If you have a partner, getting them onboard with a time management approach can be tricky. Let’s dig into some tips on how to do it.
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Full Transcript
Ep 64. Getting Your Partner’s Buy-In For Time-Management System
[Upbeat Intro Music]
Kelly Nolan: Welcome to The Bright Method Podcast where we’ll discuss practical time management strategies designed for the professional working woman. I’m Kelly Nolan, a former patent litigator who now works with women to set up The Bright Method in their lives. The Bright Method is a realistic time management system that helps you manage it all, personally and professionally. Let’s get you falling asleep proud of what you got done today and calm about what’s on tap tomorrow. All right, let’s dig in!
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Kelly Nolan: Hey, hey! All right, so today what we’re here to talk about is if you have a partner, how do you get them to buy into a system on the time-management front or buy in enough that gets you where you want to go.
Now, just to clarify, this is not an issue for everyone, so I don’t want to over complicate anything for those who don’t need it. For some people, maybe this isn’t even a pain point for you, or for some of my clients, they just learn The Bright Method and then they kind of give their partners the bare-bone introduction to it and then it’s fine, they can be off and running. It might take some time, just to be clear. I think with any time management system that you’re really looking to adopt long term, it can take a couple months, two, three, four, even six months to get really comfortable with it, including your partner. And so, that’s fair too. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a fast solution for it to be a successful solution. But for others, it is more of a struggle. And so, I want to talk about that today.
If you are struggling to get your partner onboard with whatever time management system you use, I want to talk about some ways you can go about it to hopefully get their genuine buy-in and help them understand where it’s coming from in a bit of a better way. And these are just things that I’ve seen work for people that I hope can add value to you if you’re in that position because I know a lot of you are.
I actually did kind of like a poll on Instagram where people could let me know what they wanted me to talk about on the podcast and there as well, and it came up a few times. One of the questions was, “How do I get my husband to look at the family calendar?” Another one was how to get buy-in from your partner on calendar/time management, especially after new baby. And I just want to address this in a way that I think we can kind of put the other partner down a lot for this, but I just want to take a step back and say that often we start dating and life’s a lot less complicated. [Laughs] So you kind of maybe have your own independent ways that you manage your time, it works fine, and then life gets more complicated, whether it’s a new baby or a house or who knows what, life just gets more complicated, and as with anything on the time-management front, things that used to work for you might no longer work anymore. And so, you might have realized this before your partner, and you’re just realizing, “We need a better system,” or “This isn’t working,” or “The system is that I do everything,” and that’s why it’s working for you, and you might start building up resentment and things like that.
And so, I want to talk today more about how do we address that in a really hopefully constructive way that gets you where you want to go and helps break you of patterns that might have been established in a relationship up until this point in a different way so that you can have a more equitable sharing of information and workload to the extent that you want to.
So what I’m gonna do is go though some strategies that I think can help anyone, and then I’m also going to address, after those strategies, kind of if there’s a real disconnect between the two of you as partners in that you feel like you’re on completely separate pages of they think they’re doing the bulk of the work, you think you’re doing the bulk of the work and how to address that.
Six Strategies to Having This Conversation With Your Partner – 3:44
So just know that I’m gonna first kick this off with about, I think it’s like six strategies, kind of almost steps that you can go through to have this conversation with your partner. Then we’ll also address that kind of larger issue that will be part of those steps if that makes sense. So I’m first going to go through I think about six steps of how you can think about this conversation with your partner, and then I’m gonna talk more about what to do if you’re having that total disconnect, and that’s gonna kind of be part of those six steps but I just kind of want to talk about it a little bit more if you’re having that real disconnect going on.
#1: Have The Conversation with Your Partner in a Constructive Way – 4:18
So the first thing I would encourage you to do is have a conversation, like a real, sit-down conversation with your partner in a proactive, intentional way. I think often we deal with this type of stuff in the moment and we’re in that reactive mode.
So some disconnect comes up, like miscommunication about something, or they’re asking you what needs to be done, or they’re asking you for the third time what’s happening this weekend, and you feel that kind of explosion of anger, and so, you have a lot of these types of conversations of like, “Hey, I need you to be onboard with this system” or “I need you to be carrying more of the load here,” in a place where you’re in more of that reactive, potentially angry mode, or at least that’s where I come from sometimes. Where instead, if we get more intentional about thinking to ourselves, “I want to have this sit-down conversation with my partner and really explain to them where I’m coming from, what the goal is, get their buy-in, brainstorm with them,” make it more of a collaborative process together, then I can think about, “What do I want to say? How can I keep my cool? I can think about what I want to say,” and things like that, in a much more constructive way.
