00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 73, "Time Management." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale, and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:20 

Well, hey there, my good friends. Glad to have you here with me today. I'm just happy to be here with you. I have just had a great week. I am coming off of 10 days from fall break for school, and that's unheard of for us. We usually get a Thursday, Friday, and then a Saturday, Sunday. So we usually get four days, and this year they gave us an entire week off, and then an extra day on the end for end of quarter. And gosh, it's been amazing. I love my kids at school so much, but it's always so wonderful to have a break. The problem for me is that I go back and I'm like, "okay, what's your name again?" 10 days off about takes me out. So I have to, at the beginning of the day, look at all my seating charts and names, and I'm like, "okay, now I know everybody." But it's kind of crazy to me that I just lose touch with them so much when I'm gone. I love them when I'm there, but I sure love my time away as well. 

01:15 

Alright, so we are on number nine of the things that we need for good mental health. And gosh, this list has gone super fast for me. So I hope it's been enlightening for you. After this one, we only have one more left on this list of 10 things, so it's kind of cool. And I've learned some great things while preparing this, and I hope that you have too. I hope that you've connected a little bit more with things that you can do and ways that you can move forward in order to have better mental health, because it's so important for us, right? So important. 

01:47 

Alright, so number nine is time management. So let me start off by saying that on a scale of one to 10, I'm probably about a seven on this. So I'm not running a 9 or a 10, but in many ways I do really, really well. And the areas I do well in I absolutely love and I feel like a powerhouse. They make my life so much easier, they reduce my stress. The areas I'm not so good in cause me some angst and they take their toll on my self-respect. And that's why this concept has such an impact on our mental health, because it impacts our self-respect. And anything that impacts our self-respect needs to be addressed for better mental health. 

02:33 

Okay, and again, one more thing before we get started. I want to do a bit of a mind shift. This is entitled "Time Management" because that's what most people call it. That's what people are familiar with. But really, we can't and we don't manage time. Time just does its thing, day in and day out, year after year. We can't manage it and make it go faster or slower. We have zero control over time, but what we do have control over is ourselves within our time. And so this is a lot of what we're going to be talking today about is how, I just think that's an important shift to make, how we manage ourselves within the time that we have. 

03:20 

Alright, so I want this to be our focus here, how we manage ourselves within our time so that we can create what we want to create with our lives, so that we can become the best version of ourselves that we can possibly be. How to manage ourselves so that we can live with more peace and satisfaction and happiness rather than feeling like we're going crazy with expectations and responsibilities. That's what we're focusing on today. So exciting, right? Okay, I know, I know. Okay, so I can hardly wait to get started. 

03:59 

So let's start off by talking about Stephen R. Covey's time quadrants. This is found in his book, "The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People," because I think that they're fascinating and I think they give us some great insight as to what we're  doing with our time. These four squares discuss things that are "important" and "not important," and things that are "urgent" and "not urgent." So if you consider a quadrant, which is four squares, like one big square that's put into four squares, and we have those things. So down on the left side you would have, "important" on the top and "not important" on the bottom, and across the top you would have "urgent" on the left and "not urgent" on the right, okay? 

04:42 

So quadrant one, the top left one, takes on things that are both "important" and "urgent." Now this may sound like a good place to be because we're taking care of things that are important, but this quadrant is actually crazy-making. "Important" is good, but the "urgent" part is not so good. Okay, the thing is we're always going to have things that will fit in this quadrant just because life is life. So several years ago when my daughter fell in a soccer game and broke her collar bone, that was a quadrant one experience. It was important and it was urgent. It had to be taken care of right there and then. No hanging out for a few days because I couldn't make the time. Everything else got put on hold while I got her to the emergency room and taken care of for the next few days. So just because we are living and breathing, we will have things in our lives that fall into this quadrant. Remember these are things that are both important and urgent. The difficult part is when we create things to go in this quadrant and we feel like we're always running around like a chicken with her head cut off. 

