408 - How I Manage My Time – 5 Tips To Win At Anything In Life

0:00Ever wish you had more hours in the day? welcome to the club. Because if you're creative and multi-passionate like I am, sometimes it can feel near impossible to keep up with all the demands on your time. But here's the big truth that most people miss. In order to reach our dreams, we actually don't need more time. We just need to use the time that we do have way better. So that begs the question, how do we do that? Here are my top tips. First up, create before you consume. What does that mean? Okay, so here's some honesty time. Do you look at your phone first thing in the morning and check your email and your text and your news and your social feeds or something like Slack?

0:40If you're like billions of other hardworking people, that answer is a hell yes. In fact, did you know that research shows that up to 80 % of smartphone users look at their phone as soon as they wake up? Now, if you're an entrepreneur or you're an artist or a writer or you're just a creative professional, this is one of the most destructive things that you could possibly do to yourself. Because this one seemingly innocent habit is systematically downgrading your brain, stressing out your body, shrinking your damn bank account, destroying your focus, and decimating the most valuable resource that you will ever have in your whole life, your time.

1:20Plus, if you got a habit of looking at your phone first thing every morning, I'm willing to bet this, that you are consuming more than you're creating, and it is severely limiting your wealth, your health, and your happiness. How do I know that? Not because I'm psychic, but because I used to look at my phone every damn morning too. And once I broke this one habit, I have never been richer, happier, or more productive. I'm not kidding. So I want you to write this down. Make this your mantra. I want you to make it your lifestyle. Get of tattooed somewhere in your body if you need to, create before you consume.

1:57So what does that mean? It's actually very simple. It means don't even think about touching any device or taking in any information from an external source until you have first created whatever is most important to you for that day. So for example, let's say you're an entrepreneur and you're trying to finish your book or your online course, or you're writing a new sales page for a launch, spend time creating that book or that course or that sales page first before you consume anything. Let's say that you're going through a really challenging time in your life, right? And you know in your bones that meditation would make a difference.

2:36It would help you. We'll spend time meditating to create a stronger mindset and a heart set first before you go looking at texts or emails that are going to stress you out even more. Now, let's take a different example. Let's say your goal is taking better care of your body. Why not spend some time doing yoga or a workout or even just some squats and create a stronger body first? Now, here's what's cool. And here's what my favorite thing is about this concept. You can interpret and apply this in so many different ways. But here's what I want you to do. I want you to make a commitment to yourself right now that from this day forward, you are going to create something powerful and inspiring, whether it's for your mind or your body or your mission, before you consume anything.

3:24Now, I know you know this already, but it bears repeating. How you spend your morning significantly impacts the rest of your day, right? So your choices, what you do when you open your eyes, it influences how the next 24 hours are going to unfold emotionally and cognitively and creatively. And you put all that in aggregate, your habits, both in the morning and throughout the rest of your day, that shapes the entirety of your life. You know, as the saying goes, we first make our habits and then our habits make us. So I want you to think about this. Just imagine this for a minute. How would any human being feel or behave if they spent the first 20 to 30 minutes every single day consuming low quality, low value information.

4:08And oh yeah, let's just make sure this is clear. It was highly likely that that same information that they were consuming was going to make them feel angry, overwhelmed, afraid, stressed out, miserable, and like they were maybe woefully inadequate or just behind in their life. If you were imagining this human being stewing in those emotions every single day, do you think that that person would be setting themselves up for success or making their dreams real? Do you think that person would be any closer to all the things that they want to accomplish? Absolutely not. Now, let's pause. Let's say that that same person decided to make a different choice every single morning.

4:49They decided to do the opposite, to create before they consumed. Now, with this approach, over the course of weeks, months, years, who do you think would create better results? Which approach is more likely to make a person happy and healthy and wealthy? Do you think it's consuming first or creating first? Because here's the hard truth. When you consume first, day in and day out, you are training your brain to prioritize the demands, the opinions, the negativity, and the agendas of the outside world. You are choosing a life of misery and mediocrity and overwhelm. Now, on the other hand, when you decide to be a rebel, you decide to choose to create first, you are choosing to make your dreams real.

