Do you ever think if you just had better time management skills, you’d be more efficient and knock out your to-do list? Scott Miller is a time management coach, in this episode he explains the difference between efficiency and time management. He asks questions and provides resources that transform your relationship with time and what you view as an accomplishment.
Notes from the Show
Scott Miller of Scott Miller Coaching works with individuals to experiment and find solutions for their time management. Most people, Scott says, have more things on their daily to-do list than they are actually capable of completing. The answer to this is understanding the goal of time management is not to magically check off all your tasks but instead be satisfied with the number of tasks you can accomplish in a day.
The basis of Time Management coaching is asking questions. What's on your to-do list? How much time are you spending on each task? How much time are you spending on tasks not on your to-do list? Is everything you want to do in your day on your list? What things on your list are a priority? Scott asks these questions of his clients and helps them build a plan around their answers.
Tracking your time is a really valuable resource when evaluating your idealistic day versus your realistic day. Scott reminds you to keep it personal, and be brutally honest with how much you're spending your time on those that "don't count".
Scheduling leisure time is another suggestion from Scott who explains that time spent leisurely or "goofing off" encourages brain connections and gives your body time to rest and process all the other important tasks you've worked on.
Breaking tasks down into small, simple steps is a great tip for when you don't feel like getting an important task on your to-do list started. Oftentimes that small shift can actually propel you to complete the entire task because the start is much more manageable.
Bullet journaling, unscheduling, losing unstructured time, and time blocking, are some of these time management "experiment" methods Scott encourages you to try if you're struggling with time management. You can find out more about him at his various links, podcast: Task, Time, Energy, or you can try his Free Guide: Active Scheduling Techniques.
What's Inside:
Why good time management doesn’t equal “more” efficiency.
An idealistic view of your day versus a realistic view.
The value of tracking your time.
Time management experiment methods.
Tools and resources for better time management habits.
Mentioned in this Episode:
Transcribed by AI Susan Tatum 0:36
Hi, everybody, welcome back to stop the noise. I'm Susan Tatum. And today my guest is Scott Miller, who is a Time Management Coach at Scott Miller training. It's not the only thing he does, and we'll go through that. But welcome, Scott. I'm looking forward to this conversation.
Scott Miller 0:52
Thank you, Susan. I'm glad to be here. And for your your listeners who might be looking for me online it's Scott Miller coaching. What did I say? Scott Miller Coach
Scott Miller 1:00
Scott Miller training Yeah.
Susan Tatum 1:01
Oh, my God.
Scott Miller 1:03
Yeah, I like the sound of that I should maybe could have thought of that earlier. But Scott Miller coaching is what I went with,
Susan Tatum 1:09
I guess a little training on time management would be a good thing, too. So Scott, I mean, you have the most incredible background for a time that you have an incredible background period before Time Management Coach, I do not see the transition there at all, which makes it very interesting. But you have been a, you're a skydiving instructor for 15 years. And then that was a dangerous enough. So you went to work at a tiger sanctuary. And then I don't know about the danger. But teaching prep courses for law school admission test that I guess I could be a little could be dangerous. If you got it wrong. You do some corporate training for McKinsey. And then you've started your own, or your own Scott Miller coaching.
Scott Miller 1:51
Yeah. And I do want to say that the tiger, the tiger sanctuary sounds dangerous. But the sanctuary I worked at was a very responsible place. There are no contact facilities. So we never went in and actually touched or played with the Tigers. They're always on the other side of the fence was a very controlled environment, very, very high emphasis on safety for the humans and the cats. So it wasn't one of those crazy places, you see where people are, you know, in there playing with their tigers. But it's a great place to work.
Susan Tatum 2:19
So what was your level of interest? What led led you into that?
Scott Miller 2:23
Yeah, well, it was interesting. I so I work in the scouting industry, you know, for over 15 years, I was at a point where I think in my personal life and my professional life, I was looking for something different. And I wasn't really sure what. And I actually stepped away from my skydiving career without really knowing what I was going to do next, I started volunteering at this, the sanctuary. So I moved here to North Carolina and started volunteering at the sanctuary. And just so happened that a position on the staff came up as the volunteer coordinator, which was one of the few positions that didn't require like a special, you know, animal care type background or some other specializations. So I applied for the job and got the job and did that for about three years supervising, we had over 100 volunteers that helped with just about every aspect of the business. So it was just something that grew out of, you know, it's so much so interesting, when I look at all these different careers that I've had the opportunity to enjoy, and all these things I've done with my life, and how many of them, I just kind of stumbled into or came across. And that was definitely one of those one of those cases.
