Shadowing Practice: Life is Short: Here’s How to Make Time for Everything - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

One of my greatest fears when I was a child was

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One of my greatest fears when I was a child was

that I would die before I had the chance to do everything that I wanted in this lifetime.

And as an adult, I often found myself drowning in endless to-do lists and constantly feeling like I was falling behind.

There's this constant pressure to do it all,

learn more skills, take every opportunity,

spend quality time with everyone, experience everything.

But the more productive you get,

the more tasks seem to just flood in.

You're ticking things off the list,

but somehow you're still behind because the list just gets longer and we're constantly feeling like we're running out of time.

That feeling of time anxiety will never go away until we redefine what it means to do it all.

If you're new here my name's Izzy,

I'm a mum, tech founder and Cambridge Train Doctor

and on this channel we help you to create a life that you love.

This video is split into two key sections which I have designed specifically to work with each other.

The first part of the video is going to be where

I dive into the philosophy of how to actually do it all

and I'll talk about the three levers that we can pull in order to do this And in the second part,

we will walk through tried

and tested highly effective techniques to help you spend your time intentionally and make time for your new all.

So without further ado, let's dive in.

So first things first, let's talk about what we're even working with here.

What is the problem of time management at its core?

The average human will live to around 80 years old,

and that translates to approximately 4,000 weeks in the average human lifetime.

This is an idea popularized by Oliver Berkman's book, 4,000 Weeks.

And let's run through what this actually means.

If you read two books a month,

you'll read about 1,000 books in your lifetime.

Amazon has over 30 million books on it,

so you will read 0.003% of all the books on Amazon.

Learning something deeply, truly mastering a skill,

takes years of dedicated practice, thousands of hours.

And so then in your lifetime,

you might have the chance to deeply master maybe 5 to 10 things if you're dedicated.

And so even if you're incredibly efficient,

incredibly disciplined, incredibly optimised, we will all miss out on the vast majority of films,

books, music, places, skills, experiences,

opportunities, relationships, friendships, lifestyles, which we could have possibly had in this lifetime.

And for most of us,

our dreams are bigger than our years can hold.

One of my favourite books is called The Midnight Library.

Only minimal spoilers, it follows the story of a woman named Nora,

who in her 30s realises that she's full of regrets,

she hasn't achieved the potential or the success that she wishes she had,

and she feels like she has been a failure,

she decides to end her life.

And as she is dying,

she is taken to a place somewhat in limbo called the Midnight Library,

which is this infinite library full of all of the books with all of the potential possibilities of lives

that she could have been living if she had made different choices.

And I love this book because the question

that it fundamentally explores is how can we make decisions in a world of infinite possibilities?

Because every choice we make to do something is simultaneously a choice to not do infinite other things.

When you spend a year learning to play piano,

you're not spending that year learning Spanish or building a business

or writing a novel or doing infinite other things that you could potentially be doing.

And this is the beautiful bittersweetness of the human condition

and is exactly where my fear stemmed from when I was a girl.

Because we love life, we love doing things,

we're curious and ambitious and we want to experience it all,

but we can't and we never could.

Our time is finite, our life is finite and we cannot do everything and that's exactly what makes our choices matter.

And so now let's talk about the three levers in doing it all.

So the first option is that you can create more time.

This would work if you're either omnipotent or you have access to the elixir of life,

which is tricky and I'm kind of semi-joking but admittedly longevity

and health span stuff does really help to add a couple of years

or maybe even decades sometimes to your healthy lifespan where you can actually do things.

The second thing is you can become more efficient at doing things

so you do things faster in the same amount of time and this is time efficiency techniques.

And thirdly you can change your definition of all

and this is the philosophical intention shift which we'll be focusing this video around.

And so in this video,

we will kind of rule out the increasing our time,

because I'll leave that to the longevity experts.

But let's really break down the second two here,

the efficiency and also the intention,

because these are the two that we really have the most influence over.

But before we dive into the practical application,

let's talk a little bit more about efficiency and the efficiency trap.

Because in his book, 4,000 Weeks,

Oliver Berkman touches on how actually hustle culture is telling us the idea that if you just had the right system,

the right techniques, the right optimization,

we can fit it all in and we can have it all and we just need to be more efficient.

This is actually a trap.

And so this is the efficiency trap.

You do more tasks, which creates space,

but then with that space,

you actually choose to put more tasks in and more tasks flood in to fill that space on your to-do list.

Then again, you feel busy or you feel behind,

and then you feel like you need to do more tasks by increasing your efficiency.

And essentially what this loop is doing is it is increasing efficiency

and also increasing the tasks but creating this loop where you're constantly feeling busy or behind.

And this will continue to go on until we learn to control adding more tasks.

And this is where intention comes in.

This section is where we actively decide our definition of doing it all

and making it achievable on a normal week rather than always feeling like we're falling behind

and like the to-do list is never ending.

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Here are the most powerful tools I found to really cut to the core of what our intention is.

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The first is a journaling or reflection question.

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When I'm on my deathbed at age 80,

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looking back on my life,

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What do I want to have spent my time on?

