Redefining Balance with Smart Decisions | #616

The importance of managing time to achieve balance in life. He emphasizes the significance of intention in time management, the concept of work-life balance, and how different seasons of life affect our priorities. Lachlan shares practical strategies for effective time management, including the Pomodoro technique, and encourages listeners to reflect on their own time management practices to enhance productivity and fulfillment.

Chapters

• 0:00 Achieving Work-Life Balance Through Time Management
• 8:47 Achieving Balance Through Fast Decision-Making

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back to the man that Can with Lockie Stewart. I'm your host. You guessed it, lockie Stewart. So today's episode is gonna be short, sharp and punchy, but we're talking about managing time to experience balance Within the Strongman of Value Academy.

Speaker 1: 0:16

Over the last three weeks and for the continuing nine so the total of our 12-week game plan I have used all the data that I've gained over the last seven, eight years of working with men to identify some of the main pain points blokes have joined the academy for, and just a lot of the conversations around areas that they would like to improve or would add more value to their life, and with that information, I've chosen a weekly topic that we discuss in the group. I've provided some self-reflection questions because it's so important to reflect on areas in our own life so that we can see what's working well for us and what's not, and thinking about things through a different lens. Right, when we become aware of problems, or not even problems. But when we're aware of things, we're in a better position to decide whether it is a problem or it's a, let's say, a weakness or a strength, and from that we can do what we need to do with that to build the best possible life available to us and become the best version of ourself, and I know that you want that. That's why you're listening to this podcast. So, firstly, thank you for continuing to show up, for continuing to support the show. It means a lot and this next I guess six months for me is going to be hectic.

Speaker 1: 1:37

So this week, the managing time to experience balance is the one. So you're probably thinking a little bit around two topics that come up quite regularly, work-life balance being one. The other is managing time and I think they coincide and you can break them down as much as you would like to, I guess, understand it and then be able to implement. But when you link them together, you can start viewing it as more of a holistic thing, or not even holistic. You can start seeing how one thing in your life, one skill set, can help you improve so many other areas of your life. So balance is not a feeling that you're in flow. Balance will change with priorities. It always does, and I've got a few points that I've written down here about this and I will give you the questions just this week. But for those who want more stuff like this the questions and the activities that we give for people to implement them. Join the academy for the next intake, which isn't until January, so you've got plenty of time to think about it.

Speaker 1: 2:41

But within work-life balance, for me it's something. So you've got plenty of time to think about it. But within work-life balance, for me it's something that I know a lot of men strive for and I strived for for a very long time. I had men coming to me and they were like hey, I want to get my life, I just want work-life balance. I'm working too much. And I used to be like, yep, all right, we can do that, let's prioritize just getting more time back, working less. But what I've realized is, when you start removing time at work and you start giving it to the other areas, quite often something's still missing, and what that is is intention. We all have wants, needs, desires, things that we value, things that we want to experience, and that is generally where intention comes in to help us maximize that feeling of work-life balance. We're feeling wholesome, we're feeling fulfilled and off the back of not only just deciding hey, I feel like my life isn't in balance yet. It's important to think on the flip side. What would balance look like to me in this moment, understanding full well that in a week's time, in a month's time or in a year's time, that may change and that is okay. But for right now, what does balance, or what do I think balance, would look like? And from that point we can start drawing a line in the sand and get better with our time management to make that a reality.

Speaker 1: 4:13

So we talk about seasons and you would have heard me talk about seasons a lot with many things. It's a great metaphor for life. But sometimes in summer, when you want to be super active and you're out and you're super busy, I would call that the money-making season or the active and busy season. With those moments you're saying yes to everything, your calendars chock-a-block, you feel like you're never slowing down. But it can also be very productive With that.

Speaker 1: 4:39

For me personally, over the years, as that's happened, I've had to become much better at managing my time. So I would put in things that are important to me If I felt resistance to putting in a meeting. For example, someone hit me up to go for a coffee or some kind of catch up and I was like, yep, how's next week? Look for you and didn't come back with a, I guess a specific time that to me, was enough of a reason not to do it, because if I wasn't super excited about booking it in or it wasn't a priority and it was never anything against the individual, it's just what season was I in and what were my focuses and priorities?

