One of the most common time management pain points many women experience is trying to find time (and energy) for their own health, whether that’s working out, eating how they want, sleeping, and even medical appointments. Let’s discuss.
Referenced episodes:
- Ep. 33. Long-Term Planning: How to feel like YOU & create long-term plans
- Ep. 29. Outsourcing at Home
- Ep. 9. Strategies to Get More Ease In Your Life
A full transcript will appear here within two weeks of the episode being published.
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Full Transcript
Ep 82. Making Time For Your Health
[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! And welcome back! All right, so today we are going to talk about making time for your health, and the reason I’m bringing this up — I know it’s a little bit eye-rolly this time of year because we’re thinking New Year’s resolutions, and everyone goes to health, and it feels a little bit overplayed. And partly I’m bringing it up because of that context, but also I’m bringing it up because I had asked people a couple weeks ago on Instagram what they wanted me to talk about, what were their time management pain points at home and then also at work. And on the home front, health and making time for ourselves on the health front was something that came up again and again and again in the responses. And so, I wanted to address it, and I thought this was an appropriate time to address it since a lot of our brains are there right now. Whether we want them to be or not, that kind of is what just stereotypically happens for the New Year’s resolution, and so, I want to talk about it today in a more realistic way so that you can hopefully spare yourself from the other stereotypical New Year’s resolution way of losing traction after two weeks. So let’s talk about that today!
And just taking a step back, when I talk about health, it really — I think that one of the trip-ups with health is that it really entails a lot. If you’re like, “I want to really turn my health around,” a lot comes with it. I mean, we’re talking about eating — and you know how I feel about meal prep and all that. It takes up so much time, so that’s a big one. Exercise, body movements, stretching, all of that, depending on what you’re doing, also comes with, I mean, making time for it every day but then also having to shower after it usually and things like that, so that’s a big one. Sleep is a big one, obviously, and one that comes up every day that we’ve got to deal with. And then there are other, perhaps, more beauty-type things that people might be thinking about. So skin, hair, all that kind of stuff. It’s optional. There’s no judgment here on any of it, so I just wanted to throw it in because it is relevant to some.
But when you really think about health and really acknowledge how much we’re talking about, I think it can give context to why it’s a struggle for a lot of people at baseline and then also help us avoid overcommitting ourselves by not appreciating how much it is when we try and do things like this in a resolution standpoint. So let’s dig into it!
You Don’t Need a New Year’s Resolution – 2:46
Before we dig into it, just a quick plug on an episode I did last year around this time. I’ll try and remember to link it in the show notes or call it out in the show notes in terms of the number. I’m a big believer that you do not need a New Year’s resolution. I just think that there’s this strange American culture of, “If you’re not growing, you’re dying,” type of thing that I just really don’t understand and reject. And so, if you are happy with where your life is, just absorb that. Your resolution is just to absorb it and enjoy it and not go beyond. If you want to set a resolution, that is awesome too. I’m not knocking them. I just don’t like the pressure to set them and set five of them every year.
I also want to throw out there that if you are someone like me, this time of year is not the right time to just kind of look up and evaluate life and think about where I want to go. For me, August/September is the more natural cadence of a new year for me. It’s when my energy’s better. It’s when the germ season’s a little better, things like that.
So just throwing it out there. You have a lot of options here. I talked about that more in an episode last year, but I just wanted to reiterate it here that I’m a big believer that if you are not growing you are still thriving and loving life too, and you do not need a resolution.
Okay, that said, if you are trying to make some big or even subtle changes with your health, I want to talk about ways that you can make time for those things, and a little bit of this is about making time. I would say probably, candidly, more of it is about expectations and setting yourself up for success with realistic plans and expectations.
First Way to Make Time For Your Health: Be Realistic – 4:27
So the first point of this is be realistic. When it comes to your health, be realistic about what you can take on and, more importantly, what you can add to the mix on the health front in your already probably very full life. And you’re probably very aware of this. That’s why people are saying, “I don’t have time for this,” but I just want to reiterate. I think right now we can all have big eyes on, “I’m gonna work out ten times a week or five times a week.” And if your baseline is you’re not doing any of that right now, that can just be an unrealistic expectation to set on yourself.
