124: [EDUCATION] How to Find Balance Even When Life is Crazy

Anyone else feel like the span of time between back to school and the new year is a dead sprint?! It always feels super chaotic during this time of year with all the things we need to do and if you are started to feel overwhelmed, burnt out, or exhausted, this episode is for you! 

Tune in to hear some of my best tips on how you can find the balance in life when everything feels like its crazy kookoo bananas! 

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LINKS MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:

HOW TO STAY ORGANIZED IN A CHAOTIC LIFE MINI-COURSE: 

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https://www.etsy.com/listing/1075967585/the-vertical-daily-planer?ref=listings_manager_grid 

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https://www.etsy.com/listing/1092345940/the-lifestyle-planner?ref=listings_manager_grid 

MY FAVORITE PLANNING NOTEPAD:

https://dailypageshop.com/ 

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Transcript

Hey Bestie, and welcome to the living in sunshine podcast. I'm your host, Maddy fry. And around here we are all about encouraging, inspiring, and giving you the tough love that you need to hear to get out there and live as your best self. Each and every Wednesday, you can expect to learn tangible tips to help you find your bigger purpose. be given simple action steps that you can take in order to make progress toward your biggest dreams. And hear how you can purposely pursue joy on the daily. So sit down, grab your favorite drink. And let's have a girl chat. This is the living in sunshine podcast. Hello, hello, and welcome to the living in sunshine podcast. I am so happy that you are tuning in for a brand new episode. If you are new here, thanks for showing up. And if you are someone who has listened to episodes in the past, thanks for coming back, it always means so much to me when you tune in for a brand new episode of the show. And in case you are new, just so you know there are new episodes that coming out every single Wednesday, bright and early in the morning for you to listen to on your hot girl walk while you go get some coffee while you take your dog for a walk while you poop on the toilet. Whatever it is, I got new episodes for you every single Wednesday. Today we're talking about how to find balance, even when life is crazy cuckoo bananas, because this time of year, I feel like and this is something that I posted, I think in my sunshine squad community space, where I feel like back to school season starts in between the months of August, all the way through like the first of the year, everything is literally a race and there is a never ending list of things to do a never ending list of places to go things to get done goals to achieve yada yada yada. And it's just, I don't know if anybody else feels like this. But I always feel like my brain is going like ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, like get this don't do this go here or talk to this person responded is email like posts is the thing on Instagram. It's chaotic, right? It feels crazy. But there is a way I promise you and I know this because I've done this. And I know this because I've taught this other people how you can find the balance, even when things are crazy. And there is a way for you to enjoy and find joy in the chaotic seasons of life, even if they feel like you're running around like a chicken with your head cut off. Right. And that is what we are talking about in today's new episode. And just in case, you want to check out kind of a deeper dive into how to find the balance during a crazy season, I wanted to let you know that I have a mini course linked in the show notes for you right now. She's under $50. You can binge watch her in under an hour and a half right like while you're eating breakfast or while you're taking a bath like you can watch this entire course. It's five video lessons from me plus a workbook that's going to help you to pinpoint where and why you're feeling chaotic help you to set up a sustainable schedule for your current season of life. It's going to teach you how and where to set your focus, how to schedule yourself sustainably. And it's also going to help you do some mindset work. So you know that you are doing enough, even if those little voices in the back of your brain are telling you that like you're being lazy and you shouldn't rest and you need to keep going you need to keep running, or else nothing is ever gonna get done because those voices are lying to you. But sometimes we need someone else to tell us so that we can actually believe it. So if you want to do a deeper dive on how to find the balance during the crazy chaotic season, go check out that mini course it's linked down in the show notes. And if you are ballin on a budget, this episode is for you. So let's get into it. Okay, so there are some things that we need to know in order to work to find the balance when life feels crazy. And the first thing that we need to know. And the first part of finding balance in life is accepting that there is really no true balance in life, right. And the reason for this is because when you take time for one thing, you're actually taking time away from something else. Time is limited. Time is finite, we only have so much. And one of the things that stresses people out is we don't know how much time we actually have, right? And so the first thing to finding quote unquote balance right? I'm doing the little air quotes with my fingers when I say balance is to accept the fact that there is no such thing as balance, because for every time investment you make, for one thing, write a goal, a person, something that you want to do scrolling on Instagram, whatever it might be, you are withdrawing time from something else, that something else might be time with family, it might be making progress or hitting new milestones at work. It might be health achievements or wellness goals that you're working on. But whatever it is, we have to realize and live with the knowledge and live in the acceptance that when we put time into one thing, we're taking it away from something