Your Time, Your Way

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  Why Time Blocking Keeps Failing You 20.09.2026 13dk

  "It was Hercule Poirot’s custom to open his morning mail using a small letter-opener with an ivory handle, making a neat slice along the top edge of each envelope... Each letter was then extracted, unfolded, smoothed flat with the palm of his hand, and read with deliberate, unhurried precision. Only when one piece of correspondence was thoroughly digested and placed in its neat, appointed stack would he permit himself to move on to the next." That’s an extract from Sophie Hannah’s Hercule Poirot’s continuation novel, The Monogram Murders, which captures a part of Hercule Poirot’s morning routine with his letter-opening ritual. Something he did at the same time each day, at the breakfast table.  And it connects nicely with today’s episode. So let’s begin.  Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   Learn more about the Productivity Academy Discover my Apple Productivity Programme Use the early-bird discount code caps27eb to get $25.00 off    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 | 434 Hello, and welcome to episode 434 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.  Before we begin, with Apple launching their latest operating systems last Monday, I have updated my Apple Productivity Course.  The course is not about tips and tricks; you can get all those on YouTube. This course is about helping you to build a 100% Apple productivity system that will keep you focused on what matters, when it matters and help keep and store important information so you know where to find it when you need it.  No subscriptions to third-party apps, just a simple set of productivity tools that do exactly what they were designed to do. Keep you on time and organised. I will put a link in the show notes to where you can learn more about this; if I may say so, fantastic course. Okay, on with the episode. Something that many people miss about time blocking is that it’s not just another way to organise your calendar. It’s actually a way to reframe how you approach your work. Over the last 26 years or so, certainly since the explosion of digital task managers, many people have become focused on the number of things they have to do.  Yet, that wasn’t always the case. For example, if you had to go into town to buy something, you would also naturally look for other things you may have to do while you were in town. Perhaps drop some dry cleaning off, or buy some stamps at the post office. You would do as many of these chores as you could in the time that you had available. I’ve spoken before about how the likes of Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill and CS Lewis had time set aside for dealing with their correspondence. It was never about how many letters they replied to. It was simply spending an hour or so each day writing replies.  If they didn’t get through their pile of letters in the time they had, they would leave what was left until the next day when they replied to their letters. Yet today, I find that so many people are stressed out and worried about the number of things they have on their lists and the size of their backlogs. Yet, it really doesn’t matter how many things you’ve got to do; if you’re like most people, you will have far more things than you will ever have the time to do anyway.  What really matters is how you use the time you have available to do the things that really matter.  That leads me nicely on to this week’s question. Unfortunately, the Mystery Podcast Voice is locked away in a room preparing for an important exam tomorrow, so once again, you’re stuck with me asking the question.  This week’s question comes fro
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  The Productive Power Of A Proper Tea Break 13.09.2026 15dk

  How often do you take a mid-morning tea break? I mean a proper break, where you stop work for fifteen minutes or so mid-morning?  It turns out very few people do this these days. And if they do get themselves a cup of tea or coffee, it’s done on the go or at their desks while continuing to work.  Complete madness. Is it any wonder why so many people feel burnt out, exhausted and unable to spend any quality time with their nearest and dearest?  This week, we’re looking at why bringing back your mid-morning and afternoon breaks might be the most productive thing you could do.  Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Learn more about the Productivity Academy Learn more about my private coaching programmes here 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 | 433 Hello, and welcome to episode 432 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.  Back in the day, in traditional knowledge work jobs, most people had to be at their workplace by 9 AM. You would get a tea break mid-morning, usually around 11 or 11:15, then you would get a lunch break, probably 12:30 or 1 PM, then in the afternoon there'd be another tea break around 3:00 pm, and finally you would finish work, perhaps at 5:30 PM Our days were structured. Time anchors marked our day: start times, mid-morning breaks, lunchtimes, afternoon breaks, and when we finished work.  Over the last few years or so, and certainly since the pandemic, these natural time anchors have been disappearing. Working from home, having more flexible working times, and working across multiple different time zones have all accelerated the erosion of these natural breaks. But these time anchors mattered. They told your brain to take a rest. Today, because those time anchors have practically disappeared, we end up switching our attention from one problem to the next. To an email or a message, back to the report we’re supposed to finish today, then to the presentation due next week, a quick check of a project that we're working on to answer a question. It's just non-stop. No time for a tea break or sometimes even a lunch break.  Now, because there are no natural rhythms in our days, and no time anchors to give us a break, we end up feeling completely exhausted at the end of them. But it didn't just happen at work. We also had time anchors at home too. We would wake up at the same time, go to bed at the same time, and sit down to watch our favourite TV shows at the same time.  We'd also eat our lunch, breakfast, and dinner at the same time. These were mini time anchors that told our brain to rest. When you remove those anchors, your brain doesn't know when to rest, and it just gets completely worn out. This week’s question is about why you feel so exhausted and tired, with no energy left to even decide what to have for dinner and what to do about it to bring some sense of calm back into your days So, without further ado. I’d like to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s Question, but she’s once again on one of her little holidays. So, I’m afraid you’re stuck with my voice this week.  This week’s question comes from Paul. Paul asks, hi Carl, I was recently promoted, and now my days just feel like a blur, and I struggle to see if I have done anything important or not. It just feels like I spend all day putting out other people’s fires. I rarely get time for a proper lunch break, and I feel completely worn out by the time I get home. What can I do to bring some focus back to my days? Hi Paul, thank you for your question.  To get us started, let’s step back in time a little.
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  How To Fix The Top 5 Productivity and Time Management Pain Points 06.09.2026 17dk

