107. How to Schedule Your Free Time First This Summer
Summer often comes with a shift in schedules, extra family commitments, and a sense that everything feels busier than usual. For moms, it can be easy to let your own time and energy slip to the bottom of the list while trying to keep everything else running smoothly. But prioritizing your own time is critical to staying balanced, energized, and able to show up fully for your business and your family.
In this episode, I share how to schedule your free time first this summer. I talk about why we often wait for the “perfect moment” to take a break, and how that can keep us from feeling truly present and replenished. I also walk you through a simple, practical system for building intentional space into your schedule so you can protect your energy and approach your days with more focus, calm, and joy.
If you’ve been feeling stretched thin or like there’s never enough time for yourself, this conversation will help you create space before the chaos sets in. You’ll hear strategies for proactively carving out free time, the ripple effects this creates on your energy and productivity, and how taking time first can actually make everything else in your life flow more smoothly this summer.
Ready for clarity and a simple action plan to get your business started? Schedule a free 1-hour consultation with me here!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why waiting for the “perfect moment” prevents you from taking meaningful breaks.
The ripple effect that intentional free time has on your focus, productivity, and family.
How scheduling your free time first reduces stress and overwhelm.
Ways to create a system that makes taking breaks feel natural and guilt-free.
Tips for making summer routines work for you instead of against you.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
I think many of us moms live life like rest is a reward that we haven't earned yet. Like once the house is clean, once the inbox is empty, once the kids are settled, once work calms down, then we'll make time for ourselves. Then we'll take a break.
But what if life never actually slows down? What if the work is never really done? The truth is, it's never done, and things never really slow down. And that's okay.
This summer, I want to give you a simple mindset shift and system that can help you feel more present, more energized, and more like yourself before the work is finished, before things slow down. So you don't have to wait anymore.
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job, the podcast for moms ready to ditch the nine-to-five and build a life and business they love. I’m your host, Jenna Rykiel. Let’s go.
Hi, mom friends. Summer is among us. I'm sure you're all feeling it. I hope by this time you have most of your vacation plans and camps figured out for the kiddos and for your family. I'm sure many of you, like me, are stressing about when and how you're going to get things done. You're calling in favors from the grandparents, and your head is probably spinning trying to keep track of it all. I get it.
My oldest son is only three, but he's in a preschool that follows a regular school calendar. So he's been off for everything from sickness to spring break to parent-teacher conferences. He's also off this week in between when school ends and camps begin. So my husband and I are piecing the week together. It's exhausting, and it feels like summer hasn't even really started yet. So we're in for a treat.
So today's episode, I do want to acknowledge that summer is hard for moms. It's also an opportunity for a ton of great memories and joy. The sun is shining. We sometimes travel to new places. We get to see family and friends. It's a magical time for kids. As I'm sure you can remember, if you think back to your own childhood and how you felt about summers, let's not forget that piece. Okay, let's not get so wrapped up in the logistics and the pains of summer that we forget to enjoy it.
We only get so many summers with these little ones, and then we will be struggling to coordinate summer vacations around work schedules and other priorities. Some of you may already be in that phase of parenting. But enjoy it. Enjoy the summer. Enjoy their cute little sandy toes, even though it's annoying to clean up the sandy toe mess. We're about to go on a beach trip back east, so there will be tons of sand in places that we didn't know even existed, I'm sure.
I want you to enjoy the time you have off work. I want you to try not to think about work while you're with your family. That's something I'm supporting my clients to do all the time because it's a struggle. You know, when you are working, think about work. And when you're with your family, be present with your family. It's not easy, but give yourself permission to not think about work when you are making those core memories.
These are all just healthy, heartfelt reminders that are coming to mind as we open up the month of June. But I also want to give you a timely system that I want you to implement throughout the summer and beyond that ensures that you don't forget about you and what you need. Okay, this system is short and sweet, but it packs a punch.
Now, one thing I want to emphasize, whether this is your first episode or your 101st episode with me, being intentional about planning ahead of your week is important. I've released tons of episodes on time management tips and tools, and they are all amazing. Episodes 5, 12, 18, 30, 58, and 61, just to name a few. And all of those will be linked in the show notes, jenna.coach/107, the number 107. If you want to dive deeper into some time management tools, if this is your first episode with me, go back and review a lot of the systems that I teach and talk about.
But the one system that trumps all of them, and really comes before so many of them, is setting aside time before your week begins and spending about an hour truly planning out your entire week. That's not the tool that I'm going to dive deeper into today, but that's just a friendly reminder of we need to be planning ahead.
