Ep 87 | Navigating Time Management and Building a Purposeful Legacy
May 20, 2024Episode 87
Joshua K. McMillion
In this article my goal is to walk you through another acronym that I have created called TIME. Time is one of our most important resources; as a leader, more importantly, a purposeful, accountable leader, we need to weaponize it. Unquestioningly, allowing the day to bend your actions results in a loss of traction and, eventually, burnout. If you cannot guide your path, you will be five years older one day, wondering where time has gone. To create growth, you MUST be willing to do hard things that require Routines, Accountability, and Discipline (RAD). One of these is developing a battle plan for our day. Let's get to work!
Link to Article: https://www.mcmillionleadershipcoaching.com/blog/tales-of-leadership-time-management
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In this article my goal is to walk you through another acronym that I have created called TIME. Time is one of our most important resources; as a leader, more importantly, a purposeful, accountable leader, we need to weaponize it. Unquestioningly, allowing the day to bend your actions results in a loss of traction and, eventually, burnout. If you cannot guide your path, you will be five years older one day, wondering where time has gone. To create growth, you MUST be willing to do hard things that require Routines, Accountability, and Discipline (RAD). One of these is developing a battle plan for our day. Let's get to work!
Link to Article: https://www.mcmillionleadershipcoaching.com/blog/tales-of-leadership-time-management
✅ SHARE THIS PODCAST ✅ GIVE A 5-STAR REVIEW ✅ SUPPORT
You're listening to the Tells the Leadership podcast. This podcast is for leaders at any phase on their leadership journey to become a more purposeful and accountable leader what I like to call a pal. Join me on our journey together towards transformational leadership.
Speaker 2:
All right team. Welcome back to the Tells the Leadership podcast. I'm your host, josh McMillian. I'm an active duty Army officer, I am the founder of McMillian Leadership Coaching and I'm an Army leadership coach and I'm on a mission to create a better leader what I like to call a purposeful, accountable leader or a pal and my vision is to impact 1 million lives in the next 10 years by promoting transformational stories and skills is to impact 1 million lives in the next 10 years by promoting transformational stories and skills. And on this episode I'm going to be going through a transformational skill with you using a acronym and if you listen to my episodes or you read any of the blogs that I've done, you know that I absolutely love acronyms of time, t-i-m-e, and we'll work through that through this episode. And before we even start, I want to invite you to go to McMillianLeadershipCoachingcom. On the top right corner, you can click Leadership Resources and you can find this full blog article to include this podcast episode with an additional article summarizing the key points of this episode. And I do all of that free of charge for you guys, so you can take these tools and skills and be a more purposeful and accountable leader, be the leader that this world needs. So let's go ahead and jump right in. So, time management In the previous blog, I explained work, family, self as a framework to take back our time. We explored the concept of POIS, which is an acronym that I went over in the previous episode, and I invite you to go listen to that, or go to mcmillianleadershipcoachingcom and you can read that article as an acronym that you can use to recharge your batteries so you can better go out into this world and be a more authentic leader.
Speaker 2:
In this episode, my goal is to walk you through another acronym that I call TIME. Time is something that is mission critical, I believe, for every single leader. It is the one and most important resource that we all have and, as a leader, more importantly, as a purposeful and accountable leader we need to weaponize it. Unquestionably, allowing the day to bend your actions results in a loss of momentum and eventually burnout. If you cannot guide your path throughout the day, you will be five years older and then eventually one day wondering where all the time has went. To create growth, I truly believe you must be willing to do hard things, and that requires being a rad leader, routines, accountability and discipline. One of these is developing a battle plan for our day. So let's jump right into it. And here's a quote to keep you inspired Time is our most precious resource and should be protected with ruthless purpose. So the first one stands for time bend, which is T. The first way to take back your time is to create time bends. So we probably all heard the concept time blocking and if you read the book Indistractable which is a great resource and I recommend you go read that book that goes through time blocking and that's, in my opinion, creates decision fatigue because we are constantly tracking every single moment of the day. Time bins make a large swath of time that allows for flexibility and life to get a vote because it's going to happen. The enemy will get a vote because this is life. It's chaotic, just like leadership, and we have to be able to be resilient and flexible enough to change to that.
