Rob Dube (00:09):
Hello, everyone. My name is Rob Dube and I am here with Gino Wickman.
(00:26):
Gino, good to see you again. What's happening? How are you?
Gino Wickman (00:29):
What's happening? Well, let me tell you what's happening.
Rob Dube (00:32):
Tell me it all. As I like to say to my daughter, tell me everything.
Gino Wickman (00:35):
I love it. I'm ready, brother. I'm ready.
Rob Dube (00:38):
Today we're going to dive into a topic that many driven people have not quite mastered, and that's how they use their time, or as our producer, Rob, who's a different Rob than me, wanted us to say, time blocking. So whether you're running a business, you're leading a team, you could be training for a marathon, raising a family while pursuing a passion project, your relationship with time is everything. And this isn't just about productivity, it's actually about energy. It's about clarity. It's about becoming someone who is intentional with every moment. And time blocking isn't about having a rigid tool. It's a pathway to aligning your schedule with purpose. So what I hope we can explore today together, Gino, is how time blocking helps you reclaim your energy, helps you sharpen your focus and carve out space for what truly matters. And whether that's deep work personally or meaningful connections with others, creative expression for your business or your craft, or just rest. Okay. So what's coming to mind for you?
Gino Wickman (01:46):
I'll tell you, I was struggling with this topic. I didn't like it, Rob. I didn't like it.
Rob Dube (01:52):
You could tell me that.
Gino Wickman (01:53):
I always come in when you tell me the topic and I'll have two or three or four thoughts. I had one on this one, so I'm like, what in the hell are we going to talk about? But now I wrote six things down. Hopefully what I hope for is some wonderful back and forth banter here, but this is what came to me. First of all, this big thought came and it's a contextual thought is a better way of saying it. Keep your expectations low as to whether it's a big thought or not. But it's like there's this hyper simple time blocking 101 start and that is make sure you time block your time off and your time on.
(02:35):
Okay, so let's start there because most driven people aren't doing that. It's an amalgamation and it all blends together and they actually believe that works. And I really struggle with that. At the end of the day, it's your life, you decide, but let's just start with that time blocking. Time block your time off. And obviously for what we're teaching in these 10 Disciplines, at a minimum. We want them to take, how much time off?
Rob Dube (03:02):
130 days.
Gino Wickman (03:03):
130 days. So time block that first and then time block your work life. So I want to start there because hopefully that turns on a few light bulbs. Now we go deeper into that. I have this beautiful perspective now.
(03:22):
As an EOS implementer, when I was doing 150 sessions a year, it was such an incredibly beautiful focused life because you're forced to do these full day sessions and they're on average seven hours, six to eight hours, but you have no choice but to time block those eight hours with your client and there's no time for anything else. So my clarity, my focus, my effectiveness was off the charts because that lifestyle forced that. Shoo forward in time now where I'm doing about 35 sessions a year, I do a lot less sessions and I have so many other endeavors, two other companies, five pieces of content I float through, podcast, talks, this and that. It's much more choppy. And so I now get to see with this contrast, how easy it was to have that full day blocked out that forced me to time block and big chunks of time and this choppier life where I really have to be more disciplined.
(04:27):
What I've proven is that it's very possible to time block even when it's choppy and there's multiple different types of work going on, but it's challenging and I think if anything, hopefully that gives some people out there relief, freedom. It is challenging. I'm just validating that for you. What I've learned works well for me is that when I have a project, so something comes up and it's going to take me an hour or two, what I believe most driven people out there are doing and as I kind of fell on the trap as my life got a little more choppy is I would just shoot for getting at it sometime tomorrow.
(05:03):
So to be on the list of stuff. But what really works is when you block that time. And so sometimes I will be going into my calendar, there's a reading project I need to do. I literally put it a month and a half from now. I need a half a day to do that. Just block that time for that project. It frees up my energy. It's not sitting on a to-do list for me for the next month and a half until I get to it. So just when you get hit with a project, just go into your calendar, time block it, put it there, put the energy in and give it the time that it deserves.
Rob Dube (05:34):
Let me just build on that, Gino. First, I was thinking about Discipline number five, Know your 100%. And so that's really important, coming to completely understand what are the perfect number of hours per day and per week that you're going to deliver an impact in this world. And for you, what is it up to? Like 80 now? 80 hours a week?
Gino Wickman (05:57):
Down to 45.
Rob Dube (05:59):
I'm just teasing.
Gino Wickman (06:00):
I want to say 40, but it's floating around 45.
