Core Idea: Time Management
Summary
TLDRThis video script delves into the concept of time management, particularly in a work context. It outlines the speaker's philosophy and system for effective time use, emphasizing the importance of capturing tasks and ideas, organizing them thoughtfully, and controlling one's schedule through proactive planning. The speaker introduces three key principles—capture, configure, and control—while also touching upon the bonus principle of constraining work intake and implementing processes to streamline tasks. The goal is to create a system that not only boosts productivity but also fosters creativity and reduces stress.
Takeaways
- 🕒 Time management is defined as the philosophy, process, systems, or rules that help decide how to use one's time at work.
- 📝 Capture is the first key property of a time management system, where all important information for decision-making is stored in a trusted place.
- 🔄 The idea of 'full capture' is credited to David Allen, who emphasized the importance of not keeping tasks in one's head but in a system.
- 🗂️ Configure involves organizing the captured information effectively, including tasks and plans, to quickly understand what's on one's plate.
- 📉 Control is about being proactive rather than reactive with time, making plans in advance to make the best use of available time.
- 📆 Multi-scale planning is recommended for effective control, involving planning at quarterly, weekly, and daily levels.
- 🛠️ The speaker uses Trello for task management and Google Docs for planning, emphasizing the importance of having stable systems for organization.
- 📝 Tools like a time block planner and a 'workingmemory.txt' file are used for capturing tasks and ideas throughout the day.
- 📈 Having a time management system allows for intentional decision-making, leading to a more creative, less stressful, and potentially more efficient work life.
- 🚫 A bonus principle mentioned is 'constrain', which is about being selective with what one takes on and putting processes in place to simplify tasks.
- 🌱 The script suggests that time management can lead to a more flexible and creative approach to work, contrary to the belief that it makes life rigid.
Q & A
What is the main topic of the video script?
-The main topic of the video script is time management, specifically in the context of work.
What is the speaker's goal in discussing time management?
-The speaker's goal is to provide a brief summary of their thinking about time management, define what they mean by it, outline the principles a good time management system should satisfy, and discuss their personal time management system as an example.
How does the speaker define time management in the context of this discussion?
-The speaker defines time management as the philosophy, process, systems, or rules that one deploys to make decisions about what to do with their time at work.
What are the three key properties the speaker believes a good time management system should have?
-The three key properties are capture, configure, and control.
What does the 'capture' property entail according to the speaker?
-The 'capture' property involves having a trusted place to store all the information important for making decisions about tasks and plans, ensuring that nothing is forgotten and reducing mental stress.
Can you explain the 'configure' property mentioned by the speaker?
-The 'configure' property is about organizing the captured information effectively. It involves categorizing and consolidating information in a way that allows for a quick understanding of what's on one's plate and due.
What does the 'control' property suggest for managing time?
-The 'control' property suggests being proactive rather than reactive with time decisions. It involves planning for time in advance across multiple scales—quarterly, weekly, and daily—to make the most of the available time.
What tools does the speaker use for capturing tasks and plans?
-The speaker uses Trello for task management and Google Docs for keeping track of plans.
How does the speaker approach multi-scale planning?
-The speaker approaches multi-scale planning by having a plan for the semester, a weekly plan, and a daily plan. They use a time block planner and a text file called 'workingmemory.txt' to capture and organize tasks and plans.
What is the speaker's perspective on the relationship between time management and creativity?
-The speaker believes that being in control of one's time does not hinder creativity. Instead, it allows for more breaks, free time, and less stress, which can enhance creativity.
What is the bonus fourth principle the speaker briefly mentions at the end of the script?
-The bonus fourth principle is 'constrain,' which is about being careful about what work gets on one's plate in the first place and managing that work effectively through processes and constraints.
Outlines
🕒 Introduction to Time Management Deep Dive
The speaker introduces the topic of time management, outlining their intention to provide a summary of their thoughts on the subject. They define time management as the decision-making process regarding how to allocate one's time, especially in a work context. The speaker proposes three key principles—capture, configure, and control—that any effective time management system should adhere to. They also mention a bonus fourth principle, 'constrain,' which will be discussed later. The aim is to give listeners insight into a comprehensive time management system that satisfies these principles.