5:37That successful business, that strong, healthy body, that big, fat bank account, those great relationships, whatever it is that you want, whatever it is that you most want, I promise you, you can have it. But you've got to use your time wisely. And one of the easiest and fastest ways to do that is to create before you consume. Next tip, do not prioritize your schedule. Now, I know you're probably thinking, like, what the hell are you talking about, Marie? Isn't prioritizing one of the most important productivity tips like ever? Yes and no. It's actually nuanced. And here's what I mean by that.

6:12One of the most powerful principles I have ever learned about time management comes from Stephen Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. one of the best books ever. He said, the key is not to prioritize your schedule, but to schedule your priorities. Okay, so what does that mean? Let's break this down. Most people wake up, they go to their desk, and they start making a list of all the things that they need to do. And then they try and find time for what they say is important. They try and fit in their workouts or make time for friends or work on their book or some new project, all in the margins of the rest of their life.

6:52This is the totally wrong way to go about it. It's never gonna work. If something is important to you, don't try and fit it in somewhere, schedule it and make it non-negotiable. So I have a little saying that I run my life by. If it's not scheduled, it's not real. So in my business, even creating this video, right? I'm not just gonna try and fit this in. This is a priority. So my priorities get scheduled first. Things are in the calendar, time to work on it. If it's going to get done, I'm making sure that it is in my calendar and it's first. Here's another example. So my workouts. Dance is so important to my soul and my life.

7:33I don't just try and fit in my dance classes. I literally sit weeks beforehand. I go onto the website. I look at the schedule. I choose the classes I want to take and I schedule those priorities. Same thing with Josh and I. So our relationship is really important. We're both really busy humans. We take time several times a year, both in January, mid-year, at the end of the year, we get our calendars together and we schedule our priorities of adventures, vacations, date nights, you name it. So I think this notion of don't prioritize your schedule, but schedule your priorities, it's so simple, but it's so profound.

8:14And if you start using this today, it will change your life. So my next favorite tip is to make your success plan the day before. So you would never try and drive across country without a map, right? Of course not. Same thing applies to planning your day. You should never wake up in the morning wondering what the hell you should work on first. You know, there was a study out that found that planning your day ahead of time significantly improves productivity and reduces decision fatigue, which greatly improves our performance. No big secret there. So we got to ask ourselves, what's the fix? Here's what I do.

8:47I take a few minutes every afternoon and I make my success plan for the next day. So let's talk about why this is important to do in the afternoon and not at night. I don't know about you, but once I'm done with work for the day and it gets to be anywhere between five o 'clock, six o 'clock, seven o 'clock, even eight o 'clock, if there's a big project going on, I'm toast. My brain hardly has any cells. And so if I'm trying to look at what's going to be most important and really set myself up for success, you know what I want to do? I want to go get some pizza or go get some dinner and lay on the couch.

9:24So I am less likely to set future Marie up for success if I wait till the nighttime. Here's what I do instead. Anytime between two o 'clock-ish and 4.30-ish, I take about four minutes, I pause, and I start to make my success plan for the next day. What does that look like? I take a look at my calendar. I look at all the upcoming appointments. I confirm if any of them need to be confirmed. I take a look at what time I might have to wake up, if there's any travel time, addresses, yada, yada, yada. And then I write all of that down in terms of what I need to get done, what are the top things that must happen no matter what, if there's any personal items like call your mom, send so-and-so a card, make sure you get money from the bank for X, Y, or Z.

10:14This way, when I wake up the next day, I just open my little success plan and I am good to go. Now, people are always asking me, Marie, what kind of planner do you use? Is it some complex system. You want to see what I use? It's a$2 spiral bound notebook from the grocery store. That's all I use. You do not have to make this complicated. I literally write the date. I write the times where I need to show up places. I make sure all of my information is synced in my Google calendar and my little notebook. And that's it. Now, if you want a little bit more on this, a little step-by-step walkthrough of exactly how I do this, check out this video right here.