Rob Dube (06:03):
That's so good. I was thinking I wanted to share a little bit about how I work, not because it's that interesting, but just maybe to get people's-
Gino Wickman (06:11):
Please.
Rob Dube (06:11):
... gears turning. What I notice for me is I need a combination of structure and flow. So I actually build that into the schedule. And I share that because so many people come up to me and they say, "Discipline," or, "I'm not that rigid," and I just want to say neither am I, but there are so many benefits to actually giving yourself from, time blocking perspective, time to allow some flow if that's what you need. So put it in there and allow that to just be very fluid.
(06:43):
For me, I'm very clear. From an energy standpoint, which was one of the things that you heard me mention at the outset, where am I going to be at my best every single day? I realize I can't have more than four meetings a day. And let's just say on average they're an hour. Sometimes it's a half hour, sometimes it's 90 minutes, but I can't handle anymore. There's things that come out of that. My mind gets filled. There's to-do lists, there's things, there's action items. I need time to work on those things or to let it just process. So that's my limit. Absolute my limit.
(07:14):
Now, what about emails? We talk about don't do $25 an hour work. And so that might be a little repetitive for some of you listening, but some of you maybe not, and that is don't answer your emails. Somebody can do that for you. And for those that you need to answer, which I still have some emails that I need to answer, I block time. My assistant actually puts it on my calendar and there's a certain point of every day where I spend time just responding to the emails that she couldn't respond to.
(07:46):
And then, again, structure. Have space for spontaneity and joy to allow magic to happen. I wanted to share an example. Sometimes I'll just leave white space, there's nothing in there and I don't even know what I'm going to do with myself. And then the time comes and I'm sitting there and sometimes there's something very specific where I say, "Oh, I'm really glad I had that time because I actually want to work on something I'm really excited about right now." But other times I'll say, you know what? I'm going to call my friend. I'm just going to call him off the cuff. Maybe he'll answer. I know these days we always have to schedule all these meetings and that's magic. Or I've had times where I'm sitting there and all of a sudden I get a text from somebody where I couldn't have addressed it, I couldn't have followed up on it. I couldn't have connected with this person in the same way, but it was so serendipitous that I had time and then the text came through and magic happened.
(08:39):
Anyway, I see you write down a couple notes. So anything coming up for you?
Gino Wickman (08:43):
That's why this is good to keep going back and forth. Again, just nuggets just throwing out there. Another thought is know when your creative energy is at its highest. And everybody's so different. For me, it's like, oh, somewhere between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM in the morning is probably my peak creative energy, but it's the morning. Some people, it's late afternoons. We're all different. And so the point is when you're going to time block projects or things you have to solve, if it's creative type work, make sure you're time blocking it during your max creative output time. Just so, again, a little nugget there.
(09:27):
Next we talk about cushioning your vacations. And so whenever you take a vacation, sabbatical, whatever you're doing, time off, extended time off a week or more, just make sure you cushion that time off where the day before you leave for that vacation, you don't schedule anything. You block the whole day. And then. Coming out of the vacation, same thing. Make sure you have a whole day blocked. It makes for a much better transition into and out of vacations.
(09:54):
And then the last thing that came to mind is I'm a 28-year student of Dan Sullivan's strategic coach program. And he has an entrepreneurial time system where he teaches something called a buffer day. And a buffer day is a day that you block to clean up messes, get things done, catch up work, that kind of stuff. And I do about 40 buffer days a year where I get giddy about them. And so they're all pre-scheduled for me well in advance, like months in advance. So sometimes they'll move around, my assistant will move them around, but they typically hold firm. But I literally get giddy for a buffer day because, to what you just described, that's a day that doesn't have anything scheduled and it allows me to just flow through, just catching up on different, I call them messes, just get in my history. And then I'll always do a clarity break on that buffer day. It's about two hours sitting in a Starbucks where that's where I just get my head right on everything going on. So for what that's worth, that's another form of time blocking for me.
Rob Dube (10:56):
Yeah. I love it. I'm curious, maybe you don't have an answer for this, and if you don't, don't worry about it. But you work with a lot of high performers. You're working with driven entrepreneurs, their leadership team. Typically, people on a leadership team are going to be high performers.
Gino Wickman (11:11):
Sure.
Rob Dube (11:12):
Why do so many resist this idea of time blocking? And I just want one last piece to it is one thing I notice is in some of my clients, they go meeting to meeting to meeting to it's like back to back to back to back, back day after day after day after day. And I'm like, why are you doing that? So do you notice anything?
