My episode on The Growth Addicts Podcast
I joined Amanda Hughes on the Growth Addicts Podcast to talk about time management for small business owners.
Time management is a hot topic amongst small business owners, there just never seems to be enough time in the day to get stuff done.
In this episode we cover:
My story and why I’m passionate about time
The importance of our physical environment
Awareness of where our time goes, and the language we use when talking about time
Task management and prioritisation
How planning ahead can help your time management
Read the transcript:
Please note - this podcast episode was transcribed by an AI tool, there may be some typos or errors.
00:01 Morning Sarah, how are you? Good morning, I'm really well, thanks Amanda. Excellent, thank you so much for joining us today on Growth Addicts.
00:10 Super excited about this conversation for slightly selfish reasons, but I think for I can speak for myself and our listeners, small business owners that time management is a subject we all want to chat about because it must be the most common thing I hear from clients, I just feel those small business
00:29 owners I don't have time. Where do you find the time? How do you get the time to do that? So, very excited to talk to you this morning.
00:37 Where are you joining us from? I am based just outside Glasgow, south of Glasgow. Oh cool, so not far from me and Ayrshire, so you're probably about, and I would away from me and on the west coast and Ayrshire.
00:50 Excellent! Okay, so let's just get started. Sarah, tell us a bit about you and your business and what you do.
00:57 Yeah so my name is Sarah Stewart. I am a time and project management expert. I've been sort of playing around with like what to call myself and still sort of playing around.
01:13 But yeah for the moment I'm calling myself a time and project management expert. And I work with successful solopreneurs and small business owners and the premise, you know, everything that I do, it's all around getting more time for the things that really matter.
01:30 And I guess my story with time and what led me here is quite a long story. So I might journey to time management started when I was a teenager and I was 16 years old when my mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
01:56 And she sort of had a bit of a rocky journey, but she ultimately passed when I was just 19. Oh see, I'm so sorry.
02:08 Like I can, I've sort of, again, that, you know, just, I can vividly remember the phone call, like changed our lives and it was a hospice phoning in the middle of the night to say that she died and it was a lot.
02:26 Oh gosh sorry yeah I'm just thinking it's such a young age gosh at any age to lose a parent as um is incredibly difficult but it's a 19-year-old girl.
02:38 I know I know so sad. I'm so sorry for your loss there Sarah. My sister she's younger than me so you know everything then sort of started to fall on my shoulders.
02:50 So my dad was in a busy corporate job. He worked in the oil and gas industry. We lived in Aberdeen.
02:58 And at the time I was staying at home. I was like partly through my university degree. I was studying pharmacy.
03:05 So that's sort of my background. I also had a part-time job. So I was a lifeguard at a local pool. 03:13 But then on top of that I now had house to manage. So like the food shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry and because my sister was younger, a lot of it did naturally sort of come to me.
03:28 Yeah, I have an older sister as well, there's ten years between us and I'm sure she'll listen to this and can probably relate to a lot of this.
03:34 Yeah, but then not only that, there was the grief as well. So there was just an awful lot that I was I was dealing with and you know none of my friends had lost parents it was all very new to me and there was this realization that life can be sure it can be unpredictable and what's interesting is that
04:00 actually my maternal grandmother she outlived both her children so she passed last year at age of 99.
04:12 Oh Blair. She was 99 years old in like eight months. I must have also been a huge loss for you though, Sarah, she's been in your life.
04:20 Yeah, forever. Where does my mom, she was 51 when she passed, you know, and so it's just this, I guess I've always had this appreciation that our time is valuable, you just don't know and there's always been this sort of constant thing that time is limited.
04:43 And so I've always been, well I like to think I've always been really intentional with the time that I do have.
04:51 And at that time when my mum passed, you know I sort of had some counselling with a bereavement service and I did talk about putting my university degree on pause, which in the end, you know, I didn't do I very much I'd do it and so like I kept head down, kept going.
05:11 But the one thing that did change things was my dad hired me a life coach. Oh wow. I can't remember her name but I will certainly remember the conversations that we had and how impactful it was.
05:28 So with my coach we started to look at how to prioritize. We talked about, you know, thinking ahead how much time I had, making sure I had a balance of work in place so that I could still see my friends but you'll be able to work in like- That's quite a crucial age for socialising.
05:54 So that I think was a really sort of impactful moment in time for me and I knew, so I was studying pharmacy, you know, in the end I got my degree.
06:07 Mail done? Wow. What an achievement with all that going on. Yeah. First class as well. Oh. Bravo. Well done. Fantastic.
06:15 like yeah I mean there was one it was it was hard parts of it were really hard because in pharmacy you'll you have to study palliative care when you get to fourth year we're talking about all the meds and all that sort of stuff and I actually this it's crazy to think that this actually happened but in
06:39 one of my final exams. I, the exam question was written about Mrs Stewart who had passed her and was dying and had two daughters and the question was how would you manage her care, you know, if you were working in that hospital setting.
