Kc Rossi 0:01
Are you scheduling yourself like a robot and burning out? "Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." This is one of my favorite quotes from Lao Tzu. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about four ways we fail at time management, reasons why we overschedule and the common issues behind them, and what to do to start shifting your patterns and start experiencing creativity and flow. I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
Kc Rossi 0:32
Are you ready to scale your business in a way that's aligned with your soul, and profitable? I'm Kc Rossi, a Business and Leadership Coach. I've been a full time entrepreneur for 30 years and love business. I help conscious leaders increase their impact and optimize their lives. Join me each week for tips and deep conversations on cultivating confidence, increasing your visibility, elevating your vibration, and leading with purpose without burning out. Let's go.
Kc Rossi 1:05
Do you see a little corner of white space on your calendar and rush to fill it in? That used to be me for years, it takes awareness to recognize this pattern of over committing. Once the root of the issue is excavated, you can start to add breathing space and stop scheduling yourself like a robot. This has been a powerful process for me in my own burnout recovery. And I know it will be for you too. As entrepreneurs, we typically get excited about going into business for ourselves for the perks like freedom, freedom to call the shots, manage our time and have unlimited earning potential, which is awesome. I am all here for that. However, over time, the managing our time peace can run away from us.
Kc Rossi 1:51
We either don't prioritize the CEO stuff, the most important tasks that will really move the needle.
Kc Rossi 1:59
We spend too much time and creative avoidance with things that take up our time and trick us into feeling busy. Some examples of that may be over tweaking your website or playing on Canva until it's just right or perfecting your elevator pitch depending on where you are and what stage of business but you get the idea that is such a big spot to fall down the rabbit hole is that creative avoidance space.
Kc Rossi 2:26
The third point is over consuming other people's content. Maybe you are in this habit of signing up for a multitude of masterminds and webinars and classes or you hang out on forums and Reddit and you know taken tons and tons of content.
Kc Rossi 2:45
Or you schedule in too many personal things, zooms and coffee chats, networking and pick your brain sessions.
Kc Rossi 2:53
It is easy to see how all of the above can result in overscheduling. If you're shaking your head and some of this sounds like you, I would invite you to ask yourself, why do I overschedule? And some of the common reasons here are there's just so much to do. Right? If that's what's coming up to you like when you think why do I overschedule? It's like well, there's just so much well, this could be a time management and or boundaries. Those are the two big issues that could be coming up. If that is the answer to that question. Or if when you're asking yourself, why do I over schedule? And what comes up for you as well if I don't do it, who will? Most likely that could be a delegation and or a perfectionist issue. Either way, I think a better question is that what are you afraid will happen if you don't overschedule?
Kc Rossi 3:56
When I started asking deeper questions, I got deeper answers.
Kc Rossi 4:00
For me, I was afraid what would happen if I didn't burn the candle at both ends? Old paradigms of hard work is honest work and success take some level of struggle and "no pain, no gain" resurfaced. And those are just a few of the limiting messages and beliefs that started to rise up when I gave myself a little breathing space to look at why my calendar looked like you know the behind the scenes working of some intricate computer program.
Kc Rossi 4:34
It wasn't until my body started manifesting health symptoms, little red flags to get my attention to do business, well, really do life differently, that I started to take notice. And I have to be honest, it took a little reprogramming. It took some positive affirmations and just mindset shifts to not get anxious when there was whitespace in my little calendars squares. I had to reassure myself that everything was going to be okay, that I was going to be okay, if every moment wasn't scheduled and accounted for.
Kc Rossi 5:10
Once I started realizing that I could be productive, and in many cases more focused with a few simple strategies, things began to shift. Strategies like time blocking for CEO tasks. This is a big one. So for me, personally, Monday through Friday, from 8 to 10, is when my energy is at its highest. And that is the sweet spot for me to get the really important CEO tasks done.
Kc Rossi 5:40
The other piece was reserving networking for Fridays only. Because when I would popcorn it in on the other days, not only would it take away my attention from the flow of my really important or essential things, but there's always that little bit of lag time that once you, you know, start a task and end a task, I was losing like energy and focus and little, little shifts and drains with those little transition chunks of time as well. So, reserving networking for Fridays only, it was something I could look forward to, it was something that I could put a parameter on to make sure that I wasn't doing too many of those, again, tricking myself with some creative avoidance that this was essential. It's a nice to have it in some industries, it's essential, but it just really depends on your sales flow and funnel.
Kc Rossi 6:36
And then also, this is a big one, but penciling in self care. And this sounds like yeah, I've heard that. But when I started to schedule it, as a daily worthy candidate. It really helped. And, you know, they say when we ink things, we pay attention to them. They've done studies what we schedule or write down, we actually accomplish. So it's not a "nice to have" self care, but it is something that you're really prioritizing it as any other appointment on your calendar.
Kc Rossi 7:10
So if you struggle with burnout, look to your calendar. Are you scheduling yourself like a robot?
Kc Rossi 7:17
Do you need to add a few spacers in between clients, because a lot of the schedulers actually have little buffers that you can say do not schedule anything 15 or 20 minutes before or 15 to 30 minutes after whatever you need to feel like you're not rushing like you're not having to put your zoom camera off and eat your lunch during the meeting. But add those little spacers in between, block off a self care hour. Maybe you need to honor your boundaries of work time where you're not rushing back to your inbox or on the social apps, and continually checking for your beeps, and buzzers and alerts at all hours of the day. And also saying no to non essentials, because this is where we really get to distinguish between "get-to's", and "got-to's."
Kc Rossi 8:12
So here are some of the things right? Do you need to add a few spacers between clients block off a self care hour, honor your boundaries of work time, say no to non essentials, you can kind of do one master and move on to another and see how it starts to feel try it on for yourself. But the most important thing is you have to take control of your day in order to win at life, because life is just a series of strung together days.
Kc Rossi 8:42
So take the time to breathe into the above journaling prompt. What are you afraid of, if there was more whitespace in your life. Because trust me what bubbles up will be illuminating. Then you can go back through and pick one or two of the mentioned tips to better manage your "get-to's", and "got-to's." And then you can go from there.
Kc Rossi 9:03
Little by little you'll start to experience chips, you may notice a more relaxed nervous system, you may start to sleep better, you may start to enjoy the connections that you have chosen to prioritize or have a sudden rush of creativity. These are all things you can look forward to when you respect yourself and schedule according to your emotional, physical and energetic bandwidth, versus mindlessly slotting in stuff to your holistic balance. Until next time, breathe joy.
Kc Rossi 9:37
I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If so you can head on over to www.lovethepodcast.com/brilliance to leave a review for the show.
Kc Rossi 9:46
And I'm starting to do a really fun coaching drawing each month. And so basically for those that leave a review each month I will pick one lucky winner from those that have reviewed the show that month and gift, a 20 minute laser coaching session with me.
Kc Rossi 10:05
So all you have to do is head on to www.lovethepodcast.com/brilliance or on your favorite pod player, whether it's Apple iTunes or Spotify, and leave a review for the women developing brilliance show, take a screenshot and email it to me at [email protected] and you will be entered into the drawing. I also wanted to leave you with listener feedback and Chelssizzle from the US says "Five stars incredible and valuable podcast. This podcast is jam packed with value. I love the takeaways and applicable info. Keep it up." Chelsea, I absolutely will!
Kc Rossi 10:46
Thank you so much for taking the time to leave me your feedback. It really does mean the world to me. Okay, thank you so much for listening. I will catch you next week and until then...breathe joy.
