← The How To Podcast Series - Podcast Co-Hosts, Practical Podcast Tips, and Podcast Community
The How To Podcast Series - Podcast Co-Hosts, Practical Podcast Tips, and Podcast Community
E655 - How Time Blocking Beats To-Do Lists - Podcast Lessons applied from Do It Today by Darius Foroux
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Okay, we're rolling. Hey, welcome back to the how to Podcast series. It's Dave with you. Hope you're doing well. We are looking at a book called do it Today, and we are reviewing it in the context of podcasting. It's not really a podcasting book, but it does have some great things that can really help us as creators to stay on track, to find our motivation to be accountable to ourselves, to find a buddy. There's a lot of great information in this book, so I'm just taking out five parts of the book to talk about, but there's a lot more. So there's a link in the show notes to go grab a copy for yourself. When I find these resources, I think of you and I think, how can we. How can we make ourselves better as podcasters with all these great authors and resources and tools and all kinds of different things? So whenever I find it, I bring it to you, and I'm encouraging you to go deeper on your own and maybe use this as a starting point. So the last. Over these last five episodes, this episode and the next one, we have been breaking down five key points from the book. There's more things in there over and above what we're talking about. But this is. This kind of relates to us in podcasting. So I'm glad you're here. Go grab a copy of the book link in the show notes. Are you ready? We're gonna talk about time blocking and how it beats to do lists. Let's talk about it. Here we go. The question I get from people when I come across them and they say, dave, how in the world are you doing this much content across multiple shows while working, while being a grandfather, caring for two of your grandkids during the week? Like, how. When do you sleep? Like, what are you doing? How are you doing this? Can you unpack for me your. How you organize yourself? And I'm finding that there are people who. Who know how to do things, and there's people who know how to tell people how to do things. Okay, here's a. Here's a parallel in music. Eddie Van Halen, guitar player for Van Halen, right? Eddie, who's sadly gone now. Eddie was a terrible guitar teacher because in his mind, he just. The guitar and him were one. So to have him sit down and teach you chords or scales or any, he would just like, hey, try this. And he would just go do all of his things, right? And people were like, I can't do that. And in his mind, everyone could, because it's Just that's how he played guitar. It was an extension of him. Terrible teacher, but super effective. And people were like, trying to figure out his, his way of playing and how he approached his instrument and tried to, to deconstruct what he does, to figure out how they could do it. But some people just do it. Some people can do it and teach it. Some people can only teach it, but never have done it. There's a lot of different approaches. I'm kind of in the camp of I just do it and I don't understand how to break it down. Always in, in things that could help you. But that doesn't mean that I can't come across ways like in this book where it talks about time blocking. Now, I don't use time blocking personally, but just because I don't use it doesn't mean that I can't kind of put it in front of you through this book as a resource to expand on it further, to encourage you to think, hey, maybe time blocking would work for me personally. For me, it doesn't work because I just, I have these windows of time. I just try to be as creative and efficient as possible within the limited time frame I have. But I don't have a formalized plan that I can give to you because I don't even have one for myself. So I think that's why coming into this resource and realizing, A, I don't do things the same way as everybody else does, and B, where I don't have the, the plan in place, I lean on other people who do. So that's why this book is here for you. And I'm encouraging you to go grab a copy of do it today. So again, link is in the show notes. So we're going to talk about time blocking versus to do lists here on the show. So if you've ever felt like your to do list is a, straight up, it's straight up mocking you. Like, you're mocking me, aren't you? Like, script the episode, reach out to guests, edit last week's show. All these things, right? They're just looming over you like a cloud. Like, for me, yes, I have a lot of things going on, but I don't have, I don't even have a to do list. Okay. I guess my email inbox is a to do list because once I'm done something, I file it away. So anything that's in my unread or in my inbox is something I haven't dealt with yet. So that's kind of a to do list, but I don't actually have a. A whiteboard. I don't have a notion thing, whatever those things are. I don't have any of those things because my mind doesn't work like that. My mind works on what's present, what's pressing. What can I do now? What can I do with the time I have? That's what's most important to me. So all of this stuff is just spinning in my head. Is it a great thing for me? It works. It probably won't work for you at all, but there's this whole thing about should I use time blocking or should I use to do lists? I'm not sure what your your plan is, how you do it. Love to hear from you