05:56 

Now, I know that you're thinking, "well, why would we intentionally want to live this way?" Oh, my friends! Okay, so many of us self-sabotage ourselves all the time to end up here. Have you ever heard or made the statement, "I just work better under pressure?" How about "I can't get anything done until I have a tight timeline?" Okay, there you go. That is creating quadrant one. It's creating the fire. It's creating this urgency. This is the place where we are constantly feeling like we're putting out fires. We never have time to catch our breath and regroup. We feel like we're constantly under pressure and always a few steps behind where we need to be. And this, my friends, is exhausting. It really takes its toll over time and it wears us down emotionally and physically. These kinds of activities deplete our energy. And when we're done, we just want to sit down and rest. And at the end of the day, we can't think about doing anything else because we've just been run, run, run all day long. Okay, so learning to manage ourselves within our time is huge to keep us out of this quadrant as much as possible. Again, life puts us here sometimes just because life is life and we don't have a choice. But we want to learn to do everything we can to not put ourselves here. We want to purposely make choices to keep us out of there as much as possible. 

07:31 

Alright, quadrant two is made up of activities that are important but not urgent. This would be the top right quadrant. Okay, activities that are important but not urgent. And this is actually the place we want to hang out in as much as possible. These are important things but we're not stressed on a tight timeline to get them done. This would be, gee whiz, something... simple. Like changing the sheets in the guest bedroom right after the guests leave rather than waiting until the night before the next guests show up. Okay? Doing it now is quadrant two. It's important. It needs to be done but it's not urgent. Doing it the night before when I have a million other things to do to get ready for guests makes it a quadrant one. All of a sudden it's important and it's urgent. I have to get it done before the guests show up. Right? 

08:24 

Another simple day-to-day. Filling my car up with gas when it hits the halfway mark or between a quarter and a half is a quadrant two activity. Waiting until my light has been on for two days. I'm running on fumes and I'm running late for a meeting makes it a quadrant one. Do you see how we create drama in our lives? We do it by waiting until the last minute to do things oftentimes. It is so easy to do. So quadrant two is taking care of things that need to be done because they are important but planning them in advance so that we reduce the stress later on. Okay, this is an area of planning our time that I am really good at because I hate that last minute stress of not having things done, not being prepared, running late, showing up at places late. I don't like that at all. It makes me very antsy, very uncomfortable. Okay, so these are the things that I've worked on and I'm pretty good at. 

09:32 

A lot of them these things don't even need to be big things like working on a project consistently at work so we don't have the night before all night or getting it done right. It can be something as small as putting your car keys in their designated place right when you get home rather than just anywhere that anywhere because that creates drama and stress when you need to leave right away and you can't find your car keys. So small things like putting things where they belong or even something as simple as leaving 10 minutes earlier than you need to to get somewhere on time. This gives time for traffic or construction and then you can sit in peace for a few minutes rather than running in the last minute feeling like you need to  make another excuse as to why you're late. Do you ever notice that there are some people in our lives who run into bad traffic every single time they go somewhere? Okay, that's what I'm talking about here. These people are generally always running late so they they plan their time to leave exactly when they need to and then if something happens, if they can't find their keys or if they get a last-minute call, or if they do run into traffic...there's always, like, this this last-minute drama. We really don't have to live that way if we adjust things a little bit. 

10:54 

Also quadrant two includes things that we do for our own self-care. So taking time to have fun and give our minds a break when we've been focused for a long time. Maybe watching an episode of your favorite TV show. It can be rejuvenating and it can be fun. Taking 15 minutes to look at social media or play a few games on your phone can be a great break, actually. Doing it for hours is something else that we'll get into a bit because then it is no longer a quadrant two, right? It's no longer rejuvenating. 

11:27 

So here's an amazing thing about quadrant two activities. When we do them we are focused and on task and we're doing things that we know are going to take us to a good place. But even though we're spending energy on getting them done, they actually create energy and momentum. When we finish with them, we have a surge of self-respect and we want to do something else that's amazing. It creates momentum, right? These activities leave us feeling more engaged and focused and wanting to do more. That's quadrant two. 

