Melissa Maddock: The Real Reason You’re Bad at Time Management

0:00 Like what have you learnt to manage that time better and make sure that you're putting it into doing more things you want, speaking to people you like? Like what? What active steps that have you taken personally to make sure that you're a lot more purposeful with your time? Yeah, that. That's a question I've grappled with for a long, long time. And I do know the answer. And I wish I could sit here and say I'm good at it. I'm a work in progress at it. I love that.

0:30 Melissa, great to have you back again. This is your turn to put me in the hot seat. You didn't send me the the questions in advance, which I'm finding more and more people are doing. They'd like to see me squirm and have to think so. But if you've got two or three questions for me, I'd be delighted to try and answer them. Yeah, thank you so much for obviously speaking to me. And as I previously said to you, what I I really love is talking to someone who's been successful in life and worked with successful people and what successful traits.

1:06 I wonder how in in your day-to-day as you've got older or still like what traits you take with you. Obviously you've mentioned desire, but what what actions do you take to to be as successful as you've been? That's, that's a, that's a great question. I kind of break it into two things. Think one thing that really stimulates me is curiosity. I'm very curious about people, about how people think. I'm very curious about the world, you know, so, you know, I'm, I'm curious about things that I don't really know that much about, but I will still, you know, try and find out more about him.

1:49 You know, I just this morning watched the video of Elon Musk at the Economic World Forum and him talking about SpaceX and, and having to solve the problem of making the whole spaceship reusable because they can make part of it reusable. But by the end of this year, though, hopefully crack it to make the whole spaceship reusable and that'll make taking freight into space cheaper than freight on airplanes now across continents. Crazy. And I'm like, wow. So what curiosity does I think even in my business and and in what I do, I've always been curious about, you know, what's the next step for tennis?

2:29 What's the next step for tennis players? What's the next step for me to, you know, improve things and, and that curiosity, I think again, always gives you something to go forward on. And also I've realized over time, you have to maybe sit on things for a while before you get an answer. Some things are easy to answer, but some things are a lot more. And I'm, you know, currently moving to America to live and rent a place and everything. So we're coming to the last parts of this move, and I don't know exactly how it's going to turn out for me that I don't have a grand plan.

3:08 But what I do know is that I've attributes that people will find valuable. And then it's just a case of contacting people, talking to people and starting to see exactly what direction it's going to go in. Obviously I have some, I have ideas, you know, but I'm not the kind of person that says, OK, I have this unbelievable plan, I'm going to go there and just execute, execute. I do like to adjust as I go along. And because there are things that sometimes you think, oh, I'd really like to do that. But when you actually start doing it, it's not really you.

3:44 You thought it would be you, but it's not really you. And I think as I've gotten older, I'm getting better at saying no to things that are not really me. And, and that, again, I think really, really helps you keep motivated because you're not doing lots of stuff that, you know, even if it pays quite well, you just don't enjoy doing. And, and I think that when you do things that you don't enjoy, that does kill enthusiasm. 100%. So I'm so right now I'm very curious how the next year is going to look because I don't know exactly.

4:19 And it's like this podcast, I started it as a discipline. So I'm going to release a podcast once a week. And originally it was so that the knowledge that I have my grandchildren can one day listen to the podcast and say, OK, if I want to know what, you know, grandpa or OPA as they call me, thinks about or thought about things, It's there whether they ever do or not, probably won't, but but it's there. And, and so that's how, how it started. But then, you know, then after 150 episodes, I started interviewing people.

4:58 And, and you know, I thought it's all very well interviewing people, but it'd be quite nice if, if you, if I find people interesting, they'd probably ask me some interesting questions. So that's how I started with this format where they get a chance to ask me questions as well. Yeah, I don't know if I've actually answered your question there, but. I, I mean, it's a tough question to answer, but also with speaking to so many people then and obviously you say you did it for knowledge and obviously to build your knowledge that you can then pass down.

