Stop Wasting Time: Why You Can't Seem To Get Ahead & Be Productive

00:00:00.000 | Jessica says, "I should start with the fact that I am neurodivergent and a very anxious

00:00:05.480 | person, which might answer part of the question.

00:00:09.000 | But I wonder how I can make myself stick to a simple productivity system instead of revamping

00:00:13.440 | everything pretty much every week.

00:00:16.120 | I always feel like if I could just find the perfect system, it would fix everything."

00:00:21.160 | Well, Jessica, I don't think your concerns here are specifically due to neurodivergence

00:00:27.700 | or anxiety.

00:00:28.700 | It's common among people who get serious about how they organize their digital era knowledge

00:00:36.320 | work.

00:00:38.000 | Part of the problem is a lot of people put, I would say, too much faith in what their

00:00:44.480 | productivity system can accomplish for them.

00:00:47.720 | But here's the thing, productivity systems, they cannot do your work for you.

00:00:53.280 | They cannot in themselves make you successful at your job.

00:00:56.720 | They certainly cannot fix everything.

00:01:00.080 | In the world of digital knowledge work, what do productivity systems actually do?

00:01:03.200 | Two things.

00:01:04.480 | They can help you make consistent and smart decisions about what to work on.

00:01:08.400 | So it gets you out of that, free you from that mode of reactivity of just, "Oh my God,

00:01:13.220 | something's due.

00:01:14.220 | Someone just emailed me.

00:01:15.220 | I'm just trying to answer these incoming pings and put out the rapidly growing fires."

00:01:19.440 | They can also help you avoid unnecessarily wasting your time and attention.

00:01:24.760 | So I'm going to be more careful about how I deal with my brain.

00:01:28.680 | I don't want to context switch too much.

00:01:30.680 | I'm going to sort of build my scheduling and approach to work and my processes around one

00:01:35.760 | thing at a time, consolidating context switching, et cetera.

00:01:41.400 | So smart decisions, planning, and help you avoid unnecessary drags on your time and attention

00:01:47.540 | so you get more out of your brain.

00:01:48.760 | And this is more of scheduling and processes.

00:01:53.260 | If you have ideas for both of those goals that are working for you, then you're getting

00:01:59.080 | most of the benefits a productivity system can get.

00:02:03.000 | Now if you tune up the system, it'll be useful, but it's not going to be night or day.

00:02:09.840 | Night or day is having something in place, planning that's smart for making decisions,

00:02:15.240 | and scheduling and process things in place to help you not waste unnecessary time and

00:02:21.400 | attention.

00:02:22.400 | So going from zero to that is a huge win.

00:02:24.980 | Beyond that, you know, it's like two users taste.

00:02:27.220 | It can kind of make a difference.

00:02:28.220 | It's not going to be night or day.

00:02:29.700 | So if you have something in place for both of these, and given that you're a longtime

00:02:32.780 | listener of the show you do, you're getting 80% of the benefits.

00:02:36.900 | Now what about those other 20?

00:02:38.880 | Tune in once a quarter.

00:02:40.420 | Once a quarter, be like, "Hey, what's working?

00:02:41.980 | What's not?"

00:02:42.980 | And make some tune-ups.

00:02:43.980 | Don't have high expectations, but you do want to check in semi-regularly because you want

00:02:47.780 | to prune things out of these two points that aren't really working or wasting your time.

00:02:52.620 | Or if there's a new type of challenge within these two points that has emerged that's not

00:02:56.180 | being addressed by your current systems or processes, you might want to tweak something

00:03:00.240 | or add something new, and this will help.

00:03:02.580 | But I would see this more like the key thing is, I'm going to use a horticultural metaphor

00:03:08.300 | here.

00:03:09.300 | The key thing is you plant a tree, the tree that yields the fruit of consistent smart

00:03:13.500 | decisions and unnecessary wasting of time and attention.

00:03:18.380 | That's the big deal is planting the tree, having the tree, having those fruits.

00:03:23.260 | Now over time, you want to prune it.

00:03:25.620 | If you don't prune it, it's going to grow wild, and maybe it's going to no longer produce

00:03:30.220 | any fruit.

00:03:31.220 | So you can't just put something in there and let that go for the next five years.

00:03:34.740 | But if you're just semi-regularly pruning this, the tree will keep growing and it'll

00:03:37.980 | keep delivering your fruits in some years better than others.

00:03:40.320 | That's the way to think about this.

00:03:41.980 | Don't put so much on the details of your system.

00:03:44.420 | Yes, you need a system, but those are the two things that can do.

00:03:47.580 | It can't do your job for you, it can't make work easy, it can't be I start turning this

00:03:51.340 | crank and on the other end, I'm the president.

00:03:53.380 | It's not the way it works.

00:03:54.780 | Work is hard.

