The Right-Sized Life with Amy Schmidt

EP10: The Truth About Time Abundance with Laura Vanderkam

• Amy Schmidt

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0:00 | 32:41

Life can feel full long before it's actually full. We tell ourselves there's no time for the things that matter, wear "busy" like a badge of honor, and assume our schedules are the problem. In this conversation, I'm joined by bestselling author and time management expert Laura Vanderkam to explore a different perspective: what if the story you've been telling yourself about time isn't entirely true? Together, we talk about building a greater sense of time abundance, why complexity doesn't have to mean chaos, and practical ways to become the calm ringmaster of your own life instead of feeling like you're constantly reacting to it.


You'll Learn:

  • How tracking your time for one week can reveal opportunities you didn't realize you had
  • Practical ways to plan your week around your priorities instead of reacting to your schedule
  • How to make the most of your "golden hours" and create more meaningful leisure time
  • Why making small "little bets" can help you build habits and create lasting change
  • Simple ways to stop telling yourself you're "too busy" and make more time for what matters


Links:


Visit Laura’s website for all of her resources, learn more about her books, check out her podcasts and sign up for her newsletters: https://lauravanderkam.com/ 


Get Laura’s new book Big Time: A Simple Path to Time Abundance here: https://lauravanderkam.com/books/big-time/


Get a copy of Amy’s Best selling book: CANNONBALL! FEARLESSLY Facing Midlife and Beyond here


Make sure to share with friends and family and I would love if you could leave a review. There are so many shows out there floating around and if you are finding value in the The Right Sized Life Podcast share it with the world – a review means so much.


Sign up for the Radiant Woman Reset here


And don’t forget to follow along on all the socials:


http://instagram.com/theamy.schmidt


https://www.facebook.com/fearlesslyfacingfifty/


https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-schmidt-a5684412/

Get a copy of Amy’s Best selling book: CANNONBALL! FEARLESSLY Facing Midlife and Beyond here

Make sure to share with friends and family and would love if you could leave a review. There are so many shows out there floating around and if you are finding value in the The Right Sized Life Podcast share it with the world – a review means so much.

And sign up for the Radiant Woman Reset here

And don’t forget to follow along on all the socials:

http://instagram.com/theamy.schmidt

https://www.facebook.com/fearlesslyfacingfifty/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-schmidt-a5684412/

Track Your Time With Curiosity

SPEAKER_01

The first thing I always suggest is to try tracking your time for a week. And I know that sounds like a big ask, but I want you to see where your time truly goes. When people do this, they don't feel bad about their time. So everyone's like, oh, I just don't want to know. I don't want to feel, you know, I don't want one more thing that's gonna make me feel bad. It might not. People do this, I've studied this. They feel better about their time after tracking their time because whatever terrible stories you have been telling yourself are probably not true. So I want you to try tracking your time, see where it goes, see what you like, see what you want to change. Very simple, approach it with the spirit of curiosity.

SPEAKER_00

Hey,

Welcome And The Right Size Life

SPEAKER_00

fearless friends, it's Amy. Welcome to The Right Size Life. I'm so glad you're here. If we've never met before, I'm Amy Schmidt, founder of Fearlessly Facing 50, best-selling author, TEDx speaker, national media contributor, and this fall, the author of my newest book, The Right Size Life. For years, I've had the privilege of encouraging women through television, speaking on stages across the country, writing books, and building a community that's all about embracing life with courage instead of fear. But somewhere along the way, I realized something. The second half of life isn't asking us to do more, it's inviting us to make space for what matters most. That's what the Right Size Life is all about. It's not having less, it's about having more room for joy, for peace, for health, for meaningful relationships, for purpose, and for becoming the woman you're meant to be in this season of life. Each week I'll sit down with best-selling authors, experts, thought leaders, and inspiring guests for conversations that will encourage you to right-size every area of your life, from your home and your health to your calendar, your relationships, your mindset, and your dreams. Because I believe sometimes the next chapter begins with letting go. So grab your coffee, lace up your walking shoes, or settle into your favorite chair. I'm so grateful you're here. Welcome to the right size life. Let's make space for what matters most. Welcome

