share a little bit today about just productivity.
And these are some things,
we actually did a training for another group
and then we had the new roadmap group come in
and then Lindsay and I shared some piece of that training
and we realized we actually hadn't really talked
to you guys about it since this was,
they're just, you know, we're just always updating content.
So we try to take us as creatives,
like it's very difficult sometimes to focus
on like what to do next, right?
And so, and then obviously trying to get, you know,
everything's kind of compressed into a week
and you're trying to get as much as you can done
inside of a week.
And there's just different ways to kind of, you know,
cut that up as far as like how to use like, you know,
specifically use your time during the week.
And that is probably one of our most valuable resources
as creators, like you have a limited amount of time, right?
That we all have to get something done.
So just making sure you can focus on the right thing,
making that you're actually like working
towards certain goals.
So we just wanted to share some of our productivity hacks,
if you will.
I know that's like a very thrown around, you know, phrase.
Well, I think it's coming from a conviction
where we realized that so much of our lives,
we were allowing time or our concept of,
or our perception of how much time we thought we had
to lead us instead of us taking leadership of our time.
And so there's been many variations
and it does take some, I would say,
trying new things and figuring out what works for you.
But this is probably years in the making
as far as like what is working for us now
in this season of life and giving us a new sense of freedom.
And what we really have squelched
is the scarcity poverty mindset
of never having enough time to do the things
that either we are feeling led to,
like led by the Lord to do, or we just want to do.
Yeah.
And this is the funny thing.
I would say the thing that we encounter,
and you guys, I'm sure you have encountered this as well,
where you're working on different stuff
and you're kind of like, well, if I just had time, right,
I would do this thing.
If I just had, you know, and really what it is,
I think more than anything is focus.
Because if you had focus for a specific time,
if you were like, your life depended
on getting this thing done in the next week,
like you wouldn't make it happen.
Like you would lose, like not having as much sleep,
you would rearrange your schedule.
It's just a matter that I think a lot of us
are trying to do too many priority items,
like all at the same time, right?
And I guess life is busy and that,
but when I think when it comes to your job,
your kingdom channel, you know, if you're a coach
or whatever you're doing as your kind of job,
that's something where we really can try to do
like really one thing at a time, right?
You know, and there's so many things,
like whether you're watching, you know, training from us,
you're getting it from other places,
you're just seeing something cool on social media.
Like there are a lot of ideas of things to go do.
And this is where like, we're trying to want to help you
filter down through the noise and say, look,
sometimes there's just too many voices
speaking to you at the same time.
And that's something where you're just feeling like
I should go left or right, or I could do this,
I could do that.
And then you get so many different ways you can go,
but you actually get stuck because you feel like
you can't really move in any one particular direction.
You get a little bit paralyzed,
I think, because you're overwhelmed.
Yeah, it's the analysis paralysis.
And again, you're not taking leadership of your time
and your energy and leadership of just what input
you take in and receive in the season that you're in.
Yeah, so I think, you know, if we're gonna summarize
this sort of first three sort of keys for, you know,
time management and making the most of your time is one.
I would like to say time leadership.
Time leadership, that's a good, we're gonna, that's great.
I love that.
And basically the first thing is really just this idea
of seeing time as not from a scarcity mindset,
I think is probably the main thing.
And having that, you know, we've been given a certain time
on earth, right, to accomplish certain things.
And I know that we can hear the voice of the Holy Spirit,
we've got other people in our lives,
we've got family that are speaking into us
as far as what to do with that time.
And I think it's one of those things that if you can,
you know, put those big rocks in place
as far as what has to happen in the week,
then everything else can kind of filter in around that.
And we have a lot of dialogue with the Lord about this,
especially when we're feeling pressed in,
or we're feeling like we're shifting back
into that scarcity mode,
recognizing that time is not our source.
It is a resource, but it is not our source.
The Father is our source in all things.
He's our all in all.
And so we've gotten, I would say,
bolder in trusting Him as our source
and the way that we ask Him and talk to Him about time.
Lord, can you accelerate this?
I mean, there have been times just in my practicing,
trusting Him, like, Lord, I have left the house too late.
need to be somewhere in 10 minutes that I know is gonna take me 20 minutes with
traffic. Can you slow down time? You know, and that's, that's silly.
