This is episode 95. Budgeting your time You're listening to the Rise up and Shine podcast with Claudine and Ashley as an empty nester and a mom with young kids. We have both shared very similar and very real struggles from chaos to coaches. We now help other women live an authentic and meaningful life. So tune in weekly for girl talk and tips on how you too can rise up and let your light shine bright. This is the rise up and shine podcast. Hello everyone and welcome back. So I have a question for you. Have you ever thought you wish you had more hours in the day? I know I have flooding or have you ever said, Gosh, there's so much to do and so little time another one, right. We tend to think we don't have enough hours in the day and I found myself wishing somehow there's got to be more time somehow.

I gotta, can I slow time down? Is that possible? I just wanted to add an extra day in the week if I could have one more day that there was nothing on that day. I don't you don't want to know why I look at gosh, I can't wait for the week to end. Yeah, but the weekend is just as much work for me. You know, I'm a stay at home mom. So my word is my home, right? Seven days that never ends. It does actually, eventually I'm on the other side of that. It doesn't Yeah, well right now it's not. Yes, but so today listeners, we are going to talk about budgeting our time and I really like that phrase even over time management. I mean we've talked about time management, we've heard about time management but I like budgeting our time because many of us have a budget financially, right? We have a certain amount of money that comes in every month and we have to itemize how much money can I spend on groceries, How much money can I spend on gas? How much money, you know, we do that. We forget to do that with our time.

So budgeting time, we're going to talk about that today because We all have 24 hours in a day. We all have seven days a week. Sorry. Clotting no eight but what do we do with our time? Many of us can struggle with that and we are stressed out. Were burned out. Were overwhelmed. We pack our schedules too tight, too much on our plates. There's a lot we try to do. Um I know many people, especially women can tend to overdo our to do list, right? We have got to get this done and this and this and this and we should ourselves, right, quote unquote are should so I should be doing that. I should be doing this and a lot of time we spend worrying about not accomplishing everything on our list and then we can tend to shame ourselves. Right man, I didn't get as much done today as I wanted to as I should have, I should have. Right? Yeah. Well, you know that I personally don't like the word budget. I call it a spending plan, spending our money or spending our time And being intentional. That's really the point of it.

It's being intentional with how we spend our time. Just like we're intentional about how we spend our money and when I was preparing for this, I mean I know this, but we each have 168 hours per week. And all of a sudden that sounds like a lot. I'm like, okay, you sleep 56 let's say eight hours time, seven nights. So that's still 112 hours a week. That's a lot of hours, Right? How are we spending those hours? Are we making them count? And it was very convicting. I was like, that is a lot of hours. So we really can't say I don't have time. The truth is we have time. In fact, we have quite a bit of time. But are we spending it intentionally and wisely? Are we letting it slip through our fingers like money. You know sometimes when we have cash, it just slips through our fingers. Ever, Have you ever done that? I rarely carry cash. But when I do carry cash, sometimes I'm like where to go? And I don't have anything to show for it in my other purse. It must be I don't carry a purse either anyway, But it really is about intentionality and making the most and I do think about being wise, you know, I, we all are familiar with the proverbs, 31 woman and she seemed to accomplish so very much and I'm like, I think this woman really understood time management, she understand she had a spending plan for her time.

I think she was very wise about it. And I know it's something that I can be very good at at times. And then there's other times where I'm just like, I'm just taking a week off and then nothing happens, right? And you're like, oh, oops, this wasn't supposed to be a vacation week, but I kind of unintentionally did because I didn't really plan how to spend my time. It just goes and there's so many things we have to do and then there's things we want to do and our brains are wired, that we're going to naturally go for the want to instead of the half two's unless we enjoy the half two's. I don't enjoy a lot of my half to do. You enjoy your half to use some of them? Well, I have to parent my Children. I do enjoy that. I love my Children. That's awesome. So I don't mind that part. You know, it's funny you were saying you don't like the term budget. I don't like the word plan and all that. It entails. I don't like to plan. I'm the free spirit. I just want to everything to fall into place, you know, just be really spontaneous, I enjoy that and I like the flexibility, it makes me happier, you know, I can feel like, gosh, I'm just living in this little box if I have to structure and plan everything, but the more responsibilities I have gotten over the years, I need the structure, I need the plan, but with that I learned, I also need help with the planning because it's not my strength and so luckily I married someone and I have a dear friend, it is your guys that strength and so I've been able to help structure, which ironically now I've learned and grown a lot that now I'm helping my child structure her day because I feel like she has too much on her plate, so I've been able to learn and so now I can help others.

