5 Time Management Hacks Every Working Mom Needs to Take Back Control

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In this week’s episode of the podcast, I’m sharing five super practical time hacks that will help you take back control of your calendar and even free up five hours (or more) each week. These aren’t complicated systems—just small, doable shifts that bring more focus, breathing room, and calm to your day. If you’ve ever sat down at your desk already feeling behind, this episode will give you the tools you need to feel in control of your time again.  

Topics in this episode:

  • Results-based scheduling: label your calendar with outcomes, not just tasks. 

  • Plan tomorrow, today: set your top 3 priorities before you log off. 

  • Stop believing the “not enough time” story—it’s a mindset shift. 

  • Time containers: finish tasks within set blocks, no spillover. 

  • Trust your past self: follow the plan you already created instead of reacting in the moment.

Show Notes & References:

Transcript

Intro

Do you ever look at your week and think, there is just not enough time between work and kids and everything else. It just feels like you're constantly behind before you even begin. 

In this episode, I am sharing five simple time hacks that can help you take back control of your calendar and even free up five hours or more in your week. These aren't complicated systems. They're small, doable shifts that give you breathing room, focus and sanity. 

If you've been craving more time for yourself, for your family, or just to exhale, this is an episode you don't wanna miss. Are you ready? Let's get to it. 

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, your go to resource for integrating your career ambitions with life as a mom, I'm distilling down thousands of coaching conversations I've had with working moms just like you, along with my own personal experience as a mom of two and sharing the most effective tools and strategies to help you quickly feel calm, confident, and in control of your ambitious working mom life. You ready? Let's get to it.

Back-to-School Transition Strategies for Working Moms

Hello, hello, working moms. Can you believe that it is the end of summer? I know so many of you have already started back into school if you have kids that are school age—or you’re transitioning into fall and fall schedules and fall activities and all the things.

So know that during this season of transition you need to be expecting that there are higher emotions for everybody involved: your kids, yourself, people around you—all of the things. I’m certainly experiencing a lot in my own family.

And so if this is a season that you need some extra support in this transition, if you need some strategies on how to get into the fall rhythms and schedule and lean into the right things, and make sure that you are giving lots of space for your values—for being patient with your kids, for the emotions that are coming up—I want to invite you to join me tomorrow for a Back-to-School Transition Workshop (or fall transition strategy session).

This is for just a small group of working moms that want to join me and literally create a blueprint. I’m going to give you a PDF where it literally maps out a blueprint for you and for this upcoming fall season so that you can really feel equipped with a plan to stay calm and create calm during this back-to-school, fall transition—and really show up as the mom that you want to be during this season for your kids.

So I would love to have you join us. There are still a few spots if you want to join us. It’s tomorrow at 4pm Pacific Time, which is 7pm Eastern Time. And there is a link in the show notes for you to join us.

Why Time Management Isn’t the Full Answer to Work-Life Balance

But today I want to get into a topic that I don't really talk about a lot. I was looking back actually at the last time I feel like I really covered this topic, and it's been a long time—and there's sort of a reason for that.

We're talking all about time management. There's a reason that I don't talk about time in this way, and it's because it perpetuates a story that if you can just be more efficient with your time, then balance is going to get easier for you. Right? As if work-life balance is a time management problem. And if you just got better with your time, then that's going to solve everything, right?

I would not be setting you up for success if I let you believe that. And so a lot of times on this podcast, I focus more on the mindsets and the internal strategies that are required—because that's really where sustainable work-life balance is found.

Practical Hacks Still Have Their Place

But I would also be doing you a disservice by not saying that there are some tips and tricks out there. There are definitely some hacks for how to be more productive with your time, to eke out more to-dos and more productivity.

And no doubt, if you did that, you would feel more productive, you would feel more successful, you would feel more in control of your time. So I don't want to deny that checking more things off of your list actually feels good, and it's going to help you create balance.

What I teach in this podcast and within my programs is that it's not the full solution. It's not the only thing you have to do. You still have to change a lot of the internal things going on—the drivers, the mindsets, and things like that.

But in today's episode, I really am just focusing more on the external—more on the strategies and the hacks that you can do in a really practical sense to gain back a bunch more of your time, to feel more in control of your time, to be more productive, and kind of eke out all that productivity out of your time.

All right, so super, super practical for you. Okay, so I'm going to be walking you through five time management hacks that I teach and give to all of my clients as we start talking about managing their calendars in a different way and taking back control of their time.