And people make fun of people part, you know,
praying for parking spaces and stuff like that. But like, it's just a practice.
It's me reminding myself, reminding my soul,
who is my source and recognizing that I can lead
time. I don't have to be led by it.
So it's something you can even just start incorporating in your conversations
with him.
If you're feeling pressed or if you're feeling like I don't want this to take
as much time, you know, and start to just have dialogues with him about that.
Yeah. That's great. I think, um, so that's,
I would say probably the first key would relabeling that taking leadership of
time and not scarcity.
It's time leadership. Think it, start thinking of it as time leadership.
That's good. Time's not managing me and I don't have to manage it.
I'm going to lead this. I'm going to take dominion over this space of my life.
It's awesome. It's a mindset shift. It's a belief to embrace. Yeah.
And I think maybe some, like how we've learned that. I think, you know,
I think that's something that's just come over when you have,
let's say, so we've recently gone from, you know,
not having kids to having kids in the last two years. Right.
So like you don't realize how much time you have until you have a baby.
And so like, you're like, what honestly did we do every single night?
We swore up and down. We didn't have enough time.
We didn't have time to do this thing or this project.
And then like you have a baby and you're like, man, like we had so much time.
And then from what I hear, if you have a second baby and so forth,
and so we actually said this, I think very early on in our marriage was we,
we will never have as much margin as we have as we do today. Like,
and that's always relative because it's only,
you're only losing margin as you add new things and you take on other
commitments and all that. And so, cause if there's a question of like,
well, I'll wait till I have time for this or I'll wait till there's margin for
that may not, may not happen. Like, cause life,
it will get filled automatically.
And I think part of that leadership thing is just taking, you know,
taking that ownership of it and not letting it own you.
And so that's something that we've just experimented with.
And that's something we've constantly said that like, Hey, yeah,
we even may feel busy now,
but like we still have more margin than we may have a few months from now or,
you know, a year from now. Yeah. And so,
and just with that mindset shift, you'll start to,
you'll start to run across scenarios and think of them differently.
Like you're going to have to start saying no to certain things.
Yes to certain things,
because you might find as you start to take leadership of your space,
you might discover that other people,
well-meaning have filled your time,
whether it's asking you to volunteer for something or, you know,
do this or do that.
And so you might find yourselves having to have conversations about what you're
going to say yes to and what you're going to say no to based on where you feel
the Lord is leading you. And it's easier said than done,
but it's something about taking that mindset shift of like,
I'm not letting life happen to me anymore.
I'm not letting time take ownership of me. I'm going to flip the script.
There's an empowerment that happens when you,
when you kind of put your intent intentions behind that.
That's great. Yeah. I love that. And so that, that's probably like,
I'd say probably the first kind of thing,
the one thing that as well,
that we kind of shifted our view as well on time is this idea of
deep work. And there's a book by Cal Newport that you can check out.
I can drop a link to it as well for you guys, but basically this is a fantastic
book. If you are just looking for,
if you're really interested in this whole topic of time and managing time,
this was a great book that I read a few years ago.
And some of the key things around this is,
is he uses the analogy of this idea of working deeply.
And all you have to think about when you think of deep work is just think of
deep sleep.
When you are sleeping and someone is interrupting you every 15 minutes,
like you are going to feel not great in the morning. Right.
And so this idea is that like you work in the same ways,
like the same way you have different sleep cycles and how that your brain needs
to like, you know, that works. Same thing happens with work as well.
It's very difficult to come in, do something for 15,
20 minutes and then go straight back out.
We've all been in that spot where like you're trying to get something creative
done. And it's,
it's very difficult because a lot of our calendars and all that stuff are based
in either 15 minute increments or, you know, hour long increments. And so,
um, it's, it's, but that's not really how necessarily,
and everybody will be a little bit differently,
but most of the time it's at least a 90 minute to two hour, uh,
session to do anything meaningful or creative. And if you can just go,
cause what happens is you kind of get into a,
your mind kind of brings everything to the forefront and you're actually like,
it's, it gets kind of builds up momentum through that time.