  What are the top 5 pain points with time management and productivity that over 400 of my past and current coaching clients have faced?  The results may, or may not, surprise you.  Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   You can learn more about the Planning Course here Use the coupon code: planning26   Learn more about the Productivity Academy Learn more about my private coaching programmes here 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 | 432 Hello, and welcome to episode 432 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.  Before we get started, and linked somewhat to today’s topic, one of the top issues among the people I work with is inconsistency in planning weeks and days.  Now, I understand why it can be a challenge to plan your week consistently. Life often gets in the way, and really, what’s the point of planning when, too often, whatever plan you set gets destroyed by an inconsiderate boss or client?  Yet it still remains the case that those who consistently plan their weeks and allow a little time each day to plan the next day are the ones who get the right things done on time and have more time to do the things they want to do.  So, over the last few weeks, I’ve been updating my Planning Course.  It’s not a long course, and it now focuses on three main areas of planning. Daily, weekly, and project planning. Plus, given the time of year, I’ve added a bonus section on the Annual Planning Template.  If you want to take a significant step up in your time management and productivity, I highly recommend this course.  You can get it as part of my Productivity Academy Membership or buy it as a standalone course.  And if you’re fast, you can get the standalone course for just $50.00 with the early bird discount. (I’ll put the link and the code in the show notes for you)  And a quick tip. Get the course today and do the Weekly Planning Section. It will take you around 15 minutes to do the section, will give you a downloadable Weekly Planning Matrix sheet and will inspire you to do a proper, practical Weekly Planning Session today.  Okay, on with the episode.  Last week, I hosted the inaugural live training of my Productivity Academy. In that session, I shared some research I had done on around 500 of my past and present coaching clients. The question I asked was: “What were the top five struggles (or pain points) they faced?”  The results were not unsurprising, or not that I thought. What surprised me was that the cause of those pain points almost always comes from the same place.  Let me explain.  First, what were the five? They were: In 5th place, Tool overload and fragmented workflows This means using multiple apps, duplicating task lists, having unclear homes for information, and excessive system tweaking, which undermined trust in their productivity setup. All of this results in information all over the place, which causes a sense that they lack clarity and control.  In 4th place, Interruptions and lack of protected focus time Meetings, emails, messages, emergencies, and context switching push deep or important work out, leaving no time for doing that important work.  Yet one irony is that if the focused, strategic work were prioritised over interruptions, there would be fewer interruptions. Nobody chasing you, telling you something was urgent, and less time for meetings because the work was getting done instead of being talked about.  In 3rd place, Unclear priorities If you don’t know what matters most, the urgent or “loud” work of other people will always crowd out meaningful progress. If you do no
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  Are You Overcommitted Without Realising It? 30.08.2026 13dk

  An overflowing task manager and a crowded-out calendar are rarely ever caused by using the wrong tools. The problem happened well before you entered the task or added the appointment to your task manager or calendar.  And that’s what we’re looking at this week.  Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   Learn more about my Productivity Academy Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived    Apollo 13 Lunar Module Start-up Procedures   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 |431 Hello, and welcome to episode 431 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.  If you were to look at your appointments for tomorrow right now, how much time do you have that is not already committed? Two, three, four hours?  Now look at your task manager: how many tasks are overdue or scheduled for tomorrow?  In the uncommitted time you have tomorrow, are you confident you can complete all those tasks?  Most people who do this little exercise, if they are being honest with themselves, will answer “no chance”.  And this is the top reason why so many people are struggling with time management and productivity today. And there is a word for it: Overcommitted.  It’s not the tools they use or any other complex reason. It’s simply because they’ve allowed themselves to become overcommitted.  This week, I’m looking at how this happens and what you can do to unravel the problem so you are operating within your natural capacity, not overworked or under pressure, and not feeling like you are sinking under the weight of unrealistic deadlines and commitments.  So, to get us started, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.  This week’s question comes from Douglas. Douglas asks, “Hi, Carl, I know you tell people to keep their task manager clean and tight, but I find that impossible. I’m collecting 20 or more things into my inbox each day; I often have 4 or 5 hours of meetings, and I have to deal with at least 130 emails and messages each day. How would you get all that under control?” Hi Douglas, thank you for your question.  I did some quick maths on the numbers you provided and noticed that if you are collecting, on average, 25 new tasks a day, have 130 emails and messages to deal with and only have 3 ½ hours of non-meeting time each day, that would mean you would have only 1 minute and 13 seconds to spend on each item.  Yet those numbers assume you are not taking time for lunch or coffee or a glass of water. If you were to include a 30-minute lunch break and 15 minutes to get water and coffee each day, that would leave you with less than a minute available for each email, message, and task.  Is that realistic?  Based on that quick calculation, the issue here is one of capacity. You’ve no capacity left. All that’s needed to completely destroy your day is an urgent, last-minute meeting request, an issue that prevents you from doing any of your planned work or simply an IT problem that doesn’t allow you to do the work you planned.  I can assure you, Douglas, you are not alone here.  There are millions of people all around the world struggling with the same thing. They’re overcommitted.  Which is why it’s completely irrelevant what tools you’re using.  The first thing I would advise someone in this situation is to do the maths I did above. Now, I know I do not have all the information. I don’t know what work you do, your position in the company, or whether you lead a team.  But what I do know is you’ve gone beyond your natural capacity, and now you will be building up enormous backlogs. You will be struggling to meet your deadlines, and I bet when you get
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  Why Everything Feels Like It Needs to Be Done Today 23.08.2026 14dk

  Have you ever wondered if your time management and productivity issues might not be about the amount of work you have to do, but rather the way you think about that work?  That’s what we’re looking at today.   Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   Learn more about the Productivity Academy Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Plan Your Week With Me: The Weekly Planning Matrix. 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 |430 Hello, and welcome to episode 430 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.  Since I began helping people directly with time management and productivity, I would say that around 60% of people’s struggles come down to the way they organise their work, around 35% come down to the way they think about it, and only 5% come down to the volume of work coming in.  Talk to practically anyone today, and they will tell you they are busy. It’s almost like a badge of honour.  The number one reason people say they don’t exercise is that they don’t have enough time. Is that really true, or is it that they value doing something else more?  I’m reminded of something the legendary Jim Rohn used to say: “Don't mistake movement for achievement. It's easy to get faked out by being busy. The question is: Busy doing what?” If I look at my to-do list right now, I guess I am busy. I have this script, a newsletter and a long-form article to write. I also have to record three YouTube Shorts videos, edit them and record this podcast.  I have around five pieces of feedback to write for my coaching clients, do my exercise, take Louis for a walk, and cook dinner.  Yet, I don’t feel busy. The reason is that I understand that it doesn’t all have to be done today. All I have to do is decide what can be done today and do that.  The truth is, we all have far more to do than we can do at any one time. And equally true is that it doesn’t have to be done right now or even today.  So, with all that said, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.  This week’s question comes from Elaine. Elaine asks, hi Carl, what advice would you give to someone who is always busy and never has time to do their most important work?  Hi Elaine, love the question. Short and sweet.  I would first refer you to the Jim Rohn question ” Busy doing what?”  If you feel constantly busy from the moment you wake up until you go to bed, the first thing I would suggest is to look at what you are doing during your waking hours.  Write down what you are doing over a period of 48 hours or so. Not just your professional work, but your personal things too.  I would also add that you write out what you would prefer to be doing instead. Write these down side by side. Draw a vertical line down the middle of a page, and on the left write what you spend your days doing, and on the right what you would prefer to be doing instead.  Be completely honest. If you discover, for example, that you spend 90 minutes a day on social media and a further 2 hours watching TV, write that down.  You’re not going to necessarily remove those. Instead, what you want to be asking yourself is whether spending time on the activities you currently spend time on is worthwhile.  Initially, you will try to justify spending time on these activities. This is the same response we have when someone challenges one of our opinions. Our natural instinct is to defend ourselves.  When you first write down these activities. Don’t judge. Just write them down. All you want to know is precisely where your time goes.  I’ve found that if you leave it for a few days and come back to it, you will begin to l
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  Why You Never Have Time for Your Most Important Work 16.08.2026 15dk

