How to get more out of your busy day

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Hi guys, Wendy here. Welcome to the healthy and thriving career moms podcast, your weekly dose of inspiration and motivation for thriving with your healthy habits, especially in the midst of the crazy mom juggle. I get that you're busy and that taking time for you is not always easy, but I'm here to help.

So let's jump in.

So hi everyone. And thank you for tuning in to. Sex, but we are getting

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stuck in to the juicy topic of time management. Now this is something that so many of you I know struggle with because you've reached out to me about it. You've asked me to create an episode about this. You've said to me, Wendy, tell me how do I.

More time. How do I get more things done? Because as a busy working mom, we feel particularly laid in with decisions and tasks on a daily basis. And it's one of the things that can feel the most overwhelming and the most stressful

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to us as busy moms and. So many of you have said that last week's episode, all about my four stress, reducing hacks really helped you to look at stress and how you could manage it better.

But I think as well, what we need to add to that is more tips and techniques on time management. But before that, I really want to challenge us on something. And that is what if I told you that you don't need more time. You need to learn how to get the. Out of your time. So it's

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not a case of fitting more into your day, but actually about working smarter with your time.

So not harder, but working smarter. And I absolutely love that. I look at my day and think, right, what can I work smarter on here? What can I time stack here? What can I delegate here? Which will free me up to have more time? I think the challenges working moms comes because we feel like we have to do all the things.

Someone said to me, once, you know, being a working mom is like, feeling like you've got to work as if you have no kids and

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be a mom as if you have no job. And I think that's so true. So what we try and do is we try and do all the things to do with our, our work and our careers. And then we try to do all the things to be the most perfect mum.

We want to bake everything from scratch. We want to cook all the meals. We want to do all the play dates and all the activities. And we want to, so that. You know, the activity outfits from scratch all the different things, but actually that's just not realistic. But before we get into all the tips and the

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tools, I just wanted to ask you the question.

Do you know what is costing you time? Do you. Do you actually know in your day, what is a time thief for you? And I'm just gonna throw out some suggestions and you can maybe, you know, use it, don't use it. This might not be you, but it may be, and this could help identify how you could be spending time and thinking.

Time as a monetary items. So thinking about every time that you go to do something, how much is this actually

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costing me in terms of my day? And I always like to think of it in terms of like my hourly rates I have, I would share with you, but I have an hourly rate that I have in my head. My time is worth.

And actually to be fair, you could probably go look this up on my website. When you look at sort of my packages and coaching packages, because people can book like a power hour session with me to get unstuck. And it's literally 60 minutes with me with coaching out your problems. And we're working on getting you some quick relief and some strategies in place.

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So you can see what that would cost in terms of an hour of my time. So when I come to do something, I'll think right. Could I be doing a power hour and earning this amount of money for doing that power hour? Or can I be cleaning my house or could I be doing something that perhaps I could pay somebody else or delegate?

It's not necessarily about the money, but delegate to somebody else to help me so that I can free up some time. To do the things that

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I wanted to do with my life. Be that to maybe work more hours in your business or work less hours in your business, or give more to your job or give more to your sport or give more to your commitments or work out more, or have more time to cook healthy meals from scratch, whatever that looks like for you.

Think about what is your time. Firstly, and then think about some of the thief's of times. So indecision. So when you waste time and choices, you stay stuck that analysis paralysis you're going round and round the houses. And it's

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really about thinking or what is the best decision that I can make in the moment right now you'll never know whether it was the best decision or the worst decision, but just making a decision is what's going to move you on and stop you being in that vicious cycle.

Number two is overthinking. Do you spend too much time mulling and stewing over decision-making situations, events, and difficulties playing it and replaying it over and over in your heads. Like how many hours have you wasted doing that? And now it's just the case of me going stop it. Okay. Actually give

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myself a little slap on the cheek just to really register like what that overthinking is doing and how it's not.

So. Number three procrastination. Do you procrastinate and things end up then being last minute.com. And so you're stressed and you're panics and you're making poor decisions. So think about this perhaps with procrastination it's often because we feel overwhelmed. Often because we've taken on too much.

So we've got too much on the to-do list and we're just feeling overwhelmed with it

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all. So rarely it's, it's thinking about that. Are you somebody who's maybe got too many things that you're committed to doing and think is that procrastination it coming from. The next thing is people pleasing. Do you feel like you're always trying to keep everyone happy and content all the time.