Even if you're not a planner, even if you have ADHD like my husband and you want to resist planning every single week, deciding when you're going to do what before the week begins will absolutely make your week go so much smoother. Figuring out meals for each night, coordinating pickup and drop off if you have help, plugging your to-do list into very specific times of the week so that it actually gets done. Most of us aren't really doing that.
All of the what should I do with my time decisions really should be contemplated and thoughtfully made before the week begins. This cuts down on a ton of decisions during the week, which saves you a lot of energy. If you've ever had decision fatigue at the end of the day or just been exhausted by all the decisions, planning ahead of time helps with that. The week is always going to be crazy as a parent, 100%. You can count on it. We all know this. There is no such thing as an uneventful week in parenting.
Planning ahead of time sets us up for success so that we can more easily adapt as that craziness hits. So if you don't already have a space for planning ahead of your week, it's laid out for you when you actually think ahead, I want you to really even just commit to that this summer. There's a lot of free time that happens in the summer, and especially with free time, we want to be intentional. We want to know how do we want to spend our weekends? What do we want to do on vacation? What are the days that we want to make chocolate chip pancakes?
But really also committing to that this summer is so crucial because of all the summer camps, of all the camps, the help, the vacations, the time off. There's so many moving pieces in the summer. So I want you to be able to look ahead at your week, look ahead at the next couple weeks, and really get an idea of what to expect. There are so many moving parts, like I said, keeping track of all the different summer camps, all the different things going on, planning and having time ahead of your week helps. And I want you to not just plan out one week, but look ahead to the next two, the next three to get a feel for what needs to be done ahead of time to set yourself up for success in the future.
Again, I should say I'm talking a lot about this, but this isn't even the amazing tool that I want to talk to you about today. This is really just kind of a review of a lot that I've talked about within the time management realm. Also this one piece, if you're not doing it, please commit to doing it. There is nothing worse than realizing a deadline is at the end of the month and vacation starts next week and you have no time to work on the deliverable. In that scenario, you're going to be working on vacation, and we don't want that. Okay? We want to be able to be present and clean those sandy toes, okay?
So that was a bit of a digression. Like I said, that's not the system that I want to talk about in depth today, but it's an important starting point that will help you integrate the system I'm talking about today more easily. So dedicate time each week before the week begins to planning. It doesn't have to be complicated. Just look at your week ahead. I teach my clients a more specific system to keep in mind and steps to follow, but all I want you to do at this point is keep it simple and just look ahead and plan when you do certain things.
The system I want to talk about today is simple, but it's something that most of us moms are not doing at all. It's simply this: schedule free time first. And when I say free time, I mean you time. I mean fun stuff. It doesn't necessarily have to be self-care activities. That's like a loaded term nowadays. It can be family stuff too, but it's remembering that as we get into the summer, it will be easy to fill up your entire life with work, with things the family needs, with things the house needs.
And I want you to get into the habit of scheduling stuff that you want to do, that feels freeing to you, first. Okay, whether you're committed to planning and scheduling or not, this is simply looking at the week ahead and being intentional about planning time for you.
And when I say free time, I want you to maybe broaden your definition a little bit. This doesn't have to mean a spa day or some luxurious self-care retreat. Free time can really look like going for a half-hour walk around the neighborhood, reading your book outside in the sun, getting lunch with a friend that you haven't caught up with in forever because kids. It could be taking a workout class that you've never tried, gardening, going to Target alone, slowly instead of rushing, sitting outside while your kids play, maybe in the middle of the day if the kids are home because they're off school on summer. Maybe it's getting coffee at your favorite coffee shop and doing a little admin work there. Maybe it's taking a nap.
Or maybe it's finding a new hobby like rock climbing. I can't recommend it enough. It's less about what you're doing and more about whether it feels freeing to you, whether it feels like you are not working. Because that's what we want to do. We want to build in time where you're not actually working in your week.
So that's the free time part. The second part of this, and really the more important part of this, is scheduling it first. Okay, there's an emphasis on first. That means building the free time into your schedule before building everything else in that needs to get done that week. This is because the work is never going to be done.
And I want you to remember that. It's rare that you get to the end of the week and think to yourself, "Wow, I got everything done that I needed to get done." That really doesn't exist in this society. It's okay to stop aiming for that. We actually want to move away from aiming for that. We want to move projects forward, we want to create results, but we don't want to set unrealistic expectations for ourselves that all the work be done, and then we can rest, or then we can have fun.
