Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of your Brains Coach podcast. My name is Angela Shurina, I'm your host, I'm your Brains Coach and someone who's very passionate about change, helping everyday superheroes to unlock more of your potential, so together we could create more positive impact. Create more positive impact, folks. I've been in coaching for 15 years and I'm feeling like I'm just getting started. I'm getting more and more passionate about helping people to realize how much potential they have and what kind of impact they can have and what all the possibilities are and all the path there and, of course, what they need to work on in order to be able to tap into more of that potential and create the impact that you seek and create the meaning, the fulfillment and the life that you absolutely love living. I'm getting more and more passionate about that every day and that is so freaking amazing. I'm like I get to live a life like that and get to do the work that I do and I'm getting paid for that, and it's only getting better.
Speaker 1I want partially on this podcast. I want you to realize how much potential is in you and the dreams that you have. They are already yours, but you need to grow into them. You need to claim them with self-development, with self-work. It's kind of like having this. You know, there is this story about Michelangelo and how he said to someone that when he did his best work in terms of carving out statues out of marble, he said that the statue, the art, was already there. I just had to remove all the excess stone and reveal it to the world and we human beings. I feel like very much the same the potential, the dreams, the transformation, everything you dream of is already there. You just need to chip off all the unnecessary parts or carve out all of the things that you dream of becoming at this huge pile of stone that we come out I don't know, out of the womb into this world. And coaching and working on yourself these are different tools that you can use to carve out your best version of self into this world, living the most extraordinary life experience you can think of. And, folks, one of the key resources that we all need to get a command of, get mastery of, in order to be able to develop that best version of self, that best version of the life we can be living, one of the key aspects that we need to master is our time. This resource that is very it's intangible. You can't see it, but you only got so much 168 hours every week, 720 hours every month, 8760 hours every year, and that's it.
Speaker 1I often talk about time to my clients like we would talk about our bank accounts or we talk about our money. When you think about going on vacation or buying a car or anything, or thinking of renting a place, you always think of like do I have the budget for it? Do I have enough money in my bank account? Time works exactly the same, although probably worse. You can't money. You can make more of it. Money. You can multiply the resource Time. You will never make more of it.
Speaker 1The minutes you spend doing the stuff that doesn't mean much to you, whether that's watching Netflix or spending time with people who, at the best, don't bring anything special into your life, at worst, make you feel worse about yourself and your life. You put your time there, you invest it into these things and you get none of it back ever. You will not be able to make more of it. You will never be able to get that back. And as we speak, as you invest that time when you do not think about investing your time properly, you end up wasting it most of the time.
Speaker 1And again, the time is different from money, because you cannot make more of it. It's not extendable, not stretchable and not refundable. And as you're going through your life, as we're going through our lives, we're spending it. It's kind of like also inflation when it comes to money. Right, if you just get your money and let it sit in some jar and don't invest it, don't multiply it, it's going to run out just because of, again, inflation, economy you living your life. So time is exactly like that. Only, again, you can never make more of it, you cannot reinvest it, you cannot refund it. Once it's gone, it's gone. And if you don't invest it in the things that add meaning, add fulfillment, add quality into your life in one way or the other, then you always think on the things that don't matter.
Speaker 1And very often in a decade, in two decades or sometimes, people at the end of their lives, they look back and they're like how did I end up here and I never lived the life that I imagined for myself. And that is the most common regret on deathbed. There is a book written about that. It's not just me saying. This podcast episode is about productivity. It's about that. It's not just me saying this podcast episode is about productivity, it's about fulfillment, it's about your potential, but it's also about not having regrets and helping you to realize that once your time is gone and wasted on the things you don't really care about in your life, it's gone forever and you have only that much left. And every week again, every day, you get your budget to spend, and if you don't spend on things that add into your life, you're giving it away to things that subtract from your life.
Speaker 1I want you to do a little thought experiment with me and think about your week. If you look back, with my clients, I make this, we do this exercise in written form, and I recommend you doing the same. By the way, if you want to watch it, it's in the show notes attached, so you can download it absolutely free and you can do this exercise in writing, which is much more powerful. So what we do and what I'd like you to do in this thought experiment, we think about our week. Well, no, first we think about what do we want in life, what is the dream, what is the goal, what is the vision for myself and my life? Just think about that. What do I want to achieve? Let's not go too far. What do I want to achieve by the end of this year? What can you still work on and achieve by the end of this year? We have just what a little bit more than two months left Like. What do you want to invest and achieve? Right? So, think about that.
Speaker 1Just one thing, think of a very important one thing that can be professional, personal, that can be anything. And then look back at the week behind you, or a few days, maybe even just yesterday, and ask yourself this question how much of my time did I invest into that dream, into that goal, into the thing that I say is the most important? How much of my time, in numbers, did I invest into this goal, into this dream, into the thing that I say is my priority? How much of it? Honestly, how much? Very often I would hear from people. We look back at their week and they're like close to zero. And then I spend all of this time on conversations with people I don't like, watching stuff that I don't care about and doing the work that I hate.
