107. Simplifying Multi-Client Task Management and Managing Afternoon Energy Slumps (Q&A)
Episode 107
In this monthly Q&A, I answer two questions submitted by listeners of the show. While the questions are different in their details, the fundamental theme of today’s show is consistent: the key to learning and working smarter is knowing what’s in our control and what’s not, and optimizing everything we have the power to change.
What You Learn:
Why managing work across multiple client systems is causing admin overload - and the simple solution to take back control
The difference between where tasks come in versus where you should manage them - and why this matters
How to tell if your afternoon energy crash is real or just a story you keep telling yourself
Practical strategies to fix afternoon focus issues: what to eat, when to move, and where to sit
How to work with your energy patterns while also working to change them
🔗 Resources + Episodes Mentioned
⭐SchoolHabits University: (SchoolHabitsUniversity.com)
⭐The College Note-Taking Power System (CollegeNoteTakingSystem.com)
⭐Assignment Management Power System (AssignmentManagementSystem.com)
Episode 10: Task management Q&A
❤️ Connect:
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The following transcript was autogenerated and may contain some interesting and silly errors. But in the name of efficiency and productivity, I choose not to spend my time fixing them 😉
107. Simplifying Multi-Client Task Management and Managing Afternoon Energy Slumps (Q&A)
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[00:00:00] Well, hello there and welcome to the Learn and Work Smarter podcast. I'm Katie, and this is episode 107. It's also one of our monthly q and a episodes where I answer questions submitted by listeners of this show. If you would like to submit your own question for me to answer in a future episode, just fill out the super simple form on the homepage of Learn and work smarter.com.
When I say simple, it is so simple. It's like, what is your email and what is your question? I am answering two questions this month. One is from a working professional [00:00:30] who appears to be drowning in admin work, trying to manage multiple clients with completely different systems.
And then the other is from a college student who claims they can focus just fine in their morning classes, but crash is hard pretty much every afternoon. And while the questions are obviously different, right? One someone, professional, one's from a student, and they seem really different, they do both get at something really important, which is figuring out what's really truly happening versus what we think is happening.
[00:01:00] And whether we need to work with our patterns or maybe question them and eventually change them, I'll obviously get more into how to know the difference and how exactly to go about doing that when I answer the questions. Now remember, everything that we talk about today can be found in the show notes at Learnandworksmarter.com/podcast/107.
If you're watching this on YouTube, you can find everything in the description box. And while you're there, be sure to subscribe and say hi in the comments. I would love that so much. [00:01:30] Okay, we are ready to get started. So let's do that.
Alright. Our [00:02:00] first question is from a working professional. I'm gonna read their question.
They write. Hi Katie. I'm managing projects across three different clients, each with their own systems and communication preferences. What's the minimum viable system to stay on top of everything without drowning in admin work? Okay. First of all, I love this question because you're already asking the right thing.
You said minimum viable system, and that tells me that you understand that you need a system to begin with and that you're not [00:02:30] trying to overcomplicate it, you know, as evidenced by minimal. That is good. That is the right instinct. Every single thing that I teach on this show is in the name of trying to get away from complicated systems, and this idea that we need some elaborate task management or time management or project management system in order to be productive and organized, it's not true at all.
Simple systems almost always work best, and as you say, the minimal viable system is most definitely always a place to start. [00:03:00] You can, of course, add layers and complexity from there, but always start simple. But you are thinking you're in a funky position because each of your clients has their own system, which means that your system has no choice but to be complicated.
But I actually don't think that's the case at all. The problem isn't that each client has their own system. The problem is that you are trying to operate inside their three separate systems instead of creating your own one centralized system for yourself. [00:03:30] Let me say that again because that is honestly the entire answer right there.
You cannot let your clients' systems dictate how you manage your own work. That is what's drowning you in admin work and confusion and stress as indicated by your question. I want you to think about it like this. If you speak English as your native language, but you're working with one client who speaks English, another maybe who speaks French, another one who speaks German.
