Welcome Greek you Nation to episode number 397 of the fraternity foodie podcast I’m your host Mike ion CEO of Greek University I’m a speaker and an author our third book is out it’s called from letters to leaders leveraging your fraternity or sorority experience to land your dream job and it is on Amazon
Go and pick up that book today we call these episodes the fraternity foodie podcast because there is nothing like great food to bring college students together fun fact I visited Santa Barbara and the fraternity sorority Community several times at UC Santa Barbara it is a stunning beautiful
Campus I’m not sure how people get any work done with the quality of the beaches there I got to be honest with you I went to school in Buffalo New York so our only option was to get work done speaking of getting work done we are
Going to talk to our next guest about how we can all make that happen now do you struggle with productivity and do you feel overwhelmed by your workload as an experienced professional certified coach and Industrial organizational psychologist Julie schulam understands the challenges that come with managing a busy schedule and striving for Success
If you’re feeling stuck and you’re unsure of how to move forward Julie is here to help her client have seen tremendous success in getting tasks done improving their follow-through and even negotiating new positions and pay increases who doesn’t want that she is passionate about empowering individuals
To reach their full potential and she is here to help you take the next step in your journey Julie helps people get out of their own way welcome to the show Julie thank you Michael I’m happy to be here H I am so excited that you’re here
You you have so much great information to share with our college students because you have helped so many college students over the years and I know you have great stuff to talk about today but I think it kind of all starts with your college experience you of course decided
On UC Santa Barbara for your undergraduate experiences and I’m telling you this campus is stunning I mean it really is one of the most beautiful areas in the country why did you decide that UC Santa Barbara was the right choice for you well it’s kind of a
Funny story I didn’t actually choose it initially uh so being that I was in California but you campus was kind of what everyone I knew was doing Y and I originally was actually accepted into UCLA and that’s where I was going to go yeah until my parents about a month
Before or so yeah about a month before school started uh I was filling out the dorm information my almost said what are you doing I um I’m getting my dorm stuff figured out she say you’re not living in a dorm you’re going to live at home home
And drive I was like ah no I’m not and so I had no idea that that was part of the equation so I instantly um contacted I said okay what other UC campuses could I go to and I was looking at a map and said Santa Barbara’s not
Too far but far enough away that I had to actually live there so I just called up said hi can you trans my application the UCSB I had never been to Santa Barbara never saw the campus before I just transferred I there were no dorms left on campus there was nothing to be
Had I ended up the farthest dorm which was at the time called Francisco Torres which was way down not super far but you know you bike but um that’s how I ended up at UCSB and I had no idea but it was it was beautiful then it’s more
Beautiful now they’ve done so much building on campus that library is so gorgeous now and everything thing is is yeah they used a lot of the space so so amazingly well what a wild story that’s how ended up at UCSB not things could have been totally different you
Could have been in UCLA I know I have no idea what my trajectory would have been if IID stay there because I had yeah I was I was originally Prim head so youa well you could have been a totally different life you could have been a doctor who knows at UCLA I know
Unbelievable all right well listen everything happens for a reason I’m a big believer in that and obviously it’s all worked out very well for you because you’ve been a productivity coach for decades so tell our audience how did you become an expert in this particular Arena well I actually started as a
Professional organizer okay which wasn’t even known that was not a career be when I started it I was actually it was actually before the National Association of professional organizers even existed and it was something that just it just kind of H kind of like going to UCSB it
Just kind of happened to me but I ended up uh when I was I was working my way through college so I had jobs and one of them was working in a dental office and I started finding that wow if they did this and this and this they could
Increase their profit margin and they can make sure that patients are coming in on a regular basis I started creating systems I didn’t know what I was doing was unusual I also was that geeky kid who walked around with the dayrunner all the time since 8th grade I didn’t know
That that was weird too now of course everybody does you know we just do that but um it was unusual but I I just was brought up that way my dad was an engineer and very methodical very organized everything was written down lots of lists so I kind of grew up with
That and then I turned it into a way to make money so after I was working in these dental offices other dental offices started hearing oh she’s really good at organizing maybe we should have her come and do this so I did and I had systems of how to Bill insurance so that