Speaker 1Now, the work part. You know you can't always change it, but you know what you can do today. You can start taking steps towards changing the situation and improving things. It's kind of like with health If you're at a certain point and you want to improve your health situation. No, you cannot change your health in a day, or even in a week often. But what you can do is you can start improving the situation today with spending a little bit of time on it. We're investing a little bit of time in it.
Speaker 1So let's get back to our thought experiment. What is one thing? If you were to name one priority till the end of this year let's not go too far so when the clock strikes 12, you could feel some sort of fulfillment. Like you know, I dedicated time and I feel so amazing because I made progress on this thing. Like what is this thing?
Speaker 1And now again, think back to your day yesterday, to your week behind you, and ask yourself honestly right now, what time did I actually invest into the things that I say I want most? And if it's shockingly little, then ask yourself, looking into the future future that you can still change Ask yourself how can I change that? Where can I redistribute my time? So I invest my time into the things that matter to me and at the end of the day, guys, you're not living this life for anyone else. No one else would care about your dreams, your goals, your aspirations, ever. If you never achieve what you want to achieve, if you never live the life that you want to live, the only person who's going to care about that is going to be you and nobody else. And that's why it's so crucial to always look into where I'm investing my time and is it aligned with what I want to make out of my life. So time budgeting it's a very, very insightful exercise when you ask yourself what I want and how much of my time am I investing? Do I invest on a regular basis into that? So that's point number one.
Speaker 1Again, the exercise for time budgeting is linked in the show notes. It's a Google document and you can just make a copy of it and then work through it. And you can just make a copy of it and then work through it. See what you'll find out, what you'll learn about your true priority. And your true priority is where your time is spent. You can say one thing, but if you spend zero time in it, it's not your priority. It's some wishful thinking about the thing that you wish you have by some work of miracles, I guess. So time budgeting but you know what's also? Time budgeting is amazing for moving into the future. Time budgeting is amazing for removing overcommitment and late nights and business and burnout out of your life. Doing time budgeting, moving into the future, moving forward, is going to eliminate all of that from your life.
Speaker 1You know what blew my mind when I was a student? I would hear about these late nights that other students did and I could never understand. Like, why do you have to stay up late to study for this exam if you could have planned that a few months back and distribute this workload and do it little by little and sleep all of the nights? Why do you do that to yourself? It blew my mind even back then and it still blows my mind. How many adults still and it's okay, guys, if you are that adult, it's a skill. Just like I have skills that I'm really bad at, you also might have skills that you're really bad at and that's okay to acknowledge that and that's actually the only way you can work through that.
Speaker 1But what blew my mind when I was a student and still blows my mind? How many adults in their 30s, 40s, sometimes 50s and 60s don't get is that you know, when you get a long-term project like an exam or an important presentation delivery to your client, if you have an important project that takes many hours of work, if you do the time budgeting moving forward, you can redistribute that work and you never, ever have to be in a place of burning out or having sleepless nights or late nights because you need to do more work. You can look back at your experience and understand that this kind of project will take that amount of time and you can look into your calendar and book those slots of work and work gradually through that big project that, when done in that relaxed space, will not feel like a lot of work. You're going to do a few hours here, a few hours there and there, and you will never have to burn out or sleep less or compromise your life in any other way when you do that time budgeting in advance. So what I also do with my clients who want to get better at strategic thinking and doing and getting better at shaping their life on their terms. So what we often do with my clients is we do this time budgeting exercise for their long-term project moving into the future.
Speaker 1So let me give you an example. Let's say you have a project for I don't know, I'm going to take something from my work helping the company to change their culture, and maybe part of it. You're doing a week-long set of workshops for which you need to prepare a lot of materials, exercises and just preparation in terms of how you're going to organize the workflow, contact other people, facilities, do all kinds of work and that might require, let's say, 200 hours of work, depending on the size of the organization. So you look at that project and you're like, okay, if I do it, you know 200, 1,000 hours, maybe I can outsource some, so let's say 100 hours. And then you look into the future and you're like, okay, I can get this done because of my time availability. I can get this done, let's say, in six months. Or I can take on this project maybe in three months if I get more work, and then you plan it out. Maybe in three months if I get more work, and then you plan it out.
Speaker 1But also sometimes you look at your schedule and you look at that and say, well, I'm already busy, I don't have that many hours available for me to get ready for this project to deliver great work. So I either need to push this project further away or I need to say I'm not available on this project right now. You can get in touch with me in that many hours and, first of all, that will build your credibility with your clients, because you're only going to take on projects where you can be sure to deliver great quality of work, and only great quality of work will create more business for you. Quality of work, and only great quality of work, will create more business for you. And, second of all, you're not going to be setting yourself up for that situation where you agree to some project and then you realize you don't have time and you either have to compromise your agreement or you have to drop other project, or you have to work yourself into burnout. And that's what happens to a lot of people who don't do this advanced planning and they overcommit and then they realize I don't have enough time, so I have to not exercise, not sleep, remove a lot of stuff in my life and still work too hard and sleep little, and then feeling like my work is my whole life and burn out, perhaps at the end of this period. At the end of this period or never even finish the project in the first place.
