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  • How To Fix The Top 5 Productivity and Time Management Pain Points

    How To Fix The Top 5 Productivity and Time Management Pain Points
    Sep 6 2026
    What are the top 5 pain points with time management and productivity that over 400 of my past and current coaching clients have faced? The results may, or may not, surprise you. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin You can learn more about the Planning Course here Use the coupon code: planning26 Learn more about the Productivity Academy Learn more about my private coaching programmes here Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 432 Hello, and welcome to episode 432 of the Your Time, Your Way 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 of this show. Before we get started, and linked somewhat to today’s topic, one of the top issues among the people I work with is inconsistency in planning weeks and days. Now, I understand why it can be a challenge to plan your week consistently. Life often gets in the way, and really, what’s the point of planning when, too often, whatever plan you set gets destroyed by an inconsiderate boss or client? Yet it still remains the case that those who consistently plan their weeks and allow a little time each day to plan the next day are the ones who get the right things done on time and have more time to do the things they want to do. So, over the last few weeks, I’ve been updating my Planning Course. It’s not a long course, and it now focuses on three main areas of planning. Daily, weekly, and project planning. Plus, given the time of year, I’ve added a bonus section on the Annual Planning Template. If you want to take a significant step up in your time management and productivity, I highly recommend this course. You can get it as part of my Productivity Academy Membership or buy it as a standalone course. And if you’re fast, you can get the standalone course for just $50.00 with the early bird discount. (I’ll put the link and the code in the show notes for you) And a quick tip. Get the course today and do the Weekly Planning Section. It will take you around 15 minutes to do the section, will give you a downloadable Weekly Planning Matrix sheet and will inspire you to do a proper, practical Weekly Planning Session today. Okay, on with the episode. Last week, I hosted the inaugural live training of my Productivity Academy. In that session, I shared some research I had done on around 500 of my past and present coaching clients. The question I asked was: “What were the top five struggles (or pain points) they faced?” The results were not unsurprising, or not that I thought. What surprised me was that the cause of those pain points almost always comes from the same place. Let me explain. First, what were the five? They were: In 5th place, Tool overload and fragmented workflows This means using multiple apps, duplicating task lists, having unclear homes for information, and excessive system tweaking, which undermined trust in their productivity setup. All of this results in information all over the place, which causes a sense that they lack clarity and control. In 4th place, Interruptions and lack of protected focus time Meetings, emails, messages, emergencies, and context switching push deep or important work out, leaving no time for doing that important work. Yet one irony is that if the focused, strategic work were prioritised over interruptions, there would be fewer interruptions. Nobody chasing you, telling you something was urgent, and less time for meetings because the work was getting done instead of being talked about. In 3rd place, Unclear priorities If you don’t know what matters most, the urgent or “loud” work of other people will always crowd out meaningful progress. If you do not know what your priorities are, then someone else’s priorities will do. At least they appear to be urgent, right? In 2nd place, Planning and review routines that don’t stick When daily and weekly planning are skipped because, perhaps, life gets busy, it causes your system to break, which then requires repeated restarts. Restarts are time-consuming, often overwhelming and never address the underlying problem. (Which we will come to in a moment) And in 1st place… Wait for it… Overwhelm from competing tasks and projects My clients face large backlogs, scattered lists, frequent rescheduling, and a persistent sense of being behind. Now, as I said those five issues, I am sure you were nodding along to many of them. But the question is, why? Why do these pain points keep popping up? The simple answer is a lack of clarity on what is important to you. Let me explain. I value punctuality. It is a standard I have had since it was ...
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    18 Min.
