David Buck, founder of Kairos Management Solutions, reveals how leaders can optimize their time and delegate effectively to create lasting impact. Buck emphasizes the difference between "Chronos" (clock time) and "Kairos" (the quality of time), urging leaders to focus on purposeful, quality-driven time management. By flipping the traditional reactive approach to time, Buck advocates for proactive planning that allows leaders to not only manage their workloads but also create room for innovation and strategy.
The conversation also touches on the critical role of delegation. Buck encourages leaders to trust their teams and provide small, manageable tasks that foster growth, all while accepting that mistakes will happen—and should be turned into learning opportunities. His insights on balancing time, delegation, and leadership paint a compelling picture for those striving to leave a legacy beyond their own achievements.
Want to learn more about David Buck’s work? Check out his website at infinitylifestyledesign.com.
Connect with David Buck on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidsbuck/.
Think you'd be a great guest on the show? Apply at https://podcast.allies4me.com/podcast-guest/.
Want to learn more about Craig Andrews' work at allies4me? Check out his website at https://allies4me.com/.
Key Points and Timestamps:
- [00:02:00] Introduction to David Buck and his focus on time management, including the concept of Kairos vs. Chronos.
- [00:04:00] Discussion on productivity vs. busyness: Why being busy doesn’t always equal effective leadership.
- [00:07:00] Delegation strategies: Trusting others and small-task delegation as a path to better leadership.
- [00:12:00] Kairos time: Focusing on quality over quantity in leadership and time management.
- [00:20:00] The dangers of distractions: Smartphones and multitasking’s negative effect on productivity.
- [00:25:00] Retirement challenges: Leaders post-career and how to fill the gap left by work.
Transcript
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment of my career.
00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on the show.
00;00;51;10 - 00;01;16;21
Craig Andrews
Today I will welcome David Buck. He is the founder of Kairos Management Solutions. And if you're a student in Greek, you know that that has something to do about time. And David's going to talk about the difference between Kairos versus Kronos. And that may sound kind of heady, but it's going to have very real meaning to you because David is about helping people make the most out of their time.
00;01;16;23 - 00;01;55;19
Craig Andrews
And if you think about it, time is the one thing we can't buy more of. You know, we can we can make money. We can lose money. We can buy more of almost any resource. We can't buy more time. And David's had a unique perspective to see both during career and to coach people. Post-career. And he's got a message that's going to help you make better decisions during your career because he's seen what's happened as people have gotten on the other side, sometimes they feel like they've rang the bell, and when the bell rings, it rings dull.
00;01;55;21 - 00;02;01;01
Craig Andrews
It didn't deliver what they expected. So I'm really excited about this interview.
00;02;01;01 - 00;02;04;21
Craig Andrews
Listen in David, welcome.
00;02;04;23 - 00;02;09;20
David Buck
What an honor to be here. Craig, thank you so much for investing the time to have me on. Appreciate that.
00;02;09;22 - 00;02;10;26
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And,
00;02;10;26 - 00;02;16;00
Craig Andrews
first let's let's talk about your book. You've got a book called The Time Optimized Life.
00;02;16;00 - 00;02;17;29
Craig Andrews
What side about.
00;02;18;01 - 00;02;40;07
David Buck
What I wanted to do with the book is flipped a script. So one of the tools I work with clients on is an assessment called the Time Management Analysis. And I definitely found some key trends that occurred while I worked with clients through the hundreds that have taken it. And that actually became the outline for the book. And in essence, the principle is people are reactive in their use of time.
00;02;40;09 - 00;03;05;10
David Buck
They usually have a tendency of last in, first out. Something comes at them. They may do it well and efficiently, but what they've neglected is the other things that they should have been doing that may have been a higher priority. So therefore they get into this cycle of constantly having to catch up and react. So the time optimized life flips that script and really helps people to think of time and their usage of time more proactively.
00;03;05;12 - 00;03;16;01
David Buck
So they define what the future looks like, knowing it's never going to be exactly that way, but it's worth the time to try to figure it out, you know?
00;03;16;01 - 00;03;43;12
Craig Andrews
And when you when you talk about reactive, when you said that immediately about a half dozen names popped in my head. I'm not going to say too much because I want them or others to connect the dots, but these half dozen people and there's more, but these are half dozen that I know who are working on important missions that are going to change the world and serve people and serve businesses, their clients or businesses.