Speaker 1: 5:16

If I wasn't going back with a hard time, I probably didn't want to do it, so for a long time I would do it, and then I would find myself attending meetings or catch-ups that I didn't want to do it. So for a long time I would do it, and then I would find myself attending meetings or catch-ups that I didn't necessarily want to be at or wasn't the best use of my time in that moment. I had to then work out how to catch myself in that moment and I became aware and that's through some questions that I started realizing that, hey, if I'm not coming back to them with a rock solid time meaning I'm not looking at my calendar and I'm not excited about giving them an hour or 30 minutes of my time or however much time it is it's got to be a no, because it's not a hell yeah. And if I say no to it, it then frees me up to use that time for the hell, whatever that is, and so that's been a very powerful lesson for me and I hope it's something that maybe you can take away as well.

Speaker 1: 6:12

On the flip side of that, there's seasons where it's cruisy, right, you're a bit more flexible with your time, less intentional, maybe you have more spare time because it's the winter, right, a little bit slow moving, you're not working towards a goal, maybe Various things like that are happening, and then you're just like I'll take the catch up whatever here's the time, or we'll be flexible with the time, because I know some people like that and I've started to become like that in some instances of my life as well as I'm getting older, and that's worked really well for me as well. So really be mindful of what season you're in, what your priorities are, and the next thing is really just saying no. If you don't feel like you're going to move mountains, maybe not move mountains it doesn't always have to be that dramatic but if you don't feel like you really want to be there and if you aren't seeing or noticing yourself checking your calendar to make sure you can fit something in and coming back with a date, it's probably not something that you want to do at this moment. But if you do, then it's definitely a yes, and just remind yourself that saying no is okay and it's not personal, or maybe sometimes it is, but most of the time it's not personal. It's just you have other focuses, you have other priorities at the moment that are more important to you, and I think one of the greatest acts of self-respect is when you do say no and you put your goals or your priorities or yourself first. It is going to make you feel so good about yourself when you know you value yourself. That is what many, many, many of us are working towards and that will be another topic in the academy over the coming weeks is self-confidence and self-esteem, but looking at the idea of saying no to things.

Speaker 1: 8:01

So something for you to think about is where or what have you recently not said no to? Where you could have or should have, and you could go through just the last 24 hours, you could go through the last seven days. But try and be honest with yourself and you'll start noticing patterns. You will start being more aware of it in the future, because you may say hey, I just reflected on this Next time this opportunity pops up, or this person asks for that, or this presents itself. I believe, at this point in my life it's a no, so I'm going to say no next time. It's going to help you make the decision faster.

Speaker 1: 8:47

Now, as we were talking about seasons, it's very important in the summers, I believe, to make decisions a lot quicker. You don't want to be fart-assing around and prolonging things when they could just be made straight away, and that's where, if it's not a hell, you need to know. Make that decision right away. Move on to the next thing, because the mental energy that you will waste while you're waiting for a decision to be made is insane, and you're either going to get reminded by the individual who's following up it's going to be in the back of your mind just having multiple tabs open on your phone or on your computer just chewing battery, and that's not fun, that's not enjoyable for anyone. So learn to make decisions a lot quicker than you currently are and you'll watch processes change.

Speaker 1: 9:35

I want to, I guess, tie these couple of points in with where my life's at and what I've been talking about on the podcast over the last couple of weeks. With the 58 marathons approaching, we're 95 days away, right, and for some of you may be thinking, geez, that's close, and it may not feel that close, but to me it's very, very close and the season of life I'm in is the busy one. It's the summer. I've got a business that I'm running and I'm working with clients and working on projects, et cetera, and it's taking time to do that and to scale that and to make that profitable. Then I've got my marriage Same thing. It requires time and focus and intention to keep that going as well as it has been, especially because my wife and I are going to be having two months apart while I'm doing the runs as well.

Speaker 1: 10:24

Then I've got the run side of things. So I've not only got the training and the eating and the recovery, which is taking a bucket load of time. I also have the raising of sponsorships, setting up with our fundraiser for Mental Awareness Foundation, getting all the things the 58 challenge ready for our audience to get involved in with, and so a lot of my time is just constantly meeting people, training, having a shower, eating, spending time with Amy, and they're just going, going, going, going, going, going going. And the unfortunate thing is I've been over it's just not unfortunate the challenging thing I've just come back from America and we're back for a couple of months or weeks, sorry, and everyone wants to catch up and I want to catch up with people, but I'm noticing myself. It's not a hell, because I'm like I need to run there, I need to do my strength session there, I should probably do a yoga session or I need to spend some time with my wife, I need to catch up on some work there. So it's a very challenging time. But I also know that saying no I'm going to really appreciate in January, february, march and beyond, because I'm going to put myself in the best position to achieve my goal with the marathons we're going to have a team of Avengers who are supporting it and also just to continue inspiring people through those runs. And because I'm aware of all of this from asking myself questions and having worked on it over the years.

