November 19, 2025 • 26 mins
Time management expert and host of the Work + Life Harmony podcast Megan Sumrell shares systems for feeling less overwhelmed
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
episode is going to be a longer one part of
the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
take their days from great to awesome and any advice
(00:24):
they have for the rest of us. So today I
am delighted to welcome Megan SUMMRL to the Before Breakfast.
Megan is a time management and productivity expert. She is
the founder of the Pink b and the host of
the Work Life Harmony podcast, among many other things. So, Megan,
welcome to the show. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I was like, ooh, that sounds like a better show
up strong here today.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I know all that people are expecting a lot, but
I know you're going to give us a lot of
wisdom over the next twenty five minutes. So why don't
you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yes, so again, I'm the founder of the Pink Bee.
I am a time management and productivity expert for women, specifically.
My background was actually in corporate IT. I spent over
twenty years in the software and IT space, where actually
towards the end of my career. I would go in
and basically rebuild software teams from the ground up, optimizing
(01:16):
their processes, systems, procedures, et cetera. Found myself at a
place where I got married later in life, started a
family later and had a very pivotal day when my
daughter was about two, where I was still in the
thick of trying to juggle corporate life and motherhood and
all of that, and a complete stranger asked me, what
do you do for fun? And I realized I didn't
(01:38):
have an answer. I couldn't remember the last time I
had done anything for myself. My life was in service
to work, family, all of that, and long story short,
it led me on a path to completely rebuild how
I plan and manage my time juggling all the roles
and responsibilities. And now fast forward to today. Through a
couple of pivotal moments from then to now, I left
(02:02):
my corporate career, founded the Pink Bee, and we are
on a mission to bring work life harmony and harmony
into homes all over the world through this proprietary planning
framework built specifically for women. The realities of our lives
and how our brains work.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, although I'm sure there's a lot that men could
learn from it too. So, honey, men are listening to this,
you don't need to turn off the podcast because everything
we're going to talk about today is going to be
relevant for you as well, because there is a lot
of overlaps between how we manage like our home systems
and the corporate work systems you were doing right.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yes, there absolutely is the couple shifts that I highlight
specifically for like the framework works for men and women.
I have a lot of women go through the program
and then they're like, and I made my husband come
sit down and watch it with me, and now we're
running our household this way is really acknowledging. Women tend
to absorb a lot of the uncertainty and the mental
load of the household. And the way our brains are
(02:56):
wired is we actually multitask more than our male counterpart
to do, and so we have to have systems that
understand that and acknowledge it and have a path forward
for it.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Well, we're going to talk a lot about systems over
the next few minutes, but one thing I wanted to
talk with you about first this is we're coming toward
the end of the year when this episode is airing,
and I know that you have something I believe it's
called plan a Palooza that is an annual planning workshop
that you run around this time as people look forward
to their next year. And I'm I'm a big fan
(03:28):
of doing this in like November, you know, and we
got to really build up to the end of the year.
But I wonder, how do you have people think through
the upcoming year? Any fun tips for our listeners. Yeah,
so are embarking on.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
This the big fundamental shift that I teach in the
annual planning process? And why I do it so early?
You know what's considered early. I'm not doing it the
week before January is man Q four is a doozy
November December. There's so much going on, and that's why
I like to intentionally do this work early so that
when January hits, I'm not now stuck going what am
I going to? What am I gonna do this year?
(04:02):
Like how are we operating? A lot of people when
they go to annual planning workshops or events, it's always
kind of this dreamcasting or visioning kind of workshop, right
where we get really excited about all the things that
we want to do next year, we break them down
into milestones. Then we get back into our real life
and the real world smacks us upside the head with
(04:23):
the sick kid and the flu season and then the
big event at work and all of that, and you know,
six months later we find that worksheet or workbook from
the event and we're like, oh, yeah, I forgot all
about that. I haven't done anything. So what's fundamentally different
with the way I really like to teach annual planning
is we do some of that dream work, but then
we start our plan with what's your reality for next year? Right,
(04:47):
so actually understanding do you already have commitments and in
what months? And when are there seasonality of when you
know it's like is May usually a crazy month for you?
Or December? And we build all of that in f
think of it kind of like financing, like what time
is already spoken for? So that now we're working realistically
(05:07):
with hey, what kind of time do I have? That
then supports our core values, our boundaries, and our priorities
with those extra things that we want to layer in.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I love that. I Mean, one of the things I'm
always doing with people is having them track their time,
so we know what a week really looks like. And
then when you're setting goals, Yeah, you're setting goals, it's like, okay,
and this is what a week really looks like. So
it's fine to say, you know, I want to run
four times a week, but that means we need to
look at where those are going to be saying, you know,
(05:39):
the big goal is, yeah, I'm want to run a marathon. Okay,
where are the four runs a week going to happen
in your life exactly?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
And when is the marathons? And now you're building out
what do you have time a month before to do
an eighteen mile run? Or are you traveling every weekend?
