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Your Time, Your Way

Your Time, Your Way

By: Carl Pullein
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 Showing you ways to get control of your time through tested techniques that will give you more time to do the things you want to do.Copyright 2024 Carl Pullein International. All rights reserved. Economics Management Management & Leadership Personal Development Personal Success
Episodes
  • The Time-Based Productivity Revolution: Stop Counting Tasks, Start Managing Time

    The Time-Based Productivity Revolution: Stop Counting Tasks, Start Managing Time
    Jun 22 2025
    ”But the fact remains, with all the changes that have happened in our lifetime—whether we’re “boomers,” “Gen Xers,” “Millennials,” “Gen Zers” or whatever comes next—one thing has never changed nor will it ever change, and that is the amount of time we all have.” That’s a quote from Hyrum Smith’s book, The 3 Gaps: Are You Making A Difference You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Areas of Focus: The Foundation Of All Solid Productivity Systems. Take the Areas of Focus Course Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Time Sector System 5th Year Anniversary The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 375 Hello, and welcome to episode 375 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. One thing you may have noticed is that there are many things we have to or want to do, yet there never seems to be enough time to do them. You are not alone. Everyone feels this either all the time or at least some of the time. The reason is that it’s true. There will always be more to do than time available to do it. This means we should approach the problem from a different angle. Traditionally, people have spent extra hours trying to catch up. Working late or even working the weekend. Yet, is throwing more time at the issue the best solution? I don’t think so. We live one life. Our work is just one part of that life. If you work an average forty-hour week, your work only accounts for around 25% of your time. Yet, for many people, their work causes 80% or more of their stress. This week, I want to share some ideas and a paradigm shift in how you think about the tasks you have to do and the time you have available. It’s a simple shift, but one that will reframe your relationship with time and ultimately give you more time for the things you want time for. So, without further ado, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Marcos. Marcos asks, Hi Carl, I struggle to keep up with all the tasks in my task manager. Most days feel like I am adding more tasks than I complete, and my inbox is now full. Todoist won’t allow me to add any more. How do you cope with an ever-growing list of things to do? Hi Marcos, thank you for your question. There could be a number of reasons for this. One of the most common ones is moving any email you need to respond to into your task manager’s inbox. You don’t need to do that. Instead, you can create a folder in your email system and call it “Action This Day”. Then, any email you need to act on—reply, read, forward, etc. You place it there. Then, add a recurring task in your task manager that tells you to “clear my Action This Day folder”. That will remove many tasks from your task manager. It will also begin the process of changing the way you think about things to do and the time you have available to do them. It’s no longer about how many emails you must reply to; it’s about when you will work on your emails. Other things that can clog up a task manager are articles and newsletters to read, YouTube videos to watch and books to buy. All good stuff, but since so many of these are non-urgent, you would be better putting them in a dedicated note in your notes app. That way, when you do have time to read or watch these, you can open up your notes app and choose something. I covered this recently in one of my YouTube videos. There is information we like to collect—articles, YouTube videos, etc., often the easiest thing to do is to add this information to your task manager’s inbox. After all, reading or watching them is something to do. Yet, the worst place to collect these items is your task manager. There’s no urgency to read or watch these. We can do it anytime. Perhaps we’re waiting at the doctor’s office, or, in my case, for my wife somewhere. In these situations, I can open my notes app and, depending on my mood, choose between reading or watching something—my notes are always on my phone. So, Marcos, one of the first things you can do is to remove all these non-urgent informational items from your task manager and move them to your notes app. I would add that a great place to read articles is something like Instapaper or Read. Both of these apps are designed to collect newsletters and articles. Using tools like these gives you a central place to read your saved articles. It’s like having your personalised curated news feed. The only addition is ...
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    15 mins
  • Finding Your Direction When Life Feels Chaotic

