Your Time, Your Way Podcast Por Carl Pullein arte de portada

Your Time, Your Way

Your Time, Your Way

De: Carl Pullein
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Showing you ways to get control of your time through tested techniques that will give you more time to do the things you want to do.Copyright 2024 Carl Pullein International. All rights reserved. Desarrollo Personal Economía Gestión Gestión y Liderazgo Éxito Personal
Episodios
  • How To Stay Focused on Your Day

    How To Stay Focused on Your Day
    Mar 1 2026
    Steve Jobs once said, “Deciding what NOT to do is as important as deciding what TO do”, and that quote has been, and still is, a cornerstone of my whole time management and productivity philosophy. Today, I answer a question about dealing with all the little things that pop up each day while staying focused on what is important. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin The Ultimate Productivity Workshop The Hybrid Productivity Course Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 406 Hello, and welcome to the real episode 406 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. (Apologies for the incorrect numbering last week) A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. What happens when your productivity system collapses? Do you go looking for new apps, or do you give up and just think you’re not the organised type or lack self-discipline? People react in many different ways when their systems become backlogged and overwhelmed, yet this is a state that will happen to all of us from time to time. Life has a bad habit of getting in the way. It throws up all sorts of problems to test us. No one week or even a day will ever be the same. Only five minutes ago, my plan to take Louis out for our walk at 2:00 pm was changed by my wife asking if we could go at 12:30. That way, I could pick her up from her dance class and then go to the reservoir for his walk. And that was a small change. These little things are hitting us every day and disrupting our systems, yet that doesn’t mean our systems are broken. It just means we need to ensure that we have sufficient buffer and flexibility built in. This week’s question is all about what to do when, for whatever reason, your system begins to collapse, and you have backlogs of work, emails, messages and commitments, and you have no idea how to regain control. Now, before I hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice, just a heads up to say if you are considering joining next week’s Ultimate Productivity Workshop, there are only seven days left before the first session. The workbook will be going out next week, and I would love for you to join me. This is your opportunity to get to grips with the COD and Time Sector Systems, where you can ask questions and come away with not only the knowledge, but with a rock solid system that is flexible, automatic and leaves you with enough time for the things you want to do. PLUS, you also get, for free, four of my courses to help you go deeper in your own time. I will put the details in the show notes, and I hope to see you next Sunday. Now, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Nick. Nick asks, “ Hi Carl, all my professional life I have tried to be organised and focused, but every time I feel I have found the solution, something happens either at work or at home that destroys my plans. How do you suggest someone go about dealing with disruptions all the time? Great question, Nick, and thank you for sending it in. Much of what causes us these issues has little to do with our systems. It’s just life getting in the way. Yet, what we are aiming to do is turn managing our time into a routine. Something we just do. For instance, I would feel uncomfortable going to bed not knowing what my appointments and important tasks are for the next day. It doesn’t take long—five minutes tops —but most days it’s likely less than two minutes. This is why I cannot get my head around it when people tell me they are too exhausted to plan the next day. It’s no more than five minutes! You only need to know when and where your appointments are and what your one or two most important tasks are. It takes a minuscule amount of energy to do it. Those two minutes have a profound effect on my day. Last night, I went to bed knowing that I had six hours of meetings today and one critical task to do. I knew if I was diligent, I would be able to complete my meetings and that one task. The fact that my wife has already changed my plan has not caused me to drop the task. My original plan to do it after my morning calls finished has changed. I will now do it when I get back from taking Louis for his walk. What matters is that when I finish today, I can look back knowing I have what matters done. This all begins with respecting the basics. Those basics are contained in COD. Collect, Organise and Do. You need a way to collect everything that comes your way throughout the day. This needs to be something you trust. That could be a task manager or a daybook (a ...
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    14 m
  • How to Get Control of Your Priorities

