Too Many Tasks Not Enough Time.

Do you find you frequently run our of time but rarely run out of tasks? That’s what we’ll be looking at in this week’s episode. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Email Mastery Course The Time Blocking Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter The Time And Life Mastery Course 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   Episode 240 | Script Hello and welcome to episode 240 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. I’ve been coaching people for around five years now and in that time one problem comes up again and again. That is there does not appear to be enough hours in the day to get everything done.  Well, the truth is, there is enough time—there’s always enough time—the problem is on the other side of the equation; tasks and appointments.  If you fill your tasks manager up with an unrealistic number of tasks when you have several meetings on the same day, the problem is not enough time, the problem is you are not prioritising correctly.  For most of us, appointments—whether they are business meetings or personal appointments—are the priority. They are on our calendar, confirmed and someone else is relying on you to turn up and be present. Tasks, on the other hand, while they may need doing, are less of a priority. Tasks can be done at anytime in the day be that the morning, afternoon or in the evening.  Problems start to happen when you have five or six appointments for the day and a task list with 40 Plus tasks. There’s no way you are going to find the time to do all those tasks. So what do you do?  So, with that in mind, let me now hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question.  This week’s question comes from Bryan. Bryan asks: Hi Carl, I’ve followed the Time Sector System for over a year now and it’s transformed my productivity. However, one problem I continually face is I rarely complete all my tasks for the day. I generally have between two and five meetings each day which take up a lot of time. This means when I get to my tasks for the day, I feel overwhelmed. Is this normal or have I missed something along to way? Hi Bryan, thank you for your question.  Don’t worry, it’s unlikely you are doing anything wrong. Part of the problem is the world we live in today. So much to do, so little time to do it.  However, that said, if you do find yourself rarely completing your tasks for the day, there are a few things you can do to sharpen up your prioritising that will help. When it comes to your tasks, the strategy I advocate is begin with your areas of focus. These are the eight areas we all share that mean something to us. Things like our family and relationships, health and fitness and self-development. Once you have established what each of these eight areas mean to you, and you know what tasks need performing to keep them in balance, you will know where your priorities for the day are.  Areas of focus are also important because it is these that will give you your goals. Meaningful goals you set will all come from your areas of focus. Imagine you have become aware that your savings are not where you want them to be. This will come from your finances area and you can decide what savings goal to set for the next twelve months. Or it could be you notice your waistline has expanded a little over the years and you want to do something about it. You could set the goal to lose a few pounds over the next six months.  Now, you don’t necessarily need to have an actionable task from each of your eight areas. For example, the spirituality area of focus may mean you just need to attend a