Time Management and Your Wellbeing -- Society of Like-Minded Men

Overview

Creator	Society of Like-Minded Men
Title	Time Management and Why It's Important to Your Wellbeing
Source	youtube.com/watch?v=DuPghzRrRRo
Transcript Date	2026-05-20
Hosts	Ramin Keyvan & Tommy Sporleder

Ramin Keyvan and Tommy Sporleder, co-hosts of the Society of Like-Minded Men podcast, discuss time management as a foundational discipline for personal wellbeing and professional effectiveness. The conversation centers on the calendar as a non-negotiable operating tool, and the direct link between poor time management and chronic stress, burnout, and loss of personal freedom. They argue that time management is ultimately about boundary-setting -- deciding what you say yes to, protecting blocks for recovery and intentional activity, and refusing to let guilt or social pressure route other people's priorities through your schedule. Both hosts share personal examples of where this discipline has broken down in their own lives and what they are doing to rebuild it. The episode closes with a shared principle: if something is not on the calendar, it simply does not exist.

Key Points

Ramin runs his day by checking his calendar first each morning, before email, to know exactly where his open blocks are and what he can or cannot take on.
The core rule both hosts operate by: if it is not on the calendar, it does not exist -- and this applies to personal commitments as much as professional ones.
Time management is fundamentally about boundary-setting, defining when you are available and when you are not, and holding that line regardless of social pressure.
Tools like Outlook, project management platforms, and phone calendars are only as effective as the data entry behind them -- having the tool without using it is worthless.
Your time has a calculable hourly rate; any task that costs less to outsource than to do yourself at that rate should be delegated, unless there is a personal reason to keep it.
Blocking time for lunch, naps, reading, and personal recovery is legitimate and necessary -- not optional or lazy. Nobody is going to die because you took an hour.
Burnout compounds with each episode; Ramin has gone through it three or four times and notes it gets harder to recover from each time -- the answer is to prevent it entirely.
Guilt is a primary mechanism by which other people drain your time, and learning to disengage from guilt-based pressure is essential to functioning time management.
Parents who model poor time management pass that pattern to their children as a default operating mode, making it a generational habit requiring deliberate effort to break.
After 25 years of running his business, Ramin's own team identified him as the bottleneck, which led to a restructuring that allowed him to work on the business rather than in it.
Protecting a morning routine -- the first hour or hour and a half before any staff interaction -- has a measurable positive effect on the quality of the rest of the day.
Scheduling leisure activities, sports games, and vacations on the calendar is the only way to ensure they are intentional and protected rather than reactive and guilt-laden.

Quotable Moments

Quotable moments are auto-generated from the transcript. Speaker attribution and quote accuracy should be verified against the original source before republishing or sharing.

Ramin Keyvan

"If it's not in the calendar, it doesn't exist."

Why it works: Short, absolute, repeatable. The core principle of the episode in eight words.

Ramin Keyvan

"Be the protector of your own time. Everybody else is going to try to get it or take it from you."

Why it works: Frames time as something requiring active defense, not just passive planning. Strong closer energy.

Ramin Keyvan

"I don't do guilt anymore. I don't pack for that trip."

Why it works: Punchy and original. The packing metaphor is memorable and paste-ready for a social pull quote.

Tommy Sporleder

"Until you start having respect for your time, nobody else will."

Why it works: Clean, true, and stands alone without any additional context.

Concepts and Ideas

Core Framework

The Calendar as Operating System

The calendar is not a scheduling convenience -- it is the operating system of your day. If something is not on it, it does not exist. This means both your commitments to others and your commitments to yourself (recovery, learning, leisure) must be formally entered or they will be overwritten by whatever comes along first.

Time Management as Boundary-Setting

Time management is not about squeezing more output from fewer hours. It is about deciding what gets access to your time and what does not. Boundaries are the mechanism. A structured calendar makes the boundary visible and communicable to others, which is why it works better than a vague sense of busyness.

Be Your Own Gatekeeper

You are the only person who can decide how your time is allocated. Nobody is coming to manage this for you. The hosts frame this as an active role -- the butler at the front door -- not a passive outcome. You choose what gets through, and everything else waits or goes away.

The Calculable Value of Time

Your time has a real hourly rate. Any task you are doing yourself that would cost less to outsource is a net loss. This framing turns vague feelings of busyness into a financial decision framework. It also clarifies which activities are worth doing yourself because they are genuinely restorative or meaningful.