  • The Productive Power Of A Proper Tea Break

    The Productive Power Of A Proper Tea Break
    Sep 13 2026
    How often do you take a mid-morning tea break? I mean a proper break, where you stop work for fifteen minutes or so mid-morning? It turns out very few people do this these days. And if they do get themselves a cup of tea or coffee, it’s done on the go or at their desks while continuing to work. Complete madness. Is it any wonder why so many people feel burnt out, exhausted and unable to spend any quality time with their nearest and dearest? This week, we’re looking at why bringing back your mid-morning and afternoon breaks might be the most productive thing you could do. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Learn more about the Productivity Academy Learn more about my private coaching programmes here Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 433 Hello, and welcome to episode 432 of the Your Time, Your Way 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 of this show. Back in the day, in traditional knowledge work jobs, most people had to be at their workplace by 9 AM. You would get a tea break mid-morning, usually around 11 or 11:15, then you would get a lunch break, probably 12:30 or 1 PM, then in the afternoon there'd be another tea break around 3:00 pm, and finally you would finish work, perhaps at 5:30 PM Our days were structured. Time anchors marked our day: start times, mid-morning breaks, lunchtimes, afternoon breaks, and when we finished work. Over the last few years or so, and certainly since the pandemic, these natural time anchors have been disappearing. Working from home, having more flexible working times, and working across multiple different time zones have all accelerated the erosion of these natural breaks. But these time anchors mattered. They told your brain to take a rest. Today, because those time anchors have practically disappeared, we end up switching our attention from one problem to the next. To an email or a message, back to the report we’re supposed to finish today, then to the presentation due next week, a quick check of a project that we're working on to answer a question. It's just non-stop. No time for a tea break or sometimes even a lunch break. Now, because there are no natural rhythms in our days, and no time anchors to give us a break, we end up feeling completely exhausted at the end of them. But it didn't just happen at work. We also had time anchors at home too. We would wake up at the same time, go to bed at the same time, and sit down to watch our favourite TV shows at the same time. We'd also eat our lunch, breakfast, and dinner at the same time. These were mini time anchors that told our brain to rest. When you remove those anchors, your brain doesn't know when to rest, and it just gets completely worn out. This week’s question is about why you feel so exhausted and tired, with no energy left to even decide what to have for dinner and what to do about it to bring some sense of calm back into your days So, without further ado. I’d like to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s Question, but she’s once again on one of her little holidays. So, I’m afraid you’re stuck with my voice this week. This week’s question comes from Paul. Paul asks, hi Carl, I was recently promoted, and now my days just feel like a blur, and I struggle to see if I have done anything important or not. It just feels like I spend all day putting out other people’s fires. I rarely get time for a proper lunch break, and I feel completely worn out by the time I get home. What can I do to bring some focus back to my days? Hi Paul, thank you for your question. To get us started, let’s step back in time a little. Office work in the 1950s and 60s in the UK was pretty structured for most people. You were expected to arrive at your desk on time every day. Habitual lateness was a serious disciplinary offence. Then there were recognised mid-morning and afternoon breaks, where we’d meet colleagues from other departments and talk football, cricket or what was on the TV last night. We rarely talked about work during those 15 minutes or so. Those anchors were like shared signals. You started together, breaked together, and finished together. Now, everything is blurred. Remote work, flexible hours, global teams, all great in theory. But in practice, it means people are never really off. And never really on either. It's just a permanent in-between. That mushiness can really wear you down. We’ve lost that daily rhythm. Even if it felt rigid, there was a kind of contained calm. A boundary around tasks. Now we just dip in and out all day. Messages, calls, ...
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    16 Min.
