Many years ago, I worked in middle management at a large bank. One Christmas, my manager gave me a lovely red leather bound Day-Timer with my initials engraved on it.

My first thought was, “What a lovely gift.” My second thought was “Wait, is he insinuating I’m not organized?” But, in truth, I think it was just meant as a lovely gift.

As I put the Day-Timer pages together in the binder and started using it, I was blown away by the level of thought that had been put into the system.

Not only were there places for my appointments and to-do lists, but also sections to record expenses, meeting notes, client notes, and even goal setting.

Here, in a binder no bigger than a hardcover book, was a tool that transformed my work and my life.

But that was only the beginning…

Energized by this new level of thinking, I became obsessed with learning about time management. I read every time management book I could lay my hands on, listened to productivity audio training during my daily commute, explored the common productivity systems, and implemented them for my own work.

Because I was in management, I started passing on what I had learned, providing training for my teams.

Eventually, I became self-employed in the marketing field. But, after years of teaching digital marketing, I wanted a change. I had always kept learning to master time management for myself and I taught it to my marketing clients, but I decided to pivot and embrace teaching productivity and time management full-time.

So the concept of “Captain Time” emerged from the chaos. When I tested the name and branding, my clients and colleagues loved it, and “Captain Time” was born.

The time hat came later, but that is another story…

The post Captain Time’s Origin Story appeared first on Time Management Training.

Sunk cost fallacy, a term derived from economics, is a powerful psychological mechanism that affects our decisions and productivity. This fallacy is the erroneous belief that past investments should influence the decision about where to devote current resources. This leads to poor decision-making and can significantly compromise your productivity.

The sunk cost fallacy comprises two critical ideas. Firstly, a ‘sunk cost’ refers to an investment that cannot be recovered once it’s made. It could be anything like time, energy, or capital. The ‘fallacy’ part is the incorrect reasoning that further investment is justified because the resources already invested would be lost otherwise.

When you let past losses dictate the future course of action instead of looking at what outcome would yield the most return (or the least loss), you’re caught in the sunk cost fallacy.

The sunk cost fallacy can have a significant impact on individual and organizational productivity. It usurps valuable time and resources that could be better spent elsewhere, resulting in the ineffective allocation of those resources.

For example, you may persist with a project because of the time you’ve already devoted to it, despite clear signs that it will not meet objectives. Or, you might procrastinate on abandoning a long-term strategy that isn’t working because of the investment already made. And therein lies the paradox; you continue to invest in something unproductive to not “waste” the investments already made, while essentially wasting more resources.

An example of this might be investing a lot of time into college or university courses and then finding that you don’t like or aren’t suited to the career you are taking training for. But you don’t want to waste all that time, money, and energy you spent on university, so you decide to suck it up and continue.

Or you might have launched a business, sunk a lot of time and money into it, and then found it didn’t provide the income or satisfaction you were looking for, but you just don’t feel you can walk away because of all the time, energy and money you sunk into the business.

So you keep adding more time, energy, and money – throwing good money after bad (another fallacy) in the hopes that you can “fix” what is wrong and not lose your investment.

So how do we know if we have fallen into the sunk fallacy? How do we break free of this fallacy?

“Don’t cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it”
– Aubrey De Graf

First, educate and train yourself (and your team if applicable) to understand the nature of sunk costs and how they can affect decisions. Awareness is the first step to creating a strategy for combating this kind of bias.

Second, make an effort to disconnect the past from the future. Consider current conditions and future benefits when making decisions, regardless of past actions. This can help to create a mindset that values future outcomes over past investments.

Finally, a practical way to combat the sunk cost fallacy is to use a cost-benefit analysis when faced with decision-making. This method forces you to weigh the potential future benefits against the costs.

By focusing your resources on shoring up past activities, you run the risk of missing opportunities in the present and future.

Don’t let the sunk cost fallacy rob you of your productivity. By focusing on future outcomes and understanding the pitfalls of this cognitive trap, you can improve your decision-making ability and enhance productivity. Remember, it’s not about what you’ve already spent, but what you can gain moving forward and investing your time, energy, and money wisely.

Need help deciding to let go of past endeavors and embracing your future? Check out my time management coaching program – I’d love to help you.

The post Sunk Cost Fallacy: The Psychological Bias That’s Killing Your Productivity appeared first on Time Management Training.

Many people wax nostalgic about their so-called “glory days”. For many, it seems to have been high school or university or some time long in the past. But were these real glory days, or are we just guilty of remembering the good parts and skipping the bad times?

Are our glory days only a nostalgic past thing? Or, if we make a few changes and change our perspective, could our glory days be right now?

Perhaps you were the sports star, the big man on campus (BMOC), the prom queen, the head cheerleader, the It Girl, dazzled everyone with your academic prowess, and had lots of dating successes.

