protected for the key work you need to do. 

This may mean you need to cap your meetings each week. Now, I know whenever I mention this, people recoil in fear. Yet, if you work an average of forty hours a week and spend thirty hours in meetings, how will you ever get your work done? How will you prevent backlogs? 

Let me give you an example how being strategic with your time.

I limit my coaching hours to twenty each week. Think of my coaching sessions as meetings. Following each session, I write feedback, which takes an average of twenty minutes to write. 

I know I can dedicate an hour each day to writing feedback, so my limit is three feedbacks per day. That works out at twenty-one per week. 

If I allow more than twenty hours for coaching sessions in a week, I will either have to reduce my other work or work longer hours. It would not be sustainable. While the money would be good, my health and effectiveness would suffer. So, it would only be a short-term benefit. 

I’ve learned over the years that the only thing you control is what you do in the time you have each day. You cannot control time itself. That is fixed. When you realise that you see that you can only build strategies around what you do, that means getting comfortable saying no.

You cannot say no to your boss and your customers, right? Well, yes and no. 

You see, it comes back to that time issue. Twenty-four hours. That’s it. Now, if you are happy using all twenty-four hours running around for your boss and customers, that’s fine. But if you accept that, I would suggest you gain some self-respect. 

I know that might be a bit harsh. But you are a valuable person. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, has the right to demand all twenty-four hours of your time. 

Sometimes, you do need to say no. You cannot do everything because everything takes time. The question then becomes how much time are you willing to to give to your boss and customers? 

Let me give you an example. I protect two hours each day doing my focused work. Work that ultimately benefits my clients and customers. I also protect an hour for communications and thirty minutes for admin. In total, I protect three-and-a-half hours a day for meaningful work. 

If I were working a typical eight-hour day, that means I still have four-and-a-half hours available for my boss, customers and clients. 

Would four and a half hours be enough for you? 

The “guarantee” that puts you on top of your work is consistency with your strategy. 

Over the last few days, I’ve travelled back to Korea from Ireland. Door to door, it’s a thirty-hour trip. We set off at 2:00 am on Sunday from the west coast of Ireland and arrived back at our home around 30 hours later. 

Between checking in, waiting for flights and flying, I stayed on top of my email and admin. The last thing I wanted when I got back home was a backlog of stuff to do. 

Then, after some sleep, I went into my office and spent around three hours catching up with everything else. 

Had I ignored my messages and admin, I could have lost a whole day trying to catch up. No, thank you. I’ll take advantage of the downtime when travelling to stay consistent. 

By the way, a quick tip David Allen (author of Getting Things Done) gave me a few years ago is to block the whole of your first day back to catch up. If it’s a short trip, you can get away with half a day, but a whole day is always better. 

Whatever work you do, there will always be tasks that are core to what you do. Those tasks need to be embedded into your days and weeks as must-do tasks. Must-do tasks are non-negotiable. Because they are non-negotiable, you allow no one—not your boss or customers—to steal that time from you. 

Offer alternative times and days, but never negotiate on your core work times. 

That’s the only strategy that’s ever worked and will be the only one that will work in the future. 

Whatever industry you look at, the top performers know this and stick to it. It’s not just industries either. Top athletes, elite soldiers, and entertainers remain at the top of their field by being consistent with the basics—their core work. 

So, spend a little time establishing your core work—the micro-level tasks you need to perform to stay on top of your work. Then, protect time for doing that work. Fix it in your calendar, and never ever let anyone steal that time away from you. 

I hope that helps, George. Thank you for your question, and thank you for listening. 

It just remains for me now to wish you all a very, very productive New Year.