Susan Tatum 3:25
So how did you get from there? And you still do some other things? You're not You're not put your whole emphasis into the time management coaching? how did you get into that?
Scott Miller 3:36
Yeah, well, that that the time management coaching was mainly by way of being a tutor, and teacher for prep courses for the law school admission test. So again, that was another one of those fun situations that I just kind of stumbled on. I had a friend who was working for a test preparation company, and I met her and her boyfriend for dinner one night, and she was just talking about this great company that she was working for. And she'd actually been at one point at my skydiving students. And she just kind of stopped in the middle of the conversation talking about how much she loved her new job and said, Hey, you should come work for us. You know, you should, you would, you know, you would you would be a good fit, you know, just based on the way she knew that I taught. And so I happen to have a top 1% score on the Law School Admission Test. I never got been to law school. I'm not a lawyer. But I do have a top 1% score on the admission test, which for people who aren't familiar, it's the test that you take before you go to law school. So there's nothing about law on it. It's about advanced reading comprehension and logic, basically. So yeah, I started teaching prep courses for where I ended up working for this company teaching prep courses for the helping people who wanted to go to law school. I did that for about seven years. And there's a lot of time management involved in that and a couple of ways the LSAT the Law School Admission Test is a really, really difficult test and one of the things that makes it difficult is the time constraints are just Incredible you have, you know, 23 to 27 questions to answer in 35 minutes. And they're very complex questions. So you have to be very, very efficient. And you have to make tough decisions and prioritize like, you might start working on a question and get halfway through it and realize it's going to take you another three minutes to answer that question. So even though you've already invested some time, you've got to, you know, move on. Okay, I'm going to just gonna guess on this question, move on to the next one. So there are some tough time management decisions you have to make even while taking the test. And then a lot of the people who I taught a lot of people were busy professionals with, you know, 50 plus hour a week jobs, who wants to change careers, so they're trying to figure out, how do I study while doing my demanding job, and also maybe, you know, taking care of my family and other responsibilities that I have. So I ended up doing a little bit of like, informal time management coaching with with my students. And then another friend of mine, a gentleman I work with, at that test prep company, was a professional coach, had been through a coach training program, and I started talking with him about that and got interested in in that. And I often say that, you know, when I was working as an LSAT, instructor, the time management piece was like the side dish, and the main course was the test content that people wanted to learn. So I went through the coach training a coach training program, and just kind of flipped that around. And now the the time management coaching became the main course, if that makes sense.
Susan Tatum 6:22
Okay, interesting. So you mentioned efficiency, when you were talking about being more efficient as you're going through these questions. And when you and I talked, the first conversation that we had, in my notes that you had said, You are not an efficiency coach, so you're you're not is is that mean that you you don't approach time management from a? How efficient can I be with my time standpoint?
Scott Miller 6:47
Yeah, I think a lot of people when they think about time management, the maybe the first idea that comes to mind is how do I get as much done as possible in a day. And I imagine that there are, you know, experts out there who will show people how to get more done in less time with fewer resources. And that's not really where I focus, I like to focus on helping people become more satisfied with what they accomplish in a day, or at the end of the week, become more satisfied with what they have accomplished that week. And that's going to mean different things to different people. You know, some people like to be as busy as possible, and some people thrive in, you know, very kind of high stress demanding environments, and you know, burning the candle at both ends, so to speak. And if we're coaching someone who's that type of person, then you know, that's going to mean something different to someone who feels that they're very busy, maybe overwhelmed, and really, always feels like there's just too much to do and not enough time to do it, and is very stressed out about that. And for some of those people, the question becomes what can you let go of? You know, what are you spending your time on, that really is not important to you, so that you can free up a little bit and have a little more space and feel like, you're not always under this pressure to get some more done, then you then you reasonably can. So it's different things to different people.