  When filling up your car with fuel, how do you know when it’s full? Well, the fuel filler nozzle clicks off. A sensor triggers the fuel to shut off. Yet did you know that the sensor is programmed to trigger when the fuel tank is 85 to 95% full? There is an intentional air pocket left in the tank to accommodate the fuel’s natural expansion due to heat.  Now ask yourself: how do you know when your calendar is full? Do you have a safety gap to allow for unexpected events that will naturally occur in the week?  Most people do not, and that’s what we’re looking at this week.    Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Learn more about the Productivity Academy Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Plan Your Week With Me: The Weekly Planning Matrix. 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 |429 Hello, and welcome to episode 429 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.  There was a time in the 2010s when hustle culture took hold, and the dream was to become the next “tech-bro”, as they were called. This meant working 18-hour days, seven days a week, with calendars bursting with meetings and every minute scheduled for whatever work these dreamers did.  It didn’t work. Pretty soon, the hustle culture trend morphed into a self-care trend, when rest and relaxation became the priority, not the stuffed calendars and 18-hour days.  Remnants of these trends still exist. There are people adopting AI and building apps today, in the hope that they will be the next hyper-successful business leaders. And a cursory look around YouTube will show you plenty of videos about slow living and mindfulness.  And as with most things, there’s a happy medium somewhere that, when found, brings you the success you wish for without the burnout, stress and overwhelm.  To find that happy balance requires one observation. Your natural capacity. And that’s what this week’s question is all about.  So, it’s time for me now to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice. This week’s question comes from Sarah. Sarah asks, hi Carl, what would you advise someone who never gets round to doing their most important work because their calendar always fills up with meetings. I was promoted last January, and since then all I seem to have been doing is sitting in meetings every day. I never have time to stop and think about strategy or even reply to my messages and emails. Hi Sarah, thank you for your question.  This is a very interesting question, as you may have noticed, I’m a little obsessed with calendars.  That’s because it dawned on me a few years ago that it doesn’t matter how many tasks are on my task list or how many articles, notes or reports I should read if I never have the time to do or read them.  The only thing that really matters each day is how I will spend my time. And that means the only productivity tool available to me is the calendar.  You see, your calendar is honest. It cannot lie to you. All you get are the 24 hours each day, and you plot out how you will spend the hours.  Now, I know it’s not always that simple. Some of you will discover that people can schedule meetings on your calendar without your knowledge, and many of you will likely already have some recurring meetings that happen every week or even every day.  So, technically, it’s unlikely that you will ever begin with a blank calendar.  However, if you allow someone else to control your calendar, that is where many of your time management and productivity problems begin. You bypass a key part of managing your calendar—the decision stage.  Let’s break this down. When someone makes a request on your time, you h
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  Why You’re Too Tired to Plan Tomorrow 09.08.2026 14dk

  “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” That was Theodore Roosevelt, giving his thoughts on making a decision, and in this week’s episode, I am answering a question about why we may be trying to solve a time management problem the wrong way. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   Learn more about the Productivity Academy   Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Plan Your Week With Me: The Weekly Planning Matrix. 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 |428 Hello, and welcome to episode 428 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.  If you’ve followed this podcast for any length of time, you will have heard me talk about processes and routines. It’s these little things that have the effect of automating your daily decision-making requirements.  If you always start your day in the same way, you no longer have to decide what to do when you wake up. You do it automatically.  And this is important.  Reducing the number of decisions you make each day prevents something called “Prefrontal Cortex Overload”, which is often called “decision fatigue”. And it’s not woo-woo science. It’s very real The prefrontal cortex is the part of your brain that deals with executive function. These functions include impulse control, evaluating something, and making choices. Basically, decisions.  When your prefrontal cortex becomes tired and fatigued, you find it harder to make logical, objective decisions, and instead your brain begins to use the amygdala, the part of your brain that controls emotions.  In effect, you begin making decisions based on how you are feeling.  And that leaves you picking the easy and exciting over the important, mundane tasks.  It also leaves you with little discipline, which often means you eat unhealthy food and stay up later than you should.  When overwhelmed, the brain defaults to the path of least resistance by delaying decisions, defaulting to the status quo, or refusing to choose at all. You then procrastinate, feel exhausted, anxious and overwhelmed.  When you set up processes and routines as well as setting some “if this then that” rules, you reduce the burden you place on your pre-frontal cortex.  And all that explanation now brings me onto this week’s question. Which means it’s time for me to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice. Some say she’s always on holiday; all I know is she’s called “The Mystery Podcast Voice.  This week’s question comes from Fabian. Fabian asks, hi Carl, you recommend that you should do your daily planning at the end of the day, not at the beginning. But I am always so exhausted at the end of the day that I find I just cannot do any planning. Is there anything I can do to consistently plan at the end of the day?  Hi Fabian. Thank you for your question.  When I read your question, my thought was that it might be because you are not getting enough sleep, or that your work causes you to make decisions all day about what to work on next. Nothing is pre-planned or pre-decided.  Both of which could be the underlying reason for feeling exhausted at the end of the day.  If you’re not getting enough sleep, the effect you will experience would be the same as if you were experiencing decision fatigue. An inability to make decisions.  And that is why, at the end of the day, you find it so difficult to plan the next day. After all, what is planning? It’s making decisions about what you will work on tomorrow.  So, if a lack of sleep is the issue, then the fix would be to look at your sleep cyc
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  Why You’re Still Overwhelmed After Trying Every Productivity System 02.08.2026 15dk

