34: How to Make More Time In the Day

Andrea Liebross |

www.andrealiebross.com |

Episode 34

Speaker1: [00:00:09] You are listening to the Time to level up podcast, I'm your host business life coach, Andrea Libros. I helped women in business commit to their own growth personally and professionally. Each week I'll bring you strategies to help you think clearly, gain confidence, make your time productive, turn every obstacle into an opportunity, and finally overcome the overwhelmed so that you can make money and manage life. Let's create a plan so you have a profitable business, successful career, and best of all, live with unapologetic ambition. Are you ready to drop the drama and figure out the how in order to reach your goals? You're in the right place. It's time to level up.

[00:00:57] Let's do this.

Speaker1: [00:01:04] Hello, my friends, and welcome to

Speaker2: [00:01:07] The podcast, I am so happy to be here with you and you are probably listening to this in the middle of July or beyond. So how is your summer going in Indiana? Our summer technically is almost, oh, three quarters over because my daughter at least goes back to school on August 5th. So it makes for a quick summer in the sense that it starts around Memorial Day and it ends around the first week of August. So today we are going to talk about time and time, scarcity and time management and what you have time for. That's the real question. What do you have time for? But before we dove into today's episode, I want to encourage you to register for my next five days of clear and clean thinking challenge. And if you have not participated in this in the past, I want you to head over to Andrea Libros Dotcom Borght Challenge and register. If you have been wanting to wake up each day, not holding on to the worries of yesterday, but looking at each day ahead with a clear and clean head and getting everything you want done in a day and feeling good about it, then this is for you. I will be teaching how to create this clean thinking, kind of like how to empty out the trash, clean up the clutter so that you can start from a fresh space. So I don't know about you, but in our house, the trash goes out every Thursday and there is something satisfying like pulling up empty bins at the end of Thursday back into the garage.

Speaker2: [00:03:04] It's like we have gotten rid of the old and have made room for the new. So this is kind of the same thing. How can you on a daily basis get rid of the old and make room for the new, almost like the urge to clean up the kitchen before you can start your day. So head over to Andrea Libros dot com forward slash challenge and get registered for the next round. And one more announcement. If you have realized that half of the year is over and you want to reboot and refresh so that the second half of the year is exactly how you plan it. You want to create an amazing second half? I am excited to share with you that I have opened up my calendar for two Deep Dove VIP days each month. And this is where it's you and I for a day crafting your next six months or a year or whatever time period. And we take a deep dove into where you are, what you're doing, what's working, what's not working and where you want to be. Or as I like to say, what do you want to create? And we create a vision and a strategy and a plan. And you walk away from the day with actual steps to make it all happen.

Speaker2: [00:04:25] And it's really a very powerful experience and honestly, probably one of the best gifts you can give yourself. So if you want more info on this kind of day, head over to my Web site and schedule a time to chat with me ASAP so we can get you on the calendar and figure out if it's the right thing for you or message me and we'll see. We'll see if it's a good fit and we'll grab you one of the spots in the next month. All right. Now let's dove into what you have time for. And I want you to know that this episode was inspired by two clients of mine who are in my group coaching program and who expressed disappointment in themselves that they had not made the time to, quote, unquote, do all of the work now. They have done a lot of work, but they quickly dismissed that because they were mad that they hadn't made time to do all of the work. So as most of you know, I've done a ton of work on money in my life, my health, my relationships, my business. And that has really paid off. And that's why I'm so passionate about these life coaching tools. And I recognized what would be a good tool. I didn't necessarily have a tool in my toolbox to help me focus on what do I use my time for.

Speaker2: [00:06:02] What I've found is that I have so much more work to do on time and my relationship with time, so in figuring out a tool, this really was an exercise that I did that was that's a game changer. So if you find your someone who identifies is always being too busy, you're feeling like there's not enough time. You're disappointing yourself and how you're using your time. You don't feel like you're making enough time. This is going to be really, really helpful for you. So how this tool works is that you're going to ask yourself this question, what do I have time for? And then you are going to write down your answers. So more specifically, I'd like you to answer the question in regards to six specific categories. And I have created a free download with these questions. So if you're driving or running and listening, you can head over to the show notes when you get a chance and download these questions from the show notes. But here we go. I'm going to list them off and then we're going to talk about them so no one is. What do you have time to think about? What do you have time to say? Number three, what do you have time to feel? Who do you have time to be? What do you have time to do and the sixth is what habits do you have time for? So my clients felt like they hadn't made time for the habit of, quote unquote, doing the work of being in the coaching group.

