Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #512 Finding More Time In Your Day

Transcript

#512 Finding More Time In Your Day · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for.
0:07
Speaker 2: The time poor parent who just wants answers.
0:10
Speaker 3: Now, we actually fill our day with something, and usually
0:15
Speaker 3: it's social media. But because we're filling those spaces with something,
0:19
Speaker 3: we feel like we've got lots going on.
0:21
Speaker 1: We feel like we have no time.
0:22
Speaker 2: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum
0:26
Speaker 2: and dad.
0:26
Speaker 1: Hello, this is.
0:27
Speaker 3: Doctor Justin Coulson. Welcome to Monday. I'm the official Monday welcomer.
0:31
Speaker 3: I've just anointed myself as such. Welcome to the week.
0:35
Speaker 1: I'm here with Kylie.
0:37
Speaker 3: I don't know where that came from. Mum do our
0:38
Speaker 3: six kids? And we're in our house, Kylie. We've actually
0:43
Speaker 3: we've got the keys. We moved in on Saturday.
0:46
Speaker 1: There are a few boxes everywhere.
0:51
Speaker 2: Fuck, I think I've done a pretty good job. We
0:53
Speaker 2: wanted to get rid of most of the boxes before
0:55
Speaker 2: the truck left.
0:56
Speaker 3: So you're an organizational genius. I don't know how you've
0:59
Speaker 3: done what you've done, but I'm grateful. And we're sleeping
1:02
Speaker 3: in our own bed again.
1:03
Speaker 1: I mean.
1:05
Speaker 3: Oh, and I think that today's topic is kind of
1:10
Speaker 3: pertinent and appropriate. Exactly, not exactly, because we've moved into
1:14
Speaker 3: a place, but because with so much going on, it
1:18
Speaker 3: can feel like it's hard to have space.
1:21
Speaker 1: And we've had a few people email us over the.
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Speaker 3: Last little while via podcasts podcasts with an ss at
1:27
Speaker 3: Happy Families dot com dot au and say, how do
1:29
Speaker 3: you create more time in your life? Like, I'm so busy,
1:32
Speaker 3: there's so much going on with the kids, I'm over it.
1:34
Speaker 3: A whole lot of people saying I'm time poor and
1:37
Speaker 3: I need more time. What family time preservation ideas have
1:42
Speaker 3: you got to help us to find more time in
1:45
Speaker 3: our day. I thought, what a great conversation, because everyone
1:48
Speaker 3: it's the it's the word that everyone says when you say, hey, hey,
1:52
Speaker 3: going busy.
1:53
Speaker 1: I'm so busy. I've got so.
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Speaker 3: Much going on and it's not a good way to live,
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Speaker 3: Like it feels horrible to be in that constant rat race,
2:01
Speaker 3: that constant push to get more done in less and
2:05
Speaker 3: less time. So let's dive in, Kylie. I thought it
2:08
Speaker 3: would be fun. I have no idea what you've written
2:09
Speaker 3: down in your diary, But I thought in the cover,
2:13
Speaker 3: it's not like in his exam, Kylie's just reached across
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Speaker 3: the table and put a hand across our answers. I
2:18
Speaker 3: don't know what your answers are, but I thought we
2:19
Speaker 3: would share three things each to help us to find
2:22
Speaker 3: more time in our day. Three things to help us
2:26
Speaker 3: to find more time. Would you like to go first?
2:30
Speaker 1: Or should I?
2:31
Speaker 2: Well, I'll go first.
2:32
Speaker 1: Cool?
2:33
Speaker 2: You love topping off my list anyway?
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Speaker 1: Oh don't you like that?
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Speaker 3: Just because I've got the I'm not going to flex
2:39
Speaker 3: And never mind, I'm going to flex about my PhD
2:41
Speaker 3: in psychology. That's fine because you've got the runs on
2:43
Speaker 3: the board. In terms of running the family with six kids?
