Manosphere and Task Management; Episode 3
0:00:00.7 Jason Holmes: Good morning. Thank you for being here again. I appreciate you for being here, appreciate your time, appreciate your support in this growing podcast. Now, today is Tuesday, August 31st, 2021, and it is 5:31 AM here in South Korea and once again, we’re at my dining room table recording this awesome podcast. This is episode number three, Manosphere Task Management. Alright. Just a recap, alright, in the previous episode, episode number two, Manosphere and Time Blocking, we talked about how I want to focus on providing productive techniques that can help men in their focus so they can be good quality men who are good for their family and their community, then we talked about time blocking, you know how it’s a very productive technique for people to manage their time, you take a period of time, typically a day or a week, and just divide it into smaller segments or blocks for specific tasks or todos. Now, if you haven’t already, go back, listen to episode two and check out… With that I also have… With episode two, I made the blog of the transcription on Medium, and then I took that blog and converted the blog into an audiovideo on YouTube, so the audio is playing and I took the images that I’ve used in the blog, and I put that into the video. So, there you can support the podcast through three different mediums, audio, writing, and videos.
0:01:43.3 JH: So, on whatever podcast platform you listen to, medium.com, where I will be posting the transcripts and then on my YouTube channel where you can watch the audiovideo, and like always I include the links to my various other platforms in the description box of the podcast. Alright. Now, onto the different platforms that you can listen to the Jason V. Holmes podcast, so like I said in the last episode, we are distributed on Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Greater Public, Pocket Casts, and of course, Anchor and just one thing I discovered yesterday, so if you copy the show’s RSS feed and then post it into a different podcast app or website you use, you will be able to get the episodes of my podcast. For example, Ham, my supervisor, asked me was my podcast distributed on Castbox. So I went to Castbox, I download the app on my phone and then I went back to Anchor and I copied the RSS feed of my podcast and then I paste that RSS feed into the search bar of Castbox and then the Jason V. Holmes podcast popped up, so this is [0:03:01.2] ____. So, even if the show isn’t currently listed on one of the previous distributions that I said earlier if you copy the RSS feed of the Jason V. Holmes podcast and then paste that in the search bar of the different types of podcast apps that you use, you should still be able to get my podcast, so, just so you guys know.
0:03:22.3 JH: And like I said earlier, the transcript of this show will be put on in blog form on my Medium, so it’ll be jasonvholmes.medium.com, and then also I started, for the last episode, I made a video out of the audio file, photos, even upload the transcription, so there’s closed caption in the video as well, so you can find it on my YouTube channel and the links to both of those other platforms are in the description box of the podcast.
0:03:51.5 JH: Now, for posting time, I didn’t post the last one on Saturday, I posted it last Friday night. So, for the most part, it’s gonna go once a week, probably Friday or Saturday. I got excited I was like, I want, need to… I want to post this now. [chuckle] So no, but yeah, once a week, so you just tune in, so look for a new episode every Friday or Saturday, but also [0:04:14.9] ____ I’ll… Depending on the different podcast apps or whatever you use, it will also give you a notification of when I post a new episode. So, as I said in the last episode, we talked about manosphere and time blocking and how men in the manosphere space can use time blocking to help them find their purpose so that we can become men of value for our family and our community.
0:04:41.8 JH: Now in this episode, we’re gonna dive a little more deep into time management, task management, and this whole productivity topic, so we’re gonna build up on time blocking and start talking more about task management with those blocks of time that you created. So before we get into that, I wanna talk a little more about the manosphere. So, as men, our focus should be on developing ourselves into men of value for our family and community. I keep saying that, family and community, mainly ’cause of recent, I finally figured out what it is that I most value, and that is family, community, and education. That is what I value.
0:05:26.5 JH: But I feel like men who, especially if you wanna have a family, your family is important and your ability to do for your family and be there for your family, this is what makes you [0:05:42.5] ____ but it makes you a good man, ’cause for example, if you have kids and you are purposely neglecting them, then yeah you’re not. [chuckle] Yeah, you in my eyes, and probably for the other man, you’re not a good guy. You are neglecting your children, your wife if you’re still married or your significant other, so that doesn’t make you a good man, especially if you’ve got kids and are neglecting them. But in this manosphere space, as I said, we have a lot of content out there that, and rightfully so that points out some of the negative things that we men do, and I get that, I understand that, but I, me, personally, I want to be the part of the manosphere space that focuses on the development of us men, so we can become better men, so we can eventually get better at picking and choosing our future partners.