Speaker2: [00:07:49] But what they didn't notice is they did have time and they actually used their time to attend all the calls and they did have time and used their time to participate in group discussions offline or online rather than not actually in the session. And what they didn't realize is that they had made time to do tons of work because they had seen the difference in themselves. So let me give you a few examples of how you might answer some of these questions. When you answer the question, what do you have time to think about? You are probably going to come up with some positive examples and some negative examples. So you have time or, you know, you could have time to think about personal and professional development and growth. You have time. It's a possibility. You have time to think about what you want, your future to look like. You have time to think about goals. But you will probably find if you're answering this question honestly, that you have time to think about some negative things like beating yourself up or thinking about the fact of how you don't have time, that's one of my favorites. I have time to think about how I don't have enough time. Isn't that fascinating? The reason this question is so effective is if you are in time scarcity.

Speaker2: [00:09:21] Which, by the way, if that's you, you need to listen to Episodes four and 14 and after the show, after this episode, go back and listen to four and 14. But if you if you're in time scarcity. OK, if you're someone who identifies as never having enough time or being busy, your brain is not going to like the question, what do I have time for? Because your brain doesn't think it has time for anything. It's kind of think it's going to think you're kind of being a wise, wise ass. OK, that's why this question is magic. It requires you to be wrong. It requires you to see what you're missing. It requires you to see what you could be using your time for. OK, so next question was, what do you have time to say? And again, you might come up with a few positives, like you have time to give compliments and you have time to give praise. Or you have time to say things that make you proud, like we discussed in Episode 32, and you might also find that you have time to argue or you have time to point out what is wrong with your husband. The third question, when you think about the category of what you have time to feel, this is kind of where it gets interesting because you're probably going to find that if you're in time scarcity, that you're that busy person, that you have time to feel rushed.

Speaker2: [00:11:04] You have time to feel stressed, you have time to feel worried, to feel overwhelmed, so what's really interesting is on default, you think you don't have time. And that that creates the feeling of the feeling a very rushed in, in a hurry, and you identify as someone who's busy. But when you ask yourself a really good question, like, what do I have time for, it requires you to really point out the fact that we all have the same time. In fact, we all have 168 hours in a week and that our brain is the one that's creating these thoughts that either are or are not serving us. So when you go to the question number four of who do I have time to be, you may find that you have time to be someone who's always busy and busy with things that have to do with other people, external things. This is one where I really identified that I sometimes can fall into. I have time to do other things for other people, so I have time to be in a rush for myself and it's fascinating because my brain is always thinking, well, you don't have time. And that's that's the whole point, because my brain thinks it's a fact that I don't have time maybe for myself. But that, of course, is not true.

Speaker2: [00:12:45] That's a thought. So these clients who were saying they were disappointed in themselves, that they didn't take the time to do the work, this is really what's kind of going on for them. OK, they didn't have time to be the person who gets the work done. So when I do my own self coaching around 2:00, I have time to be I notice how wrong I am a lot about my relationship with time. I notice how it's not serving me. And you may find that you have a lot of thoughts about being stuck in the comparison trap, but compare and despair, I like to call it, or a perfectionist trap or not being good enough. So you then have time to be someone who's not good enough, you have time to think that everything should be perfect, you have time to think about how her life is better than yours. And if this exercise feels like a little bit of a challenge to you, you might want to start with question number five, which is what do you have time to do? Because it's probably the easiest to answer and it's a good place to start. So what do I have time to do? I do have time to exercise because I do it. I do have time to take a shower because I do take a shower. I do have time to coach my clients because I do a lot of coaching.

Speaker2: [00:14:13] I have time to record this podcast. I have time to make coffee. I have time to walk my dogs with my husband. OK, I have time for relearning how to play golf, which is something we're doing. I also have time, usually on weekends, to spend a little time scrolling social media. I don't have time to do that during the week, but that's my choice, right? So everything you do in a day that you have time for is what you do have time to do. Now, what habits this is question six, are you in that you have time for? Again, some of these are going to be positive and some are going to be negative. Do you have time for drinking alcohol and eating ice cream or turning on Netflix? Do you have time for working out and exercising these are habits, right? Do you have time to take care of yourself like it's a habit to go get your hair cut every few weeks or every few months? Do you have time for self care, your brain's going to challenge you on this, so I think it's really important for you to write down your answers, try to come up with a handful of positive and negative in each of those six categories. OK, so here are the questions in case you're now asking yourself, what were the questions? Number one, what do you have time to think about to what do you have time to say? Three, what do you have time to feel for? Who do you have time to be? Five, what do you have time to do in six, what habits do you have time for? So write down three or four or five positives and negatives for each of those six categories.

