Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - This Productivity Hack will Change Your Life! | Clutterbug Podcast # 282

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

Ever feel like you’re doing everything and still falling behind? Like no matter how many lists you make or how early you wake up, your calendar is still chaos — and your needs always come last? In this episode, I sit down with productivity and time management expert Megan Sumrell — founder of The Pink Bee and creator of the TOP Framework — to talk about why most traditional planning systems don’t work for women… and what actually does. We unpack how to reclaim control of your time without rigid schedules, color-coded overwhelm, or burning out by Wednesday. Megan shares practical, shame-free strategies that help you plan around real life — including the kids, the mental load, and all the curveballs that show up on a Tuesday morning. Whether you’re juggling a business, a household, or just trying to feel like you’re not failing at everything — this episode will leave you feeling capable, seen, and ready to create a week that works for you. ✨ We talk about: Why women’s productivity struggles aren’t a personal failure The “uncertainty buffer” — and why it’s a weekly game-changer How traditional time blocking sets you up to fail The powerful shift from daily to weekly planning Why structure actually gives you more freedom (not less) How to stop procrastinating — without guilt 🗂️ Learn more from Megan Sumrell: → Website: https://thepinkbee.com → Free App: Search “The Pink Bee” (all one word!) in the App Store or Google Play → Instagram: @megansumrell 👇 What’s one way you’re protecting your time this week? Let us know in the comments! And if this episode helped you rethink your relationship with time, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share it with a friend. You don’t need a perfect plan — just one that finally works for your life. 💛       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 #mondaymotivation #thepinkbee #timemanagementtips #workingmomlife #weeklyplanning Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm excited about today's podcast because I'm talking to someone who is an expert on productivity. Her name is Megan Simrell from The Pink Bee. And this is sort of a passion project of mine, productivity, time management, because truthfully, I suck at it. And I am constantly looking for a way to make it feel easy. I know that it's possible because I also sucked at decluttering and organization. but having these systems in place, having these incredible kind of processes running in the background make my life so much easier when it comes to my physical things. And I want the same

magic when it comes to my time. Despite the fact that I try everything when it comes to time management, I just feel like I'm not quite there yet. I feel like this isn't something that I've nailed. And I know this because I'm often still scrambling. to find time for the things that matter. I'm really great at scheduling all the things I'm supposed to do and writing to-do list, but at the end of the week, I'm like, oh, man, I didn't spend as much time as I wanted on my hobbies or with my family or reaching out to friends. I'm great at stacking the to-dos, but not so great at prioritizing the stuff I love. The biggest life-changing thing that happened when I decluttered was that I instantly had so much more time, like an abundance of time.

But I wasn't great at organizing that time, right? So what happened was I just filled it with nonsense, other things, instead of doing dishes and tidying and doing all this laundry that I used to be doing because I had too much stuff. Now I'm filling it with watching TikTok question mark. I need to organize my time in the exact same way that I organized my home so that life feels easy, not just physically, but emotionally as well. Hey, Clutterbugs, welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. Super excited about today's episode. But before I get into the life-changing, awesome advice on productivity and time management,

I want you to do double duty on this one. I want you to learn, but I also want you to be proud of the progress you made while listening to this podcast. So you are not allowed to just sit and watch or sit and listen. I want you to take action on your home today. Specifically, what I love you to do is find things to leave. Let's declutter. Let's get things out of our home.

Even if it's just a few things, it will. will make a difference. And what I recommend you really focusing on today is a hot spot in your home that is in like valuable real estate area, someplace in your home that every day is creating friction because there's too much stuff. Kitchen counters, a big one. Kitchen table, a big one. Entrance way. If you are having to move things every day to live your life, that is the spot that we're tackling first because the ultimate goal here is that you can reset your home and definitely this spot in 15 minutes right now if you're looking at piles and mountains and things that have no place to go and everything is stuffed it's impossible to reset in 15 minutes i want your home

to feel effortless and step one is less stuff so think about a hotspot in your home right now go there and let's make it easy to manage. You've got to find things to go. But you also have to look and identify like what is here that needs a place to live? The reason you're putting it down on a flat surface is because it isn't easy to put it away or you don't have in a way. The best place to make away is to declutter the stuff that's there now. Every time I go into a client's home, if they have stuff piled on their kitchen counter, I immediately open the drawers and cupboards below and above. What's in there? You know what's in there? Salad spinners. That's what's in there. Food processors that haven't seen the light of day. You probably have a drawer filled of random paper that you didn't want to

deal with. You just shoved and hit it in a drawer. This is so common, but it's also unnecessary crap that's making your life harder because now you don't have an easy place to put the stuff that you're piling. And the pile is a problem. It's a problem because it's hard to see and find what you have. It's a problem because it's an annoying nag and clutter attracts clutter. And it's a problem because this is a surface that should be used for living. Whether you're using this to roll out cookie dough or do a craft or have your kids do homework at the kitchen island that's what this is for it's for living not for storage so the piles have to go but the clutter that you're seeing in that pile you're using that find a home for it by getting rid of the stuff that you're not using close by

grab a bag grab a box right now and be ruthless you are fighting for the home of your dreams. And there will be casualties in this war. There will be things that are good, that are useful. But they're not serving you so they got to go. Let them die, my friend, because the other side of this battle is the peace that you're craving. I talk a lot about friction, and what this means is all those little bumps between you and the thing you want to do. So you want to cook dinner, but you have to wash the pots and pans first. Or you have to hunt for the thing that you need because the noodles are in the back of the pantry and you have to move the canned goods and the snacks out of the way. Friction, friction, friction. Your kids want to color,

but you've got to clear off the counter first and find the crayons. Friction, friction. Every time something is in the way of you doing the thing you want to do, that is the roadblock. you've got to bust through. Those are all the things that have to be removed in order to save you time, but to make your life easier too. If you're new to the clutterbug community, it's hard to know where to start. You're looking around and you're like, everywhere needs attention. And this can be so paralyzing. It's like perfection paralysis. I need to know exactly where to start. So I want to give you three spaces that I recommend. The first is your entrance way. It's the first thing you see when you come home and it's the last thing you see when you leave your house.

