Why Traditional Time Management Advice Doesn't Work for Many Professional Working Women (And Why I Focus My Work on Those Women)

To listen to Apple, click here; to listen on Spotify, click here.

When I was struggling with time management, I had a lightbulb moment that traditional time management advice wasn’t built for me. And the Bright Method, I believe, fills that gap. Let’s talk about why traditional time management advice might not have worked for you – and why a different approach might.

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. Today’s going to be a little bit of a different episode in that I just wanna explain a little bit about why I choose to work primarily with women, and I think it’s a question that some people have or. Some people do ask, but a lot of people I think have and don’t necessarily ask, and I wanted to just explain it here today in case it’s helpful for you to understand.

Now, I just wanna really clarify something that my decision to work with women is [00:01:00] absolutely no knock on men. I have had some wonderful male clients and I am open to working with men, but I also think it’s helpful to understand why I market myself and pitch myself, particularly for women because of the reasons we’ll talk about today.

Now I wanna give some context about my own realization about how time management is different for women. Rewinding back to when I was overwhelmed. I was a young patent litigator in Boston and I was really struggling with the time management front, but I will say like enjoying my life overall. Just feeling really confused about why I felt confused when it came to my time and why I looked like I had it together.

I was reliable, all of that, but I just wasn’t enjoying. The way life felt on the inside. I was just anxious too much. I wasn’t able to focus on the things I wanted to focus on and so on. And there was one day I was sitting in this [00:02:00] male partner’s office, really good friend, like good colleague, good working relationship, and he was ribbing me like totally all in good G about my sweater being dirty.

There was like a bit of a food stain on one of the sleeves. When I looked down to see it and see like there was like a food stain on my sweater, I just, I mean I got really embarrassed as I was gonna say, as one does, but as I do and immediately started going into like, why is this the case and let me explain it to ’em.

And in my head I was going through, most of my other sweaters are at the dry cleaners. They’ve been there for a couple weeks. ’cause I like had missed the pickup window to get them ’cause they were closed by the time I left the law office. And. Or if I did get out early enough, I’d just forgotten to go get them.

’cause I was thinking about other things and so I was wearing like the one remaining sweater because of the lack of options at home. And as I was like opening my mouth to explain this to him, I had this like weird realization that like, [00:03:00] he’s not gonna get it. He probably, I’m guessing, had not done dry cleaning, drop off or pick up in years.

His wife was working a harder job than any of us were by being a stay at home mom, two, three kids. And in addition to all of that crazy work that I’m sure was happening, she was also managing things like that for him. And that was when it really clicked for me, like eyes wide open in that moment, clicked of, maybe that’s why some of the time management stuff that I’ve been trying to implement isn’t working for me.

It’s not a knock on all men by any means or any men really. It’s a knock on the fact that, at least for me, back in 20 11, 20 12 when this was happening, a lot of the time management advice was from very successful white men who tended to be married. So by the time they’re giving the advice about how to be good at time management.

[00:04:00] They’re typically very high up in a career and married, typically in a heterosexual relationship, and my guess is their wives are providing a lot of the support and a lot of the labor that I am in charge of as a single person to do myself. So it was just more of a realization that like the time management advice out there was not helpful for really any single person who doesn’t have that support at home.

It definitely wasn’t helpful for what I have come to realize since then, particularly married women in heterosexual relationships where very generally speaking, across the board here, they carry a lot of the workload and just to really drive this home, not only do a lot of working women not have the support of.

Generally speaking, historically speaking, traditionally speaking, stay at home partner, traditionally speaking, a stay at home wife. [00:05:00] In addition, they are providing that primary invisible labor at home and that explodes when there are children in the picture. I absolutely understand. I’m speaking generally, but I think it’s a pretty safe bet to say generally across the board, big sweeping statements.