You don't try to think in these three different languages all day long. That would be [00:04:00] exhausting and confusing, and obviously you'd be mixing things up and everything would be lost in translation, literally and figuratively. That was clever. Anyways, what do you do? Right? You would listen to them in their language, you translate it into English in your head, and then you think, and you plan and you operate in English, and then you translate back when you need to communicate with them.
Your internal operating system stays consistent in one language, which is your language. In my [00:04:30] example, English, and the same principle applies here.
Your clients can use whatever project management tools they want. They can communicate however they want to, but you need. One system that you can control where everything lives, where you can see your full workload and manage it for yourself. Right now, you're probably checking client a's, I don't know, Asana and client B's, slack, and then maybe client C's, email threads and [00:05:00] spreadsheets, and you're trying to keep it all straight in your head or across multiple platforms and no wonder you're going bananas.
Now, way back in one of my earliest q and A episodes, it was actually episode number 10, I looked it up before recording today. I answered a question that was submitted by a listener who had a similar problem. She was a bookkeeper and she deals with a lot of clients with a lot of different needs, and they all have their own systems.
And so before I go further in my answer here, I do wanna encourage you to go and listen to that episode. Again, it was episode [00:05:30] 10, so you can hear the advice that I shared with that other listener who was in a similar situation. That I think that the advice and the answer I share there is relevant here too.
And that link will be in the show notes. But anyways, here is what I want you to try. First, you need one task management system. I don't care which one you use. You could use Todoist, you could use Asana, you could use monday.com, you could use clip, uh, click up. You can use some, you know, organized spreadsheet if that's, you know [00:06:00] what works for you.
You could use a simple notebook, A simple agenda. It does not matter, but pick one. That is where all of your tasks and deadlines are gonna live. Every single project, every single deliverable, every single deadline for all three clients goes into this one system. And then your clients' project management tools, those are just sources of information.
They're like inboxes. You check them, you extract what you need from them, and then you put that information [00:06:30] into your system. But you don't manage your work over there in their systems. You manage it, you track it, you track the status. You check whether or not it's complete or in progress or whatever.
That's all done in your system. This is one of the core concepts that I teach in my assignment management power system program. Yes, it is In the context of academia, at least the title is because I'm like assignment I should have, now that I'm thinking about it, named it the task management power system, but it's called the Assignment Management Power system.
Right. But the principles apply [00:07:00] 100%. To work in career. If you're curious about that program, it's only $47 to learn one of the most critical skills of your entire life. That link is in the show notes. It's also at assignmentmanagementsystem.com. Yeah, I got that. URL. It is so cool. But the idea here is there is a difference between a task.
Inbox and a task management system, like for students, the inbox would be like the learning management system, maybe email, maybe the professor's, you know, [00:07:30] whiteboard. And then the, the task management system is probably their assignment notebook. An inbox is where information comes in. A management system is where you organize it, where you prioritize it, where you manage it, where you track it, where you work from it.
Your client's platforms are the inboxes. You need to process that information into your own management system. Okay? What does that look like practically? Maybe once a day, maybe a few times a week. I don't know. Depending on, you know, your work schedule, the pace of [00:08:00] your projects. You go into client a. Asana and you look at what's assigned to you, what deadlines are coming up, what has changed since the last time you logged in, and you take that information and you put it in your task manager with the due date, any relevant notes, and you tag it as client A. And then you do the same thing for client B and client C.
And now everything is in one place. You can see your whole week at a glance. You can see that you've got three deliverables due on Thursday, and maybe [00:08:30] that's too much, so you need to push back on something or maybe adjust expectations. You couldn't see that when the information was scattered across three different platforms.
You know, I'm actually asked my opinion a lot on whether I think working professionals should have a different task management system than they do for their home and their personal stuff. When I say I'm asked a lot, like professionals ask me should I have two different like ways to track two different calendars or whatever?
And again, in the name of simplicity, my advice is usually to keep everything in one spot. But obviously [00:09:00] distinguish work from home things in some way, right? If you're using a digital system, you can kind of, you know, toggle off and on one, when you wanna focus on one sphere of your life at a time, or if you're using an analog system, you can use different colors for career and personal.
