136. Underscheduling & Overscheduling
What does your time management practice look like? Do you schedule absolutely everything on your calendar? Maybe you aren’t a fan of scheduling anything at all. Or perhaps you schedule work-related tasks but don’t schedule anything around your personal life.
The truth is, we all probably bounce between all of these behaviors, and one isn’t better or worse than the other. However, examining how you schedule your time gives you the data you need to make the tweaks that ultimately allow you to be efficient and effective, even if the seasons of your life change, and this process is the perfect starting place.
Join me this week to hear what’s driving the habit of underscheduling, overscheduling, and not scheduling your downtime. I’m highlighting the consequences of each type of behavior, and small tweaks you can begin implementing to create flexibility, protect your time, improve your work, and reduce stress.
Podcast listeners can join my coaching program and get $500 until January 5th! Sign up for your free consultation HERE to learn how my program can help you change what you are struggling with and achieve your goals.
To ensure you get the coaching you need while this podcast goes on a break, I’m providing 12 organizations with webinar workshops on topics that apply to your organization. If you want a slot, email me by clicking here and we’ll discuss a collaboration!
What You Will Discover:
The 3 types of behaviors I see when it comes to managing time.
What is driving the habit of underscheduling and overscheduling.
How you may not be protecting your own self-care or pleasure.
Why it’s helpful to examine how you’re planning your time.
How there is no such thing as a perfect schedule.
Resources:
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Podcast listeners can join my coaching program and get $500 until January 5th! Sign up for your free consultation HERE to learn how my program can help you change what you are struggling with and achieve your goals.
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hey you all, I’m Marissa McKool, and you’re listening to the Redefining Rest Podcast for Public Health Professionals. Here we believe rest is your right. You don’t have to earn it, you just have to learn how to take it and I’m going to teach you. Ready? Come along.
Welcome, everyone. How’s it going? What are you up to? I hope you’re well. The time I’m recording this, it’s in November. I’m not going to lie, it’s been a rough couple of weeks with everything that’s going on in the world. You know, the world’s always a messy place. There’s always horrible things happening. There are just different periods where it impacts you more, whether it’s because it personally impacts you or you’re more aware of it and it can feel heavier and darker. And that’s how it’s been the past couple weeks for me.
And I found community in it. I found hope by seeing so many other public health professionals being part of the movement to stand by our values in public health and what’s right in social justice. And that’s meant so much to me, so, so much. I’ve also lost friends over how I’m choosing to speak up, and lost customers. I’ve lost respect from some of the people that I have historically learned from and followed and all that stuff. So it has been a heavy couple of weeks at least at the time I’m recording this.
You all are hearing this in December, which I really hope there is some joy happening and some light and happiness. But I will say, and the reason I bring this up, not to be a downer at the beginning of this episode. But to just show you all this is real life. There’s lots of times I come on in the beginning, I’m chipper and happy and everything’s great. The truth is life is 50/50 and things aren’t great all the time and that’s the reality. And I want to be real and transparent with all of you and show you I’m human. I’m not a special snowflake. I’m not the Dalai Lama. I’m not enlightened.
I am human, just like you. And some of the ways I’ve been taking care of myself through the challenging time has been making sure I prioritize my needs, have moments of joy, doing my makeup is a big moment of joy. I started a ceramics class this week that I think will be really good. If you’re in my productivity class, you know I haven’t had the best track record with ceramics classes being well taught but hopefully this one, fingers crossed. So yeah, that’s what’s up with me.
I hope you all are doing well, and if you’re not, I hope you take time to prioritize yourself and do what you need to process emotions or prioritize your mental and emotional health.
Now, real quick before we get into the episode, I do want to share some updates on the upcoming podcast hiatus that’s happening. If you’re not interested, if you don’t care, feel free to fast forward. I won’t take any offense to that. But I have shared the past couple of weeks in different episodes that the Redefining Rest podcast, this podcast will be taking a break in 2024. And the plan is to come back in 2025. Current episodes won’t be going anywhere, so don’t worry.
If you’re new here, if you’re a new listener, I really encourage you to go back and check out prior episodes. Or if you’re a long time listener to continue to do that in 2025. Sarah Hahn, who came on the podcast a couple months ago. I love what she said at the end of the interview that anytime she has an issue she can search through the podcast and find an episode specific to that challenge. And that’s been the goal with this podcast.
