Jay Papasan - Effective Time Management

Thriving Launch Podcast

SUMMARY

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Not everyone master time management techniques. Everyone seems to have millions of things to do and wants to get those things done but the question is how? Only mastering time management techniques can help out with that. In this interview with Jay Papasan, a New York Times bestselling author, talks about The One Thing and how we can stay more focused and leverage our time just by doing that One Thing.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

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What we need is a mechanism to help us filter out a lot of the noise so we can focus on the few things, often the one thing that really matters the most. Therefore, mastering time management techniques is so important.

The world is advanced a little faster than we can adapt to it.

Extreme Pareto – knowing what your number one priority is key to the time management techniques

Vilfredo Pareto observed that 80% of the wealth in Italy was held by 20% of the people.

There’s a minority of what we do that gets us the majority of what we want.

We should put in a sense of priority in our to-do list.

By taking real control over your priority, you end up doing a lot of the other important stuff just by default.

But when you live these priorities, all the other stuff, either goes away completely or it just kind of gets done without you having to give it a lot of energy.

Starting with the most important thing releases stress, and then you can implement other time management techniques easily.

Most people are really successful in spite of most what they do, learning time management techniques is the key.

We’re all a little resistant to change but the reality is everybody could be a lot more efficient.

Launch your days with priority, this is one of the most important time management techniques.

It’s not sustainable to be that focused all that time.

When you wake up in the morning, ask yourself this focusing question. What’s the one thing I can do, just by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

Go to your list and figure out your 1, your 2, you 3, and start there. Best time management techniques recommend prioritizing and then listing tasks.

Just a small dose of extreme focus has magnificent benefits for the rest of your day, best time management techniques emphasize on focus.

When you ask yourself a question like the focusing question, it really forces you to narrow it down to one thing.

Most people know what their priority is but because they don’t stop long enough to ask the question, the just walk around feeling guilty for not addressing it.

Once you know your priorities, make an appointment with yourself to do that every day.

The most successful people in the world made their One Thing a ritual.

Making that appointment in time triples your effectiveness. Effective time management techniques helps you do this.

The biggest challenge is to keep the willingness and battling distractions.

If it’s truly your passion, it’s worth making this one investment so that you can do it right. Do whatever it takes to learn time management techniques

6-10 IQ points are lost when you’re multitasking, use some time management techniques to avoid that.

The things that actually matter the most are our relationships, the people that we love most. The better you are at mastering time management techniques, the best will be your relationships.

Give your work that much respect as well, knowing few time management techniques will really work.

It’s a myth that women are better multitaskers than men.

Pomodoro Method – the idea that we need to break our focus every 20-25 minutes and then we get a fresh spurt of focus

We hit our flow when we’re working at the edge of our abilities, master some time management techniques.

Use timers for repetitive tasks, use some effective time management techniques to teach yourself.

Big blocks of time for the most important work, little blocks of time for small tasks like email.

Make a commitment to do something that you should be doing tomorrow or today, for that you really need to master some time management techniques.

MUST HAVE RESOURCES

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The One Thing

80/20 Principle Book

The Big Leap

TRANSCRIPTION: TIME MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES – JAY PAPASAN

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Why is learning time management techniques important?

Kamala Chambers

This show is going to be so amazing for you because we’re going to talk about how to get more focused, how to save time using amazing time management techniques, and how to get more done. Oh my god. Can’t we all use that?

Luis Congdon

He is New York Times bestselling author. He’s been on over a 175 media appearances, ranging from all the news stations you can imagine, large publications, and now we have him here to talk to all of us about how we can save time through time management techniques and how we can actually utilize time in a much richer and stronger way.

This interview for you is really special because Jay just really shows up and is full of heart, passion, and love. So we’re excited to bring you Jay Papasan to learn more about time management techniques.

Kamala Chambers

It’s so awesome to have you here Jay Papasan! Welcome!

Are you ready to launch?

Jay Papasan

I am so ready to go. Thanks for having me.

Luis Congdon

So Jay, you wrote this book. People are loving it. I was just checking it out in amazon and it’s got nearly 15,000 reviews for the audiobook. It’s nuts! People are raving about this and for me, it seems very appropriate that people are crazy about this book right now because The One Thing is urging us to slow down. Now, without giving away the book and asking the question giving away, from me, what I’m curious about, what is the one thing? Why do you think people love this book so much? Is it about the time management techniques?