And so it's kind of like the catalyst for productivity. If your entranceway is a disaster, you're going to be late. And if your entrance way is a disaster, when you come home after a long day, you're going to walk in and be like, I hate my house. Honestly. So tackling this space is key. Decluttering all the things you're not using and just trying to make it more functional so that it stays tidy by adapting your home system. with hooks in storage to catch the clutter so it's not just being put down. The other space that I really recommend that you start is actually your bedroom.

And here's why. This is a spot that is the most neglected area in a home because company doesn't see it. So people tend to shove and hide and shut the door and who cares, except this is the ultimate disrespect slap in the face to you. This is your private, beautiful sanctuary and it looks like a crap hole. Every time you just shove and toss and have a pile on the floor, that is telling you subconsciously that you are not important. That you don't matter. That you don't deserve better.

And you do. You deserve to wake up in the morning and look around and make this sound. Ah, I love my bedroom. You need that. And before you go to bed and lay, you certainly aren't going to lay in bed and look around and be like, look at all the laundry I didn't do. Oh, man, I'm such a piece of crap. Well, good night. What are you talking about?

You should feel like you should look around and be like, wow, this is gorgeous. It's restful. It's peaceful. And you drift off into lullaby sleepland, man. Hard to do that in a cluttered mess with your CPAP machine and your piles of clutter and your empty freaking wrappers. Start in the bedroom. And then another space I recommend, absolutely, is your kitchen. Why? Because it literally is the heart of the home. And it is the most used space. And if it's cluttered, everything's harder. Cooking's harder, cleaning's harder, getting a snack is harder. And it's like the catalyst for the rest of the home. So if those three spaces, if you could pick one, whichever one feels the coolest to you, that will have an immediate and long-lasting, effect on your entire home. Hi, welcome Megan to the Clutterbug podcast. I'm so excited to have you

here. I am thrilled to be here. It's going to be awesome. We're talking about productivity and time management and I'm saying it with this deep voice because I feel like, everyone feels heavy, right? It's like, oh my gosh. Also, like it's time to be business. It's time to put on our big girl pants and get stuff done. But before we talk about all of this, I'd love to know how you. I'd love to know how you got started. This is such a, you know what, honestly, mostly male-dominated industry. And here you are, the pink bee. The pink beat. Well, it's fascinating. I was reading a book the other day, and the latest stat that she was sharing was that 93% of books written about time management and productivity are written by men. So, yeah, it is a very male-dominated industry. Yeah,

in third grade, when someone said, hey, Megan, what do you want to do when you grew up? I was not saying, I want to do time management, right? But I think for a lot of business owners, it kind of came out of a personal need. So I actually spent over 20 years in the corporate IT space working in several different software companies and spent a significant part of my career getting a lot of certifications and backgrounds in process improvement and project management and quality. So I would go into kind of chaotic software teams and rebuild their processes from the ground up to help them build their software better, faster, more efficient,

higher quality. Got married later in life, started a family later, and had a very interesting pivotal day when a complete stranger asked me at the park when I was there with my two-year-old, what do you do for fun? I was like, and it kind of floored me because I couldn't remember the last time I just took time for myself for something fun. I think like so many women, my calendar was a representation of everything I was doing for everyone else, right? It was full of my time as an employee, my time as a daughter, as a mom, as a wife.

Like my entire calendar was in accountability to a role that I served and nowhere in there was space for myself. And I'd been using the same planning, the Franklin Covey planning system for over 20 years. So thankfully it kind of hit me. I was like, this is what you do for a living, Megan. How about you take your own life and use all the tools and frameworks that you've developed to help create harmony out of this very chaotic situation? So that was at that time, I did not know it, was the start of what is now called the top framework, which is time management, organization, and productivity for women.

It transformed my life. Friends and family started noticing they're like, you look so light. Oh, you had a new gym. I'm like, no, I'm actually just having time. for myself. And so a couple of women that I knew in technology asked if I'd train them on it. So I did. And then fast forward to today about five years ago is when I had finally shared this with enough people and I saw their results. I was like, this is my passion and my calling. So we've gone all in on building out the company. And I absolutely love it.

I love it. So if like if time management was a human, your relationship, you're like, Best friends. Is this what you're saying? Yeah. And that's one of the things I like to tell women as well. Like it's really learning how to take back control of your time and calendar is really about establishing a very different relationship with it. Like it really changes your relationship with time instead of it always feeling like the thing we don't have enough of, right?

It becomes a gift that we get to control and honor and prioritize. I love that. I became pretty obsessed with time management. and productivity years ago because I felt like I was working all day, especially as a mom, just like, I was exhausted. I was like, I've been running my butt off and I'd fall into bed. And then I'd think, what did I get done today? I can't actually think of one thing I accomplished, though, but I'm exhausted, but I'm tired.

But then I feel like I went too far the other way. And I started scheduling like everything. And I tried color blocking and time blocking. But then what happened was any. time life would happen, and I want to call this life, there was no room for a, there was no room left. I had over-scheduled things. And like it was almost like a balancing card. Like this was, this was scheduled here. And then then I could do this, this day, and then this day. And if one day messed up or I was sick. Everything. Yeah. And the reality is almost, I can't say all. I'm sure someone out

there doesn't do it. But pretty much every what I call masculine planning system teaches you to do exactly what you were talking about. And some will say create the perfect week that you can just rinse and repeat week after week. Every Monday from 9 to 11, we do this. Then we do this. Then we do this. And everything, every minute of every day is assigned something. And the biggest thing that's missing there and why this works for men, but not for women, is the reality is two part. One, we carry the mental load. And even though that doesn't show up on our calendar, it consumes a lot of energy in time. And number two, we are 99% of the times.

We are the ones that have to absorb what I call uncertainty or life, as you talked about, right? If my kids sick, they're not calling my husband first. They're calling me. And so when you take a very masculine approach to time management, it works great because they're not navigating the unexpected the unpredictability, the schedule changes, the way traditionally women are. And so if you don't have a planning system that supports uncertainty, every Monday by noon, everything's going to be in disarray because something will happen. And then all of your plans.

And this is why women eventually just go, well, there's just no point in planning. Why bother? Yeah, exactly. I can just think about today. I had this podcast scheduled. My daughter missed the bus. Then my son's like, I forgot my lunch bag. And then my mom called.