So no matter what challenge you’re facing, whether it’s struggling with social media and constantly being on there or a difficult boss or something else, stress, you can find an episode for it. So that will continue to be a resource. The last episode before this break will be January 1st. And in that episode I’m going to dive deep into why I made this decision, how I made this choice, what factors led to it and my plans for next year without the podcast and how it impacts you.
But I want to give you a little sneak peek to that because this specifically what I want to share today is a very special bonus for you, for podcast listeners only and for no one else. I’m not going to promote this on my email list, on my LinkedIn, on my Instagram, nowhere else. I want to celebrate your growth from listening to this podcast and take it deeper. But in order to share this bonus I have to set the stage with a few other changes I’m making for 2024.
So this past year in 2023, my one-on-one coaching program was three months of weekly coaching for $5,000. And it was set that way for a few reasons. One, because I wanted to be able to launch some more affordable short term coaching courses, which I did. And I wanted to do it a couple times so I could really make tweaks and change it. We all know in public health, you don’t implement a program once and it’s perfect. So I’ve been doing that. I will continue to have at least one course a year, probably just one for the time being. So don’t worry, courses aren’t going anywhere. I’m just going to do fewer.
But now they’re going to be better because I’ve gone through several rounds of hosting courses and I’ve made improvements and changes every time. The other reason my one-on-one program was structured the way it was this year was because I know it’s hard to commit to a long program, whether it’s working with a personal trainer or a nutritionist or a coach or a therapist. And three months definitely is super feasible for most people. It fits into your life very easily. But I’m actually going back to how my one-on-one program used to be.
So for 2024, it’s going to be six months, so twice as long for $6,000. So this means that the price per coaching session is going down 60%. While food and construction costs and facials and skincare and alcohol and everything else, everything, the prices are going up. And shrinkflation’s happening where prices are going up, but you’re actually getting less. I’m doing the opposite here. I’m going to give you more for a reduced cost.
And listen, I know if you’re listening, you’re like, “Wait, I was in your one-on-one coaching program in 2023, this seems unfair.” Don’t worry, I really thought about you too. You should have already received at least one, if not multiple emails with your 2024 alumni benefits. You’re going to get so many free resources from me that the public’s not going to get, including a special alumni only free class. And an even reduced rate of one-on-one coaching if you want to continue.
So don’t worry, I thought about you. That’s why you have an alumni benefits package happening next year. So check your email if you haven’t gotten that, if you haven’t seen it.
Okay, but back to you, the podcast listener. Starting today, December 4th through January 5th, you can get a special bonus. If you decide to join my coaching program in 2024 before January 5th, you’ll get $500 off. Consults are open right now through January 5th. We’ll leave a link below. This is not the normal consult link. This is a special consult link just for you. No one else has access to it. I’m enrolling podcast listeners in my coaching program for 2024 so you’ll have first dibs.
Actually consults aren’t open to the public at all. So they’re only open to you, the podcast listeners for this month, to give you first dibs. Signing up for a consult does not mean you are committed to joining the program and the consult’s free. But if you come on the consult and decide to join the program, as long as it’s before January 5th, you’ll get $500 off. So here’s why I’m doing this.
One, I recognize that this resource has been available every single week and a real source of support for many of you. And I know taking that away or going on pause leaves you hanging a little bit. And there’s many ways I’ve thought about bridging this gap. One way is I’m going to do more webinars with organizations. So if you’re part of one of those organizations, you’ll have access there but this is another way. Some of you have been thinking about taking this work deeper and working with me but haven’t taken that step or leap.
Some of you would really benefit from coaching actually, in lieu of this podcast, because you really need to go deeper to get the change you want. So I really want you to think about it. This is only a month long offer. I probably will never be doing this again. It’s just for you, so consider it, think about it. If you have questions, reach out. The link is in the show notes if you want to go ahead and sign up for a consult.
Okay, so today let’s talk about scheduling, using your calendar or planner to schedule your time, to plan your tasks. Generally speaking, there’s three types of behaviors I see when it comes to managing your time, scheduling everything, scheduling nothing, scheduling just things for work, but not personal time or personal things. Now, I bounce between all of these behaviors. So everything I’m sharing with you here today is not shaming any of you because I do all of these things. You might do all of them too, or you might only do one of them or two of them.
