Mastering Chaos and Doing IT all: How To Transform Your Schedule and Gain Back Lost Time with Google Calendar Hacks

Feeling like your life is a never-ending whirlwind of chaos?  I share my transformative journey from disarray to tranquility through mastering Google Calendar. Discover how overwhelm led me to adopt time-blocking techniques and create dedicated calendars for everything. I emphasize the critical role of effective time management in maintaining a healthy work-life balance, sharing strategies for setting aside time for unforeseen events and holding space for potential opportunities. You'll find a personalized method to manage life's demands more efficiently. Tune in to transform your daily hustle into a well-structured, manageable routine

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Finding Structure Through Google Calendar

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome back to Confessions of a Wannabe it Girl , the podcast helping you filter out the BS in pursuit of becoming the next it girl . And this podcast episode hits really close to home , hits me right in the type A . We're going to talk about how you don't have enough structure in your life to have free time . Now , recently I have hit absolute co-red . What I like to call co-red means I am way too busy . I've probably said yes to too many things . I'm on the verge of burnout and I was in a very touch and go situation , meaning I would just do the task that was right in front of me that had to be completed and then have to move on to the next thing . There was no structure , no organization into what I was doing . It was pure chaos and pandemonium . So in this episode , I'm going to talk about how you can structure your life to make sure you get enough free time . Welcome to Confessions of a Wannabe it Girl . I'm your host , marley Fregging , and I'm here to help you filter out all the bullshit and become the next big girl . This podcast explores the reality of what it really takes to make it out there . As it turns out , it is way less Instagrammable than I thought it was going to be . I'm still very much a work in progress , but there's simply nothing else I'd rather be doing than chasing my dreams . So let's learn from my mistakes and work together to achieve our dreams with more confidence , clarity and direction . Let's get after it Well , and I'd have to say that the biggest thing that I realized was that I was having no structure in my life .

Speaker 1 1:37

It was very touch and go . I was handling the things right as they came in and that was not productive in the long term , also led to a lot of burnout , because I was switching multitasking between different things . Like I said , way too code red . I would go from teaching Pilates , planning a wedding , doing an acting class , maybe thinking about something for the podcast , and then just trying to live a normal young adult life , which is not so easy . Oh , and then an audition would come in , because that's just how the cookie crumbles . That is way so unstructured , and the lack of structure was really the root of the problem . Having structure , knowing that things are going to get done in a certain amount of time or a certain chunk of time we're going to dive into time blocking here really allows anxiety to go down , knowing that you've scheduled in time for that thing to happen . Now , remember , growing up , I was the type of girl who , on Friday night , would go home and get all of her homework done so that I could have the rest of the weekend to be like homework , worry-free . So this is a little bit of a type A method , but I am really excited to try to help explain my way of achieving this structure using Google Calendar or whatever calendaring app you prefer . Or , if you're still on the middle school planner vibe , I'm with it . I wish I was too . It just stopped working for me . So here's what you're going to do . We're going to dive into Google Calendar now .

Speaker 1 3:09

So I've talked about Google Calendar on the podcast before Not a sponsor , but I'm open to it . The best thing about Google Calendar is you can do a couple different things . You can have a master schedule hooked up to your , so that is your main schedule , that is your main place . Now you can go ahead and build calendars within your calendars . So , for example , I have a calendar for teaching Pilates as well as taking Pilates . I put in there . I have a calendar for acting , which also pertains to entertainment industry stuff . I have a calendar in there for podcasting . And then the two I'm going to really talk about a lot today are I have a podcast for just personal life events and what I call strategy . Also , the thing I love so much about Google Calendar is that you can color coordinate your calendar to be whatever you want to be in the aesthetic flow . Mine's really honestly not that aesthetic , but colors really help me to differentiate what I am doing from time to time , so like it allows me to see , oh , there's this much acting today , oh , this is more of a podcast heavy day , whatnot , because of the different colors I have assigned to the said calendar within my calendar . All right , so let's drive into those two little calendar things I was talking about called personal and strategy . If you're watching on YouTube , I don't know why I decided the hang loose thing was going to be my two for this . I guess because on some level they're a little different .