00:03:55.860 | In the end, you still have to give concentrated cognitive effort to things that are difficult

00:03:59.700 | to produce things that are valuable.

00:04:01.460 | That's going to feel the same no matter what productivity system you have.

00:04:04.340 | That's going to be hard no matter what productivity system you have.

00:04:07.220 | You basically just want to try to clear out some of the biggest obvious obstacles to doing

00:04:11.880 | that in a sustainable fashion.

00:04:13.940 | All right, our next question is from DK.

00:04:19.020 | DK writes, "I often have a large block at 90 to 120 minutes of time at the start of

00:04:26.180 | my day.

00:04:27.820 | I want to use this time more efficiently, but it often gets eaten up by setting up the

00:04:32.820 | rest of the day.

00:04:34.180 | Even if I've completed a weekly and/or daily plan, I end up preparing for meetings, triaging

00:04:39.740 | my messages, or getting caught up on Slack threads.

00:04:43.240 | How can I be more effective at the start of my day?"

00:04:46.060 | Well, DK, I have three ideas for you.

00:04:50.260 | One, prepare the day before for what you're going to do at the start of your day.

00:04:56.420 | Block off that time like a meeting on your calendar and have a set place you're going

00:05:02.500 | to go to do that work that's different than where you do Slack, that's different than

00:05:06.460 | where you think about your meeting prep.

00:05:08.860 | Your day starts off not, "Okay, let's just rock and roll in all my channels and then

00:05:12.500 | get to work."

00:05:13.500 | No, your day starts off, "I'm going to my writing set, I'm going to the coffee shop,

00:05:16.860 | I'm doing my 20-minute thinking walk to get going, and I have everything right here to

00:05:21.580 | start working on this code, this memo, this business strategy, whatever, this big project.

00:05:26.020 | It is scheduled and that's what I do."

00:05:28.260 | You're going to be nervous about it, "What if I'm missing things?

00:05:31.020 | What if in that first 90 minutes really critical things happened?"

00:05:33.900 | You know what?

00:05:35.080 | It won't and you'll be fine and then you'll stop worrying about it.

00:05:38.180 | People can call you if it's urgent.

00:05:40.420 | They'll respect it like, "Yeah, I start with hard things, then I get after like meetings

00:05:44.620 | in Slack."

00:05:45.620 | They'll be fine and you'll be fine.

00:05:47.180 | So you just got to be more definitive about this.

00:05:48.940 | All right, second thing to suggest, do more preparation at shutdown instead of the beginning

00:05:53.860 | of the day.

00:05:55.260 | Schedule the last half hour of your day and again, protect this on your calendar.

00:05:59.420 | Let that be the time where you're preparing for the next day.

00:06:02.860 | Shutting down open loops, "Do I have what I need for these meetings?

00:06:05.820 | If not, let me schedule time before the meeting to do the prep.

00:06:09.260 | I like my plan for the day.

00:06:11.060 | Okay.

00:06:12.060 | What am I doing to start the next day?

00:06:13.060 | Great.

00:06:14.060 | Let me gather all my materials.

00:06:15.060 | Great.

00:06:16.060 | Schedule shutdown confirmed.

00:06:17.060 | Check the schedule shutdown box on my time block planner.

00:06:20.860 | Unload from work.

00:06:21.860 | Next day starts.

00:06:22.860 | You get right into the deep work you want to do in that day because you already went

00:06:25.460 | through all the process of looking at your next day.

00:06:27.820 | Do it the day before, not the morning of."

00:06:31.740 | Third idea, do more meeting processing proximate to the meetings.

00:06:36.340 | I'm a big believer of when you schedule a meeting, scheduling time either before, after,

00:06:41.520 | or both.

00:06:43.700 | Time before to prep for that meeting, if you need that.

00:06:47.980 | Definitely time after, 15 to 30 minutes, always add that to your calendar to process everything

00:06:52.940 | that just happened in that meeting.

00:06:54.180 | All right.

00:06:55.180 | Let me just stop for a second.

00:06:57.460 | What came out of this meeting?

00:06:58.500 | What decisions were made?

00:07:00.000 | What do I now need to do?

00:07:01.620 | What do I need to remember?

00:07:02.620 | Let me get that into my systems.

00:07:03.940 | Let me update what I need to update.

00:07:05.620 | I promised to contact these three people.

00:07:07.860 | Let me contact those three people.

00:07:09.260 | Okay.

00:07:10.260 | Good.

00:07:11.260 | I can now shut down that meeting.

00:07:12.260 | If you go straight from a meeting to something else, all of that post-meeting work just sticks

00:07:16.620 | around in your head and causes a problem.

00:07:21.300 | Meetings are not just a time you're talking to other people.

00:07:24.380 | It's a time you're talking to other people and the time you need to make sense of that

00:07:26.940 | and prepare for it.