0:06:29.6 JH: Our wives in life, but our focus should be becoming men of value for our family and our community. Our focus should not be on trying to bang as many women as possible and get the bag so we can just show off. No, we should not be trying to bang any and every woman, that is wasteful, belittling us, it makes no sense. We are wasting our time trying to bang every chick and all the chicks out there, right? You’re wasting your time hanging out in the clubs just to go bang a chick, and you’re wasting money as well. It’s a… That time you should be focused on improving yourself, becoming more educated, sharpening your skills, or developing new skills. So you can once again, be a man of value for your family and community, trying to bang every woman is not the most productive thing to do with your time. [chuckle] Simple as that. Yeah. Just trying to bang a lot of women is a huge waste of your time, money, and energy. And as a man who’s trying to become a man of value for your family and community, chasing women distracts you from that. I’ll say it again, if you’re trying to become a man of value for your family and your community, chasing women distracts you from that.
0:07:48.4 JH: All right. So use your time and your money wisely to stay on task. And then that leads us into what is task management. So task management is managing your task throughout its life cycle to include planning, testing, tracking, and reporting, and notes. This is a process that can help you as an individual achieve goals or groups you lead to contribute to achieving their goals. Two things we will focus on are prioritizing your task and setting deadlines. Now, for those of you who work in like corporate or even, I don’t know, you probably worked on the… Work a construction job or something like that. And you have like bosses, everyone comes to you, right? Everything… “Hey, I need you to do this. I need you to do that. Hey, I need you to do, hey, this, this, this, this, this, this”.
0:08:43.9 JH: So the biggest challenge with task management is dealing with the paradox that everything is important when it comes to managing your task. There’s a lot of methods for task management. But the biggest thing that you need to do is try to not get caught up in everything that is important. Everything is urgent, you know, especially in the military, we deal with that a lot and it can be very annoying. And I know in a civilian’s life, you’ll probably have the same similar paradox of everything is important that you do it as well. So there are three methods of task management I’m gonna talk about, and I will include the link to the blog post that I’m going to be reading from on it. And the three we’re gonna focus on are the Ivy Lee Method, the ABCDE method, and the Eating the frog method. Now in this blog post, the author has like nine practical methods, but we’re going to only focus on three.
0:09:44.0 JH: And these are the three that I have commonly seen and use myself. But for the other ones, you can go back to the link and read the rest of them. So it’s from the RescueTime Blog. And the name of the article is The “Everything is Important” paradox: 9 practical methods for how to prioritize your work and time. I’ll briefly talk about the name of each of the task management… The nine task management that she talks about, but then we’re gonna only talk more indepth about three of them.
0:10:19.1 JH: The first method is, Capture everything on a Master List and then break it down by monthly, weekly, and daily goals. That’s the first one. And then the second task is, Separate the urgent from the important with the Eisenhower Matrix. Then the third is, Rank your daily tasks by their true priority with the Ivy Lee Method. Then the fourth method is, Separate tasks with similar priorities using the ABCDE method. Then number five, Set a productive tone for the day by “Eating the frog”, I.e. Doing your most important work first and six, Cut out “good enough” goals with Warren Buffett’s 2list strategy. For you, Warren Buffett fans you can check that out later.
0:11:06.6 JH: Number seven, Be aware of the sunk cost fallacy, I.e. Be flexible enough to change your mind and drop priorities. And number eight, Use Time Multipliers to make the most of your daily hours. And then finally, number nine, “Prioritize your most important work during your most productive hours”.
0:11:27.3 JH: So those are the nine different task management methods the author talks about, but as I said, we’re going to touch on only three of them, the Ivy Lee Method, the ABCDE method, and the Eating the frog method.
0:11:39.0 JH: So first let’s jump into the Ivy Lee Method. So the Ivy Lee Method. So sometimes despite our best efforts, we end up with a massive list of urgent and important tasks we need to get done. In which case we need to find a way to dig deeper and find their true importance. One of the best ways to do this was developed over a hundred years ago by a productivity consultant named Ivy Lee. The socalled Ivy Lee Method forces you to prioritize your day by following a simple set of rules. Number one, at the end of each workday, write down the six most important things you need to accomplish tomorrow. Do not write down more than six tasks. Number two. Prioritize those six items in the order of their true importance. Number three, when you arrive tomorrow, concentrate only on the first task work until the first task is finished before moving on to the next one.
0:12:38.5 JH: Number four, approach the rest of your list in the same fashion, at the end of the day, move any unfinished items to a new list of six tasks for the following day, and number five, repeat the process every working day, so limiting yourself to six tasks or less each day creates a constraint that forces you to prioritize properly and then stay focused by singletasking your way through your list.
