Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - How to get More Done in Less Time - Simple Time Management Tips | Clutterbug Podcast # 136

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

Are you having trouble getting everything done that you want to get done? Do you struggle with time-management? In today's podcast,  I talk about how to get a handle on your time management and how to better prioritize your time!     You can find more Clutterbug content here: Website: http://www.clutterbug.me YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clutterbug TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/   #clutterbug #podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today's podcast, we're talking about making time for things that matter and how we can really get a handle on time management. Hey, Clutterbugs, welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. Today I want to talk a little bit about time management. This is not my strength. I'm going to be honest, but sometimes I think it is helpful to talk to people who struggle, right? We want to learn from somebody who also isn't great at something and has learned cheat. or tricks or things that have just improved it, even though they're not naturally good at it.

And I am not naturally good at time management. I think having ADHD means I struggle with all things that have to do with executive function. So not only am I terrible at estimating how long something's going to take, I tend to definitely procrastinate, but I'm not good at prioritizing my time or identifying what things I should do first because certain tasks take certain amounts of time. All time things just I really suck at. I also am not great at like adding time together. So if I have to drive somewhere and it's a 20 minute drive, but it takes me 20 minutes to get ready and maybe I need to stop. I mean, math is not not a strong suit of mine. So all around what I guess I'm trying to say is

there's major suckage going on when it comes to time management. But I have found some tricks that help me get more done in less time and really work on getting the maximum amount of output versus what amount of time I'm putting in, if that makes sense. So let's talk about the first thing that I do that I think is so critical if you struggle with time management. And that is breaking down my goals into realistic steps. So I can't say I'm going to clean the house today. I have no idea how long that could possibly take me. I could estimate, but again, we know I'm bad at estimating how long it takes to do things. And also, clean the house is such a big task that it makes it feel hard to get started, because what does that look like? What does that even mean?

So breaking that down into action items like, I'm going to tidy the living areas, I'm going to vacuum, I'm going to dust. I can now see those tasks. and have a better estimation of how long they're going to take. I also do this for everything, not just cleaning the house, but any big task like packing. I break it down into actionable items. Like I have to gather, we're going away to my moms, which is why I'm thinking about this, but I have to gather all the outdoor toys and I need to pack up the board games and I need to do some laundry to make sure that we actually have clean clothes. I have to pack for each of the different kids.

And so this is, again, a way that I can really manage my time knowing which one of these is going to take the longest. What do I have to start with? Obviously, that's laundry. And I can make, I can map out my time accordingly. But I can't do this until I do that first step, which is breaking big tasks down into smaller tasks. The other thing that really helps me with time management is trying to never juggle more than three things at a time. So when I make myself a to-do list for the day, it usually looks like brain dumping. It looks like all the magical amazing things that I want to accomplish. I put them all down on paper. It's a million gazillion things.

But then I pick three. And I feel like three is such a doable amount. Sometimes I get those three done and I can add more for my list. But three things, prioritizing the three most important things, helps manage my time so that I'm not distracted. by all the other things on the list because again, I'm not good at estimating how long things take and if I cherry pick the easy things or the quick things, I'm really likely to not do the things that matter. So brain dumping all of my things that I want to do on a piece of paper and then circling or writing one, two, three beside the most important ones really helps me just, yeah,

prioritize. And it sounds like prioritizing and tons. management is some like really nerdy complicated thing but this is it this is this is how you do it in real life to see real results because before i was doing this i was really overwhelmed i felt directionalist a lot of the times too if i wasn't writing down the things that i wanted to accomplish during the day more than likely i mean i know them in my head but i would fill my time with other things and i wouldn't focus on the things that matter and i could i could i could feel like I was working for 10 hours and yet accomplish very, very little because I wasn't breaking down my tasks and I wasn't identifying the top priorities. I know this sounds like common

sense, but are you actually doing this? Are you? I'm curious. Is this part of your daily ritual, your daily routine? Are you breaking down your tasks and are you circling your top three? If so, and you still feel like you just are overwhelmed and there's not enough time in the day to get done all the things that you want to do. Here is my fortunately reluctant tip that I want to share with you. And that is identifying the time suckers. And for me, this is, I mean, this is about self-awareness, but it's so hard to do. It's so hard to take a real look at where you're spending time and where perhaps you're wasting time. So it's helpful sometimes to ask other people in your life, family members or friends. Hey, I know this is an uncomfortable question, but do you think there are things that I'm spending time doing

that I probably don't need to be spending time doing? You might be surprised by the answer. I know I was. When I asked my husband this, I told him I felt really overwhelmed. I approached him with this question because, honestly, I was hoping he would see that maybe he's not helping as much as he should and he could stand up. It was like, because he's a rebel. I wanted to sort of get him to see how stressed and overwhelmed and busy I was in hopes

that he would say to me, you're right, cast, you're doing a ton of stuff. I'm going to start helping out with XYZ. What actually happened was not that, but just as helpful. And what he said to me was, why are you doing all these things that you could be delegating to the kids? Why are you doing all of these little things that aren't really pushing the needle forward and getting you to where you want to be? And could he be helping with some of these things? Absolutely. But just him pointing these things out to me was really eye-opening because I never looked at them that way. It was a new way to look at how I was spending my time, which is I spend a ton of time emptying the dishwasher, putting up after people, tidying bathrooms.

