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The Reload with Sean Hansen
The Reload with Sean Hansen
Achieving Productivity Through Intentional Actions - 'Find Time' vs. 'Make Time' - 209
What if everything you thought about managing your time was wrong? Welcome to The Reload, where we help unconventional leaders reshape their lives through challenging conventional thinking. In this episode, we dismantle the myth that short tasks are unimportant and share a practical framework to balance your priorities. Drawing from my work with high-level executives, entrepreneurs, and special ops veterans, we dive into the nuanced differences between “finding time” and “making time,” and why both are crucial for a well-rounded schedule.
Have you ever considered that the best moments in life often come from spontaneous actions? We break down how "find time" activities, like giving praise or small gifts, can have a lasting positive impact when incorporated with intention and flexibility. Conversely, "make time" tasks require careful planning and are often reserved for more significant events or conversations. We emphasize the importance of balancing these approaches to optimize your time for personal and professional success, ensuring that you’re not just busy, but productive in meaningful ways.
We’ve got strategies to help you minimize the disruption to your internal clock, emphasizing the critical role of quality sleep. Plus, we share tips on fostering team connections and personal well-being through celebrations and nature-filled activities. Listen in to learn how maintaining a consistent sleep schedule, practicing meditation, and regular exercise can enhance emotional regulation and stress management. By prioritizing what truly matters in life, you can achieve a balanced and fulfilling schedule. Tune in and discover how to allocate your time effectively for success.
Are you an executive, entrepreneur, or combat veteran looking to overcome subconscious blind spots and limiting messaging to unlock your highest performance? Feel free to reach out to Sean at Reload Coaching and Consulting.
Welcome to the Reload, where we help unconventional leaders craft the life they truly want by questioning the assumptions they have about how life works. My name is Sean and I'll be your host on this journey. As a performance coach and special operations combat veteran, I help high-performing executives kick ass in their careers while connecting with deeply powerful insights that fuel their lives. Hey there, thank you for making it back to another episode. If this is your first time listening in, hopefully I don't scare you away, but if I do, I guess that's okay as well. There are a lot of really good podcasts out there. Speaking of other podcasts, that is actually the genesis of this particular episode.
Speaker 1:So I was listening to this other show and they brought forth I guess, what you could call I don't know, like a little bit of a life organization hack or framework. Framework sounds a little bit more legit, doesn't it? So we'll just go with framework. And you know, in that podcast, the essence of what they were talking about is how do you decide to either find time or make time in order to accomplish whatever it is that you have on your to-do list or your agenda, and I thought, wow, yeah, okay, that could be a really sharp, quick and, hopefully, relatively easy way for people to be able to organize themselves. So this structure is really making sure that you are getting to the things that are important to you and that you're also able to optimize when you do what. When I think about all the individuals that I've worked with and for those of you that do not know, most of the people that I work with are going to be high-level executives, entrepreneurs and special operations combat veterans, who usually, at this point in their career, are also one of the previous two groups. So when I think about all these individuals that I've worked with, one of the things volume of to-dos and strategic initiatives or projects that they're trying to accomplish in their life and when I say that I mean that in terms of their professional life, but then also in terms of their personal life they're usually sort of busting at the seams, and so any help that people can get in terms of really understanding okay, yeah, how do I structure myself, how do I structure my days to ensure that I'm still hitting the important elements that I want to ensure are accomplished, and then when, how, why?
Speaker 1:Now, the why is something that I'm most likely not really going to address in depth today, but I think, as a little bit of a foreshadowing for that or a little bit of a primer on that, what you might look at when it comes to why is? Why might, once we go through the criteria that I'm going to lay out here in a few moments, why would something fall on the find time list versus make time list? Now, when you think about those two delineations something for which I'm going to find time versus something for which I'm going to make time, is the find time category necessarily low priority or lesser important, lesser importance, excuse me, items. Does it take a second seat, I guess, to the make time category? Does it take a second seat, I guess, to the make time category? Now, I don't know necessarily that that's how we ought to be looking at this. For starters, things that don't take much time and are not urgent are not necessarily unimportant, and I think oftentimes we in our mindset, we evaluate whether something is important based on the amount of effort that goes into it, you know, or the amount of expense, whether that's financial, just sweat of the brow, you know, whatever. And there are many times I think that something can be and there are many times I think that something can be relatively short in terms of the time it takes up or the amount of energy that it requires, but that doesn't mean that it's not important. You know, if we take a look at something like as simple as a I love you to your kids or to your partner, you stop saying that very short phrase, probably it's going to start to create some problems, and so that's hopefully just not an overly simplistic example.
