Overwhelm is Optional
- This is the podcast for big-hearted, highly driven professionals who want their life back.
- Each week, we explore ways to gently rebel against the idea that overwhelm and exhaustion are just the price you pay for success. You don’t have to push through—it’s time to work with ease, reclaim your energy, and create the life you want.
- 💡 Meet Heidi Marke
I’m Heidi, a Coach, Teacher, Podcaster, and Author. Having painfully burned out—losing my career, confidence, health, and financial stability—I discovered a better way. Now, I quietly lead The Gentle Rebellion, helping you to:- Stop pushing through overwhelm.
- Redefine success on your own terms.
- Reclaim your time, energy, and life.
Thank you to purpleplanet.com for the music.
Overwhelm is Optional
Meetings Without Breaks? How to Cope and Reclaim Your Time
Why are meetings always back-to-back? In this episode, we explore how constant demands on your time—without space to reset—lead to overwhelm, frustration, and decreased performance. Discover why this happens, how it affects you, and what you can do to gently rebel against the culture of non-stop appointments.
Plus, I share tips for creating space in your day and how a simple one-minute reset can help you regain clarity and energy between meetings. Reclaim your headspace and find a better way to work.
🎙️ Welcome to Overwhelm is Optional
This podcast was created to help big-hearted, driven professionals break free from overwhelm and experience more clarity, ease, and joy.
But here’s the exciting news… I’ve moved beyond overwhelm.
If you’ve been listening and resonating with this message, you’ll love what comes next.
I’ve created a new podcast: Deep Heartfelt Success—because success should feel as good on the inside as it looks on the outside.
🎙 Join me there → Search "Deep Heartfelt Success" on your favourite podcast platform and subscribe.
💡 Experience Deep Heartfelt Success for Yourself
Book a complimentary Deep Heartfelt Success Session—a no-pressure, transformative conversation designed to help you step into your next level of success with ease.
📅 Book here
📚 The Gently Rebellious One-Minute Journal
A simple, powerful way to stay focused on what matters most.
👉 Buy here
🌍 Website:
Explore practical tools, resources, and ways to work with me.
👉 Visit here www.heidimarke.co.uk
🎧 Free Audio: The One Minute Marke
Start prac...
Welcome to the Gentle Rebellion where overwhelm is optional. Hello, hello, hello. How are you doing? Rant coming Ready?
Speaker 1:Please explain to me why meetings run back to back. Meetings, appointments, everything runs back to back. Why? Why you can't sit, I would argue anyway. In my opinion or maybe just for me, because it's all about me, not really, it's all about you actually I can't sit for a meeting for an hour and then go into another meeting. I just can't do it. Can't do it even the days when meetings were in person. So I guess, in a way, it's easier to to fidget or you get time of movement between meetings. No, it doesn't, it doesn't matter whether in person or online. An hour's meeting followed by another hour's meeting, like I would never, ever, ever book coaching clients back to back. In fact, I have very strict limits, with gaps in between, because I know how to be at my absolute best for my clients. It matters to me. It matters to me because I'm highly conscientious and full of integrity and love, which I know you are too, because that's who this podcast is for Highly conscientious, big hearted, highly driven. Is that a nightmare combination? Maybe, and that feels like a whole nother episode. Maybe, and that feels like a whole nother episode.
Speaker 1:However, let's go back to this meeting appointment thing. For me right now, to do a really good job, I need space between clients, and I also limit how many clients I would see in a day. This is very, very, very important to me. And what time of day I see them, so that I can be at my absolute best. It's very, very important to me because I only want to do an excellent job. That's just how I am. So I set things up in order to enable that to be so. Things up in order to enable that to be so.
Speaker 1:Now, if I have days where I have too many meetings, too many meetings, even with space between it, doesn't do me any good. It just doesn't do me any good, and those meetings become of less value, or they could be of high value, but if they're high cost, to me that's not acceptable. So sometimes I can have more meetings than others. It depends on what day it is, what time of year it is, there's all sorts of things. So right now, I'm having fewer meetings, because that's how it works for me. Autumn, winter that's how I want to do things. I also don't want too many networking meetings at the moment where I'm learning more about new people and opportunities, because for me, this isn't my time of year for starting new projects. That's springtime, spring, summer. I go bonkers for starting new projects this time of year.
