Artwork for podcast Own Your Calendar: Aligning Your Business & Life Goals
Beat Distractions: Tactics to Prioritize Your Tasks and Stay On Track
Episode 83 • 3rd July 2024 • Own Your Calendar: Aligning Your Business & Life Goals • Stephen Box
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It's a common scenario: You sit at your desk, ready to dive into your most important tasks, only to be bombarded by a flood of emails, surprise meetings, and urgent requests. By the time you handle everyone else's crises, your own to-do list is barely touched.

Such constant interruptions can lead to increased stress, growing resentment towards colleagues, and a persistent feeling of frustration. If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. But the good news? There are strategies to regain control of your day.

In this episode you'll learn:

  • Three actionable strategies to minimize distractions and optimize your productivity.
  • How to establish healthy boundaries that respect both your time and your relationships.
  • The PLAN system to streamline tasks and ensure your most important work gets done.

Join us on this episode of Unshakable Habits as we dive deep into these strategies, so you can transform your daily routine from chaotic to controlled. Let's take your habits from unsustainable to unshakable!

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Transcripts

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Do you ever feel like no matter how well you plan out your

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day, something always comes up and throws a wrench into your plans?

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on today's episode, I'm going to give you three strategies to fix this problem.

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And that's coming up next right here on Unshakable Habits.

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The right habits can help you have it all.

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More time, better health, improved relationships, and less stress.

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But most people lack the tools to stick with those habits

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long enough to see results.

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That is about to change.

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Welcome to Unshakable Habits with your host, Stephen Box.

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It's time to take your habits from unsustainable to unshakable.

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Welcome back to episode number 83 of Unshakable Habits.

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I am your host Stephen Box.

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Today we are talking all about what do you do when you come up with these

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well intention to plans to start your day and you barely even get to work.

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You don't even make it to lunchtime, and people are already.

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Sending you emails and scheduling unexpected meetings and there's all

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these fires to put out and in all honesty you are running around putting out so

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many fires for everybody else that you barely even get to your own to do list.

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So how do you handle that?

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Today I'm going to give you three strategies for that exact problem.

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But before we dive into that, I want to take a second here

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just to share with you guys.

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Welcome back.

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This is episode number 83 of Unshakable Habits and I am your host Stephen Box.

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Today, we're talking about what do you do when you come up with these

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well intentioned plans to start your day, and before you even barely

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get to work, you haven't even had a chance to settle into your desk yet.

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And people are already distracting you.

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There's the emails, the unexpected meetings, the emergency situations

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that come up that absolutely have to have your time right now.

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For a lot of people, this is a time where they go into panic mode.

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This is a time where the stress and the overwhelm starts to build up.

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And unfortunately, what usually happens is People will spend so much

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time running around putting out fires for everyone else that they don't

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even get to their own to do list.

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Does that feel familiar to you guys?

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If so, how many times at the end of the day have you had this happen to

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you and you're just frustrated by it?

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You're just so irritated because it feels like No matter how well you plan it,

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no matter what you try to account for.

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Things keep coming up and you're just getting further and further behind on the

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things that you need to be working on.

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And let's be honest here, it can take the enjoyment out of work

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And even if it doesn't take the enjoyment out, like maybe

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you really love what you do.

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And so it's not necessarily taking the enjoyment out of work for you.

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It can start to cause resentment towards others.

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And at the very least, it's causing you a lot of stress and anxiety.

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So the question becomes, what do we do about it?

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How do we actually fix this?

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And I just want to share with you, first and foremost, if you are in this

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position, don't feel bad about it.

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Don't feel guilt or shame about it.

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It's totally normal.

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A lot of people do this.

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I actually at one point myself was in the same position, although I

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was working as a solopreneur in my business, I didn't even have a team

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at the time, and it was just me.

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I still had emails that would come in, I still had client

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messages that would come in.

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I had people signing up for calls.

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I was recording podcast episodes.

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So although it was just me, there were a lot of things that I had

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to do involving other people.

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And what would happen to me a lot of times was, I'd get up, I'd have a plan,

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I'd have my three big tasks for the day.

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I'd have everything laid out, what time I was going to do everything.

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I was going to You know, had this beautiful plan, basically, and I

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would keep getting distracted because every time I would start something,

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Oh, somebody's gonna call me.

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Oh, somebody text me.

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Oh, there goes an email.

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Oh, there's a slack message, right?

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So things just kept popping up and causing me distractions And it really

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made me take a hard look in the mirror and come up with these Three things to

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actually fix the problem and that's what I'm about to give you Next, so let's

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start with number one and this one might hurt a little bit because it was a tough

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pill for me to swallow personally, you got to look in the mirror, you have to

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acknowledge your part in the problem.

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I know that's hard.

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I know that is uncomfortable.

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for a lot of people.

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And if it's uncomfortable for you, it's understandable, but I'm going to encourage

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you to push through that discomfort and get really honest with yourself about how

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you're contributing to these problems.

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For me, I was contributing by teaching people that they could communicate

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with me at that time of day.

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I was literally responding to people as soon as they would message me.

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of course, in their minds, This is a great time to reach out to me because

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you got an instantaneous response.

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That's my fault, not theirs.

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Instead, I had to go and make changes to the way I responded

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to emails and messaging.

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I had to turn off notifications.

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I had to really set up my entire environment for success to eliminate as

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many of those distractions as I could.

