Episode 04: The Real Reason You Don't Have Enough Time
ITUNES | SPOTIFY
If you're always looking for the next app, a better planner, or the productivity hack that will help you fit it all in, you might actually be avoiding having to decide what your priorities are and what you're going to let go of. Choosing what your priorities are in this season and letting go or setting aside those things that don't make the cut is an incredibly tough thing to do. But it's the fastest way to stop feeling so rushed, stretched thin, and overwhelmed.
In this episode, I want you to explore the freedom that comes with deciding to not do everything and the relief it offers once you make that decision. I'm sharing practical examples and strategies to help you identify and let go of extra commitments and unrealistic expectations so you can create more space in your life. Tune in to learn how confronting decisions can transform your life from an endless to-do list to a fulfilling experience.
In this episode, you’ll learn…
00:00 The decision you might be avoiding
01:01 The productivity obsession
03:16 Understanding yourself and your priorities
06:28 The cost of doing it all
08:26 The freedom of letting go
10:22 Making tough decisions
12:19 Commitments and activities to reconsider
19:11 Managing expectations
22:08 Practical experiments that you can implement
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 of the podcast today. I want to talk about something that has come up in several calls that I've had lately with women who are interested or curious about coaching. And it's about a decision that I think a lot of you are avoiding when it comes to your time. And how much you have on your plate.
So I love answering questions about productivity strategies, calendaring techniques, what planners are great to try apps that help you manage responsibilities and plan your time. I. Could geek out on that stuff if it's not clear by now for, I don't know, however long you have. I have read and continue to read so many books on productivity and time management and being really intentional with our time.
I read articles. I listen to podcasts. It's just a part of, I don't know. It's just what I love. And so when someone asks me for a recommendation, of course, I have so many ideas and so many questions back. Hopefully if any of you have ever asked me, you, you feel that I want to know, what are you already using and what doesn't work about that?
What are you looking to solve? What problem are you looking to solve? And are you actually needing, a tool in this category and you're looking over here instead, right? That is so great. But sometimes I talk to a working mom who has tried everything. I've tried a lot of things too, mostly out of experimentation or the desire to experiment and see what else is out there so I can make these great recommendations.
But when I've talked to someone who has tried all of the things. And is still coming to me asking for my recommendation, or what should they do, what should they use, they're still searching, bouncing from one thing to the next, one month it's their paper planner, and then they're trying to do this, and then they're using tasks in some other program that they've got maybe at work.
It's that grass is greener mentality. It is thinking that. Someone else has figured this out and they just haven't figured it out yet. The tool must be out there. And so in those situations, I have come to believe that one of two things is really happening for that person. The first is potentially they just don't know themselves very well.
They don't have a good understanding of their tendencies, their natural tendencies, their preferences, their working state, how and when and where they work best, and their As a result, constantly trying to fit themselves into what they think it should be like or what has worked for other people instead of knowing what might work well for them.
And the second thing that I think is sometimes happening With these, grass is greener, the solution must be out there, I just haven't found it yet, type of person is that they're searching for the perfect tool, the perfect solution, because they are avoiding having to make any tough decisions about what their priorities actually are, and then letting go of the things that are not.
Now, if you are already doing just the bare minimum, and I'm gonna put bare minimum in quotes because there's nothing bare, there's nothing minimum about working and parenting and taking care of a home, a household, life, admin, all of the adulting things. But if you are doing those and those alone, nothing else is on your plate and things are still falling through the cracks, then absolutely.
Let's find the best tool and strategy and process for you. Let's implement something and experiment to make things more efficient, to help you maintain those basics, work, life, parenting, in a more efficient way so that you can get what needs to get done. Done without wasting time and energy or wasting as little time and energy as possible.
But if you are doing that quote unquote bare minimum and trying to do all of these other things, then I'm going to guess it's not a matter of having the right tool, the right strategy, the right process, but it's a matter of doing too much. I know that's not exactly what you want to hear. You want to find a way to do it all and we've heard that story.
