[00:00] Today, I’m going to share with you how I gained 15 hours per week back in my life without using a time management hack, a new app, or some tired old advice about time blocking or Pomodoro techniques. Welcome to another episode of Success For The Athletic-Minded Man. Real talk on harnessing your athletic drive for clarity, consistency, and focus in business and life.

[00:26] This is your host, Jim Harshaw Jr. And today, We’re talking about how you can gain more hours, more time back in your life, back in your day. And I’m not talking about time management hacks. I’m not talking about things like the Pomodoro technique or time blocking. Those are great, but I’m going to talk about how to actually get real time back in your life so you can get to the things that matter most in your work life, in your business, that are going to help you get the promotion, make more money, grow your business, make more sales, Get out of work on time so you can get back to your family.

[01:01] Because if you’re like most of the guys who I work with, you get to the end of the day and you feel like you didn’t complete half of what you’d hoped to complete, or you found yourself bouncing around all day from task to task aimlessly, all the while, you know, your inbox is filling up incessantly and it just never stops.

[01:19] And. Maybe you feel like you just wish you had time to get to the real work, right? The stuff that’s actually going to move the needle, but you feel like you just have to get this other stuff done first. Like once I get that other stuff done, then you’ll get to the big stuff, the actual stuff that actually is important, but that stuff never ends, right?

[01:36] The minutia never ends and it leaves you feeling like you’re chasing your tail all day and it’s exhausting. It’s frustrating. And most of you are busy fathers. So you come home and at the end of the day, things don’t slow down for you. Right? They accelerate. Things are busy with your family. And listen, I’ve been there too.

[01:54] Four kids have been married for 21 years and throughout my work day, I’ve felt myself keeping up with my inbox, hoping that I’ll get to the bottom of it so that then I can start working on that bigger stuff, that’s actually going to move the needle. I’ve been there where I’ve had. Days packed full of meetings, back to back meetings and day after day that while they’re important, they didn’t allow me to get to the other important stuff.

[02:21] And at one point I realized this is a couple of years ago where I realized I can’t work any harder. Something has to change, and it has. Last year, I gained five hours back per week in my time, and this year I gained another ten hours back per week. So, think about you. Like, what if you got just half of that?

[02:42] What would that be worth for you? How would that change your life? How would that change your career? And you might be thinking, Yeah, Jim, but, you know, my job is different. My life is different. And I can’t do that because of A, B, C, X, Y, Z. Well, if you believe that, I would recommend just skipping to the next episode, because part of this is belief.

[03:02] Part of this is believing that you can actually do this. There are people out there in your role who are not as smart as you, not as capable as you, don’t work as hard as you, don’t have the education or skills or experience or wisdom, and they’re doing it. So why not you? A lot of people get caught in the efficiency trap.

[03:22] I call it the efficiency trap because a lot of guys who are, you know, reading all the same books that I’m reading, they’re the Jocko Willink books, and they’re the Cal Newport books, and they’re the time management and efficiency and productivity and getting stuff done. And, and they get stuck in this efficiency trap where they’re just optimizing small, low impact tasks every day, all day long, right?

[03:46] That’s what they’re trying to optimize is these small tasks, but they The bigger, more strategic ones, right? So the, an example is finding yourself perfectly formatting a report when that time could be much better spent on a quick phone call that could move the project forward, right? Like listen, this is my default.

[04:05] I actually, I default to this. I will format a spreadsheet for a half an hour. In lieu of doing something what’s more important. And once you become aware of that, that’s a key part of this is awareness. Once you become aware, then you can start to do something about it. But if you’re not aware, if you’re formatting that spreadsheet thing, and I’m the only one person who could do this.

[04:25] And these lines got to be one point wider instead of black, they probably need to be blue, navy blue. If you don’t realize you’re doing that, you’re just going to do it and wonder where your time goes, right? And you think, yeah, I just only spent a minute doing it, but it’s really like eight, 10 minutes you’re doing that.

[04:41] And so you have to be aware of that. And so I want you to think about when’s the last time you felt busy all day, but you didn’t make meaningful progress. You felt like you were being efficient, but you really didn’t make meaningful progress. And for most of you, it’s probably like yesterday, you know? And so what’s the difference, right?