06:58 So like not only was it my name, it was the Exactly, so now I know what I had like literally just lived through, and that was hard, sitting in that paper, in that exam writing that paper.
07:13 However, because I had lived it, I was able to write really authentically and from the heart and like thinking about that bigger picture.
07:22 So I ended up getting top marks and I won the prize. Oh well I'm not surprised I must admit but haven't aired.
07:30 Where did you draw the strength to get through that? You know, I'm sure there's many people at that point but I'm sorry too much.
07:39 It was just so close to home like it really was. But yeah I was able to, goodness only knows like draw from some sort of inner place and just got the work done.
07:55 So yeah, I got a first class degree and I actually went back to university to study for a PhD, so I finished that as well.
08:05 I did that in three years and I worked part-time as a pharmacist throughout it. And after my PhD, I moved into the pharmaceutical industry and my niche was project and program management, so it was very much leveraging all my skills and organization and time management that I'd got to that point and
08:25 that's what you said it was that a conscious decision for you to move into that area of the business or did they all just fall into it?
08:32 Did the opportunity just come up? I sort of fell into it and the first company that I was working with was very small and so my job was sort of all encompassing and then sort of a appear in the space, headhunted me into another organization and she could see that I would make an excellent project manager
08:56 if I was to enter that space which I did and it was you know it was a fantastic move for me.
09:03 But throughout most of my corporate career I've been a single parent and I've been in organizations where I have been able to be flexible with my schedule so you I would work longer days when I had the kids. 09:19 I worked shorter days. I worked longer days when I didn't have my children and I worked shorter days when they were with me.
09:27 But I think one of my key learnings has probably been the more organized you are in your whole life, the easier your work life can be.
09:39 But one of the added sort of complications with my story shortly after my mum died. I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease.
09:46 Oh gosh. I also have that sort of to contend with and it very much impacts on my energy and my time.
09:59 This is such a double-aged sword story, isn't it? It's so much grief, so much sadness, much loss and things, really difficult things to work through, but so much achieved as well at the other end.
10:10 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and I do hear that quite often that, you know, that I'm quite inspiring to you at that time.
10:17 I know that I have been able to sort of take these difficult situations and turn it around. And was the life coach and was that the Diplia Big Part in that been able to manage all of that?
10:31 Yeah. Yeah, because surely you need some sort of support. Yeah. Exactly. And then there was then another sort of turn in events in that we had the COVID pandemic.
10:48 And at that point in time, I was a senior director of Global Project Management. I had teamed across America and Europe.
11:00 My children were 12 and 10. and my son, who's now 15, he had been struggling with his mental health and life happens.
11:12 It is so difficult and it's just so unpredictable. But as I was climbing that corporate ladder, I was in a global role, the hours I worked, although they were flexible, I saw myself work out from morning to night as I was a comedy unit and then work with the states.
11:30 And I did always think that parenting was going to get easier as the kids go older and it hasn't.
11:39 Don't tell me that. My twins are only four, Seda, don't want to hear that. I thought it would get easier.
11:47 Some things it has in other ways it hasn't, but it's all just phases, isn't it? It's just all difficult. And I ultimately then chose to leave my employment and I moved into self-employment because it was a better situation for myself and the kids.
12:08 And this was during the pandemic, sorry? It was, yeah. Yeah, okay. And I trained as a coach myself which was not in my grand plan.
12:19 But I trained as a coach myself, and he chose to then niche into time management because it allows me to bring all of my corporate experience to the table as well, and I absolutely loved it.
12:37 Wow, and so if it wasn't a new plan to get to coaching, what led you in that direction? So what I had actually thought I was going to do, I really loved art and creativity, and I, during the pandemic, when I then found myself with lots of time, I started to paint more and I started to sell my art and
12:58 I sort of thought that I was going to do something with that and I'd actually applied to go back to university to study art psychotherapy.
13:09 Wow, okay. But because of COVID and it had to be in person and so the date kept getting pushed out and I sort of took some time and I was working with another coach at this point like I've always myself turned to coaching because I've recognized the value of it from having been in that you know had access
13:32 to coaches from when I was 20 and then so I'm working with a coach around you know what what might my future vision look like and I decided what might be something else I could do with my time that would maybe help me if further down the line I did decide to do the arts psychotherapy and I decided to
13:51 train at that point as a coach instead, thinking it would be, you know, another, what's the phrase, another string to my bowl.
13:58 That's the one. And not thinking that I would actually then, you know, become a coach, but. Really? Yeah. And here we are.
14:11 And here we are. Wow, what an incredible story, a real, real double-edged sword, and yeah, it is an inspiring story absolutely to have drawn that strength, that determination has got you so far and so, so, through so many difficult times, wow.
14:27 So yeah, well done. So something you touched on there, was you were saying in terms of time management, you found that if your home is in good order, time managed well, it has a big impact on everything else.