📝 The Importance of Capture in Time Management
This paragraph delves into the first principle of time management: capture. The speaker emphasizes the need for a trusted system to store all information relevant to decision-making about tasks and commitments. They credit David Allen for the concept of 'full capture,' which involves transferring ideas from one's head into a system to reduce mental stress and increase focus. The speaker extends the concept of capture to include not just tasks but also plans and thinking across various timescales, advocating for a system that allows for regular review and trustworthiness.
🗂️ Organizing Information with the Configure Principle
The speaker discusses the second principle, 'configure,' which involves organizing the captured information effectively. They argue for a system that consolidates relevant information and eliminates the need for searching through emails or other scattered sources. The goal is to have a quick overview of all tasks and commitments, with all necessary details readily accessible. The speaker also highlights the importance of updating and maintaining this organization on a weekly basis as part of the time management process.
⏰ Proactive Time Allocation with Control
The third principle, 'control,' is about being proactive rather than reactive in planning how to use one's time. The speaker advocates for multi-scale planning across semesters, weeks, and days. This involves having a big-picture plan for the semester, breaking it down into weekly goals, and then scheduling daily tasks accordingly. The speaker shares their personal system using Trello for tasks and Google Docs for plans, along with tools for capturing information during the day, which is then organized into the main systems at the end of each day.
🛠️ The Role of Constrain in Time Management
In the final paragraph, the speaker introduces the bonus principle of 'constrain,' which revolves around managing what gets onto one's plate in the first place and how work is executed. They suggest that having clear rules for accepting or declining tasks and establishing processes to simplify work can reduce the workload and make time management more effective. The speaker briefly touches on strategies like automation, office hours, and streamlined processes to minimize the burden on the time management system and enhance overall productivity.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Time Management
💡Capture
💡Configure
💡Control
💡Multi-Scale Planning
💡Trello
💡Google Docs
💡Time Block Planner
💡Working Memory
💡Constrain
Highlights
Introduction to the concept of time management and its significance in professional work.
Definition of time management as a system for deciding what to do with one's time at any given moment.
The assertion that everyone uses some form of time management system, whether consciously or not.
Introduction of the '3 Cs' of time management: Capture, Configure, and Control.
Explanation of 'Capture' as a system for storing tasks and decisions to reduce mental load and stress.
Discussion on the importance of 'Configure' for organizing information effectively to quickly understand tasks and priorities.
'Control' as a proactive approach to planning time in advance rather than reactively choosing tasks.
Advocacy for multi-scale planning across quarterly, weekly, and daily time scales.
Personal time management system using Trello for tasks and Google Docs for plans.
Use of a 'workingmemory.txt' file as a digital extension of working memory for capturing ideas and tasks.
The practice of daily 'shutdown' to review and transfer captured information into stable systems.
Organization of Trello boards by professional roles and the standardization of columns for task management.
Weekly planning as a key component of the 'Configure' process to update and review task systems.
The role of 'Control' in semester, weekly, and daily planning to manage time effectively.
Mitigating concerns about time management leading to a rigid and less creative work life.
Introduction of a bonus principle 'Constrain' for managing what gets on one's plate and how work is executed.
Emphasis on the importance of constraining work intake and establishing processes to simplify task management.
Summary of the core idea of time management and its impact on professional productivity and creativity.