So when it comes to being realistic, I have three little subparts I want to say. The first is understand all of what is already on your plate right now. Now, obviously for me that’s The Bright Method. We’re making visual all the things, all the things from work tasks to personal one-off tasks to showering and getting ready to making meals. All of that is laid out in your calendar so it’s there visually. And the reason that is important is, as I was saying, if you’re like, “I’m gonna workout four times a week,” in theory that might sound great and what you “should do to get healthy” and all that kind of stuff. But when you go to calendar it alongside everything else you’re doing that is visually represented in your calendar, you might realize, “Yep, that’s too much,” particularly if you’re honest with yourself about what a workout entails.
Maybe you calendar let’s say you’re aiming for four times a week and you’re gonna do a 45-minute workout. But then if you also calendar in the shower and getting ready, the getting your clothes on, maybe you have to drive somewhere or something like that, when you calendar out all of those ripple-effect tasks in your day, that can be your wakeup call of, you know, this plan is not realistic. And that can be frustrating on the frontend, but it also helps you problem solve it and adjust your expectations to set yourself up more realistically on the front end instead of trying to do this seemingly understandable goal every single week, failing at it, beating yourself up, you give up after two weeks.
And instead what we can do, even though it’s frustrating, is say, “Actually, I really do want to do those 45-minute workouts but I’m gonna do them twice a week, and then maybe I’ll go on a walk another day a week,” or “Maybe this is not the season of life that I can do 45-minute workouts at that particular gym, so let me look for at-home options that I can do in 20 minutes.” These things can be frustrating. I’m not saying that they’re not. But I hope you see that by seeing the conflict on the front end of what your normal life looks like and then trying to add in more to it, it might help you adjust, or it will help you adjust and problem solve that in a more realistic way so that your plans are realistic from the outset. instead of, as I said, beating yourself up every day for not accomplishing that unrealistic-to-begin-with plan.
The second point of this that is related is that understand that your health routines of your twenties probably aren’t gonna work right now. And I say that in a way that, I mean, I think it sounds obvious, but to me it was not obvious for a while. [Laughs]
In my twenties, in my young twenties, like my lawyer days, wasn’t dating anybody, didn’t have kids, all of that, I could do 5:00 AM, 45-minute workouts through ClassPass, different spin classes and pilates classes and all sorts of things around Boston, and I loved that. Me now? Not so much. If I wake up at 5:00 AM, I want my hot cup of coffee, I want to sit with my computer, I want to do the more fun, creative parts of my job that I really enjoy. That’s what I would like to do with my time. And then around 11:00 to 1:00, somewhere in there, when I hit that afternoon slump that I always hit, if I can do a 15-, maybe 20-, but 15-minute workout at home and do that three to four times a week, that is a big win. And let me tell you, I think I resisted that for a while because I was like, “Well, that’s not how you workout right,” you know? “That’s not how I workout, and if I want my gold star on how I workout, this is what it looks like, and if I can’t do that, then it’s not worth trying at all.”
And let me tell you, if you have the right app or program or whatever it is that can help you workout for 15 minutes three to four times a week consistently hard, it can be very effective. And I say this as someone who’s gone through a lot of pregnant, postpartum, pregnant, postpartum body stuff. We don’t have to get into all that stuff today, but I’m just saying that as someone who had goals at certain points to lose some postpartum weight and things like that, I have seen how effective this can be. And more importantly in my life, I have seen how much stronger I get and how much my day-to-day life is better when I’m strong, when my core is strong, when I can lift kids, all that kind of stuff.
And so, to that end, I just wanted to shout out I’ve done different programs, and I’ve loved a lot of them. There’s no knock on this. I would say my current obsession right now is MommaStrong. It’s M-O-M-M-A Strong, and I just think that it is a wonderful platform for anyone, even if you’re not a mom. I don’t think you have to be a mom. In 15 minutes she will kick your tush. It is so effective, and that, going back to being realistic, is a realistic goal for me. It is much easier. I mean, I will turn it on, and I will fast forward through the talking and just dig right into the workout, and it’s 15 minutes start to finish. It’s hard to tell yourself you don’t have 15 minutes for that as long as you have time to shower after, or you don’t have to shower after. If your plans allow for not showering right after, then it’s a lot easier to motivate for that than those larger workouts.