So if you do it for 30 minutes and then you go off and do something else and
come back, like you, you kind of lose that, that, um, uh, momentum.
that you had built.
And so this is something we've, we've experimented a little bit with, um, as
far as even in our business, we've made very specific times, uh, cause the, the,
the biggest interruption when you're running a business is meetings, especially
if you have started having a team and you're meeting with clients and you're
doing, you know, consulting calls or whatever, uh, the, the meetings are the
most, um, the biggest interruption because you have clients could book
them through Calendly, it just show up.
So we said, that's fine.
We'll keep all that automated, but we blocked off days.
So like, we don't do calls on really Mondays or Fridays.
So all of our Calendly and all that stuff just got blocked off.
So we don't even have to think about having meetings.
Um, and it just made our whole week so much calmer, at least for me, like
the way I've structured it.
And so, and that's just a little, it's a little adjustment when you're
setting up a tool like Calendly.
Um, if you were doing any kind of external thing where you're meeting
with clients or they're booking consultations or anything like that,
Calendly is awesome.
You guys have probably used it to book for us as well.
It's, I think it's a free app, but, um, that it's just those
little adjustments you can have.
We're again, taking the leadership of it.
We're saying, Hey, let's, what if we just didn't have meetings
on Mondays and Fridays?
What then?
Like, let's just try it.
And then, you know, occasionally we'll do something here or there, but
generally like we leave Mondays and Fridays for deep work for long extended
periods of time to, to get things done.
And for those exceptions, again, we're still in the leadership role of
getting to decide like, okay, I know that I'm making an exception to the
boundary, but again, it's not something that's happening to you.
Like you don't wake up and like, Oh my gosh, my whole Monday's filled now.
It's like, okay.
This call is, I believe was important enough to, so you, again, you're
back in the leadership seat.
And when you're thinking about deep work, I mean, time is a gift and it's
often a gift that we're not willing to give ourselves at the end of the day.
We're, we're very free and giving our time to everyone else or giving
our time to things that are not very meaningful, but think of it as a gift
and think of yourself as giving it to you because you value yourself and you
value the things that the Lord has given you to do.
Um, sometimes I have to have a conversation with myself when it comes
to setting a 90 minute to two hour.
You know, time slot on my calendar because I think, Oh, there's so many
other things I could be doing, or let's be real.
There's so many other things I want to be doing that may be writing a script or,
you know, getting deep into my channel analytics or things like that.
But there is something about giving yourself time where I, I have
found there's been a multiplication.
It's almost like a seed sown where there's been weeks where I think I do not
have the time and I've given myself the time anyway, and it's been amazing how
just my, it feels like there's been more time in the week.
I don't know how it works other than to say, I think it's a kingdom reality of
I've sown into myself and it feels like versus I could have spent that time even
doing things that I, that I think are, you know, okay, we got to get the laundry
done, we got to do the housework or we've got to do X, Y, and Z.
And it's just been amazing how I've still been able to get all that done
and having these, these time increments.
That's great.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Check out that book as far as just kind of like constructing is that we had to
have a different view about work, uh, how are we going to work and how we're
going to manage our time for the week.
And, um, I think the idea of just have like what typically never works is just
having one massive long to-do list, right.
And just trying to like burn your way top to bottom because our brains really
can't, uh, visualize that many items.
And so we need a way to just simplify.
And sometimes as well, when you get stuck, you're like, there's so many
different projects, there's so many different tasks that it just
feels totally overwhelming.
So you end up not, you're kind of procrastinating or you do end up just
kind of not doing anything, um, because just too many options, because your
brain, you know, you have that long to-do list, your brain knows that you
have a long to-do list and might not even remember everything that's on the
to-do list, but what happens is all through the week, you carry this burden,
this feeling of like, I haven't gotten everything done, right.
You might not even revisit the list.
You just know that there's things that you haven't gotten done on there.
And so thinking through, okay, I'm, you know, looking at your week through, I'm
going to have these blocks of time.
And we'll talk about time blocking allows you to think even
differently about your to-do list.
Absolutely.
And, and taking the time, I think it's for entrepreneurs as well.