Time Hack #1: Results-Based Scheduling

And the first one that I want to talk about—the first hack—is results-based scheduling. I was actually just talking to one of my clients about this today.

This is essentially where you put into your calendar the results that you want from that appointment or time block that you put in your calendar. So what that means, very practically speaking, is rather than blocking off a chunk of time to “work on a project,” you would write complete first draft of presentation instead.

Or rather than putting “one-on-one meeting with Rebecca” in your calendar, you would literally write: problem solve client-facing issues, evaluate promotion progress, and connect one-on-one with Rebecca.

It's results-focused. You literally write it in the chunk of time, in the appointment on your calendar, based on the results. Every meeting, every time block, every appointment that you have in your calendar should be labeled with the result—or essentially the thing that you want to achieve—at the end of that time block so that your brain is really clear on the outcome.

Why Results-Based Scheduling Works

There are a few reasons why this is a time management strategy or hack. The first one is because it gives your brain clarity on what success from this time commitment even looks like. You know exactly what you are looking to achieve and the expectations that you're essentially placing on yourself to achieve it.

This gives you infinitely more likelihood of being successful in that time block. It also sets a really clear agenda for your brain and potentially for anybody else that might be joining you in that time block—a meeting or so forth.

That way, the time block doesn’t feel optional to you. It feels clear and connected to outcomes, which is always going to drive better results. More clarity equals more success—ultimately, at the end of the day.

How Erika Used Results-Based Scheduling to Create Balance

For example, my client Erika—she was in the last cohort of Ambitious and Balanced. And when she started to schedule her office days in this way, with really clear chunks of time that were dedicated to very specific tasks and projects, and clear outcomes determined with each of those blocks, this gave her focus.

It made her exceedingly more efficient with her time. And in the end, her office time became really essential—an essential part of her productivity and inevitably her ability to feel balanced.

Okay, so time hack number one is results-focused scheduling. Every appointment in your calendar should have a result in the calendar appointment. It's not even in the notes of the appointment—it’s how you label the appointment itself. So your brain really is connected to the outcome of that time.

Time Hack #2: Plan for Tomorrow, Today

Time hack number two is to plan for tomorrow today. Essentially, at the end of your day today, I want you to plan what you are focusing on tomorrow.

The reason for this is because one of the most common time thieves that I see for my clients—we’ll put it that way—is when you sit down at your desk in the morning with an unprioritized long to-do list where you have not decided your priorities for the day. And your brain goes, oh my gosh, I do not know what to work on first.

Why Starting with an Unprioritized List Creates Overwhelm

I know so many of you do this. I know that’s exactly how your brain operates, right? You just sit down at your desk, you look at an unprioritized to-do list, and immediately you start to feel overwhelmed.

Because it doesn’t feel like you’re going to get anything done today. It doesn’t feel like you’re going to make enough progress or that you’re going to make a dent in all of the things that you have to do. And so you immediately feel overwhelmed and stressed.

So essentially what that means is you start your day in a state of unprioritized overwhelm. And when you’re feeling that sense of overwhelm, and then you attempt to figure out what to do first in your day—or how to schedule your time for the day—while also feeling overwhelmed, you do not make the best decisions with what to focus on.

Instead of actually focusing on the things that matter most and picking the things on your list that would be the most strategic and most important, what your brain does—because it’s in overwhelm—is it picks the simplest things, it picks the most urgent things, it picks the things that other people need from you so that it kind of has a quick win and you just get it off the list.

It focuses on just trying to check as many things off of the list—but not necessarily focusing on the things that are most important.

Time Hack #2 in Action: Decide on Three Priorities Today for Tomorrow

One of the most strategic things you can do with your time is, at the end of your workday, look at your to-do list and decide no more than three things that you want to accomplish the next day.

Literally write them down on a separate piece of paper—I use a sticky note—stick it on your desk, and then take that unprioritized long to-do list and put it away so that the very first thing you look at when you sit down at your desk are the three things that you are going to accomplish for the day.

And instead of looking at this overwhelming to-do list, you don't even go through that process. Instead, you look at the three things and your brain says, oh, I can do that today.

It provides focus. It makes you feel successful immediately. It builds momentum toward those three things. And then, instead of going back and forth like you might do with an unprioritized to-do list, you are able to start right at the beginning of your workday—as you sit down at your desk—building momentum and checking things off.