    Finding Your Direction When Life Feels Chaotic
    Jun 15 2025
    “Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to. Alice: I don't much care where. The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go. Alice: ...So long as I get somewhere. The Cheshire Cat: Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.” That is the famous dialogue between Alice and the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carrol. And it’s a great illustration of what happens when you don’t know what is important to you and where you want to go. You’re going to go get somewhere and that somewhere is probably going to be a place you never wanted to go to. This week, I’ll share with you why developing your Areas of Focus is so important. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Areas of Focus: The Foundation Of All Solid Productivity Systems. Take the Areas of Focus Course Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Time Sector System 5th Year Anniversary The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 374 Hello, and welcome to episode 374 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. So, why are your Areas of Focus important? Well, in a nutshell, they give you direction. They help you to prioritise your days and weeks and give you purpose. Without them, you’ll end up helping someone else achieve their goals, more often than not, in exchange for money, only to discover you’re health is shot to pieces and you’ve spent your forty years of working life miserably giving away five days a week to something you hated doing. A bit harsh, I know, but if you’ve read the book The Top five Regrets of The Dying by Bronnie Ware, you’ll know that the number one reason given was “I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” It’s your areas of focus that will allow you to live a life true to yourself because by developing your areas of focus, you’ll learn what is important to you and what is not. And the second reason? I wish I hadn't worked so hard. When you don’t know what is important and what is not, you will work too hard. Everything becomes important, and that means you work long hours and at weekends, missing out on your children growing up and enjoying the best years of your life doing the things you want to do. I’m pretty sure that’s not how you want your life to work out. So with all that said, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Julie. Julie asks, hi Carl, I hear you mention knowing what’s important to you a lot, yet I really don’t know what’s important. I’m under pressure at work and I have two teenagers at home. I feel my life is being pushed and pulled by everyone but myself. What can I do to create some boundaries in my life? Hi Julie, thank you for your question. It’s when we feel lost and out of sorts that our Areas of Focus can help to bring back some peace to our lives. Our areas of focus are focused on our needs and wants. And because of that, people feel it’s an indulgence to even consider spending time on developing them. That’s particularly the case when we have a young family and we’ve allowed our work to dominate our lives. The first book I ever read on time management and productivity was Hyrum Smith’s Ten natural Laws and time and Life Management, and around the first quarter of that book is spent on developing what Hyrum Smith calls your governing values. Your governing values are the values by which you live your life by. With these, we will all be different. For some, being a good mother or father will be their most important value, for others, it might be building a successful business. Now, when I read that book I was around eighteen or nineteen and that part of the book washed over me. I was young, I believed I was immortal and I could do anything I wanted to do. I didn’t have time to think about my “governing values”. Yet, with age, came wisdom and around my late twenties I began to see the importance of having a set of values to guide me. That’s when I gave myself a couple of weekends to write out my governing values. Funnily enough, as I look through my old Franklin Planners from that era, I can see that the values I wrote down then are not far away from how I define my Areas of Focus today. it’s these areas that give you a direction and a purpose. They help you with...
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    15 mins
  • Whoever Controls Your Calendar Controls You: Mastering Executive Time Management

    Whoever Controls Your Calendar Controls You: Mastering Executive Time Management
    Jun 8 2025
    “Whoever runs your schedule is the most important person in your world as Leader. You need time to think, time to study and time to get the things done you came to leadership to do. Lose control of the schedule and you will fail.” That is a quote from former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. And it strikes at the heart of mastering time management. Today’s episode explores why your calendar is your most important productivity tool. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin The 2025 Summer Sale Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Time Sector System 5th Year Anniversary The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 373 Hello, and welcome to episode 373 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. Whoever controls your calendar controls you. They can (and often will) destroy your plans for the day, prevent you from doing your most important work and be the reason you fail in your career goals. If you are a leader, you will likely have plans for your team. In order to implement those plans and move them to completion, you will need time. It’s up to you to find that time. Top leaders understand this. They are very strict with their calendars. Nobody but themselves has control of it. And, probably the most important factor of all, they have the confidence to cancel appointments if those appointments do not align with their weekly or daily strategic plan. And yes, it’s a confidence thing. Nobody, not even your boss, really has control over your time. You always have the option to negotiate an appointment or say no. In this week’s episode, I will share some ideas you can use to get control of your calendar and have the confidence to negotiate appointments and/or say no. So, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Karen. Karen asks, Hi Carl, I lead a team of sixteen people and am struggling to get my work done because my boss and team are always demanding meetings with me. Do you have any tips on protecting time for important work when you don’t have control of your calendar? Hi Karen, thank you for your question. This can appear to be a difficult change to make. Particularly if your team and bosses have become conditioned to you being available whenever they need you. One of most powerful lessons I learned in my early career was from the so—called “my office door is always open” concept. For those of you not familiar with this concept, it began in the late 80s or early 90s (possibly earlier). This was where bosses used to tell their employees my office door is always open. You can come and talk to me at anytime. Nice concept. It gave the impression that your boss was approachable. Yet in reality, it was not really a practical way to operate. It meant that bosses were constantly being interrupted—well, those that we not scary, anyway, The two most productive bosses I had in my early career did follow this policy, yet with one addition. That was to tell us that when their door was closed they were not to be disturbed. One of those bosses, would close his door every day around 2 pm. He would then use that time to get his most important work done. David, had a secretary, who would hold his calls too. If you needed David between two and four, you had to go through his secretary, Michaela and Michaela protected David’s time ruthlessly. Yet, for the other times in the day, David was available. He’d walk around the office from time to time asking if we were okay. He made himself available. What happened, was if we needed David for anything, we knew we had to catch him before 2 pm or wait until after 4 pm. I don’t recall anyone complaining. The Managing Partner of the firm respected it. And so did David’s clients—he was a partner in the law firm I worked at. The key to this working was David’s consistency. His team, bosses and clients all knew that David would not be available between two and four. Since then, every productive person I have met, has operated something very similar. They have periods of time in the day where they are not accessible. In that time they are doing their most important work. That period of time is generally at the same time each day. I remember, once being on a training course and the instructor, told us she would be available at any time after 11:00 am if we had any questions. That’s it. A simple sentence. “Available at anytime after 11:00 am”. I don’t recall any one of ...
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    15 mins
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