Work + Life Harmony | Time Management, Organization and Planning for Overwhelmed Women
New Year, New Systems
Jan 02, 2024Episode 223
Megan Sumrell: Time Management and Productivity Coach
What if the path to success isn't paved with goal-setting and resolution-making but in creating effective systems? Shake the dust off your typical New Year mindset and join me in the first episode of 2024 where I'm delving deep into the world of systems. Inspired by insights from James Clear's Atomic Habits, I'll reveal how the key to achieving your desires lies in the habitual tasks and activities you perform regularly, not just in the goals you set.
Ditch the New Year resolutions and tune in as I reveal how success is often hampered not by the person or their ambitions, but by the systems they have in place. Get ready for a fresh perspective on the new year.
This episode covers:
Focus on systems, not just goals to create the life you want
Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you? You are in the right place! Sign up for this free, on-demand training and learn how to gain control of your time no matter what life throws at you! >>> https://www.megansumrell.com/freetraining ________________________________
What if the path to success isn't paved with goal-setting and resolution-making but in creating effective systems? Shake the dust off your typical New Year mindset and join me in the first episode of 2024 where I'm delving deep into the world of systems. Inspired by insights from James Clear's Atomic Habits, I'll reveal how the key to achieving your desires lies in the habitual tasks and activities you perform regularly, not just in the goals you set.
Ditch the New Year resolutions and tune in as I reveal how success is often hampered not by the person or their ambitions, but by the systems they have in place. Get ready for a fresh perspective on the new year.
This episode covers:
Focus on systems, not just goals to create the life you want
Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you? You are in the right place! Sign up for this free, on-demand training and learn how to gain control of your time no matter what life throws at you! >>> https://www.megansumrell.com/freetraining ________________________________
Hey friends, here we are kicking off a brand new year together on the Work Life Harmony podcast. I am excited to start and launch a whole new year with you all together here. I am committed to showing up every single week in your earbuds or wherever you listen to your podcasts, and I'm not going to do what you all are probably expecting me to do here to kick off the new year. I'm not going to be talking about goal setting, All right. Instead, today on the podcast, I am going to be talking about what the key to success is in actually achieving any of the goals that you have for this year. So let's go ahead, jump in and get started.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Work Life Harmony podcast. I'm your host, Megan Somerle. I'm the creator of the top program and top planner, teaching all things time management, organization and productivity for women. I'm also a mom and wife and, just like you, I'm juggling hashtag all the things while running multiple businesses and a family. Guess what? You don't have to feel constantly overwhelmed, exhausted and stressed out. There is another way. When you have the right systems and tools to plan and manage your time, you can live a life of harmony. This is your show to learn from me and other amazing women how to master your time planning an organization to skyrocket your productivity, so you can have work life harmony. If you're ready to stop feeling overwhelmed, this is the show for you, and if you're new here, I'd love to get you started with my work life harmony assessment. All you have to do is DM me on Instagram, at Megan Somerle, with the word harmony and my team will send it right over. Hey there, welcome back to Work Life Harmony.
Speaker 1:
This is the first episode coming out in 2024, the new year, and if you are scrolling through your favorite podcasts, you are probably seeing that there are a ton of podcasts all around there. You know New Year goal setting, New Year, New you. Well, I am not going to do that today. Instead of talking about you know the importance of setting goals or creating your intentions or, my least favorite, New Year's resolutions. I don't believe in those. Instead, today, I want to talk about how, in a new year, this is a great opportunity to review your systems, but you didn't see that coming. So what do I mean when I'm talking about systems? Well, I am referring to the things that you do, whether it's a specific task, a series of tasks, on a regular basis that support the things that you desire in your life. Now there are some fantastic quotes from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear that I want to share with you, and then we're going to dive into some examples of what exactly I mean.
Speaker 1:
Now, in his book, James says if you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you, the problem is your system. How powerful is that? And that's why I thought it was really a great timing to bring this up at a new year, Because a lot of people, typically myself included, will think about things I want to do this year, things I want to change, things I want to do differently, things I want to improve on, maybe things I want to stop doing. And if I find myself having problems staying consistent without making progress, it's a great reminder that oftentimes the problem isn't you, it's that you don't have the right systems in place to support that. Now he also says in his book you do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. I'm going to repeat that you do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. When I work with women inside of the top program or even inside, especially inside the Planet Palooza community. In there we really work towards. If you have a long-term goal, a project, something you're working on, the key to success isn't the fact that you wrote the goal down. The key to success isn't the fact that you've created a plan to get yourself there. The key to success is what systems have you put in place that support all the activities that you need to do to get there. So many people are really good at setting goals and breaking them down and maybe even getting a plan in place, but if you don't have the foundational systems, chances are again you're going to fall to the level of your systems.