Speaker 2:
Start with a routine week and this is an exercise that I want you to go through and use the categories of work, family, self, wfs, time bend your day, aiming to create a micro battle plan. What are your daily time commitments going to look like? Starting at the aerial view allows you to focus on the process, not goals. I started this at the micro level, planning every moment of my day, and I quickly learned it was counterintuitive. Instead of growing and focusing on my journey, I was focused on the clock. Starting at the macro level allows you to begin taking back your calendar. While working towards life's harmony, remember who you want to become and if your time is being spent intentionally to achieve it. Purposeful, accountable leaders, pals, create time bins for the areas most important to them and their day. And if you go to macmillanleadershipcoachingcom, you'll have an example of what time blocking looks like.
Speaker 2:
And when I see that, it just gives me anxiety. And when I see that it just gives me anxiety because your calendar is absolutely full with all these little micro level meetings and engagements. And that's OK. Sometimes we can't get around that. But what I'm saying is when you wake up in the morning between four and eight a standard day for me, that is self and family time from eight to to 1700 because I'm in the army, convert that that's 5 pm for all you civilian weirdos out there I'm joking that is dedicated to the army, wherever the army takes me, whatever meetings I have that day. And when I get home, between 1700 to 2200 at night or 10 o'clock. For you civilians, that is dedicated to self and family. Again, exactly what I'm doing right now. It's 645 on a Thursday and I'm filming this episode.
Speaker 2:
That is time binning versus time blocking. Time blocking means you have a time and a purpose for every single session that you're going to be doing in a day breaking out your lunches, breaking out your coffee breaks, breaking out your gym time, breaking out other times, breaking out your workouts, breaking out your dinner, breaking out all the micro level meetings that you have in a day. And that's great if you choose to do that and you solve problems that way. But for me personally, time bending was significantly easier and less daunting when I actually looked at it. Okay, I know that this is going to be dedicated to the army, and wherever I go that day, it would be absolutely perfect.
Speaker 2:
The second concept in this is I, and that is identity. After creating time bins, start looking at your calendar. Does it reflect your life and what you truly want to spend your time doing? Now it's time to make it personal right. Remember, leadership is messy. It is about leading and accepting the whole person. It is refreshing to see team members share their lives through their calendars. If you're married, place your anniversary on the calendar. I want to see that as a leader, because I know that that's what you're truly prioritizing. That is a OK with me, because family always comes first. If you have children, ensure their doctor's appointments on there. Or if you have sports games, put it on the calendar. There is a balance when determining events. Obviously that should go on your calendar. I've created an exercise that I do through my coaching that assesses really the work, family, self, areas of importance, and in this exercise there are four categories between those three bins of what's routine, what's important, what's critical and then what's vital Team.
Speaker 2:
Let's take a quick break from this episode and I want to share an additional leadership resource with you, and that is one-on-one leadership coaching through McMillian Leadership Coaching. So what do I do? I help leaders discover their purpose, create a long-term growth plan and take inspired action. I believe everything rises and falls on leadership and, regardless of where you are in life, one fact is true you are a leader of others, you are a leader of your family and, most importantly, you are a leader of yourself. To lead others well, that starts by leading yourself well. If you want to learn more. You can go to McMillianLeadershipCoachingcom and schedule a free call today.
Speaker 2:
Back to the episode. To give you an example of what a vital event would be. That would be your mother's death and attending her funeral, because that would be a moment in time that you're never going to get back. Nothing is more important than attending a funeral and should reflect that on your calendar. I'm not saying to broadcast the details of your calendar with every single person. Obviously, people who have SA of your calendar should be people that you trust and that should actively have control or access to your calendar. That's up to you and your comfort zone. I share my calendar and give it freely to everyone because, again, I lead with windows and I have an open door policy, and an open door policy requires vulnerability, and a vulnerability means you have full access to my calendar. Here's a question what does your calendar look like? Does it actually reflect your day or is it just words on a paper and on a software script?