You actually get paid and uh getting rid of accounts receivables and bu booking scheduling so that the operatories were all being used properly so I created this way of making making businesses profitable and I realized okay you know what this is really amazing I love doing
This and I can teach others and I can leave businesses in a better place so it just kind of expanded I started working with more dental offices and then medical offices and then law offices and real estate offices I was helping entrepreneurs and solopreneurs all over
The city and it just kept going and that’s that’s kind of how the whole thing really started that’s amazing that is just incredible I think that’s a good lesson for today’s college students is you just kind of have to like embrace what comes your way and be flexible and you were
Obviously open to this idea like obviously the world was telling you hey you have this incredible skill for organization you didn’t really know how it was going to play out it just kind of happened but you were open to it and you saw a method to build a business around
It which is just incredible it was kind of weird and and amazing and interestingly and my my my initial desire when I was in college I was going to be a surgeon that that was my my since I was nine years old I wanted to be a doctor and I
Wanted to become a surgeon and I or or a diagnostician so I want I love solving problems I love figuring out how to make things better and figuring things out so uh I was also math major so I just love solving for x if you will and what I what I found
Is I love solving business problems as well and one of my clients said it so so brilliantly she said she because she knew I had originally wanted to become a surgeon she goes well you know what you still do surgery just not with a scalpel you do I like that that’s pretty
Good all right so all of our student listeners are dying to hear this I mean how can they be sure that uh let’s say every organization and their every individual in their organization knows exactly what they need to do maybe every day every week every month and then
Actually get results how do you make that happen as a leader well leadership that’s a that’s a whole whole thing all in on itself of course yeah but in order to I mean I coach leaders all day long this is you know Co students college students and
Leaders in in Fortune 100 500 companies pretty much my clients and when I’m working with a lead one of the key things is making sure that they they themselves have good systems and structure within their en environment within their world that they are following through that they are communicating properly that’s probably
One of the biggest things that I come across with my clients is the the inability often to properly communicate to be able to delegate and know how to follow up with someone once you’ve delegated something so as a leader you’re you’re not doing everything you
Have to manage a team of people that are doing everything and you have your own tasks so you have you have this combination this duality of working with and managing people doing tasks keeping the team together working on a big project and you are also beh holding to
Your Superior as well so you’re kind of in that in that middle zone of I got to manage these people and and I’ve got to also make sure that I’m fulfilling the expectations that are that are set before me so making sure that you’re you’re able to train the people that
You’re working with to do the best that they can do and be the best they can be because a lot of times it also comes down to is the person that is in your team really being able to take advantage of their strengths are their superpowers being utilized if someone’s doing
Something that really not in their wheelhouse they’re not going to succeed so you really need to find out okay what is this person’s superpower what where are their strengths let’s utilize them they’re going to be happier you’re going to be happier the company’s going to be happy everybody is happy because
Everything is is all fitting together so beautifully and when that works you know when a leader can really tap into someone’s Powers their strengths where they find Joy what really gets them excited to you know about their day you’ve got a great team so you got to ask and you got to
Find out doing that skills assessment is incredibly important as a leader to know who you got and what drives them what motivates them and then you hit on the training piece which is making sure that there’s good transition between leaders uh which often doesn’t happen in student
Organizations we just kind of throw them in these new positions and we hope and pray that they’re going to do really well with no training whatsoever which not a successful formula in any company any Fortune 500 company nobody’s going to do that you’re going to have you know
A Long training process to make sure that you know exactly how to do your job but a lot of times in student organizations it just doesn’t happen it just doesn’t happen um you know one of the other things that college students are suffering from I think is just a
Lack of you know time management skills and a lot of times I see their grade start to suffer because they don’t have those time management skills so how can the students listening right now how can they stay focused on what’s a high priority task and then ultimately see
Their projects through to the end okay a great question and this is what I spend pretty much all my time doing with people students and business professionals alike one of the things that fascinates me uh and and has come to light more and more is people are not