Practical Principles

Intentionality Over Reactivity

Both hosts repeatedly use the word intentional. The shift from reactive time use to intentional time use is the core behavioral change the episode advocates. Intentionality means choosing your schedule before the day happens rather than reconstructing it after the fact from whatever made demands on you.

Protecting the Morning Routine

The first one to two hours of the day, before staff meetings or email or social contact, is described as the highest-leverage protected block. Both hosts report that the quality of this block directly predicts the quality of the day. Skipping it through late nights or early obligations reliably degrades performance.

Yes or No -- No Maybe

When someone asks for your time, there are two answers: yes or no. Maybe is a non-answer that keeps the request alive in your mental overhead without resolving it. Eliminating maybe as an option forces honest evaluation of whether you actually have the capacity and desire to commit.

Scheduling Recovery as Work

Lunch, naps, walks, and reading are not time stolen from productivity -- they are inputs to it. Treating recovery as optional is what leads to burnout. The practical step is putting it on the calendar explicitly, the same way you would a client call, so it carries equal weight and cannot be quietly overwritten.

Working On vs. Working In

Ramin draws a clear distinction between working in the business (day-to-day execution) and working on the business (strategy, growth, design). The latter is only possible when calendar blocks are protected for it. Being identified as the bottleneck by his own team was the trigger that forced this shift.

Adjacent Ideas and Traps

Guilt as a Time Destroyer

Guilt is one of the primary mechanisms by which other people's priorities get routed through your schedule. The hosts call this the "yabbit" -- the yeah-but that arrives when someone tries to reason you out of a no. Recognizing it as a manipulation pattern rather than a moral signal is what allows you to disengage from it.

Generational Time Patterns

Poor time management is often modeled by parents and absorbed as a child's default operating mode. The anxiety and chaos of a household without structured time -- where nothing is ever settled -- becomes what feels normal. Breaking this pattern as an adult requires identifying it as a learned behavior, not a fixed trait.

The Guilt of Unscheduled Time

Paradoxically, creating open blocks in your calendar can trigger guilt, as though empty time is a failure of productivity. The hosts identify this as a societal conditioning issue. Open time is not wasted time -- it is the signal that your boundary-setting is working. Reframing it as a feature rather than a bug is part of the practice.

Implementation

Implementation steps are auto-generated from the transcript content and are provided for informational purposes only. They do not constitute professional advice of any kind. Always consult a qualified professional before acting on any information presented here.

Make the Calendar Your First Input of the Day

Before checking email, messages, or social media, open your calendar. Spend two to three minutes understanding what the day contains and where the open blocks are. This positions you to engage with incoming requests from a place of awareness rather than reactivity, and prevents other people's priorities from defining your morning before you do.

Calculate Your Actual Hourly Rate

Take your annual income or revenue and divide it down to an hourly figure. Write it somewhere visible. Then, for any task you are considering doing yourself, estimate the hours it will take and multiply. If that number exceeds the cost of having someone else do it, outsource it. Reserve the time you reclaim for work only you can do or activities that are genuinely restorative.

Block Recovery Time on the Calendar Explicitly

Schedule lunch, your morning routine, and at least one recovery block per day the same way you would schedule a meeting. Give it a name and a time slot. This makes it visible to others and to yourself, which drastically reduces the likelihood that it gets quietly removed when the day gets busy. Nothing will protect an unmarked hour.

Eliminate Maybe from Your Vocabulary

When someone asks for your time, give them a real answer before you get off the call or close the message. Check the calendar, decide yes or no, and communicate it. Maybe is a deferred decision that stays open in your head and in theirs. It creates expectations without commitments and keeps you from fully owning your own schedule.

Set Up a Task System That Remembers for You

Find a project management tool or task app that lets you create items with automatic reminders. The goal is to close the day with nothing held in your head that you have to remember -- every open loop should be in the system, with a time-triggered prompt to follow up. Ramin uses Office 365 plus a project management tool synchronized so that he receives reminders by both email and text.

Build and Protect Your Morning Routine Block

Identify the first one to two hours of your day as yours. Mark them on the calendar as unavailable. Decide what goes in them -- reading, exercise, coffee, journaling, whatever sets the tone for you -- and do those things before anything else begins. The hosts are consistent: the days this block is disrupted are reliably worse days. Protect it militantly for at least 30 days and observe the difference.

