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What if you could get more of what you want in life? But not through pushing, forcing, or pressure.
You can.
When it comes to money, time, and energy, no one’s gonna turn away more.
And Kate Northrup, Bestselling Author of Money: A Love Story and Do Less and host of Plenty, is here to help you expand your capacity to receive all of the best.
As a Money Empowerment OG who’s been at it for nearly 2 decades, Kate’s the abundance-oriented best friend you may not even know you’ve always needed.
Pull up a chair every week with top thought leaders, luminaries, and adventurers to learn how to have more abundance with ease.
When we are able to expand time and be a time bender, it is our ability to be in deeper presence that allows us to do that, that, to fully savor the moments with the people who we love, doing the things that we absolutely love, doing the things that make us come alive. And our ability to do that is largely dependent on the regulation of our nervous system. Welcome to Plenti. I'm your host, Kate Northrup, and together, we are going on a journey to help you have an incredible relationship with money, time, and energy, and to have abundance on every possible level. Every week, we're gonna dive in with experts and insights to help you unlock a life of plenty.
Kate Northrup:Let's go fill our cups.
Kate Northrup:Please note that the opinions and perspectives of the guests on the Plenty podcast are not necessarily reflective of the opinions and perspectives of Kate Northrup or anyone who works within the Kate Northrup brand. Today, I'm gonna share with you 7 of my top time and energy management tips, hacks, strategies, whatever you like to call them, but it is the 7 things that I focus on that help me to get more done in less time. So at the time of this recording, I just came back from 6 and a half weeks traveling. We went north.
Kate Northrup:I went to well, then I also went south. Went to Bermuda, I went to Columbia, I spent a lot of time in the northeast in New England and Maine and upstate New York was like such a glorious summer. My kids are 6 and 8. I am just so aware of how precious time is right now. And the whole reason I started a business is so that I could be a super present parent and be able to be with my kids, and not have to feel this pull of like, I want to be with my kids, but I have to work.
Kate Northrup:I actually the way I feel about my business is I get to work. So that's a whole other story for another day. But I was able to spend so much good time with them. With my husband, Mike and I took 9 days off without the kids, went to Bermuda, went to Columbia, celebrated our 10th anniversary. Shout out to Mimi, my mother-in-law who took the kids to Camp Mimi, greatest mother-in-law in the world.
Kate Northrup:And these are the seven things that allow that kind of lifestyle to be possible. And I wanna share them with you because I see so many people doing an amount of things that is unnecessary to get the result that they want. Now for a future conversation, I'm gonna put a pin in this, but we'll have a future conversation coming out about it later, and that is this. In order to actually build a reality where you are working less and getting better results, making more money, having more free time, getting more visibility, more impact, whatever it is that you desire, In order to actually implement the tips I'm gonna share with you today, you are first going to need to stare your identity in the face around being busy, being capable, being important, and look at the ways that you may be working that are actually self medicating and avoiding feeling. Many of us work in such a way that is a numbing behavior.
Kate Northrup:I'm going to do a separate conversation on that. But I just want you to know that for some people, like just knowing the things I'm about to say to you is gonna be one thing, but incorporating them and actually doing them so that you change your work life balance and have more spaciousness and more ease, it will require a deconstruction of your internalized work identity that sometimes can be toxic because of our conditioning and our overarching toxic work culture. Okay. That's I'll put a pin in that. That's a tributary for another day.
Kate Northrup:But here are the 7 things. So number 1 is having good boundaries. So time and energy management tip number 1, when you have really good boundaries, which is essentially but your boundaries are what is and is not okay with you, what you are and are not available for. And your boundaries need to be communicated and clear. When we have really good boundaries and they are well expressed, and we reset them frequently, and we are kind and clear about our boundaries, what is and is not okay with us, what ends up happening is you just save a lot of energy because most of the drama in our lives is because of boundaries that we had that we didn't tell anybody we had and those boundaries getting crossed, or it is coming from, like, a lot of the time and energy leaks in our lives are because of unspoken boundaries that either you didn't realize you had or you did realize you had, but you never told anybody, and then needing to go clean that up afterwards.
