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Time is our most important asset. It is more important than money and anything else because once we spend it we can not get it back. It is gone.

But like money we can have something to show for it. We can use it to do amazing things…help others who need it…..start and run our own businesses….raise responsible, compassionate human beings. We get to decide—-for the most part, how we spend our time. Some have the luxury of more free time than others. But on some level we all have time that is completely ours to choose how to use.

How are you spending your time?

Do you rush around from 1 thing to the next but never seem to accomplish anything?

Do you feel overwhelmed by all that you have to do and continuously tell yourself, I don’t have time to do any of it?

Do you consistently fill up your calendar with obligations you said “Yes” to but really did not want to do, or have time for?

Do you look up at the end of the day and nothing on your to do list is done?

In This Podcast

• The 5 Tips to Stop Overwhelm & Get More Done
  • Understand where your time is going
  • Say no more often
  • Know the difference between urgent and important
  • Prioritize
  • Get everything out of your head and down on your calendar

Understand where your time is going

Determine exactly how you are spending your time now. Equally as important, how much time could you be wasting unintentionally? Social media can be a major time suck – how much time is spent on it? It can be easy to aimlessly scroll through timelines and stories, not realizing the total amount spent doing so. Once you know how you are spending time, you can become more choosy, more intentional, more productive with your time.

Say no more often

This can be particularly difficult for women. Limiting beliefs can cause us to say yes when deep down we want to no. Often the fear of not being liked should we say no is the driver behind this. Not rocking the boat. But when we say yes to other peoples’ agendas, we’re neglecting our own. Stop to think anytime someone asks you for your time. Is it furthering my goals or will I be living one of my values? If the answer isn’t yes to one of those, consider saying no to the request. That is not suggesting you need to decline all requests, but make sure they align with what’s important for you.

Billionaire Warren Buffett once said, “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything”

Know the difference between urgent and important

Successful people have the ability to focus on what makes the biggest difference. That is, what is the biggest impact in their day and the biggest difference towards their goals. It might feel uncomfortable to say no to what appears to be urgent, but is not necessarily important. However to be successful, shift focus to what is important, even if it’s not urgent. Prioritize that and whittle down the clutter and the noise, the further you will move the difference-making activities. Which leads us to our fourth tip…

Prioritize

Prioritize your goals and disregard anything that’s not at the top 3 on your list. Say no to small things frees up your time to say yes to more important things. Consider what domains you want to invest the most time and energy in to dial in your priorities. What is most important warrants more time and energy spent toward them. Determine this by way of a morning mindfulness routine or a weekly mindfulness route. Setting clear priorities every day and every week ensures you get those most important things done.

Get everything out of your head and down on your calendar

Leaving all of our “to dos” swirling in our heads is the perfect recipe for overwhelm.  

There isn’t clarity on the number of items on our list. We don’t know how long any of the tasks will take us to complete because we can’t focus on how many tasks there are. The overwhelm creeps in and we decide we don’t have time to do it all, essentially getting nothing done. The more it gets put on the back burner, the more overwhelm and the cycle continues.

Getting tasks out of head and onto paper helps create reasonable expectations around timing and prioritizing. The free Daily Time Tracker and the Weekly Time Calculator are great tools to do just that. Click below and continue listening to this episode to get a walk-through on implementing them.

Tools talked about in this podcast

I’m so excited to share with you the FREE Daily Time Tracker and the Weekly Time Calculator. Click here to get started!

Useful links:

• Growth Now Movement with Justin Schenck | IT 045
• Imperfect Thriving Facebook Group
• Imperfect Thriving on Instagram
• Imperfect Thriving Free Email Course (Your Blueprint To Thrive)

Meet Kathryn Ely

I’m Kathryn Ely and at age 50, I’m enjoying my very best life. I spent years as a lawyer and then stay-at-home mom helping others go out into the world and live their best lives. While this was very important to me, I did not realize that I was losing myself in the process. I followed all of the “shoulds” like “women should always care for others” and “taking time for yourself is just selfish”.