And I know coming up for this time of year where we've got Christmas coming and lots of families coming together and we're trying to make all the arrangements, it can feel like you're basically living your life to make everyone else happy, but

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yourself, so. That's for a moment. I know that I'm certainly a recovering people, pleaser, someone that likes people to like me.

I mean, that's just a human natural evolutionary thing. We want people to get on with us and we don't want to put people's noses out of joint, but sometimes, sometimes our constant people pleasing is rarely sucking our time and really taking time away from things that we could be doing to serve.

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The next thing is scrolling.

Are you spending time scrolling through social media news sites and other apps, and it's just draining your time as well as your mental health, because you are comparing everybody else's highlight reel to your crazy day that went on in the background that no one saw. Think about that one. The final thing is all you not backing yourself.

So what I mean by that, do you create a plan, but then you don't see it through, or maybe you make a decision and then you doubt it

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all. You always questioning yourself. Those things are actually all time thieves and all those things that I mentioned, the indecision, the overthinking, the procrastination, the people pleasing, the squirreling, the not backing yourself are actually costing you time.

Okay. So once you've identified, like where the drain is, you can plug the hole. Then we need to look at the tips and techniques to help you maximize the time that you do have. But before we do, I just

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wanted to give a shout out to my review of the week, which goes to the lovely Jess Lu 88. And I just want to thank you so much for your lovely review of my pod.

Where you said I've been following Wendy for a number of years now, and she has a beautiful, transparent, honest mummy wife and business woman. I was so pleased when she launched her podcast and she is truly the cheerleader in my ear. Her wisdom and little mantras are often the things that keep me going with things.

Just get too much. Some of my faves done instead of perfect

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progression, not perfection. And stretch goal, not strains. Thank you. Oh, well, thank you jazz. That I am so appreciative of that. And I just want to thank you all so much for all your ratings and reviews. It truly means the world to me. And we have now officially been on the air for one month of the podcast and I'm just so truly grateful.

Right? Let's get. Into my seven time management tips that I want to share with you today. And I'm going to go fast because I have a lot to share

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and I want to keep this short and sweet for you because I know you're busy and you've got busy days to crack on with number one is to be realistic. So often we can find ourselves being completely unrealistic about what we can achieve in a day.

And then halfway through the day we realize that our to do list is totally unrealistic. And then we beat ourselves up and all the negative self-talk that comes with. My suggestion is to try, be realistic about what you can and confident a day. So I set myself three things on my to-do list every day,

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maybe five at a push, if they are small, easy tasks that I can take off the list.

And this is a mix of business personal that I have on my list. Then when those most important things are done, I can then look at baby. Okay. I can go to my wider list and see, okay. Are there some things that I can get done? The problem comes when we try to do all the easy things. First, I leave the most important stuff to the end of the day when we're stressed and we're tired.

And this is when we have our meltdowns, isn't it? This is when we're like, whoa, I just

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cope. And we just have all the stuff that goes on in our heads. And that is because we have bitten off more than we can chew. So the nature of a to do list is that there's always going to be things on there. It's best not to have the full long to-do list in front of you.

It's best to take three things off that your most important actions, your MIAs for the day. And have those. I make that list the night before my day starts so that I don't start my day and think, oh, what am I doing? What, oh, what was that? Like the night before I'll look at my schedule, what appointments

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have I got one things do I want to do?

Do I want to go for a run, hit the gym, whatever it is that I want to do that day. When am I eating my meals? When am I cooking my meals? Cause that's the other thing is preparation. And when am I going to have time to just breathe and have a bit of time for myself before I then transitioned from work into mummy duty.

So number two is to assess your time. So take a bit more of a critical look at how you spend your time. All you, for example, spending a lot of time going to the

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shops here and there and looking out because you haven't actually sat down and planned out, right? This is what we're eating for the next three to four days.

I'm going to make sure that I've got all these things in, or I'm going to have an online delivery slot booked a recurring one so that I know my groceries are coming on this day. And then I can plan out, do some meal planning. And if you need some help in this department, Just pop onto my website, Wendy griffith.credit UK, and grab my free meal planner.

Honestly, meal planning has been such a game changer to save me time and remove

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that decision fatigue. And we are going to go into a lot more detail on its own standalone episode because this is such a hot topic for me. And one that I recommend all busy moms. But it could be something else in your day.

