Time Management is the Key to Self-Care with Leslie Gaudet

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Become a No Problem Parent today. All right, welcome back, No Problem Parents, to another episode of the No Problem Parenting podcast where we choose to deal with and overcome the challenges in our home. And today we have a special guest joining us, Leslie Gaudette. She is a self-care strategist who is passionate about preventing burnout and enhancing quality of life.

Leslie works with incredible women, empowering them to integrate self-care practices into their daily routines. So today we're going to talk all things self-care and how it can support your parenting. Leslie, it's super fantastic to have you here. Welcome to the show.

Hi, Jackie. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. You are really passionate about burnout prevention and helping women learn about self-care, think about self-care differently than just the norm of taking a bath, going for a walk, getting your nails done, reading a book, that kind of thing.

So could you just start by sharing with our listeners what self-care essentials are and why they're so crucial for mamas. Yeah, absolutely. Especially if you are a mom. Well, I mean, even if you have a mom of older children, this is important too, because I'm sure your older children are depending on you for some things down the road.

But if you're a mom with young, young children, I think it's really important because one, you are taking care of you the best you can. So you show up as the best that you can for yourself and for others, but also you're teaching your children that self-care is important as well. So you're kind of like modeling the behavior that you are saying this is good for you. Essentially, I think self-care essentials, you know, like you were saying, those things are really nice about, you know, going for a walk.

You know, those are important, getting outside, getting the vitamin D. But, you know, getting the mani-pedis and massages, having those long bubble baths in the middle of the afternoon, going and buying yourself something. Those are all great things to celebrate yourself. But I think essentially for your emotional well-being, like your mental and emotional well-being, the reason why I say self-care essentials is because we often will look at things like taking breaks, especially if we're busy.

and if you're a mom and you're busy and you have kids activities you're taking children around for their different activities to and from school all of those things homework bath time those things can for sure they're obviously important but you also if you're not putting yourself on that list of saying okay I'm important I need to actually see like how can I fill my cup so I'm the best of me, I think essentially what that ends up doing is you might start to feel resentful.

And you don't mean to feel that way, but you get tired, you might get cranky, and you might snap. And then you have to apologize. So for me, I think, especially as a mom, I know a lot of moms, you know, and I know how my mom, you know, she was a single parent, and she had to raise her children that, you know, she didn't really take care of herself. In fact, it's hard for her to even think about that. But I think really, when you start looking at things like having boundaries around some of your time, you know, for yourself to have that quality of life for yourself doing something for you. So maybe you have a friend who has children that you can swap, taking care of each other's kids while you go and get your man in petty, or you go and have a massage, and vice versa, or your significant other, if you have someone in your home, to like little things like having that hard stop at the end of your day, where, you know, because as moms, you're still busy during the day doing other things. If you're a working mom, when you come home from work,

you don't want to be going straight from work to dinner back to work. It's like really looking at how, how do I actually have a real stop to my day, so that I'm spending quality time, not just like over the dinner table with a quick conversation, but actually getting to have that deeper level bonding with my family, which I think is really important is taking, having that no social media rule after a certain time during the day, no tech rule. I have a rule at 7 PM. There's no tech involved, no phone, no laptop, nothing, no emails, no voicemails, no text messages.

that's my time to spend with my husband and that's to create that deeper bond again it's also getting yourself away from the text so you get away from that scroll rule but also the other part to that is you're setting yourself up for a good night's rest because you're not giving your brain something more to think about while you're trying to close your eyes and go to sleep so I mean I believe everything we do can be self-care related, including making, you know, mealtime. So enjoying that time, right? Creating that meal for your children, not just throwing something together, but actually enjoying that time. I think it makes so much sense. I think that many parents struggle with finding the time, you know, in all the chaos of regular everyday family life. So you go a little bit deeper into what self-care is, and it's actually more practical,

