What to do when your system collapses

Steve Jobs once said, “Deciding what NOT to do is as important as deciding what TO do”, and that quote has been, and still is, a cornerstone of my whole time management and productivity philosophy. 

Today, I answer a question about dealing with all the little things that pop up each day while staying focused on what is important. 

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Script | 406

Hello, and welcome to the real episode 406 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. (Apologies for the incorrect numbering last week) 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 of this show. 

What happens when your productivity system collapses? Do you go looking for new apps, or do you give up and just think you’re not the organised type or lack self-discipline? 

People react in many different ways when their systems become backlogged and overwhelmed, yet this is a state that will happen to all of us from time to time. 

Life has a bad habit of getting in the way. It throws up all sorts of problems to test us. No one week or even a day will ever be the same.

Only five minutes ago, my plan to take Louis out for our walk at 2:00 pm was changed by my wife asking if we could go at 12:30. That way, I could pick her up from her dance class and then go to the reservoir for his walk. 

And that was a small change. 

These little things are hitting us every day and disrupting our systems, yet that doesn’t mean our systems are broken. It just means we need to ensure that we have sufficient buffer and flexibility built in.

This week’s question is all about what to do when, for whatever reason, your system begins to collapse, and you have backlogs of work, emails, messages and commitments, and you have no idea how to regain control. 

Now, before I hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice, just a heads up to say if you are considering joining next week’s Ultimate Productivity Workshop, there are only seven days left before the first session. 

The workbook will be going out next week, and I would love for you to join me. This is your opportunity to get to grips with the COD and Time Sector Systems, where you can ask questions and come away with not only the knowledge, but with a rock solid system that is flexible, automatic and leaves you with enough time for the things you want to do. 

PLUS, you also get, for free, four of my courses to help you go deeper in your own time. 

I will put the details in the show notes, and I hope to see you next Sunday. 

Now, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. 

This week’s question comes from Nick. Nick asks, “ Hi Carl, all my professional life I have tried to be organised and focused, but every time I feel I have found the solution, something happens either at work or at home that destroys my plans. How do you suggest someone go about dealing with disruptions all the time? 

Great question, Nick, and thank you for sending it in. 

Much of what causes us these issues has little to do with our systems. It’s just life getting in the way. 

Yet, what we are aiming to do is turn managing our time into a routine. Something we just do. 

For instance, I would feel uncomfortable going to bed not knowing what my appointments and important tasks are for the next day. It doesn’t take long—five minutes tops —but most days it’s likely less than two minutes. 

This is why I cannot get my head around it when people tell me they are too exhausted to plan the next day. It’s no more than five minutes! You only need to know when and where your appointments are and what your one or two most important tasks are. It takes a minuscule amount of energy to do it. 

Those two minutes have a profound effect on my day. 

Last night, I went to bed knowing that I had six hours of meetings today and one critical task to do. I knew if I was diligent, I would be able to complete my meetings and that one task. 

The fact that my wife has already changed my plan has not caused me to drop the task. My original plan to do it after my morning calls finished has changed. I will now do it when I get back from taking Louis for his walk. 

What matters is that when I finish today, I can look back knowing I have what matters done. 

This all begins with respecting the basics. Those basics are contained in COD. Collect, Organise and Do. 

You need a way to collect everything that comes your way throughout the day. This needs to be something you trust. That could be a task manager or a daybook (a notebook you use to manage your day). 

Then, at some point in the day, you process and organise what you collected. That could be the first thing in the morning or the last thing you do before you finish your workday. If you’re doing it every day, you won’t need a lot of time for this part of the process. 

If you’re inconsistent with it, you will need more time. This is why I suggested you turn these things into routines—things you just do every day. Like brushing your teeth when you wake up, or washing the dishes before you go to bed. 

Finally, the daily planning, where you decide which tasks you must do that day and review your calendar for the next day’s appointments. These steps give you a clear plan for doing the work. 

The great thing is that none of these steps takes a lot of time. Perhaps the processing and organising will take about 10 minutes. However, I find that this step is calming. It allows me to ensure I am not trying to do too much or limiting my flexibility. 

So, step one, Nick, is to make following the principles of COD a non-negotiable part of your day. 

