Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: episode will be a longer one part of the series
Speaker 1: where I interview fascinating people about how they take their
Speaker 1: days from great to awesome and any advice they have
Speaker 1: for the rest of us. So today I am excited
Speaker 1: to be interviewing Kelly Nolan. Kelly is a time management
Speaker 1: expert and the host of the Bright Method podcast. So, Kelly,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. It's a joy
Speaker 2: to be here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, excited to have you. So tell our listeners a
Speaker 1: little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2: Sure thing, My name's Kelly Nolan. I was a patent
Speaker 2: litigator for years and had been decently organized up until
Speaker 2: that point of my life, and quickly got overwhelmed when
Speaker 2: I became an attorney and I looked for help, didn't
Speaker 2: really find anything. That's stuck at the time, and slowly
Speaker 2: pieced together my own weird little time management system and
Speaker 2: kept practicing law. I thought I was kind of creating
Speaker 2: a system to get me where everybody else was, and
Speaker 2: it wasn't here till years later that I realized other
Speaker 2: people felt the way I felt, And so that's the
Speaker 2: time management system I teach now, the Bright Method. In addition,
Speaker 2: I'm married to any our physician, so I get very
Speaker 2: wacky ever changing schedules. We have two little girls, a
Speaker 2: seven year old and a three and a half year old,
Speaker 2: and our original baby, our black lab Alice.
Speaker 1: That sounds wonderful, so a full house as well.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: It's interesting when you say you know you were feeling overwhelmed,
Speaker 1: What was it that made you overwhelmed? I mean, is
Speaker 1: it the volume of incoming stuff, the requests like weird hours?
Speaker 1: I mean, what was it that? Yeah, when people say
Speaker 1: they're overwhelmed, what do they tend to mean? I think
Speaker 1: it was the.
Speaker 2: First time in my life I just felt like the
Speaker 2: input kind of outstepped what my systems could keep track of.
Speaker 2: I love paper planners. I'd loved them all the way
Speaker 2: through law school. I had worked before becoming a lawyer,
Speaker 2: but usually in a little bit more maybe manageable settings
Speaker 2: where people were kind of like looking out for your
Speaker 2: work and helping you manage that. And when you become
Speaker 2: an attorney, especially in big law, like I worked for
Speaker 2: multiple different partners, so no one really had eyes on
Speaker 2: everything I was doing. It was up to me to
Speaker 2: manage my workload. But I didn't also really realize that.
Speaker 2: It sounds silly, but you're just you're like assuming that
Speaker 2: what the work coming at you is reasonable, or else
Speaker 2: they wouldn't ask you to do it. And so there
Speaker 2: was that the volume of email went up exponentially based
Speaker 2: on anything I dealt with. And I'm managing multiple matters
Speaker 2: that have no relation to each other, so you know,
Speaker 2: deadlines are set without worrying about what's going on in
Speaker 2: my other matters. And it's just a sheer amount of
Speaker 2: volume of managing clients and you know, documents and information
Speaker 2: and all this kind of stuff. And then the expectation
Speaker 2: that you know you're really supposed to be on. You know,
Speaker 2: as a junior associate in big law firm, your job
Speaker 2: is make everybody else's life easier. And so there was
Speaker 2: just a lot of demand. And I will say that
Speaker 2: when I say overwhelmed, I looked like I had it together.
Speaker 2: I hit deadlines. You know, it wasn't like I was
Speaker 2: a mess, but inside it's how I felt. I just
Speaker 2: felt stretched, way too thin, anxious I was going to
Speaker 2: drop a ball. I'd be like out with friends and
Speaker 2: not able to focus on their stories because I'd be
Speaker 2: worrying about work and I just was like, this cannot be.
Speaker 2: I reject that this is what adult life feels like.
Speaker 1: Well, what do most people get wrong? Like when they
Speaker 1: have a high volume of work? What are they doing
Speaker 1: wrong as they're managing it?
