Communication, Connection, Community: The Podcasters' Podcast

Mastering Time Management: Practical Tips for Creatives and Podcasters, with special guest Frank Buck

• Carl Richards • Season 6 • Episode 151

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Ever wondered why managing time feels like an impossible task despite everyone having the same 24 hours each day? Join us as our special guest, time management expert Frank Buck, unravels the mystery behind this conundrum. From the overwhelming distractions of emails and social media to shrinking attention spans, Frank dives deep into the societal factors that sabotage our productivity. Learn practical tips on prioritizing meaningful tasks over digital noise and taking back control of your time.

Most people are overwhelmed by the amount of paper and digital information in their lives. Frank Buck makes organization easy so you can increase productivity, decrease stress, and enjoy life. Global Gurus ranked Frank #1 in the world in the "Time Management" category for 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. His career path took him from band director to principal to central office administrator and now to productivity coach and speaker.

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Website https://frankbuck.org/

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Carl Richards:

Welcome to Communication Connection Community the podcaster's podcast. This podcast takes a deep dive into modern day communication strategies in the podcasting space. We chat with interesting people who make the podcasting and speaking spaces exciting and vibrant. We also dive into the podcasting community with news updates, latest trends and topics from this ever-evolving space. So strap in, it's going to be one amazing ride.

Carl Richards:

Let's dive into today's episode, and today it's all about time. One of the reasons why people don't start podcasts is because they say they don't have the time, and in some of our earlier episodes we talk about the time myth, and we're not going to dive into that myth specifically today, but we're going to help you manage your time a little bit better, not just for podcasting, but for business in general, or even life in general, for that matter. And for that we need the expert who knows all about this, and that's why we're so glad to be speaking to Frank Buck today. Most people are overwhelmed by the amount of paper and digital information in their lives. Well, Frank makes organization easy so you can increase productivity, decrease stress and enjoy life. Who doesn't want to enjoy life? Global Gurus ranked Frank number one in the world in the time management category for 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. His career path took him from band director to principal, to central office administrator and now to productivity coach and speaker, and we're so glad he's here today, Frank.

Frank Buck:

Welcome to the podcast, Carl thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to this one.

Carl Richards:

I'm so glad you took the time. Managing the time to be on this show apparently was not the issue, but I'll tell you something Time is this thing that we made up. Well, actually, maybe some spiritual being made it up, but the semantics of time we made it up, and I like the fact that we're going to dive into this specifically, because one of the reasons why I mentioned people don't start podcasts is the time factor. So what is it about time management that people wrestle with? Why is this a constant in so many people's lives that we just don't know how to manage this what seems like a simple thing?

Frank Buck:

Right, we've all got that same 24 hours. We all have it, and the thing that is making it increasingly more difficult is all the options that we have in front of us. It used to be that you showed up at a job and here was the first thing. You're at the grocery store and you're checking people out and here's the next person in line and you just handled the next thing. Now we've got. Do I check my email? Do I handle this paperwork on my desk, do I? You know the person standing in front of my office? You know there's so many options and we haven't even gotten to social media yet. So there's so many things that we could be doing. And if we let other people manage our time for us, and boy they will with the hey, you got a minute. Hey, could you handle this for me? If we don't look out for our time, nobody else is going to do it for us, and it's our fault.

Carl Richards:

Wow, that certainly identifies a huge problem, and it's so easy to go down a rabbit hole with some of this stuff, especially as you mentioned, or didn't get there yet. But social media, it can be a time sucker. It could just absorb so much of our time, consume so much of our time, that it takes a very disciplined person to not allow it to do that and it's by design.

Frank Buck:

They are very good. The YouTube folks are very good at you. Just keep scrolling and scrolling and just one more video, just one more video. So you know. So what's the way out of that, you know? And for me it's having something that is more attractive than that YouTube video. So what is that going to do with my day? How can I break that down so it's easy to do? The next thing that's going to lead me to something that's very productive. If they're watching their favorite sports team and it's like 15 seconds left to go in the game and they're about they could score and win the game, the phone rings, you're not answering it, you're not looking at Facebook or YouTube. You're totally focused on that. We've got to figure out what our that is. Make it attractive, put it front and center so that we don't even think about. Let me go over here and snack on social media.

Carl Richards:

In your expertise, your experience, what was the catalyst that changed things? Because there was a time where we would for example, I come from the radio world, so I love old radio shows but there's a time where we would sit around the radio and we would listen, and we would listen attentively to that entire program. Families would sit around the radio, we would go to movie theaters and we would watch the whole movie. And heaven forbid if we had to get up and go to the bathroom or refill our popcorn because we'd missed something. But now it seems like we're stretching beyond that attention span that we used to have. So where in your expertise would you say that the catalyst lies?