Speaker 1:
Let's talk about some examples here. I've used this one before, but I think it's a perfect way to think about it. Let's say you are starting off the new year with maybe wanting to declutter something, so let's talk about, maybe a closet. That's a perfect example. Maybe you've opened your closet door and you're like I cannot take it anymore. It is cluttered, things are out of control. You can go do some research and find a ton of great advice out there on the Internet of what you can do to go in and get your closet under control. So a lot of people will recommend take everything out of your closet and then quote, edit it, meaning, as you're taking stuff out before it goes back in, ask yourself is this something I really want? Then you're placing it back in your closet, nicely organized. Maybe you choose to put your clothes up by season, Maybe you choose to group them together by color. Whatever works for you. There's lots of right ways to do that. So now you open your closet door and you have this beautiful looking closet. But if you don't have an underlying system of what you are doing every day, when you go in there to take clothes out, or when you do laundry and put stuff back in, guess what's going to happen? Several months down the road, you're going to open that closet door and it's probably going to be an absolute clutter disaster again because you haven't established the underlying systems of how to keep your closet the way you want it to look.
Speaker 1:
Now let's talk about another example. A lot of people will start the new year saying okay, I'm going to start drinking X amount of glasses of water a day. Right, I see this one a lot. So you're wanting to get into a new habit of consuming more water for health reasons. But again, if all you do is say, okay, I'm going to drink what? Eight glasses of water a day, or X amount of ounces of water a day, and maybe you've even got a little chart to check it off, you might do really well the first couple of days. But if you don't have a system in place that supports the goal of the amount of water that you're drinking, it's probably going to fall off after a couple of days.
Speaker 1:
Now you might be thinking what would a system look like for drinking water? That's very different than keeping a closet organized. Well, sometimes systems can be all related to what's referred to as habit stacking. This is again another great technique that James covers in his book Atomic Habits, where a system for drinking water might be every time I do X, something that you're already doing in your life, every day, I will drink X amount of ounces of water. So maybe you say every time I eat a meal or a snack, I'm going to drink 10 ounces of water. So you are creating a system that is supporting your goal. And so when we learn how to create underlying systems that set us up to achieve whatever goal new routine, new habit, et cetera. That is what is going to dramatically increase the likelihood of you making those things a reality. So, what types of systems other?
Speaker 1:
You know I gave some examples here with the closet, but now I want to talk about what systems are needed to help you turn your plan into a reality. Because at the start of the new year and again we even did this in plan a Palooza I've got a great plan for what I want to see happen in 2024, specific things, specific dates by which I want to see those done, et cetera. But those are not going to happen if I don't have systems around weekly planning, quarterly planning and monthly planning, Because all of those work together to actually start to create the systems to make that plan a reality. Because if you just have all right, here's everything I wanna achieve this year, in 2024, when we're actually talking about this, and you know these are the milestones by which I wanna see that but you don't have systems in place every week and every month that actually support you putting the specific activities into your plan for the week or for the month on specific dates and specific times. Chances are, you know, 90 days are gonna go by, you're gonna be rolling into Q2 and you're gonna go. Oh man, I'm already feeling way behind Now if you are brand new to planning and you're like I don't know what a system looks like for weekly planning or for monthly planning, but I really encourage you to take some time here at the new year and dig in and learn about my signature program, the Top Program.
Speaker 1:
Top stands for Time Management, Organization and Productivity, and inside of this program is where you learn how to master weekly and monthly planning. So I invite you to head on over to wwwthetopprogramcom and in there I've got a video that you can check out, and then I also tell you everything about the Top Program as well, so that you can start to see how these systems will 100% help you achieve your goals for the year. Because remember and I quote from James again you do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. So let's put some systems in place here in 2024 and make this year one that you are really proud of. Getting on top of all things. Time Management, Organization and Productivity doesn't have to stop just because this episode is over.
Speaker 1:
If you want one tap access to all of my training and current top podcasts. Go to the App Store or Google Play and download the PinkBee app. It's one word, the PinkBee. It is just one word. It's just one word. It's just one word. It's one word the PinkBee. It is jam-packed with simple yet powerful tips and strategies to get you out of overwhelm and into harmony. And if you have a question you want me to cover on a future episode, go to iTunes and ask your question in the Podcast Review section. And while you're there, don't forget to leave a five-star review. We'll see you soon.