Speaker 1:But looking at the fine time category, ultimately I think what we are looking at is a collection of items that are, by default, going to take less time and that are not urgent. And while we're on that note, neither the find time nor the make time categories are for things that are urgent. Both of these cases, with the find time category, that's spontaneous or impromptu, it can happen whenever it happens, and so there's not a clock ticking on that. On the make time side of the equation, make time is very deliberate and very intentional. You are carving out a space.
Speaker 1:Now you might say well, you know what if something is urgent, but I have a little bit of time to schedule it, okay, fine, you got me. But for the most part, find time or make time are not the things that have to be done right now. Something just got dropped in your lap and it absolutely has to get done immediately. So, having that out of the way, if we're going back to the fine time category, what we're looking at are things that are not urgent, things that are still important, still valuable, because if it's not valuable or important, why is it on your radar in the first place? Now, you may have a reason for that, but that's just something to take a look at and to say, okay, huh, yeah, I really do want to organize my efforts, my labor, my thoughts, my analyses whatever you want to call it for the highest and best use. Most of my clients, all my clients, would put their hand up saying that, yes, I do want to organize my time for highest and best use, and that looks different from person to person, and it looks different whether you're on the job or at home, you know, so on and so forth, but as a baseline principle, that's usually what people are shooting for.
Speaker 1:So when we think about fine time, I think one of the main criteria that we're looking at is items that will fit with or jive with spontaneity, things like giving praise, giving gifts, essentially any act of affirmation, positive affirmation, where it is that we get to reinforce a relationship with somebody. Or where is it that we get to bolster someone, giving them a congratulations of sorts? Bolster someone, giving them a congratulations of sorts. Those are things that when they are peppered into randomly somebody else's life, that's usually a pretty good fit. Now, if we think about a counterexample, let's think about tougher conversations. Let's say, on a romantic front, that you might be choosing to break up with someone. It's generally not a conversation that you're going to just find time Whenever it happens. Where can we fit this in Whenever it shows up? Likewise, if you're going to fire someone, you're probably not going to just let that slip in wherever it fits. Someone, you're probably not going to just let that slip in wherever it fits. Those are more crucial conversations and therefore most likely fit in that make time category.
Speaker 1:So what about more on the make time category, as I queried earlier, is it really that this category is more important than find time? I think the argument can be made in either direction that yes, it is more important because we're trying to be more deliberate, we're trying to be more intentional, or because they know it's not more important, it's equally important. I would struggle to see someone say that it's less important than fine time, although one argument that could be made is if you have someone that lives a life that is so absolutely structured and rigid and disciplined that maybe from a personal heart and soul experience of life, that for their development it might be better for them to engage in more fine time, it might be better for them to engage a little bit more in this notion of spontaneity. But that's for the person that's living a really truly you know, amazingly locked down, disciplined life, and most of the people that I've met have enough spontaneity that I would probably say that the make time category generally generally requires a little bit more forethought Well, a lot more forethought generally and that it also brings in this intentionality. Now, with fine time, can you still be intentional about? This is on my radar or this is on my dashboard? Most definitely, and I think that's one of the key distinctions when I was trying to say you know that the things that end up on either of these lists the find time or the make time they're all going to be things that are valuable. There's no junk items on either of these lists and there is an intentionality even in the find time group or list, because these things are important. It's what has flexibility is when it shows up, whereas with make time, generally, what we're looking at there are either items that are periodic, that happen on a certain periodicity, so you have some sort of artificial construct that's saying, okay, we're doing this on a quarterly basis, for instance, like a board meeting which a lot of my clients go through.
