Busy or Productive? Time Management Habits That Reveal Where Your Time Goes, Feat Danielle Benzon

Hey everybody, are you having a great day?

Yes.

Oh no, you're not?

It's okay, I got you.

I'm Tif Loeffler, welcome to Positively Yours.

I'm gonna share Tif's tips, techniques,

and a little bit of magic to help you up level

and have a great day every day.

Are you ready to get started?

Yeah!

Oh, you're not?

That's okay, I still got you.

Let's go.

Hey everybody, welcome to season two, episode one.

I am super excited to be here

because I am here to talk about time.

And now, for our tip of the day for this session,

I wanna talk about timers.

Yes, I wanna get right to it and say,

if you only have a few minutes to listen to me, I get ya.

And here's what we're talking about, timers.

I love timers.

I am currently holding up my phone.

Now, this can be the biggest distraction on the planet.

I have worked through some stuff this summer.

And also, it can be such a gift,

and it is the gift of timers.

I am going to start my timer right now

and I'm gonna show it to you.

Ta-da, it's countdown.

I set up five minutes because I wanted to make sure

that I had enough time to explain why I feel timers

are so important before introducing the guest

for this entire season, Danielle Benzon,

and I'm super excited.

Now, the reason I love timers is, well, for many reasons.

Number one, I don't know about you,

but you can get quite distracted throughout your day.

And if we're talking about how to have a great day,

if you have distractions that keep you

from acknowledging your great day,

that can be a problem or at least a little bit of an issue.

Therefore, when you set a timer for yourself,

you are giving yourself permission to celebrate

when that timer arrives in whatever melodious tone you want.

Now, another reason that I absolutely love timers

is because you get to customize the melodious tones

that come out of it when the timer is ready to announce

that you have something

that you are either going to think about.

It could be something as simple as taking a breath.

I don't know if you're thinking,

hey, we do breathe on our own, thank goodness.

But there are times where we're really either involved

in a project or in a stressful situation.

We're super busy.

Maybe we're not busy at all.

It's nice to have a timer set

to give yourself a time to reset.

Now, I am absolutely fascinated by how the mind works,

how the brain engages

with all of those different neural pathways.

And sometimes it's a well-worn groove,

especially if you have been in a rut.

You are doing the same thing over and over.

The days look the same.

They're blending into each other.

I don't know what day it is.

I don't know what I'm doing.

Does that sound familiar?

It could be familiar once in a while

or familiar a lot.

And in this case, when you set a timer,

you are giving your body, your magnificent brain,

a chance to go, boing, wait a minute,

I want to reset my thought.

And it can be as simple as when the timer goes off,

look down, what does it say?

Here's another reason I love timers.

You can customize what they say

when they are ready to reveal themselves to you.

It can be as simple as, hey, you've got a call coming up.

Yes, that's super fun.

Breathing much, question mark?

Make it funny.

Just like, did you eat today?

Where's your snack?

Do you need a nap?

How's your hair?

Is there anything in your teeth?

I'm just coming up with just anything

I can think of off the top of my head

because it really doesn't matter.

What matters is that you have taken the time

to give yourself those moments

of bringing yourself into the present

because that's where all the power is, people.

I will be on that.

It's gonna be on like Donkey Kong, okay?

You got to know that you're in the present moment

and that's where the power is.

So when would you set these timers?

Oh, I'm so glad I asked that question

because guess what?

This is also customizable.

You can start it off in the evening.

You can just have a bunch of timers.

Get ready.

Or you could have your timer set

whenever you feel like it.

You can set a timer for when you have a sudden thought,

maybe, oh my gosh, I just realized.

I have an appointment in like an hour.

Set a timer.

I know you're thinking,

well, I'm sure I can remember in an hour.

Oh no, oh no.

I assure you there are so many times

when I have thought, oh, it's no problem.

I'm gonna remember this.

And then I get a text from someone that says,

were we supposed to be meeting?

Oh, let's eliminate that problem.

Let's celebrate the fact that there's the timer happening.

And I'm looking down, I'm like,

oh, I got about 53 seconds left.

Oh, here is one more thing I love about looking at my phone

is that when you look at your screen,

I've been told, now this is just a bit of a non sequitur,

but I got a few seconds.

To put something on your home screen,

it is people, places, or things that inspire you.

Why are you doing what you're doing?

Okay, when we're in business, it can be so easy.

Oh gosh, why am I even doing this?

Well, on my screen, I have these three cute little girls.

They are my boyfriend's grandchildren

and they are all so adorable.

They are the sweetest girls.

I love them so much.

And it's so fun when I open my screen, I look at it.

And if I'm checking my timer, you know what?

It's just a beautiful, conscious reminder.

We are here to connect with people.

And that reminds me after this,

I'm gonna set a timer to check my calendar

to schedule a call with them.

But guess what?

Now I'm hearing some melodious sounds,

which means that that wraps it up for my tips tip

for the day on how to have a great day.