Transcripts
[Music]
today i want to do my first
core idea video deep dive i should say
my first core idea deep dive and the
topic i want to do it on
is time
management
so my goal here is to give a brief
summary
of my thinking about time management
and what that's going to
consist of is let me define for you what
i mean by time management
let me give you
the three principles
in my writing and on this podcast we
always talk about that any good time
management system should probably
satisfy and then i will briefly talk
through my particular system
which we can think of as
one example of a time management system
that satisfies these principles so you
can do something else but so you see
what a real
fully fledged time management system
that satisfies these principles look
like and then i'm going to have a
bonus fourth principle i want to talk
about
that debatably is not really about time
management it lives right outside time
management but it's related so i'm going
to talk about that briefly at the end so
that is my agenda for this core idea
discussion on time
management
so let's start what do i mean by time
management for me
at least in the context of this
discussion i'm thinking about work
so time management in work
the way you deal with your time outside
of work is a little bit different so i'm
going to put that aside
and in the context of work
i'm going to define time management to
be
whatever philosophy process systems or
rules that you deploy to make decisions
about what you're going to do right now
with your time
how do you figure out
it's 12 26
on a friday what do i do next
in the end that's what a time management
system is a way to help you answer that
question
in as useful a manner
as possible
now everyone who works has some sort of
time management system they're using
if you don't know what it's called if
you can't tell me the details of it if
you've never thought about that it's
just a really bad one probably but you
still have one one way or the other
you're making these decisions the
question is just how do we want to make
these decisions
what is going to work better so i'm
going to give you
the three properties i think any good
time management system should have
i love alliteration
long time listeners the podcast know
this
i love cs in my alliteration as long
time listeners of this podcast know so i
named the three key properties here with
three c's capture
configure
control
let's talk about these each briefly in
the abstract and i'll tell you about my
system that satisfies these number one
capture
i believe a good professional time
management system
needs to have
some place in which you
store
all the information that's important to
making decisions about what you need to
be doing and what you should be doing
that is trusted it's a place that you
are going to look at things that go in
there will not be forgotten
these ideas get out of your head and
into a system so you're not wasting
brain cycles on trying to remember
or keep fresh stuff that you need to do
now in the context of tasks
we can give credit to this idea to david
allen so david allen in his
seminal
post computer
time management book and i mean that
very specifically because as i've
written about before
time management goes through big
evolution so post computers computer
networks and email time management went
through a big revolution david allen was
there at the beginning
he had this idea of full capture where
he said all of your tasks should be in a
trusted system that you review regularly
not in your head
he actually adapted that idea from a
previous business thinker named dean
atchison
unrelated to president truman secretary
of state same name different person
who had first developed i believe in the
1970s this notion of full capture and
david allen expanded it so that's really
the core of this
and david allen's articulation of full
capture said don't waste mental energy
remembering things have it in a system
so your brain can be clear to actually
focus on working
this also reduces a lot of stress
because your brain gets stressed when
it's worried about forgetting things you
need to do
i generalize capture though beyond what
alan talks about
in addition to each of your
commitments being somewhere you trust
i want your plans to also be somewhere
your trust
so any thinking you've done
about what you're working on on all
sorts of different time scales
that should be written down somewhere
you trust and review regularly as well i
think that's often overlooked but the
planning process of what's going on how
do i want to get my work done what needs
to be done this semester what do i have
to get done this week to hit this goal
that's a really important part of time
management i don't want that all in your
head that also gets captured
all right second property
configure
all right this is a a twist that i've
become
increasingly a loud advocate for which
is care more about how you actually
organize this information that you're
capturing
i think you really need to think through
once i have this information written
down somewhere
where do i put it how do i organize it
is it in categories is it broken up by
role
uh equally important
getting the relevant information
consolidated i'm really big on this so
not only do you have a a really smart
organization for all the stuff on your
plate
you're also gathering in one place all
the relevant information
you're not searching through your email
inbox to try to remember what does this
mean and where are we and what do i owe
this person i'm supposed to get back to
derek about the program codes what does
that mean let me go through my inbox now
all that should be in one place
so these are our two goals with with
organize
a that the information is organized well
where what you want to happen here what
you want to have happen here is that you
can very quickly get the gestalt of
what's on your plate what's due what's
not who you're waiting to hear back from
the information is put aside in such a
way that it's not just a list with a
hundred things and two all the relevant
information is there
i'm not scrambling around to figure out
what i need to know to do this thing
all the information is there
all right
control
the third property of a good prima time
management system
control says instead of being
reactive
in your decisions about what you want to
do with your time and by reactive i mean
just saying okay it's 12 23 on friday
what do i want to do next i don't know
