10 Time Management Hacks for New Managers - with Eric Girard

Eric Girard joins Brian as a co-host to unveil 10 time management hacks for new managers, empowering them to balance their increased responsibilities efficiently. These hacks will help you carve out the time necessary to fulfill your team's needs while handling your personal responsibilities.

The Audio/Podcast

Episode Digest

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Mastering time management is vital as you transition into a management role. In this episode, productivity experts Brian Nelson-Palmer and Eric Girard shared 10 time hacks for new managers. Here are their tips, check out the episode for more detail.

Eric’s Ideas:

  1. Calendar block everything.
    Put all tasks and appointments on your calendar, even small items like writing up notes. Block off specific times and treat your calendar as the boss. Eric aims for 15 minute increments. This ensures items don't slip through the cracks.

  2. Use a system that works for you.
    For example, don't force yourself to use a complex system or app if simple to-do lists work better. Eric uses Apple Calendar, Mail, and Notes while Brian uses a calendar for places he needs TO BE, to-do lists for what he needs TO DO, and notes/lists/checklists for thoughts and ideas he needs TO REMEMBER. Find what is sustainable and scalable long-term. The best system is the one you'll actually use.

  3. Leverage AI for meeting transcriptions to capture summary and action items.
    Use apps like Fathom to get full transcriptions of meetings. Review the transcript quickly after to pull out key points vs listening to long recordings. This saves time absorbing content.

  4. Run multiple calendars.
    Have distinct calendars for work, personal, family etc. to toggle on/off as needed. This reduces overwhelm of seeing everything at once. Eric manages 5+ calendars based on priorities.

  5. Apply the 3 D's method for email.
    Do it (handle quick emails instantly), delegate it (schedule time later for longer items), or delete it (remove junk mail). Stay on top of your inbox to avoid overload.

Brian’s Ideas

  1. Stop running basic errands.
    Order online or use delivery services instead of spending time on basic errands. Know your hourly rate to determine if it's worth your time. Leverage technology to optimize efficiency.

  2. Use subscriptions and auto-delivery.
    Set up subscriptions for household items and auto-delivery for work supplies to save time. Get discounts with subscribe and save options. One less thing to remember.

  3. Leverage AI to redirect your time to your people.
    Use AI to automate administrative tasks and free up time for people management, the key role of any manager. AI can't replace human emotional intelligence and empathy.

  4. Avoid “email tag” back and forth to schedule meetings.
    Provide your availability or links to schedule time through calendar apps like Calendly. Don’t waste time on coordination.

  5. Talking to your computer is 3X faster than typing.
    Dictation is faster than typing. Use voice-to-text built into your computer and apps to compose emails and notes. Stop typing, start talking.

In addition, Brian emphasized calculating your hourly rate to assess if buying back time is worthwhile. Eric noted that while technology can optimize efficiency, you should still control your system rather than letting it control you.

Key themes covered include leveraging technology for efficiency, structuring your time deliberately, streamlining communication, and automating administrative tasks wherever possible. The overarching focus is on freeing up time for people leadership - the core of management.

Assess your own work style and needs, then implement the approaches that fit you best. The right time management system will be personalized. Experiment to find what works. The goal is to establish a sustainable approach to maximize your time and energy as a new manager.

Today’s Guest

ERIC GIRARD
CEO, GIRARD TRAINING SOLUTIONS

Eric Girard has over 30 years of experience helping improve the performance of managers and employees. He specializes in the development of new managers, focusing on their successful transition to their new role and on their team management skills. He has a high-energy and engaging facilitation style.

Eric is a passionate, lifelong learner. As a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor, he is pursuing the rating of Master Scuba Diver Trainer. When not designing or delivering training, he enjoys spending time outdoors with his wife and twin 14-year-old daughters.

Why Subscribe To The Email List: Brian does special zoom events and shares hacks and tips exclusively for his email subscribers. Topics like “13 alternatives to checking social media on your phone” or “2 email rules which will cut your email inbox in half” and more. Sign up to start receiving the tips from these exclusive events!

About The Creator/Host: I’m Brian. At age 4, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent (type 1) diabetes and told that my life was going to be 10-20 years shorter than everyone else. As a kid I took time for granted, but now as an adult, time is the most precious thing that I have. I teach overworked project managers how to level-up their life balance and pump up their practical productivity through my Productivity Gladiator training system. If what you’ve seen here intrigues you, reach out, let’s chat! Time is the currency of your life, spend it wisely.