Why Time Is The Hidden Question

SPEAKER_00

back to the right size life. I'm Amy Schmidt, and I've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time. Before we get started with our guest today, I want to remind you of a couple of things. Make sure you're going ahead and following me on socials. There's a lot going on and a lot of places to follow along. So if you're an Instagram user, go ahead to the Amy.schmidt, S-C-H-M-I-D-T. You can find me there, The Right Size Life. And you can go to Facebook, Fearlessly Facing50. It's the right size life there too. But you can just search it as Fearlessly Facing50 and you will find me. We've got a great program going on right now. We are just in the midst of it, the Radiant Woman Reset. You know, it is that time when everybody's busy, right? We don't want to wear that badge of busyness as a badge of honor, and that's what we're going to be digging into today with our guest. But you know what? There's a Radiant Woman reset. You can go ahead and email me and you can get started on the program. It's four weeks. We've had one group go through already, and they have had great results and great success and formed a real community among themselves as well. So go ahead and email me at Amy at fearlesslyfacing50 F-I F T Y dot com. Well, today's guest is somebody whose work I have admired for a long time. And she's got like seven productivity books out there. So she is great at managing her time. Her new book landed on my desk at exactly the right moment because here's what I know about this show. We talk about right sizing your home, your energy, your relationships, your identity. And the question underneath all of that right sizing is does this still fit? But there's a layer, even underneath that layer, believe it or not. And it's this Do you actually have time for the life you're building? My guest today says yes, emphatically research-backed decades of data. Yes. Laura Vandercam is the author of seven time management books, including the brand new Big Time: A Simple Path to Time Abundance, host of two podcasts and one of the most trusted voices in productivity and time management. Her 2016 TED Talk has been viewed more than five million times. Yeah, she knows what's going on with time. So, Laura, welcome to the right size life. I'm so glad you're here. Let's get started.

SPEAKER_01

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00

You know, I think this is such a valuable topic at any time. And when I was researching a little bit about you, I have several of your books, but you've written seven books.

SPEAKER_01

I've written a lot of books.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, before we even get started, have you always been like this? Like have you always been very scheduled and you just realize that time is such a precious gift?

SPEAKER_01

I mean, I think with the writing, I just really love to write. So there's sort of this prolific compulsion within me that, you know, I used to keep lengthy journals and write really, really long blog posts and things like that. And, you know, over time as I got paid for my writing, it kind of moved into that. But I really love to create. And so, you know, whether I am getting paid for it or not, whether anyone's reading it or not, it's what I love to do with my time.

SPEAKER_00

It's funny, we share that. I love to write too. And I have, you know, spent a lot of my time writing. It's very cathartic for me. It's just like it's how I get my emotions out. And it's really how I block time now, which I've learned over time. You know, you block time and you have that time for writing, and it's so important.

Big Time And The Busy Badge

SPEAKER_00

So let's get started with just the name of the book, Big Time. I think those two words mean something completely different, depending on how you read them. So tell me what you meant and what you want people to feel when they pick this book up.