Speaker2: [00:16:06] Now, the next part of this whole exercise, this tool is to answer three questions. And Natalie Bacon, who is another coach out there in the world, she kind of brought these questions to my attention. I've asked them of myself, but in a different way. But here's how she asks them. She calls it the stop, start and stay the same. So what do you want to stop having time for? What do you want to start having time for? What do you want to keep having time for? So ironically, when someone says to me, yeah, I don't want to continue with coaching because I'm just not doing the work, I always say to them. So when you stop coaching, you're going to have time to do the work, right? It's like, no, they're not. So what do you want to keep having time for? Keep having time for coaching and the work will come along or keep having time for exercising every day, and you will get stronger or keep having time for reading and you will find more pleasure in reading. What do I want to stop, I want to stop having time for being busy.

Speaker2: [00:17:23] I want to start having time for being present for conversations, I want to keep having time for traveling. I want to have time to sit in my daughter's room on the floor while she's on her bed and talk to her. I want to have time to pop into her room. That's really the only time I get to talk to her. And I want to have time to create this podcast. So the first part, those six questions, that's an awareness tool. It's what do I actually have time for that I'm already thinking, feeling, being, doing and saying? And then next part is really what do I want to stop? What do I want to start and what do I want to keep going? So there's two sort of parts to this whole exercise. And from there, what you can do is you can start noticing when you're in the energy of whatever it is you want to stop, start or keep having time for. So if you are someone who wears that busy nametag. Hello, I am busy. Busy is your name. And that's something you want to stop having time for. Stop paying attention to what you're not doing, start paying attention to what you are doing and decide if it's something you want to keep doing. So when you say, oh, I'm so busy, it may just be that you feel busy and as you start to pay attention to it, you might say, oh, OK, this is the part where I'm feeling busy.

Speaker2: [00:19:01] I see that I'm thinking I'm so busy. I see that I'm thinking that every day I'm so busy. But what am I actually doing? And from this awareness, you can shift to start thinking a new thought. And from that new thought, you're going to create the new energy of the person who wants to be using time differently. So here's something I hear a lot of if I ask a client, what do you want to feel, they often tell me they want to feel more present. So if you want to start something like being more present in conversations, at first it might feel awkward because you're consciously thinking about being present. It's like more of an effort, but that's just because you're starting something new and eventually you'll get to the place of flow, just like you've gotten to the place of always feeling busy. Right. And the best way to create the flow is to think ahead of time. OK, how do I want to show up in my conversation with my friend when I call her? How do I want to show up when I'm sitting at the dinner table? How do I want to show up when I meet her to go on a walk? And then what questions do I want to ask her? How can I make this walk more about her than more about me? How can I continue having time for whatever it is that I love, that I have time for and making sure that I prioritize that? So it's just a way for you to be more intentional with your time using this tool.

Speaker2: [00:20:40] It's truly a life coaching tool. This is these are the kinds of things that we talk about in coaching. What tools can you use to make your life better or your business better? Where can you kind of hack your brain to see that? It's not that you don't have time, you do have time, but you may be having time for things you don't want to have time for. In fact, if we're talking about this, you probably have time for a mindset drama or you have time to feel stressed. So interesting, isn't it? Your brain says you don't have time, but with this exercise, you'll notice that you're actually having time to think about not having time. It is fascinating. It's interesting. So what also came to me when I was thinking about what I wanted to share with you today is an analogy to money, OK? Because money is something that we often are generous with. We donate, we give to charitable organizations. We give gifts of money. OK, so I would say I'm pretty generous with my money. I love to give money.

Speaker2: [00:21:51] I love to spend money to help others. I don't give from lack. I give knowing that I have money and I give from a place of abundance. And I always know that I have more than enough to take care of my basic needs. So I really genuinely love to use my money to give to others. However, I may not be as generous with my time or I have noticed that I'm not as generous with my time. And this is something that I'm actually working on and it really has nothing to do with the actual one hundred and sixty eight hours in a week. It has nothing to do with money either. So how you think about your time is going to determine whether or not you're generous with it, so if I'm thinking I don't have enough time to do all the things I want to do, then I'm likely not going to be very generous. But if I keep thinking, oh, my gosh, I have plenty of time, then I'm probably going to give a lot of time. So what if you thought about your time as a currency? OK. And when you think about money, you're spending it on things you want to spend it on. When you're feeling generous. What if you thought about your time as twenty four thousand dollars versus twenty four hours and you can think about it like every day you wake up and you have twenty four thousand dollars in your pocket to use every single day.

