You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo episode 306.
Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast, where itâs all about real clients, real problems and real coaching. And now your host, Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo.
Well hello, my friends. Welcome. Today, we have a very special podcast with two of my favorite people in the world Lauren Cash and Tyson Bradley. I almost call them Tyler. Sometimes, I just call Tyson Tyler. But heâs okay with it. He just goes with it. Itâs fine.
Iâve asked them both onto the podcast because they are time management experts. They have helped me in creating the program Monday Hour One that weâre going to talk about on the podcast.
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Brooke: So, welcome to the podcast, you guys. Welcome, Lauren. Do you want to say a little bit of something about you?
Lauren: Yeah, thank you so much for having us on the podcast. Itâs almost like an out of body experience being on the podcast that Iâve been listening to probably for four or five years. And Iâve had the honor of working for you for the last, over two years, in various capacities. And itâs been amazing. I totally was able to hone getting more things done in less time by applying the tools and then creating Monday Hour One, which is the weekly process for getting things done by using your calendar and throwing your to-do list away.
Brooke: Yes, thatâs one of the things thatâs so great is not only are Tyson and Lauren coaches through The Life Coach School, but they also both worked for me. So, I require that all of my employees use Monday Hour One when theyâre working for me. So, they have not only learned the tools of coaching, but theyâve learned the tools of time management and combined them together. And I would say that theyâre two of the best to be teaching it and to be coaching it. what do you think, Tyson, do you agree?
Tyson: Totally agree. And I would say that I had the same experience that Lauren had in, just, like five years ago, listening to this podcast. I never would have dreamed to come here, show up, and even work for you. And itâs kind of fun just to see the evolution and to come now to this point of all the work being done and recognizing all the value that weâve been able to create in learning time management and making it simple for people to understand.
Brooke: Totally, I think time management sounds like such a boring thing, that weâre going to be talking about. Itâs just like, time management, people donât want to talk about it. But it is one of the most common complaints that I get. People feel like they donât have enough time. Some people say that sometimes anyway, to me, my clients. But I think that doing something about it seems impossible for most people.
And so, it has been one of the most important things for me to, like, study myself because I feel like Iâve always been able to get a lot done in a short amount of time and to produce a lot of results quickly. So, one of the things that I did was really study myself and what I do to produce the results and then I asked Lauren and Tyson to help me create a program that we could teach to all of my students.
So, we spent an entire day recording the program that we use in The Life Coach School for our employees that I use personally myself, and now what we want to teach all of you. So, weâre going to go over what the program is briefly on this podcast, but truly, this is one of those things that we can talk about and you can understand intellectually, but you wonât truly get it until you do it.
Itâs kind of like you can watch someone do a summersault, you can watch someone do a cartwheel and you can feel like you know how to do it, but you wonât ever be able to do it until you fail, you know, 100 times doing it first. So, thatâs what weâre going to do on this podcast today. Iâm super excited to have you both here because when the students sign up for the class, theyâll be able to see you and see you teaching it with me. But also, they can hear you here on the podcast talk about maybe your struggles with time management and how Monday Hour One helped you.
So, letâs start with you, Lauren. Why donât you give us like a brief overview of what Monday Hour One is and just a summary of how someone would go about doing it. What does it look like?
Lauren: Yeah, so what it looks like is that, for the first hour of your workweek, so Monday, Hour One, hence the name, you are going to be emptying your brain and getting out, on paper, everything that you think you have to do or get done that week or in the future. And then you get to decide how long youâre going to take on each of those things. And then you put them on your calendar.
Ideally, Iâve been really â when we teach in the program â ideally youâre going to put it on a digital calendar and then youâre going to, at the end of putting everything from that sheet of paper that you think you want to get done that week and put it on your calendar, youâre then going to throw that sheet of paper awayâŠ
Brooke: Which is the most fun part.
Lauren: Which is the most fun part, as youâll see in the program. I really love that part.
Brooke: Well, hereâs the thing. Iâm just going to slow you down just a little it because I think itâs so interesting. I was just talking to my husband about this. I was telling him, I said, I can always tell when someoneâs really utilizing Monday Hour One and when someone isnât because, when someoneâs really utilizing it, they always get their work done. And when they donât, when I say, âHey this didnât get done,â they always know exactly when it will get done.