If you're doing anything, uh, you know, building a business or
building any kind of ministry, like you are as a creator and a founder, you
have a million ideas of things that could happen, at least if this is just me.
But so what happens is like week one goes by and you don't get, you get three of the
things done and there's like 10 things on the list.
So when week two comes, now you have all the things you didn't do the week before,
plus all the new ideas you have on this week.
So, right.
So then it just literally like snowballs into this massive thing.
So if we can set some of you guys free, it's okay to just reset and be like, okay,
this week I'm not doing anything except for.
two, three. That's our only goal. So that was the little thing. Yeah, let me share this template on
time blocking, because that's kind of where we're going to next. And then I want to show
you guys our calendar and how we arrange our calendars. So this, I'll show the screen here,
but this is something that is popular with like, you can just Google time blocking.
I just wanted to show this one template I found. But getting to where there's just like
for the day, particularly, I currently do it kind of for the week, but I'll show you that. But for
the day, just saying if I just did these like three things, like if I just finished writing
my episode, if I just hit publish, if I just recorded this piece, that would be like a huge
one. And then tomorrow it would, we'd build on that momentum. And then what you can do is like
write three things up there and then just write absolutely everything that is in your brain,
right? Like I'm going to do the laundry and do this thing. And I need to like pick up this
thing from the post office and this thing and this, and just like list literally everything
that's like going on in your brain. And then what you can do here is just kind of like write out,
like, okay, I'm going to, from nine to 10, I'm doing this for this thing, I'm doing that. And
there's ones that go in finer increments and stuff. But when you have something like this top
priority, and it's going to be like, write an episode for my podcast, block off like nine to
11, or block off like a good section of the time. So that you can actually, and then mentally-
Be honest with yourself. Like I know that I'm not writing an episode in 15 minutes.
There's just no way. No one's doing that.
Now, occasionally there can be an exception where I'm driving in the car and I just feel
like I've got to download and it's like, okay, I feel like I can just hit, you know,
but that's the exception. I know that, I just know because I've been doing this for two years,
that it takes me at least two hours to write an episode. Wouldn't you say?
I think two hours. Yeah. We plan two, three hours for the writing and two,
three hours for the filming.
Yeah. It's not even like two hours for everything. It's like,
because I'm studying and I'm looking at a scripture and I'm looking at different
translations I'm going into. And if I don't give myself that time, I never quite feel confident
Yeah.
with what I'm sharing. When I'm talking about theology or my interpretation of a scripture,
like I always feel a little bit like I sold myself short if I'm trying to rush through that process.
So I know now, and I only know that because I've tried it before, right? Like maybe I can just get
this done and I'm sure this is what this means. But give yourself the time because then you also
are presenting with the command and with the confidence of, okay, I do believe what I'm
sharing.
Yeah. And it's giving, you know, there's probably like a whole thing about if you can come at this
whole thing of productivity and time management and all that from a place of rest and from peace,
your brain just thrives in peace. Right? And so all this stuff, like these little exercises and
putting things in there, it's just to help you kind of see it and your brain just to kind of
calm down for a second and kind of see, okay, look, yes, there's all these things that need
to be done, but this is the most high priority thing and that I'm going to block off this time.
And for those other small things, I'm going to do them at four o'clock today and five o'clock
and your brain can see, okay, cool. Like I can breathe for a second. Like I'm going to get to
those things later, but right now we're focusing in on this and it just helps your brain sort of
come at it really from peace is a whole different way then. And I'll say there's also time management
systems and productivity tools out there that don't really do that. They're just,
they kind of just stack bigger and bigger and bigger and you never quite chip away at the,
you know, at anything. And something that I'm discovering, like the kingdom piece of this
is the power of my will, the power of me making a choice that this is actually a priority.
Because for a long time, I didn't want to choose a priority because I didn't want to be wrong.
I didn't want to let other, I didn't want to make the choice to let other things kind of wait
because it's like, what if those things end up being more important? Or what if I, you know,
what if I made the wrong decision, but we are sons of God and our free will, our choice is powerful.
And so I think that there is also a factor to, there's this breath that comes behind us deciding
this is what I choose to spend time on. This is what I choose to put my energy behind today.