  Are you on a mission to find the best productivity app or system, and find that no matter how many apps or new methods you try, you still find yourself overwhelmed, backlogged and stuck? Well, this week I want to tell you about a new way I can help you.  Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   Learn more about the Productivity Academy 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 |427 Hello, and welcome to episode 427 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.  Eleven years ago, I began writing blog posts on time management and productivity. My goal was simple. To help people navigate the rapidly changing world of time management and productivity.  In 2015, it seemed almost every day a new task manager or notes app would come out promising to make organising your day easier.  This meant established productivity apps such as OmniFocus, Things, Remember the Milk and Todoist had to change to keep up. So these apps started adding features, changing their design languages, and everything started to become more complicated. AI today is doing exactly the same thing. Promising a lot and forcing established productivity tools to add more and more features, whether we want them or not.  When trying to decide if a new productivity tool is all that it promises to be, I’ve noticed that many of these promises are repackaged things that already exist.  For example, I’ve been using an app called TextExpander for fifteen years now. TextExpander inserts pre-written “snippets” of text through a keyboard shortcut.  I use it for writing dates so I don’t need to look up the date. All I type is “Edate”, and it will give me the date in the UK format: day, month and year.  I also have some pre-written thank you emails there too. They are written by me in my writing style, and a simple keyboard shortcut will give me the email. While TextExpander won’t send the email for me, all I need to do is hit Command and return on my keyboard, and it will send it.  Then we have tools such as Calendly and Acuity. These tools allow you to set up times on your calendar that people can pick from to set up an appointment with you. Once set up, this works in the background, and you have nothing to do.  No back-and-forth negotiating a time. People just click on a link, and these tools deal with time zone differences and all the admin.  No need for AI to get involved.  AI will inevitably change the way we work; for many people, it already has. However, there are some principles that never change.  There will still be 24 hours in a day, you will still be able to only focus on one thing at a time, and you won’t be able to be in more than one place at a time.  Your energy will fluctuate, and you will need to get enough sleep.  The need to manage our time is still there. We still have friends and family, work commitments and perhaps some hobbies. They all need time.  And the principles of time management will not change. If you want to do something, it will require time. Whether that’s cleaning out your car or sitting on the sofa chatting with an AI bot.  Time management and productivity skills will still be needed no matter what advances AI brings to our workplaces and lives. Thinking about all this led me to look at how people are engaging with my Learning Centre. This is where I have courses and programmes to help people become better at managing their time and become more productive.  As I was looking, I noticed something interesting. The people who have made the biggest positive changes in their lives weren’t the people who bought the most courses.They were the people who kept learning. They perhaps began with my COD course,
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  Your To-Do List Is Hiding the Truth About Your Time. 26.07.2026 14dk

  What drives your day? Your calendar or your to-do list? Or perhaps your boss? The answer to that question will determine whether you are or will be productive each day.  Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   Learn more about the Time Sector System here Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Plan Your Week With Me: The Weekly Planning Matrix. 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 |426 Hello, and welcome to episode 426 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.  If you were to look at the paper planners of the 1980s and 1990s, you would instantly see they were all built around your calendar. Some of the more sophisticated planners had a to-do list and a place to keep notes. Most were just a vertical list of times and the day’s date with a small area at the bottom for notes.  And there was a reason for that. People working in the 20th century understood that no matter what you wanted to do each day, it would require time.  Dropping your kids off at school likely involved a twenty-minute detour on your regular commute. Restocking your paper-clip box would require you to walk to the stationery cupboard to fill it, another ten minutes, and then there was all the travelling around to meet people. (No Teams or Zoom in those days). Needs drove how we managed our time, and your diary was the only tool that could prevent you from overloading yourself. You could see in an instant whether you could sit down and type out the report or proposal. Because, given that there were no smartphones or tablets, and laptops were prohibitively expensive, you also had to be in the right place in order to do much of your work. I fondly remember the days when I left work at the end of the day, and there was no way a client, colleague or boss could contact me until I arrived for work the next day. My work Email was only on my work desktop, and that was in the office.  Now, somewhere along the timeline, those barriers have been broken down. Your work can, and does, follow you home.  I recently saw a before-and-after picture of people sitting around a resort swimming pool in the 1990s and one in the 2020s.  In the 1990s, people were sitting around the pool talking or reading a book. In the 2020s, people were staring at their phones. No talking, no books. Just eyes glued to a screen.  It’s quite sad really to see. It’s also why your clients, colleagues and bosses are on holiday with you.  If you’re carrying your work life on your phone, then there’s no escape at all. It would require a superhuman effort to avoid occasionally looking at your emails and messages. I know some people can do it; most cannot.  Today’s episode is about how to put your calendar back to where it belongs: being your primary productivity and time management tool.  So, to get us started, let me hand you over to the recently returned Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.  This week’s question comes from Judy. Judy asks, Hi Carl, I’ve heard you say many times that your calendar should be your primary productivity tool. I really struggle with that because I have so many tasks to do, and so I find myself beginning and ending my day in my task manager. Do you have any suggestions on how to make my calendar my primary focus? Hi Judy, thank you for your question. There is a problem with task managers today, and that is their sophistication.  Before we went digital, if you used a to-do list, you needed to handwrite it each day. While this may not have been very convenient, it forced you to only write out the tasks that needed to be done.  Remembering to watch a TV show or read a newspaper artic
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  How to Protect Your Most Important Work When Everything Goes Off Plan 19.07.2026 13dk

  The legendary American Football coach, Vince Lombardi, said: “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up."  Now that’s true in American Football, and it’s also true in life.  No matter how well you plan your day or your week, your plan will inevitably get attacked by outside influences.  A disorganised, reactive boss, a tired son or daughter who won’t get out of bed in the morning, a traffic jam on the way to an important meeting, or your accountant telling you that you need to pay a big tax bill.  These are all sudden, impossible to plan for attacks on your carefully planned day.  Having a plan is one part of a productive day. Having an arsenal of tools to defend your plan is another. And it’s that part that most people never prepare for.  In this week’s episode, I will share with you a few ideas that will help you defend your plan and show you how to get back on track if you are prevented from following it through.  Let’s go. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   Learn more about the Quiet Productivity Method here Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Plan Your Week With Me: The Weekly Planning Matrix.   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 |425 Hello, and welcome to episode 425 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.  Whenever I ask a client how their week went, most answers are negative.  They usually go something like: “Well, it started well. I got everything I wanted done on Monday and Tuesday completed, but then I had to suddenly go out to see a customer on Wednesday morning, and that just threw me off track. I didn’t get back to the office until 4ish, and then I had to report back to my boss. That went on until 6:00 pm. Argh! It was a disaster”  Well, was is a disaster?  Perhaps not. All it was was one day out of five that did not go as planned.  It’s possible that a day like this will have put you behind on your plan for the week. It could also mean that getting everything you want done that week will no longer be possible. But that does not necessarily mean it’s become a disaster.  The issue really is not preventing things from going wrong; that would be a challenge beyond almost everyone. Instead, the focus should be on recovering from an unexpected event or interruption to minimise the damage to your plan.  And in this week’s episode, I will share a few ideas to help you quickly get back on track after one of these inevitable, unexpected events. But before I do that, I’d like to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question, but sadly, once again, she’s sunning herself in a resort somewhere, so I’m afraid it’s me reading out the question again.  This week’s question comes from Will. Will asks, “ Hi Carl, I’ve finally become consistent with my weekly planning (thank you for the tip about doing it on a Saturday morning). My problem now is when I look at my plan at the end of the week, I’ve got practically none of it done. There’s always some emergency that throws me off my plan. How do I get myself to stay on track?” Hi Will,  Thank you for your question.  Now, the first thing I would tell anyone is not to go for perfection. If you have ten things that you plan to get done over the next seven days but only manage to do seven, I would say that was a pretty good week.  You did seven important things that you wanted to do. That’s a 70% success rate. I’d take that.  The reality is you are unlikely to ever hit 100%. I know I never have; in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who has.  There are just too many things that can happen that will throw you off track. Plus there’s the h
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  You Don’t Need More Time. You Need Fewer Choices. 12.07.2026 13dk