But there's some really clear boundaries around practicing self-care. So how can parents prioritize self-care? Maybe that first step of scheduling it and actually making an intentional shift to prioritizing it. Yeah, thank you for bringing that up because that is one of the things that I teach around and that is self-care should be prioritized first on your calendar.

self-care so marking on your calendar for example you want to go for a massage this week I mean still again it is a form of self-care but you want to go for a massage this week so put it on your calendar like an appointment make it non-negotiable or maybe you have during the day you have times that you a certain time during the day when you will go for a walk so every day typically I'm out the door at 11 and I'm going for a walk for 40 minutes and I'm listening to a podcast and I'm filling my mind with something that's teaching me something but I'm also getting outside out in the fresh air and I'm learning all at the same time and so it's getting myself away from being in front of the computer because I work from home I think it's really really important to have those boundaries as far as how you spend your time and your calendar is going to give you clues. What do you have on your calendar as a mom? Okay. Because if you have children who have different activities, such afterschool activities, so of course you've got the school day. And then what does that look like? You've got your work day if you work as well. And if you work from home, what does that look like? How are you scheduling that around everything else that you do. And, and so if you're looking at your calendar and seeing what you have on your calendar, what you're doing daily, and you're, and you start to see like, oh, there's things that are

really starting to make me feel overwhelmed. Maybe that's a wake up for you to just to take a step back and say, like, what am I saying yes to? Because this is one of the things too, I think is really important is learning to say not necessarily no, because sometimes things are just not right now, but it's learning how to say yes to the right things to put on your calendar and asking for help if you can't manage your day the way, especially if it happens to be a really busy school activities day. Maybe you have multiple children and they have one day just happens to be where someone has soccer and someone has baseball and someone has something else.

And you're also juggling your work day. So asking for help, I think is really important. It's Something that I learned that I used to think was a sign of weakness, but I learned that it's actually a sign of strength when I can reach out and say, hey, I'm struggling around this. Can you help me?

Of course, if you have people in your circle who care about you, they're going to say, yes, how can I do that? How can I, how can I help you? So it's like learning first, I think, like what is on your calendar, because that's going to show you where your overwhelm is. So put everything on there, all your appointments, so you can actually see what your day is really looking like. So that's what that is definitely where I would start.

Yeah, I think that is key. That organization, I think it starts with time management. And if when we're doing a really good job at managing our time, not just filling our schedule with, you know, all the busyness and all the to-dos and everything, but really managing our time and saying, and then that hard stop. I love that you talk about the hard stop at the end of the day, that it's like it's non-negotiable, especially for those of us working from home.

You know, it's really easy to just work all the time. Yeah. And you also, well, if you're on the bottom of your list, which most parents that I've known, usually they put themselves on the bottom because everything else is more important. They'll fall off of that list if they just, they feel like they've run out of time during the day.

You know, one of the women that I spoke to around this particular topic of working from home had said that she has for her she has to actually have systems in place to remind her to get up and get moving one of them is her grandchildren because you know when the kids come over and the little ones are there she goes this has like been a life a life-changing um a life changer for her because it gets her her away from working but what she said she has found that home equates to working because she works from home.

And so she had to find ways to actually get herself up out of her chair and go out. And that's what I had to find was how do I get myself away from moving from one screen of working to maybe checking my emails or checking social media because I am looking to see how something is working on a social post or just to see what people are doing. I had to learn that, okay, I need to take a break now, get up and walk away.

Part of that too is like giving your brain a rest, right? Because, you know, I equate that to you feed your body. Your body needs time to digest your food, right? While you feed your brain the same way, it needs time to digest what you've given it.

