Intro

Welcome to The Corvus Effect, where we take you behind the scenes to explore integrated self leadership and help ambitious family men build lasting legacies for themselves, their tribe, and their community. I'm Scott Raven, and together we'll discover how successful leaders master a delicate balance of career advancement, personal health, financial growth, and meaningful relationships. Get ready to soar.  

Meet Andrew Hartman: Founder of Time Boss

And hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Corvus Effect. I'm Scott. I am thrilled to be speaking with Andrew Hartman, founder of Time Boss, who learned the hard way that Grinding without Boundaries. Comes at a devastating cost. At 27, stress literally took away his sense of smell.

A wake up call that launched his 15 year journey to discover his highest sustainable pace. As a fractional COO business owner and Father Andrew has cracked the code on building successful companies while being fully present for family. His time Boss framework proves that you don't need to choose between professional excellence and personal wellbeing.

So for folks who listen to this podcast frequently, when we talk about legacy and all the dimensions of legacy. I really want you to hear what Andrew has to bring to the table because his wisdom can be a tremendous catalyst towards what you want. So Andrew, glad to have you on the podcast, man.

Awesome. Scott, thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here. I've been really looking forward to this.

I have as well. I'll put it that way. And let's just dive right in. And I kind of alluded to it. At the top that your journey to essentially create what is now time boss and we'll get into the high sustainable pace started back at age 27 when you had to hit the exact opposite and deal with the impact of that rock bottom episode.

And I'll just let you tell the story in your own words so that we can all learn from you.

that's great, Scott. I appreciate it. I appreciate the question. Yeah. So, you know, I was a 27-year-old, recently married. I went to great college, had Great parents that invested in me and found myself in the first role where I had way more to do than time to do it. And I suddenly realized I had no clue how to manage my time.

And I, I, I really had no rules to deal with that. I had, everyone had always taught me to use a to-do list. I knew how to use a calendar, but I didn't know what to do when the time exceeded or when what I needed to do exceeded the time that I had. And so I, I did what most people do and I just went on the grind.

Mm-hmm.

Understanding the Grind Trap

Most of us had been taught hustle, you know, our whole lives in, youth sports and in everything on LinkedIn and social media says hustle is the way. And so I just went that way.

and the sad part about that is that I got great results and I was promoted for it. and for a lot of us, we have been incredibly successful as a function of that grind, but.

What I found, and I think what all of us find is that the grind comes with a cost. And so it began with sleepless nights, wake up, stressed out, you know, worried about all these details of the things I wasn't doing. I'd have a post-it, post-it note next to my bed. I, I would just try to scribble out thoughts in the middle of the night so I could get 'em outta my head.

Wake up in the, wake up in the morning, look at the post-it note and it's absolute chicken scratch. You know, I'm, I'm not even solving the problem.

Yeah. I, I'm remarking. 'cause back in my corporate days, my wife would say, yeah, you had another work dream last night where you were talking to your boss in your sleep, right? And I'm like, good lord.

ab, absolutely. I called 'em project management dreams. I would be managing a project that was impossible to complete and, and it would just stress me out. And so, you know, What was really happening for me was, my amygdala's going crazy, pumping cortisol through my system, saying You are in danger.

You are going to fail or you are gonna let down relationships that you really care about. And when that happens, it's fight or flight. And for successful leaders, it, it's fight, right? I'm just gonna keep working. I'm gonna skip the workout, get to the office early. I'm gonna come home late, frustrate my wife.

I'm gonna sit on the, on the ground and play trains with my son. In the back of my mind, I'm gonna be continuing to manage the project or thinking about the email I'm gonna send when the kids finally go to bed and I turn up my laptop and I work till 2:00 AM

lemme ask a quick tangent question, before you continue your story.

The Imposter Syndrome Connection

How much, when you were looking back at that, were you fighting imposter syndrome and you just didn't realize it?

That's a really good question about imposter syndrome. I mean, for certain, I think the, the fear in the core of men and many leaders in general is, do I have what it takes? And we are in a culture where. Have, what it takes is very, is dictated by the results that we get. And so the grind gets results. I mean, hear me say like, I, I actually, if you just care about results, the grind is actually a pretty great strategy.

