So we wanted to talk to you about how you're currently using your time. A lot of people don't give themselves time on it. They just kind of go through the motions and and do their days they might schedule things. But do you really see where you spend your time? So one of the things that we wanted to talk about is potentially being more aware of time wasters. We love organization.

We love systems and we love making you efficient. So time wasters to avoid this is just a basic list but being busy for the sake of being busy, how many people turn to you and you say, Hey, how you doing? Sue? And she's like, fine, busy. super busy doing what? There's a there's a Saturday Night Live skit, actually, that's just talking about business and they're like, all busy, and I'm feeling good, busy is good.

And it is really interesting. But my new follow up to people who tell me they're busy is defined busy, because then you're going to get the real answers. Well, what are you busy doing? And then they're going to tell you Oh, well, you know had to drop the kids off at school I got a big project at work. Busy shouldn't be the answer anymore. So get people to find busy.

Yeah, it's a lot of times we we have, we invite you to do the same exercise, track your time, have a notebook, the small one that fits in your pocket or in your purse or in your back, and then try to write down what you are doing. It sounds like Oh, that's a lot of work. But honestly, it's your neck. If you do that for one full day, and then you reflect at nighttime. And then you look at what you have done. You become aware of Oh, wow, realistically today I have done just the mundane things.

But I haven't done anything that the things that are important for me. I haven't done anything to get myself closer to the course that I want to to accomplish. Or maybe you have done. But that's the only way for you to see where your time is going. And once you have that information, you can start taking action to change things. We use an app called toggle and it helps you it's a mobile application and it helps you kind of just Like start and stop named projects, it's pretty cool.

So it's a way that we hold ourselves accountable for the work that we do that we use it primarily in a business sense. But you could do it personally as well. Yeah. And then at the end of the month, or at the end of the week, you can reflect on on the on the actual data, because we always make emotional decisions, assumptions, depending how we are feeling. Sometimes we think, Oh, we don't have any money, or we have a lot of money or we don't have any time or we have a lot of time, depending how we are feeling. At that moment.

When you have real data, real information, that is the truth. That's when you can look at it and say, oh, wow, I have spent this much time doing this, or this much time doing that. And that's when you can really start making intentional decisions to change things the way you want to see recently just wrote a blog about four different ways to be able to say no, a big time waster that you can start avoiding now is being able to say no finding the ways to be To put yourself first or to give yourself time to think about things before you agree before you say yes, failing to set your priorities. Again, we talked about priorities at the very beginning of this course, knowing what's important to you, knowing what is the priority, not having a plan. So again, it's like you're going on a vacation, you have no map, you have no you don't know where you're going.

And you know that you want to do something. So you need to kind of have some sort of idea. Now, we're all for getting lost and having fun that way. That's a completely different that's just being open. But but you can sit, you can say, for the next two hours, I'm just gonna go with the flow and that's okay. You don't have to have her with something to do.

But that's your intention behind it. You have decided to do that. And that's what you are doing. It doesn't happen because you have nothing else to do. You have decided I'm going to have two hours for myself one hour, half an hour, whatever that is. Starting sometimes projects with not enough information.

You know, when we originally set out to write our book, I don't think we did enough research into what it was that we were going to be writing about. We knew we felt passionate about it. But we didn't have enough information about what's it take to actually get our words to the publisher to be printed. And we can both tell you, we've sat in front of several hours, several different software's trying to get the words to be able to match what the printer needed to be built. And for it to look right. So we wish that we had looked into, okay, before we start typing this up in, you know, a Word document, maybe we could just start with the software that the printer needs, and that's going to save us a lot of frustration and headaches.

And so there's lots of different you know, we look at it as time invested into a project that we wanted to do, but if we kept repeating that over and over and over again, that's a huge time waster. You know, and if you find yourself making mistakes, that's okay. We all make mistakes, but at least you know, okay, I made this mistake. I will make it again. Why did this mistake happen? What was missing here and then you aren't learning.