Speaker 1: 11:53

I'm very good at making decisions faster. So, like I have said, if it's not the hell, it's a no, if it's not on that list of priorities, it's a no, and that's just the way it's going to be. And at the moment once again, I'm not saying it's easy to do I feel the decision is easy, but I still have moments where I'm like, oh, maybe I should have caught up with that person. I hope they don't think I'm a bad person. I hope they don't think I value them. It's just where I'm at and unfortunately I don't want to sit down. And I don't want to sit down and have to fill everyone in on what my priorities are and why that's happening. One, because people don't care. Most of us only care about ourselves, which is not in a bad way. We're just if we want to catch up with someone, we want to catch up with someone and we're focused on all of those things. So that's where I'm currently at and what that looks like from my point of view.

Speaker 1: 12:50

And I guess balance to me. If we were talking about hey, lockie, how are you currently managing your time to experience balance? For me, it's making sure I give time to all of those areas. If I was only focused on the run and raising money, I wouldn't feel balanced because I'm not giving value to the academy and to my coaching clients, so I'd feel out of balance. I have to use time management to work with that. Same with my marriage. If I was only focusing on the runs or only focusing on work and not giving time to my marriage. I wouldn't feel like I have balance.

Speaker 1: 13:20

But at the moment, as chaotic as it is, as busy as it is, I feel extremely balanced. It's wild how I feel and how I experience that and it's a cool place to be. And, once again, I know that that season will change, but I have to be on the pulse to know when it changes to go. That's now not what is balancing for me. This is what I think the new balance is, and I'll go through some reflection, start thinking about what my priorities are, what I intend to do with my time in those areas, which is going to be fantastic. So that is something that I would encourage you guys to think about in your own life. What do you feel balance would feel like or look like if you were to have to manage your time to achieve it? Because that's ultimately what you do.

Speaker 1: 14:07

And with your managed time, what is the intention behind what you're committing to do? So you can use a calendar on your phone. I love the phone calendar. It's super helpful setting reminders. You can add notes in there. I also use the 12-week game plan, which we reflect on in the weekly calls every week. It's super helpful, but you also get to think about things that you're grateful for and various things like that and use that as a feedback tool. Did it deliver you results, did it not?

Speaker 1: 14:35

And all of us are at different levels of awareness throughout our life. The more you practice it, the better you get, as with everything. So if you're like I was 10 years ago, it may be very hard to think about what you want because you're so ingrained in doing what you've already done. But when you start challenging that, start questioning more, start opening up and allowing yourself to explore things, explore new ideas, try new things, it becomes a lot easier for you to go hey, maybe that is actually what I want. This is my intention behind that and that's why I'm going to choose to do that, because I want to feel balanced. Balance is ever, ever changing and as soon as we can accept that and commit to that, we can achieve some pretty cool stuff. So I wanted to jump in. Share that once again. If you want more tasks and questions that can help with that, I'm going to bring up what we've got in the academy here just so you can have a look at that this week and benefit from those questions. If you would like to implement it, feel free to do so. So I'm just opening up our app here. So we've got an app for the academy marketing hub, not the one there's so many posts in here this week. Here we go, so let's look at this one.

Speaker 1: 15:53

So what you can focus on, or a few key principles for effective time management that will help you, is prioritization, so learning to tell the difference between what's urgent and what's important, to focus on what truly matters. Number two is planning, so allocating specific times to tasks based on their priorities and the time needed to complete them properly. Number three is delegation, so knowing when and how to delegate tasks is key. No one can do everything on their own, so staying on top of tasks, putting them off, not only boosts productivity, but it also cuts down last-minute stress. So the weekly task we gave was the Pomodoro technique, so set a timer for 25 minutes. The iMac does that. There's a little thing at the top. It looks like two pieces of paper sitting on themselves and you can hit that. But focus solely on one task with zero interruption. So when your timer rings, take a five-minute breather After four rounds. Start taking longer breaks. Right, focus is important to replenish, so it helps with concentration and burnout.

Speaker 1: 17:04

So the thing I would look at with a discussion question in your own life, if you wanted to try that would be what tasks did you tackle with the Pomodoro technique and did you find it boosted your productivity? Why or why not? We can start there. Or you could even jump on chat GPT and get some questions around time management, around work-life balance, around intentionality, and those will really help you there. So thank you guys for tuning in this week. Once again, I really appreciate your support on the show. If you got value, give us a subscribe, leave a comment, share this on your socials and tag me. It's all appreciated and, as always, do something today to be better for tomorrow.