00;03;43;14 - 00;03;55;05
Craig Andrews
And they're in this one industry. And the one thing I've noticed about every one of them is it's insanely hard to book a meeting with them. They have no time available.
00;03;55;07 - 00;04;24;12
David Buck
That is the difference between being busy and productive now, not taking away and not saying that those people aren't productive, but they have chosen to go through their approach without offering themselves periods of breaks or respites to try to refocus, and also to proactively say, I am only going to be available at these times, or I'm going to be offering solutions.
00;04;24;12 - 00;04;35;24
David Buck
So if Greg comes to call in and Craig can't find something or we can't reach something out, that they're ready to say, here's some solutions for us to solve both that problem together.
00;04;35;27 - 00;04;42;04
Craig Andrews
You know? Yeah. And I mean, give an example. You know, one of them,
00;04;42;04 - 00;04;45;00
Craig Andrews
paid for a little mini project,
00;04;45;00 - 00;05;06;08
Craig Andrews
where we were helping them with their marketing and one the first thing I noticed was it took longer to get through the mini project than it does for a lot of people. But the other thing is, once it was complete and we compiled the results, and the results are it's it's basically a full marketing plan, its full execution plan for them to grow their business.
00;05;06;10 - 00;05;13;07
Craig Andrews
Once it was complete. It took a month to get on this calendar to show them what to do.
00;05;13;10 - 00;05;16;01
David Buck
I've run into that all the time with clients.
00;05;16;01 - 00;05;19;29
David Buck
It's actually I have developed what I call my patience rule, and I,
00;05;19;29 - 00;05;30;24
David Buck
patience, as in being ready to have things take longer than anticipated. And I would probably have to say, Craig, on over half my projects,
00;05;30;24 - 00;05;49;08
David Buck
I built in additional time. So if I say this project is going to last us three weeks, in many cases it's 4 to 5 weeks because I have to try to finagle the owner of the project or the client to say, hey, listen, I need you to stop for a minute and we need to review what I've accomplished for you.
00;05;49;13 - 00;05;52;16
David Buck
So I totally empathize and understand that.
00;05;52;19 - 00;06;25;23
Craig Andrews
Well, and it's just it makes me sad. You know, it would be easy to be frustrated, but it makes me sad because I know this person wants to grow his business. I believe in his mission. I think he has an honorable mission. I think the world needs it. I think he legitimately changes lives in a positive way. And and it makes me sad because I see this, his management of time, holding him back from achieving all the results he could potentially receive.
00;06;25;25 - 00;06;27;11
David Buck
I find a lot with,
00;06;27;11 - 00;06;30;09
David Buck
and I have been guilty of this myself
00;06;30;09 - 00;06;51;01
David Buck
as a business owner is you feel you are the subject matter expert in every single element of your business. You might be, but at some point, as your business begins to scale and as a leader, you need to begin to then download this tribal knowledge.
00;06;51;01 - 00;07;14;17
David Buck
You've become. You've accumulated to others for the purposes of taking away the single point of failure, i.e. you. If something happens, there's got to be somebody else within the organization or a process in place within the organization that allows things to continue if you're not there. And I find so many leaders and entrepreneurs cause they're almost afraid to do that.
00;07;14;17 - 00;07;18;11
David Buck
And but when they do, it's time liberating for them.
00;07;18;13 - 00;07;19;23
Craig Andrews
Yeah.
00;07;19;23 - 00;07;23;02
Craig Andrews
What do you think are the factors that,
00;07;23;02 - 00;07;26;00
Craig Andrews
keep them from delegating?
00;07;26;03 - 00;07;47;05
David Buck
I think it's a trust issue. And it trust flows both ways. One, trust in themselves that they're going to be able to share everything with the other person, to be able to make sure that they feel comfortable, that whoever they delegated to is going to get it done. I think there's also a trust factor in the other person that says, are they going to be able to do it as well as I am?
00;07;47;05 - 00;08;13;09
David Buck
Do they care enough for that? And then that ultimately ties around this idea of fear I have if something what if something goes wrong? And so I try to push leaders and and business owners to say then start small delegate on a small task or variety of smaller tasks where if failure happens, it's not detrimental. It's a coaching moment and a teachable moment.