5:29 What is the best piece of advice or just just the best thing that you've heard on these podcasts, on these conversations that you've had that's really stuck with you? I think it's, I think sometimes people will say something and you know it, but when they say it is like, yeah, that kind of really narrows it down. Somebody said on a podcast, Chad Done actually said, you know, I hate the idea of working hard. I love the idea of working smart. Yeah, I love that. And I was like, yeah, I think the the other thing, and I can't remember who said this, but said when you're enthusiastic about something, you know, everybody likes to say it's work, but actually is it work or is it just, you know, being paid to have fun doing what you what you like doing?

6:17 And he said, you know, I just try to have fun with what I do and then it's not a pain in the ass. But one thing I also know is you have to get past the grind because every job has grind in it. And, you know, this is something that I just developed over time is when you have grind and I'm still not unbelievable at it, but just get it done. Yeah. You know, and it's never as bad as you think it is. The thinking about, oh, this is going to be terrible, going terrible. Going terrible is far worse than actually just getting down and doing it.

6:50 And it gets down to simple things, which I actually learned from my wife. Why leave things sitting out? Just put him back where where you found him. You know, that extra 10 seconds or 20 seconds saves me hassle. The place still looks fine, you know, so it's you know, I've gotten a lot better that and now sometimes when I put something down, like come on, just go upstairs and put it away because I always saw that as big grind. And the more I do that, the more I realize she's right. It's it's you can't kind of almost just delaying grind for later.

7:24 So that I learned from my. Wife. Yeah. And finally, I guess what I'd love to ask is obviously you you mentioned just before how you you're trying to be a lot more purposeful. We time and do speak to people you like. Do what do the things that you want to do. What have you like what? How have you learned to manage that time better and make sure that you're putting it into doing more things you want speaking to people you like. Like what? What active steps that have you taken personally to make sure that you're a lot more purposeful with your time?

7:58 Yeah, that's that's a question I grappled with for a long, long time. And I do know the answer. And I wish I could sit here and say I'm good at it. I'm a work in progress at it. I. Love that. But I realized that I didn't value tasks. I didn't respect tasks. So I would put in my diary, you know, if I had, you know, to meet somebody or do a podcast or, you know, all my appointments in the diary. And then I just have time where I'm going to work, you know, work at my business there. And so you'd have, you know, this To Do List or task list or whatever.

8:37 And it's like, I'll just kind of like, take these things off as I do them. And, oh, that's not so important. I'll do it next week. And, you know, this task list grows and grows and grows and and some, you know, you forget about and there's, oh, shit, you know, got to do it in the last moment. Yeah, you know, I'll do that. Next week is only due Friday and Sunday. Thursday night, you're like, oh, my God, I've got to get this done. And it's a bit of a panic. And what I'm trying to do now and the pain about it is it means a lot more preparation.

9:11 The reward is you really do become better with your time is I'll now put a task in my diary and assign a time to it and look at it like it's an appointment. So now it's like, OK. And, and what I'm starting to find is I, I've got to do a presentation for next week Thursday. So I've got it in the diary for Monday for two hours. Now what I'm finding with certain tasks, I'll have two hours and after two hours of like, jeez, you know, I'm only halfway through something like this takes actually 4 hours or actually I'll bang that out in 90 minutes.

9:50 So next time I have a similar task, I know how much time to set aside for it. And it's all about respecting tasks like their appointments, love. That. But of course you. Have I'm going to steal that. Stella, I, I wish I could say to you it's lovely and easy, but it's actually a pain in the ass. And I need, you know, I need to spend more time preparing my week and putting the actual tasks in there. And, you know, I've, I've started to do that with what I call a gang bigger tasks, the ones I respect more.

10:25 But I do know I need to get to a place where I'm, I'm really putting most of my tasks somewhere in the week or putting them on the back burner and saying, OK, these are there if I have time, but they're not important at all. And I don't have to worry about them really. They're nice things to do if I, if I have time and not put those in the diary, But anything that I actually have to get done, even if it's in three months time, you know, put it in the diary, you know, Monday, the 23rd of you know, April.

10:58 And if I then have to move it because something urgent does come up, I will move the whole task to another day where I have that time and put it in there. I love that. I think it goes back to again then what obviously what we said in our conversation of just having something in front of you, taking it out of your head and then having it in front of you. I love that. Yeah, definitely. Like I said, I do that with with decisions I have to make, but just doing that with the with just day-to-day things that I need to do to make it a lot more clear and some size and better time management.

