Episode 156- How to Stop Wasting Time
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You are listening to episode 156 of the Peaceful Mind Podcast.
Welcome to the Peaceful Mind Podcast, a place for creating the peace of mind. You need to be the best mom. You are created by God to be. If you wanna bring more balance, more joy, and more peace to your motherhood, this is the place for you. I'm your host, certified life coach at Catholic Mom Danielle Thienel
in the name of the father of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Let's get started.
Well, hello there. Beautiful mamas. I'm so glad that you've chosen to join me today, especially on this particular important topic of not wasting time, right? We're busy moms and we have lots of things going on and a limited amount of time and energy, so I can't wait to dive in and let you a little bit in on.
An episode that is going to be about a subject around a course that I'm working on. So I wanted to invite you before we start to let you know that I will have a time management course coming out, and if you want to learn about how you can get ahold of it or be a part of it, make sure you are on my email list.
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So thanks in advance for that. Okay. How many of you and I, this is a little bit of a rhetorical question because I already know the answer, have the thought that you are wasting. My clients come to me all the time onto themselves that they know what they should be doing, but they're not. And I wanna offer you today what I, I'm just gonna bring some consciousness around how you are spending your time.
And I have 10, around 10 kind of items that I want you. Be more aware about in your life if that you fall into, I was gonna say trap, but I am naming these time bombs. Okay. They are the obstacles to you using your time in the way you want for what matters to you. And so when you hear the list, you know, we're not all you know great at all of them.
But we also are good at some of them. So just take like the main one or two that you think is quote your obstacle to using the time you want. Which of these time bombs can you identify as sabotaging your. And how you're spending it, and then see if you can just bring more awareness about it and make some shifts and just be onto yourself so that you can make better decisions for you about your time.
Okay. So, and, and just know too, I am going to be diving deeper into all of these, into when I have my course out and so. You can also get my personal help with all of these, applying them to your life and your life circumstances. But let's just see what I can give you. If you can just bring more consciousness about them in your life.
So number one, procrastination. Procrastination is a giant time bomb and we know that when we are procrastinating it is because we are avoiding. Doing something that we are believing is going to be hard, difficult, painful, uncomfortable, bring us some kind of negative you know, emotion that we would have to feel while we are attaining and doing the action that we want to, we procrastinate.
This is an action because we are not, haven't tapped into the right feeling. Our feelings drive our actions. So if we are having the action of procrastinating, we just aren't feeling great, or feeling a feeling that is actually going to propel us into that action. So are you a procrastinator? Just make note from this list.
Yes. Procrastination is one of my time bombs. Okay. Good to know. This is something that you're gonna wanna have a deeper awareness around. Okay. Number two, indecision. Time bomb. Number two, indecision. So much of our time is wasted when we keep ourselves staying in indecision. We don't know should we do this or should we do that, but while you're in decision, guess what's happening?
Time is ticking. It's continuing to go by, and then we have these thoughts that we're wasting our. , but it's literally because you're catching yourself. You're stuck, you're confused, and you're not picking an answer. You're not deciding. So are you an indecisive person? Is it having you not use your time as wisely as you want to?
Again, good to know. Make note, this is something that I struggle. Or Nope, I'm a pretty good decision maker. I've got that skill that I just pick and go. Third, one, third time bond distractions. And I actually have, it's kind of like a slash, I wasn't sure exactly what to call it. Distractions, interruptions, side trackers.
And what I see these are is that when we like from our higher brain, from our prefrontal cortex, when we take charge of our life and we're the boss of our brain and we decide this is what I'm gonna do with my time, think about how you might do your schedule for the rest of the week, like maybe on Sunday night, and you lay it all out.
This is coming from your higher brain. This is coming. Take charge of my life. This is how I wanna live out. Then the rest of the week, and this is how I'm gonna plan my time, however big time bombs are, distractions, interruptions, and what I call side trackers. And it's literally, literally those things that you didn't plan for, that you didn't seek.
Circumstances that arise. And we name them distractions or interruptions if we allow them to pull our focus and our time and our energy off of what we had originally planned for ourselves. And of course there are some things that will come into our life that we will have wanted to quote, distract ourselves if we get a phone call from our child's school and.
We answer it and they tell us our child is sick. I mean, we don't have to label that as a distraction. It literally was a choice we made to answer that phone because who it was coming from, and we did stop what we originally planned, and we chose consciously that that's something important for us is to answer the phone of the school or go pick up our sick child.