'cause over the short term, you're gonna get results. Like it absolutely works. the question is, you've mentioned it earlier, Scott, is sustainability. Can I keep that up? And I couldn't, you know,

The Cost Revelation

I crashed and burned, lost my sense of smell for six months in the midst of that. I mean, it's a funny story looking back now, but in the midst of that, Scott, I didn't think it was gonna come back.

I literally just thought I burnt it, like I lost it. I could feel my senses cooking from stress, hot flashes as I would feel the fear of all the things coming at me, and I had no clue how I was gonna get to them.

I can only imagine how maddening that must be and the ranges of emotions that you were dealing with during that six months in terms of reluctance, acceptance to, you know, what the hell, right. And everything in between.

Yeah. Like, am I broken? Am I fail? Is this my plight? Like, and, and here's the deal. At the time, I mean, I, I wish I could tell you that I solved it after that I didn't. I mean, I, I made some changes, but, but my. Worst flame outs were yet to come. You know, I, I, made some minor changes, but not enough.

I definitely went to work to try to start fixing it, but what I found was, I got really good at capturing all that needed to be done. So I got better at keeping all the things in front of me, but I never dealt with my actual capacity. And so I would.

Accepting Finiteness

I would slowly allow work to fill every waking moment in my life.

And I was really, I was super focused. You know, I developed these habits of being incredible at execution and again, continued to get results. But until I came to terms with my finiteness that I, I just had to radically accept how little time I actually had until I, until I could radically accept that I didn't make the change that I really needed to make.

I mean, I'm envisioning the old analogy of you have the big rocks, the pedals and the sand, and that, you know, right, wrong or different. We. As ambitious people are notorious for trying to put sand into the jar first in order to fill it up and take care of all the quick little ankle biters. Right? And then we don't have enough space for the things that really matter in life.

Right. Yeah. Well, and my guess is for your audience, Scott, just knowing that you're, we're talking about a ambitious leaders.

Yes.

they are probably really good at putting the big rocks in first. I got really good at putting the big rocks in first, and they know to put in the sand. The problem is they never stop putting in the big rocks.

They just keep saying yes to more and more things. And that's truly, again, our, our finiteness has to come into play.

Time as Cash Philosophy

the analogy I use is that time is like cash, not credit. And most people treat people like credit. Stuff comes at them. They say yes, and they swipe that card. They don't evaluate, do I have the capital?

The cash to spend on this thing. And as as financial managers, we all know this, if I have a million dollars that I'm trying to deploy to get the biggest ROI possible, I only have a million dollars. I don't have $1.5 million, I don't have $2 million, I only have a million. And so we make very judicious decisions with that capital.

Our time is no different, but we don't think of it that way. And so to me, the first move is you have to get clear on how much time do I actually have and then start making judicious decisions accordingly.

Particularly, and you know, I don't wanna be morbid. Nobody's guaranteed tomorrow, right? So you have to make it so that each moment that you are saying, I'm going to spend my time and my energy in such and such a manner that, for lack of better word, it counts. And you've taken. A long period of time, 15 years in order to continuously do the reps and master this, not only for your benefit, but now what you can give as a gift to others, so that in a lot of respects, they don't have to learn the hard way.

You are exactly right. I think in any framework really what you are embracing when you embrace a framework is you are embracing the pain of the framework creator. And that is the truth in Time Boss. I mean, it was 15 long years for me and I wasn't, I wasn't building a time boss framework I was building.

Survival from Andrew for Andrew, and then I was building. Man, I actually care about my wife and my kids and my ministry through my church. And I, cannot let work take all of this or I will ne I will not be successful in those things. I may be successful at work and I will fail at areas of life that I really care about.

And so

you, and you're like me and a lot of the other people who listen to this podcast, that's not a trade off we're making. No,

no. and it is zero sum. There's only so much time and we can, we can be toddlers and stamp our feet and hate that, right? And, and keep grinding, and keep burning out and keep burning our relationships and losing our health and actually seeing our results diminish as well. Or we can just come to terms with it and start living in light of the fact that we are a finite human being.

and I think that's the first decision everyone has to make.

Yeah, and you know, it's, funny because I also had to go through my trials and tribulations to where I am today. What I am presenting as my gift through corvus, the liberation path to freedom, and to the main dimensions of that are time sovereignty. Sustainable success. And for you, I think you've encapsulated this so beautifully in the phrase, highest sustainable pace.

Help us understand what that means a little bit.

absolutely. Yeah.