Speaker 2:
The next piece of the time acronym is micro plan. Think of this as a battle plan. Once you've created time bins for your day in the areas that are most important to you, it's time to really dig deep. If you're like me, this step is really unnecessary when you first start out, because it's just too much. When trying to find harmony between work, family, self jumping in with both feet can be harmful. Maybe you need to test out the waters first and when you're ready to jump in, jump in wholeheartedly.
Speaker 2:
Micro planning is not about creating an event for every hour of the day. It's about planning out your week with intention. So in a future blog article that I'm going to put on McMillianLeadershipCoachingcom, I'll explain how you can cast a vision and create a weekly battle plan at the end of that vision. Your day defines your week and feeds the months that determine really your year. Do you have a weekly plan of attack or do you go into the week blind? What are your top three to seven goals that you're trying to achieve in that week between work, family and self? I recommend really no more than seven weekly objectives because when you get beyond that for creating a micro plan, you're creating decision fatigue.
Speaker 2:
Once you have listed out what your three to seven tasks are going to be, go deeper. What are the three daily tasks that you must achieve? And this is something that I do every single morning and before I go to bed and before I leave work I identify what my top three objectives are going to be tomorrow. So now, walking through this, I have a top three every single day that I shoot for, and then I have a top seven every single week that I try to shoot for, and that is split between work, family and self. That is easy to do. It follows the acronym that I absolutely love KISS keep it simple, stupid, and I would recommend that would be a great starting point for people that want to take back their time. And at the end you need to track it.
Speaker 2:
Get a board. I got a gigantic whiteboard and if you're watching this, you would see in my background, over here to the side, I have a huge whiteboard with categories broken down into the top seven things that I want to do, and that allows me to one, make it public with my wife because it creates. Number two, accountability. And number three, it creates another form of intrinsic motivation to find a way to stay the course. Remember, weekly goals are not the point. That's not the point. It is about growth. It's about being accountable and keeping the course and growing. My whiteboard is in my office and my wife and I create our seven weekly objectives together.
Speaker 2:
So if you remember going through the SMART acronym of specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-based, I always add an S to it smarts, shared. You have to share it because if you don't share it, you're only keeping it to yourself and it's easy to tell yourself well, today, josh, we don't really need to do that. Well, today, you do need to do that, and you have to find an accountability partner and you have to find someone that will keep you motivated to push through when your mind and your body say no, always remember you are not on this journey alone, ensuring you incorporate the ones that you love most when your growth is critical and purposeful. Accountable leaders do that. They make intentional battle plans and they begin to take back their lives.
Speaker 2:
And if you go to McMillian Leadership Coaching or you're looking at this article of time management, I wrote up, posted a picture of me and my wife in Glasgow or sorry, edinburgh, scotland and this was on a business trip that I just recently went on. Not only did I crush it at work, I also had the weekend to go take my wife to Edinburgh, which is absolutely beautiful. Ooh, and, by the way, I have a clan in Scotland. My last name is McMillian, but McMillan was the common spelling of that name, and on the Western shores of Scotland there is a castle, so I'm thinking about going and claiming that for my birthright, but I digress Also in that picture if you're looking at it. Or you go, and you go tocmillianleadershipcoachingcom and you look at that article that was filmed where Harry Potter filmed Diagon Alley, which is super cool because I'm a huge Harry Potter fan. But I say all of that because you can have everything family, self work you just have to be intentional and you have to plan it out, and that's hard to do. All right, team.
