THA S02 EP#34 - Why You Can't Just Pick One Thing and Start: The Guide to Getting Unstuck

Most people know they have too much on their plate. What they don't know is why their to-do list keeps growing no matter how hard they work. In this episode, Michael Cupps sits down live with Florencia Llosas, producer of The Habit Architect and founder of her own marketing agency, to walk through a free tool Cupps built: the Priority Matrix at matrix.timebandit.io.

Flor brings a real problem to the table. She's new to running her own business, managing multiple clients, juggling production work, and trying to hold her habits together. Everything on her list feels urgent and important, which means nothing actually gets prioritized. Cupps walks her through the four quadrants of the matrix, Do First, Schedule It, Delegate, and Park, and explains why a flat to-do list is designed to fail.

They get into the real difference between a task, a calendar event, and deep work. Flor's strategy sessions, the kind that take two hours of data collection before a single decision gets made, don't belong on a task list at all. That's time that needs to be blocked, protected, and treated as non-negotiable. The same goes for habits. When the task list swallows everything, the habits that keep you functioning go first.

They also take a live question from Blake about underestimating time, work through the delegate quadrant with a real example, and talk about what work-life integration actually means when you're a business owner trying to hold it all together.

The matrix is free. No catch. Go try it at matrix.timebandit.io and bring your actual task list.

This Show is sponsored by TimeBandit.io

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Transcript

Good morning, and welcome to The Habit Architects. It's great to see you t- all today. I hope you enjoy this conversation we're gonna have. W- the guest, you, is very familiar. You will have seen her before on the show. And we're gonna talk about a new tool I built, and it's not necessarily a new concept, but if you follow Time Bandit, if you've used the mobile app if you hear me talk about priorities all the time, it's a construct of the Eisenhower Matrix that we've adapted with some other features. CUPPS: 0:23

And we're just gonna go through that today with a young business owner who is building a new business. She's doing all the right things to gain customers. She's gotta fulfill those customers, et cetera. We're gonna talk a little bit about that and what demands that puts on her and how to help her prioritize, as well as we all have personal lives and we all have aspirations to do other things. CUPPS: So we're gonna talk about that the mix of time bandits that might interrupt with y- interrupt your days the interruptions, the digital distractions, all of those things that make us not hit our priorities for the day. We're gonna talk

through that, and we're gonna build a matrix live for you. CUPPS: Please do ask questions in the live chat if you're watching this live. The more questions the better because we can put context to the challenge of priority management which is a massive problem for most people in business and in general. Please do look at timebandit.io if you want more information. CUPPS: But let's walk through this together and let's bring Fleur onto the stage here. CUPPS: 1:23

The producer is the guest today. FLOR: Hi. CUPPS: And we've got- Hello ... and we've got another producer help filling in for you. How are you? FLOR: Yes. We have another producer filling in for me so I could be the guest/co-host, I'd like to think. I'm gonna put you on the chair today. CUPPS: Okay. That's cool ... FLOR: but I'm good. I'm so excited to, to be able to this. FLOR: So like Cupps said, I'm the producer, but I also just launched my own marketing agency, and it's been so fun. It's

been great. I'm loving it. But at the same time, I found that I had so many things to do, and I obviously want to do some more than I want to do some others, and they're all equally important. FLOR: 2:23

So the first thing I did, given that I have... And I've talked about this before. I have anxiety- Yeah ... and that can produce a little bit of ADHD-like symptoms. So what I always do is I go into the Time Banded app, but my issue was that I was having a really hard time tasks and not so much my habits. FLOR: It would get to a point where I stopped doing all of my habits that so carefully tried to do ever since- ... talking to you, Cupps. They all- ... fell apart because my task list was just enormous and overwhelming. So I talked to you as I always do when I am in a crisis, my little, my- Yeah FLOR:

my habits guru. And you said, "Oh, hey, I just built this new website app. Maybe this will help And it does. Oh, I love it so much. But the first I opened it I had just too many tasks. I never- Yeah ... got rid of them. I didn't know how to categorize them. To me, everything is urgent. To me, everything needs to happen right away. FLOR: So- CUPPS: Yeah ... FLOR: 3:23

you helped me a lot. I, obviously, I, I texted you and I called you and I was like, "Cupps, why is my- Yeah ... to-do list never ending?" "This is horrible. This list has become- Yeah ... my new trigger." And you were like, "Yeah, you may not be using this correctly." So I'm so happy that we get to explore how it works and- Yeah FLOR: Do it together. CUPPS: Yeah, absolutely. And one thing that I would- okay, so- One, one, one thing I want to mention, though, Flor, is that your video is chop-

you're in slow motion sometimes and then you speed up sometimes. So just to our audience, it's it's Wi-Fi between her place in Argentina and my place here in Texas. CUPPS: So we're gonna do the best we can. If it's delayed a little bit, sorry, but we're gonna get to the point, I think, so just letting people know. 'Cause you were moving in slow motion. It was cool, but they might be wondering why you're moving in slow motion. FLOR: I'm gonna try and talk slower, which is something I don't usually CUPPS: 4:23

do. CUPPS: Don't worry about it. It's good. All right. Let's talk about- Since the evil will FLOR: help. CUPPS: Where did you wanna start? Do you wanna start by I'm happy ... do you wanna bring up the matrix? Is that where you wanna start or do you have other questions for me first? FLOR: No, I wanna bring up the matrix and ask you the questions as we go through it. CUPPS: Okay. FLOR: So let me share my screen. CUPPS: Yeah, I'll just share what we built. Just... and it's free, so don't worry about

paying for it or anything. Just get out to the web- the website that you'll see along the scroller. We'll mention it at the end. There it is matrix.time bandit.io, and it's free. CUPPS: It's a web-based app, so you use it on a browser. You can use it on your phone or your iPad or your computer. On the phone it's a little, I think it's a little less form function, but it still works. A- again, it's a browser-based thing. And I will also say that it's in version two now, so it's evolving and feedback helps. CUPPS: 5:23