 

Brian Nelson-Palmer:

Eric, it is such a treat to get to do this with you today, man. I've been so stoked about talking about it. We said 10 time management hacks up and coming managers can use.

Eric Girard:

Yeah, I'm super excited. I've never co hosted before. So this will be an adventure. And you know, if you get tired of talking about time management, we can always talk about scuba.

Brian Nelson-Palmer:

That's right. We just found out Eric is an escuba instructor and I went through the YMCA dive thing in college and stuff and diving is fun. So we both found that out and we both found out that neither one of us have to wear swim caps anymore because we're both already aerodynamic in the water.

Well, thanks for getting together. And for folks, let's do a quick intro on Eric, just a little bit about your back. We're about to talk about 10 time management hacks for up and coming managers. So what's the perspective that you're coming to this because?

Eric Girard:

Yeah, so I am super passionate about time management. And I think that came, I'll be real with you for a second. I think that came from being a little ADHD and a little OCD. So I found that I had to be hyper organized in order to get through a day without just completely blowing off everything. So I have found that keeping myself organized means that everybody around me is happier. I'm happier.

And I've also taught time management as well. And that was like a duct to water where I teach time management and it's just so easy and so fun. I do things a little differently than most folks, I think, because I need to be really organized, but I'm happy to share those tips. And I invite folks to take what works and reject the rest. Just go with what works.

Brian Nelson-Palmer:

Absolutely. And for me, this is, I did a TEDx talk on the value, reimagining the actual value of your time is the name of the talk. And I was really blessed because it got picked by Ted and was out there. I was like put out there and kind of went a little viral. And it was also really cool because I've been teaching this stuff since 2014. I do with productivity gladiator. I'm teaching life balance and personal practical productivity skills and time management is a big piece of that learning. So for me, given these workshops for so many years, I've got so many of these ideas. So in the prospect of like, oh, let's get together with Eric and let's both share some and like go back and forth on this. This was oh, man, this is so cool. So and I'm with you. I've never really co-hosted an episode before. So we're trying something new in that like we're both hosts of shows. So let's get together and do a show together. This is this is fun. So let's jump in.

Eric Girard:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Let's do it.

So what about, well, why don't you kick it off? What's your first one? We said we're going for 10.

Cool, okay. Yeah, we're going for 10. Okay, so my focus and my background is on new managers. So specifically helping new managers transform from being high performing individual contributors or employees to being a great people manager. So that's the lens I'm looking through is how do I help the new manager figure it out and stay organized so that they can lead their team as well as possible. So with that kind of scene setting, let's dive in.

The first thing I would say is if it's on the calendar, it gets done. So make appointments for everything. I make appointments for tasks. I make appointments for meetings. I use 15-minute blocks for little things. I've gotten really good at estimating how long something will take. And so put it on the calendar. I need to pick up the girls from camp. That's an obvious one. But, hey, I need to write up the show notes from this episode. I'm likely to forget that unless it's on the calendar. And so I'll put that down for 15 or 30 minutes on the calendar. It's blocked off. It gets done. My calendar is my Bible. So that's kind of tip one and two built in together.

Number three is the best system is the one that you'll actually use. So I've got my system. It makes some people's eyes cross. So I don't force my system on folks. I say use the best system is the one that you'll use. I meet a lot of people who love pen and paper and have a paper calendar. Fine, I'm not gonna ridicule that, I'm not gonna say anything bad about it. My system is I use Apple Calendar, I'm a Mac guy, so I use Apple Calendar and I use Apple Mail and I use Apple Notes and that works for me. I've gotten to the point where I used it to carry around a little notebook with me at meetings all the time. And my handwriting has gotten to the point where I can't read my own handwriting anymore. So I spend a lot of time typing notes up. Or when I'm in Zoom meetings, I use Fathom.video to record notes and transcribe.

Brian Nelson-Palmer:

So can I ask you about it? I have a couple of questions on what you shared on that one, on the fathom. I've never heard of that one. Is it, that's an app on your phone or is that you take a picture of what you wrote or how does that one work?