Speaker 1:Another element of this is the intentionality of crafting the experience to discuss or to move through whatever that item is going to entail. So, for instance, what would be a really quick example of that? An anniversary or a birthday or maybe perhaps the kickoff of a big project that you want to celebrate. You know, I have clients that have worked in sales organizations and they had a very seasonal business, so there was definitely an on season and then an off season and ahead of the main busy season they had sort of this annual kickoff, annual sales event kickoff, what's the sales strategy going to be for the year? How is it that we're going to go to market? It's, you know, so on and so on and so on. And so there are these very intentional and deliberate expressions of, okay, we're going to have this experience. It's going to be an event. How do we want that event to take place? How do we prime ourselves? What is it that we actually have to get ready? Right? So, not just a mental or a mindset priming, but do we actually have physical things that we need to prepare, like a venue, for instance? Right, so there's a lot that goes into it.
Speaker 1:When you're considering the intentional elements of hosting an event, for instance, digging a little bit deeper into sort of more of the heart and soul territory and I alluded to this a moment ago is crucial conversations, and therein, really, what we're looking at is any time that you're going to communicate something that requires nuance, calm delivery, emotional regulation, and that also includes sort of good news. So most people's minds go to what they think is going to be bad news. So if you have to fire someone or if you're going to put somebody on a performance improvement plan, for instance, that's oftentimes where my client's minds tend to gravitate, but it can also be something that's technically good news, right? So let be something that's that's technically good news, right? So, like, let's say that you're going to promote somebody to be the vice president of sales and you are the CEO of that company and you just happen to pop by their desk real quick and say oh hey, by the way, would you, um, would you want to be the vice president of sales? Cause I'm? I'm offering you that position right now, just totally out of the blue. I'm offering you that position right now, just totally out of the blue, because you found time to go mention it to them. That's certainly going to be received, I assume, better than you're fired. Get out of the building.
Speaker 1:But at the same time there's also it's kind of like a bit of an ambush there as well, because we don't know what it all, what is the responsibility going to entail. We don't know if we're ready for it. You know what is the compensation going to look like? Do I have to relocate? You know, all kinds of things come with these sort of big responsibilities that are, on the one hand, a very positive thing for somebody's career progression, that are, on the one hand, a very positive thing for somebody's career progression and, on the other hand, also come with a lot of unknowns and there's a lot of responsibility that's in the mix and I don't know Right.
Speaker 1:So really, the goal here is to communicate that when you're having a crucial conversation or you're about to. That's generally something that you want to be intentional about. Is there a room? Is there room excuse me for spontaneity, even with crucial conversations? I think there is. I would be naive to say no. Everything has to be planned. You know there are times, especially if we have static with another person. You know we're having, you know we're both feeling a little salty and we just happen to be. You know, life hands us this opportunity where, I don't know, maybe we're, maybe we have to drive to the same conference together, or who knows what. You know, clients of mine have found themselves on long transits with team members or sometimes with customers, customer representatives, and have used these opportunities which they didn't necessarily plan for, but that they found themselves in so more of the fine time category to be able to work some things out. So it's not impossible that you're going to have a crucial conversation in sort of that fine time sort of setting.
Speaker 1:But, by and large, crucial conversations are something that I think you should be ready for and should have planned out, and that you should also be able to give the other party some advance notice so that they can also feel prepared, and that covers factually prepared as well as mentally and emotionally prepared, and a lot of people, when they anticipate a crucial conversation with someone or a difficult conversation with someone, it's generally stressful. Or a difficult conversation with someone, it's generally stressful Even if you think you have valid arguments and you don't see yourself needing to concede very much. You know like you're going to quote unquote win the conversation anytime that we anticipate that the other side is going to have heartache with that. It does tend to create some sense of ramp up. Now you may not be worried about it per se. Maybe you are the superior in terms of rank in that scenario, so you may not be scared about how it's going to play out. But oftentimes even the person that has greater authority is still going to be preparing. You're going to be sort of mentally on point to make sure that the arguments that you're making and whatever you're trying to pitch to the other party, that it is accepted.
