John Corcoran 15:19
Yeah, yeah. I want to ask about schedules, how to set up a schedule that works for you. Because I know that you’re a busy mom got a couple of kids, spouse, a business, all that kind of stuff. How do you advise people to set up a schedule that works for them?
Megan Flatt 15:38
Yeah, so a couple of so two things. One is, really and this is something that I talk about a lot in the book, and I get on my soapbox about this is that really getting away so much of what we are taught about time management and productivity and getting things done is, is comes from a historical perspective, that’s just not necessarily true for all of us anymore. It comes from a capitalistic agriculture based industrial based organization where, where bosses and factory owners and farmers wanted all of their workers working on the exact same schedule, because that was the most efficient way to produce a widget or farm a field. So they we built in a lot of these like cultural moral principles, like the early bird gets the worm, because it was a lot easier to teach people that like, starting work at 8am is a moral principle, and then make them feel good or bad about themselves, for showing up to work in what really was just the most efficient way to, again, build a widget or farm a field. And so especially as entrepreneurs, we need to get away from that. And we need to understand that our bodies, our our bodies, our brains, our family structures, all of these things are different and unique. And so you really have to kind of take back ownership of what does your schedule? What when is your best time of day to focus? What when are you? Are you an early bird? Or are you better at focusing at 10pm? At night? Are you better at, you know, focusing early in the week and then having a lighter scheduled later in the week? Do you, you know, does it work better for you to work out in the morning and then start your work and like really honoring that, and not not letting you know, like using air quotes like not letting society tell us that we have to work nine to five, or we have to get up at five in the morning or whatever this message is. And so really, really honoring and I there’s a there’s an exercise in the book to map your energy. So really thinking about different times of the day, different times of the week, depending on what type of hormones circulate through your body, people with a lot of testosterone in their system tend to cycle on a 24 hour cycle, people with a lot of estrogen in their system tend to cycle on a 28 day cycle. So so we’re going to have different peaks and valleys of energy based on what hormones are present in our body at any given time. And most productivity, most productivity. And when I when my book first came out, because of Amazon’s algorithm, I was able to get to 30, the 30th book in the time management category, out of Thank you, out of those 30 books, 27 of them were written by men. So if the majority of the messaging that’s coming out about how we should structure our days comes from people that have more that cycle on a 24 hour cycle that have more testosterone in their system, it’s going to look different if you if you’re different if your body operates different your schedule is going to look different and it’s not bad you’re not lazy you’re not you know you’re not a problem. It’s but so that’s the very first part is just really honoring you know what I need to at one o’clock in the afternoon, I need to go take a walk like at you know, I’m I’m a I am myself I am an early bird. By four o’clock in the afternoon. I’m you know, I’m more subtle on the couch like I’m no good anymore, you know. So really honoring that like honoring that. I think that’s the very first piece and then starting to put in the pieces of your schedule. I like to say that you need to decide what your grade a time is. Your grade a time is the time when you are the most focused and your distractions are at the lowest. And then you need to decide what your grade A tasks are, right? What are those most important highest contribution tasks and then you need to try to line those up so that you’re not necessarily having a team meeting at nine o’clock in the morning. If your highest count distribution is writing the content for your book, and your highest time to focus is nine in the morning, then that’s when you need to be doing the writing, even if that’s the best time for your team to meet.
John Corcoran 20:11
Yeah, yeah, it’s funny because you know, this becoming apparent, you get to observe these patterns. Like, my wife is much more of a morning person. I’m much more of a late evening kind of person. Yeah, we’ve got my son, Toby, who’s nine, who puts himself to bed by 630. Yeah. And then his younger sister, who is four and a half. Last night, she was up until 10. Like, we couldn’t get the kid to go to sleep. So it’s, it’s amazing to think that we used to be the society that was kind of a cookie cutter, or a one size fit all fits all type of mold for everyone.
Megan Flatt 20:43
Exactly. Yeah. No, that’s exactly it. And I think, I think a lot of times we, especially for entrepreneurs, part of the reason we go into entrepreneurship is for that flexibility. Yeah, you know, and but then we ended up I, one of my clients, you know, she joke, she says, I’m the worst boss I ever had, right? Like, sometimes, you know, we go into entrepreneurship, for the flexibility, but then we’re so hard on ourselves, like, Oh, I gotta get up at five in the morning. I got to work until 9pm. I’ve got to do it this way. I’ve got to do it this way.
John Corcoran 21:11
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I love this topic, how to focus basically, some different strategies for making sure that you can focus in a deep way. You know, you mentioned going on a walk or, you know, working the right time of day. Any other suggestions or advice around how to maximize your focus?