SPEAKER_01

So, what I mean by big time is that time is big enough for us to do what matters to us. I think a lot of us are walking around with the story of time scarcity, that we have absolutely no time for X, Y, or Z, whatever those things happen to be. But I think when we look a little bit closer at our time, and partly we do that by zooming out and looking at longer periods of time, at bigger chunks of time, we start to see that a lot of the harsh trade-offs people imagine are there truly aren't, that they are illusions of looking at time from the wrong perspective. So I'm hoping that I can help people take a more holistic, bigger view of time. And by taking this bigger view of time, we will develop more of a sense of time abundance.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I love big time. I mean, how many times I'm that generation too of saying, oh, big time? That's big time, you know? I mean, we've just always said that. You know, I think as a culture, we wear this badge of busyness as a badge of honor. You know, we stand in the Starbucks line and we're sitting there and somebody comes up to us and says, Oh, Amy, how have you been? And the first thing we respond with is, I'm so busy. You know, I mean, I'm so busy. Why do we do that? I think I'm trying to take busy, the B word, trying to eliminate it from my narrative, because I just think we shouldn't be saying that. You know, that's what we say. I'm so busy. It's almost like we're saying, Oh, are you busy? Because if you're not busy, then you're worthless. You know, that's kind of how it is.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and it's so funny too, because if you are truly starved for time, I don't think standing in line at Starbucks would be the thing you would be doing with your precious moments. There are true quicker methods of caffeine delivery if that's what you're going for. So that's yeah, no, we we use it as sort of a a substitute in many cases for the word fine, which is funny, but it's also, I mean, in a way, it's like, look how important I am, right? Look at the demand for my time. It's so high. Yes, I think that's how we wear it.

SPEAKER_00

We wear it as a badge of honor. And we need to get away from that. We need to get away from it. Okay, you say in the book that feelings of time scarcity stem less from overloaded schedules than from mindset. And we talked about that a little bit just at the beginning. That's a bold claim. So walk me through what you mean, because I think a lot of people are gonna push back on that.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I am taking this from studying my own time. I have tracked my time for about 11 years now. Have you really? Yep, I have. I have in half hour increments. So I, you know, I can look at how I spent every half hour of the last 11 years. But you know, unbelievable. Yeah, well, I am what I am. But I've also studied thousands of other people's schedules. You know, them not for 11 years, but I have had thousands of people track their time for a week, share their logs with me. Almost universally, people discover that there is some time there, right? There is some time that we have discretion over. It may not be as much as we want. I totally believe that. But it is not zero either, which is often the story that we are walking around with, right? That I have no time for myself. I have no time for anything. We want to make sure we're working from good data and that our stories are supported by that data. Just as a quick mathematical way of looking at this, a lot of times when people work full time, they assume they have no time for anything else because, you know, it's right there in the word, full time, right? The full time of, you know, full amount of time. But, you know, when we're looking at life in terms of weeks, which is 168 hours, you quickly see that 40 hours is a very small chunk of 168 hours. It is also a very small chunk of the 112 hours that you might be awake if you are, you know, sleeping eight hours a night. Like that would leave 72 waking, non-working hours for other things. Now, many of us obviously have other obligations in that time. Yeah. You know, we have kids, we have parents, we have household chores, we have community obligations. But in general, those things are not 72 hours when you add them up every week. The time is there. We may not know where it is, we may need to look for it. Yes. We need to be creative about seizing it. Yeah. But it is almost universally there.

SPEAKER_00

Well, one of your statistics is 8,760 hours in a year. Yeah, that's an even bigger number, isn't it? I mean, that that I've never thought about it that way, but that really made me genuinely think about my time differently. When you actually put those numbers there, it's like, really? Is that really the case? And and certainly it is. So, I mean, you've been tracking this for you have four children, right? I have five children. Five children. I'm the youngest of five. So whoever your youngest is, there you go. Do your kids look at you and just say, Mom, this is amazing. How have you done this? And do they, as this kind of trickled down to them?

SPEAKER_01

Well, Amy, I think you know that one's own children are never overwhelmingly exactly. You know, mom is mom, and you know, she does embarrassing things and whatever else. But sometimes good for a ride to the mall. So, you know, we gotta go.

SPEAKER_00

But you're such a great role model for them. I mean, I'm sure you're seeing this. I see it just with my own business. You know, I was a stay-at-home mom for many, many years until I got back out into this world. And, you know, they look at me differently. They look at me now as they're older. I have three grown and flown young adults. My youngest just graduated from college, and I'll get these little notes from them that say, way to go, mom. Like, or one of the concepts I've been talking about, they'll actually adopt. And I'm like, wow. So you know that they're looking at you through this lens of mom, certainly, but they're also looking at it, wow, she's really got it together.