Speaker 1 4:33

Okay , so let's dive into personal events thing . Personal events on my Google calendar includes things like doctor's appointments , dentists , whatever , oil changes , whatnot , and I'm not even kidding . Sometimes that involves shower time . I'm blocking out my shower on the Google calendar . Yes , I know neurotic , but sometimes I just don't know per se if there's going to be enough hours in the day to make sure I get at least six hours to seven at least . So I'm chunking out time , taking out that space within my calendar , so I don't overcommit or think I have to include that . In the past not something I'm currently doing luckily , I think I've gotten a better hold on this is I also used to calculate within my calendar driving time I live in Los Angeles traffic ain't easy or just transitioning time , travel or transitioning time .

Speaker 1 5:26

I would also block that out in my calendar . Letting yourself mentally shift from thing to thing , or the time it takes you to get from place A to point B , because those are times that were always unaccounted for in my life and then I would end up stressed or late or out of place way too short of a time because I didn't realize I had to leave . So blocking in those extra times Now I'm talking about . Also , sometimes I block in times for showers . Now I don't do that every day . I don't feel the need that I need to block out a shower every single day on my calendar and it might not be the shower for you . For you it might be to eat lunch Another problem I have run into is I like to fill up that space because I'm not accounting for it . Now I'll talk about the fact that I've recently added in a lunch catch-up time to my calendar .

Speaker 1 6:14

It is a blocked out time in the middle of the day that I need to hold space for because inevitably I'm going to take the time to do those things anyways . Sometimes I forget to eat and I'm eating in a rush , but that's a whole other podcast and a whole other problem . But I'm blocking out that time to make sure I'm rechecking all of my messages . I do every single message in one big swoop . I'm talking DMs , I'm talking TikTok , notifications , whatever . I'm talking emails and I'm talking text messages . I do those all in one sprint , as well as emails . That's the really important one . I do emails in there . I do that all in one big sprint down right smack in the middle of my day and then maybe at the end of the day when I catch another breaky minute . But I'm blocking out that time to have this reset . I'm holding that space in my calendar because I found it was kind of something I was doing , naturally , but not accounting for it , and then I'd be like , holy fuck . I'm so behind on my day . I have all these other tasks blocked out in my calendar . That's the thing too .

Speaker 1 7:15

A lot of people just use Google Calendar for things like meetings and appointments . I use the scheduling part , not just the task part , to schedule in physically , take up the amount of time in my schedule and be like this is the amount of time I'm going to record a podcast . This is the amount of time I am going to work on that audition , this is the amount of time I'm going to send pitches . I'm blocking those things out . And here's the reason I made the big switch from a physical writing planner to a digital was because I was fucking up . I was sometimes forgetting appointments and or inputting the times wrong , and a lot of businesses and places do have an option to input this into Google Calendar . So you know there was a little safety net of me checking myself to make sure that times were right . I found myself fucking up that a lot . But the other big reason I made the switch to a digital calendar is because you are able to block out a chunk of time . Let's say in this example it's going to be sending acting career updates .

Speaker 1 8:23

I block out two hours on my calendar . Well , today didn't go quite as planned as I thought I was going to , so I'm just going to drag and drop the two hours and move it to the next day , still chunking out that same amount of time . Then I don't have to go and erase and rewrite the thing . I just found that Google Calendar makes it a lot easier to plug and drop what needs to get filled in . All right . So remember how I said that I had the life events thing kind of digressed from there . But I want to talk about strategy . Yes , this pinky is strategy , I guess . Strategy A newest calendar I have added to my Google Calendar life Strategy .

Speaker 1 9:03

I use this calendar to block out what is the undertone or theme of the day . I found that code red means I am shifting between too many things too fast and I never really understood what I was doing that day . Maybe wasn't giving my highest quality of work that day because I was shifting between things so quickly . And this really clicked for me when Taylor was on the podcast talking about how she handles the craziness of this . She's an amazing marketing specialist for social media . She owns Melrose Marketing . Check her out . She was on a previous episode of the podcast as well . She was talking about how on Mondays she usually does just emails it's more of an admin day , and Tuesdays were always her podcast recording days and I was like what the fuck ? That is definitely something I should be doing . Maybe at some point I thought to do and I've just totally let that drive to the wayside . So now I do look at my week and I try to make sure that there's like an admin day . Usually for me now that's going to be Monday . I have a podcast day . Usually that's Tuesday or Thursday . Tuesday is kind of split in half with acting . For me Now that's going to be Monday . I have a podcast day . Usually that's Tuesday or Thursday . Tuesday is kind of split in half with acting . For me , wednesday is Pilates and acting . See , I'm picking some undertones and themes , so it feels like everything is getting attended to All right .

