Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing
Are you sick of juggling a million things, and pleasing everyone BUT you?
What if I told you that you could achieve more and find your calm by doing LESS?
In this podcast for accomplished working women, discover where you're going wrong with managing your overwhelm and the exact steps to feel more composed and productive.
Tune in to learn unlikely time management hacks, tips to feel less overwhelmed, and surprising ways to do less with your host Michelle Gauthier, who has over 6 years of experience coaching hundreds of overwhelmed working women.
If you want to to start reclaiming your time, setting better boundaries, and nurturing your mental well-being, you're in the right place.
Get started by listening to fan-favorite episode "The Power of a To-Don't List."
Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing
#130| How to Spring Clean Your Life For a Fresh Start & Increased Productivity: Overwhelm, Productivity, Time Management & People Pleasing
What if a few small changes to your daily habits could drastically boost your productivity and well-being—would you do it?
Let’s be honest—after a long, chaotic winter, many of us feel like we’re stuck in autopilot with routines that no longer serve us. This episode offers a refreshing opportunity to pause, reflect, and “spring clean” your habits, helping you eliminate the ones that drain you and strengthen the ones that energize and support your goals.
In this episode, you will:
- Learn a simple step-by-step method to identify and assess your daily habits so you can take control of your routine.
- Discover how to make powerful yet manageable changes that reduce stress and increase your sense of balance.
- Walk away with a clear, actionable plan to refresh your habits, including the motivation to commit to just one impactful shift.
Press play now to start your personal habit spring cleaning and unlock a lighter, more productive daily routine—no mop required!
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Life can be overwhelming, but on this podcast, you'll discover practical strategies to overcome overwhelm, imposter syndrome, and negative self-talk, manage time effectively, set boundaries, and stay productive in high-stress jobs—all while learning how to say no and prioritize self-care on the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
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So this is what I'm asking you to do is just to look at each one of your habits and ask yourself do I wanna keep this? You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less. I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach. On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that former overwhelmed working woman and current life coach. On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences, and in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease and relaxation to your life.
Michelle Gauthier:Hi, friend, I don't know about you, but I have been in such a mood for spring cleaning. We had such a cold and dirty winter in terms of we had a bunch of snow and you know, when you have snow, all kinds of stuff gets tracked into your house by your dog and your children and whatever, and so I've just been craving a fresh start for the spring. Today, I'm going to give you a fun and easy way to do a little spring cleaning, and it's going to be spring cleaning your own habits, just going to take a quick look at what your habits are, what you're doing during the day good, bad and otherwise and think about doing a spring cleaning refresh, just a quick audit on your daily habits so that you can keep the ones that serve you, delete the ones that drain you and change or maybe add new habits that increase your productivity and your well-being. In order to do this, we're going to make a list of your current daily habits. You're going to evaluate them and decide which ones you want to keep, delete or add, change, and then you're going to make those changes. So by the end of the episode, you'll know exactly how to spring clean your habits. How funny is that? I love this concept like sweeping out the door all the habits that aren't working for you. So to start, the first thing that you do is either write down or think through all the habits that you do daily, start from the time when you wake up and go all the way to the time that you go to bed.
Michelle Gauthier:As you're listening to this podcast, you can be thinking about what are some of the habits that I have. So I know for me, on the days that I work out, I set my alarm for five o'clock in the morning and my class starts at 530, which means I lead need to leave my house at 515. So I have a habit of planning ahead when I'm going to go to those classes, setting my alarm for five o'clock and getting up. Good habit, check, check, check. Bad habit is I tend to leave around 520, maybe even 523 sometimes, which makes me borderline late or straight up late to the class. Nobody gives me any trouble and in terms of working out it's fine. I always make it before the warmup is over, but it just makes me feel rushed and slightly overwhelmed. So that's a habit that I'm going to put on my delete list. That would be really an easy one to fix. I can't even say why I'm late, but I do know I'm much more likely not to do that if I lay out my workout clothes the night before. So maybe that's the key. I'm going to have to investigate this one a little bit more.