SPEAKER_01

I hope so. I mean, I hope so. I I think our household does function quite well. People get where they're supposed to go. If people want to do things, we usually make it work in the schedule. It's been interesting to see as the kids get older and their own sort of school load becomes more challenging, how they have had to learn to manage their time. And, you know, I can't manage their time for them. I'm trying to teach them skills of like, you know, looking forward more and like putting more time into the things that are tricky and figuring out what's coming up and how you can prepare for that as opposed to just doing what has been assigned to you, that it's a different mindset. And, you know, so yeah, hopefully they're they're picking up a few things.

SPEAKER_00

Uh we'll see. Those life lessons, you know, we never know until we're on the other side of it. Mine are all grown. And now I look back and say, wow, they they were listening, they were watching. Okay, that's pretty cool. So I have a good feeling about year five.

Ringmaster Mindset For Complex Lives

SPEAKER_00

Let's talk about this ringmaster mindset. I think that's so cool. And immediately, I'm such a visual person. Like, I picture the circus and a ringmaster. That's what I thought of. So when you call it the ringmaster, for someone who hasn't read the book yet, what is this and why does it matter?

SPEAKER_01

People often say my life is a circus. And what they mean by that is that everything is chaotic. But I think this is a bit of a slander against circuses because a circus is not chaotic at all. A circus is incredibly well organized. Nobody is getting shot out of a cannon at the wrong time, right? If there's supposed to be tigers in one ring, there are not like clowns in there with them at the same time. Like everything is organized exactly as it's supposed to be. The tricks are done within a fraction of a second of when they're supposed to happen. So we should aspire for our lives to be like a circus. You know, a circus is complex but not chaotic. And complexity and chaos are not the same thing at all. Chaos is the enemy, complexity is not. There's a lot out there about simplicity and minimalism, and those are all great in their places. But many of us just have structurally complex lives. Like, you know, it would be simpler to have one kid, but I have five kids. So there we are. Like that's nothing to be done about it now, right? Right. So, how do we manage this circus? Yeah, walking through an ordinary Tuesday with having this mindset of being the ringmaster of my circus. Like I am calmly in charge of it all. We can even extend the metaphor to think of it as being a three-ring circus. So you have the ring of your career, the ring of your relationships. So that's friends and family, the ring of yourself, you know, the things you are doing for your own physical, emotional, mental, spiritual health. And making sure that you know what's going on in all three rings at all times, that things are happening as they are supposed to happen. You know, it's just a it's a it's a better mindset for thinking about the complexity of life than assuming a big life has to be chaotic.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah. I love the ringmaster. I'd never heard that before, and I really love that you came up with that. Once again, I visually picture that, but you're right, a circus is never chaotic.

SPEAKER_01

No, not at all. Yeah, it's it's funny we don't have to be either. I mean, there's many ways to organize a complex life that limit the chaos.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So