And yeah, so we've got to really marry and integrate
your reality with your want tos, if you will, and
make sure that there's a cohesive plan and construct it
in a way that sets you up for success instead
(06:06):
of for feeling like a failure of four months into
the year.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, and I love this idea of planning ahead. You know,
we're saying we're getting started on it in November because
December is so crazy. And one of your recent podcast
episodes what was like a while ago now, but it
caught my eye because you have Christmas in July. Every
year that you do, you do some of your holiday
planning in July. Can you talk about that?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yeah, So it kind of came. It stemmed from a
need for myself. Of I remember one particularly rough holiday
season and it was like the morning after Christmas, it
was like holiday hangover, you know, just wrapping paper, stuff,
crum just I remember sitting there like, this was not
a fun holiday for me. I gave a great one
for everybody else. And so that year I started thinking, Okay,
(06:51):
what could I do to lighten the load in December?
Are there things I could do earlier? Are there things
I could stop doing, et cetera. And one of the
things I landed on is I always loved holiday baking
with my mom as a kid, and I always thought
it would be this magical moment with my daughter. And
I was like, that really wasn't magical. It's just one
more have to like, one more to do, which just
(07:12):
takes the fun out of it. So I thought, well,
a lot of the stuff that we make is stuff
that freezes really really well, and we're always looking for
stuff to do Midsummer when you're so sick of going
to the pool and it's literally one hundred degrees. So
it's now come to two days long for us, where
my daughter and I we put on Christmas music, we
put on Christmas t shirts, and we actually bake a
(07:35):
ton of holiday stuff over the course of two days,
all stuff that freezes well. So then when December hits,
you know, we might be making one or two things
that don't freeze well, but we can really enjoy like
we enjoy our gingerbread house making day because it's not
packed on top of six other days of things that
we're trying to get done, along with some crafting. So
(07:57):
we do a lot of baking and we do some
holiday handcrafting in the middle of July, and it makes
just breaks up for a really fun, fun time in
the middle of the summer. And now I have a
freezer full of stuff ready to roll.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
I would say that's actually showing a lot of discipline
on your part, because I'm pretty sure the Christmas cookies
would be eaten in July.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Talk them way back and garage, do we believe you
out that we get to enjoys get put back in
there and it's like out of sight, out of mind.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Well, good for you guys. We might we might have
eaten that gingerbread. Well, we're going to take a quick
ad break and then i'll be back with more from
Meghan Sumrow. Well, I am back talking with Megan Sumrell,
who owns the Queen sorry, not the Queen Bee, the
(08:45):
pig Bee. I've been listening to all that recently and
she's the host of the Work Life Harmony podcast, among
other things. So you know, we've been talking about doing
things ahead of time. Now we're going to talk a
little bit about planning and work and other systems. You
recently had a podcast episode about making sure that meetings
do not take over your life. And one of my
(09:07):
favorite rules that you shared was not to schedule meetings
on Monday mornings. And I know a lot of my
listeners have probably sat through endless Monday morning staff meetings,
So tell us why they should rethink that.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yes, so most people, there's always exceptions to the rule.
Most people fall in one of two buckets on a
Monday morning. Person A is the kind of person that
is so rest and refueled over the weekend and like
they come in Monday morning hot, ready to roll, highest
energy levels, ready for the week super productive, and if
(09:42):
you throw that person right into a meeting at the
start of Monday, you are missing out on capitalizing on
potentially their most productive time all week. So if they
spend their first because I mean, let's say it's even
only an hour meeting, that's gonna be an hour and
a half minimum, right, because then there's the after the meeting,
then getting the coffee, Like they haven't had a minute
to think. And now you've taken that energy level, you've
(10:04):
thrown it into a meeting, and now like that window's
kind of gone. You don't recapture that person. B might
be the person who comes in is like, I'm a
slow roll. I need a little time, I need to
reorient myself. I need to kind of get settled at
my desk, I need to kind of gear up for
the week. And so that person sitting in a meeting
(10:24):
on Monday morning is probably only fifty percent present and
could be missing out on really important stuff, key things.
Their energy is not quite aligned well, and then those
two personalities in a meeting tend to butt heads as well. Right,
You've got the we're going to conquer world hunger, and
you've got that I'm gonna need another cup of coffee
before I can talk about this. And so oftentimes those
(10:47):
Monday morning meetings end up not producing the desired output
that you really wanted. If maybe you had just shifted
that to like an eleven am or a one pm
meeting on Monday instead of taking that prime real estate
to start the week and not allowing everybody to settle
into their their work rhythm in a way that supports them.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I love that. I love that for sure. And another
way you have people reframing meetings is that I think
this is a quote. I've wrote this down because I
loved it so much, that being excluded from a meeting
is a gift to your time.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
People feel like the more meetings they're in, it validates
their importance. Right, And so if they see if they're
walking by a conference room, you know, I used to
work in a conference room. Now we're more zoom style,
But they see a group of people around a table,
They're instantly wondering like, why was I not invited?
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Right?