Speaker 2: You know that took me a while. I mean for
Speaker 2: a long time, I really blamed myself. I'd had these
Speaker 2: systems that got me far, and I was kind of like, well,
Speaker 2: these systems work, so it must be me, and I
Speaker 2: think what I So for a long time I beat
Speaker 2: up myself. I was like a character flaw in my head,
Speaker 2: where in reality it was just a system failure that
Speaker 2: couldn't keep up anymore. And I think that the biggest
Speaker 2: thing we get wrong on time management is assuming we
Speaker 2: should know how to do it naturally, and so when
Speaker 2: we struggle, we blame ourselves and in reality we just
Speaker 2: need to change some things up. In terms of what
Speaker 2: to change up, I just think that the amount that
Speaker 2: we juggle in our heads is amazing but also weighs
Speaker 2: down our brain from the stuff that we should be
Speaker 2: doing with it. And so a starting point that I
Speaker 2: like to work on with clients. That I had to
Speaker 2: do myself is just get it all out of your
Speaker 2: head and into a tool that helps you manage time,
Speaker 2: because all of these things come back to time, and
Speaker 2: for me, that's I really lean on a digital calendar now,
Speaker 2: despite being a paper lover. I just think that it
Speaker 2: really helps with that organization in an efficient way, and
Speaker 2: it's really getting everything out of your head into the calendar,
Speaker 2: so you know down to yes, the tasks that we
Speaker 2: do at work, but also when do you shower and
Speaker 2: get ready? When do you cook meals? When if you
Speaker 2: have little kids, do you do bed and bath time
Speaker 2: with kids? If you have older kids, when do you
Speaker 2: do homework? What are all the activities when you drive?
Speaker 2: Between all the activities? Like lay it all out, because
Speaker 2: I think that that gives you a better sense of
Speaker 2: what your actual capacity is to take on anything else.
Speaker 2: And I think that's the tricky part is when I
Speaker 2: was drowning at work, I knew I was drowning. I
Speaker 2: knew that I was overwhelmed, but I didn't know if
Speaker 2: it was reasonable for me to feel that way given
Speaker 2: my workload. And it wasn't until I made everything in
Speaker 2: my life and everything in work visual that I had
Speaker 2: a more objective understanding of what my workload was in
Speaker 2: relation to my capacity, which helped me manage my workload
Speaker 2: and also helped me feel far more confident in drawing
Speaker 2: workload boundaries at work and dealing with the pushback and
Speaker 2: managing that.
Speaker 1: Well, what is it about a digital calendar that makes
Speaker 1: that more effective? I mean, I can tell you I
Speaker 1: use a paper calendar, and I know I'm a bit
Speaker 1: of a dinosaur that way. I mean, people send me
Speaker 1: invites like calendar invites. I'm like, they go somewhere.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just but you know, I tend to manage my
Speaker 1: life on paper and that has worked for me. But honestly,
Speaker 1: I know if I were in a big corporation that
Speaker 1: would just be a no go. But what is it
Speaker 1: about the digital part, as opposed to it being a
Speaker 1: necessary evil being in an organization that you think helps
Speaker 1: make it easier to organize yourself?
Speaker 2: Well, first things first, I never my position is not
Speaker 2: everybody should be using my method. So paper is working
Speaker 2: for you know, obviously you and anyone listening stick with it.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not saying no, you should use mine
Speaker 2: if you have struggled with it, and you were like
Speaker 2: me who had used paper and it just couldn't keep up.
Speaker 2: To your point, I mean, half of my work was
Speaker 2: on already in an outlook calendar being scheduled for me
Speaker 2: and moved around, and it just became inefficient to also
Speaker 2: write it on paper and keep up with it. There.
Speaker 2: There are a couple of reasons. One, the communication factor
Speaker 2: is awesome. So you know, obviously in a work environment,
Speaker 2: digital allows you to send calendar invites, share calendars, all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, and you can do that at
Speaker 2: home as well. So I particularly work with women, and
Speaker 2: that helps a lot with sharing the mental load is
Speaker 2: having these calendars that partners also see, so you're not
Speaker 2: like the house I think a lot of women tend
Speaker 2: to still be very generally speaking in heterosexual couples, tend
Speaker 2: to be the quarterbacks of the calendar and the house management.