Finding Highest Sustainable Pace

This is a concept that I came to when I realized just how poorly I wasn't doing this. So the, the idea is this, if you think about a distance runner, every distance runner knows their pace to the second, if they're, if they're gonna run a

As a, as a, as a former marathoner. Yes.

Yeah. Scott, what, what was your time?

Do you remember your time?

my time was, uh, usually just short of 11 minutes per mile, right?

Got it. So it was, it was like 10 58 or 10 57 or something

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like my fastest ever marathon was a 4 41, so.

Love it. It's great. And you fought hard for that and, and you learned that over the course of time, right? You didn't wake up day one and go run a 10 57 mile, like you, you, yeah. You

it, it, it, it's four months of Yeah. Go do the reps even if you don't like it. I'll put

A hundred percent. Yeah. And so when you think about that there,

The Marathon Analogy

there's really, there's three options When you run, you can sprint a marathon and you know, you and I both know like how long that would've lasted. Yeah. You wanted, you would've ended up doubled over in the first mile. But, but, and it's, we know that, like we laugh about that, but often that is the way that we are approaching our relationship with time.

Now what often happens, and this happened to me, the one of the times I burnt out, I said, you know what? I am not gonna experience that again. I'm, I literally almost became allergic to stress. And I said, I'm gonna swing to the other side of the spectrum and I'm gonna, and I'm just gonna experience peace.

And it's like walking a marathon. You could certainly walk a marathon, but that's

pretty boring. And you, Scott, and me and all the people listening to this podcast, we are people that are up to something that we feel a burden, that there's an impact that we wanna make. There's a mission that we're on, an assignment that we've been given.

And so just walking a marathon does not work. Just angling for peace does not work. It, it'll work if you just want peace, but if you want results, it's not gonna work. And so for me, that's where this concept of highest sustainable pace comes from, but it, it requires us to do the work just like you said.

It's not a light switch, we flip. We can't scroll LinkedIn and get a time management hack and think we're gonna get this. we have to change our habits related to time. We have lived into a set of habits related to time that are giving us the current results that we're getting and our current level of stress or peace that we're getting.

And if you're not comfortable with those, you have to change your habits. And my argument is that just like a distance runner finds their highest sustainable pace, where they will get the absolute best time over the longest distance. We do the same thing in how we approach our relationship with time, but it is a set of habits and it does take work to transition to wherever

You know, let's, let's stick with, let's stick with these, marathon analogies, right? Because you and I both know and probably have done it before to ourselves, where you go out too fast at the gun that you're caught up in the wave of you and all the thousands around you and the people, cheering you on, and that, you know, that.

You're supposed to slow down. So you go slow to go fast, right? If you're not going, if you feel like you're going, if you don't feel like you're going too slow, you're going too fast, right? But you get caught up in that wave of emotion to keep pace,

right,

but you can't sustain it. So I want to bring this to the professional front with what you do with Time Boss in terms of the people that you assist, where they're trying to match a pace.

Is out there, but that's not the pace that they're supposed to be running.

right. Yeah, it's a great question and it, and it is our challenge, right? We, comparison is the thief of joy. It's the thief of peace. It's a thief of a lot of things. And so I, I think what we've, the first move is we have to get really clear what are the results that we're trying to achieve? What are the results that are critical to us?

So that's, so that's true North, that that's what we're running towards. then it comes down to what capacity do I have to achieve those results? And so what's interesting about time is we often think about time as the time that we can control. So let's say it's, for me, I, I have 50 hours of what I call income generating activities for time boss.

Meaning I'm willing to give 50 hours of my life trade, 50 hours of my life. For income generating activities for Time Boss, because I believe in the mission 'cause it's how we provide for our family, all the things. So that requires me then that is a fixed constraint. Now if I have results that I want for the business.

I cannot necessarily just think linearly about how do I apply myself for those 50 hours to get those results? I might have to think more creatively, but the power for me, Scott,

Strategic Constraints Drive Creativity

of bumping up against that 50 hour time limit is it forces the creativity. Who else do I need to get involved?

What does my price need to be? Do I need to increase the value of what I'm offering to increase my price to help me hit those financial goals? You see the thing, hustle. Is a blunt object. It is the lowest common denominator that we can all do. But, but when we use, when we can strategically constrain our time and that becomes a part of our pace, we now will find creative solutions to accomplish those goals that don't require us to sacrifice our life, our family, our ministry, our community, whatever, at the throne of results.