As two of my children were getting ready to go out into the world I realized I was lost, without my next purpose, and it was scary. So I went back to school and over the course of several years, I not only found myself, but I designed the formula for women in midlife to achieve their most fulfilling lives. It is my mission to equip as many women as possible with this design and the tools to make this chapter of their lives the best chapter.

Thanks for listening!

Did you enjoy this podcast? Feel free to leave a comment below or share this podcast on social media! You can also leave a review of the Imperfect Thriving Podcast on iTunes and subscribe!

Imperfect Thriving is part of the Practice of the Practice Podcast Network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you thrive, imperfectly. To hear other podcasts like the Bomb Mom Podcast, Beta Male Revolution, or Empowered and Unapologetic, go to practiceofthepractice.com/network.

Podcast Transcription

TIme is our most important asset. It is more important than money and anything else because once we spend it we can never get it back. It is gone.

But like money we can have something to show for it. We can use it to do amazing things…help others who need it…..start and run our own businesses….raise responsible, compassionate human beings. We get to decide—for the most part—how we spend our time. Some have the luxury of more free time than others, but on some level we all have time that is completely ours to choose how to use. It might only be in the early morning or late at night or a few hours on the weekends, but we all have some time.

How are you spending your time?

Do you rush around from one thing to the next but never seem to accomplish anything?

Done that before.

Do you feel overwhelmed by all that you have to do and continuously tell yourself, I don’t have time to do any of it?

Done that before too.

Do you consistently fill up your calendar with obligations you said “Yes” to but you really wanted to say “No” to or you didn’t have the time for it?

Yes, yes and yes. That used to be me.

Do you look up at the end of the day and nothing on your to do list is done?

In today’s episode I will share 5 most effective tips on how to get more done…….and I have a special bonus that I have created just for you.

Along with 5 tips on how to get more done…..I have created the ultimate 2 part time-management tool: The Daily Time Tracker and The Weekly Time Finder, or Weekly Calculator, and I am going to explain in detail how you can use both of these free tools that I’m going to provide in the notes of today’s podcast.

So let’s get started with my 5 most effective tips on how to cut down on overwhelm and get more done

#1 Understand where your time is going.

The first step in cutting down on overwhelm, getting more done, and reaching your goals is to determine exactly how you are spending your time now. How much time could you be wasting unintentionally. How much time are you spending on social media. Once you know how you are spending time, you can become more choosy, more intentional, more productive with your time.

We will look more at this in a little while when I explain exactly how to use your daily time tracker.

Let’s move onto #2. 

#2: Say no more often.

This is a tough one. Billionaire and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett once said, “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”

We all have different definitions of success.  My personal definition of success is consistently taking action toward my values, setting goals in line with my values, and achieving those goals. Since my values and goals look different in all 8 domains of my life, sometimes success can be measured by achievement of a goal. Something there is no proof of success outside of my level of satisfaction with myself and the life I am living. 

My definition of success and Warren Buffets definition of success may be very different but I 100% agree with his quote. 

This is not an easy thing to do for us women, I know. We have several limiting beliefs that cause us to say yes when we really want to say no.

The most common limiting belief we women tend to have that leads us to say yes is: “Everyone must like me.”  If we believe this, then we are always going to say yes. Because we associate saying yes with people liking us and saying no with people turning away from us. Turning away means they don’t like us. So saying yes is the safe thing to do, to not rock the boat, to help everyone continue to like is.

But here is what I want you to think about before you answer anyone who is asking you for your time…

If you are saying yes to other people’s projects and agendas, you are saying no to your own. You are spending your time in a way that is not satisfying and is not taking you closer to what you value. Would you go into a store and pick out a sweater you don’t like and spend your money on it? No. So quit saying yes to spending your time on something you don’t want to spend your time on.

Always saying yes to other people is a sure fire way to not ever feel a personal sense of accomplishment. To not have time to put toward your own goals, to never have time to exercise or eat well. 

So stop and think each time someone asks you to lunch, wants you to meet with them, wants you to volunteer. Ask yourself, will I be furthering any of my goals by doing this? Will I be living one of my values if I do this? If you cannot say yes to one of those two questions, then think about saying no to the request. I am not saying to never give of your time or never volunteer. I love to give my time to important causes, but I will choose a cause that is important to me, that aligns with what I believe in…not what is important to someone else. So my second tip to be the most effect is say no more often.