00;08;13;12 - 00;08;28;24
David Buck
And then you engage fully increased that up with those individuals or individual to higher level functions and things, so that you'll have a comfort level that the person or persons you're leaving this to are going to get it done. If you're not available.
00;08;28;26 - 00;08;46;01
Craig Andrews
And you know what? I would turn that around. What if instead of what if something goes wrong, things will go wrong, things will go wrong. Go plan for it, plan for it. And when they do turn them into teachable moments, absolutely.
00;08;46;01 - 00;09;17;22
David Buck
That's a that's a key element to to time management or optimization, particularly from a leader standpoint, is investing time teaching, training and coaching others. Whereas if you can say, I can do this myself in five minutes versus having to spend 30 minutes teaching somebody else the challenges, that five minutes could be multiple times during the day. So investing one block of time might save you incremental time for months ahead.
00;09;17;25 - 00;09;28;11
David Buck
That frees you up to get out of the tactics and into the innovation and strategy, which is probably why you're a leader or an owner of your business in the first place.
00;09;28;13 - 00;09;31;13
Craig Andrews
Yeah.
00;09;31;16 - 00;09;53;29
Craig Andrews
And I think, I mean, we're we're talking to leaders. We're talking to people who want to be better leaders. And I, I truly believe it's hard for you to make a great impact when you're the doer. If you're going to make a great impact, it's because of what you empower others to do.
00;09;54;01 - 00;09;58;21
David Buck
The doing part is your your education and your journey.
00;09;58;21 - 00;10;25;20
David Buck
That's where you gain the experience. But at some point, and it's part of my frustration with politicians today of all stripes, I'm not going to get political one way or the other. But if you look at our politicians today, they stay in office forever. Sometimes it's a lifetime deal and I get frustrated because I'm like, step away and train the next general person to do what you do, use that.
00;10;25;20 - 00;10;57;21
David Buck
That's honorable. And that's the same thing with leaders to say, step back from the day to day operation and download this experience that you've done as a doer to others so they can be more efficient. And you're setting up the next generation of leaders yourself. I think that's such a great testament to someone's ability is to say, I have all these people around the world or around me, my community, who are there because they relied on my advice and my expertise to help them.
00;10;57;23 - 00;11;16;10
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, then you know a little bit about my story. I was in a coma three years ago, and my team ran the business without me. Guess what? To get them to that point, there had to be some delegation. There had to be some things that went wrong when I delegated.
00;11;16;13 - 00;11;34;02
David Buck
And that's a critical part of the delegation is the okay that you brought about the okay, that things were going to go wrong for this amazing period, that they were ready to fill in your leadership gap when it was needed. And what a blessing for you.
00;11;34;05 - 00;11;40;06
Craig Andrews
Oh, they were amazing. They were amazing. Well, let's talk about,
00;11;40;06 - 00;11;51;02
Craig Andrews
You brought the concept of Kairos versus chronos, and, you know, so Chronos, Chronos. And when we think of,
00;11;51;02 - 00;11;58;20
Craig Andrews
and I don't know if I'm going to say it right for, you know, basically a watch, you know, is, is where,
00;11;58;20 - 00;12;00;29
Craig Andrews
where that word comes from.
00;12;01;02 - 00;12;06;18
Craig Andrews
What's the difference between what are what's kairos and what's chronos? What's the difference between the two?
00;12;06;21 - 00;12;08;10
David Buck
Well, you hit on it really good.
00;12;08;10 - 00;12;16;05
David Buck
Analogy with Chronos and the idea of of a time. It is simply the consumption of time. It's it's,
00;12;16;05 - 00;12;30;24
David Buck
quantitative time. So 30 minutes if I'm just say I just spent 30 minutes. That's chronos time now. Kairos is the perception or the quality and quantitative value you get out of time.
00;12;30;24 - 00;12;57;26
David Buck
So I use a movie. For example, you're in a movie theater and you're enjoying the movie. I love it. Time has a tendency to go by quickly. All of a sudden you're like, hey, two hours later, the movie's done. You go with somebody else who who hated the movie and when you get out of there, you're going one of the time went by, I really enjoyed myself, and the other person saying that was the longest two hours I've ever spent of my entire life.
00;12;57;26 - 00;13;13;20
David Buck
What a horrible movie you both experienced Chronos time in that you spent two hours, but you had a very different view of the Kairos or qualitative time of it, because one enjoyed the experience and the other didn't.
