Joel MacCharles joins Brian to discuss discuss managing your interruption overload and staying focused. They share their personal strategies for staying organized and productive, including using to-do lists, calendars, and focus music. They emphasize the need to prioritize tasks and eliminate unnecessary meetings and emails. Joel expresses his frustration with the amount of time wasted on interruptions and emphasizes the importance of making a change.

The Audio/Podcast

References In This Episode

• Brian’s tip to cut down your inbox - 2 Email Rules To Cut Your Inbox Down By More Than Half

• Brian’s tip on eliminating your newsfeed - app called #blockit - Addiction to Social Media: Fix It With Apps & Tech Hacks

• Brian’s focus music with the free playlists - Turbocharge Your Focus & Productivity Through Music

• Joel MacCharles on LinkedIn

Episode Digest

In this episode, Brian Nelson-Palmer and Joel Mack Charles discuss conquering interruption overload and improving productivity. They share their personal experiences and practical tips for managing interruptions and regaining focus. They emphasize the importance of recognizing and minimizing interruptions, taking proactive measures to regain control, and using tools like focus mode and smart folders. They also discuss the limitations of traditional time management techniques in the face of modern interruptions.

In this conversation, Brian and Joel discuss the importance of managing interruptions and staying focused. They share their personal strategies for staying organized and productive, including using to-do lists, calendars, and focus music.

They emphasize the need to prioritize tasks and eliminate unnecessary meetings and emails. Joel expresses his frustration with the amount of time wasted on interruptions and emphasizes the importance of making a change.

Overall, the conversation provides valuable insights and strategies for overcoming interruption overload and improving productivity.

Takeaways

• Recognize the volume and impact of interruptions in your life

• Take proactive measures to minimize interruptions and regain control

• Use tools like focus mode and smart folders to manage interruptions

• Reconsider traditional time management techniques in the face of modern interruptions

• Create a curated and controlled environment for social media use Create a to-do list and prioritize tasks to stay organized and focused.

• Use calendars and time blocking to schedule tasks and eliminate interruptions.

• Consider using focus music to enhance concentration and productivity.

• Eliminate unnecessary meetings and emails to save time and increase productivity.

• Shift to purpose or outcome-based meetings to focus on decision-making and reduce wasted meeting time.

Sound Bites

"I have lived in the trenches of the nightmare of interruptions and lack of focus"

"I’m really angry…Interruption overload is a massive problem"

"I'm curious your thoughts on that…it’s a huge power move to work from a to-do list."

"When it's time to crank it out, I hit the focus mode on my computer so that there's no interruptions. And then I have the focus music playlist.”

Chapters

02:30 Understanding Interruption Overload

05:04 The Impact of Interruption Overload on Productivity

07:07 The Limitations of Traditional Time Management Techniques

10:43 Strategies for Managing Interruption Overload

13:36 Managing Social Media Distractions

21:29 Different Approaches to Managing Different Types Of Interruptions

25:18 Using Tools and Techniques to Manage Interruptions

28:01 The Power of a To-Do List in Managing Interruptions

38:36 Harnessing the Power of Focus Music

45:36 Outcome-Based Meetings for Better Decision-Making

Today’s Guest

Joel MacCharles
Focus Architect

Joel MacCharles is a renowned TEDx speaker and four-time best-selling author recognized for his expertise in combating interruption overload. With a career that spans executive leadership across multiple continents, Joel has firsthand experience managing teams amidst the challenges of modern work environments. His journey from overseeing thousands of team members to becoming a 'Focus Architect' is fueled by a mission to help organizations reclaim their focus and productivity.

Joel's insights are grounded in practical solutions to common workplace challenges such as overwhelming inboxes, incessant meetings, and disruptive technologies.

As a speaker and consultant, Joel partners with organizations globally, offering strategic frameworks that empower teams to cut through the chaos of interruption overload and prioritize impactful work. His work resonates with leaders and professionals seeking innovative solutions to enhance focus, energy, and overall effectiveness in today's fast-paced business landscape.

joel@wellpreserved.ca

Linkedin.com/in/joelmaccharles/

Why Subscribe To The Email List: Brian shares separate hacks, tips, and actionable learning exclusively for his email subscribers. Sign up so you don’t miss out!

About The Creator/Host: I’m Brian. At age 4, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent (type 1) diabetes and told that my life was going to be 10-20 years shorter than everyone else. As a kid I took time for granted, but now as an adult, time is the most precious thing that I have. After spending a career hands-on in the trenches as a leader at all levels, I now help others to level-up through my Productivity Gladiator training. Graduates wield time management & life balance superpowers, activate a laser-guided ability to focus & prioritize, and implement a sniper-precise approach to task & email management. If what you’ve seen here intrigues you, reach out, let’s chat!

Time is the currency of your life, spend it wisely.

Transcript

Brian Nelson-Palmer (00:04.928)

I'm Brian Nelson Palmer On this show, I share personal practical productivity skills. And in this episode, we're talking about conquering your hidden productivity killer. It's the ways to beat interruption overload. And with me on the show today is Joel MacCharles, who's a focus architect. Now I haven't heard of a thing called a focus architect. So talk about that Joel. What's your role with this topic?

Joel (00:29.659)

I'm deeply passionate about helping people find time, energy and focus on the things that are most important to them. I won't talk a whole lot about that, but we are wasting anywhere from 10 to 50 % of our lives and I'd like to claim some of that back to do the really things that are important to us.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (00:46.978)

God, we overlap there, because I mean, I did a whole Ted talk on the value of your time. So like reclaiming that time. Yes, Joel, preach brother. Let's do it. I love it. That's that's great. Now, so there are people who talk about being focused architects or productivity people. So I always love to ask, too, what's what's one? What do you think makes you a little different from others who maybe do talk about stuff like we're talking about?

Joel (01:11.611)

think one of the focus areas that are one of the experience things that makes me different is a lot of people will speak from a base of theory and I think theory is really important and I have a lot of respect for theory but my background also is one of experience and and really dealing with the problem of interruptions. At the peak of my really interruption overload time of my life I was an executive at an organization. We had 4 ,500 people. I team members in four continents.