Client Story: How Lisa Regained Her Productivity

I was just speaking with one of my clients from the last cohort today. Her name is Lisa. And she talked about how she had been out of practice of doing this at the end of her workday. She had learned how to do it, she had gotten into a rhythm of doing it while we were working together, and she had noticed that she’d kind of fallen off her rhythm.

It was having a really major impact on her productivity and her focus in a negative way. She was finding she was lacking focus. When she would sit down first thing in the morning, instead of feeling focused and clear, she felt scattered. She felt anxious about her day, and her brain would start racing, thinking that she should be doing more.

Time immediately felt scarce from the moment she sat down. And she simply was not as productive or effective with her time as she had been when she was in this regular rhythm of deciding ahead of time what she was going to focus on the next day.

So obviously, we coached on that. She’s getting right back into that rhythm so that tomorrow she’s going to have a really effective and productive day.

So that is hack number two: plan tomorrow, today. Decide ahead of time what you're going to work on tomorrow.

Time Hack #3: Stop Telling Yourself There’s Not Enough Time

Hack number three is to stop telling yourself there is not enough time. Essentially, you have to debunk the time scarcity myth that you live in.

There always has been just 24 hours in the day, right? There’s a state of consistency with time. It is you that goes up and down with time, based on the way you’re thinking about your time.

Let me ask you this: when you have the thought there’s not enough time to get it all done—or maybe it sounds a little bit more like, oh, there’s too much to do, not enough time—how do you feel?

Now, raise your hand if your immediate response is overwhelm. Yes—that is, far and wide, the number one emotional state that those time scarcity thoughts produce.

The Neutral Fact: You Have 24 Hours

There is always only 24 hours in a day. That fact is a neutral fact.

It doesn’t mean that there’s an excessive amount of time to get things done, but it also doesn’t mean that there is a scarce amount of time to get things done. There’s just simply 24 hours in the day—you get to decide what you think about it.

If every day you sit down at your desk and the first thought is, oh my gosh, I cannot get this all done today, there is too much to do, there is not enough time—you will perpetually create a feeling of overwhelm and stress from the moment you sit down.

And that is true whether you have three things to do today, or you have a back-to-back meeting day, or you have a clear calendar day. If you continually think, there’s not enough time to get it all done, I’m behind, you have likely patterned that into your way of being.

No matter how much time you have that day, that’s what you’re going to think. And you’re going to start your day in overwhelm and scarcity.

Why Time Scarcity Creates Terrible Decision-Making

The reason this matters is you do not make the best decisions with how to spend your time, what to prioritize, what to say no to, and what to lean into when your first state of being is stress and overwhelm.

Literally, that emotional state is a state of fight or flight. It’s a response in your body that floods you with adrenaline. That’s what happens when we’re in a state of overwhelm: our body pumps us with adrenaline to get moving.

But in that state of adrenaline-pumping fight or flight, what happens is our brain goes into tunnel vision. And it focuses not on the things that are most important, because when you are pumped with adrenaline in a state of fight or flight, you cannot think of the things that are most important.

You can only think of the things that are urgent. You can only focus on what other people need, not letting people down, and doing a good job. Right? You don’t make the best decisions about what to do with your time when you are in tunnel vision.

You are literally experiencing a flood of adrenaline because you’re in that fight-or-flight state, and terrible decision-making happens in that state.

Which means you have to practice believing that there’s plenty of time to get everything done that needs to get done. Plenty of time.

You have to flip the script. You have to practice believing that you are in control of your time and that you can get it all done.

The Mindset Shift: “I Control My Time”

I want you to sit down at your desk tomorrow—or the next time you’re at your desk—and I want you to think to yourself: I control my time. I get to decide how I use my time.

That would be an infinitely better mindset to start your day with than I don’t have enough time, I can’t get it all done.

That’s the mindset you have to be in every single day. And I help my clients cultivate this mindset with all sorts of tools in my programs.

There’s a whole workbook actually devoted to debunking this idea that you need more time in order to be successful. And I give them lots of practices, like the Daily Kickstart, Thought Adoption, and my 11 Ways to Practice New Thoughts.

There’s a whole set of tools that I give my clients to teach them how to practice these types of mindsets, because they are so essential to you living in full control over your calendar, over your life, and over your priorities.

Client Story: How 90 Minutes with Her Kids Became Enough

I remember a client many years ago—and I know I have told this story countless times, and I’m gonna say it again because it’s such a great example.