  • Why You Never Have Time for Your Most Important Work

    Why You Never Have Time for Your Most Important Work
    Aug 16 2026
    When filling up your car with fuel, how do you know when it’s full? Well, the fuel filler nozzle clicks off. A sensor triggers the fuel to shut off. Yet did you know that the sensor is programmed to trigger when the fuel tank is 85 to 95% full? There is an intentional air pocket left in the tank to accommodate the fuel’s natural expansion due to heat. Now ask yourself: how do you know when your calendar is full? Do you have a safety gap to allow for unexpected events that will naturally occur in the week? Most people do not, and that’s what we’re looking at this week. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Learn more about the Productivity Academy Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Plan Your Week With Me: The Weekly Planning Matrix. The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script |429 Hello, and welcome to episode 429 of the Your Time, Your Way 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 of this show. There was a time in the 2010s when hustle culture took hold, and the dream was to become the next “tech-bro”, as they were called. This meant working 18-hour days, seven days a week, with calendars bursting with meetings and every minute scheduled for whatever work these dreamers did. It didn’t work. Pretty soon, the hustle culture trend morphed into a self-care trend, when rest and relaxation became the priority, not the stuffed calendars and 18-hour days. Remnants of these trends still exist. There are people adopting AI and building apps today, in the hope that they will be the next hyper-successful business leaders. And a cursory look around YouTube will show you plenty of videos about slow living and mindfulness. And as with most things, there’s a happy medium somewhere that, when found, brings you the success you wish for without the burnout, stress and overwhelm. To find that happy balance requires one observation. Your natural capacity. And that’s what this week’s question is all about. So, it’s time for me now to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice. This week’s question comes from Sarah. Sarah asks, hi Carl, what would you advise someone who never gets round to doing their most important work because their calendar always fills up with meetings. I was promoted last January, and since then all I seem to have been doing is sitting in meetings every day. I never have time to stop and think about strategy or even reply to my messages and emails. Hi Sarah, thank you for your question. This is a very interesting question, as you may have noticed, I’m a little obsessed with calendars. That’s because it dawned on me a few years ago that it doesn’t matter how many tasks are on my task list or how many articles, notes or reports I should read if I never have the time to do or read them. The only thing that really matters each day is how I will spend my time. And that means the only productivity tool available to me is the calendar. You see, your calendar is honest. It cannot lie to you. All you get are the 24 hours each day, and you plot out how you will spend the hours. Now, I know it’s not always that simple. Some of you will discover that people can schedule meetings on your calendar without your knowledge, and many of you will likely already have some recurring meetings that happen every week or even every day. So, technically, it’s unlikely that you will ever begin with a blank calendar. However, if you allow someone else to control your calendar, that is where many of your time management and productivity problems begin. You bypass a key part of managing your calendar—the decision stage. Let’s break this down. When someone makes a request on your time, you have a decision to make. It’s a simple yes/no decision, but it’s an important decision all the same. Do you say yes and accept the commitment, or do you say no and reject the commitment? If you say no, that’s it. It goes no further, and it doesn’t end up on your calendar. If you say yes, you make a commitment, and that commitment goes onto your calendar. This applies whether it’s a meeting or a task. Tasks still require time. They may not initially go on your calendar, but they still need to be done, which means you will have to find time to do them at some point. So, every time you take on a new commitment, you are putting more pressure on your capacity. Your capacity is the work you can realistically do each day or week. And we all have a capacity. Now, this introduces an issue most people miss. Every commitment you accept has a time cost beyond the actual thing itself. A one-hour meeting, for example, often ...
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    15 Min.
  • Are You Overcommitted Without Realising It?

    Are You Overcommitted Without Realising It?
    Aug 30 2026
    An overflowing task manager and a crowded-out calendar are rarely ever caused by using the wrong tools. The problem happened well before you entered the task or added the appointment to your task manager or calendar. And that’s what we’re looking at this week. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Learn more about my Productivity Academy Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Apollo 13 Lunar Module Start-up Procedures The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script |431 Hello, and welcome to episode 431 of the Your Time, Your Way 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 of this show. If you were to look at your appointments for tomorrow right now, how much time do you have that is not already committed? Two, three, four hours? Now look at your task manager: how many tasks are overdue or scheduled for tomorrow? In the uncommitted time you have tomorrow, are you confident you can complete all those tasks? Most people who do this little exercise, if they are being honest with themselves, will answer “no chance”. And this is the top reason why so many people are struggling with time management and productivity today. And there is a word for it: Overcommitted. It’s not the tools they use or any other complex reason. It’s simply because they’ve allowed themselves to become overcommitted. This