00;13;13;22 - 00;13;31;15
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So you're recommending, I understand correctly that people pursue more kairos, that they, they pursue these elements, that they focus on the quality of the time.
00;13;31;17 - 00;13;54;25
David Buck
They get better at the Chronos time. So basically they're more efficient in the use of their designated time so that at the end they get more quality time or kairos time. They were able to accomplish as much or more than they anticipated in that block of time, because they're using it more effectively.
00;13;54;28 - 00;14;14;26
Craig Andrews
And so let's get back to this. You mentioned this a couple minutes ago. Was they're constantly busy, but they're not necessarily productive. And I know I feel that at times. And, you know, occasionally I'm smart enough to get up and go out for a, you know, a walk in the Texas heat.
00;14;14;26 - 00;14;20;14
Craig Andrews
Which I do. I'll go out, be 100, 105 degrees out, and I'll go for a 20 minute walk.
00;14;20;14 - 00;14;26;20
Craig Andrews
But what I find is it clears my mind, and when I come back, a more productive.
00;14;26;22 - 00;14;48;04
David Buck
I love that you mentioned break. It sounds counterintuitive, but I really encourage clients anyone personal cares an often overlooked element of how you use your time effectively. And one of the elements I work with clients on is taking formal breaks during the day.
00;14;48;04 - 00;14;54;14
David Buck
The other three are to sleep consistently. At least try to get seven hours a night.
00;14;54;16 - 00;15;03;09
David Buck
If not, work towards that. The other is some element of exercise getting out, trying to get the heart rate up,
00;15;03;09 - 00;15;17;08
David Buck
at least to start out with. And then for me, an important element is my Christian faith. But I also I also weave in the general aspect of spirituality somewhere where you're focusing your time on something necessarily greater than yourself.
00;15;17;11 - 00;15;33;25
David Buck
And those four elements, to me, make up a good personal care regiment to time management. And you mentioned your breaks getting away from what you're doing in a different environment. Reset your brain so you can be more focused when you get back at it.
00;15;33;28 - 00;15;54;12
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So. One of the things you brought up this is a little bit disjointed. I think it probably ties in to what you're talking about is smartphones. You're are you a fan of smartphones? Not a fan of smartphones?
00;15;54;15 - 00;15;57;17
David Buck
I have a love hate relationship with smartphones.
00;15;57;17 - 00;16;15;29
David Buck
I think on the positive side, if you were to be able to travel back in time 20, 25 years and put this device in the hand of your past self, it would be like science fiction. It has opened us up to so many opportunities to be more productive.
00;16;15;29 - 00;16;18;07
David Buck
To do more things in our lives.
00;16;18;10 - 00;16;45;24
David Buck
But on the flip side, it is designed to distract us. It wants you to consume time on it, whether it be texting, whether it be the communication element, whether it be the apps that you have downloaded onto that device for the sole purpose of getting you to spend Kronos time to consume time on them. And it has the cause of why I work with clients.
00;16;45;24 - 00;16;54;08
David Buck
Their number one challenge is distractions, and the number one focus of that distraction challenges is their phone.
00;16;54;11 - 00;17;01;06
Craig Andrews
So what does that look like? How do I know if I'm one of these distracted people that that you're talking about?
00;17;01;08 - 00;17;27;23
David Buck
Typically people have have the feeling of guilt creeps up in their day, like, I could have done more than what I should have. And so if you sense this, this kind of like guilt or why did I just spend time on this, then you are probably being impacted by the distractions of the cell phone. So there's two routes you can go with that.
00;17;27;25 - 00;17;59;19
David Buck
The first one is, is that you can say, I am only going to spend X amount of time on the phone, I'm going to schedule that, and I'm going to say, I'm only going to check my phone or social media or whatever that involves twice a day, and I'm going to formally schedule time around that. The flip side is, is that you be more diligent and say, I'm going to set a timer on my phone so that when I do choose to consume time, whatever way, I'm going to warn myself when it's time to stop.
00;17;59;22 - 00;18;12;04
David Buck
But either way, you have got to set some guardrails for yourself and again, start small incrementally and work it way up to the optimal thing. But start somewhere and put some discipline around it.