She started our coaching program saying, I only spend 90 minutes of time with my kids every single weekday. She had a long commute, she didn’t see them in the morning, and she’d get home and there was only about 90 minutes she could spend with them. They were really little and went to bed early, if I recall all those things.

And so she came to me and said, how can I be a great mom and only spend 90 minutes a workday—five days of my week—with my kids? How can I be a good mom? But she didn’t have the option to leave the job and all the things.

Over the course of our three months together, we worked at cultivating this mindset that 90 minutes was enough. She didn’t need more time—it was the perfect amount of time.

Because she started cultivating that mindset, she began to strategically problem-solve for the things that would distract her during that time—the things that were taking her away from being present, away from bedtime routines, and so forth.

By the end of our three months together, she told me she thought she would have had to quit her job in order to feel like she was spending enough time with her kids. But ultimately, when she learned how to shift her mindset and started actually focusing on being fully present with the time she did have—and stopped telling herself it wasn’t enough—it changed everything for her.

Time Abundance: Your Beliefs Matter More Than Hours

The amount of time you have does not dictate your success at work. It doesn’t dictate your success as a mom. It is what you believe about that time.

So tomorrow, start practicing more abundant mindsets around your time.

Time Hack #4: Use Containers of Time to Complete Tasks

The fourth time hack I want to offer to you is to give yourself a container of time to complete tasks and projects. Traditionally, this is called time blocking, but it’s essentially where you set aside a period of time in your calendar to work on different tasks.

What I think is really important about this particular hack is that you learn how to complete the task or the project within the allotted time that you’ve given yourself. You don’t give yourself more time to complete that task or project—you finish it within the allotted time.

The Mistake Most People Make with Time Blocking

What I see a lot from my clients is that they’ll put that time in their calendar to work on a project or complete a task. But the mindset about that time block is that all they need to do is just make some progress on the project, right? They just need to move it forward—not necessarily complete it.

That’s a very different approach in your mind to that time block. It’s the idea of setting aside time just to move something forward versus saying, I’m only going to allow myself one hour to complete this result.

That could be completing a first draft of a presentation, finishing your team’s performance reviews, preparing for a meeting, writing a blog or piece of content, or checking five things off the list.

The point of time blocking is to actually contain the amount of time you give yourself to complete a project or task. It’s not simply about making progress—it’s about completing it.

Think of Time Blocks Like a College Exam

I want you to think about time blocking in this way: give yourself containers of time as if you have to turn in the assignment at the end of the chunk of time.

Just like in college—when you were handed a test in class, you had to complete the test within the hour, within the class period. And you had to turn it in at the end of the hour. Because of that, you would figure out how to make the most progress on the test within that chunk of time, within that container your professor gave you.

If your professor had said, oh, just stay here as long as you’d like to complete the test, you would likely give yourself way too much time to complete it. You would second-guess yourself, go back and forth, question yourself over and over again, and ultimately turn it in—but you probably wouldn’t feel great about it.

In the same way, you want to put a chunk of time in your calendar that’s the block of time you need in order to complete a particular task or reach a certain outcome.

Likely, if we go back to results-based calendaring, you should put the chunk of time in with a very clear result that you want to get out of that time—and then you do not give yourself more time to get it done.

Why Procrastination “Works” (and How to Use It Intentionally)

This is why procrastination works for so many people—because when you wait until the very end, if you wait until the last hour to complete a particular project, you just have to put the pedal to the metal and get it done until it’s complete.

You can’t overthink it. You have to push through the I don’t know how to, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to complete this, I don’t know what to say. You don’t have time to ask people their opinion. You just have to keep going until it’s done and then turn it in.

That’s why procrastination works for so many people. In this case, you’re actually just doing that for yourself in a really intentional way.

Treat Every Time Block Like a Hard Deadline

I want you to think about every chunk of time that you have as like a 5 o’clock hard deadline. You can’t go a minute past that chunk of time that you’ve given yourself to complete the task. It just has to be turned in at whatever level it’s at, in whatever format it’s in. That’s it. That’s what you get.

When you don’t allow yourself to work anymore to complete a task—if you don’t allow yourself to work past the time block or say, you know what, I’m just going to have to get back to that later today when the kids are asleep—when you don’t give yourself more time to complete a task or a project or your to-dos, then it forces you to be more strategic with how you approach that task or project so that you actually complete it within that period of time.