It is everywhere, right, that we want to know, we want to hear that we can do it all. It's the modern age. There's so much support out there. There's so many ways to make things more efficient. And maybe you can, I would love to be proven wrong. Maybe there is a strategy out there. That will help you fit all of the things you want to do in.
But I have to wonder at what cost. Will you have to give up sleep? Will you have to sacrifice how well you take care of yourself? Will it cost you financially? Because you have to outsource as much as you can. Maybe you're hiring someone to help or you're just paying for takeout five nights a week for dinner.
Will it cost you relationships? Quality relationships? Time for friends, finding them or maintaining friendships? Or your partnership, your marriage, time for connection? Will it cost you in your performance, professionally? Will it cost you in your ability to be present with your kids?
Because you're always multitasking, or you're always busy. And as cliche as it might sound, you can roll your eyes, but will it cost you joy? What are you actually creating with your life, the connections, the community, the legacy that you want to leave behind? Are you having any fun or is it all work because of how much is on your plate?
Will your tombstone say, wow, she was really quick to respond to emails.
All right, I want to pause. That's a lot to take in. Stay with me though, okay? Stay with me. But that's a lot to take in, especially if this is coming as. new to you, but I want to offer a different perspective. I want to offer that there's a lot of freedom and being on the other side of the decision to not do everything.
When you decide to not try and do everything, you relieve pressure. You reduce stress. The guilt that maybe you've been feeling for not doing everything or feeling like you're failing and not doing everything well, or anything well, you get rid of, or reduce the exhaustion and the overwhelm from juggling all of those things, the feeling of always being behind, it creates space, not just Because you're not doing the things that, that maybe you're going to choose to let go of, but also because you have that time back that previously you spent researching and looking and comparing yourself to what other people were doing, wondering how do they do it?
I must be doing something wrong, or there must be some way that they are doing life that I need to figure out for myself. You get that time back. And. It takes away those costs. It gives you the capacity to get enough sleep at night or take care of yourself or invest in your work, your relationships, your connection with your kids and your family.
And from there you can learn and remind yourself of what it feels like to have.
So how do you get. Through the decision piece, if what is on the other side, what's waiting for you on the other side is all of that, and you know you want that. You still have to get through the decision piece, and this is where so many of you delay the decision, you push it off, you hope that things will just get better, this will be the day, right, where it all works out and you fit it all in, or you just avoid it.
You avoid it and you continue to look outside yourself for some magic solution to allow you to do everything without having to decide. So if you're not used to saying no, you're not used to letting things go, yeah, this decision process might feel a little uncomfortable. That's okay. Nothing is wrong with you.
It doesn't mean you're doing it wrong or it's not worth it. It's just uncomfortable. It's just a little discomfort and it's good practice because the more you can sit with discomfort, The more you can practice making these types of decisions, the better you get at it. So let's practice. And I want to remind you as we think more about this decision piece, something that I remind myself of all of the time, everything is changeable.
For the most part, everything is changeable. Right? If you give up something and you end up really missing it, that's great. Now you know that was actually a priority for me. I just wasn't sure. So I had to give it up so that I could experience what life was like without it. And now I'm going to go add it back in, in some way.
I want you to think about the possibilities of things to let go of in, let's say, two broad categories. The first category are the commitments, the activities. These are the things that I would picture as being on your calendar. There's a space on your calendar for these. And the second category are expectations.
I want to give you some examples of each of these. I'm just tossing out some ideas from my own life, from clients lives, from women in this community who I've talked to, just to get the wheels turning for you. Maybe you'll hear something here that you think, Oh, wow, I didn't even think about that. That might be an option for me of something to let go of.
And then I want to talk you through how to think about as you go into the decision making process, what you're actually going to choose. Okay, so when we think about those commitments or activities, the things that have a space on our calendar, you know, this is, again, anything extra, anything that is on your calendar that's not work related, you've got to keep your job or your business running, or that is parenting related, or that is just the basics of life.
admin, keeping things moving along. So examples of commitments or activities, maybe it's serving on the board of an organization. This is one for me. I will share. I committed to a committee last year and very quickly realized I did not have the capacity. It was not adding any value to my life. I am going to be stepping down.