It, it forces us to create think creatively of how we go get those results.

Yeah. It's, it's reminded me of some of the things back when, during my misspent corporate days when I did some linear optimization and you get into these situations and you actually would throw more constraints at the model than less in order to force, it to come up with more creative solutions.

And I could imagine as far as a time boss planning process that the. Fixing of certain things that are the thou shouts in the process forces the people to be more creative in terms of their use and time and energy.

Yeah, 100%.

The Development Through Delegation

If you think about it, it does all kinds of things. One, you can do with the results, like you just described. create a constraint and a constraint will drive our decision making. two, it's a way for us to develop people. So when we work with teams, one of the things we're saying is what development opportunities are you holding your team back because you are unwilling to delegate?

really successful leaders will delegate once, they'll get really crappy results back and they'll say, I'm never doing that again. Right. And they think it's, and they think it's the issue of the person they delegated to what they don't realize. Like you and me both Scott, I mean, the time boss framework is a function of me being hit with so many sticks that now I know to duck.

Right. There, there's such a great value and experience and often as we elevate as leaders, we forget the fact that we went through so many experiences to to for where we are. And so when you have the constraint on your time and you say, okay, who else can I get involved in this so that they can learn the same things that I learned?

There's a reason they can't deliver a hundred percent on what I deliver 'cause they haven't had the experiences that I've had. And so that constraint within the context of a team drives higher results because we have to be more creative in our thinking. It gets more people involved, and we develop our people because it, if I only have so much time, I have to leverage these other humans on my team, or we're not gonna get the results that we want.

So,

so

You know, it's beautiful. Yeah, it's beautiful that you're talking about that because I know part of what you offer through your professional endeavors is fractional COO work. Right. And I'm curious, when you are coming in and working with an organization in that capacity, how you get them to find that utopia of excellence?

Humility in the way that they go about things. Because if you're coming into a situation, it's probably not because everything is rosy. It's probably because there are some hard stuff that's gotta get done and that you're the person with how you are mastering the use of that team's time can make it happen.

Right. Yeah, it's, it's really well said, and really, what I say is.

Installing the Framework

We install the framework and then we find out who we are as people. Because the, what the framework does is it, is it quiets the noise, right? It's a very simple set of rules. What do I do with the onetime tasks that I need to get done, and what do I do with recurring tasks that I need to get done?

And how do I budget for unknown tasks that are no, are coming at me? So simple, very simple. And then what's left is all of our own stuff. And what we find often is that. cultures that are sideways often have senior leaders who are addicted to feeling valuable, who are addicted to anxiety. 'cause it makes them feel important.

And what I am helping them understand is, hey, are you more connected to how you want to feel about this business? Or are you more connected to the impact or results that you're trying to get? And no leader is gonna say how I feel about it, right? No. No one, they don't, 'cause that's not actually what they want, but they, they need

That's, that's not, that's not real life though.

What's that

it's not real life from the standpoint that they can say that in the, company arena, right? But these are the same people who go home and take a look at themselves in the mirror and see a villain, not an ally for how it's making them feel personally.

Correct. And that's really, you know, I, I joke, I'm the country doctor. I, I, I come in and I, I, I, I put it, I put my arm around him. I say, listen, that leg is gangrene. We are gonna have to cut off that leg. But here's the deal. I'm gonna be with you through the process and at the end of it, you're gonna live.

but we are gonna have to go through a little bit of pain for us to get there. when we talk about changes in our relationship with time. That's really what it takes, because it is not mechanical, it is not transactional. Our relationship at time is incredibly emotional because the things that we work on represent relationships that we don't wanna let down, or they represent results of world that we want to be true.

And, and that involves identity, who I believe myself to be, who I believe others to be. Uh, I mean all kinds of things. And so that's, really what we're helping people work through as they change their relationship with time.

and it's so fascinating because particularly when you get to those senior levels, right, that the multitasking trap is so prevalent yet, you know, uh, all the research that I have read have said

The Multitasking Trap

only one in 100 people can effectively multitask. I know it's not me.

Right.

that. Yeah, I know that I'm not that one person.

Right. But I would be remiss if back in the day that I didn't think I was that person, that I was like, oh yeah, I could do two, three things at the same time. Right?

Yeah,

absolutely.

do that to ourselves?