Frank Buck:

Yeah, I totally agree. Our attention span has just shrunk. We get up, we can oh, I can rewind the TV program. I can record it and watch it later. The YouTube video I can watch it at double speed later, maybe I can even watch it at triple speed later. Everything used to be in real time and now we're able to shift time so easily that it becomes a oh, I'll do that later and then pretty much later has caught up with us and we've got more to do than we can possibly do, and it's getting worse. I think so many of us, we just don't have that compass as far as. What is it I really want to do with this day? Where do I start? Let me jump in right now.

Carl Richards:

It's going to take a disciplined person to do this, because there are so many squirrel that were easily pulled away, especially with you know we mentioned cell phones, social media, text messages. Have you got a minute? All of those little things that pull us away, and I don't know if you know the number. I don't. That's why I'm hoping you do that for every minute we get pulled away. It takes us X amount of minutes. I think it's maybe 15 or 20 or maybe 30 minutes to get back into. Right, yeah?

Frank Buck:

The number that I've heard tossed around is like 23. I think Michigan State University they were. Like when you're interrupted, it takes you about 23 minutes to get back on track. Now the other statistic to look at is how often are you interrupted. So, depending on who you listen to, it's like the executive is interrupted every three to eight minutes. So if you're interrupted every three to eight minutes and then it takes you 23 to get back on track, where you do the math and you realize, well, no wonder when we get to the end of the day we're farther behind than we were when we started the day.

Carl Richards:

Math is hard, but those numbers for as hard as it is to me, the non-math guy, those numbers don't add up Exactly yeah. Or they do add up. They just keep compiling and compiling and compiling and then, as you said, by the end of the day we don't know up from down and we don't know how to even get caught up. How do we even get caught up? So we've identified that let's chat about then, especially because we're both podcasters, we're both fantastic content creators. You've got to be a guru when it comes to managing your time, because you're managing not only your time but your guests. You, because you're managing not only your time but your guests, you've got a deadline at the end of the. You know when's the episode going to go live.

Frank Buck:

So how do we go about systemizing or putting things in place? For me, the biggest thing is batching similar items. So if you were here watching me work, you would not see me taking an episode from A to Z. What you would see was I'm planning the upcoming month, so what are the four topics I want to write on? Because I produce a new piece of content every week. So what are those four pieces of content? Create an Evernote note for each one of them, put a few little thoughts in it and then just start writing. But then, when it comes to recording, I'm recording all four episodes back to back in one sitting. I've got the text and then, if you don't mind me reading this out and I think this is where people are going to rewind and listen to this again and again, and again.

Frank Buck:

Now I do not use ChatGPT to write my content for me. No, I do that, but there's some other things where it can help me. So, after I have written my text and this is going to be the script that I use that's going to go on YouTube, it's going to be a podcast, it's going to be a blog post, and I haven't gotten a title for it yet, even though the title is very important, I take this text, go to chat GPT and type the following I'm writing a blog post period. Could you create for me each of the following colon one five titles that would hook readers and rank high on SEO. Two a focus key phrase no longer than three words. Three, a meta description for the blog between 140 and 155 characters period. Be sure the focus key phrase is included in the meta description period. Four seven tags to use on YouTube that will rank high for SEO. Five, five tweets that will hook readers and rank high on SEO. Include relevant emojis and hashtags. Six, five quotes related to the topic of the post, with the name of the author.

Frank Buck:

Here is the text of the blog post colon paste and I paste that text and watch chat GPT. Go to work and I copy and paste all of chat GPT. Go to work and I copy and paste all of that in that Evernote note. And then I also go over to Gemini and do the same thing, and Copilot and do the same thing, and Cloud and do the same thing, and so now I want to craft a title Instead of having to think that up.

Frank Buck:

I've got like 20 suggestions. Pick one, the meta description, pick the best one that's been given to me the text. So all of that grunt work is done there for me and I'm able to just keep up with it in each of those four Evernote notes. So just having that simple system to leverage technology to do some of that for me, and so I sit down, I record all the episodes back to back, edit them back to back, pull it into Audacity to get my audio for the podcast, and so I'm sitting down and I'm doing a step with all four or five episodes at one time, and then everything's scheduled ahead of time. The featured images are in the blog post. There's so many little steps, it's easy to miss something, but if I batch them and handle that step for all four or five for that upcoming month, then it makes it easy and it's really fun. It really makes it fun, and I think it's got to be fun or we're not going to do this stuff.

Carl Richards:

Oh, 100%, and thank you so much for sharing that detailed list and, with your permission, we'll make sure we put either a link to that or something along that lines in the show notes so people can refer to that. That way they're not having to scribble it out fast forward rewind, but so they've heard it. Now they can grab that from there. But you're right, if we can find ways to make the tasks easier and I like how you're using ChatGPT, because so many individuals, especially the newbies, getting into podcasting they'll use that for their scripting or they'll use that for their idea generating, which is fine but, then when they go and cover it, it's not them, it's not in their voice, it's not and in some cases it's lacking emotion.

