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In today’s episode, Kathy talks about what she does to make time for everything. Juggling multiple responsibilities can be difficult at times. However, when you manage your time and take control of your schedule, you will be able to do so much more. If you struggle with time management and making time for things that are important to you, this is the episode for you.
Fork in the Road Podcast shares the stories of women who have faced the choice between leaning into an invested career in Corporate America or daring to venture onto an unknown path. So many women in Corporate America today are facing a Fork in the Road: the choice between staying with what you know and working to transform it into what you want - or risking it all for the unknown and manifesting something better. Because not every road is right for every one, listen to these stories to inspire you to choose yours.
1 (3s):
Almost 10 years ago, I left a corporate career that just wasn't giving me the professional or personal life that I wanted. I was burnt out, disengaged, and feeling sick and tired of having no control over my schedule and feeling like there were always limits on what I could accomplish. So I started a consulting business. I had no idea what was in store for me, but by taking that leap, I created a new path to professional success. Significantly more income and a personal life with so much flexibility, family time, and lots of travel. And I don't think I'll ever look back. So many of you have heard my story and asked me if you should jump into consulting.
1 (45s):
It's not a simple yes or no. So I've created a short quiz to help you figure out if consulting is right for you. If you are wondering if consulting might be the next right step for you, go ahead and take two minutes to take the quiz@theclaritywizard.com slash quiz and discover if now is the right time to move from employee to entrepreneur.
1 (1m 28s):
Hello and welcome back. Today I wanna talk about a super important topic. One of the things people say to me all of the time is, you do so much. How do you have time for all that? I totally, I get why they say that I'm a consultant, I have a podcast, I teach her an accelerator. I'm active with my kids' activities in school, I mentor, I invest, I travel, et cetera. I travel a lot actually. And it's true. I really do a lot of stuff and I absolutely love that. So I wanna talk about some of the philosophies and tactics that I use to stay so productive. One of the very first things that I wanna talk about is taking control over your time.
1 (2m 11s):
So I have come to learn that we have been conditioned to think that our time belongs to others, that when we work for a company, that means that they can dictate to every level of specificity what my day should look like. And it really wasn't until I started consulting and even several years into it that I really changed my perspective on this. The more individual clients I had. Meaning I was working on one project for one client and a different project for another client. And so my time was divided up over a number of stakeholders.
1 (2m 51s):
So the more of those that I had, the more that I realized how much I can determine what and when I do what I do. And that's really easy to do when you're a consultant and you have a varied range of clients. But I've realized since that I really didn't need to wait that long to figure this out. And the same is true for you actually, no matter what it is that you do, whatever your career, whatever company you work for, you have the power to take control of your time. As I have done. What I'm describing is much less a behavior about how to manage time and much more a mindset.
1 (3m 35s):
The truth is that you are choosing to do this work. You are choosing when you do this work, you are choosing how you do this work. The company is giving you parameters absolutely, but you also have some liberties. And even if you choose to do it their way, it's still absolutely your choice. And I do wanna be clear that I'm talking about people that are in a very privileged situation as I am and as I suspect you are as well, in that we have salaried jobs. We are not working hourly as many people in the world are today where they just don't have that flexibility. So I wanna recognize that for many people that isn't an option.
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But for those of us who are at management level, who've been in their career for some time and who have the respect of the company in which we work, you are ultimately making a lot of choices and assumptions about what is being demanded of you and what you absolutely must or must not do, and when you must or must not do that. And so making that mental shift to understand that ultimately you are in the driver's seat is the very first step to taking control and ownership of your time. And this is true also at home.
1 (4m 59s):
You don't have to do the dishes right now unless they're driving you crazy as they are for me. Usually you don't have to go to an event with Mark and Mindy, you don't have to sign up to volunteer for X, Y, Z. You may choose to do these things because ultimately they benefit you in some other way. But we are some grown ass women. We can decide what and when and how. And for me, changing the way I think about that and really understanding that I have ownership and control over my time and the choices that I am making, really made a big difference in the way that I think about my time and how I'm able to leverage my day.
1 (5m 44s):
The second big thing that has had a huge impact in my productivity and my ability to do as much as I do is that I've also changed the way I think about time as a construct. If we wanna get really crazy with this here, how I think about time and time blocks, I think it's a little bit of an extension of the last concept in that I have understood and appreciate that I am in fully in control of my time and what I do. The next step to that is to understand that work is not predetermined and fixed in terms of hours, right? I think we've been socialized to think that we work from eight to six or nine to five, yeah, right?
1 (6m 27s):
But eight to six, that's when work gets done and that's it. And period. And that personal life happens outside of that period Ready to ditch corporate and find fulfillment as your own boss. You may be considering or even dreaming of ditching that life sucking job and doing your own thing as a consultant. But right now it still feels like a huge leap and you aren't sure where to begin. You can keep considering and dreaming, but if you're not professionally or personally fulfilled, then what are you waiting for? It's time to tap into the expertise and experience you already have with confidence and create your own consulting business where you can control your career, your income, and your time.