And it is all about setting timers.

Choose what you're gonna say on it.

Choose your own melody.

And when that timer arrives,

be present with it for just a moment.

And as a bonus, every time a timer goes off,

just take a nice full breath.

I know you're breathing on autopilot,

but just take an awesome breath.

And now without further ado,

I am so excited that I am bringing to the stage

basically my co-host for this season.

And I am absolutely thrilled.

Danielle Benzon of Inspired Speaker Academy

had graciously invited me into the podcasting realm.

And oh boy, has it been an awesome ride.

And today she is actually going to be talking with me

about the theme today is about scheduling time, schedules.

It can be a big thing, but if you break it down

and Danielle is gonna share with you how she's helping me.

And I'll give you a couple examples also,

because it's really important for you to schedule your time

for you above all else.

Without further ado, I'm so delighted.

I get to share the stage today with Danielle.

Danielle, thank you so much for being here today.

Round of applause.

Oh, I love the round of applause.

Thank you so much, Tif.

I am so happy to be here.

Time is one of my favorite things to geek out about

outside of what I do in my career.

I get really, really geeky about different ways

to save time and productivity and all that kind of stuff.

So I'm really excited to talk about this.

I also wanted to say,

because I was listening to your tip.

I only use one sound on my alarm,

but it is the most beautiful.

It's birds singing in the morning

and it's just the birds start.

And by the time there is a kind of melody to it,

but it's about 10 seconds in.

And I always hear the timer.

I always hear it and catch it before the melody hits.

And I love it because it's just like,

oh, birds are singing.

It just makes me so happy.

So yeah, I love it.

Oh, thank you for that.

I love that.

And you know what?

Thank you for the option.

Is there just your go-to timer?

Yes.

I myself like the experimentation

because I'll tell you some timers,

I will not be paying attention.

They're really pretty, but they're a little subtle.

Not that I want the,

that jumps me out of my seat,

but you might want to enjoy trying out a few

and seeing which works for you.

Yeah.

If I have too much novelty, I won't recognize it.

So for me, I have to,

I've got that stimulus response thing going.

So I need to have the same timer every time

because within two seconds, as soon as it starts,

I hear it and my body is primed.

I'll hear it.

No one else can hear it in the other room, but I can hear it.

So it's one of those, everyone's different.

So some people need novelty.

Some people need that consistency.

Danielle, this is just one of the reasons

that I love being a part of your world.

Thank you.

Because you just brought something that,

you know, you can think about what you're going to say

and then someone brings a new element to it

and you think, aha, that's brilliant.

I love that.

Thank you for sharing.

So thank you for sharing.

Now, thank you.

Today is all about,

well, I'm going to say scheduling, calendars and time.

If I were to start, and then Danielle,

if you could please offer your thoughts,

because there are many and I appreciate all of them.

When I first became Danielle's client,

I had a crazy, full, busy calendar, or was it?

I can't say that it, to me, I thought it was being busy

and being very, like, I had it color-coded.

There were a couple things.

I don't know if you can remember.

I can remember too, but I wanted you to start off like,

when you are with a client,

you're trying to help them get their calendar straight.

Yeah.

What are some of the common themes?

And if you think of anything about me personally,

please feel free to share,

because we're here to get this figured out for people,

myself included.

Well, you know, this isn't really a service

that I kind of think that I offer.

This is something I more do with my friends

more than my clients,

but, you know, we end up doing,

this is the wonderful thing about what I do

is that I just kind of show up

and give my clients whatever they need.

I have a speciality, which is the voice and speaking,

but occasionally-

Yes, yes, you do, yes.

You know, occasionally, speakers need,

well, this is the fun thing, right?

It keeps my life exciting,

because occasionally, the speaker's like,

you know what, yes, we're working on the speaking,

but also, my life's a mess

and I need to schedule it a bit better.

And I'm like, oh, I love scheduling, let's do that.

And so it keeps my life really, really fun.

And I really enjoy doing it.

So, this is really fun.

I'm like, I'm not like a professional gibber or anything,

but I really do enjoy it.

And I've had to wrangle my own schedule so much.

And I've been-

Love that word.

I've been in charge of my own time for-

Yes.

Oh, goodness, like the last 15 years.

So, I've had a lot of practice.

One of the things that I see the most

is that people try to keep everything in their head.

They don't write it down.

And when you don't write it down,

especially if you write some things down,

but not everything down,

you can overload and double book

without realizing you're doing it.

Well, I don't have that much on today.

Oh, I also have this regular call,

but I don't write on my calendar

because it happens every week.

And I also have to do this work.

And I also have to go for a walk.

And I also have to go shopping.

And then suddenly you're looking at your day and going,

well, that's about 47 hours in that day.

How am I going to do that today?

So, forcing yourself to write everything down

and get in reality about it.

That is one of the most important things, I think,

because we tend to gloss over things.

Like, oh, I don't need, that's not important.

I'll remember that.