And she's like, I'm really having a bad day and I need you to come sometime today and just help me get, you know, prepare meals and things. And I'm thinking all of these little, I'm like, hey, what do I shift? What do I shift? Got a shift, shift, shift, shift. My husband's, he's, he's still sleeping up there. Enjoy it this morning. I'm glad to hear you say that because we've had a cooler morning over here where like right before we got on with all this stuff that changed after we booked this. I've got my dogs in their crates and I'm praying that in about 10.

10 minutes when I know that this other car is going to pull up to pick up my daughter, that it stays quiet. But, you know, I had everything planned perfectly and then life threw us curveball. That's it. Life. So I'd love to hear you talk about a different way, a different way of still being productive and time management and planning. Because let me tell you, it is key. Going from someone who used to never plan to someone who planned all the time, man, my productivity shot through the roof, but it was at the expense of that flexibility now. So I would love, yeah, to know a different way. Like when I define productivity, I have a love, hate relationship with the word. But the way I describe it is getting the most important things done in a stress-free way,

which is very different than I got more done than my neighbor today, which is what I think a lot of the masculine energy around productivity is, right? Get a lot of the masculine energy around productivity is, right? get up at 5 a.m. might be part of the 5 a.m. Club. Block every minute of every day, you know, just circle your top three, just all this stuff. It's like that just doesn't work for women. So I think one of the key things that is really powerful for women to learn to do, and this ties back to that uncertainty, is calculating what I call your uncertainty number. Everybody is going to have their own unique number, and it will change over time. And a good way to think about this is if you think about your finances, right? A lot of financial experts would say you need to create an emergency

fund, right? Because you're going to need to replace your tires, the hot water, like we don't know what's going to happen. But something's going to happen each year. That's usually a large expense. And then we're like, if you don't have the money sitting there, then you go in debt, right? So a lot of people will say, hey, put away, you know, maybe a hundred bucks a month into this fund, and then the money will be there. Well, we need to do the same thing with our time. We essentially need an emergency fund or what I call your uncertainty fund. So I encourage people, I'll say, hey, take like a week or two and go about your daily life. And anytime something happens that now needs to absorb at least, you know, 30 minutes of your time, make a note of it. And write down how

much time and what it was. Right. So, oh, my kid missed the bus this morning. That had, like, that was another, like, there was 20 minutes of my life. I did not expect to have happened, right? So actually write down how much time. And I tell people two weeks as best, you know, if you only have one week, do it over one week. But what we want to start to do is figure out what is an average number for you of hours that is going to be consumed by something that you have no clue is coming at you every single week. And so when I was first doing this for myself, this was a good, gosh, 10 years ago. My daughter was transitioning to preschool. And it's, did not, it was not a smooth transition. So, you know, we started off two days a week, you know, three and a half or four hours a day. Well, we never made it. Like I always got a phone call that, you know, come pick her up. Now, I could have every week at the beginning of the week gone, it's going to happen this week. And I could have planned to have all that time. But reality was telling me, no, Megan, you maybe are going to get two and a half hours. All right. So

back in that season of life, I had a higher unsurricular. certainty budget. In my life today, I know that each week I'm going to have about four hours of work tasks that are going to pop up during the week that I don't know about and about two to three hours of life. I want to call my household COO stuff, right? Dogs, kids, all of that. So what that means when I plan my week is I actually block four hours of like randomly. I change it up each week depending upon what's real, but I basically create four hours worth of appointments on my calendar during my work time, and you can just label it uncertainty or holding. I mean, you put, name it, whatever you want, buffer, some people call it. And I color it a different color. So that is

proactively protecting that time. So like when I look at my calendar for this week, I can see I have an hour of that today, later today. That's just reserved. I'm not planning on doing anything with it. So yesterday, something came up for work. And I was like, oh, I really do need to get this done this week. Well, instead of panicking and trying to figure out how to get that done yesterday, I was able to go, oh, look, I have that block of time tomorrow. That's when I'm going to do it. So learning how, you know, for each individual, what is that average amount of time,

whether it's work related, whether it's family related, whatever it is for you, and then actually blocking it and protecting it on your calendar is what gives you the ability when life happens to either move things around, right? Or like yesterday, if it had to be done yesterday, well, I could say, okay, well, what I was going to do right now, I'll move to where, you know, in the future time that I had protected, or I can wait and do that new thing when that time presents itself. And even just that one little skill alone is a real game changer. I like that so much. I feel like I used to do this with Fridays. I used to protect Fridays and call it errand day. And so I wouldn't book any work, even though it's technically a work day. And that's like I'd go grocery shopping or if I needed to get my hair done. It was Fridays. But somehow I allowed work to creep back into the Fridays.

Because you're trying to do it all on one day. That's going to be hard to do. And a lot of people are taught, you know, keep quote white space. on their calendar. But what white space usually ends up being is, okay, that thing took longer than I thought, right? And so white space gets eaten up by all these other things. It's not the same as intentionally saying, here is chunks of time that I know I'm going to need. I just don't know what I'm doing with it yet. And white space should be in addition to your uncertainty time.

So you still are a big supporter. of like planning in your calendar and putting stuff in, which is the traditional, it is still traditional productivity, but you're just like, we can't cram it like men can cram it. No. And I teach, the foundation of everything is a five-step weekly planning process. I call it the basic weekly planning process. And once you master that, then we move to the advanced weekly planning process. And that's 10 steps. And before everyone panics and is like, when the heck am I supposed. I do it in 15 minutes usually. So it's a very, because once you know how to build your planning inputs, kind of the machine I call it, it makes planning really easy. And what is fundamentally

different is notice I talk about weekly planning, not daily planning. And a lot of planning systems, even planners that you go by, right, they teach a daily planning system. Wake up in the morning, brain dump, identify your top three priorities. I do this. You're saying this is bad. I am. And then magically, focus on just those three. And then when those are done, then somehow everything else is going to fall into place, right? So then what happened. It's what so many people are taught to do. Well, when you are operating in daily planning mode, I call it just in time living, right? What's happening is things are very they feel very reactive. They happen very last minute and they don't allow you to absorb uncertainty

very well, right? Because all of a sudden, what happens is usually the top three were things you've known about for three weeks, but they kept getting punted until now it has to be today. Like, it's due tomorrow. And then you brain dump everything else and maybe half of it gets done. So then tomorrow, what do you do? You wake up. You rewrite half of yesterday's onto today. days and you add to it. Well, when we're working this way, at no point is the entire list really prioritized well. And at no point does anyone ever look at everything they just brain dumped and then write down how long will each one of these take? Right. So if people did, I guarantee you, every single day they would see this math doesn't math. Like I've just listed 10 hours of stuff.

my calendar shows me I have five hours available. So how am I going to make this work? What is it that's not getting done today? And so when we stay in this daily list make top three priority, somehow magically we're going to get those three things done, which I've still never understood how people make that work, because I have days intentionally where I'm not working on any of my top three because it's a day that is stacked with meetings and appointments

that only gives me small pockets of time. And maybe the top project I'm working on needs a two-hour quiet block because it's creative, right? So I will intentionally design a week where I can say, hey, on Wednesday, I'm not touching any of my top three projects. But Thursday I am, right? So if we're staying in this daily reactive mode, it keeps us, I really feel like it almost keeps our nervous system kind of humming at a pace.

