[00:00] Welcome back to the Focus B show. This is Katie Suddar here aka the focus b. And on this show, I interview high performers and leaders around the world to discover their secrets on peak performance, productivity, mindfulness, and leadership. So if you want to take your performance and your leadership to the next level, then you're in the right place. Listen up and connect with the magic.
[00:41] I'm really excited to announce that in the upcoming weeks, I am launching my new program to help you to optimize your time and your energy to reach the results and impact you want in your business and in your life. If you want to find out more about my new program, check out thefocusbee.com program we've spoken about ownership and abundance, mastering thoughts and emotions and perfectionism and hyperachiever. All of these will be made easier if you have clear boundaries. By boundaries, I mean deciding ahead of time, being intentional, how you want to spend your time and what you're not willing to do. So being very clear, if you don't want to work after 06:00 p.m., or if you want to have an hour break, these are examples of boundaries. A few things can help you to have clear boundaries in place and to be more intentional in the way that you work and live every day. One of these tools is Parkinson law. And I've talked about this before because it has helped me tremendously. Parkinson Law basically just says that your work will expand until to fit the allotted time. So the work will expand to fit the allotted time. This means that if you've decided to spend 2 hours on a document, you'll do it in 2 hours. If you have a deadline for the next day, I'll be done by the next day. This is one of the examples I mentioned in the perfectionism episode that can help you to overcome perfectionism. Because if you just have less time to give that project, that document, that report, then you'll just have to do it in that amount of time. So I use Parkinson law every day, all day long. How I use time slotting in my calendar and I put 1 hour to know these podcast episodes for instance, or to answer emails, or to create social media content, or for a coaching conversation, or to prepare the coaching conversation. And all of my calendar decides because I've decided ahead of time and I put it in my calendar how long I'm willing to give a task. Of course, I also analyze from experience. For instance, I used to write my blog articles in about an hour. And then as I implemented SEO writing and that was slightly more time consuming in terms of looking up keywords and putting more internal and external links and writing slightly longer articles, I realized that really the shortest amount of time was maybe two and a half hours. So then I time blocked 3 hours. And this is an example of Parkinson Law, I decided I'll do it in 3 hours. Could I spend 6 hours on that blog article? Probably. It could be longer, it could be more researched, I could put in more links. But I've decided that that's the maximum amount of time that I want to dedicate on it, because A, it's realistic, and B, I don't want to spend the entire day writing a blog article because 6 hours if you also include lunch and a few calls and emails, that's kind of the whole day. And I have other priorities. So deciding how much time are you willing to give an activity and more or less how long it needs? Like I explained, I adapted my blog article from 1 hour to three. So you want it to be realistic and you also want it to be in some ways a bit tight because if you allow yourself all day to do it, it will take all day. This Parkinson Law and Parkinson Law can be applied like explained to time slotting or time blocking, which is basically when you say you're putting 1 hour from eight till nine on Tuesday morning to write a blog, or from nine till ten on Wednesday morning to do this report, et cetera, et cetera. And this is how I plan my whole calendar. So when I plan my following week, I time block everything. And then I also allow slight flexibility because I'm used to time blocking and I know how I work. And by slight flexibility I mean that if I write that I do task one in the morning and task two in the afternoon, maybe I'll switch them around or I'll switch them during the week. As long as my priorities for the week are done, it doesn't really matter the order in which I do them. And sometimes depending on my energy levels, I might switch them, or if I have a spontaneous call, I might shorten one, et cetera. Of course I just adapt. The idea isn't for it to be rigid. And I also leave quite a few blank spots in my calendar because calls might get booked or I might suddenly have projects. So I leave two, 3 hours empty and then if they don't get filled by the time by that time comes, then it's not very hard to come up with something else that you can do in that amount of time. So that's also important. So coming back to boundaries, because this is a main theme of today, the reason why it's hard for a lot of people, and maybe this is the case for you to have strong boundaries is because of people pleaser tendencies. If you want to please people in your life, which most of us want, because it gives us validation, reassurance, love, connection, a sense of security. If you want to please people, it's hard to say no. And this might go against our boundaries. If you've pour a boundary, for instance, finishing at 06:00 p.m. And