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Do they not value my mind? Do they not think
I'm important? And so suddenly someone's like, oh, hey, could
I come to that next meeting? And we start to
feel like our worth in the workplace is kind of
defined by the number of meetings we're in, Right, they
value my opinion, They want me sitting in there instead
of recognizing ninety nine percent of the time when I
(12:05):
work with companies, we recognize that half the people in
the meeting don't need to be there. They're consumers of
what the decisions are made in the meeting, but they're
not actually a key decision makers. And so I always
love to encourage people to say, hey, realize, not being
in a meeting is the biggest gift you can have
(12:25):
because now, guess what, you have an hour to sit
and work instead of an hour to sit and talk
about work. That the decisions maybe you didn't need to
be a part of. You just needed to know what
the output was. And so it can be a real
It can ruffle some feathers first when people start being excluded,
(12:47):
but this is why I will tell people, when you're
building the agenda, the agenda can be visible. Here's the
purpose of the meeting, here's how we're planning on getting
from point A to point B, and here are the
people that have the knowledge and the ability to make
the decision. That's why they're in the meeting. Everybody who
needs to know the output of it, here's where those
decisions will be, so that you can go have the
(13:08):
info you need to carry on with your work. And
that kind of helps to reframe it a little bit
for people of like, oh, yeah, I need to know
the output, I just don't have to watch them come
up with a plan to get there.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, sort of frame it is like, well, John will
report back to Bob. That's how important Bob is he
gets a report on this meeting.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Because people complain about meetings, yet then they complain when
they're not in the meeting because oh, we're all.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
In the middle school cafees here. I mean, this is
it's honestly what it is. It's the same social fear
of being excluded from something. So you spent years and
in corporate logistics and systems. I wonder you know maybe
one or two of your favorite sort of transferable systems
things you learn from that that people could put to
work in their own lives.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yeah, I mean I think a lot and a lot
of where I pull from with the time management framework
that I teach. I'm a really big fan of Lean
six sigma and I went through all those belt trainings,
there is really looking at everything you do, everything you
spend time on with the lens of where is their
waste and what can I get rid of? Is it
(14:18):
that the waste is that I'm rewriting every morning half
of yesterday's to do list onto today's and then adding
to it and then tomorrow rints and repeating like that's waste.
If you are it's suddenly Friday and you've rewritten half
of the same list Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, right now,
we can look at it as this is a waste
of time, it's a waste of paper. What can I
(14:38):
do to eliminate that waste? And then even in your
personal life, same thing. Right do you find that you
are stopping by the grocery store every night on the
way home to pick up something for dinner? Like think
through the amount of time that is being spent as
opposed to what if I just sat down on Sunday
for ten minutes and said, all right, or as a family,
(15:00):
what are we having for dinners this week? Make the
decision once in one sitting, go to the store once
and then everything's there. But because we live in such
a fast paced you know Amazon Prime everything right now,
We often just keep rinsing and repeating without taking a
pause to say where am I wasting either time resources,
(15:23):
my own energy levels from decision making to then say
what can I shift to be able to eliminate that waste? Yeah,
and it doesn't have to be even all or nothing.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Somebody who is going to the Absimos store every night
could go twice, go three times, but just not every
day exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah, I can't plan a week, but I could plan
Monday Tuesday, maybe you know, and then yeah it would
be better.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah. Are there any other examples of sort of common
waste that people have in their schedules?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I do see a lot of common waste with emails.
So the people that leave emails open or email notifications
on are wasting so much mental capacity and time jumping
in and out of email all day long, and we
think we have to, but very few of us are
(16:13):
actually saving lives in our email right, Like, nobody is
going to likely die because thirty minutes went by before
you got the email. And so one of the biggest
shifts I always encourage people to do is have set
times of your day you can even I have it
blocked on my calendar and appointment with myself for this
(16:35):
is when I'm sitting down to actually go in and
process my email, meaning I go through them all. If
it's something I can do in two minutes or less,
it gets handled. If it's something that needs a significant
amount of time, it then goes into my calendar with
specificity of when am I working on this, and then
when the email processing is done, it is closed out.
(16:57):
Email is not open. I usually do mine three times
a day. Some people are like, there's no way I
could do that. So I start off and say, how
about we just start at the top of the hour,
You go in for ten minutes, you check your email,
and then you shut it down, and then at the
top of the next hour you can do that. And
usually when people start that way, three weeks later they're like,
(17:18):
I'm only checking it twice a day now, Megan, this
is magical, But I think from a work perspective, email
is the biggest waste of time.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Absolutely agreed. All right, We're going to take one more
quick ad break and then I will be back with
more from Megan Summrew. Well, I am back talking with
Megan Sumrel who is a time management expert host of
the Work Life Harmony podcast. So I'm curious. This is
(17:47):
a show called Before Breakfast. Do you have a morning
routine or something you do most mornings at least I do.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
And you know, I talk a lot about the importance
of morning routines. I do differentiate a morning routine versus
a morning task list. So for me, when I talk
about a morning routine, I'm talking about the things I
do just for myself that fuel me, that fill me
up for the day, that allow me to wake up,
you know, interact with my family in a way where
(18:15):
I'm coming and I'm pleasant as opposed to like, you know,
kind of gritchy mode. So my morning routine is not
what you'd hear from a typical productivity expert. I don't meditate,
I don't journal, I don't do yoga, I don't drink
lemon water. I do what works for me. So I
get up before my family. I come downstairs, I make
a cup of coffee, I let my dogs out, and
(18:36):
I take my warm cup of coffee and I do
four games in the New York Times Games app every
morning first thing, and then I actually review my plan
for the day that that reduces my overwhelming anxiety, so
I can kind of like, see, Okay, here's what's coming
for the day, so I'm i am level set for that.