Jay Papasan

I think that Gary and I were fortunate enough to put this out at a time when people needed it. I think that we look up and everything is accelerating so fast. I think about your audience, people who are entrepreneurs and self-starters, who are looking into improve their lives. The amount of information that’s available to us, the opportunities and in some ways, I’m getting to that place where not only I have kids but older parents, the obligations that we face. I think there’s a lot of overwhelm going on.

What we need is a mechanism to help us filter out a lot of the noise so we can focus on the one thing that really matters the most.

I think that’s why it’s kind of resonating. It’s just that we got the right time in our lives, this moment in history when the world is advanced a little faster than we can adapt to it.

Mastering time management techniques

Luis Congdon

One of the things that I really got from your book is how important it is for me to identify the key and essential actions, behaviors, time management techniques, whatever it might be for me to accomplish my goal and for me to try to really identify that you’ve been referring it to as extreme Pareto.

So let’s talk about Pareto’s Law briefly. Tim Ferris is a big fan of Pareto’s Law. What is Pareto’s Law and why do you advocate in extreme version of it?

Jay Papasan

It’s kind of the ultimate successful. It would be like in the world of physics, we have gravity. In the world of accomplishment, we have the 80/20. It comes from an Italian economist in the 18th century.Vilfredo Pareto observed that 80% of the wealth in Italy was held by 20% of the people and that little observation by obscure economist lay dormant until a guy named Joseph Juran, heard about it while studying executive compensation and he was a big quality control guy and he said, “Oh wait. When I look at the assembly lines, 80% of the defects come from 20% of the flaws.” He admittedly knew that there was something bigger there. So it was actually on his manual on quality control that it got popularized. In the mid-80s, the 80/20 Principle Book was written. And that’s whereGary Keller was exposed to it, my co-author.

Jay Papasan

The 80 and the 20, I think those numbers confuse people because they don’t always show up. They do a lot but there’s a minority of what we do.

So what we want people to do is look at that to-do list and instead of just marching through it like we often do which is to cross off the stuff we can do the fastest or the easiest, most of us are working to make it shorter, to put it in the some sense of priority.

If I can only get one thing done today, what’s that thing? And that becomes your number one perhaps learning some time management techniques. And if I can only get two things done today, what’s that number two? And most people go from the list like it goes as long as a page. 20 or 30 things down to 4 or 5, really essential ones and they know what their number one is. That’s their 20% and we just want to say what’s the 20% of that and the 20% of that until they know exactly what their number one priority is. That’s extreme Pareto.

Kamala Chambers

This is so brilliant because one thing whenever we ask thriving launchers what’s the one thing they’re suffering from most is lacking time management techniques, it’s overwhelm. Entrepreneurs, coaches, authors, speakers, and everybody has got a million things to do and there’s a million things to grow your business and to make it better and all of it.

This is the same thing that I apply is how I get a lot done. What are the top three things that I absolutely need to do today and focus on those. So that’s fantastic.

I’d love to hear more from you about people that are full of passion and full of desire and they have all these different ideas?

What would you really say to that group of people particularly those who seek time management techniques?

Jay Papasan

Well, the first thing is when we call the book, The One Thing, I remembered going to the book expo in New York and all the New York publishers were just laughing like there’s never just one thing when we all have too many things on our plate. So, one of the metaphors in the book is this idea of a domino run.

Take real control over priority – one of important time management techniques

Jay Papasan

I’m going to get exactly to your answer here. The idea is I want to acknowledge that there’s a lot of stuff on the list and as entrepreneurs and self-starters, we feel we do have to get to them all but when you line them up properly, just like you’ve probably done with dominoes at home, one thing, I actually knock over a bunch of stuff and that’s the secret truth behind the idea of this Pareto’s principle, in our case, the one thing.

When people make a stand and say, “You know what, for my new business, my number one thing is I’m going to be working on cold media. Cold media to drive traffic to my website and I’m going to give that all of my focus. That’s where I’m going to start my days. That’s going to be like all of my energy.” When people actually live that commitment, there’s a halo effect.

By taking real control over that priority, you end up doing a lot of the other important stuff just by default.