Yeah. One in 100 per people can actually multitask and 99 in a hundred people think they're the one that it can do the multitasking. So it's, we are over optimizing for the present moment. So the, challenge of the present moment is it's the present moment is where I feel all the feels right.

It's where I feel the fear, it's where I feel the excitement, whatever, or the boredom. And so when those options come for me to multitask, team, teams message pops up, text message comes in, phone calls, someone walks in my door, whatever. Emotions go wild. I'm afraid that if I don't answer that right now, I'm gonna let that person down or they're gonna think poorly of me.

You know what? I'm kind of bored of the thing I'm working on right now, and I, I don't wanna be bored. And so if we are trying to optimize for the next five minutes, we're gonna multitask every time because, because those emotions are gonna be stronger than our core beliefs about what should happen. If we can, if we can spread out that time horizon just a bit.

If we start thinking about Scott an hour from now, or Scott at the end of the day, or Scott at the end of this week, or Scott at the end of this year, Andrew, in those time horizons as well, I will make very different decisions. 'cause that person has very different needs and they don't, and actually they don't really care about my boredom right now.

They're just asking me to focus. They're just asking me to pull through and make the thing happen.

And so I'm really help people spread out their time horizon by which they make decisions. Because when we do that, we actually make much more. Healthy decisions. And just to underline it, what you said, Scott, multitasking burns time, you might as well light dollar bills on fire if you think that you are the it, it just burns time.

20 to 40% of our week is lost to what the research people don't talk about why multitasking is bad. It's because of what's called comeback time. It's the amount of time it takes me to come back to a task with the full context that I had before I left. Cal Newport and Deep Work, his research would show that it takes 23 minutes to reestablish full context with the deep work that you care about that's actually gonna move your business or your family or whatever forward not not knocking out email, like if you're getting into a strategic plan or you're thinking deeply about a piece of content, or you are, you are envisioning what you need to get done this next quarter.

That takes time. You, you unfold into that task and you can't simply hop around and expect to be effective at that task. It's just not possible.

Right, and we could talk about so many different things as it relates to that in terms of designations of days for free days or focus days, et cetera. We could talk about batching principles so that it's the same types of activities so that you don't have to, But I wanna focus on one of the biggest things that executives and senior leaders have a challenge with.

Is setting boundaries, particularly boundaries that stick. And I know this is a big focus for you and what you, prescribe and try boss in terms of you've gotta make boundaries stick.

Building Boundaries That Stick

You gotta, so couple things. So some of the things that we do with time bosses is we will come in and we will train a leadership or a management team together. And I, I joke that it's the denuclearization process, you know, because, 'cause we, it, it is an arms race. Like I ping you at a pm Okay? So I'm gonna, I, okay.

We, we. Talk at 8:00 PM IP ping you at 6:00 AM Oh, okay. Well that's how we operate Now, we we're on at 6:00 AM I ping you in on vacation. Oh, okay. We, we work when we're on vacation and we ramp up and so we, we just try to bring the temperature down and say, can we all give each other permission that if we look to maximize each other's focus time, we are gonna create the most value together as a company.

And everyone, everyone knows that cognitively, but they're afraid that if we don't all change together, I'm not gonna get my needs met. So. When I'm working with an individual leader, like we will often work with just to, you know, uh, senior leaders of organizations that are getting incredible results and don't know, but are, but are burning out on the inside and don't know how to change.

They, they need me to help them continue to get the results, but change the backend to continue to get those results. what I say to them is,

Retraining Relationships

we simply need to retrain the relationships in your world. And

Mm-hmm.

up until now. You have made yourself always available to those individuals and you've be, and that's just the path of least resistance.

They're not trying to interrupt you, they just,

That's

showed 'em that.

that, and you can't fill people's cups if.

a hundred percent. And so, but what you need to help that person understand is people will under will respond to two things. If they feel empathy from you and they have confidence and that you're gonna meet the need. So if they come with a need and you say, Hey, absolutely, I get that, that's super important for you.

That's empathy. If you can give them confidence that it's gonna be met in a reasonable amount of time, you can say, I'm gonna meet that need. Let me write that down and I'm gonna get back to you by end of day Friday or next week. Does that work for you? Yeah, no problem at all. This isn't on fire. I just wanted to get it on your list.

