time mgmt

How hard is it for you to say no?

I am really good at saying yes. I’m learning how to say no. There are so many interesting and fun things out there to do – not to mention all the things that I feel obligated to do – that I end up saying yes to more than I have hours in the day for.

This last month, I made the hard choice to say no to a project I had initially said yes to. I still think it’s an idea that has a ton of potential and would be a lot of fun to work on. But the reality is that in order to spend time on that, I would have to take away time from other activities and projects that are more important to me.

I spent the month prior trying to fit it in to my mix, and it just didn’t work.

I have a tendency to either massively overthink things (and therefore never get started) or to impulsively start something without fully thinking it through. The downside to this is that I either end up living with all the “what ifs” and forget to just enjoy the time that is, or end up in over my head before I realize what I’ve even gotten myself into.

I’m working on not over-planning, but also taking the time to think through decisions before I make them (go figure.)

Not that planning ahead isn’t a good thing – it’s a great thing. But there are enough unknowns that sometimes even a really good idea should be set aside for a later time. (I’m also pretty sure this is a lesson that I re-learn every six months…one of these years I’ll really get it. ).

In order to say no, you must do these three things:

Know what your priorities are – and therefore, what they aren’t.
Realistically assess your time – are there areas you’re managing your time poorly or is there really not enough time in the day? Remember: Managing your time well doesn’t mean that every minute is scheduled with activity. Managing your time well means including time to rest, recharge and focus on the soft skills of life.
Not feel a need to be a people pleaser. Many people don’t struggle with this in the slightest. For others, it’s the struggle of a lifetime. Personally, I find that it depends entirely on the topic at hand – but that I tend to lean toward the people pleasing aspect. I have continued doing things long after they were unhealthy for myself, my family and my priorities simply because I didn’t want to disappoint someone.

My no’s mean that my current life looks very simple. I’ve got a full-time job, husband and two small children, this blog, church and our church small group, and that’s about it.

Do you struggle with saying yes too much? What has that looked like in your life? Is there something you can decide to say no to today or in the near future?

Manage your energy, not your time

By Sarah Leave a Comment

If you focus on how to manage your energy, your time will manage itself.

Do you believe that?

A few weeks ago, I had a meltdown. And not a pretty one.Is there such a thing as a pretty meltdown? I don’t think so, but suffice it to say that I didn’t act much better than my toddler.

The cause? I pushed myself to work on a project well past my bedtime. I’m not a night owl, and I know this about myself. I was on the brink of exhaustion and incoherency when I sat down, and yet I still convinced myself that this task absolutely had to be done right then.

It didn’t.

What happened is that I spent an hour working on something that likely would have taken me 20 minutes if I had done it at 6am and not 11pm.

This also led to a minor panic attack at work the following day when I was overwhelmed with so many different tasks I needed to work on that I didn’t even know where to start. I had more work and was getting less done in a given time frame than I would have if I had gotten a decent night’s sleep.

As professional working women, we’ve all been there at one point or another. It’s easy to convince ourselves that pushing through is the answer, when it’s not. The answer is to manage your energy.

There’s nothing more inefficient than pushing through and continuing to attempt to work when you’re not at your best.

When you’ve hit a wall, it’s time to hit reset. Here’s how:

4 Ways to Hit the Energy Management Reset Button

1. Take a breather. If it’s not late or you absolutely can’t go to sleep, take 5 minutes for a breather. It’s wise to use this time to literally breather, taking big, deep, belly breaths. Meditation can work wonders. So can getting up and moving. If at all possible, go for a walk.

2. Skip non-critical work. In my meltdown scenario, I had a non-critical meeting on my calendar that I skipped in order to have the time to take a breather, vent and reset.

3. Have a mini-vent session. Done strategically, letting off some steam can be a great way to let it all out so that you can refocus. If you have a trusted co-worker or friend, a mini-vent session can be a great way to get what’s frustrating you off your chest and refocus back on what needs to be done. Caveat: Be careful that a strategic mini-vent session doesn’t become an regular habit that distracts both you and your co-worker from your work on an ongoing basis.

4. Pick a task that requires a different part of your brain and get back to work. If you’re stalled out on a heavy thinking task or project, take the time to catch up on more mindless, repetitive tasks that tend to get put on the back burner. Even if the heavy-thinking project is critical, you’ll feel better and be able to dive back in quicker if you feel accomplished with your “down time” rather than staring into space, getting even more frustrated.

In my case, I did all of these. I took a breather, skipped a non-critical meeting, had a mini-vent-my-overwhelm session with a trusted co-worker, and was able to pick a critical task and make good progress, as well as finish out the rest of my day.

Note: This has nothing to do with being a morning person or a night person, or with getting a recommended number of hours of sleep per night (although getting enough sleep is also highly important). It has everything to do with knowing yourself well enough to know when you are at your peak and when you aren’t, and planning tasks accordingly.

What’s the cost?

If you’re still thinking that you don’t have time to step away from the task, consider these statistics:

If one poor energy management decision per day costs an average of 45 minutes, that’s almost 4 hours per week, almost 16 hours per month and a whopping 200 hours per year. That’s the equivalent of five 40-hour work weeks.

Even if it takes 15 minutes to reset and get back on track, that’s still a time savings of 30 minutes per day, 2.5 hours per week, over 10 hours per month and 130 hours per year. That’s the equivalent of over three weeks per year.

Say what?! If I had an extra three to five weeks per year, I’d certainly be much farther ahead on my goals. Or heck, how about an extra three to five weeks of vacation?!

What could you accomplish with an extra three to five weeks of working time per year?

What could you accomplish with an extra three to five weeks of working time per year?