Speaker 1:So now, how might you use this framework If you have a basic understanding of okay, there's the find time category, there's the make time category, and just because I listed out some criteria doesn't mean that you have to follow it. It's just a starting point. You may have other criteria in your life that would help you better understand. Oh, these sorts of things are the things that I can do spontaneously whenever they arrive or whenever the moment arrives. And yet this other group of things are things that I'm going to be very intentional about. And so, for myself, if I was looking at this framework in my own life myself, if I was looking at this framework in my own life, I would look at, first off, what is important to me, what is it that allows me to function well, and I would strip it down all the way to the basics and to the foundation. So I know that I don't coach well when I'm not well slept and I know that I really don't do much of anything all that well when I'm not well slept, and I know that I really don't do much of anything all that well when I'm not sleeping or when I'm not sleeping well, and that's quality and quantity and consistency. If I'm going to bed at all kinds of random hours, that has a negative impact on how I show up.
Speaker 1:Now I recognize that for many of my clients and probably many of you, that you travel for work and you're hopping time zones. Some of my clients go international and they're totally flipping their body clock. So that is certainly going to be a challenge. Is there a way to maybe consolidate your travel instead of having it sort of spread all over the calendar? Can you consolidate it into certain chunks Not necessarily okay, I only travel January through June and then I stay home, you know, july through December, but maybe I only travel the first week of the month or I don't know some type of blocking so that you can get yourself back into a more regular rhythm when you know, by just kind of restructuring some of that travel. That may not be possible I'm not saying that it always is and if you, if travel really truly is the requirement, then there are various podcasts out there.
Speaker 1:I would look for Matthew Walker. He's done a ton of research on sleep and how we can get the best quality sleep. He's also looked into some of the options that happen with shift workers and you're probably not a shift worker if you're listening to this, but if you are, he's a good resource. But my point in mentioning the shift work is that oftentimes, with the way that my clients travel, their body clock actually does experience what a shift worker would experience. So, matthew Walker. I think he's got one or two wildly popular TED Talks.
Speaker 1:He's also got a book that he wrote a few years ago, I think. It's titled why we Sleep, and I would really recommend that, if you're the person that thinks, oh, I'll sleep when I'm dead, you should read that book, because the chances of you dying early are much increased If you're not sleeping. So, yes, you may sleep when you're dead, and that's probably going to happen way faster if you're not sleeping. Well, sorry, if that's a downer, it probably is a downer, and I can also totally empathize because I spent 16 years with just completely messed up sleep from my combat deployments to Iraq. So I feel you and it sucks. But again, if I'm looking at okay, what am I going to make time for? I'm going to make time for sleep. I'm going to make time for, in my case, meditation every morning.
Speaker 1:Again, this has been one of those things where I got off the merry-go-round, got back on the merry-go-round, got off the merry-go-round, and by merry-go-round I mean meditation. So I was meditating, things would start going good, I'd stop meditating and then I'd start losing my stuff. And so many of my clients have said the same thing when they get into a habit of meditation, whatever style of meditation you want to do, whether it's Vipassana you want to do, whether it's Vipassana, metta, moving meditation, whatever, like a yin yoga style meditation, yoga nidra sorry, not yin yoga, but yoga nidra style meditation or yoga, for instance, like actual moving yoga. Many people in the West don't really recognize that yoga started as more of a meditative, contemplative experience or discipline and that it had a physical component to it so that the person, the practitioner, could blend body and mind A disciplined mind, disciplined body, in order for us to be able to be more capable in the world.