The way our society is set up, we will rarely reach this satisfied feeling that we got enough done. There's a great concept in the book, 4,000 Weeks, that agrees with the concept that the work is never done, right? It talks about as soon as we complete one thing, more appears. Like almost like the completion of a project brings on next steps for another thing.
Every email you send trying to get your inbox to zero creates more replies and creates more emails and more things to act on. We all have a to-do list at the beginning of the week, maybe, and throughout the week, more things are added. That's why to-do lists are so troublesome, right? They are never actually completed. So we never truly feel this sense of being done and satisfied. To-do lists are just never-ending. And this means that for us, the work is never finished, right? It's never done. There will always be more.
So if you're at all the type to make sure that business is taken care of before you let loose, maybe my type-A personalities, maybe my high achievers, I want you to shift your approach a bit. And this will be uncomfortable, and that's okay. I want you to schedule the fun and the free time first before the work is finished. Even if you don't have time in your schedule for all the things you need to do, I still want you to schedule that free time first. I want you to look at your week ahead and before filling it up with meetings and business stuff, block off time for something fun, something freeing, something for you.
And yes, that block will absolutely keep you from completing some other important task or responsibility. There is a, quote-unquote, better use of your time if your worth is measured by productivity. What I want to argue today is that scheduling things for you and scheduling breaks is just as important as anything that might pop up on your to-do list. But this piece that your worth is not measured by productivity, I really want you to think about that. I really want you to let that sink in.
In this capitalist society, we are driven by productivity. Everybody expects productivity, non-stop productivity out of us. But your worth is not measured by productivity. Taking that break for yourself, doing that thing that you've been wanting to do even if it means that something really important gets de-prioritized is going to create better results, more focus, and a better version of you when you tap back into the work.
And you don't have to feel guilty about it. I tell people all the time, you get to choose how you spend your time, and you get to choose how you feel about how you spend your time. Choose to feel really good about the free time you schedule and execute. I want you to create a story that emphasizes the benefits for your employer, the benefits for your team, the benefits for your family, the benefits for your own longevity and well-being. Because there are actually tons of benefits of you scheduling time for yourself.
Just a few that come to mind, scheduling time for yourself protects you from burnout. Whether as a mom, an employee, an entrepreneur, I talk to moms all the time who feel burnt out. My business before focusing on supporting moms was focusing on helping people prevent burnout.
And scheduling time for yourself can help, but it has to become part of your process. This is proactive, not reactive. We don't want to feel burnt out and drained and then try to find time for a walk. We want scheduling this time to be part of our weekly system so that it re-energizes us, it refreshes us before we're running on empty. It's really hard to come out of burnout when we're in it. But there are ways that we can help ourselves to prevent it. But again, it's uncomfortable because we are going to choose ourselves over some other things we could be doing. And we're not used to doing that.
So every week, I recommend looking ahead and finding any open pockets and scheduling free time before you load your calendar with the other things. I'll probably say that a number more times. I know I've already said it, but I want this to really drive in. So whether that's one thing a week or a couple things a month, we want it to be something that you can really look forward to, something that's just for you and fun and breaks up the week.
Okay, another benefit that comes to mind, it really does help you to be more focused when you return to your work. We think that planning things that are fun and for us, these little free time breaks take away from productivity. If I'm not spending time on this project, it's not benefiting the project. I'm not getting it done. But honoring time for yourself and taking breaks actually means that you come back to the work and get more done than if you had just worked the entire day without a break.
Trust me, there's a term for this that I don't know off the top of my head, but there's research and data on this. There's a threshold of focus and productivity. I think it might be two or three hours max, it might even be two and a half hours, that the brain can focus in on a project and really get great work done. If you're trying to sit down for longer stretches of time and be productive without taking any breaks, you're not getting your best work.
There's also this thing called Zoom fatigue. So staring at a screen for endless periods of time, I know so many of us have endless meetings, and they can really negatively impact your ability to focus and work. For some, it's worse than others. And if you know this is you, make sure that if you see back-to-back meetings that you schedule in walks and breaks from the screen before your calendar fills up. Even if that means looking two to three weeks ahead and scheduling those screen breaks.
The other benefit really is that scheduling these moments, this free time, these things for yourself, also means that you're living a life with intention and you're spending time doing things you love. I had in the last webinar that I did, there was talk about alignment in our work. And some people in the room said, "Oh, must be nice to feel aligned in your work." I think it's an absolute privilege to feel that way, and I want to help more people do work that feels aligned, right? That's what my business is all about. But even in a role and a job that doesn't feel aligned for you, you can build in moments in your week that do feel aligned, where you're doing things and spending your time in ways that fills you up.
