Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #148| Beat Summer Overwhelm with Intentional Time Management - Here's How
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: Just like budgeting your money if you don't plan your time, it just gets spent by accident and suddenly it's all gone.
- 0:06Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:18Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:23Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences, and in each episode you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease and relaxation to your life.
- 0:35Michelle Gauthier: Hey, friend, tell you what it's summer in my house, and here's how you know.
- 0:42Michelle Gauthier: Know, because I just had to ask three children to get out of my office so that I could record this episode.
- 0:48Michelle Gauthier: And I am recording this between taking my 14 year old to Starbucks and then later driving her to a pool party.
- 0:55Michelle Gauthier: So they are living their best life.
- 0:57Michelle Gauthier: Meanwhile, we all of us, I believe want our summer to be different than the rest of the year.
- 1:03Michelle Gauthier: We want it to feel relaxed and easy and open.
- 1:06Michelle Gauthier: I do, anyway, but that doesn't happen by accident.
- 1:09Michelle Gauthier: In fact, the only way to truly enjoy the slower pace of summer, or to make summer have a slower pace, is to intentionally plan it that way.
- 1:18Michelle Gauthier: So if you have had summers in the past where you really wanted it to feel relaxing and it just absolutely was not.
- 1:25Michelle Gauthier: I have got a great method for you to try.
- 1:27Michelle Gauthier: Today, I'm going to walk you through a simple strategy that I use every single week the calendar clean out method.
- 1:33Michelle Gauthier: It's the perfect way to protect your time and reduce your stress and make space for the kind of summer you actually want to have.
- 1:40Michelle Gauthier: You really don't need more hours.
- 1:43Michelle Gauthier: The hours are neutral.
- 1:44Michelle Gauthier: We have the exact same amount every week.
- 1:47Michelle Gauthier: You just need a better way to decide what fits.
- 1:50Michelle Gauthier: When you listen, today, you will learn a method that could change the course of your entire summer.
- 1:56Michelle Gauthier: It's called the calendar clean out method and it has three steps.
- 1:59Michelle Gauthier: I'm going to give you the details on each one.
- 2:01Michelle Gauthier: Number one you're going to look at your calendar, see what is already blocked or locked in and where you have open time.
- 2:09Michelle Gauthier: Then you're going to create or review your to-do list and give an estimated time for each one of those things.
- 2:16Michelle Gauthier: And then the third step, which I'm going to give you the full scoop on, is where the magic happens.
- 2:21Michelle Gauthier: That's the one where you overlay those two things together and create a realistic schedule for yourself so that you do not feel overwhelmed.
- 2:29Michelle Gauthier: You instead feel in control and productive, even if it's summer.
- 2:34Michelle Gauthier: Before I jump into all the details on that, though, I wanted to let you know that group coaching registration is still open.
- 2:42Michelle Gauthier: I am going to close group registration this week, so if you are interested, click on the link in the show notes to get all the information, all the details about what we do in group coaching, and set up a quick 15 minute consultation with me to see if it's a great fit for you.
- 3:00Michelle Gauthier: Okay, let's jump in.
- 3:02Michelle Gauthier: As you're listening to the podcast today, I'm following along and thinking oh, I hope I can remember all these steps.
- 3:08Michelle Gauthier: I just want to tell you that I did create a downloadable PDF that has all these steps in it so that when you're ready to plan your week and maybe you're listening to this and you want to do that right now you can go grab that document that will guide you through exactly how to do this calendar clean out method, that document that will guide you through exactly how to do this calendar clean out method.
- 3:28Michelle Gauthier: The first thing you're going to do is you're going to review what is already on your calendar.
- 3:32Michelle Gauthier: So these are the things that are meetings, doctor's appointments, kid logistics that you are involved in.
- 3:37Michelle Gauthier: For me it's coaching calls or group coaching anything that's already on the calendar where that time is already spoken for.
- 3:46Michelle Gauthier: Then I want you to think about breaking down your time in your mind into three types of time.
- 3:52Michelle Gauthier: The first type is locked time.
- 3:55Michelle Gauthier: If you have a teenager, you know how they say I'm locking in.
- 3:58Michelle Gauthier: This is like the locked in time things that have to happen and they have to happen at a very specific time.
- 4:04Michelle Gauthier: So for me, this would be a coaching session.
- 4:06Michelle Gauthier: Both I and another person have this time on our calendar.
- 4:09Michelle Gauthier: It's locked.
- 4:10Michelle Gauthier: I'm not going to be moving that.