I was running training, was running marketing, was running communications and innovation, all of those teams across the globe. And my life was a constant interruption, three, 400 emails a day. It was running into generally every half hour, having three meetings, triple booked from nine to five, or generally it was often five in the morning till six or seven o 'clock at night. and I would get to my most important work along with my peers after everybody else was done their day. And so.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (02:08.92)

Meh.

Joel (02:09.399)

I have lived in the trenches of the nightmare of interruptions and lack of focus.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (02:15.128)

Gosh, well, I'm excited to talk with this about you. So let's jump into our topic today. So we're talking about interruption overload. help us talk about that. What is interruption overload and why is it such a problem for productivity?

Joel (02:30.875)

think three things are happening that we've never seen happen before. When I started in a professional office environment, was 1995. I was a secretary and my boss was a CEO of a $20 million company and my desk was in front of his door. You couldn't get to the CEO without coming through me. I would get in trouble if I let a sales call get through to the CEO. I downloaded all of the email for the entire company, which was 12 or 15 a day.

And then I printed them out and handed them out to people. I went from there to 29 years later to being severely interrupted throughout my day and demands on my time. I recognized that, but after 18 years, you kind of get numb to it. You don't really realize what's happening. And to be candid, my job of 18 years ended unexpectedly. And suddenly I had a lot of time on my hands and I spent almost a year looking back at what did I learn?

over 18 years, over 20 years, that I could really see what was happening. And when I reflected, it came back to these three things that weren't clear when I was in the middle of that battle. One is we do not recognize the amount of interruptions that we have. You we think of email as a single interruption. Meanwhile, if you get 300 emails, it's 300 requests for your attention in a day, right? We confuse text messages with how many people send us versus how many messages we get. I got six messages yesterday.

Well, actually you got 30, but it was from six different people, but our brain doesn't separate those things. So we don't recognize the interruptions. Number two, we're misplacing the blame of interruptions. I will ask groups of people that are so tired and fed up of email. I get too many emails they'll say, I'm frustrated by the amount of email that I receive and I've been there, but an email never sent an email. Like we're blaming a technology for the people behind it and not looking at

What can we actually do about that? Which brings us to the third piece of interruption overload, which is we have a perceived powerlessness. Brian, this is kind of embarrassing to admit, but it's something I have to talk about every week. I was the head of training. I was the head of innovation. I was the head of communication. And I didn't think there was anything I could do to reduce the amount of email coming to my inbox.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (04:47.732)

That's a feeling.

Joel (04:49.369)

Yeah, my whole executive team felt the same. so when we look at that is how do we regain the power? How do we look at the actual root causes of this? And part of that is recognizing the interruptions so that we can minimize them and gain some of our time and focus.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (05:04.938)

Well, think it's great that you're talking. I mean, I love that we're having this conversation because in my training with productivity gladiator, I teach people focus and prioritization and it is a huge part of it. And not only is it all of the stuff that's coming in, but it's also some of the habits that people have ingrained that they might not even realize. Like it's talking about all of that. It is a personal thing. If you're overwhelmed, the only person who can help you with overwhelmed is you.

Realistically, you can ask others for help, but I mean, a lot of this is learning what to do, how to do it, how does it work? So I guess I wanted to ask you, so how much you talk about this, you speak about this professionally, how much of a problem is it, do you see?

Joel (05:50.779)

So I think we've got a massive problem with this. Microsoft studies say that over 60 % of our email are currently unneeded. And we're spending anywhere from two to four hours per day in our email. If I could turn to any person who's a new manager, even a CEO, and say, hey, listen, you're spending 60 % of four hours a day on something that isn't needed, what would that mean to your life if you could gain that back?

And I think part of this problem, if we look at the measurements of it terms of scale, cybercrime in the US in 2023 was a $288 billion problem. And we talk a lot about cybercrime in business. In 2004, unneeded interruptions was measured as a $560 billion problem. And I would estimate that we have more interruptions than we've ever had today. And frankly, most of the training that even I did, I led.

is failing people. I love the Eisenhower matrix. think the Eisenhower matrix is a brilliant thing for those of you who may have run into it, urgent versus important. But it was invented in the 1940s. It was invented before a fax machine existed in a business. It was invented before we had email. It was invented before we were interrupted 1 ,000 times a day.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (07:07.284)

Interesting. You know, I, I totally disagree with you on the Eisenhower matrix only because I think that is, I will say that, well, what I'm trying to say is I think it's an excellent tool to help you be able to figure out where to start. And it's not the end all be all. And I add a lot to it. It's the Eisenhower matrix plus you can't, it's not just the Eisenhower matrix.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (07:36.588)

However, I do think that still to this day, it is a great tool at simplifying because when people get overwhelmed, if there's too much going on, to be able to look at a task and think, is it urgent and is it important and where am I starting? And to be able to kind of divide the mass of all the things coming at you into this, know, into a subdivide those into important and urgent. I think it's super helpful. I don't know, but say more on that. Is it just because it's

It's old and so there's more going on than there was in the 1920s, 30s or say more on that.

Joel (08:11.835)

Yeah, so there's two factors. When Stephen Covey popularized it in 1989, when you read the reading in Seven Habits about the Eisenhower Matrix, he says that they were entering the fourth generation of time management. Time management needs to change over time. And if we think about how much business has changed since 1989, I would think that, smokes, maybe he was onto something back then when he said that. Here's the problem. Imagine that in 1995, when I was a secretary, my boss had 30 things come his direction in a week.