It's just not sustainable. Oh, I feel this with all my. core because this is what I do. This is what I tell people to do. It's what everybody's been told to do. And there's entire planners built around you doing that. Right. And again, it can work. It served me when I was single and in my 20s and in a corporate environment without a smartphone. Right. It worked great because work was work. Home was home. Never did the two meet. Right. People couldn't, you know, Amazon Prime did all of that technology did not exist. And so 25-year-old single corporate Megan absolutely could function that way.

But now, you know, 50, almost 52-year-old Megan with the latest study is showing that we are getting so much information from our mobile devices every day. It equals watching 18 movies per day. Stop. Yeah. So we're consuming all of this. we have blurred lines between work and home. Information's coming at us.

Notifications are going all of this. And yet we're still being told to use a planning system that was built 50 plus years ago when the realities of our world today were completely different. I'll tell you why I leaned into this more than the other. I would pick up a planner. I have so many beautiful planners. Everyone's got the planner graveyard. Every year, I go and I'm like, la la, la, la.

And then I open it and it's like, it's like 5 a.m, 6 a.m. And they break them down by hour and I go a big, hell no. Because that's, what do you? Wait, I need flexibility. So in my brain, this daily dump pick the favorite feels like flow and flexibility. But you're right. What ends up happening is it's seven o'clock at night. I'm like, oh, crap.

I have two out of the three that I haven't done yet and I stay up all night. Yeah, exactly. And I love that you brought up the flow in creativity because I actually did a workshop for a group of professional creatives recently. And I mean, I walked in there and they were ready to shoot holes in every single thing that I was going to teach them about planning. Right. Because they're like, we're creatives. We can't, because I always say structure creates freedom. And they're like, no, no, no, no.

I need to be free to be able to, you know, draw when I feel like drawing or run to the art museum when I need to. I need to have that flexibility. And I said, okay, so let me ask you this. When was the last time you actually went, I'm feeling it. And you went to that art museum. And while you were there, you weren't stressing out about the other things that weren't getting done. When was the last time you went and did something just for you and were able to be fully present and enjoying it. Not one person was able to raise their hand and say yes. Because I'm going to tell you also, they probably aren't even going to the art museum.

Yeah. Well, most of them were like, yeah, I never actually go, right? And then when you do, if all of a sudden you're like, I have this amazing idea, like maybe you're a writer and then you want to go sit down and write, well, now you're like, oh my God, but I haven't done this and I haven't done that. And then the kids and the blah. So you're not actually having any freedom. Whereas if you learn how to create plans, again, with the ultimate goal being helping you get the most

important things done in a stress-free way, now what happens is, you know, I work very little. You know, we run a seven-figure annual run rate company and collectively all four of us combined work 80 hours or less per week. So I only work about 20 hours and less in the summer. Yeah. So we're in our summer season, right? And so when I want to check out at noon and go spend the afternoon with my daughter at the pool, my computer's not coming with me. I'm not checking my phone. And I'm not in the back of my mind worrying about, I got to still do this. When am I going to get that funnel down? I've got to write those emails, right? I've created a plan that shows me you're doing that on Friday morning, Megan. So go check out and do whatever you feel like doing on Wednesday afternoon. which means I truly get to enjoy my non-working time. And then when I am working, I don't feel guilty about what I'm not doing with my family

because they get the best of me. When I am in mom mode, they're not getting tired, stressed out, whatever mode, or I'm on a date night with my husband. I'm not tapped out because it's been an exhausting day. I mean, it may be, right? That's life. but it means you really get to be fully present in whatever you're doing, whether it's work, whether it's time for yourself, whether it's time with your family.

And if you're operating in daily list making mode, you're never going to not have that stressor of the things that don't have a checkmark next to them bugging you when you're not actively working on them. Okay. You make me want to scratch your eyes out a little bit. But also, I want this so bad. This is it. This is what I've been craving. So walk me through what it looks like because my brain, I can't see anything but it's the, it's the 5 a.m. 6 a.m. or it's the daily brain dump circle.

I don't, I don't see. I can't visualize a different way. So think about this. So I do use just like, I mean, people can picture the weekly view of a Google calendar and ICAL, right? That is the, you know, And I do it on paper. So I do use a planner that, and I tell everyone, you've got to have whatever planner you're using, it needs to be every day in a column and it needs to have the times next to it. Because you need to see how much time do you actually have. But the goal is not to fill every minute from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. either or whatever the range is in there. So think about like kind of back to this idea of five.

