Conquer the Clock

As the buzzing of my alarm rudely interrupts my dream featuring Ryan Reynolds my loving husband, I quietly groan, hit snooze, and roll back over.  My mind starts to run through the endless list of to-do’s for the day.  I am not even out of bed yet and I already feel overwhelmed!  It’s no wonder I snooze another 3 times, negotiating with myself about what I can give up for a few more precious moments.  I don’t need a shower today.  I don’t really even have to change out of PJ’s for school drop off right??  When I do finally get out of bed I am not really looking forward to the day.  Who wants to get up feeling like they are already behind schedule?  Can you guys relate to this?  This was a typical morning for me not too long ago and it was so frustrating and overwhelming.

How many of you feel like the moment you wake up that time is already against you?  We all have so many things going on each day that it can seem impossible to get it all done.  I definitely felt that way. I would wake up and immediately feel behind, not a great way to start the day.  So how do you take back control? How do you plan each day so that you not only get done what has to get done, but also have some time for yourself?  Here are 5 tips to conquer the clock and take control of your time so you can live your BESTie life each day.

 

1. Create a Motivating Morning Routine   

If you consider yourself a “night owl” and are about to skip this section, don’t!!!  A morning routine is so important, and it doesn’t mean you have to wake up hours before sunrise to start tackling your to-do list.  If you already have a morning routine that works, or you think you do, I challenge you to evaluate it and make sure it’s setting you up for success each day!

My weekday morning routine used to consist of getting up about 20 minutes before my son to do the basics and to get his lunch ready.  Then I would wake him up and from there it was pretty much a chaotic whirlwind of breakfast, getting dressed, trying to gather up everything he needed, about a thousand “Hurry Up’s” (and maybe some under the breath cursing) and then we would rush out the door to school.  Every morning felt like a mad dash and it was stressful and frustrating.   I would go through phases of getting up really early and working out or doing work for my day job, but somehow as soon as my son woke up it felt like we were fighting the clock.

When I started getting coaching from Michael Sandler at InspireNationShow.com the first thing we focused on was my morning routine.  He opened my eyes to the importance of starting my day with time for myself.   He helped me build a morning routine, piece-by-piece, that really works for me.  Now I look forward to my morning routine because I know I am going to start each day on a positive note, which is seriously life changing.  I feel so much more relaxed in the mornings and ready for my day!

Morning routines don’t have to be the same every day and they don’t have to take up hours of time.  You might have the same basic 30 minute routine each morning, but you might get up earlier 3 times a week to work out or to dedicate time to a personal goal.  I have a much different morning routine on the weekends than during the week.  This keeps things fresh and helps avoid monotony and overwhelm.

Here are some great resources to help create a motivating morning routine.  Are you already crushing your morning routine or have some other great resources?   Please share ideas with your BESTies by commenting below.

           Motivating Morning Routine Resources:

• The Incremental Mama Blog    (FREE!)

Erin at the Incremental Mama is all about taking small steps to make big changes.  She has some great posts with simple morning routine tips.  She also has a fantastic 15-minute morning makeover challenge to help you get started. (need link)  These are great resources, especially for those of you that aren’t sure where to start!

            https://theincrementalmama.com/healthy-morning-routine/

            https://theincrementalmama.com/stress-free-morning-routine-with-kids/

            https://theincrementalmama.com/wake-up-early-tips/

 

• The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod  ($)                    

I just ordered this book and can’t wait to read this.  I have heard so many wonderful things about this book and I recently listened to a podcast with Hal and it was so good!

 

• Do It Scared Podcast by Ruth Soukup ( FREE!)

I recently listened to Ruth’s podcast with Hal Elrod, creator of the Miracle Morning and it was great!  It’s episode 24 of her Do It Scared podcast and I highly suggest listening.  His story is really inspiring and he is such a captivating speaker.

• The Magical Morning Routine for Busy Spiritual Seekers   ($)

This is a self-paced online course by Michael Sandler that is available for purchase.  I have been working through this course during my coaching with Michael and it’s great.

 

 

2. Assess and Refine your Daily Tasks

Ok, now that we have talked about the importance of your morning, it’s time to dig into the rest of your day.  When was the last time you took a good look at all the things you do each day?  When I wrote down my daily schedule with all my tasks each day it was a real eye-opener.  I found a lot of opportunities to be more efficient and take back some time!

