210. Overwhelmed? Plan Your Week to Reclaim Your Time with Megan Sumrell

We are so overworked, overscheduled and overwhelmed — you have to know how to manage your time. But that itself can be overwhelming, isn’t it? 

 

Today’s guest is Megan Sumrell, Founder of The Pink Bee, where she took her 20-plus year career in systems and processes and applied it to all things time management, organization and productivity and explained why it's important to plan your week ahead.

 

So many of the traditional time management and productivity systems work great in a 9 to 5 corporate setting where you leave your life. You walk into your work environment; you get to put that focus on for 8 or 9 uninterrupted hours and leave.

 

Those systems work great there. But the reality is today, technology has blurred work and home life. Many people are working a hybrid system or remotely. The old systems don't take these new realities into account or acknowledge the interruptions that might come from working at home.

 

Another aspect that leads specifically to women being overwhelmed is that we’re taking on more responsibilities without removing any of the old ones. There are expectations that we put on ourselves such as the heavy lifting around the house. 

 

In the face of overwhelm and constant access, Megan says it’s time to move away from lists. She suggests a weekly planning model instead.

 

Another way of thinking about this is, let’s say you’re given a list of 25 things to buy at the grocery store and you’re handed an envelope with the money to pay for it. You fill your cart with the items on the list and it’s $110 worth of groceries. You open the envelope and there’s a $50 bill. Now you’re going to have to make choices about what to put back. 

 

What if instead, you were given $50 and told what you’re trying to accomplish – feed a family of four for four days. What would the walk through the grocery store look like?

 

Use the incredibly powerful way of laying out a draft plan for the upcoming week where you are looking at the realities of what you’re already committed to. Then you can create efficiencies. 

 

Megan likes to plan for uncertainty. She suggests conducting a time audit during a regular week. How much time did you spend doing things that you had no idea were coming but truly had to be addressed?

 

When we track this over a week or two, we start to see a pattern emerge. Megan says for her, at this stage of her life, she averages about 5 to 6 hours a week, noting it can change by season. 

 

She makes sure to set aside blank space in her calendar to cover those hours in case something comes up so she can shift rather than stay up late or work all weekend.

 

Megan says aside from weekly planning, a quick win is to program your devices so that you can have everything silent except for things important enough to interrupt you. Then you communicate to your loved ones so they know how to reach you in an emergency and when you’ll be checking your device.

 

She says it is life changing when you can truly disconnect. You get your boundaries back.

 

Download The Pink Bee app, and visit https://www.theworklifeharmony.com for free weekly planning training.

 

Connect with Megan Sumrell: https://www.megansumrell.com | YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WorkLifeHarmonyPodcast

 

Other GoG episodes you might want to check out:

 

How to Deal With Mom Guilt and Balance: https://sarahwalton.com/albiona/ 

 

Healing the Hustle (You Don’t Have to Keep Up): https://sarahwalton.com/jessica-butts/ 

 

You can check out our podcast interviews on YouTube, too! http://bit.ly/YouTubeSWalton 

 

Thank you so much for listening. I’m so honored that you’re here and would be so grateful if you could leave a quick review on Apple Podcasts by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom and clicking “Write a review.” Then we’ll get to inspire even more people!

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