i'm begging you to manage your time

Introduction to the Honest Hour

00:00All right, hello and welcome to this training. As you can see from the title, what we're going to be discussing today is the honest hour. And as you can see from the overview, what we're going to be covering more specifically is first the overview itself, your life and hours, deciding what matters, the honest hour, the review, and your action items for the day or the next few days.

Your life happens in hours

00:18Without further ado, let's get started and talk about your life and hours. So, I think one of the reasons people struggle so much with time management is really that we talk about time as if it's some separate resource sitting outside of our actual lives.

00:30We talk about saving time, wasting time, finding time, making time, and somewhere along the way, it becomes very easy to forget that what we're actually talking about. Now, your time is your life. More specifically, your life only ever reaches you through whatever hour you happen to be living in right now.

00:46You don't experience your life as one big 80year block. you experienced this morning, this afternoon, this conversation, this hour. And by the end of this training, I want you to have a very simple way of deciding what an important hour of your life actually is for, using it deliberately, and then looking back at it honestly enough that the next one gets better.

01:03And once you really think about it that way, a lot of the way we normally treat our days starts looking a bit strange, right? You wouldn't casually throw away a month of your life, yet it's surprisingly easy to throw away an hour because another one seems like it's coming right after it.

01:18And there will be another morning tomorrow. There will be another Monday next week, at least so we think. There will probably be another chance to write the thing, make the call, train, spend time with somebody you care about, or finally deal with whatever you've been avoiding.

01:29So, the individual hour doesn't really feel expensive while you're inside it. But the problem is that tomorrow arrives with its own hours, and those hours already have demands waiting for them. You still have work. People still need things from you.

01:42Your phone still exists. You still get tired. New problems appear. So when you keep moving something important into a future day, you aren't moving into some empty place where it will finally be easy. You're really moving it into another normal day that will ask you to make the same decision again.

01:55And that's why I'd start by getting very literal about this. Once an hour passes, you can learn from it and you can use what happened to make a better decision later. Though you can't put something different in that original hour, whatever happened during that time became the actual content of that part of your life.

02:11If you worked on something meaningful, that was your life for an hour. If you rested because you genuinely needed rest, that was your life for an hour. If you spend the whole thing half scrolling and half thinking about something you never began, that was your life for an hour, too.

02:24And

Every hour produces a result

02:26every one of these hours leaves something behind. Sometimes it leaves a finished page, a workout, a conversation, a decision, some recovery, or a problem that finally moved. Sometimes it leaves you with more pressure because the thing you meant to do is still waiting for you.

02:38Sometimes you barely remember what you did at all. Either way, the hour produces a result. And I think that's much more useful way to look at time than simply asking whether you were busy because something always gets the hour. If you spend it answering messages, you've made that trade.

02:53If you write the messages, wait, right? If you spend it with your partner or your family, the work stays unfinished for a while. If you sleep because you're exhausted, something else gets pushed back. None of this makes the choice automatically, good or bad.

03:03It simply means you cannot put two different lives inside the same 60 minutes. So deciding what gets the hour actually matters a lot here. And I want to include rest very deliberately here because this can become another productivity lecture very quickly where every hour should be filled with work.

03:19That's not what I'm saying. An hour can be well used because you worked hard. An hour can also be well used because you stopped working hard. If you're exhausted and you need to eat or walk or lie down, see somebody you love or simply leave yourself alone for a while.

03:32Do that. Half resting while you keep checking work usually gives you unfinished work and poor rest at the same time. So the real question starts

Track your attention, not just your time

03:40changing. Instead of only asking where your time went, you start looking at where your attention went while the time was passing. Because those two things aren't always the same, right? You can technically spend an hour at your desk while your attention moves between the documents, your phone, your inbox, some unrelated thought, and whatever else you decided to check.

03:56The clock says you worked for an hour, but your actual work may have received 15 or 20 decent minutes. And you already know what this feels like. You write a little for a while, check something, answer it, come back, reread the paragraph, remember what you were trying to say, and eventually you get going again.

04:11Then something else pulls you out. The hour feels full because your mind stays active the entire time, while the thing you really cared about barely moved. You were present for 60 minutes. The task didn't receive 60 minutes of you. And some work simply needs you to stay there long enough.