#2: Approach The Conversation From a Place of Curiosity – 5:26
So if you’re open to that, how I would kick off that conversation is more from a place of curiosity. It’s like how do you manage your time? Where are you keeping track of when I tell you to pick up a kid or when I say, “Can you walk the dog?” or when I say, “Can you do this thing around the house?” Where do you tend to manage your time? And it doesn’t have to be just on the personal side. I would really also ask about at work. Like, “If someone asks you to do something at work, how are you keeping track of that?”
Sometimes we just don’t talk about these conversations, and it’s somewhat interesting. I mean, I know I’m nerdy on this and I love to talk about it, but I find it really interesting to talk to people about where are you managing all of this stuff and give examples of the types of things you’re talking about like how do you know what you need at the grocery store or when you’re going grocery shopping. How do you know at work — it depends on what the person does, but if someone’s asked you to do this or you know you have to do this or you get this assignment in email, but you know it’s gonna take you a couple hours, how are you keeping track of all of that?
The benefit here is, then, you can say — oh, and just before I keep going, social activities too. So if you plan on doing something with your friend, to play some sort of sport or go somewhere, how you keep track of that.
#3: Learn What’s Working and Build on That – 6:44
Because then I would also delve into what’s working and what maybe doesn’t. I know oftentimes we don’t even, ourselves, sit down and think about this, so they might even have moments where they’re like, “You know, that didn’t really work that well though, but this thing works really well for me.” And what’s interesting about that is, one, again it’s just interesting but also we can build on what works for them and avoid what doesn’t. Because I do genuinely believe that time management is very personal, and so, what you might want to do to get your family all in one spot might really not work as well for that partner or at least not work fresh out of the box. Whatever you come up with might not work exactly for them but if we get creative and understand what works for them, then we can tinker with that a bit.
So I think that’s a really good first place to start in that conversation is have this proactive conversation, start with curiosity, learn about what they’re doing, what works for them, and then what is working (what they’re doing, what works well) and how you might be able to build on that. You don’t have to decide that necessarily in that moment but having that data as you continue in the conversation can be really helpful just to keep that stuff in mind.
#4: Set A Goal with Your Partner – 7:55
Next, I would also really think about kind of just setting a goal. I know that sounds really weird when you’re sitting there with your partner. What are you trying to accomplish with this time management system that you would like to move forward with? You don’t even have to establish this system in that moment, but what’s your purpose of even having this time management setup with them, whatever it might end up being. Is it to have a more equitable sharing of the load? Is it to have the home run more smoothly? Is it to decrease the stress for everybody? Is it to up the communication? It can be some of those things, all of those things, but I think it’s really helpful for you to get clear on, and some of this you might have to think about before the conversation. What are your goals with this? And can you get their buy-in for those goals? And I would, again, start with curiosity. You know, “These are some of the issues that I’m noticing. I’d really like to have a time management system. What would you want to see out of that?”
#5: Address Bringing You and Your Partner’s Two Independent Systems Together – 8:57
I think I would also be ready to address the issue, if it’s relevant to you, that you feel like you have become kind of the default quarterback of the family, secretary of the family, whatever resonates with you. I would be ready to explain that to a degree in a more calm way and in more of a productive way of not rehashing history but more saying that’s something you’d like to avoid going forward.
So, you know, explaining and having empathy towards, “Hey, when we first started dating, I totally get this system, the way we’re operating right now, really worked because life was less complicated. We didn’t have X, Y, Z that’s causing a lot more complication in our life. But now that we’re at this stage in our life, I just think this system isn’t working as well. Our two independent systems aren’t working as well, and I think to some extent we need to bring our systems together, maybe not necessarily operate out of the same system, but have some sort of coming together and bridging of our systems so that they work really well.”
And I know that probably sounded really confusing. I’m gonna kind of do a sidebar here and say that some of my clients can get their partners fully on The Bright Method. And again I’m using The Bright Method just because that’s what I teach. If it’s your own system, substitute that in. Some people can get their partners fully immersed in that. But for some partners, that’s not the way they want to manage their time.
And so, what you could do instead is let’s say your partner only uses Outlook at work and doesn’t want you sending a lot of calendar invites there, or they use a paper planner and they’re not interested in going digital. In those scenarios, you might have to accept that to a degree but then work with it. So you would have maybe like a weekly meeting and then maybe even a mid-week meeting where you touch base about the logistics coming up and make sure that you’re on the same page so that it works well. It’s not ideal. I get that. But we’re all about embracing reality, and so, if that’s where your partner is then you really want to work with them to meet them on that front.