Speaker 1:For myself, meditation has really helped me with emotional regulation, meaning stress. Where is it that I don't perceive the same amount of stress? I don't have the same amount of ramp up. I don't perceive somebody coming at me, as it were, and therefore I need to be all defensive. And then we have a blow up and then we have to make up at some point, but first we got this like big blow up we have to deal with. I don't do that as much anymore, if hardly any. Like I can't think about the last time that I can't think of Sorry, the last time that I, yeah, sorry, I'm just drifting trying to figure out when the last time was that I actually had sort of a major emotional rupture, and it's been years. And it's not to say that you're not allowed to have an emotional outburst when we're trying to defend something that is valuable. So, for instance, if somebody breaks into your house, I don't expect you to be in some sort of like Zen stupor about it and would expect you to defend your life and your family's life if somebody broke into your house.
Speaker 1:But so often when it comes to our just regular day-to-day relationships, we end up in this place where we overreact and in large part it's because we're not sleeping well and we're taking everything personally and so sleep, hygiene and really good discipline around, going to bed at the same time and, more importantly, waking up at the same time, because that tends to be when all of our metabolic processes get going. And then meditating every day to give myself some of that mental, emotional distance, you know, sort of a quote-unquote philosophical repose where I can start to recognize oh okay, like I don't have to take this personally, I don't have to become offended by what this person just said. I can actually ask them and be curious about what they mean, even though maybe on its face, what they said seems insulting or disrespectful. I can ask is that what you meant, or should I interpret this a different way? I can actually have a productive conversation around it. So those are two things that are definitely falling into the make time category for me. Your list can be totally different, but those two things really help to create a good start to my day.
Speaker 1:What else would be in that non-negotiable make time category? Exercise, or, if you don't want to call it, working out or you don't want to call it exercise, exercise or, if you don't want to call it working out or you don't want to call it exercise, moving your body in a rigorous way so that your heart rate actually climbs, whether you do that with yoga, pilates, rollerblading I had a friend that she loved rollerblading and I used to always tease her about it. What else? What have I said? Yoga walking, just going for a walk around the block, but not just a casual stroll, but actually elevating the heart rate, lifting weights, whether that's bodybuilding, strongman, crossfit, I don't care. Martial arts, something that gets your body moving, because one of the things that I noticed so much and I've noticed this in my experience as well, because I have had certain chapters of my life where I really felt like my perception was that I had to put all my effort into work and I was working like 80-hour weeks and still had to commute on top of it, and it was pretty ridiculous. But I was not moving my body in an active way other than to walk to the cafeteria to get my food right.
Speaker 1:And so many of my clients do the same thing. Their lifestyle has been marked by a lot of mental churn. You know they're trying to figure out complex problems. They have a lot of emotional churn because there's a lot of stress in their life, whether it's work stress plus home stress I mean that's usually the formula or whether it's just work stress or just home stress, depending on the chapter of life they're in, doesn't matter. They have a lot of stress and so, you know, moving our body helps prevent getting to the end of the day and being in this place called tired but wired. So our brain is tired but our body hasn't moved enough to also feel like oh yeah, sleep would be a really good idea right now. And there's, you know, again, you can consult all the big brains about the actual data behind this.
Speaker 1:This is just information that I've gleaned from different sources over the 16 years that I've been looking at this stuff, and it's the stuff that I've also seen in my clients and where it is that when they started to really get serious about going to bed at the same time as much as they can with their travel schedule take that with a grain of salt they've gotten serious about meditation and they've gotten serious about doing. They've gotten serious about meditation and they've gotten serious about doing, you know, I would say at least 30 minutes of some kind of meaningful body movement per day. They got their heart rate up and that actually worked the body to where I was like, okay, cool, you know, I got some sweat out and you know that not only set them up for an energetic day, but then it also allowed them to be tired at the end of the day and not just wired so that they could then fall asleep. So, as much as our metabolic processes are tied to our wake up in the morning, we also want to make sure and this would be a sort of make time. Part of it for me as well is what does the end of the day look like? Well, is, what does the end of the day look like?