04:27Writing is an obvious example because the first thing you really write usually isn't the best thing you can write. You need enough uninterrupted time to get past the obvious version. Notice where the thought is weak. Find the cleaner explanation and actually finish it.

04:38The same thing happens with difficult decisions in conversations. You need enough attention for your thinking to actually develop instead of repeatedly returning to the beginning. Which is why I wouldn't begin by trying to create a

Match difficult work to your best hours

04:52perfect schedule. I'd begin by watching what your hours already look like. Pay attention to when you think clearly, when you struggle, when your mind keeps getting distracted, and what happened before that period began. Maybe you work well early.

05:06Maybe you need a slower morning. Maybe you get your strongest two hours in the afternoon. The exact pattern doesn't really even matter as much as finally admitting that your hours are different from each other. You have hours where difficult thinking feels relatively natural, and you have hours where even simple work feels heavier than it should.

05:23Sleep changes that, too. food changes that stress changes it. The kind of work changes it. So if you keep giving your hardest task to the periods where you consistently have the least capacity for it, you'll keep turning a timing problem into a discipline problem and wondering why you can't force yourself through it.

05:39Hey,

Work with me and join the community

05:40really quick. If you're still watching this video, that tells me you're serious about actually making a change in your life. So if you want my help personally, click the link below and book a call. We'll look at where you are, where you want to go, and what's been keeping you stuck.

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06:19And with that said, back to the video. And with that

Deciding what deserves your attention

06:22we move on to deciding what matters. So once you start seeing your life in hours you run into the next problem very quickly. You only have so many good hours and a lot of things can make a reasonable claim on them. That means you need some way of deciding what deserves your best attention today.

06:35And I think this is where ordinary to-do lists often fail because they flatten everything into a list of tasks. Answer an email can sit right beside finish the script or do the sales call or buy something you need can sit beside having a conversation.

06:50you've been avoiding for 3 months. They're all technically tasks, though they clearly don't carry the same weight. So, when something is asking for an important hour, I want you to ask what that thing actually leads to. If you write this section, what does that help you finish?

07:03If you finish the script, what does that allow you to publish? If you publish the video, what are you hoping the video eventually creates? You keep going until this small action connects to something you genuinely care about? Because that connection tells you why this particular hour deserves protection.

07:16Maybe you're writing because you're trying to publish one genuinely useful video and that video supports the business you're trying to build. Suddenly, the paragraph in front of you has an actual place. You aren't really choosing between writing and checking your inbox as two random activities.

07:30One action moves something that matters to you while the other can probably happen later without changing much. And the same logic works outside of work. Maybe the hour goes to training because staying strong and healthy matters to you. Maybe it goes to sitting with somebody you love because you've barely seen each other all week.

07:44Maybe it goes to doing absolutely nothing productive because you've worked too much and you know you need to recover. The point is that you know why you're giving this part of your life to this particular thing and you can work from

Turn meaningful goals into physical actions

07:57the other side as well. Start with something big you say you want and keep bringing it down until you reach something your body can actually do. So a better business is very vague to work on. More booked calls is still an outcome. Maybe that outcome needs a useful video.

08:11The video needs a script. Maybe the script needs one section. Now you finally reach something that can occupy an hour because you can open the document and write the section. A lot of procrastination begins because people never really make that final move.

08:23They have a goal, maybe even a plan, yet the actual hour arrives and the instruction is still something like work on the business or get healthier or fix the relationship or make progress on the course or make progress in my studies. Your brain still has to decide what any of that really means before you can begin.

08:40And when the task feels difficult already, that extra ambiguity really gives you a very convenient place to stall. So bring the thing close enough that you can see the first physical action. Open the document and write the opening section. Put your shoes on and begin the workout.

08:53Call the person, read the contract, and write down three questions you need answered. Read the contract and write down three the three questions you need answered. Once the action becomes that clear, you've removed the surprising amount of the resistance that came from simply knowing where to begin.

09:07Of course, clarity

Recognizing productive avoidance

09:09doesn't magically make you want to do everything, by the way. Sometimes you know exactly what matters, and you still find yourself doing things that look useful because they let you stay close to the important work without actually doing any of it.