2:47
Speaker 1: What do you reckon? What's the way to find more
2:48
Speaker 1: time in your day?
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Speaker 2: I think the reality is that over the years, I have,
2:53
Speaker 2: you know, been like most mums and felt like the
2:57
Speaker 2: to do list is just so exhausting, lee long and
3:01
Speaker 2: never achievable, right, just so many things that have to
3:05
Speaker 2: be done in any given day.
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Speaker 3: But not just that, but even when you get it done,
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Speaker 3: it's got to be done again. Like the laundry is
3:12
Speaker 3: the classic example that stuff just it multiplies and populates
3:16
Speaker 3: in the laundry basket.
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Speaker 1: There's always more to do, you know.
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Speaker 2: Sometimes I would actually have a friend come over just
3:22
Speaker 2: as I finished my cleaning, to have somebody witness for
3:26
Speaker 2: the brief second where everything really is in a place.
3:29
Speaker 2: Can you just check all of the bedrooms so you
3:32
Speaker 2: know that I actually did clean today, because without fail,
3:36
Speaker 2: the hurricane of children walking the door and it's a
3:38
Speaker 2: blur and everything's undone in seconds.
3:41
Speaker 3: And in fairness to parents that don't have six kids
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Speaker 3: like us, it happens with one. Yes, Like sometimes all
3:48
Speaker 3: the kids will be away except for one and she'll
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Speaker 3: walk in the door and we'll be like, ah, well,
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Speaker 3: there goes the tidends, there goes the order that we established.
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Speaker 2: But what I've learned over all of these years is
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Speaker 2: that we actually put a huge amount of pressure on
4:01
Speaker 2: ourselves to do a whole heap of stuff that probably
4:03
Speaker 2: doesn't need to be done in the timeframes that we
4:07
Speaker 2: think that they need to be done. Yes, when we've
4:09
Speaker 2: got little children at home, wanting to have our house
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Speaker 2: spotless during the daytime, when they're awake and they're moving
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Speaker 2: around and they're playing, is going to drive you insane.
4:20
Speaker 2: You're going to constantly feel like you're picking up after
4:22
Speaker 2: them every minute of the day.
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Speaker 1: Years ago, you are. Years ago.
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Speaker 3: There was a meme on social media that had some
4:28
Speaker 3: I basically said, trying to keep the house tidy when
4:32
Speaker 3: you have toddlers is try to like brush your teeth
4:34
Speaker 3: while you're chewing on oreos.
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Speaker 1: Yes, do you know what I mean?
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Speaker 2: And I spent so many years in that rat race
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Speaker 2: of doing the same thing over and over again and
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Speaker 2: getting more and more frustrated by it before I realized
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Speaker 2: with baby number six, everything slowed down with baby number
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Speaker 2: six that I could just let her enjoy the day
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Speaker 2: and then at the end of it just pack it
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Speaker 2: all away.
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Speaker 3: Can I just jump in on that issue of bee
5:00
Speaker 3: number six? This is a little bit facetious of me
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Speaker 3: to say, but we've gotten better as parents as we've
5:04
Speaker 3: had more kids. Like, if you want to be a
5:06
Speaker 3: really great parent, just keep populating, because you get to practice,
5:09
Speaker 3: you get better at it. But your first point really
5:13
Speaker 3: is put the list together and then don't do it all.
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Speaker 1: Well.
5:17
Speaker 2: No, so, okay, all right, that was I guess, just
5:19
Speaker 2: a little bit of a preamble.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, all right, we've got to get through six
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Speaker 3: of these so at time, poor parents and all that
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Speaker 3: sort of thing.
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Speaker 2: Okay, So the three things that I think have made
5:29
Speaker 2: the biggest difference.
5:30
Speaker 3: Trying to take more time in people's day by getting
5:31
Speaker 3: them to listen to the podcast long A nice one.
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Speaker 1: Sorry, I'm sorry.