But I want you to just ask yourself, are you setting up your environment? Where you have phone notifications coming through, are you easily forgetting what you planned to do and are at the whim of like a phone call? Like let's say a girlfriend calls and says, you wanna go to lunch now, but you had something else planned.
do we have a, a kind of boundary set on when we're doing something specific, when we wanna let somebody in our family, our children, our spouse, know that we're actually going to be spending our time. Maybe it's alone time, maybe it's work time doing a specific something and. We haven't set a boundary so that they can just, you know, come knock on the door, come in and you know, it's like, mom, I need you for this.
You know? Have we put some boundaries into place that keeps us from being distracted, interrupted, and getting sidetracked? If this is something that you think happens a lot to you, we wanna bring some consciousness about it so we can remove. Time bomb and to help us not waste our time and to use our time more deliberately.
Okay, next time. Bomb is stress and overwhelm. Now I know some of you when you hear this, you can kind of maybe not have thought that this is what can keep you from using your time wisely. But think about it when we feel stress. When we are feeling overwhelmed, what do you do? What are some of the actions that you take from feeling stressed and overwhelmed?
It's usually kind of triggers another one like procrastination or indecision. So, It will drive us to not use our, it'll sabotage our time and what we, how we wanna use it, that is serving and benefit to us. And this feeling stressed and overwhelmed doesn't come from all the things that you have going on in your life.
Stress and overwhelm our feelings created by what you are thinking about what's going on in your life. So even just realizing, hey, I'm a little bit feeling stressed today. If you can bring consciousness about that and, and really kind of explore, what am I thinking that's making me create, feel stressed, and you wanna solve for that problem.
And if you solve for that not being as stressed or overwhelmed anymore, then you're gonna get right back up to getting back on track to what you had planned to use your time for. Okay. The fifth time bomb. I wanna talk. Is what I'm calling relaxed deadlines. There are a lot of people, especially around this year when we're talking about goal setting a lot and following through on goals that we wanna avoid having deadlines for something or we just wanna be a little bit like flexible, go with the flow.
And I understand that. I understand leaving room for spontaneous. But if you are someone who chronically wastes time or, or that is the belief system that you have about yourself, and I'm all about helping you, you know, make the changes in your life that you want to move forward and get better at. If using your time more wisely, I want you to just question, would it be a little bit more beneficial for you?
Have some more commitment towards hard deadlines instead of a relaxed deadlines. Because when we impose a deadline to ourselves, we, we do that not to add any pressure, but we do it because that's what then brings up for our brain, all of the obstacles. What, what does your brain say when you tell yourself, okay, I have to get this done by Thursday or Thursday afternoon.
We know when it's something like super important or we have to just, you know, fill out a form for school, or your child can't go on the field trip if it's not there by Thursday, we know that what we do is we, we then focus on it and get it. . But when somebody says, you know, you can hand it in whenever we're more apt to put it off and to forget about it.
And so even if somebody else is not imposing a deadline on you, like your mortgage company isn't saying you have to have this payment in by the first, if you impose. More restricted deadlines, harder deadlines for yourself instead of relaxed deadlines. How might that help you? Just kind of peel away some of these time bombs and things that are having you waste your time and have you becoming more deliberate with your time.
The next one I've talked about, even on recent episode is something. I personally used to struggle with a lot more than I do now thanks to coaching. That is truly a time bomb is perfectionism because when we are somebody who is constantly striving to improve something, make it better actually just really to perfect it, it takes a lot more.
One thing is that we never can reach that destination of having something be perfect. So imagine if you're just never arriving to that perfect time, how, or to that perfect place of being done noticed how much extra time that would take. . When I impose the tool that I teach B minus, it literally has me finishing things sooner.
So if I'm like, yes, that is done and it's done. You know, good enough, it's done. B minus, that's about an 80%, then I can be done with it and move on. and so I don't waste any more time trying to perfect it. Trying to use my time to go over a means to an end that is just impossible to achieve and that really works into the next time bomb.
Because usually perfectionism is also seen with this next one, which is people pleasing. It is definitely a time was. For ourselves when we try and please others in a way where we say yes to them when we really mean no. So if you really don't wanna go on said field trip that I just kind of like mentioned earlier as a chaperone.
Because you wanted to get X, Y, and Z done in your own day, but you said yes to them because you just are kind of people pleasing because someone asked and they said you'd be the perfect chaperone for this particular one and we don't have anyone else and we would really need you. Now, of course, if you want to and your you, your heart is in of service for it.
Just own that decision for sure. But I'm just giving this example as if you had already planned or wanted to get some certain things done, and then you end up saying yes to things that are asked of you when you really mean no and really wanted to get the other things done. Do you see how that this could then put you in a place where you're gonna feel behind or feel like you wasted your time and you didn't, you know, get done what you wanted to get?