12:02 

Okay, so quadrant three people, well, activities, not necessarily people, are when we are doing things that are urgent, it has to be done now, but not important. Okay, this looks like rearranging your whole schedule to accommodate someone else who is frantic in quadrant one. And oftentimes it's quadrant one activities that they've created for themselves. A person in this quadrant has a tough time saying "no," and they frequently find themselves up to their eyeballs in somebody else's mess. A person in quadrant three will also find themselves being frequently and easily interrupted. They may be working on a project, but if the phone rings or they get a social media alert on their phone, they have to check it out. 

12:52 

So just as a side note, did you know that it takes a full 10 minutes to get back to the level of focus we were at before an interruption? So if I'm totally focused on getting a project done and my phone rings and I stop and check it, to get to that same depth of focus that I was at before, it takes a full 10 minutes. Okay, when I stop preparing my podcast to check my phone, full 10 minutes before I'm back to where I was. Look at the wasted time there. If that happens four times in two hours, that's 40 minutes of time in that two hours that was wasted or not used as efficiently as it could have. Okay, and this is another thing. Quadrant three activities zap our energy just like the quadrant one activities do. We may feel ourselves feeling resentful toward having to pick up somebody else's slack or disgusted with ourselves for not focusing and getting things done like we'd planned. It is energy-draining. 

13:55 

Alright and the last quadrant, quadrant four, is filled with activities that are not important and they are not urgent. This would include binge watching TV, scrolling social media for way too long, gaming for hours on end, roaming the kitchen and opening every cupboard in the fridge multiple times because we're bored and we're wanting to buffer. These are time wasters. The activities that, when done in moderation, could be rejuvenating, like watching an episode or maybe two of your favorite show. But when they're done to excess they can wreak havoc with our time. They're the kind of activities that when you finish you feel like you just ate way too much food and now you're lethargic and you feel like crap, okay? Not only physically but emotionally and mentally you feel sluggish and exhausted. 

14:50 

So the only quadrant that keeps us energized and moving forward is quadrant two, doing things that are important but not urgent. The other three all deplete our energy. And here's another interesting thing: the more time we spend in quadrants three and four, the more time we're going to spend in quadrant one. Doing things that are not important will always drop us into quadrant one way more often than we'd like to be there. This happens because things that really need to happen to keep our lives running smoothly are not happening. And so when the time for them to be done comes and they're not done, we're in stress mode frantically working to get these things done. 

15:36 

But, and I love this one, the more time we spend in quadrant two, which is important but not urgent, the less time we will be spending in quadrant one. We actually decrease our stress and anxiety, the more we can do things that are important but not urgent. Stress and anxiety deplete our energy resources. So when we can live in quadrant two and not engage with stress and anxiety, we actually create energy. Okay, so really good stuff, right? 

16:11 

So this is one aspect of time management that is so important for our mental health. Learning to live in quadrant two so that we're living more within the values and the standards that we personally desire. Living in such a way that we are organized and prepared and not living with last minute panic because things are not ready for living. And living in this peaceful quadrant two place is important. It's a huge piece. So let's discuss what it really takes for us to live in quadrant two. What does it take for us to prioritize our lives in such a way that we are not just taking care of business and keeping out of quadrant one, but we're also engaging with ourselves and consistently moving ourselves into a better and better version of ourselves. Because really, this is the whole point of wanting to manage ourselves within our time better, isn't it? So that we can progress and move forward and grow into who we are meant to be. But our goal is also not to be super engaged every second of the day and never having down time to enjoy the people around us in our lives. 

17:24 

So here's the secret. When we plan our time well, we actually create more free time. No kidding. You think I'm joking, but I'm not. We create time. Hey, think about how much time we lose when we're waffling between decisions or wasting time doing nothing because we don't want to get moving on something. When we take all of that time back, it's like we are creating time that wasn't there before and we're getting more done than we were before. Our growth game is strong, we're living in the peace of quadrant two, and we have more free time than before. So what's not to love, right? 