Great. 95% of the time it is not gonna be urgent and on fire, but we have built our worlds around the 5% because we're afraid. We're afraid we're gonna let people down. We're we're afraid it's gonna be the big one, you know, that we should have taken that chance. And so if, if we can simply retrain relationships, everybody gets their needs met and we get the ability to focus and do that deep work that we really wanna do, but it does take work.

Again, these aren't switches that we can flip. LinkedIn hacks that we can get on a scroll. it takes work for us to change our behavior from how we've operated previously to how we wanna operate.

I wanna go further as it relates to relationships, because one of the biggest things that you espouse to and that you're a living example of this it how is, is how it impacts the home front and how it allows you to have much more. Presence with the personal relationships. And we all know that person who says, yeah, I spend time at home, right?

But time and time at home is doom scrolling while the son or daughter is looking and saying, Hey, can you pay attention to me for a little bit?

Right.

The Presence Problem

And I find that one of the beautiful things that you propose is when you do the reps and you retrain your brain that it's going to allow you to have much more meaningful relationships with those closest to you.

Yep, that's exactly right. That's exactly right, Scott.

The Room on Fire Solution

So the way to think of it is this undone work to our brain feels like the room next door to us is on fire. Right. And we've been trained to grind, which means I'm gonna check items off my list. And so we think the room next door will no longer be on fire when all the items are checked off, off our list.

That will, that will never happen. we are problem seeking machines. If all the problems we're gone, we would make more problems. Right?

And so

I.

the, so the, so the answer can't be grind to the bottom. And, and what, what's fascinating in the research is it says that we don't actually need to accomplish tasks to feel relief.

But we need what's called commitment plans, means I have a plan for when I'm gonna make that thing happen. And I am, and I, my brain actually believes that when it, when that comes up, I am committed to following through. And so what happens for leaders is we don't create these commitment plans. We let these things live in our head, we come home and again, it's fight or flight because we can't work on those items.

We feel tremendous stress for those items. So we doom scroll, just we're, it's the flight mode. We just wanna get out of our head. We're just, we're just trying to get a break. Unfortunately, our kids in our family don't often offer that relief. They're asking us to be checked in and we're like, we already feel overwhelmed.

I don't have anything left in the tank for you. So the alternative is to have a time management framework built around commitment plans where things exist in the system, not in my head. And when I shut my laptop, at the end of the day, when I close my door, I trust that there is enough time. The system has all those things held.

I don't have to think about them tonight. And I'm not gonna miss out on the results that I want and I'm not gonna let anyone down. And when you train your brain for that, you're fully present to anything. I mean, right now, Scott, there's a million things on my list and I haven't thought about a single one of them because I can be present.

I

I like, I like chatting with you. I like, I want, I want you focused on me. I'll

put it

you, abso we all want that, right? Like we are all heroes in our own story. I don't wanna spend time with people that are always distracted. People think it's impossible. They think this is just the tax on the results I'm getting. They think for me to be a senior leader, I'm just gonna feel like this.

And it is, it's just bull crap. It doesn't have to be that way. And

So one thing. Yeah, one. Yeah. One thing that we talk about here at Corvus is the three underlying pillars to effective self-leadership, which is self-awareness, self-belief, and self-accountability, right? As it relates to this topic in terms of being able to be present at home. Where do you think folks fall down?

Do you think it's in the awareness, the belief, the accountability where Accommodation of three.

it's probably a combination of three. It's a great question. I love, I love that framework. I, it likely starts with belief. I, I think most things start with belief,

so I'm, I'm sure you would agree on this one, Scott. Downstream of our beliefs is our emotions. And then we take, and then we take actions based off our emotions.

And so if the action is, I'm gonna doom scroll at home instead of being present to my kids. It means that my emotion is probably fear, stress, worry, all of all the things that are going on at work. the core belief on that is where I think is likely the problem. And it's, there's not enough time.

this is just the way it is, which keeps people in the hamster wheel of stress and not changing, The number one thing people say, who's my competition? I say, the number one thing I'm competing with is people's belief that it's actually possible because I'm sure it's the same for you Scott, people, people don't think this life is possible 'cause they look around and all they see is burnt out leaders who are grinding themselves to a pulp and sacrificing the family in the name of the results they're getting.

And so I so affirm your framework and I think. The first thing that people need to change is their beliefs that it can be different and, and a, a core idea that I encourage people to embrace is that there is enough time, and most people would say, I don't have enough time. I wish there were more hours of the day.

