Speaker Page

Francis Wade speaks regularly to teams, departments, corporations and conferences on topics related to time-based productivity, time management, strategy and culture.

Recently, he spoke at the American Society of Training and Development’s International Conference and Exposition 2013 in Dallas Texas on the topic of How to Stop Failing at Behavior Change Training: The Case of Time Management.

In 2012 he was a plenary speaker at the Institute of Challenging Disorganization’s Annual Conference in Chicago on the title: Baby Steps 101/201 – Radically Reducing Your Clients’ Time Clutter.

In 2014 he was a feature speaker at the International Coach Federation Conference in Cleveland, Ohio, delivering a workshop on the topic of How to Deliver Expert vs. Novice Time Management Coaching.

His speeches combine the very latest research in time-based productivity, drawing from the fields pf psychology, brain science, business process management, industrial engineering, adult learning, operations research and others. He goes well beyond the conventional wisdom in delivering science-based, interactive content that makes people sit up and listen to ideas that are new to even the most productive employees.

Francis received B.S. and M. Eng. degrees from Cornell University in four and a half years, majoring in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering. He was recruited from college by AT&T Bells Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey to join the company’s internal consulting group. He started his own company after five years and has been running it ever since.

In 2005, he moved the firm’s daily operations to Kingston, Jamaica where, inspired by the vast difference in productivity he witnessed firsthand, he started 2Time Labs which has become an incubator of breakthrough ideas.

He’s authored two book, Bill’s Im-Perfect Time Management Adventure and Perfect Time-Based Productivity – A unique way to protect your peace of mind as time demands increase.  He also writes for Lifehack.org as well as two national Caribbean newspapers.  His website houses the largest library of peer-reviewed research papers on the topic of time-based productivity.

To see a partial list of his past speaking engagements, plus sample recordings, scroll to the bottom of this page.

Functional Topics

3 Surprising Ways to Improve Your Time-Based Productivity As a [_insert your group’s profession_]

Most speeches based on “time management” focus on tossing out lots of tips to audiences who have already heard them before. The assumption the speaker makes is that the attendees are novices, for whom a diet of basic ideas is what is needed.

This offering is different: it’s a speech or workshop customized for the needs of your professional group. In order to deliver superior value, Francis does several interviews of members of your organization to determine the top of mind problems they typically face in areas such as time stress, email overload, work-life imbalance, distractions plus many others.

He then fashions an interactive talk based around the unique peculiarities of the profession’s culture, including the pertinent geographic location of the attendees.

Each message starts with the same core ideas that are based on the latest research:

• you already have a set of habits and practices to manage time that are already working for you – for the most part. You don’t know where it came from, however.
• to discover the sources you need to appreciate that time can’t be managed and you have actually been doing something quite extraordinary all these years.
• it all started when you learned the concept of time at the age of eight or nine.
• a few years later you started to create “time demands,” plus specific behaviors to manage them, without being taught.
• over time, these behaviors turned into the habits and practices you use today,  with some modifications.
• to survive and thrive in today’s world, you must start or continue to make upgrades to your habits, practices and rituals in response to the rising number of time demands on your time, plus the availability of new technology e.g. email and mobility.
• the most successful upgrades are not complete overhauls – it’s easier to make small, targeted improvements because long term behavior changes are hard to make for even the most motivated.
• success can be measured by your capacity to manage time demands so they don’t fall through the cracks, and your ability to get better over time at managing more of them.

After the speech, Francis can provide attendees with an example of a self-evaluation form, and/or access to an online assessment that gives them a quick idea of where they stand with respect to world-class skills. He can make his book, Perfect Time-Based Productivity, available in bulk in both Kindle and paperback versions.

Audiences find this approach easier to stomach because it recognizes the source of their professional success i.e. their current methods. By affirming what they already do (but may not fully appreciate) they relax and become interested in hearing an updated message that’s unique, compelling and factual.

How to Meet the Demand to be More Productive, and Less Stressed

Professionals and knowledge workers need new ways to think about being productive at a time when they are inundated with information, even as they struggle to do job of more than one person. How do they go past the typical tips and tricks offered up by some, and the rigid do-it-my-way-or-else formula held up by others? Furthermore, how do they learn how to make their own custom changes in the future, after the book or program are done?

This informative speech, inspired by the book – Perfect Time-Based Productivity – is designed to translate findings from scientists in several fields into guidelines for all employees to follow.

Topics covered include:

• Why traditional time management doesn’t work, and what does
• Discovering your hidden talent for creating time management systems
• How to close the gap between your current performance and your most productive self
• Why you must take small steps in upgrading your way of working
• How to create and manage time demands using engineering principles to produce superior business results
• Why you need to know the inescapable structures of time-based productivity
• How to prevent your increasingly bad memory from ruining your productivity
• What to do about an overflowing email Inbox
• Sealing up the cracks – ensuring that all of your commitments are successfully completed
• How to restore your failing reputation for time management
• The good reasons for multi-tasking and why you shouldn’t ever do it
• Stop turning down opportunities because your time-based productivity skills aren’t good enough
• Procrastination – How to turn it around on a dime

Using the latest scientific results from a number of fields, Francis’ conclusions will engage your audience as he gives them hands-on exercises and after-event learning opportunities to be more than just entertained. Watch as they spend several weeks working on a handful of personalized behavior changes that make a big difference to each person.

How to Train Other Professionals to Be More Productive

To develop another professional’s time-based productivity skills you need more than just a desire to make difference. You also must have access to distinctions they don’t use or a daily basis, or ideas they have never heard.

Unlike other fields of study, many people believe they are already productive, and know all they need to know all about time management – even as they suffer from the symptoms of time-stress.

To make a difference, you need a combination of the right context and fresh ideas that can stretch even the most productive person you know. This requires more than a passing knowledge of snappy cliches or stale stuff they already know from the Internet. You need the information available from the latest research, translated into plain language so that you can use it effectively.

Inspired by the special report, The 8 Fatal Assumptions that Time Advisers Make written with Janice Russell, Francis can provide insights that your professionals can use as they impact the performance of other people in their role as a Time Adviser. He shows them how to open up a conversation skillfully, while transitioning into a expert role where the focus remains on the coachee / trainee.

In the past few years, he has spoken to hundreds of time advisers, becoming a leader in training professionals to have an impact in other people’s time-based productivity.

Topics covered include:

•  How to be a Better Time Management Trainer / Coach
• The 8 Phases of Time Adviser Coaching
• How to Turn an Employee On to Greater Productivity, Not Turn Them Off
• Don’t Just Give Them a Book, Show Them How – Effectively Increasing Employee Productivity

Partial List of Past Speeches

Here’s a series of clips from his past speaking engagements.

Francis Speaking Events from Francis Wade on Vimeo.

Click on this link to hear the audio of his full speech at the ASTD 2013 International Conference.

For further information on booking Francis for a speaking engagement, click on this link – http://ReplytoFrancis.info