finances, right? What ultimately we want to do is know how much time do you have in your bank account and how much is already spoken for at the start of each week. Just like if I were to, let's say it's the first of the month and everybody gets paid, maybe you open up your bank account and you're like, $5,000. Oh my God, yes, I'm going to go to the store and go shopping. Well, hopefully you already know, hang on, you know, a thousand of it spoken for rent, one million of it spoken for groceries. is what it feels like today. You already know, okay, no, no, no, no. Of that 5,000, we already know, you know, X amount is already spoken for this month for the

incoming bills, right? You need to have that idea of what is truly left for me to decide where that's going. Well, that is the whole purpose of creating a weekly plan and actually acknowledging how long do things take. It's not to force you into something you can't change. you can change your plan as the week is moving on. But it's to show you what is your bank account when it comes to your time so that you don't go into time debt. And that's what I mean by changing that relationship with time. So by creating a weekly plan where I am proactively saying,

okay, you know what? On Tuesday from 10 to 1130, that's when I'm working on this group of tasks. on, you know, Wednesday morning. This is when I'm recording a podcast. You know what? I'm going to be ready for videos. So I'm going to proactively plan on recording two other videos that I see I need to get done some time this week, right? I'm very intentionally designing a week to maximize efficiency and to make sure I'm

protecting my time so that I don't get overbooked and over-scheduled. Now, again, could I move it around if Tuesday hits? and I'm looking at 10 a.m. I'm supposed to be working on this one particular task. I'm like, I really don't feel like it. Like, I don't want to. Well, in that moment, now I get to look at my plan for the week and say, what are my options? I was the world's worst procrastinator. I mean, I procrastinated a lot. And this supports me to make better decisions. So now if I'm like, I don't want to do that right now, like creating a slide deck. I'd rather stick hot pokers in my eye than create a slide deck. So if I were to look down and be like, oh, yeah, right now is when I told myself I was going to work on that slide deck.

The very first thing I'm going to say to myself is I don't want to and I'll do it later. But now I get to go look at my plan for the week and say, when is later? And maybe I see, hey, I do have time on Thursday. And so I'm going to change it. I'm going to change my plan. And I see that I have an hour open on Thursday. I'm actually going to move this and say, you know what? I'm going to do that on Thursday and set.

That's not procrastinating. That's changing my plan. Now, on the flip side, what also can happen is I can say, now Thursday hits and it's time to build a slide deck. And I'm going to instantly go, I'm going to do that later. But now I'm looking at my plan and I'm seeing, hmm, I don't have later. If I don't do it now and I'm supposed to go do something really fun with my kid this afternoon, I'm going to end up taking that computer to the pool.

Does that sound like something I want to do? No, no, it doesn't. Right? And I get to have this conversation with myself. And then it supports me to do some of the things we don't. Because I mean, as business owners, we all have some tasks. We don't love doing, right? But it prevents me from, I'll do it later, I'll do it later, I'll do it later, I'll do it later, meaning I'm doing it at 9.30 at night or I'm doing it at 5 in the morning, which is what's ultimately going to happen.

So when we realize that creating a plan like this is to support you to not procrastinate, to protect the time you need for the things you've said are most important, and then to prevent you from getting overbooked and over-scheduled, all of a sudden that weekly plan looks really freeing instead of prescriptive. Right. So even this week, I got a request from someone that they're like, hey, would you be able to do this thing for us on Friday? If I had looked at a traditional calendar, which only shows appointments with other people,

right, I would have gone, oh my gosh, yeah, totally could do that. But because I looked at the plan I made for myself for the week, I looked at what I intentionally said I was going to spend my Friday morning doing. So now I get to say, hmm, how do I feel about that, right? That was the morning I was going to work on this thing. really excited about. If I say yes to her, I'm saying no to that. What decision do I want to make? Neither one's right or wrong. But old Megan would have said yes. And then I would have gotten overbooked. And then this thing that I wanted to be working on would just keep getting pushed off and pushed off and pushed off.

That's so good. It's a very different relationship, right? And I'm thinking, as you're saying, the whole time, we have buffer built in, which is nice. And I'm. And I'm thinking, I think anytime I've tried this in the past, I haven't built in buffer. I've just kind of filled it and I've used different colors and then I'm looking at it and I'm like, oh, this feels overwhelming. But leaving that buffer space feels good. So I have questions. Are you doing this one week at a time or are you going forward even like two weeks in the

future, three weeks in the future? So I two four levels of planning. And this is ultimately what I teach for folks. So weekly planning is the most. detailed. And I'm doing that every week, one week at a time. Now, I do have some women in my program that have shared that they plan two weeks out because they have a job that does two weeks schedules, right? So they're shift workers, some nurses, some EMTs, some vets. So they're like, no, I plan in two week chunks. So again, feel free to, if you want to do two weeks at a time,

my life is too unpredictable. If I were to plan two weeks out, I would have wasted my time planning that because things change way too much. So most people, the weekly planning process is something you do once a week. You get to decide when you want to do it. Right. I change it up. Sometimes I do it on Fridays for the following week. Sometimes I'm doing it on Sunday for the upcoming week. There's no right or wrong way. The next level of planning is the monthly planning process. And so once a month, and I'm usually doing it about four or five days before the new month, I have these little nine steps that I teach women to go through of how to prep for your next month to make sure that you are protecting time for those projects, for the trips, for vacations, looking at the school calendar, all that kind of stuff. And that's not done

nearly at the same detailed level as the weekly plan, because life's too uncertain. So those are the two things we master first. Then when women are feeling good about that, then they learn a quarterly planning and then finally an annual planning process. But it's backwards from what most people are taught, right? So I know I used to go to workshops. They're like, all right, this is the year, like, we're going to do our goal setting. And they always start you at you. What's your five-year vision? And then you back it into what are your goals for this year? And then they teach you how to break that goal down into bite-sized chunks with little milestones. So you map this whole thing out. You're like, yes. But then you come home and the reality of your life slaps you upside the head and you don't have time

for this thing you've just created. So this is what you're going. why I start, I call it bottom up planning. This is why we have to learn how to master our weekly planning and our monthly planning so that now we have the framework and the systems in place to say, now I know how to make sure that I am protecting time for this goal and this project that I'm working on. But you've got to get out of drowning mode and out of overwhelm first before we do that. So this is why I start in the weeds. I'm like, we've got to get your day-to-day realities under control to create that space to now show you, yeah, I do know how to plan in a way that will support some of these dreams that I've got.

This is, I just want to suck your brain like some sort of parasite for all your knowledge because I do all the things you say, you shouldn't do. Yeah, but the thing is you can't, and women are the worst. We beat ourselves up over it. Like, what's wrong with me? Like, nothing. If, what if no one ever taught you how to read? Would you be blaming yourself for not knowing how to read?

Of course not. You'd be like, I haven't been taught this. Time management and planning skills are not taught. They're not taught in our schools. Most organizations don't teach them. Or if they do, they bring in a very masculine time blocked thing and they're, they're not addressing technology and digital overwhelm. So they're not really equipping you with everything.

