The One Problem Interview: Sandra Lisi, Leadership Coach

Time-BlockingHi there, my name is Avil Beckford. I started a new project that's near and dear to my heart. It's called The One Problem, and I have guests who come on, and talk about one problem. There are tons of problems in the world. But the person is going to tackle just one of those problem, they're going to tell us what the problem is and in five to 10 minutes they're going to offer us a solution. This is for all of us to learn and grow. Today, my special guest is Sandra Lisi. And she'll help us manage our time by using time blocking.

I met her a few months ago. A dear friend introduced her to me. And we support each other on Instagram. So Sandra is a leadership coach. Sandra in the Sity, the Coach. I always get a hoot out of it because City is Siti and she has her own flair. So, Sandra, let's turn it over to you.

Sandra Lisi

Avil, thank you so much for having me join your one problem. It's a pleasure to be here. And as women, we seem to be really busy doing so many things. And the one problem that I'm here to speak about today is time management. And how do we make the most out of the 1,440 minutes we all have in a day.

The One Problem Interview With Sandra Lisi

And so, there's often times at the end of your day, my day, I sit and I think about what did I accomplish today? How did I use those 1,440 minutes with our to-do list that keep growing, family priorities, and work priorities? And sometimes it gets really, really hard to stay on track. And so I look at time as one of our most valuable assets. You can spend it however you choose, but for me, how do I make the most out of the 1,440 minutes — twenty-four hours? There's a bunch of things that I've had to learn to do over time. Because feeling overwhelmed and stressed and overburdened and being pulled in so many different directions left me feeling so depleted and exhausted.

And it actually left me a little demoralized that I wasn't able to accomplish what I had set out to do in the day. So we also need to take rest into consideration because that is what fuels us. That is what keeps us going, allows our body to recharge, our mind to recharge. So I'm going to break it down. It may sound a little elementary. But when I think about the 1,440 minutes, I'm seven hours sleep required person.

Sandra Lisi

If not, I become angry, angry and everything else in between. So I try to take my 420 minutes of rest. So now I have 1,020minutes. I have a family to care for and for us family time is meal time and dinners together at the end of the day are how we come together. So now I'm taking 120 minutes out of that time by prepping and having a nice dinner.

So I'm left with 900 minutes. And I think about how I need to strengthen my mind. I need to strengthen my body on a daily basis. And so intentionally I have carved out 60 Minutes a day in totality and sometimes I break it up at morning, midday and evening. Sometimes I use that 60 minutes before my official day starts. And I do things that strengthen my mind and my body. So movement, exercise, meditation, prayer.

However, I choose to spend those 60 minutes. I grant myself permission to spend that time on me. Because if not, I will be busy doing for others all day and then oftentimes in particular women, we will neglect ourselves and we will do that later when I have time or we think of it as a luxury. So I have got 14 hours left during the day. If I have now factored in my mindfulness, my rest, feeding my family. And although we can't live our lives by the minute, I think what's important in my problem solving for time management is I recognize that I need to be diligent on how I'm spending my time.

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Sandra Lisi

So I prioritize my days and oftentimes I have a few different businesses that I have founded and lead. And as well a charitable organization. How do you do it all? And I think about things that are important and what are my priorities throughout the day. So I time block and this is something common that others have used. But for me, I've had to become really disciplined at time blocking. So I whether that's in your phone, in your computer.

I'm old school in a lot of ways. So I like my notebook. I like to carry my notebook with me. I do keep them in my phone. So it beeps at me. But I like to keep things written in my notebook. So when I look at a week and I look at the seven days in its entirety, I think about meeting days. Those days I need to have meetings. And rather than having them interrupt the five or seven days, I pick two days a week and those are my meeting days.

I will have my meetings. Those days I will attend any meetings I need to. But there are two days a week and I don't want them back to back. I stagger them. So I have, for example, a Tuesday filled with meetings and a Thursday filled with meetings. I find that that helps me as well to know that those are the days that I have to be in meetings. And I will get those done. Another thing that I do is I carve out focus time or thinking time. And I literally block it in my calendar as thinking time or focus time.

Sandra Lisi

And those are time slots that I reserve for when I need to do some thinking, strategic thinking, creating content. And that could be a couple of days a week. It could be a couple of hours a day, whatever works for you. But carving out focus or thinking time. My next block of time is buffer time because, you know, we're all addicted to these devices. And so I feel like giving myself buffer time, which is my checking social media, calling friends, catching up on things not specifically work related, but that's my time to connect.