Weekly Planning That Actually Works

SPEAKER_00

walk me through your ordinary, say, a Wednesday. When you open up your calendar and you look at it, how are you the ringmaster of that day? Just walk us through that.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I've looked at the calendar before, Wednesday morning. I do a weekly planning session, which is when I think about what is most important to me in all three rings over the next week. Sometimes it's because those things are already on the calendar, otherwise it's that I need to put them into my time over the next week. But so I've spent time shaping the next week ahead of it. So looking forward to the next week and figuring out what should be happening in my Wednesday. I also then look at Wednesday, Tuesday at the end of the workday as I make my to-do list for Wednesday. It's like your morning routine starts the night before. Yeah, your morning routine starts the night before because I want to come into Wednesday morning knowing what I should be focusing on. So I look at the list of priorities for the week that I've already said, you know, what's done, what still needs to happen, what is the hard landscape of the day, like talking with you, for instance. And so then I choose what's going to go in the time around the appointments that I hope to get through by the end of the day. I tend to put things that I'm gonna be doing in my evening as well on the list because I, you know, I'm one person with one life. I have personal to-dos as well. So on the list for today, in addition to my work stuff, is also going to the middle school band concert. That's you know, it's that time of year. It is. May Sember, Mayhem, yeah. Yeah. May Sember, Mayhem. At least we had a, you know, the swim lesson was canceled because of you know, might be a thunderstorm. And with that, a trumpet lesson also canceled because we have the band concert, so they can't really happen simultaneously. So that sort of freed up some time there. I hope to go for a run, but it's gonna have to happen. I'm on the treadmill because it's like 90 degrees out today. Yeah. You know, those things all go on the list as well. And the goal is that when I get to the end of the day, everything is crossed off. And, you know, I would say that nine out of ten times that happens.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, take me through that tenth time. I want to know from your perspective because I do think, do you feel as though are you controlling? I mean, is it like when you get off kilter, does it throw you off? Like if you only get nine of those things, are you like, oh man, that stinks? Are you one of those people that looks at the Apple Watch and goes, I didn't get my 10,000 steps?

SPEAKER_01

No, I think it's that, I mean, I generally do get to most of it. I I would say, you know, I'm I mean it might even be more than nine out of, let's say 19 out of 20, which means that it's only, you know, one. But this is because, Amy, I I make it very short. Like people are like, how could you get through your to-do list every day? It's like, well, because I don't put stuff on there that I don't intend to do. Like there's no point making a to-do list and then not doing what is on it. Like it's just as not done as if you never put it on the list in the first place. Only now you feel bad about it. So what was the point of that? Right. So exactly you want to make a list that is short enough that when life happens as it inevitably happens, you will still get through what is on the list. And that forces a certain amount of prioritization. Like, because if it's a short list, if this is the list that's gonna happen, even if the Wi-Fi goes out at the house, you gotta find somewhere else to work. The school nurse calls because your kid has a weird rash, like you're going to go deal with that. You know, like what do you still need to get through? That's what should be on the to-do list. Now, if you finish with those things and you want to find something else to do, I mean you can keep a running list elsewhere of like all the things in the universe that one might take on, right? Yeah, but to do means today.

SPEAKER_00

To do means today. Oh, I love that. I love that. Now, and when you're writing your list, are you writing it physically on paper? On paper, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

I'm a very analog person. Yeah. I actually have a paper calendar, which people find crazy. I love it. I do too. I think it's fabulous. I've managed my life that way so long, and I I mean I am very controlling of myself.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, I mean, of of your time. I mean, and it's important. It's

A To-Do List That Fits Today

SPEAKER_00

important. You have to have the lead ropes around that. Do you have a whiteboard? I mean, I remember when the kids were all in activities and we had the whiteboard and with different color-coded stickers and all of that for you know the kids going everywhere. Do you have one of those too, like a master plan?

SPEAKER_01

We do, but it's not a whiteboard. Okay. So what I do is I create a document every week with the family schedule.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

There's also one for the weekends, but that's a separate document. So Monday through Friday schedule, and it just says Monday, and then it's like who is taking who where, who gets home on what, like, yes, are people taking the bus? Are they staying after school? Who is driving who where? We are all known by our initials. It is a great fortune that the you know seven of us in my family and you know, anyone who are babysitters, also none of them seem to have the same initials, which is great. That's awesome. Yeah, what are the odds of that? That's not why I hire people, but it is helpful. So then you, you know, say who is driving, who, where, and anything else that needs to be known, I create that Monday through Friday. I email it to all, you know, necessary stakeholders in the family scheme. Oh, and then Amy, then I also print a copy, which lives on the kitchen counter. The primary purpose for that is for children who are literate but are not on email. But then it also is helpful for people to just glance at it on the way in and out of the door. You know, we can look at the days and any changes are then written, you know, in ink on there. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, these are great things that we can do as families. Obviously, it takes time, but that's such a valuable time. I mean, that's so valuable to create that. I wish I would have done that when the kids were little. And then everybody has a little ownership too. I mean, you've got skin in the game. You're like, okay, I'm responsible for this. That's a great life lesson in and of itself.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I just don't like the whiteboards. A lot of the whiteboard calendars have a certain amount of space for a given day. And, you know, some days are bigger than others. Some days, you know, require more stuff. And so a document lets me fully list whatever is going on. Did you grow up in a household that was very organized? Well, we didn't have as many kids, so it didn't have to be quite as quite as much for and and my brothers and I are actually far apart in age. So there weren't a whole lot of years where there were many of us there doing stuff. So it wasn't quite quite the same level.