But the benefit of keeping just one central task management system, whether we're talking about career and home, or whether we're in home, or they were talking about multiple clients in your career, which is your context, right? You get a holistic view of your tasks and your time.
Now it's important to keep boundaries in your [00:09:30] life in terms of like when you're gonna work on each one, like maybe not on the weekends or whatever, but you have a broader view of all the things that you're expected to do over the course of a week.
You need to see that larger picture because as you know, outta sight, outta mind. And also like each client's work is a puzzle piece and they have to fit together, and that's only possible if you can see the full picture at once. Then my second piece of advice is around communication management. Each client has their own preferred communication method.
You said that in your question, and that's fine. You can't change that. You can accommodate that, [00:10:00] but again, you're gonna need to track it in a way that works for you on your own terms. I suggest something really simple surprise, maybe just a simple communication log, right? This could be a spreadsheet, it could be a note in your task manager.
It can be a piece of paper, it can be a running Google Doc, whatever. But it has columns for your client name, the preferred communication method. The last contact date, what was discussed, and then maybe the next thing that you're working on or the next follow up needed. So if you told them, okay, I'll touch base with you on Friday, that [00:10:30] would go in that column.
So when client A wants everything on Slack and client B wants emails and client C wants, oh no, maybe weekly status phone call updates. You're not trying to remember all of that. You've got it written down. And when you have an important conversation with any of them, you just log it in your conversation tracker.
Just a one sentence note about what was decided or what you committed to, or who's gonna work on next, or what's supposed to, you know, the deliverable, whatever it is. This takes maybe, I don't know, two minutes per conversation, but it's gonna save you [00:11:00] hours of trying to remember, wait, like, did I tell client B that I'd have that done by Friday?
Or was that client C Again, this will only work if you keep it simple if you remove the friction. So don't make it a complicated spreadsheet that's buried like four folders deep. You know, in a digital folder system that's password protected. You're just never gonna use it. And then the third piece, and this is important, is that you need to set boundaries around when you check your clients' systems. If you are constantly popping into three different platforms all day long and you're setting the [00:11:30] expectation that you're gonna do that, and so your clients begin to expect that you're gonna do that, reacting to whatever is new in there, you're gonna stay in that reactive, frantic, drowning oh, I have like everything due all at once, you know, state.
And that is precisely what we're trying to get away from. So instead, this is what I would do. I would schedule these check-ins. Okay, call them check-ins, I don't know, whatever that works. Maybe you check all client systems first thing in the morning, and then once mid-afternoon, like [00:12:00] after lunch, you process anything new into your task manager.
We talked about that. Maybe you respond to anything that needs responding to, and then you close those tabs and you work from your single system. This is all about being proactive. It's about moving away from that, um, more familiar, reactive state you are in control of when you engage with their systems rather than letting their systems control your attention all day long.
And [00:12:30] honestly, I don't even think you have to communicate with your clients that you're only gonna check your systems or communicate with them a few times a day. I think it's something that you could just start doing like literally right away. Let that be the first thing you take away from this. And they're just gonna adjust.
Let's say that your new habit is to check your, their systems in the morning and then after lunch, kind of like I already said. Then that's two opportunities each day where you could reach out and communicate to these clients or answer their questions. That is more than enough. Nobody expects you to be [00:13:00] at their beck and call 40 hours a week on demand.
That's not how business works then I think they know that. I think clients just wanna know that you're reachable and that you communicate predictably, and if they send you a slack message or an email and your system is enabling you to get back to them within 24 hours, that's sufficient. They know that anytime they have a question, they can reach out to you and you're gonna get back to them either that day or within 24 hours.
Again, that is more than adequate. So to sum up what I'm calling your minimum viable system, three [00:13:30] components. One is a single task manager where all of your projects and deadlines for all of your clients live. Two is a simple communication tracker where you're logging their preferences.
Um, who you spoke with, the dates of the phone call, the last thing you talked about in important conversation update, things like that, and maybe even the next step or what you're waiting on. And then three, a scheduled routine, maybe 15 to 30 minutes, once or twice a day, you're gonna have to experiment and figure out what works for you. And that is where you're gonna sync information from client [00:14:00] systems into your systems and maybe communicate with those clients if it's needed.
