Last fall I said yes to a project that needed eight hours a week of my best brain power for nine months. My plate was already full when I agreed to it, which I recognize is not a great look for a time management expert.
Your instinct in that moment is probably the same as mine was. I'll just fit it in. I'll dig deep. Now, digging deep is fine for two weeks, but nine months of that would’ve meant working late, giving up my weekends, and burning myself out, so instead I went looking at the plate itself to see what was already on it. Here's the four-step process I used, and it didn't require me to start waking up at four in the morning.
1. Do a two-week time audit, and be brutal about it.
Nobody wants to do this step, and you can't do the other three without it. For two weeks, I tracked how I spent my time from the moment I woke up until I went to bed, work and personal both.
Don't overthink the how. I pulled a blank weekly spread out of my planner, laid it on my desk with a pencil, and every thirty minutes to an hour I jotted down what I'd just done. Thirty minutes on email went down as "email," not a list of everyone I wrote to. And where you genuinely can't account for the last half hour, put a question mark. I had more of those than I expected.
What matters here is that you're tracking where your time actually goes, not where you assume it goes.
2. Keep a running list of what doesn't have to be you.
I did this on a separate page at the same time. Every time I was doing something that didn't have to be me, it went on the list.
Many things on my plate are only me, like recording the podcast because it's my voice and my intellectual property. Taking my daughter to the doctor is only me, because my husbands job doesn’t have much flexibility. However, laundry is not only me, and a shocking amount of my week had quietly fallen into the "it only takes ten minutes, it's easier if I just do it" category.
3. Put a time next to each one, then sort them three ways.
Here's where you find out what's actually filling the plate. Go back to your audit and write down how long each of those things takes you across two weeks. My total was well over eight hours a week, and I'd bet money yours will surprise you the same way.
Then label each item. Some can be streamlined, meaning you keep it, but you do it a smarter way, with automation or technology or by touching it once a week instead of daily. Some can be outsourced, and that doesn't have to mean hiring. It can mean the other people who live in your house. Some can be paused, because they're less important than the thing you just said yes to.
4. Build the execution plan.
This is where most people stop, right after the analysis. I started with the pauses, because that's the low-hanging fruit. Those freed up two hours a week almost immediately, and the projects I set down were waiting for me when this one was done.
For anything you're streamlining, put it on your calendar and do it the next time the task comes up. I had one thing that took fifteen minutes, three times a week. I blocked an hour the next time it was due and built the automation right then. That forty-five minutes a week became ten.
Outsourcing took the longest, so I split it in two. The household pieces I brought to our weekly family meeting, laid out the hour and a half a week I needed back, and we divided it up together. That put me at four of my eight hours. The rest needed an actual hire, so I looked at where our money was going and what I could stop spending on to pay for it.
The whole thing took about six to eight weeks from the first day of the audit, and I'd rather be uncomfortable for a few weeks than grind through nine months of a full plate plus a big project.
You can only fit so much on a plate. Deciding for yourself what comes off feels a whole lot better than waiting for something to fall off on its own. đź©·
- Plan-a-Palooza 2026 — Shawn Lemon, The Digital Declutter
Your calendar isn't the only thing that's overloaded; chances are your camera roll, your inbox, and a folder of files you've been saving "just in case" are too. Every time you go digging for the one thing you actually need, you have to wade through everything you don't, and that has a real cost.
As part of Plan-a-Palooza this year, I'm including a training from Shawn Lemon on clearing out the digital noise, how to actually decide what's worth keeping, and how to stay organized in a way that holds up once real life picks back up. You don't need to be techy to walk away from this one feeling lighter. It's one of the bonus trainings included with every Plan-a-Palooza ticket. - Elevate Your Style With Dailylook
If getting dressed has started to feel like just one more decision you don't have the energy for, this might help. Dailylook pairs you with a personal stylist who sends hand-picked pieces based on your style, budget, and lifestyle, up to 12 items at a time, and you only keep and pay for what you love. Shipping is free both ways, so there's no risk in trying it. Right now your styling fee is waived when you sign up, so it costs you nothing to see what your stylist picks for you. - It Was Never a Time Problem
Everyone keeps handing you the same fix when you're exhausted: do less, wake up earlier, try a new planner, and none of it actually holds because none of it was ever a time problem to begin with. My friend Heather Chauvin built a quick assessment that gets at what's really going on: eight questions, about two minutes, and instead of another list of things to try, it points you to the one specific place your energy is leaking fastest. Take the Energy Leak Assessment and find out what you're actually running on.
Time Blocking Fails Women for One Reason
Time blocking looks great on a calendar, picking a chunk of time, assigning it to a type of work, and repeating it week after week. Content on Tuesdays at ten, meetings on Thursdays, ninety protected minutes carved out for deep work.
It works right up until the week you actually get stops matching the week you planned for, and I'm getting into the one assumption baked into time blocking that almost never holds true for women. Once you see it, it explains why this method keeps failing so many of us no matter how disciplined we are about sticking to it.
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Am I duplicating my lists by keeping work and personal tasks separate?
If you're juggling work tasks in one tool and personal tasks in another, does that mean you're doing it wrong? Not necessarily. I break down the difference between duplicating information and simply organizing by category, and how to know when your system needs a cleanup.
Remember, this video is updated every Wednesday, so don’t miss it! Head to The Pink Bee app to watch now.
Friend, don’t forget, just 15 minutes of planning today can set the tone for your entire week. You’ve got the tools, you’ve got the tips, and now it’s time to take action. Let’s crush this week together!
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