00:07:27.940 | Get that on your calendar as well.

00:07:30.380 | Then you'll feel more sort of in control of what's going on, but mainly you just have

00:07:33.660 | to protect that time.

00:07:34.660 | You don't want to be doing slack and meeting prep during those first 90 minutes.

00:07:39.820 | Don't.

00:07:40.820 | Figure out a way to get that done without having to use your first 90 minutes.

00:07:44.580 | I think the benefit will be worth it.

00:07:47.020 | All right.

00:07:48.860 | My next question is from Skeptical Sally.

00:07:51.180 | This is someone talking about their partner.

00:07:53.500 | That's always fun.

00:07:54.500 | Hi, Cal.

00:07:56.940 | My partner is a director of product management at a startup, and despite having risen through

00:08:02.260 | the ranks there, he has yet to be rid of a lot of the lower level work on his plate.

00:08:07.520 | He also has meetings all day, almost every day.

00:08:10.820 | Many things cannot be done without his input, but he is predictably exhausted all the time

00:08:15.180 | and has no time to do the thinking and writing work compounding the issues.

00:08:19.900 | His most important work is to think so engineers can build the right thing, and he has no thinking

00:08:25.500 | time because of overhead and meeting happy colleagues.

00:08:29.140 | He claims there's nothing he can offload and he can't cancel meetings because too much

00:08:32.940 | won't move forward, but I don't buy it.

00:08:35.500 | All right, Sally, I don't buy it either.

00:08:38.060 | I mean, here's what I do buy, and this is a common trap when people are dealing with

00:08:43.300 | overload and digital knowledge work.

00:08:46.540 | The common trap is to say, "Can I take work in the way I have it unfolding right now and

00:08:53.180 | just start not doing the things that I'm not liking?

00:08:57.180 | Can I just start canceling meetings?"

00:08:58.580 | He's like, "Well, no, because these are projects that I'm supervising, and I have to supervise

00:09:04.180 | them, and they need meetings."

00:09:06.180 | Or he's like, "Can I radically reduce the projects?"

00:09:08.940 | Well, for a lot of people, that could be yes.

00:09:10.700 | Using the system I talked about in the deep dive of today's episode, you could have active

00:09:14.700 | projects and waiting projects.

00:09:16.220 | Managers can't always do that, though.

00:09:17.220 | It's like, "No, these are the projects going on.

00:09:19.340 | I'm in charge of them, but not in charge of deciding what we do, and so no, I can't offload

00:09:23.940 | projects."

00:09:24.940 | And then they throw up their hands.

00:09:25.940 | But what they don't think about is, "Can I change the structure in which this work is

00:09:29.180 | actually happening?

00:09:30.620 | Not changing what I'm doing, but changing how I'm doing it."

00:09:36.040 | And here we often get significant failures of imagination.

00:09:39.860 | So Sally, here's what I would tell your husband.

00:09:43.020 | Here's what you're going to do.

00:09:44.020 | Two and a half hours every afternoon, maybe three, there's going to be a 30 to 60-minute

00:09:50.740 | office hour block right there in your afternoon.

00:09:54.380 | Your door is open.

00:09:55.380 | You have Zooms or Teams turned on with a waiting room, and your phone is on.

00:10:00.700 | The rest of this time, you have a Calendly, whatever type setup, 15-minute blocks, 15

00:10:06.940 | or 30-minute blocks, you choose which.

00:10:09.020 | It's like 90 minutes to two hours of just boom, boom, boom.

00:10:11.700 | You can go in there and grab any block you want.

00:10:15.620 | Here now is how you deal with all of your teams.

00:10:20.500 | Questions that just require an answer, and they can be answered in a single message.

00:10:24.420 | "Hey, what is my budget for this again?

00:10:27.140 | What is my timeline for this again?

00:10:30.140 | When is it?

00:10:31.140 | Have you heard back yet about whatever?"

00:10:32.700 | Those can be emailed.

00:10:34.260 | Great use for email.

00:10:35.260 | They show up, they sit until your partner is ready to look at his emails, and he can

00:10:39.500 | send back answers and get the information to people.

00:10:42.940 | Minimal overhead.

00:10:43.940 | Great.

00:10:44.940 | Things that require some back-and-forth.

00:10:47.780 | Come to my next office hours.

00:10:49.300 | We're never more than a few hours away from my office hours.

00:10:52.700 | Drop by, jump on a Zoom waiting room, 10 minutes, let's pound it out.

00:10:56.180 | Like, "What's going on here?

00:10:57.500 | What's holding you up?

00:10:58.500 | How can I help you?

00:10:59.500 | Hmm.

00:11:00.500 | Hmm.

00:11:01.500 | Okay.

00:11:02.500 | This, this, this.

00:11:03.500 | Good.

00:11:04.500 | Let's go."