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In her book, the top five regrets of the dying,

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Bronnie Ware, an Australian palliative care nurse,

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recorded the most common regrets of people in their final weeks of life.

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The top regrets that she wrote about were,

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I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself and not the life others expected of me.

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I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

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I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

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I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends and I wish that I had let myself be happier.

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I think another one will be very relevant for our generation.

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I wish I hadn't spent so much time on my phone.

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I wish I had been more present in my life and actually lived my life.

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And I actually made a whole video around infinite scrolling and brain rot and hobbies being a potential solution to this.

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And I'll leave a link to that somewhere over here if you're interested to check it out.

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And for me, when I think about this deathbed question,

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the things that feel important are things like family,

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relationships, enjoyable experiences and memories,

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contribution to have a positive impact on the world and continually growing and learning.

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Things like material items, money,

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status, all seem to pale in comparison when I imagine what my wishes on that bed would be.

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And next is a simple filter that I like to think of that's related to this,

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which is to set non-negotiables for health,

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relationships and joy before you fill the rest of your calendar.

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And

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so what I do is I literally block out time for

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all of these things in my calendar to protect it

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and make sure that it's not just completely swept away by all of the other stuff

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that wants to go on the calendar.

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The next intention setting tool actually comes from a story about an interaction between Warren Buffett

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and one of his pilots, Mike Flint.

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Buffett asked his pilot to write down his top 25 goals ranked in order of importance.

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And once he'd done that,

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Buffett told him to cross out everything except for the top five most important goals.

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And with these two lists of the top five goals and the remaining 20,

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Flint said that maybe he would work on the bottom 20 goals intermittently,

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mostly focusing on the top five goals and fitting in these 20 around the top five priorities.

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But Buffett responded, absolutely not.

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You've got it completely wrong because everything

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that didn't make it into the top five just became your avoid at all costs list.

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These things get no attention from you until you've succeeded at your top five.

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The key insight here is that those remaining 20 items aren't just lower priorities that get done here and there.

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They're actually dangerous distractions because they're attractive enough and tempting enough to drag you away from your true priorities,

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but not important enough to actually deserve your focus.

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There's a quote from Steve Jobs that I love.

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People think focus means saying yes to the thing that you've got to focus on,

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but that's not what it means at all.

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It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas

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that there are and so by whittling down this list you do two things.

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You firstly increase your focus on those top five making it way more likely

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that you're actually going to succeed at any of those and secondly you also protect your peace and your calendar.

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You don't continually try to squeeze in more from the other 20

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which would just end up burning you out and exhausting you

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and leading to a life where ultimately you are in that efficiency trap.

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This leads on to the next tool which I love

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and I do regularly every single month which is the 168 hours life audit.

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Doing the audit I firstly track my time for a week and I figure out how am I currently spending my time.

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I ran an experiment where I set a repeated timer

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that would go off every 15 minutes throughout the whole day

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and then I would write down what I had spent the last 15 minutes on

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and then I like to use this google sheet template to

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figure out how do I actually want to spend my time and then look at what is the gap between the two.

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Also I often get asked for copies of this template so I've actually made it available completely for free.

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You can click the link down below and get your own copy of the 168 hours template.

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Whenever I do this exercise,

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it reveals where I'm not aligning my time investment with my intentions.

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For example, I realized I was spending several hours a week on a random admin tasks

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or meetings that didn't actually really move the needle meaningfully on anything that I actually cared about.

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And at the same time,

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I was also wishing that I could spend more time with my daughter.

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And so then I made the simple switch of protecting that time with her and cutting the admin or meetings wherever possible.

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One way I save hours of my time is by using Shortform,

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who are kindly sponsoring in today's video.

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Whether I'm looking for more books on self-development or business,

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psychology, or like new parenting recommendations,

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I always end up with a massive reading list and no idea which ones are really,

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really worth my time.

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That's where I love to use Shortform.

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They have comprehensive book guides,

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which contain one-page super-powered summaries,

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which are created by their team of writers and editors,

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which means I can get the gist of a book and the key points in just 10 minutes.

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They also have chapter by chapter breakdowns.

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And my favorite part is actually the smart insights where they give commentary

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and analysis that goes beyond just the scope of the content of the book itself

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and draws on literature around that same topic.

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So now whenever I'm curious about a book,

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I can actually dip into it on short form

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and then also decide if I want to invest in reading the full version beyond that.

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And for books that I've already read,

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I can actually use short form to refresh my memory on the key points.

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For example, when I'm making a new video and I remember,

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oh, there was this concept from a book that I read months ago,

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I can just pull it up instantly on short form

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and then integrate it into the video straight away without having to flick through hundreds

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and hundreds of pages in the original book.

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So if you want to check out Shortform,

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I've put a link in my description down below where you'll get a free trial and $50 off the annual plan.

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Now let's get back into the tips.

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Now it's crunch time, let's talk about efficiency.

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This is where everything comes together because now you've decided what's worth doing.

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The following tips and strategies are going to be so much more effective and actually get you towards your dream life.

