Time Management Strategies To Stop Letting Time Raw-Dog Your LIFE!

Most people don’t have a lack of time problem…They have a time management problem.💥💣

If you’re someone who says things like, ”I don’t have the time” or ”I need to find the time,” this is for you, cygnet. 🐣

It’s time to outgrow that ugly duckling, chasing-your-own-tail-feathers way of limited thinking.

I’m going to show you why it’s how you’re thinking about time that is the problem.

Not your lack of it. 💥

Then I’m going to share with you 3 ways to take command of your time and how to bring some ease back into your day.

I’ve learned these time management strategies with ADHD, and after nearly two decades of working for myself.

My approach is simple: GAMIFY the living F*CK out of it. Make self-improvement feel like an intentional, almost spiritual quest. We’re talking score points and rewards here!

And deep, soul-centered energetic alignment to our most delusional-level alternative lifestyle dreams.

So if you’re a busy AF unconventional woman, online biz owner, or neurospicy creative, this is for you, hombre.

It’s showdown time between you and that authoritarian tyrant, Old Man Time! ⚔️🤠

Continue reading… OR, if you prefer to multitask while you’re rounding up your runaway priorities and lassoing your day into submission, click below for the podcast version 🪄🎧

If you’d rather watch than read, hitch your wagon to the YouTube version here (bonus points if you spot my six-shooter side-eye) 🪄📺

So this here’s how time is currently whipping your ass:

You’re waking up, never feeling GOOD about the day ahead of you. You just feel OPPRESSED from the get-go.

You know you’ve got a thousand things to do, and there’s always at least one BULLSHIT or MONSTER task you’d rather avoid or not have to do at all.

Before you’ve even had coffee, you’re mentally juggling errands, the life admin, and the needs of your friends, family, or even of your pet, Peanut.

Then there’s a new incoming list of “urgent” requests from other people.

Or, there’s the 14 way overdue random tasks you told yourself you’d remember… but you keep forgetting.

Whether you’re home alone, just waking up, or you’re trying to get out the door while helping other people get out the door, there’s an unrelenting urgency at the start of your days.

You feel pushed, not pulled, into work.

Then you tell yourself you’ll just “quickly” check your email, and then—poof—it’s 11:14 AM. And you’ve accomplished nothing except responding to Janet’s pointless “just circling back” email and watching a corgi learn to skateboard on Instagram.

You pull your concentration back in again, you FINALLY get started again…

But then it’s time for that meeting you have, or the pick up, the drop off, the phone call. Remember this, remember that!

So it goes throughout your whole day until you massively CRASH out on your sofa at the end.

And as for your own priorities?

The things that would actually move you closer to what YOU want in your life?

Those get shoved to the back burner so you can play Whack-a-Mole with everyone else’s emergencies. And all the other institutional deadlines that capitalism thrives upon.😭

Every Monday, you promise yourself this will be the week you finally get to that thing you want to do.

But somehow, every single week plays out exactly the same:

• Wildly busy but mysteriously unproductive.
• Putting out fires while the big, important dream projects gather dust in the corner.
• Feeling like you’re already behind before Monday morning coffee!!

And round and round the carousel of chaos you go.

Sound familiar?

So here’s what’s REALLY going on here: You don’t have a lack of time problem. You have a time management problem.💥

You’re ridiculously busy because life is in control of you.

You don’t have any time because you’re living like a pawn in the game instead of playing life like a game.

You’ve got to take ownership of the whole damn board, chicky-boo!

Why it’s NEVER about “finding” the time. It’s about MAKING the time (and how to do it!).

The issue with ”finding time” is that it prioritizes other people and external things first.

We’re filling up our schedule with whatever is thrown our way. Never questioning the value of anything in regard to our own wants and needs.

When we ”make time” we’re intentionally reviewing all of our commitments through the lens of what WE want. What WE value most in the world.

We’re being SELECTIVE.

And we say ”NO” to a lot of things that aren’t going to help us achieve our goals.

”Making time” means prioritizing yourself and your desires.

Not blaming your friends or family, your job, or your spicy brain for stealing your time.

It means taking responsibility for your time and fully OWNING it.

And this is why it’s so hard.

Because we (especially women) are not often told or encouraged to prioritize our own needs and desires.

Learn how to work with the demands of your life and any biological time-blindness to make it all work for you.

Reversing from reacting to life to intentionally designing and gamifying your time to align with your values.

Making time is a value-first, intentional, purposeful, and spiritual approach to managing time. It’s the way of living where you wake up feeling naturally full of gratitude. Where you go to bed with a soul-level satisfaction that you took at least one step toward your dreams.🙌

This is possible for you, and I want to show you exactly how it’s possible. No matter how busy you are right now.

But what it requires is being radically honest with yourself about what YOU want in EVERY decision you make about how you choose to spend your time.

So let’s get into 3 time management strategies that are going to blow your old concept of time out of your way.

