#10. Do I Really Have the Time for This? Here's How to Find Out
Episode Shownotes:
As back to school schedules start filling up, this seems like a perfect time to talk about how to decide what to say yes to. We're diving into three questions to ask yourself before committing to any activity. If you've ever found yourself in a situation where you have too much on your calendar than you can handle, then be sure to give this episode a listen.
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Episode Transcript*:
This is Your Speech Path: Mindful Time Management for the Busy SLP. My name is Theresa Harp, and as a mom and speech pathologist turned productivity coach, I know a thing or two about how hectic life can be. If you're an SLP who's overworked, burnt out and feeling like you're constantly falling short as a therapist and a mom, then this is the podcast for you. I cover time management and mindset strategies so you can learn to love your work and your home life at the same time. Let's dive in.
Hey podcast listeners, how is it going? Welcome back to another episode of the “Your Speech Path” podcast. I'm excited for today's episode. It's something that I've been thinking about a lot more recently because, as I'm recording this, we're sort of on the eve of school starting…not literally, but it is coming very soon. We're going to be adjusting from summer schedules back into the fall craziness, if I'm being honest, at times it does feel very crazy. I'm sort of anticipating that, and not just anticipating the craziness, but anticipating this shift in schedule that's going to happen. It has me thinking about what activities we choose to spend our time on, both for ourselves and for our family and in our business, and how we make those decisions, how we arrive at those decisions, of the things that we decide to do, the things that we decide to spend our time on. This episode is going to share with you two or three questions that I ask myself as I'm deciding what types of activities we're going to be doing. Basically, the bulk of what I'm going to be focusing on is pertinent to extracurricular type activities the things that you choose to do that you don't really have to do, per say, but that you opt in for in terms of family activities. But a lot of this content will still apply to anything that you're choosing to spend your time on, whether it's in your private practice, in your business, whatever. I just thought I would share these kind of questions that I use. Not that I have this all figured out by any means, but I have gotten more selective in choosing what we're spending our time on over the years. That does not necessarily mean that we don't do as much. It just means that we are more thoughtful and intentional about the things that we do. I wanted to share the questions that I ask myself and then talk with you about them, walk you through what that looks like for me and what that might look like for you so that you can hopefully walk away from today's episode with a little bit more self-awareness about how you spend your time and maybe a fresh perspective about some ways that you can take ownership over the things that you fill your calendar with. So that's my plan for today and my goal is to get you in and out of this episode within 25 minutes. I'm putting that out there to the universe. I'm going to be very mindful of your time as you're listening to today's episode, so let's just jump right in.
So this has come up for me, like I said a lot more recently, because I'm looking ahead to the fall schedule and we had to make decisions about the things that the kids want to do, and if you have young children, you probably are well aware that schedules can fill up very quickly, and I think you might agree this is just my opinion, but you might agree with me when I share my opinion and that is that most of us families and children are over-scheduled. We just have too much stuff going on, and that is a whole other topic in and of itself. That's not what I'm gonna get into in today's episode, but that is sort of the premise of why this was coming up for me. So we had to sort of decide what activities do the kids want to do? And so the two to three it's like two to three questions that I ask myself. I'm gonna share each question with you first and then walk you through them. So the three questions are I'm just gonna call them three. So the three questions are why do I want to do this when I'm deciding right, so when I have an activity that's available as an option? These are the questions I ask. Number one: why do I want to do this? Number two: if it's an activity for my kids, why do my kids want to do this? And those are not always the same answers why I want them to do it versus why they want to do it. And then the third question is: what will this require of me and my family in order to commit to this? So those are the three questions: why do I want to do this, or why do I want my kids to do this, why do my kids want to do this, and what will this require of us? And those are the three things that I really have to get honest with myself about before I make the decision of whether or not it's something that we're gonna do, okay. So the first question why do I want to do this? If it's an activity that's purely for me, then that is just the simple question why do I want to do it? And I list all the reasons. Why do I want to do this for myself? But really, in today's episode, I'm speaking more to the parents those of you who are listening, who are making decisions about what your kids are gonna be doing, and so I ask myself why do I want my kids to do this? Right? And I'll give you the example of this season this fall, the girls are gonna be playing field hockey, which is a sport that I played growing up, but not a sport that they have played yet. My girls are, I have twins that are in second grade and I have a kindergartner, okay, and my also, for those of you who are just treating in for the first time, my husband is deployed as I'm recording this episode, as we're making these decisions, it's just me. My husband's not here available to take them to anything. So this is why I've had to get very honest with myself about these types of questions, about my answers to these questions, because really it's me taking them to these activities and I would venture a bet. I could be wrong, but I'm gonna venture to say that most of you who are listening to this podcast, even if you don't have husbands who are deployed right now, you're probably still the person who's taking the kids to the activities. I hope that's not true for your sake, but the reality, at least for most of the clients I work with. For most of my friends, it usually is the moms that are doing this. So, yeah, there's that. But anyway, I think that it's really important that you understand and you're really clear on why you want your kids to do a certain activity. Before you sign them up for it and this is not just the Well, I want to do it because they want to do it Right you have to really think like what are the ways that this will help them grow? This will help them, you know, have fun. This will give them whatever right. You have to really ask yourself the why and the reason why. Not to get super meta, but the reason why I think you should ask this question is because there are going to be moments when you're going to question after you've already