Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #238| Beat Overwhelm By Deciding What's Essential
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: Once you know what matters, you have to start saying no to what doesn't.
- 0:08Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:15Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:20Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences.
- 0:26Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:35Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend.
- 0:36Michelle Gauthier: Today we're going to be talking about a concept called Essentialism.
- 0:39Michelle Gauthier: And it's based on a book that I read and loved called Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McEweon.
- 0:47Michelle Gauthier: I loved this book because instead of talking about time management, it really talks about prioritization management.
- 0:54Michelle Gauthier: And in the book, he talks about how if we can do less, we can do less better.
- 1:01Michelle Gauthier: And it helps us understand what things really move the needle and what things we really need to do in life instead of being so focused on.
- 1:08Michelle Gauthier: I need to get all those things done.
- 1:10Michelle Gauthier: So when you'll listen today, you'll learn about why doing more is keeping you stuck and overwhelmed.
- 1:16Michelle Gauthier: And the key ideas from the book that you can take away.
- 1:19Michelle Gauthier: I think there's some great, really easy takeaways that you can take away from this conversation today and how to start doing less without feeling like you're falling behind.
- 1:28Michelle Gauthier: So let's jump into it.
- 1:29Michelle Gauthier: One of the core ideas in essentialism is that most of us never pause to decide what's truly important.
- 1:35Michelle Gauthier: We just react.
- 1:37Michelle Gauthier: So we get a request from someone to do something, we say yes, something pops up, we add that to our list.
- 1:43Michelle Gauthier: Essentialism starts with a pause.
- 1:45Michelle Gauthier: And I love the powerful pause.
- 1:47Michelle Gauthier: It's asking, what is actually essential here?
- 1:50Michelle Gauthier: So if you even just think about your to-do list, you might have 12 things written down or 38 things written down.
- 1:56Michelle Gauthier: But if you're honest, only two of them really matter.
- 1:59Michelle Gauthier: I'm actually in this exact situation today because I am going out of town tomorrow.
- 2:04Michelle Gauthier: So my essential items for today are to record this podcast and to see the four clients who are on my schedule today.
- 2:11Michelle Gauthier: I have many other things on my to-do list that I will honestly just not be getting to today, including working out, which is one of my most important things that I do most days.
- 2:20Michelle Gauthier: But today is just not a day where that made it to the top of my absolute essentials list.
- 2:26Michelle Gauthier: You can get clear on what actually matters and where you're spending your time.
- 2:31Michelle Gauthier: If you think about, let's just think about your work for a second.
- 2:34Michelle Gauthier: I heard my friend Sarah Arnold Hall, who is another coach, talking about what moves the needle at work.
- 2:40Michelle Gauthier: And you think about the 80-20 rule, 80% of what you do is probably more busy work.
- 2:47Michelle Gauthier: And 20% of what you do is actually moving the needle on the progress that you're making.
- 2:52Michelle Gauthier: I think that's also true in our personal lives, in our parenting lives, in our relationships, all of those things.
- 2:58Michelle Gauthier: If you think about what is the 20% that really moves the needle in my life, that can help you get clear on what actually matters.
- 3:06Michelle Gauthier: Once you've done that first step of getting clear on what really matters, the second premise of this book is to eliminate what's not essential.
- 3:14Michelle Gauthier: So if it's not a clear yes, it's a no.
- 3:17Michelle Gauthier: And this is where it gets uncomfortable.
- 3:19Michelle Gauthier: And this is what we talk about a lot on this podcast.
- 3:21Michelle Gauthier: Because once you know what matters, you have to start saying no to what doesn't, just crossing things off the list.
- 3:27Michelle Gauthier: This might look like telling a friend, I can't commit right now, canceling one of your evening plans so you can actually take a rest, asking at work, what's the goal of this meeting instead of automatically attending.
- 3:38Michelle Gauthier: Because every time you say yes to something non-essential, you're saying no to something that actually matters and something that is essential.
- 3:46Michelle Gauthier: In my old corporate job, I used to be a Six Sigma black belt.
- 3:50Michelle Gauthier: If you don't know what that is, it's not a karate person.