It’s just amazing having you put the conversation from all the stuff that they have to do to this one essential thing that they must do. All the stuff still gets done. So I think, that’s the first message people need to hear because they look at that list, they get it intellectually but they can’t get pass the fact that numbers 20 and 21 still have to get done and I’m just promising you if you’ll live it even for a short period of time, like you’re talking about. You’re doing your top 3. I learned that from Tim Ferris.

But when you live these priorities, all the other stuff either goes away completely or it gets done without you having to give it a lot of energy. Setting priorities is one of the key time management techniques.

Kamala Chambers

I’m going to back you up here and say this absolutely works. I’m able to get so much done this way. And I know there’s the desire to try to do everything and we pile it all on and people just get burned out.

What do you think passion, desire, and inspiration has to do with this?

See the vision of your life

Jay Papasan

Yes. When someone truly sees the vision for their life, it often evokes this need to be making progress towards it and it can be hungry and impatient especially among entrepreneurs. Many of us are fidgety about it.

The idea of being really active often takes priority over being productive, activity over productivity and what we are trying to get them to do is just start with the big one. Start with those top one, two, or three and what I love about that when we go back to the overwhelm is on those days when I know I’m not done with my priority and I got it done before noon. Because I’ve launched my day with it, I feel kind of righteous the rest of the day. There is this sense of satisfaction that I know that my number one priority got checked off already. And even if I have a bad afternoon, I don’t feel the same way I do as if that’s still hanging over my head at 3 o’clock. And then I get it done right before I get home. Just flipping the conversation to let’s start with the most important thing just released a lot of stress for me.

Luis Congdon

As I’m hearing you two kind of get back and forth here and talk about this one thing and the extreme Pareto, I can’t help but feel the sense like you two are more enlightened that me because I’m the kind of person that has 10 tabs opened on my computer. I flipped back and forth through the different tabs through different tasks and I get this hit of inspiration, “Oh! I got to make this call,” and so I’ll stop what I’m doing in the different tabs. I still need to learn some time management techniques.

I’m curious from you, do you find this sometimes with people, I can’t help but feel the sense of, “Oh my god, this could potentially threaten my way of doing things that feels like it’s being successful but is it really being successful.” Have you found that people like myself who kind of cringe at the idea of trying to shrink down my to-do list so much that then I just feel like, “Oh my god, what about the other things?” I know you touched on this. What is your experience been with all of that?

Jay Papasan

All right. I’m going to give tough first and then I’m going to let you completely off the hook.

Luis Congdon

All right.

Kamala Chambers

Wait, don’t let them off the hook.

Jay Papasan No, but this is coming from your coach, from the person who cares a lot. Most people are really successful in spite of most what they do, applying time management techniques being the one. I think when we look up, we’re kind of aware of all the things we do and we’re unaware of this stuff that we’re doing unconsciously. Like you’re successful, you’re nailing it so you look up and say, “This program can’t be that broke.” And we’re all a little resistant to change but the reality is everybody could be a lot more efficient. We’re not advocating that people become robots. We’re not advocating that they lose that sense of creative wander. I’m a writer. You even described 20 tabs or whatever, I’ve got you beat. I have a browser and it’s just got all these articles opened. When I’m in creative mode, I’m kind of wandering through that. That’s the creative state of mind that’s very important to me but it has its place. We’re just asking people launch your days with priority that’s one of the important time management techniques. So you don’t have to be this way all day. In fact, people can’t sustain it. It’s not sustainable to be that focused all that time. However, when you wake up in the morning, we a have thing called the focusing question. What’s the one thing I can do, just by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary? Kamala is like she has figured that out what are the most important time management techniques. She knows what that is for her. The rest of us have to ask. Sometimes, they have to ask every day. You go to that list. You figure out your 1, your 2, your 3, and you just start there. When you do those things, that’s when I coach people particularly about time management techniques.

The myth of multitasking and implementing time management techniques

Jay Papasan

We have a whole chapter on multitasking. Learning the skill of multitasking is one of the important aspect of time management techniques. I’m not asking you stop multitasking all the time but when you know you’re working on your number one priority, it’s probably a good idea not to have Twitter opened while you’re doing that. Just a small dose of extreme focus has magnificent benefits for the rest of your day. You don’t have to abandon your work style.