But yeah, structure, I didn't, I don't want structure, I was so resistant to that and I thought it's going to kill me as a person and I'm not going to be the free spirit that I made to be, I was created this way. But yeah, really seeing the value of when I have a plan when I structure is crucial, but then also with the budgeting time is having time slots, right? So fill in, okay, these things are important to me and I'm going to fill this in, let's say a half an hour of this at this time in an hour of this at this time. And so when you're intentional about it, you can fill in the needs and the wants, it's being intentional. And what happens is we get out of balance and we think I'm only able to focus on the needs and what I have to get done and I can't focus on what I want to do, right? And so we get stuck and we tend to, we tend to drop things. We tend to drop ourselves right. We don't focus much on self care. We tend to drop our social time and being able to go out with a friend and spend time or even call on the phone because we're stuck with activities or two DUIs or all these responsibilities and then it leaves us feeling unsatisfied.

Were unhappy. We're not feeling much joy. We have a lot more stress and much less piece right? We're not shining right? We're not shining as women and his mom's wives daughters were just not shining employees. You know, it's funny. Um, talking about the planning. So I did a personality test recently, a really small light one at a conference I just attended and I thought for sure I would be the planner. There were four, I was dreamer planner performer and I don't remember the other one. I thought, oh for sure I'm going to be the planner, that's who I am. I ended up being the dreamer, which is the free spirit. So I thought you would enjoy that. So I think that either my husband has rubbed off on me who is totally a dreamer and free spirit and you or that um I am a free spirit who learned early on who had Children at 21 I started having Children at 21. I had to learn how to plan my time to be able to have time for myself and time to do things that were important to me. But I guess I'm really a dreamer. So there we Go, do time to shift a little.

Yeah, I always saw myself as an extrovert and then when I had kids and especially in 2020, I think no, I think I'm very much an introvert, I need my time alone, right? But I think I changed, you know, it changes in seasons of life. Yeah. And the more you learn the more you grow right, we're constantly learning about ourselves and changing. And the other interesting thing is the reason I do enjoy planning my time is I feel like I have a lot more free time, a lot more freedom. Free time and freedom when my time is planned, when the things that are necessary for me to do are put in those time slots, then all the other open slots are mine. So it's funny for you, you thought you were fearful that it might constrict your constrain you and I thought the opposite. I always thought, so once I plan and get all my to do is done, then I'm free to do whatever I want. So I see it the opposite way. Different thoughts, right? And I also learned with myself recently is if I can get most of those two DUIs at the beginning of the week, then later in the week I have more of that time for fun because I was able to focus and it gives me hope knowing I have fun time.

I have designated it to a certain day, certain time of the day. And so I know it's going to happen right when we're not intentional about planning our time or filling up these time slots with things that are important to us, then we're just, oh, I don't know. It's like everything is all jumbled up and we're not focused and we can't organize and I guess I'll do this now, but maybe I'm not going to get to see a friend this week, I don't know. Or you know, family time or whatever is important to you. So spending that time planning, you know, just okay, here's my day and what are the things I need to do and what do I want to do? One thing that I learned for myself and I highly recommend for any, You know, mom that has to work at home or is a stay at home, mom, I give myself as a lunch break. Now that's something I learned with the 2020 quarantine. Uh you know kids are home, I need to have an hour to myself where I have lunch and I watch the show and I just you know zone out and just relax and actually kind of going with our last episode, I tend to plan that right after I exercise.