Let’s move onto #3.

#3 Know the difference between urgent and important:

Do you run yourself ragged every day with your busyness? Are you always doing something but never feel like you have accomplished anything.

I used to do this, between errands and laundry, I could fill an entire day and never sit down. But I would get to the end of the day and feel like I had accomplished nothing. I finally figured out that I was not satisfied because I was treating everything that was urgent like it was important. As if it should be at the top of my list of things I must do that day.

But all of those urgent things I was doing were not getting me closer to my values, they were definitely not giving me a sense of accomplishment in myself. I realized that I get to determine how urgent I let something be. I can choose to spend my time on what is important to me and not run around with such a sense of urgency about all of the other little things. 

I have noticed that successful people have the ability to focus on what makes the biggest difference. The biggest impact in their day and the biggest difference towards their goals. This requires saying no to a lot of things that might be urgent but not important. To be successful, to focus on what is important, even if it isn’t urgent. The more you can do that and the more we say no to everything else, the further you will move the difference-making activities and the more success you will have.

Have you ever read the book, “The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results” by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan.

It is a great book, it was very helpful for me. But the key phrase that they use over and over again is “what is the one thing you can do today such that all of the other things will become easier or unnecessary?”

And that sounds great, it sounds smart, but we women know better. That statement can be very true for many men that have the traditional jobs where they get up in the morning and they still go to the office and they come home at night. Their one focus can be their work.  They can do the one thing that’s going to move their work forward that day. They have sort of the luxury of narrowing everything down to that one thing that would move them ahead that day.

Now women- or stay at home dads- can not whittle their world down to the one thing that would make everything easier or unnecessary. But luckily we women – and stay at home dads – don’t have to right? We can cook breakfast with a baby on one hip, while calling out spelling words to another child and braiding the hair of yet another. 

So even though we probably can’t whittle all of our responsibilities and tasks down to the ONE thing that would make everything else unnecessary or neasier, we can cut through the clutter and the noise. And learn the difference between what’s urgent and what’s important. 

And that leads us right into #4. Before we get to #4, I want to ask you. Are you beyond over 2020? I know I am. I’ve been thinking about what can I do with you, with my community, to make sure we put our best foot forward in 2021. Been thinking a lot about this.

I am introducing Imperfect Thriving Focus groups.

Every other week beginning in January, I am going to have a zoom group discussion in which we will  focus on ways to make our lives easier, to simplify our lives, to focus on goals, so that we can cut down on the noise and the overwhelm, create better habits and reach greater heights in 2021.

I want you to be thinking about what being a part of the Imperfect Thriving focus group could do for you. I’m going to have more in the next few weeks on how to sign up for this, but you can always send me an email at Kathryn@imperfectthriving.com. Shoot me an email if you want me to be sure to save you a spot in our Imperfect Thriving Focus group. It’s going to be big. It’s going to be life-changing. Oh and I almost forgot to mention: it’s all free. So just shoot me an email if you want me to put you on the list to make sure you get a spot in our focus group.

So moving onto #4 of the top 5 of how to cut down overwhelm and really get things done. And that is prioritize. 

#4 Prioritize:

Even when you start saying no more often there is still so much to do and so little time to do it in, right? You need to prioritize your goals and disregard anything that’s not at the top 3 on our list. Saying no to small things can free your time to say yes to more important things.

What domains do you want to invest the most time and energy in….this will narrow down your priorities. What is most important warrants more time and energy spent toward them.

So be clear on your priorities. You can do this in the form of a morning mindfulness routine or a weekly mindfulness route. But having really clear priorities every day and every week that move to the top of your list so that you make sure you get those most important things done. 

Let’s move onto #5.

#5 Get everything out of your head and down on your calendar. 

Keeping all that you have to think about and all that you have to do in your head is a recipe for overwhelm and keeps you from being your most productive. 

Here is what happens when we leave everything swirling around in our heads instead of writing it down. 

We aren’t clear of the number of items on our list. We have no idea how long any of the tasks will take us to complete because we can’t even focus on how many tasks there are.

