Mastering Time Management is More Than Learning a Few Tips!

Imagine yourself winning at time management! There’s so much more to life than just a hectic assortment of Overbooked, Overscheduled, Overwhelmed, Oh My! It’s time to stop what you’ve been doing, reset the clock, and make major moves that will help you catch up and stay ahead. Yes, we promise to provide a set of tips that will help you successfully slide through your schedule, but we also highlight some of the deeper issues that can make or break the nasty time stealers that creep into our lives.  For more inspiration, go to ImagineYourselfPodcast.com

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Imagine Yourself is hosted by Lanée Blaise and Sandy Kovach. Lanée is a TV writer and producer, motivational speaker and podcaster. Sandy is a radio personality, voiceover artist and podcaster. They come to you from the Detroit Metro area and invite guests from all over the world to help encourage you in your health, career, faith journey and more!

Transcript

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:00]:
This has been a whirlwind of a year, but we still have our deadlines to deal with. So we're dedicating this episode of Imagine Yourself to those who wanna do a little better with their time.

Lanée Blaise [00:00:11]:
It's time for Imagine Yourself. I'm Lanee.

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:14]:
And this is Sandy, and I'm glad you found time for me today.

Lanée Blaise [00:00:17]:
How about this? Everybody wants more time.

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:21]:
How come we can't have some?

Lanée Blaise [00:00:23]:
We have enough. That's the part. We have to realize this whole thing is that we do have enough, but let's use this to help us make time work for us instead of letting time slip away from us.

Sandy Kovach  [00:00:38]:
I like it because I feel like people that have a handle on time management have the pathway to be their most successful and happy selves. I know you have been doing some serious deep dive into time management, Lanee, and I am waiting to hear what you got.

Lanée Blaise [00:00:53]:
Oh, yeah. You all are going to love the easy, specific, and profound new ways to bend time and stretch time to your own advantage.

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:05]:
We're gonna time travel?

Lanée Blaise [00:01:06]:
We're gonna time travel, honey. But first

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:11]:
But first, we need to know how to do that.

Lanée Blaise [00:01:13]:
We have to approach the art of time management from 2 different directions. Actual practical tips and the deep psychological reasons that we have that cause this sabotage of our time. Which one do you want to start with first?

Sandy Kovach  [00:01:31]:
Well, I think what people are looking for is a little of both, but why don't we get to the tips?

Lanée Blaise [00:01:37]:
Let's start with a quick and awesome tip for those of you out there who feel like you are just always falling behind. It's a way to catch up, get a fresh start, and yet still have realistic expectations. We can call it like the 123 method. I read about this concept in a book by Laura Casey called Make It Happen. And she said to start your morning and focus on the absolute top 2 or 3 things that you want or need to accomplish that day to make that day a win. So you do those things first, then you can get to the less important or even the frivolous things of the day, but you still have that sense of accomplishment. And if you find yourself getting off course during the day, you need to stop and say, hey. Is this what I'm supposed to be doing right now? And you just get yourself back on track.

Lanée Blaise [00:02:30]:
No guilt. No pain.

Sandy Kovach  [00:02:32]:
Yeah. Because I think no guilt. It's almost like when you cheat on your diet and you feel guilty, and then you're like, well, in that case, let me just go eat a whole bag of Oreos. And so if you feel guilty about getting off your schedule, you're like, it's blown now. I might as well just go hang out on social media for a while.

Lanée Blaise [00:02:48]:
That's the part that I love about this strategy because you just ease yourself back. You don't eat the whole bag of Oreos. You don't give up on the whole schedule. You just ease yourself back. No pressure. No stress. No guilt.

Sandy Kovach  [00:03:01]:
So you're writing these things down and you're keeping them in front of you. Like, whether you're making a note on your phone or you're writing a physical list.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:07]:
Yeah. And it's something that you have determined at the start of your day that that's what you need to accomplish. Okay. Now the other part is, it's interesting that you mentioned diets and stuff because the second component of this is called eat the frog.