That also plays as my reward for exercising. I exercise, I did hard work now, I'm going to make healthy salad and I intentionally do that because I tend to make a healthier choice for lunch. I don't go to those chips but I make something healthy for lunch and I eat and I relax before I go pick up the kids from school and it took intention to do that and then I feel rejuvenated throughout the rest of the day. Yeah, so that's a great point. Yeah, it is good to have those little rewards built into our schedules. Yeah. So Every, again we all have 168 hours per week. I have the same as you have, you have different responsibilities, you have young Children at home and while they're at school today in their school now, Amen. Yes, 2020 is over and most of 20, But um and I don't, so for me it's almost the opposite my time is almost on my own. And so it can just drift between my fingers because I am not required to be anywhere, you know, I don't have a set schedule.

I don't work 9-5, so I don't have to be in an office 9-5. I have an office in my home now, but I don't have those um specific things that have to be done. No one else is counting on me. So my time is my own more than it's ever been in my entire life and that's an odd thing to now. I've never had so much money that I didn't know what to do with it. So I don't know, I've never been on that side of it, but I do have a lot of time right now. And so that intentional in that planning just helps me feel like the weeks aren't drifting by either because it is a weird thing and having so much time quote unquote the same amount of time I had 20 years ago, just don't have the responsibilities I had. But then feeling at the end of the week, well what did I do and I didn't really get anything done because I thought I had so much time. So I'm on the flip side, I'm like, oh I have so much time, I'll get to it and then I don't and then it's like, oh you know, I don't feel great because I really was important to me. So actually let's share some practical zah about um time budgeting or time spending plan as I like to call it.

Yes, Well, we kind of hinted at the first one, prioritize prioritize what is most important to you, right? So if it's family time, making sure that you allocate a little bit of family time every day and sometimes it takes creativity. So what we've done, because it's consistent at least five days a week, during the work week, school week, but we have games at our dinner table, so when we eat dinner, we play a game and laugh and we make jokes and we have fun with each other. So that is built into something that we're already doing and that helps give us that quality bonding time because it is every day is different, every night is different, some nights now we have a lot of homework and so we can't go on a family walk like we used to, so we had to adjust things, but prioritize what's important to you and what that need, what you need to do for that is make a list or brain dump, you know, we have an episode on brain dumping, writing down the things that are important to you and that does include the things you want to do and the things that you need to do and so just write everything down and then you can start right numbers next to it, okay, number one, this is the most important, it could be family, it could be work, it could be whatever it is to you, but prioritizing what's important to you and it's gonna look different for everybody.

So making sure you know because it's awareness, right? Well I don't know. We'll write it down. You will, you'll know when you write it down. Yeah, so good priorities. Yeah. And sometimes if we don't prioritize then everything seems important or urgent and it's not. Yes and then it isn't, they're saying the tyranny of the urgent. I don't know that phrase is coming to my head but it just seems like everything screams for attention if you don't sit and just write it down and put it in its time spot and its proper time slot. It seems like everything screams, you must do this, you must do this, this is important and you know the house is burning the houses but but it's really not and it's so true. I mean we have our must use you know we have to sleep every night, we have to eat every day. You have young Children at home. Yeah you have to go to work. You need to provide food for your Children. That was one of my must use that. I didn't love, I don't love Cooking Dinner seven nights a week and breakfast and that is not my favorite to do. Um so I had to get creative with that because you know those little for Children they wanted to eat every day, call me, call them crazy but they wanted to eat every single day.

So those are my mess twos and then there's the want to use that are high priority like exercising again, not super high on my list. I keep saying it is but clearly my actions because on my list that's a need to. I know, I know but it's a want to on mine and then there's the other things like I really enjoy time with my husband, I enjoy time with my friends. Those are my want to use I mean this is a want to you and I showing up consistently to record a podcast. We both desire that so we make it happen. So those are the priorities. It's important to know really sit and give it some thought. What do I really want? What do I want my life to look like? What's important to me? What do I value? And then fitted in those time slots, put it in 168 hours every week, there's really no excuse for, I can't do it. And then the other practical that I've learned, I've had to just add more time. Right? Because don't you think, oh this will just take an hour. Yeah, double it. Like if you're going to work okay, work eight hours okay.