And then, depending upon the day of the week, if
(18:58):
I'm driving or if my husband's driving our daughter to school,
some days, I go in and actually do my first
email process after I've done that, because that quiets my
anxiety of knowing is there anything out there looming that
I need to adjust for for the day. So if
I'm driving her to school, I do plan in that
quick little email check before then, and if not, once
(19:18):
that's done, then I shift into kind of morning taskless
mode of you know, being with the family, making breakfast,
packing lunches, walking dogs, all of that, and then it's
hit the showers and ready to roll for work.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Ready to roll. Yeah, I love the games. It's always
a good way wake up your brain as well. I've
always loved logic puzzle all of that. So that's like
my warm cup of coffee and my New York Times
games app is how I start every day. I love it.
I love it. So a question I ask every guest
on this show is what is something you have done
recently to take a day from great to awesome.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
The I've done this a few times recently. It is
I think the biggest challenge that everyone has is honoring
and protecting time for themselves when things start getting crazy.
The first thing we let go of is that time
that you had blocked for yourself, whether it was to
go for that you know, squeeze in a workout over
(20:21):
lunch that you know is great for you, or have
dinner with that friend. And then all of a sudden
things work starts getting crazy, everything's to get crazy. We
start canceling those and double down on work in an
effort to think that that's actually going to get us
on top of things and feel better. And I recently
just went through our busiest season here for you know,
over the entire year during.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
For the pink Bee.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
And the first thing I always block off thirty minutes
every day on my calendar to practice my cello, and
I usually do that kind of after lunch, and that's
my me time. It resets me for the rest of
the day. And I started finding myself letting that go
because I was like, well, I'll just get it thirty
minutes in for work, and so I reset it for
a week and said, no matter what, no matter how
(21:07):
busy things are, I'm honoring that. And those five days
were the most productive, the most calming, the most fulfilling
for myself in what on paper would have looked like
a really bad decision right from a work perspective, But
it's just that that recognition of turning your brain off
(21:29):
for a little while and doing something for you what
you're able to then come back and do when you've
had that break is kind of ten X level, And
so I would say honoring that for the week changed
the entire week from one that was going to be
good to begin with and productive to amazing and hyper productive.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Playing music is such a soothing, calming, enjoyable activity. Do
you do this more for yourself?
Speaker 2 (21:59):
For you?
Speaker 1 (21:59):
An ensemble?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Someone I don't know, God, no, I don't let anyone listen.
So it's just it's a goal I'd had for years.
Was I always wanted to learn how to play the cello.
I do not have a background in and I played
other instruments as a child, but never a stringed instrument.
And so it's been about two and a half years
now I finally said I'm gonna do this, So I
found a cello rental place and found a teacher that
(22:20):
was willing to teach an adult nubie and I do
this just one hundred percent for myself.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
I love that because yes, you can rent any instrument.
I have multiple children who have all rented every instrument
under the sun for school band. And you know, you
don't think about doing it for yourself. But they don't
only rent to school children.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
And I if for myself last month was I actually
just went and bought my very own cello. Now now
that I know, I love this and I'm enjoying enjoying
learning it, and it's just it's fun time for me,
and it feels it just fills a void that was
missing in my life of something I really love in.
(23:00):
But it's interesting when you're like, do you do this
for an ensemble or not? I see so many adults
we feel like we're not allowed to do something just
for a hobby, and we fall in this trap of like,
I'll see it with women all the time. Oh, I
picked back up knitting or crochet and I started making hats.
And now all of a sudden they've got an Etsy
shop and they've turned it into a business or I
(23:22):
make cookies and now I've got a cookie business, or
I'm woodworking and now I'm making things, and then they
end up hating it because they've We feel like, and
I think it's maybe a gen X thing too as well,
we feel like we're not allowed to do anything just
for the sheer joy of doing it. We have to
find some way to make it quote productive or of value.
So I had people started asking like, oh, you are
(23:42):
you going to perform a piece, and I went, nope,
because it's going to ruin it for me. I'm just
doing this for me.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
I think, well it could go both ways though, right
because I think these things we do that we love,
it's also fun to do it with other people who
love it too, And so I mean, you know, performing
with it ensemble could be like, well, yeah, friends who
play straight and that's even better.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, it's like a hangout jam session. Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yeah. So Megan, what's something that you are looking forward
to right now? I am looking forward to honestly, the
month of December. I very intentionally plan for a real
wind down, and because of the way we do plan
and manage our time with both the business and personally,
I am looking forward to closing offices for several days,
(24:27):
and then I actually pretty much just disappear for the
last two weeks of the year and just spend time
with family, friends, let my creative energy rest. And so
I'm just really looking forward to doing a whole lot
of nothing for a couple of weeks. Guilt free sounds great,
sounds great. So, Megan, where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (24:47):
So again, if you're a podcast listener, obviously you can
come check out the Work Life Harmony podcast. And if
you're interested in learning a little bit about what this
planning framework is, I've got an app in both the
App Store and Google Play. It's totally free. The app
is just called the pink Bee All one Word, and
when you download that and log in, there's some free
(25:08):
training and they're already preloaded. It kind of gives you
an introduction to what's called the top framework, and it
just kind of gives you some quick wins that you
can implement right now, right now.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
I love it. Excellent. Well, Megan, thank you so much
for joining us. Thank you to everyone for listening. If
you have feedback on this or any other episode, you
can always reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
(25:42):
listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(26:06):
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
episode is going to be a longer one part of
the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
take their days from great to awesome and any advice
(00:24):
they have for the rest of us. So today I
am delighted to welcome Megan SUMMRL to the Before Breakfast.