Recognize Guilt as a Scheduling Attack

When someone tries to override your no with reasoning, stories, or implied obligation, that is guilt-based pressure. It is not a moral signal requiring action -- it is a manipulation pattern worth naming internally. Practice declining without explaining. The explanation is the surface the guilt-based argument attacks. "Not available" is a complete sentence, and you do not owe a defense of your schedule to anyone.

Schedule Leisure and Vacations the Same Way You Schedule Work

If you want to watch a game, take a trip, or spend an afternoon doing something you enjoy, put it on the calendar with a start and end time. Mark yourself unavailable for those blocks. An unscheduled leisure activity is vulnerable to being displaced by anything that shows up with a calendar entry attached to it. Scheduling it gives it the same standing as a meeting.

Audit Your Role as a Bottleneck

Ask the people around you -- your team, your household, your business partners -- where they are waiting on you. Ramin's team told him directly that he was the bottleneck in his own company after 25 years. That honesty, though uncomfortable, was the prerequisite for change. Understanding where your time creates downstream delays is the starting point for restructuring who does what.

Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in speaker attribution, transcription accuracy, or formatting. Long transcripts may be truncated due to processing limits. Confirm accuracy and completeness against the original source before referencing or republishing.

Ramin: Hi, and welcome to another episode of the Society of Like-Minded Men. I'm your host, Ramin Keyvan, Chief Grumpy Guy, and this is Tommy Sporleder, your other host.

Tommy: How are you, my friend?

Ramin: Great. You're embracing that moniker.

Tommy: I am, Chief Grumpy Guy. And I like it. My man. I'm totally digging it, man. I'm going to have a t-shirt made.

Ramin: You should. My main man, Ramin Keyvan. Baseball cap, Chief Grumpy Guy.

Tommy: Heck yeah. If it fits, wear it, right?

Ramin: That's right. Yeah, get off my lawn. I'm actually doing great. We do this weekly and I really look forward to it. I look forward to getting together with you and just talking shop. And our shop is Society of Like-Minded Men.

[00:47]

And what we're hearing out there in society, hanging out with other men, and seeing what touches and resonates.

[01:05]

It hits a chord. It is to me fascinating that there are so many various subjects that we've covered in our videos and podcasts, because some of these are only available via audio on different platforms. So those of you listening, please continue to subscribe. Thank you for joining us. When you sit with other men, you begin to hear the things that you normally say come out of their mouth, and you realize how ubiquitous some of these thoughts and patterns are. We're all concerned about the same things.

[01:51]

And so our subject for today is one that -- because I'm a business owner -- I live and die by, and that's time management.

[02:04]

I tell people -- my friends, my family -- if it's not in the calendar, it doesn't exist. So people will say, well, are you joining us Saturday?

Tommy: I'm like, for? For what? Which Saturday? Did you send a calendar item? And they sometimes get mad at me, and I'm like, look, dude, I don't have time to dig through three or four different forms of communication. Just send a calendar item, follow it up with a text message that says, sent you a calendar item, take a look. That's all you need to do. It's easy, but I think everybody just doesn't want to take the time to organize themselves to that level. And it's hard, I get that. But the reality is that if you don't, especially if you're good at what you do, the demands on your time will increase exponentially. And if you're trying to do this on little slips of paper or sticky notes scattered all over, it's not going to work.

[03:33]

I'm in a management position with lots of people demanding your time, the emails and all of that. But the biggest thing is what you just touched on -- someone calling and saying, are you going to be at that meeting? Are you going to be there?

[03:46]

Did you do this? Did you do that? And there's so much assumption with people sometimes.

Ramin: Yes, there's an enormous amount of assumption. It's that thing of, of course you know that I'm doing this thing and you should be there, right?

Tommy: That's it. And the one thing that you can't do is expect or think that everyone is going to work or operate the same way. Sometimes -- there's a joke -- old man Tommy's sending emails again at midnight or two in the morning. And my style is sometimes if stuff's got to get done, I just buckle down and I get it done. Because if I don't get it done, it's not going to get done.

[04:45]

And I've been able to identify what's really critical and what's really important. But this thing about time management -- I've embraced some tools. There's new tools in the repertoire, and the technology, that's where it's a game changer. But they're only as good as you, the person that puts the information in. Because a lot of people have these tools but don't use them.