00;18;12;07 - 00;18;41;22
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And you know, I think most people realize this. And you you mentioned it. You is the apps on our phones are designed to be addictive. And I forgot the name of the book. There's a book I read several years ago and talked about a four step cycle for creating addiction. And one of the steps was, just creating an alert that says, hey, I need attention.
00;18;41;24 - 00;18;52;00
Craig Andrews
And so that and so that's built into the apps and it's, you know, Facebook has used this all the, all the main platforms use it.
00;18;52;00 - 00;18;56;11
Craig Andrews
I think probably one of the most, the clearest examples was years ago there was
00;18;56;11 - 00;19;07;21
Craig Andrews
Farmville, which I think was some, some application that was on Facebook where people would make farms and they had to go back in because one of the, one of the elements of addiction is a variable reward.
00;19;07;29 - 00;19;14;21
Craig Andrews
That's why gambling is addictive. It's not a predictable reward. If you had a predictable reward, it wouldn't be addictive.
00;19;14;21 - 00;19;34;11
Craig Andrews
But they had this game, Farmville, that was designed and it was perfectly designed around this cycle to create addiction. And I think we need to realize that, that many of the apps on our phones are intentionally designed to get us addicted and distract us from those things.
00;19;34;18 - 00;19;48;16
Craig Andrews
So it's not it's it's not necessarily a, a new issue. It's there's a force that's intent on distracting you and using advanced psychology to get you addicted to that distraction.
00;19;48;18 - 00;20;06;10
David Buck
Yeah. There are a lot of people with, a lot more letters after their name than I do and have. And they that's their job. And so you just have to say to yourself, what's my priorities? And that's usually people who consume. And
00;20;06;10 - 00;20;08;27
David Buck
the latest, some of the latest studies that I was looking at,
00;20;08;27 - 00;20;18;09
David Buck
a few weeks ago, the average person is 2.5 hours consuming some form or forms of social media, a day,
00;20;18;09 - 00;20;21;02
David Buck
via their phone or tablet or whatever.
00;20;21;04 - 00;20;47;03
David Buck
And I try to tell people, imagine if you freed up just 30 hours of that or 30 minutes of that, sorry, and just applied something different and more focused in your life. That's a game changer. And that's where I say put the discipline on there. That says, I'm going to go from 2.5 hours over a 90 day period to I'm going to go down to 30 minutes a day or 45 minutes a day, or I'm going to do it during low,
00;20;47;03 - 00;20;50;18
David Buck
function time frames in the evening if I'm watching TV.
00;20;50;25 - 00;20;58;12
David Buck
Okay, great. I'll go ahead and go on social media, but don't do it during times when you need to be productive.
00;20;58;15 - 00;21;27;00
Craig Andrews
Yeah. One of the things I keep trying to do and I fail at it is I'm trying to get to the point where I, my email client, you know, I use outlook, where it's only open, you know, during a few time slots during the day because email comes in, even if I don't check it, I see the alert and it distracts me and it says some thoughts.
00;21;27;00 - 00;21;31;20
Craig Andrews
It distracts my thoughts start going down the path of what's in that email.
00;21;31;23 - 00;21;32;29
David Buck
We go through that
00;21;32;29 - 00;21;35;21
David Buck
and notifications are another thing that,
00;21;35;21 - 00;22;03;21
David Buck
do distract us. And so like you, for example, during this event right now I have nothing open on my computer. My phone is quarantined away from me for the purposes of because distractions are my number one challenge myself. So I have to close out notifications if I'm doing what I consider more dedicated and focused work, I have to minimize the distractions around me because yeah, we're naturally gravitating to.
00;22;03;21 - 00;22;13;19
David Buck
The fact is, I, I needed someone, someone has notified me I need it. Instead of saying it can wait.
00;22;13;22 - 00;22;17;09
Craig Andrews
What's your thought on multitasking?
00;22;17;12 - 00;22;19;25
David Buck
I am not a fan of multitasking.
00;22;19;25 - 00;22;26;06
David Buck
Again, using the analogy that a lot of other smarter people with letters after their name,
00;22;26;06 - 00;22;41;06
David Buck
really comes down to the fact that our brains are wired to do one thing well at a time. Now we can teach our brain. So I like to use the example of musicians who can play, say, an instrument and sing at the same time.
