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Planning tends to get filed under productivity and control – a type-A thing, an efficiency thing, something you do to squeeze more out of your day. And there’s some truth to that. But the deeper reason behind why I plan has nothing to do with control and everything to do with taking care of myself. If that sounds corny, I get it. I also think it’ll make a lot more sense by the end of this one. Let’s talk about it.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Enrollment for October and November start dates for the 10-week Bright Method program is open. Join here: https://kellynolan.com/the-bright-method-time-management-course-with-kelly-nolan
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 3-Day Time Management Program: Get three 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] Hey, hey, and welcome back. All right. Today, I wanna talk about somewhat of a misconception when it comes to time management and, in particular, planning. There are a couple of different planning sessions that I believe in. The main one I think of that comes to mind is my weekly clean slate session.
It’s when we sit down and plan, you know, the future, on a little bit more of, like, a short-term basis and go through this, like, very agenda-driven thing. And most people, when they hear about that type of planning, they think of it as control, like productivity — and I mean productivity in the sense of, like, efficiency and, like, getting more done and, like, just seeking to control everything and, you know, just something that, like, type A people love to do because they are type A. [00:01:00]
And in some ways, I think there’s some validity to that. You know, whether you’re type A, B, or something else, there are real productivity — in the sense of, like, achieving results — reasons to plan. I firmly believe it makes you better at your job. I think it sets you up to be more intentional instead of living in reaction mode, because you are less apt to give in to anything coming at you screaming fire when you know specifically what else you were planning to do during that time.
You’re better able to evaluate, is this other thing a fire? You don’t view it in isolation. You view it in the broader context. Planning also lets you spend more of your week in execution mode. By planning, you’re almost… I think of it as, like, corralling the decision-making of what you’re gonna do over the next week.
And yes, some of this can change as, like, you know, weeks shift out. But on the whole, you’ve really thought through, of all the things on my plate, what am I aiming to work on during this upcoming week? [00:02:00] And so you’ve gotten a lot of that decision-making work done, and that lets you live more in execution mode, so you get more done.
You don’t sit down every time you have, you know, 45 minutes to work and spend the first 10 trying to figure out what to do. You get to dive right on into it. So first thing, it makes you better at your job. Second thing, it lets you spend most of your week in execution mode instead of figuring out what to do mode, or reaction mode.
I would say it also helps you avoid a lot of scrambles, which would distract you from the doing. It helps you accomplish more at a higher caliber as well, because you have thought through the steps and have time to do them — and have time and, you know, energy and brain space to think them through.
And so your work product is more excellent by the end of it. And planning sessions are where you kind of see that overall workload and can manage it so that you have a reasonable workload. So again, it kind of relates to that you perform with more excellence because your workload is reasonable, so you have the time and energy to give to the work itself in a way that, you know, lends itself to excellence. [00:03:00]
So there are reasons when it comes to planning that do benefit the, like, more achievement, ambition, results strain of time management, if that makes sense. And in addition to all of that, here’s what a woman said on a group call earlier this year. She said, “Planning for me has become this sort of ultimate expression of self-compassion and devotion. There’s nothing nicer you can do for yourself than to really sit down and say, ‘When are all these things gonna happen? Where do they fit into my life? How are they affecting the other pieces of my life?’”
I know it sounds corny until you experience it in a weird way, but I hear time and time again from clients that the Bright Method… And to me, you know, whether you use the Bright Method or another time management system, so long as it’s giving you this. [00:04:00] Having systems like this that weirdly come off as so, like, efficiency, productivity, get more done type things actually are one of the truest forms of self-care we can give ourselves, far beyond, in my book, any manicure, massage, any of that.
And what I mean by this is, you know, to somewhat redundantly say, like, some people assume I love planning because I must love optimizing. But that is not why I plan. Planning is truly the foundation of how I take care of myself. In the midst of flying-at-me emails and texts and mail and kid requests and thoughts across all the different roles in my life, my weekly planning session is a time where I sit down and bring clarity to the world and infuse ease into the reality of my next weeks.
It’s where I make intentional decisions with the main focus of helping future me get the things she wants and needs to do done, again, with ease and less stress, in addition to accomplishing the things I want to accomplish. [00:05:00] I won’t sacrifice, typically, how I want a day to feel for the sake of accomplishing, or at least it’s baseline.
You know, I talked about there are some push seasons, and we do that sometimes. But on the whole, at baseline, I focus on: yes, I want to accomplish all these things, and I want my days to feel great day to day. I want my lived day-to-day experience to feel great too, on the whole.
And without planning time, the whirl would just keep going and keep whirling, and there wouldn’t be that, like, pause, look up, clarity feeling that you get when you sit down to plan.
And if that were the case — I mean, I don’t know about you — my ambition tricks me into saying yes to more than I can do. I think that I can just squeeze in that additional thing or those five things. I overcommit, and then I don’t do anything well, which actually undermines what my ambition is after, which is success at the things that I want to do.
Like, I don’t just want to do them, I want to do them well and have success. [00:06:00] And if I’m overcommitted, maybe I’ll do them, but not very well, not with that success. And so by overcommitting, I’ve completely undercut why I did any of it in the first place. And in addition, not only is it not necessarily the most productive — in, you know, just focusing on, like, the end result here.
In addition, I just end up running on fumes, and then I feel guilty that I’m not showing up in the way that I wanted to — at work, you know, with my kids, with my friends, with myself. And when that happens, I’m not really choosing how I spend my time. I’m just reacting to what others want from me, whatever I remember that freaks me out the most.
Like, it’s just such a reactive place to be, and I’m not intentionally picking my life.
And in addition, when I’m in that mode, I sacrifice anything health-related. I just sacrifice my own needs and wants to get everything done for other people or, you know, the things that have freaked me out.
The planning session is how I prevent all of that from happening. Be intentional. Take care of future me in a real way. [00:07:00] And, like, it sounds so corny and weird, but I think about future me. When I’m planning, I’m like, “Okay, me next week, how’s she gonna be feeling? How can we look out for her? How can we have her back?”
And that’s what’s fun to start seeing with women who join the Bright Method program. It’s fun to watch that women who join — when they come in, they often talk about wanting more control over their time, and that is very fair, and that is part of what we do, moving from that reactive to intentional, you know, more of the time.
But ultimately, it becomes more about compassion for ourselves — how much we are doing, recalibrating our expectations to match the reality of our capacity, getting more support, getting things off our plate, figuring out how to thrive within the limits of our reality in a way that serves both our ambition and our desire for ease.
Because when you get more intentional and manage that workload and manage how that workload gets done, I’ve seen time and time again people do better at their jobs, and because there’s less, their desire for ease is fulfilled as well. [00:08:00] So as you approach your next planning session, or consider, you know, running one for the first time, I hope this helps motivate you because it’s not about being a control freak.
It’s about looking out for future you and setting her up really well.
And as always, if you want the foundational system that we then implement everything we do on a planning session and bring it to life so it’s not just plans, but actually comes to life in a really real and concrete way, in addition to, you know, my step-by-step agenda of how to run a planning session and work with you to mold it to you and what you need with your industry and family and all of that, the 10-week Bright Method program is open.
We’re open for October and November right now. I would love to work with you. Go to kellynolan.com/bright, and I hope to see you in there. Thanks for being here, and I’ll catch you in the next one. [00:09:00]
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 3-Day Time Management Program Get three 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.
