Latest / The Action Catalyst / REMASTERED: Time Management Secrets of Billionaires, with Kevin Kruse (Productivity, Scheduling, Entrepreneurship, Author)

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REMASTERED: Time Management Secrets of Billionaires, with Kevin Kruse (Productivity, Scheduling, Entrepreneurship, Author) · The Action Catalyst

0:00
Host: There are writers, and then there are great writers,
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and you are about to hear from one of the great writers of our
0:51
day, I think, Kevin Kruse, and he's the author of "15 Secrets
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Successful People Know About Time Management". So Kevin,
1:00
thanks for being here.
1:01
Kevin Kruse: I'm really looking forward to that this will be
1:03
fun.
1:04
Host: Traditionally, you've been more in, like, the workplace
1:07
culture space and the leadership space. Why a book on time
1:10
management and why now? Like, what caused this?
1:13
Kevin Kruse: I'm getting that question a lot because it is a
1:15
different subject matter form. You're from, what people know me
1:20
for, and this was really a passion project, because I saw
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myself the impact of, you know, adopting some of these Extreme
1:29
Productivity habits, you know, had it had a tremendous impact
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on both my business life, but also my personal life. And, you
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know, to put it plainly, I mean, when you know, I'm, like, say, a
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reformed serial entrepreneur. And when I was young and dumb in
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my 20s and starting my first businesses, you know, I It
1:48
wasn't really my fault. I mean, I was kind of lied to. I believe
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that it was all about hustle. So I would just outwork everybody.
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And in my very first company, I mean, I literally was living
1:59
secretly in my one room office, sleeping under the desk and
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waking up in the morning, showering at the YMCA, coming
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back to the office to put in another, you know, 18 hour day.
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And I did that for a year, and and that business crashed and
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burned. You know, it showed that it isn't just about how, you
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know, working hard, working, you know, every available hour and
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the next business did a little better, but didn't do great, and
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it was the classic mistake of letting myself get driven by the
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never ending to do list. So there's more things to do. So I
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would sacrifice sleep to try to get more things off of the to do
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list. I would skip meals to get more things done off the to do
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list, I was in that, you know, horrible emotional Yo yo, of
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working late in the office and feeling guilty that I wasn't
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spending time with the wife and kids, feeling stressed that
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you're not working on the to do list. So, I mean, I came from a
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horrible place of just not understanding how all this stuff
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works.
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Host: I want to talk about the to do list thing.
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Kevin Kruse: This is what gets me more, you know, I hate mail
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and trolls because people are so attached to their to do list.
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And for the research this book, I didn't just want it to be my
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own experiences. You know, I reached out and I interviewed
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seven billionaires, Olympic athletes. I even interviewed a
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whole bunch of straight A students from Ivy League
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universities, always with the question, give me your number
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one piece of advice for productivity. Tell me your
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secret to time management. Very open ended. And nobody said,
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hey, you know, write down a to do list and create a, one, a,
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two, you know, b1, b2, you know, to do list. That's old school
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technology. You know. The legend is that, you know, Ivy Lee kind
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of invented the to do list over 100 years ago, teaching Charles
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Schwab and the US deal executives how to run their day
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and, you know, back then, and when it's lower time when
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organizations had tons of executives and middle managers
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and, you know, Secretary, they were held secretaries back then,
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you know that that approach probably worked. And for people
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who I mean, I'm not saying this in a negative way, but people
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who have average responsibilities or an average
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career, it can still work today. None of these ultra productive
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people I interviewed talked about a to do list. What they're
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using instead of a to do list is their calendar, and it's a
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subtle difference, but a powerful difference. They're
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still writing down, you know, getting it out of their brain,
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kind of capturing it into a notebook or somewhere else. Oh,
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I've got to do this thing. But they're immediately scheduling
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it on their calendar, because the to do list as you know, I
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mean, it doesn't have the duration of items on it. So we
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tend to do the things that are fast doesn't have any weighted
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properties to it. So we do the things that unfortunately, are
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the urgent things, instead of the important things. And I
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think the to do list really is contributing to our overall
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stress levels. We're all running around so overworked and
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overwhelmed that a psychologist called the zeigernik effect. It
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when our brain knows that there's stuff that we need to
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take care of, but there's no plan attached we I think it's
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both conscious and unconscious. We're stewing on that. We're
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stressing about it. That's why we go home and it's late at
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night. I mean, we're so tired, but we're still wired, and we
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can't fall asleep. So once it's on a calendar. You just move
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that to do list, take all those items and schedule it. When it
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gets scheduled, it gets done. And this is what the calendar
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key was one of the first things. I just heard it, and we went
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through and coded, you know, 300 responses from, you know, these
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highly successful people you get, you know, Chris Ducker
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saying, I simply put everything on my schedule. That's the
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secret. 30 minutes for social media, 45 minutes for email, 30
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minutes for quiet time. You know, Dave kirpan of likable
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media, he says, I schedule out every 15 minutes of my day.