11:32 He's definitely something I'm going to steal. So like I said, I like to make sure that when I get the chance to speak to successful people, I take something away from that conversation. So that's definitely something I'll be taking. Well, I just wish I could have learned this, you know, but I probably wasn't ready for it maybe 25 years ago or whatever. You know, I think it depends where you are in your life. But if you know, and, and as I said, I'm a work in progress because I, but I do know everything inside me says the better I get at this, the better my time management is definitely going to be.

12:06 And I think it's going to really improve my life because I won't have any of these. You know, as a responsible person, you do get things done eventually or in time, but the quality of the work will get better because I'm not ever lastminute.com on anything. Yeah. More intentional with. It very often and again, you said earlier, be much more intentional with your time, but it it's the the the clicking point for me was to suddenly realize that I didn't actually respect tasks. That's why I could just push them aside.

12:43 Push them aside, yeah. And, and now it's like, no, I need to respect these tasks and, and give them the time that they deserve. And so that's my big, big project for 2026 is to get good at that. I love that it's, yeah, it's, it's like we said, it's having it in front of you makes it so much everything so much clearer. So it's, I think that's really the perfect thing for I think that's anyone, something everyone could use because no, there's no better time management than purposeful time management of being purposeful with your time, making sure you, you know what you're doing next and you know what you're doing throughout the day.

13:23 Because if you, if you don't do that, you can pretty much dilly dally around just doing, doing the task that you know, you've, you, you've got to do at the top of your head, but then neglecting other ones. So yeah, I love that. Well, yeah, I mean, the one of the, the big, you know, jobs I have to tackle is, you know, your task list just gets bigger and bigger because all these kind of unimportant ones just get shelf, shelf, shelf. But also e-mail, you know how many emails I've got flagged because it's like nothing urgent that I need to deal with or it's an opportunity that, you know, I will get around to.

13:58 And I'm going to, you know, try to do basically 20 emails a day that are flagged and actually then put a task or like Bennett completely and say, look, I'm never going to do this. Bag it, you know, and, and slowly get through the, you know, the, the, the 1100 e-mail flag list, which would be a very slow process. But I mean, at the end of the day, it's better doing it than never doing it, you know, and just pretending that one day you'll get to it, unless I do it. So again, a task once a week I'm going to put in is half an hour just going through my backlog of flagged emails and do something with it, which maybe just trash it, but but do something with it get get it away from there.

14:50 So, you know, maybe this time next year we can come on here and I can say I'm at 0. Yeah, that's that's not raining for. I love that. Thank you so much for answering those for me, Dave. It's a pleasure. Thank you very much for for being such a great sport. And you don't have to answer now, but is there somebody that you know that I that you think I should interview? Yes, if you've not already spoke obviously to I've mentioned Alice McCall of Allison before. If you've not spoke to him, I'd love to listen to that.

15:22 If not, I obviously playing tennis, grown up playing tennis. My friend is a professional tennis player, Amelia Rajaki. She went to, she went to North Carolina State, NC State. She had a successful career there and now she's on tour. She's on like a second year proper on the tour after leaving. University. That was with Fred Christie. Does you know? Yeah, yeah, she's on. She's plays with Freya sometimes and then she plays with people she went to NC State with. Yeah, she's, she's doing really well in double s.

15:56 And then she's, yeah, keeps grinding that singles think she's around the 400 mark and in double s I think she's around top 200 mark. So she's, I think it's, she'll be, she'd be a great one to speak to, to go into the, the path of American University and then obviously being on a second proper year in the tour now. Brilliant. Thank you very much. I'll, I will. I will do that. Yeah, I'll drop you. I'll I'll give you a number if you need it. Thanks very much. Yeah. OK. Thank you, Dave. Well, have a great time on your Disney Cruise and I'll be following you on Instagram and we'll be putting all the show notes and, and all your handles there for people to follow you.

16:41 Great, amazing. Thank you so much, Dave. Take care, bye. For watching Locker Room Power with David Samuel, if you enjoyed the episode, hit subscribe and leave a comment on your favorite platform. See you in the next one.