let me see what seems relevant let me
look at my uh let me look at my inbox
let me look at slack
maybe i'll look at a to-do list and try
to choose something off of it
control says don't be reactive don't
wait till you get to the moment to say
what should i do next
instead be proactive
make a plan for your time in advance
that makes the most of the time that you
actually have available so you think
ahead you look at the time you have
available and you say what do i want to
do with this
i'm planning the whole picture at once
i'm not waiting till the moment to say
what happens next
now on the podcast
i talk often about doing this control
at multiple time scales you'll hear me
talk about multi-scale planning this is
where that actually applies and what i
recommend is that you should be doing
this type of planning on three time
scales quarterly weekly daily
so quarterly
you have a plan
for what you want to try to get done
that quarter what's important what are
the big projects you're working on
there could even be daily work that you
want to really emphasize like look i got
to get my cold calls up
so every monday wednesday friday i spend
the first hour doing cold calls whatever
it is but you're making this plan for
the quarter
looking ahead at the quarter is this a
busy quarter not a big quarter what are
the big deadlines this quarter is there
a huge trade fair halfway through it
that means the first half of the quarter
has to be really focused on preparing
for that trade of trade fair you're
looking at the whole picture of the
quarter and at this pretty big
granularity coming up with a plan
every week
you then look at that quarterly plan and
produce a plan for the week ahead of you
now you're doing weekly planning
and when you're doing weekly planning uh
what you really want to do is get a
sense of what's going to happen which
day
and then finally you get down to the
daily scale
where you say what am i actually doing
during the hours of the day
so we're in weekly planning you were
looking at what am i going to do the
different days of this week at daily
planning you're saying here's my day
of a meeting here i have a call here i
have two meetings here here's the time
that's for you what do i want to do
during that time so multi-scale planning
i think is the right way to think about
control you're giving your
time a job as opposed to asking in the
moment what should i do next
i think any good time management system
should do
capture configure control
let me talk briefly about my per
specific instantiation of these
properties what my time management
system looks like at the moment
so for capture
there is where i actually store
the things i need to do and i use trello
which is a task board software system so
it gives you a visual metaphor for cards
on a board arranged vertically in
columns i use trello
to keep track of tasks and commitments
and i use google docs
to keep track of plans
the plans i have about various things
so trello is where all my tasks are
google docs are where my uh my plans
live so that's where in multi-scale
planning my
quarterly plan lives
that's where other plans live jesse and
i for example have a google doc where we
we have our plans for the podcast etc
trello
for tasks
google docs for plans
in addition to the storage systems you
have to have the capture tool so the
tools you use to capture things during
the day on the fly that will then get
later moved into those storage systems
now for me i use two main ones
i have my time block planner
i am in a lucky situation where i was
able to design and publish my own
planner so you can obviously find out
more about that at timeblockplanner.com
but that planner has
for every day a page in which you can
capture stuff
so i capture stuff right in that planner
on my computer i also have a text file
on my desktop
i call it workingmemory.txt
because i think of it as like an
expansion of my actual
working memory
and i use that when i'm on my computer
to capture things especially when i'm
cleaning out my email
i can just type much faster than i can
write and i capture all sorts of notes
in this document uh i work through ideas
on the document it really is like an
extension of my working memory so a lot
gets captured in there if i'm in a
meeting on zoom
things are popping up i have to do i'm
writing it probably right there in that
workingmemory.txt
at the end of every day i do a shutdown
my planner even has a box i checked it
says shutdown complete that indicates
i've done my shutdown as part of that
shutdown process
i look through everything in that
planner everything in workingmemory.txt
and i get it into one of those more
stable systems goes on the trello or i
update my google doc
so those things get pushed back down to
zero
they're temporary tools to capture and
then they get moved into the more stable
systems
the one addendum i should add there is
the calendar obviously some of these
things are appointments so that goes
right to the calendar all right
configure
i mention i use trello
for my task the way i actually use
trello is i have a separate board for
each of my different professional roles
i keep a separate board as a writer
a separate board for example as a
teacher
which i keep as a separate board as a
researcher
etc
those are then split up into columns
there's a few standard columns that
every one of these boards have i
typically have a column where i put task
on there that's called to be processed
it's a pretty complicated thing i need
to do and i don't quite understand all
the details of it but i don't want to
keep track of it in my head but also you
know it's five o'clock and i'm shutting
down i don't have time to spend 20
minutes figuring out
what does this mean
like what are the actual actions here so
i'll just throw that in the 2b process
column i usually have a column on each
of these boards for
waiting to hear back from
so if i've sent someone a note
and i need information from them and
that information is critical for me to
keep making progress i like to put a
card
on my trello board under waiting to hear
back that says here's what i'm waiting
to hear back from and here's what i'm
going to do once i get that information
i don't want to remember that in my head
so i put it on there i typically have a
column for things i'm working on this
week and i'll typically have a column
for
if there's specifically persistent
initiatives within that role
i'll give it its own column so i can
