When you’re called to both, it can feel like you are being pulled in one million directions at all times. Not only do you have to make an unreasonable amount of decisions in a day, but we’re also distracted by both physical and digital clutter in our everyday lives. In this episode, I’m sharing how you can create more time and space in your days by building more margin and whitespace.
Called to Both is brought to you by Joy Michelle, mom of two and multi-passionate entrepreneur who’s on a mission to help others find balance between the worlds of motherhood and business. Called to Both is the podcast for women who have big business ambitions and also want to be intentional and present moms. At Called to Both, we truly don’t believe you have to choose between these two worlds tugging at your heart You can be Called to Both.
You can stay up to date with the Called to Both Podcast by subscribing on Apple Podcast App, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player!
Today’s episode is brought to you by Honeybook! HoneyBook is the client management software that I’ve been using for years to send contracts, get paid, and keep track of all of my client inquiries and projects. Inside of HoneyBook, I can see at a glance exactly where my projects are in a timeline! I love that I can use this for sending questionnaires, setting up recurring invoices, and book calls through their built in scheduler tool and so much more! You can try Honeybook for 50% off today with the link below!
Ways to Create More Time and Space in Your Days
You’re trying to live your life and build a business at the same time—you’re overwhelmed. Guess what? You get to decide a lot of that schedule and the choices that you make in them. This means the responsibility of crafting more time and space in your days falls on you!
Declutter the Most Used Areas of Your Home
The first step to creating space is through decluttering your home and the spaces that you use most frequently like where you get ready and your kitchen. Think of how your day unfolds and what areas you’re using that are not set up for your success.
Take 15 minutes in those areas to access, optimize, and declutter. Your reward is that you’re able to find the things you need faster, which optimizes your time, but also declutters your physical space and your mental space.
Declutter Your Digital Spaces
In addition to decluttering your physical space, you should also take the time to declutter your digital spaces like apps, subscriptions, and notifications! Here are a few steps to declutter digital spaces in your life:
- Remove items from your computer desktop
- Remove any apps you no longer use (from both your phone and computer)
- Delete downloaded items or folders of items you no longer need
- Declutter anything on your computer that doesn’t need to be there
- Bonus: Build in tiny declutter times to your work week
Set a New “Rule” that Makes Space for You and Acknowledges Your Capacity
Our lives are often busy because we let them be busy. Christy Wright talks about this in her book, Take Back Your Time, and how we have to create boundaries around our schedules.
The rule can be something repeatable you do over and over without thought so that you don’t have to make an agonizing decision over it.
Examples of potential rules:
- No longer attend free webinars that suck your time
- Unsubscribe from senders I haven’t read emails from in X months
- Cap your meetings for the day or the week
- Protect your final 30 minutes of your workday
A lot of the problems come down to decision making, causing decision fatigue. So set these rules; as a note, they don’t have to be forever rules, they can be temporary.
Simplify: Follow The Rule of One
When things feel more complicated than you want them to be, consider the rule of one. Is there one tool you could use instead of multiple? This can look like:
- 1 way to communicate with your team like Slack
- 1 way of setting up your camera to record for content
- 1 place for all your ideas like Notion. See all of my softwares and tools here.
- 1 place to book clients like Honeybook
Now in addition to following the rule of one for simplicity, ask yourself the following question: “What is something you could do that once it’s done, makes everything else easier?” Here are a few examples of how I’ve done this in my own life:
- Easy to grab meals through Factor (Get $150 off your first box)
- Investing in a robot vacuum that also mops to keep my floors clean with toddlers.
In your business, this might point out a problem or an issue that you really need to address next. Change your tools or hand over decision making to team members—whatever you need to help build boundaries to create more time and space is valued.
Here’s my challenge for you today: spend 15 minutes today optimizing or cleaning up your space in either your life of business.
Want more ways to gain back time? Another great episode for you to create better boundaries from your business is Episode 32 of the Called to Both Podcast.
If you’re enjoying the content we’re creating on the podcast and want to connect with others who are called to both, make sure you come join us in the Called to Both Facebook Group!
Mentioned in This Episode:
Take Back Your Time by Christy Wright
Blog: Softwares and tools
Connect with Joy:
Instagram: instagram.com/joyymichelle
Youtube: youtube.com/channel/UC-Ou6jRKxcjMrVMxWxLO_fQ
Facebook: facebook.com/joymichellephotography
If you decide to use any of the links above and buy through them, I’ll receive a small commission back. All of those affiliate income commissions really add up over time and help generate revenue to help support this podcast.
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