SPEAKER_00

And when you're looking at your time over the last over a decade, have you seen changes like? I mean, I just feel like in the last decade, we lived abroad, we lived in Germany. Time was very different there. There was so much more family time. I know we're gonna get to golden hours before our half hour ends here. I want to talk about that because it's so important and little bets, another part of your I just love that. But you know, I feel that when you've really looked at that, I mean, it changes so much. I mean, I just feel like we're such a hurried society now.

SPEAKER_01

So what's interesting to me about the time tracking is what hasn't changed.

What Long-Term Tracking Reveals

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Because it turns out that sleep is a biological thing.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And no matter what is going on in my life, over a longer period of time, I get the same amount of sleep. Really? Yep. Okay, that's a mind blower. So in the 11 years that I've been tracking time, I started tracking in April of 2015 when my fourth kid was three months old. And so I I tracked that year. I also tracked when, you know, my fifth kid was born in late 2019. So tracking a full, you know, time when I had a baby and he's growing up and all that, like his entire babyhood has been recorded. But even though my sleep was way more interrupted and I was like catching naps at various points or going to bed early, like to try to get sleep or whatever, I still averaged out to 7.3 to 7.4 hours a day over any longer period of time.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my gosh. You know, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018. I try it. I added up my whole totals of time from 2024 when I was writing big time. Sure enough, it was between 7.3 and 7.4 hours a day. It's not a surprise to me anymore. That is apparently the amount of sleep my body is aiming for. Wow. One way or another, I get it. And if I've been very good about my sleep hygiene, then I start waking up, you know, before my alarm.

SPEAKER_00

That's remarkable. Oh my gosh. I I that's that's incredible. Let's talk about little bets. Tell me

Little Bets For Real Change

SPEAKER_00

what that means practically.

SPEAKER_01

Well it's just with life we can experiment with things. Right? Like nothing has to be a choice for the rest of time. I mean maybe a few things, but most things do not have to be a choice for the rest of time. And so you can experiment with your schedule with trying new things that you think might lead to something bigger or might not. Right. So you know if you're trying to become known as an expert about something you could decide to write two newsletters a week for six months and see what comes of it. Like doing that experiment will teach you what people are interested in reading about from what you are saying. You will probably hone your thoughts a lot more. You may or may not decide to keep going it like when you start that newsletter you don't have to be like I'm going to do this for the rest of time. Like no I mean no newsletter is going for the rest of time anyway. Like it's just a qu it's going to end at some point. The question is just when. Yeah. So you can fully decide to end it in six months and just see what you learned from it. Or you can decide you like it and keep going. You know, when we're we're thinking of trying things with our time, you know, this is a good mindset. Just do something small, see what you learn, iterate from there.

SPEAKER_00

See what you learn. Yep. I like that. The golden hour concept this is something that I've practiced a long time similar. I also have something similar that I talk about called an NPN, which is a no plan night, which I really encourage people, especially women, to just put a red X on one calendar day every week and just call it an NPN. No plans. You're not required to do anything. Now whether that's sustainable or not for certain people I don't know but it's something that I've practiced. But let's talk about this golden hour because I think it's it's really important. And what do people discover about themselves during that time?

