Optimize Your Day: Mastering Time Management with David Buck

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Make sure you check out the show notes for exclusive masterminds, live events, and workshops. All right, let's go ahead and jump into the show. Welcome back to Grow Your Impact, Income, and Influence, the number one show helping you reach millions. If you are a person who gets stuck in overwhelm or you get to the end of your day and you realize that there are way more things that you need to do that you didn't get done, today's episode is for you.

We are going to be talking about how you optimize time management. My guest has proof that most people waste about 40% of their day being unproductive, not because they intend to, but because that's the way that we are built. He's going to show you how to optimize your life. He's been doing this for over five years, and he helps the average person get three hours or more back per day. David Buck, how are you doing today?

I am doing well, Steve. Thank you so much for having me on. It is my pleasure. I've got all kinds of questions about time productivity because it is something that is challenging. It always seems like there are way more tasks than there are day. Let's get into this though. How did you become an expert in time productivity? Because that is a pretty challenging field.

Well, it goes back to when I first started my career and I have been for most of my corporate life before I started my own business, I was in business development, which is a fancy word for I was a salesperson. And I learned early on very heavy on the sarcasm here that these amazingly stunningly good looks and charisma really weren't going to get me any far in the business world.

And when I found my success fell into the fact that when I was better prepared, then my competition usually got the sale. But then what kept me getting the sale was paying attention to the areas with my clients and myself that I could use my time more effectively. So I made it as easy as possible to do business with me.

That stuck with me. So as I grew in my sales career and started to manage people, I have felt I have been blessed with so many people who have been better pure sales people than me who've reported to me. And where I was able to help them, I found was helping them use their time more efficiently. So they got the administrative stuff out of the way to do what they did successfully and be really, really well at their job. And that stuck with me until I started my own business.

Well, I love that. I love that it comes from a background of sales, but I mean, isn't it, I mean, the administrative stuff is the stuff that I hate doing. I think most salespeople hate doing it. Isn't it more than time management? Isn't it just, they hate doing it. Is this about motivation or is this about giving them a system that they can use?

So it grew from first motivation because I think that defines a lot with what we do about how we're going to approach the use of our time is what motivates us to that.

But then eventually it led to the fact where when I was able to demonstrate through really good scheduling, when you carve out smaller buckets of time for administrative work, it didn't build up so that all of a sudden you're spending half a day having to do the administrative stuff because you haven't been doing it for the entire week. So it really developed into a series of actions and steps that they could take

that would make them more efficient. I love that it is like a clean and simple system. So you actually offer a time management analysis that shows people their strengths and weaknesses and focuses on the one area that they can improve. If you guys want that, it's available in the show notes. You can click down below. Let's talk a little bit about what that looks like. Because I would think most people, it's just as simple as time blocking.

But what I hear you saying is each person kind of has their own thing that they need to work on in order to get the result. Is that correct? Exactly. Once I was, first of all, in corporate job, but then once I started my business, I realized every person has their own distinct challenges. Sure, there's commonalities across the board, but the level of intensity might differ.

And so I did a ton of research on behavioral aspects related to people and their use of time from institutes, think tanks, and people who have a lot more letters after their name than I do. And I found basically what I felt were 20 attributes that are really defined how our use of time is in five distinct categories. And so the assessment evaluates, you answer different scenarios tied to that. And in that it calculates and aggregates out what are my strengths and what are our opportunities?

And that allows them to dive into the specific needs that you have to then begin to optimize your time. Okay. So let's talk about that just a little bit. I want to get into tactics.

What can people use? What are maybe two or three of the archetypes that you see the most often? And then what are the tactics that those people can use? Let's start with the archetypes. Like what kind of people do you see a lot? Yeah, I see. Well, I deal with typically leaders and then the leaders want their team to go through it. And what I usually have to do, the leader likes to exempt themselves from when I work with people in a business setting.

And I'm like, you cannot divorce yourself from that because even if you're a good time manager, you might have bad habits that cascades to the rest of the team. So everyone's got to be involved. But really, the idea behind what we look at is, from an individual and team perspective. Are the top one that comes to top of mind that everyone gets struggles with, the attribute is distractions.

And I define a distraction as taking your focus off of something important and putting it on something less important. The biggest tool that distracts us is our smartphone. We are hugely impacted by that. It is designed for us to consume time on it. It can be immensely productive. I love what things that my smartphone can do, but I also know it can be my Achilles heel if I'm not paying attention.