at how to Podcast. There's a Speak pipe link and that'll connect you to me and I can hear your thoughts. And you have up to five minutes of recording time. So record your thoughts. How do you approach staying organized to do list time blocking or just wing it like me? I'd love to Hear your thoughts. HowToPodcast CA so what is time blocking? Okay, so I'm researching this at the same time as I'm talking to you. So time blocking is a productivity method that involves scheduling every minute of your day into dedicated thematic blocks on a calendar. Rather than working from a generic to do list, it is some important things about time blocking and how to do it. Prioritize your tasks, identify high priority tasks and estimate the time required for each. Create blocks and assign specific time slots on a calendar like Google Calendar. What I use for task meetings, breaks and personal time. And then you group your tasks together. We call it batching in podcasting. Grouping similar tasks together, answering all your emails at once, making all your calls at once. It helps you to reduce mental fatigue and helps you from switching from one task to a different task, which might require you to use a different part of your brain or a different part of your skill set. Do the things that make sense together in clumps. I like that part. So batching your stuff and include some buffer time, that's one thing I don't think a lot of people like me do is we don't have a lot of buffer time. I find myself sitting at my desk for extended periods of time and I look at the clock and go, wow, that was. That went by fast. So give yourself some buffer time. Put some breaks in your calendar so you don't go meeting to meeting to meeting. There's a break for you to get up, stretch your legs, do a Change in your body liquids, if you know what I mean. But do all that and include some buffer time and then review and adapt is also really important in time blocking. Review your daily plan or your weekly plan and then adjust it as needed. Just because it's written down doesn't mean you have to do that that way forever. There's some variations on this as well. There's time boxing, setting a fixed time limit to work on a specific task to prevent overworking. So if you find yourself hyper fixated on something, give yourself a a clock that counts down and when the bell goes off, you're done. You might not be done the task, but you're done working on that. You need to get up and do something else. So time boxing and then day theming as well, assigning a specific theme to each day. So every Monday is meeting notes and blog posts, and then every Tuesday is interviews, and then every Wednesday is social media that might help you as well. So putting these together, this can really help you as a podcaster. And if it's effectively used, time blocking turns your calendar into a blueprint for your day. So there you go. Some ideas around what the heck even time blocking is from a guy who actually doesn't even use it. But I think you might benefit from that. So there you go. So again, it's really interesting when people ask me how I do this and how I stay organized and I, I don't have a good solid answer for them and they just look at me like, how's that even possible? Like, because our minds work different, our approaches work different and we just have to understand that it's not a one size fits all. And you need to understand yourself before you can be understand the next best possible way to keep yourself organized, to keep yourself on task. So think about that, okay? Because you, as you work through your show, you're going to find things that you naturally do well and things you naturally don't do well. And if you ever have questions about this, reach out to me. Let's have a virtual coffee and chat about it. Love to help you. How to podcast Cat Calendar is right there. Anytime you and I can chat. When you do your time blocking. A little tip here, as we think about this as well, is when you block out time for a specific task, then that also means you have to say no to other tasks. So when you're focused on show notes, you're focused on email. Turn your phone away from you, put it somewhere far from you so you can't touch it because those notifications that pop up those little comments and oh, somebody, somebody sent me a dm. Oh right. All those. And then text messages, all that stuff, they throw you off your time block and they refocus you to something that's not in your desired focus for that moment in time. Put your phone away. You can come back to. The whole world will be fine with you taking a break from your phone as you focus on this task. So that's a little side tip for you. If you're easily distracted, get rid of the distractions, focus on what you're doing. You can come back to it later during that buffer time. Right. So put your phone away. So if this helps you use your like online calendar. I use Google Calendar. Use whatever you got. You can use a, like a whiteboard, you can use paper, whatever works for you. Everyone's different. But put your time blocks in to your calendar so that you know what you're doing each day and maybe start with a 30 minute increments, maybe that's a good start. So, so let's give you an example. Monday, 9 till 9:30am I'm gonna brainstorm my titles for my upcoming episodes. That's all I'm doing. I'm not looking at my phone, I'm not playing video games on my phone. I'm not texting my my friend about what we're gonna do on the weekend. No, I'm brainstorming titles for my podcast. That's all I'm doing. It's all I'm focused on. Okay, 30 minutes done. Then I take a break. From 9:30 till 10:00. I'm on break. People take breaks at work. Why aren't you taking breaks? Take a break and then come back 10 to 10:30. I'm going to research quotes for upcoming episodes. I'm going to go find the quotes, I'm going to look at my books, I'm going to do all that and research quotes that would feed my topic for my upcoming episodes. Great. 