Time Mastery: From Stress to Flow in Your Daily Life

Makena: We’re here with an episode today about time. This is one that I had a lot of stress about for a very long time. 

We see this with our clients and people we talk to; sometimes, a couple of different stresses come up around time that we want to touch on today. 

So, Gigi, I’m excited to have you here because you have a very different way of navigating through time, and you’ve taught me so much about this over the years.

Gigi: It came through practice and learning, and took many years to relax around time. Sometimes I’m uptight about it as well.

Makena: So these aren’t distinctions that you necessarily told me, but we were talking yesterday about this idea of “in time” and “through time.” 

You said you didn’t know what those mean, but it is something we see—people being on one side of the spectrum or the other around time. 

Some people are more what we call “through time,” which is like my husband. We were talking about this, and I don’t think he would mind me saying that he’s more of a through-time person. 

These are people who aren’t as linear about time—they’re not watching the clock all the time. They typically didn’t live by a schedule for a long time, and so there are a lot of beautiful things about that. 

What are some of the things you see, Gigi, as the gifts of being more through time when you’re someone who is more relaxed about time?

Gigi: You’re more relaxed. I know for myself, I feel like I can expand time, and I have this feeling that when I want to get something done, it’s not just about the time. I think it’s also the way I approach the time. 

For me, a benefit is the mood around time and the attitude. It’s not restrictive; it’s more open, and there’s more of a flow.

Makena: What about the challenges? Because we do see on the other side that people who are more through time struggle sometimes as well.

Gigi: I think that I have a little bit on both sides. The challenges on this part of it are that sometimes it feels unreliable because they don’t show up on time, and for them, it doesn’t matter. 

The challenge is that they’re in this world, and they don’t look at the impact of not showing up on time and how that impacts other people. Being so much in your own world, in your own flow, you don’t realize there’s another world out there, and especially in business and things like that, we still need to go by the clock in some areas. 

That’s some of the challenges there.

Makena: The other frustration I see a lot with people that are more through time is they often feel like, “How do other people get so much done?” They look at someone—this was with my husband and me when we first met—and he was like, “Oh my God, how do you get so much done? It feels so challenging for me.” 

This is one of the things—I’d learned to operate in such a way that I could really move something forward effectively with a structured approach to time. This approach has its benefits, which we’ll talk about in a moment, but also its drawbacks. 

That is something I see with people who are through time. They often feel like other people somehow get all the stuff done, or they’re more effective in this way, and they don’t understand it.

Gigi: That’s a key point, Makena. They don’t understand it. 

It’s like if you’re really through time, you often look and go, “I don’t even know how to do that.” 

For me, I found some skills that I could learn for myself, and one of those was time blocking. 

When I came across that, I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is such a beautiful system because I can block these two hours in my calendar to say I’m going to work on writing, and then I’m not trying to do the writing every other day here where I try to fit it in. I have this time created, and in that time, I don’t do anything else.” 

The beautiful thing about that for somebody that’s through time is it allows them to still use their creativity because I think people that are through time, sometimes that’s our thing—they naturally are creative in the world. 

When you put the time blocking in, and it’s really set up for this particular thing that you want to do, and you’re not going to do anything else, you’re not going to distract yourself, then what happens is you get to still be creative, but you also get to focus. 

Focus is so easy for you, right? It’s part of your, one of your huge gifts, to sit down, focus, go for it, and take action. That’s one of the things. 

The other thing is theming days, and I think months. What I mean by that is I’ll theme a day that is more of, let’s say, an administrative day. I take, and again, I time block what I’m going to do on that day to get things done and knock things out. 

For somebody like me, if I don’t do that, then again, it’ll just kind of be woven somewhere. It’ll never get done. I’ll forget it even existed, actually.

Makena: I love these skills, the time blocking and the theme days, that even though I’m more in time, and just to define what that is, that’s someone that is more, again, typically more structured. They live by the clock; they look at the clock a lot. They might live by a calendar. 

But before you taught me about time blocking and theme days, I felt like I was much more reactionary. Even though I lived by a calendar and a clock very much, I would react to things like, “Oh, people wanted to book something with me.” I would book it with them, or I would put this on my calendar. It was all external. 

When you taught me these skills of time blocking and theme days, I started doing it as well, where the way that you and I both approach our calendars is very much that we have certain days that are for coaching, and we have certain days that are for deeper work on projects, or certain months that are themed around this, and time blocks. 