Eric Girard:

Yeah, so Fathom, there are others like Otter.ai is another one. And there are a bunch of them. These are AI apps that are extensions. In this case, Fathom only works with Zoom. And it joins the meeting like a participant and records the whole thing. It records the video, it records the audio, and then it uses AI to give you a transcription. And so after a meeting, like if I'm in a client meeting or if I'm in a workshop and I really want to make sure I get the key points, all I have to do is, the recording is instantaneous. So as soon as the meeting is over, the transcript is ready. And I'll go right to the transcript and scroll through it and go, ah, there's the key point, boom, done. So rather than listening to a Zoom recording for, you know, and repeating the thing for another hour, in 15 minutes, I've scrolled through and gotten the key points and I'm on my way.

Brian Nelson-Palmer:

Oh, that's amazing. And you, and you were talking, I want to go back. You said you block your time in 15 minute increments. So in my head, does that mean that you have like multiple colors and every 15 minutes of the whole, like, is that just the work day? Is that the entire day? How, how, how big, how far does it go?

Eric Girard:

So let me, for example, if I look at today's calendar, I have, today I've got three calendars going. So I've got my work calendar, my Gerard Training Solutions calendar, that's blue. And so, you know, like this podcast is in blue for this time period. Then I've got my personal calendar, that's green. And so for example, meditating is in green and that's a half hour at eight o'clock and then going to take the car in to get serviced and call the scuba dive shop to ask a question. That's in green. Then the family calendar is in red. My wife runs that calendar. And I know that, for example, my twins are volunteering, doing some work over on Bainbridge Island near Seattle. So the nice thing about having these different calendars is if it starts to get overwhelming, if it starts to get too cluttered, I just turn one of the calendars off and then I can focus. So right now I've got the full look at the day or the week or the month, depending. If it's too much, I just turn one off and then I can focus and say, okay, that's what I have to do for work today and I can focus on that.

Brian Nelson-Palmer:

You know, I'm glad we're doing this together because the question I have is I use a similar approach except for me, the time block. If I have a task that I need to block, the tasks for me live on the to do list and the time block is the work time to get tasks done. And so if I have a lot going on, I'll try to block more time for that. But I don't actually put the task on the calendar. For me, it's on a separate sheet because things are always coming up and changing. So my question for you is if you plan to get certain things done and all of a sudden something high priority comes up, does that mean are you changing calendar events? Are you just moving things around? Or how does it work for you?

Eric Girard:

Sure, yeah, it's totally flexible. You just drag stuff around. So I actually, I adapted this from Franklin Covey. So I was trained in time management from Franklin Covey, and a guy named Dave Green was, you know, for a minute, he was like the expert in time management in Outlook. And he had this method called drag drop, turn it into what it is. So in Outlook, back in the day, there was the core four. There was mail, calendar, tasks, and notes. And so when an email came in, you decided what it was. Was it a task, something you had to do? Was it an appointment you'd drag in on the calendar? Was it a contact you'd drag it into to address book? Or was it a note you wanted to hang on to later and you'd drag it into notes? So you would drag these things around. And I'm just shortcutting that and just saying, you know what, I've got my email inbox, I've got my calendar, I make appointments to get tasks done. So I don't have a task list. Yeah, so.

Brian Nelson-Palmer:

You know, and I love that we're having this conversation because it just, just like you said, everybody has their different approaches, right? So what works for different folks? You find the tools that work for you. And for me, I have the calendar is where I need to be like places I need to mentor. It's like, I need to be somewhere physically or mentally or virtually. I need to be there. So that's the calendar and then the tasks are somewhere else. And so moving it on that's, Oh man, I like this. I'm going to play with this, putting it on the calendar thing. I'm curious about how that would work.

Eric Girard:

Yeah, it just, it helps a lot. I mean, it just helps me focus because like what I will often do is I will look at the week. So like on a weekend, on a Sunday, I'll look at the week coming or the next couple of weeks coming. And I'll make sure that there's that stuff that needs to get done is on the calendar. There's a time for it and I'll build in prep. So for example, I built in a half hour of prep before this podcast. Sometimes I don't do that. I'll block the book, the podcast, and then realize later, whoops, there's no time to get ready for that. And so I'll make time to get ready for that. And then if something else comes up, so for example, I've got a note here, a personal note, that I need to take care of something with my scuba gear. That's not high priority. And so if something else comes in, I'll just drag that stuff myself. It's no big deal.

And then my last tip, and sorry. Yep. Okay. We actually jumped into number four, which is using multiple calendars. Yeah, so personal work and so on. You know, I have a client that wants me in their system, so I've got their calendar. I was on a volunteer board and I was in their system. So at one point I was running five calendars. You know, and they all told me where I needed to be. And if it started to get too much, it was just easy enough to toggle them on and off.