week, I’m looking at how this happens and what you can do to unravel the problem so you are operating within your natural capacity, not overworked or under pressure, and not feeling like you are sinking under the weight of unrealistic deadlines and commitments. So, to get us started, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Douglas. Douglas asks, “Hi, Carl, I know you tell people to keep their task manager clean and tight, but I find that impossible. I’m collecting 20 or more things into my inbox each day; I often have 4 or 5 hours of meetings, and I have to deal with at least 130 emails and messages each day. How would you get all that under control?” Hi Douglas, thank you for your question. I did some quick maths on the numbers you provided and noticed that if you are collecting, on average, 25 new tasks a day, have 130 emails and messages to deal with and only have 3 ½ hours of non-meeting time each day, that would mean you would have only 1 minute and 13 seconds to spend on each item. Yet those numbers assume you are not taking time for lunch or coffee or a glass of water. If you were to include a 30-minute lunch break and 15 minutes to get water and coffee each day, that would leave you with less than a minute available for each email, message, and task. Is that realistic? Based on that quick calculation, the issue here is one of capacity. You’ve no capacity left. All that’s needed to completely destroy your day is an urgent, last-minute meeting request, an issue that prevents you from doing any of your planned work or simply an IT problem that doesn’t allow you to do the work you planned. I can assure you, Douglas, you are not alone here. There are millions of people all around the world struggling with the same thing. They’re overcommitted. Which is why it’s completely irrelevant what tools you’re using. The first thing I would advise someone in this situation is to do the maths I did above. Now, I know I do not have all the information. I don’t know what work you do, your position in the company, or whether you lead a team. But what I do know is you’ve gone beyond your natural capacity, and now you will be building up enormous backlogs. You will be struggling to meet your deadlines, and I bet when you get home you’re exhausted. This exercise will tell you how much capacity you have. If the meetings you attend each day are non-negotiable, you will need to find a way to reduce the number of tasks you receive. Which means you will likely have to do something uncomfortable. Reject requests. Now I know this is very hard to do. Nobody likes disappointing someone. But the choice is: either you disappoint them when they ask, or you disappoint them when you cannot deliver what you promised on time. And I think failing to deliver on your commitments is the bigger disappointment. Think of it this way. If you say no and they ask someone else who can deliver, then you’ve actually helped them. Sure, your pride may be slightly hurt, but this isn’t about your pride. This is about setting yourself realistic expectations on what you can and cannot do. However, there is another possible solution. Cap your daily meetings....
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    13 Min.
  • Why You’re Too Tired to Plan Tomorrow

    Why You’re Too Tired to Plan Tomorrow
    Aug 9 2026
    “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” That was Theodore Roosevelt, giving his thoughts on making a decision, and in this week’s episode, I am answering a question about why we may be trying to solve a time management problem the wrong way. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Learn more about the Productivity Academy Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Plan Your Week With Me: The Weekly Planning Matrix. The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script |428 Hello, and welcome to episode 428 of the Your Time, Your Way 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 of this show. If you’ve followed this podcast for any length of time, you will have heard me talk about processes and routines. It’s these little things that have the effect of automating your daily decision-making requirements. If you always start your day in the same way, you no longer have to decide what to do when you wake up. You do it automatically. And this is important. Reducing the number of decisions you make each day prevents something called “Prefrontal Cortex Overload”, which is often called “decision fatigue”. And it’s not woo-woo science. It’s very real The prefrontal cortex is the part of your brain that deals with executive function. These functions include impulse control, evaluating something, and making choices. Basically, decisions. When your prefrontal cortex becomes tired and fatigued, you find it harder to make logical, objective decisions, and instead your brain begins to use the amygdala, the part of your brain that controls emotions. In effect, you begin making decisions based on how you are feeling. And that leaves you picking the easy and exciting over the important, mundane tasks. It also leaves you with little discipline, which often means you eat unhealthy food and stay up later than you should. When overwhelmed, the brain defaults to the path of least resistance by delaying decisions, defaulting to the status quo, or refusing to choose at all. You then procrastinate, feel exhausted, anxious and overwhelmed. When you set up processes and routines as well as setting some “if this then that” rules, you reduce the burden you place on your pre-frontal cortex. And all that explanation now brings me onto this week’s question. Which means it’s time for me to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice. Some say she’s always on holiday; all I know is she’s called “The Mystery Podcast Voice. This week’s question comes from Fabian. Fabian asks, hi Carl, you recommend that you should do your daily planning at the end of the day, not at the beginning. But I am always so exhausted at the end of the day that I find I just cannot do any planning. Is there anything I can do to consistently plan at the end of the day? Hi Fabian. Thank you for your question. When I read your question, my thought was that it might be because you are not getting enough