3 powerful concepts that may help you understand what I mean by ”owning” your time like you are the game owner, able to enjoy your time and have some fn FUN with it, in a spiritually aligned sense. ✨

A powerful, more embodied sense of understanding your time that’ll make you feel happier and more alive.

Time Management Strategy #1: Make SELF-TRUST your goal, NOT just “getting things done”

If you’ve ever stared at your to-do list thinking, “Ugh, I HAVE to do this shit” (followed quickly by “I hate this shit”), you know how oppressive productivity can feel.

But here’s what I want you to understand: Time management strategies aren’t just about ticking boxes. They’re about your relationship with yourself.

When you say you’ll do something and actually do it, you start building self-trust.

You become the kind of person who can rely on yourself. That’s next-level confidence, and it bleeds into everything.

But you cannot build a relationship with yourself unless you KNOW yourself.

That is why I always recommend creating a life manifesto and actively spending time each day working on what life you want.

It’s simple: when you are always 100% CERTAIN that you will get done whatever you want to get done because you told yourself that you would, that’s self-trust at work.

Shit getting done then becomes just the result of that commitment to yourself.

Time Management Strategy #2: Schedules don’t restrict your time — they CREATE it!

I resisted scheduling for years because I thought it would feel like a cage.

My creative brain wanted flow, freedom, and the option to wander off chasing shiny ideas.

But here’s what actually happened…😅

I got caught in an endless loop of putting out urgent fires and never touching the long-term, business-building stuff that would actually level me up.

As a new social media manager, I’d spend all my best morning brain energy on routine client commitments, then push my own marketing to the midnight shift—if I got to it at all.

It took me YEARS to overcome GUILT for simply prioritizing my own business activities in my day.

There was a lot of imposter guilt in there, too. It’s actually a bit of a mind fuck going from employee to freelancer, and learning not to think and work like an employee.

But the first boss-level unlock for me was realizing that a schedule doesn’t steal your freedom—it creates and protects it.

It’s like having a magical map in an RPG. Sure, you could wander aimlessly through the forest for 10 hours, or you could follow the damn quest markers and get to the treasure faster!

Why a gamified, time-blocked schedule is a neurodivergent creative’s secret weapon! ⚔️

Time blocking is where you divide your day into blocks of time, each dedicated to a specific task or activity.

If you time-block your entire week, you know that everything you need to do will get done so long as you make a commitment to yourself to do it (the essential self-trust part again).

I hated and resisted the idea of ”time-blocking” my schedule for a long time. I spent YEARS making all kinds of schedules, diaries, spreadsheets, and lists, but never completing whatever tasks I put into them.

UNTIL!

Everything changed for me the year I studied everything I could find on my ADHD and what would help me feel more motivated.

I discovered that the reason why some neurospicy people love spreadsheets and calendars so much is that it helps us externalize chaotic thoughts and ideas. It gives us a sense of control and calm.

The problem starts when we forget to actually use the fancy spreadsheets or planners we spent hours obsessively setting up.

Making plans is FUN! Following them is BORING! 😅

Now, things get a LOT more interesting and helpful when you combine a time-blocked schedule with what psychologists call ”elements of interest” for ADHD brains.

Elements of interest include:

• risk-taking 
• problem-solving
• revelling in skills
• social interaction
• speed 
• applause, rhythm 
• color 
• romance 
• surprise 
• action
• suspense
• humor 
• multi-sensory stimulation

They are anything that can make a boring task more interesting.✨

A gamified time-blocked schedule using elements of interest can help give you structure, predictability, and crucially for ADHD, constraint.

It can help manage impulsivity and common issues around starting a task, task switching, and hyperfocus, which is the inability to stop doing a task.

So, for example, here are the elements that I use in my time-blocked Google Sheets schedule:

• Set timers for each block to constrain the task to a set time with a deadline
• Use different colors for ”Done” ”Doing” and ”Not Done”
• Create a reward system and give yourself ”points” for doing a task, doing it on time, doing it AHEAD of time, or doing a whole series of tasks in a row.
• Create an entire ”BONUS” point level for extra things you want to do but that aren’t critical. Like ”wash car”
• Score each day and collect weekly scores. Try to beat your own weekly score.
• Reward yourself with a fun activity after every really hard or boring task.
• Reward yourself for long, successful task streaks after hours, days, or weeks.

This gamified time management strategy is how I compete with myself week by week. It’s what I encourage my mentoring clients to do if they are struggling with imposter syndrome or comparisonitis, too.

A close friend recently asked me how I rewarded myself for a good week.

I realized with a big laugh that the reward was a ”humor” element straight from gameplay. I rate myself with color codes, emojis, and gamer phrases like, ”FLAWLESS VICTORY!” or, after a bad week, ”K.O.’D! TRY AGAIN NEXT TIME!” or ”MISSION FAILED!”

Once I started gamifying my time-blocking, I went from chronic procrastinator to careful planner. I stopped seeing my calendar as a boss barking orders at me and started seeing it as just a game tally board.