[05:00] Being efficient versus being effective. That’s the key concept I want you to take out of this episode. Now, this is a two part episode, two part series. Um, I was, I was preparing for this episode. I’m like, man, this is, this is really two separate concepts. So the first episode is a ground rule. Okay. I’m going to set a ground rule and we’re going to base everything from here forward off of this assumption.

[05:24] And this is the key point, the key concept in this episode. And then the second episode that I’m going to publish right after this, next week, is a follow on. Now you can listen to either one of these independently, and they stand alone fine just by themselves. Put together, it’s like the Power Rangers.

[05:40] Remember, if you grew up with Power Rangers, like, I don’t, I guess they were after my time. I just remember, remember, I don’t think I really watched them, but like, I remember they came together and like, they made like a Super Power Ranger or something, somehow. That’s what these two episodes are, right? So you gotta, you know, if you put these both together, you’re gonna, you’re gonna be like a Super Power Ranger.

[05:56] And, because I know you’ve always wanted to be that. Uh, Halloween’s coming up. So for as of when I’m recording this, so maybe you still can’t be. So think about this. Elon Musk runs six, six multi billion dollar companies. He is not just being very efficient with his time. He’s not like, man, he just like really optimizes his time.

[06:21] And that’s the only thing he does. Sure. He has to be efficient, but here’s the key. All time management, all productivity has to start with being effective. If you’re not being effective, then efficiency is not going to get you very far, right? It’ll get you, it’ll help move the needle a little bit, right?

[06:41] You’ll get a few more emails banged out throughout the day, and maybe you’ll get that report done a little bit sooner. But there’s a difference between efficiency And effectiveness, right? So this is the major ground rule. This is the assumption that all other time management productivity hacks or conversations have to be based on.

[07:02] Are you actually being effective? An example would be. If you had to dig a hole, like a big hole in your yard, and you go out and you buy a shovel, you buy this great new shovel, it’s got a sharp blade, it’s got, it’s like ergonomic handles, you know, you’re ready to roll. You got your boot, you got new boots, so you can like step on this thing and really, really jam it into the ground deep and you’re ready to rock.

[07:25] You can be really efficient because you’ve got this new tool. But you could also be effective by making a phone call and have a backhoe come do it. There’s a difference between efficiency and effectiveness. Like, I’ve got a friend, let’s call him Bob. And this guy is always running around like his hair’s on fire.

[07:44] He works so hard. He’s one of the hardest workers I know. Maybe the hardest worker I know. His work hours are insane, but it’s all in lieu of doing the single most important work that he could be doing, which is getting on the phone and calling people who can actually really move the needle in his organization.

[08:02] Now he does some of that, but really that’s the, that’s the highest value work. That’s the MIT, the most important task that he could be doing in his organization. Revenue comes from these relationships that only he has. And there’s all this other work that is, that is keeping him busy. But it’s keeping him from doing the most important.

[08:24] And, you know, this concept of effectiveness versus efficiency is how I gained five hours back last year, another 10 hours back in my week this year alone. And now I’m, now I’m working much more effectively and here’s the deal. This never ends. You don’t get to a point where you’re done with this. This year I hired two people to help manage my email inbox, right?

[08:47] The instant learning there from thinking this way, not from not going to be more efficient with my inbox was I got to be more effective and by being more effective by hiring them, I instantly learned some efficiency tactics. I realized like there’s some emails coming in that I don’t need to receive. I had notifications turned on.

[09:06] For example, every time an invoice got paid by my clients, and I have dozens and dozens of clients, every time an invoice was paid every month, a lot of them are on a monthly billing, I got an email and I realized, wait a second. It felt good to get those years ago when I was starting my business. It’s still growing, still getting things off the ground.

[09:26] I don’t, I don’t need that. I didn’t need it back then, to be honest, either. And I don’t need that now. I know my clients, I know where they’re at. I know they’re paying their invoices and I, and I turned off all these emails instantly. So I became more efficient. I helped my inbox managers become more efficient.