But what about the drive? Traffic, make sure you're allocating that time and planning everything. The problem. We are distracted every day by our brains, our brains are a big distraction distraction by not writing things down, then it's all swimming in our head and we get distracted and then the other practical for me that really helps is group like activities and by that I mean if I have to go run an errand I do them all at the same time. Like if I'm going to leave the house and go to the grocery store then that's maybe the time to go the dry cleaner and go pick up the copy paper and do them all at the same time. Instead of today I'm going to market tomorrow I'm going to you know just it saves time to group. You're like activities right? And for in my case it's planning for the week ahead. Right? So whether that's sunday or monday planning okay today is the day I'm going to meal plan for the week and I'm going to do any shopping I need to do and I've been doing the delivery which is twice as much as possible or if I need to run to the store for a few other things but try and get it all done and that for me it's monday that might not work for you.

Maybe sunday is better but pick you know time and maybe it could be one hour that's probably all it takes for me. Um at least even online shopping so not going to the store, I'm counting but you know get it all done and so then it's look ahead at my week and it's already done for me, that's great, so monday comes around, Tuesday comes around, I don't already know what dinner is, so I don't have to spend so much time looking up recipes and trying to figure out, I don't know what do I have, you know and so in that because that can use up a lot of time hearing intentional, it's funny you say that because I had a friend when our kids were younger, she would go to the grocery store every day so she didn't work outside the home and her kids were in school but every day she would just figure out what she wanted for dinner in the morning and then go the grocery store and I thought that was so odd, but because I always worked at least part time if not more when I had my Children I didn't have all that extra time and even now that I do have extra time, I really don't want to go the grocery store every day so I would meal plan and then shop accordingly and so I always knew what I was having you write that saves so much time and that's part of part of the planning of our time, like it doesn't need to take, I mean I can't imagine going the grocery store to get dinner, I mean what's that an extra seven hours a week, we can do it in an hour, an hour and a half once it was such and I can't even imagine the expense because Yes exactly it saves money but it was so funny so and I figured it out because I would only go the grocery store like once a week.

But every time I was there there she was it was so funny. She's like well I do come every day and I was like every day yeah when I figure out and that was normal to her. But apparently she didn't, she was stressed out. I don't know think of that every day or some people might enjoy from that. So maybe that maybe she got a lot of pleasure from going to the grocery store every day it's not my pleasure point so I don't want to do that maybe. But it was so funny. So that's a great point just planning ahead with that the other thing another practical don't over commit and this also goes into it ties in to let your yes be yes your no be no because I know what we both have shared personally and what many people do is yes yes sure okay I can do that. Yeah I can help you there. Yeah and we can be so giving but at the detriment of us and our well being and our families, families and and household and so and we over commit and then what can happen is that we cancel plans because oh I double booked or oh no, I didn't plan well or you know when we say those things, but it doesn't have to be that way, just being more intentional and planning and looking ahead then you know, okay, I'm allowed to do, you know, or I'm able to do this much and what also happens when we overcome it were burned out tired and I've seen even now a lot of parents over commit their Children and I think if your kids are always tired, maybe take something off their plate, I would want my kids to be enjoyable, not tired all the time because it's not enjoyable being around them when they're tired.

That's a great point. But it's so easy to do and I mean if you look around, it's very common. I mean all these sports, all these activities and it's like, oh, how many activities do your kids do or what camps do they go to? It's like, well we also value family time, right? And peaceful time time. And I've actually been having to have that conversation with my daughter because I feel like she has a tendency to want to over commit. She wants to do all this stuff and activities and we told her we might have to cancel one of the activities she picked up band and I told her, I said I'm just concerned that it's too much and that you're not going to have enough time for fun that you're going to be overcommitted, you're going to be stressed out homework is, you know, we're going home work till 89 o'clock at night last friday, it was 10 and so you know it and you're not even, are they even in junior high, That's great. Not even junior high, it, good luck to you much homework. I thought, oh, this is our life now, but we had to readjust because we're going nightly walks and we would, you know, that's not happening, so um you know, over commitment thing, it's a real thing.

