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If you feel like you're always running behind, need time to slow down, and just can't get it all done, this episode is for you. Welcome to the Upside Podcast. I'm your host, Teresa Flood. We help you get unstuck in your life and business by elevating your thinking and provoking meaningful change from the inside out. And today, we are talking about your time. So I had this thought the other day that it feels like so much of life is like doing the laundry, meaning wash, rinse, repeat, and it's never done. If you have kids, you know that the laundry is truly never done, because even if you do every piece of laundry in your house, you have to wash the clothes you're actually wearing at the time, Right? It just is never done. And so much of our lives, in work, at home, with all of our responsibilities, feels like we can never get it done. So here's the thing. I don't believe in time management. I think time management is a total myth. It doesn't actually exist. Why? Because we can't manage time. Time is time. One hour is one hour. One minute is one minute. One day is one day. We don't have the power to manage time. What we do have the power to do is manage ourselves and our relationship with time. So time is not the problem. It is truly our relationship with time. So we're going to talk today about getting into the driver's seat and. And really talking about clarity, talking about our choices, and talking about how we function within the beautiful time that God gave us. So if you are somebody that you feel like you can't ever get it all done, that you're always just running a tad behind or you're unsure about priority, trust me, this episode is gonna be for you. I think we're all in this to some degree. So most people really don't have a time problem. What we have is a clarity problem. So overwhelm happens because we get unclear about what really matters. The mo. What matters most. Everything that's coming at us suddenly starts to feel equally important when the truth and the reality is it is not equally important. And so when everything becomes important, the. The things that are important cease to get our best energy. So a lot of times we tell ourselves that we have to do it all. I just want to give you permission right now. You don't have to do. You do not have to do it all. You just need to do the things that are the most important. So I want to give you four myths that we're going to debunk today around time. And then I want to give you a couple frameworks and some questions to ask that I think will really help you in your relationship with time. Okay, so let's go. We're going to start with myth number one, and that myth is that we need more time. Again, you can't take more time. Your time is your time. We all have 24 hours a day, and time is really one of the only resources that we have that we can't create more of. However, what we can do is create more value in the time that we have. So, for instance, if you're working at McDonald's and you are making minimum wage at the order window, working at McDonald's or, you know, shuffling fries or what have you, and you want to make more money, you have two ways that you can go make more money. You could add more hours to your shift, work more hours, or you could earn a promotion, right? You could become the manager at McDonald's, so you could work them the same amount of hours, and you'd be getting more money for your time. So you're essentially creasy your dollar per hour. I think we all understand this in a business sense. How do we increase the value of our time? But sometimes we don't think about this from the perspective outside of an actual dollar per hour. So the idea is, is if I have 24 hours a day, how do I spend those 24 hours doing the most valuable things that increases the value of my time? So as a family. So think about this as a family, there are things that I do as a mom that have higher value per hour than others. So for me, sitting down with my kids and my husband at dinner, having a conversation about their day, maybe we'll do thorn blossom and sprout. And I hear what they're the worst part of their day was the best part of their day, what. What they're looking forward to. Were you able to laugh and talk together? That, to me, is a high value per hour. Now, cooking dinner, while it's something that I do typically most nights, is lower value per hour, meaning anybody could cook that meal. I could use frozen food, put it in the microwave. We could order in. I could hire a chef and have somebody else come in. Tommy could cook, the girls could cook. There's so many other things that could happen and. And that job still get done. It's a lower value per hour. And so many times we focus on doing all of the things instead of focusing and saying what is the most important use of my time. So I can increase my dollar per hour or increase my value per hour. When I go to the gym, I want to know that the 45 minutes to an hour I spend at the gym is the most value per hour that I can do. So. So sometimes I'm not gonna do all the fun things like the massage chair or the sauna or all of the things because I only have a limited amount of time, I'm gonna increase that value per hour. The second myth is that being busy means that we're being productive. Busyness is often a form of hiding. We get very, we get a lot of self esteem sometimes from being busy. Have an episode that I did probably almost a year ago talking about cutting the word I'm busy out of our vocabulary. But checking boxes feels good. And the unfortunate part is oftentimes a to do list or checking the box we're checking things that don't necessarily matter, a to do list. What gives a sense of completion does not give us a sense of priority. So it can be very, very dangerous to have just a to do list. It rewards busyness and not necessarily productivity. So what I want to challenge you to do is to create a success list. Now, there's a lot