That's why I advocate using multiple calendars, because you can reduce the overwhelm of, God, this is too much to do today. It's like, well, actually, turn off the family calendar, because you don't need to know that the girls are going on a picnic. That's not information you need right now, so you can shut that off. And then my last tip, and these are not in order, by the way, these are just, you know, as they as they came out. The last tip is do it, delegate it or delete it. So this is specific to email. So, so true story, true story. Right now I have 20 red emails in my inbox, and that's actually a few too many for me at the moment. I would be much more comfortable if it was down in the teens.

I know people who have tens of thousands of unread emails, and they're completely overwhelmed. They're just completely overwhelmed. They're like, why even try? Why even bother? So the method I use to handle email, which is a big time suck, I think, for everybody, is do it, delegate it, or delete it. If an email comes in, and it'll only take a minute or two to handle, do it right then. Take care of it, and then throw it out. Or can you delegate it? Can you have somebody else do it or can you delegate it to yourself just later in the day or later in the week? You know and then make an appointment for it Or if it's garbage just delete it and get it the heck out of your inbox like don't even deal with it Corollary to that is ruthlessly unsubscribe. You're gonna wind up on mailing lists Of course down at the bottom of every piece of junk email I've gotten is a little itty-bitty tiny in two-point font unsubscribe button But it's there. Look for it. And unsubscribe. And so I stay on that, because I don't want to be on mailing list I don't want to be on. Keep your inbox tidy so it's not overwhelming. And use a folder system to keep stuff you want to refer back to. So just like where I have multiple calendars, I have multiple email accounts as well. The reason I like Apple Mail is because it's an email aggregator. So I'm not tied into Gmail. Apple is platform agnostic. And so I've got my own personal server email in there. I've got Yahoo, I've got Gmail. It just, it sits over all of it and manages all of it. And so each of these email accounts have folders where I keep stuff if I want to refer back to it, but it's not in my inbox.

Brian Nelson-Palmer:

Right? That's you got to move it. Got to move it out of the inbox for sure.

Eric Girard:

Yeah, because if you're living in your inbox, you're doomed. Related, a lot of us will start in the morning and start in the inbox and just start clicking through emails. Don't do that. Start in the calendar. Start planning your day and what are you supposed to be doing? And then at certain points through the day, go catch up on your email. You got to break, a few minutes between meetings. Maybe you block half an hour to take care of email. But it's an intentional thing rather than getting sucked into it. And then you've lost three hours. And now you've got to scramble through the rest of your day to keep up, catch up with the stuff that you were supposed to be doing.

Brian Nelson-Palmer:

Eric, do you ever mess with the phrase that I learned is eat the frog first, but it's a, I can't, oh man, I can't remember who famous. I think it's Mark Twain. Mark Twain said this where if you eat a frog in the morning, the rest of your day can't possibly get any worse. It's going to be better. But the way that they use that is instead of opening your email, you do one big task. What's your frog for the day and do that first before you open your email. And that way, if you get, whenever you open email, you get sucked into email, you've already accomplished the big thing for the day. And so I've been doing that for years, but it's eat the frog first is the phrase. the big thing for the day. And so I've been doing that for years, but it's eat the frog first is the phrase.

Eric Girard

Oh, that's a good one. I'm, I, you know, now I can't eat frog legs anymore.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

You're switching to Escargot. That's right. Yep. That's funny.

Eric Girard

Oh my goodness. Yeah, I think yeah, it's been a while since I've had a good truffle. Perhaps I'll perhaps I'll switch to truffles.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Yeah. I'll put your pinky out. Stop. There we go. Do we? And you know, you brought up the three D's. What's interesting is that for me, it's the four D's. It's deal with it, delegate it, defer it or delete it. And so it sounds like you said delegate and defer are one in the same when you delegate it to yourself later, or something. But it sounds like we're using very similar approaches, which is that's awesome. Yeah. With the. Oh, man. I love this.