I don't need to write it down.

You're not writing it down to remember it.

You're writing it down to see the relationship

between the different activities that you've got.

So that I think is the biggest one.

And then something else that I find extremely useful.

I use timers all the time for so many different things.

If you don't know how to spend your time,

this is one of the best things that I've ever done.

If you don't know how you spend your time,

set a timer for every 10 or 15 minutes

and just write down what you're doing.

Every 10 or 15 minutes, write down what you're doing.

Just have like a little spreadsheet or something.

Do it for a week or two.

It's amazing.

And also, it's amazing how you think,

oh, those dishes are going to take hours.

They took 15 minutes.

You watch YouTube for three hours.

You know, it's all these little things

that we lie to ourselves about.

So it's a humbling experience,

but it's very, very necessary to get.

If you're going to get productive,

if you're going to get real about where you are

and what you're doing,

it is necessary to track everything.

I so appreciate that you brought that up.

And I certainly, let's be clear, everybody.

Danielle is a speaker coach, correct?

This is about being a speaker.

And also, if you don't manage your time.

So I appreciate that you offer,

I'm going to call it super awesome bonus,

super awesome bonus happy time,

because I did do that for a few days.

Yes, it is.

It's what it is.

And I will say curated, okay?

And this is why I highly recommend working with Danielle,

because throughout this season,

we're going to be talking about all manner of things.

And that's why I'm so thrilled

that she has graciously gifted me her time

to be with me on this season,

simply because I just love being with you.

And also, I just love hearing what you have to say,

because it's amazing.

I would also like to add, I did do that for a few days.

I appreciate, Danielle, that you told me you need some data.

When you have the data, now we can work with it.

Ladies and gentlemen, I went through the numbers.

There were two things that, wow.

Yes, there was that I wasn't keeping track of my time

with all of the distractions, doom scrolling much.

And also, there was one other aspect

that you have helped me with.

And I'd like to talk about that just a little bit.

And it's just about, are you in the day for yourself,

or have you given your day away to other people?

And that was the revelation this summer for me.

And it was very, not only humbling, it was embarrassing.

I swear, I felt shameful.

That was not on Danielle.

That was me feeling, and she helped me through that.

I felt just completely gobsmacked.

I just wanted to use that word.

Because when I started to add up the hours,

and I was doing all these other things for people

that were not myself or my business,

it added up so quickly.

I have to admit, I almost lost my lunch at one point,

because I started adding up the hours,

the days, the weeks, the months, the years.

I suddenly had a lot of data to look at.

Danielle, I appreciate so much

that you have helped me understand,

what are you doing for yourself?

Are you in your business, your day?

What's going on?

And this is part of why you almost kind of treat your life

like a project manager.

Okay, which project does this belong to?

Does this belong to self-care?

Does this belong to my business?

Does this belong to relationships?

Does this belong to potential client relationships?

Does this belong to delivering my product?

Does this belong to marketing?

You've got to get serious about your categories as well.

And it's not that, ah, we should be unbalanced.

You need rest.

You need social time.

You need all of those things.

And I think actually that's,

and for you as well, and for me,

those were the things that were getting dropped

was the social time and the rest and the self-care

because we're like, oh, I'm so busy all the time.

I'm working so hard.

So you've got to schedule those things in too.

And you've got to treat those as important

as an appointment with your clients.

So if I have an appointment with myself

to look after myself or a date night with my spouse

or whatever it is, I need to keep that appointment

and treat it as it has that same hierarchy

as a sales call.

Know what I mean?

Yes, well, now I do.

And are we there yet?

No, everyone, life is many.

And what I love is having someone, a mentor,

a coach like Danielle, who there's no judgment here.

It's just, okay, you got some data.

All right, this is what you've been doing.

Okay, let's make a few tweaks.

The next week, looking it over.

And of course, I would love to hang out with you

all the time, but as things change,

then you're not able to as much with people,

but that's okay because it's so much fun

to schedule that time.

And if I were to also say, it's so fun

to very consciously schedule time with your team.

And your team is whoever you want it to be.

Your team, I certainly hope,

and this is something that I'm now adjusting

as we are in fall, we're in the autumnal time.

And I am looking at something to work on happily

is to be more solid on my team,

scheduling time with the people

who are helping me move forward

and not using up my time, not draining my energy.

It happens once in a while, I get it.

I'm sure I do that to people.

I love my high energy level,

but once in a while, I'm sure it gets a little much

and that's okay, know thyself.

However, I also know that it's really important

to be there for people and to schedule time with them.

The number one person I want you to think about

who's listening today is,

are you scheduling time for yourself?

And I did hear this a few years ago from someone

and he told me, he said, schedule time for yourself

and guard it, be a warrior for your time.

And admittedly that had fallen away.

So that's another reason why I really wanted this time

with Danielle, because I wanted to express

how important I feel it is to make sure

that you take the time to schedule time for yourself.