14:41 Could you talk a bit more about that I'm curious about that. Yeah so I think certainly as you know solo planners and small business owners that boundary between home and work can become very blurred but even if you are in a you know a corporate career at like I've certainly found having my environment 15:03 set up for success has a massive impact. And so our home, yes, it's our haven, but in some scenarios, it's also our command center.
15:15 And so if we can have like a lot of business owners, they maybe like want to jump to the business processes and all the shiny tools and different things that we can do in our business, but actually I think the focus initially should be sorting out the home space, sorting out your home environment like
15:35 what are the systems that you can put in place at home to make things feel you know easier more simple and one of the things that you know I get all of my clients to consider and look at is decluttering and that may not just your physical space but also you know we may give less thought to our digital
15:58 environment and that also plays a part as well and you know been scientifically shown if you're surrounded by clutter, it drains your cognitive resources, there's a lot of research that shows you know if your environment's filled with stuff, you're more likely to procrastinate and so on.
16:19 Now I think there will be like nuances to that and you know for instance maybe for the creatives actually having things around you might spark new ideas, creative, so there's probably a bit of a balance to be had, but certainly the science shows if you are in a clean and clear workspace, you're less
16:43 likely to be distracted. I think that, I mean, I think we can all say you can relate to that, can't you?
16:49 Because so I work from, well, when I set my mind on brand shoots, I do brand photography as well as the podcast and other things, so I, you can see behind me our dining table with the kids chairs attached to it so my office space is in the dining room.
17:05 I could move it upstairs but it suits me to have it downstairs because it's more flexible. You know so if I do need to jump on to do something while the kids are entertained I can do whereas I wouldn't feel comfortable having to go upstairs to do that so it suits me to an extent.
17:18 But it is a small space to have like shelves above me and lots of things going on in the walls which I'm fine with but as soon as the desk gets cluttered I cannot think straight and I've just got to just clear it all even if I just move it all and a pile to deal with another day, and it does happen a
17:35 lot, especially because I'm at home if there's a letter to be dealt with, just pop that in my desk, pop that in my desk, it can build up really quickly, but yeah, when I sit down to it, I feel, you feel completely overwhelmed before you, it's nothing to do with what you've got to do that day, it's just
17:48 looking at it, feels a lot. And I'm fortunate at the moment that I do have sort of a small box room as an office and I can close the door on that but for a while I was working at my breakfast bar in the kitchen and you know and if there were dishes by the sink it was just a distraction it really was.
18:09 And so sometimes you know for me actually taking myself out of the house and away from the distraction, the laundry and the kitchen and the chores can be helpful whereas you know other people might find that they do actually get on better when they're at home.
18:27 So, with a lot of the time management, there are so many different approaches, there's so many different tools and systems and ways of working, but it's an experiment.
18:41 I always try and encourage my clients to step in to the issues of a scientist, which is easy for me to do because that was my background, you know, like I've grown up through science and experience, you know, that's just part of my nature, but we need to see if we can step into that mindset and play
19:03 an experiment and it's okay if things go wrong. Like I spent three years of my PhD researching this like one little niche and then right at the end, like the thing didn't work.
19:13 Oh gosh, it just didn't work, but that doesn't mean that's life. I mean that those three years were wasted, like I learned so much from that process.
19:24 Yeah, you know, I'm a great believer in that there's no such thing as failure. It's really just all opportunities to learn.
19:30 You learn something from everything, whether it goes, how do you thought it was going to go or not? Yeah, exactly.
19:37 So yeah, experiment and see what works and you know whether that, you know even if you think that you can work fine with a cluttered space, experiment and try and see what it's like having a clear, clean and clear desk and then make your decision.
19:54 Yeah. Okay, so that's talking about home getting our workspace at home if that's if we do work from home. What other certain things can we make sure our in-order home and how do we get them in order to therefore sort of free up our mind to be able to be more productive in other areas of our life?
20:10 Yeah, so that's that's such a huge part of it so the decluttering we've got our physical environment we have our digital environment but then there's also the environment that we create for ourselves in our minds and you know again it's been scientifically shown that we spend and half of our waking time
20:30 , not in the present moment. So we are thinking about the past, we're wanting about the future and we're not in the here and now.
20:39 And so when I, you know, my ethos when it comes to time and time management, like it's not just the masculine side of time management, which for me would be, you know, thinking about schedules, task management, you know, the to-do lists, this striving for more and being busy all the time but there's
21:02 also the softer side as well which for me is sort of that mindfulness element and how can we be more in the present moment and really appreciate the time that we've got so it's those two sort of sides to it and you know that's not to say that the masculine you know is bad or you know but it's for me
21:29 you do need the balance of both so it's like this holistic approach and when I'm thinking about managing my time before I'm even like jumping in to do the decluttering, before I'm thinking about the tools in the systems, it's actually taking that step back to think about the bigger picture.