The next one. Let's see, what number is this? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. This is the eighth one, so I guess I do have 10 to talk about today. The eighth one is what I'm calling the half two mentality. I have to do this, I have to do that. Be a little bit more aware Mama. At when your thought patterns Think the thought I have to, because nine out of 10 times, or maybe it's 10 after 10, 10 out of 10, when I model out for my clients what the thought I have to brings to them, what it creates for them, the feelings, and then what they do and then the results they get.
it is something around the feeling of pressured or heavy, I have to do something. Can you just picture like the, the, the, the kind of humped over shoulders, kind of like, oh, I have to do this and it. Is a time bomb because that it will create this feeling of pressure and when we carry out our lives from a feeling of pressure, we are going to be slower paced.
Just from that visual of being heavy and you know, shoulder slumped over, we aren't gonna be enthusiastic and excited and open and willing when we feel pressure. So really be careful about the time bomb of a half two mentality and see if it's really a want to mentality or an I get. or I choose to mentality that will help you not waste time and get going.
Okay. Number nine and 10 are like literal true circumstances. So number nine I have here is fatigue. What I'm talking about here for time bombs is two things. Mental fatigue and. Fatigue. It is a real thing, and so I want it to be you to onto yourself because we know that the actual circumstance of not sleeping or not getting enough sleep that you need will produce fatigue, and these are time bombs, so to solve for it, sometimes we really do want to.
Be honest with ourself about what we are doing in our life to fill our sleep quota. And of course, moms that listen to this podcast, we're in all different stages of motherhood. , but there are, you know, different reasons. I may not have small kids anymore that I have to get up in the middle of the night to feed, but now I don't.
I have different sleeping patterns and habits because of being in perimenopause. So it's just, you want to know that. Being fatigued and your sleep schedule and not getting enough sleep is definitely a time bomb. And then I also wanted to address the mental fatigue because that is the type that's optional.
Well, really not sleeping for a certain amount of time is optional too, but when we are tired, We add this extra mental way of thinking about, I'm so tired and there's not enough time, and I'm behind, and all of that, and it really adds another whole level of fatigue to your life. . And the last one that I just wanna bring up as being a time bomb and, and I've collected all of these, this list of time bombs from all of the moms that I coach day in and day out.
There are patterns, there are similarities, and it just, I'm honing in on these major ones that I see over and over and over again because not having enough time is such a, A phrase and deep rooted thought pattern that I am trying to unwind in moms. But it does run deep. And so the last one I hear often and that is literally electronics, the circumstance of a phone when it's like, I'm just wasting time scrolling.
It is watching tv. It's like I just binge watch, you know, Netflix episodes. It is having access to just computers. and with with moms that I, you know, there's the video games that they bring up about their children, but then that also brings on a mental fatigue that they're, you know, spinning and thoughts about their children and how much time they spend on video games.
But just electronics in general are in fact time bombs. So is that one that is your Achilles. , you may not find that you are, you know, doing a, you know, a poor job in, in all of these. I just wanted to bring them to your attention to know that you have, you have a power over creating as much time as you want in your lives, because even though time, Is an actual resource that passes and that we don't get more of.
You can believe and feel as if you're creating more time for yourself, because time is a mental construct and we have so much more power of it by how we're thinking about it in our minds, and I wanted to. To your minds, for you to evaluate your lives and to see if these time bombs or a particular one might be where you want to focus on overcoming.
And just hitting this struggle head on or letting go of getting better at however you wanna look at it. So let me just recap. Recap the top 10 or the 10 that I've suggested here. And I would love for you to let me know, just you can email me directly. You can DM me on the social media platforms and you know, I just love to hear your feedback and let me know which one of these that me bring it to.
Your attention today is really one that you fall, you know, pray to and want to kind of overcome and unravel. So here's the time bombs, procrastination, indecision, distractions, interruptions. Stress and overwhelm, relaxed deadlines, perfectionism, people pleasing the have to mentality, fatigue and electronics.
Okay, everybody, thank you so much for visiting. Again. I would love a rating and review, a five star rating and review on whatever platform you're listening to, this podcast, any kind of social media shares. I just invite you and would appreciate it. And then also, don't forget to make sure that you're on my email list and.
You know, kind of opening and reading on the regular because Danielle Thienel Coaching has some amazing things that are coming your way this year, including a time management course and a new book. So again, I love you all for being here, and thank you so much for listening, and I will see you again next week.
Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of The Peaceful Mind Podcast. Are you ready to take everything I teach you here and put it to work for your own life to really learn how to have peace of mind no matter what is happening around you? If so, I'd love to have you as a client, as your coach. This is where you'll get personal and focus time on your own mind, using life coaching tools, concepts, and proven life, transforming wisdom, all through a faith-filled lens.
To learn more about how we can work together, come on over to DanielleThienel.com there you'll see how to sign up for a free coaching consult and learn how to get started. Until next time, peace be with you always.