I also will say that if you’re insisting on holding two meetings a week on this and they start seeing the amount of load that you’re carrying, over time there might be more understanding of why you might need a more shared live communication-type system, like a digital calendar can provide. But I’m a little bit like going off in too many different directions, so I’m gonna bring myself back in.
To bring us back is saying really kind of setting the goal for what you and your partner are looking for out of whatever time management system you have. Even if you end up with just a weekly meeting where you each manage your own systems and just both are looking at them and analyzing them together and talking about them, even if that’s the only way you bridge it together, then you have improved your communication. That is a time to share the load more equitably and things like that.
So I think that really getting clear on what you’re looking for out of this can be really beneficial both from a buy-in perspective of your partner and also from a using your creativity to get where you want to go even if it’s not exactly the ideal way you’d want to get there.
#6: Ask What They’re Open To and Find Solutions – 12:09
So one you’ve kind of gotten clear on what you’re looking for is really starting the conversation with, “What are they open to?” This is where I think you could start it with what, “Would your idea be,” if you want, or you could go at it more from a, “This is what I would propose. What do you think about this? I know it can be a little weird at first. Would you be open to trying it out for a month and seeing how it goes? What are your initial reactions to it? Maybe we could do some modifications to help you with that,” things along those lines.
Again, you can also always change, right? So if you make modifications in the beginning, then over time they might start seeing the value of something you were trying to do and you can eventually get there but this is a long process that evolves, and we all shift and change and life will shift and change. And so, just starting the conversation and the process will be really beneficial.
And as I said, as the conversation goes, just keep an open mind to the different options. If they don’t get onboard exactly with the system that you want to move forward with, if they don’t get there, which is probably pretty likely, what are they open to? Are they open to referencing this calendar? Are they open to, again, that weekly meeting? If you have a very fast-paced life, if their career and your career are very fast-paced and changes a lot, you might need that Tuesday night meeting in addition to, let’s say, a Saturday morning meeting. You’re gonna have to play with this, but hopefully you will get a little bit closer to where you want to go than where you were before.
Again — this is a separate step, but I’ve kind of already talked about it — really understand that this is an experiment and that it will evolve. You’re really just looking for a first draft to buy in and play with it and know that it will evolve. So don’t feel too — and I say this probably more to myself. Don’t feel too precious or constricted if you’re not precious about what you want or constricted if you’re not getting exactly what you want because it can still evolve over time into getting there and you might find out that actually what you thought you wanted you don’t actually need. And so, just keep an open mind to it and know that this is like a first iteration and that you can re-evaluate.
And that’s something that you can consider putting out there is, “Let’s just try this in earnest for a solid two months,” whatever you think is doable. You guys can also decide on that timeline together. And you know me, I would calendar it. But until then, you don’t move from it unless it’s like a really clear beneficial thing. But really try it out in earnest for let’s say those four weeks, six weeks, whatever it is. And just keep an Apple notes app on your phone of what you like and what you don’t like about it but keep going with it. And what’s really important is, then, one, you’re giving it a fair shake because, again, some of this stuff takes a while to get used to. So give yourself the time to try it out, and something that feels really clunky for three days might actually be like, “Oh, now I see the benefit of it,” on day eight.
So you really just want to give it a full shake together and try it out together. But keep notes of what you like and what you don’t like, and both of you, because I find, at least with me working with clients, that’s something I’ve started to really insist on with clients. If someone’s like, “I don’t like it,” then I’m like, “That is totally fair but why? I need to know what you liked and what you didn’t.” And if they’re not sure then I’m like, “Can you keep doing it for a couple more days and then come back and tell me,” because then we can tinker with it, then we know what you like, what you didn’t, and things like that, and it’s far more productive then let’s throw it all out and try something else because it might just require a couple tweaks, and that can really allow you to get where you want to go without starting from scratch all over again with a system then when you really didn’t need to. Okay?
So just to reiterate where we are so far is I really think if you are struggling to get a partner onboard with a time management setup that you would like, I encourage you to think about having a proactive conversation, not doing it in reactive mode, really sitting down and really having this time to talk with each other and collaborate together on finding a solution that you can at least start off with. It’s an experimental solution, and it’ll change and probably won’t be where you end up but somewhere to get the ball rolling.