00;22;41;06 - 00;23;04;24
David Buck
You might say they're multitasking. They've actually trained their brain over hours and hours and hours of practice time to be able to do that. So it becomes what is a complex high task function for them to a lower level task function. It's like us daydreaming and driving. We're still driving. We're able to daydream. Why? Because we spent hours behind the wheel doing this.
00;23;04;26 - 00;23;27;02
David Buck
So I tell people, instead of multitasking, think of micro tasking. If you want to have more than one thing open that you're going to work on, find acknowledge. Though when you choose to focus on one thing, give it your all for however long of a period of time, and then we switch to the next one. Recognize I'm giving this one my all for
00;23;27;02 - 00;23;33;02
David Buck
however long, so if you're going to switch back your micro tasking that multitasking.
00;23;33;04 - 00;23;50;22
Craig Andrews
I'll tell you the most productive person I've ever known. I worked for a guy named Joe Greb, and somebody said, you know, he's not a multitasker. He's a serial executer. And I remember watching that, you know, we had a staff meeting and he'd been asking,
00;23;50;22 - 00;23;54;29
Craig Andrews
somebody on the team for a new product introduction process.
00;23;54;29 - 00;23;57;06
Craig Andrews
We had this meeting and he said, what's the status of it?
00;23;57;06 - 00;24;13;12
Craig Andrews
And the guy kind fumbled over his words. It's like, all right, let's meet back together in two hours. And then Joe disappeared and closed his office door. I'm not kidding. Two hours later, he came out with one of the most pristine and perfect new product introduction,
00;24;13;12 - 00;24;19;22
Craig Andrews
things. And he had just done that. But he would he would take whatever landed in his focus.
00;24;19;22 - 00;24;29;08
Craig Andrews
He got he knocked out. He's probably the most focused person I've ever known, but he got a lot done because he focused on one thing at a time.
00;24;29;10 - 00;24;33;25
David Buck
And that's something leaders need to translate to their teams.
00;24;33;25 - 00;24;54;25
David Buck
I also coached leaders as I worked with them and time to be the respecter of their teams times, because in a team, your subordinates have key critical factors that you need them to get done. What a great example for him to say. I'm stepping away to be focused for a period of time.
00;24;54;27 - 00;25;21;06
David Buck
The same thing needs to apply to your team members. You need to be able to say, I'm going to honor this time, particularly if they're needed to be focused and tell them that to say, if you need this extra focus time, let me know. Let's work that in there, because those periods can produce a focus too. Our time frame can replace hours and hours of group meetings together where everyone's trying to figure things out.
00;25;21;06 - 00;25;24;18
David Buck
So I'm a big fan of that. I love that example.
00;25;24;20 - 00;25;50;24
Craig Andrews
Yeah, there's so much there's so much to discuss here. I just I wish we had hours. But one thing I wanted to make sure we covered was you work with leaders. They they go all all the way through their career. They head all their goals, they retire, and they have all these hopes and dreams for retirement of what's going to be like.
00;25;50;26 - 00;25;55;12
Craig Andrews
What do you see when you encounter these people post retirement?
00;25;55;15 - 00;26;15;07
David Buck
Many times, for those who are really, really passionate about their careers and love their careers, you have to consider this. Let's just say you're a leader who's working 48 hours a week, and I know many of you are like, I work more than that, but let's just let's stick with 48 and you're fortunate enough to sleep seven hours a night.
00;26;15;09 - 00;26;46;28
David Buck
That's 40% of your awake time. The time your eyelids are open are dedicated to a structured existence. In that time frame. Let's say you all of a sudden say, I'm riding off into the sunset. I'm not working after retirement. You wake up the following day, you now have to fill 40% of your awake time. So many people struggle with that because they derive so much purpose and satisfaction from their work.
00;26;46;28 - 00;27;07;29
David Buck
And so I really challenge people. Define your purpose more broadly than your work. Now, regardless of your age, so that that bike can become your North star to help guide you on what life would be like if you choose not to have a career.
00;27;08;02 - 00;27;11;23
Craig Andrews
And for the people that you coach post,
00;27;11;23 - 00;27;25;16
Craig Andrews
post retirement or you in retirement, if you could speak on their behalf and they could go talk to their younger self during their career, what would they tell their younger self?