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Shannon Miller, Olympic gymnast, won a bazillion medals. She
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says, Every minute of my day is scheduled. So that's the
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recurring theme. It's throw away the to do list and live from
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your calendar. We all talk about what we value in life, you know,
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oh, you ask anybody, oh, yeah, I value, you know, my faith and my
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family, my friends, my finances. And yet, if you look at people's
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calendars, you can truly see what they value by how they're
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investing their time and back most people. But like I was
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young and dumb, my calendar, you know, I would and answered. All
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those things are important to me. You look at it, and I'm
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spending 120 hours a week, just on my startup, just on my
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career. And that's not a balanced way, and it's not a way
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to be successful in your career either.
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Host: You want to know what someone really believes in, look
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at their calendar and their checkbook.
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Kevin Kruse: Oh, I love that. Yep, those are the those are the
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two things.
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Host: So one of the people that I know you got to spend some
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time with was Mark Cuban. I think everybody wants to know
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what, what was Cuban like? What was his thing?
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Kevin Kruse: Yeah, you're right. I mean, it would be, there's a
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lot of great people in the in the book, but Cubans, the most
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famous these days there was always asking that question. And
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the interesting thing is, just to set it up. So, you know,
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there were seven billionaires, I, you know, interviewed for the
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book, and three of the seven, again, it's an open ended
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question. Tell me anything that's a key to productivity for
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you? Three of the seven, their advice had to do with meetings,
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meeting time. So Mark, in his typical, you know, kind of
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funny, snarky fashion, he says, Never do meetings unless someone
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is writing you a check. So, you know, you can assume it's a
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little facetious. I'm sure he has one on ones with his
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colleagues, but he's basically saying, you know, meetings are
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death. Unless there's money transferring, don't do them. One
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of the, you know, early co founders of Facebook, he now his
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new company is Asana Dustin Moskovitz. He says that, you
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know, meetings again are lethal, and they've established no
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meeting Wednesdays. So every Wednesday that's a creative day,
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that's a maker day, that's a do it day. That's not a meeting
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day. A friend of mine runs ARIA healthcare, which is a hospital
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chain up here near Philadelphia. She has no meeting Fridays. I
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mean, there it's literally becoming so bad in in
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organizations that great leaders are saying, listen, we're going
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to just ban those suckers. First of all, people think it's a one
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hour meeting. Well, no, if there's 10 people in the room,
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first of all, it's a 10 hour meeting. It's not a one hour
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meeting. And then it's at the very least, the cost of, you
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know, salaries and benefits. But the bigger cost is the value
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that those people are providing, taking a salesperson away from
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prospecting and into a meeting for, you know, something that's
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not as important.
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Host: Let's talk about email for just a second.
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Kevin Kruse: Yeah, meetings and email are the big complaints,
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the big problems. And the first thing that people identified or
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shared when it came to email is, you know, they're not leaving
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their email window open all day long. They shut off those, those
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message notifications, so they're not getting buzzed or
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dinged every time there's an inbound email. And, you know,
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I've summarized it system. I call 3210, and for me and
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everybody can adjust this. But you know, I've seen this work
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wonders. Three stands for check your email three times a day, or
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process your email three times a day. There's obviously, again,
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prototyping ninja that say, Look, do it once a day, you
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know, just, just check it once a day, and that's fine. And you
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know, the Tim Ferriss followers will have that audit auto
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responder go out all the time this day and age. I want to be
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responsive. I move fast. So for me, it's like morning, noon and
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night. I'm going to check it. I'm going to process it three
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times a day. The two one stands for 21 minutes. So when I in
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processing my email. It's kind of like a Pomodoro, you know,
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I'm setting 21 minutes on that clock, and it's ticking down,
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and my goal is to get back to email inbox zero by the time
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that ticks to zero. And 21 minutes is not a lot of time.
