A Side of Syrup Podcast EP015: How to Get Time Back in Your Life Starting With Your Calendar with Shannon Pfeffer
You can be a time genius just by organizing your calendar.
At the start of the year we often talk about getting organized in the physical sense - closets, pantry's, kids toys, etc. I'd like to offer up a new way to get organized this year, a way that will not only give you clarity, but give you time back in your life. You'll be a time genius after following the five easy steps outlined by Shannon Pfeffer in this episode.
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Connect with Shannon:
Website: thisissyrup.com
Instagram: @shannonpfef
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Syrup free resources: thisissyrup.com/resource-library
Full episode transcript:
Hi! My name is Shannon Pfeffer. I'm obsessed with understanding the how and the why behind feeling good and translating that knowledge into strategies that help you live better.
Each week we'll dive into conversations about food, fitness, stress, career, and family. We'll learn from each other, feel more connected, and we'll explore ways to design a life you love.
So what are you waiting for? Keep listening for tips, tricks, and fun facts about feeling good, looking good, and living better. And don't forget to bring a snack. This is the A Side of Syrup Podcast.
00:00.68
syrupcoaching
So when my husband and I were seriously dating. We oftentimes overlapped plants trips work travel double Dates. You name it. It got double booked sometimes Triple booked. Have to rebook plans or like keep the plans we already had but not do them together so we created a shared calendar and put everything on it and we would always consult the calendar before making plans and this was something that. We took like sort of as like ah a time management challenge and did it as a couple but since then it has totally evolved to being not only a lifeline for our family and our relationship of keeping things together. But.
00:56.40
syrupcoaching
For my clients too. So I wanted to let you all in on a little secret about 1 important thing I know everyone listening today needs to hear how to get more time back. How to get more time back in your day and prioritize that via your calendar because yes. You may have the 24 hours in a day that beyonce has but you don't have for staff to get it all done so every other week I'll be doing just a solo shorty podcast here and teaching you some time and energy saving hacks that you could implement right away that. Totally are simple. Don't add anything else you to your to do list and really make it easy and sometimes it's sort of fun to get done. So okay, let's dive more into this calendar thing so it started off my husband and i. Doing it. We did it for a number of years and it became a system honestly a system that we still use today. Um, but when we had our first sun things kind of went out the window a little bit this calendar concept it really needed an update so we went micro and planned things for it like. For ourselves for our family time for our work like everything was in there but we also added breaks when we needed to be alone or had like a personal list like things to get done on our on our own that like was different from going to a workout class. So.
02:32.77
syrupcoaching
We started putting everything on the calendar down to like when we would grocery shop or when we would meal prep or when we would cook and I know that sounds crazy and I know that it sounds like a lot of work. But once you're already in this calordoor system. It kind of goes with the flow and you know what it got easier for us. We didn't. Like bump heads as much about you know what had to get done because it was already there. This is what needed to get done this week and we had to figure out when to do it and we put it on the calendars like the best times we thought were possible. Ah, and so let me just like. Back up a little bit. We had also started like color coding things so we can see easily for me a more visual person so I needed to see it all kind of spaced out in in colors and he needed to see it all written down so it was a good way that both of us could really understand the calendar very quickly like that. And there suddenly became big blocks of time that we didn't have before we uncovered lost time which oh my gosh that was just an incredible gift. Ah for our whole family because we got to also you know work on things we wanted to and. For me, it was working on my business so I will be honest though with children with starting businesses. My husband is also a business owner like yes, there were surprises and interruptions every week
04:08.17
syrupcoaching
And we didn't stick to the calendar one hundred but the system and structure was all in place to make the best use for our time every single day so over the years over 10 years at this point I've gotten so much time back in my days. Just by organizing my calendar properly I know it may seem like a lot or that it may take a lot of time for you to add all that information in but don't worry guys. Don't worry I have 5 steps my secret for making it happen. Getting that time back in your life and how you stick with it because that's the other key component. You could set all this up and have this grand plan make it be a resolution and make it be a big thing. But if you're constantly not um, making it a part of your day to day like as easy as brushing your teeth.