Utilizing the technology that they have available to them as well as they could be we all have a phone you know with all those wonderful apps on it and we’re not utilizing them and one of the things that I also see as being a a challenge
Is not knowing how to use a calendar properly or juggling too many different calendars calendars for the F for the most part it’s a one perp person system you need one calendar you’re one person one you know one calendar you can put many many things on this calendar but
You should not have multiple places to consult or you’re going to miss things and I’ve seen that happen way too many times when I see people really consolidate and use a calendar well they’re rock stars they can get so much done yeah so it’s a combination of that and then task
Management I don’t use the word time management because we’re not managing time we can’t manage time we can’t harness it we can’t manufacture it we can’t do anything with it time will go on as it always has and always will but we can manage the stuff we do while time
Is passing and those are the tasks a lot of times what I see students doing is they are not really keeping track of all of the assignments that they need to get done in the right amount of time because they’re not really taking care to look
Ahead they’ll just say okay what do I have to do today or what do I have to do in the next couple days it’s like no no no no you need to look at what you need to do in the next two or three weeks because you got midterms finals papers
Projects all this stuff just comes you know crashing at you and you need to know in advance what’s coming up because you need to prepare and do the work in advance in order to hit the deadline right and missing assignments no there’s no excuse for that you shouldn’t miss an
Assignment you have access to the online platform on campus and what I have my what all right let me back up so you have access to all the so much to share I’m so excited about this because I love being able to have students do this and
When they do they’re just like H liable moment so you want to go to your platform be able to access all the information and what I have students do is every week on Friday afternoons very specific Friday afternoons you want to see what is coming up that you need to
Do in the next week all the way through the following Friday you look at all of your all of the assignments you look at all of the regular things like if you have an online class and you have to do a discussion board post every Monday and Thursday whatever those things should be
Already scheduled and then you look and see okay do I have an exam coming up do when it when are all the exams and I the first thing I have a student do is go through the entire syllabus and put every single exam date in your calendar
In red on the day for the whole term there should be no surprises here this is not something we like oh no I have a test tomorrow that should never happen ever so I have the students really work on putting things into their calendar early and early on as soon as the term
Begins as soon as they have their syllabi as soon as they can access uh the online platform and get that information know what your books are know what your reading is going to be know what that class is about and start scheduling all of this by putting all this together and
Knowing okay next week I have XYZ to do and these are the due dates and then it’s simply push you know it’s like a puzzle okay these are the pieces now where am I going to fit them in where am I going to do all of this work and
Oftentimes you got something to do on Monday well yeah you’re gonna need to read about it and do the work on the weekend college is a s-day week job that’s what it is until you graduate and then you can go down to five but college
Is 7-Day week job and a lot of students I also find don’t give enough time they don’t have understanding of how much time they need to actually put in for the amount of work that they’re going to have so one of the things I always ask students about how much time do you
Think you should be allocating for your studies and for you know for studying and working on projects and your homework and most of the time then their answer is what they would have done or they did in college um High School in high school yeah and it’s usually three
Or four times that yeah so I I said you know you’re if you’re carrying 12 units of classes you’re looking at about 36 hours of of work time during the week and I tell the students think of think of the classes as meetings as if you were at a job the classes are
Meetings the rest of the time yep that’s when you’re doing the work that the meetings were about and that’s your study time that’s your homework and just change the mindset reframe it and when I’ve done that with students and they see that they’re like oh that makes more
Sense that you’re not in school from seven to three you know you’ve got these you know few hours of classes here in there the rest of time that’s School amazing amazing stuff you know I totally believe in everything that you said I mean the only caveat for me is I like to
Write things down there’s something about pen to paper for me that allows me to remember these things as opposed to typing it into my electronic um calendar like on my phone so like I actually have a planner where I’m like writing everything down with times and exactly what I need to do
Every day I started this when I was in college and now 30 years later as an adult I’m still doing it and it’s a great way for me kind of plan ahead and look at the whole month and then start to figure out okay well I have this you
Know exam coming up a week from now well I better start studying for it now um and I could see it all at one shot uh just looking at it in like a monthly view um so anyway so that’s uh you know if that helps you then great uh but I