Carl Richards:

You're using it effectively to shoot out those that detail that can take hours to try to figure out.

Frank Buck:

In some cases, yeah, it's all of that mundane stuff. Because I like to write. You know I like to take ideas and craft those ideas. I think you know for the person that does use it to help them compose, it gets them away from the blank page. You know that's the hardest part of writing is getting started, staring at that blinking cursor and trying to get those first words out. Once you get started you don't want to stop. So I think it's fine to help get the juices flowing.

Frank Buck:

In fact, there was one time I let ChatGPT do my content. I wanted to do an episode. This was back when ChatGPT first, when people were first finding out about it. So I wanted to do an episode on what ChatGPT was, and so it was a blog post, it was a YouTube, it was a newspaper column, and so people read down, they got down to a certain point and then it said what you have read to this point was composed by ChatGPT. So I said write me a newspaper article you know so many words long on what ChatGPT is and how to use it. And it did. And then I said what do you think about it? How does this stack up regarding other things that I've read? You know it's a little boring, it's a little dry, but it is a start and that's how we can use it. Let it be a start, don't just let it be everything.

Carl Richards:

We actually haven't talked about ChatGPT on this show yet. We're probably long overdue to do it, but I'm glad that you've just clearly emphasized that. Some very effective ways to use those tools without having it take over, shall we say, the whole creativity process, Because I think that's part of the fear and anxiety is yes, it's going to be a huge time saver, but wait a minute, it's going to, it's going to eliminate jobs, it's going to make the podcast, you know, creation, editing, everything way easier. Not realizing that we still need to be part of the creative process because we're creative beings and that will be, I'm not saying it's not.

Carl Richards:

I'm not going to be that gaze into the crystal ball and say it's never going to happen, but it'll be. I think it'll be a while before it does happen, before creativity is now eliminated, shall we say, where we're relying on the technology piece. As I said, I don't want to go down that rabbit hole, but I'm glad how you're effectively doing that. The other piece that and maybe you can speak about this is you hit on it in a very subtle way, but I think we can expand on it a little bit more. It's how you're very intentional with when you sit down and batch record. And if there's one thing I've learned in business is if you want to get something done, you need to put it in your scheduler. You need to do it with intention. You need to have it in your calendar and put a timeline in there so you know what your timeframe is.

Frank Buck:

Yeah, I agree too. I don't calendar block. To be honest, carl, the only thing on it today is this interview, because this had to happen at 1030, my time. I needed to be right here doing this and that's the only thing on the calendar that had to happen a specific time.

Frank Buck:

Now if you look at my task list, you'll see at the top here are my Fab Five. These are the things that I want to shape my day and at the end of the day, if I've gotten those done, it's a pretty good day. The other things could wait, followed by here's the things I would like to accomplish this morning, or at least see as options for the morning. And then here's my afternoon and then here's my evening, so that when interruptions happen sometimes you never know how your day is going to break out that I can see the options that I have that are appropriate for today and you know, and that part of the day. So all these little steps we're talking about, you know, if you looked at my task list, you would see record four episodes, edit the four episodes, create featured images for the four episodes, and they're doable. It's like I can't wait to jump in and do that and check it off and move on.

Carl Richards:

God, I love that. That's fantastic. I'm going to play devil's advocate, though, a little bit and say that you're very experienced in this space, so you're very good at being able to look at that not so much calendar, but that task list and be able to prioritize. I find that sometimes with brand new podcasters that it's so much overwhelm they don't know where to begin, and that's why suggesting a calendar or some type of a system so that they stay on task.

Carl Richards:

So, for example, I know that I block Thursday afternoons and Friday mornings for recording episodes and then I hand it off to my team so they take care of it from there. But I used to also then block I think it might've been Monday mornings or Monday afternoons from between a specific time where I would edit. That way there's. It's eliminating, like we said earlier, it's eliminating the distractions and it's managing. For me personally, at that moment it was managing my time more effectively. And I also block off lunch, which I never did time more effectively, and I also block off lunch, which I never did, because I'm notorious for I only need 20 minutes to eat.

Carl Richards:

But what are the other things that I should be doing? It's not just about the eating and giving my body sustenance, it's I should be going for a walk, I should be reading, I should maybe listen to my. You know there's a. There's a local program that runs at noon Eastern where I am, on our local radio station and sometimes I like to listen to it. So it allows me to clear my mind or clear my time to focus on that. Yeah.