But I wanna, I wanted to provide this for free because there's so many people that I... It just seems like in the last month or two, people have talked about priorities, getting them down, so it's important. Do you wanna bring the matrix up and I can I can explain what it is, and then you can start asking questions. CUPPS: There we go. This- Yes ... is what the concept of this matrix is very much the Eisenhower Matrix. So you have four quadrants. The first quadrant on the t- upper left is Do First, and these are things that are categorized as urgent and important. On the next, on the right is Schedule It, which are very important things, but they're not necessarily

urgent. CUPPS: On the lower left is Delegate. Those are things that aren't as important, but are certainly urgent. And then on the bottom right is I put it as Park or Don't Do It, which are, these are not important, not urgent tasks. So they go over there. Now, I put it in Park because sometimes I have something that I want to do in the future, it's just not now. CUPPS: 6:23

So I just park it there, and I can get back to it later. So that, I just wanted to frame the construct of the matrix for you guys. FLOR: Yes, and I think it's very important because my biggest problem was that these two bits, is this important? Yes, no. And is this urgent? Yes, no. So my issue was that to me everything is urgent- and everything it's important. So I would write what I needed, my task, and I would always have this two in yes, and therefore everything would go on the first quadrant. So then my issue was that I would have 20 things here,

and then- Yeah ... maybe one here, maybe another here, and zero in delegate. And I remember the very first thing that I asked you was- Yeah FLOR: what the heck goes on delegate? Because I don't have anything there. It speaks a lot on this issue of control. FLOR: 7:23

And the fun about this matrix that I didn't know at first until you told me, is that you can actually share the matrix with your team. So it actually makes it easier, once you learn to delegate, very big thing your team can actually help you out. FLOR: So that was also like something that is a lot of fun. But for example- Yeah ... my issue is, and I, when I was researching- stuff to do for this episode 'cause, I'm still the producer. Yeah ... I looked into Reddit and people were saying how they were always overwhelmed- FLOR: About their task list because everything goes in Do First. CUPPS: Yep. FLOR: So I remember that one time you told me that you could only do a certain number of tasks per day. So

you would only put a certain number of tasks. So how do you determine what goes here and how many tasks can you do per day? CUPPS: Yeah. CUPPS: Yeah. There's no right or wrong answer for number of tasks because your task may take you 10 minutes or they may take you four hours, right? So the, depend- the there is a certain level of consciousness you need to have about the task that you decide. Now, what does that mean then? Maybe what's urgent today is some parts of that larger task. CUPPS: 8:23

So the challenge that people have with to-do lists is, number one, a to-do list gives everything the same weight other than one comes first, second, third, and that may be because you wrote it yesterday versus today, right? And so that's the problem with a task list. Everything looks the same. And what we're trying to do on the matrix is move tasks that you have to move today into that Do First category. CUPPS: It doesn't mean that they're not urgent still. Don't... you just have to think about urgency in the way of the time that you have to spend to work on it, right? So

today's Do First list should be manageable. You can't do everything in a day. You just can't, right? You, so you have to figure out the parts that you can do in the day or i- in your, whatever your timeframe is. CUPPS: 9:23

Those are your do first items, and that way you're in control of those items, right? So let's say in a digital agency you probably do ad campaigns or something like that, right? And an ad campaign is not just do one thing. It's do 12 things, right? So you have this project that has to get done. But what needs to get done se- in order? CUPPS: So the first might be, I don't know, build an ad. I don't know what to do to build an ad- an ad campaign, so I'm making this up here. One day may... One task may be the ad. One task may be the campaign set up. The other may be measure. I, let's just say those three things. But you're not gonna do all those thing, three things at the same time, right? CUPPS: So the ur- what's the urgency associated with it? At first, it's create the ad. That's the urgency. That's what you're gonna do today.

in order to get the campaign launched on Thursday or Friday of next week, whatever your timeframe is. So it's not a project management board, but you need to think about it as your own way of building to an outcome. CUPPS: 10:23

And so sometimes it might be book a flight. That is something that's on your task list that you do and you're done. Some of these tasks may be parts of bigger projects, but the more you can compartmentalize them, you're in control, right? Okay. So- So that ad campaign, you're not gonna decide who the audience is today, right? CUPPS: You're building an ad. You already figured out who the audience is, and you're gonna set it up on Facebook tomorrow. Today it is make the best ad possible. FLOR: Okay. So- What if I have several... Like for example, I remember that I asked you about the categories at the time, and then you told me that we could change them, which- CUPPS: Yep FLOR: was great for me actually. Because then I could change them into the different campaigns

that I was managing. So for example, in my day-to-day, I have podcast production, and then I have social media copywriting that I do, and then I do marketing strategy. And those are three di- three different things that I do within the agency, and then I have different clients underneath the categories. FLOR: So- CUPPS: Yep ... FLOR: 11:23

my main issue was that, for example, I would have, I don't know, to produce this podcast, but also today I have to hand in copy for another client and also another client asked me for the metrics on the latest marketing results. Yeah. So then how do I, like, how do I manage these things without going crazy? FLOR: Because in my do first, I would have, like for The Habit Architect, I would have this one thing, and then for, I don't know, this other client, I would have this other thing. And then it- ... it ended up being just- CUPPS: Yeah. Yeah. FLOR:

So- ... very overwhelming, CUPPS: So The Habit Architect piece, that, it, you said you were producing today, which you're in- Yes CUPPS: the middle of that now, right? That started at 10:00 AM. It's gonna end at 10:30, 10:45, whatever time we finish. That's a calendar event. That's not a task, right? That wouldn't go in your- Ah ... calendar again. And so you need to use your calendar as your strategic time measurement tool, right? That meaning, what I mean by that at 10:00 AM to 10:45, it's blocked. CUPPS: 12:23

You're on, you're producing The Habit Architect, right? So that's not a task, that's a calendar item, and it removes it from your task list, right? Now, you mentioned two other things. One was marketing strategy and one was something else. Do you remember what the other one was? FLOR: Yeah, copywriting for social media. CUPPS: All right. Copywriting is a great one. So let's add that task if you would. Put in copywriting, because I wanna walk you through it a little bit together to... Yep. Is it for a particular customer? Is it for a particular topic? And you can just make it up. Yes. Let's say it is, it's for me. Okay. Now go pick a date. CUPPS: Yep.

Just put that because what I, we wanna know on the date is what's your real date that has to be done, that has to be delivered or whatever the mechanism is. When you do this copywriting, what happens next? And So- ... what is the date FLOR: that CUPPS: it has to be done? FLOR: Yeah, so I send a draft to the client so they can review it, and then after the draft is approved I schedule it. FLOR: 13:23

Okay. So suppose that the draft has to go on Monday. CUPPS: Okay, great. So that's Monday. But it- So now that's when it's due. When, you, do... So are you comfortable doing it on Monday? Are you comfortable doing it on Saturday, Sunday? Probably not, right? No. So you need to be honest with the date. On Friday, I am. CUPPS: Okay, then you wanna get it done on Friday. So your deadline for yourself is to do it on Friday, so that should actually be the date, not Monday, right? Oh. 'Cause

that's when you, when your work is done on that task, which is copywriting for that customer, right? And the task at, can't just be general copywriting, it has to be I'm writing a blog or, let's just say that it's, for speed, blog for customer A. CUPPS: 14:23

I have to deli- get it to them by Friday or I have to be done by Friday. And then it's, if you have send it to the customer, that, that may be another task or you just know, but we'll get to that in a minute, right? Okay, now let's go and let's call it a category of business, unless you wanna change one of the categories. CUPPS: That's up to you. Let's just do- No, so I can FLOR: show that you can change them. CUPPS: Yeah. You FLOR: can, which is cool. CUPPS: Okay. I asked, yeah. So you could call that your customer. You could call that your your Cheshire Creative. It could be whatever you want it to be. So let's just leave it at business for now, but you can change those. CUPPS: That's great. Yeah. And now, okay, so now we're on Thursday. Yes. And you said this has to be done on Friday. FLOR: Yes. CUPPS: All right? So to you, is that

urgent? FLOR: Yes CUPPS: Do you have to, do you have to do it first? FLOR: No. No, 'cause I can do it tomorrow. CUPPS: Exactly. So you can still, you can list it as important and just don't list it as urgent yet. CUPPS: 15:23

Now, and it's a little hard to do when you start inputting your first task because you're not comparing them to anything else. But if you have 10 more to put in here, then it'll start making sense because the rhythm that you should be in at the... As you close out your day, you should look at the matrix and in particular look at the important things to say, what's the date associated with those important things? CUPPS: Because right now what you're saying is schedule it, and so that may mean it goes to due first tomorrow. And you can do this in the morning or evening, whatever. I just suggest a daily rhythm. So you're looking at it and you're saying, "Okay, tomorrow you'll see..." Because it's on the schedule it, until you have other things to compare to, it's a little hard for because we're just looking at one task on the matrix, but you probably have five other things you're gonna do today, right? CUPPS: That you have to do. FLOR: Yeah. CUPPS: That has to be

done on Thursday, not Friday. What you said about this copyright is it's Friday. So now as we add more things in there, when you see it in, it together, then you can start deciding is that have to be done today or does that, and then you can move them around, right? CUPPS: So let's add another thing just to put it in there to make sure we're comparing. You said strategy. Strategy sounds like a very big thing, not a task. FLOR: Yes. Strategy usually takes me like four hours CUPPS: 16:23

Okay. So what is that work? Is that time you block to think FLOR: Oof, this is hard to answer actually. FLOR: It usually means, it means different steps. So at the beginning I have to see what we've done before, and that means that I have to go into whichever platform or channel we're using because, again, not everyone uses the same channels. So for example, if I was doing it for The Habit Architect, I would go into YouTube, that is where we stream. FLOR: I would go into Buzzsprout and see the

results that we have on Apple Podcast, on Spotify, if anyone has rated us, how many people download the episode, how many people have played it. And then LinkedIn, how many people have registered versus how many people have actually viewed the video. I have to take all those stats, and that usually takes me 45 minutes because you have to manually go in, download all the information. FLOR: 17:23