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And it sounds almost silly or corny, like, yeah, what's that
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going to do? It is amazing. When you've got that countdown clock,
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it's almost like a game, and you just pound down that list, and
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you're always going through those, you know, the four ds of
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like, can I delete it? Boom, yes. If not, can I delegate it?
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You know, can I delegate this? Just forward it to somebody. Can
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I do it? Do it right now, you know, touch it once within a few
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minutes. Great. If not, then you want to defer it, which means
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schedule it. You know, don't, don't leave it in your inbox to
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just sit there gathering does. Don't, God forbid, don't add it
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to the bottom of your to do list. Click that little button
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that in Google Mail, in Gmail, it's, it's the More button, and
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then you can turn your email into an event. So if you can't
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delete it, delegate it, do it right now, then schedule time
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for it right then and there. And I mean, it sounds corny, it's
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worked for me, and I'm just getting great feedback from
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people who adopted this system. And for some maybe they're going
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to check it twice a day. Others, maybe it's four times a day.
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Maybe it should be 25 minutes for you instead of 21 minutes
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for me, 3210, is just an easy way for me to remember the
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system.
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Host: So tell me about the Harvard experiment things. What
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was that all about?
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Kevin Kruse: So as reported in Harvard Business Review, these
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two researchers went into companies, started watching what
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executives, middle managers were doing, primarily white collar
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workers, and they realized that they had much more control over
11:24
their tasks than the individual workers thought. So they taught
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them to look every morning, to look at their to do list or
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their calendar and ask three questions around drop, delegate
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or redesign. So for drop, they were trained to ask, How
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valuable is this task. What would happen if I dropped it for
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delegate? You ask, Am I the only person who can do this task? Who
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else might be able to do it and redesign says, How can I achieve
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roughly the same outcome, but in less time? Or what would I do if
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I only had half the available time to try to get this thing
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done? Just by training people to ask those three questions. On
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average, people were able to save six hours of desk work each
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week and two hours of meeting time. You know, can you just
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drop them completely? You know, can you delegate things? It is
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so powerful, and people will say, I don't have team members
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reporting to me. I can't delegate anything. You know,
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delegating to me is just another form of outsourcing. So whether
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it's your solopreneur and you're hiring a VA, you're a stay at
12:27
home parent and have decided to hire the teenager to mow your
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lawn, these are powerful tools. So drop, delegate, redesign
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ended up, on average, saving eight hours of time each week.
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Long before this book, you know, was even idea. I had a mentor
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who was one of the ones who started to teach me the right
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way to think about time and productivity. He went on either
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an entrepreneur, you know, selling his last company to I
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beat him for $1.3 billion and this guy, he was never frazzled.
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He walked slowly, you know, he had time for everybody. When he
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was with you. He was fully present. And one of the pieces
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of advice he gave me is like, when I look at all the things
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I'm supposed to get done. He said, You know, most people look
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and say, How can I get this thing done? Or how can I get it
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done in less time? He says, I take the eye out of it says, How
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can this thing get done? And he says, As soon as you talk about,
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it's not about, you know, it's just the result. How can I get
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this result? Or how can this result occur? How can this
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result happen and take yourself even out of it? It opens up a
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whole bunch of new possibilities.
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Host: Okay, so we're running out of time. So the last question,
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procrastination is kind of the enemy of self discipline. You
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talk about your idea for the cure to procrastination is time
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traveling to defeat your future self.