Totally agree you got to have a calendar One calendar and you’re always looking at that trying to figure out what do we need to do today yes um so I love it I love it I love it now you know one other thing I wanted to talk to you about that
I think you can help because the fraternities and sororities that I work with it seems like they’re struggling with what we call on the Insiders we call it Brotherhood or Sisterhood and most people who are not in a fraternity or sorority would call it interpersonal relationships so what are some tips to
Improve these interpersonal relationships that you have in college so that way you can work together as a team when it’s time to get the work done H you know I think it in some ways comes back a little bit to what I said about leaders and the relationship with their
Direct reports it’s communication communication it’s helping to understand where another person’s coming from accepting their differences because we’re all different from one another but we all benefit from one another too and if you can really understand where that person is coming from what experience experiences they’ve already had in their
Life what their what their goals dreams and desires are you’re you find some common ground so that you can have a good relationship with someone not everyone’s going to be your best friend it’s just not the way life is but but there are people that you can say you
Know what I really enjoy XYZ you know with that person we are great um you you mentioned the you know the foodie thing yeah there I have friends for example like they’re like my favorite people to go to dinner with because we’re really into food and we like the same things
You know and that that’s an experience so if if students can find somebody you know something I should say that they have in common with another person it doesn’t have to be a lot it doesn’t have to become their BFF it’s just someone that you know what I really enjoy
Spending time with you here I really enjoy going to these kinds of events with you uh and you know you’re really fun to have in these in these circumstances and if they can find where they where they do mesh where they do blend you know that’s going to create those interpersonal
Relationships not everybody is going to be a perfect match for everybody right but that doesn’t mean you can’t be kind and understanding and welcoming to everybody that’s fantastic really good advice there and you’ve done so much work with with adults who have ADHD specifically so for those that have it
How do you solve issues like this mind clutter poor time management and even decisionmaking challenges that people have with ADHD well now you just opened up a whole can of worms there Michael I’m sorry I mean these are the questions that I have they’re great questions and I love them
And yes so I have been working with a with those with ADHD I again it’s one of those things that kind of happened without my you know actually seeking it out and I love that I get to work with this demographic because it uh I started mostly um continuing to work with this
Demographic because I found those with ADHD to be a very misunderstood and underserved population uh there were a lot of people that didn’t believe ADHD existed um there are still those that that say the same I don’t know when it became a religion but uh it is scientifically proven and I
Really like to be able to help those with ADHD to build their confidence and realize that they have a tremendous amount of gifts and things that they are bringing to the world and not not to not to push that away so there are some challenges when you have a
Non-neurotypical brain and I have some wonderful tools that I teach my clients to use that help them to really succeed one of them what you just mentioned writing things down yes we do remember things and it does go into our brain better when we when we hand write and
One of the things I have my student clients do is when they’re when they’re setting up their list of things that they need to do yeah I actually have I actually have a form I created a tool for students to use their writing their writing ability to write things
Down because that is going to be easier and better to remember and there is there is that connection I’ve had a few with disg graphia where they can’t actually physically write so then we we use electronic option of course there’s always a workaround always a workaround but helping students to really uh see
Time passing and use alerts and various systems because many with with ADHD have time blindness five minutes five hours yeah it makes no difference so we really have to be aware of time passing um I had a student for example who was working on her dissertation and she was um utilizing
One of one of the superpowers when you harness it well of hyperfocus mode hyperfocusing can be excellent because you can really get so engrossed in what you’re doing and you can be incredibly productive and have make great strides well as long as you can also get out of
It I’ve had a few clients where they get stuck in that and they don’t they don’t set any alerts or alarms to get them out of it and this was one of those cases she got working and she was writing and she was on a roll didn’t set up any
Alarms bad idea uh worked right through lunch right right through dinner and forgot to go to her friend’s wedding oh no so we don’t want that to happen so uh we haven’t had that happen in a long time because now we set up alerts and you’re like okay you’re gonna you’re