And if you're just filling it and filling it and filling it, it's just going to start overflowing. like putting a glass under a running faucet after a little while the water's just going to start pouring out and that's just how I look at like how we take care of ourselves so it's really like making a conscious decision to put yourself first because then you start to feel like you were saying the time management piece you know again looking at what's on your calendar and being able to effectively use, make use of your time in a way that you feel more joy and gratitude and fulfillment at the end of your, of each day. Absolutely. I love that perspective. And it's, it's just such a powerful reminder that we can better care for our children by taking care of ourselves and our employees. The more you're taking care of yourself and really organized,

good with your time management, that's going to reflect on your children and or your colleagues. Absolutely. And I think self-care actually should be considered across the board. It shouldn't just be a personal endeavor.

It should be professional as well. There should be these specific types of things should be essentials in your workspace too. So taking those breaks, having a hard stop at the end of your day, even for work related. I think that's really important.

Being able to say yes to the right things that go on your calendar, asking for help if you feel overwhelmed. These are really essential. You want quality of life in the office too, because you spend so much time with each other. So that you have that quality of life, you're not bringing the things home from work that haven't gone well. Because when you look at life in the office as being just as essential to you as an important way of living and being able to feel joy, fulfilled and grateful for doing what you love and being able to not have to worry about bringing home like baggage from work because you're, you know, you're overworked or overwhelmed, you know, you're stressed, leaning to burn out, and then you don't have time for your family,

and you're resentful because, you know, you have so much to do at home. You know, they don't understand, young children aren't going to understand that mommy's really super tired right now. And I just, I just really can't, they don't understand that because you're mommy. And And so like mommy is supposed to be able to do anything, you know?

And so I think that when we start looking at the, at the perspective of taking care of ourselves all around is going to be so beneficial, not only for us, but our families as well. And it's again, teaching them to the importance of, you know, doing things like this for themselves, even kids when it comes to their homework, taking a break when they're, they're learning something to step away, to give themselves time to reflect on what they just read or what they, the lessons they learned that they're, maybe they're writing a paper, you know, so that they're not just trying to cram it all in, in one session. I think that's where a lot of kids it's leading to burnout because, you know, I've talked to teachers, the same thing. There's just, it's, it's just a way of life. I think that would really be helpful if we, we took a step back and thought, you know,

How can we have more quality of life everywhere? Yeah, absolutely. And on your website where your company, Her Extraordinary Life by Design, you really kind of highlight four key things. Like when you get that time management down and you're really focusing on self-care, it's going to help increase your energy and your focus.

You'll avoid burnout and emotional depletion, shifting your mindset and your resilience and your ability to manage stress. And then also it's all going to enhance your leadership, whether that means at work or as a parent. Talk a little bit about that increased energy and focus. Very important.

Again, it all comes back to time. You know, we've talked a lot about it today, but time, it's really knowing your energy. Like where, when are you most energetic? You might have that morning routine where you feel like you have the most energy, the most focus, and you can work on those bigger tasks.

That's great because you understand that about yourself. And then, you know, like lunchtime to mid-afternoon, it's like I need to just do small, you know, really easygoing administrative tasks that don't really take a lot of like bandwidth. And then maybe you get creative more later in the day and up until a certain time when you have that hard stop because I still feel like that's so important. I think when we understand how our energy works, and again, you could be that night owl where the morning's just not your thing.

You're more the light admin tasks, and then you become more like, okay, I need to be able to be creative before I get into like the heavy duty stuff later in the day. But again, it's just like learning how you work. I think when it comes to our energy, when we are, as an example, I talk about four stages of burnout in some of the things, the trainings that I do. And one of them is like the honeymoon phase, which I think is, which is the very beginning.

This is where you're like excited about what you're doing. That's new. You really want to keep working on it. You've got a deadline, you've set a deadline.

and what ends up happening is because of the excitement, you feel like you have the energy, you keep pushing through and you might do it for days in a row. What can happen is, which I've talked to a few women recently, is that they found themselves getting super tired and less focused and procrastinating on doing some extra additional things and they couldn't quite figure out what was going on. Like, I don't know what's wrong.