This episode isn’t to say one is better than the other. I’m going to share what each of these behaviors look like, how they have an impact and some things you can do to tweak them to help yourself get more work done and be more efficient. Let’s talk about overscheduling first. Overscheduling is having too much on your calendar, more things than you have time for. It can look like overestimating how many tasks you can get done in one day, scheduling 15 tasks when you can only get five done.
So you end up constantly pushing work back, doing things halfway, jumping task to task, feeling behind. You don’t schedule time for lunch or breaks or driving time if you have to go somewhere for a meeting. As meetings and events get added to your calendar, you don’t take anything else off. As work gets added to your plate, you don’t take any other items off of it. You try to squeeze it all in.
And when you are someone who overschedules, you usually don’t believe you are overscheduling. You think I just haven’t figured out how to use my calendar in the best way yet, that’s why it’s not working. When you can’t get everything done in a day or week you think, I must have just scheduled wrong. I need to have a better plan or a better system. Or you think you have too much on your calendar because of your job or your boss or your kids but not you. But I hate to break it to you, it’s because you are the one scheduling too much.
You don’t want to reduce how much you put on your calendar because you believe you have to get it all done. If you don’t get it all done something terrible will happen like you’ll get fired or reprimanded or others will have to take on the burden. You believe you don’t have a choice. And part of you believes the solution is just having the most perfect organized calendar, the best organization system. Where you can get everything done, you can put all your tasks there without a lunch break or a bathroom break, without working later or running over on tasks or meetings.
The real solution is, reduce how much you put on your calendar. And I know, to someone who overschedules, that seems so painful and difficult and impossible but it’s not. It’s so much more effective and efficient because right now you are not only not getting things done, you are falling behind because of it. And the things you do get done are not done at a high quality level and are halfway done and you feel bad about it. When you do less, you actually get things done, the more efficient and effective and high quality, and you don’t fall behind.
So let’s talk about under-schedulers. This is when you don’t schedule anything. The only thing on your calendar are meetings that other people put there. It looks like when you sit down in the morning, the beginning of your work day, you decide that morning what to work on. You struggle to decide. You don’t know what to start with. It takes you an hour. Then you might start one thing and jump to another. You don’t prioritize. You get distracted by email. You have a long list of to-do’s or maybe multiple lists of to-do’s.
You don’t strategically organize how to get them done in what order. You find yourself working on one task for over an hour when it could have taken 15 minutes. You avoid all the tasks you don’t want to do. And you waste so much unnecessary time, you drag out the work, you fall behind, things fall through the cracks, you don’t feel accomplished. There’s different things that could be driving this behavior. For some it might be underlying shame and judgment that you can’t do it all, that you’re not good enough. Or you believe it’ll be too hard to have a calendar and to stay organized. You think it’s too restrictive.
You think having a schedule will add pressure or give you anxiety. You believe going with the flow and not having it planned, helps you. Or you believe you can’t schedule things out because something always comes up and gets in the way like your kids or colleagues, so what’s the point? But then what happens is you spend too long working on one task and you forget about the other things you need to do or you dilly dally in your inbox or you get distracted easily by social media. Or you have to do things, last minute and in a rush.
What you are missing and what you’re not seeing is how not scheduling anything is actually giving up a lot of your power. To be in charge of your time, to be in charge of your workload, of how much is on it, of prioritizing. You’re creating a lot more stress for yourself and falling behind. The solution is actually give yourself a little bit more structure and guidance to get your work done. Now, I’m not saying you have to all of a sudden schedule everything out all the time. That might not work for you.
But giving yourself a little bit more of a framework, an order of operations, a structure, a decision making process will help you be more efficient and effective. Now remember, I’m both an under and over-scheduler, so there’s no shame here. I bounce between these behaviors. It’s not like one is worse or better than the other. It’s about identifying what’s happening and how it’s impacting you.
Then there is the behavior of just scheduling work stuff, but not your personal time, which again, I’m guilty of. Maybe you schedule your work tasks completely, but no personal stuff. Maybe you do it for your kids or doctor’s appointments, but you don’t do it for your workouts or going on walks or reading a book or taking a relaxing bath, or to pay your bills or deep clean the fridge or social time. You don’t schedule anything around pleasure or downtime or self-development.