So, when I talk to someone and I say, âHey, you were going to do this project. Itâs not done,â and they say, âItâs Tuesday at 11 Iâm finishing it up,â I know theyâre using Monday Hour One. When people arenât using it, theyâll say, âBut itâs on my list. I know I need to get it done. Itâs on my list.â That subtle difference, people say, âOh yeah, no, I do Monday Hour One. I write down everything I need to do.â But not throwing that list away before itâs done because itâs on your calendar is like the biggest indicator.
So, when you were talking about it, you make it sound super-easy. Just make a list of all the things you have to do and schedule them on the calendar. Tyson, maybe you can jump in. Why is that so challenging for people?
Tyson: Well, I was actually going to mention that that is probably the biggest challenge that people have is when I talk to my clients about what is your current planning process right now. And some are doing things on a daily basis, theyâre reviewing their day. Some are just keeping their list. I was talking to one client the other day and they said, âWell I just kind of keep everything in my head.â Thatâs like a challenge because brains arenât meant to store information. Theyâre meant to be processors.
Like, we analyze and we kind of process everything through. And so, even just the simple act of putting everything outside of you, outside of your brain, onto a piece of paper allows you to see it, and then transferring it to a calendar and getting it on there, I think people donât do that because they donât believe they will actually follow through on all their goals.
Brooke: Thatâs right, exactly. So, people donât want to put stuff on the calendar because they donât trust themselves to actually follow their calendar. And when I started teaching this to people, Iâm like, âOkay, this is what you do. This is the process you go through.â It seems so obvious and simple to me, but thatâs the feedback I got.
People were like, âWell Iâll put that on my calendar, but Iâm not going to actually look at my calendar and do whatâs there.â And I said, âAh, that is the issue.â This issue isnât about time management. This issue isnât about which calendar you use â because people always want to now specifically what calendar I use. It doesnât matter at all. What matters is, do you say youâre going to do something to yourself and then do you do it? And if the answer is no, thatâs the problem we have to address.
So, one of the things I love about you both working with people on time is that you understand the mechanics of planning time and how to organize time and how to think about time. But you also understand the Model and how we think about ourselves and our relationship with ourselves. And so, ultimately, what Iâve discovered is that time management is really an indicator of how much you trust yourself, how much you honor your commitments, and how much you follow through for yourself.
So, Lauren, tell me a little bit, when you start working with people and they discover this for themselves, give me maybe an example, or maybe just talk about what you notice coming up for people.
Lauren: Definitely self-trust, like you said. But the other thing that relates to self-trust is that they think they canât even say how long something is going to take or they have no idea how long they are giving certain tasks or projects. They have no awareness for how much time something is going to take them, or that they can even say they own that amount of time and say how long something will take them to get it done.
Brooke: So give me an example of that.
Lauren: Yeah, so one of my clients has a podcast and she says she doesnât know how long the podcast is going to take her to record it and publish it every week. And so sheâŠ
Brooke: Okay, letâs stop right there for just a second because I think most of my listeners would agree that thatâs valid, that, âWell, she doesnât know how long. Sheâs never done it before.â And no one recognizes at first blush that thatâs a relationship problem with yourself, that thatâs something that you are abdicating to the world to decide for you.
So, one of the things that I think all of us coaches, and even those of us who are coaching ourselves, when we hear ourselves saying, âI donât know what it will take,â or, âI donât know how,â or, âI donât know how long it will take,â thatâs an indicator not of you donât understand how long things take, but that youâre not taking responsibility for making sure that you get something done in a certain amount of time. And thatâs a very subtle difference. So, how do you address that with them?
Lauren: Yeah, so we then â well, for this client, they actually had done it before. But you donât need to have done something before to decide how long itâs going to take. For something that is more of like a mini project, like a podcast that has multiple steps, what we do is break that down and decide, how long am I going to create an outline for? 10 minutes, maybe. And then how long am I going to practice saying what Iâm going to say and record it a couple of times ahead of time maybe, for this client? Maybe Iâll give myself 15 minutes to do that. I donât know if itâs a short podcast or whateverâŠ
Brooke: Okay, so letâs use that example. Letâs say, okay, itâs going to take me 15 minutes to do this thing. And then, a lot of people will come back and say, âYou know, it didnât take me 15 minutes. It took me 30 minutes. It took me an hour.â What do you say about that?