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Kevin Kruse: The Time Travel trick is, is a tool that we can
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use when we're finding that we're procrastinating on the
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significant items, you know, whether that be, you know,
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eating healthy meals or or working out or, you know, moving
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that big rock at work. That's going to really be the thing
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that's going to lead to our revenue breakthrough. So this is
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a strategy that we can deploy to overcome the negative kinds of
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procrastination. And it's like this, the psychologists talk
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about we have this time dissonance, where we're always
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discounting our future selves. And, you know, it's a silly
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example, but let's say, you know, I'm always, you know,
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struggling with with health and healthy habits. And you know,
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every Sunday I go to the grocery store and I say, this is the
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week I'm going to get on the wagon. I'm going to eat really
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healthy. I'm going to drop a couple pounds, and I spend all
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my time in the produce aisle buying lettuce and carrots and
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tomatoes. Going to be eating salads every night for dinner.
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That's the plan. But the problem is the future version of Kevin
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that actually arrives. I mean, he's gonna He's gonna sabotage
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my best interest, gonna fight against the Sunday version of
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Kevin. So when Wednesday night shows up, and it's seven o'clock
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and I stumble into the kitchen and I'm hungry and. Tired, and,
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you know, my willpower has been depleted. I'm going to say
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what's for dinner. I'm going to open up that fridge. I'm going
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to see the now wilting lettuce, because I haven't had any salads
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all week. And I'll remember, Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be eating
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a salad. But, and then you start, you know, rationalizing,
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right? It takes so long to make, at least five minutes to make a
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salad. You know, it's cold. I deserve something better. I know
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I'll, I'll microwave this one minute frozen burrito because
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it's so salty and fatty and cheesy, it's going to be
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delicious. That future Kevin, that future self sabotages our
15:33
best interest. And whether it's, Hey, I'm going to work out this
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afternoon, I'm going to, I'm going to put two hours into the
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gym later this afternoon, and then, of course, later this
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afternoon, that version of Kevin decides not to so we have to
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think about all the ways we're going to sabotage ourselves, and
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then come up with strategies now in the present to defeat that.
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And this is an extreme example, and kind of funny. You know, I
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have a friend. She likes to eat healthy, and I once we were out
15:59
at a restaurant and she said, Hey, give me a turkey burger
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with no bun and a set of fries. Give me a salad. Okay, that's
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fine. They bring it over, and they forgot to, you know, put
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the salad down. It was French fries. Now, she could have sent
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it back for something, but instead, she opens up the salt
16:16
shaker, takes the lid off and dumps the entire salt shaker on
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top of the fries, like, what do you what are you doing? And she
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said, Oh, I know that in three minutes, her future self, in
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three minutes, I'm going to try to eat just one fry, because one
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fries not going to hurt me. But then I know in five minutes, I'm
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going to say, well, I'll eat two more, and then in 10 minutes,
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I'm going to eat all the fries. So I'm going to defeat the three
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minute from now version of myself by destroying all the
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fries, by covering them up with all this salt. And a less
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extreme example is, look, if I say I'm going to work out in the
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afternoon or at night, I know all the tricks that the future
16:55
version of Kevin's going to do. So instead, I set my alarm early
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in the morning. I put the alarm on the other side of the room so
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I can't snooze it. I got to get out of bed. And when I get out
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of bed, I'm stepping on my workout clothes and sneakers.
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First thing I do is do my workout. Even if I try to tell
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myself, oh, you know, got a little scratchy throat, it might
17:13
be getting a cold, I better go back to bed. Sleeps important
17:16
too, you know. No, I'm going to say, look, even if you're not
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going to work out today, just get on the treadmill for and
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walk for five minutes. You could always walk for five minutes,
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and then, as you know, I mean, once you're on for five minutes,
17:27
all right, I'll go another five. I'll crank it up a couple more
17:30
miles per hour. So whatever the area is that we're struggling,
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you know, whether it's writing that book we want to write, you
17:36
know, getting losing that weight, you know, banging out
17:40
those 50 cold calls, we just need to think about all the ways
17:44
we're gonna jeopardize ourselves in the future and come up with
17:47
ways to combat those right now.
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Host: I love it so Kevin Kruse, Kevin, thanks for what you're
17:53
doing, man, we appreciate you.
17:55
Kevin Kruse: Appreciate the opportunity to share.