So we look at those top ones, say distractions, and if a individual or team is struggling with that, then we dive deep into that, to specific behaviors within that attribute that we can work on to help that individual or team overcome those challenges. Okay. So I got a couple of questions about that. I'm big on, I sleep with my phone in the other room. I don't have my phone on my desk during working hours. Like I try all that and I'm pretty good about it. But when I share that with

people, the feedback is, well, I can't live without my phone by me. My kids might need me. My wife might need me. My work might need me. Like I need it. The other thing that I hear, well, let's stay with that one. And then I'll come back to the second one. So I love, first of all, what you do. I use the term quarantine my phone. As a matter of fact, my phone right now is quarantined during this conversation.

So I'm not tempted to see if I see a notification because for me, distractions are my number one challenge as well. And I'm supposed to be the guy who knows how to use his time. In the case of this though, really what I try to tell people is, and what you do is a great system. If they come back to you and say, I can't do that, you know, I need the phone for communication. I'm afraid to miss something. Start small.

Say, okay, what happens if you quarantine your phone for 30 minutes, particularly when you're working on something or you go, you're going to a meeting at work. Don't bring your phone, sit in the meeting for the entire hour, which you're supposed to probably be devoting that focus anyways, and see what it's like to go through a period of time without your phone. And you'll begin to learn and understand that there are emergencies in life. Absolutely.

But those emergencies are pretty far and few between. And if somebody really needs to get a hold of you, they're going to do what they need to do to do that, whether it's find somebody else to come find you or whatever, but start small. And I think you'll find, you'll have amazing chunks of time you pick up.

I would agree okay so the second one which is something that i saw on your list and i it i don't believe anyone can multitask well but i've met people who insist on doing something on their phone listening to something at the same time and maybe watching something right like they're they're trying to do two or three things at once and i've there are two people two different like camps here there's one who always tries to do two things like they might be listening to a meeting while

reading an article, right? They're trying to consume two things at once. There are other people that I've met that want to consume one thing, but they always have to be playing a game on their phone or scrolling social. And I think they're more looking for the dopamine hit. I would love your thoughts on both of those. And how do you get people out of it?

So first of all, I am not a fan of multitasking. I don't believe we can. The research I have done, again, from people a lot smarter than me, really our brains are wired to do one thing at a time. However, I will kind of give in the situation to say, if you feel you want to multitask, you brought it up. If you're going to be doing lower level activities. So for example, yes, I fold laundry. I will fold laundry while listening to a podcast.

I'm doing, you could say I'm multitasking. The reason why it's a very repetitive behavior on the folding the laundry. It's not something that if I don't fold the shirt right, the world's not going to end. If it's a little wrinkled, I can solve that problem, but I can then garner. But I also understand I'm not giving that podcast 100%. And if something tickles my fancy and I'm like, oh, I need to learn more about that. I will stop the first activity to do that.

And the second element, if people are kind of like, well, I really like to multitask to be productive, then I'm like, then embrace the concept of micro-tasking. Acknowledge that you cannot do two things well at one time, like being in a meeting and looking at email, you're not engaged.

But if you simply acknowledge that says, I'm going to spend the next 30 seconds to a minute responding to this email in a point during the presentation or meeting that's not relevant to me, Then i'm going to do that and then I will switch back a micro task back my full attention To the meeting at hand to do that. That's risky though, particularly if you're in a meeting with a client or your boss, that look might not be that well.

But those are two instances where, okay, if you're going to do it, approach it that way. Well, how do you, so my question would be, I love the microtasking idea. I love the thought of it. But what I think happens to most people is they go down a rabbit hole, right? Well, I'm just going to check one email. Well, then before you know it, they've clicked on a link, they've gone through

another thing and they're on social media, right? Or they're, oh, I'm just going to look at the post that I made and reply to comments. And then they're down the rabbit hole of social media. How do you suggest people put up a wall to stop them from over-consuming if they're doing the micro task? So if you are an over-consumer of social media and you find yourself like, golly, I just can't help myself. Own that, but own it with structure.

So say to yourself, I am only going to check social media for 10 minutes, three times a day and put it on your calendar as an event. And then when you start, start a timer that says, I got 10 minutes to do this. And then once the timer goes off, I have to stop. So you've scratched the itch, but you haven't given yourself a rash because you keep scratching it forever. So if you need to own it.

But the other area then is then try to limit. And if you do three hours a day, then say, I'm only going to do two hours and you put structure around that. But then you reward yourself by tracking what you've done instead of that social media time. What did you accomplish during that timeframe? And it can be simply so self-positively affirming that you realize, you know what, I want to do this other stuff besides consume social media time.

So I love the thought, but I'm going to like people that are addicted to social media, which is probably 80 or 90% of our population. How do you get them off? Because it really is a dopamine rush. Like really, that's what they're dealing with. How much time do you think most people waste on social media today? We'll get back to the show in just a second. Now, we know that you become the

sum of the people that you surround yourself with. Are you looking for a great group of people that will take you and your business to the next level? Make sure to check out the show notes for access to our exclusive 12-person mastermind and workshops. All right, let's go ahead and jump back into the show. So the data I've looked at is about two and a half to three hours a day. The average person is on a screen that is not tied to what they should be doing at that point.