All right, five things. That was five. Let me try five. I've got, I've got one. My first one, uh, and this up and coming managers, stop running errands. Uh, this is one that so many things can be delivered these days and people get stuck in going to run the errands. And so one of the things, I mean, I talk about it in the Ted talk, I actually have on my website. If you haven't, or if you want to go to productivity gladiator.com and there is a calculator that allows you to calculate what your personal time, what your time is worth and it'll give you a guesstimate for your personal and your work. And so that is my metric for whether it's worth my time to run that errand. So for example, if you're getting donuts and coffee for the team and you could stop at Dunkin donuts and get it, or if you're going to get lunch for the team or something, you could stop and do that. Or if that's going to take you half an hour and delivery is available for 10 bucks, then maybe get it delivered. And that way you don't have to take that on or that extra errand on. So,

Look for that or time for your family at the home. It works the same way. You can get your groceries delivered. A lot of the things you need for the house, you can get delivered. And so if it's worth it, you can, now that you know what, if you go to the calculator and you know what your time is worth, it's easy to kind of an easy way to look at it on, okay, maybe this is or isn't worth it for me to go and do. So stop running errands that you don't have to, if you can. That's number one.

Eric Girard

Oh, yeah. So my background is Silicon Valley. I spent 20 years in Silicon Valley. And at first, I was floored because they had cafeterias on site, like really good food on site. They had laundry delivery service. They had a gym on site. They had all these things. And it was a little bit like Golden Handcuffs. It was like, yeah, let's make it pleasant for you to be here so that you can focus on work. But I really came to rely on that, especially the laundry service.

When I moved to Seattle and moved out of Silicon Valley, I didn't have purple tie anymore to take care of my laundry. So I was running errands, going to get the laundry. And just on a fluke, I asked my dry cleaner, do you do delivery? And they're like, oh yeah, it's six bucks round trip. I'm like, that is a no-brainer. That is a no-brainer. Absolutely, yeah.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Oh my gosh, I love that you mentioned laundry in DC and wherever you're listening from, there is likely a service similar to this or your local laundromat might do it. But I, you might judge me for this. People sometimes laugh at me for this, but I have not done my own laundry in seven years because I found, I found a service that will do it and it's a dollar per pound. And so it ends up being like, if you've got two, you know, overflowing hampers ends up being about 35 bucks or something like that. But to have that three hours of time spent laundry back for me is so worth that, that expense. And for the same reason you just said about like, this is why they do it in Silicon Valley and to keep free up your time so you can work more. Or in this case, sometimes you can life more instead of work more. So that's a good one.

Eric Girard

Yeah. Well, I mean, that kind of goes to my point about the best system is the one you'll use. If you think it's worth 35 bucks to have somebody else wash, dry, fold your laundry, and bring it back to you, then okay. I'm positive I could never convince my wife to go for that. She'd be like, take an hour on Sunday and go fold your laundry, go.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Right. Yep. And circumstances very much. So it depends. And so each decision is different for each person. Totally. So now, uh, okay. So number two, I'm going to take it. Stop running errands again, but this time I want you to level it up with subscribe and save or subscriptions. And the examples I have for this are like, we have a cat, all of the stuff for the cat arrives at regular intervals. So not only do you not run errands for it, but you also don't have to remember to order it. You don't have to like the kitty litter shows up every two weeks so that it can be changed. The food shows up. You know how much they're going to use in a two month period. So set up that subscription. And so if it's possible to do subscriptions, it's a huge help mentally and for your time. Right. The the other two examples for humans, I just shared cat examples. I share some human ones, too, like toothbrush heads. If you need a new toothbrush, you're not going to remember when the last time was that you needed a new toothbrush or when you started it. But if it's a subscription and it shows up at a regular interval, then you know that you're changing every three months when it shows up, you change it or same thing. Smoke detector batteries is like a big win because you never remember when the last time was that you changed them and you're supposed to do it every year or so. So these are just examples of things you can subscribe for. And the other piece is look for Amazon or for Chewy or for some of these websites that allow you to do this. They often offer a five to 15% discount if you subscribe for the item. So pay attention to those, this works for work stuff too. You can subscribe to paper and things you need at work so that not only do you not have to run the errand, but you also don't have to remember to do it either. It just shows up.

Eric Girard

Yeah, nice. I found, like, we were doing subscriptions for stuff, and I found out we wound up with too much stuff for some reason. And so, especially with spa chemicals, I'm like, you know what, I'd rather not have a year's supply of shock around. I just needed a bottle at a time. So yeah, but I see your point there. And going to my first point, if it's on the calendar, it gets done.