21:53 So one of the things that I get a lot of my clients to do, we're starting to think about awareness, like awareness of the words that we're using.
22:03 Like we said at the start, a lot of people say they're busy, you know, I've done plenty polls of audiences that I've spoken with where I've asked the audience, you know, if you use the phrase I'm too busy for that or I just don't have the time.
22:18 Everyone puts their hands up. Whereas actually we want to try and shift the language. It's not that we don't have the time, it's that they might not be the priority.
22:32 That's exactly right. And you know what we talked before we started recording today, we were talking about uploading my video part, portion of the podcast to YouTube and I did say I've just not had time for that yet but really the real answer is I've not prioritized that yet isn't it?
22:49 Exactly. So the language that we're using is a big part of it but the other part is thinking about you know getting clear on the future vision, getting clear on your core values, thinking about you know really what are the goals like wait as it you're headed because that will help you prioritize your
23:09 workload. So once you're clear on that then I would be thinking about okay how can we move into the decluttering because you know we need to know what you value and what's important so that you know what you're letting go of for example or we would then move into like thinking about schedule management
23:32 and task management and things. But again, we need to know these other parts so that we know what it is that we're prioritizing and what we can de-prioritize.
23:42 Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Okay, so you'd say that's the first place to start is in the home, whether you work from home or not, getting decluttered.
23:50 I mean, a really nice clear environment to work from. Which then and itself starts to free up the mind, doesn't it?
23:56 And the whole science behind that when you're looking at nice clear organized spaces and your digital space. So the digital space is something I'd definitely love to ask about because I know we're all distracted by phones whether we like it or not.
24:12 It's a huge distraction in our life as far as small business owners social media is usually a huge part of our marketing strategy.
24:22 We want to be present on there. So how do you personally manage that well, that balance between phone life, social media life and real life.
24:33 Any tips for is there? So this is one of the areas that I do hands off, I struggle with this as well.
24:42 It is hard and I think, you know, we have to remember that these companies and the phone companies and the tech companies, there are teams and teams of people there behind the scenes, trying to keep you on your phone and then it's like you on your own trying to battle against that.
25:02 So it's understandable that it's going to be more tricky. And so yes, I do struggle with it. There's lots of different things that I, you know, tools that I've used, and there's apps that I have that shut down my phone within certain periods.
25:21 period of time there's you know setting up screen time so that my phone shuts down at certain points and you can set limits on certain apps but unfortunately you can also press ignore what it pops up.
25:37 What I need is system where someone will physically come to my house and take my phone out of my hand a certain time and take it away and not bring it back to the next day because you have got a few of them set up and on Instagram I had set a tour around per day limit but I'm noticing more often than
25:57 not it's popping up saying you're getting close to your time what do you want to do and I'll say okay another 50 minutes an hour just go ignore yeah and I hate myself.
26:09 99.9% if not 100% at the time it's work really see the one there but I don't think I have to spend that amount of time on it.
26:17 It's hard because then once you're in it's so easy to get distracted and end up in a scroll hole and you're doing stuff that you don't intend on.
26:30 So again, it's coming back to that thinking about the intention, thinking about the future you and you can put screen savers on your phone that's saying, why are you picking me up?
26:46 I'd read somewhere about someone like putting an elastic band around the phone and just even that, like stopping them going in.
26:54 I also move the apps around quite a lot on my phone. Is that in itself, can just break, like you're in this automatic autopilot loop where you click here, you click there, you click there, but if you just shift them around a bit. 27:09 It breaks that habit of going in and going through them. So that is actually a really really good tip, Sarah, because I have often opened my phone and maybe I want to check the weather, or I'm just wanting to get into Google for something.
27:23 But I find myself automatically going and clicking Instagram for no reason whatsoever. It's just like a mental memory. So that is that's something I'm going to try moving up, so that's a really good idea.
27:35 It happened the other day actually, I must have downloaded a new app and then my apps moved around and I was so frustrated that I moved them all back.
27:42 You know, sometimes we get a new one and it shifts them around a little bit, but now I'm going to intentionally go in and move them around.
27:48 That is a great tip. Thank you. So it's small business owners then. We've got our house in a more order.
27:55 We've got our workspace decluttered. We've got our dining table decluttered. I know that's the place in our house. Things can just get landed all the time and bedrooms are in order, the house is in order, we've got a bit more of a handle and what we're going there.
28:07 So now how do we begin to best manage the time that we do have then? The house is in order, we're running a small business, a lot of my clients, a lot of our listeners are running a small business alongside still working either full time or part time in an 9 to 5 or caring for kids or parents or other 28:25 responsibilities. And time is it's limited, it's precious. Where do we even begin to work out what we do with the time that we have to make it intentional, make it count?
28:38 Yeah. So I think the key is planning ahead. So I was speaking to someone just this week actually around, you know, having the plan in advance.