And I just pointed out to them, it sounds like you're in a burnout phase. And that will then trigger them to think, well, this is what I've been doing. And that gets them to reflect back on, oh, I see, I've been doing this. I've been burning the candle at both ends for about two weeks now. So yeah, I can see why today I'm actually feeling less fulfilled. I'm feeling, you know, really tired. I'm less, I'm not focused. And I don't know what's wrong with me. And now I can understand it's because I was so excited in the beginning and I pushed through. And this is not something that's new.

We've pretty much all been doing this our whole lives. You think about being a student in school, that's what we do. We think we have all the energy, but at some point it just does catch up with us when we understand how we are wired personally, because again, self-care is not a one-size-fits-all model. It is uniquely designed around you and your energy. And when we understand that, I think we get to, and I say get to, we get to design our lives. Like, you know, that's why I called my company Her Extraordinary Life by Design, because I feel like we get to design how we live our lives and how we incorporate and infuse self-care into our daily routines, personally and professionally also. But having that energy helps us with that, you know, more focus around everything, whether it's being the mom and the daily activities as a mom or being, you know, a businesswoman in the daily activities around your business. I love that you're talking about the energy. There are a lot of energy drains that we're not paying attention to necessarily. And I think procrastination is one of them. We start procrastinating because we're just physically tired, maybe you're mentally tired.

and so we maybe procrastinate but then we're draining our energy because that procrastination causes us to talk negatively to ourself oh you just should have had that done already you know why didn't you just do it when you had the chance and really what it comes down to is focusing on ourselves and and paying attention to that schedule and the time management and setting those boundaries around protecting our time yeah it again it all comes back to time management And the one thing too, when we were talking about like that procrastination part, a lot of that procrastinating comes from too not having clarity around what you want to do in the first place, especially if it comes to business.

So you're like filling your calendar, again, the time management piece with things just to keep busy, to think that you're doing something. And I was doing that. I was, I was, I can say, you know, you know, transparency here that I was doing that in the very first two years of my, of being a coach. and I looked back at my calendar and I think I was doing a whole bunch of stuff, but none of it was really anything to help me.

It was just to stay busy. And my husband would often say something to me around, like, what are you doing? Because you're actually sitting, you're repeating the pattern of going from corporate America where I was working 15 hour days and working as a paralegal to now you're working 15 hour days or 12 hour days sitting in front of your computer. What are you doing?

And that was kind of like a wake up call for me to like, oh, yeah, he's right. You know, I didn't like hearing it, but it was the truth. And I think that's what snapped me out of the fact knowing like, OK, I don't have real clarity. And that's when I realized I need help.

I think in the beginning it was like, oh, I can do it myself. I can go online and find YouTube videos about how to do this and how to do that. And that's great. They're fantastic how to's, how to videos.

but sometimes you really need that extra support from that person who's created that vision to help you to see like okay this is your vision let me help you use these tools to create the vision that you are trying to create instead of trying to do it by yourself so that you're not filling your calendar with things that just really don't do anything they don't mean anything they're just there to fill time well and i think it's so important to have a coach a mentor somebody that you're checking in with because, you know, you've created some habits, negative habits.

And in order to get out of those, oftentimes it does take somebody that's going to understand you, support you and keep you focused on, you know, that vision, that ultimate goal, that design, life design that you so crave. So I think it's really important to have a coach. Tell us a little bit about what it looks like to work with you. And then also you do have a freebie for us today to learn how self-care can help us avoid burnout so that we can lead with confidence.

Yeah. So I have a program right now that is specifically to work with women who have teams, so businesswomen, small businesses who have teams to help them to bring a self-care holistic viewpoint into their business. So they are looking at how not only that they manage their time, but how they manage their team's time and how their team manages their time. Again, a really time management is a huge focus. And that's only because that helps you to be more productive and get things done more efficiently. But it also shows you, you know, where the skill sets are, where there might be gaps, how you can help your team to whether that's through trainings.

