Task Management & Time Blocking Podcast

Ep 22 - Task Management as a Non-Traditional Student

So you’re a career person who has a family…..AND you want to return to school. But in your mind you can’t see how to  reconcile the image you have of student life with your current obligations. After all, you have a job, a family, a commitment to your wellbeing, a spiritual life, friends, you belong to a community…all these things are not on the typical college students’ agenda.
In fact, most students seem to put these things on hold…on ice…while they focus everything on their studies. You cannot do that, to say the least.
Is there a way to have it all? You do know that people have done this before…you’re not the first. So there must be a way that can increase your odds of success. 
But what are they?
Tune into this episode to hear from me and my special guest, Emily Cordwell, as we solve this challenging problem together.
 
 

Ep 21 - Bad Memory? Or Just Not Strong Enough at Capturing?

You have noticed that as you make more promises to people to get things done, the risk of not delivering goes up. Sometimes, the fact that you made the commitment falls through the cracks…as if it were never made.
Over time, this reduces your effectiveness and your reputation for getting things done. People start to avoid you, seeking out others who are more reliable.
You want to intervene before this gets worse, but just trying harder to remember may not be enough. You want a real solution such that you manually capture new tasks flawlessly, regardless of the circumstances. You want to be someone who never forgets to complete a commitment.
Where can you start to create that kind of track record when it comes to your task management?
Join me on this solo episode as we explore this challenge that affects all knowledge workers.
 

Ep 20 - Beyond One-Size-Fits-All Failure

When it comes to task management, you know that one size doesn’t fit all. AND You are someone who has increased your workflow over the years - more tasks than ever, and a future of more task management, not less. At the moment your current approach works BUT…you suspect that it may run into problems as you add that project/child/hobby/elder-care/sport/travel/promotion/continuing education/high schooling-to-college-to-marriage to kids…
How do you adjust your approach when you realize that you need to change your methods as task volume increases…and you can only see a future or more tasks? Knowing that this is a problem isn’t enough - you want more.
Tune into this episode to hear from me and my special guest, Dr. Frank Buck, as we solve this challenging problem together.

Ep 19 - What Makes Email So HARD to Fix?

Like everyone else who does knowledge work, you receive a lot of emails - more than you’d like. You have harbored dreams of a world in which you could escape this hated chore, but over here in reality, there seems to be no way to alleviate the pain. Or is there?
Some people suggest that you simply ignore most of your email. Others say that you need to empty your inbox and even keep it that way all the time. In practice, most people spend more mornings, nights and weekends catching up on email than they care to admit. During the day, they prefer to do what they call “real” work. Not the fake work of reading and replying to email.
In this solo episode, I’ll be sharing my thoughts about this problem and explore new thinking that can help us make some headway.

Ep 18 - Should We Design Peak Moments of Happiness?

COVID disrupted many of our regular routines, some of which have not recovered. In particular, if you work from home, you may notice that seeing the same people every day and working in the same space is quite convenient. But it’s also predictable - in the bad way. Many of us have lost a certain thrill that comes from being in close proximity to others and the surprises which go with it. They don’t invite us out as often, and we don’t meet up as frequently…outside of Zoom.
In a way, we don’t have as many new things to look forward to. Not surprisingly, this has an impact on our daily happiness. Having something – anything – to look forward to has an impact on our happiness.
Is there a sustainable solution to this dilemma?
I’m Francis Wade and join me and our special guest, Laura Vanderkam as we tackle this challenge.

Ep 17 - Controversy. Can You Ever Stop Using Contexts for Your Tasks?

You have tried using contexts for your tasks in the past, perhaps following the advice of GTD. The idea was a sound one, and made a positive contribution. But as time went on, the technique seemed to lose its potency. The question is “Why?”
And did this experience imply that you needed to stop using them altogether? This may not make sense, because when you applied contexts to a raw list of todos, it made things better. So is the idea a bad one?
In this solo episode we take a deep dive into the research behind contexts done by 2Time Labs. I’ll share my latest thinking which shows why contexts are unavoidable, and why you need to move way past the ones suggested by Getting Things Done published in 2001.

Ep 16 - Is Motion the Latest, Greatest Auto-Scheduler?

If you're interested in using online calendars you may have seen ads for the auto-scheduler called Motion. You have probably wondered what it might be like to use it, but you don’t have the time or bandwidth for a proper test.
In this episode with Dr. Melanie Wilson we share the results of our actual firsthand tests for you. We both have spent years using auto-schedulers so we have a few insights you won’t hear elsewhere. Tune in to find out what we discovered and you could save some time, stress and even money.
Clarification - In this episode we stated the Motion does not have time maps, a SkedPal invention. It doesn't, but their version is similar in functionality - just not as robust.

Ep 15 - Is it Harder to Fix Your Car Than Your Task Management System?

You want to make improvements to your system of task management. You want to intervene at just the right place to have a positive overall effect, but you don’t know where to start.
You already understand that you use a system to manage your tasks from the moments of creation to the point where they are completed. Some people say that making changes is easy, but you’re not so sure. The system you use is full of idiosyncrasies - those places where you do things your way…different from anyone else.
How do you use this knowledge to make the right improvements? Can you make things worse by tinkering in the wrong place? Is it anything like trying to fix a car or an appliance where the wrong intervention can make things go terribly wrong?
In this solo episode, I’ll be sharing my thoughts about this problem and where we need to take ourselves so that the confusion disappears.

Ep 14 - Fixing Problems with Time Blocking w Mike Vardy

You’re a time blocker to some degree. This means you put tasks in your calendar…Not just appointments with people which can’t easily be changed, but solo time you commit to doing a particular task.
In other words, you make a promise to yourself that non-one else knows about to do something at a particular time and place.
It’s an easy concept to explain, But…most people who seem to start the practice have a rough time taking it to the level they want. Once they get past the beginner stage, when they are experimenting with a few tasks they want more.
And for a while, they schedule more tasks…and more…and more. Until they have too many and their time blocking becomes a problem. It should be easy, they think, but it’s not.
What are some of the best solutions available?
Tune into this episode to hear from me and my special guest, Mike Vardy, as we solve this challenging problem together.
 
Henry Cloud - Necessary Endings
Stack Method - Prasanth Nair
Stop doing productive.Start BEING productive. (productivityist.com)

Ep 13 - How to Arm Yourself with Great Personal Alarms

You use lots of apps on a range of devices. Many of them have built-in notifications which are jostling for your attention. But if you leave them all on, you end up with a mess -  a cacophony of alerts which do more bad than good.
What do you really want? To orchestrate them somehow into a perfect symphony that interrupts you at just the right moment, with the right degree of force.
Is that too much to ask for? In this solo episode, we’ll go past the work we did on Episode 11 which focused on the principles of skillful interrupting and look at the practical actions we must take to retain our sanity.