Start with curiosity. Ask where they manage their time and their tasks, both at work and in their personal life and in their social life. Like where do they put that stuff? How do they make sure they get it? What works well for them? What doesn’t? You’ll learn a lot about your partner when you do that, and that’s kind of fun in a nerdy way.
I really like setting a goal to understand why you’re doing this, and have that be, again, a conversation not just like you stating the laundry list of what you’re looking for but really having a conversation of, “You know it would be really nice if we had better communication. It’d be really nice if we didn’t overbook ourselves on the weekend.” Anything like that that speaks to you guys, it’s just really nice to get that clarity of what you’re both looking for. I would have the workload around the house be part of that conversation so that you can talk about equitable distribution of labor, whatever that looks like.
I just want to be really clear. I’m not pointing out even distribution of labor. I find that can be tricky. If you both work very similar jobs, then yes, I would hope that the workload at home would be more even but for couples, like the relationship I’m in, that doesn’t really work. My husband’s gone so much that we can’t have — you know, I know that fair play method is really awesome if you can divvy out cards and someone owns the card entirely, but that just doesn’t work in my family, and I know for a lot of people I talk to it also doesn’t work for them because of their partner’s jobs or their jobs. And so, that equitable element can be really, really, important. So I just wanted to highlight that.
Once you’re on the same page of what you’re looking for, then just start talking about solutions to get there. If you want, you can propose what your solution is and just get their buy-in. Know that they might have a strong reaction to something, and if you keep explaining it and things like that, you either might get them to come over and at least try it or you’ll find a more middle-ground option they might be more open to.
As I said, know that it’s gonna be an experiment. What you start with is not probably where you’ll end up. Also, as you both go through it and again set up some sort of, “We’re gonna try this before we make any call about it,” or “We’ll try it for six weeks or eight weeks,” or whatever it is, “And we’re gonna keep track of what we like and don’t like about it.” I don’t want to micromanage and I don’t think any of us should micromanage where that happens, but I personally would set up an Apple note and just start dumping ideas in there as they came to me. All right? So I hope that that’s helpful for most people.
How We Get The Person Who Sees The Pond to See The Ocean – 19:09
I did want to talk about, because it’s related, if particularly when you’re talking about that kind of goal of what is the goal of the time-management system we want, and it becomes clear there’s a big disconnect in who’s doing what at home or there’s a disagreement over who’s doing more and there’s a lot of — you know, and it happens. Relationships are hard. There’s a lot of historical baggage that comes into this conversation. And so, there might be a lot of weirdly big feelings and stuff that surfaces during this conversation.
And so, I wanted to address this because it’s important! It does come up, and I actually wrote an article about this in 2022 that I’ll link to in the show notes, and it’s called How to Get Your Partner’s Help at Home: Help Them See the Ocean. And I’m gonna talk about it here as well, so you’re basically gonna hear me talk about the article. So you’re gonna go to the article and be like, “She just basically gave the synopsis of this on the podcast.” But if you want to visit it you can.
But where this comes from is Eve Rodsky of Fair Play was on a podcast. I still have not read Fair Play, but I do like her stuff when I listen to her on podcasts and things like that. And she talked about how there had been a survey of heterosexual couples that showed that women believed that they are doing the majority of work at home and those same surveys showed that the men in the same relationships think they are doing the majority of the housework. And so, obviously if those two people sit down to a conversation to talk about how to manage everything on the plate, there might be a pretty big disconnect of where they’re coming from and what they think the goals need to be. And maybe I should say the goal might be the same of an even or equitable distribution of labor. But from there, what they think has to happen is very different if they both think they’re already doing more than their fair share of the work.
And Rodsky, on that podcast interview, explained generally speaking, and this is very general, that most men have no concept of all the actual work that goes into running a home. And put another way, what I think kind of helps me think about it is for some partners they genuinely think they’re doing the majority of the work at home, and that’s because they look out and let’s say they see a pond amount of work that needs to be done, and of that pond amount of work that they see, they’re doing 60% of it. Where, in reality, you (likely the person listening to this) understand that there is an ocean of work that needs to be done. And so, the 60% of the pond that they’re doing is just a drop in the bucket of the ocean of work that needs to be done, and you are doing a bulk of the ocean work. They just don’t know that that work exists. It’s invisible to them and not just in the invisible to-do’s that I talk about. They just don’t see it happening. And because they don’t see it, you obviously feel resentful because you’re doing a lot of the work, and they feel resentful because they genuinely don’t see it. And so, they think they are doing the bulk of the work.