Sandy Kovach  [00:03:24]:
I have no temptation to eat the frog. Although, I have heard of the eat the frog time management method. So tell me about the background of that because it's really confusing why I would wanna eat a frog.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:33]:
It's something that my daughter told me about it because her friend, Natalia, does it all the time. And it may sound like Eats frogs? Yes. She eats 3 frogs a week. What? She yes. She takes the biggest, slimiest frog, and she eats it. But then, Sandy, all the other frogs will go down so much smoother. So you just start your day by eating a frog and your life will be transformed. Your time will be awesome.

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:00]:
So you're not talking about literal frogs here?

Lanée Blaise [00:04:03]:
No. I am actually talking about those slimy, nasty, difficult, important tasks that must be done.

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:13]:
Okay. The biggest task of the day, and it may or may not be slimy because some frogs, they're just big. Right? And other frogs are big and slimy.

Lanée Blaise [00:04:23]:
Exactly. But regardless, you take that biggest one. You get it over with. Your confidence level will soar. Your productivity will soar. Get that out of the way.

Sandy Kovach  [00:04:34]:
Yeah. Okay? Well, I've actually had some success on, I may not have been calling it eat the frog, but I moved a major task that I have every day. And I can't do it first thing in the morning all the time. But I do when I can, and it's definitely moved from the end of the day when I would just be not I don't wanna say I would be dreading it, but it would always be hanging over my head. Okay. I gotta do this or I'm not finished with my workday. But now having done that in the first part of my day, when I can, it's a lot more freeing. And you're right.

Sandy Kovach  [00:05:07]:
You build self confidence.

Lanée Blaise [00:05:08]:
Yes. And this could be in your work life or your home life or whichever, but that's just one method. Alright. Another one, here's a crazy concept that I put together myself. Take time to make time. I want you to actually sit down and take time to plan your day or your week so that you can weigh out what's really important. What things do you need to remove from your schedule? This could be something that you do every week that you need to stop doing and quit, or it might be something that's a one time thing that you realize you really don't need to do. And when you sit and calmly figure out how to do the most things in the most productive way and which things you can cut out, you will save time.

Lanée Blaise [00:05:56]:
It may not seem like it because you're taking out time, but you are making time by doing that. A tiny example is just some people who drive all over the place to different stores and trying to pick up different things when you could have had time to sit down, think of the best route, think of things that you could have ordered online, stores that you could avoid, things you could avoid altogether. Think about how your family members could pitch in. They might be able to pick up something on the way home. That's just a tiny example of taking time to make time by planning.

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:27]:
Yep. Makes total sense. And I'm not bad at that on a day to day basis, but planning out a week is something I've never mastered. But I imagine that's a great way to see everything and organize stuff. And, of course, things are gonna pop up and change, but you have a general plan to go by and you can see what you can eliminate.

Lanée Blaise [00:06:46]:
And you'd cut the crap. Just cut out some of that crap. Subtraction is the best way to add to your life.

Sandy Kovach  [00:06:55]:
Exactly. And even beyond just the subtraction aspect, it organizes things better. Think about how you use navigation, Waze or Google Maps or Apple, whatever you use, and you have to go somewhere, and you've never been there before. Would you just say, I'm gonna figure it out along the way? No. You would put the address in the GPS. You would take the time, and you might even look at the, route in advance to see what was along the way, you know, and various apps have ways that you can do that too. Right?

Lanée Blaise [00:07:25]:
There are so many little tricks and techniques, but I also told you that we'd have to look at things sometimes from a psychological point of view.

Sandy Kovach  [00:07:33]:
Mhmm.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:33]:
And I wanna get kinda real. Let's ask a question. Do you respect yourself enough to respect and value your time and to make sure that others respect and value your time as well.

Sandy Kovach  [00:07:49]:
You would think that people would answer that question. Yes. But maybe their actions are saying something else.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:54]:
Exactly. Because I promise you, defining boundaries when it comes to your time is not only an acceptable thing to do, but it is a freeing form of discipline, and it will make your life better. Because at the end of the day, time management does not mean that you just get better and better at smooshing things into your already booked life. It means that you will take the initiative to say no sometimes to some things that either you want to do or that other people want you to do when it's not necessarily the best thing for you to do.