18:06 

Okay, so here are some specifics of how to manage ourselves within our time better. Number one, to get and stay in quadrant two, we have got to get organized, starting with our stuff. When we can't find what we need when we need it, think about how much time we waste. When we can't find that bill or our car keys or the winter boots, not being organized is one of our biggest time wasters that sends us into quadrant one, which is the fire zone, right? This is definitely a multi-week class: getting organized. So if you're not, this is a big deal, but start small. What is your biggest nemesis with being organized? Is it your office? Is it your mail pile? Whatever it is, find your biggest problem and take care of it, and then put processes in order to keep it organized. Always put your car keys in the same place. Always take care of mail as soon as you bring it in, throw away the trash, pay the bills on your phone, immediately put any papers where they belong, okay? Use the idea of "touch it once and then be done with it." Bring it in, take care of it, put it away. You never have to touch that piece of paper again, right? Touch it once. Make it as easy as possible to keep it organized and then just force yourself to keep it that way, okay? 

19:36 

Once you're confident there, then you can move on to another space. Being organized will save so much time. You will be creating time by being more organized. I know that when I was first learning this, probably about, oh close to 20 years ago when when I really was trying to implement this into my life, I would pick up something from downstairs and I would take it upstairs and I would throw it on my bed and I would stop and I would out loud say to myself "no, put it away." And I would just make myself go pick it up off the bed and hang up that sweater or whatever it was, put it where it belonged rather than just moving it from spot to spot to spot, where I had to keep touching it over and over and over. "Touch it once" was a huge thing for me when I was first learning how to be more organized this way. Alright, again, just start with your biggest issue and then go from there get that under control. Feel like you can handle that before you start something else. Okay? 

20:42 

Okay, so step number two. Start with creating a results list rather than a to-do list. So this is focusing on things that are important but not urgent. What are the end products that you want to create in your life? Then figure out what processes you need to go through in order to create those results. Being willing to look at every option rather than just what you've always done or what seems obvious. For example, if your end result is to have stronger family ties, it's easy to say "have dinner every night together, have family prayer, do the Come Follow Me program." And maybe those are things you would like to do, but look at all of your options. Really to try and think outside the box. Maybe everybody in your family is artsy and you could take an online art class together. Or maybe everybody loves to work out and you can find something that everyone is willing to do every Thursday night. Or maybe starting a Marco Polo group chat where you communicate frequently with  videos. There's so many options, but look outside the regular of what you've always done to find things that will work for you. Figure it out. 

22:02 

Know that not everything you try is going to work and not everything on your list may be a viable option. But sometimes our best ideas come from ridiculous ideas that we end up modifying. But begin with the end in mind. What result do you want? And then break it down into a to-do list. This ensures that you are doing the most important things first. The things that will keep you out of the fire of Quadrant One. Okay? So the big idea there is start with your end result and then break that down into your to-do list. What do I need to do to make that end result happen. 

22:43 

Okay, step number three. So first one is organized, second one is create your results, and step number three is to plan ahead. Okay, so your primitive brain hates this one, and your prefrontal cortex loves this one. Okay, but this is vital to creating the time that you want in your life. The best time to plan is early in the week and the night before, and this is why. That's what our prefrontal cortex can see things clearly without getting all muddled from the urgent demands of our cerebellum or our primitive brain. So you know how first thing in the morning you get up and you might think, "okay today's the day I'm really gonna eat well all day long." And you start the day off really strong and then by about two o 'clock when you go in the break room there's donuts and you end up eating one. When it comes to making the decisions that are best for us, our prefrontal cortex is the bomb. Okay, it knows what we need to do. It can check out our future and it can plan and prepare for that future. It knows how to get there. 

23:48 

But as the day goes on and decision fatigue begins to creep in, our primitive brain gets stronger and stronger and louder and louder and our prefrontal cortex gets easily drowned out. Because it gets tired! So if we can create our plan at the beginning of the week, or the night before, or early in the morning, we can be assured that this is the plan that will help us create the results we want. So some ways to do this: create a result for each area of your life. So maybe you want to divide your life into my personal life, my life with my spouse. I'm a parent. I have spiritual or church commitments. I have work or business, etc. Okay, like all these different hats that we wear, right? Figure out a result for each of those areas. Check out your calendar early in the week. I like to do Sunday, sometime when I have a free hour on Sunday. That's the best time for me because I've got my whole week that I can look at and I can plan and prepare. So I sit down and I start blocking out all the time of things that are non-negotiable. So hours that I'm at work at school, like doctors appointments, those types of things, right? 