00;27;25;18 - 00;27;27;18
David Buck
And that's a great question. And actually
00;27;27;18 - 00;27;47;05
David Buck
I use that question. If you don't want to do your younger self, then look at your children as an example because they're probably living more of a flexible lifestyle than you are. And that's what I would tell have as a leader. Tell your younger self, how do I find more flexibility in life?
00;27;47;07 - 00;28;21;03
David Buck
How do I be able to have the joy and the satisfaction I get for my career, while still thinking about all the amazing personal pursuits that I could choose to go after and experience? And then what do I need to do to infuse this flexibility in my life so that as I get older and it becomes more flexible, I have the cue filled with amazing personal experience experiences both short and long term, that I want to pursue should I choose to replace the professional side of my life.
00;28;21;06 - 00;28;26;00
Craig Andrews
That's excellent. So you have your book The Time Optimize Life.
00;28;26;00 - 00;28;33;17
Craig Andrews
For those who are debating, you know, reading it, buying that book and reading it, what are going to be their biggest takeaways when they read that book?
00;28;33;20 - 00;29;00;05
David Buck
I think the, I use an acronym throughout the book called preparation, Execution and Control. It's peak, and it's the principle behind it. It's it's based upon lean manufacturing. So anyone who's familiar with that lean manufacturing is about continuous improvement, sometimes down to the granular level, with the purpose of seeking perfection, knowing you're never going to attain it.
00;29;00;07 - 00;29;25;08
David Buck
But the effort yields tangible results. That's the same principle around the book, is it lets you develop your own customized approach. I'm not going to tell you do these five things and life is going to magically change what I am going to tell you. If you adopt the preparation, execution, and control elements in it, you'll put yourself on a pathway to incremental improvement in your time.
00;29;25;08 - 00;29;28;23
David Buck
They'll have real impact in your life.
00;29;28;26 - 00;29;34;06
Craig Andrews
This sounds a lot like some of Deming's principles applied to time management.
00;29;34;08 - 00;29;55;10
David Buck
In essence, somewhat, yes. You know, because I used to work for a company that had lean principles in all it was done in the ownership group was like, I know you're in sales, but you have to understand this principles, these principles, because you need to be able to tell that to the client. That's how we do things as a an advantage, an advantage.
00;29;55;10 - 00;29;56;26
David Buck
And it stuck with me.
00;29;56;28 - 00;30;18;23
Craig Andrews
Well, well, David, this has just been absolutely amazing. And I think your your message is powerful. Because I, it's rare for me to find somebody who doesn't feel at least a little bit of unease about how they're using their time. And,
00;30;18;23 - 00;30;21;09
Craig Andrews
and so thank you for delivering this,
00;30;21;09 - 00;30;25;18
Craig Andrews
where can people get their, get your book and where can they contact you?
00;30;25;20 - 00;30;28;25
David Buck
I think the easiest thing to do, first of all, thank you, Craig, for,
00;30;28;25 - 00;30;44;28
David Buck
taking and investing your time. And to the listeners, theirs as well. It's been an honor. So infinity life style design.com again infinity lifestyle design.com. You can go a couple routes on the front page. You can click into and download chapter one of the book.
00;30;44;28 - 00;31;09;25
David Buck
So if you kind of like I need to learn a little bit more about what this is about that will help you understand that. And the books available wherever fine books are sold online. And then the second element, if you want to get an idea of where you stand to scroll further down on the page, and you can take either one of each of the assessments or both the time management analysis or the retirement time analysis, and get a free summary report.
00;31;09;25 - 00;31;15;28
David Buck
That kind of gives you an idea of where your strengths and opportunities might lie for your own journey.
00;31;16;00 - 00;31;21;05
Craig Andrews
Excellent. David Book, author of The Time Optimized Life. Thank you very much.
00;31;21;08 - 00;31;25;16
David Buck
An honor. Thank you.
00;31;25;16 - 00;31;52;10
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Alize for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this
00;31;52;10 - 00;31;54;05
Craig Andrews
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00;31;54;07 - 00;32;17;19
Craig Andrews
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00;32;17;21 - 00;32;25;26
Craig Andrews
Please go ahead and subscribe your thumbs up! Ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show. It means a lot to me.
00;32;25;26 - 00;34;28;01
Craig Andrews
It means a lot to my team. If you want to know more, please go to Alize for me.com. or follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.