Speaker 2: But they're also not the secretaries and the keeper, like
Speaker 2: the only person who has the information when you'd use digital,
Speaker 2: you know, going to the calendaring, like the invisible to
Speaker 2: do list stuff. I was talking about something that you can,
Speaker 2: you know, schedule repetitively every workday or every Monday Wednesday,
Speaker 2: Thursday or all that kind of stuff, and then drag
Speaker 2: them around and move them around as you need. I'm
Speaker 2: a very firm proponent of flexible time blocking and moving
Speaker 2: things around. But I just find that if you were
Speaker 2: going to write out, let's say, shower and get ready
Speaker 2: every day when you're gonna do it, that would get
Speaker 2: really tedious at a calendar, in a paper calendar, and
Speaker 2: I would not judge you for being like, this is
Speaker 2: a waste of my time. But you can do that
Speaker 2: easily in a digital one and then move it around
Speaker 2: other things like backups is one thing. I've had a
Speaker 2: client who lost a paper planner and that stinks, you know,
Speaker 2: And there are just some other reasons like that, But
Speaker 2: on the whole, it's just that, like, for me, that
Speaker 2: efficiency of calendaring everything and being able to move it
Speaker 2: around quickly into new plans is really where a digital
Speaker 2: calendar really shines.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's getting at this idea that all tasks
Speaker 1: take time, and so you have to give them a time.
Speaker 1: And if there isn't a time within your twenty four
Speaker 1: hour day and one hundred and sixty eight hour week,
Speaker 1: well we have a problem.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna take a quick ad break, and then
Speaker 1: I will be back with more from Kelly Nolan. Well,
Speaker 1: I am back talking with Kelly Nolan, who is a
Speaker 1: time management expert. She's the founder of the Bright Method,
Speaker 1: which we are now going to talk about. We've been
Speaker 1: learning about, you know, calendaring all our stuff, and I
Speaker 1: know that that is a important first step in this,
Speaker 1: but why don't you talk about what the Bright method
Speaker 1: is so people have a sense of what you're talking
Speaker 1: about here?
Speaker 2: Sure thing? So I think that a tricky part with
Speaker 2: time management that I know you know, Laura, is I
Speaker 2: think a lot of these concepts are talked about as
Speaker 2: if they're relatively easy, and then you go to implement
Speaker 2: it can be kind of challenging. And so really what
Speaker 2: the Bright Method is is walking people through how to
Speaker 2: use a lot of these tools at our disposal. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm a tennis player. I wouldn't give you a top
Speaker 2: of the line tennis racket and be like now you're set,
Speaker 2: Like you have to learn the strategy and like how
Speaker 2: you will employ it to have success. And so basically
Speaker 2: what we do is we leverage digital calendars, whether it's Outlook, Google, Apple,
Speaker 2: some combination of them, and then walk through kind of
Speaker 2: four pillars. The first pillar is getting clear on that
Speaker 2: invisible to do list. I already talked about calendaring that
Speaker 2: out and also setting up the calendar to be able
Speaker 2: to do that. That can be its own headache and
Speaker 2: my least favorite part of it, but it is what
Speaker 2: it is. So we tackle it at the outset and
Speaker 2: then really get clear on those invisible to dos and
Speaker 2: make sure your baseline works, and also issue spot challenges
Speaker 2: and adapt those so you might You know, it could
Speaker 2: be something as simple as, oh, I'm trying to squeeze
Speaker 2: an hour and a half of stuff into an hour
Speaker 2: every morning, and that's why every morning feels the way
Speaker 2: it does. And if I showered the night before four
Speaker 2: times a week, that would be great, and then it
Speaker 2: just kind of frees up space. The next step is
Speaker 2: doing somewhat the same in the work environment, so figuring
Speaker 2: out email, when you hold meetings, the repetitive work things
Speaker 2: you do, like if you know, set up for board
Speaker 2: meetings or you know, do financial reviews at times, like
Speaker 2: building out those repetitive work tasks, and then again that
Speaker 2: then shows you the white space of what actual time
Speaker 2: you have to give to the more one off stuff,
Speaker 2: assuming you have white space. I know a lot of
Speaker 2: people in corporate America are like, it's like a whole
Speaker 2: day of meetings. I don't have any white space. But
Speaker 2: then we can work on blocking availability to give you
Speaker 2: that white space in there. That then in the third