Susan Tatum 8:04
So then that would that come down to once? Once you've, I guess help them identify what the relationship is with time? Is it a matter of controlling your to do list and your calendar? Is that too if I simplified it too much?
Scott Miller 8:21
No, not at all. I think that's an important part of it. There's so I take what I call, I've dubbed a task time energy approach. That's actually the name of my podcast is task time energy. And what that means is I think we often focus on a few specific facets of time management. So like a to do list, you know, somebody will have a to do list. And maybe the problem is that they never feel that their to do list is getting any shorter. So it may be useful to focus on the time element, like, you know, for example, somebody who feels very overwhelmed, they always feel like they have this long to do list never gets any shorter. Are they thinking about how much they can realistically do in a day, which I find is very, very common, even among very successful people. Sometimes people often overestimate how much they can really get done in a day. And then that becomes very, very stressful, because they always feel like they're never doing enough. So when we look at that time element, you know, how much time do you actually have? How long do things actually take? Can you get a realistic view of that? And by just doing that, then maybe you start prioritizing things on that to do list. So you're realizing, you know, I may not be able to get everything done today that I would like to get done or that I idealistically might have begun to say realistically I'll say idealistically would like to get done. But instead of looking at it that way, how much can you realistically get done? And then you start planning based on that, and that leads to I think, bigger decisions about what is actually important in life. You know, I think that's a big shift that some people make once you realize that there's your to do list is never gonna go away. It's always going to be there. There will always be, I think for most people in our society, you'll always have more things to do in a day than you are capable of doing. So now what's really important to you? And why is that important? And that leads to some really significant shifts for people, I think.
Susan Tatum 10:09
So how do you get from my experience I certainly with myself and other people I've worked with is that we certainly do overestimate, either underestimate how long it's going to take or overestimate how much we can get done. You know, however you want to look at it. But what, what is your recommendation? Or how do you work with your clients for that, to help them understand how long it is going to take us to do something or how much we've can get done in a finite number of ours?
Scott Miller 10:36
My favorite way of doing that is to ask a lot of questions, and help people kind of arrive at the answers themselves. I sometimes joke, I don't mean it's not really a joke, though. I say, I'm a professional five year old, because if you're ever around five year old kids, you know, they they ask a lot of questions, you know, what are you doing? Why are you doing that? Why you're doing it that way? You know, and I kind of do the same thing. Now, five year old kids are a lot to deal with, sometimes like because they never stop asking questions. So I tried to do it in a little bit more adult and professional way. But it really is. It's the Socratic method, right? The Socratic approach, asking questions to help people get a better understanding of what is really going on right now, in your life. What do you really want your day to look like? What do you want your week to look like? And then how do we make a plan to get to get from point A to point B. But another thing that that I like to explore with people is the idea that time management is an experiment. And I think this is another big shift for people because the way things are today, I think a lot of us just want the solution. We want to read the book on time management, we want to download the app that give us our solution and just press a button on our phone and have it fixed, you know, our entire life. And really what I try to emphasize to people is you pick a starting point, you pick some method, and I you know, I suggest methods to people like I'm a big fan of bullet journaling. Writer Carol's bullet journal method, I'm a big fan of that. The Pomodoro Technique, some people have heard of that by Francesco Cirillo,
Susan Tatum 12:06
that's where you set the timer for 20 minutes or something like that,
Scott Miller 12:10
yeah, you set a timer for 20 minutes or 25 minutes, you work for that period of time. And you just focus on what you know, you have a very specific set of tasks. And for those 25 minutes, you just focus on those tasks. And you're very disciplined about not letting yourself have any interruptions. And then the timer goes off, and you set it for five minutes, and you take a five minute break. And you do that a few times, and and then you take a longer break. So it's being very disciplined about working during that short interval that you're focusing on work. And also being very disciplined about taking breaks, and allowing time for interruptions. So you know, I might suggest some techniques like this. And then the important part is you try it out. And you don't expect this to work perfectly the first time you try it out. And you know, I have people maybe you know, write in a journal, what their plan was, and then take notes about what actually happened. So comparing what you planned on doing to what actually happened? And did it work? Did it not work? Why? Why or why not? You start to develop a clearer picture of what you know what actually will work? You know, for example, like we were talking about earlier, how many things can you actually get done in a day? Now, how much how long do things take? And once you start getting a clearer picture of that, again, it just allows for better planning.