else. Now you might be thinking, Well, I am a pro multitasker, I can just do two things at once. I'm going to bawl it out as a mom while also running my own full time business from home, because I am amazing. And I am super great at multitasking. Well, let me tell you to pause, hold the phone and ask you this. When you are trying to work your business, if we're following this same example that came out of nowhere, right? If you are currently working your business, while also trying to play with your kids, are you fully present with your kids? Are they really getting the best version of you? Probably not. Same with your business. If you have a kiddo who's sitting next to you playing or talking to you, or wanting to play dress up or, or pretend or whatever, and you have emails or a video call or something that you're working on on your computer, are you giving that work your most attention, your best energy? No, because what's happening when we try to multitask, and I don't care how good you are at multitasking, right? It doesn't matter how good you are, when we multitask, we split our brain, and the energy and the focus and the the level of excellence that we could give to one thing, across all the things that we are trying to do all at the same time, right. So I always like to think of it as like a pie, or a pizza, right? It's like a pie chart. For using mathematical terms, it's like a pie chart. So if you're trying to do two things at once, and you have a full pizza of energy or productivity or focus or attention to detail, whatever, and you split that down the middle, then you're only getting 50% of your overall capacity for for excellence for that thing, and 50% for the other thing, if you're trying to do three things, suddenly your pie chart gets smaller. And what you could be doing instead is giving 100% of your pizza to that thing that you're working on that goal, that current tasks that thing on your to do list, and then moving on to the next thing and giving 100% to that thing.
So this is what I mean, when I say that, in order to find the balance in life, we need to know that there is no such thing, we need to know that no amount of multitasking is going to help us to make the progress that we want to make. Because when we do that we split our energy, we split our focus and productivity and attention to detail all of those things across all of the different tasks that we're trying to do at the same time, right? When you take time for one thing, you take it away from something else. Okay, so that's step one, to quote unquote, finding the balance. The second thing that you can do to work to find the quote, unquote, balance in life during a crazy season is to take some time, make underline that word, make some time to find a little bit of quiet. So that way your brain can turn itself off and open itself up to clarity, and clarity on what clarity on what actually matters to you. clarity on what needs to be a priority to you during this crazy season. Right? Because a lot of us again, between the months of August and like January 1 after the new year, those like last five months of the year. It's a rat race, right? We have kids going back to school, we have work projects, they need to get done, we have the holidays, we have travel, we have all these different things, there is so much going on that our brains during these months, rarely get a time to take a breath. And so what I want you to do, what I need you to do is to try to make some space in your calendar to let your brain breathe, and let your brain turn itself off. So that way you can work to gain clarity on what is actually going to be a priority to you in this season. And if you're listening to this episode, and it's like March and you're like it's not the crazy season, like my crazy season is right now in March because of XYZ reason you can still do this now, right? Doesn't matter what month of the year it is. You still need to do this during a crazy chaotic season because we all have them. When we create space like this, it helps our brain to pinpoint. Okay, what is a priority to me? Is family time a priority? Or is hitting my revenue goal for my business a priority? is meeting new friends a priority or is waking up early to go to the gym and not staying out late going to the bars a priority. What is your priority, right? And in order to know what you need to prioritize, you have to first give yourself the space to gain clarity on what that is right. And I want to say this, your priorities during a crazy season can be and might be II and it's okay if they're different than the priorities you have. During a slower season, your priority during a slower season might be to rest more might be to take more time off, might be to read more books might be to go to the beach more often, whatever it might be. But during a crazy psycho season where you're feeling like you have a million things to do, your priorities might be to hit the revenue goal, launch the new product, spend more time at work to finish the business proposal that you have whatever it might be, right, make sure that your kids are fed because they're going to school and then soccer and then dance and then gymnastics, right? Your priorities are going to change. Which is why again, it's really important that you make this space to give yourself time to give your brain time to breathe, and refocus on what's important. Now, what is the priority now in this season in this current version of you what matters, because when you know that, you will then know where to invest your time, where to focus, your energy and your attention. And that's important, right? The next thing that you can do in order to find balance, even when life is really freaking crazy, right? Again, feel like you're running around like a chicken with your head cut off. I know that that's me right now my current season. That's okay. It's the season seasons come to an end, let's not forget that is to lean into my two favorite productivity hacks, which I've talked about before I talk about them in my membership space all the time, which are time blocking, and task batching. And just quickly time blocking is where you look at your tasks