That’s how you really take back control of your time: you give yourself only a specific container of time to get it done. That’s the time block. And then you learn how to become someone that keeps to it no matter what.

How Strategic Time Blocking Transformed One Client’s Workday

I was just speaking to one of my clients about this today, who transitioned a while ago at this point from full-time to 80% time. And when she did that, she realized that she had to be ruthless and really strategic about time blocking so that she actually stuck to that 80%.

Because she had a propensity to just keep working. And she wasn’t going to get paid for 100%—she was only going to get paid for 80%. So she really wanted to keep to that. And so it required her to be way more ruthless and strategic with how she spent her time. Time blocking and keeping within those time blocks is required in order to do that.

Time Hack #5: Listen to Your Past Self, Not Your Present Self

The last time hack I have for you actually comes from a coach colleague of mine, her name is Sarah Arnold Hall. She has a YouTube channel—I highly recommend you follow her on that.

And this came from her. I just love the way she framed this particular hack. It’s certainly something that I speak about—I’ve just never quite framed it in this way. And I thought it was a really useful way to think about time. And it’s this: never let your present self make decisions for how to spend your time. Always listen to your past self that has already decided.

Decide Once and Follow Through

So what I mean by that is if you decide today the three things that you want to work on tomorrow—you’re going to write them down, you’re going to put them on your desk, and you’re going to sit down at your desk tomorrow and work on those three things—your present brain is likely going to tell you that you should be doing something else with your time.

It’s likely going to push back. It’s going to think you should be prioritizing something else. It’s going to feel that scarcity of time. But you don’t want your present brain making a decision on what you want to re-prioritize. Essentially, you don’t want to listen to that present brain that is stuck in panic mode and urgency.

You want to listen to your past brain that has already made that decision. Because your past brain, or your past self, made decisions for what to prioritize today and put time blocks on your calendar and priorities on your schedule based on your goals, the bigger scope of work, your values, and your bigger perspective of success.

Your present self has a very difficult time seeing all those things because it lives in a reactionary state. So it makes decisions based on urgency. It makes decisions based on emotion. It doesn’t want to let anybody down. It wants to make sure everybody is happy around you. It doesn’t want to ruffle feathers. It wants to avoid failure.

So you never want your present brain to change your past brain’s decisions with time. Instead, the things your past brain essentially put in your calendar—the meetings, the time blocks, the commitments, the priorities—you want to trust your past self that made those decisions about time. Because your past self will always have a fuller picture of what matters most to you than your present brain ever does.

Instead, you want to be someone that follows through with your past brain’s decisions on where to spend your time and what to prioritize.

Essentially: decide once and then follow through. Don’t keep changing the plan. Don’t keep changing the commitments in your calendar. Decide once and follow through. Don’t let your present brain convince you otherwise.

5 Time Hacks to Regain Hours in Your Week

All right, those are my five time hacks for you to help you regain time in your schedule. My average clients probably gain easily five hours—if not more—in their work week as they learn to think differently about their time, be more strategic with how they spend their time, and ultimately become people that follow through with their decisions on time no matter what.

I want you to choose one of these five hacks and focus on it this week. Doing all of them is going to be super overwhelming—you probably will fail at that. I want you to just choose one.

Choose the one that would make the biggest difference—the one that made you go, ah, yes, that would be really helpful. I want you to choose that one and focus on it this week.

Because remember, time management and getting better with how you spend your time and being more productive with your time—it all comes down to being someone that can follow through with the priorities that you set.

Ready to Regain 5+ Hours Every Week?

And if you want some help becoming that person that follows through with their time—someone who is ready to regain time back into your calendar… time for yourself, time for your family, time to be more present—there are still a few more spots in my current cohort of Ambitious and Balanced.

We actually don’t start until September 17, so there is still plenty of time for you to join the next cohort. I would love to speak to you about doing that.

Please do reach out and book a 30-minute discovery call with me where we will talk all about your struggles with your priorities and your time—and exactly how I will help you regain five hours, if not more, back into your calendar each and every week.

There is a link in the show notes for you to book that 30-minute call if you haven’t done so already.

It is almost September, so I want you to spend these next four months really learning how to be in complete control of your calendar and your priorities so that you experience sustainable balance from here on out.

All right? So if you haven’t booked that call, go to the show notes, click on the link—30 minutes. We will figure out exactly what you need in order to become the Ambitious and Balanced self that I know you can be.

All right, working moms—until then, let’s get to it.

Rebecca Olson