28:55 So when you then have done the school drop off, your back home, the chores have been done and you're about to then sit down and be productive or have some focus time at your laptop or whatever that might be.
29:09 You actually know what it is you're sitting down to do rather than sitting down and then spending an hour hour and a half coming up with the plan before you then get started.
29:19 But to allow you to plan in advance, again I would be coming back to making sure you're clear on your values in your vision, I would be having a single source of truth for your tasks, so one place where everything is.
29:36 Now in the past like old me would have had posted notes on my desk and maybe a notebook in my bag with scribbles in it and then I've been out and about and I've thought of something I need to do and so I put it as a note in my phone and then maybe you get a text message from your partner or your friend
29:57 asking you to do something else and maybe maybe like a letter and the kids school bag with something else you have to do.
30:04 So all of these to-dos are all over the place. Is this thinking about how you can streamline those inputs and communicate with the system where everything is coming into the one place.
30:16 So you have this one source of truth for all of your tasks that you need to take. that sounds fantastic.
30:25 There are people in the time management space that are against lists and I get that because that master list will most likely be long which could be overwhelming and you know I've got clients that still work on paper I personally have moved to an electronic task management system and so So when it's
30:49 on paper, that list will be long. The nice thing about having it electronically is you can filter so that you can maybe only see your tasks for the week, which makes it a little bit more manageable.
31:02 But once you've got your master list, you can then prioritise it. So thinking about your vision and your values, what's important, what actually needs done, what should the priority be this week? 31:12 and then for me the key to make the list actually get the things done is to then schedule those things into your calendar so you're taking it from just a task and you're turning it into this is the time that I am going to do this task so you can look holistically at your calendar and figure out how much
31:36 three time you actually have so that you can be realistic with what you're putting on your to-do list for the week.
31:44 And maybe you're in a week where there's lots happening at work and you are in lots of back-to-back meetings and if you were then going to say, okay, well I've got 10 things to do for my business, you're not going to get them done because where in your week is the time to do them.
32:01 So you can then maybe drop the guilt when you know that you're not progressing that list because we know you don't have the time but maybe the week after there are gaps in pockets of time where you can get things done and so you can then plug in and know with confidence that the to-do is get done at
32:20 that point in time. Okay and would you recommend when you're looking at this list and you're looking to prioritize and you're looking at the actual realistic time you've got do you set time like for the tasks You know, so you're right, you've got to get your email out to your subscribers this week that'll
32:40 take me 20 minutes, I've got to edit a gallery that might take me an hour and a half. Do you assign times to different things and slot that in that way, how would you manage that?
32:49 Yes, very slightly, and I guess it also comes down to the individual. So, I know that I thrive in a high structure environment.
32:59 And so I like to know that the individual things, like their space for them to get done. So I do have like a recurring appointment in my calendar for my weekly newsletter that I write.
33:12 And, you know, I've got time in my calendar for creating content and so on. But I don't put every single to do into my calendar.
33:25 I might just block out two hours of focus time in my calendar, and then my task management system, so I'm using Asana, which is a project management tool, that's all the new shy of all the different tasks are in that system.
33:43 So I tend to work with both. So I've got two screens at my desk, one will have the thing that I'm working on in front of me, and off to the side I'll have my calendar open and I'll have my task list open and so I think for me the key is whatever tool you're using you have to use it and so it needs to
34:08 be visible like you need to be able to see it so I think that can be the downfall when people then shift to an electronic task list is that it's in their phone and they've not maybe got it open the whole time so it's like easy to lose track.
34:24 So this is something I've I've got experienced so so yeah so I am a big planner and I've actually in the past few months I created and self-published a social media planner and it's called the Sunday Club social media planner and the reason for that is I always take a hour on a Sunday to plan for the
34:44 week ahead so I've done that for years now and it is my saving grace because the week just eats you up doesn't it and trying to think of what especially when it comes to our social media content for our business trying to think of it in a Monday there's stuff other stuff to be done in a Monday and then
35:00 Monday go with comes and goes it's Tuesday of Tuesday's busy Wednesday you just panic post something and then that post flops of course because there was no thought behind it whatsoever and then your confidence is in the bin you don't post anything else and then that's the week gone until the next week
35:18 . So I always plan on a Sunday, it just takes me an hour and I have this whole process that I use about what worked well last week, what's my priorities for this week, what time do I have this week, you know, that kind of thing.
35:32 So this works well for me alongside the calendar and my phone, but I'm a proper pen to paper get all for two reasons.
35:40 One that you touched on there is that I can see it, it's a physical notebook that I can have in my hand, I can sit at my desk, I can see it all the time.
35:49 But also I feel mentally better when I write things down. So I don't know whatever I've tried to do on an online, it's not the same feeling for me.