[09:45] Um, another thing I did is I empowered my amazing coaches who. To be honest, they’re more qualified than me on paper to coach and to guide my clients through the program that I developed with my assistants, of course, the guiding them through the eight week program. And listen, your situation’s different.

[10:01] Maybe you’re an engineer, you’re a doctor, you’re an educator, you’re an entrepreneur, whatever it might be like your effectiveness is going to be different. When I was coaching head wrestling coach, I’m assistant and head wrestling coach. I coached for about a decade in college and. You know, when I was coaching and when I was funder, I was a full time fundraiser working in the athletic department at UVA.

[10:21] Uh, it was different. There were different things that made me effective. Spending my time in certain ways made me more effective then in those roles. Then now, as an entrepreneur, as a coach, as a creator, these are all hats that I wear now. It’s about having space on my calendar to do that work and to do those jobs well, each of those individually and separately.

[10:45] And so what I want to share with you today is not just about efficiency, but it’s about effectiveness. So I’m going to give you three specific takeaways that can help you be more effective. Then in the next episode, we’re going to talk about efficiency. Now go back to episode 471, just a few episodes back, and I share what I learned from my 14 day time audit.

[11:07] This was a big step for me this year as well. Learned so much. I learned where my time was going. I learned what kind of tasks that I was doing that actually were maybe efficient, but they weren’t effective. And I made changes and I talk about those back in episode 471. So make sure you go back and listen to that one too.

[11:26] That one pairs, pairs nicely, as they say in the industry, in the next episode. And. By the way, we’re discussing all of this, these concepts over in our community. If you go to jimharshawjr.com/free, that will give you direct access into our free community. There’s a course in there called seven days to clarity.

[11:46] You can get access directly to that course, our community, and this topic. We’re literally posting this topic. The day I’m publishing this, which is a Monday, we post the episode in there with some questions, and we have a conversation on it. So if you want to ask me questions directly about this, join me over there.

[12:06] Again, just go to jimharshawjr.com/free. Now I’m going to give you three ways to be more effective and not even thinking about efficiency right now. Let’s just talk about effectiveness. I’m going to give you three ways to be effective. By the way, actually, before I share number one, I’m going to give you a point at the end of these three.

[12:25] To make all of this actually work for you. Okay. So stick around for that. So here’s number one, Pareto’s principle, 80, 20. You’ve heard this before the 80, 20 rule, 20 percent of your efforts give you 80 percent of your results. Listen, you know, this, you’ve heard this before. On my episode or in some of these books that you and I both read together, other podcasts that we both listen to, right?

[12:47] We’re in the same world most likely. You’ve heard of the 80 20 rule, but take it to the next level and say, what is the 80 20 of that 20%? Okay, so you look at that 20%, right? These are the 20 percent of the activities. If you look at that, there’s actually an 80 20 within there too, right? What’s 20 percent of those activities that gives you 80 percent of the 80%?

[13:10] Okay, so 20 percent if you do the 80 20 again, it comes out to 4%. Of your efforts give you about two thirds, about 64% of your results. Think about that. 4% of what you do. Now, listen, this isn’t a, isn’t perfect math. It might be 3%, it might be 7%. It gives you, instead of 64%, it might be it gives you 50% or 80% of your results.

[13:33] You know it’s gonna be different for you. But regardless, there are very few things that you know. That are your MITs, your most important tasks. Identify those and start spending time on those and saying no to other things. So that’s number one. I’m going to give you three. Number one was the 80 20 rule.

[13:52] And then doing that again, 80 20, what’s the 80 20 of the 80 20, right? What’s the 20 percent of the 20%. Number two is minimize task switching, right? Larger blocks of time are going to help you get more of the right work done. And so, you know, the research that you read on being interrupted says anywhere, you know, I’ve heard, actually I just read a report doing my research on this.

[14:19] They said up to 23, it takes up to 23 minutes to regain your focus. 23 minutes. Let’s say it’s, let’s say it’s half that. Let’s say it’s less. Let’s say it’s only 10 minutes. You know what that feels like. Think about it. You have a large block of time on your calendar. You’re like, man, I am going to sink in.