And then what I do is I usually plop it into whichever AI I'm using for it to be organized. So I start asking it to organize it by views. And then it takes me... That's the hardest part after that 45 minute to an hour is done, the hardest part is thinking about it. So once it's organized, the thing about AI is that it's a great tool for organizing yourself and seeing things clearly and make it, easy to follow, but you still have to think about it. FLOR: It won't think for you. Yeah. So I have to

think about it. I have to think, "Okay, what do these numbers mean based on the results that we got a month ago or based on the results that we want to get?" Yeah. That's all the analyzing part. And then you have to go into the actual strategy. So I'm already talking two hours of collecting information- Yeah FLOR: analyzing the information before you even get to the strategy part. CUPPS: 18:23

So while the outco- outcome of that may feel like a task, what you just described, it, a lot of us do, it's called deep work, right? So you have a s- scheduled time that you need to do a deep analysis. And the fewer distractions, the better. CUPPS: Yeah. So my recommendation to you is that's not a task on your priority matrix. That is a deep work allocated time block on your calendar FLOR: Okay CUPPS: Because that's- So what do you call that- it's a lot of, it, it's a lot of things, and to try to describe that as a task on your to-do list is difficult and n- and nor should you. CUPPS: As

long as you make sure that you block the time and use that block, that is time that you use for that, not anything else. It, you can't inch into it. You can't cut it short unless you finish early. You ... if it sounds like, that sounds like very important work that you're doing. It sounds like the difference maker of good and just okay. CUPPS: 19:23

So that's really important work. Block that as deep work and that, and put it on your calendar and nothing interrupts that time because you've got a lot of things you have to do in there, but you're thinking through that whole process. And so deep work is not a task. It is a time that we allocate for ourselves to do the job that we need to do, and not enough people give themselves time to do that. CUPPS: They say, "Oh, I'll get to that later," and then it gets to be 5:30 or 6:00 at night and you haven't started that and you just said it takes an hour and a half minimum. Yeah. So now what have you done to your energy, right? You've sapped your energy because you've done everything else. You've done every other task in the min- meantime, and now you still have to do this very important work and you didn't give yourself time to do it

in the day. CUPPS: Yeah. So give yourself the ... My, my point is you have to assign that time to you, 'cause that is the essence of your job, right? FLOR: Yes. Yes, and I find that, when I first started using the matrix, I would write it like that, like marketing strategy- ... for example. And I, what I would do is, and I, we didn't show it, but you can open the task- Yeah FLOR: 20:23

and write notes on it. So what I would do is I would write marketing strategy, and then write every single thing. So I would put like- CUPPS: Yeah ... FLOR: download, specs analyze them. CUPPS: Yep. FLOR: And et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so the task itself, it never moved from here. I could never mark it complete. FLOR: It was always there, and that made me close the matrix and just not look at it. Because it was, oh my God, I'm, this is never gonna end. CUPPS: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. But so what you're describing is somewhat project work, right? Or if it's

not project work, it's just work that has to persist because that's the job of marketing. CUPPS: And so- FLOR: Yeah ... CUPPS: 21:23

that, what you're doing there in that deep work shouldn't be a ta- for the very reasons you just described. If you're putting projects on your matrix, then they're not gonna move, because a project is usually multi-day, multi-people, multi-dependencies, and then outputs, right? And that's a very hard thing to put on a task list or a to-do list or a matrix because what you wanna do in your matrix is figure out what you need to do to support that project today if it needs to be done. CUPPS: Or you just move it off the matrix and it's in your, from 2:00 in the afternoon to 3:30, every day Flora does deep work or whatever. Every Tuesday, Wednesday- Yeah ... and Thursday she does deep work. What, you pick what works for you, but put it on a schedule and don't negotiate that. That is time you have to put. CUPPS: And the reason that's important for you to do, and I say don't negotiate it because that is your specialty. That's what makes your

agency better is because you do that deep work. If you don't do the deep work, you're just another agency, right? So that's important to your brand, that's important to who you are, that's important to your customers, so that's non-negotiable. CUPPS: And that's something that people have a hard time with because what happens? You set that time at 2:00, I reach out to you at 1:55 and say, "Flora, did you, remember that guest we talked to, that was from Houston? Who was that?" And your natural tendency are, as humans, is to go, "Oh, you know what? CUPPS: 22:23

Let me go find that. Oh, it was so and oh, I'll email to..." And all of a sudden it's 2, 2:10 and you've just- Yep ... you've just sold 10 minutes of your time to a question that I asked that could have waited until 3:30, right? FLOR: Yeah CUPPS: Does that make sense? So you see my point there? You are the time bandit. CUPPS: Well, human nature is that we say, "Oh, I'm gonna stop what I'm doing, I'm gonna help," because that's just who we are. And it's not a bad trait to have, right? But if you're managing your time where you are optimizing it to, to be the best owner of

your agency, then you've gotta respect your own time as well, and that's something we have a hard time doing with as humans. CUPPS: We have these things that interrupt us constantly, and some of the interruptions we need it for, some of them- FLOR: Oh, I can't hear you CUPPS: I picked FLOR: up my phone. CUPPS: 23:23

I picked up the phone and the microphone picked up. Crazy. The, so my point is that we have to, other than, urgent matters like a, illness in the family or something like that, then we need to stay on our schedule. We just have to. Th- yes, it's hard when there's a boss and they always have something that's more important to them. CUPPS: It may not be more important to you, but sometimes you have to adjust. But if you can protect your deep work, you've got to. So my advice to you on the strategy- FLOR: Yes, I- CUPPS: It's not even on the matrix. It is a time you book.

