How To Use Your Task List With Your Calendar.

This week’s question is all about managing your tasks and managing your events. Where does everything go? Your calendar or your task list?   Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Your Digital Life 3.0 Online Carl’s Time Sector System Blog Post The FREE Beginners Guide To Building Your Own COD System Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page   You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN   Script Episode 147 Hello and welcome to episode 147 of the Working With 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 for this show. So, I’ve had a few questions recently on how best to schedule your day and what should be on a task list and what should go on your calendar. It’s a good question and it goes to the heart of managing your time and your days and weeks. Now, before we get to that, If you are sick and tired of endlessly rescheduling tasks and starting the day with a lot of overdue tasks, it may be time for you to consider the Time Sector System.  The Time Sector System shows you a different way to manage your tasks, a way of being more realistic about what you can get done each day and each week. It encourages you to become better at prioritising your time and the work you have to do and it makes your daily and weekly planning easier and faster and a lot less complex.  It’s a system designed in the 21st century for the 21 century and will help you eliminate all those overdue tasks and give you a simple time management system that you can build on and learn new habits that will ultimately put you back in charge of your time. Full details of the course are in the show notes. Okay, its time for me now to hand you over to the mystery podcast voice for this week’s question, This week’s question comes from Benjamin. Benjamin asks: Hi Carl, I’ve seen a few of your videos recently on using your calendar but I’m a bit confused. Are you saying you should manage everything from your calendar or from both your calendar and your task list?  Hi Benjamin, thank you for your question and I’m sorry for any confusion. Hopefully, in this episode I can clear things up for you. So let’s start with the calendar. Your calendar is your most powerful productivity tool because it is the one tool you have that will never lie to you. It shows you the number of hours you have each day and it will not allow you to over-schedule yourself. Well, I suppose you could do that, but you would very quickly see the impossible situation you have created for yourself.  So, how do you use your calendar? First, you want to schedule your non-negotiable events. These could be meetings, family commitments, your exercise time and classes or other commitments you have that are important to you.  For me, each week, I have a number of classes that are at the same time each week. These are on my calendar as repeating events. They are non-negotiable for the most part—although from time to time I will cancel these if I need some time to record a course or if I need to take a few days break for thinking and planning. I also schedule my exercise time on my calendar too. I do this at the beginning of the week because each week the type of exercise I do is likely to be different. To do some weights at home—because at the moment gyms are not the safest of places to be— takes around 45 minutes. And a quick shower afterwards means I need an hour. But there’s no travel time or cooling off time—which I usually need if I have been out for a run or to the gym.  If I go out for a run, I usually need ninety minutes. So I schedule my exercise when I do my weekly planning.  That takes care of my core commitments for the week.  And that’s what you should be doing when you plan the week. Start with your calendar. Ma