Getting Into Time Management with Growing Forward Services’ Paul Casey

Coaching and equipping leaders and teams to spark breakthrough success.

Paul D. Casey is the CEO of Growing Forward Services.

Paul has been a professional speaker for over 24 years, and he is one of the leading authorities in leadership and personal growth—especially time management—helping people take back their calendars and restore sanity to their lives. Through his company, Growing Forward Services, Paul has partnered with his corporate and individual clients to transform their vision, their habits, and their lives. Currently, Paul carries out his mission of sparking breakthrough success by contributing daily inspirational growth messages on local radio and via social media.

Learn more about how Growing Forward Services can help you take control of your calendar by listening to this episode of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur above and don’t forget to subscribe on  Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – Spotify –Google Play –Castbox – TuneIn – RSS.

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0:00
Welcome to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. I'm Josh Elledge, founder and CEO of UpMyInfluence.com. We turn entrepreneurs into media celebrities, grow their authority, and help them build partnerships with top influencers. We believe that every person has a unique message that can positively impact the world. stick around to the end of the show, where I'll reveal how you can be our next guest on one of the fastest growing daily inspiration podcasts on the planet in 15 to 20 minutes. Let's go.

Right, Paul Casey, you are the CEO of Growing Forward Services. You are an expert when it comes to helping executives, leaders, managers, business owners, take back their calendar. And I know that there's people that are listening to our conversation right now. And they're like, Paul, help me help me restore sanity in my life. First off, like how did you get into this space?

1:01
You know, when I started becoming a teacher and I think teachers are probably the the most organized people on the planet, highly respect all educators, and I got promoted to Vice Principal after two years being a principal. And I walked into my principal's office and he had piles all over the place looked like a bomb went off in his office. And there was just something inside me that got a little nauseous that day. And I just went, I know I can help him. And so I said, Can I organize your office for you guys have added and I categorized everything by like to read and memos that was a day of memos and put all things into piles. Of course, he went back to his old ways, very shortly after, but there was something that sparked that day because on his desk, there was a document called the the organized executive and resolve these time management tips, and I just made it up.

1:48
Wow. And then so then what happened.

1:51
So along the line, I just kept adding more things to my time management toolbox and studied it for now. 25 years, just picking up little tips along the way. Till I have a huge file full of that I thought, you know, I'm going to write a seminar on this because I was doing seminars for teachers at teacher conventions. And I added that one and got such a great response to it that I thought, you know what, I think I'm going to niche in this area.

2:17
So then, where did you go from there? I want to keep this keep this story going. I want to get to the happy and to get to bring us up to today. Right? Because I know you're, you're very well known. You're an author, you've done a lot of speaking and you've got a really decent book of business in terms of executives that you work with and, and other professionals in helping them you know, not feel so overwhelmed.

2:44
Yeah, so I decided to launch a business. I quit the day job, started the dream job, started the business in 2012 got the website and the business cards and just launched while I had the day job, and then that dream job started creeping up off to the side and I started adding workshops. I started adding team building to that to help teams grow. And then this leadership coaching, I was like what is life coaching try to figure out what that is. And when I do that naturally, I want to help people get to their goals and dreams. So I added that to the repertoire added I wrote a book on a called maximizing every minute, just a little, little book, little bigger than an ebook, but tried to put all the things I was applying and learning into that and it just has taken off since then.

3:29
Well, I certainly love that you've really niched and branded yourself as a calendar coach. And I think that that's, that makes you pretty valuable. There's a lot of life coaches out there, but I like that that you're known for one very specific thing. Okay, so what how does somebody know that they need your help?

3:51
Usually, they're in a state of overwhelm. founders, CEOs, managers, they're just freaked out like they just there's too much coming up. them, they're trying to do more with less time. They're trying to reduce costs and yet maintain that performance, their family life and their friend life is suffering. And they're just feeling like regret, like I'm going through life like a machine. And I've got all these other priorities that I would like to do. So they're, they're overwhelmed.