Now, what may be on the matrix from a strategy session may be send email to Google to do something 'cause the analytics look weird or, send a report to the customer. CUPPS: You may have that on there, but those are outcomes of the deep work Okay? So what the reason the matrix works for me- so what I was gonna say is- Go ahead FLOR: Oh, sorry. No, what I was going to say is so my sister she's been struggling with ADHD her whole life. FLOR: 24:23

And now she's she just started university. FLOR: And what she does is when she's doing deep work, so for her that, working on a project or study what she does is she has a little paper on the side that she calls the brain dump. And what she's been doing- Yeah ... is whenever a thought crosses her mind or someone texts her something, she'll write it down on that brain dump, and that way she feels like she addressed it. FLOR: And then I

started doing that because she recommended it, and what I found out is that some of those things could be applied on the Matrix. So then after my deep work session, I could take those brain dump things and I could ... Some of them could be translated onto the task matrix. Yeah. Matrix. CUPPS: Yep. Yep. CUPPS: So it's interesting. And w- and we probably ought to finish up with deep work here in a minute, but deep work is an interesting thing. Have you ever meditated instructor-led meditation? No, I can't do it ... so one, one of the things that FLOR: happens- CUPPS: My FLOR: brain is over- CUPPS: 25:23

I know, but here's the thing. What do they, what they tell you when they instruct you to do meditation, I find it hard to do too, Flor, so don't feel bad about that, is they tell you that you're in this bubble and you need to clear thoughts. CUPPS: And I, and that was the question to me, how do I clear my thoughts? And the best description of it was you put this bubble around you, and if a thought comes in, you acknowledge it, and then you say, "That's an important thought, but I'll get to you later, just not right now." And that's what your sister's doing, which is brilliant. CUPPS: She's

taking, she's let, acknowledging the thought because her brain needs to acknowledge it. She writes it down, and then, but she also gave her permission to f- refocus on what she needs to focus on, and that, we'll get to that later, right? That makes, she, she, that's what she's doing, and it's a really brilliant move because our brains do need to acknowledge the, whatever the stimulus is that said that, right? CUPPS: 26:23

That we have to do this. Great. Write it down. It's there. We'll get to it later. Today, right now, we're gonna focus on this. And so you need to do that with your deep work, too. Very few tasks in work are really urgent-urgent, right? We feel like they're urgent. Our boss needs a report that email came in, that, et cetera. CUPPS: Those feel urgent, and they are, but if you don't systematically work the most urgent first, then you're just gonna be out of whack, and you're gonna end the day... The worst thing that I want people to feel at the end of the day is, "I didn't get my things done. I didn't get my the three things- Yes ... I needed to do," right? CUPPS: And the reason they do that is because they give permission to the distraction,

and that distraction now owns them. It doesn't mean you're not gonna do the distraction. When that, when their boss asks you for a report, you're gonna do it. You, what you have to decide is, do you do it before these other three thing... CUPPS: If you scroll down just a little bit in the matrix I think I, we put the... You probably don't have three things, but where is it? Oh, you don't have three things in the- Oh, I can... FLOR: Oh, I can do the thing. I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Hold on. CUPPS: Yeah. FLOR: Hold on. CUPPS: 27:23

So the reason I put the top three in there our abilities, there you go, our abilities to do this in a day is s- is baffling, right? CUPPS: We think that we can do 10 things. The time and the work don't align. So what are the three things that you really have to do today? That's what I really want people to think about. So your opening question was everything feels urgent, right? So how do I know which is urgent? There are certain things in your day that are gonna trickle down into other things that aren't gonna work if you don't do that thing today. CUPPS: So whatever that thing

is, you don't have to finish the project, but you have to do this part of the project today, and that's why I want you to think about those top three things, and that, you're showing that now. It just pulls up your top three things based on importance, urgency, and date is really what that's referring to. CUPPS: 28:23

So think about, what I'd like you to think about, Flora, when you look at this tomorrow morning, is don't use the do first as everything that's urgent. Use the do first are the things that you're gonna do first before you do the other things. It doesn't mean they're less important. It just means these three have the most urgency, and that could be a client deadline. CUPPS: It could be it's contingent on a- another pro... when we talked about those multi-thing projects. You have to do your part, send it off to somebody else. They do their part. That, all that time while it's with them, you don't have to worry about it. It's not yours. It's not on your matrix, right? CUPPS: When it comes back to you, you might have an action. But make sure that it's not in your day view just because it's a project, right? Now, if you're an owner- Yeah ... that's hard to do because if

projects get behind, everything gets behind. That's a different- Yes ... question than your priority matrix, okay? CUPPS: That's a different question besides your priority matrix, which gets us into the g- the bottom left quadrant. Let's talk about that, the delegate. FLOR: 29:23

Yes, delegate. Let's talk about delegate. I do have- Yeah ... this o- other thing that I've learned while I was talking to you on how to do things, is that because I am the boss and this is a new position to be in I find that a lot of my tasks, since we defined what the task is versus, a calendarized event versus a habit, I find that a lot of my tasks are telling people what to do, which is very strange. FLOR: I've never been in this position. But a lot of my tasks have become, "Tell blah, blah, blah person that they need to schedule blah, blah, blah thing. Tell blah, blah, blah person that they need to send me their invoice, otherwise I can't pay it. Tell this person..."

