Why Is It So Hard To Manage My Time? | Time Peace Sessions Part 4

Why is it So Hard To Manage My Time? #4

Here's a transcription of this episode:

If you’re struggling to manage your time, one of these thoughts may have crossed your mind:

• It must be because it’s impossible because of my schedule
• It must be because I’m not working hard enough
• It  must be because I’m not doing everything I can (another flavor of “not working hard enough” which is thinking you need to do more like reading more law books, so she didn’t waste so much time needing to research the law when she got a new case)
• I’m a hot mess or I need to get more organized
• I should be able to figure this out on my own

On that last one, I have a funny story. So when I started my first business on top of my law practice, I was not the time management queen you know and love today. 

I believed all of the things I just mentioned, and when I started learning about starting a business a gazillion years ago it seems, what I did was what we did in school:

• buy books
• Download booklets
• Listen to teachers on podcasts

Then, I’d come home from the office, stare at the things I’d printed out, or notes I’d taken from listening to podcasts or programs I’d bought, and feel horrible that I was doing nothing.

Then I’d organize them, so I’d feel productive.

When I look back, I was in a burnout cycle because I wasn’t managing my time or my mind around the work that I was taking on building a business.

Any of this ringing any bells for you in your law practice?

I truly thought I wasn’t working hard enough, and that every moment I wasn’t working was just me being lazy. When I thought that, I felt waves of debilitating shame.

Turns out I wasn’t lazy. I simply didn’t know how to manage my time, my mind, or my emotions.

The only way you can get better at anything whether it’s the law or business is to:

1. manage your mind
2. Manage your time
3. Get good at feeling negative emotions

Humans are not taught how to do any of these things. So it makes perfect sense you’d be having trouble managing your time.

Here’s another problem: as long as we intimately connect the work we do with our self-worth, we’re not going to be able to manage our time effectively. For me, I made any failure at work mean I was a failure. When I started learning how to manage my time, I transferred that failure mindset to working a calendar, which meant I didn’t have the proper mindset using it. I needed the mindset piece to properly use the calendar and make the impact on managing my time.

If you haven’t listened to the last episode in the Time Peace Sessions, “Why Do I Work So Much?” I highly recommend you go back and listen to that episode.

This problem we’re talking about here is also connected with what I hear a lot of people say which is, “If I haven’t done it before, what makes me think I can do it now?”

If this is you, I want you to ask yourself if you’ve had the mindset piece, the time management piece AND the learning how to get good and handling negative emotion pieces all together? I guarantee you that you haven’t. And you need all three to manage your time.

And as long as we believe all the things our brain tells us about how we should just know how to do things or that we’re not working hard enough, or that it will never happen because it hasn’t happened before, we won’t make progress. Period.

We have to break free of that kind of thinking.

That requires us to step out of our comfort zone and learn the 3 things I mentioned instead of doing the same things over and over hoping that maybe it’ll be different this time. Einstein did NOT say this, but it’s attributed to him that he said, “Doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different results is insanity.” It’s definitely making life harder than it needs to be.

And I made my life incredibly hard.

You don’t have to.

I teach the components of managing your time in my new program Time Peace for Lawyers™.

During our 12 weekly calls together, you’ll learn to:

1. manage your mind
2. Manage your time
3. Get good at feeling negative emotions

…and so much more.

Inside this program you’ll not only get coached by a Master Certified Coach — that’s me — but you’ll get the benefit of learning from other lawyers in community.

I’m only enrolling 15 lawyers to give you the absolute best experience.

And you know they’re heart-centered lawyers who have supportive energy because they’re in my world. The only people who listen to the end of one of my podcasts are lawyers who want change and who resonates with this message of creating a safe environment for others to change too.

There are so many bonuses inside of Time Peace for Lawyers™ too.

You can find them all on the enrollment page at dinacataldo.com/timepeace

Here’s just a few bonuses I want to mention:

– 3 bonus calls in case you need to miss one or two of our regular calls during our time together or you just want extra coaching

• trainings on hiring and creating stellar SOPs to streamline your practice
• A training on confidently raising and communicating your rates
• Access to the Focus Hour, which is a co-working space where you work around lawyers you actually like. It’s so effective for completing projects you’ve been putting off. I’ve been getting really great responses about the work being done in these sessions.
• And there’s more

Go to the enrollment page where I’ve outlined everything at dinacataldo.com/timepeace

Time Peace is the place to learn the skills you need to manage your time. I hope to see you inside.

Alright my friend, I’ll talk to you in the next episode.