25:06 

Then it's time to block out all of my personal time next. When am I going to work out? Am I going to go for a walk or meet with a friend? When am I going to watch my favorite TV show or read a couple of chapters in the book that I'm wanting to read? Okay, this personal time is so important for our mental health. Okay, so now we're going to look at all of our results that we want in all of those different areas, like as a spouse, as a parent, etc., etc., right? And we need to figure out what we need to do to accomplish them and start adding them to our calendar. This takes time, but I promise you it's the easy part. For me it takes, I don't know, 45 minutes to an hour to kind of go through this process on a Sunday. So yes, it's an initial investment but then my week is all organized. I know exactly what's going on and my prefrontal cortex has created from a place of clarity where it can think clearly because it's thinking into the future right. It's easy for our prefrontal cortex to think about things in the future and not be overcome. 

26:14 

So step number four then is committing to your plan and doing it no matter what. Okay, so for me personally this is where I go from a 10 down to a 7. This is where my breakdown happens because in the moment, especially after I'm tired, my primitive brain gets so loud. It never wants to do what I'm supposed to do in the moment. Rarely do I feel like doing what's on my calendar unless it's something personal and easy. But the key here is learning to honor myself enough to do what I say I'm going to do, knowing that by keeping to my schedule, I am creating not only the amazing life I want in my future, but also the free time I need now to rejuvenate and enjoy the fruits of my hard work. When we start running our lives as though we are the most important person in our lives, we respect and love ourselves and it will start to show up in every other area of our lives, very importantly in our mental health. 

27:25 

But herein lies the conflict. Our prefrontal cortex knows that what we have planned is the best thing for us. This is one of the most amazing things about being a human and not being, say, a dog or a cat. It's the ability to look into our future and to create something that has never existed before. We can plan, we can focus, we can look to that future, we can evolve into a person that has never existed before, and we can figure out how to do that. Our prefrontal cortex can do that. But the challenge is that our primitive brain just wants to protect us from difficult things, from discomfort, discomfort from things that hurt, okay? So it sees the challenge of self-discipline as something life-threatening, something that is going to cause us harm, and it will push us into giving up our plans and doing something else, all right? 

28:27 

When I come home from school and after I've had a 30 minute break and I say, "okay, I need to be in on my computer preparing a podcast right now," as much as I love doing the podcast, I know it's gonna require some mental acuity, I'm gonna have to use my brain. I'm gonna have to sit down and think. And there's my primitive brain saying "oh gosh, but we deserve a break. We've been working all day. Let's just sit down and do nothing," or "let's sit down and let's watch a show," or "let's check Facebook first," or "let's write." So my primitive brain is trying to protect me from the discomfort of doing hard work. It's going to want to protect us. 

29:18 

So learning to do what we've planned with our prefrontal cortex and overriding our primitive brain is an amazing superpower that we can learn to develop. And we do have to develop it. It takes time and loads of practice, but we can figure it out. And I am getting so much better at it the more I work this process. And an amazing thing that I've discovered is that when I just sit down and get started on what I have on my schedule, my primitive brain kind of settles down and backs off. And it kind of stops talking because it knows that it's been overridden by my prefrontal cortex, right? And then I get into the momentum of what I'm doing and it becomes so much easier to keep doing it once I get started. And that creates greater self-respect and better mental health. And it throws me into quadrant two where I'm doing the most important things, and it keeps me out of quadrant one so that everything in my life runs more smoothly. 

30:22 

So here's what I'll do sometimes. The times that I really make this work, because like I said, I'm still working on the consistent discipline to do this. But I will, when I have something scheduled and my primitive brain is just going crazy, saying, "no, no, no, let's just do this instead." I tell myself, I say, "okay, if I can just focus for 10 minutes, then I can go get a drink," or I can do whatever it is that my primitive brain is tempting me to do. And I find that for me, once I sit down and get working, I can start getting in the flow of doing what I have planned. The momentum starts swinging in the right direction and I just keep going and then I don't really want to stop after 10 minutes. It starts feeling really good to be honoring myself and respecting my desires for moving forward. 