And this is the thing, and this is a word

we haven't said yet, but we've been kind of circling around,

intention.

Your timers are making you very intentional.

Even if all you're doing is checking in,

even if that's the only thing you're doing

with your timer is going, oh, how am I feeling?

What am I doing right now?

Suddenly your awareness is open, turned on, switched on,

and you're like, oh, I'm being intentional

about my time now.

I may not make my choices any different,

but it's intentional now, it's not on autopilot.

And the same for scheduling.

If I'm being intentional about who I'm spending time with,

curating all of that stuff, it's so important.

Oh, I really appreciate that you talked

about the intentionality.

And another thing that I appreciated was,

now everyone, it doesn't have to be,

it could be whoever you want it to be,

but I highly recommend that initially

you can just sit down with a friend.

It can even be on the phone.

You can just say, hey, guess what?

I need to schedule some time to schedule some time.

And what are you doing right now?

Because my bestie, she works at home

and I could call her up and go,

hey, can you just be on the phone with me for a little bit

while I work on something?

And she'd be like, no problem, I'm working on emails.

I get you.

I had one person help me set up an account

while they were just doing their thing

and I'm doing my thing.

But it is really nice to have someone that,

and Daniel, I know this isn't so much about scheduling,

but that whole accountability thing,

up until working with you, I always felt,

well, accountability means they're gonna show up

and say, well, did you get it all done?

And I'm gonna say no.

And they're gonna say, well, that's bad.

And then I'll feel bad.

So I don't want an accountability person.

I don't like the word accountability.

I don't want to be accountable at all.

Fine.

Then the sassy bratty inner four-year-old said, no.

But now I understand that it really is nice

to have someone that you can connect with and say,

okay, I am going to schedule some time.

And Daniel, can we talk about the recurring?

Because recurring is so important too.

Unless there's something else you wanna say first.

Unless there's something else you wanna say first.

Because I also have, I have that little inner teenager

who gets really defiant.

So the first thing I wanna say is,

accountability is not about punishment

or it's not like we think about school and homework

and that kind of thing.

Accountability is just about ownership.

And just own your choices.

Say, you know what?

I didn't do that because this was more important.

Great.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Own your choices.

Don't stress about, well, other people think

this might, this must be more important

or I set that goal and then I didn't reach it.

Okay.

You probably had a really good reason.

If you didn't have a really good reason

and you feel like you're betraying yourself,

okay, great, we get to work on that.

It's not a, you didn't do the thing,

punish, punish, punish.

It's an awareness tool.

That's what accountability is.

Ownership and awareness.

So that's the first thing.

And then the other thing you said,

and I just really wanted to hit on,

oh no, it's gone.

Oh yeah, the inner teenager.

I prefer to track my time.

I do schedule my time.

But I don't schedule my time as granularly

as I track it.

I track my time to every 15 minutes.

I schedule my time in big chunks

because I am not one of those people

who can schedule every five to 10 minutes.

The inner teenager will just cancel everything.

So if I feel restricted, if I feel overly controlled,

I need the space to be spontaneous.

I need to be able to follow what I'm feeling.

If I'm in the zone, I want to be able to continue

working on this project for the next three hours,

even though I hadn't planned it.

So I allow myself, I give myself chunks

and I allow myself to decide

what is happening in those chunks,

depending on what it is, sometimes in the moment.

So, I mean, if it's an appointment,

obviously you've got to keep the appointment.

But if I'm scheduling my own time,

I'll be like, okay, I've got these chunks.

I have to do this today.

And it's more like check-in points than scheduled time.

I have a priority list.

I know what's on my priority list,

but I also know what my energy levels are like

and that kind of thing.

So my schedule looks more like a template.

My tracking is extremely detailed

because if I tried to detail my schedule,

it wouldn't work at all.

And every personality is different.

What were you asking about recurring tasks?

I came back to it.

I did, I remembered.

I was gonna say, everybody, brava, brava, Danielle,

because I know sometimes I'm,

and here are 37 parts, go.

All right, so getting back to,

well, okay, for example, the reoccurring,

I just like how, well, I'm just gonna show,

well, I'll talk about it and show it.

So this is today.

And I had a call with my friend, Sinead,

which we have every week, we schedule.

And now this says Tif time, and it says see description.

So let's click on that and see what it says.

It says, Tif time is whatever Tif wants,

but there are a few things that are listed, okay?

It could be eating, reading, writing, singing,

yoga, Qigong, drawing, connecting with someone,

scheduling a call, nap time, creative endeavors,

besides what I've just listed.

I mean, I actually have like this whole,

it's a beautiful litany of things.

And thank you for the reminder that

perhaps there are two camps, know thyself.

Either I like to schedule things down to the minute,

or I like to have a beautiful open time,

and then we'll just see where things go.

And I'm tracking, and I think that was

what I might have been missing up until this point,

which I'm looking forward to now adding, which is okay.

I like the idea.

I don't think that I'm tracking enough, and that's okay.