Megan Flatt 21:34
Yeah, absolutely. A quick like side to how to maximize focus is I think one of the really important things about focus is being really clear on what you need to focus on. And so that kind of goes back a little bit to what we were talking about, about our to do list or about really defining what kind of our highest contribution is, because I think what happens is sometimes we might be aware, like, hey, 9am is a really good time for me to focus and you kind of sit down at your desk, and you’re like, Okay, time to focus. And then you’re a little bit like, Huh, well, I kind of need to pay that bill. And I probably should write it right. And we kind of just float around. And then we get to the end of of that time that we had set aside to focus on. We’re like, Man, I wasn’t very focused. Well, it wasn’t necessarily that you weren’t focused, it was that you kind of didn’t define what you needed to focus on. And so we in the program that I run focus sessions we create, we talk about three buckets that we feel like is a good use of focus time. So the first bucket is exactly what you said, deep work. So it’s, it’s that that work that I like to think of like the Eisenhower matrix, it’s that square, that’s the important but not urgent things. It’s writing the book, it’s, it’s creating new sales copy, it’s, it’s you know, it’s it’s doing podcast interviews, you know, it’s the thing that is going to move your business forward, but isn’t necessarily like the most pressing thing. So that’s the thing that you need that flow state for. So that’s deep work. So that’s a really good thing to use focus time for the other. The next thing is planning and visioning. I think that as busy entrepreneurs, we often don’t spend enough time planning and visioning, we just kind of jump into like, oh, I need to get this thing done. Let me just jump in. But again, the research tells us that for I can’t remember the exact number, but it’s like for every 10 minutes you spend, or for every one minute you spend planning, you save 10 minutes on execution. So taking 90 minutes of focus time and planning out, okay, this is what my book launch is going to look like. This is what this next campaign is going to look like. This is what my kids summer schedule is going to look like. And therefore my work schedule, so taking some time to plan and vision is a really good use of focus time. And then we have one bucket that’s a little bit controversial. We call it the clear the deck bucket. And this is where you get you cross those nagging tasks off your list, because those are the things that are clogging your brain and preventing you from doing focus work. So if you sit down to write your book, or do the thing that you need to focus on, and you’re thinking like, oh, but I’ve got to have to remember to reply to that client. And my team member is waiting for an answer. And oh, I’ve got to return that permission slip for school, that it’s really hard for your brain to get into focus. So sometimes you need to do a clear that deck session. Those are also the things that can take all day if we let them. So by saying okay, I’m going to take the next 60 minutes, 20 minutes, 90 minutes and I’m going to just bang through all of these things. You kind of close those proverbial computer tabs and then you can move on to okay now, take a break, go for a walk, get some water and then move into the focus time.
John Corcoran 24:48
Man, I certainly do not want to show you my computer tabs. I am definitely guilty of that. Say yes. Last section of the book is focused on raising your resilience It’s when there’s too much to do. What are your tips on that?
Megan Flatt 25:04
Yeah, I think the first part is just and that’s why it’s in the book is just acknowledging it. Because it’s really great to say like, like, you know, whenever I say do less better to people, they’re like, Great, yes, I want to do less better. But the truth of the matter is, we’re, our calendars are gonna get to full our to do lists are going to get too long, you know, we’re going to have busy times of our day of our life of our, you know, seasons of our business. And so the whole section on raising your resilience is really like, okay, let’s acknowledge that there’s going to be an ebb and flow, let’s acknowledge that there’s going to be busy times, and then using some some practical tools, if you want to reduce that, but a lot of it is just acknowledging it. And again, it’s, it’s all about intentionality. And so, my husband and I used to joke, especially when the kids were younger, although I’m not sure it’s changed now that they’re older. But we just always joke that it’s like think things will calm down in two weeks, right? It’s always like, once we get through this thing, things will calm down, once we get back from vacation, things will calm down, once we get through this thing in our business, things will calm down. And then six years, it’s been six years, you know, two weeks at a time. But I think that that if you can do that intentionally, if you can say, Okay, I’m about to, you know, launch a new program in my business. And so it’s going to be busier for this next three week time period. And you can let your team know, you can let your family know, you can make some some strategic choices of maybe some things that you’re going to let go like, hey, for the next three weeks, I’m not going to do as many networking events while I’m kind of in the throes of launching this. But But again, it’s all about that container kind of back to that same container. It’s like okay, this is for a three week period. And then after the three week period, there needs to be a time of rest and kind of recalibration.
John Corcoran 26:56
Yeah, yeah. Mechanism be great. Tell us about what Focus Sessions is. For those who don’t know.
Megan Flatt 27:02
Yeah I like to say it’s like a gym, but for productivity. Focus Sessions are 90 minute hosted co working sessions, they happen on zoom there, it’s all virtual. And we offer 16 a week. So there’s up to four focus sessions a day, and you show up and a trained focus session post is going to lead you through about an eight minute focus flow that again, is backed in science, scientific way to help you get into a flow state, then everyone declares what they’re going to work on for a little bit of group accountability. And then you spend the next 83 minutes working on your most important work. And our members. Not only are they getting more done during those focus sessions, but they’re actually saying that their focus overall is increasing. And we’ve heard things like not only have people launched, launch programs or launch things that they’ve been wanting to launch for weeks or months or years, but also that people are no longer needing to work in the evenings or the weekends, because they’re so focused during their focus sessions, they’re getting so much done, that they’re able to close their computer at the end of the day and take their kids to the beach, or read a book or hang out with family or whatever the other things are that are important to them in their life. And that’s really what we want.
John Corcoran 28:18
That’s really what it’s all about. Right? Great. Maybe where can people go to check out the book and Focus Sessions?
Megan Flatt 28:23
Yeah, so you can head to focus-sessions.com to find out about Focus Sessions, and then add a /focusedbook to find out about the book or if you land on the Focus Sessions website, there’s a link to the book right there. And we’ve got some awesome bonuses, there’s a free workbook, a downloadable workbook that comes with it. So you can work through some of the exercises in the book, as well as a Spotify playlist for focus. A bookmark on how to plan your week, all sorts of fun bonuses in that bonus section on that same site.
John Corcoran 28:56
I have not heard a Spotify Bonus Session is about to send it to you. That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that as a bonus. I love it. That’s great. Now I’m like super curious. Like what, what? What music is it like what’s on that list?
Megan Flatt 29:08
I’m gonna I’m gonna send it to you since we since we end our interview.
John Corcoran 29:11
Awesome. All right, Megan. Thanks so much.
Outro 29:13
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