Speaker 2: pillar we turn to the one off to dos and
Speaker 2: start filling in that white space with the plans of
Speaker 2: what you're going to do. And I'll just note here
Speaker 2: that when people talk time blocking, this is often where
Speaker 2: people start. They take their to do list and very
Speaker 2: understandably start time blocking. But if you have an accountant
Speaker 2: for all the things that we talked about before, that
Speaker 2: can lead to a lot of frustration because you calendar
Speaker 2: eight hours of beautiful things to do, but you never
Speaker 2: had eight hours to begin with to do it. And
Speaker 2: so that helps with that element of it. And then
Speaker 2: the final component is planning. I teach a couple different
Speaker 2: planning sessions. The main one is a weekly planning session,
Speaker 2: where essentially you take all the inputs that have flown
Speaker 2: at you over the course of a week, calendar them out,
Speaker 2: and then review the next two weeks. And it's also
Speaker 2: in that first step you know time to check in
Speaker 2: on all your major projects, look ahead at major deadlines,
Speaker 2: make sure you've act everything out so you have game
Speaker 2: plans laid out in your calendar to hit those, and
Speaker 2: then really I like smoothing out the next two weeks
Speaker 2: at a time, just so that you know you're looking
Speaker 2: ahead a little bit farther than just the next week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So let's talk about a couple of things with here.
Speaker 1: I mean, one is, we're trying to calendar everything, and
Speaker 1: as we all know, life changes and and you know,
Speaker 1: we had white space from two to four in the afternoon,
Speaker 1: and then the magic happens and there's no white space
Speaker 1: between two and four beca something you know, urgent came
Speaker 1: up that we have to deal with. So how do
Speaker 1: how often do we need to recalibrate? Like how far
Speaker 1: can we plan out with these things? I mean, what
Speaker 1: what do we do to make sure that we are
Speaker 1: giving tasks time but acknowledging that we cannot one hundred
Speaker 1: percent control what time will be available.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely, So one of the big things I would
Speaker 2: say is just like take a step, and this is
Speaker 2: not perfect. It's not going to like solve all the issues.
Speaker 2: You know, a sick kid home for or five days
Speaker 2: is going to derail the best of plans, but we
Speaker 2: do what we can. And in a lot of work environments,
Speaker 2: a lot of people spend their day dealing with the curveballs,
Speaker 2: the fires, the reactive stuff, and there are different ways
Speaker 2: we can get at that. I really like thinking about,
Speaker 2: especially for people managers, that might be where your value is.
Speaker 2: Your company wants you in that firefighting role versus the
Speaker 2: headstone work, and so we just need to acknowledge where
Speaker 2: our value is. First of all, we can work to
Speaker 2: eliminate some of the curve balls, but it's not realistic
Speaker 2: to eliminate all of them. So what I like doing
Speaker 2: is thinking about even though the curveballs are unpredictable in substance,
Speaker 2: they are predictable and that we know they're coming usually
Speaker 2: not Again, it's harder in the personal life, but in
Speaker 2: our work life. Most people will say I deal with
Speaker 2: thirty minutes of curveballs a day. I deal with five
Speaker 2: hours of curveballs a day. But there's some sort of
Speaker 2: awareness of how many curveballs hours of curveballs you might
Speaker 2: deal with, and so we just plot those into the calendar.
Speaker 2: And I know that sounds weird, but essentially what I
Speaker 2: like doing is making visual your curve balls three hours,
Speaker 2: five hours, two hours, half an hour, whatever it is,
Speaker 2: and kind of putting it towards the end of your day.
Speaker 2: And you can move them around as those blocks, as
Speaker 2: like meetings get booked or things like that. But it's
Speaker 2: a visual reminder to you that about that much time
Speaker 2: of curveballs is coming, and do not fill up the
Speaker 2: rest of the day or else this plan, you know,
Speaker 2: isn't going to work. And if you don't have it
Speaker 2: every day, some people more like you know, it's more
Speaker 2: like three to four hours a week, and so maybe
Speaker 2: block a Thursday afternoon and all this curveball is is
Speaker 2: obviously you're not only dealing with curve balls at the
Speaker 2: end of your day or on Thursday afternoons, but you're
Speaker 2: building in the cushion in the rest of your schedule
Speaker 2: for everything else to get pushed into as they go.