Megan is a time management and productivity expert. She is
the founder of the Pink b and the host of
the Work Life Harmony podcast, among many other things. So, Megan,
welcome to the show. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I was like, ooh, that sounds like a better show
up strong here today.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I know all that people are expecting a lot, but
I know you're going to give us a lot of
wisdom over the next twenty five minutes. So why don't
you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yes, so again, I'm the founder of the Pink Bee.
I am a time management and productivity expert for women, specifically.
My background was actually in corporate IT. I spent over
twenty years in the software and IT space, where actually
towards the end of my career. I would go in
and basically rebuild software teams from the ground up, optimizing
(01:16):
their processes, systems, procedures, et cetera. Found myself at a
place where I got married later in life, started a
family later and had a very pivotal day when my
daughter was about two, where I was still in the
thick of trying to juggle corporate life and motherhood and
all of that, and a complete stranger asked me, what
do you do for fun? And I realized I didn't
(01:38):
have an answer. I couldn't remember the last time I
had done anything for myself. My life was in service
to work, family, all of that, and long story short,
it led me on a path to completely rebuild how
I plan and manage my time juggling all the roles
and responsibilities. And now fast forward to today. Through a
couple of pivotal moments from then to now, I left
(02:02):
my corporate career, founded the Pink Bee, and we are
on a mission to bring work life harmony and harmony
into homes all over the world through this proprietary planning
framework built specifically for women. The realities of our lives
and how our brains work.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, although I'm sure there's a lot that men could
learn from it too. So, honey, men are listening to this,
you don't need to turn off the podcast because everything
we're going to talk about today is going to be
relevant for you as well, because there is a lot
of overlaps between how we manage like our home systems
and the corporate work systems you were doing right.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yes, there absolutely is the couple shifts that I highlight
specifically for like the framework works for men and women.
I have a lot of women go through the program
and then they're like, and I made my husband come
sit down and watch it with me, and now we're
running our household this way is really acknowledging. Women tend
to absorb a lot of the uncertainty and the mental
load of the household. And the way our brains are
(02:56):
wired is we actually multitask more than our male counterpart
to do, and so we have to have systems that
understand that and acknowledge it and have a path forward
for it.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Well, we're going to talk a lot about systems over
the next few minutes, but one thing I wanted to
talk with you about first this is we're coming toward
the end of the year when this episode is airing,
and I know that you have something I believe it's
called plan a Palooza that is an annual planning workshop
that you run around this time as people look forward
to their next year. And I'm I'm a big fan
(03:28):
of doing this in like November, you know, and we
got to really build up to the end of the year.
But I wonder, how do you have people think through
the upcoming year? Any fun tips for our listeners. Yeah,
so are embarking on.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
This the big fundamental shift that I teach in the
annual planning process? And why I do it so early?
You know what's considered early. I'm not doing it the
week before January is man Q four is a doozy
November December. There's so much going on, and that's why
I like to intentionally do this work early so that
when January hits, I'm not now stuck going what am
I going to? What am I gonna do this year?
(04:02):
Like how are we operating? A lot of people when
they go to annual planning workshops or events, it's always
kind of this dreamcasting or visioning kind of workshop, right
where we get really excited about all the things that
we want to do next year, we break them down
into milestones. Then we get back into our real life
and the real world smacks us upside the head with
(04:23):
the sick kid and the flu season and then the
big event at work and all of that, and you know,
six months later we find that worksheet or workbook from
the event and we're like, oh, yeah, I forgot all
about that. I haven't done anything. So what's fundamentally different
with the way I really like to teach annual planning
is we do some of that dream work, but then
we start our plan with what's your reality for next year? Right,
(04:47):
so actually understanding do you already have commitments and in
what months? And when are there seasonality of when you
know it's like is May usually a crazy month for you?
Or December? And we build all of that in f
think of it kind of like financing, like what time
is already spoken for? So that now we're working realistically
(05:07):
with hey, what kind of time do I have? That
then supports our core values, our boundaries, and our priorities
with those extra things that we want to layer in.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I love that. I Mean, one of the things I'm
always doing with people is having them track their time,
so we know what a week really looks like. And
then when you're setting goals, Yeah, you're setting goals, it's like, okay,
and this is what a week really looks like. So
it's fine to say, you know, I want to run
four times a week, but that means we need to
look at where those are going to be saying, you know,
(05:39):
the big goal is, yeah, I'm want to run a marathon. Okay,
where are the four runs a week going to happen
in your life exactly?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
And when is the marathons? And now you're building out
what do you have time a month before to do
an eighteen mile run? Or are you traveling every weekend?