for the day. This works. If you are a stay at home mom or a caregiver or a fortune 500 CEO or a small business owner doesn't matter, you can do this time blocking is where you look at all of the tasks that you have to do for that day. And you set a certain block of time to commit to that task. So right now, in the morning, it's a Friday that I'm recording this episode, it is nine o'clock, I blocked out the nine o'clock hour to record the podcast episodes. So during this hour, I'm only recording the podcast episodes, I'm not on my phone, I'm not walking around, I'm not folding laundry, I'm not playing with my jaw, I'm I'm literally recording the podcast episodes, that's all I'm doing. That's what time blocking is, you block out a certain amount of time to work on a task one task, one singular task, okay? Just one, and you get that done within that time block. Okay? Now task batching is where you look at all of your tasks, and you kind of group them up. And you can do task batching for days of the week, you can also do task batching for like certain blocks of time on your calendar. So for today, this morning. Just as a quick example, I grouped all of my podcasting tasks for the morning. So that way, my brain only has to focus on podcasting related tasks. In the morning, in the afternoon after lunch, I'm focusing on other CEO tasks for living in sunshine. So that way, my brain doesn't have to jump from podcasts, that email than Instagram, then replying to DMS to creating content it did it did it right. It cuts out that transition time that our brain no matter how old we are, no matter how good we are at multitasking has to do has to go through in order to go from one kind of task to another. So those are your two big productivity tips and hacks. Again, I have podcast episodes on these in the past, you can go listen to time blocking, and task batching will literally save your butt during this crazy season. And I encourage you to lean into them. Okay. And then finally, my last tip for you as I step on a dog's tail is to use a planner to get really organized. And again, this is something that I have past episodes on, I have an episode where it's like my favorite tools for organization or how I balanced my work in my life schedule two great episodes for you to go listen to. But for this episode right here, right now, I'm going to encourage you to find a planner that you love and use it to get organized. And I'm going to link two of my favorite planners that I have created for myself that you can steal right now. I'll link them down in the show notes. One is my favorite tried and true daily planner. I've used it for years for both personal and business life. It has everything that you need and nothing that you don't, and it helps me to stay super duper organized. It's perfect if you're someone who has a business or wants to really have something that can keep them organized when it comes to work. And then the second one that I'm gonna link down below for you in the show notes is more of a lifestyle planner. So it includes things like a grocery list, it includes a meal planning page and includes a weekly calendar so they're slightly different, based off of what you want to have in your planner, but getting a planner and leaning into those planners will really help you to stay really organized, and cut back on feeling like you have all of the things that you need to get done in one day in your brain. Because sometimes the best thing that we can do for ourselves is just to get it down on paper right to visually see all the things that we need to get done. The best thing that we can do is take all the crap and the junk up in her head and get it down onto something solid. One thing to know about these planners is that they are digital planners, meaning they are meant to be used on a computer or more specifically a tablet of some kind, specifically an iPad. So if you aren't into digital planning, send me a message over on Instagram, I have other options that you can look into that I'm happy to send you links for that I also use my own life when it comes to planter options for the more paper pencil kind of girl. Okay, and that is everything that I have for you how you can find the balance, even when life is crazy. Because again, we are in the busiest season of the year, right? The holidays are here. We've got family plans, we've got kids in sports, we've got all these things going on, we're trying to achieve our goals before the end of the year happens. It's a wild ride like it's the wild wild west. But that doesn't mean that we need to let the feeling of chaos or craziness or overwhelm or stress or being overbooked rule our life. When you use what we talked about. In today's podcast episode, you are going to be able to better navigate this season and navigate this season feeling joyful, feeling balanced and feeling in alignment, which is exactly what we want in this space. If you love to today's new episode, please go give it a shout out over on Instagram. Nothing makes my heart swell 10 times as big like the Grinch and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Then when you guys shout out the podcast over on Instagram, share your biggest takeaway send it to your girlfriend, send it to your mom or your coworker or your grouchy next door neighbor whoever it is, and let them know that you love the show. This helps the show grow. This helps new people find the show and it helps me feel honestly really validated. I'm not gonna lie and I think that that's okay to say. I hope you enjoyed today's new episode. And until next week, I am sending you all the sunshine, good vibes. And I hope you make it a great day girlfriend.
Thank you so much for listening to today's new episode. If you loved it, please send it to a friend share it on Instagram and tag me so I can see and consider leaving the show a rating or a review. Ratings and reviews are kind of like sharing or liking a post on Instagram and they really help the show grow and reach new women just like you. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss a new episode. And until next week, I am sending you all the sunshine, good vibes and I hope you make it a great day.