31:17 

But the first few minutes of discipline can sometimes be really painful, okay? And I would be lying if I didn't say that there were times after 10 minutes that I was like, "oh, good, I can get up," right? Because sometimes I don't get into the flow that quickly or sometimes what I'm creating really requiring some work and I have to focus a lot, right? And sometimes I don't want to focus, okay? But the more that I'm digging in and just doing this, I'm finding that the easier it becomes to override my primitive brain and just get focused on my plan. Not every time, mind you, I'm still working on my consistency here and here and that's why I give myself a seven out of ten in this area. But I am getting so much better and I'm really proud of myself. It becomes this amazing upward cycle of improvement in how my life is running and achieving greater mental health, right? So I get more self-respect when I do that. The more self-respect I have, the stronger I can make that choice next time to do what I need to do. The more I do what I need to do, the more self-respect. The more self-respect, the stronger I am to make the choice I feel is right, the more it creates this upward cycle. 

32:35 

Okay, so here's the thing. Managing ourselves within our time is so important to progress, and progress is so important to our happiness. The self-respect that we gain when we honor our prefrontal cortex is life-changing and so energizing for our mental health. So let's do this, shall we? One step at a time, my friends. Don't beat yourselves up when you don't do this perfectly. Just pick up where you left off and start again. This is such a process. Look for the ways you succeeded and don't dwell on the struggles. Be proud of the progress you made this week because it will probably be better than what you did last week. Small course adjustments are what we're after. Those are huge. Every week, I'm getting just a little bit better at these processes and using my time more how I planned, and it feels amazing. 

33:38 

Have I had a perfect week yet? No, I haven't. But I've had weeks that I've had like two or three days where I've totally just followed my plan. I've had weeks where I've had one day that I've followed my plan, right? But that's better than if I hadn't had a plan at all, right? And if I can do it, if I can make progress in this area, I know that you can too. We may be in different places, but we're all moving toward more self-management and greater mental health. Choose one small thing this week. Work on it. Make your plan. Even if one day is better this week, that's progress. Even if three hours is better this week than last week, that's progress, right? And that feels amazing. 

34:25 

And then, hey, send me a note either on Facebook (my Facebook is Tanya Hale Life Coaching, or on my website, tanyahale.com, and let me know how you're doing. I would love to hear about your successes and what you're learning from your failures. Because learning from our failures is progress as well, right? Okay, growing up is amazing. I love it. I love it. I love it. Okay, just so terrific to be getting to this place of working my life, creating what I want to create. And I know that you are too and I'm so glad that you're here to join me. Thank you. 

35:02 

If you would love some personal help from me, get on my website tanyahale.com. You can schedule, well you can't schedule, but you can send me an email and I will get in touch with you and we'll schedule a time that we can have a free consult. I love doing free consults, right? I did one last week with someone and they decided not to hire me as a coach and he's like, "I'm sorry I wasted your time." I was like, "what do you mean?" That's never a waste of time. Anytime that I can help someone to see themselves more clearly. Anytime I can help you to gain a greater self-awareness of what's going on and how to improve your life, that is never a waste of time. So please, if you feel you need some help, don't hesitate to get in touch with me for this initial first free consult. Even if you know you're not going to hire me, do it anyway. It's such an amazing experience and I would love to to help you. Not a waste of my time at all. It's always an investment in another person when I can help somebody else see what's going on. 

36:07 

Okay, there we go, my friends. Okay, if you have not subscribed to this podcast, please make sure that you do so that you don't ever miss an episode. Leave me a review if you're loving this. Five stars would be fabulous, with a great comment and then share it with somebody who you think would really benefit from this kind of information. I love this. I love doing this with you. And I'm really grateful to have you join me. So that is going to do it for today. A little bit longer than normal but such good information, right? Amazing. Alright, I will talk to you next time. See ya. 

36:41 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.