And so, I actually have buffer time. So I know that I'm going to give myself a 15-minute break every now and then to do those things. And then really important and this ties into the work that you do Avil and that is learning time. And to me, people say, well, I wish I had time to read or I wish I had time to take an online course. Well, it's important that you make the time. And so carving out on a weekly basis, I have a learning time.

And whether that's reading a book, attending an online course, listening to a podcast, whatever vehicle that is for me, I make sure that I have something to learn for that week. And sometimes I have to do that on the weekends because my work week is filled. So I'll make myself a cup of coffee on a Saturday and I will spend an hour or two learning, reading something that stimulates my mind rather than do, do, do, do, do all the time.

Sandra Lisi

Learning is a key element because you need to keep your mind sharp and learn from others, learn new techniques. And then I talked about mind strengthening time, and that is, again, whatever that is for you, if it's yoga, if it's prayer, if it's meditation, if it's just being still in journaling is to carve out that time. So when we think about all of that information I just gave you, you think, well, now that's a lot of work to be able to do that.

And I don't have the time to do that. Well, for me, I've had to be able to pick a morning, the Sunday mornings for me when the house is quiet and others are still sleeping. That's my planning time. And I carve out that, hours too. And I look at the weeks ahead and I look at the month and I see what does this month look like, what needs to be done next week, the following, etc.

And that's how I chunk it up. Since I started doing this practice, I have to be honest, I have felt accomplished at the end of the day. I'm not as overwhelmed as I was feeling. And I'm not breaking down in tears by the night because I haven't completed what I set out to do and I actually go to sleep feeling accomplished and I allow my mind and body to rest. And, you know, you're not going to get everything done.

Sandra Lisi

Some days you'll slip. And then there might be days where meetings trickle into others because you can't have full control of everything. But what you can control is how you intentionally spend your day. And I've had to become very disciplined at times in the sense where I said, I'm going to try this for 30 days. And I think the whole learning a new habit or changing a behavior requires at least that amount of time. When I started, as I just wanted to try it for 30 days and see how it works for me has become, in my case, life changing, because I'm not crusty and grumpy for most days, because I feel like I have a handle on my days, my weeks.

I know what to do. I'm not panicking at the eleventh hour. Oh, I have a presentation to give tomorrow morning and it's two o'clock and I haven't started yet. I know what's coming up in my calendar. I know what speaking engagements I'm going to be participating in. I know what workshops I'll be facilitating. And so it's planning ahead of time so that I'm not burnt out, exhausted, overwhelmed and emotionally drained. So there's so many other things that we could do to really take back our time and control of our time.

But these for me have been key steps that I've taken that have made a huge difference. And I encourage people if they don't even know where to start, it's just grab a sheet of paper and write down all the things you need to do, all the places you need to go, any appointments you have, and start blocking those time slots in a calendar. You can get them at the dollar store, you can download them online, you can use them in your phone.

But it's important that for your mental clarity and organization that you put those thoughts to paper. I always say, Avil, I only have so much space in my head and if I try to keep every single thing in there, it's going to be so overwhelming. So for me, when I write it down or I enter it into my phone right onto my computer, it actually feels like I literally envision the freeing of space and I've now transitioned that to somewhere where I can reference it rather than trying to remember everything.

How many people make a grocery list and then you forget it at home. You're trying to go by memory through the aisles. Put it on paper, keep that secret and allow yourself the time to get into a new routine. And I would love to hear if people do implement this technique because it has served me well. So with that, I thank you for having me participate and I hope that my solving of my time management problem is a benefit to others as well. So thank you for having me.

Avil Beckford

Thank you so much, Sandra, because I know about time blocking, but I'm not very religious about it. I'm going to try it your way so that I can accomplish more. So thank you so much. And this was an awesome interview.

Other Comment From Avil

I don't know about others, but I'm learning so much from The One Problem Interviews. Productivity and time management are so important. What I like about Sandra Lisi's solution is that she builds in buffer time. On a related note, the top reasons professionals give for not achieving their reading goals is lack of time and the inability to focus.

Lisi builds in her reading time into her schedule, so it gets done. When you time block, it forces you to focus on the task at hand. Why not try this time chunking method and let Sandra Lisi and myself know if your productivity increases?

The most accomplished people use books as problem solving tools. They carve out the time in their schedule to find solutions in the pages of a book. Let me help you to solve your own problems. Additionally, this program helps you to learn valuable career skills. Click the link MoreReads Success Blueprint Accelerator Program to buy.

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