Not long ago, I stumbled upon this very enlightening Ted Talk given by an author and entrepreneur I had not yet heard of, named Rory Vaden. When I saw the title of this talk “How to Multiply Your Time” you can imagine that it seriously piqued my interest. After checking it out, I knew I needed to share this video with all my productivity loving friends in my latest installment of #InspirationMBA! This guy is actually pretty cool! He’s the author of a few different productivity related books, Take the Stairs and Procrastinate on Purpose, both of which I am very interested in checking out on Audible! He makes some awesome points in the talk that I think are incredibly valuable, not necessarily because they are incredibly ground breaking, but he is really able to capture a major pitfall to productivity that many people face. Enjoy!
Lesson #4: How to Multiply Time with Rory Vaden
Things you will learn
- Why time management and how we choose to spend our time isn’t logical, and what it’s based on instead.
- The limitation of efficiency as a time management tool.
- The system that Stephen R. Covey gave the world for prioritization.
- The limitation of prioritizing as a time management tool.
- The elements of the 3 dimensional time management matrix.
- Why you need to think about tomorrow to multiply time.
- Why automation is like compounding interest on your money.
- You can delegate anything.
- How significance changes everything.
- How and why to procrastinate on purpose.
So, what did you think? Did you just have a mind-blowing epiphany like I did when I first watched the video? I love how Rory is able to take traditional productivity methods and turn them on their heads as to why they don’t work for some people. There is certainly merit to working efficiently and implementing prioritization to help you get your most important work done, however, I feel like for the average person, many of these concepts are hard to master, and this video really explains why. Let me know what you thought and if you had any unexpected takeaways that you would like to share. I’d also love to hear about any success you have implementing these ideas in your own life. Feel free to let me know in the comments!
xoxo,
At the risk of hubris, I actually think I incorporate a lot of what Vaden talks about already. Several years ago I started stripping down the to-do lists to a max of 5 things a day to keep from being overwhelmed and not accomplishing anything. I “procrastinate on purpose” regularly, keeping other lists of eventual tasks that, yes, overtime may be eliminated instead of acted upon as I acknowledge that they no longer apply to me. And I’ve let go of a LOT of my perfectionism that gets in the way of starting, much less finishing, some tasks. And I don’t have a problem saying no to opportunities that aren’t a good fit for me.
Meanwhile, I get a ton of stuff done and have a fairly decent list of accomplishments under my belt, so I’m certainly not doing less. Until now, I just called call it being efficient, and told anyone who asked how I managed to do it “all” that I was just really organized and liked to stay busy. All true, but I like the idea of having a new name for it, something I can point to and say, ‘oh, yeah, it’s this.’
Thank you for sharing this video! It blew my mind as well. I will definitely try out the focus funnel to multiply my time. I’m thinking of automating my bills to save time and also delegating some small cleaning tasks to my boyfriend. It may not be much right now, but it will certainly be worthwhile in a couple months. Thanks again!