    Socrates, that wise philosopher of the 5th century BC, said: "The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less." And the consensus across the centuries has always been clear: happiness isn't a destination you reach by wanting or accumulating more, but a state of mind achieved by reducing what you want. This week, I’m exploring the common problem of wanting to do more and more, yet never finding the time to do what you want.  Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   Learn more about the Perfect Week Calendar Learn more about the Quiet Productivity Method here 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 |424 Hello, and welcome to episode 424 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.  One of the most common questions I get asked is: How do I find the time to do everything I want to do?  And as David Allen said in his book Getting Things Done, you can do anything you want, but not everything.  In other words, you can do all the things you want to do, just not all at once.  This is a problem all humans have faced since the dawn of time: we are limited by the number of hours we have each day.  And before we acknowledged time and dates, we were still limited by daylight hours and the need to sleep.  In many ways, truly understanding that we will always be limited by time is the first step to discovering peace and happiness.  I remember many years ago having an argument with a colleague about why the iPhone’s constraints were better than Android’s lack of constraints. This was back in the day when you really didn’t have many options for what you could add to an iPhone’s home screen. The date and time, design, and colours were fixed, and the apps you downloaded were presented as Apple allowed them to be.  Android phones, on the other hand, let you download widgets, move your app icons wherever you wanted, and install thousands of different themes.  What was interesting is that my colleague was always fiddling with his phone. Never being happy with the way his home screen looked.  I had no choice. Which meant I wasn’t fiddling with my phone all the time, trying to find the perfect setup and design. I was therefore happy with what I had.  Funnily enough, now that Apple does give us more choice as to how our phone home screens look, I do waste a lot of time trying to find the right colour combinations and layouts. (And I’m still not happy with it!) So with that said, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question: This week’s question comes from Scott. Scott asks: Hi Carl, I have a lot of things I want to do, such as learning to play the guitar, reading more books, and taking my kids out on the weekend. Yet I never have time to do any of these, and when I do, I’m so exhausted that all I want to do is sit and watch TV. It’s so frustrating. Do you have any ideas on how to fit all these things into my week? Hi Scott, thank you for your question.  I’m not sure whether you have completed the “Perfect Week” calendar exercise yet, but I would recommend it.  This is an exercise where you take a blank weekly calendar and map out all the things you want to do each week by when you will do them.  Start with your personal life, then add your professional life. I will put a link in the show notes to a video I did on this.  This exercise tells you whether you are being overambitious. You will quickly see if what you want to do is realistic, impossible, or somewhere in between.  What most people find when they do this exercise is that they are
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  How to Keep Going When the Motivation has Gone 28.06.2026 15dk

  You may have come across the quote: “Motivation gets you started, but discipline keeps you growing." By John C. Maxwell, the author and leadership mentor.  Motivation is an interesting concept. It’s often required to get things started, but if you only rely on your motivation to do something, particularly if that something is not easy or particularly enjoyable, it won’t keep you going.  This week, we’re looking at how to use motivation to develop the right habits that will keep you consistent.  Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin The 2026 Summer Sale page The COD Productivity Method  Learn more about the Quiet Productivity Method here 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 |423 Hello, and welcome to episode 423 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.  One of the consequences of writing a journal every morning is that you come up with a lot of ideas about how you would like to change your life or the way you work. And many of those ideas can motivate you to try something new.  That could mean reading a real book every evening instead of watching TV or scrolling through the news and social media. Or perhaps to go out for an evening stroll after work, or plan your day the evening before, so you can enjoy a more relaxing evening. All seemingly easy to do.  And then you decide to do it. The first day is easy, the second a little less so and by the time you get to the end of the week, you’ve lost all motivation and picking up a book or going outside for a walk feels like the last thing you want to do after such a hard day. So you skip it. It’s only one day, it can’t do any harm, can it? And then the next day you don’t do it, and the day after that and so on. Eventually, that great idea you had about changing a bad habit has ended up in the pit of tried-but-forgotten great ideas.  It happens to all of us. It doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you; all it means is that you’re relying on one of the most overrated ways to change something, motivation.  Motivation is fleeting; it never lasts, and it hates reality. It’s also affected by the quality of your sleep, how distracted you are, and your overall mood. It’s a very unreliable friend.  Great at encouraging you to get started, but terrible at keeping you going when things get difficult.  The good news is there is a more reliable way to make changes, but the bad news is you may need to initially feel uncomfortable. Yet it’s worth it.  So, with that said, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.  This week’s question comes from Fran. Fran asks, Hi Carl, what do you do when you don’t have the motivation to do what you have planned to do?  Hi Fran, thank you for your question.  To answer your question directly, I don’t rely on motivation. I remember the days when I smoked, and almost every night, when I went to bed, I would motivate myself not to smoke the next day.  Thinking about that now, it’s funny, because as I was “motivating” myself, I was smoking my last cigarette of the day. “No, I won’t smoke tomorrow!” Then, when I woke up in the morning, I would make my coffee, then go outside for my first cigarette of the day.  Where was my motivation when I needed it most? It wasn’t there.  In the end, I finally quit smoking by removing all temptation from the house and not carrying any money with me when I went out. Just my travel card and a lunchbox. It was tough, but after a couple of weeks, the habit was disappearing, and by the end of the month, I could not imagine smoking again.  I’ve seen this time and time ag
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  How to Stop Interruptions. 21.06.2026 13dk