Gino Wickman (11:32):
Well, I think this is where I was stymied on this episode and how much meat there would be here. I'd love to know the reaction to this from our audience because to me it's so obvious. I make an assumption. Everybody does it. I don't see how there are a lot of ahas here, but there probably are. ,I'm not seeing the struggle and maybe I'm not close enough to it, but I just want to touch on your meeting to meeting to meeting thing. I personally love stacking all of my meetings up. If I had... Where I'm different from you is I could do eight meetings in a day. I don't do eight. I could do six, no problem. And let's pretend they're all one hour meetings. Hypothetically. If I've got six meetings to schedule that week, I'd rather stack them all up on one day than spread them over two days hypothetically.
(12:26):
So for me, what's important about that though, and this is what I urge everyone, is you got to build a buffer in between meetings. What most people do wrong is they back to back all their meetings and there's no time to debrief the previous meeting and prepare for the next meeting. And that's where the nightmare ensues because I have a half hour buffer in between every single meeting so that I can debrief the previous meeting. I am typically downloading one, two, three things to my assistant. So I'm moving everything that came out of that meeting forward and then I'm preparing well for the next meeting. And so that's one of the compliments I always get is how well-prepared I am for a meeting. The meetings I do, I get them done in half the time and they're twice as effective due to my preparation.
(13:06):
So have that half hour cushion in between each meeting. It'll make for better meetings and maybe I think that's why I'm able to stack up six in a day if I have to. Again, rarely is it like six in a day, but I've got the energy stamina to do that because they're all so productive. I'm getting so much done. So you got to know yourself. And you know yourself. Your max is four or whatever the number is. So you out there, you got to know yourself and do what works best for your MO.
Rob Dube (13:32):
Thank you for saying that, know thyself, one of our disciplines. And I went... As I was thinking more about this and what the resistance is for maybe some, are they enjoying the busyness of things? And then when you're busy in your life, you get to ignore maybe important things that are going on. So that might be an invitation for you, the listener, if you are struggling in any way to ask yourself, what am I resisting in my life? And go deeper because sometimes the fear of structure comes from something much deeper, maybe a childhood experience where freedom felt scarce to you or maybe you felt over controlled. So this is about healing a part of yourself sometimes. I just ask you to maybe consider that.
(14:24):
Do you have non-negotiables in your calendar?
Gino Wickman (14:27):
What does that mean?
Rob Dube (14:29):
Something that's sacred, like do not disturb. I'll give you a couple of mine.
Gino Wickman (14:32):
Yeah, please give some examples of that.
Rob Dube (14:35):
I have my morning routine. That's sacred to me. It's three hours and I protect it with everything I have. I don't grasp on too hard to it. Life takes over. I understand, but it's very sacred to me. So that's one. And I know my energy's better when I have that morning routine.
Gino Wickman (14:56):
Well, yes. Not as rigid as yours, but one rule of thumb is I don't schedule any meetings before 10:00 to allow for that creative time. But I will violate that when things start to pile up. Like if I need a six meeting day, that would be one example of where I do that. A buffer day is non-negotiable. So my assistant knows, Karen knows not to schedule anything on a buffer day. So there's some things like that. Meetings must always have a 30-minute buffer in between, those kind of things. So those are some examples and non-negotiables.
Rob Dube (15:30):
All right, great.
Gino Wickman (15:31):
By the way, I thought of something else I want to say about meetings. Okay? It's just a belief I have, and that is that six-meeting day I'm describing, every one of those meetings I'm fired up about. There's a reason for that meeting that I'm going to further a project, I'm going to brainstorm with people, I'm going to solve problems, I'm going to learn a new idea, I'm going to do... So I'm looking forward to every one of those. So that's the other check I would have the audience do is if you're dreading meeting day, you got to really think about what the content of those meeting is and the attendees of those meetings as to why you're dreading it so much. I'm not saying you should do six, but every meeting that I do is highly important, impactful, necessary, and something I want to be doing.
Rob Dube (16:16):
So what you do with your meetings is you ensure that they are impactful uses of your time so you can make a greater impact in the world.
Gino Wickman (16:24):
Exactly right.
Rob Dube (16:26):
All right, everyone, thanks again for joining us. We'll see you next time. And as always, stay focused and much love.
Gino Wickman (16:35):
Thank you for listening in today. We truly appreciate you taking the time to spend with us and please tune in for the next episode. Until then, if you'd like to see where you are on your True Self journey, go to shedandshinepodcast.com to take the True Self assessment and receive personalized guidance. If you're all ready to begin your inner world journey with Rob and myself, please join us for the next round of the 10 Disciplines Group Coaching Program. We wish you all the best in freeing your True Self. Stay focused and much love.