And yeah, so we've got to really marry and integrate
your reality with your want tos, if you will, and
make sure that there's a cohesive plan and construct it
in a way that sets you up for success instead
(06:06):
of for feeling like a failure of four months into
the year.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, and I love this idea of planning ahead. You know,
we're saying we're getting started on it in November because
December is so crazy. And one of your recent podcast
episodes what was like a while ago now, but it
caught my eye because you have Christmas in July. Every
year that you do, you do some of your holiday
planning in July. Can you talk about that?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Yeah, So it kind of came. It stemmed from a
need for myself. Of I remember one particularly rough holiday
season and it was like the morning after Christmas, it
was like holiday hangover, you know, just wrapping paper, stuff,
crum just I remember sitting there like, this was not
a fun holiday for me. I gave a great one
for everybody else. And so that year I started thinking, Okay,
(06:51):
what could I do to lighten the load in December?
Are there things I could do earlier? Are there things
I could stop doing, et cetera. And one of the
things I landed on is I always loved holiday baking
with my mom as a kid, and I always thought
it would be this magical moment with my daughter. And
I was like, that really wasn't magical. It's just one
more have to like, one more to do, which just
(07:12):
takes the fun out of it. So I thought, well,
a lot of the stuff that we make is stuff
that freezes really really well, and we're always looking for
stuff to do Midsummer when you're so sick of going
to the pool and it's literally one hundred degrees. So
it's now come to two days long for us, where
my daughter and I we put on Christmas music, we
put on Christmas t shirts, and we actually bake a
(07:35):
ton of holiday stuff over the course of two days,
all stuff that freezes well. So then when December hits,
you know, we might be making one or two things
that don't freeze well, but we can really enjoy like
we enjoy our gingerbread house making day because it's not
packed on top of six other days of things that
we're trying to get done, along with some crafting. So
(07:57):
we do a lot of baking and we do some
holiday handcrafting in the middle of July, and it makes
just breaks up for a really fun, fun time in
the middle of the summer. And now I have a
freezer full of stuff ready to roll.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
I would say that's actually showing a lot of discipline
on your part, because I'm pretty sure the Christmas cookies
would be eaten in July.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Talk them way back and garage, do we believe you
out that we get to enjoys get put back in
there and it's like out of sight, out of mind.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Well, good for you guys. We might we might have
eaten that gingerbread. Well, we're going to take a quick
ad break and then i'll be back with more from
Meghan Sumrow. Well, I am back talking with Megan Sumrell,
who owns the Queen sorry, not the Queen Bee, the
(08:45):
pig Bee. I've been listening to all that recently and
she's the host of the Work Life Harmony podcast, among
other things. So you know, we've been talking about doing
things ahead of time. Now we're going to talk a
little bit about planning and work and other systems. You
recently had a podcast episode about making sure that meetings
do not take over your life. And one of my
(09:07):
favorite rules that you shared was not to schedule meetings
on Monday mornings. And I know a lot of my
listeners have probably sat through endless Monday morning staff meetings,
So tell us why they should rethink that.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yes, so most people, there's always exceptions to the rule.
Most people fall in one of two buckets on a
Monday morning. Person A is the kind of person that
is so rest and refueled over the weekend and like
they come in Monday morning hot, ready to roll, highest
energy levels, ready for the week super productive, and if
(09:42):
you throw that person right into a meeting at the
start of Monday, you are missing out on capitalizing on
potentially their most productive time all week. So if they
spend their first because I mean, let's say it's even
only an hour meeting, that's gonna be an hour and
a half minimum, right, because then there's the after the meeting,
then getting the coffee, Like they haven't had a minute
to think. And now you've taken that energy level, you've
(10:04):
thrown it into a meeting, and now like that window's
kind of gone. You don't recapture that person. B might
be the person who comes in is like, I'm a
slow roll. I need a little time, I need to
reorient myself. I need to kind of get settled at
my desk, I need to kind of gear up for
the week. And so that person sitting in a meeting
(10:24):
on Monday morning is probably only fifty percent present and
could be missing out on really important stuff, key things.
Their energy is not quite aligned well, and then those
two personalities in a meeting tend to butt heads as well. Right,
You've got the we're going to conquer world hunger, and
you've got that I'm gonna need another cup of coffee
before I can talk about this. And so oftentimes those
(10:47):
Monday morning meetings end up not producing the desired output
that you really wanted. If maybe you had just shifted
that to like an eleven am or a one pm
meeting on Monday instead of taking that prime real estate
to start the week and not allowing everybody to settle
into their their work rhythm in a way that supports them.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I love that. I love that for sure. And another
way you have people reframing meetings is that I think
this is a quote. I've wrote this down because I
loved it so much, that being excluded from a meeting
is a gift to your time.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
People feel like the more meetings they're in, it validates
their importance. Right, And so if they see if they're
walking by a conference room, you know, I used to
work in a conference room. Now we're more zoom style,
But they see a group of people around a table,
They're instantly wondering like, why was I not invited?
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Right?