Susan Tatum 13:26
So is it a matter of, I guess for some people tracking their time to see how long? You know, how much time do I spend on going through email? How much time does it take me to write this report?
Scott Miller 13:38
Yeah, yeah. And even being aware of things you're spending your time on that, you know, quote, don't count. I have a great story about, you know, one time, I was talking to someone who was a manager, and they're in charge of a facility and supervising a certain number of people, and she was talking about, you know, the kind of this exact topic like she never feels like she gets enough done in a day. She always feels like, you know, she has so many things to do and not enough time to do them. And I asked her just to like, tell me like what a typical day is like for you? And she said, Well, you know, I get to work. And I always have to spend like two hours answering emails. I said, Okay. And I said, is that one of the things on your to do list answering emails, and her eyes suddenly got big? Because she realized she was spending two hours an hour and a half to two hours every day on a task, and wasn't even including it in her plan?
Susan Tatum 14:28
I don't Yeah. I see myself in that one. Yeah.
Scott Miller 14:31
So I think there are things we have to be careful about, and maybe there are things that we don't want to spend that much time on, or things that we don't plan to or think we shouldn't have to spend that much time on it. But realistically we are. And you know, just understanding what is the reality of my day, what does my day actually look like, versus what I would like it to look like and then, you know, again, being able to make a plan from there, which could mean how do I spend less time on email? It could mean how do I accept the fact that I need to spend an hour to One hour and a half every day on email and plan around that,
Susan Tatum 15:02
I find that if I don't give myself a limited amount of time to do something, I can stretch it into forever. But if I say, I have one hour to get this done, whatever it is, whatever the time is, then I do work faster than I would have without the restriction on.
Scott Miller 15:19
Yeah, yeah. And I think that's one of the advantages of the Pomodoro Technique and why it works so well for people. And I even tell people the Pomodoro Technique is should be an experiment, because some people find that 25 minutes isn't enough, you know, I really want to do 45 minutes of work. And that's okay. You can adjust it for what works for you. But what it does is by setting a specific limit on our time, the time we're going to spend on something, yeah, I think we do focus more, we naturally focus more, and I think we can help for me, it becomes a game. Like I know, when that timer is ticking, how much can I actually get done in that 45 minutes, 25 minutes, you know, I've even heard that there are some studies and I haven't looked at these studies too closely. But someone was telling me they've done some studies showing that people can actually often complete a four hour work day and get as much done as they would do in an eight hour work day. Because when you when somebody says okay, you only have to work four hours today, but we need you to perform, then they cut out all the fluff, and they just focus for those four hours on the things that need to be done.
Susan Tatum 16:25
So you know, I think that makes sense, Scott, because it could be like, the how efficient we are right? Before we go on vacation. I can get all kinds of stuff done. And part of that is triaging, and deciding this really isn't that important, and shoving it away.
Scott Miller 16:40
Yeah, that's a fantastic example. And I think that's something that people you know, struggle with people say, oh, you know, I deadlines like I do things at the last minute, I can get things done. But I just wait until the last minute. That's what the way I was for a large portion of my life. But then you start thinking about why what is it about that situation? That makes you get everything done in that short amount of time? And why aren't you doing that on a regular basis. And you can turn that into, you know, an actual plan. You know, this, this comes up a lot when we talk about working from home, when you talk about people running their own business. And it's easy to think, Oh, this is going to be so great. I mean, I've worked from home for you know, quite a few years now a fairly long time, even before it was cool. And you think it's going to be so great, because I can plan my day any way I want. And oh, if I want to, you know, I want to go to the lake and go windsurfing for a couple hours in the afternoon. I can just go do that anytime I want. And really what I find when I think a lot of people discover is if you really want to take advantage of that freedom and flexibility, you have to be very disciplined. And you have to create some very rigid boundaries for yourself, like you're talking about saying, you know, I'm going to set a limit, I'm going to spend an hour on this. And that's it, and really creating some structure in your day. Because when we have that structure, that's kind of what a deadline does. It gives us an artificial structure that forces us to perform a certain way. And I think to really take advantage of any kind of freedom or flexibility that we have in our schedule, we need to create our own boundaries, if they're not there for us.