Those are all things that my children 100% could be doing, or my husband, let's be honest, but other people could be doing. I also have in my workspace, I have an assistant and I have a virtual assistant. And yet I'm doing a lot of things like writing newsletters and replying to a lot of emails, things that I could be delegating to other people to free. up time for the more important things like creating content, coming up with new ideas, doing sponsorships, growing my brand, looking into licensing. I felt like I didn't have enough time for all of those things. And yet when I zoom out and I look at where I'm actually spending my time, it was really surprising how many things I could have been delegating. I guess this leads me to identifying time suckers.

So asking somebody else to identify your time suckers and also taking a look at your screen time. So if you have an iPhone, if you have a Mac device, this may be on Android too. I'm not sure, but you can actually look at your screen time and see exactly how much time you are spending every day, every week, every month on Facebook, how much time you're spending on TikTok, how much time you're spending on Netflix, how much time you're spending just on Google, surfing the internet. And it is horrifying. When I actually take time to identify my time suckers, I grabbed a piece of paper and I was like, where is my time going? And I was like, where is my time going? Why do I feel like there is never enough time in the day to get done all the things I want to do?

Why at the end of the week am I not checking everything off on my to-do list? I take a look at where I'm actually sucking time, wasting time, and it's mind-boggling how many hours I'm dedicating to social media, not for work purposes, but for just random distraction. And I'm not saying that we have to cut out screen time that we can't watch movies. that we can't watch television, that we can't surf the web or go on Facebook or TikTok, what I'm saying is, are you aware of the actual amount of time you are spending on these devices?

And a really good way to figure this out is just guess. Write down a piece of paper and guess how many hours a day you're spending surfing the web. And then look. Actually, open up your screen time and look. I promise you it's going to be at least double, if not triple, what you are you. you think, which is insane. So what is a reasonable amount? Two hours, three hours, four hours, it doesn't matter. I'm not here to judge you, but you can come up with what you think is a reasonable

amount, and then you can set your screen time for that amount, and it will automatically alert you and shut it off every day when you've hit that amount of screen time. So we do this for my children. We give them a screen time. They can only be on their screens so often, so many hours a day, but we do it for me too. So I'm like, holy Hannah, I've just spent way too much time on TikTok. I could waste hours and not even realize it. But now I kind of have that notification that pops up. And sometimes I just like ignore it and keep watching.

But a lot of the times it kind of it shocks me. I'm like, oh gosh. And I break out of that zone and I refocus my time into something that's more productive. Something I can be more proud of myself for, something that will actually push the needle forward to accomplishing the goals and the things that I want to do. So I know this isn't rocket science. I know that these aren't things that are like really life-changing. You probably want some hack or some incredible tip you've never heard before, but we're talking about real life here. We're talking about actually doing things

that are going to give us more time in our day to do the things that we want to do. So we can get more done and it can feel like we're getting more done in less time so that we can. accomplish all of our dreams, our big things that we want to do without it feeling overwhelming, without it feeling like one more thing we have to add to our plate that's going to take away from so many other things that we have to do. We have so many, so many things on our plate that are vying for our time. And these are simple things that we can do to really prioritize and to really manage our time effectively. But I think the most important way that we can use time management as a tool to really improve our lives, to get more done, to be happier is to make sure we're scheduling

time for things that matter. And what I mean by matter is fun and family and friends and relaxation. We are great at trying to cram in work. We are great at saying of all the things we have to do, whether it's chores around the house or things in our career or things in our job, all these never-ending to-dos were great at those but we're not so great at scheduling and making time for relaxation and making time for hanging it with family going with friends making time for us for self-care for recharge and when we don't make time for those we find time for those without even realizing it which is the time suckers which is the wasting which is the procrastination which is all of these things, right?

When we don't make time and schedule time for fun and rest and relaxation, we start feeling really resentful and we start avoiding having the time to do the work and the things we should be doing. We end up doing nothing at all. We're not having fun and we're not working. We're just in a limbo. It's incredible how much more work I got done when I actually scheduled time for fun. And I'm not a psychiatrist, obviously. I don't know why this is.

I just know that it's true. When I take time to make the fun stuff a priority and me a priority and time for myself and the recharge and all the things like that, when I make time for those, when I schedule those, when I put them in a calendar, when I have reminders, when I make them non-negotiable, I feel a sense of freedom. I feel more motivation and energy to schedule and make time for the work things too. My life is balanced. So every time you want to make a to do list, you want to schedule time to accomplish something that's a work task. Make sure you're scheduling equal time for the fun, right? Make sure that you're making time for what really matters.

And this magical incredible thing will happen and you are going to have more time in your day. You are going to free up space in your brain and in your schedule for the work stuff too. And it's all going to feel more balanced in your life. So this is a short, sweet little podcast today just talking about time management. I have all million ways to go. But I have tried so many different things and not been able to stick with it. I tried block scheduling, you know, where you have different colors through the day. And you do this here and this here and this year.

And it was so structured. and that didn't work for me and maybe that will work for you maybe structure works for you i guess my point is trying again trying different things trying to find a system that works for you even if that's just a flexible schedule of scheduling three things that you're going to do every day that look like work that look like to do and three things every single day that look like fun and when are you going to do those things and what's the most important thing or the thing you want to do most and start with those. That's called eating your frog. And just looking at your time and scheduling a little bit different, looking at it from this approach can really have a huge impact in your life

and really not only make you happier, save you time, but get you closer to the dreams and goals that you really want for yourself. So thanks so much for listening. I hope you're feeling inspired to do a little time management today and I'll see you guys next time.