Ramin: So here's the deal. It's a great tool. If you don't do the data entry, it's of no value to you. It comes down to deciding for yourself that you want to take control of your world and how it passes by. You are not compelled to say yes to every meeting request. You are not compelled to say yes to every social request. You can choose whether you want to go to a thing or not.

[05:48]

Now, if your boss is saying, I need you to be there, okay -- but not everything is that. Every one of us is intelligent enough to make that decision. So really the question is, what do you want your time to be spent like?

[06:07]

When I get up in the morning, I look at my calendar. I don't even look at my emails. I just look at my calendar. What's happening today? I have openings between this and this. Then when I do sit down and look at emails and talk to my team, I already know where I can and can't do things. And I also know which blocks of time during the day I don't want to talk to anybody -- because I want to go read a book, go for a walk, whatever it is. You are not compelled to always hand over your time. It's not a requirement.

[06:47]

It's your time. You can choose. And this also comes down to -- what is your time worth? If you don't know that, you should calculate it.

[07:00]

What is my hourly rate? If I'm going to change my own oil, it's going to take X number of hours at my hourly rate. Is that more than the cost of having someone else do it? If the answer is yes, have someone else do it. Unless you're just so in love with it -- that's a different story.

Tommy: Yeah. My brother -- God love him. He's a busy, very successful guy. He's an officer in a large commercial landscape firm and he spent all day Saturday putting in brand new sprinkler heads in his house.

[08:01]

He could have sent his crew to do it. But he enjoys it. That's what he grew up doing -- landscape. We went to dinner and a birthday thing and he was tired, but he was happier than I've seen him in a while. He busted his ass all day long. What he couldn't wait to do after the birthday was go home, turn on his sprinklers in the backyard and sit on his patio furniture with his dog and just watch his sprinklers. It was relaxing -- and he's the one who has a hard time relaxing.

Ramin: For me, if I'm going to really sit and relax, I'm going to sit with a cup of coffee in my hand and a notebook and write songs and play the guitar. To me, the world can go away at that point. It doesn't matter how much time it takes -- it's irrelevant.

[09:18]

But if I'm fully engaged in running projects for clients, everything has to happen at a particular time in a particular way. And I need to verify that each step was completed correctly. That requires you to be dead accurate with your time management.

Tommy: You have to be intentional. With the planning. You need to plan your time. If it's not on your calendar, it doesn't exist. You have to be intentional about putting it on your calendar and booking it in to make it happen. And when something comes up, you can change it.

[10:04]

You can move it around, but how do you even know where to move it if you don't put it on your calendar? So one of the big things with time management -- you can use a hand calendar, Outlook, your phone. There's a lot of tools. But anything that's important to you needs to be in there, and if you want me somewhere, let me know specifically. Don't say, well, I think we're going to do this or that. When you know what you want to do and when, text me back and let me know.

[11:00]

I may or may not be available at that point. But I can't work on maybes. This goes back to setting boundaries. Time management is about setting boundaries. These are the times I am available. These are the times I am not available.

[11:32]

I've had customers say, I need you to be available at that time. And I'm like, I'm not available, I'm talking to somebody else. Would you like me to tell them they can't talk to me so I can talk to you? How do you want me to handle this?

Ramin: Some people. At the end of the day, my being sane and being able to accomplish what I've promised other people in a timely manner is more important to me than accommodating somebody who's got a personality disorder. That's not my problem.

[12:15]

At the end of the day, you have to be your own gatekeeper. Yes, I can. No, I can't. Those are the only two possible answers. There is no maybe.

[12:30]

Whether you use Outlook -- I use Office 365, Outlook Calendar, on my phone, in Teams, synchronized with our project management system. I know what's happening in every moment of my day. And there are chunks of my day where I tell my staff, don't call me. And even though your calendar looks full, there's more freedom.

Tommy: So much more freedom. The old way of just keeping your schedule open adds anxiety in a lot of different ways.

Ramin: It is also okay for you to schedule an hour for your lunch. It is also okay to schedule an hour for a nap or to read a book. The world can go away for a little while. Nobody's going to die.

[13:30]

There is literally nothing that important happening that you can't take time to eat lunch or take a nap if that's what you're feeling.

