Dig into actionable, realistic time management strategies designed for the professional working woman that mold to you.

White space ENCOURAGED.⠀
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When I recommend calendaring all of your activities, that does NOT mean “calendar every minute of your day.”⠀

On a to-do list, all tasks take up a short line. But some will take 5 minutes. Others 5 days. Some require your best energy. Others can be done when you’re tired. Some require an office to be open when you make the call. Others can be done late on a Sunday night. ⠀
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But you don’t know any of that looking at a to-do list. Instead, every single time you look at the list to decide what to do next, you have to do all those mental gymnastics in your head before you even start. ⠀
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This is why I love throwing tasks in your calendar. By tying a task to a date, time and window of time, you can schedule it for when your energy is best, when the office is open, break a big task down into smaller steps, and decide when to work on it with time before the deadline. ⠀

[heads up: lightbulb moment below]⠀
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Sometimes the “what do I prioritize?” question blurs with the “work-life balance” concept. You know — when the competing priorities vying for your time are work and family/fun. How do you prioritize/find the balance?⠀
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This next point made by @lvanderkam had me smiling and saying, “yessssss” out loud like the nerd I am as I drove and listened to her book on Audible.⠀

If I asked you to prioritize three things but didn’t tell you what steps each required or how much time they’d take – well, you’re already frustrated by the question, right? I am.

If you don’t have one place where you can see everything on your plate in a visual, clear way, that’s basically what you’re doing to yourself every day.⠀

“I feel like I have 10,000 things on my to-do list and when I finally turn to one of them, I can’t focus on it because I’m thinking about all other things I should do – like cook dinner.” – A woman during a recent initial chat with me.

This sums up a feeling a lot of us have and I hear echoed often by clients. The feeling of being stretched too thin, always “busy,” and often feeling ineffective because our thoughts are pulled in too many directions.

If you know this feeling all too well (and we’ve all had them), keep reading – I have some strategies I’d love you to try AND an exciting secret I want to share with you.

Hi lady-on-the-go,

A couple of days ago, while driving down the highway, I remembered I needed to call the vet in the morning (Olive’s on the mend now – don’t worry!). Obviously, in that moment, I couldn’t break out my Google Calendar app to calendar that call. But I also knew I’d forget to call if I didn’t put that task in a system right away.

So, I held down the button on my steering wheel that activates Siri and said, “Remind me tomorrow at 8:30am to call the vet about Olive’s paw.” Done. And, at 8:30am the next morning, I got the reminder, called the vet, got my pup in for a 10:30am appointment, and by 11:30am she was home and on the way to recovery.

Why am I sharing this? Because sometimes the things we need to remember to do flash through our minds when we’re driving, out with friends, or have our hands full of a project or child at home.

Now, you may be thinking, “Kelly. You talk time management. Not relationships. Stay in your lane.”

Yes and no. Here’s the thing: the only reason I care about time management is the impact it has on your life and happiness. I don’t want you to be productive for the sake of being more productive or so you can squeeze in even more work.

I want to help you manage your time so you can devote more of it to what’s important to you, which is often your relationships and, more specifically, the one you have with your partner.

So, how can I help make that relationship all the more awesome?

I once worked with a man who we’ll call Joe.

Before we met, during our pre-session phone calls, I could feel Joe’s anxiety about our work. In short: “What exactly are we going to do? I’ve tried getting organized digitally before, and here I still am. Is it even possible for me to feel in control of my time?”

Even I started getting a little nervous. If Joe had tried tons of methods before, would my system work? Was it possible for Joe?

At the start of our session, I was still a little nervous but just decided to focus on taking one step of my methodology at a time.

30 minutes later, I relaxed. I could see the lightbulbs going off in his head. Joe said, “man, this stuff seems so basic, but I just didn’t know to do it.” Because of this simplicity, Joe said he truly thought he could keep the system up to help him make time for what was important to him.

So, here’s something I struggle to motivate and make time for – working out. While I’ve never loved working out, I used to be really good at it – four to five times a week, I’d get out of bed before dawn to take a 5:30 am gym class for 45-60 minutes and then march off to work.

But after my daughter was born and enough time went by that my body felt up for working out again (a lot longer than six weeks later, btw…), I still didn’t do it. Why? Because I couldn’t do it like I used to. Working out five days a week for 45 minutes would require me to give up too much of my precious, now-limited time. I wanted that time to work or recharge. So – I didn’t work out. At all.

Do you know what I mean? For you, it may not be working out – it could be a fun hobby you used to love but can’t devote the same amount of time to as you used to, so you just don’t do it at all.