Speaker 2: So again, it's just in one of those things we're
Speaker 2: making visual that we usually are trying to juggle in
Speaker 2: our head that kind of trips us up when we're
Speaker 2: planning well.
Speaker 1: And of course the million dollar question there is how
Speaker 1: do I create open space for this this buffer. I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of people are very booked. As you said,
Speaker 1: you get everything out of your head, you may realize
Speaker 1: that you're dealing with many tasks that could occupy all
Speaker 1: eight or more hours of the day. So what should
Speaker 1: we do to set boundaries or to get more open
Speaker 1: space in our schedules.
Speaker 2: Well, one is just to start blocking it now and
Speaker 2: know that if you block it now and repeat it
Speaker 2: on a weekly basis over time, hopefully it shakes out.
Speaker 2: I will say it depends on the culture. I have
Speaker 2: had clients who've had to instead of blocking like a
Speaker 2: two hour block for focused heads down work, they'll block
Speaker 2: four half hour blocks, so they look like meetings and
Speaker 2: are a little bit more camouflaged and less people are
Speaker 2: apt to take it over. I wish that weren't the case,
Speaker 2: but you know, we work with reality here and so
Speaker 2: there's that I will. But you know, a lot of
Speaker 2: people I work with realize, whether it's meetings taking up
Speaker 2: your time or just sheer workload volume, that they have
Speaker 2: too much on their plate, and it's the first time.
Speaker 2: I mean that is the simple elegance of any calendar
Speaker 2: you use, paper or digital. If those boxes don't fit
Speaker 2: in a day, you're objectively trying to do too much
Speaker 2: and so making it all visual can flag that for you.
Speaker 2: When that happens, I like people starting to think about
Speaker 2: the conversation. I mean, if you can make the decisions
Speaker 2: you know, to latter like go for it. A lot
Speaker 2: of people have to have conversations with leadership around workload
Speaker 2: and really getting clear on you know, as I sit
Speaker 2: here today, this is what I view as like our
Speaker 2: departments or our companies or whatever's top priority, these are
Speaker 2: the three projects that will serve that I therefore recommend
Speaker 2: we you know, work on these. We table these for
Speaker 2: you know, next quarter, six months from now, whatever it is.
Speaker 2: This will free up you know, ten hours a day
Speaker 2: for me, for my team whatever to really ensure that
Speaker 2: we hit the you know, knock these projects out of
Speaker 2: the park and see what they say. You know, I've
Speaker 2: had I've been pleasantly surprised at how many clients go
Speaker 2: to their bosses and have those conversations and the bosses
Speaker 2: are like, I had no idea you were in this
Speaker 2: many meetings every day, or I didn't know you had
Speaker 2: twelve priorities set across four departments that are pulling on
Speaker 2: our department and help them prioritize I've also had clients
Speaker 2: and I've been in it myself where they're like, figure
Speaker 2: it out, and that answer, while very frustrating to hear,
Speaker 2: it does something to your brain. You stop, you know, selling,
Speaker 2: like putting work as your number one when you're like,
Speaker 2: these people are not going to work. Look out for me.
Speaker 2: I gotta start redefining what success looks like for me.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying you have to leave. I know in
Speaker 2: this work environment it's totally wacky, but there are It
Speaker 2: just does something to you in terms of what you
Speaker 2: are willing to do for a company that's not if
Speaker 2: you know that you cannot you literally cannot win by
Speaker 2: their rules. So you define your own rules of what
Speaker 2: winning looks like.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, well, we should always be defining our own rules
Speaker 1: of what wedding looks like. Big fan of that around here.
Speaker 1: All right, We're going to take one more quick ad
Speaker 1: break and then I will be back with more from
Speaker 1: Kelly Nolan. Well, I am back with Kelly Nolan, who
Speaker 1: is the time management expert and the founder of the
Speaker 1: Bright Method. So Kelly, let's pivot to you and your
Speaker 1: own personal productivity practices. I'm curious if you have any
Speaker 1: routines that help make you more productive.