He could put all of those in important interruption boxes. And in fact, I actually had four file folders that I put his emails in because I printed them physically. He didn't have a computer on his desk, right? So his inbox had his emails into urgent important. I sorted them physically. Now as an executive, can you imagine if I received 400 emails a day, including Saturday and Sunday, by the way, right? Because we're on a global team here. So I'm receiving 2 ,800 emails in a week. The truth is,

Joel (09:10.075)

There would be over 1500 emails that I wouldn't even get to read to know what was urgent and important. The volume of incoming tasks is so much bigger. It's like we use this source of urgent and important to serve, to, to service us when we had 30 or 40 tasks in a week, when we have thousands and thousands of interruptions coming in any given week, we need to do something more proactive before we can use the Eisenhower matrix. So the Eisenhower matrix,

I think can be effective, but it's not effective like it was in the past on its own because the torrent of information coming at us. I now have voicemail, SMS, text messages, WhatsApp, and not only do I have it from colleagues, my clients have my cell phone number, my friends can text me in the middle of the day, my friends can, my family can text me in the middle of the day, nevermind my social media inbox. All of these things didn't exist before.

And if we spent, if we really use the Eisenhower matrix as it was written, the only thing we'd be doing is stacking things up into those boxes because we didn't have time for anything else.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (10:18.06)

Yeah. What do you do? How do you unload all that stuff? Well, that's, I love that we're having this conversation because this is like the entire focus of one of my productivity gladiator trainings is on this exact topic and what, what do you do? And so for this episode, let's, let's, let's circle back and focus then specifically on interruption overload. So what do you do with interruption overload? So Joel, what I'd love to do is just kind of

Go back and forth. I've got some ideas that I've shared with people. I'm into hacks and stuff. So I want to share a couple of those that I have on focus and interruption overload. But what about you? You want to kick us off? What's one that you, when you're talking about this, what's one that you give for how, what are the ways to beat interruption overload?

Joel (11:00.613)

So let me go broad and then I'll get specific and I'll get specific after you give one. But broad and the kind of mindset I use is I think about an air traffic controller. So an air traffic controller doesn't wait for the planes to crash to figure out which ones are important, doesn't even wait to see which ones are coming close to each other, is hopefully handling them more proactively further up the chain. So when I think about interruption overload, I think about three volumes of interruptions.

And we often think about the big one, the macro interruption, the loud interruption, the client yelling, the team members saying, hey, I need a minute. Those are things that you have to pay attention to. And we're programmed to pay attention to fire alarms and big interruptions. What we often miss is we miss the mid -level interruptions, things that pop up on our screen that we have to press okay to, or an alarm clock that we have to stop before we can continue our day. That's called a meso interruption, a mid -level interruption.

and a micro -interruption, which we don't even recognize anymore, a blip on your watch, a blip saying you just walked 10 ,000 steps, or, boy, my mother just text messaged me, I don't know what the message is, but I'm sitting there going, is everything okay? And it's sitting there haunting on me at that volume. So when I speak to people about interruption overload, what I find is what we try to solve for is the big ones. But the real secret to mastering focus, the real secret to getting to the Eisenhower Matrix.

Joel (12:25.467)

is coming up with solutions proactively to eliminate the ones that happen the most often, the Pareto principle. What's the thing that interrupts you 200 times a day that you're not paying attention to? to? Are you getting 50 newsletters that you don't read and that's just filling your inbox?

Brian Nelson-Palmer (12:40.302)

True story, gosh. And being able to flag those interruptions and or avoid them for even a period of time, because you can't put them off forever, but being able to quiet those while you can do the important stuff in your life, God, that's such a win. that, know, that one of the things that I wanted to share was it's such a simple thing that people don't use. And that's Every one of our computers and every one of our phones has a focus mode.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (13:09.922)

And so the question I want to ask, I want you to ask yourself right now, is, do you have a system? when do you use the focus mode on your device? Because it's not as much as you would think. Everyone would use it all the time for the important times in their life. But for most people, the only time that it comes on is at night because the iPhone is set to do it automatically or the Android does it automatically during your sleep hours.

That's probably the only time that many people use it. So it's this amazing tool that shuts off the noise and the interruptions. So you can do the important things and whether those important things to your point, Joel, for me, it's about life and life balance. It's not just about work. So I use it at work consistently if I'm trying to be productive and get stuff done. Cause the reality is our job descriptions don't say respond to email.

Our job descriptions are to do important work, to help, to train, to sales, whatever it is, management stuff. And so if you're using focus mode and you're focused there, you're doing good work there. And also, if you don't already do this during date night or when you're at dinner with your family, please put focus mode on because don't be that guy who's checking your phone or that girl who's checking your phone in the middle of this amazing

you know, memory that you'll have forever with this time with your family or your friends or whatever it is. So that's just man. Focus mode. Please use focus mode intentionally more than just when the phone does it on its own.

Joel (14:44.219)

And I'd riff on that too and say when you're talking to your teams or you're talking to the people you're working with, change the automatic queue that says everybody put their phone on silent. Because that's the one that we share with everybody. But actually putting your phone on silent is more likely to create an interruption. Geez, it just beeped in my pocket. What's it saying? I got to know what's it saying. We've all checked our phone and found out that it wasn't even vibrating, but we thought it was. Right? I love that.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (15:08.706)

Yep, absolutely. man. Yep, me too. All right, Joel, what else you got?

Joel (15:16.549)

So one of the hacks that I think, the irony of what I'm, part of my message is, is I actually want you to be more available to be interrupted. Interruptions aren't bad, but I want you to be interrupted by good things, by important things, by things that you value, by your purpose, not by just something else. So one of the things that we talked about earlier was newsletters. So I'm talking about one of the easiest ways to clean up your newsletter list on your inbox to the ones that you don't subscribe to.

If you open up your inbox and you search the word unsubscribe, you will get a list mostly just of all the newsletters you subscribe to. Then you can take the next half hour and just hit unsubscribe, unsubscribe. I like that one. I'm going to keep that one. Now I have time to read it because I'm not getting interrupted by 50 other emails. The important plane is coming to the airport and I got rid of the 49 others that are robbing my time to not read that.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (16:09.346)

Yes, man Joel, I want a yes and you on this one big time because this is one of my, I did an article about the two Outlook for those, for you listening, if you use Microsoft Outlook, Outlook has, Gmail's pretty good about filtering things to promotions and things, but Outlook has been terrible and continues to be pretty terrible for me. And one of the things you can do in Outlook is set a rule.

that is basically for anything that says that has the keyword unsubscribe in it, just like you said, send it to a different folder, have it skip your inbox completely and send it to a folder. call mine the news and FYI folder because if it's got unsubscribed in it, chances are it doesn't really need my attention right now. And it's like you said, it might not be, it might be a newsletter that I really do want to read or a subscription that I was intentional about. So I can either unsubscribe from those or

I can get to them when I'm ready to get to them, not just because it hit my inbox right then. So that's your unsubscribe keyword. Man, that's clutch. Not only unsubscribe, but man, you can set up rules and filters to automatically handle those emails. And I, cut my inbox down by 60 % just with those two rules that I shared because man, that was a game changer in the work environment. So I'll share the link to that, that blog post that I did specifically for you listening, if that's interesting to you, but man,

I love what you're saying about unsubscribe for sure.