Speaker 1 10:30

So let's talk about why not having this structure is keeping you from having free time . It's because you have the fear that you're never going to get it done . Now , from somebody who lives in the world of anxiety more than I would like to admit , I would say that 90% of my work anxiety literally comes from the fear of saying this phrase . I don't have enough time to get this done . Well , I hate to say it , but you probably do . It's probably because you're managing yourself not as well as you could be Now . I know I'm extreme and there's people who are more extreme and there's people who are way less extreme .

Creating Structure and Time Management

Speaker 1 11:02

Going back to , you have to chunk out your time to make sure you're getting in free time . Some days we're going to go back to talking about that lunch period , that lunch thing . I don't really have that many emails to catch up with . I don't know . Today was a slower day . I'm going to just eat lunch and play on my phone or do whatever I want to do , or go for a walk or get a coffee . You need to schedule in time that is kind of shiftable . Schedule in time that is kind of shiftable , like it could be used or it could be not , and it's not going to offset you If you don't catch up in your emails .

Speaker 1 11:42

At this time I found that I wasn't leaving in free time for auditions to come in . I don't get an audition every single day , or you know a brand deal per se or whatever it may be for you . I don't get one of those every single day . However , I was like , why am I not leaving in time in my days in case those things happen ? And it did happen to me this week . I got an audition and I was like , oh , thank goodness I've blocked in this time already because I know that everything else is going to get time and I do have time to do this audition .

Speaker 1 12:10

I think blocking out those times for the things we want in life , as well as free time , is manifesting for ourselves , sending it out to the universe and also reminding yourself to do it that you have blocked out time for that thing . So for me it's auditions and sometimes for me it's free time . Blocking out that time Now , if it gets used or not , who's to know , and sometimes just because I'm neurotic and crazy , if it didn't get used that day , just to be like I didn't do it or it didn't happen , I delete it from the calendar . But again , I think holding space for those things we want in life brand deals to come through , networking calls , holding space within those in your week , as well as free time is going to manifest it for you in the long run .

Speaker 1 13:01

Something else I've been doing to make sure that I have enough time to get everything done and also giving myself a backup of having a free time is what I need at this moment . I can do it because I have a backup time scheduled in . I'm talking about triple or double scheduling things , for instance . We'll use this podcast as the example , because this is true life for me . I have scheduled in time to do this podcast at least five times over the past week and a half and I say podcast recording today , this time to this time , and then I wrote in the next day or a day following , saying podcast backup recording , and then I put one more for safety podcast recording on this date .

Speaker 1 13:43

Now I know neurotic , but it is giving me so much peace of mind to know that I have so many tries , so many potential to get this done , and one of those and two of those might've been on the weekend , and that's okay . I'm giving myself multiple times to make it happen , because there are plenty of times that I come home and I'm doing 8 million other things and I don't feel like sitting down and doing that thing that I scheduled out , and that's all right . I have scheduled for it to happen at another time . So I'm blocking out , I'm creating a backup situation for whatever it needs to be done task and you know what you get to use or get to do . If you don't use that time , you can do whatever you want , or you can make it free time .

Speaker 1 14:30

Again , like I said , the reason we're not having enough free time in our life is because there's a certain level of fuck it . I'm just going and moving , grooving , throwing pasta at the wall and seeing what sticks energy , and then when we start to really succinctly think about what days and what times and lay it all out in a place we can physically see it , it becomes a lot less throwing pasta at the wall and a lot more focus . It also really cuts down on the amount of multitasking and switching back and forth too quickly , and I find that that really increases my quality of work . All right , to wrap it up , I'm going to bring it home by saying the points of you need to find a method for yourself to create some structure in your life . Now , for me , that's Google Calendar . For you , if that's a list or post-its notes organized in different colors , it's your own method . It's your own way to do it .

Speaker 1 15:28

I just wanted to share some tips and tricks about how I'm managing myself in a Code Red situation to structure it , to create more time . I'm talking about those backup times , color coordination , blocking out too much time to get what I think is realistic for a task and , of course , leaving true time for things like showering , life , eating and , of course , even scheduling in relaxation time . Guys , thank you so much for listening to Confessions of a Wannabe it Girl . We'll see you next Tuesday . Thank you so much for listening to Confessions of a Wannabe it Girl . Don't forget to rate and subscribe to the show . As always , we'll see you next Tuesday .