of things that we have to do that are maybe low value per hour, items per hour. Things on our to do list that do have to get done. I'm not negating the fact that at some point they need to get done. However, if we can start prioritizing the things that create more value, getting those done first, we are going to be productive and not just busy. So what I would encourage you to do, if you are a to do list maker, do this for maybe the next week and write down every single thing that you need to do in your job, in your business, all of the important activities, the things that feel less important, the things that are urgent but not important, everything you need to do in your business, in your family, for yourself, personally, write them all down. And then I'm going to give you a category to put it in. So I want you to label every single thing on that to do list, either something that you need to do, and this is because only you can do this. Something you need to delete, meaning it's really not important. It doesn't have to happen and it just needs to be. It just needs to be taken off. It's just not a priority. For whatever reason we're thinking it's a priority on there. It's just not important. Maybe we've always done this particular thing, but it's not getting us results anymore. Delete it. The third thing is delay it. I have a project list of all my good ideas and things that need to happen at some point. They don't deserve to be on my success list for the week. For a long time, cleaning our garage was on Tommy and I's delay list. And I have to give him a little shout out because last week when the weather got beautiful and I was out shopping with my mom, he put. He moved it from the delay list to the do list and it became a priority to get it done that Saturday. So yay, Tommy. Thank you for taking care of our garage. But it moved. It was on the delay list for quite some time. That's okay. Again, we don't have to do everything right now. And then the fourth thing is delegate. And this is always asking the question, who else can do this? That is not lazy, that is strategic. So if you have an admin in business, if you have a team you work with, who should be doing this role, who might be doing this better than I can, who do I need to release some authority and some responsibility to and delegate? But it's not just about 10 team. It could also be, do my children need to be doing this task or this chore? Is this something my spouse could help me with? Is this something that AI or a piece of technology could help me do? When we think about delegate, it's not always a person. It can also be a system or a tool. It could be instacart. We're delegating to that. So take your to do list and ask yourself, is this something I need to do? Is this something I need to delete? Is this something I need to delay? Or create a separate project list for that? And then is this something I need to delegate? Who can help me do this? And I will tell you on delegation, I had Tommy's out of town when I'm recording this and I needed some help the next two days picking up my kids from school because I had later appointments and I knew by 5 o' clock when they get out of basketball, I was going to be struggling to get there. And I thought about all of the ways I could move things around or do different things as opposed to just stopping and asking another mom to pick up my girls and drop them off. I would never have a problem with doing this for another mom. And yet I struggled asking for help. And so I just want to encourage you. Don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. Delegate, ask for help. Sometimes we just create more stress and overwhelm for ourselves than we really have to. All right, so again, myth number three, multitasking helps me get more done. Multitasking is a myth. You are actually just tasked, switching, going from one to another. But I want you to think about, about focus as a multiplier. It is a force multiplier. Oftentimes when I'm coaching business professionals, they tend to add more things as opposed to going deeper on what they're already really great at. So what. What we do when we go wide, as opposed to going deep and focusing on multiple things, is we create more complexity. So in business, it creates more complexity. Then every different vertical then has a different amount of systems and people and, and challenges that come with it, as opposed to saying, how can I take one thing that I'm really, really good at and go do more of that, go deeper, get better and. And take that to the very extent that it can be done. So instead of thinking about going wide, I want to encourage you to think about going deep. Because multitasking, not the way to go. Not the best use of our time. All right, number four myth for you is balance means equal time for everything. Nope. We know that is not the case. I'm going to encourage you to not seek balance in your life. It is a myth. It doesn't exist. There is no such thing as perfect balance, but there is a such thing as alignment. So we can have a life that is aligned. And when you know your core values, when you know why you're doing the things that you're doing, you can live a life of intentionality, of purpose, of your family, of your faith, of your self care and. And your personal growth in your business, in your finances, all going together to accomplish the big goal for your life. You're building a life by intentional design. Okay, so just to recap, let's talk about the myths. You don't need more time. Needing more time is a myth. Being busy means you're productive. Nope. We got to move from a to do list to a success list. Multitasking helps you get more done. Nope. Let's go deep and not wide. Go deep first, not wide, and then the fourth is that balance means equal time for everything. No, balance is not a myth. What we're. What we're going for in our life is alignment. Okay? So I want to give you a framework. So Gary Keller and Jay Papasan wrote a