It seems structured, but that structure you taught me really creates more freedom because instead of just reacting to things all the time, you’re in the driver’s seat, and you’re creating this kind of rhythm or flow. 

Is there anything else you want to say about that? I think this idea of structure creating freedom is a really important one for people who are through time because they often feel like, “Oh, if I start to schedule myself, that’s going to stamp out all my creativity.”

Gigi: This is such an important distinction. When I watch people get this, I think a whole new world opens for them. 

For me, when I learned this, because we meet so many people who say, “I just want freedom. I want to be free. I want to be able to just do things when I want to do them. I just want free time when I want it.” 

But what happens is when you have all this time, most people just get lost. 

Like I said, especially somebody who is, I wouldn’t say, more creative, just maybe more tapped into their creativity. When you start to structure the time, and you structure your free time, then what happens is you really start being more consistent with the way you want to use your time. 

You start thinking through what you want to do and, like we said, placing it into your calendar. When you start setting that kind of system up, it creates so much freedom, and people are shocked because structuring your time actually creates freedom for you. 

It is the key to freedom.

Makena: What do you mean by structuring your free time even? Because I think people hear that and go, “What are you talking about? That’s supposed to be my free time.”

Gigi: It’s seeing what you want to do and then putting that into your calendar. If you want time to sit around and not do anything or enjoy yourself, you put that into your calendar. “From six till ten on Tuesday nights is my do-whatever-I-want time.” 

Or if you find that you do that and you really don’t get anything done, then you may say, “For me, free time is around doing something,” like I said, creative. I say, “Oh, in that evening, I’m going to be creative. I’m going to sit down and do this.” 

When you start putting this into your calendar, then it actually frees you up. You start to feel like, “Oh, I do get to have this time. Everything doesn’t just run together.” 

I don’t know if that makes sense.

Makena: It makes perfect sense, and it was a big one for me. Just again, speaking to going a little deeper on people who are in time. 

Many of the women we work with, and I work with, are careerwomen or high-powered businesswomen. They’ve learned to operate by calendar and clock. 

Some of the good things about that are, again, you can get a lot done and often are very effective, and it can be really supportive, like you said, in business or career and in life in certain ways. 

But the challenges of being someone who is in time are feeling stressed and pressured a lot of the time, feeling like there’s not enough time. We hear this often from people: “There’s not enough time. I’m overwhelmed. I can’t do everything,” or “Time is running out. I’m getting too old to be able to do this or that that I want to do.” 

That kind of pressure around time or a time scarcity is a big challenge that can lead to a lot of other knock-on effects that we’ve talked about before around anxiety or health issues or other things. 

In fact, there was a book that I read a couple of years ago that we’ve recommended to a lot of our clients, which is The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. In it, he talks about something called “Einstein Time.” 

It’s a little bit more of, you know, being through time. He’s talking to people who are very much in time, like me or like I was, and telling them about how to shift their relationship to time here. 

So this piece, Gigi, about structuring your free time really helped me because my husband and I actually created something called Slow Saturdays. No matter how busy things were getting, unless we really had something that needed to happen on a Saturday, we didn’t block anything on our Saturdays. 

That’s our one day that is blocked out to be go with the flow. It’s so important because the rest of our time we structure so much that we actually structure in unstructured time. That was really supportive for us.

Gigi: Great example. It was supportive for your relationship, too, right?

Makena: Oh my gosh, yes. Because he is more through time and I’m more in time, he was like, “You were driving me crazy, woman. I cannot handle this.” 

He needs time to completely go with the flow, even though he’s so thankful that he’s learned to live, in some ways, by a calendar, to have more of a rhythm, and to get more done in that sense. 

But this gives us a place where we can meet more on his turf, and it’s been really fun for me, too. We mostly turn off our phones or reply only to family and things like that on Saturdays, and whatever we feel like doing that day is what we do. It’s been so, so great.

We were talking before about the pressure around time and how that doesn’t really help. 

Can you share a little bit about that? Because I know for someone like me, or like I used to be, or some of the clients I work with, they’re like, “This is how I’ve operated. This is how I’ve been able to get things done. I need the pressure.” 

So what do you mean by this idea that the pressure around time doesn’t actually help you?

Gigi: You’ll see people who are controlled by time, and they’re very pressured and on the clock. There’s this belief that the pressure is necessary to get things done. 

When you step back, you see that it’s really important to know what you want, how you want to focus, what you want to do, and how you want to create something. 

But the pressure we put when we’re doing it on ourselves and on other people doesn’t need to be there. It’s an added thing to it. 