signed up for this activity, where you're going to question it and you're gonna be like, oh my gosh, we got to go here again. Oh, I have to do this, that and the other for this activity, and you're probably gonna feel a little bit of stress or anxiety or anger or resentment, or annoyance or frustration or exhaustion or whatever right. And so it's important for you to have a really clear why and to remind yourself of that, why when you are feeling those feelings, when you're in those moments where you're feeling a little bit overwhelmed. So for me, for field hockey, I went back and forth on this a lot of whether or not to sign them up for this, and dragged my feet and missed the early bird deadline or whatever it was, so wound up just spending more money and causing myself more anxiety over this when I should have just decided from the beginning. But you know, sometimes you have to learn your lesson the hard way. Many times, and this is one of those signs for me, because by the time the early deadline had come, I still…actually, I had decided, at that point, I decided I would enroll them. However, I got the dates mixed up and thought that I had one more day to sign them up and still sign them up at the lower rate, but I had read the information wrong and wound up having to pay more. So that is the lesson that I learned, and I've learned that lesson before but apparently needed to keep learning it again. Right, that's what happens in life. The universe just kind of keeps giving you those lessons until you learn them. So I had to really ask myself: okay, what are my reasons for wanting the kids to do this activity? So for me it was okay, well, I want them to have a great outlet to spend their energy. My kids have a lot of energy. I wanted them to have something structured and productive. I wanted them to meet new people. I wanted them to be with their friends. I wanted them to challenge themselves and learn something different, kind of push themselves out of their comfort zone a little bit. Because I…they've never played before and I know that they will be a bit nervous, right, as most many kids would. I wanted them to learn team sports and just have those experiences and lessons that come along with it. Right, they're little, they're young, I'm not, they're not gonna go play professional sports, I get that. But these were my reasons for wanting them to do it. Also, I loved field hockey. I just loved it and I wanted to kind of introduce that to them. They may love it, they may hate it, they may not really know, but I wanted to at least offer them that, that chance to decide, to experience it and decide for themselves. Okay, I Also got pretty clear and this is not one of the questions I shared at the beginning. This is not one of the three questions, but it might be worth mentioning. I also got really clear on the reasons why I didn't want to do it. Right, because there were some serious reasons why did not want to sign them up the time. You know the commitment, the extra just it was really the extra commitment and all that brings with it, right? So there were reasons why I didn't want them to do it and I had to kind of acknowledge that and get really clear about that. So ask yourself why you want your kids to do it and maybe even ask yourself why you don't want them to do it. And this is…can wind up being like a simple pros and cons list. Okay, might be what it turns out turns into, that's fine, but the next question that I mentioned is asking your kids why they want to do it. So, for those of you who are listening, if you have kids who are at that age where they're in activities, you may have kids like me, like mine, who want to do everything and they want to sign up for this and this and this, and they just don't recognize yet the amount of time that comes with that, the responsibilities, like all of that, right? Plus, they're not the ones that are shuttling themselves to 10 million activities, right? So I want them to get very clear on their reasons why. Why do they want to do something? Because they'll tell me they want to do a million things. I want to do ballet. I hate ballet. I want to do dance, I want to do gymnastics, I want to do piano, I want to do the art club and I'm like, okay, well, what are your reasons? Why? Tell me why you want to do those things? Like, what about it makes you interested? Because I want them to be able to start kind of self assessing the reasons why they're doing things, the reasons why they want to do things. Because it's really important to me for them to start learning, at a very simple level, that they don't have infinite time and they don't have infinite energy and we don't have infinite money. So we really need to have clear reasons for why we want to do something. Because we can't do it all, right? And so I do make them decide what is the thing that they want to do and what are the reasons for wanting to do it, and checking back in and reminding them that just because you did something last year might not mean that that's what you want to do this year. Maybe you want to try something different, maybe you want to not do an activity and have free time instead, right. But I also want to be really clear about what their reasons are, because sometimes the reasons are reasons that don't really justify the activity and it's like, oh well, I just want to be with this person, like this friend who also does that activity, but I don't really love the activity. That might be something that they would say and I'm like, okay, well, let's find another way that you could be with this person, you could spend time with your friend, but not commit to being at this activity twice a week, every week, right, and I know that for me, for my kids, this is the first time they're trying something new, for field hockey in particular, and they might have some resistance when it comes to actually going and playing, because it's going to cut into whatever they're already doing. It's new and unfamiliar for them. They'll probably be nervous. I just know them and I know it could be a little bit, I don't know, challenging for them to want to do it in the moment. And I want to be able to remind them of their reasons when they weren't feeling that anxiety and that stress. Right, so they can remind themselves oh yeah, you had said you thought that this would be really fun, you said you wanted to try something new, you said you wanted to learn about this sport, and so just to sort of remind them of their reasons why and help them to feel that purpose, that intention for the activities that they're doing. Right, because I don't know about you, but for me I've had…my kids are like oh yeah, we want to do gymnastics, we love gymnastics, we love it. And then, when it comes time to starting it, they're like, oh, but I'm in the new group this season or this year and I don't really know. I'm a little bit nervous. I don't know who this coach is, I don't know who's going to be on the team with me, and they start to feel those just normal jitters, and that's totally normal, and I want them to be able to experience that work through it and remind them that this is why you wanted to do it. Right, we try it, we see how it is and then we decide if we want to keep going or, when it's over, if we want to just be done. So getting clear on their reasons for why they want to do something is also really important to me.