really quickly see for this thing i'm
working on
what are all the different things that
need to be done
so as a researcher there might be a
column for a paper we're preparing for
publication in my administrative role at
georgetown there might be a column for a
search committee that i'm on here's the
relevant tasks
the time that i really get into and
clean this up and look at it and move
things around and check in on it is when
i do my weekly plan
so once a week as part of my commitment
to configure
i really go through these systems and i
update it
once a week when i'm building my weekly
plan
there's also when i'm reviewing the
google docs that capture these other
types of plans that are going on and
update them and remind myself what's on
them so the weekly scale is when i'm
really
getting my hands dirty throughout the
week i'm just throwing stuff into here
at the end of each day but each week i
really go in and clean things up
all right finally is control
i already talked about multi-scale
planning i think it's the best way to do
control you could do it other ways but i
do for me it's semester instead of
quarterly but semester weekly
daily planning
semester plans in a google doc
weekly plan i actually type it up in a
text document and print it out
and i keep it with me in the back of my
time block planner so that's how and
then i'll update it and reprint it as i
need to throughout the week
and then for my daily plan i'm time
blocking like i talked about
here's my day let me block off
everything on my calendar here's the
time that remains what do i want to do
during that time
well let me look at my weekly plan to
remind myself of what my big picture
plan is for this day and then i'm
blocking off actual hours of time and
saying here's what i'm doing here here's
what i'm doing there
and i fill in all that information i do
that right in my time block planner but
you can do this in any type of notebook
there's a whole video at my site
timeblockplanner.com
that walks through the details of how
time blocking works so that is how i do
the daily piece you put those all
together there's my commitment to
control
all right so stepping back capture
configure control you do those three
things
you're going to be making smart
decisions
about what you want to be doing with
your time professionally
now i know people get concerned they say
well i might be injecting too much
structure into my life and this is going
to make my work life more rigid and i'll
be less creative
i call nonsense and all of that
just because you're in control of
everything doesn't mean you need to
schedule every seven minutes of your
time like a crazy person
i mean you can when you're in control
your time you can now start to make
decisions like
thursday afternoon starting at 12 i want
to do no work i'm going to go to the
woods and just think about this problem
i'm working on
when you're doing capture configure
control you could do that with
confidence because you know what's on
your plate you've cleared out that time
you know things aren't being forgotten
you made sure that you had time on
wednesday to catch up on things people
need to hear about thursday because
you're in control you can aim that
control at
more breaks more free time more
creativity less stress
you can significantly like a lot of my
listeners do reduce the amount of time
it takes for you to get your normal
workload done
and because you're in complete control
of things move it into certain days and
keep whole days free to basically do
phantom part-time jobs there's a lot you
can do that makes your life more
interesting and creative
and less stressful
once you have an intentional way of
making these decisions about what do i
want to do next with my time
all right now i promised you a bonus
property that
arguably has to do with time management
arguably it's something different so
i'll just mention it briefly
and that is
constrain
so circling this whole idea
is how you figure out
what gets on your plate to be managed in
the first place
and how you actually manage that work
i'm just going to plant the seed here
because this is a bigger conversation
but
we need to be very careful about how we
decide what we say yes to and what we
say no to
we would really like to avoid the
situation where we have so much work on
our plate that yeah we can control it
and be organized about it but we still
don't have enough time to get it done we
want to avoid that situation so having
clear rules in place about how do i
decide what i let on my plate that's
really important
processes is the second thing that i
think is really important when it comes
to constraining
you know figuring out
how do i want to do this work
the stuff i let on my plate can i put a
process in place that will reduce the
footprint this has on
my schedule
there's a lot of different things this
can mean and again because we're just
seed planting here i'm just going to
very briefly skim the surface but there
may be automation you're doing here you
know what we have to produce this same
client report every week
i don't want to just send emails back
and forth and kind of figure it out at
the last minute here is our process for
doing it and you figure out a whole
process that's the same thing the same
things happen at the same times every
week you can rely on it you've taken
that burden off of your planning system
to have to figure out from scratch
for small questions and back and forth
you might push that all towards office
hours
three days a week for one hour well
publicized i'm in my office zoom is on
come to that office hours if you have a
small question for me come to that
office hours if there's a little bit of
information you need come to that office
hours if there's something we can figure
out in two minutes of back and forth
and when people bother you with the
email or slack like hey what are we
doing again about this or can explain to
me again what this thing means just say
yeah come to my office hours
these type of processes are all about
reducing what it is that you actually do
have to manage with your capture can
configure control system you want to
simplify that simplify what's on your
plate simplify how the things are on
your plate are executed the easier you
can make
the planning version of yourself job
the better you're going to do at your
actual job
all right so let me summarize it there
that is my
thinking
on this core idea
of time management
you
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