And you might not do this because you think it would make it too formal or you’re so tired from work already or you don’t want to be bound to it. But if that’s the case, then what ends up happening, it doesn’t get done. You don’t get to your bills or cleaning or organizing when you want to. Or you don’t get any time to yourself, of self-care or pleasure because you don’t protect it, you don’t plan it because you aren’t prioritizing it. And then you wonder why it doesn’t happen. Or you blame your job or your partner or your kids for it not happening.
Reminder, everything you do or don’t do is a choice. A schedule, a planner, a calendar is just a tool to organize how and what you do with your time, but you decide to do it or not. There is no perfect calendar system. There’s no perfect scheduling structure. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t or it wouldn’t be helpful to examine how you’re planning your time and make adjustments to make it easier for you, to actually protect time for you. To feel accomplished, to balance your work and personal life, to not fall behind.
So here’s what I want you to do with this information. First, do not try to one [inaudible] your approach to scheduling overnight and change it all. That will not work. That’s why New Year’s resolutions do not succeed. Pick up on, ask yourself, okay, what of this podcast episode has resonated with me? What part of this do I see myself in? What part of this is not helping me? And then pick one or two things to change and tweak. Maybe you overschedule so you just start by taking one thing off your calendar once a week to make room for one protected lunch break.
Maybe you under-schedule, you just start with, I’m going to schedule one task a day and the rest of the day, I’ll just go with the flow. And your brain’s going to say, “That’s not enough, that doesn’t count.” Don’t listen to your brain. Make a small change and see how it goes. Does it help? What did you learn? Was it hard? Why was it hard? And then make tweaks from there. This isn’t about getting to a destination of a perfect schedule, there’s no such thing. And what works for me might not work for you and what works for you might not work for your colleague.
It’s about figuring out what works for you. It’s an ongoing evolution of what is helpful for you because our life is an evolution. Your work is constantly changing, your interests, your to-do list. What’s getting in your way of improving your efficiency and effectiveness is being static in how you do things, how you plan your time, not examining how they’re helping or not helping you. Not making tweaks to the areas where you could use tweaks to improve your work and reduce your stress.
Examine how you schedule your time right now. See what is not working or helping you, and start by making a couple, one or two small changes. Be a scientist, be an evaluator. See how it goes. Collect the data, then make more tweaks. I’m constantly making tweaks to how I schedule my time, to how I do things. And I give myself that flexibility and doing that allows me to continue to be more efficient and effective even if the seasons of my life change or the needs of my life change. And this process is a starting place for you.
So with that, you all, I’m going to let you go to go think about that and do that. And again, if you’re interested in potentially joining my coaching program next year, while the podcast is on break, there’s a link in the show notes for you to schedule a consult. Consults are only open for podcast listeners, they are not open to the public. So take advantage of it while you can and that discount if you decide to join before January 5th. With that, you all, hope you have a great week. Talk to you next week.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
Welcome, everyone. How’s it going? What are you up to? I hope you’re well. The time I’m recording this, it’s in November. I’m not going to lie, it’s been a rough couple of weeks with everything that’s going on in the world. You know, the world’s always a messy place. There’s always horrible things happening. There are just different periods where it impacts you more, whether it’s because it personally impacts you or you’re more aware of it and it can feel heavier and darker. And that’s how it’s been the past couple weeks for me.
And I found community in it. I found hope by seeing so many other public health professionals being part of the movement to stand by our values in public health and what’s right in social justice. And that’s meant so much to me, so, so much. I’ve also lost friends over how I’m choosing to speak up, and lost customers. I’ve lost respect from some of the people that I have historically learned from and followed and all that stuff. So it has been a heavy couple of weeks at least at the time I’m recording this.
You all are hearing this in December, which I really hope there is some joy happening and some light and happiness. But I will say, and the reason I bring this up, not to be a downer at the beginning of this episode. But to just show you all this is real life. There’s lots of times I come on in the beginning, I’m chipper and happy and everything’s great. The truth is life is 50/50 and things aren’t great all the time and that’s the reality. And I want to be real and transparent with all of you and show you I’m human. I’m not a special snowflake. I’m not the Dalai Lama. I’m not enlightened.
