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When US society talks about time management, the conversation often assumes the goals of productivity and efficiency. Do more in less time. Move faster. Cram it all in. But here’s the truth I want to unpack today: I believe our real goal for time management (at least for people similar to me) is more peace of mind and clarity and less stress, and less stress isn’t always efficient — and that’s okay.
Today’s episode digs into:
- Why American productivity culture gets it wrong by idolizing efficiency as the key to getting the life you want.
- How to reframe your goal so that calm and breathing space (not constant speed) drive your decisions.
- Why creating margin in your day — even if it’s “inefficient” — leads to better quality work, more joy, and less burnout.
- Three practical strategies to help you implement this shift:
- Build in padding to your calendar (for commutes, deadlines, and transitions).
- Let go of commitments to make space for that padding.
- Ask grounding questions like “How do I want my life to feel?” and “What do I want the pace of my life to be?”
As I share in this episode, I still want to do a lot — from running a business to raising kids to having a full life outside of work. But the only way I can do it with any joy is by optimizing for less stress, not more efficiency.
If you’ve ever felt like productivity hacks left you running faster but enjoying less, this episode will give you a fresh, practical framework: optimize for breathing space, not efficiency.
Enrollment for the Bright Method program opens September 10 at 10:00 AM CST. With this 10-week system, you’ll learn how to bring these ideas into your own life using a realistic, calendar-based approach that accounts for everything — personal and professional. Learn more at kellynolan.com/bright.
Below is a transcript of the episode. Enjoy!
Other links you might enjoy:
✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you’re ready for a full time management system that’s realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It’s helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.
🌿 Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.
📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.
Full transcript:
Kelly Nolan: [00:00:00] 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.
Hey. Hey. All right, so today we’re gonna talk about just a funny thing that I think a lot of people probably get, but it’s one of those things I think is helpful to articulate, to help it be like a framework you can think through in your day-to-day life. And that is that less stress, like doing things in a less stressful way is not always the most efficient, and that is okay.
And I think that’s really important to think about. Just in relation to how American culture, at least a lot [00:01:00] of Western cultures tend to define productivity, efficiency, time management. It kind of conjures up all these min like images of efficiency and doing things faster and all that kind of stuff. And so I wanna talk about that today.
Because as I record this last week, I was driving my kids to school, dropped the youngest, was driving the oldest camp, and I just had this moment driving down the road that I was like kind of marveling in the low key way at the realization that despite being slow to get outta the house, having a lot of hiccups in that department that morning and hitting some bad traffic.
’cause we live in Minnesota and our seasons are winter in construction. We were actually okay time-wise for camp drop off. As I said, what I find interesting here is that building in the wiggle room for that morning drop off driving time block in my calendar, just building in the wiggle room for that is not necessarily the most time efficient approach.
If the mantra is she who spends the least amount of time in [00:02:00] the car wins, my approach is not a winning solution like winning approach here, but it is the most stress reducing. In a similar way, what I then thought about was the fact that I am one of those people who just likes getting to the airport early.
I like getting there at least an hour and a half before a flight if it’s just me and if I’m bringing kids and have to check bags, it’s at least two hours beforehand. And yes, there are times that we sit around in the airport because of that board, and also it often means we have to wake up earlier, which.
Honestly, the kids love it. They love getting up in the dark, and it’s like an exciting thing. But when it’s me, it’s not that exciting. But it does have these downsides. It’s not all perfect, but because I do that, because that’s my approach, I’m pretty stress free as I drive to the airport, as I park, as I move through security, as I fill up my water bottle, as I hit the restroom, as I grab a coffee and snacks, I can [00:03:00] wait in the line for that without.
Getting the ragey feeling like that’s a lot of time and a lot of steps that go into that. And throughout all of that, I am more stress free and pretty stress free because I don’t feel the time pressure. So yes, it all takes up technically more time than it needs to, but almost all of that extended period of time is less stressful than the alternative, which is less time.
Maybe more efficient, you know, as the traditional way we define that, but that less time and efficient is more compressed and dense and stressful because you do have to rush because you don’t have much margin. And for me that means it’s just less time. But I’d rather spend two hours less stressed out than one hour.