Lauren: So, what I say is that they didnât hold themselves to how long it was going to take, so they made the decision at the time, when the timer should be going off, either actually or in their minds, at that moment they need to not allow basically the urge to continue with the task that theyâre doing and move onto the next thing that they had on the calendar. And whatever the consequences are of that, reap that, because really, youâre lying to yourself and stealing from your next time block on your calendar.
Brooke: Guys, this is so huge. Thereâs so much I want to emphasize here because a lot of us believe that we need more time in our lives to get things done. And it sounds legit and you can get people to agree with you and it will steal every dream that you have. If you tell yourself, âIf I had more time, I could write a book. If I had more time, I could get more clients. If I had more time, I could do higher quality work.
That sounds so legit and it gives all the authority of our lives to something external that is time, that doesnât even actually really exist but as a concept in our mind. When we change that and we say, âListen, I have one hour per day to create a 100K business. How much time is it going to take me to create a 100K business? An hour a day. Thatâs it. And you hold yourself to that.
Now, thatâs extraordinary, but so are you. But when you abdicate that, âWell I donât know. I donât know what itâs like to run a business. I donât know how much time I need. I donât know what I need to do,â then you end up with a life of confusion and I-donât-know and no success. And so, when Laurenâs coaching her client on how long itâs going to take to write the outline to a podcast, that seems boring. That seems uninteresting.
But when you notice that itâs a reflection on how powerful that client feels and how connected that clientâs relationship is with herself, then you can see that working with someone on time management doesnât just change how much time you have in your life. It changes how you think and feel about yourself. What do you think, Tyson, do you agree?
Tyson: I agree. I think the biggest and the subtle question is the difference between, how long will this take, which is very externally driven, versus how long do I want to give myself. Because, within that question is the decision, you know, âIâm going to give myself this much time and itâs going to be done,â and willing to do the B-minus work thatâs been talked about on previous podcasts and that we talk about in the program too, just kind of the more mental concepts that really help you in actually fulfilling what you say youâre going to do.
Brooke: Okay, but Tyson, I want to give myself three hours to write my podcast outline because I donât know how long itâs going to take me, so I want to give myself way more time than I think I need. What are your thoughts on that sort of shenanigan?
Tyson: Well, itâs funny because I was just talking to some students about this exact thing. And in my mind, itâs like, thereâs this balance between planning too much and also having compassion on yourself. Because when people plan way too much that they canât get it done or they just donât get it done in the amount of time, itâs like they use their not getting it done as a way to judge themselves.
But on the flipside, if youâre too kind to yourself and saying three hours, like, challenging yourself so that you can focus, because if you give yourself too much time, you will fill the space. But if you are giving yourself a time that you really do believe you can do it and that is still challenging, then at least your brainâs engaged. And when you get to that moment, itâs like, âI have one hour, so itâs got to get done. Letâs do this.â
Brooke: Yes, and you donât have time to be checking Facebook and making sure that your desktop is clean. Youâre like, âI have 30 minutes to write this podcast outline. You know what Iâm going to do? Write my podcast outline. Thatâs it. Thatâs all I have time to do.â And you create this focus by adding that gentle pressure to yourself that produces momentum.
So, when I think about my week, when I sit down and I say, âOkay, hereâs everything that I need to do thatâs in my brain,â and then I put it all on the calendar, hereâs what happens; I immediately feel, as soon as I write the to-do list, I feel terrible because thereâs so much to do and Iâm never going to get it done and everythingâs painful.
And we show you how to kind of go through that to-do list in the course so you can understand how to deal with those feelings. Then you schedule it on your calendar and you feel this huge sense of relief, but only if you trust yourself to follow your calendar. And so many of us donât trust ourselves to follow our calendar. And thatâs why I love time management as a vehicle to start believing in ourselves, to start trusting ourselves, to start honoring ourselves.
So, Tyson, for example, letâs say I put on my calendar on Wednesday that I am going to write a sales page copy for my upcoming event. So, Iâm doing an event in March called How to Be Interesting. Itâs a business workshop Iâm creating in March, so stay tuned.
But I need to write the sales page for that. So, I put that on my calendar for Wednesday. And then I look on Wednesday at that time. Whatâs going to happen to me?
Tyson: Youâre not going to want to do it.