Tommy: And if you don't set boundaries, the best way to set your boundaries is to schedule your time and manage it. Because if you don't manage your time, what are the parameters? Where's your boundary? If you're leaving it wide open, everybody in your life will try to take time otherwise.

[14:02]

Time is fleeting. I build a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly calendar. It's like booking out for the year. When you go away on vacation, are you planning those out and putting them on your calendar?

Ramin: Yep. Wherever I am, it says out of office. The only person who has access to me is my office manager. If there's an emergency, she will reach out. Otherwise I'm on vacation.

[15:04]

Not available. And you have to protect it in almost a militant manner. People will try so hard to take your time because they want their stuff done at a particular time because they promised their boss. That's not your problem.

Tommy: That's a struggle I still have -- protecting my time. I need to be a better protector of it. And now with my office manager's help, I'm also protecting the time of my staff. When clients say, I need to talk to so-and-so, I'm like, he's not available right now. Are you available in three hours? That's when he's open.

[16:03]

They get huffy about it. But in three hours when that person is available, we can have a real conversation about what the problem was to begin with.

[16:31]

Do we tend to, in our society, expect that people should rush to fill in time that isn't spoken for?

Ramin: I've asked that question many times and nobody's given me an answer. Why do we need to eat up all the time in your day? Why can't you just be? Take a nap, read a book, play guitar. Whatever you do.

[17:01]

It's the bombardment -- the little electronic thing that everybody carries. When the phone is going, it notifies you, it buzzes, it vibrates. I made the mistake of buying both an iPhone and an Apple Watch. I get notified on the watch first and then on the phone. I don't wear the watch anymore. I turned my notifications off. Because if you want to start protecting your time, you can do that.

Tommy: That's a big part of time management -- protecting it. And the other weird thing is, when you do your time management correctly and you create space in your calendar, the natural tendency -- because of the way our society is structured -- is to feel guilty about having free time.

[18:06]

I'm glad you said that. People called me a grinder. I used to feel guilty when there were these empty spots. If I didn't work more than eight hours a day, I'd think I'm not doing enough. I'm being lazy. I could do more. I could be more.

[18:46]

It has such a negative effect on you mentally and psychologically. It increases cortisol for no reason other than guilt about there being nothing in your calendar for a particular spot. After 25 years of running my company, I asked my team -- okay, how do we become more efficient?

[19:16]

I said, what's the major bottleneck in this company? And they all, to a person, said -- you are. And I'm like, well, damn.

Ramin: You built a team that can function without you.

Tommy: Basically since July of last year, we have worked diligently on getting me out of all the day-to-day stuff so that instead of working in the business, I am this year working on the business. That is a major distinction, and the only reason I can do that is because I have time in my calendar that's protected and set aside.

[20:01]

Ramin: And you're also making time for yourself -- your creative work, what we're doing here, your music. When you're not doing that, you're not being a full version of yourself. If you're running at full blazes from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed and not finding time -- even in doing the things you enjoy, if you're scattered, you're not really enjoying them.

[21:00]

Tommy: That's that whole thing -- in the mornings I protect my first hour, hour and a half.

Ramin: Me too. And it's just, whatever it is can wait until I've spent time with my wife, had a cup of coffee, played with the dogs, got the day started.

[21:19]

Then at eight o'clock I'm on my staff meeting. But before that, the world doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned. And the days that I don't do that are inevitably the days that are kind of jacked up.

Tommy: It's true. The days I get up late -- and I want to be real about this -- I follow sports. Right now the Nuggets are in the playoffs and the Avs are in the playoffs. They're starting at eight o'clock my time. And one of my habits this month is getting at least seven hours of sleep. Guess how that's worked the last week because of these late games. You're tired, you hit the snooze a couple of times.

[22:19]

But I'm aware of it. Which I never used to be. I've had a couple of days this week in scramble mode because I stayed up watching and I sit down and go -- I stayed up for this only to watch them lose. I got four hours and twenty-six minutes of sleep. That's not good.

Ramin: And that's the self-actualization -- you did that to yourself. You didn't block it. You put those games on your calendar. But then the question is, what are you doing and why? How important is this really?

[23:19]

We have in our society this notion that if you're a man, you have to follow sports. Not sure why. If you want to, that's cool. But when you say "they're my boys" -- they don't work for you. When you start writing them paychecks, then they'll be your boys. Until then they're just a team.