How we spend our time is how we spend our life. It's our life, this time. So if you really want to spend more time in a hobby or reading or relaxing or going outside or going for walks, if going outside is super important to you, if health and wellness is super important to you, if getting steps in is super important for you, don't wait for the time to magically appear. I want you to schedule it first. Really take ownership of creating alignment in your life even if your current work environment is working against it.
This might mean creating boundaries around back-to-back Zoom meetings. I know there might be a culture or a pressure within your role or within your company to do that and to have back-to-back meetings. That's why we want to look ahead in our calendar and schedule these free time blocks. People might still throw things on our calendar. I know how it goes. I worked in tech. And we can say no.
So I want you to schedule these things first. The time will not magically appear. And then once you schedule this on your calendar, I want you to work around it with your to-do list, with your work projects, with your work meetings, with your family responsibilities. What many of us do is try to get all of our work done and then reward ourselves with the break or the fun thing or the treat, and it never happens because the work is never done, as I've mentioned.
Even when we are working hard on a project and we have the deadline in sight or the milestone, and we're thinking to ourselves, okay, once I get to that deadline, I'll have some relief. Then I'll start scheduling those walks like Jenna said. I promise you, something else urgent pops up, some other deadline pops up, some other thing that will take you away from those walks. We don't want to spend our entire life waiting for things to slow down, waiting till the deadlines are done, waiting till the projects are done. We want to build this time into our life right now.
So here's what I want you to do this summer. I want you to make this a habit. Don't wait until you're burnt out or desperate for a break. Be proactive. Look at your work week ahead on Saturday or Sunday, maybe even the Friday before, maybe even two Fridays before, and claim any openings that you have, an opening or two, maybe one a week or a couple a month for you. Decide what you want to do in that time and put it on the calendar first before you fill it up with all the other things. Again, don't wait until the work is done to see if you have enough time. Schedule it first.
We just want our weeks to align with the life that we want to live. And we have to plan ahead for that. We have to be intentional. That's okay. One thing that I've done personally in my own schedule to get even further ahead because often times planning even the weekend before the week starts means that my calendar is full, right? I have client meetings, I have podcast stuff, I have all the things. I've gone a step further and I schedule monthly standing walks, phone calls, coffee dates with people I admire in my life. Okay, I treat each of those as an important meeting. It's a reoccurring event on my calendar that other people can't book things, I can't book things.
And I really do treat this as like a meeting with a client or someone that's really important. The people in my life that I love are important, but I don't treat it as something that I can easily move. If there is a conflict of some sort, all of these things that I have with important people in my life, I'm rescheduling. We're not canceling.
I love these walks in the park with my friends. I love talking with my bestie on the phone each week. These are things that I look forward to and they are built into my schedule in advance. It's my free time, and it's on there before anyone else can claim those spots. And I will say even on the weeks that I have so much going on, I work around that free time to make it happen because I know how important it is.
So that's the next piece and really the last piece. I want you to practice not feeling guilty about it. I don't feel guilty about those blocks of time on my calendar because I know how good it is for me. I leave those morning coffee dates feeling energized. I hang up the phone with my bestie each week and feel like I just had a free therapy session. I finish up the walks with other mom entrepreneurs in my life and I feel like my heart is so full.
And that transfers into my work each day where I'm feeling energized and excited about the work I do because I've gotten that jolt from doing something for me, doing something fun. And I want you to have those moments in your week too. Even and actually especially if you're still in a nine-to-five. It's better for you and the company for you to have moments that are just yours in the week. So practice feeling excited about it, really confident about it, not feeling guilty about it. Tell yourself all the reasons why it's important.
You don't have to earn these breaks. And honestly, as a mom at any point in the day or the week, trust me, you've earned it. Before you even wake up, you've earned it. You don't have to earn these breaks. I want you to start building it in, and I want you to do that this summer so that you can find so much joy and make so many core memories even just for yourself.
If this episode resonated with you, I would love for you to follow the podcast so you don't miss future conversations like this one. If this podcast is new to you, definitely check out some more of the episodes and get a feel for what I'm sharing. I'm constantly sharing practical tools, mindset shifts, and really honest conversations to help moms create freedom and fulfillment and really ownership over their lives and careers by starting businesses and potentially leaving their nine-to-five.