09:19You keep researching after you already have enough information. You reorganize the outline when you need to record. You watch another explanation of something you already understand. You answer small things because finishing them gives you a quick sense that the day is moving.

09:33And I've noticed this is why avoidance can be so hard to catch in yourself. You often don't look lazy while you're doing it. You look responsible. You may actually be working hard. The problem is simply that the important thing remains untouched.

09:43And eventually you finish the day tired from doing plenty of small little things while still knowing the one thing you cared about didn't really move. The video might fail. Somebody might reject the offer. The conversation may go badly. You may find out that your current ability isn't where you thought it was.

09:59Planning and preparation feel safer because they delay the moment where reality can actually answer you and give you feedback. At some point though, the uncertainty only disappears after you do the thing and see what actually happens. And this gets even

Choosing fewer priorities

10:12harder when you have too many genuinely important things at once because now you aren't choosing between something meaningful and something pointless. You're choosing between several things that all make sense. You want to grow the business, maybe train properly, maintain your relationships, learn something, finish another project, and deal with the other normal responsibilities of being alive.

10:29You can care about all of those things while still admitting that they cannot receive your best hour today. And I would think in terms of what needs more from you during this particular period of your life. Maybe one project needs a serious push for the next few weeks.

10:43Maybe your health has been neglected and needs to move up. Maybe something personal needs attention before you keep throwing yourself into work. You aren't deciding what matters forever, just what deserves a larger share of your limited attention right now.

10:55And that also means leaving good things alone sometimes. And this is uncomfortable because we tend to think productivity means fitting more things into the day. In practice, a lot of meaningful progress comes from choosing fewer things and actually giving them enough time.

11:08So if five projects each receive a distracted little piece of your week, all five can stay alive without any of them really moving very far. And one clear priority gives you a much easier answer when the next good hour appears. So let's talk about the

The Honest Hour practice

11:23honest hour. So now we can finally get to the actual honest hour because everything before this was really preparing one decision. You know that the hour is part of your life. You know that some hours carry more attention and energy than others.

11:34You know that important things need to connect to something you care about and come all the way down to a physical action. The honest hour takes all of that and turns it into a simple practice. Before you begin, you decide what this hour is for, what you can realistically finish inside of it, and what you need to remove so the hour has a fair chance of becoming what you intended.

11:53And then you keep the

Define a clear finish line

11:55answer very specific. Writing is too vague. Working on the video is too vague. Write the opening section gives you somewhere to actually begin. Record the first part of the training gives you a clear action. And personally, I like giving the hour a finish line as well because an hour feels very different when you know what completion looks like before you start.

12:11So that finish line could be one section completed. It could be one conversation had. It could be one sales call had. It could be one workout finished. It could be one decision made. It could be 45 focus minutes on something that generally cannot be finished today.

12:25You don't need to complete the entire project in an hour. You need to know what success for this particular block looks like because otherwise you can work for an hour and still leave unsure whether you did what you came here to do. Right? So make the beginning obvious as well.

12:38Leave the document open. Put the notes where you need them. Know which paragraph comes next. If you're training, know what the first exercise is. If you need to call somebody, have the number ready. I want as little negotiation as possible once the hour starts because the beginning is usually where a vague intention turns into another 20 minutes of getting ready to begin.

12:55Proper planning prevents poor performance. Remember that. And once

Remove distractions before you begin

12:59you've chosen the hour, just make it easier to keep that choice. Right? This is where I think people ask too much from discipline. They leave every distraction available, keep the inbox open, put the phone beside them, and then spend the hour repeatedly proving that they can resist all of it.

13:12That's not how discipline works, right? You can make this much simpler. Just remove the things that you already know pull your attention away before the work starts asking for your full attention. That's it. If the phone causes problems, just put it somewhere you can't really reach automatically.

13:27Yes, putting your phone on silent can help, but if your silent phone is sitting 6 in from your hand, it can still pull your attention and pull you out of the work because you know it's there. So, physical distance actually adds a few seconds between the impulse and the action.

13:41And sometimes those few seconds are enough for you to notice what you're doing and stay with the work. But keep in mind, even then your attention will still wander. And that part is normal. You remember something unrelated, for example, or think about a message or get bored or suddenly feel the urge to check something.