Luis Congdon

That’s totally awesome and that question to me is such a beautiful question because one of the things that Kamala and I really focus on is having a lifestyle that has enough freedom so that we can travel the world. We can automate parts of our business while mastering time management techniques. We can connect with people but we also have plenty of time to choose and pick and have what we want in regards to our business, our private life, and our relationship.

I think we are asking that question. When you ask that question, I was like, “That’s a question I love asking myself on a regular basis.”

Jay Papasan

It eliminates a lot. I think that one of the titles we cater around at one point was just clarity that the people who tend to achieve the most in life seem to have the clearest idea of whether going even if it’s just like north. They don’t even know what the destination is but they know they’re supposed to go north.

When you ask yourself a question like the focusing question in respect of learning time management techniques, it really forces you to narrow it down to one thing. It does give you a sense of where your priorities lie and just by that default, that little exercise I role played earlier, by knowing out of all this stuff on your to-do list, that there is 1, 2, 3, even a 4 and a 5. What it lets you know is all this other stuff isn’t as important. You get both of those benefits, the clarity about what isn’t you really should be in your sights and the other stuff that you might be doing for fun. You can also just kind of let it lie.

If you can learn how to focus, you can master time management techniques easily. So there’s just so many benefits to just that little bit of taking a moment and I tell people just get an egg time. I’ve got one on my Chrome. I’ve just got it bookmarked for egg timer. I set a timer for like 3 minutes. I’ll go to my task sheet and say “What is my number 1?” That’s just a little exercise I can do and you don’t take any longer than that to identify your priority to what I always say is most people know what it is but because they don’t stop long enough to ask the question, the just walk around feeling guilty for not addressing it.

Luis Congdon

Another thing that’s just happened that’s really awesome for me here Jay is that I just got coaching. You guys are listening, this is why I encourage people to podcast is because we just got done having a coaching session and I feel more clear about how I want to wake up and do my, “to-do list” because I’m the kind of person that makes this long list with a bunch of boring stuff on there. I’m just like, “That’ll get done the fastest. I’ll do that one first.” However, what you really helped me rewire myself for is what’s the one thing, the two, and the three, what are these one things that I can wake and if I do these, they’re the most leverage for my time and they’re the kinds of things that would potentially eliminate everything else, prioritizing things is really one of the important time management techniques.

Jay Papasan

Yeah, you got it, prioritizing things is one of the time management techniques. That’s the simplest form of the process if you wanted to take it one notch up to make those things. Now you know what your priorities are or priority, ideally. You want to kind of time block it which all it means is make an appointment with yourself to do that every day and I’m betting that you probably do this. There’s probably some rituals to your morning. There are things that you do on a regular basis most days whether it’s just meditating or working out or how you do your breakfast or maybe even just how you fix your coffee, and each of what you do needs some time management techniques.

We interviewed some of the most successful people in the world regarding essential time management techniques. A lot of them made their one thing a ritual. They had a standing appointment. First thing they did in their office or often before they got to it, they were already addressing that thing.

In our research, I could go into the long research but there’s a study in British Journal of Health Psychology, if you just make that appointment in time, just navigate, then you’re going to do the thing you know you have to do, you’re about three times more likely to do it. Just that simple act triples your effectiveness.

Kamala Chambers

Really powerful. I’m wondering, what are some of the biggest stumbling blocks that people come across when they try to implement time management techniques?

Jay Papasan

Okay. So the biggest challenge is first and foremost, to stay willingness while implementing time management techniques. They can intellectually get the 80/20 but if they aren’t willing to be accountable to it, to hand themselves over to it, they’ll often stumble because they’ve maybe blocked off an hour each morning to try to focus on the priorities.

This is going to be my working on the business time or working on myself-time, whatever your priority is, not the other stuff, and then the fire breaks out. Something urgent but unimportant happens. That is probably the moment of truth for a lot of people is they’re going to stumble a few times. They’re going to get distracted and then they’re going to think, “Well, this thing doesn’t really work.”

I encourage folks and in our programs to try restrained together a series of days. Just give it a couple of weeks and see if you don’t start to see results. I mean, really rapidly, but that instinct to go jump on whatever the fire is, an argument or something happens on social media, if you are kind of just shut all of that away just for a few days in a row, you’ll look up at the end of those days and you’ll see the results for what they are. It shows up much faster than people anticipated. So, it’s battling those distractions. That’s got to be the number one thing.