And so would love for you to follow so you are updated and you get a little ping for all the new episodes. I release one every week on Wednesday. And honestly, the more support and perspective you surround yourself with on this journey, the less alone all of this will feel. So hit that follow button wherever you're listening and share this episode with another mom who needs the reminder to schedule herself first this summer. Even if it's not a mom who wants to start a business, this is such an important tool. This is such a great system to implement for everyone, for all of us.
All right, mom friends. I hope this was helpful. I know it's been so helpful for my clients and me, and I had a number of clients say they needed this reminder this month. And as I was talking about it in those sessions, I figured it could just be its own episode too. And I can send this reminder out through the ether. So I hope you have an amazing summer filled with all those core memories and being present and family time and also time for you. Okay. Keep tuning in. I will be here throughout the entire summer, navigating all the things as well. So I will see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
But what if life never actually slows down? What if the work is never really done? The truth is, it's never done, and things never really slow down. And that's okay.
This summer, I want to give you a simple mindset shift and system that can help you feel more present, more energized, and more like yourself before the work is finished, before things slow down. So you don't have to wait anymore.
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job, the podcast for moms ready to ditch the nine-to-five and build a life and business they love. I’m your host, Jenna Rykiel. Let’s go.
Hi, mom friends. Summer is among us. I'm sure you're all feeling it. I hope by this time you have most of your vacation plans and camps figured out for the kiddos and for your family. I'm sure many of you, like me, are stressing about when and how you're going to get things done. You're calling in favors from the grandparents, and your head is probably spinning trying to keep track of it all. I get it.
My oldest son is only three, but he's in a preschool that follows a regular school calendar. So he's been off for everything from sickness to spring break to parent-teacher conferences. He's also off this week in between when school ends and camps begin. So my husband and I are piecing the week together. It's exhausting, and it feels like summer hasn't even really started yet. So we're in for a treat.
So today's episode, I do want to acknowledge that summer is hard for moms. It's also an opportunity for a ton of great memories and joy. The sun is shining. We sometimes travel to new places. We get to see family and friends. It's a magical time for kids. As I'm sure you can remember, if you think back to your own childhood and how you felt about summers, let's not forget that piece. Okay, let's not get so wrapped up in the logistics and the pains of summer that we forget to enjoy it.
We only get so many summers with these little ones, and then we will be struggling to coordinate summer vacations around work schedules and other priorities. Some of you may already be in that phase of parenting. But enjoy it. Enjoy the summer. Enjoy their cute little sandy toes, even though it's annoying to clean up the sandy toe mess. We're about to go on a beach trip back east, so there will be tons of sand in places that we didn't know even existed, I'm sure.
I want you to enjoy the time you have off work. I want you to try not to think about work while you're with your family. That's something I'm supporting my clients to do all the time because it's a struggle. You know, when you are working, think about work. And when you're with your family, be present with your family. It's not easy, but give yourself permission to not think about work when you are making those core memories.
These are all just healthy, heartfelt reminders that are coming to mind as we open up the month of June. But I also want to give you a timely system that I want you to implement throughout the summer and beyond that ensures that you don't forget about you and what you need. Okay, this system is short and sweet, but it packs a punch.
Now, one thing I want to emphasize, whether this is your first episode or your 101st episode with me, being intentional about planning ahead of your week is important. I've released tons of episodes on time management tips and tools, and they are all amazing. Episodes 5, 12, 18, 30, 58, and 61, just to name a few. And all of those will be linked in the show notes, jenna.coach/107, the number 107. If you want to dive deeper into some time management tools, if this is your first episode with me, go back and review a lot of the systems that I teach and talk about.
But the one system that trumps all of them, and really comes before so many of them, is setting aside time before your week begins and spending about an hour truly planning out your entire week. That's not the tool that I'm going to dive deeper into today, but that's just a friendly reminder of we need to be planning ahead.
Even if you're not a planner, even if you have ADHD like my husband and you want to resist planning every single week, deciding when you're going to do what before the week begins will absolutely make your week go so much smoother. Figuring out meals for each night, coordinating pickup and drop off if you have help, plugging your to-do list into very specific times of the week so that it actually gets done. Most of us aren't really doing that.
All of the what should I do with my time decisions really should be contemplated and thoughtfully made before the week begins. This cuts down on a ton of decisions during the week, which saves you a lot of energy. If you've ever had decision fatigue at the end of the day or just been exhausted by all the decisions, planning ahead of time helps with that. The week is always going to be crazy as a parent, 100%. You can count on it. We all know this. There is no such thing as an uneventful week in parenting.