- 4:11Michelle Gauthier: It could also be something like if you have to drive your kid to a camp before nine o'clock in the morning, or for me, workouts go into this lock time.
- 4:21Michelle Gauthier: I choose.
- 4:21Michelle Gauthier: I don't work out the same time every week, but I choose on Sunday which times I'm going to be working out and I put those on my calendar as locked time.
- 4:30Michelle Gauthier: So normally, if you look at your calendar, you'll see a lot of these things on there already.
- 4:36Michelle Gauthier: But what I want you to do right now is think about what do you have in the summer, if anything that is locked time that you don't have the rest of the year and is that on your calendar?
- 4:47Michelle Gauthier: So an example for me is that my daughter works at the barn where she takes her horse lessons, and she's only 14, so she can't drive.
- 4:54Michelle Gauthier: So when she has to work and in fact before she can even get on the schedule, she has to ask me if she can do it, because I need to block a half hour of my time even more, really, 45 minutes of my time to drop her off and then get back home and then pick her up and get back home.
- 5:12Michelle Gauthier: So both of those things have to be planned on my calendar.
- 5:16Michelle Gauthier: So that's an example of locked time where I I really in a normal week during the fall or something I wouldn't even have that on my calendar.
- 5:26Michelle Gauthier: Think about what that is for you that could be new for the summer.
- 5:28Michelle Gauthier: That needs to actually show up on your calendar and put that on your calendar.
- 5:33Michelle Gauthier: The second category of time is open time.
- 5:35Michelle Gauthier: So this is for flexible tasks that matter, but the timing of them isn't super important.
- 5:41Michelle Gauthier: So, for example, if you need to run some errands, I always use the example of returns, because I always have returns.
- 5:49Michelle Gauthier: I'm always shopping online and returning things.
- 5:51Michelle Gauthier: So for me that could look like errands.
- 5:53Michelle Gauthier: It could look like my.
- 5:55Michelle Gauthier: I just bought my daughter a bracelet and it broke the second she opened it.
- 5:59Michelle Gauthier: So we need to go back to the store and she's going to pick a different one.
- 6:03Michelle Gauthier: Things like that that don't have a very specific time.
- 6:06Michelle Gauthier: From a work perspective, for me this looks like creating time to write and record a podcast.
- 6:13Michelle Gauthier: I can really do that anytime that I have open that's not already locked.
- 6:17Michelle Gauthier: So what do you have in that open time category and then think about is that actually on your calendar?
- 6:24Michelle Gauthier: I'll tell you a tip that I do If you use a real planner.
- 6:28Michelle Gauthier: I love digital stuff, but there's something about using a real planner that just really helps me.
- 6:33Michelle Gauthier: I write on little post-it note flags.
- 6:36Michelle Gauthier: I write like write podcast number one, write podcast number two, and then I physically move them around as I need to.
- 6:44Michelle Gauthier: So I just have them on there as open time and I can put them in wherever I want.
- 6:48Michelle Gauthier: If you use a digital calendar, you can obviously just change the time and maybe make those a certain color.
- 6:55Michelle Gauthier: And then the third type of time is off duty time.
- 6:57Michelle Gauthier: This is where you're just recharging, having fun, resting, doing hobbies, whatever you want to do.
- 7:04Michelle Gauthier: For me, this is basically because I just work a traditional schedule.
- 7:06Michelle Gauthier: For me, any night during the summer where we don't have locked time like a specific event, it's pretty much off duty time.
- 7:14Michelle Gauthier: In fact, last night we played Taboo.
- 7:16Michelle Gauthier: I haven't played Taboo in forever.
- 7:18Michelle Gauthier: That is such a fun game.
- 7:20Michelle Gauthier: So once you've really taken a look at your calendar and seen not only what's on there the lock times but also try to account for the open time and then just think about your off-duty time.
- 7:31Michelle Gauthier: For me, I just leave that time as white space, but if you want to mark it on your calendar, if that feels good to you, you should definitely do that.
- 7:37Michelle Gauthier: Then you pull out your to-do list.
- 7:40Michelle Gauthier: Think about your to-do list as everything that's trying to get your attention and wants to have a place on your schedule.
- 7:47Michelle Gauthier: Make a full list of everything that's calling for your attention, both personal and professional.
- 7:54Michelle Gauthier: If you don't have this list going right now, this might take you a little bit to do, but if you get in the habit of doing this every week which I super recommend it's quick because you can just look and see what didn't make it on the schedule the week before add anything new, and it can be a really quick activity.
