238: Creating a Schedule For Your Best Self: Fan Favorite Replay

Hi there. You’re listening to the Leading Lady podcast. I’m your host, AliceAnne Loftus, and I’m a certified professional coach specializing in leadership and work-life balance. I work with clients to shift their limiting beliefs, insecurities, and self-doubt. This podcast will be filled with tools and strategies to help high-achieving women like you feel connected, empowered, and in the lead of your life, both personally and professionally. Let’s transform your life starting now. Lead yourself, the rest will follow.

Hi there, leading ladies, and welcome to today’s episode.

I’m going to be talking to you today about showing up as your best self, and how time management and priority management play an important role in setting yourself up as your best self. I have been talking about being your best self in the April Collective meeting with my ambassadors. And actually, I just wrapped up a coaching session with a woman, and we were trying to work through her time, how she was budgeting her time and scheduling her priorities, and if that aligned with what she defined as showing up as her best self.

The Ideal Day Versus the Real Day

So the number one mistake, I guess it’s a mistake, but the number one thing I see high-achieving women do is they overestimate how much they can realistically get done in one day.

So when I sit down with a client, I say, “Okay, what does an ideal day look like to you? If you are living in your core values and showing up as your best self and living your priorities, what does that day look like to you?” And they’ll usually say something like, “I get a good workout in. I’m spending an hour or two on the behind-the-scenes or the admin part of my business. I’m doing some client work. I stop working at a reasonable hour. I have quality time with my family. I eat a nice meal that I’ve meal prepped and I’ve grocery shopped for. And then I have a great bedtime routine, and I’m getting eight to nine hours of sleep.”

Right? That sounds pretty awesome, right? That sounds like a woman who is living her best life, who is showing up in all the different roles and responsibilities that she has, and that she has prioritized them and has great boundaries and time management on that.

And then I ask them, “Okay, so let’s look at your schedule. Let’s look at how you’re actually spending your time.” And nine times out of 10, they are not following that schedule. That’s not what their day looks like. They’re usually waking up already exhausted, so they miss their workout. And then they’re checking their email, and a flood of fires have blown up their phone or their computer, and the agenda or the plan that they had for the day is immediately blown up. They’re having to deal with all of these things that have now become emergencies and are urgent.

They’re grabbing meals on the go or skipping meals altogether. They are getting interrupted in their tasks with emails, texts, phone calls, and other emergencies that have popped up throughout the day. And they have this running to-do list of all the things that they need to get done.

And by the end of the day, they’ve thrown together some meal or grabbed something on the road in between carpool and soccer practice or violin lessons, or whatever it is that they are shuttling kids to in the afternoon or that they’re trying to get done in the afternoon for themselves or their family. They’re cranky, not feeling like they had quality time with their loved ones during family time. And they’re either working late trying to get that never-ending to-do list done, or they’re going to bed feeling like the day was a complete waste, because they were not productive and spent their entire day putting out fires rather than doing any of the productive things that were on their to-do list.

Hello, welcome to entrepreneurship. That’s generally how women describe their day to me. They are just running from one fire to the next and feeling like they’re never getting ahead of their to-do list.

If It’s Not on Your Schedule, It’s Not a Priority

And so I ask them, “Why does your ideal day or schedule look so different from your actual day? What’s the discrepancy there? Why are those not aligned?”

So it was interesting. The woman that came in today said, “I’ve got this to-do list, and I don’t know how I’m gonna get it all done.” And I said, “Okay, well, let’s look at the to-do list.” And her to-do list is beautiful. It’s an Excel spreadsheet. She’s rated it one to five, one being top priority and five being very low priority. It’s color coded. And I’m like, “Oh, great, there’s 47 things on this to-do list that she needs to get done.”

And I say, “Okay, well, let’s take a look at your calendar. Let’s open up your planner. Let’s assign these tasks, these to-do items, to times.” And she was completely resistant. She’s like, “No, I do not want to have a rigid schedule.” And I say, “Okay, so when are they going to get done, if you don’t have meetings scheduled to get these things done, if it’s not on your schedule?”

I’ve said this a dozen times. I don’t even know. I have said this over and over and over again: if you are not scheduling your priorities, they are not your priorities. I will say that again. If you are not scheduling your priorities, they are not your priorities. It’s a wish list. It’s a list of all the things that you are telling yourself, “I should be getting these done.” But you’re not taking that extra step. You’re not putting it into action by actually assigning times to it.

And so years ago, I completely ditched the to-do list. I do not have a running to-do list. I know what I’m going to accomplish in the day because it is written down in my calendar. Now, whether you use a digital calendar or a paper calendar, the educator in me is going to tell you that the neuroscience backs it up that you should be using a paper calendar, because pen to paper does something to your brain to help with memory and productivity. But regardless of what you use, if your priorities are not on your schedule, they are not your priorities.