And so social media is probably about two thirds of that, but that could be doing other areas, you know, looking to shop on Amazon, doing other things that aren't productive. And so I try to tell people that's, you know, out of an eight hour workday and also employers, I try to tell them that's a huge amount of time during the workday that's unproductive work.

And so instead of being the taskmaster, cracking the whip, you've got to establish an environment if you're a leader that gives them benefits to staying focused on work. And if you're struggling yourself, again, I go back to the incrementalism. Start small and then work into it. But again, be mindful of what you did in lieu of that social media review or consumption. What did you accomplish in place of that? but brought more value into your life.

Got it. Okay. So I want to switch gears a little bit. We'll get away from social media and kind of like that time management piece. Where do you think most people go off the rails when it comes to time management? Because I'm like most people, although I am good with my phone and I feel like I am good at not multitasking, I get to the end of my day and I have a to-do list that has more things on it than it did at the start of the day.

So how do people manage their time better? Do you have a framework? I've seen like the urgent and important and like you do the four square and you try to pick the things that work there. That didn't work for me because I still ended up with more things that needed done right now. How do you help people prioritize what needs done when it comes to time management? Yeah, what you just mentioned there is a time management technique called the Eisenhower matrix, which I struggle with that too.

Particularly, Again, if you either have a job that has a lot of demands or people need you or you're a solopreneur or an entrepreneur, the Eisenhower matrix can be very difficult because the prioritization can change at a moment's notice. But given that, what I try to tell people is that the cadence that I use and I coach clients is you need to, first of all, you mentioned at the end of your day, you need to evaluate how you did for what you planned that day.

And for me, that requires you got to plan every hour of every day. Doesn't mean that's going to be how it is, but you are setting yourself to proactively address and either not do something new that comes in or negotiate that time if someone important comes to you. So at the end of the day, you evaluate, how did I do? And then you establish priorities for the next day.

The apps, if you've got 10 things to do, but only two of them are critical, then you put in time in your calendar to do those two critical things and you release yourself from the other eight. If you get to them, great. Now they may become a priority later. Okay, but then you then establish that you go to bed, you wake up in the morning and you check yourself again because we live in a digital world. I have international customers myself and what I plan for the next day could be reprioritized.

They could help clarify my thoughts as I wake up in the morning, but you do that check one more time, make any adjustments there, go through the day, and then you do it again that evening. And you set that up as a cadence so that by the end of the week, you might say, I had a hundred tasks planned. I only got 15 done, but I got the 15 done. I had to get done. I can figure out how to do the other 85 because they're lower level ones.

Got it. Is there a framework that you use? So like the urgent and important framework, the idea is that you're just working on things that are both urgent and important. The problem is that everything, like when I try to grade things, everything goes in that bucket. Is there a way that you pick the most important things? Yeah, I pick the most important things first by the level. Obvious, depending if it's a client for me, that usually becomes a priority one.

But it's also the amount of time I think it's going to need to get done. Now, some people might say, I've got this important thing that's only going to take a few minutes. I'm going to be like, then is that really that important if it's only going to take you a few minutes? Usually important things require dedicated focused time where you're not distracted and you can give it your all.

And that to me is where it needs to be formal on your calendar and you need to challenge anyone or anything that comes to interrupt that time because you want to stay focused. And then once you know you do those again, the sense of accomplishment from that really motivates you. And then you find, wow, I actually have a little bit more time to do some of those lower level tasks.

And you begin to emotionally reward yourself instead of you're saying, wow, this was a, it defines you being busy versus productive. So many people say I'm busy. And they're not getting a lot done. Yeah. So it turns that over to, I'm being productive.

Okay. So I want to go back to what you said about like being protective of your time and saying no to things. Cause I think when I first got started in business, I remember reading an article, it was by Tim Ferriss, where he said like the power of no was the most important thing. Saying no to anything that didn't hit, like fit in your, in your timeframe and like into your important tasks. But then I also read articles that were like, say yes to everything until you're

successful. then say no. I'm now at the point where I should be saying no to a lot more things. My girlfriend and I talk about this a lot because I will say no, but then you get the guilt trips or you get the, but, but don't you want to go have fun? I enjoy work. So fun to me is part of what I do. But the challenge is how do you say no to things like people that don't have good boundaries? How do you help people start to formulate saying no to people?