Joel (17:35.963)

Awesome. Let me give a variation of that because in my old work that would have been very dangerous. And here's why. My CEO as an example would forward me newsletters all the time. So if I automatically move something into another folder, generally you stop looking at that folder and it stays out of your view. So what I'm a huge proponent of is keeping one big giant mess in your inbox, which I know sounds scary to many people, right? I've got 30 ,000 emails in my inbox.

Joel (18:05.583)

But using smart folders and you can do this in Outlook really effectively. Basically you set up a search criteria and it looks like a file folder, but when you click on it, it gives you a filtered view. So I could give a filtered view of just my unsubscribes, but the next step and the step that I use a lot with people is actually what I call an interruption inbox. So here's how that works. What I recommend that you do is start to think about who in your life is allowed to interrupt you by email.

Joel (18:35.035)

a weird statement. But my girlfriend, Dana, we've been together for 20 years. We have an agreement that she cannot interrupt me by email. She can send me email, but it's never urgent. If it's urgent, she will call me. My parents, if it's urgent, they will call me. So if an email comes in from Dana, it's not urgent. I just know instantly it's not.

What I then do is I then talk to people in my life. I talk to my team. Team, can't interrupt me by email. If you need me, I will make myself available, but you need to call or you need to text message me, whatever it is within there. But there are certain people in your life, maybe it's your boss who says, I'm going to interrupt you any way I want. And that might include email. So then you're like, okay, now I've got to be able to check my inbox. So what I actually do is create an interruption view where I add those people to a search criteria, a lookup folder that says,

Hey, show me emails only from the following five people. It would be my CEO, the president of the company. Maybe it's a key, a couple of key clients. Then when I sit at my desk and I've just got a couple of minutes between meetings, instead of checking my entire inbox of the 50 messages that came in, I click that view. And if there's nothing there, I keep moving. If there's one or two messages, I can do a quick scan without falling into the black hole of the 50 other messages that are there.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (19:50.414)

Yeah. man, Joel, this is fun. Cause I want to yes. And you again on that, because why I want to go right back and say, actually, I disagree with the mass inbox thing. I'm one of those inbox to zero guys. And I hovered around 600 ish messages a day. So I feel you on the tons of email, but I'm at zero on the primary inbox. What I do is leverage the other things. And one of the things you can do with the outlook rule that I was talking about is you can have it set up. So there are exceptions to it.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (20:19.882)

So it will implement except and the people that are in my exception are exactly the people you just listed. If it's my boss or my boss's boss or my boss's boss, any of the three, you know, anybody above there, those come right into my inbox. They don't. So it would never get flagged as an unsubscribe if it's from them. And so you can leverage those exceptions so that it still comes to your inbox. But for me, it's funny, you you take this role. It's we're like accomplishing the same thing.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (20:49.558)

in two totally different ways. Because for me, if it comes into my inbox, that means it went past all of my rules and filters that keep it out if it's not important. so I had like those two filters that I talked about. like totally, we're driving at the same thing and it's just funny how you implement it with the special folder and I implement it with a bunch of basic like defense tactics that keep it out. And if it's in my inbox, that means it.

It is to me and it is something that would require my attention. I'm fascinated by this. can we can nerd out on this some more. I want to share more, but that man that's a ooh fascinating. I like this. Joel, let me.

Joel (21:29.199)

Yeah, and I think for you listening, think, don't go ahead.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (21:32.844)

Well, was just I was gonna go on, go ahead and finish your thought because then I was going go on to the next the next thought I had in line.

Joel (21:38.291)

I was just going to say, think that, yeah, I love that we're jamming back and forth and that we don't always have the same execution, but we have the same approach, which is there is a proactive way to handle it. what we're, think, you I'm not the world, you're not the world, but it's important that as a listener, I would think about what can I do that works for me? Because you don't have to do things the way I do. I feel sorry for you at that point.

But I think it's important that you find what works for you and what is the proactive solution that works for you rather than being reactive. And you talked about inbox zero. One of the things I love to share about inbox zero is the amount of, if you look at Merlin Mann, who came up with that in 2001, you look at his original speech and even what he's done in the last three or four years, he has tried to really show people he never meant to have an empty inbox. He never ever meant inbox zero to mean don't have it or have an empty inbox. He meant.

Don't spend it as a task list. Don't use it as a task list.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (22:38.914)

Yes, and that is definitely true. And when I teach it, it's not inbox zero like all the time. You should be able to get to it once a day. Inbox zero should be within your grasp if it makes sense, but don't waste your time. Like we're talking about, don't waste your time obsessing about email. Email is just the tool, it's the communication channel. It is not the end all be all. So, ooh, interesting. Well, I wanna take this.

approach with the distractions. We were talking about distractions and email. One of the other ones that I have is social media is a big one. It is a big one for a lot of people. And so what two of the things that come with don't get interrupted by social media. Here are my two tactics that I absolutely love and endorse and hope that you'll do. The first one is if you listening, if you haven't already done this, please turn off all notifications.

for your social media. So no red numbers, no pop -ups on your home screen, no, there is no interruption from social media, because nothing that happens on social media should be important enough to interrupt the amazing things that are happening in your life. Now I'm not saying don't check them, but what I want you to do is when you're ready to check them, if you're ready to go on Instagram or if you're ready to go on Snapchat, then go check it out and then see all those cool things that have come in, but don't.

interrupt to check those. Even if you have a split second between meetings, it's not Instagram. It's not that. So first one is turn off the notifications. But the second one is an app that I found that changed my life. And my gosh, I'm going to have to look it up because it's I'm blanking on it. I should have written it down, but there is an app. I'm going to give it to you in the link. So check the notes. This is the first time that there's ever been a reason.

to check the notes for an episode. But in this, there is an app and what this app does is on my phone, I use the Safari browser. I have an iPhone and I use the Safari browser to check my social media. And what this app does is it eliminates the newsfeed from any of the displays of social media, but it still shows you the notifications. So I treat social media like it's...