Kate Northrup:Or crossing your own boundary and then ending up being in a situation where you're doing something you don't wanna do, which is a huge time and energy leak. So when we take the time to get clear on our boundaries, to communicate them clearly with ourselves and with others and to update them regularly, we save so much time because we also don't need to be making the same decision a 1000000 times and assessing every new iteration of it with fresh eyes. Like, it's just not necessary. We can make one decision once, and then that's a boundary so that every other iteration of that particular request or that particular scenario gets run through the same boundary, and then you know it's either yes or no. So here's an example.
Kate Northrup:In our company a couple years back, I created company no policies. This is essentially what we are not available for as a company wide policy. It makes it so much easier for me because I know that I am not available to promote something for someone or do any kind of partnership or collaboration with someone who has participated in public defamation of another personal, like, person, human, or small business. Like, I just know that's a boundary I have because I know that people who participate in cancel culture online and take people down will do that to me too, and it's just not an energy I wanna participate in. So no matter how much I might love their stuff, no matter how much whatever, like, if that's their vibe, that is not for me.
Kate Northrup:I believe in accountability and holding people and brands accountable. But I think there are a lot of different ways we can do it. And it doesn't have to be cancel culture, right? So that's like one of my boundaries. And I decided these things ahead of time, so that our team knows so that I have them written down.
Kate Northrup:And that every time I don't have to be like, oh, should I do this? Should I not do this? I don't know, dah, dah, dah. That's an extraordinary waste of my precious energy to be in deliberation. There was an interesting report put out by the Daily Mail in the UK that said it is estimated on average that women spend 7 hours a week on indecision.
Kate Northrup:7 hours a week. What else could you do with your 7 hours a week? Could you go to yoga? Could you get that novel written? Could you take some really good naps?
Kate Northrup:Could you clean up that cupboard you've been meaning? Like, there's a lot of things we could do with 7 hours a week if we set up really great boundaries so that we know what we are and are not available for and so that we communicate them clearly. My friend Terry Cole's book, Boundary Boss, is a wonderful resource. She was also on the podcast. We'll link that episode in the show notes.
Kate Northrup:And another wonderful example of this is a woman named Tiffany Dufu, who wrote a great book called Drop the Ball. I invited Tiffany to do something or other. I can't remember. I thought it was a cool opportunity. But when she wrote me back, she was very clear and she said, I am I'm not able to participate.
Kate Northrup:I'm currently committed to x y z thing. I think she was working on another book or whatever. So I'm gonna have to pass on this one, and I'll you know, best of luck on your project, and I'll let you know if anything changes. Such a clear boundary to email, and she shot it right off to me immediately. Like, I know she didn't receive my email and then spend 3 to 4 days being like, oh, I don't know.
Kate Northrup:It's a good opportunity. No. She was clear. My boundaries are I'm fully committed to getting this book published. And anything that's not related to that, I'm unavailable for.
Kate Northrup:But it was kind, it was clear, and it actually increased my respect for her. And so I would say a subtopic of boundaries is being willing to say no. In order to amplify the results that every unit of your time gets you so that you are having exponential relationship with your time and energy, right? So you put in 1 unit of time and energy, and you get like 10 units back or a 100 units back or a 1000 or a 100000, you need to be saying no to more things than you're saying yes to. So no needs to be the default.
Kate Northrup:Yes is only on the things that are absolutely from your soul. Like, I could not possibly say no to this. And this is a lesson I continue to learn, but it's definitely, like, a related lesson of boundaries. Okay. So then the second thing is building your village, building your scaffolding, building your system of support, asking for help, receiving help, this will also require an identity check.
Kate Northrup:Because if you have built your identity as being capable, as being a one woman man or human show, as being someone who look at me, look at all the things I can do by myself without help, you're just gonna end up exhausted and lonely. Like, there's no beautiful ending on the path of someone who is getting off on how capable they are solo. It's just like that identity is does not have a good end to it. And so that identity work is really important. We'll get into that in a future episode as well.