Sandy Kovach  [00:08:36]:
You think that's half of the problem with people's crazy lives. Right? Over committing?

Lanée Blaise [00:08:40]:
I do. In my own life, I've had some people pleaser things going on within me. And I read this amazing book called The Best Yes by Lisa Turchurst and it changed my life because it made me realize that I was answering people too quickly. I would say yes and then go back and think about it and wish that I had said no.

Sandy Kovach  [00:09:06]:
Then it's too late. Right? Because then now you gotta go back to the person and you probably don't wanna do that.

Lanée Blaise [00:09:10]:
Exactly. So my new way is I either tell the person no right off the bat, and then I could always come back and say yes. Or I say, you know what? Let me take a minute and think about it, and I'll get back to you. Yeah. And then I look at my schedule. I consider everything with no guilt, and I make an informed decision. I have gotten so good at this. I just say no so much.

Lanée Blaise [00:09:35]:
I have no guilt. People just say, oh, that's Lanee. She's a nice person, but she is gonna say no sometimes. She's not always going to do exactly what I

Sandy Kovach  [00:09:44]:
Well, that's good though, because sometimes if you say yes to everything, then you get the reputation that, oh, so and so will do it. 1 a will do it. Sandy will do it. I getcha. The other thing though, the other big time suck. I guess there are several. But you know what my big time suck is. Right? Because we've talked about it before.

Lanée Blaise [00:10:02]:
Distraction.

Sandy Kovach  [00:10:03]:
Mhmm. And a lot of distraction experts say is driven by multitasking. As much as our society pushes multitasking, it actually reduces your productivity. Trying to focus on more than one thing at a time reduces your productivity by as much as 40%. That's just a statistic that I read. Yes. On average, we lose 2.1 hours a day to distractions and interruptions.

Lanée Blaise [00:10:30]:
So, Sandy, I got another one for you on that one too, my dear, because I feel like I know that they say that sometimes it's the computer, but I'm really wondering if it's more a situation where you gotta deal with that dang cell phone.

Sandy Kovach  [00:10:44]:
It's the phone. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:10:45]:
It's the phone. Right? So with the cell phone, I learned this from my son, Jay, during quarantine when he'd have to do all of his homework. He would put his cell phone way far away, you know, somewhere on a shelf, somewhere where he couldn't get access to it easily. And he would make sure that he would dedicate that time to to whatever it is that he needed to do. So for someone like me, here's the thing. So I know everybody's gonna say this right off the bat, but what about if I have an emergency call? Here's the way I deal with that. I turn my ringer on. I put my phone on do not disturb, and I put in my family members, my close family members, as my favorite.

Lanée Blaise [00:11:23]:
So that way, if they ring, it'll come through, or if someone rings twice in a row, it'll come through. The reason I say this is because there are some emergencies, and if it is, I'm hoping that the person will call twice. But I really wanna make sure that we start managing people's expectations of us also, that they will realize on Monday through Friday, Lanee and Sandy don't stare at their phones all day and don't have them right in front of us. Because the problem is, Sandy, if you and I have that phone right in front of us, we're not gonna do stuff for emergency stuff. We're gonna go on social media. Mhmm. We're gonna look up funny things. We're gonna get totally off track.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:03]:
So we have to remove the problem physically from our presence and yet still have a way that if there is an emergency, people can contact us.

Sandy Kovach  [00:12:12]:
I like that. As long as you have a system in place where you have a time that you can check for text messages or email or whatever it is that you're depending on on your phone. And also, if your job requires you to be on social media, it's not like you can completely forget about that. You might have to set up a timer or something. But the thing is, if you do constantly have the phone there, I agree. It can be a rabbit hole because if I get a text message, and I pick up the phone, and just to look at the text, but once that's done, well, there's the phone in my hand. So off I go, you know, to Facebook or, hey, while I'm here. I wonder, if anybody's posted about this.