That's it. Like that's the system. It's not complicated, but it requires you to stop trying to operate in their systems and to build and stick to your own. And I'm suggesting this approach because it drastically like so significantly reduces your cognitive load because you are not constantly switching back and forth between different interfaces and different sort of organizational [00:14:30] structures.
is just all in one place organized to your liking and done on your schedule. And then second, this approach works 'cause you can see your full workload, which is the core of task management. When everything is scattered or fragmented, you can't make good decisions about priorities or capacity because you don't have the big picture or all the inform.
And then third, the admin work becomes contained. It is not this constant checking and updating and trying to remember. It is a scheduled task that you [00:15:00] do once or twice a day, and then you're done. And look, I'm not saying this eliminates all of the admin work. Some administration work is just, you know, part of managing multiple clients.
It's just part of, you know, having a job. But the goal is to contain it and control it so it doesn't bleed into your project work and the time that you should be spent focusing and like doing the work. Right. When you have one single system that you trust, one place where everything lives, you have more clarity and honestly peace because you're not carrying around this constant [00:15:30] anxiety of like, am I forgetting something?
Did I miss an important update somewhere? Or somebody waiting on me to deliver something that I forgot about? You know where to look. It is all in that one place. So that is my answer. Stop trying to operate in three systems that aren't even yours in the first place. Build one system that is yours and make their systems, your client systems feed into yours.
I hope that was helpful. It was a really cool question. All right, let's move on to our second question for a college student. Let me read it. They write, [00:16:00] oh, they also said something really nice, which I'm gonna read too. He, he, okay. They write. Hi Katie. Thanks for answering my question. I really enjoy your show. Sometimes I listen and sometimes I watch on YouTube, and I think what you're doing is awesome.
Thank you. Well, thank you. He, okay, so here's my question. I can focus fine in my morning classes, but by afternoon I can barely absorb anything in less lectures or focus on my work. Is this just how my brain works or is there something I can do about it? Thanks again.
Okay, this is a really great [00:16:30] question because it gets at something really important, which is the difference between self-awareness and a self-fulfilling prophecy. And before we talk about solutions, we need to figure out what's going on here because I need you to ask yourself if this is truly true. Or if it's a story you've been telling yourself for so long that you've made it true.
And I know this sounds harsh, it sounds like I'm not taking you seriously or listening, and I am. I am. But I just, I've been doing this for 20 years and so many times the core at some of our problems [00:17:00] or issues or, or friction points or struggles, is the story we are telling ourselves and then we get stuck in it.
Here's what I mean. If you wake up every single day believing I always crash in the afternoon, guess what? You're gonna crash in the afternoon like you are gonna crash in the afternoon. If you woke up telling yourself you would, it's like when you're not thinking about food at all, you're not hungry, and then someone mentions pizza, or you see a commercial for something that looks delicious and then suddenly you're starving and you weren't hungry at all 30 [00:17:30] seconds ago, but now your brain has latched onto the idea of food and now you're just like ravenous.
Our brains are so darn powerful. Aren't they? So cute. And if you expect to lose focus in the afternoon, you will lose focus in the afternoon, even if your body like mechanically, biologically, has the energy to keep going. So your first assignment, and I'm, I'm serious about this, alright, is to stop telling yourself this story for one week.
Just like one week just stop. Telling yourself the story. I'm not [00:18:00] saying it is a story. It might actually be true, and I'm going to give you some strategies to address this obviously. But for one week we're gonna do an experiment. Approach every afternoon's class like it is a mornings class.
Don't pre decide that you're gonna be tired or unfocused. Just show up and see what happens. Yes, we are totally going for a mind trick, placebo effect here. But then notice if anything changes. Because if it does, then you've just discovered that this is a pattern you were probably creating with your expectations and [00:18:30] not some immutable fact about your biology.
This isn't an exact parallel story, but it reminds me of what have I, what I hear all the time and someone saying like, well, I'm just not an organized person, or I'm just bad at math. And I do believe that these stories are rooted in some experience, maybe multiple experiences for an extended time that validate the idea that maybe someone isn't organized or maybe that they are bad at math 'cause they kept getting like bad test grades and math or whatever.