Luis Congdon

This really reminds of the interview that we’re going to be having here shortly withDr. Gay Hendrix and we’re going to be talking with him about his book in his own breakthrough that he wrote about in his book called The Big Leap and inside that book, he’s talking about a very similar thing that you’re talking about and more about time management techniques.

For him, The Big Leap is identifying what your zone of genius is. That one thing that you light up and it has the most leverage for you and your business and finding ways that you can just do that and do less of everything else and it really speaks to the same thing. It’s really fascinating that your book, at a time when we have a lot of tabs open, we’re constantly bombarded with social media, we have our phones, we have friends. Like, most of the things that we’re doing, we’re trying to multitask all the time.

We’re driving, we’re listening to music, we’re on a phone call, we’re listening to the GPS and your book comes out at a time that it seems like everything is pulling us the opposite way and then your book comes and people are really loving it due to amazing time management techniques it offers.

Jay Papasan

Well, thank you for saying that. I think that we’ve identified six lies between people and success, overlooking time management techniques one. That was the convention we used in. The number two was multitasking. And when I give keynotes or when we’re teaching material, it’s probably the one that most universally people are like, “Woah, that’s me”. We’re all guilty of it. It’s the age we live in.

I mean right now, I can’t walk through the park without people bumping into you because they’re playing Pokemon Go when they’re supposed to be walking their dog. So, you’ve gotten this thing going on.

Again, I just say, if you know what your number priority is, can you just take a moment and say, “Can I create a bunker for myself? Is there a place?” I know this is important. This is what your next guest is going to talk about how prioritizing things is important in implementing time management techniques.

If it’s truly your passion, it’s worth making this one investment so that you can do it right. One of the areas that it hit home for me, this implies to every area of your life. I looked at as a working dad, what’s the one thing I can do to make sure that I’m constantly engaging with my kids at these different areas and for many years, I wanted to have bedtime. I wanted to read to them every single night and a kid will teach you, you can’t multitask. You can’t have your phone out and be reading them a book, right?

See, you laugh but it’s so true. Like, we could get it and we will tell our kids to behave this way and when we’re at our best as parents, we behave that way with our kids. But then, we go to work and —

Implementing time management techniques in relationships

Luis Congdon

I can’t multi task with Kamala either. If I try to have a conversation with her and I pull out my phone, she’s like, “Which conversation are you having? The phone or with me? You got to decide” and I’m like, “I’m just responding to someone really quick. I can listen to you.”

Kamala Chambers

I will not talk to anyone if they’re on their phone.

Jay Papasan

God bless you for that, right? I think I have all these intellectual reasons like we really point out. Like, 28% of your day is loss to this ineffectiveness. You lose on average I think 6 to 10 IQ points when you’re multitasking. I can go through all the science on that but the thing that hits home for people was actually a little line at the end of that chapter and you’re hitting on it now.

The things that actually matter the most are our relationships and the people that we love most. When we can’t even give them the respect of our full attention, what is that saying about how we’re going to succeed or fail in those relationships?

So, good for you on calling our friend, Luis on that. I’ve been called on it. My Mets are in the World Series or whatever and I really wanting to have my phone out under the table. I get it but we don’t want to that person in the moments of truth of our life that matter most. And that’s the whole point of this book. You don’t have to be perfect all the time.

Jay Papasan

So I love that you’ve been called on that. We all have. Being aware of it, we don’t always treat our work with that much respect. If it’s our lives work, our life is at risk then just like our relationships would be. That’s what I try to tell people. Give your work that much respect as well.

Luis Congdon

That’s beautiful.

Kamala Chambers

Yeah. And you love it he’s been called on it but he doesn’t like it.

Jay Papasan

I don’t like it when I’ve been called on it but I know it’s good for me. That comes from love, right?

Are multitaskers good at time management techniques?

Kamala Chambers

I have a question that’s kind of a side note here. You were talking about the research behind people’s IQ, getting lower when they’re multitasking and there’s research about women are natural multitaskers. Have you seen anything of the difference between the IQ drops between the sexes? Does it also mean that women are good at adopting time management techniques?

Jay Papasan

No, I haven’t seen it broken out but I know that is largely a myth. I think it was Stephen Colbert who coined the word, “Truthiness,” that may have any relevancy with the time management techniques.

Kamala Chambers

Truthiness?