sleep, or that your work causes you to make decisions all day about what to work on next. Nothing is pre-planned or pre-decided. Both of which could be the underlying reason for feeling exhausted at the end of the day. If you’re not getting enough sleep, the effect you will experience would be the same as if you were experiencing decision fatigue. An inability to make decisions. And that is why, at the end of the day, you find it so difficult to plan the next day. After all, what is planning? It’s making decisions about what you will work on tomorrow. So, if a lack of sleep is the issue, then the fix would be to look at your sleep cycle and make adjustments there. However, for most people, the problem is making too many decisions throughout the day, leaving them feeling mentally drained and lacking in any motivation to do anything. This is where routines, processes and rules come into play. Every productive day is the result of hundreds of decisions: What deserves my attention?What can wait?What should I ignore?What should I delegate?When is “good enough” truly good enough? If each time you come up with something new and you have to decide whether something deserves your attention, whether it can wait, or whether you could ignore it, you’re tapping into your prefrontal cortex’s energy reserves. And your prefrontal cortex does not have an 850cc engine that only draws a minuscule amount of energy. No. It has a full-throated V8 and drinks fuel like it’s put a straw in a lake and called it a warm-up. This is why pre-establishing what your ...
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    14 Min.
  • Why Everything Feels Like It Needs to Be Done Today

    Why Everything Feels Like It Needs to Be Done Today
    Aug 23 2026
    Have you ever wondered if your time management and productivity issues might not be about the amount of work you have to do, but rather the way you think about that work? That’s what we’re looking at today. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Learn more about the Productivity Academy Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Plan Your Week With Me: The Weekly Planning Matrix. The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script |430 Hello, and welcome to episode 430 of the Your Time, Your Way 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 of this show. Since I began helping people directly with time management and productivity, I would say that around 60% of people’s struggles come down to the way they organise their work, around 35% come down to the way they think about it, and only 5% come down to the volume of work coming in. Talk to practically anyone today, and they will tell you they are busy. It’s almost like a badge of honour. The number one reason people say they don’t exercise is that they don’t have enough time. Is that really true, or is it that they value doing something else more? I’m reminded of something the legendary Jim Rohn used to say: “Don't mistake movement for achievement. It's easy to get faked out by being busy. The question is: Busy doing what?” If I look at my to-do list right now, I guess I am busy. I have this script, a newsletter and a long-form article to write. I also have to record three YouTube Shorts videos, edit them and record this podcast. I have around five pieces of feedback to write for my coaching clients, do my exercise, take Louis for a walk, and cook dinner. Yet, I don’t feel busy. The reason is that I understand that it doesn’t all have to be done today. All I have to do is decide what can be done today and do that. The truth is, we all have far more to do than we can do at any one time. And equally true is that it doesn’t have to be done right now or even today. So, with all that said, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Elaine. Elaine asks, hi Carl, what advice would you give to someone who is always busy and never has time to do their most important work? Hi Elaine, love the question. Short and sweet. I would first refer you to the Jim Rohn question ” Busy doing what?” If you feel constantly busy from the moment you wake up until you go to bed, the first thing I would suggest is to look at what you are doing during your waking hours. Write down what you are doing over a period of 48 hours or so. Not just your professional work, but your personal things too. I would also add that you write out what you would prefer to be doing instead. Write these down side by side. Draw a vertical line down the middle of a page, and on the left write what you spend your days doing, and on the right what you would prefer to be doing instead. Be completely honest. If you discover, for example, that you spend 90 minutes a day on social media and a further 2 hours watching TV, write that down. You’re not going to necessarily remove those. Instead, what you want to be asking yourself is whether spending time on the activities you currently spend time on is worthwhile. Initially, you will try to justify spending time on these activities. This is the same response we have when someone challenges one of our opinions. Our natural instinct is to defend ourselves. When you first write down these activities. Don’t judge. Just write them down. All you want to know is precisely where your time goes. I’ve found that if you leave it for a few days and come back to it, you will begin to look at things a little more objectively. Instead of trying to justify the expense of your time, you begin to ask questions such as: Do I really need to do that? And is this regular event I attend worth all the extra work it produces? Often, the problem for many people is that everything they want to do requires time. Just sitting and thinking requires time, as does making a cup of coffee. Time never stands still. And the problem with time, or rather, the way we measure time, is that we have 24 hours each day. That’s the one immovable part we have to deal with each day, but at least that gives us one constant. That can be worked with. If you were to study the habits and routines of highly productive people, you would notice that they all have strong barriers between the three basics of their lives. There’s time for work, time for family and social life, and time for self. There’s no discipline involved. It’s ...