Guess how often I change smoke detector batteries? Exactly once a year on the same day every year. No, it's an all day event. It's just change the smoke detector batteries sometime today.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Once a year, six months. At the same time too, right? 9 AM. When is it? All day. All day event, yep. That is when you said all day event for a second, I was like, did he take a sick day just for smoke detector batteries? No, no, no. Okay.

Eric Girard

No, no, it's just like, you know, it's like, you know, get it done today sometime when you have a minute. Like it's time, it's been a year, sort of a thing.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

All right. Number three, use AI when you can. There are chat GPT. I've been doing a lot with this recently. I've got a YouTube video that just came out on the on 11 ways you can use it to be more productive at work. It also works at home. I just there's another podcast episode I just did on AI that was about with someone who, gosh, it was Christopher Lind, who was a big AI personality, industry leader. And we were talking about this topic. And one of the things we shared is like it frees up your time at work. It frees up time to spend more time on your people. Like Eric, you were talking about you teach lessons. You got to be a better people leader just because you're good at the work. Doesn't make you a good manager. What got you here won't get you there. And the same thing, if you can use AI. So, for example, here's an example. You go to one of these zoom meetings and you have an hour long transcript copy and paste that transcript into AI. Ask for, have it tell you what are the action items, give me a summary and generate slides to go over this. So if you're a project manager, you could do that with your weekly update and then the slides could go to your supervisors or your managers, you could have it do the slides and that kind of stuff. But by having that extra time that you would have spent two hours creating all of this, and now it only takes you maybe half an hour. That'll give you a little more time. Make sure that you use that time with your people. And so use AI to free up time to be a better people leader. That's such a huge one, I think. So get that time savings to be better.

Eric Girard

Yeah, totally agree. I mean, one of the things I realized, I went to the Association for Talent Developments International Conference in San Diego a month or two ago. And I went to every session on AI that I could. And the thing I walked away from those sessions was, first off, I was a little unnerved. You know, there's that, it's like, this is pretty scary. But also machines cannot out-human a human. And so if you can use AI to be more relational, more empathetic, a better human being to your people, and let AI take care of the back office stuff, then I think that's gonna result in a better workplace.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (25:34.37)

Totally. I mean, Eric, I'm sure it comes up in what you teach and stuff, but when you go to all the employee viewpoint surveys and the employee feedback and that kind of stuff, the top managers are the ones that engage with their people every single time. So make sure if you can use AI or apps or subscriptions, like we're talking about ways to free up your time so that you can spend that time with your people, it will pay you dividends in your career forever and ever. So.

man, do it, take advantage of that time savings. All right, number four. And you know, I love that you brought up email stuff because my number four is stop emailing back and forth to schedule meetings. I can't, just yesterday, I had somebody reach out to me inside my company, I also have a day job, and inside the company, the people sent me an email and they asked, hey, could we meet? When would be a good time to meet? And in my head alarm bells went off. It's like inside the organization. If you have Outlook, it's called scheduling assistant or Google has, you can see them or there's apps like Calendly that will do. It's amazing. Yes. And they can see when you're available. So no, I am not going to reply back and give you all of these options. And then you're going to reply back and say, well, I can't do those. What about those? And then I'm going to reply back. And sometimes it turns into

Eric Girard

I love Calendly. Calendly is my killer app. Yes.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

five, six, seven, 10 emails trying to get this thing set up. No, man, just go look at the calendar, see when it's available. So for you as an up and coming manager, please do not get in the habit of emailing to set up meetings. Make sure for yourself, if you're in an organization and you can set it up, you can hook up your calendar to a Calendly thing and you can, you can use it for free. It's a freemium service. So you can even start for free and just have a 30 minute

meeting that's available, but that will at least let you send a link to tell people when you're available. And it even works. Oh my gosh, I it's a you could even use it in certain circumstances in your personal life too. That's you know, Eric, there's a question for you there though, because I feel like in my personal life, if somebody wants to get together for happy hour, or they want to hang out, and it's a friend or something, and I send them a Calendly link, there's a level of like, nah, that's not a good vibe.

Eric Girard (27:59.995)

No, no, no. Everything, most of what I'm talking about is work related. Making sure that things are on the calendar, that's universal. But Calendly is a work thing. Like I would never send a friend a Calendly link to get together for fun. Like that would be, I think that would be offensive.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Yeah. And at the same time, Eric, I wish I could with my really good friends that know me. I do it anyway, because they know me and they know that I love them and I will absolutely cherish them. And I do great thing. You know, I feel like I am a good, I show up as a good friend in that relationship. But if we're in a text message back and forth, they know I do this productivity gladiator thing. And so if we text a couple of times and we can't find a time.

