Declutter Your Life: Tackling Schedule Clutter to Reclaim Your Time

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Make Time For Success podcast. This is episode number 176. Well, time certainly does speed by, doesn't it? We are already wrapping up our series on decluttering your life. I hope you have enjoyed episodes 1 and 2 on physical clutter and mental clutter. And this third episode is all about handling schedule clutter. It's a phrase that I created for this series, but I do think it's something that many of us have struggled with. And I found myself using the word balance a lot inside this episode because I do think getting a good handle on your schedule is a balancing act of how to balance the actual time you have, what you want to plan, your energy, and then a lot of other factors like how you're talking to yourself, what other people are asking of you, and the weather, things like that. So let's listen to this episode to see how you might better take a look at your own balance with your own schedule.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:11]:
And there are lots of ideas that I share with you inside this episode for tweaking some things. Alright. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed making it for you.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:28]:
Hi. I'm doctor Christine Liand I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body, and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time For Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:11]:
Hello there. So today's topic is about how to fix our schedules. And in particular, how to reduce the waste of time that we might be experiencing when we are trying to figure out our schedules. In order to have this conversation, I think we need to start with the important realization that our goal is not only to maximize the time that we have and the way that we use our time in general, but also our goal could be to minimize the energy that we waste in the course of completing that schedule. It's basically trying to get a lot done or satisfying amounts of things done without ending up feeling completely tired, fatigued, demoralized, and stressed out at the end of the day. It would be nice to have that kind of balance, right? If we could be really productive, really feel and flow and also feel like we're kind of filling our cup instead of draining it. So that's my goal for this episode. And what I hear from people very often is that that balance between productivity and feeling well and doing well has gotten somehow completely off track or out of whack somehow.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:40]:
So much so that even the smallest tasks like grooming and putting stuff away and getting back to people and paying bills can be made to feel like they're overwhelming, that people feel so stressed out and fatigued and fried that they feel like they have to avoid even the smallest items on their to do list. My hope after today's episode is that you, if you're in that situation right now, that you feel more energized and more in control of this game of life and more empowered to take control of your schedule and your energy. And I really do believe that all of us have that power within us to do that, to reclaim our time and to reclaim our energy. When I hear people tell me that they've lost track of their schedule, they've lost track of the little things and everything has become overwhelming, I think at least 2 things. 1 is that because the person is overwhelmed, they're likely thinking about too many different things all at once. And they're thinking, this should have been done, that should have been done. Why couldn't I have done that on time? Why am I doing this so close to the deadline or even after the deadline? And it's that thought process that ends up taking you around and around and around in circles, and it makes you feel like you have no energy to give, no creative energy left. And it's really a recipe for feeling like you're slower than you need to be, feeling like you don't have energy to give.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:25]:
And so my tip there is to get yourself out of that feeling of overwhelm. And one way to do that, if you've listened to me for any amount of time, you know that the answer to overwhelm is to focus just on one thing at a time. Even if it feels like there's a million other things on the to do list that I have, how can I just focus on one thing? The answer and the solution and the easiest way to get things done is to really decide. I'm just gonna pick one thing and start small and accomplish something instead of feeling overwhelmed the whole day through. The second thing that I think when I hear that people have lost control of their schedule and their minor tasks is that that person or these people who have lost track have some sort of negative internal dialogue that is running, that contains a lot of negativity, a lot of self criticism, a lot of how could you be like this, a lot of shaming kind of language and tone. And that internal dialogue keeps the person locked into a very small version of themselves, that they're not functioning in flow because they're feeling like they need to address something that's broken inside. And I'm here to say there's nothing broken inside. There's just that overwhelm that has taken over temporarily.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:54]:
And what we need to do to alleviate that is to a focus on one thing at a time, like I said, a couple minutes ago, but also b, the bigger answer to this problem is we have to get re energized. We have to start to lift ourselves up. That is the answer to all of these roadblocks and stalling and the breakdown that we have with our own operating system. Sometimes we have gotten to a point where we're so tired. We're so frustrated, we're so behind all the time that we've decided we're close to giving up, that it's not worth the effort, but it always is worth your time and energy to restore your energy, to lift yourself up, and to get yourself back on a fairly organized schedule. And now I'm gonna give you a couple of scenarios, 2 scenarios of schedule clutter so that maybe you can find yourself in 1 or the other. And I'm gonna give you some tips for how to straighten things up if you happen to feel like things are a mess right now. The first scenario, I'll call scenario a, is where you have an overwhelming amount of work to be done and your schedule is always stuffed.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:16]:
You're back to back in your appointments. And you're even at a point of being double or triple booked, which sounds really frightening now that I myself am not in that circumstance. I like to have a lot of white space when I can in between sessions, in between appointments, in between seeing friends and doing work. I like to have a little bit of breathing room. But if you happen to be someone with an overstuffed schedule, here are some ways to cope with that and to make that a little bit better. 1st, you need to congratulate yourself for surviving this busy phase of your life. We all have had them. We all will be in them at some point in our lives.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:58]:
So just adopt a more positive attitude about where you are at right now. It is okay. Remember to eliminate any negativity or judgment you might be having about being in this situation right now because that's just gonna take more of your time, and your time is really limited because you're so busy. And I also wanna add that the fact that you're so busy may be a really wonderful sign that your life is actually going really well and that you've achieved quite a bit in your life to have amassed so many different responsibilities to take care of in this phase of your life. So that's the first idea is to really kind of adapt and adopt a more positive view about what is happening. The second idea for scenario a is to look at where the overwhelm takes place. Typically, is it that you have no white space, you have no breathing room in your schedule? Is it that you're promising things to people that you can't deliver or you don't have enough time to do or think about these things, and so you end up not delivering things in a calm, relaxed way. Is it that you're saying yes to things that are not important in this busy season, and then you're wearing down your ability to cope with the entire schedule? So take a look at where those moments of overwhelm tend to creep in, where are the open areas where overwhelm seeps in.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:31]:
The third idea that I have for you, if you're in schedule a, the busy season, is to decide that you're gonna consciously look at your whole schedule, so that you can create a slower mode that you're going to get caught up on some things and you're gonna let some things slide for a little bit, but you're gonna create some room to breathe in your schedule. The only way we can do that is if we can take a moment to consciously review what is going on. When we don't do that, unfortunately, what tends to happen is people start careening into a point or phase of burnout, and we certainly don't want you to go in that direction. The 4th idea that I have for scenario a, people, the people who are super busy, is that you can add some joy. Even though your schedule is full, I'm going to guess that in some ways, you've crowded out some of the more fun activities in your life, the things that you really enjoy doing because you're so busy. Because that may be the case, now it's important to reintroduce elements of joy, even if it's just celebrating your wins, even if it's just speaking kindly to yourself, even if it's just taking maybe a nap every once in a while, just to sneak one in, It's all okay. The idea generally is to make sure that you're not missing out on life by being so busy. Make sure you readd some joy in.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:04]:
And then finally, see where you can change things up. It may be that you're overworking. It may be that you're being a little perfectionistic. It may be that you are allowing yourself to be really distracted by, I don't know, the web, the news, other people, internal thoughts that you might be having, and you can counteract that by maybe sharpening your planning up a little bit, batching your work so that you do all the same types of work in the same time block so that you don't have to waste your energy starting and stopping all of the time. Please know that if you're in the schedule a scenario a kind of place right now where everything is feeling like it's an avalanche and you have no time for yourself, that you can shift this absolutely and you don't have to go at this rate forever and ever. Really, things will change. You will go through different phases in your life. Now's a great time to learn how to rebalance your energy and your time.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:09]:
Now scenario b is pretty much the opposite. Scenario b is the person who has maybe more unstructured time than they're comfortable with. Maybe they have more unstructured time than they're used to having because of their phase of life. Maybe you're in retirement. Maybe you've just changed jobs. Maybe you've just moved situations. Maybe your relationship status has changed, and you're finding yourself a little bit at a loss as to how to plan your time. This, I'm also gonna call a schedule clutter situation because things can be quite disorganized when you have a lot of unstructured time, and then the guilt can pile up.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:54]:
You feel really stressed out and frustrated that you're not using the time that you know you have. And I wanted to talk about this scenario as well. So some of the answers to scenario b are 1, start planning because you have so much unstructured time. You have a lot of time that can be wasted because you're not planning moment to moment. You don't have to do micro planning where every minute is planned. I don't mean to sound like that, but you can maybe do a few hours of very well planned activity and getting caught up on things and meeting friends and doing the things that you wanna do in life. Even if it's like 3 or 4 hours a day, you can say, I'm gonna plan out my mornings and then I'm gonna let my afternoons and evenings flow and I'm gonna have much more relaxed time in the latter part of the day. That is totally fine.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:49]:
You can also do the reverse of that. That is fine too. We call that time blocking where you're really designating certain times of the day for certain activities. When you stick to this kind of plan, you end up feeling like you're wasting much less time and you're getting a lot more accomplished, and then you can go to bed feeling relaxed and calm and satisfied with yourself. No more of this feeling like you can never get a handle on your time. It's actually probably easier than you're making it out to be. The second tip that I have for you for scenario b, where things are more unstructured, is that you can do one thing at a time. This technique works for pretty much every scenario because it helps you to counteract the looming sense of overwhelm.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:41]:
When we don't do anything, we invite overwhelm. And when we're looking at everything, we're also inviting overwhelm. So the answer always is, do one thing at a time, be grateful that you've concentrated, be grateful that you've invested your energy and then be excited at the result that you've been able to achieve. The 3rd idea here for scenario B is to limit the distractions that you may be using to fill up your time and your space in a more numbing kind of way. It's things like surfing the web, doing computer games, watching TV, being sedentary, daydreaming even, and not planning things that you're really just kind of in this holding space or holding scenario. I don't know what the phrase is, but this holding zone where you're not really doing some active envisioning of what you want your time to look like. Get more active with that envisioning muscle and limit the distractions that may be taking up all of your time. And my last tip for scenario b is to get social because sometimes