Susan Tatum 18:09
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, so before I go down that rabbit hole, you you said that you used to be the type of person that waited to the deadline, or Yeah, but so how did you change it? How are you not that person anymore?
Scott Miller 18:24
Yeah, I think like a lot of it comes down to it's part of why I'm interested in doing this and helping others with this, because I did make a decision at one point that I just didn't want to be that way. You know, I viewed myself as a procrastinator, I always felt like there was always so much to do, and I was never getting it done. I left things to the last minute and was always stressed out by that. So a lot of it was just the amount of stress that was creating in my life. And I decided that I didn't want that anymore. So I started experimenting with some different methods. And, you know, kind of found that balance that works for me. And one of the things I realized this is one of the things I realized about myself is I work really well, when there's a lot of when there's kind of a rigid structure. I think that's why I enjoy the LSAT so much. Because with the LSAT, there are some very rigid structures involved, you know, it does test critical thinking and logic and it very certain methodical way and structured way. And so when I have that kind of structure, I stay very focused and perform very well. And it's either that or I'm just off the rails. And I'll just kind of bounce around and do whatever I want and leave things to the last minute. And one of the things I've learned is I actually enjoy that I actually enjoy having time in my schedule, where I can just do whatever I want. And it's it's not even unproductive, like sometimes some creative work that I might do like, you know writing a script for a video or writing a blog post or planning some things that I want to do with my podcast. Sometimes that that loose unstructured time is is what helps me do the most productive create, especially creative work, but and sometimes it's just doing things around the House like random tasks, those little, those little odd tasks around the house that never get done. I mean, if I just have a day, or I'm just wandering around doing whatever I feel like doing some of those tasks just get done, because that's what catches my attention, I think what we end up doing often is fighting against that, you know, fighting against a way of using our time that maybe we enjoy, or maybe we feel feels natural, but doesn't fit into our view of what time management should be. And, you know, there's a balance between like, I can't just be a bouncy ball every day, all day, because there are things that I really want to get done that are important, that are important to my wife, that are important to the people, you know, the clients and you know, paying the bills and stuff, there are things that you know, I need to get done. And so by being structured with a certain amount of my time I get those things done. But if every day of my life was carefully plotted out in my bullet journal, and all I did every single day was just follow that methodical plan or on my Google Calendar, or wherever it is, I don't know if I would like that. Do my best work.
Susan Tatum 21:03
And so I was, I think we were talking about this one that I tried to make work, it's a fabulous thing. It's called the time time block planner. And it it's similar to similar yet different from a bullet journal. But you can, you can plot time to do nothing. I mean, like, this is my time, I'm gonna think which is not doing nothing was really important. Otherwise, I can't process I mean, if I go from call to call to call to call, by the end of that fourth call, have no idea what happened in the first call. Because you know, I don't have time to just stop and think it through. But I think that I can block time for exercise and things that might not be part of a work day. And I'm really good at blocking it. i But I tell you, where I sometimes fall down is is following what I wrote down on the calendar, when I don't feel like doing that's I guess that's a bit of self discipline. Hmm.
Scott Miller 21:57
Well, what happens when you say you don't feel like doing it? Why What Why would be a reason what would be a reason why you don't feel like doing it?
Susan Tatum 22:03
I don't feel creative enough to write an article that I expected that I was going to write right now. Or something else comes along? That just seems more interesting. Maybe not more important, but more interesting. I'm trying to while I'm looking at my taxes that I'm like, right up against the wall, you talk about deadlines, so they might counsel if you don't get this testimony today. We're not gonna make the deadline.
Scott Miller 22:30
Yeah. Yeah. And we'll have you done anything in the past? or what have you done in the past that helped you in those situations? Have you found useful?