And so it becomes... it comes to a point, And then the delegate I've noticed that now that I learned how to use it the delegate has come from I have a big project. FLOR: 30:23

I don't know, I have to write the copy, but I need the person to create a graphic. So before I used to have the whole Event in oh, th- but there were pieces. Like I would copy- Yeah ... my graphic designer would do the graphic. So would delegate be for- Yep ... that graphic or is it for something else? CUPPS: It, yeah, it very well could be for that graphic. It depends on your preference of using it. I think you mentioned... you could use delegate as a category for, you said somebody has to send you an invoice before you can pay it, right? So that is really somebody else owns the action, but you're... so you could use delegate in that way. CUPPS: That is one thing to do. The other thing to delegate can be is

things you need to assign. So that's what I think about with that. I need to assign them to send me the invoice, right? And then when they send you the invoice, that may be an action on your other list, right? It's not delegate at that point, and it moves up. CUPPS: 31:23

It's something else. You change it to- Oh ... process payment, right? So delegate is when you need to assign it to other people. The other thing- Can we try it? What's that? I didn't hear you. I'm sorry. FLOR: Can we try it? Oh, can we try it? We can try. CUPPS: Yeah. Do it. FLOR: So what would I write? FLOR: Like- CUPPS: Let's say, Invoice? ... request invoice. Request invoice. Yep, request invoice. Oh. And the date that you need it requested by FLOR: Let's do today CUPPS: Great. And that... Yep. And now it's urgent, but it's not important. And I know it feels odd saying that because payment is always

important, but it's not in the context of your matrix. CUPPS: 32:23

You're gonna delegate this to somebody else to do. You're not gonna go get the invoice. You're gonna ask somebody else to send you the invoice, and that's on them to do, not you. What you're doing is, here, is in- You're creating a reminder for yourself to tell that person, "Send me the invoice." And so you- Th- Things in delegate- you should be able to- Today ... offload really quickly, right? You can- You should be able to offload, delegate things quickly. Now, the other thing you might wanna think about, and this is where AI gets fascinating for this category of things, is you can do it with Gemini- Yeah ... to some degree. You can do it with others, where you can just go in and say, "Okay, Gemini, send Flora a reminder to send me the invoice. CUPPS: Send somebody else the next task, the task..." And that, and it actually does it for you. Now, if you c- if you get to that level of automation, you probably don't need it on your matrix. But you might have something every morning- ... that says reminders, right? So that's just a, the, When you get to that level of automation, maybe it's just a

little reminder at 7:15 in the morning or whenever you start your day to say, "Okay, I just need to make sure that my Gemini is doing my work, the things that I need it to do today." CUPPS: But if you're not there yet, put it as a reminder in delegate, because I think it's a good thing for you to feel like you're still in control. "Send me that invoice." Now it's off your list, right? Once you've done that. Now, if you're trying to track when you get the invoice, that's a different thing. CUPPS: 33:23

But I think this is, delegation is a good way of using it for you. It is for me. I know that's what I do. When I put things in my delegate- Okay, cool ... I look to opportunities to either send that to who the delegate is or find ways of automating CUPPS: Again, this, when you review- Yeah. FLOR: And the other thing that is good about that is that CUPPS: We cut each other off. Sorry. FLOR: Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. It's just that the cool thing about this... The cool thing about this delegate system that you have is that it's very fast serotonin because you could have five

delegate tasks and then it takes a second. FLOR: Oh, I'll just text the person that I need this- CUPPS: Yep ... FLOR: and then, and I feel like I have five things off my list already. CUPPS: Yeah. Absolu- absolutely. And it's also something to consider when you get an email that is something urgent that, the the other day I got one from the federal government that says I need to do something for my TSA stuff at the airlines, right? CUPPS: 34:23

That helps me go through security and stuff like that. And they gave me a little bit of instructions, and now the, there's two things I can do when I have that. If I'm not in my deep work time or with a customer or whatever, I could either park that on my delegate or I could just do it right then. So I urge people, if you can and the time works, do it right then. CUPPS: I was talking to Catherine last night about this on our walk, and she was like, "I just do them then." If I can do it in under 15 seconds or 30 seconds or a minute, I just, she just does them then. And so don't ever let it hit your box if it's important and you just wanna get it done. Now, if it's

not if you can't, then put it on your delegate because you can, like you said, I think checking off things mentally for people helps them, right? CUPPS: And so if you are doing your daily review- Yes ... of your matrix- CUPPS: 35:23