But again, we're kind of just kind of workshopping this

in real time, people, which is what I love,

because it's important to have, yeah.

You need to keep changing.

I don't track as much.

I don't check in as often as I used to,

because I now automatically check in

every time I finish a task or every time I get distracted.

So I don't need to set the alarm for myself anymore,

because it's become automatic.

So there's, you know, your needs shift,

depending on what you're doing and where you are

and all that stuff.

I do love that you wrote in your tip time

all these things that you could be doing,

but I know that you have boundaries around that too.

I know doom scrolling is not allowed during tip time.

No, no.

So it's about these categorizations again,

and I don't have huge chunks of time.

I mean, unless I'm on holiday,

I don't have huge chunks of time

when I don't know what I'm doing.

I tend to chunk in two or three hours,

but they're themed.

So Mike Vardy, he's the productivityist, he's amazing.

He talks about theming time.

You know, you can theme it horizontally

or you can theme it vertically.

You can have a day that is dedicated to something

or you can have nine to 11 every day

or a combination of the two.

My schedule's all over the place.

So I tend to kind of theme almost by month,

more than by day or by week.

Awesome.

And everyone's in a different level of complexity

and that's fine.

But, you know, I have chunks that are like,

this is self-care time and I can only do self-care things.

This is do the difficult thing time

because I know I'll have a lot of energy

at this point of the day

and I need to do the difficult thing.

So I can only do difficult things during this time.

And, you know, so you learn your rhythms too.

I work better either very early in the morning,

just after I've woken up,

not very early in the morning, I wake up late,

but, you know, first thing after I wake up

or the last few hours before I go to bed.

I don't concentrate very well in the middle of the day

for myself.

So I know that.

So if I'm gonna do focus work,

it's gonna be first thing or last thing.

But some people, they need a bit of a run up

and they only really get going

about halfway through the day.

So I don't know if that answered your question.

Here's why it answered it and expanded.

Because now in talking with you,

I am thinking about my schedule

in a way that still feels good.

It's just those chunks of time,

they served me during the summer,

during this first season.

And now in season two,

I would like to spend a little more time tracking.

I think at first it was just getting used to something.

The biggest one I will say was the letting go

of the time that I was spending so much time

for other people, not with other people,

but for other people.

And guess what?

That was on me.

It wasn't like, you know, I was available

and they knew it and good for them.

And also now I'm not available and good for me.

And that's kind of fun to say.

And good for you, yes.

I love it.

It's fun to celebrate.

And I love celebrating.

I love celebrating with Danielle and celebration is fun.

And celebrating that you are taking time for yourself.

Because if I were to talk about the realm

of being an entrepreneur, a solopreneur, being in business,

it is so very, very easy for me.

I'll just use myself as an example.

It is so very easy to become exhausted with options

or to become exhausted because I feel I don't have options.

Oh my gosh, what are you gonna do?

Well, just start with where am I right now?

I'm here.

Okay, what does my schedule say?

And just look at it.

Maybe Danielle, for the person who's like,

okay, I'm gonna look at my schedule.

Oh my God.

I don't even wanna look at it

because there's so much stuff going on.

I feel-

You're just playing while you're doing it.

Yeah.

There we go.

That's about it.

That is about it.

What would be a,

cause I also love to hear your tips for having a great day.

And if they are connected to a schedule, fantastic.

If somebody is just getting started,

what would be the,

just if there was just one thing that you could do

to help reign your schedule in that it's for you

and not for somebody else,

do you have an idea for us?

I have many ideas.

Awesome.

I think most people overschedule

instead of underscheduling.

So lead time for spontaneity.

If you're feeling trapped,

if you are feeling claustrophobic

when you look at your schedule,

you need more unstructured time.

And you can have just one,

make one day,

Saturday's your unstructured day.

It's wild card day.

I have no idea what I'm gonna do on Saturday.

Make it fun and let yourself have that spontaneous time

or maybe every time after six o'clock is spontaneous time

or whenever it can realistically fit

in your realistic life.

Don't let yourself get trapped.

Have things to look forward to.

Have something to look forward to every single day.

Even if it's a small thing like a snack or a nap

or I'm gonna watch an episode of my favorite thing

when I go to gym today.

Have little treats.

Put little treats in your calendar for yourself

every single day.

They don't need to be huge.

Little treats like I'm gonna see a favorite friend

or I'm gonna spend some time in the garden

or if there's a sunny day today I'm going to

or this week I'm gonna sit outside with my laptop

or things like that.

The biggest change for me came kind of in a larger sense,

not in the day-to-day sense,

but I was really struggling and I still,

I still wrestle with consistency.

I'm getting better at it,

but consistency is like my big, my life lesson, you know?

And I was talking to a business coach.

I don't remember who it was anymore.

Otherwise, I don't remember who it was.

Otherwise, I'd give him credit.

It was just one of those like random,

someone I didn't know very well, didn't work with.