Michelle Gauthier:And when I come back home from working out, I have a habit of drinking my athletic greens, having a cup of coffee, journaling, doing a little bit of a morning routine, making my kids breakfast. All those things are good habits that I'll plan to keep. And then there's a sticky one for me, which is cleaning up the kitchen. So I love to clean up the kitchen. No, I hate to clean up the kitchen, but I love the results of cleaning up the kitchen. And some days I will tell myself I have too much to do. I'll get to it later. And what I know about myself is that if I get to it later, first of all it's going to be like right before I go to bed. It's not really going to happen during the day, because once I get to working, I'm just working and then I have my kids home and all that stuff. So I think that it's definitely worth my time and it makes my day so much better if I just have that habit as an everyday habit. So that's another example.
Michelle Gauthier:For me, work habits feel really good. I am in a practice of planning out my week and executing my week as I plan it, so I feel pretty good about that part. My lunches for the most part I plan ahead of time. I get the food. I know exactly what I'm going to eat for lunch every day. I make this easy on myself. I just eat the same thing every day for the week. So sometimes I might switch it up for a week, but I just make five of the same thing. So I feel pretty good about that habit. I meditate every afternoon.
Michelle Gauthier:I feel good about that habit, and then when it my dinnertime habit isn't great. I will definitely order some food and kind of plan a few meals, but it seems to be hit or miss with dinner. Sometimes I'll make dinner, sometimes I don't. Sometimes we all just spend for ourselves, or we'll just make ourselves whatever we want, or I'll make the kids random stuff and we'll just all sit down and eat, which is the most important part to me. But what feels best to me is if we all sit around the table together. So I would love to edit my habit of just saying, no matter what we do for dinner, we're just gonna all sit down and eat at the same time, even if we're having chick-fil-a or something like that.
Michelle Gauthier:Another habit that I feel good about is that I go to bed early. A habit that I feel sort of okay about is my skincare routine and all the things I do before bed. I would say I'm like 65% on doing my skincare stuff. Sometimes I'm like I'm just too tired and I just use a makeup wipe and throw on some moisturizer and go to bed. So I'd like to edit that habit to make it better.
Michelle Gauthier:So this is what I'm asking you to do is just to look at each one of your habits and ask yourself do I want to keep this? Does it help my productivity? Does it help my happiness? Does it help my well-being? Or does it drain my energy, waste my time, create more stress for me? Want to keep this? Nope, I want to get rid of this one and I want to edit this one. I feel like I'm more in the edit camp. I have three or four that I'd like to just make stronger habits.
Michelle Gauthier:So I just listed out three or four different things that I'd like to change. But my third point in talking to you about this is to make small but powerful changes and just choose one thing at a time. And maybe you just choose one thing. So I just gave you a list of habits I'd like to change. The one that I feel like would have the biggest impact on me is if I just did my skincare routine every night. So I'm going to do everything I can do to make that easy for myself. I'm going to put everything in a little bin so that I can just get it all out, because what I'll do is I'll like take my medicine but not wash my face, or I'll wash my face but forget to do I don't know something else. So if I just have it all there for me and I make it a not rushed, enjoyable process, then I'm much more likely to do it.
Michelle Gauthier:So here I am, committing to you that I'm going to do my skincare routine. What is your thing? What are you going to change? Or maybe there's something that you want to stop doing? For a while? There, especially when I was going through my divorce, I would stay up late at night after my kids went to bed because I just sort of needed a break, and when I was eating potato chips and having my second glass of wine, I'm like, what am I doing? This does not serve me at all. So maybe you've got a late night wine, potato chips habit, or maybe you've got a late night buy crap online that you really don't want habit. If you do, don't judge yourself, just decide does this work for me, or do I need to get rid of this one? So this is a quick and easy fix List out your daily habits, decide which ones to keep, delete or edit, and then make that one commitment, that one small shift and see how that works might inspire you to make a second one, but maybe not, doesn't matter. Spring clean your habits and just see how that turns out.
Michelle Gauthier:If you found today's episode helpful or you just love the podcast which I really hope that you do, because that is my aim to make a podcast that is always practical and useful and helpful to you please do a review, write a review or leave a rating. That is so helpful to us and to get to my goal of getting to a top 1% podcast. What that means is that it would be top 1% of 3.5 million podcasts and that when people search for overwhelm or help me stop feeling overwhelmed or I'm a people pleaser that our podcast would come up as one of the top first solutions. I want to be able to help as many women as I can. Really all the overwhelmed women would be wonderful, and your rating and review will really help that process. Have a great week. See you next week. Writing and review will really help that process. Have a great week. See you next week. Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthiercom. See you next week.