So just to be aware, well, as a recovering over commit, er I now will let people know, let me check my calendar and get back to you because I was always an instant Yes, sure I can, sure I can. You want to. And, you know, as a christian, you feel like you should say yes to everything. That's a whole another podcast episode. I think we've done, it could be boundaries, I'm not sure, but, you know, I felt like I always had to say yes, that it wasn't acceptable to say no, and then I realized I was burning myself out and I wasn't the best for my Children, I wasn't able to rise up and shine like I wanted to when I was over committed and burned out. So now I've just been able to say, let me get checked my calendar and get back with you or I'd really love to, but it doesn't, I have already have prior commitments and that way I feel like I'm being honest, and even if that prior commitment is just staying home and reading a book, sometimes I need to do that, I can't keep going. And my last night, okay, yeah, my last two weeks I've been going, going, going and so I know that today and tomorrow I've blocked off my schedule and there's nothing on it after you leave here today, there's nothing today and tomorrow because I knew I needed that.

So, and even I was talking to someone earlier and their dogs that are cancelled and my inside I was like, oh we'll do it. But luckily I've learned to not respond quite like that. And I really thought about it as they she was talking, I thought I can't do it. I already have so many commitments this weekend, it would really put undue stress and she has many other options. She didn't ask me to do, but my heart was like, well dude, I'll help you out, but I didn't and the truth was it is I have commitments this weekend, so it would have really created a lot of stress on me when there are many other available options. And so I shared what about this person, what about this person? What about this website? So there were multiple other things. But yeah, don't be an over commit. Er that's another practical, don't over commit. Great one and the next one is refrain from certain phrases and we kind of opened up with this, right, this is too much or there's too much to do so little time. Um I wish I had another day in the week or more hours, can we please have more hours in the day?

Because what happens when we keep saying those things to ourselves, then we're stuck there, keep ourselves stuck there because our brain is going to find all the reasons why that's true and so if we feel like I'll never be able to plan or not, you know, like even my limiting belief was that oh, I'm a free spirit, I don't want to be kept in a box and restricted, No, but I wasn't giving it a chance and an opportunity to flip that and be like, no, I can learn, I can grow, I can get better at this, I can learn a new skill, I can plan, you know, if I needed a little help and guidance, I can find someone who's better at it, who it is a skill, natural skill and I can get that help, so, but just being careful and being more positive, you know, spinning it to like, you know, we all have the same number of hours in the day, I can figure this out, I can get this done, you know, I'm going to allocate my time, I'm gonna be intentional, I could do this and we don't do that enough, we don't give ourselves enough credit, right? So what you're saying is I have plenty of time to go to the gym, everyone plenty of time to go to the gym.

And another thing with that is start small, right? As I said, is you start small, one little goal, you know, and so it could be starting off with 11 day a week and then adding maybe a day a week, be realistic, but still keep work Out one day a week seems totally doable. But when I keep trying to tell myself 4-5 times, I'm like, oh yeah, I don't have time, right? And then you all this time. I'm like, I could totally do that. Well, that happened with me also because I realized I needed to spend more time with my husband. His schedule was really crazy with work long hours. I had the kids. I was not a morning person, he couldn't stay up late. So it's like, okay, well what is this? It is this just how it is? And I thought, no, it doesn't have to be. So we need to get creative and figure out time together. So what I did was that I decided I'll wake up early with him so I can see him in the morning now. He was waking up at 4 30 in the middle of the night, pretty much. And I'm not a morning person, so I did not think it was possible for me.

But I said I can do one day I can sacrifice my sleep for one morning. Um I was waking up at five, not 4 30 but you know he was getting ready and then he comes down for breakfast and I joined him. So so then that was working and then I was feeling the benefit, I looked forward to it. It was really adding to our marriage, it was good for us to connect. And then I decided okay after a little while I'll do a second day And now I wake up with him five days a week and I enjoy it and I actually feel it it's benefited so many areas of my life. I'm up, I'm ready and prepared for the day I spend time with him. It's really connected us which is really what we needed. So that's crucial. It wasn't comfortable. It was hard in the beginning but the joy the pleasure at the end was worth it. And now they were overcompensated for the difficulty the obstacle getting up at five in the morning. So I started small. Right I was realistic so I can give up one day. Yes. Okay and then the last one, the last practical is to beware of time traps.