Susan Tatum 22:38
Well, you know, one of the things that was really eye opening to me was, and I think I mentioned this to you, as I use it, I use an app called toggle, where it's just a time, it's tracking my time. And it's really easy to once you get in the habit of turning it to turn it on and off. And then when I go back and look at it at the end of the week, or the end of the month, the first time I did that, it was like, Whoa, I can't believe I waste so much time. And you know, in in email can be a great way. I'm not I don't I not so much of a social media, spending a lot of time, like going down rabbit holes there. But with my email, I can do that. And it's stuff like, I didn't need to read this, or I already read this, but gee was right there. So I tried
Scott Miller 23:19
Oh, I was just gonna say time tracking is really valuable. And one of the things I tell people is, it's something that that is useful to do. And if you keep it personal, like as a manager, as a leader, I would never ask someone who reports to me to track their time, and then submit it to me, like, No, I don't want to see it. You know, you I'd like you to track your time. But don't show it to me just track your time. At the end of the week, look at how you're spending your time. And if you want to talk to me about how to make changes, I'll help you with that. But tracking your time, especially when you know that you don't have to show it to anybody else. Because then you'll be brutally honest. And you have to be brutally honest. You know, yes, I did spend two hours today surfing Reddit, when I should have been working on my taxes, right? It gives you that realistic picture. Another thing I think we have to be honest with ourselves about is you talked about creative work. I mean, there are ways to you know, if you have to write a blog post, edit it, you seem like it feels like you're not in the mood, maybe just breaking it down into smaller pieces. Like okay, I'm just going to get to do a little brainstorming. Or I'm just going to take a few notes. Or I'm just going to write the first sentence. You know, sometimes all it takes is making it simple enough to get started. And then all of a sudden, you know, I'm only going to do this for you know, like you said, Time Time time blocking. I want to spend two minutes working on my blog post. And the next thing you know it's done. This is if you've ever heard of the book tiny habits by BJ Fogg.
Susan Tatum 24:42
I know atomic habits but not tiny habits.
Scott Miller 24:45
Yeah, it's it's there. They're there. I think there's some similarities between the books. If you're if people who are interested in books about this kind of subject, I think tiny habits is a great resource because that's part of what he talks about is breaking things down into manageable steps. You may also find that and I Think this is an important thing to consider, you know, the work that we do, that a lot of us do is creative work, even if we don't think about it that way. I mean, if I'm standing on a on a, you know, conveyor belt in front of a conveyor belt, and all I have to do is like, attach two pieces together, I think you can expect that, you know, in a eight hour shift, I should be able to stand there and connect X number of pieces together, you know, like, it's very measurable, right. But a lot of the work that that many of us do require, it's, it's thinking work, it's creative work. And you think
Susan Tatum 25:36
yeah, problem solving.
Scott Miller 25:37
And you know, you talked about making calls. And so you can't just measure your success by the number of calls that you made in one day, you also have to factor in, when are you going to spend some time just thinking about those calls and thinking about how, you know, what kind of calls are you making? Who are you calling? How are you managing those calls, so some of that downtime, like working out, you know, whatever you enjoy doing it, even things like, you know, that we often think of as luxuries or frivolous like video games, or, you know, watching Netflix, I mean, for people who do creative work for people who do problem solving work, there's research showing that when you're quote goofing off, your brain is actually doing valuable work behind the scenes making connections, and that people who don't spend enough time quote goofing off, actually have, like, they've done it. I know, there's some research done on learning that people who don't take days off the people who don't give themselves enough downtime, have a harder time learning complex subjects than people who do give themselves
Susan Tatum 26:38
interesting because they're, they're burning out some part of their brain, perhaps?
Scott Miller 26:42
Well, I think with the theory, I guess is that when you are resting, when you're not consciously working on something, your brain is actually making connections in the background. You know, you might be watching that Netflix show, but a part of your brain is actually processing the information that you took in or what you were actively thinking about, you know, I don't know what, what how they describe what the brain does, but solidifying those connections, right? So man, you
Susan Tatum 27:08
then you got out of its way, by not paying attention.