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    14 Min.
  • Your To-Do List Is Hiding the Truth About Your Time.

    Your To-Do List Is Hiding the Truth About Your Time.
    Jul 26 2026
    What drives your day? Your calendar or your to-do list? Or perhaps your boss? The answer to that question will determine whether you are or will be productive each day. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Learn more about the Time Sector System here Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Plan Your Week With Me: The Weekly Planning Matrix. The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script |426 Hello, and welcome to episode 426 of the Your Time, Your Way 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 of this show. If you were to look at the paper planners of the 1980s and 1990s, you would instantly see they were all built around your calendar. Some of the more sophisticated planners had a to-do list and a place to keep notes. Most were just a vertical list of times and the day’s date with a small area at the bottom for notes. And there was a reason for that. People working in the 20th century understood that no matter what you wanted to do each day, it would require time. Dropping your kids off at school likely involved a twenty-minute detour on your regular commute. Restocking your paper-clip box would require you to walk to the stationery cupboard to fill it, another ten minutes, and then there was all the travelling around to meet people. (No Teams or Zoom in those days). Needs drove how we managed our time, and your diary was the only tool that could prevent you from overloading yourself. You could see in an instant whether you could sit down and type out the report or proposal. Because, given that there were no smartphones or tablets, and laptops were prohibitively expensive, you also had to be in the right place in order to do much of your work. I fondly remember the days when I left work at the end of the day, and there was no way a client, colleague or boss could contact me until I arrived for work the next day. My work Email was only on my work desktop, and that was in the office. Now, somewhere along the timeline, those barriers have been broken down. Your work can, and does, follow you home. I recently saw a before-and-after picture of people sitting around a resort swimming pool in the 1990s and one in the 2020s. In the 1990s, people were sitting around the pool talking or reading a book. In the 2020s, people were staring at their phones. No talking, no books. Just eyes glued to a screen. It’s quite sad really to see. It’s also why your clients, colleagues and bosses are on holiday with you. If you’re carrying your work life on your phone, then there’s no escape at all. It would require a superhuman effort to avoid occasionally looking at your emails and messages. I know some people can do it; most cannot. Today’s episode is about how to put your calendar back to where it belongs: being your primary productivity and time management tool. So, to get us started, let me hand you over to the recently returned Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Judy. Judy asks, Hi Carl, I’ve heard you say many times that your calendar should be your primary productivity tool. I really struggle with that because I have so many tasks to do, and so I find myself beginning and ending my day in my task manager. Do you have any suggestions on how to make my calendar my primary focus? Hi Judy, thank you for your question. There is a problem with task managers today, and that is their sophistication. Before we went digital, if you used a to-do list, you needed to handwrite it each day. While this may not have been very convenient, it forced you to only write out the tasks that needed to be done. Remembering to watch a TV show or read a newspaper article would rarely, if ever, be written on a to-do list unless it was something you genuinely wanted to do. Even then, when I think back, I knew that The A Team would be on a Saturday at 6:00 pm, and that Ally McBeal was on a Sunday night at 9:00 pm. And I was always at home at those times, and if I wasn’t, because there were no streaming services, I wasn’t going to see the show then unless I set the video recorder, and to do that you needed a doctorate in Theoretical Physics. Today’s digital To-do lists are fantastic. You can add tags and labels, set start and due dates, make tasks recurring, and create multiple lists. All great features. And if your to-do list can do all that, what’s the point of using a calendar? You can put events and date reminders into your task manager and have one single place to see everything you have to do. Doing things this way immediately poses a problem, though. You remove the time constraints a calendar ...