Brian Nelson-Palmer (24:51.822)

an email account almost where I check the messages. So if there are red numbers, if there are notifications, I check them out. They can hit the button. You can absolutely access all that. And I did a write up about this. Actually, I got the link to the app. So I'll share that with you in the notes. You'll see it because it's the tech hacks that you can use to get around social media distractions. So I'll share that with you too, but that's ultimately the bottom line is because I don't have a newsfeed.

I only go on there and check the notifications and any, you know, red numbers or whatever. I check those that come in and then at the end there's nothing else to look at. So I close it without ever getting sucked in. And man, that has saved so many hours. So I just, I'm a huge fan of it just because it's, it saved me from that black hole that social media can be sometimes.

Joel (25:42.137)

Yeah, I lived in an environment where social media, had to check and I had to check it for two reasons. The first one was I ran a social media team. So that was number one. But the second one that was maybe a bit more surprising is that in certain parts of the world where cell phones cost still to use by minute and are expensive, families will share a cell phone and they will use different access to Facebook and send messages over wifi for free. actual official

business ends up sending messages by Facebook. And one of the things that I would ask people to think when they go onto social media is, what are you getting from this? And if you're getting angry a lot or you're getting upset a lot, then consider what you're getting from that. And maybe you want to take Facebook off your phone, but like I did, I left messenger on so I could still get messages that were important, but it didn't mean I needed to have access to the entire app. In the case of something like Twitter, which

Joel (26:41.731)

I'm not on anymore, but was on I had to check that inbox and again I would go on the main page and fall into it We moved on to Hootsuite so that we could just see the inbox from those things So even though my job required me to go on to social I could still protect my amygdala my adrenaline from that that rage baiting for lack

Brian Nelson-Palmer (27:02.804)

Absolutely. That's a man. What you're saying is so true with the Hootsuite or Buffer or the they let you schedule and monitor all of them at once. That's also a great way of social media is your job. You certainly want to check notifications because that's something you're monitoring and you certainly want to check and you want to be posting. But you're able if you use Hootsuite and like the the newsfeed eliminator like I talk about, then.

that's a way for you to not get sucked in too. So I love that what you're talking about is so true in that it's controlling your interaction with social media because if you leave the default setting when you first get on and use social media, they want to interrupt you all the time. And it really is up to you as long as you get in there when you want to get in there. That's the power. And whether that's two times a day or four times a day or one time a day, I love that you have power over that. So.

That's one.

Joel (28:01.871)

Yeah, my I no longer have a dog I had a dog and loved my dog my dog has an Instagram account still has an Instagram account and that Instagram account for my dog is a it's the junk food it is the chips of the internet for me and So one of the things that I do is if I do need to check Instagram for some reason during the day I'm not checking that account

Because when I want to be able to focus, I want to make sure that my feed is curated to me. There's no reason why I can't have a daytime account and a rest of the time account. And I don't check my rest of the time account during the daytime.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (28:37.41)

Gosh, yep. I love all these different approaches and I love that the ultimate goal is yes, get, don't get distracted by social media unless you want to be and it's up to you and you and it's not a never ending thing. Be able to climb out of it if you get sucked into it as well. You know, I want to, I'm curious your thoughts on this. I believe that you should absolutely work from a to -do list. And the reason I believe that I used to think

that you could use your email as a to -do list or like you mentioned, I mean, there's been different tactics, but over time as things have evolved and there's more and more communication channels, I believe now more than ever that a to -do list is a great ticket to not get interrupted. And the reason is because if you're in a to -do list and then you're focused on the task that you're doing on the to -do list, it allows you to focus on that task and complete that task and then move on to the next task.

and actually move forward with the important things that are on your to -do list. And so I'm curious your thoughts on that because for me, that's been a power move, a huge power move to, work from a to -do list. And if things come in, you know, there's so many different channels, right? Like I get emails with tasks, I get teams and Slack messages with tasks, I get text messages from tasks. And I mean, this is both personal and professional too, right? My wife has things that, Brian, can you,

check this for me or can you, we need to change the reservation, something on this or, and so anything that anytime that it comes in, I have a to -do list for personal and a to -do list for work. And when it goes on there, it absolutely gets done with 100 % accountability and certainty. I will get it done. And I'll also get it done in the appropriate order because I'm able to work it in the right order. So for me, it's been a power move. What do you think about that?

Joel (30:31.909)

So I'm going to do a yes, I am. I am a big believer in a to -do list with a caveat. When we were in our busiest of days, my to -do list was six pages long.

Joel (30:46.427)

double -sided, 12 pages of 40 items on it, 480 things that I had to get to at some point. And I tried all sorts of things, highlight the important thing, recreate another mini list with an important thing. What I would say is this, I now live with a paper day timer that limits me to about 25 thing in a week. things in a week. That's what I can get done in addition to other things. It's about 25 things. So my to -do list stays at 25. Anything that is not getting done this week.

does not go on my to -do list. It goes in my calendar in a time block. In some cases, this may sound ridiculous, but again, when I had six pages double -sided of to -do lists, I would write back to somebody and say, hey, listen, I understand what you're looking for. I can help you with that. I want to help you with that, but it's not going to be till next quarter. And I would put it in my calendar for next quarter. I would have an hour on my calendar. I didn't have to look at that again, think about that. The worst thing they can do is come back and say, no, I need it sooner. Okay, well then I've got to...