All you spending four hours on your phone and not the one hour you tell yourself that you're going to spend. And actually when you can actually track your screen time through your phone and actually set up app limits, I have app limits on WhatsApp, on my social media channels, just to make sure that I'm keeping a check on how much time,

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because sometimes we think why is my time gone?

And actually when you look back, you're like, oh my goodness. I spent three hours on Facebook today. That's crazy. Think about that hourly rates and what that is costing you also, what could you just get rid of complete. And are you spending time that you don't really need to do so again, I think as moms, sometimes we want to just do everything.

We want to own all tasks and responsibilities in the household. And one thing for me that I really had to relinquish control over were saying, well, okay, I could

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delegate the grocery online shopping order to my husband's. I can do the meal planning and then I can say, right, here's the list that we have in Microsoft to do app.

It's a free app on our phone that we both have, that we're both linked to. So as we need things, we just add it to that list. And then I know that when he comes, it's normally on a Tuesday night, he does it actually funny enough, when I record my podcast, he will sit and go through and do the online shop for us.

I'll give it a quick check when I'm done and then we'll go ahead and that will be delivered on Wednesday.

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Has this sprayed up time for me? Absolutely. It means I have time to bring you this podcast every week. And that gives me so much more joy than setting doing the online shelf. So think about what you could delegate and free up your time.

Altogether. Number three is priorities. Make your life revolve around your priorities rather than your life revolving around everyone. Else's priorities. One way to do this is that daily to do list of those most important actions and,

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and splitting them into the urgent must be done today, or things that can maybe be done at a later date or that you can do, you know, during the week or quick easy tasks that you can do, maybe sitting on the sofa in front of the tele or longer-term items that you can just move down the to-do list altogether.

And this is where using more sort of online apps and things are quite helpful because you can move them out and dates, but you could also do it in a paper version. But we can easily confuse people's demands from us to do stuff as urgent must be done

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today. And really just because someone messages you asking you for something that deadline doesn't become your emergency, it's simply a request for your attention.

And for me personally, it's a case of, I will respond when I'm able to. Which is not diva behavior. It's respecting my time and my boundaries. I respect people who respect their time and their boundaries. So this actually leads me into the fourth point, which is learning to say no. Are you always

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trying to be the people pleaser and saying yes to everything.

And I know that sometimes I can still struggle with this because I'm just such a guest person. I'm like, yeah, I can do that. I can do that. I can do that, but we're not Jim Carrey and we're not in the movie. Yes, man. Okay. We absolutely need to respect our time and boundaries and think, well, if I say yes to this, I'm saying no to this.

And that could be, if I say yes to helping with this, which of course is a nice thing to do. Of course. But then I'm saying no to being able to get my workout

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in. And I know that in order to be healthy and thriving as a Korean mom, I need to prioritize my workout. For example, just as an example, whatever that looks like for you or.

I don't know about you sometimes, but I can honestly feel guilty when I go and get my head down on my nails done or something. Cause I think, oh gosh, that's such a luxury time. And I remember asking my mom to pick Jesse up last week. Cause the only appointment I could get at the nail salon was like a two o'clock and school pickup was at three and I just wasn't quite sure I was gonna be.

I was like, oh mom, do you mind like, you know, I used the boys on she's mind going to fetch,

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dancing to get my nails done. Like, as if I'm embarrassed to say, and like not owning the fact that I'm taking some time out to self care. And she was like, of course, no problem. I'm like, she really respected me for it.

She was like, good for you. And so, yeah, sometimes it's just about learning to ask for that help and learning to say no to things or learning, to ask for the things that we need in order to make us feel healthy. And for. Because every time I looked down at my nails, I smile and I think, yay me. My nails

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look so pretty and that makes me feel good.

And that gives me a rush of dopamine. And it's just my thing that might not be your thing. Find the thing that works for you. So my fifth tip is to manage it who is responsible for tasks. So like I shared about my husband being responsible for doing the online shop. It's thinking about delegating. The responsibilities.

And sometimes as moms, we just say, oh, I just did it myself. It's just quick out. I'll just do it. You know, if the kids rooms are untidy, you just say, oh, it's just quicker. Let me just get in there and

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clean up rather than thinking what system could I put in place here to encourage the behavior that I want.

It's not always going to be perfect, but it's saying, okay, right. I'll say to my little girl, Sweetheart. I would really appreciate it. If you could tidy up your choice for me, do your best, best job, and then we can go and spend some time together and do something really fun. So it's giving her that reward.