Kate Northrup:But learning how to build your village is critical. I interviewed Rachel Rogers once for my membership a couple years ago, and she said that when she's working with entrepreneurs, the first thing that she with women entrepreneurs specifically, but I think that this could apply to anybody. She said the number one first hire you need to make in order to grow your business to 7 figures and beyond is support at home because you will not be able to excel and be focused and and have the energy you need and the bandwidth you need for your business. If you are also running around all day, taking the laundry out, putting it back in emptying and reloading the dishwasher, worrying about all the goings on in your household. Like that household support is critical.
Kate Northrup:And I we've talked about this before on the podcast. Our household support is, I would say equal to, if not a little bit more important than the support we have in our company. Because having a safe place to come home to having a nurturing environment, having a calm visual environment, not needing to be constantly being like, ah, my house is a mess. Ah, the laundry's all over the place. I'm in a lunch.
Kate Northrup:But, like, also I have to make dinner and do we have food in the fridge? Like, all of that. It's too many things to be thinking about at the same time. In my experience, I certainly have had many seasons where all of that is taking up bandwidth, but I am a much more powerful entrepreneur and leader when the household stuff is handled. So that's just gonna be part of the scaffolding that you may build eventually, but part of that had to do with unraveling my own conditioning around what it meant to be a good woman, what it meant to be a good wife, what it meant to be a good mother.
Kate Northrup:Oh my god. Last night, when we were going to bed, I was in bed reading, and I had left some shirts that came out of the laundry, speaking of laundry, on the bed that were Mike's. And he looks at me, and he goes he goes, you know, a good wife would have hung these up for me. I was like, you mother effer. I was like, well, too bad you didn't marry one of them.
Kate Northrup:So just, like, really coming to grips with what kind of what kind of wife are you, what kind of partner are you, what kind of husband or parent or mother or whatever. Like, we get to define what type of these roles we wanna be because there are an infinite number of choices of ways to be, and the best way to be is the way that is authentic to you. For example, I do not love to cook. It stresses me out. I'm okay at it, and I'm actually pretty good at roasting chickens.
Kate Northrup:But other than that, like, it's not really my jam. So I could stress myself out about, like, I'm not the one making the meals for my family. And like, my cultural conditioning is that the woman should be doing that to nurture her kids and blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's just like, not a good use of my time and energy because it does not bring me joy. Now there are other things that are more, like, traditional roles or whatever household stuff that actually do bring me joy that I would be more invested in, that are a good use of my time and energy because they light me up.
Kate Northrup:So that's just like a sub tip, side tip. Invest double down on the things that energize you, minimize the things that drain you. So when you're building your village, when you're building your scaffolding and your support system, really think about, like, what are the things that light me up? They don't all have to be things that bring in revenue. Right?
Kate Northrup:They could be maybe cooking is your jam. Right? Like, maybe there are those things, but they don't have to be everything. And the key is you wanna double down on the things that are energizing, minimize the things that are draining, and don't be afraid to get support and get help because none of us was meant to do things alone. And so building your scaffolding, your support structure is important.
Kate Northrup:Okay. Number 3 is participate in time bending. Become a time bender. What am I talking about with that? Well, time benders are able to expand and contract time at their will.
Kate Northrup:How do they do that? Einstein's theory of relativity says that time is relative to the experiencer of that time. This is his theory of relativity, e equals mc squared. I won't get into all the details of that, but, essentially, what it means is our experience of life and time specifically is relative to how we are being, to our state of being. So one of the greatest hacks of all time for being a time bender, expanding time, stepping into kairos time as opposed to Kronos time.
Kate Northrup:So kairos time is timeless time where you are just in full presence and savoring. You don't know how many minutes went by. It could have been 3 minutes. It could have been 3 hours. You don't know the difference.
Kate Northrup:You are in full beingness. Right? So those moments that make life living tend to be Kairos time. Kronos time is like, I gotta get to the airport an hour before my flight so that I'm on the airplane according to the time that the pilot is taking off. Right?