Planning ahead of time sets us up for success so that we can more easily adapt as that craziness hits. So if you don't already have a space for planning ahead of your week, it's laid out for you when you actually think ahead, I want you to really even just commit to that this summer. There's a lot of free time that happens in the summer, and especially with free time, we want to be intentional. We want to know how do we want to spend our weekends? What do we want to do on vacation? What are the days that we want to make chocolate chip pancakes?
But really also committing to that this summer is so crucial because of all the summer camps, of all the camps, the help, the vacations, the time off. There's so many moving pieces in the summer. So I want you to be able to look ahead at your week, look ahead at the next couple weeks, and really get an idea of what to expect. There are so many moving parts, like I said, keeping track of all the different summer camps, all the different things going on, planning and having time ahead of your week helps. And I want you to not just plan out one week, but look ahead to the next two, the next three to get a feel for what needs to be done ahead of time to set yourself up for success in the future.
Again, I should say I'm talking a lot about this, but this isn't even the amazing tool that I want to talk to you about today. This is really just kind of a review of a lot that I've talked about within the time management realm. Also this one piece, if you're not doing it, please commit to doing it. There is nothing worse than realizing a deadline is at the end of the month and vacation starts next week and you have no time to work on the deliverable. In that scenario, you're going to be working on vacation, and we don't want that. Okay? We want to be able to be present and clean those sandy toes, okay?
So that was a bit of a digression. Like I said, that's not the system that I want to talk about in depth today, but it's an important starting point that will help you integrate the system I'm talking about today more easily. So dedicate time each week before the week begins to planning. It doesn't have to be complicated. Just look at your week ahead. I teach my clients a more specific system to keep in mind and steps to follow, but all I want you to do at this point is keep it simple and just look ahead and plan when you do certain things.
The system I want to talk about today is simple, but it's something that most of us moms are not doing at all. It's simply this: schedule free time first. And when I say free time, I mean you time. I mean fun stuff. It doesn't necessarily have to be self-care activities. That's like a loaded term nowadays. It can be family stuff too, but it's remembering that as we get into the summer, it will be easy to fill up your entire life with work, with things the family needs, with things the house needs.
And I want you to get into the habit of scheduling stuff that you want to do, that feels freeing to you, first. Okay, whether you're committed to planning and scheduling or not, this is simply looking at the week ahead and being intentional about planning time for you.
And when I say free time, I want you to maybe broaden your definition a little bit. This doesn't have to mean a spa day or some luxurious self-care retreat. Free time can really look like going for a half-hour walk around the neighborhood, reading your book outside in the sun, getting lunch with a friend that you haven't caught up with in forever because kids. It could be taking a workout class that you've never tried, gardening, going to Target alone, slowly instead of rushing, sitting outside while your kids play, maybe in the middle of the day if the kids are home because they're off school on summer. Maybe it's getting coffee at your favorite coffee shop and doing a little admin work there. Maybe it's taking a nap.
Or maybe it's finding a new hobby like rock climbing. I can't recommend it enough. It's less about what you're doing and more about whether it feels freeing to you, whether it feels like you are not working. Because that's what we want to do. We want to build in time where you're not actually working in your week.
So that's the free time part. The second part of this, and really the more important part of this, is scheduling it first. Okay, there's an emphasis on first. That means building the free time into your schedule before building everything else in that needs to get done that week. This is because the work is never going to be done.
And I want you to remember that. It's rare that you get to the end of the week and think to yourself, "Wow, I got everything done that I needed to get done." That really doesn't exist in this society. It's okay to stop aiming for that. We actually want to move away from aiming for that. We want to move projects forward, we want to create results, but we don't want to set unrealistic expectations for ourselves that all the work be done, and then we can rest, or then we can have fun.
The way our society is set up, we will rarely reach this satisfied feeling that we got enough done. There's a great concept in the book, 4,000 Weeks, that agrees with the concept that the work is never done, right? It talks about as soon as we complete one thing, more appears. Like almost like the completion of a project brings on next steps for another thing.
Every email you send trying to get your inbox to zero creates more replies and creates more emails and more things to act on. We all have a to-do list at the beginning of the week, maybe, and throughout the week, more things are added. That's why to-do lists are so troublesome, right? They are never actually completed. So we never truly feel this sense of being done and satisfied. To-do lists are just never-ending. And this means that for us, the work is never finished, right? It's never done. There will always be more.
