I recently listened to a podcast episode that blew my mind because it connected dots and made points that resonated so deeply for me – in business and on the time management front. Let's discuss.

And here's the episode from Eleanor Beaton.

Enjoy!

And join me:

• ✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you're ready for a full time management system that's realistic, sustainable, and fun, check out the Bright Method program. It's helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.

A few weeks ago, someone sent me a quote on Instagram that knocked my socks off. Let's dig into it.

Links you might enjoy:

• 🌿 Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.

• 📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.

• ✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you're ready for a full time management system that's realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It's helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.

Ever keep rolling the same task week after week? You see it on your list or flagged in your inbox, and every time you look at it, you feel that little wave of guilt. In this episode, I share how slow-rolling tasks—sometimes unintentionally, sometimes on purpose—can actually work in your favor.

I share a story from my early law career that taught me how some tasks lose relevance over time and how checking in before tackling them can save hours of unnecessary work. We also talk about how "slow-rolling" helps when you work for a shiny-object boss—or when you're your own. Instead of reacting to every new idea, give it breathing space. Let excitement cool, check your calendar, and make more grounded decisions about priorities.

This episode is about using slow-rolling as a time management strategy to:

• Reassess stale tasks before spending time on them, and

• Protect focus from shiny-object overload

When you use slow-rolling strategically, you reduce stress, reclaim focus, and make smarter choices about where your time goes.

Links you might enjoy:

• 🌿 Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.

• 📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.

• ✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you're ready for a full time management system that's realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It's helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.

Time zones – they seem like such a simple concept and one that's almost an after-thought, tiny detail when scheduling... and yet, messing them up can have majorly disruptive effects. If you're someone who also struggles with them, this one's for you!

Links you might enjoy:

• 🌿 Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.

• 📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.

• ✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you're ready for a full time management system that's realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It's helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.

I get asked a few times a year whether I theme my workdays – e.g., Marketing Mondays, Admin Tuesdays, Finances on Wednesdays. While I'm sure this works for some (and keep on keeping on if it works for you!), I'll explain why it hasn't worked for me – and what I do instead.

Links you might enjoy:

• 🌿 Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.

• 📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.

• ✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you're ready for a full time management system that's realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It's helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.

I see more and more people using or discussing using AI to make decisions around how they spend their time. Let's talk about it.

Links you might enjoy:

• 🌿 Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.

• 📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.

• ✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you're ready for a full time management system that's realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It's helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.

This one is for my all-or-nothing thinkers. The ones who think, "If I can't do it exactly like I think I should, then what's even the point??" Been there (and still go there sometimes). Let's discuss about how this approach holds us back – and also is incorrect.

Links you might enjoy:

• 🌿 Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.

• 📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.

• ✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you're ready for a full time management system that's realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It's helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.

When I used to think about time management, Past Me assumed, on some level, that the goal was to keep work in work hours and personal life in personal hours. But in reality, life is far more nuanced — and that's where the powerful dynamic of flexibility and accountability comes in.

In this episode, I share how hearing Jeanelle Teves' (click here for her Instagram profile) statements about how high flexibilty comes with high accountability put to words something I'd been learning was the real goal for many women when it comes to time management. Over the years, I've realized that what many professional women actually want is flexibility in their schedules to fit in real life into their work hours – workouts, doctor's appointments, family needs – while still being highly accountable to the work they've agreed to do.

We'll talk about:

• How my definition of successful time management shifted from "free up nights and weekends" to creating a system that flexes with different life phases.

• Why flexibility matters more than rigid schedules.

• How to distinguish between healthy flexibility and an unsustainable workload that can't be solved by accountability alone.

• Why learning a system over a schedule empowers you to evolve your approach as your life changes.

This is a reminder that flexibility in time management isn't about working all the time — it's about designing your days and weeks to reflect your real life, while still being accountable to doing excellent work.

If you want to start seeing your capacity vs. workload in a more objective way, check out my free 5-day program at kellynolan.com/refresh.

Links you might enjoy:

• 🌿 Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.

• 📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.

• ✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you're ready for a full time management system that's realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It's helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.

Today I'm digging into why I don't recommend managing your to-dos inside Google Tasks or Apple Reminders—even though they're handy and even show up in your calendar.

The short version: they lock every task into the same tiny time block, which hides how long your work will actually take and muddies your sense of capacity.

Google Tasks vs. Apple Reminders isn't the core issue—the real problem is that both ignore duration, so your calendar can't reflect reality.

We walk through:

• How a digital calendar plus flexible time blocking gives you the clarity you want: when you'll do it, how long it will take, and whether it fits with everything else – and Google Tasks and Apple Reminders do not

• Using your calendar to break big items into bite-sized steps (e.g., renewing a license or sending a birthday card) and spread them across time – again, Google Tasks and Apple Reminders do not really allow for this

• Why accurate capacity planning beats "15-minute task tiles" for reducing stress and avoiding overcommitment.

Links you might enjoy:

• 🌿 Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.

• 📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.

• ✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you're ready for a full time management system that's realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It's helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.

Saying no is rarely easy — especially when the opportunity is something you really want to say yes to. In this episode, I share a personal example of when I turned down a big media opportunity that landed right in the middle of my family's annual Colorado trip.

On paper, I was technically available. My husband could've watched the kids, my calendar was clear, and the opportunity would've been great for my business. But in practice? Saying yes would have derailed my ability to truly unplug, be present with my family, and recharge.

In this episode, I walk you through:

• The ripple effects of saying yes — from prep time and tech checks to energy recovery afterward.

• Why the pause is the most powerful tool when you're tempted to say yes too quickly.

• How to evaluate the true cost of opportunities beyond the calendar block they appear to take.

• The difference between scarcity thinking ("this may never come again") and embracing a more abundance mindset (even if a little woo).

• Why protecting vacation time, family time, and rest can sometimes matter more than visibility opportunities.

• How saying no doesn't just protect you — it also builds strength, clarity, and integrity.

I also share how I reframed the "no" by connecting the opportunity with another woman in my field. It reminded me that collaboration, generosity, and boundaries can all exist together.

If you ever feel guilty or second-guess yourself when saying no — especially to exciting opportunities — this episode might help you see the full picture and feel more confident in your decision-making.

Check out my free 5-day time blocking program at kellynolan.com/refresh to practice visually mapping out ripple effects before you commit. And if you're ready to go deeper, enrollment for the Bright Method 10-week program opens October 3rd. More info on both below.

Links you might enjoy:

• 🌿 Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.

• 📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.

• ✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you're ready for a full time management system that's realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It's helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.