It feels uncomfortable,, I don't love having to say no. I realize and believe strongly the volunteers make the world go round and there are so many organizations that are in desperate need of our support. This is not the one for me. And as tough as this decision is, I know what's waiting for me on the other side.
So that's a big one. Leading a committee or a project at work. This comes up a lot. If you are someone who often says yes, you probably often get asked to lead things, to contribute to things, to maybe organize something. And is that an option for you to say, not this time, or I'm over capacity already, I'd love to help, but I'm sure there's someone else who would love this opportunity, and maybe it actually does open the door for somebody else to have that opportunity that you just don't need right now.
This was a great one for a client of mine recently and I will never forget her face, our session after she declined leading a special committee at work and she was so proud of herself and it created so much space. She was over capacity. She did not have the room and it really wasn't going to add that much value to her resume or to her position at work.
It was an easy no. Another big one is invitations. birthday party celebrations, right? Travel, attending something. I had another client who said no to a baby shower for extended family, which would have required her to make an hour drive there and back. And as much as she would have loved to do that, she realized it was really just this should, I should do this.
This is expected of me. And she declined and it gave her, That much needed time on the weekend to spend with her son in a really busy season of life. She was working full time, working on her MBA at nights, and that was a huge gain.
Maybe it's volunteering at your kid's school. You'd love to do that. But maybe in this season, just for now, it's too much. So when you think about invitations, extra activities, commitments, projects, committees, think about how does this add to my life? Do I look forward to this? Or do I dread it?
Am I doing it out of obligation because I think I should or because I want to, because I see some real benefit to my life or to my career or something else? Could someone else do this who has more energy, more desire or interest?
And what could I say yes to if I said no to this? If this commitment were no longer on my calendar, what would that give me? If you say yes to something, or you continue with something on your plate, and you're miserable, or you regret it, that's okay. Take note of that. That's so valuable. That is data that will help you in the future make stronger decisions and learn, oh wow, this type of thing.
Not for me, it's too much, or it tipped the balance the wrong way. It just overflowed our schedule. That's great to know. It could even be, I'm going to toss out this as well in this category, another example could even be like training for something. I'm thinking of a client recently who was looking for something, you know, physical activity hobby to put into her life.
She was really missing that. And so she was considering training for a triathlon and she ended up deciding that she was, she just chose that because she didn't really know what else to choose. Like she wasn't sure what other options were out there, but honestly, when she was honest with herself, she didn't have the time or the capacity for what she would need to train to do well.
or to even finish a triathlon. And so she ended up signing up for an intro ballet class instead. So instead of, all of this time, multiple times a week committed to training for a triathlon, now she's going to do one hour a week at an intro ballet class. And that just fits so much better. And so pausing before she committed to the triathlon was another way of looking at capacity and saying no to something so she could say yes to something else and create a little bit more space in her life.
Okay, let's shift to the second category, which is sometimes a little bit more sneaky. Expectations don't always feel like something that takes up space on your calendar, but they do. They take up so much space when you think about your time and your energy. So Examples of expectations that you could consider saying no to might be dinner.
Not that you can't eat, you need to eat, but the expectation that dinner needs to be gourmet or homemade or different all of the time. This comes up a lot, right? That our meals every night, we need to have something that's interesting, or we need lots of variety. I coached a client on that just this week.
It's okay to repeat dinners. Or for your kids to have maybe the same version of a packed lunch every day for school or daycare. The expectation maybe that your house will always be tidy or look a certain way. The expectation that you'll respond to emails at any time, that you'll be super responsive. The expectation that you'll be at all of your kids events or practices.
That you can clean your house, that you have time for that without getting any help. The expectation that you'll throw a big birthday party for your kids. I talk about this one a lot. That is not important to me, and I have learned that it's okay with my kids as well, and so that's an expectation that I have released that has created space and energy in my life.
So as you're thinking about these expectations, maybe I listed something here that made you pause and realize, oh my gosh, I didn't even realize I had that expectation, but I do. Look at the areas of your life where you feel like you're behind, you never have the time for them that you want to, they create a lot of stress or tension in your life, right?