So if you're at all the type to make sure that business is taken care of before you let loose, maybe my type-A personalities, maybe my high achievers, I want you to shift your approach a bit. And this will be uncomfortable, and that's okay. I want you to schedule the fun and the free time first before the work is finished. Even if you don't have time in your schedule for all the things you need to do, I still want you to schedule that free time first. I want you to look at your week ahead and before filling it up with meetings and business stuff, block off time for something fun, something freeing, something for you.
And yes, that block will absolutely keep you from completing some other important task or responsibility. There is a, quote-unquote, better use of your time if your worth is measured by productivity. What I want to argue today is that scheduling things for you and scheduling breaks is just as important as anything that might pop up on your to-do list. But this piece that your worth is not measured by productivity, I really want you to think about that. I really want you to let that sink in.
In this capitalist society, we are driven by productivity. Everybody expects productivity, non-stop productivity out of us. But your worth is not measured by productivity. Taking that break for yourself, doing that thing that you've been wanting to do even if it means that something really important gets de-prioritized is going to create better results, more focus, and a better version of you when you tap back into the work.
And you don't have to feel guilty about it. I tell people all the time, you get to choose how you spend your time, and you get to choose how you feel about how you spend your time. Choose to feel really good about the free time you schedule and execute. I want you to create a story that emphasizes the benefits for your employer, the benefits for your team, the benefits for your family, the benefits for your own longevity and well-being. Because there are actually tons of benefits of you scheduling time for yourself.
Just a few that come to mind, scheduling time for yourself protects you from burnout. Whether as a mom, an employee, an entrepreneur, I talk to moms all the time who feel burnt out. My business before focusing on supporting moms was focusing on helping people prevent burnout.
And scheduling time for yourself can help, but it has to become part of your process. This is proactive, not reactive. We don't want to feel burnt out and drained and then try to find time for a walk. We want scheduling this time to be part of our weekly system so that it re-energizes us, it refreshes us before we're running on empty. It's really hard to come out of burnout when we're in it. But there are ways that we can help ourselves to prevent it. But again, it's uncomfortable because we are going to choose ourselves over some other things we could be doing. And we're not used to doing that.
So every week, I recommend looking ahead and finding any open pockets and scheduling free time before you load your calendar with the other things. I'll probably say that a number more times. I know I've already said it, but I want this to really drive in. So whether that's one thing a week or a couple things a month, we want it to be something that you can really look forward to, something that's just for you and fun and breaks up the week.
Okay, another benefit that comes to mind, it really does help you to be more focused when you return to your work. We think that planning things that are fun and for us, these little free time breaks take away from productivity. If I'm not spending time on this project, it's not benefiting the project. I'm not getting it done. But honoring time for yourself and taking breaks actually means that you come back to the work and get more done than if you had just worked the entire day without a break.
Trust me, there's a term for this that I don't know off the top of my head, but there's research and data on this. There's a threshold of focus and productivity. I think it might be two or three hours max, it might even be two and a half hours, that the brain can focus in on a project and really get great work done. If you're trying to sit down for longer stretches of time and be productive without taking any breaks, you're not getting your best work.
There's also this thing called Zoom fatigue. So staring at a screen for endless periods of time, I know so many of us have endless meetings, and they can really negatively impact your ability to focus and work. For some, it's worse than others. And if you know this is you, make sure that if you see back-to-back meetings that you schedule in walks and breaks from the screen before your calendar fills up. Even if that means looking two to three weeks ahead and scheduling those screen breaks.
The other benefit really is that scheduling these moments, this free time, these things for yourself, also means that you're living a life with intention and you're spending time doing things you love. I had in the last webinar that I did, there was talk about alignment in our work. And some people in the room said, "Oh, must be nice to feel aligned in your work." I think it's an absolute privilege to feel that way, and I want to help more people do work that feels aligned, right? That's what my business is all about. But even in a role and a job that doesn't feel aligned for you, you can build in moments in your week that do feel aligned, where you're doing things and spending your time in ways that fills you up.
How we spend our time is how we spend our life. It's our life, this time. So if you really want to spend more time in a hobby or reading or relaxing or going outside or going for walks, if going outside is super important to you, if health and wellness is super important to you, if getting steps in is super important for you, don't wait for the time to magically appear. I want you to schedule it first. Really take ownership of creating alignment in your life even if your current work environment is working against it.
This might mean creating boundaries around back-to-back Zoom meetings. I know there might be a culture or a pressure within your role or within your company to do that and to have back-to-back meetings. That's why we want to look ahead in our calendar and schedule these free time blocks. People might still throw things on our calendar. I know how it goes. I worked in tech. And we can say no.