My third point on this being realistic is actually more of a bridging of the last two points of understanding all that’s on your plate already and being realistic and then also understanding that your health routines of your twenties probably won’t work now. And tying in the MommaStrong is my workout yesterday, Courtney who runs MommaStrong said, “You decide,” and she was talking about which modification of an exercise to do. She said, “You decide. This is on your terms. It’s really hard to embrace that at first because we’ve all been told so many things about, ‘there’s a right way to do an exercise, the best way, the strongest way.’ It’s a bunch of bologna. Paying attention to what your body needs and focusing first and foremost on alignment is a much better way to go.” And I just think that that’s such a beautiful way of tying this up because I think it’s really hard.
I mean, I say this as someone who has perfectionist tendencies, kind of that all-or-nothing thinking. I mean, I’ve always struggled with, when it comes to my health, like, if I can’t do it perfectly, I’m just gonna throw in the towel and not do it at all. And I think that things like that, being exposed to people like Courtney who say things like that really helps me show up. If I’m having a day where I can’t jump around, my body’s just not — we’re having a day where I can’t be jumping around and things like that, I can still do her modifications and step it out and do things that I’m still moving my body, I’m still doing stuff, I’m still getting stronger even if it doesn’t have cardio impact in it, and I’m still showing up, and it is so much easier to, then, workout again the next day versus, you know, as soon as — there’s my all-or-nothing thinking. “As soon as I fall off it’s a hard time to get back on.” And that is just how my brain works, but I love that she gives gray area so that if you’re not able to show up “perfectly” in your book, that you can still show up and get a great workout even if it’s not the “right,” the “best,” the “strongest” way to do it.
So I just wanted to share that quote because I thought it was just so good and tied so nicely into this. I think the more that we can aim for not perfection but still showing up, not only is it a healthier, less stressful way to live, it is a more effective way to live because if you are aiming for 100%, you are more likely to do 0% if that’s your alternative. Where if you can aim for more like 80%, 80% of the time, I think you’re more likely to do it in the long run versus the other approach.
Second Way to Make Time For Your Health: Outsource What You Can – 12:40
Okay, the second point after be realistic is outsource some of this. Now, I would love to outsource my workouts. [Laughs] I cannot, which is a real bummer. But we talked about the other elements of health, and I’m just gonna repeat them quickly: eating, exercise, body movement, sleep, and perhaps a beauty thing. To me, the biggest contender in there is the eating, the meal prep, that kind of stuff. And I’ve talked about this more in episode 29 of the podcast on all the different ways that you can outsource parts (small or big parts) of meal prep. But it was everything from buying pre-chopped vegetables to buying meal-ready-type things like Factor or even picking up fresh food in your area to having someone come in your house and help cook, even for a phase of life.
And I know that these are not all available things for everyone that everyone can swing right now, but I think that if it’s something that you really struggle with, of making health a priority and it’s something you really want to prioritize, I do think that getting creative on how to outsource parts of it, whatever parts you can, is a really valuable exercise to think about. Because not only does it up the chance that you’ll follow through on that component of your health, it also frees up time for other things like the workouts or sleep, which we’ll get to.
And so, I just wanted to remind you of that component here is the first element of this is be realistic, and then obviously related to that is you don’t have all the time that you probably would (in an ideal world) love to devote to all the components of health. And so, are there elements of this — and to me the most obvious one is just meal prep and eating — are there elements of that that you are able to outsource and get creative around or make easier, really aim for more simple meals that hit the things that you’re looking to do, that could really free up some of your time and brain space for the other parts of health or other things you want to do, including fun and just relaxing, that really could be valuable.