Gonna set up this you’re in that mode great remember you know instantly set an alarm so that in two three four hours whatever time you got allocated you can stop and take a break and you can go back and and revisit but you need to be
Able to know that if you got something else coming up you’re going to a class you got an event that you stop in time to do that and also making sure you allocate enough time a lot of people with ADHD actually most of us in general
We don’t allocate an amount of time that is actually appropriate for a task or for anything I have students right now I’m working with we like yeah I’m always late to everything I well how much time do you allocate to transfer from a activity a to activity
B oh I need to schedule that yes yes you do how much time does it take you and then put some buffer in there in case you run into traffic problems or you can’t find a parking space always give yourself time for the transitions from one where where you’re going from one
Place to another also make sure that you have enough time allocated to do a task and for the many with ADHD due to the distraction distractions of the prefrontal cortex you want to make sure that you’ve allocated enough time on average we as humans tend to underestimate by around 50% those with
ADHD around 100% so you want to double time so if you think it’s G take you an hour to do a project give yourself two there is never harm in overestimating how much time you think it’s going to take but there is harm in underestimating that always comes back
To hurt you so oh always overestimate and if you get done early yay go and start the next task early or you have free time so there’s really no downside to overestimating and I help my my student clients my clients in general to to give enough time allocate properly and the
Other key thing breaking things down into baby steps so a lot of times someone will put on their schedule for example right report really that’s like seven steps breaking it down into small bite-sized pieces you’ll be able to actually get these things done in a more reasonable amount of time and not only
Will you get them done but as you finish one step you know maybe you’ll have right initial draft WR introductory paragraph right conclusion WR reference references you know there’s all the different steps to writing a report or a paper but if you just put write paper
Your brain looks at that and says yeah no that’s just a whole bunch of I don’t know what to do with you and if you pull back and break it down into doable steps a you’ll get them done you can schedule them in a really lovely Cadence
Where you can get them done over the course of time you don’t have to sit down and do it all in one night which you never should do anyway and you also have the ability to to tap into that wonderful wonderful gift of when you get something done have a great sense of
Accomplishment so as you check off ah I did this you get that little hit of yay I got this done I can succeed I can do this and you do more of it it actually motivates us to want to continue to do more things so instead of having two or three big
Tasks which by the way if three or more tasks constitutes a project so if you’ve got projects on your list break them down that’s one of the key things I see with people who are not managing time if you as you will properly they’re trying
To do too much in a short period of time and then you have this feeling of failure when you do that because you’re not going to get it all done if you actually sat down and calculate how long it’s going to take you’ll see it’s not
Going to happen I have a great story about that want to hear it sure so I was working with an executive and he called me into help because he says I’m really busy all day but I’m not getting everything done I don’t know how to fix
This so I had him go through and write down all his tasks we prioritize that’s another whole conversation and then I had him do a Time estimation said okay you just figure out how many hours of minutes going to take to do each of these tasks so he said okay no problem
He put it all down this was before we were adding extra time even hadam write it all down I said okay now total that number 14 hours for that day 14 hours wait he had six hours of meetings in that day wow I said well do you see the problem here six
Hours how am I supposed to get all this done I said well you can’t so you have a couple choices one you delegate some of this to some of the staff that you have here two you decide what actually does need to be done maybe some of these
Things are irrelevant and you just haven’t you know spend enough time looking at them or three they need to be put on a different day yeah and maybe you need to call some people and say I know I said I’d have it done by Thursday but you know it’s going to be
Monday but having that awareness and being able to plan ahead you’re you’re you’re more reliable to yourself as well as to others and you’re more effective and efficient so it’s really being very clear on what needs to be done and you mentioned mind clutter and how to remove that writing everything
Down if you think keeping it in your head is going to gonna work for you yeah no yeah here’s my you know it just doesn’t happen and even even someone who’s super organized keeping everything in your head you might be able to do it to a degree but
In reality it’s causing a lot of anxiety and stress right and overwhelmed that’s where overwhelmed generally comes from in my experience some say I’m really overwhelmed so let me see what your task looks looks like oh yeah I don’t have one of those okay you keeping up need to