So I said, “Okay, let’s take this to-do list of 47 items, and let’s schedule them to times.” And she’s like, “Oh my gosh, no, that’s so rigid. What if things move around?” And I’m like, “Okay, so when are you going to get them done? When? Are you just hoping to fit them in somewhere? Looking at your calendar right now, there’s no space.” I’m asking her, “What are you even going to eat? When are you going to get some fresh air? You have no white space on this calendar. You are booked solid. So tell me, if this is your to-do list, and you’re saying that these are priorities rated urgent level one to level five, things that you want to get done, and you have no time in your calendar to do them, are they really your priorities? Are they really the things that you’re going to get done?”

And so often I see women, especially high-achieving women, have these to-do lists. But when you look at their schedules, they don’t have the time to do them. They have not prioritized time for those items. They have left no room. They’re trying to squeeze their priorities into an already jam-packed schedule. And they’re feeling frazzled, they’re feeling behind. All of the things that they know should be priorities in their life are just being squeezed in in mere moments.

And so when I ask my clients, or even ask myself, “Am I living my life as my best self if the things that I say are important to me are just things that haphazardly get squeezed in?” No. To live your best self is to align your priorities with your core values, and then prioritize them on your calendar.

Build In White Space and Wiggle Room

So what I told my client today was I wanted her to flip ahead in her planner to her next blank page, her next blank week. And I wanted her to take the things that she says are priorities and actually assign them to times, and she was completely resistant. She wanted fluidity in her schedule.

And I said the problem is, when we feel that our schedule is too rigid, when we feel bound or trapped by our schedule, it’s usually because we are overscheduled. So I showed her that in my planner, I leave a lot of white space. I very rarely have back-to-back meetings or have things packed so tightly that I don’t have any wiggle room. If I have a 60-minute meeting, I’m going to schedule 120 minutes. I’m going to bookend that with some wiggle room. If I have to go to the grocery store, or do something for my personal life, or go see one of my kids do something, or participate in some social event, I leave myself a lot of white space around that.

And I also build in quieter, slower-paced days within my week, because life happens. Emergencies do happen. Things pop up that you have to deal with. And when those things pop up, if your schedule is jam-packed so tight, that one disruption is going to completely derail your week. It’s going to blow the whole thing up. So I learned that when I schedule my week, I have to build in a lot of wiggle room, a lot of space to say, “Life happens, and I can’t have myself scheduled every minute of every hour of every day of the week.”

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Put Your Priorities Where They Fit Your Life

I typically go through my priorities. Like, if I’m talking about health and wellness, I’ll say, “Okay, what’s my minimum? What’s the minimum effort that I’m going to put towards this? Is that one hour a week, two hours a week? Okay, where does that fit? Where does that realistically fit?”

I ask myself, “What could derail me?” If I schedule a workout for three o’clock in the afternoon, 99% of the time that workout is not going to happen. Why? Well, because I run multiple businesses, and people usually need things, and that’s right in the middle of business hours. It’s also right when my kid gets out of school, or kids, when I had both of them at home. Three o’clock was a crazy time. I knew not to schedule a workout for that time, because it was probably going to get derailed. So it’s about looking at your time and placing priorities in the time slot that makes the most sense for your life.

Talking with my client today, I said, “Are you not a morning workout person? Because I see that you schedule your workouts midday. Do those often get derailed?” And her answer to me was, “Absolutely not. I need that midday pick-me-up. So I’ve learned to schedule my workouts in the middle of the day to help me regain my energy and get me through the final half of my day.” She said, “Against all other research and everything that tells you that you should get up and work out first thing in the morning, that doesn’t work for my life.” And I applaud her for being so self-aware.

Be the Expert of Yourself

Just because other things tell you, “Oh, you should get up at four o’clock in the morning and do an hour of work before everybody else gets up,” or, “You should work out 30 minutes after you wake up,” or, “You need to go to bed at a certain time,” all of that is just other people sharing with you what worked for them. And they’re stating it as fact, as though it will work for everyone, and that is just simply not true.

You have to be the expert of yourself. You have to know your zone of productivity, your zone of genius, what works best for you, the rhythm of your life. Not everyone is an early bird, and not everyone is a night owl. And not everyone is going to have the most productive hours or most creative hours for their work first thing in the morning.

I personally am more of a 10-to-2 kind of girl when it comes to high energy and creative thinking. And that’s why I schedule my admin, behind-the-scenes work during those times, because I’m less likely to be distracted by something else. I’m in a zone of productiveness where I am focused. So it’s knowing the rhythms of yourself and what makes the most sense for your life and your productivity and your life satisfaction.