Very stressed out. And this just really drives home. The point that I mentioned at the top is that our society, like Western culture, at least American culture, often [00:04:00] assumes that the goal of time management is productivity and efficiency. Doing more in less time so that we can do more. And that approach results in a pretty fast rush pace that feels anything but calm.
And I really, I think it’s just worth noting and really crystallizing for yourself if you’re similar to me, that the thing I’m after and that you might be after is just less stress. So when we think about time management, the goal is less stress, not necessarily efficiency and productivity. And less stress often requires more wiggle room or a slower pace, which requires more time.
And I wanna point out here that I still wanna do a lot. I’m not necessarily advocating for a completely. I mean, slow life sounds great to me as I say it, but I’m just saying that like I’m not advocating for doing [00:05:00] nothing. Like I still actually really want to do a lot. Like when I think about it, I wanna run my business with excellence that includes serving clients really well.
You know, it includes recording podcast episodes like this. It includes managing Instagram and Substack and other marketing and advertising, and managing my finances. I’m dealing with all the tech that I can’t even tell you how many tech platforms I have and have to manage and interact and all of that I wanna spend time with and really know my kids and hopefully teach them some good stuff.
I have to manage the massive amount of invisible work that comes with them. That is part and part of having kids. I wanna get to laugh with my husband and have a decently clean home and clothes, and I wanna go on walks with my dog and spend time with my parents and move my body and eat somewhat healthy and on and on and on.
There’s a lot that goes into that, and I do think that probably efficiency in some of those places makes a lot of sense. Given my own interests. I do think that if I can [00:06:00] spend the least amount of time cooking and making meal decisions, that sounds pretty good. So I’m not saying efficiency doesn’t have its role.
And yes, some efficiency and streamlining of work stuff and even the home stuff makes a lot of sense. I’m not saying efficiency is bad by any means, it has its place. But my bigger goal at the end of the day, like my end goal at the end of the day is to be present for and enjoy like the vast majority of those things.
For me, going back to what we were just talking about, that requires being able to do them without the frantic pace and stress, and that requires more time. In short, I am okay with inefficiently spending more time doing some things so that I can soak those in and be present and not stressed out. All this to say, turning to more practical, well, lemme just wrap it up and then we’ll turn to more practical is if you have the same goal, like your goal is moving through life, feeling less stress and more calm and stability [00:07:00] so you can enjoy most of it, or at least the parts you want to, which hopefully is a lot of your life, know that while efficiency and productivity obviously are in play.
I think the focus on those and optimizing everything for those things and making everything faster so we can do more, shouldn’t be the end goal. And that just leads to a life that I don’t think we want. And I think we need to embrace the fact that slower requires more time, and that that is all right.
You know, at least for certain areas of our life. That is all right. And I think that all this sounds kind of obvious as I lay it all out, but I do think that it’s not like it’s a little almost counterintuitive to how our brains operate in our day-to-day life sometimes, because our society often talks as if productivity and efficiency are kind of the keys to getting you the life that you want, and I just don’t buy it.
I could be super productive [00:08:00] and super efficient, and that’s not going to lead to a life necessarily that I want. I think I also need to be intentional on the flip side of this and being okay with things, taking more time to reduce my stress, and so turning to the practical, I think it’s just far more effective.
If you are similar to me in terms of what your goals are, it’s far more effective to focus on things like building in padding into your life, whether we’re talking daily commutes and kid drop offs or whatever it is to project deadlines. All of that. If you can build in wiggle room to give you breathing space, when things inevitably go sideways, that’s a recipe for less stress.
Because when you have wiggle room, when things go sideways, it’s just a lot less stressful. If you know you have that cushion built into your life. Now, obviously when we’re talking about expanding time, that things take that hand in hand goes with having to get rid of other things to make [00:09:00] space for that because as I talk about all the time, time is limited.
So if certain things are going to expand in your calendar to take up a bit more space, other things are inevitably gonna have to go. That requires prioritization and elimination, and I talk a lot more about that in episode four of the podcast, if you wanna check that out. Another one that I have another episode on, actually, now that I think about it, is just kind of letting the question of, I think about it as like, how do I want my life to feel?
For me, that touches a lot on this is like I want it to be less stressful, and so when I work backwards for. From like what has to be true for my life to feel that way? Inevitably, the additional kind time comes into play. I think because of that, for me, what resonated is I was reading a book, I think it’s called Getting Unbusy.