I am human, just like you. And some of the ways I’ve been taking care of myself through the challenging time has been making sure I prioritize my needs, have moments of joy, doing my makeup is a big moment of joy. I started a ceramics class this week that I think will be really good. If you’re in my productivity class, you know I haven’t had the best track record with ceramics classes being well taught but hopefully this one, fingers crossed. So yeah, that’s what’s up with me.
I hope you all are doing well, and if you’re not, I hope you take time to prioritize yourself and do what you need to process emotions or prioritize your mental and emotional health.
Now, real quick before we get into the episode, I do want to share some updates on the upcoming podcast hiatus that’s happening. If you’re not interested, if you don’t care, feel free to fast forward. I won’t take any offense to that. But I have shared the past couple of weeks in different episodes that the Redefining Rest podcast, this podcast will be taking a break in 2024. And the plan is to come back in 2025. Current episodes won’t be going anywhere, so don’t worry.
If you’re new here, if you’re a new listener, I really encourage you to go back and check out prior episodes. Or if you’re a long time listener to continue to do that in 2025. Sarah Hahn, who came on the podcast a couple months ago. I love what she said at the end of the interview that anytime she has an issue she can search through the podcast and find an episode specific to that challenge. And that’s been the goal with this podcast.
So no matter what challenge you’re facing, whether it’s struggling with social media and constantly being on there or a difficult boss or something else, stress, you can find an episode for it. So that will continue to be a resource. The last episode before this break will be January 1st. And in that episode I’m going to dive deep into why I made this decision, how I made this choice, what factors led to it and my plans for next year without the podcast and how it impacts you.
But I want to give you a little sneak peek to that because this specifically what I want to share today is a very special bonus for you, for podcast listeners only and for no one else. I’m not going to promote this on my email list, on my LinkedIn, on my Instagram, nowhere else. I want to celebrate your growth from listening to this podcast and take it deeper. But in order to share this bonus I have to set the stage with a few other changes I’m making for 2024.
So this past year in 2023, my one-on-one coaching program was three months of weekly coaching for $5,000. And it was set that way for a few reasons. One, because I wanted to be able to launch some more affordable short term coaching courses, which I did. And I wanted to do it a couple times so I could really make tweaks and change it. We all know in public health, you don’t implement a program once and it’s perfect. So I’ve been doing that. I will continue to have at least one course a year, probably just one for the time being. So don’t worry, courses aren’t going anywhere. I’m just going to do fewer.
But now they’re going to be better because I’ve gone through several rounds of hosting courses and I’ve made improvements and changes every time. The other reason my one-on-one program was structured the way it was this year was because I know it’s hard to commit to a long program, whether it’s working with a personal trainer or a nutritionist or a coach or a therapist. And three months definitely is super feasible for most people. It fits into your life very easily. But I’m actually going back to how my one-on-one program used to be.
So for 2024, it’s going to be six months, so twice as long for $6,000. So this means that the price per coaching session is going down 60%. While food and construction costs and facials and skincare and alcohol and everything else, everything, the prices are going up. And shrinkflation’s happening where prices are going up, but you’re actually getting less. I’m doing the opposite here. I’m going to give you more for a reduced cost.
And listen, I know if you’re listening, you’re like, “Wait, I was in your one-on-one coaching program in 2023, this seems unfair.” Don’t worry, I really thought about you too. You should have already received at least one, if not multiple emails with your 2024 alumni benefits. You’re going to get so many free resources from me that the public’s not going to get, including a special alumni only free class. And an even reduced rate of one-on-one coaching if you want to continue.
So don’t worry, I thought about you. That’s why you have an alumni benefits package happening next year. So check your email if you haven’t gotten that, if you haven’t seen it.
Okay, but back to you, the podcast listener. Starting today, December 4th through January 5th, you can get a special bonus. If you decide to join my coaching program in 2024 before January 5th, you’ll get $500 off. Consults are open right now through January 5th. We’ll leave a link below. This is not the normal consult link. This is a special consult link just for you. No one else has access to it. I’m enrolling podcast listeners in my coaching program for 2024 so you’ll have first dibs.