And I'm choosing just as powerfully to let other things wait. There's something very,
very powerful about that. So, and I think that's part of, you know, even the multiplication factor
later on of having, it feels like you have more time to do other things is because there's been
a powerful decision here that has effect in other areas of your life. That's good. Yeah. I love that.
And it's that like, it always comes back to like sowing and reaping really, like you're
sowing into those things, those big things that you're putting time in,
you're putting those seed in there.
Then and sometimes I do want to say sometimes that choice that we sometimes, you know, again, this is a spirit led
Situation and it will come across almost so naturally that you don't even recognize it as so because it will feel so
Just natural and effortless
But there's been times when I know
That I need to choose the laundry as crazy as that sounds or I need to choose
something that doesn't feel as spiritual or as meaningful, but i'm
Like it's whether it's something the lord is teaching me through taking like dominion over my home or something
But like there has been times where i'm like actually
I know I know that I know I don't know how I know I know that I know that like
I don't need to be sitting and writing an episode. Yeah, and there's sometimes it takes just as much faith and trust in the lord
Like, okay i'm hearing you and i'm choosing this
because it feels like i'm gonna make a very meaningless decision, but
Again, we are spirit beings we're spirit led and so
It doesn't have to it doesn't even have to be this
Mystique or mystery. It's just like this is how i'm going about my day
And as you begin to practice that and think about it correctly, i'm a son of god. I make powerful choices
I partner with the spirit i'm led by the spirit
Like the grocery store is a priority today
And I choose the grocery store
It's also setting me free from feeling like again that to-do list of 20 things like okay i'm doing the grocery store
But I know this isn't as meaningful
No, so I still have this burden in the back of my head of all these other meaningful things I have to do
But you set yourself free to be like i'm doing the grocery store today and i'm gonna give myself to that, you know
yeah, and and we've like we're always this is probably more like i'm always as a
Entrepreneur trying to like make everything slightly better this week
So we'll let's experiment with a lot of automated things. Sometimes automation can literally
Like delay things and make it way longer
But in a lot of ways even when I use the grocery store like we're like using instacart or have our groceries delivered to our house
like it's just
We we looked at like how it could all um kind of or you know, not we didn't actually go into grocery
Like do a kroger pickup or something? Yeah, and there's like lots of things there, which doesn't cost any more money
but it's just a way to
Be a little bit more strategic with it and use an app
um to do your grocery shopping and then it's just it's just like there's a lot of ways that there's a lot of little things
Like that that we try to reduce. It's not quite as
Labor intensive as before but automation is probably like its own. I think it is. Yeah
challenge we'll do one day which is like multiple parts and all of that stuff, but um
I did want to show you guys like maybe a little view into our
Calendar here. And so um if you guys are on a mac
Definitely highly highly recommend using the the eye the calendar app that's on your iphone and your
um and your computer and I know there's there's alternate like there's outlook and other things have um,
Great, you know calendars as well
All this will work for anyone but what you'll see is i've actually got a couple different calendars. Well, there's there's a lot
Don't be overwhelmed by that. Um, but mainly we've got one that's for our family and anything that happens
This this was a game changer. I think we did this like
But maybe before we got married or like
Shortly after that someone gave us this idea. We made a shared
calendar, um in iCloud here between lindsey and I and so
Um, it's very easy
You create a calendar you can literally hit sharing and then you choose who you want to share it with and it it just links
your two accounts, so
what's great is things that happen and we've
Um, we have repeating events, for example
Every from five to seven every night that's just blocked off for family time
So like no one can book calls during that time. No one can book anything meetings meetings wise like it just reserves that
So we kind of prioritized family
this way
Um open coaching. Yep. That's what we're doing right now. So we have a kingdom messenger calendar here
Um, just because we kept it a little separate because I actually have my work calendar tent. Are you guys ready for this?