I can wake up in the morning—I give this example all the time—and say, “I’ve got to get this report done,” or something. “I’ve got to get this done by a certain time.” I wake up, and I’m pressured the moment I get out of bed. I’m talking about it, sharing it, and thinking, “Oh my gosh, I don’t have that much time.” 

I walk into sitting down to do that report with all this pressure that I have conjured up since I woke up, and I’ve talked about it, and then I’ve shared it with other people in my world. Then I sit down, and I feel pressured and tight. All I’m worrying about is, “I’m not going to get this done on time.” 

I’m creating my reality basically there from this state of pressure. Not only does it affect me, but if you go into your world with this kind of pressure and control yourself, it starts to control everyone else. It creates resistance in your environment and in people, and they will push back. 

You’ll see this in a family. If somebody in the family is controlling everything, you can do that for so long, but then the kids start acting out, and the partner gets upset. Whereas if you had shifted that into a different approach, it would have been completely different how it all would have panned out.

Makena: Can you give an example of that? Because I know that to be true. I’ve seen that so many times, but is there a story you could tell to illustrate what you’re talking about here?

Gigi: There was Christmas one year. We were all going to this light show, and we found out that we thought it started at a certain time, we were already getting in the cars ready to go, and we realized it actually started an hour later than we thought. 

So we decided to stop and grab a snack on the way because we basically had an extra hour or so. One of the girls was so stressed about the time and thought we should go ahead and go so we could wait, that way, we would find a place to park and wouldn’t have to fight traffic or anything.

Makena: This sounds like me. I don’t remember this, but it sounds like me.

Gigi: We ended up getting there at the perfect time. We got a snack, and everybody was relaxed, but she was still stressed. When we got there, we ended up getting the first lane or the first aisle where we could have parked. We couldn’t have gotten any closer. It all worked out, and everybody has had that experience to some degree. 

That’s more of stepping in and going with that flow of time, where time starts to expand. It’s not about, “Oh my God, we’re going to be late.” It’s about, “Oh my gosh, we have this expansion of time, and we’re all going to align and go here.” It happened. We had a great time also.

Makena: I love that story. That’s what he calls “Einstein Time” in that book. This is something that I know you’re really practiced at, Gigi, and I’ve been learning more and more. 

It is this thing of almost, the truth is time, from what I understand—and I am not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination—but from what I understand, time isn’t actually as linear as we make it out to be as human beings. 

We experience it this way. We’ve measured it. But there’s another level or layer at which it’s not completely linear. 

It’s like if you’re ever driving somewhere, and you’re running late, you have the experience of looking at the clock and being stressed about it. Have you ever had that experience where you hit every single red light on the way there? 

Whereas if you let go—and sometimes I will actually cover up the ETA, the estimated time of arrival when I’m driving somewhere if I’m stressed about the time—and I will just put on some music. You could spend that whole drive being stressed, or you could relax and be in the flow. 

It’s so interesting because it’s not necessarily that you always get there earlier than you thought you would or something, although sometimes that does happen in my experience—that you hit more green lights than you thought you would, and you get there earlier than you thought. 

But other times, it’s like something magical happens in the universe: You get there, and the other person’s running late, too, or something happens where it somehow works out perfectly. 

I think that’s what you were speaking to in your story there. The pressure and the stress just created more pressure and stress in everyone, but when you guys let go and you went and had a coffee or a snack, and then you got there, it was all just perfect.

Gigi: Yes. I think I have to go back to what you said about when you wake up and how you approach your day. 

So, the way that you can approach that from a much more relaxed state is saying, “I really got to get this report done,” and then the focus says, “Hey, I want to get this done by this time,” and relaxing, and then going in and getting started, and not bringing everybody else into it, and just sitting down and saying, “I’m going to get this done.” It’s just the attitude or the mood that is different.

Makena: Absolutely. Are there any other examples you want to give in terms of how you did it? 

Because I think in some ways you’re more naturally through time, but you also really learned to be structured and on time in building your businesses, right? So you have, like you said, a little bit of both sides.

Gigi: Growing up with me, I have one thing around time, which is being on time. I absolutely have a pressure around that. I told you this the other day. I know that, and I’ve accepted it, and it’s something that is important to me. 

Sometimes, I get really caught up because I feel like, “Oh my gosh, I want to be on time. It’s really important.” I leave way, way too early for things, but I have finally accepted that part of myself and said, “That’s okay.” 

I don’t mind getting to the airport three hours early. I like it because, for me, that creates space and time. I can take my time. I can eat, I can work some, I can go to the club. 