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Speaker 2: The three things that I think have made the biggest
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Speaker 2: difference to me and allowing me to find more time
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Speaker 2: in my day because the reality is we all get
5:44
Speaker 2: the same amount of time. Sure right, working out when
5:49
Speaker 2: you are most productive and maximizing those hours to do
5:54
Speaker 2: the things that need to be done.
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Speaker 3: Question, Yes, what if you're most productive in the mornings,
5:58
Speaker 3: but the house is tidy in the morning, and there's
6:00
Speaker 3: nothing really to do in the morning other than get
6:02
Speaker 3: the kids out the door, Like.
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Speaker 2: It's there is a lot of things to do that
6:06
Speaker 2: don't include tiding.
6:07
Speaker 1: Okay, your fee.
6:09
Speaker 3: So for me, yeah, because we're not just talking about
6:11
Speaker 3: getting the household chores done.
6:13
Speaker 1: Here where actually creating.
6:14
Speaker 2: As a mum. I've got a jillion other things that
6:17
Speaker 2: need to be done, errands that need to be run,
6:19
Speaker 2: you know, things like that. And so just working out
6:20
Speaker 2: what is the most productive part of your day and
6:23
Speaker 2: utilizing those times doing the things that are most important,
6:27
Speaker 2: because what often happens is our productive time gets spent
6:30
Speaker 2: on a whole heap of things that aren't important, and
6:32
Speaker 2: by the time we actually have the capacity or make
6:36
Speaker 2: the time to do the things that are important. We've
6:38
Speaker 2: run out of steam. So then the next thing that
6:42
Speaker 2: I have come to realize has been really helpful for
6:44
Speaker 2: me personally is sitting down at the beginning of each
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Speaker 2: week and working out what tasks need to be done.
6:50
Speaker 2: I've got to take my daughter to the optometrist. I've
6:53
Speaker 2: got to return some library books. I need to do
6:55
Speaker 2: the grocery shopping. You know, all of my big rocks.
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Speaker 2: What are the things that need to be ach this week?
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Speaker 2: And then once I have my weekly task lists, assigning
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Speaker 2: just a couple of them each day. What I found
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Speaker 2: I was often doing was making this big long list
7:10
Speaker 2: and then trying to fit it all into one day,
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Speaker 2: because I found that my most productive day of the
7:14
Speaker 2: week is actually Monday.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: I wake up and i feel energized. It's a brand
7:19
Speaker 2: new week, and I'm raring to go, and then I
7:21
Speaker 2: burn myself out for the rest of the week because
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Speaker 2: I've gone one hundred miles an hour on day one.
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Speaker 2: So if I just work out what my tasks are
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Speaker 2: for the entire week and then break it up into small,
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Speaker 2: bite sized chunks, then that productive time that I have
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Speaker 2: assigned each day can easily achieve those goals, okay. And
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Speaker 2: then the last thing, I need to keep myself accountable.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and how do you do that?
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Speaker 3: Like, you know sometimes because if I try to keep
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Speaker 3: you accountable, you get really cranky at me.
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Speaker 2: Of course, because I'm an adult and I'm completely capable
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Speaker 2: of keeping myself accountable. So I find myself sitting on
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Speaker 2: my phone and I'm like, hang on a sec, what
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Speaker 2: else do I need to be doing? And I just
8:01
Speaker 2: asked myself the question. It's really simple.
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Speaker 1: Okay.
8:04
Speaker 3: So those three things again in summary to take our
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Speaker 3: message for your three ideas to find more time find
8:09
Speaker 3: more space in your day.
8:10
Speaker 2: Work out what is your most productive point of the day.
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Speaker 2: You might have a couple of times through the day, sure,
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Speaker 2: but work out what they are and utilize them. Second, second,
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Speaker 2: make a weekly task LISK and then break up those
8:21
Speaker 2: tasks into bite sized chunks throughout the week so you're
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Speaker 2: not trying to do everything in one hit. Third, and third,
8:27
Speaker 2: keep yourself accountable.