  Zig Ziglar said, “Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have 24 hours a day” When you know where you are going and what you want, you will often find that time will take care of itself. Yet when we have no direction, no idea of what we want, and allow other people to dictate what we do and when, that’s when time, or rather a perceived lack of it, becomes the issue.  Today, we’re looking at how to discover our direction and decide what we actually want.    Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   The COD Productivity Method  Learn more about the Quiet Productivity Method here 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 |422 Hello, and welcome to episode 422 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.  One of the first exercises I ask people to do in many of my training programmes is to establish their Areas of Focus.  There are eight areas that we all share. These are: Family and relationships. Career or business Health and fitness Finances Lifestyle and life experiences Self-development Spirituality Life’s purpose The exercise has you define what each of these means to you, and then identify any recurring tasks that will help keep them in balance so that you are living your life based on what you have identified as important to you.  The thing about your areas of focus is that, while we all share the same eight areas, how we define and prioritise them will differ.  This also changes depending on where you are in life. For someone who has retired, career or business will likely drop in priority and lifestyle and life experiences may move up.  Yet the power of knowing what your areas of focus mean to you is in how they help to give you direction and purpose.  This week’s question is about how to maintain that balance when competing demands outside of your control clash with your own priorities. So, let me now hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.  This week’s question comes from Annie. Annie asks, hi Carl. I use the Time Sector System, and for the most part it works brilliantly. The problem I have is that my boss and sometimes my family keep demanding my help with things that are not my priority. How can I stay on track with the things that are important to me?  Hi Annie, thank you for your question.  This can be very frustrating, particularly if you have spent time establishing what is important to you, yet other people keep trying to pull you away from doing the things you want to do. This is where having some structure built into your week can help.  Let’s say that health and fitness is high up on your priority list and that you have chosen to exercise three times per week.  From that, you can pick your exercise days. These could be Monday, Wednesday and Friday, for example.  The first step would be to lock these “dates” on your calendar. Then make sure they are non-negotiable.  For instance, when I was a teenager, I was a competitive 800- and 1,500-metre runner. I was a member of an athletics club and our training days were Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Sunday mornings. Those days and times were non-negotiable. I would never miss a training session. My social life, as well as studying for my exams, were built around these days.  Pretty soon, everyone in my family circle, as well as teachers, knew that on Tuesday and Thursday nights and Sunday mornings, I would not be available for anything. I was training.  Many years later, when I went to university, I did night school. Our lecture times were Tuesday and Thursday night, 6:00 to 9:00 pm.  I was wo
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  How to Build a Plan That Actually Bends 14.06.2026 14dk

  "A million dollars a shot is my price. But I only take one a year. The rest of the time I maintain my skills." That was Francisco Scaramanga, the villain in The Man With the Golden Gun, played by the superb Christopher Lee. Who, interestingly, was a cousin of James Bond creator Ian Fleming and a regular golfing partner of his. Now, while I certainly wouldn’t recommend following Scaramanga’s career path, there’s a valuable lesson in that line. The reason Scaramanga could ask such a high price was not because he worked all the time. It was because he spent most of his time practising, refining, and maintaining his skills so that when the moment came, he could perform at an exceptional level. And that brings us to this week’s question, which is all about developing, and more importantly, maintaining, your skills at managing your work and your time.   Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   The COD Productivity Method  Learn more about the Quiet Productivity Method here   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 |421 Hello, and welcome to episode 421 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.  There’s a belief, held by many, that becoming better at time management and productivity is something you learn once and then you’re set.  Or all you need to do is buy the latest productivity tool and all your struggles disappear.  Hahaha, it’s not quite so easy.  Theoretically, it may be possible to add a new app or use a new process for getting your work done. Unfortunately, life doesn’t fit perfectly into the little boxes we create. There’s always something different or new.  This is why the idea of plotting out every minute of your day on your calendar doesn’t work in practice.  Simple, natural things are not always predictable. You don’t know when you will need a bathroom break, or if a colleague asks you a question, or perhaps you spill your coffee all over your desk.  If any of these things happen when you have carefully mapped out every minute of your day, your day is ruined.  The missing pieces are flexibility and practice, and that is where this week’s question comes in.  So, let me now hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.  This week’s question comes from Kathy. Kathy asks, Hi Carl, I’ve recently taken your Time Sector System course and loved it. One thing that’s worrying me, though, is that no matter how well I plan my week, by Tuesday, my whole plan is ruined. Do you have any tips on staying on plan when things become hectic? Hi Kathy, thank you for your question.  This is a common discovery. Once you know the theory, putting it into practice can show up bumps in the road that cause problems.  One of the first problems people face is changing habits. If, for instance, you’ve never planned a week or a day, getting into the habit of consistently doing so is hard.  After all, you’ve spent most of your life so far without having a plan; skipping a daily or weekly planning session isn’t going to cause too many problems.  Yet when you are building your system, it’s that skipping that causes a problem. The more times you don’t do it, the longer it will take you to build the essential habits.  The goal is to use your new knowledge automatically. When you’re processing your inbox, you instinctively know what to do. It’s like there’s a voice in your head asking the three questions: What is it? What do I need to do with it? When will I do it? When you start, asking these questions can be slow. You’re naturally thinking too much. But when you’ve done it consistently for a few weeks,
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  How to Get Started With COD 07.06.2026 13dk

  “In baseball, my theory is to strive for consistency, not to worry about the numbers. If you dwell on statistics, you get shortsighted; if you aim for consistency, the numbers will be there at the end.” That was Tom Seaver, an outstanding baseball player. And it points to an important factor in managing your time and being productive.  And it’s a single word: Consistency.  Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   The COD Productivity Method  Learn more about the Quiet Productivity Method here   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 | 420 Hello, and welcome to episode 420 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.  There seems to be a consistency crisis. If you were to analyse anyone who has been successful at anything, you would find that, hidden behind that success, lies a high degree of consistency in following the basics.  Last week, I talked about your standards. Setting your standards and staying true to them. Well, a close relation to your standards is consistency.  Yet, consistency is hard. It’s boring, and your brain is often your worst enemy. It tells you that you’re tired; you can take a rest. Or you can skip today. You’ve been busy; it’s okay.  But it’s not okay. Not if you want to develop your consistency. So how can you stay consistent, even on your worst days? That’s what we’re looking at today.  So, to get us started, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Stephan. Stephan asks, “Hi Carl, I’ve been following the COD system for almost a year now, and I know it works. Most days I do well. I collect, and I organise. But I am not consistent. What can I do to get consistent organising and planning my days? Hi Stephan, thank you for your question.  Now, before we begin, I am not going to advocate that you turn yourself into a non-communicative monk. There does need to be some flexibility. Yet to succeed at anything, you will find that, somewhere in the mix, something needs to be done consistently.  Something in the quote I began this podcast with from Tom Seaver jumped out at me. The line was: “If you aim for consistency, the numbers will be there at the end.” I know from experience and from feedback from those who have taken my Email Mastery course that if you consistently spend 30 minutes or more on your actionable emails, your email will never get out of control.  The numbers take care of themselves.  This means when you plan your day, you ask yourself where you will find time for communications.  Managing your communications is not about the number of messages you get. We all get too many. There are messages that need answering, messages for information we should read, and a lot of messages we can ignore and delete.  But, when you begin the day, you have no idea how many you will get and of what type they will be. This means you cannot plan for the number or type of message that needs to be replied to. Numbers don’t count. Yet, if you know each day that you will spend at least 30 minutes on them, it’s unlikely you will ever have an out-of-control inbox.  Some days you will clear them; other days, you won’t. But as long as you’re consistent, the numbers will stay low.  Your consistency will take care of the numbers.  When it comes to COD, that’s the collect, organise and do framework. The only area that needs deliberate consistency is the organising.  You see, once you have established your UCT (Universal Collection Tool), you will naturally collect everything that needs to be collected. And if you have that set up prope
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  Why Your Standards Matter and How Arsenal Won the Premier League. 31.05.2026 13dk