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9 awesome time management books for working moms

By Sarah 6 Comments

As a busy working mom, I’m always looking for tips and ideas for awesome time management books to increase my productivity and well being.

I love to read, and read (more than) my fair share of beach read, fluffy fiction. I have an equal love of non-fiction in the business, productivity, and time management realm. The case studies and stories of people’s lives are so fascinating! I love to learn from both the official practical tips, formal studies and life stories shared.

9 Time Management Books for Working Moms

These nine books from experts on time management and productivity are favorites that I reference often. There’s a great balance of quick reads (because we are busy moms!) with practical tips, more in-depth research studies and commentaries, and food for thought.

1. Tell Your Time by Amy Lynn Andrews

Tell Your Time is short, but backs a serious punch. Amy’s no-nonsense, straightforward manner is fantastic. A practical, quick-to-implement read at $2.99, this is my number one pick if you had to choose from this list. If you’re short on time to dedicate to reading and want a simple, practical, actionable steps, start here!

2. Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy

Eat That Frog “provides the 21 most effective methods for conquering procrastination and accomplishing more.”

3. Essentialism by Greg McKeown

“Working hard is important. But more effort does not necessarily yield more results. ‘Less but better’ does.” <– This.

4. 21 Days to a More Disciplined Life by Crystal Paine

Paine was one of the first bloggers I followed consistently, and her growth as a blogger, business owner and person has greatly inspired me over the last eight years. 21 Days is a straightforward workbook to help focus, prioritize and gain discipline.

5. Overwhelmed by Brigid Schulte

My favorite parts about Overwhelmed are the number of research studies and thorough approach. Schulte’s background as a journalist shines in the best of ways.

6. Fringe Hours by Jessica Turner

The endless energy that Turner has to fit so.many.things into her fringe hours is impressive. I admit to feeling daunted by just how much she fits in her days. At the same time, she talks about how much she truly enjoys all that she does. The concept of fringe hours, and fitting important, soul-filling activities into pockets of time is fantastic. Reading this book inspired me to be more intentional about using small pockets of time for intentional reading (love my Kindle app!) rather than mindless Facebook or web surfing.

7. Getting Things Done by Brian Allen

The GTD methodology has a near cult-like following. While I’ve incorporated many of the ideas from GTD, I have never been successful at implementing the full process. My “GTD Lite” process has served me well without overcomplicating.

8. I Know How She Does It by Laura Vanderkam

I love, love, love Vanderkam’s no-nonsense approach that of course working moms have enough time to do it all – as long as we prioritize what “all” is to us.

Vanderkam’s other books, Off The Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done and 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think are also awesome reads.

9. Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives by Richard Swenson

Margin was on a book list for one of my college classes. I’m sure I read the required excerpt, but it was only a year or two ago that I made it through the entire book. This one is more academic than some of the others (read: not a quick read, but worth it to go in-depth).

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Adding any one of these nine time management books for working moms to your reading list will give you awesome tips, ideas and thoughts to better manage your time and thrive at home, work and play.

Why yes, these links are affiliate links, which means that if you make a purchase, I get a small commission. Your price remains exactly the same. You pay the same price and I get paid? That’s a no-brainer, right?

55 Time-saving Tips for Busy People

By Sarah 2 Comments

There are so many brilliant time-saving tips out on the interwebs that I thought I’d share a host of my favorites from other sites:

Outsource time consuming tasks. We have a once a month housecleaner that does the deep cleaning, which means we can keep up with the basics in between. While this does saves real calendar time, it saves so much more of my mental energy. Read six more helpful tips from She Knows.

Don’t let negative people take time and energy out of your day. Read about this and more on Entreprenuer’s Since You Can’t Manipulate Time, Try These 13 Time-Saving Tips.

Limit your workday. Setting strict limits on your available time forces prioritization and focus – and frees up time for the rest of your life. Read this and 19 more time saving essentials from Leo Babauta.

Have a ‘day of the week’ breakfast. + 9 other morning time-saving hacks at Your Modern Family. We simplify even more and eat either yogurt and granola or protein shakes almost every weekday. We reserve the weekends for breakfast variety.

Check the weather forecast—for the whole week + more style and wardrobe time saving tips on Stylecaster. I religiously check the weather forecast first thing in the morning, but need to start also looking ahead to the rest of the week. There’s been more than once lately with our unpredictable fall weather that I haven’t had the right laundry done and have been left scrambling.

What’s your favorite time-saving tip?

This post is part of 31 Timesaving Tools, Tips & Templates, read the rest of the series here.

How to set up filters in Gmail and experience email bliss

By Sarah Leave a Comment

On any given day, hundreds of emails can flood your inbox. On top of work-related emails, there’s the school information, Amazon notifications, bank statements and the endless, endless lists of promo emails that you don’t even remember signing up for.

It’s entirely too easy to miss out on the important information (I see you, library almost-due and overdue notices) with all the clutter.

Unsubscribing from non-critical information is one way to go, but often there’s that occasional email that you do want and don’t want to miss out on.

How do you easily remove the clutter to focus on what’s important – without ditching it entirely?

One super easy way is to set up filters in Gmail!

I have filters set to automatically send almost all of my emails to the relevant folder – automatically “filing” them away for me. It’s genius.

How to Set Up Filters in Gmail

1. Select an email.

2. From the top menu bar, select “More.”

3. Select “Filter messages like these.”

4. Create Filter with this search.

5. Apply the label (you can add new labels here, or select from a pre-existing list).

6. Decide whether or not it should Skip the Inbox (hint: If it has a label, it probably should skip the inbox).

7. Check the “Also apply filter to [number] matching conversations.”

8. Click “Create Filter”

9. Experience email bliss!

Setting up filters is a great one-time action that will save you time and energy every day moving forward. Take 5 minutes today and set up your email filters.