Do yeah it’s in my head okay well that’s that’s the issue because here’s what’s really cool here’s what happens when when we keep things in our head um what happens we we’re like okay I need to remember to do XYZ and so we we we we shove it down it goes into our
Subconscious and you’re subconscious okay I’m gonna remind you when when I want to and what happens is you get that reminder at the worst possible time you’re driving you’re on you’re doing something else you know whatever it is it never happens when you actually are sitting at your desk saying I’m ready
When is that when is that thing I need to do G to show up in my head well doesn’t H but it will remind you at the worst possible time well interesting thing when you write down a task in a place you trust you will see it again that’s
The key putting it on a little scrap of paper on a napkin is not going to do the trick do you write it down a place you trust you’ll see it again that subconscious reminder stops there’s that mind clutter going away nice because we’re generally thinking
About all the things we have yet to do we don’t think about the things we’ve already done you notice that ruminate on all the stuff wow you know I did this and this and this and this know you’re like oh my gosh I have
So much to do I have all these things I have to do I have to do this and this and then half them half the things we have to do we don’t even remember unless we have them in a place where we can trust we’re going to see them and we
Actually plan and have structure in place I love it I absolutely love it that’s so helpful uh and you’re absolutely right I mean every anytime I’m overwhelmed it’s usually because I’m trying to store all the things that I need to get done in my head I just need
To find a piece of paper and start listing it and create just you know these are all the tasks that I need to complete and I’m yeah I feel the sense of relief as soon as I get it down on paper because now my mind is like okay
Now you’re clear um and so that is really really helpful so thank you for laying all that stuff out I think that’s fantastic uh you know and you know I I know that you live near the city of Atlanta and I don’t live all too far
Away I’m just outside of Nashville so I get to your area of the world quite often and I do love good food just like you and your friends that you go out with so when I get the chance to head to the big city of Atlanta are there any
Great restaurants that you and your friends like to go to over there you know sadly I haven’t been in Atlanta that much I’m I’ve only been in the state for about three years I’m from San Barbara hence this UCSB I never left until three years ago and uh when I got
Here it was right the beginning of coid so about a year and a half we didn’t go anywhere so I’m still getting my bearings of of and I’m a I’m a foodie I tell you straight up uh I we actually just went to a new place on Sunday okay
Called uh Rays on Killer Creek they have about three of these um restaurants and this is the first time time we went there and I I thought the the place was wonderful a beautiful environment and uh just really well well appointed I really enjoyed it and the service was
Spectacular and the food was really great so it was a it was a home run um but yeah I haven’t I haven’t gone to a ton of places that I can say yeah um table in Maine although I will say that in Roswell so it’s a little little
Outside the main city uh that was a beautiful restaurant uh we sat outside in the evening in the summer just last month actually it was gorgeous yeah and we had a really lovely time there and the food was spectacular all right I’m gonna have to go and check out a couple
Of new places that’s always good if you’re ever in Nashville there’s a big foodie scene in Nashville I mean all the great chefs are all moving to Nashville and just making some incredible incredible food so gonna have to go there yeah you’re gonna have to come and
Check it out you might never leave if you come to Nashville you like all right this is where we’re living you’ll fall in love with it it’s great if you like live music and you like really good food I’m telling you there’s no better place in the world than Nashville actually I’ve got
Relatives not too far from there so I’ve been come and visit well this has been a lot of fun all right so if our student listeners if they need a productivity coach which many of them I know would really really benefit from working with you where can they go in
Order to connect with you super easy my website is coach julie.com now Julie is spelled j l i there was no e at the end and if you just look me up Julie j schulam s hu Lem you will not be able to not find
Me I am super easy to find so I’m on LinkedIn Facebook um Instagram and my website and all the places the ways to reach me are all on there I’m very accessible fantastic absolutely Fant fantastic it’s coach Julie it’s j and if you just type that into Google you’ll
Find all of Julie’s contact information her website and all of that good stuff thank you so much for sharing all of this with our students because I tell you what it is really beneficial so thank you again my pleasure thank you so much for giving me the opportunity love
You are welcome and to our listeners if you enjoyed this talk with Julie make sure that you like it make sure that you share it with other college students that are struggling with their time management and everything that we talked about here today if you know anybody
With ADHD Julie is the perfect person to connect with so thank you so much this has been great to our listeners we enjoyed having you and we look forward to seeing you on another episode of the fraternity foodie podcast thanks so much and we’ll see you next Time oh
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