4:21
I'd say Paul from let's let's, why don't I get a little bit of coaching here while while we're at it, since I don't often get to work with a calendar coach, but let's do it now. So right now, like in terms of my life right now, where, you know, my schedule is totally maxed. It's good, like, because, you know, we're going through a lot of growth, business wise businesses really, really good. I know my biggest challenge and thankfully, I've got really, really good team members. But I, I wonder, you know, I'm looking at some of the things I do, and I question whether or not I can truly delegate that stuff. I feel like that There's still too much on my plate that I just don't have anybody that can do that sort of thing. Now eventually, you know, again, I need, I need to find a way to do that, you know, to delegate more. And is that something that that's common?

5:19
Absolutely. So, I have a program called restoring sanity. And in that in that program, there's five sessions. The six session is just for leaders like you better, like delegation has to be that next thing. Yeah, I can't delegate. I'm going to die. So the phrase right delegate or die. And so working your way through a filter, there's a four quadrant tool that you collect, like what I really love to do, and I don't want to give up then there's the what I love to do, but somebody else can do it just as well as I can, you know, they don't like to do but I got to do and then there's the what they'd like to do and I've got to give to somebody else. That's the easy one. So I just would work a client through that, that matrix?

6:03
You know, I think that there are a lot of things out there that maybe leaders are afraid to give up because they say, you know, no one can do it as well as I can. And it would take, it could take potentially months for them to get up to, you know, near my level. And I would imagine that's a challenge that you encounter with absolutely

6:28
I struggle with that myself, right. So I finally brought on a virtual assistant, and a project manager as contractors and boy, it's like, boy, I could give this to them. And it's going to take me a much longer to to hand this one off, they may not do it as well as I do. But I have to change my mindset on that. And I've got to be willing to schedule that meeting and pour the vision and the task into them.

6:54
So what does it look like then like, how does how does someone engagement? Well, first of all, Where do people find out about you normally, like, you know, in terms of like your own business? How do people find the calendar coach?

7:09
Yeah, I'm at PaulCasey.org. Paul Casey professional golfers, so don't go to PaulCasey.com. I'm PaulCasey.org. And that's where you'll find the plethora of my services that I have. But if you really want the calendar coach program, you're going to go to TakeBackMyCalendar.com at that place. I've got a free control my calendar checklist, I'd love to give to your listeners, Josh. And that would be just a way to kickstart them into this time management program.

7:38
What do you feel about, quote, unquote, living life in balance?

7:44
Yeah, so my model that I take people through it's it's a mouthful, but it's the fulcrum framework of focus a lot of F words there. But the reason it starts with the word fulcrum, as I listened to a speaker years ago and said, Your life's like a teeter totter, which I think are Now outlawed on playgrounds because they're not whatever right? And one sides work one sides life and it's work life balance is really impossible. Because as soon as you attain it one second later you're off, you're either on more work or you're more life side. So he said, think about the fulcrum, that area, that triangle in the middle that sometimes you've got to move things over towards the work side, you got a big deadline, you've got your number one client needing something from you. Other times you've got to move that fulcrum to the other side to life or else your marriage is going to suffer or your other relationships so it's it's really moving that fulcrum it's more work life integration. I think that's the new buzz term now than it is work life balance.

8:40
What do you think the you know, since we were talking about calendaring? does is it is it pretty common? That that achievers that leaders? Just calendar? Everything?

8:52
Absolutely, absolutely. If you saw my calendar, you'd probably laugh, you know, because I show it to other people and they're like, Man, you don't even have a second in there. Well, I've got margin in there too. You know, I've got man in there, but literally Josh, I calendar, everything. I calendar date nights with my wife, I calendar, my gym going to the gym time filing I've got on there. I know, I'm a little OCD with this stuff. But I mean, I've got it all calendar.