Speaker 2: You know, I think about routines. A lot of mine
Speaker 2: are born out of the principle of just like embracing
Speaker 2: reality and the reality of my own brain myself. I
Speaker 2: think a lot of times we demand that we change
Speaker 2: and you know, get more discipline and all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff, and for me, that's never been very effective,
Speaker 2: and so it's more like, Okay, my brain is not
Speaker 2: going to remember all this stuff on my own. And
Speaker 2: that's where the bright method came out of. Another one is,
Speaker 2: you know, social media and phones are highly addictive, and
Speaker 2: they're designed to be by a lot of very smart people.
Speaker 2: And so instead of just demanding I have more discipline
Speaker 2: and failing at that every day and beating myself up,
Speaker 2: it's using also other apps that are designed to help.
Speaker 2: So I personally love opal Opa l it blocks me
Speaker 2: out of social media. I have it blocked me out
Speaker 2: of Instagram, Facebook, and I also Safari browser every day
Speaker 2: from four fifteen I think to five thirty when I
Speaker 2: want to be really focused on my kids, and eight
Speaker 2: pm to five am to protect my sleep. And so
Speaker 2: it's just you know, acknowledging I don't do this on
Speaker 2: my own, so let me help myself out doing it.
Speaker 2: And the last thing that came to mind is I
Speaker 2: was thinking about this was you know, in terms of
Speaker 2: just building these routines and figuring out what fits in
Speaker 2: your life, is just really acknowledging what phase of life
Speaker 2: you're in. You know, For me, working out has always
Speaker 2: been the first thing to go when life gets busy.
Speaker 2: I think part of it's because I hold myself to
Speaker 2: the standard of working out when I was in my
Speaker 2: twenties of you know, working out at five am and
Speaker 2: doing Class Pass in Boston, and so just switching up
Speaker 2: to like fifteen minute at home workouts, it's not, you know,
Speaker 2: the gold star that I wanted in my twenties, but
Speaker 2: there are a lot of fifteen minute workouts that can
Speaker 2: kick your tush in that time and it's really effective.
Speaker 2: And so a lot of my routines are just building
Speaker 2: around embracing reality and then getting creative about where I
Speaker 2: still want to go.
Speaker 1: Well, you mentioned that your blackout time on your device
Speaker 1: as it's eight to five am, which sounds like an
Speaker 1: early start. Do you do you have a morning routine
Speaker 1: that's that's part of your schedule.
Speaker 2: You know, I have always been and I always don't
Speaker 2: like this as someone works in time management, because it's
Speaker 2: so cliche, as like, I've always been such a morning person.
Speaker 2: I've also been a very early to bed person. I
Speaker 2: remember my mom in high school looking at me in
Speaker 2: bed at like eight or eight thirty. I was already asleep,
Speaker 2: and she's like, how are you going to go to college?
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't know. I just like going to bed,
Speaker 2: and so I do wake up very early. I don't
Speaker 2: my alarm set for like six twenty five because I
Speaker 2: do prioritize sleep in this phase of life with little kids,
Speaker 2: I just that is my priority is sleep. But I
Speaker 2: do tend to naturally wake up around five or so,
Speaker 2: and so I kind of follow my energy. I used
Speaker 2: to work out then Now I actually do like doing
Speaker 2: the creative fun parts of my job in those early
Speaker 2: mornings and just enjoying a hot cup of coffee in
Speaker 2: the house is dark, It's like such a dreamy time.