  If you follow the English Premier League, you will know that Arsenal won the Premier League title a couple of weeks ago.  It’s been a tough 6-year journey for their manager, Mikel Arteta, but what stood out is that no matter how hard things got, Arteta stuck to the standards he set at the club and, more importantly, focused on following his plan.  He knew that to take Arsenal back to the top, there had to be a plan, and to ensure the plan was followed, standards needed to be set. In this week’s episode, we’re looking at how your standards matter and why having a plan to fall back on will always give you clarity, focus and make better decision-making easier.   Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   Learn more about the Quiet Productivity Method here 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 | 419 Hello, and welcome to episode 419 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.  If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you will know I have written and spoken a lot about having standards.  Standards for how Long it takes you to respond to emails and messages, and how you manage your calendar, for example.  It’s the standards you set for yourself that will ensure that you do the right things day after day. That if things go wrong, you have something to fall back on that feels familiar and keeps you doing the right things.  My communication standard is to respond to emails within 24 hours. This means that no matter how busy I am, if I have an actionable email I have not responded to that is approaching the 24-hour limit, I will do whatever it takes to respond, even if that means working a little extra time at the end of the day.  This week’s question is related to these approaches. So to get us started, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Sonya. Sonya asks, Hi Carl, I love COD and the Time Sector System. Both have really helped me to get much more focused on what matters to me. But what frustrates me is that I still have too many days when I procrastinate and don’t get what I want done. How do you stay so consistent?  Hi Sonya, thank you for your question. As I alluded to, it comes down to the standards you set for yourself. I know that sounds easy, and I know it is not, but the standards you set are what help you push through when you are not in the right frame of mind to do what needs to be done.  Let me explain.  It can be very tempting, when you have just finished reading a book or have taken a course, to be full of enthusiasm to change things.  And that’s not a bad thing. But it’s important to be realistic when setting up your processes and new way of doing things.  If you were to set up a two-hour closing-down routine at the end of each day, you would fail. It’s too long.  Similarly, I’ve seen people get excited by the idea of having a solid morning routine. Then they add so many things to their morning routine that it takes them two or three hours to complete them.  That’s never going to promote consistency. There will inevitably be days when you cannot complete those routines, and then you get it into your head that you’re a failure or that having routines doesn’t work for you. Neither of which is true.  The place to begin is with your non-negotiables. What must happen every day, no matter what?  I know many people, for instance, who will not go to bed until all the dishes have been washed and put away.  That might seem a small thing, but to the people who do that, it is their standard. They couldn’t imagine going to bed without d
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  A Calmer, More Human Approach to Time Management 24.05.2026 14dk

  Is it possible to remain calm and focused when everything around us is getting faster, noisier and seemingly more demanding?  I think it is, and in this week’s episode, I’ll share some of my insights so you, too, can remain productive in a quiet, focused way.  Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   Learn more about the Quiet Productivity Method here 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 | 418 Hello, and welcome to episode 418 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.  Recently, I had a call with one of my coaching clients who is completely on board with AI. He’s gone down the usual rabbit hole of ChatGPT, then Claude, then back to ChatGPT, then to Google’s Gemini and now he’s obsessed with Claude again.  It reminded me of the late twenty-teens when everyone was switching between Evernote, Notion, Apple Notes, and then Roam Research. It was an amusing merry-go-round.  One of the ironic things about my client is that he’d had to wake up at 5:00 am to review the materials for a workshop he was delivering that day because he suddenly thought Claude might not have given the correct information, and he needed to check everything before 9:00 am.  I asked him how long he usually took to prepare for a workshop like this, and he replied that it normally took three or four hours. However, he said emphatically, with Claude’s help, it’s taking him around six to eight hours. I did point out the obvious. With AI’s help, it’s taking twice as long, but he dismissed that, saying AI was the future and that by doing it this way, he was learning and would eventually be faster.  Fair point.  But he did have to wake up two hours earlier than normal. Not something I would enjoy doing.  This reminded me that life, whether it’s our personal or our professional lives, shouldn’t be lived at speed. Life should be lived at our own pace.  Two YouTube videos I recently watched emphasised this. One was by Matt D’ Avella, and the other was from Samurai Matcha.  In Matt’s video, entitled I Tried to Optimise my Life. It made it Worse, Matt pointed out that trying to live a productive life left him feeling frustrated. All the curated lists and time blocks on his calendar just set him up for failure.  If he didn’t clear his to-do list or he was unable to follow his time blocks, he’d end the day feeling that he’d failed. This left him feeling miserable all evening and wondering what was wrong with him. Then I watched Samurai Matcha’s video entitled “10 Real Japanese Organisation Tricks”, in which he explained why his girlfriend’s organisation philosophy was brilliant.  Her philosophy was that the goal of organising is to always know where everything is. This meant that things were stacked so you could see what was in a cupboard or refrigerator as soon as you opened the door. That clothes were arranged so that, just by looking in a wardrobe, you could instantly see what was in there.  It isn’t about having everything look pretty and tidy, only to be unable to find what you are looking for. It’s about knowing instantly where everything is.  So there you have one person trying to optimise everything and setting himself up for failure every day. And another who is essentially working by her own logic, making her life as simple and easy as possible.  You can guess who was the more relaxed, settled and happy with life.  And this is the point. Life’s not about optimising everything. We’re human beings, but we’re trying to turn ourselves into machines that can be programmed to wake up at a particular time, jump into a bath of freezing water,
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  How to Stick with Time Blocking the Right Way 17.05.2026 15dk