13:56When that happens, just come back without turning it into a judgment about your ability to focus. That's really it. Just read the last sentence, continue the set, return to the conversation, whatever you were doing. The hour doesn't require perfect concentration.

14:08It just requires you to keep giving it your attention, to keep giving your attention back to the thing you chose. And the part that gives the

Review what actually happened

14:15honest hour its name happens when the hour ends. You look at what actually happened. Did you do what you said you were going to do? Did you get halfway through? Did you spend 20 minutes distracted? Was the task too large? Did you pick the wrong time of the day?

14:25Did something genuinely important interrupt you? You're collecting a small amount of truth about how you actually use your life. And I'd write the answer down in one or two plain sentences somewhere in a notebook or on a document or even you could create a tracker on Google Sheets and just do it there.

14:42I finished the section. I got halfway through because I kept checking my phone. I underestimated how long the task would take. I worked well for 40 minutes and then my energy fell off. I couldn't focus because I barely slept. Keep it factual enough that tomorrow's version of you can actually use it.

14:56And better yet, you can actually give it to AI after some time and have it analyze how you spent your time and have it analyze what your biggest distractions were and then basically ask it to give you a recommendation of exactly what to cut off.

15:07Right? So once you've done that,

Change your approach using real evidence

15:11change something based on what you saw, right? Move the task earlier, maybe make the next block smaller, put the phone in another room, eat before you write if you've noticed that helps. Give a particular type of work more time because 1 hour consistently isn't enough.

15:22You slowly learn how your own attention works by watching yourself in real conditions instead of endlessly designing an ideal version of your day. And I think that's the most powerful thing you can do here because at the end of the day, you will be in more control.

15:36Even if you get distracted often, even if 30 minutes of your 1 hour go to scrolling, you will know that ahead of time. You will know that about yourself. Even if you don't want to work on the scrolling problem, you at least know that an hour for you really means 30 minutes of work or less.

15:49And from there, you can actually plan out your day way more accurately and you'll be in control of your time because you know what your distractions are. And after you've done

Build self-trust through consistent action

15:58this for a while, something else also begins to happen. You start building a record of what you actually do when you say that an hour matters. You don't need to rely entirely on how motivated you feel or how disciplined you think you are. You can look at the work you completed, the workouts you did, the conversations you finally had, and the blocks of time where you came back after getting distracted.

16:15Your own behavior gives you evidence. And I think this matters because your expectations about yourself come partly from watching what you repeatedly do. If you keep making promises to yourself and moving them, you begin to expect another delay.

16:26If you regularly choose one realistic thing and follow through, you begin to expect that as well. You're simply paying attention to the pattern your actions keep showing you. Which is why I'd keep the promise small enough that it actually gets implemented in a normal week.

16:41Nobody's really asking you to focus and work perfectly for 12 hours. Just start with one hour that actually matters. one hour where you know why the task matters. You know exactly what you're doing. You remove the obvious distractions. You do the work and you tell yourself the truth afterwards.

16:53Once you can do that reliably, you can decide where another deliberate hour would improve your life. And this is the part I want you to carry with you after this video tomorrow isn't going to arrive as some giant new life with unlimited time inside of it.

17:07It's going to arrive as another morning made out of individual hours. And one of those hours is probably going to be better than the others. And when it arrives, you can let whatever is loudest take it from you, or you can decide in advance what that hour is for, and give one important part of your life, the time it actually needs.

Review and action items

17:23With that said, let's cover the review. We talked about your life and hours, deciding what matters, the honest hour, the review, and finally, your action items for the day or the next few days. First, pick one hour tomorrow that you know you can realistically protect.

17:35Choose the part of your day where your attention is usually good enough for something that matters, and then decide in advance exactly what that hour is for. Then bring the task down to one clear action and decide what done looks like for that block.

17:45Remove the obvious distractions before you start so you don't spend the hour repeatedly negotiating with them. And then when the hour ends, write down what actually happened in one or two honest sentences. Keep what worked. Change one thing that didn't and use that information when you plan the next honest hour.

17:59With that said, thank you for being here. I hope this brought a lot of value. Make sure to book a call if you want to work with me oneon-one. And with that said, I'll see you in the next