36:00 There's something I literally feel my brain emptying as I'm writing things down. So is there signs behind that? I'm sure there will be Yeah, I don't know what it is, but it's definitely around, you know, the whole process of emptying your brain.
36:20 Yes, there's definitely. I mean, it literally empties through the brain without the pen. I think also just the process of writing something out.
36:33 I think you you tend to maybe give it a bit more thought maybe and it's more of a sensory experience when you've got like the wing pin in your hand and the feel of the paper and it's gone but again experiment because yeah yeah I wouldn't have known that that what was best for me had a not tried an electronic
36:54 method as well yes yeah and I think there's almost probably a bit of a trick of the mind when you're writing things down there's almost that little dopamine hit where you feel like you've almost done it because you've written it down, so you do have to then remind yourself that it's not done, you know
37:10 ? Just because you've written it down, it isn't quite done yet. But no, I'm totally agreement there, a big fan of planning, hence why I published this planner and I've got lots of small businesses have the planner now, we're all in a community together, we've got a private group free that comes with
37:28 the planner just for motivation and encouragement and rebinders and just a place to chat because planning's all well and good.
37:34 When you get the new planner and you're excited to use it or it's a new year or a new month but we all know that novelty can wear off.
37:43 So the group is there to keep them momentum up and the businesses are in their thriving. It's just a fantastic place to be.
37:48 I love it. They're really seeing the benefit of planning so I can wholeheartedly agree in from personal experience that planning is the way to go isn't it?
37:57 Definitely planning ahead. The single source thing, though, is interesting. Definitely something I would like to experiment with. I have various notebooks on the go and it is becoming a bit much for different projects and whatnot.
38:10 I thought that was the best thing to do. Different notebooks for that. But now I'm forgetting, for a start, I'm forgetting which notebook has got water in it.
38:19 Something another posted note is going in front of the notebook to say what's in that, you know, it's getting out of hand.
38:25 It's getting out of hand. I have actually have posted notes that are turning into notebooks. Yeah, so my plan is my central system for all content planning but for all various ideas I have a few things going on so that was really good to hear actually.
38:40 I've never heard it said like that to just consolidate into one master list and then prioritise from there and I think that's something I might like to do electronically actually, but then pull from the air out into my planner.
38:52 So think that might work for me, so thank you for that tip, that's a great tip. Something else I was thinking of there have lost my train of thoughts that often do, but no, that's fab, thank you so much.
39:04 And you mentioned the system used Ares Welles as Sana, not something I've tried before, but maybe we can have a little look at that as well.
39:11 Yeah, there's lots of different project management tools and they're all fairly similar in terms of the premise but like for instance Trello was one example and I tried Trello in the past and it didn't stick with me I didn't I didn't love it and I can't really articulate why I don't know like I think
39:36 Asana probably leans more towards what I've been used to in a corporate sense in terms of project management what is shallow was maybe a bit more visual and leaning more towards maybe the creatives.
39:54 But certainly whatever sort of system you're using, like I love Asana, what you get on a free version, like I don't do for Asana, I just use the free version and then you get unlimited projects and limited tasks, you you can map out, you know, repeatable processes in your business and then, like, duplicate 40:19 it if, you know, so if you're, like, running events or whatever that looks like, you know, it's just saves so much time rather than having to, like, hand right out, you know, your list every time and, you know, you can tag things and colour code it and I just love that.
40:37 Yeah, and that's good to know there's a free version as well because a lot of these things are paid, aren't they?
40:41 And I know budget can be tight for some of our listeners as well who are just starting out, so that's really good to know.
40:46 So that's something we could maybe look at for this master list that you spoke of then. The Santa would work well for that.
40:51 Yes, so that's how I do mine. Yeah, within the Santa I have got my personal life as well as my work life so everything is in there.
41:01 And then when I log in to the tool and I have it open, I just go to my task list and it's all sort of color-coded, there's a separate color for the personal stuff, there's separate colors for the business things and then you can sort of tick stuff off as you go and one of the nice things as well like
41:19 with other electronic to-do lists I've used in the past when you when you tick something off typically the task then disappears and you lose that sense of with a paper list when you scroll it off and then you can reflect back and see all the stuff that you've done.
41:36 Where there's with with a sanna and I'm sure you can do this with with the other ones as well but you can toggle on or off whether you see the completed tasks.
41:46 So when I look at my week I can see still what I completed yesterday and then I can see the open tasks for the week ahead so so I can see my progress as I go which is great.
41:57 Okay yeah that does sync it I'll definitely have a look at that I'm sure lots of people listening I'll be having a little nosy at that Well just one question, is there an app for your phone for that as well?
42:06 Or is it just on the desktop? The app is well, awesome. Another reason for me to open my phone. I hopefully not, hopefully if it gets started to get things a bit more organised then it'll be less time.
