4. Pen to Paper - Time Management Step 1

Hi everyone! Today we are really going to start digging into the actual tools that I use in my own life and with my coaching clients to create more clarity, simplicity and efficiency in their lives. The way we are going to start is by focusing on Time Management, one of my absolute favorite things to coach on because it was a game changer in my own multi-faceted life of being a scientist, physician, mom, wife, daughter to aging parents and the list goes on and on.

You will get all the 12 steps over 12 episodes - this means you will get one step every other week. I know...waiting is tough, so for those of you who need to know everything now, I am giving you free access to the entire guide on my website: https://www.mudphudmindproject.com/

So what this won’t be is simply a to-do list and quick fix. You can get a nice planner anywhere - nothing wrong with that. I love a good planner, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Step 1:

• Get a blank piece of paper and a pen.
• Now that you are sitting in front of that beautiful blank sheet, you are going to fill it up with every single thing that is in your brain in terms of a “To-Do” list.
• Notice what your thoughts are about your completed list.
• Ask yourself how it feels to think those thoughts. (ie. anxiety)
• Now ask yourself what thought can you think to create a more helpful feeling. (ie. calm or focused)

The truth is that our brains are terrible at holding and keeping information organized and remembering detail with precision. Your brain is an amazing processor, but in order for it to run as efficiently as possible, you need to ask it to stay present at any one time. You don’t want it wandering off into the future of needing to pick up the kids or cook dinner. You want it to focus on one thing at a time. The fallacy of “multi-tasking” is that we will only ever be halfway in any one place. 

You can think of your brain as a closet and the clothes inside as your thoughts. You have thoughts about your day and some may look like I have “too much stuff to do” or that “I don’t have enough hours in the day”? Once you start by just pulling everything out of your mind and objectively looking at it as you would the protocol of an experiment, you’ll see that we just have things to do - or rather WANT to do, and we all get the same number of hours in the day. Those are just the facts. The rest of it is story and what I do with myself and my clients is to intentionally re-write the story to clean up the old and worn out thoughts that are not serving us.

I want you to look at that list of things for the week and ask yourself the story you have been telling yourself about it. How does that story feel when you say it out loud? What I think the sentence “I don’t have enough hours in the day” and really pay attention to how it feels, I notice a tightening in my chest and perhaps a dull ache in my temples. That feeling in my body is anxiety. It is coming from scarcity. It is coming from a sentence that I repeat in my mind constantly. The good news - we can change our thoughts and thereby change our feelings and experience we have with our To-Do list.  

The bottom line is that 80% of time management is mind management. Once you have the basics of organizing your To-Do list on a calendar, the rest of the work is in your thoughts around time and what your brain is constantly offering you about how little you have. 

Once you do this practice you will increase your awareness of everything you are choosing to do with your life as well as the thoughts you perhaps have on default about that list of things. From awareness comes power. 

Again, you can get the full guide on my website, but I highly encourage you to take this process one step at a time. The process is not meant to add more for you to do, but rather give you some clarity and get you on the path of getting your time back.