10:30-11, I record some rough episode ideas. I get my intro outros ready. I start building the files for my edits so that I can release these episodes in the future. I get shown the episode title in the file name and I create all the stuff to go. I use Audacity, I create the Audacity file, get all my assets into one file and I just create the rough start and then I take another break. 11 to 11:30 break time. Like if that helps you to kind of plan out what you have. I know we talk to a lot of people who don't podcast for a as a full time career. When you have a career in podcasting, you either work for somebody which gives you a built in calendar or you work for yourself. And you could, this might work for you to block out your week. Now, if you're like me, you're podcasting in the margins of life. I work full time, so I know that I'm not available Wednesday from 11pm all the way through Wednesday to Sunday night into Monday morning. Those are my night shifts that I work. So come off work Monday morning, I come home. I know I have a few minutes here and there to do some emails and stuff. I can answer emails at 3am at my job during lunch. So I know where my blocks are. So you have to figure that out for yourself. So an entire week of time blocking doesn't really work for me because I don't have a whole week to commit to this. The other part of this is you got to block in time if you're going to be an interview podcast to create space in your calendar for people to actually book time with you. So you need to be organized in that way as well. So use I use calendly for my blocking of my, of my interviews and my time in my calendar links right to my Google Calendar. So everything's in one spot. I don't overbook, double book, miss an appointment because everything's in one location. So think of it in that context as well. Keep in mind too that you need to block time based on your energy levels. So we're not all the same. This whole I get up at 4am and do and conquer the world before 5. That's not right for everybody. Some of us don't have that same pattern of how our rhythm works and how our energy levels are during the day. You might be a night person like me as a night person. House is quiet, the Internet's strong, there's not much going on. And in that silence, it's so easy to get in there and be creative and productive. So don't think you have to take on somebody else's schedule when people tell you you have to be a 5am person or else you fail. They're 5am people because they like 5am don't, don't do that. Don't, don't put yourself into somebody else's shoes. Find your own rhythm and build around your rhythm. If you know you're really good in the morning and you're very creative in the morning, then you should be creating. Sending emails is probably not the best use of your time. You should be doing the things that serve you well in the time that you're your best and the time that you have available in your calendar to begin with. So keep that in mind. Don't just do what other people do because you think it's successful. Do something that works for you so that it's it helps you in what you're doing in your show. Keep that in mind. So what I'm getting from this book is that it's encouraging me to use my calendar so that my podcast wins and I all of the things I want to happen for my show becomes a reality. Time blocking can definitely beat a to do list. A to do list feels open ended. It feels like, yeah, there's, there's that checkoff moment where I did the thing on my to do list, but it doesn't have a lot of direction to it. It's just a list of tasks you want to have. Something that really helps you to stay within the time frame, be productive and find out what works for you. So whether you use time blocking to do lists, a combination of the two, or for like me, you just use the time you have the best way you can. It might be hard to explain how to how I do what I do, but you need to find out what works best for you. So that's why I think this book will be helpful for you. Because again, I'm not an avid user of time blocking, but reading this book I can understand why it's important to a lot of people. So this might really help you. So grab a copy of the book. It's going to help you more than I can and I'd love to hear your comments over@howtopodcast.ca get out there. Block in the time you need to do the things you need to do so that you can show up for others in your life. Could show up for yourself. You can find space so you don't burn out and you can just go for a walk outside and not feel guilty that you're not doing the thing. Use time blocking to your advantage. It's there for you and it might really help your show. Thanks for listening. Hey, it's Dave. Thank you for sticking around to the end. This is where we do our call to action or pathway to engagement as I like to call it. And here's what's interesting. I've been doing this podcast for years now, hosting meetups, helping podcasters, editing for people, doing a