And so then we're left to believe because we see pre-executive. because we see pretty pictures of calendars on Pinterest that everyone else out there has it figured out. But me, no one has it figured out. So now the good news is this is a teachable skill. It's a learnable skill. It's just you haven't been taught it yet. So good.

Okay. One last question before I send people to buy your planners and your method and learn from you, are you baking in the day-to-day type things in your weekly, like cooking? dinner and going grocery shopping and all that type of, is that in your weekly as well? So it integrates personal and work, whatever hats and roles you're playing. And there's two key inputs ultimately that I teach people how to build. One is what are your recurring things week over week over week, right? The meal prep, the grocery.

Now, I'm fortunate. My husband does all the grocery shopping and cooks dinner every night. So I don't have to incorporate that in. But things, you know, I do all the school driving and the pickups and that, you know, all of, I do all the dog care, the laundry, all that kind of stuff. So we all have both for work and personal, what I call our recurring tasks. What are the things that you do every single week? And if it's not on true autopilot, like there's a difference between a true habit versus not, right?

Like, I'm not putting in my planner, wake up and make a cup of car. I mean, that's going to happen unless, I don't know, hell has frozen over and I can't get to my coffee maker, right? So I'm not scheduling at that level. But I am looking at the life stuff. And then we learn how to create routines around those to make them as efficient as possible. So yes, those are going in there and those are our recurring tasks versus now what are all the one-off things, right? The projects, the things that are one and done that we're not doing on rinse and repeat. And how we build those into our plan gets to look a little bit different. Because we don't know what those one-off ones are. But then if we learn how to create really

efficient routines, how we start building those into our plan starts to become much easier. Oh, this is so good. Okay, I'm going to go to your website and buy all your things. I'm feeling inspired. Please let my listeners know where they can follow you and where you recommend on your website, maybe that they start? What do you recommend that they do? I think a great place to start is actually to go download my app in the app store. So it's in the app store and Google Play. It's a free app and it's called the Pink Bee, all one word, you don't even put spaces in there.

Because when you download it, you'll need to put in like an email. And I have two free mini courses just in there in the app to start to introduce you to what is the full time management framework. And I always send people there. because I'm like, it gives you a chance to see how I teach, right? Because I'm always, I know I'm wary on investing on learning something unless I've kind of seen someone's teaching style a little bit. So it's really, number one, you're going to learn a lot of great stuff you can implement. But then you're going to make sure that how I teach resonates with how you learn. So I

highly recommend go grabbing the Pink Bee app. And then, again, you can come to my website. Just go to the PinkB.com. I've got information about the signature program there. and, you know, come hang out with me on the Instagram as well. I love it. I'm going to put links to all of that and more in the show notes of this podcast. So make sure you check that out. Thank you so much for joining. I'm literally, right now, I just want to like run and buy a bunch of colored markers and try a planner again.

I mean, you know, you can inspire me to try again. If you're getting the colored markers, I get no kickbacks for this. I just love these so much. Go get. you can get them on Amazon. It's the brand friction, F-R-I-X-I-O-N, but you need to get the felt-tip fine liners. They come in a pack of 12 felt-tip different colored pens because they erase beautifully. You stop your face.

I know. Am I right? I do everything in pencil because I was a math major. I like to erase, but I need color on my calendar. And so these allow me to create my color scheme because they're fully erasable. And you can just get them delivered from Amazon right to your desktop. Okay. I'm excited.

Right to your house, not your desktop. You know what I'm going to. This is good. This is good. you are just looking at it differently. I love the like the bottom up thought when it comes to productivity because I am living in a constant state of yeah, yeah, with my daily planning. And I'm going to stop teaching people to do that. Thank you. Thank you, Megan. Thank you so much. It has been my pleasure. Incredible day. We'll see you soon. I want to take a second to thank

Caraway for sponsoring today's podcast. I switched to Carraway cookware and there is no going back. My old pots and pans used to be those teflon coated and they were scratched. And then I read a study that shows that even a small micro-scratch releases so many toxins and microplastics into the food. And that was it. Enough is enough. I switched to careway and not only are they non-toxic, but they're also like beautiful, heavy-duty grown-up cookware. And I feel like it's luxury every time I'm making dinner. Did you know that over 70% of cooking and baking pans sold in America are coated with PTFE? And it only takes two and a half minutes for this to overheat and release a ton of toxins into your food.

And I knew microwaving plastic also released a lot of toxins. But what I didn't know is that in just three minutes in the microwave, it can release over four, million microplastic particles. If you've been thinking of upgrading your cookware, now is the perfect time to give Caraway non-toxic cooking a try. Their 12-piece cookware set, which is like internet famous, right now, you can enjoy fast, free shipping, easy returns, and it's risk-free. You can try it for 30 days, and if you don't love it, absolutely get a full refund. Plus, if you visit carewayhome.com slash clutterbug, you'll get an additional 10% off. This deal is exclusive just for my listeners. So again, go to caraway.com slash clutterbug or use the code clutterbug at checkout to save an

additional 10%. Now it's time for the Talk to Cass segment where you are part of the podcast by recording a question or a comment and I get to listen. I haven't heard this before. It's my first time. so let's hear from Cindy. Hi, Cass. This is Cindy. I'm one of your members. I just watched the Jessica McCabe segment, and you officially made me cry, and I'm not a crier.

I just get it. I'm 74 years old. I have just been, I guess officially diagnosed with ADHD. I have been watching you for maybe, I don't know, four or five months. I just want you to know that I really feel like you've changed my life. And I'm doing so well. I think I'm in the messy middle, which is really kind of a horrible place to be

because I know I'm going to get there. but I'm not there and there's so much to do. About five years ago, we downsized from a very large, beautiful house to a log cabin. And we had so much stuff and so much beautiful stuff that it was really hard for me to get rid of. And so we had three storage units that we were renting. We finally got rid of that and rented a shed, which of course I had to end up buying because I knew I was never going to get it empty. And this through watching the things you've done, I've been able to, you know, I've had to spend some money, but I've, I kind of know what to do.

I'm, you know, it's very hard to get rid of everything, but I've gone through and gotten rid of a lot. We've taken about four truckloads to St. Vincent's DePaul, where they give things away. we've donated everything. I am a potter. My studio is a mess, but that's going to have to come later because I have to be able to live. It's just gotten to the point where I cannot live like this anymore. I'm embarrassed to have anybody come over. I've always stuffed things. I didn't get rid of. And so I've been able to purge an outstanding amount of things. So much more has to go. but I, you know, I think I'm going to have to make like second, third passes. I also sew.