And that's where I come in and I bring those types of trainings. And it also helps you to see like where, you know, do you have the right people on your team? Because do they see the vision like you do? Are you on the same page? And can you come together as a team, including CEO and team members, you are a team together. And so how can you like bring that cohesiveness to your vision?

And yes, I do have a freebie as a self-care guide. And it's really, it's really meant to help you to, especially if you're thinking, well, I do know about self-care sort of, kind of, or I have been, I've had some self-care in my life, but I haven't really been consistent. It's just really a tool to go through and see like, first of all, here are some things that you can do, what I call the essentials of self-care, hard and soft essentials of self-care. And these are things that you can do to is to start creating consistency for you. Again, it's not a one size fits all. It's you, you take what works for your lifestyle and you try them out. You can try things out that are maybe something works this week and you want to try it something else next week. That's the beauty about self-care. As long as you're taking care of you, that is what's important.

and creating that life by design. I love it. Some people are night owls. Some people are early risers. It doesn't matter. You get to set the stage. You get to create your schedule and manage your time the way it best serves you. You also have a 30 day self-care adventure. And I think this is more for, yeah. And I think this is more for people who maybe don't even know how to practice self-care on a daily basis. It's just totally foreign. Yeah. So I created this as a, a way for you to actually start having a structure in place to help you actually begin.

So we can always read how to's and, and, you know, I, you know, I love the how to books. I think they're fantastic to have those out there. I'm always about learning. I think learning is growing, But sometimes we need to have those daily prompts to, okay, this is an action step to take today, to start getting you on there. Like it's a habit. So it's like any other habit, you have to start somewhere. And in order for it to become a lasting habit, it has to be something that you're willing to put in the time daily. And then all of a sudden it just becomes something that you gravitate towards. Habits are easy, but to actually step into making it, you know, consistent is not easy until you, unless you are committed to yourself to actually show up and do it just like anything in life. And so what I decided to do is I created, you know, different things that you can do. They're short. They don't take a lot of your time, but it's just teaching you what it can be like for you to incorporate things into your life, you know, deep breathing to meditating, to journaling, to thinking about what your future could look like. All of those things are part of this self-care journey. I love it. I love that you're a resource for parents,

both for the business side of things and then also how that can happen in your home life and managing your kids' schedules. So parents, for more focus, clarity, learning how to take breaks during the day, having a hard stop to your day, just really figuring out how to manage your calendar, time management, putting your phone down, really being intentional and present for yourself and for your kids. I encourage you to reach out to Leslie at her extraordinary life by design.co. I have a link in the show notes for you as well as the link for that freebie.

so you can hopefully prevent burnout, but also recognize if you are in burnout, definitely give Leslie a call. And before we wrap up here quick too, I want to mention your podcast. So you have a podcast called Her Extraordinary Life by Design Podcast, and you're giving some tips and supportive resources and things on the show. Yeah. So the reason why I created Her Extraordinary Life by Design Podcast was for me to bring other women onto the show to showcase them.

So I'm showcasing women from all over the world, you know, a little bit about their life story, but also what they're doing and the impact that they're making on the world. We love it. So make sure you're checking out the podcast. My whole no problem parenting is helping parents become the confident leaders.

I say our kids crave us to be. And I think at the root of that are three things, getting good sleep, time management and what you're putting in your body, your health as well. So those are three key things to help set the foundation to becoming a confident parent. And Leslie, you're just an amazing resource to help us get to that point.

So thanks again so much for being on the show. Thank you so much, Jackie. Again, it's been incredible and I love to be able to support you and your community. All right, that's it for today's episode of the No Problem Parenting Podcast.

Hey, thanks guys for tuning in. If you found value in today's episode, click the subscribe button and share it with other parents who might need a little boost. Stay connected on our socials by following at no problem parents for more parenting tips and get your free download of the 60 ways to respond to your kids without losing your cool. Go to no problem parents.com until next time. Remember your confidence comes from embracing both successes and setbacks. So take a deep breath, embrace the chaos and remember you got this.

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