Yes ... and you're, okay, these are the three things when you go through your morning review of it, and these are the three things that I am gonna do first, and they're on the bottom left there of your screen, then you can look at your delegate, and when you have an opening in your schedule, you just go knock them all out, right? CUPPS: Because they're reminders to somebody else to do something, that kind of stuff. So I love that idea for you. Yeah. FLOR: Yeah CUPPS: And one thing- And then FLOR: my last question, because we're running out of time CUPPS: Yep. FLOR: Oh, sorry. Go. CUPPS: No, go ahead. Go ahead. I thought there was a ch- a question. I think there is, I just haven't read it. Yep, sorry. Got a bunch of... Yeah, I've got a question here. There we go. FLOR: Oh CUPPS: Yeah, so I

think Blake is right. People underestimate the amount of time it takes to do certain Yeah. So absolutely, we always underestimate time and till we've done it once or twice, and that's where I think we have to really think, Blake, about schedule adherence, right? So if something's taking longer than you expected, you have to make a decision to say, "Is something else more important for me to do right now?" CUPPS: 36:23

And pause that and put it back on the table for later, because what you don't want to do is when you underestimate and now you're falling behind, you don't want one thing to cause a cascade effect of ruining several other things that you have to do today. Then the other thing you need to do is start predicting time better. CUPPS: Once you do a task repeatedly, you can start saying, "I know that task," like your strategy work, Flora, that strategy work you take takes an hour. No matter what, you need to block an hour. As we s- as we get more experienced at understanding this, and I think this is where a daily rhythm helps us, we can look at the matrix and say, "Oh, wait a minute. CUPPS: I did one of those. I did that research, last week, and it

took me 20 minutes, so I need to make sure that I have that time allocated before I do that." And that goes into the negotiation you're doing with yourself about what goes in your do first column for today versus what you schedule for later and what you delegate, et cetera. CUPPS: 37:23

So it is in constant motion. I think what Blake said is absolutely right, that we, we can ruin a day by underestimating, but let's try to not let it. So if you're working on something that's maybe not as urgent as the second item, give it a certain amount of time, and then move on to that second item and get back to it. CUPPS: Now you've scheduled it for later, right? Maybe later today, it may be tomorrow, it may be Thursday, because it may not have the deadline that other thing has. So you've really gotta look at that. And why delegate is so powerful, Flora, is because- Yes ... they all are, they are urgent. But if they're not important, you don't wanna give all your time to those delegate items, because it is just what you said, "Hey, Michael, send me that invoice. CUPPS: You haven't sent it to me. Here's a drop email," right? Now you're done. Get that off your plate. It's now on them, right? You've gotta

get it off your plate, otherwise you become them, and that's their job to do. So it's, it's- Yeah ... delegating is powerful. It's just hard, it's hard to deci- decipher the importance level. CUPPS: So if you think about the matrix, it's really interesting because importance and urgency are really two different things, but they intersect indirectly all the time, right? And if we're not working on the things that are most important, most of the time we'll work on the things that are easy. That's just human nature, right? CUPPS: 38:23

Yeah. And it's okay to do that, right? Sometimes it's okay to do that because we wanna do some mindless stuff. But just think about your overall day and how you can... you've gotta get the important stuff done. So you can put it off till later, but then it's all of a sudden it's an emergency. If it's still got some urgency to it and it's important, really build that into your day. CUPPS: You have to. And that's what I just hate about to-do lists. I hate 'em, and everybody has 'em, is just it's a white paper with 10 things on it And,

it's, you cherry pick which one you wanna do. That's- Is it the one that you know is harder and it, but it's more important. It's gonna make a difference in your business, right? CUPPS: So yeah. Yeah. You're gonna get there. I think you're doing g- I think you're doing good. By the way- That was FLOR: really me. CUPPS: Yeah. By the way, Blake, thank you for the, thank you for the question, too. S- so Flora, I know we're getting sh- short on time. What didn't we cover? FLOR: 39:23

The one thing that I wanted to mention just quickly is that I remember that at one point I became obsessed and hyper-focused with the Matrix, and I wanted... i... It was working for me so well that I thought, "Oh my God, this is gonna solve my life." And at one point I remember that I texted you where can I put eat or wash my dishes- Yeah FLOR: or brush my teeth?" Yeah. And you were like, "Flor those are not tasks. Those are habits." And I was like- Yeah ... "What if I forget my habits?" So I just wanted you to talk a little bit about the advice that you gave me, because I remember that at one

point my task list was so long, and this white paper, as you mentioned, was so long, there was no room for me to develop any habits or to even keep the habits that I had. CUPPS: 40:23

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. One thing I wanna say to everybody is if you don't make time for the habits that matter, you will burn out fast, right? We talk a lot on this podcast about work-life integration. I can't remember the guest who had it recently. Maybe it was Shantelle. I don't remember. But it was... she was talking about integra- i- integration is the only thing. CUPPS: It's not balance. Balance implies two equal forces, et cetera. Integration is the right word. You have to integrate those habits into the work bec- otherwise your work will depreciate in value. It just will. You get... Our minds aren't built to do that. We have to take a break, and in those breaks, do something for yourself, and that's where habits come in, right? CUPPS: So you know my habit. Every morning I get up, Oliver and I

head out for a walk. I don't do anything else before that. I... I do. I brush my teeth. But then we're out, we're walking, right? And nothing's gonna interrupt- Nothing's gonna interrupt that time because that's something I need for me. It helps me get my head right for the day. CUPPS: 41:23