I make a product for dogs. I have so much fabric and I've already donated a lot. But I probably have, well, I know I have at least 12 to 15 bins of chiffon. I've got bins of cotton, really good stuff. It's like if I had to purchase that over again, I wouldn't be able to afford it. So I've given myself six months. And if I don't go through at least X amount of bins, I'm just picking up the bin and taking it to somebody who really could use it.

And it's things right now look messier in a way than when I started, even though they're not, because the decision has been to, I am not going to put it away. and less it's either going or it's staying and it's getting to its spot. So I really just wanted to let you know how much you have helped. And how I love your transparency and honesty, because it's not like you have to tell everything, but you make it so real for me. And it's not like anything is ever going to be perfect.

but it sure is shit better than it was. I love you. Oh my gosh, Cindy, thank you. I love that message so much. And I'm proud of you. You got rid of your storage lockers, which was, I feel like that's, oh, that is huge. I hope you're proud of yourself because I am proud of you. And I feel you on the messy middle. So I do want to give you a little bit of advice, Cindy, here. I would love you to focus on. on one room and get it feeling beautiful. I want you to have a win in this messy middle. And I think a really good place to focus is your living area or where you're going to like sit and relax at the end of the day. And you nailed it when you said, I'm not just going to take stuff and shove it.

This is called stuff shuffling. So your living room has stacks of something and you're like, well, it has to go somewhere, Cass. And then you just pick it up from that room and make another room worse. So if there are things in your living room that have to go somewhere else, this is where the ruthless comes in. You're going to, I want to keep this bin of fabric. It's in the living room. Where would you look for it in the craft room? Take it there immediately. There's going to be no room in there, friend. Trade it for one thing that can go. So remove one thing that can go. Put it, it doesn't have to be perfect. We're not organizing. We are putting it in a good enough spot. and moving on. And I think, Cindy, in one weekend, you could beautify your living room.

Maybe even treat yourself to a plant, some throw pillows, get some flowers. You do, you, boo. But I want you to not be embarrassed. I want you to be able to have someone over and, like, direct them directly to the living room and sit and enjoy your hard work. Because you deserve it. You've done so much. Now it's time to really treat yourself to a space that. that feels done. Okay, now we have a question from Carolyn. Hi, Cass. This is Carolyn. I'm 67 years old, and I believe I have a little OCD,

but my craft room is a disaster. I have too much for the space that I have, and I was raised in, you keep everything because you may be able to use it someday environment. And then we got kittens and they won't leave my craft room alone. So I keep the door closed with it blocked so that they can't paw their way in. And so that means I just open it a little ways and just end up throwing stuff in on the floor. And now you can't even walk into the room.

And I'm just, I'm overwhelmed. I don't know where to start. I want it to be usable because I'm retired now. So I need help. Carolyn, this is so tough, but I'm so glad that you recorded this because I have some advice for you. You said you were a little OCD. There's probably some perfectionist going on in there. So rules will be extremely helpful for you.

Because when you have a rule, it's like a roadmap to success. It's like a treasure map that you can just follow along. And so what I would love you to do is grab a piece of paper and write down the crafts you like doing. Start with your favorite. So you like scrapbooking or quilting or painting. There's going to be a lot. You're probably going to be like, I also could do this and I could do pottery and I could blah, blah, blah. And think about the craft supplies that are in the room and incorporate those two.

and then circle your top ones, the ones that are like, yes, I wish I had more time for this. Then look at the list and think, I actually don't love that as much. It's a least favorite. Pick one and then say, I'm willing to let go of all the supplies for this, one thing. So I'm probably never going to do jewelry making. So I'm going to hunt for all the jewelry making supplies. That way when you do cram that door open and you've got to push the stuff out of the way, you're not looking at everything and thinking, oh my gosh, what am I even looking for to go? What everything feels special?

You have a plan. You have a roadmap and you are searching and hunting for specific categories of things to leave. This will make it feel a lot easier. Don't worry about organizing or making piles or sorting. Just hunt for things within those categories and put it. put them in bags and boxes and leave the room. Set a timer for 15 minutes and come back the next day and do it again. It's like peeling an onion. There's different layers. But this is the perfect way to start is your least favorite having a plan and just hunting for those things that you can share

with other crafters. Now let's hear from Violet. Hi, Cass and the Clutterbug team. My name is Violet. I'm 25 years old and I'm from Providence, Rhode Island. I would say that I didn't really declutter ever in my entire life leading up to my Nana's passing in 2023. So growing up, it was always a problem of my dad, who I love very dearly, would say, oh, you don't need less stuff. You don't need to get rid of stuff. You just need more shelves. You just need more storage containers. and he's a big collector, and I think he just wanted me to feel like I could be safe to collect things that I love and surround myself with things that I love. But what it has led to is a lot of friction in my life, as you say. And I'm just kind of constantly reminded of all the stuff

that I have. So getting rid of it and clearing things out has been a real gift to me. When it came to my nana's house. She passed 22-8-3. I started cleaning out her house. She was a teacher, so there was lots of identity clutter, 30 years' worth of her student's artwork. And so kind of reckoning with her stuff definitely made me self-assessed. And that's when I listened to Clutterbook. I ended up on this perhaps Amish. I don't know if she was Amish. I don't know how I was on this part of YouTube. But she was like, oh, I listened to Clutterbug. I was like, who's Clutterbug? So, and I think that I was just looking, just watching YouTube videos about Homemakers. I'm like, I'm not a homemaker, homestead, or anything like that. But obviously, they have incredible tips and

know how to run their stuff. So I went, okay, like, let me list of clutterbug. And oh my gosh, that first episode, Cassie were saying that you brought a car's worth of stuff to the dump and also to a donation center and that you do that frequently. And my mind was blown. You know, I think about all the stuff that I bring in that I was bringing in from marshals and T.J. Max, home goods, savers, goodwill, Salvation Army, because I am a lover of stuff. Stuff makes me happy when I buy it. But I think on the podcast you mentioned there was an experiment with rats, like they're happiest when they're just about to get the treat. And then they get the treat. And they're like, oh, okay, you know, and then their happiness goes right back down. So recognizing that and realizing that

my nana's house didn't, it just, it didn't happen overnight. It took a whole lifetime to get that bad. It made me, yeah, reassess and rethink how I viewed stuff and how memories are more important and I love having, you know, my photo, my photo album, things of that nature. But I have definitely paired down and discovered new tricks and learned new tricks and kind of taught myself, like, it's okay to have, it's okay to have stuff, it's okay to have stuff, but the friction was overwhelming my whole life. I hope you have a great rest of your day and I'm going to go back and listen to more clutterbug. Have a good day. Thank you.

