Episode 06: Seize the Day: Making the Most of Your Time
ITUNES | SPOTIFY
How often do you carry-over tasks from day to day? Your to-do list is so long, and you never have enough time to get to it all so those items sit for days or weeks never getting crossed off. It's defeating and makes you think that you're "behind" or not doing enough, which is not the case at all. But if you want to feel differently about how efficient and productive you are, you have to change the way you plan your days. In this episode, I walk you through a different approach that will have you feeling accomplished and proud as you wrap up your days. You'll learn how to look more closely at your time, decide what your priorities are, and then shorten your plan to be reflective of the time you actually have. Ready to seize the day? Listen in.
In this episode, you’ll learn…
00:00 Katelyn's personal back-to-school transition updates
02:26 Navigating long daily task lists
08:19 How to create a realistic to-do list
09:42 Practical examples and tips
18:11 A resource to help
links & resources mentioned in this episode:
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You are listening to the Life Coach for Working Moms podcast, the show where we are talking about what it actually takes to make life work as a working mom. I'm your host, Katelyn Denning, a full time working mom of three and a certified life and executive coach. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy this week's episode. Hey, welcome back to another episode. How are you? I have been hearing from so many of you over the last week, following last week's episode on transitions. And so many of you are in a season of transition yourself. I'm so glad I'm not alone. And I'm so glad that episode is resonating with you. We are in our first full week of school.
So there's the transition back to school where you have the first day and you get through the first couple of days. And then there's that full week. I think most schools are like this, where you start on like a Wednesday or a Thursday so the kids ease in with two or three days back to school, and then Monday comes, and I had to remind myself that this is another transition, we're gonna see how we do going five days in a row to school, and
yeah, it's not over. Transitions can last a while and I'm still feeling the effects. I have to say that my step goal, my step count through this transition has been really great. If you want to listen to or learn more about that, you can go back and listen to The episode all on making progress on your goals, but I have been finding that has been so helpful as I navigate all of this change to put on my sneakers and head out the door for a five or a 10 minute walk around the block.
And then I've been doing these beautiful morning walks with friends over in this, nearby cemetery and arboretum. in our neighborhood that has a three and a half mile loop, and it's just so beautiful in the morning. And so that has been my safe and supportive space. And so maybe this is just your reminder that whatever you're going through, find that thing that you can escape to that feels really good and prioritize that as much as you can, as you need it, as you are going through it.
So today I want to talk, about time, of course, everything. In our lives as working parents revolves around time, but specifically how you plan for and think about what you do in a day. So whether that is a list, whether that is tasks put into your calendar, or it's just mentally cataloging or thinking about all of the things that you want to do today, how do you do that?
And how do you do that successfully? I can think of several moments, days that happens to me actually quite frequently, not every day, but I have these days every couple of weeks or so, and maybe you have them too, where you just wake up in the morning and feel like, this is my day. I'm going to seize the day today.
Maybe you had a great night of sleep, you got more hours than you usually do, you have energy, there are ideas flowing about all of the things you're going to do and tackle and make progress on, and you start making that list. For me, it's often starts mentally while I'm getting ready or I'm working out in the morning, I'm thinking, Oh, yeah, I want to do that thing.
And I want to do that thing. And oh, I bet I could do that. And I start to think about it and eventually for me, it does have to get it out of my head. Episode one, the power of a simple to do list, go back and listen to that as well. Let's start thinking about. Those, maybe it's that big project that's been on your list and today you're going to cross it off.
Or you have that energy where you want to go in and just sort your inbox and get it all cleaned up, everything filed away, all of the action items in a clear list for yourself. Maybe there are a bunch of decisions that you have been putting off about the kids or your schedule, and you're going to make those today.
Or a lot of times for me when I have this energy, I want to organize something or really be proactive. I want to get ahead of whatever the next season is. I want to go buy all the birthday presents or start my holiday shopping really early. Something like that just makes me feel like I'm totally winning.
And maybe you're thinking about, oh, I probably know where this story is going to go, but you start the day with that energy and somehow time just flies by. Your energy doesn't last as long as you thought it would. Or something comes up that just completely deflates it. You've got interruptions or a sick kid is called about from daycare or school or just some project is dropped on your lap that you weren't planning for when you were mentally thinking of all the things you were going to do today.