Speaker 1:And here, in full disclosure, I have not been as good and I suffer the consequences quite, quite honestly, you know, and what I mean by not quite as good is I tend to bounce around a bit with either meditation before bed or doing like a bodily relaxation exercise, which is a lot of what the yoga Nidra and if you're an American you're probably going to pronounce that Nidra because it's yoga Y-O-G-A Nidra, pronounced Nidra but spelled N-I-D-R-A. So the yoga Nidra mechanism, modality, whatever you want to call it is really more. It's not actual yoga, like pigeon pose and things like that. You can do it in bed. And what it is is essentially and there are tons of free guided meditations out there as well I use an app called insight timer.
Speaker 1:That's always done me very well. There's um of 10, happier is another one, and I'm totally blanking out on some of the other major meditation apps that are out there these days, but trust me, there are a bunch of them. A A lot of them are really good. I happen to like Insight Timer, I think probably just because it was the first one I came across and it worked well for me. But in either case, yoga Nidra guided meditations really just focus you at sleepy time to relax different parts of your body, one body part at a time.
Speaker 1:So many people believe that in order for me to get good sleep, I have to meditate, as in OM, om, right, like that style of meditation. You don't, and in fact, oftentimes, when we do more of a clear the mind kind of meditation, what ends up happening is we actually stimulate the mind accidentally. And so with yoga nidra and this is also something that I came across in the veteran administration's cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia program which I went through and one of the things that they were talking about is like, okay, we don't want you to actually stimulate the mind, what we want you to do is relax the body. When the body's relaxed and you're fatigued and you're legitimately sleepy which you have to do all this stuff at the first part of the day for this to occur, then you are much more likely not guaranteed but much more likely to fall asleep because the body's relaxed. When the body's relaxed, the mind can let go. Body's relaxed when the body's relaxed, the mind can let go.
Speaker 1:Now, caveat there, and this is maybe more of the fine time stuff is, if I do have some thoughts that are still kicking around in my head. I will take a pad of paper and simply write, and I'll just purge all that stuff onto the paper so that the part of me that's worrying about that recognizes okay, it's been noted physically and then I can get to it tomorrow. So it allows me to sort of put a pin in it, but not a type of pin that is going to keep me awake and keep me ruminating. And, oh gosh, you know, like, should I have said this other thing on the podcast? Should I have told my client something else? Maybe I didn't ask the right question to the client that you know would have really helped them see, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I can just put it on the paper and then I know okay, for now this is covered off and we can get to it tomorrow, it'll be all right, and we can get to it tomorrow, it'll be all right.
Speaker 1:So those are sort of the core elements of my day-to-day make time. These are things that I actually put in my schedule. Then, you know, on top of that is making time for clients, and where is it that I chunk or block out certain hours of my day to ensure that clients can schedule sessions On top of that. You know, as I mentioned during the meaty part of the podcast anniversaries when is it that I'm going to make time to have certain celebrations? Where is it that I'm going to make time to have certain celebrations and this is another area where I'm glad I sort of stumbled on this in my thinking because I didn't have it in my outline.
Speaker 1:Celebration is something that so many of my clients neglect, and I'm a little torn as to whether or not it should fit more naturally in the find time or the make time. I think both are good and a celebration can fit in either. I mean, I even gave some examples of that right, like giving praise to somebody or giving a gift to somebody. Any sort of act of affirmation is a celebration of sorts, and you shouldn't. I don't think it's positive for us to wait to do something positive in somebody's life. Is that circular? That sounded circular to me. So I think it's a good thing for us to be able to affirm others, and the more that we can do that, the more that people tend to respond positively to us.
Speaker 1:I actually was having a session today, the day of this, recording at least that my client, who's, you know, a senior executive at a very successful company and you know lots of stress and high performance expectations, et cetera, et cetera, like all my other clients, et cetera, et cetera, like all my other clients. And the client was really talking about how they get so little affirmation. And it's interesting to see how, when I'm speaking to the client, in terms of how often they give affirmation, it's also a pretty low amount. So, whether they're receiving it or whether they're giving it, affirmation doesn't happen all that much, or celebration doesn't happen all that much. No-transcript. That's my suspicion that there's somehow this unconscious fear that that's going to happen Like we're going to. We're not going to have our nose to the grindstone if we're giving ourselves too many pats on the back. But what's interesting to me is that in instances where I have managed to help a client see that you know you should, you should try giving more affirmation that quite frequently. You should try giving more affirmation that quite frequently. It actually sponsors greater performance.