Speaker 2: And in terms of morning routine, I don't have a
Speaker 2: full routine, but I have those non negotiables, you know,
Speaker 2: feed the kids, feed the dog, and do the dishwasher,
Speaker 2: pack up the bags, and then I use alarms to
Speaker 2: hit the school bus. Or now that we're transitioning into summer,
Speaker 2: like get us in the car for summer camps and
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, well, I was just curious because, yeah, we with
Speaker 1: a podcast called Before Breakfast. We have a lot of
Speaker 1: people who are definitely into their morning routines and including
Speaker 1: listening to this, which is part of a lot of
Speaker 1: people's morning routines. So I always ask my guests a
Speaker 1: question of what is something you have done recently to
Speaker 1: take a day from great to awesome?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think for me, you know, while I teach
Speaker 2: this and I live and breathe it, it's always one
Speaker 2: of those things you have to like catch yourself and
Speaker 2: iterate on. I think that I can be having a
Speaker 2: great day, but what doesn't let it be awesome is
Speaker 2: usually my brain being consumed by a lot of different
Speaker 2: things and not being fully present on you know, the
Speaker 2: little magics in the day. I don't mean, like, you know,
Speaker 2: my day's pretty boring. You know, I'm a mom the
Speaker 2: little kids. It's nothing like super exciting. But even like
Speaker 2: a three minute hot shower is pretty glorious, or a
Speaker 2: ten minute walk outside with my dog in this weather
Speaker 2: is amazing. But I can easily think my way to
Speaker 2: not absorbing that. And so I've heard people on your
Speaker 2: podcast talk about that like really absorbing the wonderful parts
Speaker 2: of your day, and I fully agree with that. For me,
Speaker 2: in order to be able to do that, though, it
Speaker 2: really is taking all those thoughts that are buzzing around
Speaker 2: in my head and getting them out. So whether that's
Speaker 2: paper and pen or Siri, if I'm on the go,
Speaker 2: I'll use like Apple reminders just to capture ideas and
Speaker 2: then know that I have time calendar to go to
Speaker 2: all those places and like hunt and gather them and
Speaker 2: then bridge them into either my calendar or wherever I
Speaker 2: keep like content ideas or just strategy ideas. And so
Speaker 2: I guess my point is whether you use a system
Speaker 2: like mine or something else, having a clear system that
Speaker 2: you use to get things out of your head, park
Speaker 2: them where they need to go, and then ridge them
Speaker 2: into however you manage your task in time is to
Speaker 2: me the first that's like the game changing step, so
Speaker 2: that I can let things go and then absorb my
Speaker 2: day and make it awesome. Whenever I've tried to be
Speaker 2: like stop thinking about that or whatever, it just doesn't work.
Speaker 2: I need to be able to get it out of
Speaker 2: my head because I don't trust that my brain will
Speaker 2: remember it. And I think that's what we do. We
Speaker 2: like ruminate on things in the hopes of remembering to
Speaker 2: do them. And so if you can help yourself get
Speaker 2: there outside of your brain, then that's how to me.
Speaker 2: I take a day from great.
Speaker 1: To awesome, amazing, amazing, And what's something you are looking
Speaker 1: forward to now?
Speaker 2: Candidly, I am in a really good I am not
Speaker 2: someone who romanticizes motherhood. I think it's very hard in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways. So just know that's the context.
Speaker 2: My kids now are seven and three and a half,
Speaker 2: and I do feel like we're hitting a really fun
Speaker 2: age where I just have more energy too, and so
Speaker 2: this summer I'm really looking forward to that. It's really
Speaker 2: fun to hang out with the kids. But I also
Speaker 2: love what I do, and I get to start my
Speaker 2: program again in September and work with a lot of
Speaker 2: awesome people and you know, nerd out with them on
Speaker 2: how to make all of this work in their industries,
Speaker 2: and they're with their families and everybody's life looks different,
Speaker 2: and it's really fun for me to like puzzle and
Speaker 2: tailor how to make it work for them, so I
Speaker 2: look forward to that too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, totally with you that as kids get older
Speaker 1: they just get more fun. Do you mean babies are adorable?
Speaker 1: I love babies. I had five of them, but I
Speaker 1: you know, I love when they become so much their
Speaker 1: own people and you can interact with them more and
Speaker 1: totally thanks together. Yeah, absolutely so, Kelly. Where can people
Speaker 1: find you?
Speaker 2: I am most active on Instagram. It's at underscore Kelley
Speaker 2: Nolan Underscore, and my website is Kelleynolan dot com. I have,
Speaker 2: you know, a free program there. I also have the
Speaker 2: podcast The Bright Method podcast. If people like nerding out
Speaker 2: on this, which I imagine if you're here you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, we all do. All right, Well, Kelly, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us. Thank you to everyone
Speaker 1: for listening. If you have feedback about this or any
Speaker 1: other episode, you can always reach me at Laura at
Speaker 1: Laura vandercam dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura,
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
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