05:03.58
syrupcoaching
Then it slips through the cracks and then you're just stuck with like ah a planner on the side. You know what? I mean you know those notebook planners that you buy every year and you full intention to like fill it out and then it just collects dust and then you end up getting another one the next year hoping that. The refresh year and the blank pages will give you motivation. We're not doing that anymore. We're gonna do this digital calendar for you. Okay, the top 5 steps to making it happen and making it stick for you. Step 1 creating a daily story so years ago a friend of mine who is actually going to be a podcast guest here shortly. Her name is Tatum she I consulted her about some career advice and I was like I don't want to work in the agency world anymore. What should I do I want to switch to this and then send this but it seems impossible and she gave me the greatest advice about when you look at your resume. It should be a career story. It should tell your whole journey of your career. You should be able to talk about it. And a couple sentences how you got from job a to b to c the reason why and you know every job fueled your next journey or your next curiosity and that's why you're here today interviewing for this role so whenever I set up my daily story.
06:33.40
syrupcoaching
I think of Tatum's career story in my mind. So when you're setting up your daily calendar for the day or the week there should always be a goal of mine. What do you want to accomplish what carried over from the last week that you need to build upon finish take action on and. What new things. do you need to do you know what if someone asked you to summarize your week at the end of the week. What would you tell them you got done so figure out what that is first and a plan from there. So let me give you a concrete example of mine when I was writing and filming my digital course which will be out. And just about two months stay tuned I had a timeline to stick to and the filming dates were non-negotiable so I had to play on everything in reverse from there. My calendar of course had my family priorities first. But then it was filled with. What I need to do each day in order to tell the story I needed to your daily story should be clear to anyone who looks at your calendar as well. That's another really important point. So when I was filming my course it was. Blocks for editing blocks for script writing blocks for researching. Um you know cameras and lighting and um spaces and and and all of those logistical things that go into it so that it wasn't just like.
08:05.00
syrupcoaching
Week of filming happened and I'm like well here we are a lot I I guess we're going to film everything was planned out and week by week. You could see the course being built through my calendar and what exactly was getting done each day and it should be. So crystal clear to you but it should be crystal clear to anybody else looking at it on your calendar too. They know what your daily story is about they know what you're going to accomplish that week. What you need to do and what you have time to do and your day is crystal clear in your daily story. Step 2 so that's color coding and I mentioned this before for especially for those of us who are super visual every person and activity should have its own color in your calendar. This keeps everything separate and easy your really nice visual takeaway. To see what's happening and what's going on during our week I use google I know a lot of people use the apple calendar or and you kind of download like really pretty desktop calendars that you can write on or you know keep odds to your screen saver or background. Whatever works for you like use that system you've already got going. But for me, it's Google and there's about 8 different color choices that you can pick and you can pick something if you want on your personal calendar or your shared calendar or your work calendar just so that if you do have.
09:37.10
syrupcoaching
You worked up to a 3 calendar system like I've got you keep everything separate and easy. But anyway every person in my family has their own color. Every big activities have their own colors. Um and anything that is very like this. Everyone has to remember this on this day. It's called out as an all day activity on the google calendar. So ah, it's just a way that also you can sort of like peel back and see what's going on during the week like if you have a bunch of things that are turquoise and that's your color. You have a very big week compared to everybody else. Um, or if your activity is yellow and that's all your kids priorities like school pickup sports games volunteering that's a busy week and and the focus is more on the kids that week so you have to kind of. Pull your time back so you can cater to all of the time that needs for their activities. So having the color coding really helps with that my last podcast guest Angie Al Dope is the queen of color coding. When I first met her at my first job in LA.She had a color code system that would impress I think the pantone color people me no offense to the pantone color um team actually I worked with you guys a long time ago.
11:07.80
syrupcoaching
You are awesome and I love your trend forecasting for the colors of the year and I like that this color or this year is very bright and fuchsia. Um, anyway back to it. So if you have a lot of things going on on your calendar. You can keep you don't have to have. Ah, color for everything like if you have 6 people in your family that's going to be a very like brightly colored calendar so you could do it another way you could have your personal things in one color and then your work test in another and your um family or your partner or your pets. Um, calendar items in another I've seen it work a lot of ways here. So don't like panic and freak out of like it's just me and I own my own business and it's all one color like that's fine. Um, but just know that you have flexibility here. But the most important takeaway is it should be this visual but looking at you because I look at myself in a mirror or two when I when I'm talking to you guys. So this is a step I don't want you to spend the most time on. Actually want you spend the least amount of time on this step Although it's fun to get caught up on what is the perfect color and do these colors go together. How do I like load in more colors. Don't get caught up on this. This is a task.