Maybe it goes on my paper list or I move it. But keep your to -do about the things that you need to do and the things that you can put onto your calendar that can be done later. Put it there so you don't have to think about it and it will come up when you need to.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (31:58.318)

You know, it's interesting as you put it on your calendar. And for me, I have my to do list separated and there are three to do lists. There's the to do, which is what I can do right now. There's the waiting follow up list, which are things that I need to do, but I can't actually do them right now. Perfect example of that would be they give you a credit and they say, all right, this credit should appear on your account in seven to 10 business days. Let us know if it doesn't. Well, now it's on me.

to do that in seven to 10 days. How do I remember to do that? And so I have a waiting follow -up list that has deadlines for what are the things. And so seven to 10 days later, that will roll right back into my to -do list. So I've got to -do now, I've got waiting follow -up, and then I've got the someday maybe list. And someday maybe means I might get to it. I would like to get to it, maybe someday. But like you said, it's not important. There are not consequences if I don't do it.

And so I'm focusing on what I can do right now. And so it's interesting that you use, sounds like you use the calendar for that. And for me, it's still the to -do list, just the three different lists. And it depends on where it goes.

Joel (33:10.211)

So I have a version of your someday maybe list and what I do with that is I have a standing meeting in my calendar at the last week of every quarter and and I have one hour just me and I look at that someday maybe list and I say in the next 90 days which of the someday maybes am I gonna put on my calendar to attack and Whatever I don't stays on the someday maybe out of sight out of mind unless I need to add something else there

Joel (33:37.435)

because what was happening to me was psychologically, I had a list of 400 things I had to do. I was getting in another 300 emails, and then there was this someday maybe list that was gonna be a never if I didn't ever look at it again, and I just kept adding things and feeling bad about it.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (33:52.694)

Yep. God, so true. Yeah. Checking the someday maybe list is something you do have to do regularly at some interval that's right for you. For me, I check it once a week just to see is anything on there worth pulling off? know, oftentimes nothing moves because someday maybe continues to be someday maybe, but sometimes it comes back around. So it's just, I love that we kind of, we, it's the same approach with it's the same end goal and end result.

with two very different executions, which that's interesting. You know, I've got a.

Joel (34:23.759)

Yeah, absolutely. And my teams to that point, my teams all had their own systems. Sometimes they used mine, sometimes they used pieces of it. It's what works for me. I mean, you don't wear my jeans. You probably don't manage your time the same way as I do.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (34:39.264)

Exactly. I look at them all like tools, right? All of these are tools and like productivity gladiator. I teach people an awesome set of tools and skills and I know they work. They've been battle tested by me and hundreds of other people and I know that they work. However, just like you said, they are not the only one. So I love to describe productivity gladiator as a basic tool set and you need to know how to use this basic tool set. However,

If I teach you how to use a hammer and then for whatever your particular tool, particular task is, you find out that a big rubber mallet is gonna be better, then go get your big rubber mallet. But having a hammer and knowing how to use a hammer for the situations where a hammer is helpful is one of those superpowers that I feel like in school and in college or in high school or for me, they never taught.

the basic set of tools. I think the only thing I ever got was the planner in elementary school. They give you a little planner with like the, you you got a calendar and maybe, you know, a to -do list that's the place for to -do list. That's only like seven lines long. And then you're supposed to track everything. And then they never really teach you anything beyond that little planner. And so this is what happens when you have to scale it up and you have, you know, multiple businesses that you're running and a personal life and all the stuff like

What is it like you said? What does it look like when your to -do list is 120 things long, 20 things long? Well, I got a tool for that. It's called the common chaos process. And like we, yes, here's how it works, but you should know how to use it. That doesn't mean it's always. So I love that point that like, yes, there's different ways to do this. As long as you have a tool and you can describe the tool and you know how the tool works and it works for you. Awesome. I support.

Joel (36:31.739)

And the resilience to change that tool because something I've seen unique and I think as a manager and as somebody who might be new to people management, what you might be seeing is your manager struggling with time management. And we're seeing that today. What you might not have visibility to is that there are people who are at the level, that senior level management who for the first time in 25 years are struggling with time management.

And I think we just think they were always struggling with that. And I think the resilience and capability to adapt to new tools is so essential. And you have none of that built in if you don't know a group of tools.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (37:10.774)

Right. Adapting to new tools is really helpful if you knew how to use the old tool. that's, you gotta know how to use the hammer before the rubber mallet makes way more sense to you, right? Totally. Yes. Like all these softwares, every one of these softwares that comes out ultimately only makes sense if you knew how to use the other one that it was designed to be better than. You know, like that, then it makes way more sense. man.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (37:38.594)

You know, I've got a I've got a nerd one for you, Joel, that I'm curious if you've ever looked into one of my superpowers with focus when it's really time to focus like when I am behind the eight ball, something's coming down and either I got to get this stuff done or I'm staying late tonight because it can't wait anymore. It's got to be now. My superpower is I use focus music. There's actually I don't know if you heard about this, but there's a special kind of music and I discovered it some years ago.

Joel (37:41.294)

Okay.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (38:07.222)

And man, when it's time to crank it out, I hit the focus mode on my computer so that there's no interruptions. And then I have the playlist and I've got a blog post that does a write up about this to give you and I'll, it also has the reason I'm sharing it is because it will also give you links to free versions of this playlist. So you can check it out yourself if you've never actually tried focus music, but the methodology behind it is just that if you, if the mute, you have a tendency to get distracted.

roughly every two to four minutes maybe. So if you're doing the same thing and you're trying to focus, you constantly get distracted. Like you've noticed it because you probably noticed that you'll check your phone or you'll work for a little bit. And then after a few minutes, you'll want to look around or see what's going on or something will happen. And so one of the, what focus music does is at that appropriate interval of time where you would start to get distracted, the music changes. And so

That little change allows you to just continuously that satisfies your brain's desire for a little something different because the music changed. It's exactly the same, but then it changes. So anyway, that's one of my superpowers is focused music, man. Like I, I'll tell my wife, she even knows about this. I'm like, babe, I'm in a focused music mode right now. Like I, gotta, I'm going to zone in and that I can, found that I can work for an hour, two hours only getting up.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (39:31.714)

to go to the bathroom and then get right back in and like superpower. So if you ever mess with that, or have you heard about this?