That is not my story…😏

I am going to share parts of my personal journey here, but of course, your experience might be very different.

Let’s look at my decades from high school to now to see where my glory days might live.

While I loved school and enjoyed classes, there was a lot of bullying and I was socially very awkward. I was the youngest in my class so I was physically behind my classmates and was usually the last one picked for sports teams.

My parents didn’t have a lot of money. We were always well-fed and loved, but didn’t have the shiny toys and things my classmates and cousins had.

Overall, I had a happy childhood with many fond memories, but I wouldn’t consider these years the “best” years of my life.

Junior/Senior high school was a little better than elementary school. The bullying mainly stopped and I had better relationships with my classmates since most of us had known each other all our school years.

Rather than being picked on for my academic success, I helped tutor some people and discovered I enjoyed teaching others – a skill that would be with me my whole life.

Physically I caught up with my peers and started winning medals at track events and was on several junior and high school teams.

And shockingly, I discovered girls!

Academic success, sports success, and girls – Wow, this sounds like my glory days, right?

Not so fast. I was still in my teens, so still living at home so not fully connected to what to do with my life.

And, will girls excited me, I was still painfully shy. Looking back at this time with what I know now, I now see several girls were interested in me, but I lacked the confidence to ask them out.

So I had a very limited dating life and wasn’t fully my own person yet. Some great memories but not my best decade yet.

No, I didn’t live through the 1920’s but a lot happened while I was in my 20’s.

Became an adult, lived on my own, and then had an early marriage, and kids. I explored careers first in retail, and then in banking. I experienced rapid promotions.

Relationship, kids, and rapid career advancement – sounds like glory days, right?

Not quite. My relationship was struggling, I was working long hours and really hadn’t come into my own yet.

In my 30’s everything changed. My relationship ended, so I was free to date again, this time with a lot more confidence than in high school.

Single, in my 30’s, dating regularly – sounds amazing right?

Not quite. I ended up living 5 hours drive away from my children and launched some businesses that failed and then moved from job to job.

While the dating was fun at times, none of the relationships lasted and I am not a person who just wants to date for the fun of it.

The 30’s weren’t my best decade.

In my 40’s things started looking up. I met my wife, Terry who I have been with for 23 years.

My confidence and skills were improving, but still struggling on the business front.

Also, I hadn’t taken care of my fitness levels, was carrying a lot of extra weight and my health suffered.

So some great things, but facing some challenges.

In my 50’s things were looking up. Great relationship, grandchildren, travel, and more business success. I started to exercise and take care of my body more and felt a lot better despite some health issues.

And now we come to my 60’s in the present day. My business is flourishing, my relationship is amazing, I am meeting new friends, I have interesting hobbies, and I have puppies!

My life is comfortable and gives me great joy and laughter every day.

In truth, my “glory days” are in the present – right now.

Don’t spend your time pining for some perceived “glory days” in your past. Instead, create your own glory days right now, in the present.

If you would like help to create your own glory days in the present, check out my time management coaching program.

The post Your Glory Days May Be Right Now: Could This Be YOUR Time? appeared first on Time Management Training.

Let’s talk about reading vs writing.

I’ve always been a prolific reader and I speed read. But I’ve never counted exactly how many books I read in a year. I was curious to put a number on my reading, so in Dec 2022, I decided to count all the books I read and finished in 2023, starting on January 1, 2023, and going until Dec 31, 2023.

At the end of the year – the number was in. I had read 614 books. That didn’t include books I started but didn’t finish because they weren’t to my taste.

What did I read? Mainly science fiction and fantasy, but also a lot of business-related books.

I love reading books and I think it is appalling that, according to one poll, as many as 50% of Americans didn’t read a book last year.

To me, book reading is more beneficial than watching TV. But, in addition to reading all these books, I also do watch some TV and YouTube of course.

This huge number of books led me to start thinking about my personal media consumption.

Was I missing an opportunity here? What about reading vs. writing? Could I be writing more instead of reading and watching TV and YouTube?

Like many people, I have had the usual daydreams about what I would do if I won big at the lottery and never had to work again. I have the usual ideas of traveling the world, but the one thought that really resonates with me is that if I didn’t have to work, I would like to write books.

Now, I already do a LOT of writing. I continually write articles for myself and my clients, but this is different than writing books.

I have written and published one book, “Stop Wasting Time.” Writing this book was an amazing experience. It has helped my business and gives me an affordable resource to help people who may not have the budget for my time management coaching. I do plan on writing more productivity books, but my secret desire isn’t to write more non-fiction books.

I am a big science fiction and fantasy fan and I have a lot of story ideas in these genres in my head. I have jotted down ideas and outlines, and even mind-mapped stories. I have written a few short stories and even started a few pages for novels, but I have never finished writing a whole fiction novel.