But at what point do you say to yourself, wait, is that true? Is there truly nothing I can ever [00:19:00] do for the rest of my entire life to improve my organization skills or to get stronger in math? Of course not. You hear the absurdity in that when you hear it put that way, there's always something we can do, but we'll never get to the point of thinking about strategies or being open-minded enough to try them if we take this fatalist approach of all those will never work for me because I am completely different from everyone else in the world. It starts with changing your story. You know what I mean? But anyway, that's the first thing I want you to do. Okay. But now let's say that you do experiment for, I don't know, maybe a week, and [00:19:30] you genuinely do crash every afternoon.
The pattern is definitely super real. Okay, well now, now we can work with that. Now we have some real data instead of just an assumption that we've made about ourselves. Okay? The good news is that if it is real, it is fixable or addressable, but we just need to figure out what's causing it first. So let me walk you through a few different areas to investigate some, you know, um, yeah.
Areas I guess to dig into. And these are [00:20:00] the most common, and maybe you've considered some of them already, but I don't know what you've tried. So first, what are you eating at lunch? Because if you were loading up on a heavy carb filled meal right before your afternoon classes, yeah, you're gonna crash, your body is gonna divert all of its energy to digest that food, and your brain is gonna get less of it. Like that's what happens, right? Not eating enough will also tank your energy too. So maybe think about that. I don't know what your particular eating habits are. So for two to three weeks, try to get adequate protein and healthy [00:20:30] fats at every single lunch, maybe lighter on the sugar.
And if your body requires more carbs, some people do then pair them with protein. Like always pay attention to timing too. If you eat a huge meal and then immediately sit down in a lecture for, you know, two hours, your body is still digesting. So maybe try eating 30 to 45 minutes before class if you can.
So that finishes the bulk of the digestion before class starts. But you gotta experiment with this. Just see what happens. [00:21:00] Food is medicine. And it's a really, really simple strategy to start with. Second, are you moving your body like. At all. If you're sitting in class all morning and then you grab lunch and then you know, let's say you are sitting down for lunch and then you sit in more classes all afternoon, your body is basically sedentary for like six or seven hours straight.
It might not feel like it 'cause you might be stressed and you might be thinking and you might be like writing stuff, but if there were a fly on the wall or a camera watching what your physical body is doing, you're literally [00:21:30] sitting there. Most of the entire day, right? And when your body is sedentary, your brain becomes sedentary too.
So even 15 minutes, I mean, I wanna say like go do a 90 minute workout, but like if you're able bodied, but I'm not gonna tell you that, I mean, maybe he, but 15 minutes of movement between your morning schedule and your afternoon schedule can change your energy level enough to keep you your energy elevated for your second stint of classes.
So maybe walk to your afternoon [00:22:00] class using a little bit of a longer route to take the stairs instead of the elevator. I mean, that's not enough, right? But that's like better than nothing. Do literally anything to get your blood flowing. This is an investment in your brain's ability to function.
And I can't think of a single reason why you wouldn't want to do that, why you wouldn't try this approach. Maybe you already do it, I don't know, but if not, pair it with some dietary changes and this might be your solution. Okay. Moving away from food and movement, what's the format [00:22:30] of your afternoon classes compared to your morning classes?
Is your afternoon class like a straight lecture where you're just sitting there passively listening versus maybe your morning classes have more discussion or group work or interaction where like getting up and you know, doing something because passivity kills energy and focus. If you're just sitting there trying to absorb information without engaging in it, without some kind of interaction, your brain's like pee peace out.
It does not matter what time of day it is. So if your professor is lecturing, [00:23:00] you have to be active. Like you can't change the format of the class, but you can change what you do. Take notes by hand. It's more engaging than typing. Ask yourself questions about the material while you're listening. Yeah, that sounds cheesy and cool.