Here's the calendar link. Look at it and tell me when it works. We've gone back and forth twice. Now this doesn't go in anywhere. I didn't. Oh, that's fine. Um, so I did, and I'll include a link that I did do a blog post on how to stop the back and forth calendar and this kind of stuff. So if you're not familiar with what Eric and I are talking about with calendar and this other stuff, that stuff is available, talking about scheduling assistant and that kind of stuff. So if you're an up and coming manager and you don't already know about this stuff, please do check it out. Uh, that'll be a good.

Eric Girard

You know what, in my previous roles, I was a vendor manager, among other things. I also spent a lot of time talking with vendors about training products. And Calendly was not really a thing when I was inside. Calendly really blew up during the pandemic for me, where it became like the killer app. But if I wind up inside again, I'm finding a way to use Calendly or something like it to schedule meetings with people outside the company, because it's just invaluable.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Absolutely. And if you're an office person and you don't know, it's called bookings is the office app. And so if you Google it, if you're not already familiar, but if you've got SharePoint or if you've got office 365 through your organization, it's called bookings or if you have Gmail, you can use Calendly. That is a third party provider, but there's different solutions. So for your organization, it might be different, but yeah, look for it and find it and, and find a way to be able to send someone a link so that they can book that meeting.

So that's a good one. And then, you know, my last one, my fifth one is dictating is three times faster than typing. So start talking. And this is a, it's a blog post that I did and I can share the link, but there is a statistic that typing speed on average people speak three times faster than typing. And so what's amazing though, is that with AI and with all of the technology that they've gotten, the dictation ability.

is significantly better than it ever was before. So like the one that'll blow your mind, if you haven't done this, try it right now. You can pause this show and go on and hit the microphone button and tell your phone or your computer, how much wood can a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? And I guarantee you, it gets it right every time. All of the, it knows how to separate them up. It, you can insert commas. You might have to dictate the commas, but it'll do it.

And so the reason I share this is for me personally, it's a, there is a dictate button in Outlook that you use. You can hit dictate and then you can talk to your computer or in Gmail or on a Mac. Everyone has, every system has a shortcut to access a microphone so that you can talk and learn how to start talking to the computer. And my little rule for myself now is if I'm gonna type more than two sentences, speak it first. And then you can go back and just read it and make sure that it came out the way that you would.

because my process to send an email used to be to write it down, type it all, and then go back and reread it. And now I dictate it and then go back and read it. And it, at least it saves it's at least a 50% uptake and how long it takes me to compose emails, especially work longer ones. That's just something for me.

Eric Girard

Mm hmm. Huh. When you said dictate, I thought you were going to go and do a management technique, which worried me for a second.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Ah, yeah. Dictate short for dictatorship. Yes, we have a good time in this company. Absolutely.

Eric Girard

Yes. Do it my way now. So I'm glad we didn't go that way. But that's actually really interesting. I use dictation right now. I use it with Siri when I'm driving. So yeah, so I have Apple CarPlay in my car. And when I get texts from people while I'm driving, I'll respond via text. And that's handy because you can keep the conversation going without getting on the phone because the telephone is so passe these days. And so just being able to dictate a quick response to a text is handy. So yeah, I will play with that.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Absolutely. If you haven't every single one of them, I just found it took me forever to figure it out. But in Mac, I, I use windows professionally and I use Mac personally. And for personal, you hit the command button twice on your keyboard and it immediately activates the dictation feature so you can speak to text. And so it's a, it's a great, it's a great thing. So, you know, Eric, before we, we said 10 things, that's 10 things. And I wanted to ask before we adjourn, do you have any personal stories. We're talking about 10 time hacks for up and coming managers. Are there any personal stories that you have overall on this topic that, you know, like somehow this is a personal thing for you or clearly it's a passion of yours because you talk about this. Where does that come from?

Eric Girard

Yeah. So I think it's kind of keeping myself organized and then wanting to share that with other people and help other people be organized as well. So my whole focus is on wanting to help. And I've chosen as my niche is I want to help new managers hit the ground running. And so that's where all of this comes from. And the story I've got about this goes to the point I made about the best system is the one you'll use.