Frank Buck:

And really the key word I think in that was systems, that we have to have a system, and there are a lot of good ones. There's not just one way to do it, not. You know, one size does not fit all, and I think the best system is the system that we use. You know what's comfortable for each of us and that will actually do it, not just for one day. You know, it's like a diet. Anybody can go on a diet. You know I'm only going to eat cabbage for the rest of my life. Well, and that will work for exactly one meal. And then we're back to ice cream. It's got to be something that is comfortable and it's easy enough that we'll do it day after day, week after week, year after year, and we reap the benefits of it.

Carl Richards:

And you can build on that and I like cabbage diet. Never worked for me. Just letting you know I've tried, it didn't work. What's not to give away your best stuff? If you're listening to this and you like what Frank is saying, that you check out his stuff. But what are some quick and I think you've probably touched on them already, but just as a starting point for anyone that's looking at this and they're brand new what are some key things that people can do just to get themselves started to manage their time a little bit more effectively?

Frank Buck:

Two tools because I tell people I only do two things during the day. I only do two things. Number one I have the old-fashioned tickler file. We're a digital society but you walk into people's office there's paper everywhere. Here's this stack over here because I got to remember to take that to the meeting with me on Thursday and there's just stuff everywhere. I have my tickler file. So there's folder number 1, 2, 3, 4, up to 31. Each one's a day of the month and then 12 more folders for things that are happening sometime after the next 31 days. So all the paper that I need. Sometime in the future.

Frank Buck:

Ask myself the question when do I want to see this again? Put it in the folder for the appropriate day and I've earned the right to forget about it. Bills hop up when they need to be paid. Tickets hop up on the day of the concert. Birthday cards hop up on the day of the concert.

Frank Buck:

Birthday cards hop up on the day they need to go in the mail, because in early January I sat down and addressed them all. I just run little mailing labels and where the postage stamp is going to go, I put the date it needs to go in the mail. Throw them in my tickler file. So I check the tickler file and then I have my digital task list. Every task has a date of when do I want to see this task again? So it's like a digital version of the tickler file and so, like all of the things that are involved in producing my content, I've got those nailed out. With what date do I want to see this? And make it a repeating task, so that next month, at the same time that I'm sitting and doing, that, step for those four videos, podcasts, newspaper columns, blog posts, et cetera, and then I'm not having to reinvent the wheel.

Carl Richards:

That's gold right there. I love paper, but I know we're in a digital world, so a lot of people are using digital files and folders and calendars and things like that, but I still like having old fashioned paper in front of me as well. I think the organization of the paper, like you just indicated with your tickler file, is a phenomenal tool to keep you on track and be able to make sure all of those things get taken care of. So thank you so much for sharing that. Before I, frank, before I let you go, we could carry on this conversation forever and a day.

Carl Richards:

Oh, this is fun I mean we're having a blast here. I do want to give you the opportunity, though, to share with our listeners what it is that you have for them as a takeaway today.

Frank Buck:

We do have a couple of free gifts for people. If you'll come over to my website, which is just my name, frankbuckorg and the first thing I'd like you to do is just get on my email list. That way, you never miss a thing and you automatically get two free gifts right off the bat. One's going to get your desk clean. It's going to be an e-book that talks about the particular file and more, and then, second, how I use Remember the Milk, which is my digital task list, how to get it, how to set it up, just A to Z, and that's all free, just for joining the email list.

Frank Buck:

Life doesn't have to be as hard as we sometimes make it. And I guess kind of my new favorite quote I ran across in a book called A Tribe of Mentors, written by Tim Ferriss, author of the 4-Hour Workweek. There's one line in there where he says what would this look like if it was easy? And boy, if we could ask ourselves that question about the things that confront us, because we're really good at taking things that could be very easy and making them very difficult. And it doesn't have to be that way, frank.

Carl Richards:

I love that and I think we'll leave it right there, but I think this is worthy of another conversation down the line. So much great wisdom that you've shared with us today. We'll make sure all of Frank's information is in the show notes. Frank, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for being my guest today.

Frank Buck:

Carl, thanks so much for having me. I had a blast.

Carl Richards:

And thank you for joining us today. Special thanks to our producer and production lead, Dom Carrillo, our music guru, Nathan Simon, and the person who works the arms all of our arms, actually my trusty assistant, stephanie Gaffor. If you like what you heard today, leave us a comment and a review, and be sure to share it with your friends. If you don't like what you heard, please share it with your enemies. Oh, and if you have a suggestion of someone who you think would make an amazing guest on the show, let us know about it. Drop us an email, askcarl at carlspeaks DOT ca. Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter as well. You'll find all those links in the show notes, and if you're ready to take the plunge and join the over 3 million people who have said yes to podcasting, let's have a conversation. We'll show you the simplest way to get into the podcasting space because, after all, we're podcast, solutions made simple. We'll catch you next time.