If you do that, then we can do this together. If I would use it's just simple psychology. And then it's not me trying to do everything while she sits and

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chills and plays. And then me sitting there resentful. Well, you know, I just do everything in this pals, you know, when you're having the conversation in your head and it's thinking about how you can delegate more.

And I know it's so hard that we're delegation you think, well, nobody in my house helps me out. Wendy, it's very easy for you to say it. It's like, well, actually we teach people how to treat us. We teach people how to respect our time. By asking for that support and that help and not attempting to do everything.

So number six is switch off

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your phone notifications. So this has been such a game changer for me over the years. I've had this for years and I can't believe it sometimes when I'm sitting there and my husband's phone is like pinging, and I'm going, does that not drive you bonkers every time someone wants to WhatsApp, just like that appearing on your screen, that constant.

Listen to me, listen to me like that little voice of like distraction all the time. I cannot concentrate on a task and be present in the moment if that is pinging. So something I'd like to do is have my phone notifications off, but then

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also have my phone put away so that I can be present in what I'm doing and not be distracted and have that little time.

Phone just drain me of all my energy. It's like, I will come to it. I will respond. People know that if they really need to reach me in an emergency, they need to phone me or they need to send me a text, a good old fashioned, not WhatsApp, a text message. Who, when did you last send a text message? Let me know.

Okay. So number seven is be done with perfection. Perfection doesn't exist, guys. We know

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this. So stop striving for the impossible. Why is it that when. Progress over perfection or done is better than perfection. And we go, yeah, yeah, yeah. And we not along. We're like, yeah. And then we're like, but I'm secretly going to cheat the system, try and achieve eviction.

Why is that? So think about what can you live with being imperfect? So kids didn't make their beds are well. They have to sleep in them. Not you dog ran mud through the kitchen just before bed Keenan now, or in the morning when I'm going to mop after breakfast. I'll do it,

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then done is better than perfect.

And that is my mantra now. And it's serving me so well. And it's causing such a reduction in my stress to be like, not everything has to be perfect and pristine, and the pillows have to be fluffed all the time when they're just going to get messed up the next day, because. My home is not a show home. It's a home where we live and families are.

And trust me, I don't know about you, but I just like live in this like, oh, well, what if someone just pops round? Well, it doesn't really happen. People don't just come into your house and expect, you

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know, that it's all going to be perfect and tidy. So why are we holding ourselves to such a high standard of everything has to be perfect.

Everything has to be clean and tidy, or is that just me? So these are the seven top tips that I've learned and implemented over time. And the more I manage my time and have time for myself and my family, the more I fiercely protect it. And the more I've honed these skills and got better at them because I am not perfect by any stretch.

I still slip into bad habits with these things, but then I just have to,

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when I'm finding myself getting stressed or overwhelmed or say, I don't have time, it's going no seriously. We all have the same 24 hours in a day. Some people run countries and you're moaning that you didn't have enough time today.

So what could you be doing? That is costing you time. And what could you be doing to make your time work smarter for you so that you don't have to work harder and be stressed out. So I really hope those tips have helped his day. Please let me know, reach out to me. Let me know what resonates with you.

And I cannot wait to talk to

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you again on next week's episode, do you struggle? To prioritize your health and self care as a busy mum, or maybe you're just so tired of starting new habits, diets, and plans, and never sticking with any of them. It could be that you need help with your stress, diet, and exercise or more sleep and dealing with the mental clutter and mum guilt.

And you're frustrated with how to create healthy habits that actually stick in these areas of your life. Because you're fed up or feeling

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overwhelmed and you want more energy, headspace and joy to thrive and not just survive busy mum life. My healthy habits toolkit is a digital guide, which gives you the tools and practical examples to identify two to three healthier habits, which you need to thrive in your life.

Right. But mostly it will teach you how to get them to finally stick. Even on the days when you feel you’re most uninspired, this is not just another guide you get download and never look at because I

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bring this to life with a masterclass to teach you how to finally become the month who has healthy habits.

I know this is a crazy time of year when we need support with our healthy habits, more than ever, which is why I'm offering my toolkit as part of a black Friday special at over 50%. So, but less than a quick shopper Tesco's you can get all my knowledge and experience as a DIY version of working with the one-to-one.

It would even make a lovely Christmas gift for a stressed busy mum. You know, you can get yours from the link in my show

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notes, or go to my website, wendygriffith.co.uk.