I started to wonder, what if I reduced my screen time and reading for a few hours each week, and invested that time into writing my first fiction book? Instead of waiting to retire or win the lottery, why not start writing these books now?

I have learned by implementing an exercise program for myself how powerful some dedicated hours each week can be to reach your goals.

So I decided to take some of my screen and reading time and reinvest that time into writing my fiction novels.

Now, In 2024, I no longer count how many books I read. Instead, I am counting how many words I write.

In 2023, I read 614 books – in 2024, I am going to write 1!

If you would like to be on my mailing list to learn about my upcoming fantasy and science fiction book releases, subscribe at the link below.

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The post Reading vs Writing: After Reading 614 Books, it is Time to Turn the Page appeared first on Time Management Training.

Greetings fellow productivity seekers. Captain Time here from my Chrono Cavern. As a time management expert, I constantly seek ways to boost my productivity. After rigorous testing and real-life uses, I’ve settled on my personal 10 best productivity tools that I will be using to optimize my processes, automate, and achieve even more amazing levels of productivity in 2024.

Some of the links shown here are affiliate links so I appreciate your supporting my channel and content creation by following the links when you try any of these productivity apps. But I NEVER recommend an app only for affiliate commissions – these are apps I use every day personally to take my productivity to the next level!

These productivity apps aren’t in any particular order – I use all of them every week.

One of the most interesting things about these tools is that at the beginning of 2023, I was using almost no AI, but now 8 out of 10 of these powerful tools incorporate artificial intelligence, greatly enhancing their capabilities. AI has come into its own in 2023 leading into 2024.

I use the power of artificial intelligence to help generate content with CopyAI. I use CopyAI to brainstorm content ideas, create headlines, create articles, outline scripts, write sales letters, brainstorm business networking introductions, create marketing plans, and a lot more.

After the AI has given me the ideas, I can move them into CopyAI’s editor to polish them up and add my own ideas.

Most of my work now starts with my brainstorming partner – CopyAI.

Grab CopyAI here.

As the name suggests, Text Blaze lets you blaze through your typing tasks. This tool can be used as a browser extension for Chrome or as a Windows app. Text Blaze helps you create and manage snippets of frequently used text and then insert them anywhere with just a few keystrokes.

You can use Text Blaze’s AI to create your snippets of text for you.

I use TextBlaze for automating my business networking follow-up, sales letters, proposals, support replies, documents, and a LOT of other automation tasks..

TextBlaze probably saves me at least 6 hours of work EVERY week.

Grab TextBlaze here.

See Garland’s TextBlaze Review here.

Notion is a powerful, all-in-one workspace concept. I like to think of Notion as the love child of Database and Wiki.

I use Notion for task management, content planning, and for creating online courses and templates for my clients and students. Notion is also now, AI-enabled.

With Notion, you can create your own personal productivity system – or contact me and I can create a productivity system for you.

Grab Notion here.

See Garland’s Notion videos here:

Google Calendar is my go-to app for anything calendar-related. It shows all my appointments and I have a shared calendar with my wife so we know each other’s schedule.

Google Calendar gives me advance warning when my next coaching appointment, coffee meeting, or Zoom call is due.

I also use Google Calendar to teach my clients and students how to increase their productivity using time blocking. The great thing about Google Calendar is that it integrates with so many other tools, increasing its functionality greatly.

See Garland’s Time Blocking using Google Calendar video.

Book Like a Boss makes scheduling meetings effortless. This all-in-one booking platform allows you to schedule appointments, sell your services, manage your portfolio, and much more.

Book Like a Boss integrates with my Zoom and Google Calendar accounts so I can just send my coaching clients or networking contacts a link and they can book a coaching session or discovery call with me directly on my Google Calendar. BLAB also creates the Zoom link for the call as well.

Grab Book Like a Boss here.

I use Canva for creating graphics, marketing materials, YouTube thumbnails, and even basic video editing. Canva’s templates and AI for graphics AND writing have had a major impact on how much time it takes me to get my videos out on my Time Tips YouTube Channel so I am expecting to be able to double or triple my video output this year by using Canva!

The thumbnail for this video was created in a few minutes. using a Canva template.

Grab Canva here.

Email marketing in 2024 is STILL one of the most powerful digital marketing methods because people still check their email inbox every day.

My favorite email marketing app is MailerLite. MailerLite can automate email campaigns, helping you extend reach and engagement while saving valuable time.

Grab MailerLite here.

See my MailerLite review video here.

Each week, I create presentations for my workshops, speaking engagements, training sessions, and my YouTube channel. I use Beautiful AI to design stunning slides in no time. It uses AI and great presentation slide templates to create visually striking presentations, freeing me to focus on my message.