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Introducing from corporate to consultant, the consultant launch course, go from your corporate job to establishing a company, getting clients and planning for growth in just six weeks. If you wanna start consulting, you need to know how to start a business. This course gives you the exact roadmap you need to build your consulting business. Yes, you can spend hours and hours searching and finding answers in the black hole of the internet, trying to make sense of it all or just figuring it out as you go. But I have been there and I know it's a waste of time and money. So I've taken my almost 10 years of experience in building a consultancy of over 500,000 in revenue and put it into this course with an easy to follow approach.
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This course will give you a strong foundation for your business and set you up with a clear plan for how to move forward so you can focus on doing your best consulting work and getting results like the expert that you are. It's time to stop feeling stuck and start feeling in charge of your path. The sooner you get started, the sooner you can leave your nine to five behind and start taking control of your schedule, your finances, your legacy and your life. Visit the clarity wizard.com/course to get started today.
1 (8m 36s):
One of the positive things that came out of the pandemic is that we realized that actually time is fluid and there's not really a right or wrong way to live over the course of your day. As long as you get done what you want to get done, time is yours to do with it what you want. For example, I take Friday afternoons off. I take three weeks off during the holidays, but as a consequence, I bust my butt in the spring and the fall. I try to take off the last Thursday and Friday of every month, but I also work some weeknights. I almost never work on Saturday. I just sort of decided that is the way I wanted to do things.
1 (9m 16s):
But I often work on Sundays and my work always gets done. And so I think it's important to recognize that you also have the power to rethink what a day looks like and what time is for work and what time is not for work. You just don't realize that you have that power. And I'm not obviously suggesting that you're going to ignore your work hours and what your company e expects of you. If you need to be available to do your job, then you need to be available. But come at it from the perspective that you are choosing to do that, whether it's because you know you need to in order to keep a job that you love or because you need to so that you can support your family.
1 (9m 58s):
Or because you're saving up for that side hustle or because you're not quite ready yet to quit and do something else full-time, you are still making the choice to do that and make peace with that choice. But it does mean that you also have the power to set some boundaries. So as you are thinking about taking that ownership and that control for your time and rethinking what those time blocks might look like, you might wanna reconsider what you want and then ask for it. And I'm not suggesting that you ask for anything unreasonable. You can't take off every Friday if that's not how your company works. And it does require that you deliver on the work that you do. If you want them to listen, obviously are gonna do that.
1 (10m 40s):
And I know that my listeners are ambitious and they're, you know, high performing workers. So I know that you can deliver on the work that you're doing, but that's a critical component of them being willing to listen to what it is that you're asking for and to offer that to you. And so understanding that you have that power and that you are able to ask for what you want, really can empower you to get your time to work for you and not you to work for your time. The last thing that I'll say that I would add to the list of what has made me productive is that I have found ways to love the work that I do.
1 (11m 24s):
And that is no small thing. As a consultant, I've had the opportunity to really hone in on the things that I do really well and that makes it easier for me to do them more quickly. The better I have gotten at my job, the better I have honed my craft, the better I have been able to expedite the time that it takes for me to create an output that is worth it's weighting gold, if you will. And that would be my last piece of advice to you is you are thinking about the way your day is spread out and the types of things that are pulling you into work.
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What are some things you can delegate or get off of your plate, whether because you've delegated or because you're talking to a manager or your team and finding other ways to get that work done. How do you focus less on that and more on the things you are really good at? How do you find your way back to the work that you love to do, the work that you are really good at, and continuing to develop that skill or sharpen that saw, continuing to find ways to be better, smarter, sharper on your expertise or of your expertise so that it feels like driving, right? If we think about what it is to drive a car these days, if you remember back to when you started driving, it required a lot of thinking, a lot of processing.
1 (12m 51s):
And maybe this is top of mind for me cuz my teenagers is learning to drive right now, but I can see that she's gotta process a lot of information every time she's driving. Whereas for myself, I've been driving for 30 years, however long it's been now, and I can technically do it in my sleep. I mean, a lot of times I'm driving and I'm not even actively thinking about all of the steps and all the motions I need to make in order for me to get to where I'm going. This is what you should be hoping to get to. When you find that space of work that you love to do that you're good at, you wanna continue honing it and creating that muscle memory so that the workflows out of you really naturally and easily.
1 (13m 32s):
And that really can help to reduce the amount of time that it takes you to do work. Now granted, we can't get rid of all of the extra stuff and that's okay. There's a time and place for all of that, but if you can get really good at the things you're good at and you love to do, that can really help ease up some of your time as well and your time commitments to the work that you're doing. So I hope that some of this advice is helpful to you. I know everyone's journey in work-life balance and in managing your time and in being productive is very personal. But if even one of these was helpful to you, I'd love to hear about it. Or if you have some advice that I can share with our audience, I'd love to hear that as well. As you have heard, I do have a new course for folks who are looking to launch a consultancy called The Consultant Launch Course.
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And in that I do go into a lot more detail about how to manage your time and productivity and a lot more related to starting your consultancy. So if you'd like to learn more about that, please do visit the clarity wizard.com/course and I look forward to seeing you soon. And if you heard that, that's Oscar, my dog, who I think wants to go out and.