And they actually don't. 'cause if they did, they just fill up those those hours too. I think starting with there is enough time as a powerful place to start.

I would love, if you wouldn't mind, to help paint a picture for my listening audience. I mean, I know we're on podcast, so you know, everybody's just hearing your voice, but I want, but you know. You work with your wife, Kelly, you've got your kids, Emma and Luke, and I want them to be able to get a glimpse in terms of what this looks like for you with the fact that, yes, this is possible if I can do it, it can be done by anyone if they have the right commitment.

Absolutely. So the thing I'll say is that this worked when I was the COO of venture-backed early stage software companies, which had a clear runway to die where they would die if we didn't get the results we wanted. It worked for Kelly and I as, franchise owners. Um, it's worked for us as business owners, has worked for me as ministry leaders, so any of those environments.

Living the Framework

So what it looks like for me is this, I decide every week how much of my life I'm willing to give to time Boss. And like I said, it's, it's 50 hours of income generating activities. I define very specifically when I'm gonna make that happen. And so most of the time that happens between 8, 5, 8 and six.

You know, somewhere in there we're, we're moving things around to make it work. But somewhere within there, I think commit with Kelly where I say, Hey, this is the time where I'm gonna lock in and I'm gonna make that work. And then Kelly and I agree, like, that's my focus time. I'm gonna be fully present there.

When that time's done, I'm, I'm gonna be off and I'm gonna be with Kelly. And so then I go to work to say, what are the highest leverage 80 20 tasks that I can get into my calendar this week that are gonna make a difference for the business? And I very intentionally budget in time for what I call unknown tasks.

I don't know how I'm gonna get interrupted today, Scott, but I guarantee you I'll get interrupted. So I budget time for those items so that they don't break the bank

And it's not a, it's not a strange concept. I mean, if you talk to a general contractor who's building a house, right, they always have a contingency fund. Because they always know something is gonna go wrong.

Absolutely. But none. But we don't build our personal schedule that way. so then really it. I mean, that's the magic. And then when I run my day, I'm working on the items that I've prioritized. I have that buffer time set aside. If someone comes and interrupts me, if it's not on fire, if they're not bleeding, I put it on a parking lot.

And then when I get to that buffer time, I work the parking lot. If I have extra time left over when the parking lot's clear, I just work on the next most important thing. And then at the end of my day, I run a daily review meeting where I, I am closing down my day. Where I'm literally emotion emotionally separating from that work.

I'm making sure that everything's back in the system. I'm taking a look at tomorrow and I'm reminding myself that I have a good plan and that allows my subconscious to rest. Truly, like my core belief is there is enough time and I, I go home to my kids and my family, and that's what it's like

people have, uh, talked about that, uh, apple TV show severance in terms of, you know, that fascinating concept in terms of work brain versus, uh, you know, uh, and completely not mixing, but there is some truth in that in terms of. Being able to have a strong cutoff and then not let it impact the rest of the night.

right. It's, it's incredibly helpful for me and it comes down to me having a plan that I trust, that I've, that I've planned ahead of time. If I, if I leave it to my future self to just figure it out real time, I'm gonna make really poor decisions. I think we need sober moments. To do deep planning where we make decisions on behalf of our future self, of what are the things we'd actually work on that, that's the whole time boss name.

It's, it's, I am the boss of my future self. How do I set that person up for success? Now, the one thing I want to add, Scott, is it doesn't always go as, it doesn't always go as planned, right? Fires come in things. It's the way it is. But to me, but to me, I'm always paying with cash. So let's say a fire came in.

It's, let's say it's one o'clock. Fire comes in and I look at it, I'm like, I know I gotta work late tonight. My first move is to pick up the phone and talk to Kelly and say, Kelly, I need to make this. Here's what's happening. This is really important. I need to make this happen. How can we make this work in a way that is the most life-giving for our family that has the least impact?

should I work longer at the end of the day, should I come home and let's see dinner together, and then I'll open my laptop up later. What I'm doing is I'm, I'm honoring the fact that, that this has a cost. I'm not just going into grind bone and just shovel faster and results be damned. I'm keeping the relationships that matter to me involved, and that might happen.