How do I ask myself questions? People do that. A simple question to ask yourself while you're listening is like, does that make sense? Like that is, let's start there. Does that make sense to me? Sit in the front row? Yes. Really proximity to the professor and the board makes a difference. you're more accountable, you're more visible, you're more engaged, you're [00:23:30] more aware of like people are looking at me so I can't fall asleep.
I remember in grad school, I took some courses over the summer 'cause I just wanted to get through my program, you know, quicker. And there was one class. There was like four hours in the morning and then a short lunch break and then like four hours in the afternoon, and it was one of those intensive classes that only ran a few weeks in the summer.
But that second part of class, it took everything I had not to close my eyes and I, I don't know if you could tell, but I am a really high energy person. [00:24:00] I eat very well. I exercise a lot, I hydrate, I caffeinate, but I naturally have a lot of energy. And even I was tanking. So what I actually had to do, this is what I chose to do, is I stood in the back row in the back of the room, like no joke, I'm dead serious.
After lunch, I would come back and I stood it in the back. Obviously it was the back because I didn't wanna like block anybody or distract anybody. And it was kind of this like radiator in the room that was higher than the desk. It was no standing desks when I was in grad school. Are you kidding me?
That'd be so cool. But it was this like [00:24:30] radiator and it wasn't on, 'cause it was the summertime and I would put my computer on that, but most of the time I just like held what I needed to hold and it kept me awake. Like I had a, I had a notebook. Like I could hold a notebook, call me bananas. But it worked.
And it's funny because actually after a few days of doing this, a few other students started doing it too. 'cause I think like they all just kind of stood in the back with me and did their thing. I think all of us were dealing with the same issue. Right, this like afternoon crash. And so you're definitely not alone in this kind of slump thing that happens.
Another [00:25:00] strategy, I think this was number four, I think, yeah. Is are you getting enough sleep at night? Sometimes the issue isn't about the the time of the day, right? But it's that by afternoon you've been awake for, I don't know, depending on what time you wake up, but maybe you've been awake for eight or nine hours.
And if you're not sleeping enough at night, that's like mathematically a problem. Your morning classes might feel fine 'cause you're running on whatever few, uh, reserves you have the cortisol that hits when you wake, but by afternoon you're completely tapped out. if you're consistently not getting enough sleep, no amount of [00:25:30] strategy is gonna fix your afternoon focus issues.
You need to address the sleep issue first. How do you do that? Well, it depends on so many factors about your situation that I don't actually have access to. Like, are you going to bed late or are you waking up in the middle of the night? So there's like a sleep quality. Is it sleep quantity? I don't know.
So I can't advise you there, but you could be resourceful and find some sleep strategies or consult a doctor. Do what you have to do. But I'm just saying consider sleep as a factor. Um, and one other thing too, strategic caffeine. If that's [00:26:00] something that you do, I'm not saying Chuck energy drinks or develop a caffeine dependency, absolutely not.
Hear me loud and clear. Disclaimer. Okay. I'm not a medical doctor or physician and I can't diagnose or treat a medical condition. So I'm not saying use caffeine, but if you normally have c coffee in the morning, maybe try having a small amount of caffeine about 30 minutes before your afternoon class instead.
So like maybe skip the morning coffee altogether, and save it for the afternoon. This is about being strategic about your caffeine consumption [00:26:30] and not relying on it to function, but just maybe shifting when you consume it if you are already consuming caffeine. Now, something else that I want you to think about is that even while you're testing all these strategies and working to improve your afternoon focus, you should also be strategic about when you do certain types of work.
If you know right now that your mornings are when you're sharpest and you do your hardest cognitive work in the morning. If you have an important paper to write, do it in the morning. If you have difficult problem sets to get through, do it in the morning. Studying for your hardest class, [00:27:00] do it in the morning.
Save the afternoon for less cognitively demanding tasks, like reviewing notes that you already took, maybe organizing your materials, maybe lighter reading some administrative stuff like emails, and you know, communicating with professors, group work. Maybe when you're collaborating with other people in the energy of the people in your group is, you know, kind of carrying you through.