So when I ask what it means to be your best self, it’s, “What are the things that you need to prioritize so that you can show up as your best self?” For me to be my best self, I need to move my body. I need to get good sleep. I need to have healthy, nutritious, beautiful foods conveniently available to me. Food is a huge priority for me. I need to stop working at four o’clock in the afternoon. I’m pretty much toast after four o’clock. I need to go to bed early. All of those things are what set me up to be my best self. And so I need to build a schedule that reflects that and supports that, so that they are truly my priorities and I’m setting myself up to be my best self.

And I think when we talk about being our best self, a lot of times we compare ourselves to what other people are doing and what makes them successful. “Oh, that worked for them, so I should be doing that too.” But we’re not taking into consideration that we are multifaceted women, and that we all have different demands on us. We have different roles and responsibilities, and our lives look very different from the woman next to us. So we have to be very self-aware of the ways that we’re showing up for others, and how we want to show up for ourselves.

This Too Shall Pass

So back to this time management piece. If you’re listening to this, I want you to think about what your ideal day looks like, and how realistic it is for you to set yourself on a pattern to build that schedule.

If you have small children, or you’re in a season of your life where you have other demands on you that are out of your control, please recognize that that is a season. I promise you it is a season. Some of the best advice someone gave me in my 20s is to remember that this too shall pass. And that goes for the good and the bad. So if you’re in a season of good, savor it, because this too shall pass. If you’re in a season of hardships or trials, this too shall pass. You will get through this.

But when we look at the big picture of it, we can say, “How can I design my life so that I’m prioritizing the things that I say are important to me, so that I’m scheduling and blocking out time, budgeting time for my priorities, so I can show up as my best self?”

Seeing the Whole Woman

So during my strategic planning day that I’ve been doing, the VIP Strategic Planning Day, which I launched at the beginning of 2023 and which has been hugely successful, something that often surprises the women as we get started is that I walk them through this process of a self-audit, really just rating their level of satisfaction in various aspects of their business and their life.

We look at the business operations, which is the behind the scenes: how does your business run? We look at your financial wellness. We look at your customer experience and the products and services that you offer. We look at your visibility and your messaging. Where are you showing up? How are your ideal clients finding you, and what is the message that you’re sharing with them?

But we also look at personal and professional development, your relationships, both intimate and social. We look at your health and wellness, and we look at your personal goals. Why? Because we are multifaceted women, and our priorities are vast. They cover many roles and responsibilities, and we have to balance them. We have to juggle them.

One of my ambassadors in our meeting this morning said that society has taught us as women that we are caregivers without boundaries, and that we’re expected to just show up for everyone else. And again, that’s simply not true.

When we do this self-audit of life satisfaction and business satisfaction, the reason why I pull in pieces of your personal life and your personal fulfillment is because there has to be a balance of it. None of us are 100% our business. None of us are 100% any role or responsibility. We’re often juggling many of those roles and responsibilities simultaneously. And even if we’re at home, we’re thinking about work. And when we’re at work, we’re thinking about home, or we’re thinking about our kids.

And so when I invite my clients to look at their priority management and their time management, I need to see the whole woman. I need to see the whole woman. I need to understand the hopes and dreams and aspirations that this woman has for all the roles and responsibilities of her life, so that she can show up as her best. Because that is her best, not because that’s the best for where she is. But when we show up wholly, as a whole person, feeling fulfilled and satisfied as a whole, we automatically show up as our best in the other roles and responsibilities.

So like I said, it often surprises women. But then when we get to the end of the strategy day, they’re like, “Ah, that’s why it’s been so hard, because this other piece of me was not feeling satisfied, was not feeling supported, was not feeling fulfilled.” And when I can nurture the whole woman and recognize that my priorities aren’t in competition with one another… No, your priorities are not in competition with one another. I promise you that your priorities are there to help support you as a whole woman to be your best self.

So if this resonated with you, if you take away some little nuggets of wisdom, or if I’ve said something that hit a trigger button and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I really need to focus on that,” reach out to me. I do read and respond to every email that is sent to me.

I hope that this is a wonderful resource for you, and that you’ve had some aha moments or some eye-opening messages here that say, be your best self. Be your best self. And in order to be your best self, you have to schedule the priorities that support you in being your best self as a whole.

So until next time, ladies, take the lead.

Thanks for tuning in for another episode of the Leading Lady podcast. You can find all of the links and information mentioned in this episode at www.leadinglady-coaching.com. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to follow the show so you don’t miss any future episodes. And while you’re there, it would mean the world to me if you would take a few seconds and leave me an honest review. This will allow me to help other high-achieving women find inspiration, connection, and develop strategies to live and lead with purpose and intention. See you here next week.