00:11:05.500 | You have an issue that's more complicated than that.

00:11:06.500 | "No, we really need to think."

00:11:07.500 | Great.

00:11:08.500 | You don't even have to tell me.

00:11:09.500 | Just do it.

00:11:10.500 | What do I do in the afternoons?

00:11:11.500 | I just go to these meetings that are scheduled.

00:11:14.740 | We'll rock and roll and have the longer discussions if you don't want to just jump into office.

00:11:17.980 | So it's going to take more than five minutes.

00:11:19.900 | Schedule one of those slots.

00:11:20.900 | Guess what?

00:11:21.900 | This is going to handle 95% of what's happening in these meetings, and yet consolidate all

00:11:29.460 | of that to two to three hours a day, leaving your husband's entire mornings free, right?

00:11:36.020 | This could make a huge difference.

00:11:37.540 | It's not changing what you do, managing products and talking to people about what they need

00:11:40.860 | for their projects, or it's not changing your workload even.

00:11:43.780 | It's how you do your work.

00:11:45.660 | It could make a huge difference.

00:11:47.660 | Two, because he's in charge, he's a director here, demand better meetings too.

00:11:53.900 | All right.

00:11:54.900 | You can come to the office hours.

00:11:55.900 | You can grab one of these slots, but I'm going to use the Jeff Bezos or General George Marshall

00:12:01.420 | approach of here's what I expect if you were bringing me into a discussion that takes my

00:12:07.660 | time.

00:12:08.660 | That you have done most of the work on your own to figure out what's going on, where's

00:12:13.740 | the sticking point, where do I need outside help, what specific help do I need, what's

00:12:21.380 | all the relevant information you need.

00:12:23.820 | Jeff Bezos demands that you send him all of this in a two-page memo a certain amount of

00:12:29.780 | time before any meeting.

00:12:31.060 | So the meeting can be like a laser beam.

00:12:33.100 | This is exactly where we need your help.

00:12:34.780 | You already are briefed.

00:12:35.820 | You already know exactly why we're asking you and what you need.

00:12:38.500 | What's your decision?

00:12:39.500 | This cuts down the time required to meetings to be very short.

00:12:42.020 | It also reduces the number of meetings because a lot of people use meetings as a way, as

00:12:47.460 | like a crew time management tool.

00:12:49.580 | Like I don't really know what to do next.

00:12:52.260 | I don't have a lot of control over my schedule or time.

00:12:54.900 | I don't really want to sit and think too much about it.

00:12:56.900 | But what I can do is just get a meeting.

00:12:58.420 | Now I put a meeting on the schedule.

00:13:00.740 | I'm no longer stressed about this because I'm like when we get to the meeting, that's

00:13:03.900 | when the work will happen.

00:13:05.980 | But if you're the product, the product director of product management rather, it's not your

00:13:11.500 | goal to do this work with people.

00:13:13.460 | It's not your problem that people are uncomfortable with how am I going to remember to make progress

00:13:19.000 | on this project.

00:13:21.100 | It's not your problem that the way they want to work is just put calendar things on and

00:13:24.460 | then get the work done in the calendar things.

00:13:26.520 | You demand I need that memo.

00:13:28.980 | So maybe now what you do is like, okay, before you come to office hours or schedule one of

00:13:32.940 | these things, like maybe office hours you can drop by, but these are five minute discussions.

00:13:36.740 | If you want to schedule one of these 30 minute meeting blocks, as part of that scheduling

00:13:41.060 | form, you're pointing me towards a shared document that has the full briefing.

00:13:45.140 | And these are the exactly what we need your decision on.

00:13:48.380 | Here's all the information.

00:13:49.380 | Do I have all the information?

00:13:50.380 | Here's all the information you need to make this decision.

00:13:52.340 | Here's what needs to be discussed in the meeting.

00:13:54.500 | And those meetings become more efficient.

00:13:57.740 | I'm telling you, 95% of your interaction can now happen in two and a half to three hours

00:14:01.740 | a day.

00:14:03.460 | Imagine now what that's going to open up for your partner in terms of the thinking he can

00:14:08.080 | do, the strategy, the leadership he can do.

00:14:10.620 | It also frees up a lot of time for the meetings that won't fit in there.

00:14:13.540 | When the CEO is like, we need you to come to the strategy session, when the big client

00:14:19.340 | presentations in town, now you have the breathing room to do those things because your day is

00:14:24.380 | not with these haphazard meetings that are longer than they need to be and too haphazardly

00:14:29.700 | scheduled.

00:14:30.700 | All right.

00:14:31.700 | So point him towards me, Sally.

00:14:33.540 | I think his life could be a lot better.

00:14:35.580 | Hey, if you like this video, I think you'll really like this one as well.

Stop Wasting Time: Why You Can't Seem To Get Ahead & Be Productive | Cal Newport

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