lot of the behind the scenes stuff. And when we have people who follow the show reach out to me and say, dave, guess what? I'm like, what? They said, I just hired my first consultant. I'm gonna go work with them and help me with my podcast. And I kind of go, wait a minute. You what? They're like, yeah, yeah, I found a podcast consultant, and they're gonna help me with my show. It's hard to pretend to be happy. Why? Because I. I want to work with you. I, like, wait a minute, Like, Dave, you know, the guy Dave who's been doing the how to podcast series and eight other podcasts, and the guy that's been with you the whole time, and we've done meetups, we've done time together, We've spent time together. And you've hired somebody else. Now maybe I'm not your person. That's okay. I'm totally fine with that. By the way, keep coming back. I love having you here. But if you're like, well, I didn't hire you because you don't have anything like that, do you? And I do, and I have been for a long time, and I don't talk about it enough, apparently, because people are going to other people looking for things that Dave does. So in the spirit of Dave and in the spirit of making better connections with you, I do have personal coaching in podcasting. I have podcast community. I have all of the resources. I have all of the background, the history in podcasting, and the love for you as a fellow podcaster. If you're looking for a podcast coach, somebody who can walk with you, somebody who cares about you, someone who is your challenger, your cheerleader, and your coach. Because even though I've said on the show, you can't be all three, I think I am. And I want to help you. So howtopodcast. Ca, please, before you go searching anywhere else, come to where we started and where we met first, right here. I'd love to help you. Howtopodcast.ca come reach out to me. I want to talk to you. Thanks. You're still here. Great. Okay, this is bonus content for you that no one else is going to hear because they're most likely gone already. So thanks for sticking around. What do I do with a bad review or a bad comment? Let's talk about specifically on YouTube. When you're on YouTube and you get bad comments, things like things that are hurtful. Okay, let's just qualify at this. Hurtful comments on YouTube that don't have any value, they tear you down. It's a troll. It's somebody who, who really, they're only brave because they can't be seen. And they would never say this to you in real life. They wouldn't have the guts to do that. So you can tell that this is not something they truly believe about you. And it's not true. It's really not true. Those kind of comments on YouTube, you can hide the person from the channel and from what I'm seeing from other people creators on YouTube, the person who made the comment can still see their comment there. So they'd see that you haven't deleted it, but they, they, no one else can see it. So it's, it's a nice way to, to not engage a troll and feed them, but it's a way to curate your reviews. Now should do I believe that everyone should have five star ratings and no, no negative comments or thoughtful constructive suggestions where they give you a less than five star rating. You know, podcast is great, but it's really long. Podcast is great, but I can't hear the host. Podcast is great, but the topic sometimes this episode was just really boring. Is that negative? No, it could actually be quite informative for you. And I think leaving up less than stellar reviews gives people the reality that you're not perfect and nobody is. So when I see a wall of five star reviews for a book and nobody says the book could be improved, I'm like, really? So I like a four star review. I like a three star review. I like a one star review because for some reason it didn't connect with, with the person in our meetup. For example, meetup.com for through the howtopodcast ca website, we had somebody leave a review on one of our meetups. On Tuesdays we have open Q and A. There's no topic. It's whatever people want to talk about is what we talk about. So there's no, there's no subject. Right. And the review I got from one person, which I can't even tell if you actually came to that actual event, he wrote something along the lines of too boring and no, no clear topic. Too poor. No clear topic. It's a Q and A. Like we don't know what the topic is. So I don't, I don't know what that means. And you left a one star review. Now I'm just, I'm like really, really like that's what you got to do today. So just keep that in mind. And then the other thing Too is on YouTube, people can leave a thumbs down for the content. In the world of YouTube, I don't think YouTube really cares if it's a thumbs up or thumbs down. Just somebody click the thumb. So I don't think it affects your podcast or affects your content or affects your post. And any engagement's good engagement, really. Any news is good news. Really heard them say that, so don't worry about it so much. Keep creating the content. Look for constructive comments that can make your show better and and contemplate them, but don't let negative feedback get to your heart. That's a bad place. That's a bad thing to let happen. So don't let that happen. And keep creating content. And just remember, some people are going to love you, some people aren't. And that's life. So we'll be fine. We'll be fine. Just keep creating your content. If you have any questions, reach out to me. How to Podcast CA Take care.