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    14 Min.
  • How to Protect Your Most Important Work When Everything Goes Off Plan

    How to Protect Your Most Important Work When Everything Goes Off Plan
    Jul 19 2026
    The legendary American Football coach, Vince Lombardi, said: “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up." Now that’s true in American Football, and it’s also true in life. No matter how well you plan your day or your week, your plan will inevitably get attacked by outside influences. A disorganised, reactive boss, a tired son or daughter who won’t get out of bed in the morning, a traffic jam on the way to an important meeting, or your accountant telling you that you need to pay a big tax bill. These are all sudden, impossible to plan for attacks on your carefully planned day. Having a plan is one part of a productive day. Having an arsenal of tools to defend your plan is another. And it’s that part that most people never prepare for. In this week’s episode, I will share with you a few ideas that will help you defend your plan and show you how to get back on track if you are prevented from following it through. Let’s go. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Learn more about the Quiet Productivity Method here Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Plan Your Week With Me: The Weekly Planning Matrix. The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script |425 Hello, and welcome to episode 425 of the Your Time, Your Way 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 of this show. Whenever I ask a client how their week went, most answers are negative. They usually go something like: “Well, it started well. I got everything I wanted done on Monday and Tuesday completed, but then I had to suddenly go out to see a customer on Wednesday morning, and that just threw me off track. I didn’t get back to the office until 4ish, and then I had to report back to my boss. That went on until 6:00 pm. Argh! It was a disaster” Well, was is a disaster? Perhaps not. All it was was one day out of five that did not go as planned. It’s possible that a day like this will have put you behind on your plan for the week. It could also mean that getting everything you want done that week will no longer be possible. But that does not necessarily mean it’s become a disaster. The issue really is not preventing things from going wrong; that would be a challenge beyond almost everyone. Instead, the focus should be on recovering from an unexpected event or interruption to minimise the damage to your plan. And in this week’s episode, I will share a few ideas to help you quickly get back on track after one of these inevitable, unexpected events. But before I do that, I’d like to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question, but sadly, once again, she’s sunning herself in a resort somewhere, so I’m afraid it’s me reading out the question again. This week’s question comes from Will. Will asks, “ Hi Carl, I’ve finally become consistent with my weekly planning (thank you for the tip about doing it on a Saturday morning). My problem now is when I look at my plan at the end of the week, I’ve got practically none of it done. There’s always some emergency that throws me off my plan. How do I get myself to stay on track?” Hi Will, Thank you for your question. Now, the first thing I would tell anyone is not to go for perfection. If you have ten things that you plan to get done over the next seven days but only manage to do seven, I would say that was a pretty good week. You did seven important things that you wanted to do. That’s a 70% success rate. I’d take that. The reality is you are unlikely to ever hit 100%. I know I never have; in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who has. There are just too many things that can happen that will throw you off track. Plus there’s the human side of things too. We often expect to be able to do far more than is possible, and then there’s always a missing piece of information that you need to ask someone else for, and they are away all week at a conference and won’t be able to send it to you until next week. There could be a proposal you submit, anticipating approval, only to have it sent back to you for adjustments that will then require resubmitting. None of these can be anticipated; building in some buffer time can help, but it’s still not likely to give you a 100% success rate. If you are hitting 100% consistently, that’s likely to suggest that you are not pushing yourself hard enough to develop, but that’s a whole different story. One trick I often suggest to my coaching clients is to build in a “catch-up” afternoon, or, if you can, a “catch-up day”, later in the week where you avoid scheduling meetings ...
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    14 Min.