Brooke: I am not going to want to write that sales page because thereâs Facebook and thereâs Instagram and thereâs Netflix and my dogs want to go on a walk and Iâm kind of hungry and I feel like maybe some music. Every single part of me is not going to want to do it. And part of honoring my relationship with myself is doing it because, if I had that appointment with Tyson and I was going to meet him for lunch, I wouldnât just not show up. Why not? Why do we not show up for ourselves but we always show up for the people weâre committed to? What are your thoughts on that?
Tyson: You know, itâs interesting because there are so many excuses that the brain will offer. Sometimes, my brain likes to offer me, âShould I really be doing this?â It tries to go into confusionâŠ
Brooke: Itâs clever.
Tyson: Yeah, it tries to be clever about all of it. But I think the reason why itâs so easy for us to keep a commitment with someone else, whether itâs the fear of judgment of, like, not showing up for them and the pressure of that, but we just can so easily discount our own schedule because weâre with ourselves all the time and, âItâs okayâŠâ we think itâs okay to give up on what weâve planned for ourselves.
Brooke: And itâs okay to disappoint ourselves. We get used to just disappointing ourselves on the regular. And thatâs where time management can really create a relationship with yourself where you feel honored and you feel like your time matters and you feel like youâre taking the ultimate in self-care.
Tyson: And I think thatâs part of the problem too of people actually planning in the first place is because they donât have that relationship with themselves. Theyâve not followed through so many times that itâs like, whatâs the point of planning if Iâm not going to follow through.
Brooke: Right, itâs so good. And, Lauren, this might be something that you hear sometimes so Iâm curious how you would address this; when I sit down to plan my week and I do my Monday Hour One and then I put everything in my calendar, it takes me an hour. And thatâs because Iâm really good at it now. For some people, it may take them longer than an hour in the beginning. And so, my argument is, I donât have time. I have so much to do, why donât I spend that hour actually accomplishing something instead of planning to accomplish something. What do you say to that, Lauren?
Lauren: Yeah, so I like to use the analogy of deciding that you need to head to a destination but not deciding to pull up your Google Maps or Apple Maps or Waze. So, youâre like, âLetâs just try to get there by, like, north, south, east, and west, and old school, like, on my horseâŠâ
Brooke: Thatâs so good. Thatâs such a great example. Like, âDo you know how to get there?â âNo, but weâre late so we better start getting there.â Thatâs exactly what we do. Weâre late, we donât have time to figure out the directions. We donât have time to plan. We donât have time to type â how many times have you felt like you donât have time to type the address into Google Maps, you just have to start driving? Thatâs such a good example.
Lauren: And, I think a lot of people, theyâre like, âIâm late to get this destination, but why are we even going there?â Like, a lot of my clients are doing projects that donât even make sense for their goals. Like, are you wanting to be at whatever theyâre doing? Somebody was, like, writing a book for somebody else when they really want to do this other career. So, Iâm like, âWhy are you even doing that project? Do you want to become an author?â
Brooke: Thatâs so good too. And thatâs what we do in this process when we start writing down all the to-dos and all the things we want to do and all the things that we have put on the backburner. Part of Monday Hour One is bringing that all up and then asking ourselves why are we doing this, does this even matter to me? Does this make sense?
A lot of our actions that we want to do may be coming from thoughts that arenât serving us, so being able to take the time to look at that, thatâs super important and itâs such a great example. Itâs like, first of all, Iâm not even pulling up the map to know how to get there and I donât even know why Iâm going there. Iâm just in the car driving, so I might as well keep going.
And nothing will steal your dreams faster than not managing your time and not honoring your relationship with yourself. So, we felt so strongly about this coaching and this process that we created a program for you. And itâs good. Iâm just saying.
I do want to tell you that we shot it â we rented this house to shoot it in and there are a lot of really cool backgrounds that youâre going to enjoy seeing inside of the program. But Iâm really excited for you to see Lauren and Tyson and me and the conversations that we have around time management. All three of us kind of geek out on it because we think itâs one of the superpowers of the universe. So, we share all of the secrets that I use in The Life Coach School and that we all use personally in order to get so much done.
So, I have a very special treat for all you Scholars. If you are already a Scholar, you will get Monday Hour One included. It will be in the Study Vault. Itâs 100% yours for no additional anything because youâre a Scholar. Youâre welcome. And you will also get Tyson teaching you, once a month, all of the tools that you will be learning in Monday Hour One, he will be showing you and helping you work on them live, because you will have questions, itâs all in the application. So, once a month, youâll be able to work with him on that.