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:56]:
when we have

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:57]:
a lot of unstructured time, we are by ourselves. We have become more isolated. Sometimes we're enjoying that and other times we're not. I think in both scenarios, an option for you is to get more social. Start meeting people, join a group of some kind, get some things put into your schedule because of the people that you're meeting, and that can really help you to feel, again, more like you're fulfilled, like you're learning from other people, you're kind of catching how other people are using their time, and you're sharing experiences with other people, which as an extrovert myself, I can say is a wonderful thing. So I hope you have gotten some ideas from scenario a or scenario b or both, and that you feel a little bit more empowered and excited to see where you can improve your use of time, your use of the typical schedule template, your use of your everyday, and can you make yourself in a wonderful balance between productivity, rest, and some planning? And I hope that this episode and the series on decluttering your life really helped you to decide, you know what? I'm gonna change this one thing. Not because everything's so terrible, but because I can change things just because I want to and because I wanna lead a really healthy and fulfilling life while I've got this beautiful life to live. So good luck making these changes, enjoy the results that you'll see right away when you implement the changes that I've suggested.

Dr. Christine Li [00:18:50]:
And I wanna thank you again for your attention, for tuning into the Make Time For Success podcast, and for trusting me with your precious time. I will see you next week, and we'll continue to figure out how to create a lot of time for success. Take care.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:09]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time For Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website, maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com, for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:50]:
Talk to you soon.