And so, what I think is really interesting and what Rodsky is getting at is how do we get the person who sees the pond to see the ocean, and that’s where, for me at least in my experience, The Bright Method shines because, obviously, we talk a lot about making all of the invisible to-do’s visible and also putting it in a calendar so you can see how much time it takes up because, to me, a list of all the tasks does get at it. It is helpful to do that. But really understanding the frequency, the amount of time when these things need to happen, understanding just how much it can fragment up our days and take our mornings and evenings and all that kind of stuff can really be illuminating to a lot of people who don’t fully appreciate it in a genuine way.
I find that we can get a lot of fired-up anger about this, which in some cases is very justified, but often there is just a genuine disconnect in seeing some stuff. And so, by making it visual, by helping someone see not just a list format but the amount of time and effort and fragmentation in your life that these tasks require, you can then, one, see it yourself and make adjustments there, which is wonderful. But you can literally just show that to your partner and give them more of a glimpse into what your life looks like in a really, really valuable way, especially when we’re talking about divvying up the work.
I had a client once. We’d laid out all the personal stuff. She’d done all the work to set up her whole personal life in this visual format. And then we got to the point of the program where we’re talking about sharing the load and having conversations with partners and things like that, and she was like, “I just don’t really want to share my calendar with my partner because I don’t want to overwhelm them,” and I just think sometimes it’s good to overwhelm, whether it’s your partner at home or a boss at work, sometimes you need them to understand the objective issues at play here, that it’s just a massive workload problem going on, to help them understand why you need more support, why you need them to do more, why you might need to outsource more. Whatever the solution is here, you both need to be on the same page of what the issues are before you can find solutions. And so, that’s the real power of doing this, I find, is getting that clarity, getting you both on the same page so that then you can brainstorm together the solutions that can help.
So actually when I was writing this article, I did a crowdsource of what all the invisible tasks are at home, and so, just know that in that article that I’ll link to in the show notes there’s a long list of all the things that people do, and you can try and calendar them out and see how much it is and then can have a conversation about divvying up the load in the way that we were talking about earlier in this episode. It just might be really helpful to kind of lay it all out if you’re noticing that massive disconnect.
All right! So I hope that helps. I just know that there are I think like four or five smaller miscellaneous strategies that I list out in the article. So check that out if you would like to. It’s just about how to divvy up work. There’ll be a link to the article in the show notes if you want to check that out!
Enroll in The Bright Method Fall 2024 Program – 25:47
But I hope you got some good nuggets on today’s episode, something that you can run with, and know that if you are looking for a specific system to share the load with your partner, I definitely encourage you to check out The Bright Method. Obviously I’m biased, but it has done wonders in my life and in my relationship, so I have to share it! I also know that it’s helped a lot of clients, so I’ll just read a few things that clients have said.
One woman said: “My biggest win is getting my already very supportive husband to sit and review my calendar with me and realize where he could help watch our son more to give me more time. I feel like Kelly’s method equips him to be an even better partner,” and that’s from a woman who’s a physician and obviously a mom.
Another woman, actually another physician, said: “I’m so grateful. This has sincerely been life changing. I still just cannot believe how relaxed I am and still on top of everything. I forgot to mention, I got my husband onboard, and he has taken the lead on weekly planning sessions for our household/kid’s stuff, and it has also been a dream.”
And one final person said: “My husband and I are better partners to each other because we’re getting all the stuff that takes time out in the open and making a game plan for who does what and when.”
So if The Bright Method sounds like something that could really help you and your partner, know that enrollment for my fall of 2024 program is now open! If there are spots still available, you can go to my website (I’ll put the link in the notes) and check that out.
Also know that what’s kind of fun — I mean, it’s new so I don’t know how effective it is yet, but what I’ve done is set up a three-part video lesson series that your partner can watch as part of the program. So instead of you having to explain everything, there are now three video lessons that walk your partner through what is The Bright Method and how might you want to use it. It gives you a lot of space to still tinker with it as a couple and make it your own but, basically, it allows you not to have to be the one to explain what it is to your partner and have some videos that they can specifically watch.
All right, and if the program is not for you or if it’s full when you’re listening to this, check out my free program. It’ll help give you a taste of it, and you can join the waitlist for the next time if you would like to. Regardless, I hope that you heard some strategies here that will really help improve your relationship with your partner and share the load at home and up your communication and all that good stuff and thank you for being here!
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