Let’s get started by making a list of your daily tasks for a typical week, Monday through Sunday.   Make it as detailed as possible.  Even the most mundane, quick activities add up. This will take a little bit of time, but it’s so worth it!!  This is where you will identify tasks you can eliminate, delegate, condense or better prepare for.

          Repeating tasks

• Food/drink prep – Any food and drink prep you can do a few times a week is super helpful. It may not seem like much, but this stuff adds up!
  • I drink an apple cider vinegar concoction every morning, but I make it in batches twice a week now instead of every day.
  • I make overnight oats and omelet muffins a couple of times a week, so I have something healthy I can grab quickly in the mornings
  • My husband usually cooks a few chicken or turkey breasts on the weekends, so we have meat for the whole week. This makes dinner very easy.
• Laundry Schedule
  • We all know that laundry is a never-ending task. However, now that I have made a laundry schedule it feels so much more manageable! After taking a look at my son’s school and soccer schedule and the number of uniforms that I had, I figured out that I only need to do laundry twice a week!  I do laundry on Sundays and on Wednesday nights and I don’t worry about it the rest of the week.  Some of you may need to do laundry more often, but give it a go using a set schedule and see if this works for you!
• Clothing is NOT optional
  • We all have to wear some sort of clothing each day. Instead of scrambling each morning to find something to wear I started layout out my clothes each night and sometimes I lay out my clothes for the next few days.  For me this is pretty simple as I usually start off the day in workout clothes.  But even laying out my workout clothes and sneakers is helpful, so I don’t have to think about it in the morning.  I also have my son get his uniform laid out the night before, so we don’t have any issues in the morning with missing belts, socks, shorts etc. that tend to induce a morning panic.

Tasks that can be Delegated:

Take advantage of your local natural resources.  What I mean by this is your kids and/or partner.  Listen BESTies, the days of us trying to do it all and being the martyrs are over.  There are other people in your family perfectly capable of doing a lot of the tasks that you end up doing late at night, early in the morning etc.  that just add to the overwhelm.

Your kids can do more!  If you have kids, I highly suggest you use those little built in workers that you provide food and shelter for, to do more of the things.   My son can make his own lunch, he does it every weekend, but for some reason I was making his lunch each school morning without even thinking about it.   Guess who makes his own lunch every day now?  Bonus – this actually makes you a better mom because you are teaching your kids responsibility and how to be more self-sufficient.  Way to go mom of the year!  WIN-WIN.

Your partner can do more!   If you have a partner, significant other, husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, ball and chain, future ex, etc.….it’s ok to get their help.   I used to take a lot more on myself and when my husband would ask if he could help, my automatic answer was, “That’s ok, I’ve got it”.  I felt like I shouldn’t need to ask for help, even when it was being offered.   I have completely changed my mentality on this and I ask my husband to help me a lot more and I am much better at asking for and accepting help from others in general.  And let’s be real, I am a control freak in a lot of ways, so this is a big challenge for me. I had to come to terms with the fact that even though he doesn’t do everything exactly as I would have, that’s ok.

         Personal Tasks:

         Does your detailed task list include tasks to help you achieve your personal goals?  If not, make sure to add this in or at least start thinking about what your personal goals are!  We will build on this in #4!

         Time with Potential

         Is their time in your schedule that you can get more out of?  I found a few ways to get more value in my day by maximizing what I call “Time with Potential”.

• Do you spend a lot of time in your car? This is a great opportunity to listen to an inspiring podcast or an audio book.  We all know the same 20 songs that are rotating on the radio so mix it up and listen to something that will feed your mind and passion.  See links to my favorite podcasts in my Be Inspired section (add link)
• Practice or personal growth? My son has soccer practice twice a week for a total of about 3 hours. I used to spend that time watching practice, checking work emails and mindlessly scanning Pinterest and Instagram.  This is 3 hours a week I now schedule to get stuff done!  I usually use it to work on my blog, but sometimes I grab a glass of wine with girlfriends, get a pedicure or to get some exercise in with a walk around the soccer fields.  So instead of dreading practice nights, I look forward to it!