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Now, I was fortunate In this particular situation and the

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fact that I'm at my house, right?

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I could turn off computer notifications.

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I could put my phone on silent and you can't bother me.

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But if you work in an office.

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That may not be as simple because now people can come in and see you, but

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you still have that ability, right?

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You can still change that.

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You can still set the expectations for them, which brings me to number two, which

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is you have to create healthy boundaries.

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Now, I qualify healthy boundaries.

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Because it's possible to set boundaries and be a jerk about it.

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And I am a very big believer that setting boundaries and being a jerk

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about it is the fastest way possible to absolutely destroy your relationships.

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Relationships you're probably pretty dependent on for your

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success, especially if you are a professional or a business owner.

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So we want to set healthy boundaries and healthy boundaries

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are boundaries that allow you to stay within your comfort zone.

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They allow you to get the things done you need to get done

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and have people respect that.

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But it also respects other people.

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And sometimes you may just have to have some conversations with someone.

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And if you feel like those conversations are going to be

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really tough for you to have.

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I would recommend a book called Crucial Conversations.

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I'll put a link to it in the show notes, but great book for learning

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to communicate and have those tough conversations so that you can

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actually set those healthy boundaries.

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And finally, number three is something that's also going to require you to

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still look in that mirror, just like we talked about back at step number one.

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And take some accountability here and it's reducing the number

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of items on your to do list.

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and or learn to manage them better.

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Guys, let's be really honest here.

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I have never met a successful person that had too few items

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on their to do list, right?

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We all have a tendency to put too many things on that list.

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I have a system in place that I'm going to share with you here

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real quick that I call Plan.

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And it is prioritized, which is all about eliminating unnecessary tasks by

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figuring out what are the important things and I like to use if you are familiar

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with the book, The One Thing, there's a question he asked in there that, and I'm

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paraphrasing here because I can't remember it exactly, but he says, What is the

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one thing that you can do that if you do it makes everything else easier, right?

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So that's how you know what a priority is.

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The top priorities are the things that when you do them

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they make everything else easier.

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If what you're doing isn't making everything else easier, you're on

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the wrong side of the priority list.

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The L in plan stands for leverage.

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And this is all about using technology to automate and streamline tasks.

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So just a quick example of this is, let's say that you do not necessarily

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need to check email all the time.

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Let's say you can get away with checking email once.

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So you set up an autoresponder telling people what time you check email.

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That way there is an expectation and they don't even email you

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at 9 o'clock in the morning.

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Because you're not going to check it until 3pm.

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If that's your time, right?

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The A is a sign.

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So this is all about delegating to people and look if you're going to

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delegate to people Let's be very clear.

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I know the biggest problem with delegation.

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I had it myself for years.

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I've seen it in a lot of clients It's that we know how to do something and

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therefore it's easier to just do it ourself We're probably the only one

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that's gonna do it right anyways, right?

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Am I right guys?

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No, I'm not actually I'm completely wrong because here's the reality of the

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situation if you document the processes and you put Things in writing for people

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to follow and you actually take a little bit of time that I know you don't feel

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like you have but take a little bit of time and Teach them how to do it that

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the results will be there now look maybe they won't do it a hundred percent as

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well as You they'll do it more than good enough and if you Write your operating

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procedures out well enough, who knows, they might be able to do it just as

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well as you and, huh, maybe even better.

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Scary, right?

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And then the N in plan stands for Nest, which is all about combining

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or merging similar tasks so you can increase your efficiency.

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So just a quick example here outside of the workplace.

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Because, it's not all about work.

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Sometimes we actually have personal goals and things that

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we want to accomplish as well.

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So let's say maybe if I'm working out and I'm walking on the

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treadmill, I can be listening to an audiobook at the same time.

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Or if I'm, say, using the, bike, the stationary bike.

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I can be reading a book or whatever, right?

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And you can start looking at it, what are the little tasks I can

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combine together to become more efficient that don't necessarily

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need to be separate to do list items?

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So that is plan, prioritize, leverage, assign, and nest.

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And those are your three.

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If you implement those three things, you will be amazed at how much

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more productive you are, how less the distractions actually exist.

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interrupt you, and how much smoother your word dig goes.

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Now I'm not going to tell you that it's going to be perfect right away,

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it's going to take work, it's going to take time, and this is something

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that I do work with people one on one with in my coaching programs and we

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go in depth on a lot of this stuff.

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But if you just start with those three things, it's going to get you

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off to a great start and get you some really nice results as well.

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So guys, if you enjoyed today's episode and found it helpful, if

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you are listening to us on Apple or Spotify, would you please do us a favor

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and just go in and leave a review.

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for the show, always greatly appreciated.

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Also, I will put that link down in the show notes for the

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Crucial Conversations book.

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So if that is a skill that you are looking to develop, definitely encourage you

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to go and check that book out as well.

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So next time 84, we're going to be talking about something that people might not

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necessarily equate with time management.

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And that is the importance of physical exercise and really just taking

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care of your health in general.

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So we'll talk a little bit about nutrition and exercise.

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sleep in there as well, but I'm going to probably be focused more

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on the exercise side of things and really how that relates back to time

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management and makes you more efficient.

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So make sure you guys tune in for that.

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And as always, I remind you that while none of us are born unshakable,

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we can all become unshakable.

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