That’s true. I hope you are. An exception to the rule partnership. I’m not saying this is everybody, but generally speaking, this remains the case. Working. Women still do more at home labor than partners even when they’re breadwinners. And I just based on my anecdotal experience, when there are kids involved, very often they continue to do that and that weight becomes even more burdensome because of how much work there is.

Same with aging parents. If a parent is aging, it is typically the woman stepping in to be the caregiver role. So you can see where this is going about why at least the time [00:06:00] management advice in 20 11, 20 12 for me was not serving me. And definitely, even though I didn’t know it at the time, a lot of the women out there.

I just wanna really make sure that you’re clear on this is that if you have tried a lot of the traditional time management advice out there and it didn’t work for you, like it didn’t work for me, and some examples of that, it’s hard to remember all of them at the time, but it’s really like work when you’re at work and be home when you’re at home and without more like that’s it.

Like those types of things. They don’t really stand up when you have to do things during business hours. For other things like calling a doctor’s office, calling insurance, calling some sort of personal life organization during work hours, that also happen to be your work hours. And so if those traditional time management systems haven’t served you, it’s not because there’s anything wrong with you, they just weren’t built with you in mind.

They weren’t built with all that you are [00:07:00] managing in mind, and that’s just why it’s not you. It’s just the approach. Now, again, just because I know how people can react to this, I am not saying. That men are bad or that they don’t work or that they’re not tired also, or all of that. I think there are many amazing men, including my husband, who do things at home to make life easier and certainly easier than the generation before them and the generation before them, and it is incredible.

That being said, even with the most incredible partners out there, chances are chances. That you carry the bulk of it, especially when kids enter the picture. So I want you to just think about keeping track of all kids’ doctor’s appointments and taking them there, knowing when to buy diapers, thinking about when to potty train, thinking about when to sleep, train, organize, if you decide to organizing play dates, reaching out to people, hosting those play dates, finding and scheduling [00:08:00] babysitters, figuring out summer childcare, and on and on and on.

And so for a time management system. To provide us women with the relief and the peace of mind we’re looking for. It has to do two things. One, it has to acknowledge and account for, and actually help us manage all of those types of work. And this is a big reason why. Qualification to me should be for any woman.

But the time management system helps you with work and personal life because there is so much work on both of those fronts, but it all has to come out of the same bank of time, your awake hours. And so that’s why I really love teaching both professional and personal time management. Because of that, it all has to fit together.

I think some systems historically, again, could focus on just time management in the workplace because the work outside of work [00:09:00] wasn’t typically that heavy for the demographic they were focusing on. But when the work outside of the official workplace, the paid for workplace is very heavy, then you need to account for it too.

And that’s why I think a system needs to deal with both personal and professional and related to that. Really what I mean is it has to help with that invisible labor, the mental load, however you wanna think about it. The not paid for work that typically a lot of women are carrying the lead on in their families.

A system that actually serves women has to deal with the work of providing support to others, hopefully with the goal of how to share that support with other people in the family or outside the family. So they are not doing it all. Now we can debate whether it’s right that women should have to figure that out, and I totally get it, and that is a whole other conversation for me.

What I have [00:10:00] learned is that I’m a realist. My goal is to get you support and relief, no matter the principle behind it in a sense. So again. I don’t think necessarily it’s fair that women should have to like understand all the support and divvy it up and ask for the support from partners and that kind of stuff.

But sometimes I have learned that standing on the principle of it doesn’t always get you the relief. It just leads to a lot of resentment and anger. Versus accepting the reality and then training things over time and shifting things over time and handing things off over time and having to be more explicit than we want and all of that.

It’s frustrating. I’m not trying to sugarcoat it, but often partners are so open to supporting that they will happily step in and provide that support with a little bit more guidance. Again, I’m not saying that we should have to, but. Again, my goal is to get you the relief. It’s [00:11:00] kind of that like, would you like to be right, or would you like to be happy?