Speaker 2:
Let's take a quick break from this episode and I want to share a leadership resource with you, and that is the Resiliency-Based Leadership Program. Rblp's vision is to create a worldwide community of practice committed to building and leading resilient teams. So why do you need to build and lead a resilient team? Resilient teams are the key to individual and organizational growth, regardless of being in the military or in the civilian workforce. Building collective teams allows for exponential growth and the team's ability to overcome adversity, adapt and, most importantly, grow. And then bottom line, up front. Resilient teams are just stronger together. And here's a fact Ninety-nine percent of the people who take that course recommend it to others, and I'm one of them. I just completed my certification and I highly recommend this. And the great news is it's most likely free to you and if you're in the military, it is a hundred percent free to you. And if you want to learn more, you can look in the show notes for this episode and find the link and use the discount code JMCMILLION, and that is also in the show notes.
Speaker 2:
Back to the episode and the last part of this time acronym is to evaluate. The final step of this is to look at your week. The goal is to spend less than five minutes up to 15, reviewing your weekly top seven objectives of your bins. Did you achieve them? What was the plan and what went wrong? And why didn't you achieve them? What surprised you? Once you've identified the challenges of your week, you can slowly refine your bins, personalize those events and plan out the following week. Do not spend more than 15 minutes reviewing this because think of it as you're incrementally improving every single week, slowly, slowly refining, because there may be anomalies.
Speaker 2:
Remember, leadership's a journey, right, and it takes time. It's a marathon. It is not a sprint marathon. It is not a sprint. The most important thing is you're growing Again. That is what is truly important, especially in life.
Speaker 2:
A great way to build harmony is to hire a coach. I am a leadership coach. I would be an accountability partner someone. And Pashto and I learned this in Afghanistan shona bashana means shoulder to shoulder someone that can help you if you don't have that accountability partner but make no mistake about it you have to have someone, because the enemy is going to get a revoke. So how are you reflecting and refining your time? This is a picture of me on McMillianLeadershipCoachingcom of going through my weekly battle plan, something that I religiously do and then I share it again with my wife every single week. We kind of identify and talk about what we went through. So here's the final thoughts on this episode.
Speaker 2:
Work, family, self is equally part of the human condition. Everyone has to make a living somehow. Everyone has a family that loves them, regardless of the season of life they find themselves in. Everyone must take care of themselves to survive.
Speaker 2:
However, not everyone achieves harmony in these areas. Why? Because it takes intentionality and time to think. Remember what we think defines our beliefs. Our beliefs drive our actions and our actions forge our legacy T-Ball, our actions for our legacy T-ball. What areas in your life are most important to you and how do your actions align with your heart? Remember head, heart, hand alignment. That's what we're trying to create. Taking control of your calendar takes time and it requires powerful questions, but once you create alignment in your life, you can begin to engage your hands to do the work. Always remember to create heart and head alignment. You need to see where you're going by developing intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to keep that fire lit to go do the work. Purposeful, accountable leaders control their time ruthlessly, because if they do not, someone else will.
Speaker 2:
So here is our after action review, and with these episodes, there are really three powerful questions that I want you to spend some time reflecting on. And the first one is what is your work? Family self-alignment. So, if you look at everything you do within a week, what is the total number of hours you spend at work? What is the total number of hours that you spend with your family? What is the total number of hours that you're dedicated to yourself? Does that shock you? If it does, why? And then, most importantly, what are you going to do to improve it? Number two how is your calendar personal to you? Are you putting things on there that just sound really cool to yours, but are you actually following through and doing them? And, trust me, if you see my calendar with work and everything lined over, it would probably give you anxiety, but I am extremely, extremely busy, but that's okay. We all have seasons of life that we're in. And, number three, what would your perfect day and a perfect week look like?
Speaker 2:
All right, team, do me a favor. If you like this episode and the content that I continuously produce for you guys for free, share this episode, share it with other people that are on their leadership journey and make sure that you like and subscribe to my podcast on whatever platform you're listening to, give it a five-star review and go to McMillian Leadership Coaching. Read through all the additional leadership resources that I have. You can go follow me on social media and make sure you go to Purposeful Accountable Leaders and you go join that private Facebook group. I'm trying to grow that community so we can build a community of practice focused around transformational servant leadership. And as always, team, I'm your host, josh McMillian, saying every day is a gift. Don't waste yours.
