Time Management: How To Get Unstuck and Moving

If you struggle with staying on top of things, managing your time can really impact the quality of your life and your overall wellbeing. Whether you have a hard time remembering to do things or you just can’t keep up, this can leave you feeling inadequate, embarrassed or ashamed. There is an abundance of information on strategies, tips and tricks for time management, but when the skill building doesn’t work, it may leave you wondering if there is more to it. Understanding what’s underneath these challenges is key to shifting them.

Over the years, I’ve noticed some of the patterns with the people I’ve worked with around time management and why the standard strategies alone don’t work. One is how their emotions and beliefs run the show and get in the way of things getting done. There is also the aspect of overthinking things to death instead of just doing it, which creates a barrier to moving forward. And of course, the structure versus flexibility debate.

I’d like to take a different approach to time management challenges and ask you to consider that the state you are in affects how you spend your time, where you put your focus and what your mindset is towards a challenge. Focusing on the underlying cause rather than a label like ADHD can have a huge positive impact on your ability to learn, grow and transform. This approach supports you in shifting into a better flow and daily rhythm, and it empowers you.

Do you operate by emotions or logic?

Often what keeps people stuck from getting things done and following through is their emotional state. Think of a time when you were feeling great — you could focus, feel inspired and have the ability to discern what needed to get done and when. On the flip side, think about a time when you were feeling tense, with a sense of fear and the belief that “I’m not good enough” running through your head. These emotions can get stuck and generate beliefs, thoughts and stories that keep a person stuck in fear, anxiety and overwhelm. I find that when people are guided by and stuck in emotional states, they tend to procrastinate more.

For others, their emotions may be distant, or they are so logical that their emotions don’t affect them when they need to complete a task. They are able to see a situation for what it is and have better control over their emotions. They rationalize the situation and move through a challenging moment quicker. You might say they have a positive mindset and are able to get a better perspective on things. Please note that having a positive mindset is possible and more realistic when you are in a ventral vagal state (present, feeling like yourself).

Let’s go back to that time when you were feeling great. Could you assess a situation with ease, get perspective and have a positive outlook? Most likely you were in a dominantly ventral vagal state, which means you’re operating from your prefrontal cortex — the creative, curious, playful, calm part of your brain. It’s the state that allows you to see both the micro and macro of a situation, giving you a positive and helpful perspective. As you can see, you’ve experienced a flow state, and it has more to do with the state of your nervous system and environment than a label you may have been given.

Overthinking

Our modern society is designed in a way that keeps people stuck in sympathetic (fight or flight), and on top of that, if a person has an extensive trauma history, this state intensifies. There is usually an ongoing sense of perceived danger. Being in this state means a racing mind filled with fear and anxiety about the “what ifs” of the future. It also looks like perfectionism to avoid criticism, and includes questioning every step of the way. Part of this is due to the combination of a sedentary lifestyle, overuse of screens, and trapped energy and emotions from trauma that need to be released and processed. The combination of many variables causes many people to be stuck in a sympathetic state, making focusing, getting things done and following through very challenging.

This overthinking can take you away from seeing the big picture and the ability to discern what’s most important, how to break it down and how these steps will lead to great benefits in the future. However, people often want immediate rewards and satisfaction. This is normal because we are wired this way — we used to see a direct impact of our actions when our survival depended on not being eaten by another animal. This makes it hard for some people, especially those with overactive minds, to see how not doing the small things now will have a big impact later. Instead, hours are spent on a small decision about a task that will only take a few minutes, out of fear of doing it wrong.

From my experience and observations over the last 25 years, our world is over pathologizing every behaviour and action. This leads to constant self-diagnosis, over-analysis and overthinking of what you should do. The other reason for overthinking is simple — we sit too much. When our energy becomes stuck and stagnant, things don’t flow properly. It affects everything from sleep to overthinking because the energy has nowhere to go. The combo of being overstimulated looking at a screen, always on the go, being in a state of sympathetic (usually anxious and angry), and sitting is a recipe for overthinking.

This sense of stuckness and repeating the same loop over and over again can make it difficult to get into a daily flow and rhythm that allows you to get things done.

