Why Your Standards Matter and How Arsenal Won the Premier League.

If you follow the English Premier League, you will know that Arsenal won the Premier League title a couple of weeks ago.  It’s been a tough 6-year journey for their manager, Mikel Arteta, but what stood out is that no matter how hard things got, Arteta stuck to the standards he set at the club and, more importantly, focused on following his plan.  He knew that to take Arsenal back to the top, there had to be a plan, and to ensure the plan was followed, standards needed to be set. In this week’s episode, we’re looking at how your standards matter and why having a plan to fall back on will always give you clarity, focus and make better decision-making easier.   Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   Learn more about the Quiet Productivity Method here Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack  The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 419 Hello, and welcome to episode 419 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show.  If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you will know I have written and spoken a lot about having standards.  Standards for how Long it takes you to respond to emails and messages, and how you manage your calendar, for example.  It’s the standards you set for yourself that will ensure that you do the right things day after day. That if things go wrong, you have something to fall back on that feels familiar and keeps you doing the right things.  My communication standard is to respond to emails within 24 hours. This means that no matter how busy I am, if I have an actionable email I have not responded to that is approaching the 24-hour limit, I will do whatever it takes to respond, even if that means working a little extra time at the end of the day.  This week’s question is related to these approaches. So to get us started, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Sonya. Sonya asks, Hi Carl, I love COD and the Time Sector System. Both have really helped me to get much more focused on what matters to me. But what frustrates me is that I still have too many days when I procrastinate and don’t get what I want done. How do you stay so consistent?  Hi Sonya, thank you for your question. As I alluded to, it comes down to the standards you set for yourself. I know that sounds easy, and I know it is not, but the standards you set are what help you push through when you are not in the right frame of mind to do what needs to be done.  Let me explain.  It can be very tempting, when you have just finished reading a book or have taken a course, to be full of enthusiasm to change things.  And that’s not a bad thing. But it’s important to be realistic when setting up your processes and new way of doing things.  If you were to set up a two-hour closing-down routine at the end of each day, you would fail. It’s too long.  Similarly, I’ve seen people get excited by the idea of having a solid morning routine. Then they add so many things to their morning routine that it takes them two or three hours to complete them.  That’s never going to promote consistency. There will inevitably be days when you cannot complete those routines, and then you get it into your head that you’re a failure or that having routines doesn’t work for you. Neither of which is true.  The place to begin is with your non-negotiables. What must happen every day, no matter what?  I know many people, for instance, who will not go to bed until all the dishes have been washed and put away.  That might seem a small thing, but to the people who do that, it is their standard. They couldn’t imagine going to bed without doing it.  One standard I try to get my coaching clients to fo