For those of you who have not discovered COD yet, I have a free 45-minute course that walks you through the process and shows you the tools and formulas to build this into your day. I will leave the link in the show notes.

The next consideration is how you are organising your work. 

There are some things that need to be done every day. Responding to your actionable messages (email, Slack, Teams, etc.) and any daily admin, for example. Salespeople often need to record their daily activities. Now you could do this once a week or do it daily. I find that doing it daily keeps the time required to a minimum. 

Then there are your tasks. Now, some of these may need to be done today or before the end of the week. Others may not be quite as urgent, so you can push them out of sight until next week or even next month. 

This is why I recommend you organise your task manager by when you will do something. Anything that needs to be done this week goes into a folder called “this week”. This means you are not being distracted by tasks that don’t need to be done this week, and it helps to keep your task list to a minimum. This prevents your lists from becoming overwhelming. 

The other good thing about this approach is that the 40% of the tasks you think you will need to do that never actually need to be done can be deleted during your weekly planning. (That’s one of my favourite parts of doing the weekly planning)

This is the essence of the Time Sector System. It’s not about how much you have to do; we all have far more to do than the time available to do it. It’s about when you will do it. 

There are two sides to the time management equation. Time and stuff to do. The time side of the equation is fixed. You cannot change that. There are 24 hours a day and 168 hours a week, and that’s it. 

The only variable you have is stuff to do. That’s what the Time Sector System focuses on. Getting you to decide what you will do and when. 

I can now give you an update on my changing day. 

When I started today, I had three meetings between 8:00 and 11:30 am. 

It’s now 10:30 am, as I write this, and my 8:00 am meeting went ahead as usual, but my 9:30 and 10:30 meetings have both cancelled. 

When I planned my day yesterday, I accounted for all my meetings going ahead, and I would write this script before taking Louis for his walk. I would start the script between 8:00 am and 9:30 am, and then finish it after all my meetings ended. 

I’ve been given 90 minutes back, so this script will be finished before I pick my wife up from her dance class. It also means I can work on an important project this afternoon, which I thought I wouldn’t have much time for. 

Some days you win, others you have to fight for. Today’s a win.

On the days you have to fight for it’s important to stand your ground as much as you can. For example, had all my meetings gone ahead as expected today, I would still have had time this afternoon to write this script. 

The consequences of not protecting time to write this script would be squeezing my day tomorrow, and I would likely have to work on Saturday just to catch up. 

I’ve played that game too often in the past, and it’s not worth it. 

It would be tempting to blame my system, but ultimately, my decisions would have caused the problem. 

So, as you can see, Nick, life will always get in the way. You can only work with the information in front of you. 

But if you are consistent with your daily and weekly planning, you are putting yourself in a position to be clear about what matters each day. 

Yet, your daily and weekly planning only works if you are collecting everything that needs to be collected. Appointments are on your calendar, and tasks are in a task manager. That way, you will have all the information you need to plan your days so that the important things get done, and the lower-value ones can be eliminated. 

And finally, you can avoid many issues by building buffer time into your calendar. Trying to squeeze in as many meetings as you can without allowing at least 15 minutes between them is storing up problems for you later. 

I try to set aside 2 hours for focused work each day and 2 hours of buffer time for the unexpected. I’ve found over the years that on most days, that’s enough to give me the flexibility to deal with whatever comes my way. 

So Nick, it comes down to following the principles of COD. Collect everything that needs to be collected. Allow yourself ten to fifteen minutes each day to process and organise what you collected. Decide when you will do the tasks, and use your daily and weekly planning sessions to map out your days so you are getting the right things done at the right time. 

I hope that helps. 

Now, don’t forget, if you want to learn how to put all this together, have me show you how to manage your calendar and task manager and stay of top of your communications, then my Ultimate Productivity Workshop will do that for you. 

And don’t worry if you cannot attend all the sessions (there are only two). Both sessions will be recorded, and the video and audio files will be available shortly after the end of each session. 

I hope you can join me. Details for this fantastic workshop are in the show notes.

Thank you, Nick, for your question, and thank you to you, too, for listening.

It just remains for me now to wish you all a very, very productive week.