someone asks you if you can hop on a call at 630, it can be very tempting to say yes. I'm not saying that you should turn down all these opportunities. I know that I have a boundary, for instance, of finishing around six, and sometimes because of call with the US. I take on stuff at seven. But the idea is you want that to be an exception. You don't want that to be on a regular basis and you need to really evaluate. There's a lot of things I do turn down, maybe in the States or other places, because it doesn't fit my boundaries. I just evaluate. Is it really worth it for me to make a slight exception to my boundary once a month? Twice a month, but I wouldn't start doing it every day. You need to be very strict with these things. And I never work weekends. I can't remember the last time I actually worked on a weekend, except maybe for preparing the TEDx as an MC. But that didn't really feel like work, that felt like fun, to be honest. Those were just meetings on a Saturday. But in general, yes, I never ever work weekends. Now you can have any boundary you wish. The only thing that matters with the boundary is you just need to decide how do you want to spend your time, when do you want to finish, who do you want to spend time with, how do you want to spend your weekend? I even now have boundaries. I never thought this would be the case around when I finish a party or an evening with friends, because I enjoy waking up early ish at the weekends and having my mornings. I now have a sort of boundary in my head of how long I'm willing to stay, because the next day I have other things that I want to do or work on, or well, not work if it's a weekend, or enjoy at least, or go hiking. And therefore I put a boundary in my mind of when I'll come home. Pretty much midnight is my boundary and I used to be such a night owl. But priorities change and this is so important when it comes to time, because having these boundaries it makes it sound like I'm so strict or not fun, but it gives you so much joy and freedom and flexibility. That's the irony, because finishing earlier on a Saturday night gives me a whole day Sunday to go hiking. That's huge freedom and space and joy before starting my week. Whereas if I finished 04:00 in the morning and slept in all day on Sunday and then was super tired on Monday, what's the fun in that? Just for a few more hours of seeing people on a Saturday. So it's important to look again at the alternative cost of things and see that when you don't respect the boundaries, what are the costs? When you do work the extra hours in the evening, when you do say yes to certain projects, even though you have a lot going on, when you do stay up later than you want to during the week or in the evening, how does that impact your energy and your level the next day? And respecting your boundaries comes down to two things managing your people, pleaser, your tendency to say yes to someone's party just because you want them to still like you, or to this project or to a client, even though it doesn't really fit with your other priorities. So managing these expectations and the other is self discipline. So if you've decided you want to be in bed every day at ten, then going to bed at ten, that's discipline. So, to wrap up today's episode on boundaries, a couple of key elements. Number one is Parkinson law. Things will fit the allotted time and you can use this, like I mentioned, with time blocking or time slotting to help you to have these boundaries in your life. And the other one is looking at people, pleaser, and how you manage your expectations and what you say to other people, so that you don't feel that you have to say yes and that you know what's aligned and important for you. And as I mentioned, a little dose of self discipline. If you haven't heard the episode I did with Giovanni Deensman on self discipline, highly recommend it. The book is amazing. Mindful. Self discipline. That's an amazing book. Highly recommend that. I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it. So a lot of key things to think about here with boundaries. And as a little added bonus, like to say that most people that I know that struggle with time is because of boundaries. So if you're struggling, really start to pay attention. What boundaries have you put in place? What are some of the rules that you've decided make sense for you? And then how are you respecting them? Because maybe you only need to change that and your relationship with time will be great. You'll never work extra hours, you'll be free at weekends, you'll do great. And so you won't have this feeling of lack of time. I hope this episode has been useful for you. Please let me know. Send me a social media comment. Tell me what has been useful for you. I absolutely love to hear from my listeners. And if you want more people to hear this, they might need to hear this exact message. It would be wonderful if you could leave a comment, a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify if you haven't done before. Thank you so much for tuning in and wishing you a great day.
[12:29] Thank you so much for tuning in today to the Focus Bee Show. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback. So let me know in an Apple review or YouTube comment what was most valuable for you and feel free to share this episode with a friend or a family member. Wishing you a wonderful, magical and focused day ahead.