It was just one of those random conversations.

And I said something about,

I didn't realize I was so cyclical

and especially with the seasons

because I grew up in South Africa

where we don't really have seasons so much.

We've got a summer and a winter.

One is wet and one is dry.

That's, you know, in Durban where I grew up,

that's pretty much it.

Then I moved to Vancouver, Canada.

I couldn't keep up.

Seasons kept changing.

And I would just get into my schedule

and then the season would change.

I'm like, no, my schedule doesn't work anymore

because it's dark or it's light at the wrong time.

And I was really, really struggling with this

because I just wanted to build something consistent.

And I was also noticing I get sad.

So in the wintertime,

my energy level is way lower than in the summertime.

And she's like, why don't you,

if you know that about yourself,

why don't you just build your business around it?

And my mind just went, what?

I can do that.

I'm allowed.

I don't have to do everything all the time.

So now, depending on where I am,

what part of the world I'm in,

but the winter months, the colder months are now for me.

That's when I get to do overhaul systems.

That's when I'm doing a lot of, you know,

laptop and pajama work.

I'm not doing a lot of calls.

I'll do, you know, the delivery calls of my client calls,

but I'm not doing a lot of promotion.

I'm not doing a lot of networking,

those kinds of things.

I love them, but they take a lot out of me.

So that's summer work.

Spring and summer, I'm doing networking.

I'm doing promotion.

I'm out there and I'm being energized.

But in the wintertime, when I want to just cuddle up,

you know, with a hot beverage and sleep,

two thirds of the day.

That's my time for just, you know,

I can sit on the couch and just do admin

and catch up on my bookkeeping.

And I schedule my life that way.

And it helps a lot, yeah.

That sounds marvelous.

And I am so glad that you took us through that journey.

That is so cool because what are we talking about?

Curating your time.

This is customization.

This is not, well, whoever, whatever,

I'm going to say guru of the month, flavor of the month says

in order to have a successful business,

you must do this, this, and this.

Yes, there are some universals.

However, I love that you brought up what I feel too often.

People think I have to do it a certain way.

If I don't do it a certain way,

then I'm not doing it right.

And if I'm not doing it right, it's not going to happen.

And then it doesn't happen.

And then I feel bad.

Wait a minute.

Yeah, I love what you're doing right there.

They're putting us in their box.

Like they're putting us.

It's a square hole round thing.

If not, why?

And you said their box.

And I love that.

They're trying to put you in the box that worked for them.

Perhaps there are elements

that can also work for you.

Marvelous.

I really appreciate that before this call,

I can't remember how you said it was like

hyperboland or something like,

oh, here's me.

Like, you know, when you say it's always this way

or she never talks to me about this

or he always does this one thing.

And now I just say to myself, really?

Really?

But then I kind of got caught, but I think it's funny.

So thank you for, it's not about,

it always has to be this way or could never be this way.

We can leave hyperboland over in the distance

and not make it a fixture.

Hyperboland is because we get overwhelmed

and we want to make things simple.

But life is complex.

Life is, the universe is chaotic and complex.

And if we try to oversimplify things,

it always ends up backfiring.

And not that things can't be simple.

They absolutely can.

But when we try to oversimplify something that's complex,

we typically hurt ourselves, I think.

And I think hyperbolizing is one of those things

where like, oh, I don't have the time to like,

get real about this bit was good

and this bit isn't good.

Because then I have to get really conscious

and really aware and I have to be very honest with myself.

Because I'm getting granular about things.

It's much easier to say, I'm wonderful or I'm terrible.

And it's almost a form of narcissism in that, I feel.

And I definitely, I'm saying that as someone who does it.

I feel the narcissism in myself come out

when I tend to hyperbolize.

Especially if I'm like, oh, I was amazing.

Or, oh, I'm so awful.

That's when I'm moving into this not real,

not honest, non-vulnerable state.

And I'm not really in myself

and I'm not being honest with myself.

You know what I mean?

I do.

I love that we've brought up that being real with yourself.

It's okay.

And dare I say, we could even schedule time

to have check-ins for just a moment.

I love that you've shown me both parts.

And I think sometimes I'm a hybrid, crazy hybrid.

There are times I'll have the blocks of time.

There are times I'm like, this is for this,

this is for this, this is for this.

Usually talking to people and what it's about.

Right?

And guess what?

We are already here on this third rock from the sun.

So let's just acknowledge

that we're here in the 3D time realm experience.

And it's got a few parameters

that maybe aren't the funnest all the time.

And speaking of maybe not the funnest all the time,

I just want to touch for a moment.

One of the reasons I feel it is so nice

to have blocks of time for yourself

is actually for both the great and the not so great

and the really not so great.

I can't remember how I said that in season one.

I'm still workshopping it.

But if you're having some great days,

it really is nice to have a space

to allow yourself some time to acknowledge that

and celebrate it and have fun with it and be happy with it.

We get to celebrate our successes.

Success begets success.

And I don't want to say failure begets failure.

It's just failure can create some feedback

that will help you towards your next success.

So, but you're having a great day.

Take a moment to just go,

I really am having a great day.

This is awesome.

You get off a great call, yes.

Or you see something pop up in an email.

You're like, oh, this is awesome.

And you see you're gonna meet someone today

that you haven't seen in a while, yes.

And then there are those not so great days.

Okay, I gotta do some paperwork.

Maybe I have to talk to someone

that isn't exactly the most thrilling.

But you are acknowledging that, hey, you know what?

I've scheduled some time and it's gonna be okay.

And there are those certain days

where, yeah, everything's shattered.

I'll just say it.

Yeah, it's shattered.

And this day, and to have time scheduled

for the option to take extra care of yourself,

I feel is key.

And I didn't know if you had a thought on that, Danielle,

just because I do think positive,

but I don't wanna be toxic going,

everything's great all the time.

No, there are moments where I'm shutting down.

I was thinking about this.

I think of your thinking positive

less about putting those sunglasses and everything

and more about being dedicated to a positive outcome.

When I talk to you, that's your positive thinking,

is you're dedicated to a positive outcome.

You're not trying to pretend that everything's okay.

And yes, that's why I plan my life on Google Calendar,

because if I need to cancel everything,

I can just pick that block up and move it somewhere else.

I cannot survive on a pen and paper calendar

because I change things all the time.

My plans shift day-to-day, hour-to-hour, week-to-week.

They are not consistent at all.

Still get to make sure everything gets done,

but my priorities are always shifting.

And life happens, life lies.

So I have my task list of my priority list

of things that need to get done.

I have my chunks of time where I can get things done.

And then some days, if I'm having the worst day of my life,

which happens once every month or two,

then by midday, I'm aware I'm having

the worst day of my life.

I'll go, you know what?

I'm just gonna take the rest of the afternoon off.

And I'm gonna mindfully reschedule.

If I have calls, then I'll do my best to show up for those.

Sometimes we have to reschedule them

because I just have to for my mental health.

But I do my best not to.

And then I just take the rest of that.

I'm like, okay.

And then until I go to bed, that is vacation time.

That is holiday time.

That is self-destruct time if I need to.

If I need to curl up and hate my life for a few hours,

I'm allowed.

And then I will go to bed.

And then I will wake up the next morning

and everything will have been intentionally rescheduled

on my calendar and I can pick up and I can move on.

But I really don't fill in the gaps of my calendar

really until the morning of.

Like I have a vague idea, I have a shape to my week

and I have a task list.

But I don't, I schedule my day-to-day

because I try to do it the other way.

It just really didn't work for me.

But also, yeah, schedule yourself treats.

If you know something difficult is coming up,

schedule time not only to recover after,

but schedule times to psych yourself up beforehand.

Are you the type of person who needs to be distracted

and needs to be really busy that morning

so that you don't think about it?

Or are you the type of person

who isn't gonna get anything done

and you need to keep that whole morning clear

so that you can just focus on yourself

and breathe and be intentional

and do self-care until that time?

Everybody's different.

You need to know yourself.

What do you need to deal with

whatever that difficult thing is?

And the most important thing,

and I've done a video about this,

remember that rest is an investment

in your future productivity.

It is not a reward.

It is not something that comes after.

It is something that you do first

as an investment towards your future happiness,

health, productivity, all of it.

So that is also really important.

And something I should listen to myself

about more often too.

We're all growing, we're all in process here.

You know, we're all in process.

I, oh my gosh, there's just so much.

We could go on and on and on,

but I do wanna have the recap of,

maybe more of a reminder.

Also, my celestial reminder that we are mostly water,

and it's always good to have a sip of water once in a while.

And if you have to set a timer to remind yourself,

now this isn't about the eight glasses,

you have to do eight glasses a day.

I'm not talking about that.

I'm just saying once in a while,

I get so busy throughout the day

and all of a sudden I'm,

did I even drink water?

Now I did.

And now to get into something,

if I were to have my,

a reminder to all of us,

that there are some tracks that track better

for a certain group of people.

If you're somebody that likes to have things very scheduled,

then absolutely do that.

What I love here is that we have options

that if we feel like, oh, so flighty,

and you know, I just wanna be,

you know, with the winds,

I'm not really sure.

To a certain extent, yes.

And also you get to a point where you got some priorities,

and I really want that priority to be you and your time.

Because what I feel,

what I've heard from what Danielle has been saying today,

and what I love,

is we are talking about freedom.

Because I used to think,

schedule yourself in any realm.

I'm not talking bit by bit.

I'm talking just anything.

It was like, oh, I don't know if I can do that.

I'm an artist.

I need to be free to be creative.

Oh, yeah, do scrolling for two hours on Instagram.

How'd that work out for you?

No, it didn't.

So the number one that I've gotten

from our discussions, Danielle, thank you,

that I am moving toward is,

there is freedom in the structure of your day

that works for you.

Because guess what?

I love to hear people talk about,

oh, yes, you're gonna have time and financial freedom.

And they paint this airy fairy picture in the future.

And I'm just not there.

I'm here today.

So what I love is,

it's about the day to day.

That's, we're here now today.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So let's schedule today and just go from there.

See how it works.

And that's really,

oh, go ahead.

I was just like, that's really all you can do,

but that's everything, really,

is just being in the present moment today.

Mm-hmm.

And how much of that person that you wanna be

and that life that you wanna build,

can you build incrementally today?

Because a lot of us live in the future

and we almost push it off.

We put it off to the future.

I'll be happy when.

I'll take walks on the beach every morning when.

You could take a walk on the beach today.

You don't have to wait until you're rich

and famous and successful.

The beach exists.

Okay, maybe you don't live close enough.

Maybe you need to do it just on the weekends for now.

But finding ways to bring that life that you wanna build,

bring it into now because tomorrow is not guaranteed.

No.

So how can you live the life you want today?

And it's not gonna be 100%.

That's okay.

How can you bring little bits in?

Little bits.

I'd love that.

And the number one word,

the number one takeaway for me today is the word treats.

Of course it is.

What can I say?

Well, I love treats.

That was number one.

So scheduled treats and I think that's fun.

I had a birthday this month and I admit I went to one of,

there's a bakery that makes this very special cake

with a very special frosting.

And it was so yummy.

You know what?

This is my birthday.

That was fun.

That was a treat.

What my second takeaway,

which I feel is also very important is

when you talked about rest is not a reward.

So you're telling me that a person,

I would just say a woman in business

should not be wearing herself out with,

well, if you have kids, if you have a husband,

okay, what if you have a significant other and a dog?

What if you have a cat?

What if you have a goldfish?

What if you don't?

It's okay.

What if you are working in a team

or if you're working by yourself?

But what I'm hoping that you're saying is

perhaps I should not schedule myself into exhaustion

and let the exhaustion allow me to have the reward of rest.

Because-

It's so toxic.

Thank you.

We all do it.

I'm so glad.

I'm so guilty of it, but it's so bad for you.

It is.

Yeah.

And I am so glad that I am here to take a stand

for our greatness and say,

ladies and gentlemen,

whether you are in business or not,

you get to control your time.

Cause I love talking about choice.

Oh, I love choices.

Big nightmare is not having choice.

So sometimes it feels like you don't have choice.

What, oh, what did you say?

Choices are almost as good as treats.

You know they are almost, almost, Teehee.

What I love is, guess what?

We get to make choices.

And I love that you talked about incrementally

because it just needs the dramatic pause

and the one hyperboland.

We are never guaranteed tomorrow.

But each day we wake up is that opportunity

to have a great day and to make a choice.

And part of that, I truly feel,

includes scheduling time how you need it for you

in whatever way you see a flow and an ease that works.

And thank you once more for the reminder of life changes.

It's already changed from the beginning of summer

now into fall, as far as how I'm looking at my time

and the amount of time and the type of time

that I get to spend with Danielle.

And you know what, that's okay

because she did prepare me that, you know what,

things change.

I used to not like change.

I'm trying to like it more.

And I don't mean trying it's a do or do not,

but guess what, everybody?

You do have a choice.

Just this moment, I really appreciate

that you took the time to spend time with us

to talk about time and scheduling.

Danielle, was there anything else that you wanted to add

about, because we could go on.

We could go on forever.

It is time.

It is time to call time, I do think.

I did way too many corny quotes

that I want to fit in here,

but I do want to say just a silly, a silly little tidbit.

Time waits for no man.

And if you want to check out that ex-KCD comic

about no man, it's pretty hilarious.

I will put the link in the show notes

because it's very funny.

Oh my gosh, thank you.

Okay, thank you for the fun.

And thank you for dropping those links.

I love a good name drop for sure.

And I would like to celebrate.

This was a treat for me this week

because it was on my calendar

and I was so looking forward to it.

And it's been marvelous.

And there are so many other things

we're going to be talking about throughout this season.

And I really appreciate everybody listening.

So one more time, you have your day to schedule your way.

And if you like it very structured, fantastic.

If you like to have lots of open spaces, fantastic.

The number one thing I want you to remember

is that I have to use the word deserve.

You deserve to have the time for yourself,

to have a great day.

Give yourself space to have a great day.

However you need to schedule that in your calendar.

There you go.

And timers are awesome.

Yes.

And Danielle, I thank you for this.

And we will, oh, and I'm very excited.

We actually scheduled time after this call

to plan many a fabulous thing.

So ladies and gentlemen, that's why we must go for it today.

So I must give it up for Danielle Benzon.

Thank you very much of Inspired Speakers Academy.

And now the Inspired Speakers Podcast Network.

Woo!

I want to talk more about that too.

This was awesome.

I loved it.

Had the time of my life.

Yes.