Third Way to Make Time For Your Health: Understand Your Priorities – 14:57
The last component of this I would say is really understand your priorities. And as we talked about, if you are trying to be in better health now, next year, whatever timeline you’re thinking of, really understand that’s a lot, and it’s a lot in that, you know, there are different buckets that go into this, and it’s also the logistics that flow out of even one of these buckets can be a lot. And so, what I want you to really think about — I’m just a big proponent of one goal at a time. I think I talked about that in that other episode I referred to on you don’t need a New Year’s resolution. And if you do decide to do any sort of goal setting now, whether you’re listening to this around the end of December or you’re listening to it in March, if you decide you want to set a goal, really set one at a time.
And I just think that, particularly when you lay out the realities of what your goal entails next to everything else you’ve got going on, it will become pretty obvious about why I think that. And I really, really encourage you to pick one, and the one goal is not health at large. It is one of the things that we talked about: eating well, exercising well, sleeping well, anything else that you want to do. And I would pick one of those things to start working on and then, slowly over time, build from there. I know that’s frustrating to hear, and at the same time, I just think that we’ve got so much going on that even biting off one of these things is gonna be a lot to take on, and you want to really make sure you can do it well versus trying to do, essentially, at least five other things really well all at once on top of a probably already very busy life.
And in my completely uneducated, not medically-based opinion at all — and I’m just kind of throwing this out there. It’s probably not worth anything, so just ignore it from an advice standpoint — if you have to start anywhere and pick one thing, my urge from what I’ve seen in my own life on ripple effects is the biggest bang for your buck thing to start with is your sleep, the quality of your sleep. And I know that we so often go to eating or exercise, but to me, this sleep element and dialing in your sleep can be just so powerful on so many other parts of this. It just has ripple effects across so much.
And so, I just throw that out there for what it’s worth. Really prioritizing the quality of sleep I think will have ripple effects across your health in ways that are really desirable, and then you can build from there. Part of that is because getting really great quality sleep is probably the best thing I can do for my own motivation to do anything health-related or work-related or anything. When my sleep is dialed in, my motivation is at an all-time high. It doesn’t mean it’s always there. It’s not like puppies and rainbows all the time, but it is so noticeable to me. That is the first thing that I’m — like, if I don’t sleep well, my motivation is zapped. And so, I just share that that’s one of those ripple effects, that if you can get your sleep dialed in, I think you will have an easier time adding in more over time to this.
And if you’re interested in that, I actually am working on having a sleep expert come on the podcast because I feel passionately about this, but I have zero education in it. And so, I don’t think I’m one to talk necessarily. But I just think that it would be wonderful to have someone come in. I’ve shared things that have helped me on the sleep front in past episodes, including the episode on the year of ease. (I want to say it’s episode 9, but I could be wrong. I’ll put it in the show notes again.) But things like, for me, just knowing my own social, self-control limitations, I really need Opal now to cut me out of social media from 8:00 PM to 5:00 AM. You could pick different times, but Opal has been huge for me on that front.
Another one I’ve realized is — and I say this like there is no righteousness or anything coming out of this — I used to watch a lot of TV, and I used to love TV. I’d have all my shows and things like that. I have fallen out of TV just because of the pace of my life for the past couple years. But I will say that I have recently tried to go back into TV watching, and I have discovered that I have zero self-control when it comes to TV, [Laughs] and I will stay up way too late, and I do not feel my tired, and it’s a real problem. And so, I’ve had to cut myself off of TV again, and it is what it is.
I’m more just sharing because it’s partly that I cannot have a little bit of TV because I, then, just go down this black hole of watching television, and so, I cut myself off. And it’s just an element of knowing my own limitations and tendencies and then not beating myself up for them but just being like, “Okay, well, that is what it is, and what’re we gonna do about it?” For me, it’s Opal to help me save myself from social media and no TV because I have no self-control once I get going. Instead, I pick activities that I really enjoy still. Like, I still have a lot of fun listening to audiobooks, listening to fun podcasts, reading in bed, talking to friends on the phone, things like that, but those things also let me feel my tired, and that’s really important when it comes to sleep in my book is I have to feel the tired hit. It sounds obvious but sometimes I think we do things that we don’t feel the tired until we put it down and we’re like, “Oh, my gosh, I’m so exhausted.”