9:18
And hopefully I know. Yeah, and I know for me if I don't calendar it, it's not going to get done. I mean, sometimes I'll leave some broad categories like development or marketing or, you know, work on copy or something like that. And I don't know exactly, you know, I'm going to probably, you know, tyranny of the urgent, you know, under that category, but, but I try to schedule that time for kind of catching up on on that sort of thing. And I find that, you know, and I just use that term tyranny of the urgent. I think that if I don't block off those times, I'm always just going to be in response mode.

9:59
Yeah, one product Activity guy calls an F bought a focused block of time. And I find to Josh, when I put in a too general of a time block, I blow right over that, right? I don't respect the commitment with myself. But the more specific I put in that block of time, the more I'm likely to stop and do it and obey my calendar.

10:19
What about when someone is just like, they're just their stress is at a 10. And there's just too much to do. And they're just, you know, that feeling of burnt out, they just feel burnt out? What do we do?

10:36
Now, the first thing I would say is to schedule a personal retreat with yourself, I try to do these once a month. And you might say, Well, I don't even have time for that. Paul, you could say maybe two hours at a community center or a library or out by the river. You know, wherever you are, you've got to get a grip on where you're at. And it comes back to the beginning. You know, what are my core values? And what is the vision I want for my life at least one year out and you've got to get grounded for Or else you will go into burnout. That's a scary place. And our team doesn't, doesn't deserve that burnout. Our family doesn't deserve that. So we've got to get on that as soon as we can. And we have gauges in our life, right? We've got to seize that gauge running a little hot. If we can get to it sooner and self correct. We're not gonna cause any damage in our wake.

11:20
Yeah, are there any tools or platforms or services that you're a fan of in terms of like technology,

11:30
where there are so many out there. The one I'm using with my assistant right now is to do list to do is D. and that's for tracking tasks and projects. That one's been effective for us at a small level. But I don't have a lot of electronic and technological gizmos. I mean, I listen to all the speakers on that. And there's a bit of phi and a lot of different ones out there. But these these tools that I use are pretty simple, and it's just having the discipline to stick to them.

12:00
You know, one thing that and i'd love your opinion on this one thing that I chose, and I've kind of progressively gotten more and more rigid about this, I have no notifications on my phone. I just do not want to be disturbed. I know, every so often, I'm going to go in and check email. I know every so often, I'm going to go and check to see if I have any messages through Facebook or text or something like that. The only people that are able to get through to me are my immediate family and my assistant and she knows it better be really, really important if she's like calling me or texting me and that other than that, like, I'll get to it, but I'll get to it when I have that block scheduled off but what what's your opinion on that?

12:50
I totally respect that. I think the interrupters or paperwork, people and technology, and in email, those are probably the top And so we need, like a Sabbath from our technology every so often, just to put it aside, and I like what you said, then you know there's another block of time where you're going to go in and check it. So it's not like it's going to fall off your radar. You're just going to be intentional about how you live checking it at that time, or, you know, as a filler tactic on filler task, but it's like once I've gotten my main task done for this hour, I've got 10 minutes left, well, then I'm going to do some of those filler tasks that might be checking my notifications.

13:30
Awesome. Well, Paul Casey, Paul, Casey, you are on the web at PaulCasey.org. And I really like this I can't wait to see the checklist TakeBackMyCalendar.com helping restore sanity for people like me, I would imagine it's a Type A But definitely, you know, achievement minded folks, men and women who are looking to you know, create success but you know, I think, you know, with that success, that momentum, you know, it's there's a lot of stuff coming at us all the time. And so thank you so much for the work that you're doing to kind of help restore that, that that sanity. And again, what was the phone number that that that folks could text to get that checklist as well?

14:21
Yeah, text, open a text to 72,000, 72,000 and text the word growing, and we'll get that sent to you.

14:30
Awesome. Paul, thank you so much for joining us.

14:33
Thanks, Josh was a pleasure.

14:35
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