Golden Hours And A 30-Minute Plan

SPEAKER_01

Well the idea of the golden hours is weekday evenings. So the time after work and before bed. And I think for many people this becomes either you know the second shift of housework and childcare or it becomes a wasteland of screen time. But this is time that is available to us if we want to do something fun or meaningful with it. And so I think we're we're getting at something similar, Amy, but I I would approach it from plan that even on a no plan night meaning no external plans, I want you to have a plan for yourself. The problem is if you don't have a plan for yourself, you are going to just lose the time to you know puttering around the house, halfheartedly checking your email, then seeing what's on social media. Maybe you start a Netflix thing but you don't like it. So then you go to something else and then your kid asks for something you know you just the the time will go somewhere. But if it goes where you want it to or not is an entirely different matter. And if you've bothered to block this off from anything else right to go where you want it to go. So just come up with a 30 minute intention for every evening. 30 minutes you would like to do. Could be reading a book could be doing a puzzle having a hobby calling a friend going for a family walk you know anything that you would enjoy and figure out where that can go in your evening. Make it happen. Yeah look forward to it enjoy it savor it afterwards reflect on it. And when you do this it changes your experience of your evenings they they become golden. They be they can come like they happened many people feel like they don't have leisure time because the time passes and they haven't done anything memorable with it. Right. All that you know half-hearted screen time and puttering around the house doesn't register right as being free time, even though it is we want to substitute higher quality leisure for lower quality leisure.

SPEAKER_00

Right. You think about those days with you know some of the young moms listening right now that might have babies or two little ones or something and all of a sudden it's bathtime and then you get them to bed and then you plop on the couch and you're sitting there and you're still folding laundry and you know you're really not using that time. Like you said 30 minutes for you really treating yourself as a guest of honor. That's what it is. It's a form of self-care.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah I mean having leisure that we actually enjoy is the is the best form of self-care.

SPEAKER_00

Right. So in our last couple minutes here, who do you think this book the one you've written most recently here that just came out big time, who do you think should be reading this?

SPEAKER_01

I mean I think it's for any busy person I mean using that word busy, but anyone who would like to have a different perspective on their time, who would like to go through life with a story that I do have time, right? Like what matters to me. I don't need to feel like I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off, my hair on fire, whatever metaphor we want to use that hamster on a wheel. Yep. Yeah hamster on a wheel or the bad form of a circus like you know we we want people to feel calmly in control of their big abundant lives. So I hope that's appealing to some people listening to this.

SPEAKER_00

So do you think as many men pick up the book as women?

SPEAKER_01

Probably not but that is just a function of people sort of segregate themselves in terms of audience that men are more likely to read self-help books by men. They're more likely to listen to podcasts from men women are more likely to you know read the the books that are written by women and interesting I want to share this book with my husband.

SPEAKER_00

Although he's a good time manager but it's different too when the kids are grown and flow and you have more time you do I think you do yeah and how we invest that time is is really interesting. I think it's a different phase of life.

SPEAKER_01

Well I'd love for you to give it to him because even if he is a good time manager, I mean this is the thing a lot of self-help the assumption is that you're writing for people who are disasters and that tends not to be the case.

SPEAKER_00

It's the you know people who have the A and want the A plus yes have the A and want the A plus so true. So

Two Takeaways To Start Tonight

SPEAKER_00

if we could get two tangible takeaways you know for our listeners today just for people to start I I want everybody to go and purchase the book and we'll have all of that in the notes and we're going to find out where we can follow you and kind of what's going on next. But what are two tangible takeaways for our listeners today that they can start living this abundant life and using their time wisely the first thing I always suggest is to try tracking your time for a week.