10:53I think you're going to love it. My next tip is an unexpected one. Stop trying to get it all done. You know, one of the most common questions I've gotten over the years goes like this. People say, Marie, you run a successful business. You seem happy. You have a healthy relationship. You do all these different things. What the hell is your secret? How are you getting this all done so consistently? And I'm like, you really want to know my secret to getting it all done? I'll tell you. I don't. Because I learned a long time ago that trying to get it all done was running me into the ground. I was miserable trying to be superwoman.

11:28You know, Warren Buffett has this amazing quote and he says, the difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything. I got to tell you, my life started to change so much. I became so much happier, so much more productive when I started focusing on the critical few things that really mattered to me. And I started to say no to almost everything. And right now, these days, I'm like a professional disappointer. I'm a kind one, but I am really good at saying no. I'm really good at declining. I'm really good at not having FOMO.

12:09Some of my colleagues actually asked me, they're like, how do you say no to all these invites and these masterminds and these conferences and these get togethers? Like, it seems like you don't have FOMO. And I really don't because I've learned that I need to protect my peace at all costs. And anytime I say yes to something, I'm saying no to something else. I know it can be super hard to turn people down and say no. It can feel really uncomfortable. You don't want to be unkind. You don't want to seem rude. You don't want to miss out on opportunities. I totally get it. That's why I created a free guide for you with 19 different, very polite, but very firm word for word scripts that you can use to set boundaries and say no with compassion and grace.

12:55It's actually called the ultimate guide to saying no, and you can grab it for free at MarieForleo.com slash free tools, or just click the link in the description below. So my last tip is you have to face and replace your self-sabotaging behaviors. So this is just me being real, most of us can do some really stupid, silly things that totally disrupt our attention and our focus, and they're 100 % preventable. So let me give you a couple examples from my life. These are stupid, silly things that I've done before that totally threw my productivity off for the day. So Josh and I used to live in LA for a bit, and it was a very, very small house.

13:34And I'm the kind of person who loves to do work every day at the kitchen table. I'm an early riser. So I would get up super early and I would go set my candle and I'm doing my journaling and I'm doing my work and I'm doing it right in the kitchen. And then an hour or two would go by and Joshie just strolls out of the bedroom and he stumbles into the kitchen, you know, looking for some snacks and looking for some coffee. And I was like, why is he interrupting me? Why is he interrupting my space? And I would get all huffy. I'm like, I'm in the middle of something. I cannot tell you how long this went on until I realized who's the idiot for choosing to work in the kitchen, which is the central area of a very small house.

14:15This one. And I was like, how did I not see this sooner? If I want a whole chunk of uninterrupted time, girl, why are you working in the kitchen? That's some silly, stupid stuff. Like either leave the house, go to a coffee shop, go to another room, or talk with Josh. you put on headphones and say, hey, if you walk in, I might not acknowledge you, whatever. There's like a gajillion ways. So that was one of the things that I did. And I feel like a lot of us do stuff like that. And then we complain that we can't ever get anything done. Here's another example. A lot of people do this. I no longer do this.

14:48I used to, but I have healed myself. Most people allow a gajillion notifications on their phone and their desktop to interrupt them all day long, like all day long. You're like, oh, I never have time to work on my book or I don't have to. It's like my kids. It's like, no, dude, you can turn off all those notifications. You can dial in to only allow emergency calls. Like there's just a million smart ways to make your computer, your phone silent for focus blocks and then check in and handle what you need to check in. It's almost like scheduling your interruptions or scheduling your distractions, but not during focus blocks.

15:28So I just want to invite you to take a compassionate but honest look for yourself. Are there any self-sabotaging behaviors that you have in place right now that you can face and replace? If so, make it happen. So there you have it. Those are some of my favorite easy strategies to use your time better so you can win at anything in life. Now, if you want to go deeper and learn how to double and even triple your creative output in a fraction of the time, you got to come check out my program called Time Genius. It's a science-backed system that I created to help ambitious creative people like us reach our dreams faster and with less stress and overwhelm.

16:07Not only does it work like magic, but it is guaranteed. You can learn more at jointimegenius.com. Until next time, stay on your game and keep going for your big dreams because the world really does need that very special gift that only you have.