Joel (39:37.657)

Yeah, so focus flow music is what I use a lot around that type of thing. And I think there's two things that are interesting from my perspective. One is when I first started using it, that's what happened. But eventually I started using it and I just, you know, I wasn't really thinking about it. But once in a while that music would accidentally come on my playlist, like in the rest of my life. And I would actually get kind of like that Pavlov's dog. I'd want to sit down and work.

Joel (40:03.235)

And so that's how powerful that is, right? It's like, holy smokes, I'm ready to focus. Like, it's so funny how it sneaks into your life. That's how geeky I am. But the second thing I would add to it is this, is you can't focus if you don't sleep. And I, for a long time, would be like sitting there with this massive to -do list, weighing on my shoulders and my head and my mind racing. So I actually go to sleep most nights. It's sleep music, but it's a riff on that focus.

Joel (40:32.172)

It's not the same music or I'd want to work, but it will guide me into sleep That will help me keep my brain empty. So I'm not letting my work Ruin my night's sleep because that's not worth it

Brian Nelson-Palmer (40:45.292)

Ooh, Joel, I want you to, I'm going to send me the link to that so I can share it with you listening so you can check that out too, because I know sleep is a, is a topic that a lot of people face too. And I've, my gosh, I nerd out on some sleep stuff too. So I'm, I'm interested in it selfishly. Like I'm going to plug that in tonight and see how that goes.

Joel (41:02.509)

I do some guided meditation listening to it to sleep. And then some of the other stuff is just music I really like that doesn't have music in it. Or sorry, it doesn't have words in it. So it's post -rock or it's these types of genres that appeal to me that they tickle my brain, but they don't activate my brain.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (41:20.204)

Yeah, nice. Well, we've talked about this for a little bit, and I know you and I could probably keep going, but I want to shift gears and ask you. So what is it about this? mean, you hinted at it in the beginning, I think. But talk about what does this mean for you personally? Why? Why are you so passionate about this?

Joel (41:38.587)

I'm angry. I'm really angry. We are wasting anywhere from 30 to 60 % of people's lives on email and bad meetings alone. And not important email, but 60 % of the email we receive, we don't need to receive. And if we're spending three hours a day in email, you're losing 60 % of that three hours, an hour and a half that you will never get back your life. That's one day a week and that's 52 days in a year. We are wasting each other's lives.

and that time could be used to be transformative at work, to spend and invest in the people that we love and fuel us and fill us with passion and meaning. And we could change the world just by doing a little less with zero sacrifice. And companies talk about, want my team to be engaged and I want to excite them. And we're serious about productivity, yet we are willing to waste.

30 or 40 % of payroll, which is the largest cost component in most organizations. And we say that we're serious about this. We're not serious about productivity today. We're serious about being busy.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (42:48.556)

Man, you know, Joel, I'm, I'm, I'm laughing internally only because like I'm speaking at the upcoming shurm HR Florida conference and the session is on, the title of my session is this meeting could have been an email and it's all about the, do you do meetings better? What's the alternative to a meeting? How do we not have a meeting for exactly the same purpose? And what I love about that is the idea for that session.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (43:17.24)

came from a client that I was working with who said, I allow people to get electives to go along with their productivity gladiator training and the business can ask for some kind of custom one or so what's a topic that's important to you. Let's get some experts in here or let's do this. And the client asked, Brian, we do a lot of meetings. Can you do a session on meetings and how do we do this better? How do we do that? And so I have.

I developed that session and then tried it out and it's gone really well. And so I just love that you, I am absolutely with you on the angry thing because man, there is nothing more frustrating than looking at your work calendar for the day and knowing that you've got your list of all the things you need to do and you look at your day and it's back to back to back, nothing but meetings. And you can probably look at those meetings and tell.

that one's not really necessary. I'm not gonna contribute to that one much at all. Why am I in that one? And that can just be really frustrating or really feel really defeated when that, when you look at that and see, gosh, I have all this to do that they're counting on me to do. And I gotta sit in these meetings at the same time. Man.

Joel (44:28.891)

So I can give one hack for that that can transform those. And just to kind of put a nail in the coffin on interrupting people's times, a quick stat. SME Horizon did a study and revealed that 26 % of people, one in four, are thinking about leaving their current job because of the amount of emails and instant messages they get.

Joel (44:52.953)

That's mind blowing. And again, we say we want to engage our team members. One out of four are thinking of quitting because we're messaging them too much useless information that's costing us time and money. It's bonkers. My hack for meetings is the following.

Joel (45:09.239)

If you change meetings, we always have the same tips. You've got to have an agenda. You've got to communicate in advance. All those things are good, but meetings aren't getting better. So what gives, right? Like we can keep saying the same message, just not changing. What I would recommend you do to change a meeting is have an outcome -based meeting as opposed to an agenda -based meeting. What that means is at the very start of the meeting, have a roundtable discussion on what decision are we here to make today?

Joel (45:36.443)

If you come up with what decision it is, then you can ask, does everybody still need to be here? No, you don't need to be here, you're not part of this, you can leave. Or are we missing anybody? Because how many times do we get an hour into a meeting and then find out we didn't have the right people and have to repeat the whole thing? So if we focus on why are we here, start with the why, not the what. And if we can determine a why, then that meeting has a focus and an outcome.

that we can then determine if we've got the right resources.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (46:08.182)

I love that you said a purpose based meeting outcome based outcome based meeting as opposed to an agenda based meeting. I love that.

Joel (46:11.033)

Yeah, purpose -based or outcome -based?

Joel (46:16.731)

Yeah, and I even drive my own calendar that way. When I'm working for myself for an hour, I have an hour to focus on something. Don't focus on I have an hour to prospect. What's the outcome you're trying to focus? I want to talk to two people in the next hour. If I do that in 10 minutes, I can move to my next task. I don't have to spend an hour. Or I feel really good that I succeeded in first 10 minutes and I make four more contacts and I feel really successful versus, I just prospected for an

Brian Nelson-Palmer (46:43.903)

So true. I love that outcome based. That's powerful. Well on this topic, are there any other resources that you recommend on this topic?