Kate Northrup:That's Kronos time. It allows our world to function optimally. However, the moments that we think of at the end of our lives that are like, oh, yes, that made my life worth living, like, those are not going to be Kronos times moments. And so Kronos time moments. When we are able to expand time and be a time bender, it is our ability to be in deeper presence that allows us to do that, to fully savor the moments with the people who we love, doing the things that we absolutely love, doing the things that make us come alive.
Kate Northrup:And our ability to do that is largely dependent on the regulation of our nervous system. So our ability to feel safe in our bodies allows us to be fully present and to access our full 5 senses experience and be fully in the moment. And so investing in nervous system regulation, learning to heal your nervous system is a foundational element to being a time bender and having the experience that you can create more time at will any time you want to, or that you can contract time if, you know, you're sitting in a boring meeting and you, like, really want it to be over. Time bending also allows you to be in full presence and full savoring so that you speed up that time, and that meeting feels like it is over sooner because you have found a portal to be able to find joy and pleasure and presence in any moment. So that's time bending.
Kate Northrup:Number 4 is using Pareto's principle, the 80 20 rule, which says that 20% of your efforts will lead to 80% of your results, and 80% of your efforts will lead to 20% of your results. I've talked about this principle a 1000000 times. I love it. I use it. But when we really look at our lives, we can say, okay, there's only 20% of the things that I do that actually lead to 80% of the joy and satisfaction.
Kate Northrup:And then the key is identifying what that 20% is that gives you 80% of the results in any given area of your life. It could be in your in your health and fitness. It could be in your marriage. It could be in your parenting. And certainly, there's a 1000000 different ways to apply this inside your business or inside your work life, and I've helped people double their income while cutting their work time in half by understanding how to implement the 80 20 rule.
Kate Northrup:Now some people will take it even further and say, actually, 5% of your efforts will result in 95% of your efforts. I mean, sorry, 95% of your results. So 5% of your efforts will result in 95% of your results. And so what is that 5% like in your business? I know for me, when I've dialed this down, I can really say, like, it's the relationships that I build and it is the content that I create that is the 20% or maybe even the 10% of my efforts that lead to the biggest results in our business.
Kate Northrup:And they also lead to the greatest satisfaction, which at the end of the day, like, if we're spending our our time doing things that don't bring us joy, what are we doing? You know? I mean, it's a total waste. Right? So that's the 80 20 rule.
Kate Northrup:Number 5 is learn how to manifest. Learn how to and practice becoming a match for your desires. That is one of the greatest time and energy savers. I will tell you most of the best things that have happened to me in my life, I didn't have, like, a strategy for. There wasn't a 10 step plan.
Kate Northrup:I didn't really, like, put in specific effort where I was, like, okay. 1st, I'm gonna do this, then I'm gonna do this, then I'm gonna do this. No. I got clear on the way I wanted to feel, and I focused on ways to feel that way now, and then opportunities and synchronicities continue to show up that are a match for that particular state of being. Now some people are more specific manifestors and do more 5 senses visualizations because they know exactly what they want.
Kate Northrup:I'm more of a nonspecific manifestor. This is kind of a human design thing. And so for me, I have an idea of a feeling I would like to have and less the how that feeling needs to come to pass. So I really like to focus on that. My friend Emily Fletcher likes to say her formula for manifesting is feel good, place the order, place the order, feel good.
Kate Northrup:Feel good, place the order, place the order, feel good. And I love the simplicity of that because I think when it comes to manifesting, we can super overcomplicate things, start to police our thoughts, wonder, uh-oh, I just thought something negative. Have I ruined my chances of getting what I want? Like, all of that is just like a giant constriction on the universe's flow energy. So as far as I'm concerned, the secret to manifesting is feeling as good as possible or as open as possible in the moment and learning how to savor and enjoy as much as possible what is already happening and then making a request from that place from an unattached place.
Kate Northrup:Now it's, like, a whole other conversation. We have a whole module on manifesting in relaxed money for those who are students. You can always go back to that, but that's manifesting. Great time and energy saver. Okay.