[24:00]

And the question is, is that time you're willing to spend? If so, mark it off. Schedule it. Put it in your calendar and say, I'm watching a game between this hour and this hour. Please don't talk to me. Schedule around it. If it's important, it's on there. But if it's going to chew into your exercise, your sleep, anything that actually physically makes you better, perhaps find a different way.

[24:33]

Maybe record the game and watch it later. For me, I've never followed sports closely. I used to follow Formula One racing, but they would usually have races at three in the morning my time.

Tommy: Yeah, that ain't happening. I know a Formula One guy -- one of his vacations was going over to Spain with his brother to watch races in person. I was like, I ain't going to be up at three in the morning watching some guy go around a chicane at two hundred miles an hour. I don't care. I'd rather be sleeping.

[25:17]

And maybe it's because I'm Chief Grumpy Guy. But in the end, it's really about boundary setting. How do you tell the world how to interact with you?

[25:35]

And every one of us is different. But I will tell you from horrible personal experience -- I've taken myself into and through burnout three or four times in my life. And it's gotten harder and harder to claw my way back each time. So the answer is don't do it. Do not do it. It's not worth it. There is literally nothing on the planet that's worth that.

Ramin: We've had a friendship for a while and you've had to be brutally honest about some of that. And that's why I'm in certain groups now and why we do this -- I'm surrounding myself with people who can be brutally honest with me, who can see what I can't always see. And now instead of brushing it off, I listen.

[26:31]

It's that intentionality again -- you listen because you've become intentional about your life. I try to be. Everything I do in my life is intentional. And even watching those games, I was intentional about watching them. Nobody's going to feel sorry for me.

[26:46]

Tommy: And even when I try to feel sorry for myself, I go -- you dumbass. There's this notion that some people say, I have ADHD and I'm time blind.

Ramin: If you can describe it, you're doing that on purpose. It's a bad habit. You've always done it and you haven't bothered to learn otherwise. Fine. Your brain works that way. I get that. What are you doing to fix it? It's not the world's job to step up and make it better for you. Nobody's coming to rescue you.

[27:30]

Nobody's going to save you and nobody's going to feel sorry for you. You need to figure this out -- not just for everybody else, but for yourself. When my day is properly scheduled and I've got all my follow-ups ready for the morning, I can relax and have a good evening and go to bed.

Tommy: Do you do your planning at the end of the day, day before, or when you get up?

Ramin: I do it as I go. If it's a meeting that needs to be scheduled, we schedule it. I make sure the right people are in the meeting. If there are tasks I need to follow up on, I use the project management tool because it lets me set up a task and send me an email and text reminder the next day that says you need to follow up on this.

[28:32]

So I don't go to bed with anything I have to remember. Something else is doing the remembering for me. We have tools.

Tommy: Those are the positive things about technology. And there are programs out there you can research. I'm glad I started to embrace that instead of all the sticky notes.

[29:00]

And it goes on my calendar. I protect my mornings.

Ramin: Agreed. I don't have a private calendar -- work calendar is required to be shared. But I'm not afraid to share it. In the morning, it's my reading time. You can expect me to be in the office sometime between seven and eight o'clock.

[29:45]

If I get my reading done and the coffee hits right. If I start a book and I'm going more than ten pages, it might be a little bit later. And every now and then there's an early meeting scheduled -- that's sometimes where the day gets thrown off.

Tommy: Because if you don't get that intentional morning time -- exactly. I had to be an hour and a half away for a big corporate gathering at seven o'clock. That means I hit the road at five thirty, which means I was up at four thirty.

[30:17]

But that's a rare occasion and you do what you've got to do. And if I know on Monday morning that I need to be somewhere at six a.m., that's already in my calendar from three days before. I know it's coming. I make the adjustment Sunday night -- I go to bed earlier.

[30:47]

And that's the reality of life. I do remember when I was younger, like everything was so random. No time was protected.

Ramin: We are raised in a random world by parents who operate randomly. And it starts when you're younger. When parents are no good at time management, they pass that lack of expertise to their children, who then grow up to be very bad at time management because that's what they were modeled.

