Struggling With an Overscheduled Life?
By: Dr. Marina Harris
Tags: Work, Health, Work Life Balance, Mental Health, Psychology

Three original questions

In her book Why Women Innovate, Lindsey Kunz highlights key aspects of innovation and stories of impressive female innovators. She highlights how A. J. Dunlap, a successful photographer based in North Carolina, uses three “filters,” or questions, to determine when to say yes to projects — and when to say no.

1. Does this affect my personal life? Is this going to take time away from my family? If so, is it worth it? 2. Will this help my business grow? 3. Will this be worthwhile artistically? Can I use this as a creative outlet?

A.J.’s framework served as a springboard to help me develop my own unique filters and optimize my most valuable asset — my time.

A three-step process for developing filters

A.J.’s filters, while brilliant, did not quite fit for my work. I don’t own a business so I am not the sole decision-maker of my projects. And my work as a supervised psychologist is, at times, much less creative than that of a photographer.

Through my training as a doctor of clinical psychology, I knew that filters would only be effective if they were linked to my long-term values, placed a high value on my time, and empowered me to say no when needed.

Here is a unique, three-step process — grounded in the science of psychology — to create the three most valuable questions for protecting my time.

Learn from past mistakes

First, I looked back at my old filters. I felt like it was important to learn from what didn’t work. Back when I was overscheduled, the only filters I used for my time were, 1) Do I have the bandwidth? And 2) Will it further my career?

These filters were problematic for a few reasons. I’m a perfectionist, so I can always convince myself that I have the bandwidth for something even if I really don’t. My idea of normalcy is overscheduled, so it’s not helpful to “make” projects fit into my overscheduled life. And when I ask myself if I can do a project, I’m not considering if I want to do the project, or if it’s of value to me. I’m not respecting my time as valuable.

My second filter was too broad. When I was in graduate school, almost everything that came across my desk would further my career in some way or another. I didn’t have a clear idea of what my career would be. So any project could always fit into furthering a potential career — whether it was in academia, a hospital, a community mental health clinic, or private practice. My filters weren’t actually filtering anything!

To learn from your past mistakes, think about what your previous filters were. What questions did you ask yourself when deciding whether or not to take on a project? What were the common themes across projects you said yes to? Common themes about the projects you said no to?

Decide if those filters are working for you. If not, try to pinpoint what it was about those filters that made them unworkable. Were they too broad, like mine? Did they not account for projects you were excited about? Were they too logic-focused? How about too emotion-focused?

Taking a good look at your previous filters will help you learn from your mistakes and build new filters that avoid these past pitfalls.

Define meaningful work

I knew that without meaningful work, I would drown in projects that I didn’t enjoy and didn’t further my career goals.

In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown suggests using three keywords to define meaningful work. She discusses meaningful work as the intersection between our gifts, talents, and passions.

When I defined meaningful work for myself, I came up with entrepreneurial, authentic, and brave. I looked at the common threads across projects that felt fulfilling to me. I felt fulfilled when I took on projects that gave me some autonomy and appealed to my sense of entrepreneurship. And I felt fulfilled when I took on projects that pushed me out of my comfort zone and made me feel brave for trying them.

Only when I defined meaningful work could I filter what nourished me from what depleted me. Without this definition, I was just blindly saying yes to things that I thought might further my career and fulfill my life. I was walking blindly.

To find out what makes your work meaningful, try the exercise. Write down three keywords that define meaningful work for you. When you feel excited about your work, what qualities does it have? What aspects help you feel nourished?

Examine long-term goals

My previous filter of “furthering my career” was so vague that it wasn’t actually filtering anything. I knew that I needed to narrow this down and take a look at what I wanted my long-term life to look like.

I wanted my long-term life to involve working less and spending more time with my family. That meant that I was interested in activities that balanced time, effort, and monetary payout. I also appreciate autonomy and entrepreneurship. For me, a private counseling clinic falls neatly into these categories. It would give me autonomy, flexibility, and the work-life balance that I want.

This solution was a wonderful blend between my values — how I care about living my life — and my goals. This allowed me to build my final filter for how to spend my time.

Take a look at your long-term goals. What would you like to achieve? What do you want your life to look like? And how do you want to live your life? Answer these questions to help you build your final filter.

Photo by Rachael Crowe on Unsplash

My Three Filters

This three-step process allowed me to reflect on my past mistakes and what I considered meaningful in work and in life. I felt empowered to develop values-driven filters that could fiercely protect my time. And these filters allowed me to pursue the work I want.

Using these three key guidelines, I finally had my personalized filters.

Does this project fit into 2 out of 3 of my meaningful work criteria? Is it entrepreneurial, authentic, or brave? Will it nourish me? Will it take time away from my family? If so, how much time? And is it worth it? — Directly from A.J. Dunlap Will this directly contribute to my goal of having a private counseling clinic?

Now that I had my filters, I needed to check them against previous commitments. Did they filter what I needed them to?

I checked them against a committee position that I’ve regretted saying yes to. When I looked through my meaningful filters, I would have said no to this opportunity. Check.

When I checked them against writing, something that invigorates and excites me, I would still have said yes. Check.

My filters effectively rejected projects that depleted me and included projects that nourished me. Which means they worked exactly how I wanted them to.

Continuing to evaluate our filters is an important step. Using these examples, I knew that my filters were set up in a way that protected my time while giving me the flexibility to choose what was most important to me. I also know that these filters may change. In life, our priorities are always shifting, and it’s important for us to be flexible and adapt to those changes.

While I knew these filters would help me protect my time, I never anticipated that they would give me my life back. Here’s what happened when I started using them.

The result: Three meaningful changes I saw in my life

It took a while to see these filters work in action. But when they did work, it opened up so many possibilities.

I had a clear direction and purpose

Asking myself three simple questions before I said yes to a project gave me a clear sense of direction. It allowed me to understand what I want, and determine when, if, and how I go after it.

Having a clear direction allowed me to breathe. For the first time, I had a sense of where I was going. And I stopped chasing someday and started saying yes to things that enhanced my life now.

I felt more confident and valued my time as a resource

I’ve struggled with confidence my entire life, despite significant achievement. I didn’t value my time as important and couldn’t assert my personal needs. But that changed when I started asking myself these questions.

By pausing, I signaled to my brain that my time was something that deserved thought — because my time is a limited and valuable resource.

And valuing my time made me more confident that I had something special to offer.

I spent more time with my friends and family

I didn’t actually discover the secret to time travel or a way to build more time into my day. I just asked myself these questions. And I was so surprised at how much time it opened up!

By filtering my time, I wasn’t spending nights and weekends working on projects I hated. And when I was working nights or weekends, I was working on something that I loved. I could justify it to myself — and my family could see it too. My family was less likely to be sad about missing me when they could tell I was excited about something. I prevented feeling sucked into projects I dreaded, which freed me to pursue meaningful work.

Photo by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash

The takeaway

Unless you’ve discovered the secret to time travel, your time is a limited resource. Which means that it is extremely valuable. Don’t waste it on things that you don’t enjoy or aren’t getting you where you want to go.

Open up your world by narrowing your work scope.

Say yes to meaningful work. Say yes to nourishment. Say yes to values. And say no to anything less.

I encourage you to use your own filters that embody the spirit of these three questions. The most effective filters are simple. Don’t overcomplicate them.

And use your filters to de-schedule your life and bring your most valuable asset — time — to the forefront.