Lanée Blaise [00:12:56]:
See, that's where I wanna get into the psychology again. Lots of people have heard of FOMO, f o m o.

Sandy Kovach  [00:13:03]:
If you're missing out.

Lanée Blaise [00:13:04]:
Missing out. Yeah. If you think that you're about to miss out on the next big social media cat viral video, then you need to take a deep look at yourself and the psychology of it because it makes me wonder what kind of high or adrenaline rush are you getting when you go off on this tangent? And are you able to put into play some discipline and, like you said, maybe even a timer that physically reminds you, beep beep beep. It's time for you to get off of this Lanee gears because you are about to fall over the cliff.

Sandy Kovach  [00:13:40]:
Exactly. Another thing some people do is they remove the social media apps from their phone or whatever one is causing the most problem. They still have the ability to go on. It's just harder using whatever browser their phone has, Chrome or Safari or whatever, But not having the app and the easy ability to go on there so quickly helps, not to mention the fact that you won't get the notifications. But if you do wanna keep the app, turn off as many notifications as you can. It's those things that suck you in to social media because they want you to spend as much time on the platform as possible. And one more thing I wanna mention, and this is true not just for social media apps, but there are all kinds of apps that want you to sign up for push alerts. Do not sign up for any push alerts unless they are absolutely necessary.

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:32]:
Maybe if it's important for your job to stay up to date on everything going on, you might subscribe to one breaking news push alert. If you live in a place with a lot of bad weather, you might want the weather channel push alert. And there may be something specific to you that you do want the push alerts for, but just realize that that's gonna be something that's gonna draw you to your phone. So just make sure it's worth it.

Lanée Blaise [00:14:55]:
Yes.

Sandy Kovach  [00:14:56]:
And if you do need to spend time on social media for your job, if you have your own business, that might be part of it. I have to for my job, and even we do that for Imagine Yourself. It's just a matter of maybe scheduling the time to be on social media. That is something that I am gonna definitely try myself.

Lanée Blaise [00:15:11]:
I like that idea of scheduling some little social media breaks within your day so that it's almost like a little kid. You don't want a little kid to feel like they never get to have a piece of candy or they never get to go outside and play, but you also realize that there has to be a balance. So just like recess at school, you'll get to have your little recess period where you get to check all the things that you want, but there is an end time. There's a cap on it where you do have to stop, which kind of brings me to another thing, Sandy. Here's another important psychology question. Do you ever feel guilty for taking time off and taking a little break?

Sandy Kovach  [00:15:53]:
Sure. Of course. Who doesn't?

Lanée Blaise [00:15:54]:
But what if I told you that people need to take little breaks, and people need to take specialized periods of rest, of restoring rest? Because it may not seem like the fastest way to get things done, but we are humans. We are not robots, and it is an effective way to get that recharge that you need for your system so that you can come back and actually increase your productivity instead of sliding into that 3 o'clock slump. So I suggest to plan scheduled breaks. It really does something to free up your mind, your body, your spirit. I did an entire Bible study called Rhythms of Renewal by Rebecca Lyons that taught us after the rest comes the blessing. You can accomplish more by resting.

Sandy Kovach  [00:16:44]:
I think you're onto something there. One of the problems I think we have as a society, and obviously with COVID nineteen and people working at home, the lines between work and home are blurred even more. But even before that, with access to our devices, the line can be blurred and some people might feel like they're never really off the clock. But we need to be. We need to take the initiative to do that for ourselves.

Lanée Blaise [00:17:08]:
Well, I wanna give my own personal testimony on this because, honestly, in my personal life, God has made me feel that when I took time to rest, he has repaid me back by stretching my time. I had situations where I felt like hours had been given to me. And when I looked at the clock, only 20 minutes had passed, and I had gotten a ton of work completed in the time that he gave me as a gift for honoring that rest in him. It's mind boggling. I do believe that God can stretch time for you if you replenish yourself in him first.