Joel (46:52.613)

So I want to give one more tip that especially applies to managers that I think is so important. Because I think interruptions really only come from three categories. They come from people, process, and technology. And when you're a people manager, you have control over some of that. So Here's how I changed the cadence of my team to eliminate hundreds of interruptions a week for myself. plus created availability to be more available when people needed to interrupt me. What we did was we

my team, this worked, My team of managers would meet every morning at 8:30 .30. We started at eight, so this wasn't a new change of hours or anything like that. But every morning at 8:30 we had a huddle. And all we did in that huddle was just say, does anybody need anybody? If the answer was no, we just wished everybody a good day and we were off the phone in sometimes a minute. Sometimes they did need yes. And that wasn't the important part. The important part was for the rest of the day, as you work through your day,

If something came up and you needed to interrupt somebody, you could ask yourself a question. Can this wait till 8:30 tomorrow morning?

If it can wait till 8:30 tomorrow morning, then you can bring it to that meeting. You know people are going to be there. So we have a scheduled half hour of interruptions. And then what we would do on top of that is I would schedule one -to -ones with my managers every Thursday. And on that one -to -one in my calendar, I would have two meeting requests at the same time. One was the recurring meeting with them. The other one was the list of things that I wanted to talk to them about. So when something came to my head and I'm like, hey, I need to talk to Mary about this.

I would add it to the meeting beside Mary. So when we would start the meeting with Mary, would say, Mary, I've got four things to cover today. Mary would say, Joel, I've got 25. We would easily cover 40 things in half an hour to go through for the week that we're able to wait till Thursday. And by doing that process, I would easily save 40 or 50 interruptions from each team member every week by scheduling time to deal with the things that pop up. The irony is I had a lot more time in the week if they needed me for something important.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (48:55.672)

Man, that's a powerful move, especially with the access to the person, right? That's often the biggest thing. People are so busy. When do you find time on their calendar? That is a power move to know that you're gonna see them and you're gonna be able to, something that you, whatever it is you need, if it's a quick thing or that, that's cool.

Joel (49:17.595)

So imagine I sit with six managers in an afternoon and we go through 40 things each and they all start with what's urgent and important to them. So now we can use the Eisenhower matrix there instead of trying to use the Eisenhower matrix reactively to the 300 emails that would have come from them.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (49:34.19)

true story. Well, Joel, here's what I love. I love that you have taken this lifetime of experience and turned it into a passion for this focus and this ability, the interruption overload and attacking interruption overload. Like, please harness that enthusiasm and that emotion you got for it and keep keep doing this because there is absolutely a need for it and

I will be absolutely shocked if you and I aren't sharing a stage at some point in the future, talking at conferences about this, because it seems like you and I run in the same circle. So you're preaching to the choir with me, but I love that we got to share that with you listening to. So thanks for coming on the show, Joel.

Joel (50:19.067)

Thank you for having me. I love what you're doing and you know as a takeaway one of the things that happens often when I speak is somebody will come up to me afterwards and start talking to me about what we've shared and the last for a hug and I find That is the sign that what you're doing what I'm doing We're on the right track to truly making a difference in the world and if you're listening to this you are too just by listening and trying to try to a difference in your world and

It takes a lot of guts and it takes a lot of effort and it's tiring, but there's hope and we're going to do this. We're going to make this easier and better by doing less.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (50:55.86)

Absolutely. You know, remind this reminds me of and it's a story worth telling real quick. The quick anecdote is there's a story about a little kid and some fish that had walked, washed up or washing up ashore. And the kid is walking along and he's throwing the fish back into the ocean because they got washed up. And but it's a whole beach. There's so many of them. And so this older gentleman, this grandpa comes in and he's like,

You know, kid, why are you going to? Why are you messing with that? You're not going to help those fish. And the kid like kind of looks down at his shoes and he reaches down and he picks up another fish and throws it back and he looks at the grant and he looks at the grandpa and he says, but I helped that one. And like that is exactly what we're talking about, Joel. Yes, it's that one fish. It's not all the other ones. It's the one that we're helping like heck. Yeah. So give those hugs.

And I love that. That is a that is a very cool thing. Now, if people want to keep in touch with you, what's the best way for them to keep in touch with you?

Joel (51:57.317)

I love it.

Joel (52:01.209)

Reach out to me on LinkedIn. I want human connections. I want to connect to people and share messages together and share passion. And you can find me there. I'm the only Joel McCharles in the world.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (52:12.854)

You got it. Joel Mack Charles. I'll hook you up with that link to in the episode notes. So hit that button and connect with him. I know he would love that. And for you tuning in, do you have a friend or colleague who has been struggling with interruption overload? Have you talked about this with a colleague or somebody? Because would you what I would love my little invitation for you is would you share the link to this episode specifically with them if

the message that comes from, if you send them a text message or if you send them an email with a link to this episode and you say, thought of you when I was listening to this and have that back and forth with them, whether it's that the person you worked with five years ago or whoever it was that you were talking with this about, if this reminds you of somebody and you share it with them, that little interaction I find is very cool. And so I do this.

where I share episodes or books or things like that. Whenever I'm thinking about somebody I do. And it's an amazing way to keep in touch with people that's not just because you need something. It's fun to be able to offer. So if this episode says that, know Joel and I would love, we talked about the fish and giving hugs after presentations. that's a person we can help too, we certainly appreciate you sharing this with them. And also by the way, if you haven't, thanks for liking and subscribing to the show.

And Willie really with me, I do a lot with my email list. So if you want in on that fun, that's a great way to do it. I hope you'll join the email list. The subscribe link is down there for you in the notes. And so if, if I or Joel can help you or your team with these in predict incredibly practical tips to leveling up your productivity, reach out because I love sharing productivity gladiator with you because together we're going to change your life. That's a wrap.