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The first tip is to brain dump into an Eisenhower matrix to avoid the urgency trap.

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The Eisenhower matrix is essentially dividing your tasks into four categories.

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The quadrants are essentially defining things as either urgent or not urgent and important or not important.

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And so then in this quadrant over here where things are urgent and important,

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these things are the things that you do.

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For things that are important but not urgent,

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these are things that you schedule.

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And this is actually the most important quadrant because it's the one that often gets ignored.

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Next, moving down to things that are not urgent and not important,

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these are the things that we delete.

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And finally, for things that are urgent but not important,

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we ideally look for a way to either automate or delegate.

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And by brain dumping essentially all the to-dos,

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all the things that we want to do according to our intentions and what's important to us into one of these boxes,

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we can decide whether, okay,

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is this something that I need to do now?

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Is it something that I need to protect time for?

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Or is it something that I just straight up delete or I delegate or automate?

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And this brings us onto the next tip,

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which is to delete, automate,

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and delegate as much as possible.

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One of the best things

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that you can do to leverage your own time is to move things from things

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that you do to things that are either deleted, automated, or delegated.

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An example here might, let's say, be paying your bills.

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Can you automate those so that you don't have to spend a couple of minutes

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or maybe half an hour every single week dealing with that?

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Or maybe something like doing your gardening where you don't particularly enjoy it and it takes a lot of time.

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You can maybe actually hire a gardener to come in once a month

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and tidy up your garden to make it nice to use.

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Or sometimes things can be outright deleted.

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So for example, one of the things I noticed was

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that one of our meetings was actually just kind of pointless

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because we could do everything async or consolidate it into another meeting.

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So we just deleted that and saved everybody time.

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The next tip is doing a weekly review.

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What I love to do is a Monday morning alignment where I look at my top priorities and goals.

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I turn those into a to-do list and then I plan,

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okay, when I'm doing all of these things,

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what needs to happen for this to actually get done.

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I also like to do a Friday afternoon wrap up where

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I essentially see how everything's gone in terms of work in the last week.

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You can also do this on Sunday if you prefer and just close all those loops,

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tick off all the things,

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ready for the next Monday morning.

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The next tip is time blocking.

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Blocking everything on the calendar.

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I literally live my life by my calendar,

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and even things like, oh,

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if I'm going to the gym,

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or if I am doing my admin,

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or like home ops, or playing with my baby,

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I block that out on my calendar,

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so it's protected, and all of these things that are priorities in my life,

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let's say spending time with my baby,

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is there on the calendar,

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and I will not erase it or override it with something else.

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The next tip is time salvage,

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which is making the most of the time that you are already spending.

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For example, maybe you have a commute.

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For me, when I was working as a doctor and taking the London Underground to work every single day,

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I used to do my Chinese Anki flashcards and Chinese podcast listening on the tube as I was going into work.

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And that would give me about one and a half to two hours of Chinese input and listening every single day.

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This would also be simple multitasking.

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For example, during university, I started the habit of whenever I was folding my clothes or tidying my room,

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I would also just put on an audio book at the same time to get

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that input and get more enjoyable content into my life while I'm doing this somewhat mindless activity with my hands.

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And one of the most important efficiency upgrades that you can make is into your own wellbeing.

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Rest, sleep, and health are a multiplier on literally everything else that you do.

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And I know that people hop on and on about this,

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so I want to share a study with you to really hammer this home as to how important this point is.

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Researchers Van Dongen and team had people sleep for either four hours,

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six hours, or eight hours every single night for 14 days straight.

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They also had one additional test group who had absolutely no sleep for three nights in a row.

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They then tested their cognitive performance every two hours.

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And this is what they found.

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By day 14, the group

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that had four hours of sleep a night were found to

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have the same level of impairment as those who had stayed up for 48 hours

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or pulled basically two all-nighters in a row.

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And the group

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that had six hours of sleep a night had the same

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level of impairment in cognitive function as those who had literally stayed awake for 24 hours.

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And a lot of us often actually just get six hours of sleep a night

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and we think this is fine and normal,

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but actually compared to how you would be if you had your full eight hours of sleep a night,

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you are functioning as if you have basically pulled an all-nighter and not slept for 24 hours,

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with reductions in alertness and working memory, essentially reducing your efficiency.

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And so now we've mapped out a path to actually doing it all

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and tips that you can use to best manage your intentions and your time.

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The most important part of watching a video like this is to actually take action.

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So just take one minute after this video to write down two action points from this video.

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Maybe write down what your everything or your all actually means to you

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and decide on that intention and choose a time management tip that you might like to try out this week.

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Or maybe grab the completely free 168 hour template that I'll leave down below in the description.

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If you liked this video,

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I think you'll enjoy this one over here where I walk

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you through a systems-based approach to realistically achieve all of your goals this year.

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And feel free to hit subscribe for more self-development videos every single week to create a life that you love.

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As always, thank you so much for watching.

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Take care of yourselves and remember that the journey is the destination.

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I'll see you in the next video, bye.

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Shadowing Practice: Life is Short: Here’s How to Make Time for Everything - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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