So I finally saw this is an issue. My poor children grew up with it, but now it’s not so great. But for me, it’s something I’ve accepted that is important to me, and it’s absolutely about me being on time.

Makena: What else have you done to bring in more of this timelessness? 

Because that is part of your gift too, I think, this timeless feeling that might support someone who is more like me or like I was in the past—often stressed or structured around time.

Gigi: Artful ritual. I think we’ve touched on this some, but I have a lot to do, I create a buffer of things that give me more of an aesthetic feeling in life. 

For me, it’s like making my cappuccino in the morning, sitting outside, and taking time to drink it. I do that all the time. I’ll feel myself get up and want to get right into thinking, but I’ll say, “No, make that cappuccino, sit down, even if it’s five minutes.” 

I really enjoy having that cappuccino, and I really enjoy the feeling. Or I put on music, and I start my day with music and my coffee, and I sit down for a few minutes and maybe journal a little bit. I like to create a feeling of beauty and flow. I always try to create an environment that is beautiful. 

Maybe I light a candle. It can be so simple and so little. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but for me, it helps so much because it sets the tone for my day. It sets the tone for my time.

Makena: And I feel it puts you in a different state. 

Gigi: It does. And I feel like I’ve really honored myself when I do that. 

There’s something so simple about it that really makes me feel like, “Oh, okay, now I’m ready to go to work,” or “Now I’m ready to do these things because first I’ve really taken this time, and I’ve used it in a way that really supported me.”

Makena: That’s an interesting distinction because I do think that people who are more in time and more structured often feel like they have to live by this outside force. They have to live by the clock; they have to live by the calendar, with the keywords being “have to” instead of really something as simple as what you’re talking about. 

It’s like taking that time back into your own hands, even for five or ten minutes at the beginning of your day, and doing something for you first that sets the tone. 

I can just see how that would be a really different way to approach your day.

Gigi: It sets the tone. Always, for me, it feels like it’s more fun almost. Again, I’m enjoying life instead of the clock defining my life. 

I resist that hugely. When I take this energy of “I’m doing this because it’s pleasurable and because I want to do it” and carry that into my day, it’s no longer “I have to,” it’s more that “I want to.”

Makena: I think this is a big piece to touch on, too—choosing where you invest your time. 

A lot of the stress and pressure for me around time for many years was feeling like I had too much on my plate. The truth was, I often did have too much on my plate. 

A really important element to all of this, to me, becoming more of what I like to call a time weaver—that was one of my names for the woman I’m stepping into—I always come up with a name for whatever I’m embodying in a certain chapter of my life, and one of them was the “Effortless Time Weaver” because I really wanted to practice and capture this energy of the way that I move through time in a different way. 

Something that I learned was part of that is about choosing, taking the choice back about where I invest my time. Of course, there are certain things that we have to do, but even those, it’s like choosing them. I have certain obligations in my business, but I choose these. 

I choose to have meetings with our team, to coach people, or to record our podcast episode because I want our business, and I want to make the difference that we get to make in the world and to have the freedom that we get to have in terms of our schedule and whatever else it is that I love about having our business. 

So I’m going to choose these. Even if I don’t love every single one of them at a 10 out of 10, I love my business at a 10 out of 10. So I’m choosing it. 

But the other thing is to ask yourself, on the things we really do have more choice in, “Is this a 10 out of 10? Am I doing this out of a sense of obligation, or because I think someone’s going to judge me if I don’t do it, or because I think I need to do every single thing that’s on my list or everything people ask me to do? Or is this really something that’s aligned for me right now?” 

I’ve become increasingly discerning about that. This has been huge for me because often, I think people just put too much on their plates at any given time. A great question that came to me maybe six months or a year ago was, “What can I fully align my energy behind?” 

I was meditating and thought, “Should I work on this project or this project?” The answer that came to me was, “Can you fully align your energy behind it?” I thought, “Well, that’s such an interesting way of putting it. Am I going to be halfway doing it, or am I going to be able to go like, ‘Yeah, I’m all in on this’?” 

If I couldn’t be all in, if I couldn’t really align my energy behind it, then maybe it wasn’t the right time. Those are a couple of distinctions for me in terms of really getting clearer on what I put that time into. 

The last one I’ll share is that I had another aha moment a couple of months ago when there were a lot of different projects going on in my personal life. I kept saying, “I’m going to find the time,” which for me was a step ahead of where I used to be of just feeling stressed. 