0:13:06.1 JH: So a little about this Ivy Lee Method, I’ve seen other people use it, and I play with it a little bit. I like it because it’s like you are focusing only on six things at a time. Sure, you might have a lot more things, but if you have more than six tasks, focus on the ones that are the most time urgent, I guess, but yeah, this is a simple task management method to use. I like it. [chuckle]
0:13:31.9 JH: Yeah, so now the second one, the ABCDE Method, while the Ivy Lee Method is great for prioritizing daily tasks, there’s still one part that’s unclear, how do you know the true importance of a task? The biggest unknown when it comes to how to prioritize is differentiating between tasks that feel like they’re on the same level of importance. When you’re working on a complex task or juggling multiple roles, the [0:13:58.3] ____ principle and Eisenhower matrix don’t truly cut it. Here’s where Brian Tracy, ABCDE Method works wonders.
0:14:09.5 JH: Instead of keeping all tasks on a single level of priority, this method offers two or more levels for each task. Here’s how it works, go through your list, and give every task a letter from A to E, A being the highest priority. For every task that has an A, give it a number, which dictates the order you’ll do it in. Repeat until all tasks have letters and numbers. Again, this is a simple prioritization strategy, while in most cases, it’s almost impossible to differentiate between a B1 task and an A31, by giving each task multiple layers of prioritization, their true importance suddenly becomes much clearer. So I will include the image of how they broke that down but, yeah.
0:15:05.3 JH: So with the ABCDE method, like… So you’re gonna go through your list and give each task a letter from A to E with A being the highest priority, and for every task that has an A, give it a number which dictates the order to do it in and repeat until all tasks have letters and numbers. And if you look at the image here, it’s a… Yeah, you can have a lot of tasks with this, but they also only do it like six or eight tasks, I will still say like, limit the number of tasks you have in the day to six or ten, or six like the Ivy Lee Method, and then come down and use the AB… And you could probably mix this us up, honestly, and that’s what this one… ABCDE method kinda does, it kind of builds upon the Ivy Lee Method by helping you determine the truly important task that you have on your list.
0:16:02.2 JH: So now to the third method, which is the eating the frog method, once you prioritize your most important work in whatever method you choose, it’s time to actually choose how to attack the day. How you start the day sets the tone for the rest of it, and often getting a large, heavy yet important task out of the way first thing gives you momentum, inspiration, and energy to keep moving. That’s why a huge number of productivity experts suggest spending time on your most important task, your MIT right away each day or as Mark Twain famously wrote, “If you had to eat a live frog, it does not pay to sit and look at it for a very long time.”
0:16:48.3 JH: When thinking about how to prioritize your daily work, try to include one of these frogs at the top of your list. When thinking about how to prioritize your daily work, try to include one of these frogs at the top of your list, not only does this get that task out of the way, but it can also motivate you to continue pushing through the rest of your list. In fact, when Harvard professor Teresa Amabile studied the diaries of hundreds of knowledge workers, she found that of all the things that can boost emotion, motivation, and perception during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work, prioritize a small win early on in the day and you’ll be motivated for the rest of the day, so that’s the three that we’re gonna talk about… That we talked about already, I wanna mention, and if you wanna look at the rest of the nine tasks, I will put the link in the description box of the podcast.
0:17:48.2 JH: So now we’re gonna get into setting deadlines for your tasks. Alright, I’m gonna speak on a principle called Parkinson’s Law. So for those of you who don’t know what Parkinson’s Law is, Parkinson’s Law works expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Now, what does that mean? So pretty much Parkinson’s Law talks about if you give a task three weeks to be done, it will take you three weeks to be done, if you give a task one week to be done, it will take you one week till you’re done. If you give a task two days to get done, you will take two days to complete the task. So pretty much what it means is the Parkinson Law means that what… Pretty much whatever deadline, or whatever time you give a task, you expand into that, [0:18:38.1] ____ and then so be mindful and be careful how much time you give a task because you’re gonna subconsciously, you might even know it, you’re gonna use up whatever time that you gave it. If you have a task that needs to be done that you can do within the next two days, don’t give it three weeks [chuckle], ’cause you’re gonna do it in three weeks, versus the two days, give yourself a twoday deadline to complete the task if you can complete that task in the next two days.
0:19:06.6 JH: So be careful of what deadlines you set, and then with that… With deadlines, so for example, in the military, every month, we have to put together award packages, nominations, so each person in a shop has to put together three work bullets that we did for a month, now the deadline might be ten days away for the last person in that chain right? But for me, my supervisor, he needs it like five days early.