Actually consults aren’t open to the public at all. So they’re only open to you, the podcast listeners for this month, to give you first dibs. Signing up for a consult does not mean you are committed to joining the program and the consult’s free. But if you come on the consult and decide to join the program, as long as it’s before January 5th, you’ll get $500 off. So here’s why I’m doing this.
One, I recognize that this resource has been available every single week and a real source of support for many of you. And I know taking that away or going on pause leaves you hanging a little bit. And there’s many ways I’ve thought about bridging this gap. One way is I’m going to do more webinars with organizations. So if you’re part of one of those organizations, you’ll have access there but this is another way. Some of you have been thinking about taking this work deeper and working with me but haven’t taken that step or leap.
Some of you would really benefit from coaching actually, in lieu of this podcast, because you really need to go deeper to get the change you want. So I really want you to think about it. This is only a month long offer. I probably will never be doing this again. It’s just for you, so consider it, think about it. If you have questions, reach out. The link is in the show notes if you want to go ahead and sign up for a consult.
Okay, so today let’s talk about scheduling, using your calendar or planner to schedule your time, to plan your tasks. Generally speaking, there’s three types of behaviors I see when it comes to managing your time, scheduling everything, scheduling nothing, scheduling just things for work, but not personal time or personal things. Now, I bounce between all of these behaviors. So everything I’m sharing with you here today is not shaming any of you because I do all of these things. You might do all of them too, or you might only do one of them or two of them.
This episode isn’t to say one is better than the other. I’m going to share what each of these behaviors look like, how they have an impact and some things you can do to tweak them to help yourself get more work done and be more efficient. Let’s talk about overscheduling first. Overscheduling is having too much on your calendar, more things than you have time for. It can look like overestimating how many tasks you can get done in one day, scheduling 15 tasks when you can only get five done.
So you end up constantly pushing work back, doing things halfway, jumping task to task, feeling behind. You don’t schedule time for lunch or breaks or driving time if you have to go somewhere for a meeting. As meetings and events get added to your calendar, you don’t take anything else off. As work gets added to your plate, you don’t take any other items off of it. You try to squeeze it all in.
And when you are someone who overschedules, you usually don’t believe you are overscheduling. You think I just haven’t figured out how to use my calendar in the best way yet, that’s why it’s not working. When you can’t get everything done in a day or week you think, I must have just scheduled wrong. I need to have a better plan or a better system. Or you think you have too much on your calendar because of your job or your boss or your kids but not you. But I hate to break it to you, it’s because you are the one scheduling too much.
You don’t want to reduce how much you put on your calendar because you believe you have to get it all done. If you don’t get it all done something terrible will happen like you’ll get fired or reprimanded or others will have to take on the burden. You believe you don’t have a choice. And part of you believes the solution is just having the most perfect organized calendar, the best organization system. Where you can get everything done, you can put all your tasks there without a lunch break or a bathroom break, without working later or running over on tasks or meetings.
The real solution is, reduce how much you put on your calendar. And I know, to someone who overschedules, that seems so painful and difficult and impossible but it’s not. It’s so much more effective and efficient because right now you are not only not getting things done, you are falling behind because of it. And the things you do get done are not done at a high quality level and are halfway done and you feel bad about it. When you do less, you actually get things done, the more efficient and effective and high quality, and you don’t fall behind.
So let’s talk about under-schedulers. This is when you don’t schedule anything. The only thing on your calendar are meetings that other people put there. It looks like when you sit down in the morning, the beginning of your work day, you decide that morning what to work on. You struggle to decide. You don’t know what to start with. It takes you an hour. Then you might start one thing and jump to another. You don’t prioritize. You get distracted by email. You have a long list of to-do’s or maybe multiple lists of to-do’s.
You don’t strategically organize how to get them done in what order. You find yourself working on one task for over an hour when it could have taken 15 minutes. You avoid all the tasks you don’t want to do. And you waste so much unnecessary time, you drag out the work, you fall behind, things fall through the cracks, you don’t feel accomplished. There’s different things that could be driving this behavior. For some it might be underlying shame and judgment that you can’t do it all, that you’re not good enough. Or you believe it’ll be too hard to have a calendar and to stay organized. You think it’s too restrictive.