- 3:53Michelle Gauthier: It is a person who optimizes processes and the flow of business.
- 3:58Michelle Gauthier: We would go into these big meetings and talk about what a particular team or group was doing, and we talk through their whole process and everything that they did in their jobs.
- 4:08Michelle Gauthier: And then I would ask them, what is on this list that you can just literally stop doing right now?
- 4:14Michelle Gauthier: I challenge you to think of some things.
- 4:16Michelle Gauthier: And they could always come up with some things that they would just literally write a line through and say, nope, we're not doing that anymore.
- 4:23Michelle Gauthier: So think about that for you.
- 4:24Michelle Gauthier: What is something that you can just cross off the list?
- 4:27Michelle Gauthier: I am not doing that anymore.
- 4:30Michelle Gauthier: The third idea that I pulled from this book that I liked a lot is about execution.
- 4:34Michelle Gauthier: Most people think the solution to everything is to try harder, be more disciplined, be more productive, but essentialism is the opposite.
- 4:41Michelle Gauthier: It's about making the decision for what's important and then making the important things easier to follow through on.
- 4:47Michelle Gauthier: So instead of deciding to make dinner every night, you create a couple go-to meals.
- 4:51Michelle Gauthier: Instead of constantly checking your email, you check it at set times.
- 4:55Michelle Gauthier: I use Spark email.
- 4:56Michelle Gauthier: And if I open my email during the day, the homepage of it will say, You're up to date.
- 5:02Michelle Gauthier: Check your email again at 6 p.m.
- 5:04Michelle Gauthier: Like it reminds me, you don't actually need to check your email right now.
- 5:07Michelle Gauthier: You can check your email three times a day and that works just fine.
- 5:10Michelle Gauthier: Now, if you're like, I don't have a job where that would work, think about what could work for you.
- 5:14Michelle Gauthier: At my old job, I couldn't have gone the whole day without checking my email.
- 5:17Michelle Gauthier: And this job I can, but can you check it once an hour?
- 5:20Michelle Gauthier: Can you check it in between meetings twice a day or something like that?
- 5:24Michelle Gauthier: Remove friction so you don't have to rely on your willpower because when something is truly essential, it shouldn't feel chaotic to maintain it, should feel supported.
- 5:33Michelle Gauthier: So if I had to summarize Essentialism in one sentence, it would essentially be do less, but do what matters most and make what matters most easy for yourself.
- 5:43Michelle Gauthier: Most people skip the first two steps and just go straight to trying to be more productive.
- 5:48Michelle Gauthier: But if you're executing and being productive on the wrong things, you're just creating more overwhelm faster.
- 5:54Michelle Gauthier: So if this resonates with you, I suggest that you take a tip from something that I just said and try to apply it to your life today.
- 6:00Michelle Gauthier: Or if this is really resonating with you, get the book.
- 6:03Michelle Gauthier: It's a great read with some fresh perspectives, and I really liked it.
- 6:08Michelle Gauthier: You know what's just around the corner is the three-year anniversary of this podcast, Overwhelmed Working Woman.
- 6:14Michelle Gauthier: I can't believe it.
- 6:14Michelle Gauthier: You were listening to episode number 238, which is just crazy to me.
- 6:18Michelle Gauthier: Over time, I have made this podcast an essential, if we're talking about essentialism, an essential part of my work.
- 6:25Michelle Gauthier: And I love seeing the numbers grow and seeing how many new listeners we are getting all the time.
- 6:30Michelle Gauthier: If you are one of those new listeners, or even just an old OG listener who hasn't left a review, I would so appreciate it if you would take the time to leave either a rating, which is just clicking on the five stars, or a review where you write a couple sentences about what really resonates with you.
- 6:47Michelle Gauthier: That is so helpful because it gives us basically street cred and our podcast gets shown more when people are searching for things like I'm overwhelmed or how do I be more productive or how do I manage my time better.
- 7:00Michelle Gauthier: Thanks for doing that.
- 7:01Michelle Gauthier: I really appreciate it, and I hope you have a great week.
- 7:04Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 7:11Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at MichelleGauthier.com.
- 7:17Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.