The Mel Robbins Podcast Review

The Mel Robbins Podcast is my 22nd podcast listening to on the year. It is now ranked number 18. This episode was recorded on February 2 and I started listening to it on February 4. The title of the episode was, "How to Take Control of Your Time: 9 Poven Strategies That Work (Even When You Have No Time)." But when I checked back I noticed the episode title had changed to, "Stop Wasting Your Time: The Scientific Way to Stop Procrastination and Get Control of Your Day." This was an interview with Laura Vanderkam. She had studied time management and is sharing what she learned. She says that we should look at our life in 168 hour increments. 168 hours is one week and it is weeks that make up our lives. She says we should keep track of how we use our time so we can understand it. Understanding time usage helps us find pockets of time. She has nine rules to live by. Here are the rules: 1. Give yourself a bedtime. I think this is a good rule and my bedtime should be midnight. 2. Plan on Fridays. I think this is a good idea. I often plan on Sundays but it doesn't always work because I don't think I should be working on Sundays so it stops myself if it involves work. It is good to plan before the week starts. 3. Move by 3 pm. She says do some physical activity for at least ten minutes before 3 pm. I typically exercise in the morning. 4. Three times a week is a habit. She says make habits for things to happen at least three times a week. I am not sure this is necessarily important. It depends what it is. The important thing is to plan and stick to it. If something should happen twice or once a week then that is fine. 5. Create a backup slot. Schedule time in your week to do things that you planned to do at other times but it fell through. This could be good. I need to still get better at scheduling in the first place. 6. One big adventure, one little adventure. Each week do two things that will be memorable for you. This is something out of the routine. For me, I think this is often what we do with the Get Out Pass for Family Home Evening. I don't think I would have two things normally but one thing. 7. Take one night for you. Here she says you should have an activity that you do for yourself and that involves committing to other people. Committing to other people is so that you actually do it. She did say it should be something where you leave the house. But I think Dominion Night, where I play online Dominion with family members and friends works for me. 8. Batch the little things. She says make lists of small tasks and schedule a time to do all of them at once. This sounds good as well. 9. Effortful before effortless. When you have free time it is better to do active things than passive things. It is better to get out and do something than to scroll on your phone because that is easier. I really liked this podcast and thought it was useful. Robbins did a good job with the interview and getting the information out of Vanderkam. It was a good discussion that people could apply to their lives. I want to apply a lot of this and want to plan for next week this Friday to get the ball rolling. Laura Vanderkam wrote a book called "Tranquility by Tuesday: The 9 rules." I give this podcast 5/5 for being useful and interesting.