0:19:40.3 JH: I get it today, I find out today, “Hey, Jason, we need to have everyone’s nominations submitted by September 10th.” That’s when it needs to be to the final person in the chain, which is like the higherranked enlisted person or something like that, but anyways, it needs to be to that person by September 10th, and your supervisor says, “Hey look, I need you to give me, your work bullets by third September, Friday.”, I find out today August 31st that everyone in the squadron or company, for civilians, everyone in the company needs to have all of their nominations submitted to the last person by the 10th of September, so my supervisor says, “Hey look, I need you to submit your stuff to me by third September”, so he can review it so he can look at it and then he needs to have it sent to his supervisor by September 6th, so they can look at it they can package it, and then that person probably needs to send it up to their supervisor by the eighth, so he can look at it and they… [chuckle] like hash at it.
0:20:46.3 JH: And then after that last person, well then after that person gets it, then it goes to the final person. The final person, the final boss [chuckle] in the chain on tenthirty, on 10th September. So I say that to be cognitive with your deadlines is because if you might not be the only person who needs to review the task that you’re doing, they might be two or three other people who need to hack away at it before it gets to the final person. So when you set your deadlines, keep in mind Parkinson's law, which is work expands, so as to fill the time available for its completion, but also make sure that you are taking into account the deadlines of everyone else who also need to review your work and task. Now that’s what workrelated stuff, now, but just good practice in general, to keep in mind. This was a little bit [0:21:39.0] ____ Kinda like short a little bit, so task management, let me say this.
0:21:45.8 JH: With the whole time blocking and task management. You’re not gonna be perfect. I know there are a bunch of YouTubers out there who are productivity YouTubers, they talk about all these things and when you watch their content or listen to their content they make it sound so perfect. It’s not perfect. I am an NCO United States Air Force, I have a child that I take care of on my own and have a small business that I try my best to run the best as possible. Not everything you do is gonna be perfect. Now, I’m not saying that to just say as an “f” it. Just throw it, [chuckle] you know to throw it up in the air, put it in God’s hands. No, but what I am saying is that the goal is to do your best to manage your time, stay focus, and minimize wasting your time on things that will not be productive, that won’t make you a better, valuable man for your family, your community, and your job, when you have moments where you have your time blocking, you have your task, but it doesn’t happen how you plan, how it was planned. Do not beat yourself up. Just pause, assess and get back on track. Simple as that. ’Cause I know a lot of you was like, oh man, I didn’t do what I said, I was gonna do I didn’t get my time blocked, my time… We’re not perfect. [chuckle] right. But just do your best to try to stay on task.
0:23:10.0 JH: Try to stay focused, try to stay with a purpose, but as I said, don’t beat yourself up when you don’t do everything as planned or whatever, the main goal that I’m trying to get across, especially in a manosphere space, is that we need to have focus as much as possible, where we aren’t wasting our time on things that don’t bring value and improvement to our lives. Especially in a manosphere space. I am not here to teach you about smashing a bunch of women, I’m not here to talk about and teach you about trying to get the bags, so you can be flashy, I’m here to talk about and teach you to be productive men for your family, in your community and your job or your business.
0:23:56.9 JH: ’Cause those are the things that I think are more important than trying to smash every chick that you see or not. And like I said, trying to smash every chick that you see leads to men being with the wrong woman. It leads to you accidentally probably getting a woman you want nothing to do with pregnancy. [chuckle] you know. And you wasting money on a woman that you could have used that money towards improving yourself or donating to your community or doing something of much better, longterm returns versus the immediate gratification of just banging every chick. Okay, that’s not what I’m here for. That’s not what I wanna talk about in the manosphere space, I wanna talk about men becoming productive, men becoming focused, men becoming better. And me talking about this is also gonna help me out as well, ’cause you know it does this… This is natural. And once again I’m not perfect, nobody’s perfect.
0:24:47.9 JH: No man is perfect, and it takes a mature man to admit that. Hey look, I have flaws, but I am actively trying to fix those flaws. So thank you for listening to this one. Tell me what you think. Hope you like it. So to recap, time, task, and check out the different methods the Ivy Lee Method, the ABCDE method, the eating the frog method, and also be cognitive of your deadlines, keep in mind the Parkinson Law and also keep in mind of the people who need to review your work
0:25:18.3 JH: And once again, subscribe, comment, like, please check out the Medium post, check out the YouTube channel for the content as well. And I greatly do appreciate you guys. Thank you. Please share this as well. Help grow my community. And it is now 6:01 AM here in South Korea, and I need to go get ready for work and get my child up ’cause she is still sleeping. But other than that, you guys have a great day and I appreciate you for listening. Out.