42:17 Let's time on my phone. That has been so helpful Sarah, so just to recap then, first place to start is at the home, whether you work from home or not, getting good declutter, make sure your space is organised, free of distractions and there's loads of signs to back up and loads of personal experiences
42:32 ourselves were just chatted through that as well to say that that does help massively free up your mind, your brain space to be able to concentrate on other things and be more productive in other areas of your life if your home is in order.
42:45 So start there and then in terms of distractions, phone time, there's all sorts of screen limits and apps and whatnot you can use, even with an Instagram there's one you can put on to limit the time it'll pop up and tell you and then that's all about discipline isn't it?
43:00 And if you know you're a bigger vision, what is you're trying to achieve here, what your priorities are, really trying to live more intentionally, then that, you know, you have to remind yourself for these things and you have to have to be a wee bit wild power and a wee bit of discipline comes in there
43:14 , doesn't there, to shut that one down. And then once we've got our home space in a good place, and thinking about our other time, how we can dedicate that to our business and the other things going on in our life, it's all about planning ahead and being realistic with the time that you've got and knowing
43:30 you've got your plan so there may be a master list of things to be done which everyone has and it's drawn from that what are the real priorities and it comes to your business, what are the needle movers here, what my priorities this week do, have something new, what to promote, is there a real message
43:46 you want to get out there, whatever your priorities might be for that week, that month, that quarter, that year, it's just trying to marry that all together isn't it?
43:54 Make sure your time is spent wisely. And then the hope there is that then when you've got this all sort of a bit more organised, you can be more present for those moments in life with the kids, with your friends, with your parents, whatever you might be doing, because you're a bit more organised.
44:10 Yeah, even in terms of having your master list of tasks the the the next step from that is then having your calendar and I like to time block my calendar so the and it's been shown um Cal new port who is an author and has written the number of books in the time management space.
44:33 He has said that you can get uh with a 40 hour time blocked work week will give you the same output as what a 60 plus hour unstructured week would give you.
44:47 So that's a difference of in a week of 20 hours already, where you've even done anything else. And so the premise of that is it's the planning in advance so that you can be strategic around when you do things, you know.
45:05 So as an example, you can batch similar tasks together so that you're not context switching between different things right and or maybe another example might be when I'm planning like if I know I have to go out and run some chores I wouldn't be doing that at rush hour you know it's just thinking ahead
45:26 around when you do stuff and so yeah it sort of ties in with the planning but it's a definite way of saving more time too.
45:35 Excellent okay and you know I'm just going to touch on that because I mentioned at the start of our chat that this conversation came at a really good time for me personally so my twins are just turned four.
45:46 They're in a preschool year at nursery and things have changed in our area where they now go in it used to be all year but now it's term time and it's Monday to Friday so I have more time than I've had for at least four years and to be honest I feel as panicked with it as I did when I had really little
46:03 time it's so odd so it's very news only happened in the last couple of weeks so usually I've had short bursts of time the rolling nursery two and a half days before then so I'm really trying to run at a full-time business in two and a half days and the odd hour that we gained but I felt more like right
46:19 I've only got this time boom boom boom boom boom so now I feel like when people say they've come into a bit of money and they might feel a bit overwhelmed I've come into a bit of time and I'm panicked about how am I using it properly, I don't want to waste it and I feel they're in 9-3-3, which is 6 hours
46:38 but half past 9 I'm like, oh god, better watch my time off to get them at 3 and then the other day.
46:46 So usually what I'll do is I'll just get an A4 bit of paper for the day and I just jot down my priorities for the day and I just tick them off as I go along but the other day they are trying to do a write down the hours of the day, so 9 to 10, 10 to 11, et cetera, et cetera, and put in here what I wanted
47:03 to do, and I just couldn't work like that. I felt so much pressure. The pressure was just too much. So yes, we went back to my way of doing it where I just wrote my list and chalked off.
47:17 But I just, I did feel it wasn't as productive. So anyway, and that's where I'm at. So this conversation is just a perfect time for me and as I say I've got various notebooks going on with various projects and I do need to just streamline things and work with my planner which I love and it really works
47:34 along with like an electronic list or something but yeah it's so funny how having a lot of time can be just as weird or just as pressured as having short time.
47:49 Yeah Does that make any sense? No, it definitely does. And the one thing to think about, so there's something called Parkinson's law, where the activity fills the space, the time that you give it.
48:04 And a lot of people will either give themselves too much time to do something, and the task then takes up that too much time, or they don't give themselves a time limit.
48:17 it. So if you're working from a list rather than giving yourself a start in an end time, you might find that you spend much longer on the thing than if you'd actually blocked a time and said, okay, I'm going to, you know, I'm giving myself half an hour to write my newsletter.
48:34 Whereas if you just have on your list write your newsletter, it might, you might find that you spend much longer on it. 48:41 So yeah, it's worth playing around with and see if you can get on. I think I'm going to take your advice about experimenting and try it, try it more.
48:50 You can also then, you know, start to, so if you give yourself two hours to write your newsletter, it'll probably take you two hours.