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Do they not value my mind? Do they not think
I'm important? And so suddenly someone's like, oh, hey, could
I come to that next meeting? And we start to
feel like our worth in the workplace is kind of
defined by the number of meetings we're in, Right, they
value my opinion, They want me sitting in there instead
of recognizing ninety nine percent of the time when I
(12:05):
work with companies, we recognize that half the people in
the meeting don't need to be there. They're consumers of
what the decisions are made in the meeting, but they're
not actually a key decision makers. And so I always
love to encourage people to say, hey, realize, not being
in a meeting is the biggest gift you can have
(12:25):
because now, guess what, you have an hour to sit
and work instead of an hour to sit and talk
about work. That the decisions maybe you didn't need to
be a part of. You just needed to know what
the output was. And so it can be a real
It can ruffle some feathers first when people start being excluded,
(12:47):
but this is why I will tell people, when you're
building the agenda, the agenda can be visible. Here's the
purpose of the meeting, here's how we're planning on getting
from point A to point B, and here are the
people that have the knowledge and the ability to make
the decision. That's why they're in the meeting. Everybody who
needs to know the output of it, here's where those
decisions will be, so that you can go have the
(13:08):
info you need to carry on with your work. And
that kind of helps to reframe it a little bit
for people of like, oh, yeah, I need to know
the output, I just don't have to watch them come
up with a plan to get there.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, sort of frame it is like, well, John will
report back to Bob. That's how important Bob is he
gets a report on this meeting.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Because people complain about meetings, yet then they complain when
they're not in the meeting because oh, we're all.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
In the middle school cafees here. I mean, this is
it's honestly what it is. It's the same social fear
of being excluded from something. So you spent years and
in corporate logistics and systems. I wonder you know maybe
one or two of your favorite sort of transferable systems
things you learn from that that people could put to
work in their own lives.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yeah, I mean I think a lot and a lot
of where I pull from with the time management framework
that I teach. I'm a really big fan of Lean
six sigma and I went through all those belt trainings,
there is really looking at everything you do, everything you
spend time on with the lens of where is their
waste and what can I get rid of? Is it
(14:18):
that the waste is that I'm rewriting every morning half
of yesterday's to do list onto today's and then adding
to it and then tomorrow rints and repeating like that's waste.
If you are it's suddenly Friday and you've rewritten half
of the same list Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, right now,
we can look at it as this is a waste
of time, it's a waste of paper. What can I
(14:38):
do to eliminate that waste? And then even in your
personal life, same thing. Right do you find that you
are stopping by the grocery store every night on the
way home to pick up something for dinner? Like think
through the amount of time that is being spent as
opposed to what if I just sat down on Sunday
for ten minutes and said, all right, or as a family,
(15:00):
what are we having for dinners this week? Make the
decision once in one sitting, go to the store once
and then everything's there. But because we live in such
a fast paced you know Amazon Prime everything right now,
We often just keep rinsing and repeating without taking a
pause to say where am I wasting either time resources,
(15:23):
my own energy levels from decision making to then say
what can I shift to be able to eliminate that waste? Yeah,
and it doesn't have to be even all or nothing.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Somebody who is going to the Absimos store every night
could go twice, go three times, but just not every
day exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah, I can't plan a week, but I could plan
Monday Tuesday, maybe you know, and then yeah it would
be better.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah. Are there any other examples of sort of common
waste that people have in their schedules?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I do see a lot of common waste with emails.
So the people that leave emails open or email notifications
on are wasting so much mental capacity and time jumping
in and out of email all day long, and we
think we have to, but very few of us are
(16:13):
actually saving lives in our email right, Like, nobody is
going to likely die because thirty minutes went by before
you got the email. And so one of the biggest
shifts I always encourage people to do is have set
times of your day you can even I have it
blocked on my calendar and appointment with myself for this
(16:35):
is when I'm sitting down to actually go in and
process my email, meaning I go through them all. If
it's something I can do in two minutes or less,
it gets handled. If it's something that needs a significant
amount of time, it then goes into my calendar with
specificity of when am I working on this, and then
when the email processing is done, it is closed out.
(16:57):
Email is not open. I usually do mine three times
a day. Some people are like, there's no way I
could do that. So I start off and say, how
about we just start at the top of the hour,
You go in for ten minutes, you check your email,
and then you shut it down, and then at the
top of the next hour you can do that. And
usually when people start that way, three weeks later they're like,
(17:18):
I'm only checking it twice a day now, Megan, this
is magical, But I think from a work perspective, email
is the biggest waste of time.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Absolutely agreed. All right, We're going to take one more
quick ad break and then I will be back with
more from Megan Summrew. Well, I am back talking with
Megan Sumrel who is a time management expert host of
the Work Life Harmony podcast. So I'm curious. This is
(17:47):
a show called Before Breakfast. Do you have a morning
routine or something you do most mornings at least I do.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
And you know, I talk a lot about the importance
of morning routines. I do differentiate a morning routine versus
a morning task list. So for me, when I talk
about a morning routine, I'm talking about the things I
do just for myself that fuel me, that fill me
up for the day, that allow me to wake up,
you know, interact with my family in a way where
(18:15):
I'm coming and I'm pleasant as opposed to like, you know,
kind of gritchy mode. So my morning routine is not
what you'd hear from a typical productivity expert. I don't meditate,
I don't journal, I don't do yoga, I don't drink
lemon water. I do what works for me. So I
get up before my family. I come downstairs, I make
a cup of coffee, I let my dogs out, and
(18:36):
I take my warm cup of coffee and I do
four games in the New York Times Games app every
morning first thing, and then I actually review my plan
for the day that that reduces my overwhelming anxiety, so
I can kind of like, see, Okay, here's what's coming
for the day, so I'm i am level set for that.