But I was like, “Okay, I’ll find the time. I’ll find the time.” Then I thought, “Stop trying to find the time.” This is what you’re talking about, Gigi, with how time opens up in a different way. When I stopped trying to find the time and relaxed into, “Okay, I know what my priorities are. I know what the projects are we’re working on. I know my personal life,” then there might be a few minutes here, a few minutes there. 

This is so much of what you’ve taught me, Gigi. When I come to visit you, not every single moment needs to be structured, which is often my way. You’ll be like, we’ll be having a cup of coffee, and then you’ll just bring up some topic we need to talk about. I feel like this is really a gift of yours.

Gigi: When you get through that one, it is going to be life-changing completely.

Makena: I’m 50 percent there on this one, you guys. I’ve come so far. It’s so different than I used to be.

Gigi: Sometimes it’s painful for me. It hurts. But it’s true. When you start to move with time, then everything you need to get done naturally happens. 

As you said, we can sit there having a cup of coffee and then talk about things that we were going to structure time to talk about. We do it in a way that we enjoy, we’re having fun, and we don’t have to schedule that on our calendar. 

You know me, I always push back. I don’t want to schedule that time on my calendar. I just want to talk about it. That just creates so much more ease in life.

Makena: It’s definitely counterintuitive. It’s almost paradoxical. On the one hand, you need to have some degree of structure in terms of knowing what you want, maybe having a list of things you need to do, or be, or get clear on, or priorities, or whatever it might be.

But like you’re saying, then it’s moving with time and not trying to make time bend to your will, which is definitely the way that I’ve operated in the past. It’s relaxing into a little bit more trust and enjoyment. That’s that artful ritual piece that you were talking about. 

But then, we spent a lot of time talking to the in-time people here. For those of you who are very much through time and that’s the way you live your life if you’re totally on the enjoyment side of the spectrum or the moving with time side, sometimes it is important to—what would you say to that, Gigi? 

Because there are also times when it’s important to structure it a little more.

Gigi: Just like we said early on, that’s where the theming days and the time blocking come in. People that are through time, you have to do that. Otherwise, you just don’t get anything done. 

I think that’s so important. Those couple of skills would be powerful because otherwise, you’re putting things off, waiting until the right moment, or waiting until it feels right. That’s a downside to the way I go through time sometimes.

Makena: Often, we just need outside accountability, whichever side of the spectrum you’re on. Sometimes you need an accountability partner or coach to support you in practicing this other way. 

If you are more through time and you want to move some things forward, then having timelines on certain things and times when you’ve agreed to do something by and really sticking to that helps you build a muscle of doing that. 

If you’re more on the other side of the spectrum, then it is practicing relaxing a little more around things and trusting. 

The last thing I wanted to touch on was this: Sometimes, when people are pressured around time, it is an indication that something needs to shift. If it’s been going that way for a really long time, it may be an indication that you need to let go of something on your list, or maybe you’re working too many different jobs. 

Be tuned into that as you’re considering this for yourself. 

If you’re trying on the different things we’ve talked about today, and you’re going, “Okay, this is helping some, but I’m just still so stressed. I’m so overwhelmed. I just keep ending up in the same place again and again,” that’s where sometimes you do need to let some things go, reprioritize, or make some kind of change—a bigger change.

Gigi: Otherwise, you see people, it’s almost like they say a dog chasing its tail. We just keep on repeating the same thing over and over and being, like you said, stressed. 

Often that goes back a little bit to our topic when we talked about a bigger problem. If you keep on repeating the same thing, you need a different problem.

Makena: You can go back and listen to that episode if you’d like. We’ll be sure to link it in the show notes. I think that’s an important distinction here as well. We’ve covered a lot on this idea of time.

Hopefully, whichever side of the spectrum you find yourself on, the first thing is to give yourself some grace and love the way that you are because there’s absolutely a gift in it. There’s a hundred percent a gift in my structured intensity at times. 

There’s also really a huge gift in, Gigi, more on the other side, or my husband, or some of you listening. There’s so much beauty in being someone who can move through time in that very relaxed and artful way. 

Love yourself first, and then just get curious and go, “Can I try on one thing that I learned today?” Try it on, like we always say, for 30 days and see what changes in the quality of your life, your experience, and your results.

Makena: Thank you, Gigi, for all your wisdom, and thank you, everyone, for listening.

Gigi: Thank you, Makena. Because of your structure and time, we have a podcast!

Makena: Definitely has its uses. Bye! See you next time.