8:28
Speaker 3: After the break, a couple of ideas from the doctor
8:31
Speaker 3: about how to find more time in your day. Just
8:38
Speaker 3: when you think you've got this parenting gig nailed, your
8:40
Speaker 3: child hits some new milestone that leaves you figuratively banging
8:44
Speaker 3: your head against the wall. You wonder, where's the instruction manual?
8:48
Speaker 3: Your Growth Guide is that instruction manual? A webinar outlining
8:51
Speaker 3: basic milestones, so you know where your child's at, where
8:54
Speaker 3: they're going, and what you can expect. Get insights, reassurance
8:58
Speaker 3: and support from me. Your Growth Guide available online at
9:02
Speaker 3: happy families dot com dot au.
9:04
Speaker 2: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for a time
9:06
Speaker 2: poor parent who just wants answers. Now I'm interested doctor
9:09
Speaker 2: justin how do I find more time in my day?
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Speaker 1: So there are three things that I'm going to suggest.
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Speaker 3: Number one, margin, margin, margin, margin, It's my favorite word
9:16
Speaker 3: when it comes to time and time management. You know,
9:19
Speaker 3: when you're writing an essay and down this, when you're
9:22
Speaker 3: writing a shopping this doesn't matter. There's a margin, there's
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Speaker 3: a border, there's space around the stuff that has to
9:27
Speaker 3: be done.
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Speaker 1: Because that's common.
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Speaker 2: You're just going to start to use fancy words for
9:31
Speaker 2: the things that I've already said.
9:33
Speaker 3: There's a bit of overlap between what you're talking about
9:35
Speaker 3: what I'm talking about, but a bit of margin. So
9:37
Speaker 3: when you need to go somewhere create some margin in
9:40
Speaker 3: case the traffic's bad, so that your blood pressure doesn't
9:43
Speaker 3: rise and you're any he doesn't go a little bit
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Speaker 3: chaotic and bonkers. If you've got to be there at
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Speaker 3: eight fifteen and it's a fifteen minute drive, don't leave
9:49
Speaker 3: it eight o'clock. Leave at seven forty eight. Give yourself
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Speaker 3: the margin, and that way you can enjoy the drive,
9:55
Speaker 3: you can enjoy the conversation with the kids.
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Speaker 1: Whatever.
9:57
Speaker 3: If the kids have got to be out of bed
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Speaker 3: at seven, get them up at six forty five, not
10:02
Speaker 3: to be cruel and nasty, but because you can get
10:05
Speaker 3: them up much more happily, much more gently, much.
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Speaker 2: More like you're getting them up at six forty five
10:10
Speaker 2: and you know, chucking them out and come on, come on,
10:12
Speaker 2: come on, you're waking them up. It's nice and gentle,
10:14
Speaker 2: and they've got fifteen minutes to just kind of, you know,
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Speaker 2: slowly move into the day. Yeah, create such a difference.
10:20
Speaker 3: Creating some margin makes all the difference in the world.
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Speaker 3: So that's my first idea, and that simply comes down
10:26
Speaker 3: to making a commitment to do things sooner than you
10:28
Speaker 3: need to. When I was a university student, that's actually
10:31
Speaker 3: where I learned the value of margin. When assignments were
10:33
Speaker 3: handed out, we get a due day. This is due on,
10:36
Speaker 3: but I don't know March the fifteenth. And my goal
10:38
Speaker 3: was always to finish the assignment two weeks early, unless,
10:42
Speaker 3: of course, they gave it to us with less than
10:43
Speaker 3: two weeks to do, in which case it was.
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Speaker 1: Get it done now.
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Speaker 3: The reason that I would do that is because it
10:48
Speaker 3: gave me time to do the thinking, do the work,
10:52
Speaker 3: and then sit on it for a week, and then
10:55
Speaker 3: review it after a week and consider how I could
10:58
Speaker 3: do it better, and then still have a week before
11:00
Speaker 3: it had to be submitted. It just took the pressure off,
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Speaker 3: and it also made allowance for when stuff popped up
11:05
Speaker 3: that I wasn't expecting.