You think having a schedule will add pressure or give you anxiety. You believe going with the flow and not having it planned, helps you. Or you believe you can’t schedule things out because something always comes up and gets in the way like your kids or colleagues, so what’s the point? But then what happens is you spend too long working on one task and you forget about the other things you need to do or you dilly dally in your inbox or you get distracted easily by social media. Or you have to do things, last minute and in a rush.
What you are missing and what you’re not seeing is how not scheduling anything is actually giving up a lot of your power. To be in charge of your time, to be in charge of your workload, of how much is on it, of prioritizing. You’re creating a lot more stress for yourself and falling behind. The solution is actually give yourself a little bit more structure and guidance to get your work done. Now, I’m not saying you have to all of a sudden schedule everything out all the time. That might not work for you.
But giving yourself a little bit more of a framework, an order of operations, a structure, a decision making process will help you be more efficient and effective. Now remember, I’m both an under and over-scheduler, so there’s no shame here. I bounce between these behaviors. It’s not like one is worse or better than the other. It’s about identifying what’s happening and how it’s impacting you.
Then there is the behavior of just scheduling work stuff, but not your personal time, which again, I’m guilty of. Maybe you schedule your work tasks completely, but no personal stuff. Maybe you do it for your kids or doctor’s appointments, but you don’t do it for your workouts or going on walks or reading a book or taking a relaxing bath, or to pay your bills or deep clean the fridge or social time. You don’t schedule anything around pleasure or downtime or self-development.
And you might not do this because you think it would make it too formal or you’re so tired from work already or you don’t want to be bound to it. But if that’s the case, then what ends up happening, it doesn’t get done. You don’t get to your bills or cleaning or organizing when you want to. Or you don’t get any time to yourself, of self-care or pleasure because you don’t protect it, you don’t plan it because you aren’t prioritizing it. And then you wonder why it doesn’t happen. Or you blame your job or your partner or your kids for it not happening.
Reminder, everything you do or don’t do is a choice. A schedule, a planner, a calendar is just a tool to organize how and what you do with your time, but you decide to do it or not. There is no perfect calendar system. There’s no perfect scheduling structure. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t or it wouldn’t be helpful to examine how you’re planning your time and make adjustments to make it easier for you, to actually protect time for you. To feel accomplished, to balance your work and personal life, to not fall behind.
So here’s what I want you to do with this information. First, do not try to one [inaudible] your approach to scheduling overnight and change it all. That will not work. That’s why New Year’s resolutions do not succeed. Pick up on, ask yourself, okay, what of this podcast episode has resonated with me? What part of this do I see myself in? What part of this is not helping me? And then pick one or two things to change and tweak. Maybe you overschedule so you just start by taking one thing off your calendar once a week to make room for one protected lunch break.
Maybe you under-schedule, you just start with, I’m going to schedule one task a day and the rest of the day, I’ll just go with the flow. And your brain’s going to say, “That’s not enough, that doesn’t count.” Don’t listen to your brain. Make a small change and see how it goes. Does it help? What did you learn? Was it hard? Why was it hard? And then make tweaks from there. This isn’t about getting to a destination of a perfect schedule, there’s no such thing. And what works for me might not work for you and what works for you might not work for your colleague.
It’s about figuring out what works for you. It’s an ongoing evolution of what is helpful for you because our life is an evolution. Your work is constantly changing, your interests, your to-do list. What’s getting in your way of improving your efficiency and effectiveness is being static in how you do things, how you plan your time, not examining how they’re helping or not helping you. Not making tweaks to the areas where you could use tweaks to improve your work and reduce your stress.
Examine how you schedule your time right now. See what is not working or helping you, and start by making a couple, one or two small changes. Be a scientist, be an evaluator. See how it goes. Collect the data, then make more tweaks. I’m constantly making tweaks to how I schedule my time, to how I do things. And I give myself that flexibility and doing that allows me to continue to be more efficient and effective even if the seasons of my life change or the needs of my life change. And this process is a starting place for you.
So with that, you all, I’m going to let you go to go think about that and do that. And again, if you’re interested in potentially joining my coaching program next year, while the podcast is on break, there’s a link in the show notes for you to schedule a consult. Consults are only open for podcast listeners, they are not open to the public. So take advantage of it while you can and that discount if you decide to join before January 5th. With that, you all, hope you have a great week. Talk to you next week.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
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