12:39.95
syrupcoaching
That like if you get caught up on. It's not going to help you build your calendar any sooner and it's not going to help you get back time. So just like do what I do take your google calendar take what colors they give you go from there so step 3 plan out all the tasks every day. And every week there are tests you have to do tests that you need to do and tasks that you want to do so. How do you know you can get them all done. That's the number 1 question here you block them out on your calendar. I'm not talking about batch working and or deep focus working where you're like I'm going to do this for 3 hours and I'm going to do this I'm talking about actually blocking out how long it takes to do something and only doing those tasks you have time to do each day. You're literally only tackling things that you can cross off your to do list because you've made the time for them. So unless something is brand new I know you can estimate even roughly how long it will take to get it done block that timeout on your calendar every single day for. Every single thing you need to accomplish you'll quickly get used to doing the plotting out of your days and I promise you it's not going to overwhelm you that overwhelm will actually be reduced almost immediately because you'll see how long it actually takes to get things done.
14:06.68
syrupcoaching
And you'll have a lot more power to say no to the things that you don't have time for and yes to the things that you now have time for Can you imagine like being able to say yes a lot more because you've actually figured out how to like smoothly get things done in your day game changer. Step 4 is making time for breaks so you have let's say you've been doing this for three weeks now you've roughly like gotten the system and you're understanding how long it takes you to do some tasks and maybe this is making you stay on task a little bit more instead of like turning. Your phone scrolling a little bit but it may seem obvious but when you start planning your calendar. It's also so easy to fill it up. You're starting to save time make time and then fill that time. So. My advice to you is to leave some wiggle room for that phone call from a friend for that time you like really need to take a break the time you actually need to like take a cat nap on your desk. We've all done. It. Make a few of the tasks longer than they we need to complete so you finish quicker and you've got some bonus time built in for the week don't make it habit for every single task but do it for yourself, especially when you got a busy week of goals to get to or.
15:35.19
syrupcoaching
It's not your color all week. It's somebody else's color and you know you won't have a lot of time for yourself like even if it's like 12 minutes and that 12 minutes is your like just like zen time like it is your time you're doing this organization to get time. You've earned it. So step 5 our last piece of the calendar process here direct decisions to the calendar. So. It's 1 thing to set up the calendar but it's another to use it use the calendar as a tool on life. You refer to do you have time to take this last minute trip. No, are what about the race. You've been looking to train for maybe how do we make this work did you meet your goal of cooking 4 set out of 7 nights this week yes and you want to add one more to the docket. Great. You have time for that you can clearly see it on your calendar. You can even bring the calendar out and plan with your friends or family trust me and they'll think you're nuts the first time but then they'll totally get on board and getting used to it I say this after 10 years of doing this remember guys. So get them on board and even share a calendar with them so they can add to it as well and see what you got going on so there you have it by planning out your calendar and what goes into your daily story. You can actually create more time in your life I promise.
17:06.21
syrupcoaching
So for those of you who have been listening but sort of like doing other things like come back to me for a minute. Let's just review really quickly. The 5 steps to getting this time back in your life by organizing your calendar. So 1 step 1 creating this daily story. What is. Ah, thing you want to accomplish this week. What does your calendar story tell us remember that example when I was filming my digital course it was super crystal clear. That was my focus that was what was getting done in my world that week what is your week look like to you number 2 color coding don't spend too much time on it but color code people activities or both make it crystal clear. What's going on for who and everybody in your world. Step 3 plan out all the tasks. How long will it take you to get something done. Put it. In the calendar have those time blocks set up. So all you're doing each week is what you can get done with the time you have step 4 make time for breaks especially in a busy week when somebody else's color is dominating or in activities color is dominating. Make a little time for you and Little'll Overschedule some of those activities so you've at least got some wiggle room or bathroom breaks something. We all forget to add in bathroom breaks shower breaks make sure those are all on your calendar 2 and step 5 use the calendar.
18:41.89
syrupcoaching
Direct decisions to the calendar make it ah a conversation point make it a gathering point so you can correctly plan based on what you've got going on right now or in the future so you can use that time you're getting back to do more of what you want to do so. I'd let also love to know from you what calendar hacks do you have I've been doing this for 10 years I feel like I come up with things all the time that are super helpful. But I know there's more so reach out to me, let me know Shannon pfeff on all the socials like I'd love to know what you do to prioritize your. Your calendar and really get your time back and now that you've had this time back I can also help you get your energy back I'm not getting here just head over to my website or I g handle at Shannon pff. PfEf and grab your free copy of the secret that no other wellness coach will tell you of how to get your energy back today and I've got 5 tips in there that like just completely changed the game for like getting your energy back right? Away. So. Imagine this more time back more energy back. What are you going to do next Thanks for being here today guys I can't wait to share so much more in two weeks ah my next how to and if you have any other topics that you want to hear about you have questions about reach out.
20:18.94
syrupcoaching
I'm here for you too bye.