  There’s a conflict in time management and productivity that few people ever talk about. That’s the conflict between being productive and being responsive.  It’s almost like the Ying and Yang of life. A sort of Newtonian “everything has an equal and opposite reaction.” While we may want to shut ourselves away and give our full focus to an important piece of work, there’s always someone, somewhere, who wants to interrupt us and keep us from being productive.  It’s this that we will be looking at this week. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   Learn more and register for the Ultimate Productivity Workshop here. 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 | 417 Hello, and welcome to episode 417 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.  I’m sure we’ve all been there. We have an important piece of work to complete, and we need a good two or three hours of uninterrupted focus to do it.  We block our calendars and pre-plan our day to minimise the risk of anything happening that will interrupt our plan.  And then the day starts, you turn up for work, and all hell has broken loose. Bosses and colleagues are in a panic, and you’re told you must attend an urgent meeting in twenty minutes. No ifs or buts, you must attend.  Argh! It’s enough to have you asking what the point is in making plans when this always happens.  Well, not so fast. It’s just Newton’s third law of Motion acting in a way Sir Isaac Newton never expected.  The pressure of needing two or three hours of quiet, focused work is matched by the force of people needing your attention right now. Finding the antidote to this phenomenon is what this week’s question is all about.  So, without further ado, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.  This week’s question comes from Tim. Tim asks, “ Hi Carl, I’ve tried to do time blocking for years and have never found a way to stick with it. My colleagues always seem to have urgent questions or need me to do something right now. Do you have any ideas to avoid this from happening?  Hi Tim, thank you for your question.  You may have heard of the concept of manager vs maker (or sometimes producer). A manager’s role is to ensure the work is getting done, allocate resources, and hold meetings.  A maker’s role is to produce the work.  The conflict is between the manager’s need to know what’s happening and the maker’s need for uninterrupted time to produce the work the manager is chasing.  In my experience working with teams, the best teams are those where managers trust their teams to get the work done. Where the flow of information is smooth and works both ways, and the need for “update” meetings is minimal.  The most ineffective teams are those where managers constantly want to know what’s happening, are unclear about what they want and by when, and don’t protect their team from interruptions.  You can tell these managers by the number of “status” meetings they have each week. Every day is full of them. I remember seeing an interview with Toto Wolff, the CEO and team principal of the Mercedes-Benz Formula 1 racing team. In one response to a question, he said: “My role is to hire the best people, tell them what I want, and then get out of the way and let them do their work.”  Toto Wolff is not an engineer or aerodynamicist, but he is an excellent leader and manager.  Many of the software engineers I’ve spoken with tell me they need about 4 to 6 hours a day to focus on writing code. And even with the help of AI, there’s still a lot of focused work required.  AI doesn’t magically p
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  How to do a Reset. 10.05.2026 14dk

  If you’re listening to this, there’s a good chance you’re a human being. (Although the speed at which AI is developing may be not all of you… A big hello to Gemini, Claude and ChatGPT (As Boris Johnson would say it) And, as a human being, you’re attacked every day by emotions, fatigue, viruses and micro-managing bosses and demanding colleagues. You’re not going to be able to stay consistent with your productivity systems and processes. (And even AI gets confused from time to time)  You WILL fall off the wagon from time to time As David Allen, of Getting Things Done (GTD), often emphasises, falling off the productivity "wagon" is normal and expected. His most famous quote on this topic is: “If you don't fall off the wagon regularly, you're not playing a big enough game.” So, what can you do when you do fall off? How can you quickly get back on track? Well, that’s what we’re going to look at today.  Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   Learn more and register for the Ultimate Productivity Workshop here.   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 | 416 Hello, and welcome to episode 416 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.  One of the most common questions I get is what to do when your systems become neglected following a particularly busy period, a holiday, or illness or even plain, good old-fashioned laziness.  It happens to everyone from time to time, and it certainly doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you.  Yet it can leave you feeling that there’s something lacking, that perhaps there’s something wrong with you.  Of course, simply not true. There’s nothing wrong with you at all. It’s another sign that you are a functioning human being. (That’s a good thing, by the way)  All that’s happened is you got very busy and attended to the most important work that needed doing in that moment, or that you’ve just got back from holiday (vacation), and there’s a lot of catching-up and cleaning up to do.  Both scenarios can leave you with some tidying up to do. That doesn’t mean everything has failed. It just means there’s some tidying up to do.  So, to get us started, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.  This week’s question comes from Ernesto. Ernesto asks, Hi Carl, thank you for the Time Sector System. Finally, I have a system that works after many years of trying. My question is, what do you do when, for whatever reason, you fall off the wagon and let things slip? Is there a quick way to get back on track?  Hi Ernesto, thank you for your question.  Firstly, as I mentioned, this is perfectly normal. So many things can cause us to stop following our system, leaving us feeling anxious about everything that needs cleaning up.  The first place to start is by cleaning up your to-do list for today. This is what I call the business end of any task management system. Your today list.  With the exception of your inbox, all your other lists are just holding pens of tasks that you have processed and decided do not need doing today. Your inbox is where unprocessed tasks sit until you decide what to do with them.  So get your list of tasks for today cleaned up. Reschedule tasks that do not need to be done today, and delete or check off those that have been completed or are no longer needed.  This one step will clear the runway and give you a curated list of things that do need to be done today. One of the tricks I have to help me here is to give myself a few minutes each evening to clear this list. Anything I have not completed that day is either checked off if done, resch
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  The Time Management Secret I Wish Everyone Knew About 03.05.2026 15dk

  What are your priorities today? What about tomorrow? Do you even know?  This week, I’m sharing a simple switch you can make that will make prioritising your work almost automatic… Almost.   Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   What is Time-Based Productivity? Learn more and register for the Ultimate Productivity Workshop here.   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 | 415 Hello, and welcome to episode 415 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.  How do you decide what to do and when? Do you operate a FIFO methodology (First In, First Out) or is it something more nuanced than that?  I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that almost everyone has too much to do and too little time to do it. That’s perhaps the reason you are listening to this podcast.  It’s further complicated by the scope of what we are asked to do. Today, we have Slack or Teams messages that somehow cut through our defences and turn into long, time-consuming “chats” about a minor issue on a project that isn’t due to be completed for another six months, preventing us from doing the rather more important work we had planned to do that day.  Then there is email, treated slightly less urgently than instant messages, but it can again destroy our focus, leaving us distracted and unable to finish the work we need or want to complete.  Every day is a challenge. What to do, what is the most urgent, and what is the most important thing you can do today? And if you can work on the most important thing, will you have enough time to do it? If not, would it be better to do something else?  Agh! It’s enough to drive anyone around the bend. And it’s not isolated. Every day we have to go through the same decision-making process. It’s exhausting and stressful (Is this the right thing to work on, or should I respond to that email I just received from my colleague?) and can lead to a prioritisation freeze and activity addiction, where looking busy is more important than doing work that matters. This week’s question is about ideas for solving these challenges, so to get us started, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.  This week’s question comes from Benjamin. Benjamin asks, What are your thoughts on organising work into categorised FIFO-style lists, adjusted for priority, and then using time blocks to work through them without expecting every block to result in a fully completed task unless there’s a real deadline attached. Hi Benjamin, thank you for your question.  I think you are on the right lines with your ideas there.  Let me give you an example of this working.  I teach a method called Inbox Zero 2.0 for managing emails. This method has two parts. The first is to clear the inbox. This is about speed, and all you are doing is filtering out the informational emails that don’t need any action, except to archive them and moving any actionable emails to a folder called “Action This Day”. Later in the day, you go into that folder and try to clear it.  Now, the ‘secret sauce’ of this method is that the emails in your Action This Day folder are in reverse order. The oldest ones are at the top, and the newest ones are at the bottom of the list.  (You can do this from the folders’ settings in Outlook and Apple Mail. I’ve never been able to find a way to do this in Gmail)  This means, when you come to ‘clear’ the Action This Day folder, you start at the top and work your way down. You try to clear it every day, but often that’s not possible; sometimes there are too many in there.  However, because you start wit