I mean, once a month maybe, right? It doesn't, it doesn't have to happen all the time. If it's happening all the time, you should probably get to the root cause of why that's happening all the time. Do you not have enough resources? Are you not billing enough for your services to have the margin to be able to get additional help?

are your systems in chaos where they're breaking down a lot and it's causing to work late? Like that's really the work we do in time bosses. Let's get to the root cause of what is keeping you from being able to be just intentionally focused on the plan that you think you should be

A a

When Plans Need to Flex

and sometimes you just have to let the plan flex. I mean, I'll give you a, I'll give you a Bvo example, right. Literally, and I'm not making this up right. My Fair City has decided to do road rep paving today, right outside my house.

Right. And I'm sitting here and I'm like, okay, I've got a few podcast episodes to, uh, record and I'm not sure I want large construction trucks in the background of these recordings, right?

But, you know, I go and I talk to the person in terms of what's the schedule, right? And fortunately for our conversation, they're gone. For others, I was able to move them, et cetera. But sometimes you just gotta accept the fact. That, you know, you make plans and the universe laughs and you gotta laugh along with it, for lack of better term.

Yeah, it's well said. Yeah. There's a, there's a term and time boss that reality is our friend, and we just gotta, we just have to be comfortable with reality and that we can, again, stamp our feet, be a toddler about it. But at the end of the day, like nothing you could do. And the thing I always say is, had you had this information when you planned out your week, you would've planned out your week differently.

And so sometimes. I'll say midweek, you might need to flush that plan you created and just run your planning process. Again. It doesn't take that long. The key is, again, it's always paying in cash. What, what people will do, you know, they'll have a moment like what you experienced, Scott, and they'll just, they'll just go into, into go mode.

I'm just gonna shovel faster. I'm just gonna figure it out. You know, relationships be damned. It is what it is and I think it's, I love the piece that you. Remain, that you delivered there. I'm, I'm just gonna, what's the right next thing to do next? I'm gonna make these adjustments and we're good and we've reset the plan and we're gonna move forward again.

I love that.

I agree. I agree. Well, speaking of planning, uh, as we, uh, move into the close of the episode, and I always give a little tip of the cap to, uh, Randy P's book, the last Lecture and his, uh, penultimate, uh, portion of the book where he said this was written for my kids.

Message to my kids: Emma and Luke

So Emma and Luke are listening to this episode sometime in the future. What's the biggest thing you want them to take away?

Man, the biggest thing I want them to take away, Emma and Luke, you know exactly how to do this. You have grown up in this. I hope that you are aligning your calendars to your goals and values like you know how to do. And I hope you know that your dad loves you with his absolute whole heart.

Beautiful clothes. Beautiful clothes. How can people find out more about, you, Andrew, and Time Boss in general?

Yeah. Best thing to do, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. we have, if you liked what you heard today and you want to hear how to do it in detail, we have a 90 minute masterclass that goes start to finish on the model. I am a firm believer that information is free. If you're a self implementer, you're gonna love it.

If you watch it and you love it and you feel like you need help, you can always reach out to time Boss. And talk about ways we can work with you individually as a leader or with your team, but would love for you if you're interested in this model. The Masterclass is the best place to start and they can get that on our

Okay. And just to make sure that we've got the URL Ryan, we'll put this in the show notes. It is Time Boss Us,

That's correct. Yep.

Yes. Okay. Yeah. So don't do the whole.com thing right. Time, boss us

and we will make sure.

yeah, just Google Time Boss Masterclass or Time Boss, and we'll, we'll come up right there.

All right. Any final, uh, words of wisdom before we close this out? Andrew?

You know, the, the, the idea that I often communicate when I lead workshops is as leaders, we are going to get the life that we choose, or we are going to get the life that we tolerate. And most people are just tolerating their life. They're accepting the things that are coming at them. I think there's an opportunity with a simple weekly planning process where every single week you can align your calendar to your goals and values, and you can get the life that you choose.

You just have to do the work.

Amen. Do the work and the results will happen. Andrew, thank you so much for taking the, uh, time to share your story and your incredible wisdom with us. I'm very honored. I'm sure that the listening audience is, uh, honored as well.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Scott. Such a privilege. I'm, I'm so grateful. Thank you so much.

No worries. To my listening audience, thank you for spending your time with us, and I hope that you not only take this wisdom away, but that you apply it to your life. Please feel free to subscribe on your favorite profile, class, platform, or share with people who can learn from this wisdom and could use it in their lives.

Once again, I'm Scott. We'll see you next time on The Corvus Effect. Take care.

Outro

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