Time Management and Productivity 1:1
First intensive session to organize your time, focus, and produce better without burning out
🎯 Main Goal
Help the client design a simple and sustainable time management system (priorities, focus blocks, and rituals) to make visible progress on a real goal this week.
Specific Objectives:
- Clarity: Define priorities and key results (personal OKRs or weekly goals).
- Planning: Apply timeboxing, calendar blocking, and daily focus lists.
- Focus: Design high-performance blocks and an anti-multitasking rule.
- Energy: Map personal rhythms (peaks and dips) and start/close rituals.
- Time defense: Handle interruptions, meetings, and healthy boundaries.
- Tracking: Set progress metrics and a review cadence.
📋 Required Materials
Urgent vs Important
Focus sessions and breaks
Calendar blocks
Peaks, dips, and micro-rituals
Top 3 and key tasks
To Do, In Progress, Done
⏰ Detailed Schedule (60 minutes)
Check-in and Context
Align expectations, real case, and productivity goal (project, study, habits, work).
Habit Diagnosis
Explore time use, interruptions, multitasking, energy peaks, and backlog. Identify 1–2 levers.
Express Fundamentals
Practical review: Eisenhower, Pareto 80/20, timeboxing, monotasking, batching, and calendar limits.
Ideal Week Design
Define key results. Map focus blocks, meetings, buffers, and start/close rituals.
Practice Round 1: Daily Plan
Build Top 3, task list, and sequence. Estimate time and assign Pomodoros.
Practice Round 2: Obstacles and Distractions
Role-play interruptions, ad hoc requests, and boundaries. Prepare time-defense scripts.
Debrief and Action Plan
Define metrics (e.g., Pomodoros completed, % Top 3 achieved) and daily/weekly review ritual.
🎭 Roles and Responsibilities
👨💼 Coach’s Role
- Architect: Design the minimum viable organization system.
- Mirror: Point out time leaks and estimation biases.
- Trainer: Teach focus and time-defense techniques.
- Sparring: Simulate interruptions and calendar negotiations.
- Accountability: Agree on metrics and reviews.
🎯 Client’s Role
- Explorer: Provide real data from their week and priorities.
- Designer: Adapt the system to their context and energy.
- Practitioner: Test blocks, Pomodoros, and rituals.
- Time Defender: Set boundaries and renegotiate clearly.
- Continuous Learner: Measure, iterate, and simplify.
❓ Question Bank by Round
🔥 Warm-up (Pick 1)
- “If this session were a success, what concrete progress would you see this week?”
- “What steals more of your time: interruptions, meetings, or scattered attention?”
- “What used to help you focus and why did you stop?”
- “What goal excites you but is stalled for lack of time?”
🧠 Diagnosis/Design (Pick 2–3)
- “What are your real Top 3 priorities this week and how do they show up on the calendar?”
- “When do you perform best and which time windows should you avoid for deep work?”
- “What tasks can you batch to reduce context switching?”
- “If you could do just one thing today, what would it be and what block do you assign to it?”
- “What boundaries do you need to protect your focus blocks?”
🗣️ Daily Plan and Focus (Pick 2)
- “What’s your Top 3 for today and how will you know it’s ‘done’?”
- “How would you split this big task into actionable Pomodoros?”
- “What trigger will you use to start without friction (2-minute ritual)?”
- “What will you do when an unplanned interruption arrives?”
⚖️ Obstacles and Distractions (Pick 2)
- “If something ‘urgent’ is requested, how will you renegotiate without losing focus?”
- “What barriers can you remove right now (notifications, tabs, environment)?”
- “What personal policy will you apply for optional or agenda-less meetings?”
- “How will you recover from a mid-day plan derailment?”
🚀 Closing and Follow-up (Pick 2)
- “What indicators will you track daily and weekly?”
- “What is your minimum practice commitment for next week?”
- “What will you review and adjust in your next weekly review?”
- “What support or automation would make maintaining a simple system easier?”
🎭 Coaching Modes for the Coach
🤝 Empathic (Warm-up)
Behavior: Active listening, reduce guilt, normalize relapses.
Body language: Open, paced, validating.
Goal: Psychological safety and focus.
🔍 Analytical (Design)
Behavior: Prioritize with 80/20, define blocks and rituals.
Body language: Precise, schematic, data-oriented.
Goal: Simple, executable system.
👔 Directive–Practical (Practice)
Behavior: Set the pace, simulate interruptions, demand concreteness.
Body language: Clear, energetic, action-oriented.
Goal: Realistic flow and time defense.
🔥 Challenger (Closing)
Behavior: Raise the bar, remove non-essentials, protect buffers.
Body language: Firm, respectful, challenging.
Goal: Commitment and follow-through.
📊 Feedback and Progress Framework
🎯 GROW + Metrics (2–3 min per block)
Use after each practice to adjust plan, focus, and time defense.
1. Goal (15–30 sec)
“What did you want to achieve with this block (move X / clear Y / protect Z)?”
2. Reality (45–60 sec)
“Planned 50-min block; you completed 35 due to an interruption. What triggered it and how did you feel?”
3. Options (45 sec)
“What alternatives do you see? (renegotiate, reschedule, split into Pomodoros, start-up checklist)”
4. Will/Way Forward (45 sec)
“What will you do differently tomorrow and how will you measure it? (e.g., 4 deep-work Pomodoros)”
✨ Indicators to Observe
- Clear priorities: Visible Top 3.
- Focus: Completed monotasking blocks.
- Energy: Use peaks for deep work.
- Time defense: Renegotiates, says no, sets meeting boundaries.
- Progress: Tasks moving across the Kanban.
- Review: Consistent daily check-in and weekly review.
📝 Scripts and Key Phrases
🎬 Opening
“To make this session as valuable as possible, let’s define 1–2 visible outcomes for this week. What progress would make you say it was worth it?”
🎯 Prioritization (Eisenhower)
“This is important but not urgent. I’ll calendar it today. This is urgent but low-importance: I’ll delegate it or set a clear boundary.”
⏱️ Timeboxing
“I’ll block 2 Pomodoros for the draft and 1 for review. If I don’t finish, I’ll reschedule without invading another critical block.”
🧱 Handling interruptions
“I’m in a focus block right now. Could we look at it at 3:30pm, or can you drop a summary in chat and I’ll review it in my next block?”
✅ Closing with next steps
“Today we set [Top 3 + blocks]. Tomorrow at 8:30 I’ll do a quick review and adjust. Friday I’ll run a weekly review and measure [metric].”
⚠️ Warning Signs and Adjustments
🚨 Multitasking Risk
- Signs: Too many tabs open, frequent task switching, constant notifications.
- Adjustment: Airplane mode, parking list, tab rule, comms batching.
🚨 Procrastination
- Signs: Tasks dragging on, perfectionism, hard starts.
- Adjustment: 2-minute rule, micro-steps, define “done”.
✅ Flow and Focus
- Signs: Completed blocks, sense of progress, less stress.
- Action: Maintain rituals, protect buffers, review and simplify.