Speaker 1:I have learned to slow down and to start to complete things. That works for me. It feels risky, because when you slow down to complete things, it feels incredibly indulgent, but it's also deeply satisfying. So if we go back to this, why are meetings run on the hour, every hour or consecutively? You can see whether that, for you, resonates. So if that's how you're having, you've either imposed it on yourself or it is imposed on you.
Speaker 1:What effect does that have on you? What effect does it? Because I often talk to people who are about to go on to their next call and they really need a break. They really need a break, which means that their next call is seeping into their call with me and I just think what a shame, because I was really enjoying this call with you and I value your time and I value mine, but your presence has already left the room. I'm no value mine, but your presence has already left the room.
Speaker 1:So what impact does having appointments and meetings consecutively? What impact does it have on you? And then think about how often you get overwhelmed and frustrated because you can't quite do all the things you want to do or you're not doing them in a way that you want to do them. So, whether that's getting overwhelmed and very compressed during the day with all the demands and not having enough space for yourself, so that when you go home you're either very the need to be distant from your partner or those you love so that you've got time to decompress, or snappy, grumpy person comes out or wailing banshee comes out, just because there's just not been enough space for you in the day. So that's a high cost, right?
Speaker 1:So what other costs are there for you about not having space, a break between meetings or appointments? What are the costs for you? So some of them are immediate, aren't they? That withdrawing from one meeting and not being quite present and then not being fully present and prepared for the next meeting, that's an obvious performance cost. Which, if people aren't really present at the beginning, end of meetings, why are they back to back? Because it's not working. It's not working for anyone, because if you have too many meetings and you can't be present fully at the beginning or the end you might as well not be there.
Speaker 1:It doesn't make any sense. It would be better to run meetings at five past and five to. That would make huge sense. Or even better, at quarter past the hour and quarter to the hour and shorten meetings because God knows, they go on a bit, don't they? Goodness me? Because God knows they go on a bit, don't they? Goodness me? I mean, how often have you sat in a really well-run, highly constructive meeting where stuff actually got done and decided and it was worth it?
Speaker 1:It's hard to run and create that kind of meeting right. It takes real skill and it takes a lot of preparation and being fully present for everybody there with a clear idea and intention for using that time. It requires treating that time as precious for lots of reasons. I mean, it's precious because we're humans and our time is precious and coming together is a precious time because we can create so much when we all come together. But then there's also the other things you could be doing instead. So there's that cost. There's the financial cost isn't there For companies. How much are your meetings costing you when they're really badly run but the long-term, stressy parts of it where you're just you're not able to shift between the demands of each meeting, or you are because you've learned to cope, because you're really good at your job and you just get on with it and you can kick on through. You can do that, so you can do it. You can move from one, say. You can move from one meeting to the next and be kind of present or get away with looking like you're present and you're doing a good job. Right, you've got it sussed.
Speaker 1:But that that is a high cognitive performance and that requires something from you which, if you're not doing it in a way that is working for you or you, this difficult I'm. Let me say that again, in order to to do that really effectively, that's very cognitively demanding To be eloquent, to be on it, to have all the information in your head, to be welcoming you know, to run a meeting well, or to be in a meeting and very both efficient and using your words really well and connecting with people, making good arguments, having access to answers and information Like there's a lot in that to come to be both warm and really on it. There's a lot and it's highly skilled and there are people who can do it, but what's the cost? So, even if there's no cost in your performance, or no noticeable cost in your performance at the time, is there a cost later in the day? And only you know, and it's likely that it's different at different times, but it's worth considering. It's worth considering.
Speaker 1:Is this costing me and is there anything I can do about it? Because it doesn't work for me and I can see the damage. So, having burnt out, let me be your terrible warning. I can see the damage of pushing myself to go from one highly demanding cognitive task to the next, over and over and over again, and I enjoyed the challenge of it because you give my mind something to do and I can't think about anything else. And that's nice. Like it's deeply rewarding to do those kind of hijinks cognitively.
Speaker 1:However, the cost for my body was very, very high and that also resulted in costing me parts of myself that I then started to miss, like the ability to switch off and just be present at home, the ability to hug my dogs, even when I got home, because it was just too much. I just needed decompression. It's almost like I needed to go in a decompression tank, you know, and just be, have like space, give me space for myself and then it ran on, because once I was in that very full on state, I found it difficult. Even even when I scheduled downtime I found it difficult to actually switch off or I'd be exhausted and have that unwellness, that like achiness, that not quite myself, and I was also more sensitive, more reactive, more, very much more emotionally reactive. It was just hard work. It was hard work to make sure that life outside of work was as full as work was and I didn't want to give the work up because I loved it and it matters to me. So it's tricky.