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Speaker 1: I had the margin so that the stress levels didn't
11:09
Speaker 1: have to go through the roof.
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Speaker 3: So Number one, create margin by getting up early, by
11:13
Speaker 3: leaving early, by doing all those things. And that might
11:16
Speaker 3: mean you have to go to bed earlier, it might
11:18
Speaker 3: mean a little bit of planning, but it ties in
11:20
Speaker 3: with the second idea that I have, And the second
11:23
Speaker 3: idea is kind of ironic, and that is that we
11:27
Speaker 3: should literally do less. Yeah, there's this story that I've
11:33
Speaker 3: told for years about the time that I tried to
11:34
Speaker 3: do the washing in the washing machine when you were
11:37
Speaker 3: pregnant or we just had a baby, or something like that.
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Speaker 3: And here I am trying to be noble and trying
11:41
Speaker 3: to be helpful, and I've grabbed all the darks, and
11:43
Speaker 3: I mean I saw it did whites and darks and
11:44
Speaker 3: pinks because we always used to do pink loads with
11:46
Speaker 3: all these baby girls. But I sawted it out and
11:49
Speaker 3: threw all the darks into the load. But when I
11:51
Speaker 3: pulled the darks out of the load, they were dirty
11:53
Speaker 3: than they had been when they'd gone in. And while
11:56
Speaker 3: you saw me looking through the Harvey Norman catalog to
11:58
Speaker 3: find a new washing machine and asked me what was
12:00
Speaker 3: going on? I explained, and you described to me that
12:03
Speaker 3: I put two and a half loads worth of washing
12:05
Speaker 3: me into one load, and when you put too much
12:08
Speaker 3: in you get lousy results. Now, I know some people
12:10
Speaker 3: are saying, how am I supposed to remove stuff from
12:12
Speaker 3: my life?
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Speaker 1: And it is really, really, really challenging. But you talked
12:17
Speaker 1: about making a list. Here's what I'm going to recommend.
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Speaker 3: Instead of saying what should I do today or what
12:22
Speaker 3: do I need to do today? Ask yourself what should
12:26
Speaker 3: I remove from my day. We put the list together
12:30
Speaker 3: and say what can I take out of today? What
12:31
Speaker 3: doesn't need to be done? And it's not because I'm
12:33
Speaker 3: going to put it off to tomorrow and make tomorrow chaotic.
12:35
Speaker 3: It's what stuff actually isn't that important? What stuff can
12:39
Speaker 3: I check out?
12:40
Speaker 2: Well? For clean freaks like I was and still am.
12:44
Speaker 2: You know, the need to vacuum my floor every day
12:48
Speaker 2: is pretty high on my list. Yeah, but when I'm
12:51
Speaker 2: feeling time poor, it's definitely one of the things that
12:55
Speaker 2: I can let go of. It's not going to be
12:58
Speaker 2: the end of the world if my carpet doesn't get
13:00
Speaker 2: vacuumed for one day or two or three sometimes, and so.
13:02
Speaker 3: Long as they aren't rodents and pests, so long as
13:04
Speaker 3: you can appropriate rat baits or whatever, you can actually
13:09
Speaker 3: like how many Saturdays over the years have we sacrificed.
13:12
Speaker 1: To the god of clean service surfaces?
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Speaker 2: Too many?
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Speaker 3: And it's just not fair the kids us that there
13:19
Speaker 3: are other things that matter more than having a clean
13:21
Speaker 3: kitchen bench.
13:23
Speaker 1: By the way, I love a clean kitchen bench.
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Speaker 3: But on a Saturday morning, when we've promised that we're
13:26
Speaker 3: going to take the kids for a walk or a
13:28
Speaker 3: ride or a surf or this or that.
13:30
Speaker 1: The kitchen can wait until eleven thirty.