Following a schedule and DOING tasks became FUN! 💃

It was a game-changer for me. It literally changed my LIFE!

If you want to see exactly how I do it, check out my mini-course, Level Up Your Day: The Time-Hack Toolkit.🪄⏰

Time Management Strategy #3: Strategically schedule in anything that will help you with emotional regulation

“I have so much to do today that I’m going to need to spend three hours in prayer in order to be able to get it all done.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

Successful people aren’t just good at planning. They’re good at keeping their heads CALM and in the game.

They are skilled at not letting their emotions wreck their productivity.

Understanding how to regulate your nervous system is the success and productivity equivalent of understanding the role of insulin in weight loss.

It’s foundational at the biological level.

Thinking through all the tasks on your to-do list isn’t enough.

You’ve got to feel what you’re doing. FEEL how you’re physically and emotionally responding to each task on your list.⚡

This means tuning into your emotions and noticing how they show up in your body.

For example, have you ever had a task that you know you absolutely must do, but it made you feel physically sick to your stomach every time you thought about it?

That physical feeling came from an emotion, and behind that emotion, there was a hidden thought about the task. Maybe it was shame, imposter syndrome, fear of failure, or even fear of success.

This is what I mean by “embodied” alignment: our nervous system mirrors the intentions of our mind. We aren’t just thinking, we are feeling it.

If your brain is fried from stress or fizzing from excitement, you’re going to lose focus.

Joyful, happy news can be just as dysregulating as stressful, terrible news. You can lose focus for hours, leaving the rest of the day as a write-off.

I learned this the hard way.

When I freelanced, every time I gained a new client, I’d get SO excited I had to take the rest of the day off!

Eventually, I learned to stop trying to push my overexcited brain back into work right away.

I started building “calm TF down” breaks into my day, especially after client video calls. I’d do short Yin Yoga YouTube sessions, desk meditations, take the dogs for a walk, take a hot shower, or journal out big brain dumps.

Whatever you can do to help you regulate your nervous system is going to help you be more productive. And that’s going to help you manage your TIME.

Because this is a big part of mastering time management that nobody talks enough about…

You can’t manage your time if you can’t manage your emotions.

And this goes deeper than simply scheduling ”time off” or relaxation ”me time. It takes intentional, deeply restorative activities to calm down a frazzled nervous system.

Watching TV or drinking champagne is not what the body needs at these times.

To give you an example of what I mean, here is what I do…

Every three months, like clockwork, I schedule full-body massages or blissful yoga nidra. If I can’t afford a day spa visit, I’ll ”forest bathe.”

Or I’ll go down the chocoltier down the hill and spend a few hours journaling out my thoughts.

I do not wait until I feel burned out or like ”I need it.”

I anticipate the necessity of it.

Waiting to need relaxation time is reacting.

Designing life is planning days off and relaxation time before there’s a ”need” for it, because by then it’s already too late. 💥

The effects of a dysregulated nervous system will already be present.

These look like overeating, overdrinking, revenge procrastination, late nights scrolling, and any kind of numbing out.

It will often happen at the end of the day when you have exhausted yourself trying to stay functional, just ”getting through it.”

The more you intentionally schedule time to help your body stay calm and centered, the more energy and focus you will gain.

You’ll find that you’re able to show up more consistently for yourself, be more engaged, and focused.

Ultimately, you’ll be more satisfied with how your day went.

Self-care like this can also be extremely helpful to you for any bad habits or addictions you may be struggling with as well. Any bad habit that you are doing too much is probably because you have a dysregulated nervous system.

And that may be a sign to pull back and take more time out for self-care.🚩

Deep, deep relaxation and self-care to remember what you desire in your life.

Ready to stop letting time raw-dog your life?😉

”Not having enough time” is one of the biggest obstacles creative people have to starting an online side hustle or business.

But I often find it’s because of one of two things…

One, they have not worked out what they truly want or value (which makes self-trust and thus ANY time-management strategies easy to follow!)

or

They often are trying to do way too much and not in the right order.

Like focusing on growing an Instagram following before they even have an email newsletter and welcome sequence set up. HUGE MISTAKE!

So I created my S.W.A.N. Transformation Marketing Strategy Guidebook to help simplify how to get started, no matter how busy you may be.

It’s a FREE 30-page PDF printable resource guide of every single step to help you start, grow, and run an online business – in order!

It’s in checklist form with loads of clickable resources to help you work through each step, one by one.

I’ve also included all the mindset, goal-setting, time-management strategies, and weekly self-coaching steps you’ll need to build self-trust as you scale your business.

Gamification is itself an essential motivational strategy that I include in all of my educational content. It underscores all of my SWAN Transformation Strategy mentoring programs.

So start changing your life TODAY by building an online side hustle or business and mastering marketing to become a money-making Marketician.🪄🦢

You can download the FREE complete step-by-step guidebook by signing up for the form below! 👇