 

3. PLAN, PLAN, PLAN…… and PLAN SOME MORE!

Did I mention the need to plan??  I am a planner by nature, so I am always making lots of lists…like insane amounts of lists. However, I wasn’t doing a good job of maintaining, editing and reviewing my schedule and to-do lists consistently.  So even though I was making lists, they were extremely overwhelming and unrealistic.   They were also missing the most important part….an execution plan!

I started by getting an awesome planner!  Because, what is more inspiring than a brand new, shiny planner with blank pages full of possibilities?? I use Ruth Soukup’s Living Well Planner. (add link here)  I absolutely love this planner and Ruth provides a lot of great free resources on how to use the planner to get organized.   This planner has more than just a calendar.  It has sections for long term goal setting, monthly goal setting, meal planning and hour by hour daily planning.

It was pretty simple and fun to go through my planner and fill out the easy stuff like birthdays , soccer practices, vacations, holidays etc.  In the past this is about as far as I have gone with my planners and I think this is why they really weren’t that helpful.  In order to really take control of my schedule and my time I had to get into the nitty gritty details and I had to make sure to include my personal goals as well.

A few weeks ago I sat down and filled out the hour by hour daily detail pages for the next 4 weeks and I realized a few things.

• I have a lot of shit to do
• My time is very valuable
• I need to schedule time for my personal goals AND downtime or else they are the first things to be sacrificed

 I am a shiny object girl and should be awarded a black belt in the art of distracting my own self.   Getting to this level in my planning really helped me make better choices during my day and stay on task.  The best part about this was that it made me realize that if I followed my plan and stayed on track I could get the day to day “Must-Do’s” done AND achieve my personal goals.  Now that’s some motivation!

4. Overcome Over-commitment

Say NO!!!  Or at least consider it…..For some of us out there this will be really difficult, but if you have done steps 2 and 3 that will really help here.  A lot of us want to be able to do everything for everybody.  I am as guilty of this as anyone, I used to constantly overcommit myself to volunteering at school, hosting parties, taking on work projects, etc. and to be honest I sometimes still do.  In the moment it seems fine, I tell myself it won’t take that long, but at the end of the day it was taking time that I didn’t really have or that I had to pull from one of my personal goals.   I started doing 2 things that really helped.

• I replaced “Yes” with “This sounds great, let me check my schedule and get back to you”. This takes the pressure off trying to figure out in the moment if you can/should commit to whatever is being asked.  It is completely fair to respond in this way and the more you do this, the more of a habit it becomes.
• I started checking my detailed schedule in my planner before committing to anything. When I started doing this, I could see how little time I had to give away and I became much more intentional with offering up my time.  This has really helped me in my journey to overcome my over-commitment.

5. Create a Simple Nightly Routine

A nightly routine is almost as important as a morning routine!  The purpose of my nightly routine is pretty simple. I just want to go to bed relaxed, knowing I am ready for the next day.  I used to make lists on my phone as I was trying to go to sleep because I would lay in bed and start stressing about things I needed to do the next day and if I didn’t write it down, I could not fall asleep.  So even on nights that I would get in bed by a decent time, I sometimes wouldn’t even fall asleep for another hour or two!  Once I had my morning routine in place and a detailed schedule, I just needed a basic nightly routine to end my day with a positive vibe!

• Review tomorrow’s schedule
  • I always take a quick look at my schedule for the next day. This helps me feel prepared and helps me sleep better knowing I shouldn’t have any surpises.
• Beautification
  • I do my nightly beautification routine a lot earlier now than I used to! I know this sounds super fancy, but I am really just referring to washing to my face, showering when needed and brushing my teeth. This used to be the last thing I did as I was stumbling to bed, but by then I was so tired that I was always tempted to skip it.  Now I try and do this right after I finish dinner and it’s crazy how much better this works for me.
• Me Time
  • I try and take at least 15-30 minutes of me time before bed. This is time I schedule in my daily planner so I don’t forget.  I might use this time to read a book, watch a show, peruse pinterest, etc.
• Bedtime
  • I am working on getting to bed at a more consistent time each night and I am really trying to make sure I get 7+ hours of sleep each night which is not easy. This is still a work in progress for me.  When I do make this happen, my mornings are so much better!!!

 

We can take back control and conquer the clock. We can live each day with a plan and purpose without being overwhelmed and live our BESTie life!  I would love to hear what works for you so please share!  That’s what BESTies do!

XOXO Your BESTie,

Beth