Speaker 1:You know, people are operating from a place of happiness and from a place of feeling appreciated and they want to return that feeling. So making time for celebration, I think, is very important. And where is it that we schedule that With intention and not that we need to worry and fret and wring our hands incessantly about like, okay, well, is it going to be perfect? Don't put that pressure on yourself. Just schedule the opportunity and then you can allow it to sort of grow into whatever it's going to be.
Speaker 1:Another element for me that shows up as a make time is periodically getting out into nature. And again, this doesn't have to be you. I mean, I know plenty of people that hate getting out into nature. Now there have been plenty of studies that have shown that getting out into nature actually helps quite a bit with emotional regulation, having greater perspective. And getting out into nature doesn't necessarily mean you have to go rough it for two weeks in the Canadian back country, fighting brown bears and stuff. Getting out in nature could be as simple as just going on a short hike or even just a walk in a garden. There have been times where I've gone to flower gardens and just allowed myself to walk around and it's soothing, it feels good. I even had friends that had a membership and they would go every Sunday, I think it was.
Speaker 1:In either case, for me what it's about is scheduling time to decompress. So there's the daily stuff that I do, but then there's also, I don't know, I would say, monthly is, and if monthly is too much for you, you could do quarterly, or you could do half yearly or I mean, if you're a real holdout, maybe just annually. I don't know, I feel like that would be stretching it way too far, but up to you. But having the ability to have a more pronounced separation from the flywheel or the I don't know the millstone, and how do you actually get that separation? So again, when I'm looking at the theme that's tying a lot of my make time items together, it's the stuff that allows me to show up my best and it helps me regulate myself.
Speaker 1:Now, if you are a leader of a team, which I was when I was in my last corporate job, then I would also be scheduling, making time for conversations with my team. How do we have just connection, not performance review, but just am I making time to connect with my team, each individual team member? Am I keeping up to date on what's going on in their life? Do they have a kid that's sick? Do they have a spouse that maybe got laid off recently? I don't know Like, do they have an aging parent that's dealing with medical problems? Like, how am I staying connected with that?
Speaker 1:And I think connecting with our team is something that falls into the make time and also the find time. You know, on a find time basis it can just be something simple as just stopping by their desk and saying, hey, how's your week been treating you? You know, outside of work, maybe more managers and not people that have truly embraced the leadership persona just yet they don't want to ask that question life, thinking that it's going to make things sticky or awkward if they have to discipline them at some point or reprimand them or train them up on something. And again, having coached people for many, many years now and in my own personal leadership experience, I can see the potential for it definitely. But I think that oftentimes people blow it out of proportion. The hazard that's there, and as long as you're still making sure that people understand like, okay, hey, we have a standard to uphold here, I don't know. I've never seen it turn into some colossal problem that couldn't be dealt with.
Speaker 1:But connecting with the team, both in sort of the fine time way and also the make time way and the make time version of connecting with the team is probably going to. Yeah, it's going to involve the performance review process. It's also going to involve where do you want to go in your career? How do I facilitate that, even if it means moving to a different team and that's you know. That's another area that we can talk about some other day.
Speaker 1:But ultimately, what are the things that are important to you? How is that going to build out your schedule? What are the things that are doable in a fine time kind of way, and those are things that usually don't require a lot of foresight and planning. Those are usually things that are gonna be more easily accepted, like when you give somebody congratulations or an attaboy, attagirl. The other stuff that's still critical, crucial, is probably gonna be more in that make time category. So hopefully this was helpful for you. Love it. If you would like, subscribe and share it, share it with people that you think would benefit or don't. It's totally up to you. But until next time, take care of each other.