Sandy Kovach  [00:17:49]:
Because you have more energy, you have the clutter is out of your head and

Lanée Blaise [00:17:53]:
Yes. You get rid of some of the junk, and you are operating on full divine inspiration. And you can be so much more creative and so much more productive. And I truly believe in that as a concept. And it doesn't seem to make sense because it's like you're taking time to rest, but you will get it back a dozenfold.

Sandy Kovach  [00:18:17]:
So when you say taking time to rest, let's break that down practically. Now you're talking about in the middle of your day, are you talking about making sure you wrap up on time and you're resting in the evening? Or how does that look? We start our day and we have our list and we have our two things to do when we've eaten our frog and all of that. What how do we put that rest in there?

Lanée Blaise [00:18:36]:
It might be a little different for every person, and you might have to play around with it a little bit because this might be a whole new concept for some people. Personally, I find that after I wake up, it's still about starting and setting that tone of the day. We did a whole podcast, you and I, about setting the tone for the day in your mornings. When you start and you get yourself centered and balanced and on track, that's a very powerful time. But everybody's schedule looks a little different because it kinda depends on who else is in the house around you, things like that. So it all varies, but you gotta find that sweet spot. And the resting, it can be as little as 5 minutes to just get your mind right, get your spirit right, get your priorities right. Because if not, we can just flail out and spin out of control and end up being completely unproductive, distracted, and a hot mess.

Sandy Kovach  [00:19:32]:
And we don't want that. And then you talked about getting some time in the morning, but also you mentioned scheduled breaks. That's gotta be hard to accomplish sometimes depending on who else at home and what's going on. It's not the same as maybe when people were at their workplace, and they could go sit in the employee lounge and take a break.

Lanée Blaise [00:19:53]:
This is something more like the people that you might see on Instagram who have now resorted to hiding in the bathroom or in their closet, you know, hiding from family members to give themselves that space. It's a form of self care too, but to really give themselves that time to restore themselves. Because, again, with people working from home and I did take one of those LinkedIn learning sessions. I learned a lot from that. It talked about the fact that we don't have a commute anymore, many of us. So for those who don't have the commute, that saves time, but some people used to use that time in their car by themselves to kind of get their mind clear and refreshed and laser focused. So there's kind of a positive and a negative with that. The other thing that they were saying is you might need to assess your physical and spatial area.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:46]:
Your workspace that you're working in, if you have other people at home now, might have to Lanee. The way that you organize your desks area and your doors that close, things used to be different when you'd go to the office or when your kids would be at school, and maybe they're not. Or your spouse, or all those types of things. Mhmm. It also mentioned that you need to establish better communication with your coworkers. You might have one method of communication for basic things that can wait, and you might need to establish a different method of communication for more urgent matters. And that speaks to what you said earlier, Sandy, where sometimes there's something where a deadline has changed and you need to know that. So, there has to be a way that you can get that information without being distracted by the phone or the list of emails.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:38]:
There's so many things that you really have to know yourself. You don't want to get behind. You wanna make sure that you overestimate the amount of time that it's gonna take you to do things. Mhmm. How many of us out there say, it won't take me that long to do it. So and that's why they're chronically Lanee. Yeah. Or that's why they're late to events or late as far as getting their deadlines because something in their head, that little mischievous voice tells them, you don't have to start getting ready right now.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:10]:
You don't have to start on that project right now. You'll be able to squeeze it in later. And I tell you, my kids get mad at me. They say I'm so overdramatic because I say, we do need to leave now because we gotta put on our shoes, put on our coat, drive there, find a parking space, walk inside. And they're like, oh my gosh. Why do you consider all those little details? Because it adds up. Mhmm. And when you have a project deadline, you need to be proactive and jump on it and not just try to squeeze it in.

Sandy Kovach  [00:22:38]:
In the last minute. And we did a whole podcast on procrastination using some of the techniques not to procrastinate. I think procrastination is another big issue as far as time management too. And, you mentioned communications with employees or coworkers or family members. Just having those little tricks that you set as far as putting your phone on do not disturb and only allowing family members. And if you need to communicate with employees, there are a ton of different apps or different ways. Like, if email is the trigger for you, communicate with 1 of the other messaging systems that people use. Or, you know what, you can set up and my husband's great about this.