Scott Miller 27:12
And you got out of its way by not paying attention to that. Yeah. And that's just how our brains work. And there's so much anecdotal evidence to I mean, I was just talking with a student, I still do some LSAT tutoring, by the way, that's that's I've recently started doing some of that, again, was just talking to one of my students today who said that she's been consciously taking more time off. Now she's retaking the test. She's taking the LSAT, before she's taking it again. And she said, the big difference this time, is I'm taking a more relaxed attitude. I'm still studying hard when I'm studying, but I'm making sure to take that time off. And she's seeing a huge difference in her practice in her scores. And I can't tell you how many times I hear that from people and the measurable difference that it makes.
Susan Tatum 27:50
Well, I know I've found in you, you mentioned this a minute ago, I decided, I don't know, I know, six months ago or so that I was not going to work more than more than halftime, I was not gonna work more than 20 hours a week. If it if it breaks into four hours a day or whatever, you know, then that's just it. And to your point that you were talking about a study, I don't get any less done, than I did when I could just let the day stretch out all day long,
Scott Miller 28:18
right? Because that's what we do we let it stretch out. Yeah, I say we very enthusiastically because I've seen myself, do I still I still do it. You know, sometimes I'd still enjoy doing less of that. But yeah, if you give yourself that flexibility, yeah, you see, it's so easy. I think they're just some natural tendencies to let things stretch out, as opposed to saying, I'm going to limit the amount of time I'm going to spend like this morning working, and then that's it, you know, at noon, I'm going to grab some lunch, and I'm going to go to Lake, and you can actually, you know, there's I think there's a method called unscheduled to that works in a similar way, where you first schedule the things that you want to do you schedule your free time you schedule the things that are fun and enjoyable. And then you figure out how to make the work fit in between now, and it works really well for some people.
Susan Tatum 29:04
And that's very cool. I, you know, I have like, so many more questions that I wanted to ask you. We're running out of time. So we're gonna have to do this, again, to finish off with all these things. But what kind of you mentioned, when we were talking that you have some resources maybe to point people towards? Is that on your website?
Scott Miller 29:22
Well, yeah, people can go to my website, which is Scott Miller coaching.com. And sign up for my newsletter, I actually have a free guide that I can send that takes you through a process that we talked about of making a plan for the day and then viewing it as an experiment, you know, recording what actually happens and then making adjustments based on that I call it the active scheduling experiment.
Susan Tatum 29:44
Cool.
Scott Miller 29:45
And I you know, I do have my blog that describes some time management techniques. Some other I have a YouTube channel, which if you look for Scott Miller coaching on YouTube, I have some videos on there about subjects like smart goals. I have a couple of videos about bullet journaling that I'm not really super happy with. But you know, I might redo those, but they're okay, they're on there. And in terms of bullet journaling, I know some people, a lot of people do it. Some people have maybe heard of it, but never tried it. If you're interested in bullet journaling, I say go to the source, which is writer, Carol's website, bullet journal.com. And he has a really short three minute tutorial video on there that takes you through the basic process of what bullet journaling is all about. And then, of course, he has his book, which is great. He has classes and everything, but those are some great resources.
Susan Tatum 30:30
Yeah, I tried. I tried bullet journaling. And I loved it but got intimidated by all of the pictures that you see of people that have these beautiful bullet journals. And they draw this stuff on their minds this look like a bunch of crap
Scott Miller 30:44
well, that's what mine does. Mine is very sparse. And I'm actually a big fan of that of starting with that. Just the basics. No fancy pictures, no fancy calligraphy, what do you need? Unless the pictures are fun for you if you want it? Yeah, great. But that doesn't have to. And that's one of the things I like about Ryder Carroll's original bullet journal method that he promotes is it's just focuses on on the what you what is required to make it effective. Not the fancy stuff.
Susan Tatum 31:13
Maybe I'll maybe I'll experiment with that again.
Scott Miller 31:16
Yeah.
Susan Tatum 31:17
Scott, thank you so much. This has been quite interesting and helpful. And so you gave us your website address you gave us your you're on LinkedIn as well.
Scott Miller 31:29
Yep, I'm on LinkedIn.
Susan Tatum 31:30
Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much for being here.
Scott Miller 31:32
All right. Thank you very much, Susan. I enjoy this. Hopefully we'll do it again sometime soon.
Susan Tatum 31:35
I hope so too. There's much to talk about. Take care