How to Take Back Your Schedule

Let’s talk about how to take back your time and how to take back your schedule when you're feeling really overwhelmed with something that may be going on in your business or just your day-to-day operations.

At the beginning of this year, I was feeling like something was really off and it took me a while to figure it out. And once I got out of that slump and took ownership of my time it really made a difference in everything in my business and life in general. So I want to share with you what I did.

We can't buy time and we can't purchase a course on how to get more time, so we need to manage it wisely and be mindful of it. I always took pride in how I managed my time, but there were just a couple of things that were really bothering me.

At the end of 2021, I sat down at my table and looked at what I wanted 2022 to look like. I laid out a plan and I was really excited about it. It looked really easy and simple. Until I got out my new planner for the year and started writing down all of the already booked calls.

I was writing calls down for August and September, and those are all podcast interviews, and I felt, to be honest, a little overwhelming. I was trying to put some gratitude on top of it because I know that I should be grateful for all of the people who wanted to be on my podcast, but it was really eye-opening to see that I had calls booked out for almost the whole entire year when I haven't even flipped into 2022 yet.

At first, I set that aside and let it be because I’m the kind of person that will tackle whatever is in front of me and want to just take care of it. Period. But I was also creating a brand new promotion plan for Stand Out Coaching Academy, I knew that we were going to hop right back into homeschool once January started, and I am also running a home, a business, and working a full-time job.

As I looked at my calendar, I saw a lot of things on there. I usually get excited about things to do every day, as that's the type of person I am, but there were just some things that were sticking out at me, but I told myself, “That's okay. I'll just keep pushing forward.”

Well, fast forward a few more months to the promotion plan for Stand Out Coaching Academy going well and homeschool was going well too, but here was just that one thing that was poking at me that felt really heavy and I didn't know what to do about it. So, I started reading some books to help me. Granted they were probably things that I already knew, but I just needed to hear it again, you know, like a kid needs to hear something a few times? That's me. Especially when it comes to me being stubborn at changing my ways, rescheduling things, or whatever. It's really hard for me to do that.

But when I read Christy Wright’s book, Take Back Your Time, it was exactly what I needed to hear. I started writing down all of the things that I do every single day that I love. And then I would look at the things that I didn't quite love anymore.

I’m always asking God for signs because I'm never so sure about myself for some reason. I can be a very indecisive person sometimes and I can overanalyze the crap out of things, just ask my husband. So I looked at the one thing glaring at me and all of these podcast interviews.

I love doing podcast interviews. I love when I get to meet a new person every single week and put them on the podcast. That makes me so happy. But then I realized that, you know what, that hour on a Saturday morning, I think I would rather spend it with my family, clients, or students. So, after a long time of thought and prayer, I decided to cancel all of those interviews for the rest of the year. It was so hard for me to do that.

I decided to put my CEO hat on and I told myself that I'm going to give my time to the people who are investing in me and those are my clients and my students. That's it.

I’ve done plenty of podcast interviews, probably hundreds of them, and I'm grateful for every single one of them. But I had to put a stop to them because I wanted my time back. I really did. I craved it. I was homesick for it. I just wanted it.

There were also some signs, some negative signs, popping up and I think God was nudging indecisive me. Like, no shows, cancellations at 1:30 in the morning, random things like that. The Book Your Dream Clients Podcast has been around for almost three years and those inconveniences were not a common occurrence. Sure things happen, but it was just kind of all lumped into one time. And I just knew that those were signs for me to let go and focus on other things.

When you look at your business five years from now, how do you want it to look? I am not the person who's going to preach to quit your nine to five. I enjoy my nine to five. So if I'm going to wear the nine to five hat, the CEO hat, the homeschool mom hat, and the wife hat. I need to really be mindful of how I spend my time. So I knew that if I could have one more hour a week to either enjoy working on my business, spending time with my family, or going outside when it's nice out, that means more to me.

I even had a conversation with a friend about this very issue and she was having a hard time deciding if that was something that she wanted to do. It was weighing on her heart. And I told her my story and she said, “Okay, that makes me feel a lot better because I wasn't sure how to go about it, honestly.”

You really just have to be truthful with yourself and look at your day. Write down everything that you're doing. If you have to go hour by hour, write down what are you doing. Do you like it? Be creative and grab your highlighter. Highlighted the things you love pink. Do you not like it? Highlight it in a different color. And if it's something that you don't enjoy doing and something that you don't have to do, then ask yourself why you’re doing it in the first place. What's the point? Are you doing it because it's on your calendar or are you doing it because it's just another thing to check off on your list? Maybe you are doing it because you don't even know why anymore. Pay attention and evaluate those things.

Oftentimes, we create these random lists for no reason. Just because we heard somebody else talk about how we should do this and we should do that. I've always operated my business on how I feel and what my values are. I've always operated my business that way. This is why, I believe, things were feeling off for me because I wasn't at that moment.

So if your schedule is tearing you apart and you are walking into your office with a weight on your shoulders, do something about it. Because if you don't, it's going to completely cover you. And it's going to be really hard to get out.

Use my story as inspiration to take control of your time and take control of your schedule. You can do this. Decide that it's going to be easy. And trust me, it feels amazing when you do.