So making mistakes is not bad because you learn from them and allows you to move forward. The most important thing is just to make sure that you are reflecting and avoiding the same mistakes. That's it. And then being interrupted is one of the huge time wasters and we are going to explain why in the next slide. So interruptions Yeah, keep going. Yeah, so interruptions are a huge thing.

As you know, when you want to do a task, there is a little bit of time to get ready for that task. Some tasks will demand more energy and concentration and focus from you than others. For example, driving if you learn how to drive, do you remember how much attention Did you need to actually drive? I remember the first time I drive I just couldn't hear what was happening. I couldn't see anything I was all my attention was on the steering wheel on the on the key gearbox and the brakes, everything was new, full or my full attention was into driving over time to repeat and repeat and repeat the task, and all the sudden it becomes automatic, so it requires less attention from you, that's when you can start doing something else. At the same time.

It still requires some attention, but not as much. It is the same with your day to day when you are doing tasks, you need a little bit of time to get ready to kind of ease into the task. And then to get it done. When you get interrupted. That's when you start wasting time. So oftentimes, they say that it takes a you know your brain and your ability to focus about 10 to 15 minutes to really dive into serious and meaningful work.

So if you're being interrupted or someone's coming to ask you something, or you know the notifications are going off or you hear the phone ringing, that's pulling immediately your brains focus out and in a way, maybe you can deal with something but then to get back into the same place that you were in that deep focus work, it's going to take you that much more time. So instead of potentially putting a note on the door, turning off the phone, eliminating, you know, visual distractions, and just focusing on one thing for 20 minutes to an hour, you know, you're going to get a lot more meaningful work done in that time. And guess what, all of those things, unless they were emergencies are still going to be there waiting for you. And of course, if an emergency comes up, it's okay to be interrupted by that, but not if that's happening every single day, every hour of the day.

And we also think that, you know, just giving yourself permission to say, you can't bother me right now. I need to have X amount of time. This is now my time. And I need you to if it's a coworker, or if it's someone in the family, if it's your phone, you know, you need to be able to set really clear boundaries. Yeah. And it's very amazing to see how sometimes we make assumptions that oh, this is not possible or This is not going to happen.

And then when you set the intention, and then when you start making change when you communicate what you want to do and why to the other people around you, it's very impressive to see how respectful they are, because they are understanding. Okay, I know that Amelia now he's working in this project, he told me that he wanted to get it done by the state. And he told me that he's most productive on the mornings from 8am to 10. And he told me, please, if he's not an emergency, don't interrupt me. And so I'm not going to interrupt him because I understand what's happening. And some people are really, really understanding.

So don't make assumptions and then communicate what you want to do and why. And you'll see what happens. So we wanted to talk a little bit about the Pomodoro Technique, sorry, because it was brought to our attention a few years ago, and Emilio actually really loves this method. I really liked it because I was using a diamond before I was aware of this system, and then when someone introduced me to it, I realized that it Basically what I was trying to do, I was trying to set a timer for, in my case, I'm able to focus on a task for probably 40 to 45 minutes, no problem, some people is 20 minutes, you just choose the time and then this, this technique says that Judi size on the on the task that you want to get done, you set the timer. In this case, they say for 25 minutes, I will say you have to know yourself and choose the time that works for you.

So and then you work on the on the task. And then you take after that period of time you take a short five minute break. And then you repeat that four times. And after the fourth time, you will take a longer break of 15 to 30 minutes. I have used this system myself and I can tell you that I get so much done. Because I know what I'm doing.

Samantha knows what I'm doing. And then anybody that's around me, they know that I have always that focus time and then when I'm on a break, I can stretch my legs, take my phone, whatever you need to do, and then you just go back into the same task or different ones. But you have got 25 3040 minutes of focus time. And it's unbelievable how much you can get done. So we hope that you've enjoyed just a few of the things that we wanted to talk to you about time. And we're going to dive into the next exercise which is going to have you thinking a little bit and moving your hands yeah