So I want you to schedule these things first. The time will not magically appear. And then once you schedule this on your calendar, I want you to work around it with your to-do list, with your work projects, with your work meetings, with your family responsibilities. What many of us do is try to get all of our work done and then reward ourselves with the break or the fun thing or the treat, and it never happens because the work is never done, as I've mentioned.
Even when we are working hard on a project and we have the deadline in sight or the milestone, and we're thinking to ourselves, okay, once I get to that deadline, I'll have some relief. Then I'll start scheduling those walks like Jenna said. I promise you, something else urgent pops up, some other deadline pops up, some other thing that will take you away from those walks. We don't want to spend our entire life waiting for things to slow down, waiting till the deadlines are done, waiting till the projects are done. We want to build this time into our life right now.
So here's what I want you to do this summer. I want you to make this a habit. Don't wait until you're burnt out or desperate for a break. Be proactive. Look at your work week ahead on Saturday or Sunday, maybe even the Friday before, maybe even two Fridays before, and claim any openings that you have, an opening or two, maybe one a week or a couple a month for you. Decide what you want to do in that time and put it on the calendar first before you fill it up with all the other things. Again, don't wait until the work is done to see if you have enough time. Schedule it first.
We just want our weeks to align with the life that we want to live. And we have to plan ahead for that. We have to be intentional. That's okay. One thing that I've done personally in my own schedule to get even further ahead because often times planning even the weekend before the week starts means that my calendar is full, right? I have client meetings, I have podcast stuff, I have all the things. I've gone a step further and I schedule monthly standing walks, phone calls, coffee dates with people I admire in my life. Okay, I treat each of those as an important meeting. It's a reoccurring event on my calendar that other people can't book things, I can't book things.
And I really do treat this as like a meeting with a client or someone that's really important. The people in my life that I love are important, but I don't treat it as something that I can easily move. If there is a conflict of some sort, all of these things that I have with important people in my life, I'm rescheduling. We're not canceling.
I love these walks in the park with my friends. I love talking with my bestie on the phone each week. These are things that I look forward to and they are built into my schedule in advance. It's my free time, and it's on there before anyone else can claim those spots. And I will say even on the weeks that I have so much going on, I work around that free time to make it happen because I know how important it is.
So that's the next piece and really the last piece. I want you to practice not feeling guilty about it. I don't feel guilty about those blocks of time on my calendar because I know how good it is for me. I leave those morning coffee dates feeling energized. I hang up the phone with my bestie each week and feel like I just had a free therapy session. I finish up the walks with other mom entrepreneurs in my life and I feel like my heart is so full.
And that transfers into my work each day where I'm feeling energized and excited about the work I do because I've gotten that jolt from doing something for me, doing something fun. And I want you to have those moments in your week too. Even and actually especially if you're still in a nine-to-five. It's better for you and the company for you to have moments that are just yours in the week. So practice feeling excited about it, really confident about it, not feeling guilty about it. Tell yourself all the reasons why it's important.
You don't have to earn these breaks. And honestly, as a mom at any point in the day or the week, trust me, you've earned it. Before you even wake up, you've earned it. You don't have to earn these breaks. I want you to start building it in, and I want you to do that this summer so that you can find so much joy and make so many core memories even just for yourself.
If this episode resonated with you, I would love for you to follow the podcast so you don't miss future conversations like this one. If this podcast is new to you, definitely check out some more of the episodes and get a feel for what I'm sharing. I'm constantly sharing practical tools, mindset shifts, and really honest conversations to help moms create freedom and fulfillment and really ownership over their lives and careers by starting businesses and potentially leaving their nine-to-five.
And so would love for you to follow so you are updated and you get a little ping for all the new episodes. I release one every week on Wednesday. And honestly, the more support and perspective you surround yourself with on this journey, the less alone all of this will feel. So hit that follow button wherever you're listening and share this episode with another mom who needs the reminder to schedule herself first this summer. Even if it's not a mom who wants to start a business, this is such an important tool. This is such a great system to implement for everyone, for all of us.
All right, mom friends. I hope this was helpful. I know it's been so helpful for my clients and me, and I had a number of clients say they needed this reminder this month. And as I was talking about it in those sessions, I figured it could just be its own episode too. And I can send this reminder out through the ether. So I hope you have an amazing summer filled with all those core memories and being present and family time and also time for you. Okay. Keep tuning in. I will be here throughout the entire summer, navigating all the things as well. So I will see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
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