Kate Northrup:Number 6 is focusing in on your zone of genius, and then automating, delegating or eliminating anything that is not that. So for example, I can do a little bit of back end WordPress coding, like, just enough to be dangerous, right? Just enough to probably break our website. But back in the day, when I was starting out, I didn't have anybody on my team, so I just, like, figured out how to write some basic code and fix things up and whatever. It was it was back in the day before, like, things are drag and drop and way easier than they are now.
Kate Northrup:Just because I know how to, like, make a heading bold and do some spacing and whatever on the back end of a WordPress site does not mean that that is what I should be doing with my time and energy. Just because I can does not mean that I should. A, I'm not that good at it, b, it does not make me come alive, c, I'm probably slower at it than other people, and, d, it makes me irritated. So especially from where I'm from in Maine, like, we have this Puritan work ethic, which is super beautiful. I love the dedication and the commitment to a job well done, And the shadow of that is that there's a tendency to have a belief that if we can do something ourselves that is inherently more virtuous than having someone else do it, than, like, paying someone else to do it or receiving that help for free.
Kate Northrup:And I think that's completely ridiculous. Right? Like, I don't think there's any inherent value in doing something that you find irritating, that you're not good at, or even that maybe just is your zone of excellence as opposed to your zone of genius. Now this framework, the idea of a zone of genius in the way I speak of it, is from Gay Hendricks's book, The Big Leap. If you have not read that book, I think it is one of the absolute must reads for anyone who is into transformation and full expression human experience.
Kate Northrup:But this idea of, like, dialing in on what is mine and only mine to do. Right? Like, what can only I do? And then doing your best to eliminate that which is not that over time through building your support network, building your scaffolding, building your village, your network. Okay.
Kate Northrup:So that's zone of genius. And then the final thing that I am very big on is organizing your time, your workflow, your productivity around cyclical, energetic ebbs and flows, whether that is cycle syncing with your menstrual cycle, organizing your time and energy around the lunar cycle, a combination of both, using something that in our company, we call the upward cycle of success, which is really understanding that every project we launch has 4 individual phases. These mimic or mirror the seasons. They are the season of emergence, the season of visibility, the season of culmination, and the season of the fertile void. Any project we have, I'm always tracking for, have we given this particular project each of the 4 seasons?
Kate Northrup:Because if we haven't, it is not going to get as good of a result because it's not fully grown. And if we haven't given it all 4 of those seasons, our team is gonna burn out, and we won't get as good of a result. And so that's kind of, like, on the macro, on a project management, level, but also on the micro, on the cycles and seasons. We have every month, we have 4 seasonal experiences. If you have a menstrual cycle, that's gonna be dictated by your hormones.
Kate Northrup:If you don't have a menstrual cycle, that's gonna be a little bit more subtle, but also energetically impacted by the lunar cycle, which also has 4 particular phases. I've talked a lot about that. If you wanna know more, we'll link up some episodes in the show notes where you can dive deeper, but also my book, Do Less, talks a lot about it. So in summary, there are 7 of my favorite time and energy management tips. Number 1 is boundaries and saying no.
Kate Northrup:Number 2, building your village, your support structure, your scaffolding. Number 3, becoming a time bender. Number 4, implementing the 80 20 rule, Pareto's principle. Number 5, practicing and becoming good at manifesting. Number 6 is getting into your zone of genius so that more and more of your time and energy is spent on your zone of genius and less and less is spent on the other stuff.
Kate Northrup:And then number 7 is organizing your time and energy around your own cyclical energy and also the cyclical energy that is going on in the cosmos. I hope you found this helpful. If you wanna let me know which of these tips you are implementing, you can always go ahead and share on social, tag me, send me a DM, share this with a friend. Thanks so much for being here. Over a decade past when I took my yoga teacher certification, I have finally become a meditator.
Kate Northrup:And it is because of the completely unique way that my friend Emily Fletcher teaches meditation over at Zeeva online. So if you have been resisting meditation, if you are super stressed and need a way to metabolize that stress and be able to access more bliss, more ability to manifest, more ability simply to feel calm and safe in your body and in your life. I cannot recommend Ziva online strongly enough. You can head over to kate northrup.comforward/zivaziva and join me to become a meditator. It will change your life.