SPEAKER_01

And I know that sounds like a big ask doesn't sound like much fun. I promise that it's not that onerous there's no way I would have done it for 11 years if it were particularly challenging. It really feels like brushing my teeth at this point. So all you have to do is a week you do not have to do 11 years. A week would be perfectly sufficient but I want you to see where your time truly goes. I mean most people don't even know that there are 168 hours in a week so that's the first mindset shift that thinking you know tracking a week is going to give to you. And I think there will be others. When people do this they don't feel bad about their time. So everyone's like oh I just don't want to know I don't want to feel you know I don't want one more thing that's going to make me feel bad. It's not people do this I've studied this they feel better about their time after tracking their time because whatever terrible stories you have been telling yourself are probably not true. So I want you to try tracking your time see where it goes see what you like see what you want to change. Very simple approach it with a spirit of curiosity and then you know just as a thing you could do right now is tonight think of what your 30 minute intention is going to be what are you going to do tonight that is fun for you and you know if for whatever reason tonight 30 minutes doesn't happen I mean even if you got a lot of stuff going on 30 minutes can often happen. But let's say for whatever reason it can't just go for 15 or 20. I want you to have something you are doing that is fun for you for that amount of time and then you know look forward to it reflect on it afterwards see how that changes your perception of the day.

SPEAKER_00

And if you like it, try it again tomorrow. That's amazing. I love the journaling of your time. You know we do food journals and find an accountability partner to do this with you this week you know find somebody call your friend and say hey let's do this because I think that would be interesting to kind of compare notes.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah yeah we'll see where your time goes where your friend's time goes so you can write each other on the log like when you're spending the time together that'll be a fun little meta moment.

SPEAKER_00

I think so I love it. I love how calm you are obviously in May it's busy but you know I mean you're just calm and relaxed and I think it's amazing. I'm so happy we had this conversation. Where can we find you and what's next for you?

SPEAKER_01

So

Where To Find Laura And What’s Next

SPEAKER_01

you can come visit me at lauravandercamp.com that's just my name. Perfect lots of resources there. You can learn about big time and all my other books. You can learn about my podcasts Best of both worlds and before breakfast sign up for any of my newsletters you know I love to write so there's a lot of content out there. And as for what's next for me I'm I'm working on another book as you might imagine since I love doing that. It's actually going to be an expansion of this idea of the golden hours. And I really feel this is the final frontier of time. Like even people who have great morning routines who are doing awesome things at work have cool adventures on the weekend like the evenings can just be this wasteland. Every hour is precious. We have a ton of hours but they are still precious. And so I don't want people not to have this resource that they could use and have fun with.

SPEAKER_00

Oh that's fabulous. I love that I love the golden hour. Last question I'm going to ask you is one I ask everybody because I like what advice we give our younger self. So Laura if you're sitting on the couch and you look over and there's Laura at 25, what advice would you give her?

SPEAKER_01

You know honestly I would tell her to start a newsletter list now because it's something that's cumulative like you're always going to need it. You're always going to want to reach out to your people, your audience, your platform and and you know you're building a creative career already at 25 so you may as well be doing this. I didn't start it until I was like 32, 33. So you know lost eight years of compounding there.

SPEAKER_00

Amazing that's great that's great advice. Thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it and I know everybody listening and watching will as well thanks so much. Thanks for having me. Thanks

Share Subscribe And Book Waiting List

SPEAKER_00

so much for joining me today on the Right Size Life. If this episode resonated with you I hope you'll share it with someone who may need a little encouragement clarity or inspiration in this season of life. And don't forget to subscribe you know the right size life was originally Fearlessly facing50 and now we've rebranded to the right size life so make sure you're following it on anywhere you listen to podcasts. It's on all the platforms. And you can find me at Fearlesslyfacing50.com F-I-F-T-Y. Remember 50 is always spelled out on Instagram I'm theAmy.schmidt and on Facebook at Fearlessly Facing50. And I would love for you to get on the waiting list for my book which will be launching soon. So if you'd like to be on the list and the first to know when it launches you can go ahead and simply email me Amy at fearlesslyfacing50.com f I f t y dot com and put the word list L I S T in the subject line and I will add you to the waiting list. And remember sometimes the next chapter begins with letting go. I'll see you next time on the right size life. Have a great impressed