Okay, then the third question that I offered was what will this activity require of me in of us in order to make this happen? This is probably one of the questions that I see most people either completely disregard or answer dishonestly. I don't think it's intentionally dishonest. I'll just figure it out. It's all going to work out, I'll find a way. Then you don't actually think about the commitment that is involved beyond the activity itself. With Field Hockey, it is an hour and a half, two days a week during the weekdays, two weekdays, and then there's Saturday and Sunday for different kids. But yes, that is pretty much the way the schedule is shaping up. That, for me, is a big commitment. That is a lot of time that falls on me to be able to shuttle them there to be able to make sure that homework is done beforehand, that they're being fed beforehand, that all the equipment and necessary gear and materials are prepared ahead of time, that the laundry that they need is clean. If there's volunteer requirements or dues and fees and whatever, I'm clear on what those are, that I'm aware of how much time it's going to take us to get there and get back and what time do we need to leave. And what's going to happen for the other kids when I'm taking these two to Field Hockey? What's that going to mean for everyone else? I've got my youngest, who's three. If I'm taking all four kids to field hockey from 5:30 to 7:00 twice a week, I'm not going to be a very happy mom. It's just not going to be fun, because that means that we're leaving our house at 5:00 and we're getting home at 7:30 at best. Then I have to get everyone settled and cleaned up and ready for bed. On my own. That could easily look like it's 8:30 by the time everyone is maybe getting into bed. At that point, I'm just wrecked, exhausted. I'm like, all right, well then, we're going to have to get a sitter. I'm going to have to get a sitter on these two days, if I can, or figure out. How is that going to work? Is there carpool available? Whatever? Thinking about all of the resources that I'm going to need to tap into, whether they're internal resources, like managing my own time and my whatever, or it's external resources, like who can I get to help with this? Those are really really important questions to get very clear on. I would encourage you to sort of, if you are somebody who tends to over commit, I would encourage you to be brutally honest when you answer this question and maybe even think like worst case scenario, absolute worst case scenario. Maybe it's a 20 minute ride to get to practice. Bump that up to 30 minutes after adding traffic. That's what I'm talking about when I say worst case scenario. Go as aggressive as possible when you're writing down all of the things, or when you're considering all of the things that it's going to require in order for you to make this activity happen. That way, you can see on paper I do encourage you to write it. You can see right there what is this going to take. Then, when you have your answers to all three of those questions, then you decide is it something we want to do For me, as we did decide to move forward with field hockey. God help me. It's like all right now, when we're in it. We're in it this season. I'm going to remind myself these were my reasons why I wanted them to do it. These were their reasons of why they wanted to do it. These are the requirements that it's going to take in order for us to make this a reality. I'm going in with an open I would say clear eyes. I don't know, open eyes, but really like a clear understanding, as best I can, of what we're getting ourselves into. The other thing that helps me when I start to feel overwhelmed or just a little bit anxious about the commitment because I do get anxious about extra things on my schedule is I remind myself of the temporary component to this, like the impermanence. This is not permanent. This is a season. It is literally a season. It is a point in time. It will not be always. I'm always in control. I get to make different decisions if we need to make different decisions, but if you're somebody who finds yourself with things on your schedule and you start to feel anxiety about that, that's something that has helped me and maybe it is something that will help you, right, but remind yourselves and I think these questions, like asking yourselves these questions, answering them is a reminder that you are in control over what gets put on your calendar. Right, we are in control over the things we sign up for. No one else is signing your kid up for gymnastics or field hockey. It is you, right, and that's okay. That's actually really empowering, because then you get to decide is this working for me, is this working for our family? Right? And if it's not, then you get to make a different decision. So if you find yourself, or the next time you find yourself, in a position where you're trying to decide is this something that we're gonna be doing? What are we going to be signing up for? Blah, blah, blah those are the three questions I want you to ask yourself. Why do I want this activity? For my kids or for me? Why do my kids want this activity, and what will it require from us in order to make it a reality? Okay, all right, curious to hear what you think about these questions or if you have other ways that you decide what you're going to be adding to your schedule, as you are easing your way back in, or maybe stumbling your way back in to the swing of things with the back to school schedule. So feel free to send me a DM. Let me know which of these questions resonated with you, or what questions you ask yourself, or what ways you figure out what you and your kids are gonna be doing. Or, better yet, join the Facebook group. I'll link to it in the show notes. Join us and let us know. What are you spending your time on this fall? What's on the schedule? I wanna hear. I wanna hear what are your reasons for doing it. Okay, all right, I hope this was helpful and I will talk to you all next week.
*Please note that this transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors.