Time Freedom: How to Break Free of the Busyness Cycle

Makena: Hello, everyone. This is Makena, and I am coming to you with a solo episode on Time Freedom: How to Break Free of the Busyness Cycle. This is a topic that is very near and dear to my heart because I spent a lot of years, a lot of my life, really trapped in what I would call the busyness cycle—just go, go, go, go. If you’re a frequent listener, you’ve probably heard me talk about this on the podcast before, but it really was my reality. I felt like my calendar ran me instead of me running it. I was often tired, overwhelmed, and overcommitted.

I’ve made a huge change in this over the last few years, and it’s something that I love to share with other people. In fact, we just did a session on this with our mastermind, the Wealthy World Changers mastermind. We did a deep-dive session where we really workshopped this with the women. I’m bringing a lighter version of this topic to you today. It’s still going to be a lot of great content, really helping you see how you can break free of that feeling of being constantly busy but not necessarily having the freedom or focus that you want. How can you move things forward that you need and want to move forward in your life without being constantly in the doing?

Today, I’ll share some of the key shifts that have helped me. If you find this episode valuable, please, please, please think of someone you can share it with. That means so much to us. We don’t do any marketing for this podcast, so if there’s someone in your life who could benefit from a little less busyness or a bit more focus and a feeling of control over their life and their calendar, please share this with them. It means the world to us.

All right, let’s dive into what is time freedom. That’s where I want to begin today because time freedom is not really about having a completely open calendar. Most of us, if we had a completely empty calendar, it wouldn’t actually be as exciting or nice as we think it would be. It might be nice for a short time, like when we go on vacation, but usually people start to get a little bored if their calendar is completely open, and they feel a little directionless or purposeless.

I recently listened to an episode—I believe it was on the Glennon Doyle podcast—about time. It took a bit of a different angle than we’re taking today, but there was a researcher from Harvard. She said it’s not about having all this open space on your calendar; in fact, there’s a sort of declining return to having more and more free time. It’s about having a certain amount of free time and also having time for what matters—to you, that might be rest, creativity, spending time with loved ones, or taking better care of yourself. What are those things that, if you had more time available, you would use that time for? I think that’s a really great place to start.

What is time freedom for you? Because otherwise, we can fill every moment and still feel unfulfilled if it’s all admin, reactive obligations, or things that don’t really move us forward. Even filling our calendars with a lot of personal things can feel unfulfilling if we’re just busy all the time.

For me, it took a long time to break that busyness cycle and realize that busy is not the same thing as productive, successful, or fulfilled. I really had to look and see, what was I craving? What would time freedom look like for me? So take a moment and really think about that right now. What is time freedom for you? This is something that’s going to evolve; it’s going to be different at different times or seasons of your life, which we’ll talk about in a moment. If you had more time freedom right now, what are you craving? How do you want to spend that time?

Let’s talk a little bit about seasons. Seasons are one of the ways that Gigi really taught me to think about my life, and it’s been really supportive. We often share this with our clients: a season in your life is a time that’s focused around something in particular. Of course, you’ll have a lot of different things going on at any given time, but a season is one of the big focuses that’s taking up a lot of your time, energy, and attention.

There’s no set amount of time a season is, but let’s say on average it might be between one month and six months. I like to think in terms of usually one business or professional season and one personal season at any given time. For example, you might be in a season of traveling a lot personally or getting working out to be a consistent part of your life. In business, you might be in a season of sales and outreach, or an operational season where you’re focused on systems and back-end processes.

You want to look at what season of life you’re in right now, choosing one business or professional season and one personal season. You might feel like that’s impossible, that you have so many different things going on, but at times, other things in your life or career can go on what I call maintenance mode. Maintenance mode means you’re still moving them forward, but they’re not taking the same level of time, energy, and attention that your current season requires.

Sometimes we get to choose the season we’re in, and sometimes we don’t. For instance, there’s a family crisis and you just have to attend to that, whether you like it or not. Sometimes, by identifying, “OK, this is where I’m at,” we can relax into that and stop resisting, making everything go more smoothly.

Right now, for example, I’m in the home stretch of preparing for a baby and maternity leave. That means I’m in a season of completing projects at work, pre-recording podcast episodes, and doing a lot of things so I can be present for the new motherhood season that’s coming up. That’s a big season shift, and I’m very aware of it.

So, the reflection here is: What season are you in right now? Are you clear on what that is, personally and professionally? Once you see it, does your calendar and your focus, the way you’re spending your time, reflect that? Or is it out of alignment somehow? Are you resisting it or not giving it the time and attention it needs so you can move forward and shift into a new season when the time is right? Just starting to think about your life this way can create a lot of clarity—acknowledging, “This is just the season I’m in” and owning that.

Next, I want to talk about being reactive versus proactive. This runs through today’s topic. A big shift in my approach to time was realizing how often I was reactive with my time instead of proactive. Being reactive is just responding to everything as it comes—scheduling things all over, working around everyone else’s availability, or saying yes automatically if you tend to overcommit. Being proactive means actually deciding what works best for you and shaping your time, days, and weeks around what matters most at this time.

Ask yourself, “Am I being reactive or proactive most of the time?” If you’re being reactive, how can you shift to be more proactive, to become the one who’s in the driver’s seat again, at the source of your rhythm, flow, and calendar instead of being run by it?

One simple tool to help with this is theming your days. This really helped me move from reactive to proactive in my days and weeks. Theming your days means grouping similar activities together on certain days of the week instead of scattering them everywhere. If you have your own business or some flexibility in your work or calendar, this will be easiest, but even in a job, with some forethought, you can start to shift your calendar—even if you have to book changes a few weeks out.

For entrepreneurs, often there’s a delay—you can’t put these principles into place tomorrow. You might need to look at your calendar and say, “OK, three or four weeks from now, I can start to try some of these.” Know that it’s a trial and error process. Try one way, see how it goes, assess what worked or didn’t, and make adjustments. Everyone is unique; your business or career is unique, your schedule is unique. Relax around that—there’s not just one way or that it has to all happen tomorrow. These are tools to help you baby-step your way into more control and relaxation. Keep tweaking as you go.

So, theming your days means grouping similar activities together. I’ll share my theme days as they stand right now, which have evolved over the years. 

As an entrepreneur, this is what I’ve found works for me:

Mondays are team calls and what I call admin or minor tasks. Usually, this is the day Gigi and I have a long call—we might record podcast episodes, talk about business, and work on projects together. We don’t live in the same city, so we typically need a long call every week, maybe two to four hours. We also have a virtual team, so if I need to do calls with them, check on their work, or give feedback, Monday is my main day to do that. If there’s overflow—other minor tasks that need to happen—Monday is a good day for that as well. It’s my day to be working in the business, getting necessary things done to move things forward that aren’t necessarily client-facing or about generating new business—more back-end admin, operations, and sometimes recording.

Tuesdays are typically client sessions. I group most of my coaching onto Tuesdays—this is when we have our Wealthy World Changers mastermind call, or I do one-on-one sessions with clients. We really try to group sessions on these days, and overflow goes to Wednesday if needed. We’re not scheduling client calls throughout the week; we’re grouping them for focus.

Wednesdays are a flex day—either more client sessions, calls with potential clients, or deep work on a project if there’s nothing else. Each week I ask, “What does Wednesday need to be for this week?”

Thursdays and Fridays are typically deep work days—really moving projects forward that need time, energy, and focus, with minimal task switching. Sometimes, for errands or appointments, I try to group them on one of these days rather than scatter through the week. If I have a lot of errands or appointments, I make that one day, so I’m not running around all week.

That’s a little of my flow for theme days. These are just ideas—you want to look at what would theme days be for you. It’s not rigid; it’s flexible. Maybe one day for calls and meetings, another for errands and appointments. If you work from home or meet people, you could group those activities as well. Group errands and appointments as much as possible unless it works for you to do them at the day’s end.

Even theming just one or two days of your week is a huge start.

We’ve covered seasons and theme days as tools to be less reactive and more proactive. 

Next, I want to talk about a huge aha for many of our mastermind participants: the differentiation between different types of tasks on your to-do list. This was a big shift for me—realizing not all tasks are equal and different kinds of work use different parts of the brain. I call this deep work and minor tasks, the two buckets for my to-dos.

Deep work is big, meaningful, focus-heavy work that moves things forward—tasks requiring concentration and brainpower, things you might put off, but that really need deep focus. Minor tasks are mostly admin: quick projects like sending feedback, replying to emails, making calls—things that take 30 minutes or less, not requiring that deep focus, and can be sprinkled throughout the week.

Why is it important to distinguish between deep work and minor tasks? Otherwise, minor tasks fill up your day and you wonder why the big projects never move forward. Some statistics: Every time we switch tasks, it can take up to 25 minutes to get fully back into focus (from the American Psychological Association). Office workers are interrupted about every 11 minutes and it takes 23 minutes on average to recover. Frequent task switching doesn’t just waste time; it increases stress and leads to more mistakes.

For deep work, you want to guard that time. Minimize distractions—you lose a lot of productivity if you don’t. I’m very intentional now about blocking deep work sessions. Back when I had my marketing business, I did a lot of writing projects. I had to learn how to focus, to sit down and get those big projects done. I learned to have deep work times—no notifications. If I have something big, I start first thing in the morning, rolling out of bed with coffee and getting right into my laptop. I don’t check emails, social media, or texts—just straight into the hardest thing, getting a solid hour to three hours in before anything else.

My team knows I’m in deep work mode and not replying right away. You can use Do Not Disturb on your phone—only allow urgent things through. This has worked for me. For big projects, make sure at least one to two days a week you have a solid three-to-five-hour block for deep work. Take breaks as needed, but be careful not to get pulled away; you need to return to that deep work.

Protect your deep work time. That’s the big takeaway. Start scheduling bigger project time and don’t allow task switching. Put your phone on Do Not Disturb, turn off notifications, turn off your ringer—everything can wait three hours. The world won’t fall apart, and you’ll be amazed how much you move forward.

For minor tasks, fit them around other stuff or have set times to check email. Set an alarm when you’re going to check your email each day, and another to stop, maybe giving yourself 30 minutes. Do as much as you can and then stop. Maybe do this again late in the day or three times a day, but use alarms to train yourself not to get sucked in by notifications.

A couple of resources: If social media is a big distraction, I’ve started using an app called Be Present. It limits your time on whatever apps you choose—five minutes at a time, only so many times per day. It will alert you before closing the app and only lets you open it the number of times you’ve set. Of course, you can override it, but it makes you think twice. There’s a device called the Brick that’s similar. One of my clients tried it and the app told her she would spend 20 years of her life on social media at her current pace, which was eye-opening for her.

If you’re curious about why these platforms are so good at hijacking your attention, I recommend listening to an episode of the Mel Robbins podcast called “Before You Waste Time, Listen to This.” We’ll link that in the show notes. She interviews a Harvard researcher about how these tools are designed to hijack our attention. It’s really eye-opening and helped me understand the science behind my feelings.

In the home stretch here—we’ve covered a lot! Even if you just take one of these ideas, you’ll see big changes. 

I also want to share a few simple supporting strategies—small tips that have made a big difference:

If you tend to book yourself solid, start by taking one full day per week with nothing booked. For Sunny and me, this used to be Sundays, then Saturdays for a while. We might see a friend, but tried not to book obligations—only fun things, leaving the rest open to see what we felt like doing. Try one unbooked day per week; we called it Slow Sundays or Slow Saturdays.

Take a real lunch break each day, at least 20 to 30 minutes. Block it on your calendar. Stop work, eat your food, and for me, I needed something to help me unplug. I started reading fiction while I ate because reading really relaxes and nourishes me. This gave my brain a break, and I was more productive the rest of the day.

I also put “Leave Open” blocks on my calendar. If a day was getting busy, say six hours of calls, I’d block the rest of the day to leave open so nothing could get scheduled. Sometimes I ended up working, sometimes I took a break, sometimes just seeing what I needed. Otherwise, on back-to-back days, you’re exhausted and without a moment to breathe.

Another tip: Wait 24 hours before you commit to anything new, personal or professional. If you’re an over-committer, this rule will save you so much stress. Just tell people, “I’m a maybe. I have a rule to wait 24 hours before I decide. Can I let you know tomorrow?” Most people are fine with that. It gives you time to see if something is in your highest good and if you can give it your all without becoming stressed.

Finally, respect your natural productivity rhythm. For me, deep work is best first thing in the morning. But I have a client who doesn’t hit her stride until after lunch. She uses mornings to relax or be with her kids, then sits down after lunch for focus work. For workouts, I’m a late afternoon person—my body just doesn’t want to move before then. Know your own rhythm and organize your calendar accordingly.

So much information today! Just pick one or two things to experiment with over the next 30 days. You may need to start a couple weeks from now—choose one or two, apply, experiment, see what works, let go of what doesn’t. You can always try another one later or write them all down and work through them.

Those are my tips on breaking free of busyness—calendar strategies and setting up your life for rhythm, proactivity, and focus. There’s much more I could say about freeing up time and space, but these are some tangible, tactical tips for today.

Thank you again for listening. Please share this with someone you think might benefit, and we’ll see you in a future podcast episode. See you then.