I know it’s by Garland Vance, and he talks about asking yourself the question that maybe gets it more of the heart at what we’re talking about today [00:10:00] is what do I want the pace of my life to be? Whether you use his question or my question, I mean, or both. I think they both go really nicely, hand in hand and can get at different things sometimes, is letting those questions guide some of your decision making on what you take on and what you let go of and just recapping those three points.
’cause they were quick, but I think they each pack a little bit of a punch and are hard to implement. There’s more that goes into this than just. Flipping a quick mindset change. There are big changes that can come out of this stuff, but they’re worth really thinking through. Is building and padding into your life to give you wiggle room when things go sideways.
Getting rid of some things to allow you to do that first step. And then letting questions like, how do I want my life to feel, not look like, but feel? Or, what do I want the pace of my life to be, at least in this chapter, you know? I really am a big believer that we all have seasons. So these questions can [00:11:00] just be like, during this chapter of life, how do I want my life to feel?
What do I want the pace of life to be? Let those help guide your decisions about what you take on and what you let go of. And you know me like as you’re thinking about taking on or thinking about letting go of something, is really using that calendar, kind of assuming everything is in the calendar. Plot it out, put it in the calendar, see what it would do to the pace of your life or how it just feels seeing it in there, and then let that help you.
I really, you know, some of these questions can sound very kind of wishy-washy, but I think there’s a lot of potential. I mean, it is how my brain works of just like now I go to the calendar, but make it more concrete. Put it in your life and see what it feels like. See what it does. See what it would have to move to accommodate it, and that can really help in that department.
All right. Because I do think, you know, all of this, I mean, it, it is just counterintuitive sometimes given the way that we as a society talk about productivity. But I, I just think there’s something important here, and my [00:12:00] guess is you already knew this to a degree, but articulating it and having the clarity around the concept, I’ve just always found that to be really useful when I can kind of have a easy framework to lean back on when I’m trying to make decisions or analyze situations.
Efficiency is not always the goal. I think that breathing space is most of the time. I think everything improves with breathing space, including obviously stress, but also quality of work, enjoyment of a phase or activity or whatever it is. So much improves with breathing space, and so optimizing for breathing space, particularly with the most important things in your life, is really, really smart and really enjoyable.
All right. I know that was a short one. Curious what you think. Hope it packed a punch in a good way, and I really appreciate you being here. If you would like to learn the bright method and just kind of the whole system that I use to help bring a lot of these concepts to life and be more [00:13:00] concrete and all of that goes hand in hand with everything being visual enrollment for my next program opens on September 10th at 10:00 AM Central time.
Spots are limited. Just as we open things up. I just wanna be able to support the people as they jump in. And then, you know, if there are more than 50 people that jump in, we’ll close enrollment at that time, and then reopen enrollment around October 1st to allow more people to come in. I just wanna make sure that we don’t get overwhelmed in the beginning, and I wanna be able to really serve people well as they jump in.
And those first couple weeks can just be more intensive in terms of client support. Just because we’re digging into the tech and that was a little bit more personalized, and I wanna make sure I have the bandwidth to support people in the way that I wanna support you. So as I said, September 10th, 10:00 AM Central Time spots are limited, but they will open again in October.
And so part of this, just to remind you, is that the Bright Method format is now changing. Enrollment [00:14:00] will be open pretty much from September 10th, as I said, with that blip of capping, but then reopening through mid-March, and there are things to think about in terms of, you know, when the holidays fall or when a busy season falls for you or things like that.
But by doing this, my hope is that you can really pick a time that works best for you and your schedule and your work rhythms and all that kind of stuff. To find a 10 week period of time that fits your schedule instead of just two times a year that fit mine. So that’s the goal. If you are interested, you can check it out at Kelly nolan.com/bright that has all the program details.
Call times if you wanna join the calls. You don’t have to, you get recordings information about the email support, everything like that. You can also join the wait list there and see the PDFs for. Employer reimbursement and all that kind of stuff. But you’re also welcome to reach out if you have any questions.
Happy to help. And more importantly, thank you for being here and I’ll catch you in the next [00:15:00] episode.
Links you might enjoy:
✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you’re ready for a full time management system that’s realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It’s helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.
🌿 Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.
📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.