I mean, elite athletes don't do their hardest workout and their hardest training when they're fatigued. They train smart, and you should be doing that too. So you're doing both things at once here, right? You're [00:27:30] experimenting with strategies to boost your afternoon focus, and you're also protecting your most important work by scheduling it when you are at your best.
Now, eventually, as you figure out what works for you, whether that's eating differently or moving more or sleeping better, your afternoon capacity should improve. But in the meantime, don't handicap yourself by trying to write, you know, your thesis at 3:00 PM when you know that you're running on fumes. I said this before, I'll say it again.
You have to be the scientist and the experiment.
You [00:28:00] have to become the scientist of your own patterns. You have to test things. You have to collect data, make adjustment based on what works for you, not what works for somebody else, which is awesome. Like you asked me this question about your own situation. So you're already doing this, you're already, you know, headed in the right direction.
Design your schedule around your energy patterns when you have control over it. Sometimes you can choose to take, uh, you're harder classes in the morning. Sometimes you can't. That's, you know, depending on, on the schedule and your college and all that stuff. But when you can control the schedule, I would think [00:28:30] about that too.
And if you can control the schedule for when you are doing your assignments, you need strategies that work with your body. And some people do naturally have more energy at certain times of the day. It's called chronotypes. Um, there's evidence behind them. Morning people versus night people. There's like solid scientific medical evidence behind chronotypes.
But you have way more control over this than you think. It's not just how your brain works, as you said in your question. It's how your brain works under your current situation, under your [00:29:00] current conditions. So if you change your conditions, you can change the results.
Start with the reality check, okay? For, for a week, stop telling yourself the story that you crashed every afternoon and see what happened. But you have to like go all in on that. You can be like, I won't crash this afternoon. You need to like convince yourself, like go hard on that. But if the crash is real, start experimenting with the strategies I gave you.
Try them maybe one at a time. Give each one a true, honest college. Try give it a real shot, maybe at at [00:29:30] least a week, ideally three before you decide if it works or not. Okay. I hope that's helpful. So those are the two questions for this month's q and a episode. And if you know, at first glance, these questions seem completely unrelated, as I said.
One is from a working professional about, you know, mul managing multiple clients, and one is from a college student about, you know, afternoon focus crashes. But when you zoom out from the details of the question is actually a really interesting thread that connects them both. Both of these questions are about [00:30:00] taking control.
Instead of being controlled for the professional, juggling multiple client systems, the issue wasn't the clients or their different platforms. The issue is letting those external systems dictate how the person operated instead of building their own system and staying in control of it. For the student with the afternoon crashes, part of the solution is stopping the story or telling yourself and taking control of the narrative.
And if the crash is real, it's about taking control of the variables when you eat, how you move, where you sit, when you schedule your [00:30:30] hardest work. In both cases, there's this trap of thinking, this is just how it is. Like this is my reality and I have to accept it. The professional might think, well, my clients all have different systems, so like I'm stuck managing three different systems.
The student might think, oh, well, I crash every afternoon and this is just how my brain works. But neither of those things are true. You have way more control than you think. We all have more control than we think, and that's really what this whole podcast is about. It's about understanding that while some things are [00:31:00] outside of our control. Of course, your clients are gonna use, you know, whatever platforms they want.
Your body does have natural rhythms and preferences. There's so much that is within our control if we're willing to examine our patterns, experiment with strategies, and build systems that work for you. The key is knowing the difference between what you need to accept and what you need to change. And sometimes honestly, you don't know which is which until you try.
So whether you're dealing with scattered systems at work or energy crashes in the [00:31:30] afternoon, or something completely unrelated to those two issues, ask yourself, am I in control here or am I letting the circumstances control me? And if it's the latter, what's one small thing that I could change to shift that dynamic?
All right. That's it for this month's Q and a episode. If you have a question you would like me to answer on next month's q and a, actually I have a queue going, but on a future q and a episode, head to learn and work smarter.com and fill out the question submission form on the homepage. For all the links to [00:32:00] the other episodes that came up today, as well as a transcript of this entire episode, you can head to learnandworksmarter.com/podcast/ 107.
Thank you so much for your time. Keep showing up. Keep doing the hard work. Keep asking the hard questions and never stop learning.