Now, some of you will even want to take it deeper. And youâll want to work one on one or in a very small group working on this. Iâve had many of my master coaches, many of my mastermind participants work with Lauren or Tyson on this stuff in a very intimate environment and get a lot of direct feedback and a lot of, shall we say, loving coaching about honoring your commitments and your relationships with yourself. So, if you would like to work with Lauren directly, why donât you tell them how they can do that, Lauren?
Lauren: Yeah, so just head over to thelaurencash.com â I always like to say my last name is like money. People always try to spell it like with a K or something Iâm like, what are you talking about? Itâs moneyâŠ
Brooke: Its money. Lauren Cash, I love it. Okay, so thelaurencash.com right? And then tell them a little bit about what it would be like to work with you.
Lauren: Yeah, so if you worked with me, weâre going to be directly applying all of the Monday Hour One concepts. So, youâll even be sending me screenshots of your calendar and weâll be going over whatâs going on, on Tuesday at two, when you decide not to do the thing on your calendar. Whatâs that coming from?
And I actually have had clients that are in session with me one on one saying, âLauren, I came to you to work on time. Why are we talking about a thing that happened in college that, like, is the root issue to what I believe about myself and why Iâm not getting stuff done and why Iâm overworking and trying to prove my worth through what âm doing?â
So, we uncover all of that, thatâs really holding you back on the belief level, using the Model. And also, tactically, like, working through what are you doing with your calendar, why do you have this on your calendar? And I love going even into, like, what is dinging on your computer when weâre in session? How do you get anything done?
Brooke: Theyâre so busted, I love it. I love it, itâs so good. Okay, what about you, Tyson? If they want to work with you, where should they go and what would that be like?
Tyson: Yeah, they can go to tysonbradley.me and what itâs like to work with me, itâs similar in that itâs a one to one experience and itâs one thing to talk about the practical application of hereâs what you do, hereâs how you plan, hereâs the process that you can use. And sometimes, Iâve been even exploring, for those that have a really hard time, like, letâs learn how we can commit to one day, even one hour. Like, letâs learn how we can commit to honoring our calendar, honoring what we say weâre going to do, and then expound from there and recognizing that itâs one part application, the other part all your brain. Just like Lauren says, I talk with my clients on things that donât relate to time management but are totally stopping them from doing what they say theyâre going to do.
Brooke: Yeah, one of the things that I hear people say all the time about Monday Hour One and when they hear kind of conceptually what it is, they say, âI donât want to be that tied down. I donât want to be that scheduled. I donât want to feel like I donât have any freedom.â And I always laugh hysterically because Iâm like, âNo, no, you plan your freedom first.â
Most people that donât have any freedom and donât have any free time, itâs because the free time they are taking, theyâre stealing it from themselves, so they canât even enjoy it. theyâre just saying, âIâm not going to do that thing. Iâm going to do this other thing, so the whole time, theyâre feeling guilty.
What we do in Monday Hour One is we schedule our free time and our lovely time and our pedicures and our workouts and all of the stuff that is most important to us, time with our loved ones first, and then everything else gets filled in. So, if you want to just check out Monday Hour One â letâs say maybe youâre not in Scholars, we donât understand why, but letâs say youâre not in Scholars, youâre not quite ready or you donât want to work with a coach right now, you can just go to thelifecoachschool.com and sign up for Monday Hour One right off of the website and get exposed to all of the concepts that we teach and you can start practicing.
If you need additional help, you can always get it inside of Scholars, or by working one on one with Lauren or Tyson. I highly recommend both of them. They have both gone through, of course, my coaching program and theyâve both worked for me and they are extraordinary employees.
And I will tell you, the reason why theyâre extraordinary, the reason why their businesses are doing well and theyâre doing well inside of The Life Coach School is because they follow Monday Hour One. That is not a joke. Iâm not just saying that to promote this. That is exactly how we roll.
So, I appreciate you guys so much for coming on the podcast. I love you guys both so much and Iâm excited for the people that get to work with you. So, thank you for coming on. Talk to you son Lauren.
Lauren: Thank you so much.
Brooke: Talk to you soon, Tyson, bye.
Tyson: Bye.
Hey, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, you have to come check out Self-Coaching Scholars. It's my monthly coaching program where we take all this material and we apply it. We take it to the next level and we study it. Join me over at the TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. Make sure you type in the TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. I'd love to have you join me in Self-Coaching Scholars. See you there.