And then, depending upon the day of the week, if
(18:58):
I'm driving or if my husband's driving our daughter to school,
some days, I go in and actually do my first
email process after I've done that, because that quiets my
anxiety of knowing is there anything out there looming that
I need to adjust for for the day. So if
I'm driving her to school, I do plan in that
quick little email check before then, and if not, once
(19:18):
that's done, then I shift into kind of morning taskless
mode of you know, being with the family, making breakfast,
packing lunches, walking dogs, all of that, and then it's
hit the showers and ready to roll for work.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Ready to roll. Yeah, I love the games. It's always
a good way wake up your brain as well. I've
always loved logic puzzle all of that. So that's like
my warm cup of coffee and my New York Times
games app is how I start every day. I love it.
I love it. So a question I ask every guest
on this show is what is something you have done
recently to take a day from great to awesome.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
The I've done this a few times recently. It is
I think the biggest challenge that everyone has is honoring
and protecting time for themselves when things start getting crazy.
The first thing we let go of is that time
that you had blocked for yourself, whether it was to
go for that you know, squeeze in a workout over
(20:21):
lunch that you know is great for you, or have
dinner with that friend. And then all of a sudden
things work starts getting crazy, everything's to get crazy. We
start canceling those and double down on work in an
effort to think that that's actually going to get us
on top of things and feel better. And I recently
just went through our busiest season here for you know,
over the entire year during.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
For the pink Bee.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
And the first thing I always block off thirty minutes
every day on my calendar to practice my cello, and
I usually do that kind of after lunch, and that's
my me time. It resets me for the rest of
the day. And I started finding myself letting that go
because I was like, well, I'll just get it thirty
minutes in for work, and so I reset it for
a week and said, no matter what, no matter how
(21:07):
busy things are, I'm honoring that. And those five days
were the most productive, the most calming, the most fulfilling
for myself in what on paper would have looked like
a really bad decision right from a work perspective, But
it's just that that recognition of turning your brain off
(21:29):
for a little while and doing something for you what
you're able to then come back and do when you've
had that break is kind of ten X level, And
so I would say honoring that for the week changed
the entire week from one that was going to be
good to begin with and productive to amazing and hyper productive.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Playing music is such a soothing, calming, enjoyable activity. Do
you do this more for yourself?
Speaker 2 (21:59):
For you?
Speaker 1 (21:59):
An ensemble?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Someone I don't know, God, no, I don't let anyone listen.
So it's just it's a goal I'd had for years.
Was I always wanted to learn how to play the cello.
I do not have a background in and I played
other instruments as a child, but never a stringed instrument.
And so it's been about two and a half years
now I finally said I'm gonna do this, So I
found a cello rental place and found a teacher that
(22:20):
was willing to teach an adult nubie and I do
this just one hundred percent for myself.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
I love that because yes, you can rent any instrument.
I have multiple children who have all rented every instrument
under the sun for school band. And you know, you
don't think about doing it for yourself. But they don't
only rent to school children.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
And I if for myself last month was I actually
just went and bought my very own cello. Now now
that I know, I love this and I'm enjoying enjoying
learning it, and it's just it's fun time for me,
and it feels it just fills a void that was
missing in my life of something I really love in.
(23:00):
But it's interesting when you're like, do you do this
for an ensemble or not? I see so many adults
we feel like we're not allowed to do something just
for a hobby, and we fall in this trap of like,
I'll see it with women all the time. Oh, I
picked back up knitting or crochet and I started making hats.
And now all of a sudden they've got an Etsy
shop and they've turned it into a business or I
(23:22):
make cookies and now I've got a cookie business, or
I'm woodworking and now I'm making things, and then they
end up hating it because they've We feel like, and
I think it's maybe a gen X thing too as well,
we feel like we're not allowed to do anything just
for the sheer joy of doing it. We have to
find some way to make it quote productive or of value.
So I had people started asking like, oh, you are
(23:42):
you going to perform a piece, and I went, nope,
because it's going to ruin it for me. I'm just
doing this for me.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
I think, well it could go both ways though, right
because I think these things we do that we love,
it's also fun to do it with other people who
love it too, And so I mean, you know, performing
with it ensemble could be like, well, yeah, friends who
play straight and that's even better.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, it's like a hangout jam session. Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Yeah. So Megan, what's something that you are looking forward
to right now? I am looking forward to honestly, the
month of December. I very intentionally plan for a real
wind down, and because of the way we do plan
and manage our time with both the business and personally,
I am looking forward to closing offices for several days,
(24:27):
and then I actually pretty much just disappear for the
last two weeks of the year and just spend time
with family, friends, let my creative energy rest. And so
I'm just really looking forward to doing a whole lot
of nothing for a couple of weeks. Guilt free sounds great,
sounds great. So, Megan, where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (24:47):
So again, if you're a podcast listener, obviously you can
come check out the Work Life Harmony podcast. And if
you're interested in learning a little bit about what this
planning framework is, I've got an app in both the
App Store and Google Play. It's totally free. The app
is just called the pink Bee All one Word, and
when you download that and log in, there's some free
(25:08):
training and they're already preloaded. It kind of gives you
an introduction to what's called the top framework, and it
just kind of gives you some quick wins that you
can implement right now, right now.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
I love it. Excellent. Well, Megan, thank you so much
for joining us. Thank you to everyone for listening. If
you have feedback on this or any other episode, you
can always reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
(25:42):
listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(26:06):
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Before Breakfast News
Host
Laura Vanderkam
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