Grab Beautiful AI here.

A good note-taking app is an essential part of a productive workflow. UpNote is my favorite note-taking platform. It has a minimal interface, making it easy to use, but with powerful note-taking and sharing features. I use it for all my notes and for my personal knowledge base.

Grab UpNote.

When you run a business, you need a way to keep track of clients, contacts, and prospects.

Business networking has become a pivotal part of my marketing strategy in 2023 and I will be expanding my efforts in this field in 2024. Business networking is a key source of both clients and the services I need to scale my business and make it more successful.

To manage your clients and prospects, you need a customer relationship management system – CRM for short. As the name suggests, Less Annoying CRM offers a straightforward, easy-to-use customer relationship management system for a low monthly fee. It centralizes customer interactions and data, ensuring you never miss a beat in nurturing your customer relationships.

Grab Less Annoying CRM here.

Behind each of these applications is the promise of saving time, reducing stress, and improving your workflow. They are, in Captain Time’s view, my undisputed personal productivity achievers for the coming year. Embrace these apps in your day-to-day routine and watch as 2024 turns out to be your most productive year yet!

Need productivity app training on these or other apps you use? Reach out and I would be happy to help.

The post Best Productivity Apps for 2024: Captain Time’s Productivity Gold appeared first on Time Management Training.

Task management apps are powerful, critical tools for maintaining productivity. But despite modern breakthroughs in productivity technology, many of us often fall short of utilizing these apps to their fullest potential.

I provide time management coaching to a lot of people so I see how they struggle with using their task management apps effectively. Here are the ten most common mistakes I have noticed people make when using task management apps, and tips on how to avoid them.

Task management apps have a ton of features, so they all have a bit of a learning curve. If you don’t take the time to learn your app well, you are only operating at a fraction of its potential for enhancing your productivity.

Solution: Have dedicated time set aside for learning your new task management app. Look for training videos on YouTube or on the app’s website and take the time to get fully familiar with your new productivity app

Many of my clients come to me for help with their apps BEFORE asking for support from the software provider.

While I am always happy to help, in many cases there was a quick and easy solution that the support team for the app could have provided.

Solution: Ask tons of questions of the support team for your productivity app. This also helps you test a new app’s support team to make sure they give great support before you build your whole productivity system into the app.

One of the most frequent mistakes is the lack of task prioritization. Many users have the habit of piling tasks onto the app without assigning any levels of urgency or importance. This results in lots of unattended or forgotten tasks.

Solution: Before adding any task, determine its priority level. Consider factors such as deadlines, task dependencies, or impacts on your goals.

A common mistake is not adding a succinct summary or description of the task. This proves problematic, particularly when working in teams, as tasks can become confusing.

Solution: Always add a brief overview of what the task involves. It increases clarity and keeps everyone on the same page.

Labels and tagging serve to categorize or identify the type of task. Unfortunately, many users ignore this feature, leading to disorganized task lists.

Solution: Utilize tags or labels to group related tasks—this aids in quick identification and improves task organization. This also lets you tag tasks for delegating or outsourcing.

Often, task management apps are used in isolation, ignoring the collaboration capabilities when working in a team.

Solution: Harness features such as assigning tasks, commenting, and sharing files within the app for effective team communication and collaboration. You can also use your app for delegating to your subordinates or to a virtual assistant.

Ironically, many users forget to use their task management apps regularly.

Solution: Make it a habit to open the app daily. Live in your app workspace. Regular use ensures reminding about the pending tasks and staying on top of deadlines.

For many users, once tasks are entered, they forget to update the task status, leading to confusion about task progress.

Solution: Regularly update the status of tasks – whether they’re ‘in progress’, ‘completed’, or ‘on hold’.

On a number of occasions, I have written a new article on a topic only to find a partially completed article on the topic on my WordPress site. This happened because I forgot to add a comment to the task that I had already started the article.

Solution: Whenever you have to leave a task partially unfinished, post a comment as to exactly where you left off so you can quickly pick up at that point when you get back to the task.

Complex task structures can make task management overwhelming. Many people spend more time developing elaborate task systems than they do actually finishing and ticking off tasks as “done.”

Solution: Keep the task structure simple. Use subtasks for breaking down complex tasks into manageable parts.

In conclusion, while these mistakes are common, they are also easily correctable. By making some slight adjustments to your usage, you can harness the full potential of your task management apps to boost productivity and efficiency.

If you or your team need task management app training, reach out.

The post Task Management Apps: 10 Common Mistakes appeared first on Time Management Training.

Here is a video of an xCite presentation, “The Art of Un-Multitasking” that I did for the Edmonton West Bx Networking group.

Please share this video if you found it useful. You can also leave me a testimonial here.

The post The Art of Un-Multitasking appeared first on Time Management Training.