Speaker 1And so was it the workload that killed the vibe or created burnout. No, very often we have the choice how much workload we have in our life. We just never choose to think a little bit in advance, to not have to pull all-nighters to deliver on this project. Very often what I'm trying to say here is we set ourselves up for the quality of life that we get. It's kind of like with the student time. I never had to do one time. I never had to do one pool, one all-nighter, because I would always plan it out and it would always blow my mind how did you have to not sleep? If you could just have planned it, you would have plenty of time to do the work.
Speaker 1But then again, moving forward, it creates this cycle of overcommitment, of having to work too hard for you as a human being and then having to not sleep and then creating conditions for your own burnout and then complaining that you have too much work, even though it's not the work, it's your poor time, strategic time allocation or time investment done upfront. So what we do is my clients again, we look at the project that they are thinking of or look at the situation with their current workload and we say, okay, we fill in timesheet what you do every day and how much time you have available. And then, if we fill in this timesheet and for the next half a year there is no free time in their current schedule, so what we have to do is then automatically say no to all of the projects that might come in. Because if you want to resolve, if you want to finish this cycle of overcommitting and then burning out, then something has to change. And so we either drop some projects and we create time for the new stuff that might have bigger priority, or we say no to the incoming project and we say to someone who we might work with I'm not available for this period of time. If you'd like, I can reach out to you at that point in the future and we can still work on this project together, still work on this project together.
Speaker 1Very often it feels painful for my clients, because saying no to opportunities that they often feel like they worked so hard for might feel like. But it's an opportunity, you know, but it's also your life. And so if you're in this constant cycle of too much work over committing and burning out and always wishing for a vacation, never having time for your other priorities that you might have as a human being who lives this 360 degrees life experience. So that is the choice that you have to make and once you make it and once you realize how better it is than this constant again, cycle of work, meeting, overworking and burning out and never delivering you know another point never delivering good enough job on any of those things, and perhaps that's why you have to do more work to even sustain yourself or your aspirations or your family, to do more work to even sustain yourself or your aspirations or your family. So a lot of times, when we finish this cycle and we end it and we get out of it and we start thinking strategically, people realize they have a lot more leverage and they could enjoy much better quality of life, life without having to burn out, overwork and take on more that they can handle.
Speaker 1So time budgeting First, looking back as a reflection exercise, it might help you to realize that you actually don't invest any of this most precious resource time into the things you say you want. That is looking back and that's where you can start thinking about rearranging your schedule, your time investment, reallocating your time investment, and the second thing is moving forward. That's how you prevent overworking, overcommitting and burning out cycle. You ask yourself in advance what this project will require in terms of time. Then you look at your schedule and you see how much time is actually there, what's in your time account, so to speak? Can you afford it? Do you have budget for this project?
Speaker 1And if you don't, you go through first painful but needed experience of saying no, I cannot take on this project at this moment because my time account is overdrawn as it is. Or you can equally say you know these projects, I took them on and I didn't think through that, but they are not as important as I thought they are. And yes, it's also going to be painful to say to people you know I cannot continue this and I need to pull myself out of it. It's going to be painful, but then you'll create the budget which you can reinvest in things that have more leverage and give you more return on investment and perhaps just more fulfilling for you. Or perhaps you'll create more space so you could actually live your life more aligned with your aspirations and your values and your goals and dreams for yourself. Hope this was helpful, guys.
Speaker 1To sum it up again, a time budgeting exercise the worksheet you can find in the links to in the show notes to this podcast episode. So you'll find the worksheet there, copy it and work through it and it will give you the benefit of looking at your current time investment and seeing whether that's aligned with your long-term goals and aspirations or not. And, moving forward, it will allow you to become a lot more strategic about how you invest your time and see whether you set yourself up very often for overcommitting, burning out, overworking, sleepless nights, whether you do it often just because you never look at what's time actually available for the things that you do. It's about being strategic about your time. It's also about being intentional about how you spend your time. Just because you have a free time slot doesn't mean you need to fill it in right away Because there might be better things coming in your life. Because there might be better things coming in your life and if you have no availability, you'll either again deliver a very poor job then stay in mediocrity, or you'll burn yourself out and hate the whole thing. Anyhow, the outcome isn't going to be beneficial to you and probably to other parties involved.
Speaker 1So be strategic about your time. That's the first step to freedom. Time 168 hours every week, 720 hours every month, 8,760 hours every year and it's not stretchable, not extendable, not refundable. So spend it wisely. Spend it better than you would your money, because time you'll never get back. You'll never make more of it, no matter what you do. Thank you for your time, thank you for your attention. As usual, guys, please do share this podcast episode with at least one person who you think absolutely needs this. Even better, listen to this podcast episode with people you care about, your teammates, your family, anyone you care deeply about and then go through the exercise of time budgeting together, looking back, looking forward, and let me know how you did. I'd really love to hear from you, and you can do that going to sending me email, angela at brainbreakthroughcoachcom. The email is in the show notes as well. Until next time, budget time well and stay awesome.