This is actually a story about a manager of mine named Jeff. And Outlook was fairly new to us in this organization. And I had figured it out. I'm kind of a tech head. And so I'd figured out Outlook. And the core four and the drag drop turned into what it is. And so I'm making Outlook sing and dance. And people around the office knew that. And so they would come to me and ask for tips. One day, my manager, Jeff, came to me and said, Eric, I'm having trouble with Outlook. Can you help me? Sure.

And he, my perception was that he needed to do a specific series of things to get Outlook to do what he wanted it to do. And let's just say for the sake of argument, it was a list of 10 things. And so I'm like, okay, first go here, click here, do this, change that value, that, and his eyes started to gloss over and he looks at me and he says, you know what, Outlook is not the boss of me. Outlook is not the boss of me. And I've never forgotten that because

It's not. Your system should not boss you around. You are in charge of your system. The best system is the one that you use. And so to the extent that you're able, because I realize that some companies say, all right, we're an Outlook shop or a Microsoft shop or we're a Gmail shop. But to the extent that you're able, modify and adapt the system to suit your style of working. That's what I would.

I would say for this is, you know, if you're not technically oriented or, you know, you just, you hate outlook, find an alternative. I, you know, I think, I think that there in companies, there is a certain expectation that you need to be able to handle the technology that's offered to you. And I think that you have a responsibility to do that. And at the same time, I don't think you should accept it on its face. It's like, you know what, there's gotta be an easier way. So let's find the easier way. So there you go. Outlook is not the boss of me.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

Outlook is not the boss of me. I like, I like that a lot. I think that there's a lot of people that will relate to that in technology in general. There are some people that they sign off at the end of the day and they're like, oh my gosh, I will not go back on my computer again until I have to for work tomorrow. And so the only way you can get through to them after hours is via phone because they don't look at their computer unless they absolutely have to. And so technology and outlook is not the boss of me. I like that.

For me, it's actually, you know, Eric, I'm appreciating that you and I are almost like a great one, two punch because your, your target or your niche is up and coming managers. And you know, what got you here, won't get you there. Being a good manager is different than being a good employee. And for me, a productivity gladiator is about, uh, helping overworked project managers to level up their life balance and their personal practical productivity skills. And so it's really about starting out in the workplace as an employee.

And they don't often teach you some of these skills about life balance and how to have a good life balance and how to handle all of this stuff like outlook and all these tools. And so the interesting personal story for me is I, I worked in the government for many years and there, I worked with a lot of contractors for the government and also employees in the government who were not necessarily good. You had to chase them. You know, these people, you probably can relate to this.

There's these people that you have to chase them down because you ask them for something and then you don't hear back. And now the onus is on you to ask them again. And then you have to ask them again. And like, my gosh, wouldn't it be great if everybody had this system for being able to get back to you or, or be able to handle the overwhelm. If they've got too many emails, the people with 10,000 emails, how do you fix that? How do you handle that? And so it's a personal thing for me was one of my good, my good buddies.

was talking to me about this years ago and said, you know, Brian, you have a system, so share your system. It doesn't have to be the perfect system. It's not the only system. And I love that having this conversation with you, like Eric, you and I have different approaches to some of these things, but we both have a system. And so if you need to work with somebody working with Brian or working with Eric is going to be a good teammate to have because we have a system. So teach that system. And I love that so much. And so teaching, sharing these tools and these tricks and these tactics and the stuff that we're doing right now is my God, I could spend hours doing this and we're not going to, because we don't want to be in your ears for this long, as far as talking and podcast episodes aren't meant to be that long. So I think we've, we've gone, we've gone on and droned on about, we've done our 10, 10 hacks. Anything else that you've got today before we just kind of adjourn this one or conclude it.

Eric Girard

No, this was a lot of fun. You really kind of reawaken the passion of me. And if folks want to get a hold of me, you can always reach out to GerardTrainingSolutions.com and take a look at what we offer. Time management and prioritization is one of our classes.

Brian Nelson-Palmer

And that's, and for me, I'm Brian Nelson Palmer. I'm founder of Productivity Gladiator, and we're teaching life balance and personal practical productivity skills to overworked early and mid-career project managers. So along the same lines, time management, prioritization, those kinds of things as well. But I love this, it's through a lens of as a manager and a manager in training and coming up through it and starting off in the beginning. So I certainly would love to keep in touch as well. So.

All right, that's a wrap.

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