These are the time wasters. Right so we all have what is it that we go to where we just kind of zone out and candy crush candy crush game called Heyday I play and I turned it on and my husband, here's the little music and he's like, oh no, because he fell into that trap. He's like, that takes so much time. And it's true scrolling through social media or and just have boundaries for yourself. It's not that it's bad. It's you know, this is going to be your downtime that you assign a certain time the day I was going to have a downtime then stick to that time. So you give yourself a half an hour to scroll through social media. Don't go beyond that. You know, your phone has, you can check your screen time. Do you guys, does everyone know this? My husband showed me like six months ago, maybe, maybe most of you all know that, but I didn't and you can check on your phone how much time you spend on the screen. Actually breaks it down by like email internet games.

It shows you exactly how much time your phone you're on your phone on that. Which was very eye opening. It's very eye opening for a lot of people. And in april we were in Mexico and I decided I was not going to play any more of my phone games. I realized I was using it to reduce stress and I realized was actually creating more stress in an odd way. So I actually haven't played any of my games and I decide if I'm feeling like I need some phone time I'm going to read a book so I get my library books on my phone. And so now if I'm feeling like oh I just need to I don't know. Yeah I made a healthier choice and it's great but it's interesting because we don't that is definitely a time trap our phones. There's so much time I took off. I've never had notifications on my phone. I took those all off from day one so I've never had that. So if I wanted something always vying for your attention so never had notifications on my phone, turn them all off. Um My texting obviously you know I either put it on silent vibrate or it's on.

So if I need a texas I do do a lot of work through you know text or email. So I have those but they're not notifications. I just I can see if there's one waiting for me or I have it on if I'm in the middle of my day but um time traps huge. Well what you mentioned you were relaxing right decompressing and that's what we say. I just compressed by going on my phone or watching tv but it goes on hours and hours and hours or even any time there's a lull moment we have to go check our phone we have to go it's like an addiction and we constantly because we get that little boost of dopamine every time we look right that's hits our sportscenter's, but it could be hard to limit for sure because you're going to so in great condition. Oh, I need to go check it. I don't know if you've ever noticed that someone's phone goes off or rings, that you end up checking yours too. And there were some conditions, right? I must like Pavlov's dogs, we hear that thing and I'm like, oh yeah, time wasters can be a lack of prioritizing a lack of writing things down and planning.

It could be procrastination. I feel like my Children to, because they constantly want to tell me something and show something, I feel like they're not like they're wasting my time, but they distract me and good good intention. Um but what I'm trying to get things done, so I'm also like having boundaries is good at teaching them. Kay mom has to make lunches right now, I have to focus. So let's talk in the car and so I don't totally shut them down so I want to hear what you're going to tell me, but let's talk once we get in the car and then I can really give you my attention. So being intentional about that two of things that are going to distract you or just suck your time, you know, that's really, really helpful, huge. Well those are just, yeah, those are some great practical z I know for me, if I fail to plan, plan to fail, say that all the time and even with time, if I don't plan it, it just at the end of the week, I'll go all that week, just went by and you know, we really do want to live life to the full, I don't want to be at the end going well. I just got through, I survived that. I want to be like, no, this was the great, I made my one life great, huge, big, great you know, so everybody listening right now.

I just want to encourage you. If something that struck you today with this episode, take it to heart and again what we're going to say, don't get overwhelmed by all the information and practical as we give you today and if you take notes, great, but pick one thing, pick one thing that you're going to try and grow in. You know, whether that's meal planning or whether that's really being aware of your time traps, whatever it is for you. Um prioritizing, you know, what are the things that are important to you? But just take one thing at a time, those little goals to achieve the bigger goal until next time. All right, everyone, thank you for joining in on our conversation today here on the rice. I've been shine podcast. If you haven't already, please take a second to hit that subscribe button. So you never miss an episode and while you're at it, share this episode with a friend who, you know, it can bless today if you want to visit us as well on our websites, you can catch Claudine over at Clotting Sweeney dot com and Ashley at Mind over chaos dot com are links are in the description.

We also have some free resources there for you as well. So remember, ladies, no matter what you are facing in life, it is never too late to rise up and shine and live your best life. Mhm.