On the flipside, I will say sometimes I have also noticed that even audiobooks and things like that can be too stimulating for my brain right before bed. And so, in some of my evenings I can feel when that’s starting to happen, and I’ll just be quiet for a while, and I think it helps my brain get bored and go to bed. And then I’ve talked about this before too, but I’ve really cut alcohol out almost entirely from my life. I do drink socially still, which has its own issues now because I have, like, zero tolerance, but I just share that I would say 95% of the time I’m not drinking alcohol, and that really, really, really has helped my sleep quality as well.
Episode Recap – 21:13
So I hope that these things are helpful. To recap, the ideas are be realistic. Understand all that is on your plate already and also the realities of what you’re trying to add in, and then evaluate whether you have the capacity to absorb those new things. Maybe you could eliminate some things that are in there to make room for it, but really just understanding you have a limited capacity. If you’re trying to add in more, what does that look like, what does that do to what’s in there, is it realistic, and do you need to adjust your expectations?
Under that “be realistic” point, I also talked about understanding that your health routines of your twenties probably aren’t gonna work now and just embracing that and getting creative to still get where you want to go. Even if it’s not 100% gold star under your twenties approach to working out, it still can be an amazing approach in your current phase of life and to go for that. And a shout out to MommaStrong on that front for my personal life right now.
Point two is outsource what you can. If anyone figures out how to outsource working out, let me know. And also understand your priorities and understand that you really just need one priority on this front, and then slowly over time, let’s say in six months, you can add in something else — or even three months. Let’s say you just dial in your sleep, you’re feeling really good in three months, then add in something else. But do not try and start on eating healthy and exercising three times a week and sleeping well and all this other stuff and then burning yourself out two weeks from now and having it not have been realistic in the first place.
Health, it’s so corny and annoying to say, it really is so important. It goes beyond, I think, the traditional younger versions of health that we thought of that typically had some sort of relation to body weight, and it really comes down more to strength and sleep and just overall health and ability to weather germs and all that kind of stuff. As I read, someone recently said, “You can have a thousand problems until you are unhealthy, and then you have one problem.” And the more that we can try and get at this proactively on the frontend and preventatively, I think we’ll be in wonderful shape. But I think that in order to actually do that, we have to plan to do so in a realistic and maybe slower way than we ideally want.
Last But Not Least: Medical Appointments – 23:32
One actually last thing that I wanted to add before we move on is potentially something that people don’t think of always when they talk about health, which comes down to a pretty basic part of our health, which is medical appointments.
Now, this is something that I raise just because I think that a lot of us, especially if you have kids, but even if you don’t, when you are very busy in life, especially when your career feels like it takes over a lot, our own medical appointments can be some of the first things to go or the first things that never get scheduled and the scheduling itself gets punted. And I just want to throw out there that I really, really encourage you not to do that.
I hope it goes without saying, and I hope that it’s helped by just pointing it out, that those types of medical appointments, your dermatologist checkups, your concerns about that thing and wanting to go see that specialist, whatever it might be, those are very important, and often the earlier you can get on an issue, the better your outcome would be. So definitely do not punt those down the road, and even though it doesn’t fit in the more preventative, proactive health approach we’ve been talking about, it does in some ways. And so, I wanted to flag it here as well.
I hope you got a nugget or two in there that is helpful. Thank you so much for hanging out with me here this past year. I know as we’re wrapping things up it’s just wild to me it’s the end of the year, and I really, really appreciate you hanging out with me here.
If you have enjoyed the podcast this year, please feel free to leave a review if you would like to! Especially on Apple Podcasts, you can do a rating review and give me, hopefully, the stars you want and then also write something if you feel so inclined. I so appreciate it. I love doing this. I love hearing from you about what you thought about certain episodes and what you would love episodes to be, and I will catch you in 2025! I’ll see you there, and thank you for being here!
[Upbeat Outro Music]