It helps me focus on everything else. Ma- lets me enjoy my best friend Oliver. The weather. Sometimes we're running in the rain, like it's raining today. But it's just part of my day that I have to make everything else do better, right? And so when you think about your day, there needs to be ni- natural break points where you do something for you. CUPPS: And it also, what it does for the brain chemically is very important. If you just say focused on that, I think you said it was a white paper, over time that quality of that white paper's gonna go bad- Yeah ... because your brain is, I don't wanna say bored, it's just stuck. When you inject a little habit, whether that's fresh air, have a nice cup of coffee, what- whatever it is, or just do something else, work on something el- work on some delegates, right? CUPPS: Then what your brain i-

is rewarded with is something else. Like you said, you get that serotonin when you say, "Oh done." So if you're in the middle of a big project- Yeah ... take 15 minutes, do some delegate task, and then have a snack, and you're back on it, and your f- mind is better prepared for the work. CUPPS: 42:23

So it's essential. That wor- that work-life integration is absolutely essential And life is eating, cleaning, exercise, you know- Yeah ... what we do, what we talk about Yeah. That's- Meditation, movement, and moderation, right? That's what we talk about FLOR: Yes. CUPPS: Good? FLOR: Yes. We always talk about that- Did this help you? FLOR: and the values that come with it. Yeah. Yeah. And just so- CUPPS: Yeah ... FLOR: this did, this does help me. This did help me. And I think that I always see how on the show, people, you p- you ask people what their non-negotiable habit is, and I know you meant walking, but I'm sure you have others. So what is Cupp's non-negation, non-negation... FLOR: Oh my God, I can't speak. Non-nega-

ne- CUPPS: Negotiable? FLOR: Negotiable habit. There we go. CUPPS: Yeah. Oh, you're asking me. Yes. Yeah. I think it's... I do think- Yes ... it's walking or it's the... walking is mine, but it's also the head space that creates, right? So if I can't walk and I'm in a hotel in New Jersey or something or whatever, then I will find a time just to think. CUPPS: 43:23

And I don't put a phone in front of me, I don't put my laptop in front of me. It's just where I have to pause and think. And it could be 10 minutes, could be 15 minutes, could be 30 minutes, whatever. That's why I like walking, because my body's moving while I'm doing it. But really what I'm doing is my own meditation while I walk, because I'm working through so many things in my head, that's my non-negotiable. CUPPS: I just have to have that time. FLOR: Love it CUPPS: I pr- FLOR: I prefer- I always wanted to ask you that. CUPPS: Yeah. Hopefully that helps. I'm glad you did this, and I'm sorry our connection was bad but hopefully that helped you out. What I'm looking forward to, we didn't wanna show your full

matrix, your pers- your current matrix to everybody on this podcast, but I hope to go through it with you and make, see if it makes a better- Make- CUPPS: difference ... difference And do, but you have to look at it- Yeah ... daily. Don't forget, that rhythm will help you, Laura. That rhythm will really help you because over time, as you, it, it's like with everything, when you practice, you get better. What you need to practice at is that urgency meter. CUPPS: 44:23

You're putting everything in the urgency bucket, but what's urgent next? What is the n- do first thing you have to do? Yeah. And it doesn't mean that anything else is unimportant or un-urgent, it's just that one's the most important one. So hope that helps. FLOR: I try to check every morning. Yeah, I try to check it every morning and every night. FLOR: But what I'm going to do is I'm definitely gonna schedule those deep s- work sessions. I think that's the most useful thing that can happen. Yeah. And I definitely am gonna... Remember when we had Jordan- Yeah ... on the show? That was, like, this was, like, a while

ago. Jordan is the CEO of Fringe, and he has ADHD, and he... FLOR: on his calendar that will ping him. And so if he's distracted with something else, it will ping him, and that'll be, like a trigger to do the thing. So maybe I'll have that. Yeah. I'll have, Google ping me "Hey." Yeah. "Check the matrix." Yeah. Or, "Hey, now you're doing a deep dive," and then I'll Pomodoro and, do that. FLOR: So I think that's something I'm definitely creating. CUPPS: 45:23

Yeah. Yeah yeah, I know we're running out, we've run out of time, but the interesting thing is we've got so many choices for technology. It- there's not one thing, right? Because I think you can use the matrix and your calendar in amazing ways. CUPPS: That's what I tend to do, is those two things collide for me. Now, but if you do a lot of project work, you're probably also looking at monday.com or Asana or something else, and you have to watch those tasks. Yeah. If you're in sales, you're watching Salesforce tasks and things like that. What I call that in the book is business as usual. CUPPS: And so you do sometimes- ... wanna put on your calendar business as usual time, and that, if you're a salesperson, maybe you're

going through salesforce.com and you're knocking out your tasks, but go ahead and use your calendar as your weapon to make sure you have time to do that. Don't leave it for chance. CUPPS: That's the most important thing, I think, with your, with anything that's urgent and important. Don't leave it to chance. Make sure it's the first things you do, or it's scheduled on your calendar to do it. And that includes business as usual work, which is what, that kind of falls under. FLOR: 46:23

Yeah. That's really good advice. Now, you have to promote. Say the thing I always tell you to say at the very end of the show. CUPPS: Go like us, go subscribe, go follow us, whatever your podcast channel of record is, and whatever mechanism it is so you get alerted- ... the next time we do a podcast. Go hit that button. We appreciate it because that helps us make sure the content... We also have some exciting news coming up. I won't divulge everything, but we're gonna change the tone of the podcast a bit. We're gonna talk more about certain topics in business oriented approach. So we're excited about that. CUPPS: We expect to make that go live in mid-June. But in the meantime, we're still gonna be talking here every Thursday, so join