Speaker 1:How do we do this? How do we have what we want? So we want to do deeply satisfying, deeply satisfying work that's well paid, so we can have the life we and we have that part of us satisfied that needs to do something cognitively demanding or creative or working with people, whatever it is. We need that. We need work. Work matters Not just for the money but for the satisfaction. But we want more than that, because if we didn't want more than that, we wouldn't be frustrated, we wouldn't be overwhelmed, we'd just work all the time.
Speaker 1:But we also need to sleep, and sleep is tends to be very affected by this constant pushing through, because in order to go to sleep, you have to let go, and when you're used to pushing all the time, it's difficult to let go. They're the opposite things, aren't they? You have to let go and trust to sleep, or you just crash because you're so exhausted. And then there's the whole. Well, actually, over time, this is costing me part of my energy and health, and it's harder to think about things like nutritious food and exercise, something good for me, some sort of movement, a routine that works for me. It's. It can be hard to fit those in as well, mainly in a headspace way, because often these things can be done very efficiently and not take that much time. But it's not that, it's the headspace. It can feel too indulgent to then, when you've got lots of pressures at work, to be thinking well, I also need to sort out food for the week that tastes good and is highly nutritious. That can just it's too much, right it's? I can't think of that as well, or it just becomes another pressure. Another thing to do, better at another thing, to sort out another problem, to solve, another thing to nail, you know, and I do that, and then there's the whole space for joy.
Speaker 1:I think for me that's what started to go and it wasn't. Interestingly, it wasn't from not practicing things that should have created that. So, for example, I did very. I was very good at noticing things like beautiful blossom, the trees, you know, things that are beautiful. I've always been good at that, but it wasn't enough because I was just so squished Everything, everything, just over time. So it's a cumulative effect of just getting used to pushing through and being very single minded in order to do a very demanding job. It just squished me. So there was less space, less space for joy, and particularly the thing for me is that thing where you lose your ability to laugh easily and have fun. That's it for me, because laughter, that easy laughter, that oh, look at me, I'm doing that stressy pants thing again. You know that ability to laugh gently at yourself that you're noticing when, noticing when I'm going into that very headstrong, cognitively demanding mode and it's overriding everything else as if it's the most important thing in the world, that that matters, that and it's so. So what seems to be going on here is that if we push too hard at pushing on through getting into survival mode, even if it's fun, even if it's really rewarding, we're helping lots of other people and we're absolutely nailing it at work. If we can't switch between modes easily, that's when we lose the ability to have that other mode because we just don't have an off switch. We lose the off switch.
Speaker 1:If the space between meetings, you can move between those states in minute ways, which make all the difference. But if there isn't space between meetings, you're having to push out for that space. You're having to be. You're either having to leave a meeting early, which is we all know is really hard, or just turn up a bit late, and I bet most people are just turning up a bit late, which then what you get is a chaotic start where actually people are on the Zoom meeting and they're just waiting for people. Now, if the meeting started promptly at quarter past the hour and people just got used to being expected to turn up, be fully present and on it and it was run well and it was really welcoming, wouldn't that be better? Just asking, I don't know. Well, I do know. I know what works for me, but what works for you, what works for me, but what works for you?
Speaker 1:So my rant is this why do meetings run back to back? Why, what does it do? What purpose does it serve, what's it costing and is there a better way to do it? And if you can't change your appointments because you don't have control over your calendar, how are you coping with the need for a bit of space between appointments? What are you doing and is there anything else you can do that would be more effective?
Speaker 1:So just a quick plug for the One Minute Marke audio if you haven't already got it. That's a one minute reset which a lot of people do use between meetings because there isn't any time between meetings, because they do run back to back, and that's really helpful. You can get that by going to my website, heidimarke. c o. uk, or clicking the link underneath this episode, and just give ita go See if it works for you. Tends to create space. So meetings how are they affecting you? So meetings how are they affecting you If you run your own schedule? Can you try suggesting different meetings, different meeting start times? Might be worth a try. I'd love to know how you get on and if this resonated with you, please do let me know. Have a great week For more resources to help you gently rebel.