And I want my clients happy. And so that’s what it comes down to. But to be able to get that relief, to be able to delegate things off your plate, you have to be on the same page and making everything visual in the calendar, like all that invisible work, all that mental load, all of that, making it all visual really helps with that, both for you and for a partner.

I have found women often don’t realize how much they are doing, which makes it very difficult for their partner to realize how much they’re doing. And so if we can get clear on how much we’re doing and then also show the partner, then we’re all on the same page and can divide things up more equitably, typically going forward.

And that’s really why I focus on working with women, at least one of the reasons. Is because I don’t think there are many systems that help women unload that mental load and share it so equitably. [00:12:00] And learning the bright method is often the first time women have gotten that support, that clarity, that mental lightness they have craved because the method addresses that mental load and home project management and getting them support and all of that.

And so that’s a major reason why I love. Teaching women in particular, just because I think the gap between what existed to help support them and where we actually are and want to be was so big. And while I believe men also and people of all genders also could benefit from learning the bright method.

Definitely the people most in need of it was the demographic of people who I choose to work with. Another element here that’s separate, although related ’cause it always is, is boundaries. I think that boundaries are very complicated. As a woman, I think they can be hard to draw for [00:13:00] many people, but I think women in particular boundaries are really complicated.

I mean, I guess for a couple reasons. One, I think women come off as different when we draw boundaries. We just do. We know, we do. We know that we are perceived differently. I think I’ve shared this before, but I have this wonderful man who follows me on Instagram and I was sharing in my stories just crowdsourcing, like, what do you do if you are, a calendar is blocked, but someone unilaterally puts a meeting on your calendar for that period of time.

I’m thinking about like somebody schedules like a big work meeting. Your calendar’s not available, they still schedule it. What do you do with that? Like do you shift your preexisting meeting around for it? Like what would you do with it? And that was just my question, crowdsourcing. And he was like, I just hit decline.

Which is great. That’s great. I think many women would not do [00:14:00] that because you could argue. That comes off differently when a woman does it. Women could do the exact same thing as a man, and it would be perceived differently. At least that is the narrative. At the very minimum, that is the narrative that many women have in their heads.

You can say, maybe that’s not true, whatever. But I think enough women have had that happen in their life that they know that to not maybe be so stark in that it’s kind of like my problem with people are like, no is a complete sentence. Like, sure. I like the sentiment, but you know, if your boss emails you, and this is any gender, but I just think women are just more sensitive to this and rightfully so, because we are perceived differently when we do some things.

But if your boss emails you something and is like, I need you to do this. You can’t just write NO period, send the email back, like it just doesn’t work like that. And that I know works is the same for men, but I just think that some of these sayings out there of like. An [00:15:00] emergency on your part is not, or lack of plan on your part’s, not an emergency on mine.

Well, like sometimes it is, and no is a complete sentence. Like sometimes it’s not like in these work environments. And so while I love the sentiment, again, we’re realists and that isn’t actually very helpful in reality. And so that really ties into why I like working with women is because. How women draw boundaries is more nuanced than a lot of the discussion culturally around boundaries and historically in time management advice.

Like just say no. It’s like, okay, that I don’t know when to say no. I don’t know how to say no in a way that works. All this type of stuff. And so I like working on boundaries. One to talk phrasing, like how to phrase things in a way that can come off. In the way that you want, but you’re still saying no. I also really like it because I believe that many women need to feel more [00:16:00] grounded in evidence to support their No, in order to say no, so that they have the confidence enough to say the no.

I know, at least in my past, when I didn’t have the clarity that the Bright Method gave me about my capacity, my current workload. What this new project would do to my workload and so on, when I didn’t have that clarity. I mean, I, I knew it like feelings wise. I knew I was drowning in work, but because I didn’t know if it was objectively reasonable for me to feel that way, like grounded in evidence and understanding.

I kept saying yes because if I got any pushback, I didn’t have anything to push back with to defend my no. And so I just keep saying yes, and I believe, I mean, it’s just my experience with friends, other women clients now that women tend to feel similarly to, at least some women [00:17:00] to a degree, feel similar to how I do.