Responding to emails, Tidiness of your home, dinners, being places for your kids, any of those types of things. And really just notice, right? Is that really true? Does my house need to look this way? Do we need to have these really creative and variety in our dinners? Says who? Change the should to could.
You could do that, you could respond to that email right now, or you could not. You could clean the house yourself, or clean all the bathrooms yourself, or you could not. Right? Which would you like to try? And that trying, that experimenting, is such a great way to dip your toe into this category. Try it for a set period of time.
So for the client with the dinners this last week, right? What would it be like to repeat weekly dinners on an AB schedule? So week one, you have these five meals. Week two, you have these five meals. And then week three, you have the meals that you had in week one, right? AB, AB. Try it for a month.
See if you get bored. Do you notice how much you're repeating the meals or do you not even notice at all? Try it. And then you can move forward from there again, you can change it. You're not committed to it for forever. Maybe you tell yourself that you're going to start letting emails that come in or messages sit for 30 minutes before responding.
I had a client who was so responding the second, Teams message would come in that for her, a stretch was setting a timer for five minutes. Actually, if she really set a timer, she just noted the time and let about five minutes go by, but it was about slowly increasing the time her response time to start to train and set the expectation with others that she wasn't always going to respond within minutes of it coming in.
So maybe it's 5 minutes, maybe it's 15 minutes, maybe it's 30 minutes, maybe in the evenings, you're not gonna respond at all between the hours of 6 and 8 when you're with your kids. Start small. Try the experiment and see, does this create any space? Does this allow me to feel like what's on my plate actually fits because I am lowering my expectations or I am saying no to some of these things that maybe in this season they just don't fit.
They'll still be there for you. You can feel it. Set them aside, make a list, you know I love a list, of those things that maybe you are saying no to right now but you want to revisit in the future because things change. You may have more capacity, something else might fall off your plate, and you can add it back in.
That way you won't forget about it. But for now, making that decision. There's so much freedom in that. So with each decision that you make, you start to create more space. Just make sure you don't fill it with more. What do they say? Nature hates a vacuum. It would be so easy to say no to something, to decline something, to start to lower your expectations and then feel like you have all this space and add a bunch more in and you're right back where you started.
But as you create that space, I think one way to pause before you fill it again is to really notice how it feels. Recognize the changes and the impact that it's having. I want to say savor it, relish it, right? Really feel it. And my guess is That as you feel how good it is to have that space, you'll look for more opportunities to create even more.
And I want to bring it back to how we initially started this conversation about, those of you who are maybe avoiding these decisions by looking for the perfect tool or the solution that will help you not have to give anything up. And I want to say that, when you create more space, when you do confront this decision, The tool that you use to plan your days or manage your lists and your schedule, it matters so much less because the things will just fit.
And then you can have fun with planning and dreaming and being intentional with your time and finding ways to make life more efficient because you know what you stand to gain when you do.
I have walked alongside so many working moms as they've made these tough decisions. They are tough. And there is a little bit of sadness and grief that goes into letting something go and accepting that time is finite. I've supported these women, coached and mentored them and helped them navigate each stage of this process.
And they go through it multiple times, right? Seasons change, our priorities change, our capacity changes, and it gives me goosebumps though to think about what their lives look and feel like on the other side. If you want this, if you want to create more space to feel less rushed, less overscheduled, less pressure to do all the things, I would love to help you make that decision.
Make those decisions. You can head over to my website, themothernurture. com slash application, and fill out a quick application. I'll reach out to let you know what I think about whether coaching could be a good fit for you, and we'll go from there. And from personal experience, lots on my plate for sure.
It feels life changing. I know that sounds dramatic and big, but it truly is. And I'm so much better at making these decisions now than I was years ago. And I also think that this is what so many working đź“Ť moms are missing. It's the difference between life feeling like an endless to do list and life feeling like a life.
You know what I mean? Like a life. All right. I will talk to you in the next episode and until then, take care. Talk soon.
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