[31:32]

Tommy: That's it. And as you get older, it's breaking those bad habits. Because my mother and my father -- they had jobs and they did that. But there was no such thing as Outlook and all of that. So much of it was willy-nilly. Everybody scramble, let's get together and we're going here tonight. And it always seemed to add anxiety and stress because nothing was settled.

[32:17]

Anything that's not settled -- are we going to a five-star steakhouse or are we going to McDonald's? There's a difference. And that's an unknown, which means once you step out the door and go to that event, you could be gone for hours. Because that's the expectation of you.

Ramin: And until you start having respect for your time, nobody else will.

Tommy: That's it. But once you start setting limits, it's hard for people at first. They're like, what's wrong? But it doesn't take that long. People know now. In the last five years, I've changed a lot of things. I had to change because becoming a father -- children demand your time. That's what it taught me. My why is becoming the best dad I can be. And in that, it's my time management -- especially when she's with me.

[33:18]

Where I didn't have to do that before, and now I do. It's initially weird telling people no. That's the hard part.

Ramin: Initially it just feels weird telling people no. You feel bad because your parents always said yes to everybody. They never said no to anybody. So the world was always in this constant state of flux and chaos. Because nothing was ever settled. There was always this background hum of anxiety throughout your entire world.

[34:02]

And then we grow up to be that way because that's what we think is normal. Newsflash: it's not. You need to be able to say to people -- not available. It's okay to say that.

Tommy: Yeah. I'm happy to talk to you about this tomorrow morning. But right now, that ain't happening, pal. And it's okay to say that.

Ramin: It is absolutely okay. And it's a healthy thing to do. Which is again part of setting boundaries. Time management is about boundaries. Not only to keep people out, but also to let you know how your day is structured.

[34:49]

If I know that I've got a one-hour block between 10 and 11 open every day, I can put something cool in there that I want to do. And I can say to people, not available between 10 and 11, let's schedule at noon. But if you don't do that, you are at the mercy of everybody that comes down the pike saying, hey, can I take some of your time?

Tommy: Do I look like Santa Claus? [laughs]

[35:30]

It is absolutely essential that you do this properly. People will say -- it's my favorite way of starting a sentence -- "It's just..." And they're trying to reason with you why you should give up your time to do the thing they wanted to do, which they were bad at planning.

[36:01]

And how many times have you almost been guilted into doing it?

Ramin: I don't do guilt anymore. I don't pack for that trip. I've had that situation so many times at this point. I don't care. We're going to do a whole episode on guilt because guilt is a societal thing.

Tommy: It is. It is one thing that rots the very core of society. And has done for millennia. But that's a different discussion.

Ramin: It plays into your time management. Because if you feel that guilt and you give into it, that will be the destroyer of your time. You will immediately lose control. Guilty because I'm not going with this. Guilty because I didn't get this done. And then you stop what you're doing with your own time and start wanting to do that other thing. And inevitably it's half-assed, not done, or it just frustrates you.

[37:30]

And very often, the people who try to guilt you into it -- when you finally do the thing, the net result is nobody cares about what you did. It was a complete and utter waste of your time. Just to make someone else feel good. It's not your job.

Tommy: That's the yabbit. The "yeah, but." You see that yabbit?

Ramin: The yabbit. When I hear it, I'm just like, oh, there's another one. "Yabbit." I learned to argue that way with my parents and they always gave in. So now they're going to try that on you. You picked the wrong guy. I don't have a lot of time and patience for yabbit.

[38:18]

It's this thing of, I'm going to try and guilt you into doing what I want you to do. I've had that with teachers, with religious leaders, with law enforcement. At the end of the day, you are the arbiter of what works for you and what does not work for you.

[38:45]

Choose to do it correctly for yourself, not for anybody else. And if that benefits somebody else -- awesome. But in the end, you are the only you you've got. So take care of it.

Tommy: That sums it up, man. Be the protector of your own time. Everybody else is going to try to get it or take it from you. You can be your own worst enemy and it's going to try to take it from you. And you're going to be frustrated.

[39:15]

I kind of visualize myself as being the butler at the front door.

Ramin: I like that.

Tommy: The master is not at home. Go away. And if it's really, really important to you, be intentional and get it on your calendar. Because as you say, if it's not on your calendar, it doesn't exist. And that's what I like to leave everybody with -- if it's important, whatever it is, somebody called you -- if it's that important that I'm there with you, you need to send it to me and I need to get it on my calendar, or it's not happening.