- 8:11Michelle Gauthier: Once you have a full list of what's on your to-do list also known as what's trying to get a spot on your schedule, like it's fighting for a spot on your schedule then I want you to do a high level estimate of time for those items and you can group things together if you want to Be real and be generous about how long things are going to take.
- 8:32Michelle Gauthier: I am a famous underestimator and I know this about myself.
- 8:36Michelle Gauthier: What I have learned in owning a business that things that I think will take one hour will definitely take two hours, and if I think something's going to take four hours, it's probably going to take more like eight.
- 8:47Michelle Gauthier: So be generous with your time estimates for how much you think things are going to take, and then we're just going to take more like eight.
- 8:51Michelle Gauthier: So be generous with your time estimates for how much you think things are going to take, and then we're just going to do some simple math.
- 8:55Michelle Gauthier: So now you're going to take your already existing calendar that has everything blocked off that needs to be blocked off, all of your lock time, any open time that you've chosen to put on there and then see how many hours you have left.
- 9:07Michelle Gauthier: I just did this with a client on a session the other day and she had this huge to-do list and she estimated her time for it and she had about 50 hours of things that she wanted to do for the week and when we looked through and saw how much space there was on her calendar for her to do these things, she had five hours.
- 9:25Michelle Gauthier: So that is literally 10x.
- 9:27Michelle Gauthier: Her to-do list contained 10 times the amount of things that she could actually accomplish in a week.
- 9:33Michelle Gauthier: If you don't take time to do this exercise just every week, you're going to think I didn't get enough done.
- 9:38Michelle Gauthier: Why am I not getting anything done?
- 9:39Michelle Gauthier: Why did this 50 hours worth of stuff keep staying on here?
- 9:42Michelle Gauthier: It's because you literally don't have time for it.
- 9:45Michelle Gauthier: So then you have to decide what?
- 9:49Michelle Gauthier: How much time do you have left?
- 9:50Michelle Gauthier: Let's just say for an example that in any given week I have 25 hours of locked time.
- 9:57Michelle Gauthier: Then I have 10 hours of open time where I'm doing some other things.
- 10:01Michelle Gauthier: So I have five hours left that I can do things on my to do list.
- 10:05Michelle Gauthier: I'm going to go ahead and choose those based on importance for that week.
- 10:10Michelle Gauthier: Usually, I suggest, if you have a big old to-do list, just look at your top three schedule the first one, first, second, one second, obviously third, one third and then just see what is left over.
- 10:20Michelle Gauthier: This is the magic, you guys.
- 10:23Michelle Gauthier: This is like where the rubber meets the road, because if you don't make the decision here and prioritize and are realistic about how long things take, you're going to become overwhelmed and you're not going to have any flexibility in your schedule.
- 10:36Michelle Gauthier: But if you are realistic and really put the amount of things that you can accomplish in a week on your calendar, you're going to feel so much better because you're going to be successful.
- 10:45Michelle Gauthier: You're going to execute on the things that you have actually put on the calendar for yourself and instead of thinking, why didn't I get anything done?
- 10:52Michelle Gauthier: At the end of the week, you can go back.
- 10:54Michelle Gauthier: I like to just check stuff off, even on my calendar and my planner.
- 11:01Michelle Gauthier: I'm like look at that, I executed on all the stuff I put.
- 11:02Michelle Gauthier: That doesn't always happen, by the way.
- 11:04Michelle Gauthier: Sometimes I have to push things to another week or move the time on them or something, but it feels really good to look back when you have actually thoughtfully planned your week.
- 11:13Michelle Gauthier: So if you desire to have a more relaxing summer, the way to do it is actually to get strategic and specific about your planning.
- 11:23Michelle Gauthier: I highly recommend that you try this method.
- 11:25Michelle Gauthier: There's a link in the show notes where you can get the calendar clean out worksheet.
- 11:30Michelle Gauthier: It will walk you through, step by step, what I just described to you, and if you try this method and your week isn't better, I don't know what I'll give you a million dollars.
- 11:40Michelle Gauthier: Seriously, it will be so much better just to try it.
- 11:42Michelle Gauthier: I really want you to have a good summer and I want you to feel relaxed and productive at the same time, so give it a whirl.
- 11:49Michelle Gauthier: If you have ever gotten anything from this podcast that was beneficial to you, would you please leave a review?
- 11:56Michelle Gauthier: It would mean so much to me if you would take the time to do that.
- 11:59Michelle Gauthier: Thank you so much and have a fantastic week.
- 12:02Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 12:10Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.
- 12:14Michelle Gauthier: com.
- 12:16Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.