It's a little busy when I add all my meetings
So, um, and that's like
If it's not and like that's what happens to the week
If it's it's really funny because if I go forward just a few weeks and I turn this on
It's actually very light and if you go keep going forward, it's actually very very light as far as
um what that is and what happens is like a few days before the week like the whole calendar just like fills up especially like
Monday hits and the rest of the week just gets like booked really really fast. So because of that, um
I don't wait to that moment. I actually blocked all the important things out like family time
Um, like specific things that we have to do. Let me get back to that same week here
um
and so, you know
We just we're very quick to just make
You know little events and what's great about this is you can kind of do that time blocking
Thing kind of right in in here and we'll put chores if we're going to do a project if we're going to you know
Something for the house like we'll even put saturday sunday and we'll kind of have different things on there
And it just was simplified the communication especially between spouses
And I know there's other families
that have like adult kids or teenage kids and they do the same thing and it's like a game changer
because every little thing is just kind of mapped out so I don't have to go like to two to three
different places I can see all of our family stuff in one place and then I also have my work stuff I
can lay in here and turn it on and off and then the same thing I make another one here just for
work so this is my deep work and I literally just called it deep work and these are just
three blocks that I have repeating every single day every single Monday and every single Wednesday
where I just know those two hours are for some big project for that week and I also really really
love to start my week with a good few hour sessions I typically do some some planning stuff
at nine to ten and then we go right into like just a three hour session here where I can just
go and knock a bunch of stuff out and it just creates so much momentum for the beginning of
the week and just super helpful but what I would do is if you have things like you know let's say
for example like we were gonna go here you can make a new new thing here and you can just say
hey I'm gonna this time I'm just gonna write you know my episode like 208 or whatever that and you
just kind of place it where it makes sense and what's cool is if I put everything back on I can
see where all my meetings are so like okay cool it's like Tetris you're just sort of moving things
around we leave a little bit of margin between calls and stuff and so you can actually block
that in exactly where you know there's going to be a slot and again I'm not doing it for 15 minutes
I'm doing big chunks like this two three hours if you can so you can actually get that done and I
would recommend for this like a little thing like this but when you go to write a task on your to-do
list or anything like just start it with a verb it's so funny how like we don't do that sometimes
and we just write down like episode 209 or you just write down like yeah episode 209 and you're
like okay so I have to do all of the episode to know what if you just like wrote the outline for
209 like okay cool I think I could do that in an hour so it's different items on my list yeah to
record record yeah to edit this is like I just have to get this whole episode done like yeah
or else you just have this one massive thing called um you know you're never crossing it off
and yeah you're never crossing it off and it gives you a little bit of momentum that like cool I got
the writing done I got this done and it helps you break it down into more achievable steps and we do
a lot of this with our team for big projects where they're like spreading over two four six weeks and
we have one or two people that are all doing work together we're constantly breaking things down
into small and I know if I get stuck on a project um if I'm stuck somewhere on a project and uh I
can't feel like I'm moving forward it's probably because I put too many things at a high level and
I haven't broken down into an even smaller piece and it's so funny but if you could just take what
we call is like a thin slice of something where you just take like like maybe I can't um like you
you're not getting your episodes out every week right for your channel so you don't go and try
to make a 15 minute episode try to get one tick tock out like get one 60 second piece and you
write that 60 seconds you record that 60 seconds and you publish the 60 seconds it'll create so
much momentum because you'll publish it and you're like oh okay that was actually I did it I you know
and it builds a little bit of momentum and you can kind of get the same thing out so you don't have
time to do a 15 minute episode see if you can squeeze it into a tick tock like that's totally
fine um to just take a slice of it because it builds that little momentum and then you can keep
scaling it about micro habits from the book atomic habits yeah yeah and like you're building
those micro habits in by getting it yeah atomic habits is like another great book if you haven't
read that james clear james clear yeah and and but for some of these books as well like if you
guys don't have time to go read it go on youtube just type like atomic habit summary there's like
so many there's amazing videos on there where people take 15 minutes and they just give you
the highlights of like the basic core concept so um it's very useful but that is um our calendar
so sharing the calendar kind of uh the color coding as well just helps your brain know that
green is for family you know these are kind of gray are blocked out I've got my work calendar
sort of dropped in there as well um so that's just color coding things and just kind of simplifying it
makes it um work really well so I don't know if you have any comments on this but and this this
syncs to your your phone it's got my ipad it's on everything at once so it's all kind of updated
in real time but we'll