[14:35] I’m going to get some deep work done here. It’s like eight till noon is on your calendar and you’re like, sweet. This is great. I’m going to crush it. I’m going to get some work done. And then your boss drops a meeting on your calendar and you’re like, it’s like at 10 o’clock and it ruins the whole thing.

[14:50] You’re like, okay, well, I still got the time before and time after. Well, the time before there’s the startup routine of your day. Maybe you’re getting ready. Setting your to do list for the day, maybe banging out a few critical emails that you’ve got to return, an hour goes by and you’re like, okay, well now I’ve only got an hour, nine to 10 o’clock.

[15:06] And then, okay, well it’s nine to 10, but as 10 o’clock gets closer, you’re like thinking this meeting’s in the back of your head, so you really can’t focus and get deep into any really important work, and then around, you know, 930, you got to go to the bathroom. You come back and you talk to somebody and it’s 945, now there’s no sense in Doing anything, right?

[15:25] It’s time for the meeting. And so it’s so easy for these chunks of time to get eaten up and taken away from you. You have to have these larger blocks of time where you can have focus. And that might mean turning off your phone, you know, shutting down your email so you can work on just. The big tasks that you need to work on.

[15:42] All right. So that’s number two. First one is the, is Pareto’s principle and taking that to the next level. What, you know, you’ll kind of look at the 4 percent that gives you the 64%. Uh, number two is about minimizing task switching, right? Giving yourself those larger blocks of time. And here’s the last piece of advice I want to give you on this, on dedicating the time daily, ideally, or at least a few times a week to getting the right work done is having a regular review of your to do list, right?

[16:09] I told you about this 14 day time audit that I did. It was really, really eyeopening for me, but even if you’re not ready to commit to that just yet, have a regular review of your to do list. What does it look like? What is on that list? The, the, one of the biggest things that came out of my 14 day time audit was.

[16:25] Simply an awareness of where my time is going. Like, are you aware? Listen, I guarantee you’re sitting there going, yes, Jim, I am absolutely aware of where my time’s going. I’m going to sit here and tell you, I guarantee you, you don’t know where all of your time is going. You have an idea, but once you do this kind of work, once you do this time audit.

[16:44] It is so eyeopening. You will be like, wow, I thought I was doing this like a, you know, for 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there. And it’s, it looks like it’s more like, you know, 45 minutes here or an hour and a half there. You will be surprised where your time is leaking. So you have to do a regular review of your to do list just to create an awareness.

[17:03] At all times of what you’re working on. So for me now, when I’m working on something, I just have this, this awareness, this sense of like, should I be doing this? Should somebody else be doing this? Is this the right work for me to be working on right now? And listen, I’m not sitting here on, on the top of my pedestal saying I’ve got this nailed perfectly.

[17:21] I’m saying I have improved tremendously. But listen, I know I can go 10, a hundred times, a thousand times better than what I’m doing. And that’s, that’s the direction I’m going. That’s the journey that I’m on. And I hope you’ll join me on that journey. I hope we get to interact during that journey because you can, like I said, you can join us in the free community or certainly you can join us in the paid community as well, where actually you get coaching, you get group coaching.

[17:44] There’s, there’s a lot more engagement over there, but the free community again, jimharshawjr.com/free. If you want to go check out the paid community, you go to school. com, S K O O L. That is the platform that we host our communities on. School. com slash R Y P. R Y P is the name of our program. So Reveal Your Path, that is.

[18:04] So you can interact with me. We can have a conversation around this. But you’ve got to put this stuff in place. Now, I told you I was going to give you one thing that was going to tie all of this together to make it work. Here it is. Are you ready? Actually do it. Actually do the work. Like, it’s nice to listen to this and go, boy, this sounds great.

[18:21] This sounds exciting. Like you actually have to now turn off this episode and go do it. You can’t turn off this episode and just go back to thumbing through social media, checking your emails and, and not being effective with your time. We’re gonna talk more about efficiency in the next episode, but once we become effective.

[18:40] Then efficiency can take that effectiveness 10x. All right. I look forward to talking to you in the next episode. I look forward to interacting with you in the community. I’ll talk to you soon. Good luck. Take action.

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