So we just tell ourselves we don’t have time to do all of that, and we don’t do any of it. That’s right. We don’t mark one thing off of the list. The more we put off acting, the more overwhelmed we become.

Does that sound at all familiar to you?

When we get all of the items out of our head and down on paper, we can see all of the items clearly. We can then reasonably estimate how much time each will take. We can arrange them in order of importance-not urgency. Then we can start taking action.

Completely different story. 

Even if something is not an actual task but something you need to spend time thinking about or coming up with a solution, get it down on paper and assign a time to do this. Otherwise the decision will be put off and will cause you more anxiety if you have to make a big decision with a looming deadline over your head.

Now that I have shared my 5 most effective tips for to cut down on overwhelm and get more done, I want to walk you through the daily time tracker and weekly time finder calculator tools. We are going to combine the tips and the tools so you will know exactly how to get more done. So click on the show notes and go print yours out now- 7 of the daily time trackers (one for each day of the week) and  1 of the weekly time finder. I’ll wait here for you to come

Hopefully by now you’ve printed out your 7 daily time tracker sheets and 1 copy of your weekly time calculator. Take out the first day, no matter what day it is, write tomorrow’s day on it. 

1. I want you to think about what your “must do’s” are for this day and for the week. So you can line up all the sheets next to each other and think about your whole week. These are your “must do’s.” These are your non-negotiable items. Work schedule, doctors appointments for you or kids, the dentist, school, after school activities. These are the things you know ahead of time that you must do. Fill them in with red pen or marker on your daily sheets.  Block out enough time to ensure that you complete these items. 

2. After you do that, fill in any optional obligations that you have said “yes” to in orange or some other color than what you used for your “must do’s”. These are things like volunteer, social outings, anything that you said yes to that wasn’t a requirement. Be sure to include the time it will take you to get ready for these events, and transportation time to get to and from these events.

3.  Now leave the rest of the time blank.

4.  Go back at the end of the day every day for a week and fill in how you actually used the time in those blank spaces. Go back at the end of the evening and fill in what you did during those times.

5. Do this for each day for one week so you can assure that you know exactly where your time is going.

6. At the end of the week, go get your weekly time calculator. 

7. Look at your daily time tracker sheets for each day. Fill in the time on the weekly time calculator that you spent each day on your “yes” optional commitments. Put that daily time in the “optional yes” column for each day on your weekly time calculator.

8. Look back and look at your daily time tracker for each day. Look at the time that you filled in with the different activities at the end of the day. This was the time that you had open or free and nothing else there.

How much time was not assigned to a specific item ahead of time? How did you spend this remaining time? Did you intentionally spend it? Or did you float from one thing to the next, unintentionally? Really think about this for a minute, was it time well spent—time spent toward something that you value? And it can be rest. Rest is something that we value for our own physical and mental well-being. 

But what I’m asking is, was any of this time wasted?  Was it time sucked by social media? Was it time that you really don’t feel like you accomplished anything or put toward any of your values? 

I want you to look at Monday. How much time do you think you wasted in this time that wasn’t accounted for ahead of time? Put that in the wasted time column right next to the optional yes column. Do the same thing for each day. How much of that previously undetermined amount of time – the time that wasn’t blocked off for anything on your calendar – how much of it do you think you wasted? Put that in the wasted column for each day.

9. Add up the optional yes time and the wasted time for each day. Take those totals and add all of those up for your weekly total of time for the week. How many hours is it? Now that you have found this time, what will you do with it? 

That is tip #1 and the tool that you need to use to get to the bottom of tip #, which is to become clear on exactly where your time is going. You’ve now found time during the week, what are you going to do with it? 

#2 Say no more often

#3 Know the difference between urgent and important

#4 Prioritize.

#5. Get everything out of head and down on paper

The secret to living a more fulfilling life is spending more of your time moving toward what is most important to you.

Now you have my 5 most effective tips to get more done and the tools you need to find more time in your week.

That of course is the one imperfect action that I hope you will take today. Print your time tracker and weekly time calculator and start getting more done. Spending more time on what is important to you. I will see you back here next week. Until then, go out and take imperfect action toward the life you want.