Sandy Kovach  [00:23:19]:
Setting up different rules in his Outlook. He uses Outlook, and only certain emails will be bled into his focused file, and everything else just doesn't show up, or it shows up later and he can check on it. But there are different things that you can do. And if you're not that tech savvy, you may wanna ask someone or take a class or get somebody to help you with that.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:39]:
Yes. Because here's the thing that you just hit upon as far as technology, whether it's your computer or your cell phone, use your cell phone to help you use your cell phone less. And what I mean by that is you go into those settings and you restrict the number of hours that you're allowed to be on social media, put some restrictions. Treat yourself like you're a teenager and you're a toddler. Restricted and you're like, or a toddler, and put some nose in place. Pretend like you're your own mom or dad.

Sandy Kovach  [00:24:12]:
Yeah. We interviewed Elizabeth Sherman on a podcast not too long ago. And if you're looking for health tips, I definitely recommend it. But one of the cute things that she said, not on our podcast, but on, one of her Instagram posts was, as far as food, is sometimes you gotta treat yourself like a toddler and say no instead of just trying to make excuses. If you've gotta drag your toddler out of the store because they wanna buy the candy or the toy you don't want them to have, well, you gotta drag yourself out of the kitchen so that you don't eat what you're not supposed to. Well, maybe it's I gotta drag myself off of Facebook or whatever it is because, obviously, I'm not behaving.

Lanée Blaise [00:24:49]:
Yes. This makes me almost wonder if you build upon that and maybe even give yourself a little sandy reward if you are able to make it through the day and realize that you have not gone down the rabbit hole of social media.

Sandy Kovach  [00:25:02]:
And your phone will tell you too when you spend less time on social media or screen time in general. I think at least iPhone will send you those little alerts to tell you what your screen time is. And you can go into, like Lanee was saying, in the settings, and you can set limitations on all of the different apps or just screen time in general.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:21]:
There are so many ways to do better and live better and know better. And we just wanted to make sure that we highlighted some big juicy ones, like eat the frog.

Sandy Kovach  [00:25:34]:
Yeah. Like eat the frog. I'll never forget that.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:36]:
That's a book by Brian Tracy, but, yes, that's eat the frog. I'm thinking it's takeaway time, Sandy.

Sandy Kovach  [00:25:42]:
I'm ready.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:43]:
Takeaway time's gonna be super short because I'm just gonna say one big concept. Be the queen or the king of your calendar. Say with me, if you're driving your car right now, whatever, say, I rule my calendar. My calendar does not rule me. And, you know, it's just it's one of those things where from now on, now that you know better, you can take a moment to map out and make sure you have balance in your life as far as your work duties, your household duties, your family and community time, and also time for yourself and God. So you rule your calendar, you rule your life. And, also, now you're gonna strangle me, but if everyone could just take a tiny minute when they can and visit imagine yourself podcast.com and click subscribe so that you'll know all about our upcoming podcasts and you can schedule time during your me time to listen in on things that will help enhance your life.

Sandy Kovach  [00:26:43]:
That's right. When you are allowed on social media, if you're

Lanée Blaise [00:26:46]:
not Yeah.

Sandy Kovach  [00:26:48]:
If you're not in timeout. Yeah. We're on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. And there are good things on social media. We recommend the Imagine Yourself social media, but there are so many good things and people to follow. It's just about using it for your good and not letting it take control of you, just like you were saying. Technology was initially here to help us and is here to help us, but sometimes it zaps us, not if we take control over it, though. Exactly.

Lanée Blaise [00:27:18]:
So overall, don't let those time stealers get you and imagine yourself releasing an overscheduled life as you become instead a balanced, scheduled master of time management.

Sandy Kovach  [00:27:34]:
Thanks for listening. Connect with us at imagine yourself podcast.com. It'll have a white email us or if you wanna hook up on social media, it'll has all those links. We'd also love it if you'd subscribe to our blog and to our podcast. Until next time, we have something new to imagine. Hang in there. We're all doing the best we can.