Conquer Your To-Do List With Tiff’s Productivity Tips | Ep. 245

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Tiffany Grant: Hey, hey, this is Tiffany’s Take where I answer your money questions right here on the podcast. If you want your questions answered, just go to www.moneytalkwitht.com/ask.

Tiffany, and I’ll be more than happy to answer. So for today, um, I wanted to answer a question somebody asked, what are some time management tips, um, that you can give? Because people are always reaching out to me and they’re like, Tiffany, like, how are you able to accomplish everything that you do on a daily basis?

Um, how do you have the time? And so I wanted to hop on this episode and just give you some things that I do. So first and foremost, um, First, you wanna figure out what’s important to you, what needs to be done. I think that is the first question that you should be asking yourself, and then subsequently answering.

So I do something called an Eisenhower Matrix. And what that is, is you have four quadrants, right? So four um, spaces. So you can just take a piece of paper, I have it on a whiteboard, but just draw across and, and put it into four different compartments. Now, in the first compartment, which is the top left, you wanna put.

Things that are urgent and important. So these are things that need to get done. Have a deadline. They’re also very, very important. That will become your do first quadrant. Okay? Next. On the top right hand side, you wanna do what’s not urgent, but important. So these are things that don’t really have a timeframe that you need to accomplish them in, but they are important and that will become.

Things that you need to schedule. Then the bottom left hand side, you wanna put things that are urgent but not important. So these are things that need to get done, but they’re not super important right now. And so that will become the things that you should delegate, so get somebody else to do. Um, and then the last quadrant.

So the bottom right. Would be, you’re not urgent and not important. So these are things that aren’t important, you know, not really necessary to do, and they’re also not urgent. They don’t have a deadline, and that will actually become your don’t do category. So you’re actually not going to do anything there.

So the goal is to not have anything in the don’t do. Um, And the do first, which is the, the first quadrant I talked about, the top left. You wanna keep those to a, a maximum of like six. Okay. Um, and then the rest you can just fill in as you go. Now, the reason I do that is because it allows me to put things, put a priority on things, right?

So I know exactly what I need to do and what priority they have. Now once I do that, I go into, now I use a system, uh, a software called Motion, motion ai, and I’ll make sure I have a sh a link in the show notes too. Um, an article that I did on motion so you can kind of get the details and then also, um, a link if you’re interested in trying and get out.

But it’s super helpful. And so I take everything that I put in the schedule and the do first, and then the delegate. And I put it in motion. Now what motion does is it automatically adjusts my calendar based on what I already have scheduled or what’s coming up, and it automatically puts those task items in there.

Um, And so that way I know when I should work on things and when I shouldn’t. So it keeps me on task. So to give you an example, um, I will, and I won’t go into too much detail cause you could just read the article, but I will put in like, um, a task. It allows you to put the priority. So I just take it from my Eisenhower Matrix.

If it’s something that’s asap, I make sure I mark it as ASAP in motion. And motion will automatically. Put it on my calendar. So it’s kind of using the time block, time blocking method of getting things done. And all I do every morning is look at my motion. I’m like, okay, this, these are the things that I need to accomplish today.

It has allowed me to not miss any deadlines. I never miss deadlines anymore. Um, because I have something that keeps me accountable. And if things do like start coming up. It also tells you if it wasn’t able to schedule it when it’s due so that way you can kind of move things around, um, in there if you need to manually.

But it does a really great job. Even if I have a last minute meeting that pops up, it automatically moves everything around for me. So it takes the, the thought process out of getting things on my schedule, cuz that’s where I struggled for a while. Um, so that’s what I do there. I also, um, in. Addition to that, I will use the um, Pomodoro method.

Um, and what that is, is you set a timer. You do 25 minute sprints of just straight work. You don’t get off task, you don’t, um, even look at your phone, you know, that type of thing. And then you take five minute breaks in between. Now once you get to the end of four sprints, so 4 25 minute sessions, you’re at the end of your hour and you can take a, a longer break.

And that is helpful because you’ll be surprised how much you get done in just a 25 minute sprint. Um, if you just stay focused, so you’re not looking at social media, you’re not just, you know, mindlessly browsing the web or, you know, in between doing what you need to do, checking your email, you know, so on and so forth.