Because I can see My girlfriend would have a hard time being like, well, my kid wants to go play or, you know, this, I need to go hang out with my girlfriends for a little bit. How do you help people start to put healthy boundaries in place? So you learn to say no without actually using the word no. And so for me, I do, and this may sound weird, but I do what I call a scale question. So if someone comes to me and says, Dave, I need your time. I need it right

now. It's really important. And this could be even a client. I will simply say on a scale of zero to 10, zero meaning there's no challenges whatsoever. 10, it's a zombie apocalypse. Where's the level of importance there? Two things happen there. First of all, you make it fun. So whatever you want to make it a fun question. And it also stops them for a minute because they're hyper-focused. They're like, I've got this need and Steve can solve this need for me.

What it stops for a second to say is I'm hyper-focused, but do I really need to be? So it stops them for a second and makes them come back to you with the level of importance. And every time I've done that, when you use something crazy like that, it's always a five or below. And then at that point, it said, okay, so since this is a five or below or whatever it is, let's negotiate a time that works well for both of us.

And as I look at my calendar tomorrow at three, whatever dates, fine, let's pick that time that works best for both of us. If it's a high priority and they give you, hey, you know what? It's an eight. The zombies are knocking at the door. Then you say, okay, help me under, then you start a series of questions. Help me understand why this is an eight and it's so important to you.

And as you unpeel those questions, usually in four or five questions, you get to understand whether or not I really need to give my time of this, or you've given them advice to put them at a bay, to stiff arm them a little bit, to then negotiate a future time. All right, good. I like that. I like that framework. So I want to now pivot kind of into like, I've heard all the different time management tools, right? I've said, I've heard use like a day planner.

I've heard use Google calendar. I've heard, you know, use a Pomodoro timer, 20 minute blocks for everything.

What do you think? I mean, you're the expert here. What do you think is complete trash that people should stop touting as advice? What do you think people maybe say that they shouldn't say? So many people chase, and there are wonderful tools out there, but they chase after the shiny object. You know, oh, this project management software, it does all this stuff for me. I feel that you need, it's almost if you manage your time well, those become additional benefits.

I ask people to start at the basics. If you are a paper planner i prefer electronic but i'm like then you need to use that to its fullest capacity because most people whatever tool they use they aren't using it to its full capacity so i am a fan of a calendar and a task list simply start there and if you on electronic calendar, whether it's Google, Apple. Microsoft, whatever it is, plan all your time out. And I like to do it at two weeks in advance.

It's wet cement. You build a foundation. It hasn't solidified yet and it won't, but at least you're in a position to proactively navigate through that. And then you integrate your important tasks into your time. As we talked about earlier, those are the only two tools. I don't have any fancy tools that I recommend in my book. I just simply am. Here you go. Use these two to your fullest ability, and you will find that you're using your time better.

Okay. So calendar and task list, what happens with the, like, it's been called the whirlwind, right? It's what's happening today. Like I go into my day, I've got my day planned out. It all looks nice on my calendar. And then by noon, I've got, you know, Susan comes in with 15 things that I need to do. I get messaged in Slack. I've got some emails coming in and I've got a client who says, Hey, this is really urgent.

How do you manage that stuff versus the stuff that is pre-programmed into your calendar? So to start out with, that becomes a challenge because all of a sudden you're like, Hey, great. I like what Dave said. I'm going to go ahead and plan it out.

And then you're right that all the inner, uh, immediate stuff comes at you. It begins, first of all, with you proactively declaring, I have allocated my time for this. You start to negotiate. You use no without no. Then also you become proactive. So you start to tell key stakeholders, particularly those who might need your time. Hey, listen, I am planning more of trying to plan more effectively.

So I might challenge back. And then in the case of clients, one thing that you can do is either tell them, these are my availabilities, like I have open office hours during this time, or you can use, I should say a CRM, I think is an important element. I probably neglected that, particularly for those of us in business. But if you use any type of calendar system, which allows you to dictate when you are available and proactively send those links out, that again is another

way. But the idea is once you start and begin to proactively communicate, then people understand. I got to ask for permission probably before I try to want to use this time. Awesome. I like it a lot. So you have, again, the time management analysis is on your website. If you guys have been listening to this and you're like, I would love to have my time blocks in place. I would love to figure out how to do this.

It all starts with that time block analysis. You can click the links in the show notes to go check that out. Dave, did I miss anything that is super important when it comes to time blocking? One last tip is I would say patience. We all want immediate gratification. And so if it is something important that you have in your life, something that you're going to work on, figure out how much time you think it's going to take and then add at least 50% on top of it.

Because anything good I found in life takes longer than anticipated. And if you get it done sooner, yay, you got found time to figure out to do something. I absolutely love that advice because I agree. I'm an optimist. So I look at something, I'm like, I'll get that done in 30 minutes. Three hours later, it's still getting done. And if you start to plan based on that, your schedule becomes a whole lot better.

So I love that. Dave, I want to say thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wealth of knowledge around time management.

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