Or sometimes you are super productive, that energy does last and you do a lot of things, but still your list was just unrealistic to think that you would get all of those things done. And so at the end of the day, you look down at your list or you look at your calendar or wherever you created that plan for your day, and that maybe only half of it is completed.
Gosh, I thought I did more than that. I only got halfway through my list. I feel so defeating. It wasn't what you thought it was going to be when you jumped out of bed and wanted to seize the day. And then the questions start to come in. When will I do these things? How am I going to get all these things done?
These are important. Gosh, if I couldn't get through my list on a day where I have energy, how am I supposed to get through even a fraction of this on the days when I'm tired or the kids were up at night or I have all of this other stuff going on?
Now, this I see a lot as an everyday occurrence, not the waking up and having energy part. That's maybe not as common, or maybe I'm just speaking for myself. The creating a list of all of your hopefuls and only getting through a small portion of it. That is what I see as a common, almost everyday occurrence.
It's like loading up your plate at a buffet. Because you're super hungry when you first walk in and then, this is a terrible analogy. I'm like, so a child of the 90s when I talk about going to a buffet, but that's all that's coming to mind right now. You know what I mean, right? You fill it up and then you can only eat a small portion.
You're like, what was I thinking? Well, you were super hungry. That's what you were thinking. Or you woke up in the morning with a lot of energy and excitement to get things done. But instead You end up ending every day feeling quote unquote behind because you didn't cross it all off. You didn't do enough.
No wonder we're all exhausted. Not only do we tell ourselves we're not doing enough, we're actually seeing it. We see it in every item on the list that's not crossed off, in every task that you put on your calendar that you now have to drag to the next day.
But what's the alternative? You might be asking. What is the alternative? Like, what, that's just what it is. What else are we supposed to do? And so I want to offer an approach to planning your day that is rooted in being realistic and creating a realistic plan. So when you. Wake up, or you sit down at your desk or wherever it is that you start to think about and catalog all of those things that you want to do.
Did you check or do you check to see if they actually fit? Or are you just creating the list and hoping that you'll get to all of them, hoping that they fit? There's a difference. The difference is how you feel at the end of the day.
You feel defeated, you feel frustrated, you feel pined, you feel overwhelmed when you create that unrealistic plan and see everything that you didn't do. On the other, you feel Accomplished. You feel proud, satisfied, content when you cross everything off your list because it all had space, time, it fit. So what does this look like in practice?
Is this idea even realistic in itself? Let me give you an example. So if you go back and listen to episode one on the power of a simple to do list, that to do list is about getting things out of your head. It is a big old brain dump. It's all of the things that, you can think of from the big picture things to the things that have deadlines, it's work, it's personal life, it's, the long term things and the short term things.
It is getting them out of your head so that you can free up that space and stop trying to remember it all. Now that list provides you with options. It is like a menu. Here's all that the kitchen makes. What sounds good to you today for this meal? It's the inspiration for what you could take on and actually accomplish today.
But first, you have to look at your calendar. How much time do you actually have? So by the time you drop the kids off, walk them to school or get them settled with the nanny or whatever your childcare arrangement looks like, or you get to your desk or drive to the office, how many working hours do you actually have before you need to wrap up for the day?
And when I say you need to wrap up, that's The time that you need to be walking out the door or leaving your desk and going downstairs, whatever it looks like for you. So let's just say an average work day, let's say that's 8 hours. Pulling from my corporate days, my clients, an average. Let's say that you have 3 hours of meetings.
That might be low for a lot of you. Gosh, we are just inundated with meetings. These days I feel that I hear that all the time from my clients, but let's just say for this example, you have three hours of meetings. Then let's say at a minimum you want to a lot, or we need to a lot, 30 minutes for you to eat some lunch and take some breaks throughout the day.
That's not a lot of time actually, but. Let's just go with it. Fill up your water bottle, use the restroom, grab a snack, heat up your lunch, whatever that looks like. And then let's say we're going to plan 30 minutes. Again, this is really conservative, but no, actually it's not conservative. It's really low, but let's say 30 minutes for email, triage, interruptions, those things that are just hard to plan for.