Violet. I love that. I love it because 25 is like such a good age to get it. And you have so much self-awareness. Like just hearing you talk, you just have self-awareness and you know about identity cluttered. You've got all this knowledge that I wish I had at 25 because it does make your life easier when you understand that too much stuff. is a burden to the life you want to live. It is a roadblock to the life you want to live. So you've learned this so young and I'm just really happy for you. I also was never taught to let go. We just shove the extra stuff in the attic and in the garage. And then, you know, it went moldy and went bad. And what a burden. What a burden when we move. And I'm so glad that I'm not going

to burden my future self or my kids. Something happened to me and you have learned that lesson very young. So congratulations, Violet, you're amazing. And I also love homesteader content. I think we should all have a giant garden. Maybe not milking cows like they do. We don't have to go full chicken, but let's plant some tomatoes, friends, because there's something pretty magical about it. If you are still not sure of your clutterbug style, there's a question that I like to ask that can help make it maybe a little bit easier for you. I use this one diagnosing, clients. And basically it does come down to time. So it's good. We're talking about time management and productivity. So let's bring this in. When you go to put something away, would you rather take a few

minutes to put it away so that you can find it fast? So take a few minutes to sort it or open a lid, put it in its own little compartment so you can find it fast. Or would you rather put it away really fast and you don't mind taking some time to find it later. What I mean by this is you've got, let's, I love using this as an analogy, you have an aspirin, you had a headache. Would you rather take a second and put that back in the pain reliever container so that next time you have a headache, you go right to the pain reliever and it's there? Or do you need to put it away fast? Just chuck it in the medicine bin and the next time you have a headache, you don't mind going in the medicine bin and digging around until you find the aspirin. This is the difference between that detailed and that non-detailed

brain or the micro and the macro organizing system. And neither is better. Honestly, people say, I want both. Sorry, babes. Can't have it both ways. Neither is better. It's just what works best for you. For me, I never think when I put things away. My brain has moved on, but I don't mind taking a few minutes to find what I need. For an ADHDer, this is probably where you're going to be because we're hyper-focused on the thing we're looking for, and we're over it when we're done using it. Knowing the difference, knowing yourself, is really helpful when setting up the right organizing system in your home. Now it's time for MythBusters.

We don't have a jingle. I'm not going to make one up. But imagine in the future, MythBusters Jingle, one of the biggest myths that over and over again, honestly, this is why people aren't decluttering is that decluttering is a project. That's the myth. That decluttering is something you have to schedule on a weekend or maybe even a whole week and you have to trash your entire house and you're basically Marie condoing. What?

I mean, it was a great book and it inspired a lot of people to let go. but the idea of pulling every single thing out of your closet and making a pile is boncadogs. Because the truth is decluttering isn't a project. It's a way of life. Just like you vacuum your floor on a regular basis or you wash your dishes. Decluttering should be a regular constant practice, not a project. So if you are pulling out a shirt and you're like, actually, I don't love this shirt, doesn't look good on me. We don't put it back on the hanger or throw it in the dirty hamper.

It just leaves. It's just going. And I regularly do like a 21 item toss or trash bag therapy. Decluttering is part of my weekly chore. And it should be part of yours too. We're not making piles. We're not pulling things out. We're just identifying things we don't use.

we don't love and that don't serve us, period. Not a big deal. And when we stop turning it into a big deal, it actually is doable. This is how I see it. You're still probably going to do that big yearly or every five years huge declutter where you're getting rid of a ton of stuff. That's kind of like the deep clean spring clean that you do, right? It needs to be done.

It is important. but you're not only going to do your dishes one time a year during spring cleaning. You're not going to like never wipe a spill and then only do it during spring cleaning. It is both. You can have both and you should have both. You should have that big deep down declutter once a year to kind of get out the cobwebs and reset your home. But you should also do decluttering on a regular basis for the small things to keep up. because it's a whole lot easier to keep up than it is to catch up. And those big deep down are the catch-ups, but we still got to keep up too. Thank you so much for joining.

I hope you're feeling super proud of whatever you got done today. And I hope you learned something. Talking to Megan really blew my mind because as much as I consume constant, like, productivity, and this is how to make your to-do list optimal, I realized I was kind of doing it wrong. I wasn't looking at my time in the same way I look at money, realizing like I only have so much and I have to budget it throughout the week, not just try to cram in as much as possible in my daily to do.

I need to spread it out evenly, like icing a cake, you know what I'm saying? So that I actually have breathing room so that I actually have breathing room so that I actually have a little extra left over so that I budget that emergency fund of time. When things do happen, I'm not left just like overwhelmed and not getting stuff done. So that was really fascinating to stop looking at each day and start looking at each week. And I got myself a planner. I got myself erasable markers. I'm in it to win it. It's taking time. It's taking time. It's a full adjustment but friends if you're watching the video look at me go i'm color coordinating and mapping things out and i'm leaving i'm purposely adding i shouldn't say leaving i'm not leaving room i'm adding i'm adding in

room for relaxation for down times and for those unexpected emergencies and that is something i've never done before thank you so much again, if you want to be featured on the podcast and you want to record a message or let me know about some old dinosaur, you decluttered, or you just have a question. Go to clutterbug.com slash talk to cast and record something and you might be featured on the podcast. And tomorrow, this is super exciting. I'm doing kind of a behind-the-scenes more explainy type video with that Jessica McCabe. how to ADHD makeover that I did. So many of you loved that video and I loved reading all your comments and the biggest takeaway I learned was I didn't really explain the how and the why and showing you how you can do the same zoning in your house. So if you want to see the nuts and

the bolts behind the scenes how to do it in your home too, check out that YouTube video on Clutterbug. It's coming out tomorrow. Thank you again, my friends. And I'll see you guys next time.