    How to Get Control of Your Priorities
    Feb 22 2026
    “If everything’s important, then nothing is important”. You’ve probably heard that many times. Yet, are you guilty of ignoring it? In today’s episode, I share with you a few ideas on how to best prioritise your days. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Fac ebook | Website | Linkedin The Ultimate Productivity Workshop The Hybrid Productivity Course Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 405 Hello, and welcome to the real episode 405 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. (Apologies for the incorrect numbering last week) A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. How many overdue flagged tasks do you have in your task manager? If you’re like most people, you will have quite a few. The question is: why are they overdue? You made a conscious decision that these tasks were important, but then did not do them when you wanted to do them. This is something I struggled with for years. I would add flags to anything I felt was important, then completely ignore them throughout my day. It wasn’t until I realised I was making a mistake and diminishing the power that flags give me, that I changed my approach. Over the last few weeks, I’ve seen this coming up in a lot of my coaching sessions, where I notice overdue flagged tasks cluttering things up and becoming a distraction to the user. The other issue here is that overdue flagged tasks cause an increase in anxiety. You flagged them because they were important or urgent, and now you have a long list of such tasks. Where do you start to get them under control? Now, before I hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question, if you’ve been waiting for the 2026 Ultimate Productivity Workshop, then the wait’s over. Coming on the 8th and 15th of March, join me live for a festival of productivity. Featuring the COD foundation, the Time Sector System, and how to get on top of your backlogs and so much more, including the DPS (daily Planning Sequence and the WPM (weekly Planning Matrix). Places are limited, so get yourself registered today. Full details are in the show notes. And now it’s time to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice. This week’s question comes from Caroline. Caroline asks, “ Hi Carl, I’ve recently cleaned up my Todoist, and as I was doing so, I found a lot of flagged tasks that I had ignored. These are important tasks, and I don’t want to remove the flag. But it’s become so overwhelming. What’s the best way to use flags, in your opinion? Hi Caroline, thank you for your question. As a Todoist user, you have many options for your flags. There are technically four flags. P1 (red), P2 (orange), P3 (blue) and P4 (white). The P4 flag isn’t really a flag, since all tasks default to it. With these flags, there are many ways you can organise them. However, you do need one of them to be your priority flag. When I say “priority flag,” this is the one you use when a task absolutely must be done on the day it was assigned. Logically, you would use the P1 red flag for that. Now, this is where many people go wrong. It’s very tempting to add a flag to a task long before it is due. The feeling is that if the task is important, it will still be important on the day you plan to do it. Not true. Priorities change. You plan to finish a proposal for your most important client on Thursday, but that morning, your daughter has a serious asthma attack, and you are now in the emergency room of your local hospital. Where’s your priority now? Okay, I know that example is a little extreme, but those things happen. Priorities also change throughout the week. That important client may tell you the proposal is on hold for a few months, so there is no urgency. But new priorities will come along, don’t you worry. This is why adding your flags should be done at a daily planning level. Now I will caveat that. There are times when I know something will be the priority for the day. The script for this podcast, for instance, is today’s priority. I knew that when I planned the week, and I flagged it. It doesn’t matter what other things pop up through the week; when it comes to writing this script, it’s the priority for the day. Your core work will always be a priority. This is why I have people spend time working out what their core work is. After all, your core work is the reason you are employed. If you didn’t do your core work consistently, you would not have a job for very long. Even retired people need to consider what their core activities will be each day. I’m reminded of this following a ...
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    17 m
  • Why Hybrid Productivity Systems are the Most Effective Systems

    Why Hybrid Productivity Systems are the Most Effective Systems
    Feb 14 2026
    Podcast 405 "Pen and paper will solve almost anything. Or at least start the process." - Nicholas Bate This week, I have a special episode for you about what I have discovered over the last two years from bringing pens and paper back into my productivity system. It’s certainly been an eye-opener for me. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Fac ebook | Website | Linkedin The Hybrid Productivity Course Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 405 Hello, and welcome to episode 405 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. A week ago, I launched a brand new course called the Hybrid Productivity Course. The purpose of this course was to help those who have found that a digital-only approach has led to a loss of focus on what’s important and a sense of extreme overwhelm and distraction. As in most areas of life, a one-size-fits-all methodology rarely works. All humans are unique. We think differently, have different life experiences, grow up differently and experience life through many different cultures. It stands to reason that none of us will have exactly the same needs as everyone else. We saw this during the pandemic. Around 50% of people loved working from home. They thrived and became much more productive. The other 50% struggled, found it hard to do their work, and lost their enthusiasm and energy for it. This highlighted the difference between extroverts and introverts. Extroverts bounce off the energy of other people. They need the bustling office environment to operate. Take that away, and they slump. Introverts, on the other hand, thrive in the opposite conditions. Quiet spaces and solo environments are where they thrive. I always struggled in an office environment. I found it difficult to concentrate and focus. When I began working from home in 2015, my productivity went through the roof. I suddenly had the freedom to work when I liked, where I liked and in the quiet solitude of my front living room. One advantage of an all-digital system is that you can easily add many features to your digital tools without much thought. I noticed this while testing Todoist’s new feature, Ramble. Ramble lets you have a conversation with Todoist, and it pulls out all the things you indicate need to be done. Sounds great in theory, until you test it out. Just a two-minute “conversation” with Ramble led to 15 tasks! When I went back into my inbox to sort them out, I realised that the majority of those tasks were low-value, would-be-nice-to-do tasks, but realistically, there was no way I would have the time to do them. I edited down that list of 15 to 6 tasks. The problem is that most people will not edit these lists. It’s time-consuming, and you have to think it through. Two things that are out of fashion these days, it seems. This is where I found bringing a pen and notebook back into my system really helped. It forced me to edit down my list of tasks for the day. It also made me smarter when writing my lists. If I had five people to call today, in the digital system, I would write out all five calls independently. It didn’t take long, and most of those would already be in the digital system. All I had to do was add a date. In a paper system, it would mean writing out all those calls individually. You soon find that rather than doing that, you would write “do my calls”. Writing those three words strangely reinforced the action. All you then needed to do was to ensure that any communication tasks were correctly labelled in your digital system. This is where the seeds of a hybrid system began to take shape. If it were easier to collect using digital tools, then why stop doing it that way? If you were more focused when writing out a daily to-do list than using a digital to-do list, why stop doing that? My idea was to marry the two. This led to the development of what I call my Day Book. However, before I got there, I went back to my roots and used the Franklin Planner for eighteen months. The strength of the Franklin Planner is in the way the daily pages are laid out. You have your daily prioritised task list on the left, your calendar for the day next to it, and, on the right page, a place to keep notes and ideas. This means that once you have written your appointments, you can see how much time you have available to do tasks. It forces you to be realistic. If you had seven hours of meetings and began writing out a long list of tasks, you would instantly see that you were creating an impossible day. If you were to consider meeting overruns, the...
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    15 m
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