Structure and Flexibility

Setting up a framework is extremely important. Without it, people end up floating around aimlessly and the to-dos continue to pile up. No matter who I’ve worked with, when there is no structure at all, very little gets done. With an overactive mind and emotions running high, it can be hard to organize your thoughts and activities, know what to prioritize and how, and even making simple decisions can be challenging. It has very little to do with your level of intelligence — think how smart you are with the things you are passionate about. Now ask yourself, when you are struggling with these aspects of time management, what state are you in? What skills need to be developed? What has worked in the past?

Now ask yourself, are you the type of person that overplans and doesn’t leave any room for life to happen, or do you have too much flexibility and lack of clarity? It’s important to create a foundation of structure in your life, no matter what day of the week it is. This can be as simple as creating a morning, midday and evening routine. This creates a sense of safety and stability in your system, supporting you to stay in a more ventral vagal state.

You don’t have to worry so much about creating the perfect schedule — rather, focus on creating anchors for your day so that no matter what it looks like, you have something to ground and anchor you.

Solutions

I believe it’s important to balance developing skills, tools and systems with emotional wellbeing and lifestyle changes. You can create the most beautiful templates and systems, but if you are an emotional mess, they won’t work. Balance these systems and incorporate different ways to process any trapped emotions from the past that keep you looping in old thought, belief and emotional patterns. This allows your nervous system to feel safe, which then relays to your brain that it’s ok to relax and create.

What does any of this have to do with time management? Everything. If you are not in a state to focus, then how can you utilize effective strategies?

How to Shift From Chaos to Calm so You Can Get Things Done

Strengthen your nervous system and build more resiliency

Instead of avoiding things that make you anxious, slowly face your fears and approach situations that stress you out in very tiny increments. This is called exposure therapy. You can do it with a practitioner or coach, or slowly do it on your own. The idea is that you expose yourself to a situation, allow your nervous system to see that you are safe, and then keep doing it until you’ve repatterned and no longer feel the crippling anxiety you felt before. Please note that anxiety is normal and part of being human. It’s when it prevents us from doing things in our daily life that it becomes problematic.

Another aspect of building resilience that I focus on with my clients is building daily practices that help strengthen your nervous system and shift your body from feeling fear to feeling calm confidence and the ability to discern. Check out this blog for some great options.

Process your emotions on a regular basis

Don’t wait until the evening to write in your journal and process how you are feeling. Find ways to feel the emotion fully in the moment and release it. This could look like doing a short focusing process by taking a moment just to name the emotion, letting it know you hear it, and telling it you will come back to it later.

Another option could be connecting with your whole body briefly and sensing where in your body it feels off — for example, tension in the chest. Then just be with that sensation without trying to change it, and let it know you will come back to it later. Or do some deep breathing or movement to release the tension.

Other options could be EFT tapping, a daily practice of tapping on your body, shaking, or doing intense movements like jogging, jumping or skipping. These all help things to keep flowing instead of getting stuck and causing you to feel overwhelmed.

Challenge yourself

Instead of staying stuck and telling yourself, “I can’t do this because I get anxious,” or “I’m time blind so I can’t…”, take baby steps — and I mean micro, teeny tiny baby steps — towards the way you would like to be. For example, if you feel anxious going to the library to work or study, then begin by visualizing yourself there. When doing this, you could make a plan with all the baby steps that will eventually get you there with enough ease that you overcome the “I can’t.”

The other thing you can do is let go of “I can’t because I have…” This could be any label you’ve been given or self-diagnosis like “time blindness.” Challenge yourself to learn how to overcome the challenge, develop the skills, and address any emotional barriers and beliefs that contribute to the challenge.

Working with a professional

I love learning techniques that people can do with a practitioner or alone. That’s why I love EFT tapping and focusing — they are powerful both alone and with someone. Other therapies that can deeply process emotions and deep-rooted beliefs range from EMDR, Deep Brain Reorienting, Brainspotting, Internal Family Systems, and more. There are also different forms of Neurofeedback which helps restore your nervous system and reactive parts of the brain that allow you to be more present and focused. These go beyond the most common therapy of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which only addresses behaviour changes and doesn’t process any trauma. When searching for a type of therapy and a therapist, it’s best to work with practitioners who have training in multiple trauma-based therapies, like the ones listed above.

Remember, when there is a challenge, there is rarely one reason it occurred, so the solution requires a holistic approach. Building the skills, tools and systems for time management helps you grow as an individual instead of staying stuck in a label and feeling helpless. Addressing your inner states and landscape helps you transform old patterns, beliefs and ways of being on a deep level, so you can be the person you want to be and engage in the world at your best.