And I’ve seen it play out again and again with clients. I might have some complicated emotions around having to say no, but when I see now in my calendar my capacity, my current workload, what this new thing would do, whether I have space for it, how it feels when I see it, if I even have space in it to put it in, see how it feels, it’s lot more clear to me why I have to say no, or I want to say no.

And that gives me the confidence to say no, because if, if I come back with pushback, I can explain it. If I have to, and again, I’m not saying you have to explain all your nos to everybody, but when it’s your boss or some other higher up person in your office or things like that, you wanna be able to have that information at your fingertips or you say yes to that bigger project and can see exactly what has to move out and be able to explain that with other people.

Or going back to the personal life again, [00:18:00] getting everybody, you and your partner on the same page about. Actually all the things that have to go into running a home and or kids and or pets and or parents, all of that. Again, you’re more confident in the boundaries you want to set and maintain and back up because you have the evidence at your fingertips.

And I don’t know why I am not saying it’s right, but women tend to, in my experience, need that evidence that support that. Confidence in like the objective thing that’s going on in order to actually say no, hold the boundary, push for later, any of those types of things in order to bring it to life. I don’t think, and I still don’t think a lot of time management advice out there truly accounts for this, and that’s a problem.

Because you can be all fired up with something like no is a complete sentence or other things like that. Or just [00:19:00] say no, or just say boundaries, or just draw boundaries. But at the end of the day, you might do that one time and then get pushed back and not feel confident and not do it again, or you never get even to the place where you say no the first time because those phrases that can rile you up.

In a good way, in a, in like an empowering way, aren’t enough to help you actually follow through on holding the boundary and even establishing the boundary and then holding it without more. It kind of goes back to that episode that I was talking about that Eleanor Beaton shared about empowerment without a system just leads to overcommitment.

It’s kind of the same thing here. It’s like no is a complete sentence, but without a system showing you when to say no and, and again, like how to say it in a way that’s realistic. That empowerment kind of crumbles and you just overcommit versus having the system and the clarity it brings can really help with that.

So those are the main two reasons that I think having a time [00:20:00] management system that’s really designed for the professional working woman can help that person so much more than a lot of stuff that was, at least was out there when I was struggling. I just wanna be clear, do I think the Bright Method works for anyone regardless of gender or anything else?

Absolutely. I think the Bright Method could help anyone and I would love to work with anyone. So if you have had concerns about that, about on these, like on especially like just gender, if you are eligible, please reach out. I truly would love to work with you. I’m more just sharing why I focus on women.

Is that, I just think the gap between the time management advice that was out there, at least when I was struggling and what professional working women, at least some of them really need to get where they wanna go in the same way I did. Like I needed all of this to get to where I wanted to go. That gap was so big [00:21:00] that that’s why I choose to focus on women and working women, because I just think that they were the people most in need of the help.

That I could provide. And so I just wanted to explain it and just explain why I believe do I think the bright method is how everybody should run their time? No. But do I think the Bright Method fills a gap that was very much there before this that can help working women with managing all the roles in all the mental load.

Also help women feel more confident, drawing boundaries and actually do it then and get the benefits of that and get a lighter, more reasonable workload and feel that clarity and that peace of mind and be able to take a break they can actually enjoy. I absolutely do, and so that’s why I focus on working with that woman.

If you’d like to learn it, I’d love to work with you, Kelly nolan.com/bright and more importantly, thank you for being here and I’ll catch you in the next [00:22:00] episode.

Links you might enjoy:

🌿 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.

Why Traditional Time Management Advice Doesn’t Work for Many Professional Working Women (And Why I Focus My Work on Those Women)

Full transcript:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

A bit about me

Want to try the Bright Method for free?

TM

check out my 10-week bright method time management program

Reclaim your time from your inbox

Hello, more breathing space.

Like bite-sized time management tips?