48:59 So you can start to then, okay, can you challenge yourself to do it in an hour and a half when you get it to an hour, and you will probably find that you'll you'll be able to bring it in.
49:11 Do you know it's funny because at a low it kind of panicked me and I felt pressured when I wrote down the time blocking but often when I sit down to do, for example my my weekly email, I will often say to I don't want to say it too loudly I like that before she fires up.
49:28 I will you know say okay it's 11 o'clock, set a timer for 11.20 and I'm fine with that. Yeah, but it's just when I seen all written down it was just oh, but I'm going to I'm going to try it again I'm not going to just take it at that because like I say when I'm sat down at something I say at a time I
49:43 and I'll like that so I'm going to mess around with that. I'm going to try it in different ways The other thing to try so if you're then, you know People will look only at the day Whereas I like to look at the full week.
49:57 So I will map my full week and that also gives me the confidence that the important things will get done because it's all mapped out in the week whereas if I was just looking at the day and you know I do block out my morning routine, the school run, I block out when I'm going to bed and you can see in
50:16 black and white or you know loads of colors and it's all color coded but you can see the time you've got available and if I was just looking at the day that probably would be a bit overwhelming but looking at it holistically as a full week I know that everything was going to get done and I've got a lot
50:35 of evidence that I can tell me in our critic the stuff gets done so again I like the sound of that yeah so I can have a week and say that's me knowing when's the afternoon is my editing time Thursday mornings blah blah blah yeah I quite like the idea that spread over the week feels less pressured yeah
50:53 okay awesome that has been so helpful say it out now if anyone listening is thinking okay this sounds great but I'm going to need help with that.
51:02 Where can we find some help. So I work one-to-one with clients and I also facilitate group programs and workshops and I've recently launched just this week a new self-paced course so it's five modules and the premises, you know, it's there to help.
51:30 Small business owners reclaim their time and feel less stressed and overwhelmed. And my one-to-one offering includes time management, mentoring, coaching, project management consultancy, you know, it's very much a bespoke service.
51:47 Okay, great. Taylor to the individual. Yeah. Fantastic. And you also have a free-ro resource that I just download this morning actually which looks fantastic.
51:56 So if you're just wanting to dip your toe in to see what sort of changes you might be able to make is that a good place to start and then if you're really needing support with it then we can find you and get some more actual detailed support and to how you get a whole better balance on things.
52:11 Yeah exactly. So my free time audit workbook it's like 25 pages of exercises it is sort of fairly high level but it talks the reader through some of the stuff that we've spoken about and I'm values and vision and so on.
52:29 Okay, excluding my voice. Oh, too much chat. Excellency, as I say, I downloaded it myself this morning, I had a quick glance and it looks like a fantastic place to start, but even at that I know some people, I think doing that exercise might just highlight to you that there is a bit of a problem that
52:47 we need to get a handle on here and that might just be too overwhelming a task to take on your own so where can we find you then if we want to chat about that more.
52:55 So I am most active on Instagram, my handles say the Stuart.co.uk. My voice is really great. You're okay. Yes, sorry.
53:08 No, at all. That's all I'll be written in the show notes anyway. Pop all the handles in the show notes.
53:14 I also have my own podcast, so there's a number of episodes there if people would rather listen to some of the content and my podcast is called Own Your Time.
53:28 And then on my website, which is saviestjurt.co.uk, there is a blog, there's loads of helpful articles there. I also write a weekly newsletter and you can sign up for that too.
53:41 There's always like some sort of time management tip take away in my newsletters. Oh excellent okay, fantastic, we'll definitely come and find you to Instagram.
53:51 I've got your Instagram already and I love when you post pop up because there's always really something to help fuller useful in there that I can take on board and it's not too out there.
53:59 It's actually practical tangible things that I can just try today to try and get things in a bit more organisation.
54:06 So that I have absolutely loved that conversation. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm sure lots of people, you're very welcome.
54:13 I'm sure lots of people listening today will be going away with lots of ideas to try and I'm sure you'll be hearing from some of them.
54:20 Yes, so thank you so much. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up? I don't think so.
54:27 I think maybe as a takeaway, something around, I think time management is such an overlooked skill, whereas I think it really can, it's like one of these foundational skills that if you can nail it and improve it, it really can help you achieve your goals, whether that is personally or professionally
54:57 , like really when you think about it, time is involved in every aspect of our life, you know, our career, our relationships or health.
55:06 And so I think, you know, if you're feeling stressed out and you're not achieving what you want to achieve, start at the foundations and I think time is one of those.
55:17 Yeah, no, I think that's a really good point. I would have to agree. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, excellent. Thank you again for your time.
55:24 Been an absolute pleasure. We will catch up with you on Instagram. Yeah, I look forward to speaking to you on there.
55:31 Thanks Amanda. Pleasure, take care, see ya.