Episode 1038: Asking the Right Question about Your Time

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1038 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:06] Dr. Sharon Grossman: I'm Dr. Sharon Grossman. I challenge you to invest in yourself. Invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to avoid burning out is key.

[00:00:25] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mason.

[00:00:33] Scott Maderer: one of the techniques that you can use is called the five whys method. You've probably heard of this. If you've got a problem, if you've got something that's holding you back. First ask why is it happening? Why is this problem happening? Why are you not getting done? What you need to get done, then ask again.

[00:00:54] Why is that? Whatever answer you give, why is that? Answer the [00:01:00] answer. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time. Your talent and your treasures for your true color in the inspired stewardship podcast, we'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:27] In today's episode about investing in yourself by stewarding your time. I talk with you about why we often don't ask ourselves the right or for that matter. Any questions I share several of the best questions to ask yourself if you want to become more productive. And I also share why you may need to ask these questions repeatedly to really get to the.

[00:01:51] Answers as we talk about stewarding your time. Wouldn't it be great. If you could support this podcast and do it without just taking too long, it turns [00:02:00] out you can't. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission, we'll come back to support the show.

[00:02:10] Just that quick. If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/. The truth is when it comes to productivity and getting more done, we often really don't sit down and ask ourselves any questions. And for sure, we don't ask ourselves the right ones. Don't get me wrong.

[00:02:34] You probably have thought to yourself, what are my goals? What am I trying to get done? What's important for me to get done. And that is a great question to ask, but it's probably not the most important. To ask because the truth is that if that's all you ask is what are my goals. You're never getting to the next step of what are you going to do about them?

[00:02:59] It's important [00:03:00] to have goals. They need to be specific. They need to be measurable. They need to identify next actions. We've talked about all of those things before, and it's not that there's anything wrong with having goals, but. Please stop there. You should also ask yourself when you look at your goals, what would happen if I go bigger on this goal, what would happen if I could achieve this goal at a bigger level?

[00:03:25] What if you could 10 exit? What if you could a hundred exit think about is the limit that you're putting on the goal, your own limit, or is it a limit that comes from something else? How about what would happen if I could achieve this goal in half the time? That I think it's going to take me. What if I could do it quicker?

[00:03:47] What if I could do to work faster? It also leads you to then start asking questions. What's the actual outcome that you want and are you actually working on the right things? [00:04:00] Are there things you need to eliminate? And if there are things you need to eliminate, then you need to start asking how do you eliminate them?

[00:04:07] Do you just dump them? Do you delegate them? What do you do to get them off your plate, asking yourself what's the next step? What's the next smallest action I actually need to take to begin to move forward a forward. Is this something, is this goal or this task, something that you need to be effective at or efficient at, in other words, is it the right thing to do?

[00:04:34] Or is it something that you need to develop systems and processes? So you can. Faster and more efficiently, what are the top things that you need to get done today or this week, or this month, or this quarter to actually achieve the goals that you have? See, we usually start with asking what goals do we have, but the problem is.

[00:04:57] That's usually the only question people [00:05:00] ask when they're thinking about productivity and there's a lot of better questions to ask after that, is this project something that needs to be done once and then it's done and off your plate, or is this something you need to do over and over again? Is this goal that you have a shiny object or is this goal something that really is in your.

[00:05:26] Competency something that you really want to do. Is this a goal that you've been putting off for a long time or is this one that excites you and what's your, why? What's your deep reason for doing this for achieving this goal? What's really the reason behind the reason, so to speak. What are the things that you need to do that feel like work and that you've been putting off.

[00:05:53] And what are the things that don't feel like work that feel like fun, that are things that you [00:06:00] want to do yourself, and you really are driven by them asking these deeper questions really begins to get you moving forward on productive. What happens if you achieve this goal, what's the outcome.

[00:06:18] What's the next step after that? What does it cost you? If you don't achieve this goal or don't do this task and what will it gain you if you do both in terms of ROI kind of money or time, but also in terms of emotional benefit, what is it that really gets you moving? No, the truth is these sorts of questions.

[00:06:46] And there's hundreds of them that you can ask are the real way to get more productive, not to just focus on the goal, but to actually think about what is it that really needs [00:07:00] to happen. One of the techniques that you can use is called the five why's method. You've probably heard of this. If you've got a problem, if you've got something that's holding you back.

[00:07:10] First ask why is it happening? Why is this problem happening? Why are you not getting done? What you need to get done, then ask again. Why is that? Whatever answer you give, why is that answer the answer and then ask why is that again, to that answer? And why is that again, to that answer? And usually if you go down five to seven, why.

[00:07:38] You'll get to the actual real cause you'll actually get to the root problem. You'll get to the thing that is really holding you back. We usually stop asking questions when we get an answer, but you also need to challenge the answers that you give and make sure that those answers aren't just surfaced [00:08:00] answers or excuses, but are actually the deeper answer that gets you moving forward.

[00:08:07] Thanks for listening.

[00:08:09] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your. If you liked this episode on the stewardship of time, be sure to sign up for our stewardship of time tips series by going to inspired stewardship.com/time or texting 4 4, 2, 2, 2 time tips, and that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time until next time.

[00:08:53] Invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact [00:09:00] the world.