Speaker2: [00:23:32] How do you want to use it? So if you're asking yourself how you're currently using your twenty four thousand dollars. Which is what you're doing when you say, what do I have time for? It brings an awareness to how you're budgeting your time. So when you think about sleep and people say, oh, I don't have eight hours, I only sleep five hours. Think about this. Like, if you really were sleeping eight hours, you were giving away eight thousand of the twenty four thousand dollars, you would still have 16 hours to spend. That's a lot. And that's really not much of a difference between 19. Right. So if you only got five hours of sleep, you'd have nineteen thousand dollars to spend. If you get eight hours of sleep, which makes a huge difference in the way you feel you have sixteen thousand dollars to still spend. That doesn't sound like a big difference, so why does three hours of sleep sound like a big difference? And imagine if you got those eight hours of sleep, how much more effective would would you be in using these 16 hours or sixteen thousand dollars that were left? Right. I think that giving my time is a way to be generous, just like giving my money. So from there, if you're trying to think about time as a currency, you can decide, OK, what do I want to stop giving to? What do I want to start giving to? What do I want to keep giving to? What do I want to stop spending money on? What do I want to start spending money on? What do I want to keep spending money on? The same is true for time.

Speaker2: [00:25:17] If you're someone who overworks a lot and has that identity is someone who has who had time to overwork. How do you completely shed that identity? Do you want that identity any more? And what if you said no to the identity of overworking and busy? What would that shift? I've been coaching a lot on this, shifting from the identity of being busy to the identity of having time in space, and if you're in one of my group coaching programs, committed to growth are level up. We've been talking about this. We actually took an inventory of time over the past few weeks. And I'm going to be coaching specifically on this even more in these groups, and I want to encourage you that if you want specific coaching on this kind of thing to come join us, just something to think about so that if you have a relationship in time in your life where you're always feeling busy and there's not enough, you can take what you've learned. On this podcast and apply it, but you can apply it in a much deeper level if you are making the time to get support on it, to get the coaching right.

Speaker2: [00:26:37] So when my person said, yeah, I don't want to keep going because I'm not making the time, I thought that was kind of ironic. So you are going to make the time if you stop coaching. That doesn't make sense. Inside groups with a coach, you can kind of see your mind in a place where you can't see it alone. So while it's going to be a really great exercise for you to do this once to see what comes up, it's going to be way more powerful if you make the time to do this work, this kind of work on an ongoing basis to really make sure that you're practicing and implementing what you're changing with respect to your relationship with time. So I know we'll do a lot of that in my coaching groups, one which is called committed to growth, get it committed. That's pretty funny when we're talking about committing to creating change. So if you're someone who has a hard time committing to your own growth, then this might be for you. This group might help you stay consistent. And even if you're not in committed to growth or in any coaching, I want to encourage you to do this on your own on an ongoing basis. Weekly, monthly. Ask yourself, what do you have time for? Ask yourself those specific six questions.

Speaker2: [00:28:00] Answer them with a couple of positives in a couple negatives and see along the way if you're transforming your relationship with time. And if not, come get extra help. So that you can get out of this time scarcity being always busy and rushed mentally, so coach with me. Coach with me, ask yourself the six questions, share your answers with me, direct message me Facebook. Message me, email me. Ask for coaching on it, ask for coaching on what to start, stop or keep doing. So if you've loved this podcast, you are going to love continuing this work. Who is your coach? I would be honored to be your coach because it is through coaching, working directly with you, that we can take everything on this podcast to the next level. And I invite you to join an amazing group of women and deepen your own personal and professional development. So head over to Andrea Libros Dotcom and learn about all of the different ways in which I am working with women, as I mentioned at the beginning. There are options and I bet one might fit you. So that is what I have for you today. Assess what you're doing with your time and what you're not doing, and I will talk to you next week. And remember, there's always time to level up to up your game to up. You have an amazing rest of your week. I will talk to you next time.

Speaker1: [00:29:49] Thanks for tuning in to today's show, if you're ready to commit to personal and professional growth, move forward, make money and manage life. Head to Andrea Libros Dotcom that's a and DARPA l i e b r o. S s dotcom to find out about the ways we can work together until next time. Go level leveland.