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Speaker 3: So that's kind of what I'm saying, what should I
13:34
Speaker 3: remove rather than what should I do today? Because we've
13:37
Speaker 3: already got big lists. The third idea is going to
13:41
Speaker 3: hurt a little bit. It's going to make some people uncomfortable,
13:43
Speaker 3: you and even me included. And that is so there's
13:47
Speaker 3: a researcher I can't remember her name. I think it
13:49
Speaker 3: was a bridget shoot. She came up with this concept
13:52
Speaker 3: of time confetti. Time confetti is basically these tiny little
13:55
Speaker 3: chunks of time two minutes here, five minutes there, eight
13:57
Speaker 3: minutes over here, and we lose that time that time
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Speaker 3: confetti to non productive multitasking or to sitting on social media.
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Speaker 1: So you're sitting, I don't know, at the.
14:10
Speaker 3: Checkout and waiting to get through, and you're going to
14:13
Speaker 3: be there for four and a half minutes before it's
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Speaker 3: your turn, because the lady in front's got a really
14:16
Speaker 3: big trolley, and so what do you do.
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Speaker 1: You pull out the phone.
14:19
Speaker 3: You start browsing social media because something important is going
14:21
Speaker 3: to have happened on Facebook in the last twenty minutes
14:24
Speaker 3: while you've been shopping.
14:25
Speaker 1: And you just have to be able to read it.
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Speaker 3: That is an opportunity lost, especially when we do it
14:31
Speaker 3: in the kitchen and when we do it in the
14:32
Speaker 3: living room, we do it when the kids are around.
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Speaker 1: We actually fill our day.
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Speaker 3: We fill those spaces with something, and usually it's social media.
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Speaker 3: But because we're filling those spaces with something, we feel
14:46
Speaker 3: like we've got lots going on. We feel like we
14:48
Speaker 3: have no time. Instead of pulling up the phone and
14:51
Speaker 3: staring at it, sit there and do nothing, stand in
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Speaker 3: line and do nothing, connect with somebody and take the
14:58
Speaker 3: opportunity to recognize that we don't have to use every
15:01
Speaker 3: single minute productively all the time. We have a productivity
15:05
Speaker 3: fetish and it's unhelpful and unhealthy for us. By just
15:10
Speaker 3: being we can actually give ourselves the sense that we
15:14
Speaker 3: have more time.
15:15
Speaker 1: And they're my big three.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they're awesome, and I think you know,
15:20
Speaker 2: like you said at the beginning, this is a really
15:23
Speaker 2: kind of wonderful reminder for us, especially going into this
15:25
Speaker 2: new phase of life. We're in a house now, and
15:28
Speaker 2: it's great because I've seen so many things kind of
15:31
Speaker 2: creep into our day to day happenings because we haven't
15:35
Speaker 2: had the structure, stability, and routine. Yeah, so I'm really
15:38
Speaker 2: looking forward to seeing how these will help us not
15:42
Speaker 2: feel so time PU okay for it.
15:44
Speaker 3: So my big three take home message just to summarize,
15:47
Speaker 3: create margin by making more space, waking up early, or
15:50
Speaker 3: just creating more space. Don't fill in the spaces. Allow
15:53
Speaker 3: the time confetti to give you a sense of time
15:55
Speaker 3: affluence because oh, I've got three minutes right now where
15:57
Speaker 3: there's nothing to do except be with myself.
16:00
Speaker 2: Your eyes, take three deep breaths.
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Speaker 3: Or connect with the people around me. And finally, instead
16:05
Speaker 3: of saying what do I need to do? Ask what
16:08
Speaker 3: can I remove from my list?
16:10
Speaker 1: Hell?
16:10
Speaker 2: Love it.
16:10
Speaker 3: The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
16:13
Speaker 3: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer and if
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Speaker 3: you'd like Mauren fol about making your family happier, please
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Speaker 3: visit us at Happy families dot com dot au