book called the One Thing, and it's an incredible book about your relationship with time. And they asked the question, what Is the one thing such that by doing it makes everything else easier or unnecessary. It is one of the most powerful questions you can ask to increase the value of your time. And when you think about asking this question, when I have asked myself this question, one of the things that I come up with, what can I do to make everything else easier or necessary? And that is really manage my energy. Because again, we only have so many hours in a day, and yet I know if I'm operating in, in my maximum capacity as far as energy goes, that I'm going to get more done in that hour. I'm going to be more effective. I'm going to be less exhausted and tired to go into that next hour. So really understanding time is really about managing. We talked about managing ourselves, but it's about managing our energy. So two ways I think we can do this is that you have to choose before the day chooses you. Getting really strategic on your mornings. And I know some of you are like, I'm not a morning person. Okay, fine. But you still have a start to your day. And are you being intentional and purposeful about the start to every single day? And are you using the start of your day to fill your energy buckets? So this is my morning routine has been really intentional, I would say, since my girls are 13 now, since they were probably 2 or 3. And that intentional morning routine has helped my productivity, my fulfillment, my joy, my peace, and so much of my life by just being intentional with the beginning of the day. So if you look at your energy buckets, what are you doing physically first thing in the morning to fill your bucket physically? That could be working out, that could be stretching, that could be breathing. What are you doing to increase your mental energy? Just learning something. It doesn't have to be. I read every day. It doesn't have to be reading an entire book or an entire chapter. It could be reading a quote and thinking about it and meditating on it. How are you filling your spiritual bucket? Are you spending time reading the word? Are you spending time praying and putting your focus on something bigger than yourself? Are you filling yourself emotionally? Hugging kiss your family right? Saying good morning to the people that you love? And then your business energy? Are you energizing yourself for a productive workday by really looking at your calendar and determining what makes today successful? Thinking about ahead of time. How am I going to own the day and win the day? Just a little bit of planning creates intense business energy. So by managing our energy, we're going to again increase our value per hour, which is the goal. Okay, so a powerful morning routine is going to fill those energy buckets. And the other thing is making sure that your day is is aligned with your natural energy cadence. And what I mean by that is, for me, my energy is higher in the morning, it's lower in the afternoon. My staff at the office always jokes after, after 3:30, Teresa gets weird. And it's true. I do get weird. I get tired. I'm not my best self. I get kind of silly. It's not the most productive for me to schedule the most important meetings or conversations after 3:30 doesn't mean I don't ever have them or can't have them. But I know that I'm going to be at a lower capacity for that hour than if I have a meeting at 10 o' clock in the morning. So we did that. We moved our staff meeting from 2 o' clock on a Monday afternoon where we had all been on zoom calls all day long. We all walked into that meeting with low energy. We've moved it to 9:30 on a Wednesday and the whole feel of that meeting has changed. Why? Because the natural energy of the team is different. I know that after I've had a lot of back to back one on one appointments, my energy lowers throughout that. I need to create a little bit of space in between those to refuel. I know when I walk out of a team meeting where there's a hundred people in the room and we're high fiving and I'm in front of the room, I walk out of that with massive energy. And so that's one of the best times for me to meet with people is after a meeting like that because I walk into a one on one really, really high energy. So just learning how to manage your energy is so key and so crucial to your relationship with time. So guys, I get it. This all feels hard because it we are in the trenches every single day just trying to figure all of this out. But focus sometimes feels risky because it also means saying no to certain things. Okay, to say no. I just want to give you permission to say no to the things that aren't the most important and to guard that time. Remember, saying no creates discomfort before it creates freedom. But it will create freedom for you. So be sure you're subscribed to teresaflood.com because in this week's teaching guide, I'm going to send you a few reflection questions for you to ask so that you can really do kind of an audit on your energy and on your relationship with time. I want you to ask what is the one thing that I can do such that by doing it it makes everything else easier and necessary? I want you to ask what am I spending time on that doesn't align with who I wish to become? What is one thing I would change if I did it consistently and added it into my routine? How am I confusing activity with progress? And then please create a success list. Go through it. Determine what you need to do that only you can do. That's priority. What do you need to delete entirely? What do you need to delay and put on a project list for later? And then what do you need to delegate? I'm totally in this with you. Thank you for tuning into the Upside. Don't forget to subscribe to teresaflood. Com so I can send you that bonus material. As always, when you're investing in your personal growth every single day, it will yield you great returns. Keep living on the Upside.