Um, it allows you to stay on task. And so there’s an app that I use for that. It’s called Focus Keeper. So highly recommend checking it out. Really basic, you just, um, open the app and hit start, and it automatically does the Pomodoro method for you. And all you have to do is just stay focused when it tells you to stay focused.

Take a break when it tells you to take a break and you will get so much accomplished. Um, I can almost guarantee it. Another strategy I use for time management is Eat the frog. And you’re probably like, Tiffany, I’m not eating any frogs. Like, what are you talking about? But really it is just a saying to, um, Tell you to tackle the, the biggest task first.

So if it’s something that I really don’t wanna do, um, or you know, it’s something that I know will take quite a bit of time, energy, effort, uh, first of all, you can break it up into segments in motion. So that’s a plus. So if it’s like a two hour task, you can break it up into 30 minute segments or one hour segments if you don’t have to work on it all at once.

Um, which is helpful. But also once you just eat the frog and just do that thing that you are dreading doing, you’ll free up your mental capacity to do the other things that need to be done. So to give you an example, you know, we all have these things that we don’t wanna do. Let’s say for instance, it’s cleaning cuz that’s one for me.

I’m like, I just do not feel like cleaning. Right? But I notice if I don’t do it, I’m constantly thinking about it. I’m like, oh, I need to clean. Oh, I need to clean. Oh, I need to do this. I need to do that. Versus if I just did it, I can free up that mental capacity for something else. You know, I can think more clearly because I’m not constantly thinking about how I need to clean and just do it.

And so, Take that and apply it to whatever is the case for you. Whether it’s knocking out, um, writing something or reading something or doing something for your business or doing something for your employer, whatever it is, just eat the frog, get it over with, and then you can free up your mental capacity for other more important things.

So, um, That’s another strategy that I use when it comes to my time management. Another thing, um, is that I always make time for doing stuff that pours into me. So it doesn’t matter how busy I am or how much things need to get done, I always take time for just having. Time for myself. So whether that’s scrolling social media, if that’s what I wanna do, or um, watching TV if that’s what I wanna do, or, uh, just relaxing for a minute and just doing something mindless.

Cuz that’s what I wanna do. I make time for that. I also try to make time for naps if I can. Um, and so that’s another time management hack as well, cuz. When you are constantly in the flow of things and you’re constantly, you know, on your mind having to do this, having to do, do that, you can burn yourself out pretty quickly.

Um, and so that’s why I’m bringing this up as a time management hack cuz you’re like, Tiffany, that’s self-care. Um, but it helps you with your time too, because, If you get burnt out, even when you try to work on what you wanna work on or try to work on what you need to work on, it’s gonna be difficult to do so because your body is telling you, okay, you need to slow down.

You need to hit the brakes, you need to pause. And if you ignore those warnings, you could end up. In a very bad place. Um, I’ve been there, you know, I’m having health issues because I just won’t slow down. So, slow down before your body tells. You need to slow down and there’s always time to get things accomplished.

Okay. Always time. Um, that’s another time management hack I’ll say as well, is that I don’t stress about what needs to be done anymore. I’m like, if I get to it, great, if I don’t, cool, you know, I’m not gonna lose sleep over it. Um, if the opportunity is still there tomorrow, perfect. If it’s not okay, you know, I don’t put that much pressure on myself anymore to constantly always have to get things done.

Done asap. Like everything can’t have an ASAP deadline. All right, so I just wanted to leave you all with those tips and hopefully they have been helpful for you. These are some ways that I am able to accomplish things. Um, And also one more thing, delegate what you can. So for instance, I really don’t like cleaning.

For a long time, I had someone that comes that came to clean because that was taking up too much time. I didn’t really enjoy it. It was in my delegate quadrant. And so that’s what happened. So look at your delegate quadrant and start delegating stuff out. You’ll be surprised how much people are willing to help you if you just act.

You know, your family, your friends, whoever, um, hiring someone if you can. Um, there are people that are out here willing to help you with whatever it is you need to get done. But a lot of times we shoot ourselves in the foot because we just don’t ask. So that is the message for today. Um, hopefully I answered your question.

If you had that question for me, um, if you were listening like, how the heck does Tiffany keep putting out all these podcast episodes? This is how I get everything. Thing done. So thank you so much for listening. If you wanna ask your question on the podcast, just go to www.moneytalkwitht.com/asktiffany and I will be more than happy to answer for you.

So until next time, I hope you have a safe and productive day. Bye.

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