So that's a total of four hours, which means you have four hours left of actual working time. And again, that's assuming that nothing else comes across your plate that needs your attention more immediately. So the question you ask yourself then is what can I accomplish in those four hours? If I think about all of the things that I need to do, what actually fits?
If you make a list for the day without any regard or thought to how much time you actually have, maybe your list, if you were to assign time to each task, totals eight hours worth of work. I've done that. You're only going to get half of that list done anyway. You're just setting yourself up for failure.
You're setting yourself up for the experience at the end of the day of seeing only half the list crossed off, of seeing all of those things you didn't do when really you only had four hours. So this approach to thinking about your day and your time forces you to decide what is actually important. How much energy and focus do you have today?
If you did sleep well, great. Pull in some of those big things that really require a lot of mental effort and energy and focus. If you didn't sleep well, or you don't have that energy, yeah, respond to emails, file them away, do some data entry, whatever is easier. Think about that as well. What will yield the biggest results, or have the biggest impact, for you?
Your role for how you are being measured at work or for your family so much of work and life is blended today So think about that and then of course what has a deadline? If there is something due today, that absolutely should fit into the four hours worth of work example. Or there's a consequence. If you don't do this today, you're going to be further behind tomorrow, or you're not going to meet this deadline that's later in the week.
Those are the questions you ask yourself to help decide, what fits? How do I choose what to use those four hours of work time on? The goal in all of this is to create a list that you can completely cross off. At the end of the day, every item on your list, every task in your calendar or in whatever tool you use should be checked off, should be done.
And that feels so good. It feels so good. Now, spoiler alert. You ready? Your list is going to be short. It's going to be shorter than maybe your lists have ever been. And you are probably not going to like that. I know I don't. Even still, I've been doing this for years, and I still, some days, do not like how short my list is.
I tell myself all kinds of stories about what that means, about me, my efficiency, my productivity, what I should be able to do. None of that is true. None of that is true. And I'm going to tell you, too, that you're going to be tempted to add more things to the list. Especially when you see how short it is and you start listening to all those stories, your brain is going to want to tell you about what it means.
You're going to be tempted to add more things to it. Well, I could probably squeeze this in or if I multitask here, I might be able to fit that into or, oh, that's super fast. I bet that'll only take me five minutes so I can double up in that half hour block. Don't do it. Start smaller than what you think it should be.
It's going to be uncomfortable. It's not a problem. Nothing has gone wrong. That is all to be expected. I'm telling you this now so you can expect it. Go in with your eyes wide open. And when you feel that urge to add more things, when you throw a little temper tantrum at how short it is, and you start asking the question, well, when am I going to get all these things done?
Restrain yourself. Start really short. I want you to practice that constraint so that you can experience. What it's like to cross everything off your list for at least a few weeks, every day for a few weeks. If you hate it, if it's not enjoyable to you, then by all means go back to the way you were doing it before.
At least you'll know. But my guess is you're going to love it. It's going to change how you feel at the end of your workday, how you transition into your evenings. And I want to remind you, those things are That didn't get crossed off your list before when you created a list that was eight hours worth of work when you really only had four.
They were never going to get done. They were never going to get done. The only thing that's changing is your expectations. It's not about how productive you are. It's just about making a list that matches your reality, your capacity, the time that you actually have.
I have a guide that walks you through creating and using a to do list to plan your days, your weeks in this way. You can grab it for free on my website. If you go to themothernurture. com forward slash resources, it's a great place to start. Can use that almost as a companion to this episode. And then once you get this set up.
Book a planning intensive session with me so you can really optimize your schedule. We'll think about your energy and the most productive way for you to get these things done while creating a realistic short list. We'll take it to the next level. You will feel so on top of things with these two things paired together.
So I want to say go forth and shorten 📍 those lists. They should be so super short. See what it feels like to cross everything off your list at the end of the day and notice really pay attention to the difference. I think you're really going to love it. All right. I will talk with you next week and until then, take care.
Talk soon.
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