We are overworked, overscheduled, and overwhelmed — you must know how to manage your time. But that itself can be overwhelming, isn't it?
Today's guest is Megan Sumrell, founder of The Pink Bee, where she took her 20-plus year career in systems and processes and applied it to all things, including time management, organization, and productivity. She explained why planning your week ahead is important.
So many traditional time management and productivity systems work great in a 9 to 5 corporate setting where you leave your life. You walk into your work environment; you get to put that focus on 8 or 9 uninterrupted hours.
And then you leave. Those systems work great there. But today, technology has blurred the separation of work and home life. Many people are working in a hybrid system or remotely. Traditional time management systems don't take these new realities or acknowledge the interruptions that might come from working at home.
Another aspect that leads specifically to women being overwhelmed is that women are taking on more responsibilities without removing any of the old ones. We put expectations on ourselves, such as carrying a lot of the heavy lifting around the house.
In the face of being overwhelmed and constantly accessed, Megan says it's time to move away from lists. She suggests moving to a weekly planning model instead of seeing how many items you can cross off a list every day before bed.
Another way of thinking about this is you're given a list of 25 things to buy at the grocery store, and you're handed an envelope with the money to pay for it. You fill your cart with the items on the list, and it's $110 worth of groceries. You open the envelope, and there's a $50 bill.
Now, you will have to make choices about what to put back. Reframe the scenario. What if, instead, you were given $50 and told what you're trying to accomplish – let's say, feed a family of four for four days. What would the walk-through of the grocery store look like now?
When we wake up and do that brain dump, we just mad dash, trying to check it all off all day. That's scenario one in the grocery store. Never are we asking, how long does each take?
Instead, learn to embrace this simple but incredibly powerful way of laying out a draft plan for the upcoming week, where we are looking at the realities of what you're already committed to. What are all the things competing for my time? Then, you can create efficiencies.
Megan likes to plan for uncertainty. She suggests conducting a time audit during a regular week. How much time did you spend doing things you didn"t know were coming? How much of your average day or week was consumed by tasks that came at you that you didn't know were coming but truly had to be addressed?
When we track this over a week or two, we can typically start to see a pattern emerge or at least get a ballpark of the time spent on interruptions. Megan says that at this stage of her life, she averages about 5 to 6 hours a week, noting it can change by season.
She sets aside blank space in her calendar to cover those hours in case something comes up so she can shift rather than stay up late or work all weekend to complete a task.
Megan says aside from weekly planning, the quickest win you can give yourself today is to program your devices so that you can have everything silent except for things important enough to interrupt you. And then, you communicate that to your loved ones so they know how to reach you in an emergency and when you'll be checking your device.
She says it is life-changing when you can truly disconnect from your device. You can get your boundaries back.
0:00 Intro
3:03 Personal need for time management
6:35 Time management framework
11:02 More responsibility for women
12:15 Move away from lists
15:00 Shift to weekly planning
16:49 Managing interruptions
22:14 One thing to do
27:35 Free gifts for listeners
28:54 Outro
Download The Pink Bee app on your chosen app store, and visit https://www.theworklifeharmony.com for free weekly planning training.
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===== Connect with Megan Sumrell =====
Website: https://www.megansumrell.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/megansumrell/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WorkLifeHarmonyPodcast
===== Connect with Sarah =====
It's time to make more money, expand your reach, and LOVE your life: https://sarahwalton.com/abundance-academy/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/thesarahwalton
Game on Girlfriend Podcast: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_Jen-dhtrcPvkgdjasgiyAk1NgPbZYRS