Ramin: Correct. Absolutely. All right, boss. Have a good evening.

Tommy: You too. See you next week, man.

Ramin: Talk to you soon. All right.

[40:15]

End of Transcript

AI Master Prompt

The AI prompt on this page is auto-generated from the transcript content and is intended to support further exploration of the topics, concepts, and conclusions discussed. It is provided for informational purposes only. The user is solely responsible for all outcomes resulting from its use.

Master Prompt

You are a time management and boundary-setting coach working from the framework developed by Ramin Keyvan and Tommy Sporleder on the Society of Like-Minded Men podcast. This framework is grounded in practical experience, not theory -- both hosts are working professionals who have tested these approaches against real business, family, and personal pressures over decades. The core framework is built on a few interlocking ideas. First: the calendar is the operating system of your life. If something is not on it -- a meeting, a recovery block, a lunch hour, a vacation day, a personal commitment -- it does not exist. The calendar is not a scheduling convenience; it is the primary tool for exercising control over your time. Second: time management is fundamentally about boundary-setting. The calendar makes your boundaries visible and communicable to others. "Not available" is a complete sentence. Third: you are the only gatekeeper of your time. Nobody is coming to manage it for you, and the demand on your time will always exceed the supply unless you actively control access. The framework also addresses the psychological and social forces that work against good time management. Guilt is named explicitly as a primary time-destroyer -- the mechanism by which other people's poorly-planned priorities get routed through your schedule. The "yabbit" (yeah-but) is the conversational form this takes. Social conditioning around productivity and masculine identity -- the notion that a busy calendar or a full grind day equals worth -- is identified as a contributor to burnout and anxiety. Intergenerational transmission of poor time habits is also named: parents who model chaotic, reactive scheduling produce children who inherit that mode as their default operating state. Key principles from this framework: - If it's not on the calendar, it doesn't exist -- no exceptions, including for your own recovery and leisure time - Your time has a calculable hourly rate -- use it to decide what to delegate and what to keep - Yes and no are the only valid responses to time requests -- maybe is a deferred decision that stays open in your overhead - Protecting a morning routine (the first one to two hours before any staff or social contact) directly predicts the quality of the rest of the day - Scheduling leisure, sports, and vacations on the calendar is what makes them protected and intentional rather than reactive and guilt-laden - Burnout compounds -- each episode is harder to recover from than the last - Guilt is not a moral signal requiring action; it is a social pressure pattern worth recognizing and disengaging from What this framework is not: it is not a productivity optimization system focused on squeezing more output from fewer hours. It is not about saying yes to more things more efficiently. It is about deciding what gets access to your time at all, and treating that decision as the primary act of self-governance. It is also not a self-help abstraction -- these hosts are running businesses, raising children, and managing teams, and they are describing what has actually worked and failed for them in that context. How to use this chat: 1. AUDIT MODE -- Walk me through your current schedule, habits, or time-related frustrations. I will identify where the calendar is not being used, where boundaries are soft, and where guilt or social pressure is creating invisible demands on your time. 2. BOUNDARY LANGUAGE MODE -- You describe a situation where you need to say no, set a limit, or restructure how someone interacts with your time. I will help you find the right framing and specific language to use without over-explaining or inviting negotiation. 3. SYSTEM DESIGN MODE -- You tell me about your work structure, tools, and daily rhythm. I will help you design a calendar and task system that removes things from your head and into a reliable external system, so you do not go to bed holding open loops. 4. BOTTLENECK AUDIT MODE -- You describe your role in a business, household, or team. I will help you identify where you are the bottleneck, what you should remove from your plate, and what protected blocks you need in order to do the work only you can do. 5. GUILT PATTERN MODE -- You describe a situation where you are feeling guilty about a time decision, a no you gave, or a block you protected. I will help you separate the moral content (if any) from the social pressure content, and decide what the right response actually is. 6. GENERATIONAL PATTERN MODE -- You reflect on how time was managed in your family of origin and how that pattern shows up in your current habits. I will help you identify what you absorbed as normal, what it costs you now, and what a deliberate replacement habit looks like. Tone instruction: grounded, direct, no motivational filler -- help me see clearly what is happening with my time and what to do about it, without preaching or over-explaining. [Drop your specific situation, frustration, or question here -- describe what is actually happening, not the abstraction of it.]