Time Management That Actually Works-A Chat with our Perfect•ish Friend Kali | 429

0:00Hey, before we jump into the show, we wanted to give you a heads up that our free budget workshop is happening Friday, September 11th at noon central. At the workshop, we'll show you the simple budget system that we use to help women organize their money, stop living paycheck to paycheck, and finally feel confident when it comes to their money. So if you're brand new to budgeting, this will help you start the right way and avoid common mistakes. And if you already have a budget that's not working, this workshop will help you simplify it and make it work for real life. This workshop is 100 % free and you can save your seat right now at budgetbesties.com

0:30Kali Brigham:forward slash workshop. I'll give you an example of the importance to me of knowing your morning routine and why it's sacred. So we play worship music in the morning when the kids are getting up ready to go to school. I know that sounds very spiritual and lovely and it is, but it also avoid you can't scream and yell at each other when you're like singing about Jesus. So it works twofold. So I worship music on. I get up before the kids. I do have like my quiet time. And one morning in particular, my husband, Josh was out of town, which is kind of rare. So it's just me and the kids. And Brayden is my oldest and he just kind of came in the kitchen doing his thing.

1:10Well, then my daughter, we all have daughters the same age.

1:14Kali Brigham:My teenage daughter came in some kind of way. Have you ever had a teenage daughter? Oh yes. I have one every morning. kind of way. Okay. She came in some kind of way. And what I wanted to do to her was tell her to stop being a brat and to, right, knock it off and whatever. That's somehow the Jesus music stopped me in that moment. The Holy Spirit was like, and I looked at her and I said, Maddie, stop messing with the thermostat. She looked at me. She's like, I didn't touch the thermostat. I said I'm not talking about the one on the wall and I circled my hand around the kitchen I said I'm talking about this one right here I set the thermostat for a house in the morning I want it and one of the things I teach my clients is we talk a lot about bookends the morning and the evening routine because the messy middle is going to happen okay stuff is going to have in the middle of the day it just is no matter how good of a planner you are how much you block it out but if you have the bookend, solid.

2:16Kali Brigham:And so I said, one of the things I teach them is how do you want your morning to feel? Do you make good money but have nothing to show for it? Are you tired of living paycheck to paycheck? Do you have big dreams for your financial future? Do you want to get debt free but you don't want to live on beans and rice? Or you don't want to give up those pumpkin spice lattes? Hey, it's okay if you don't already know how to budget or if you're using credit cards to get through the month. Hey, it's okay if you want to seem like you have your finances all together or you're not on the same page with your spouse when it comes to finances.

2:46We know what you're doing probably isn't working, but guess what? You're in the right place. We're Shana and Vanessa. We're best friends, business partners, and master financial coaches trained by Dave Ramsey. We've been in business since 2019, helping hundreds of amazing people like you create budgets, get out of debt, stop living paycheck to paycheck, and know exactly what to do with their money. In this podcast, we'll share with you everything we know plus everything we're working on with our clients so that you have the best chance at reaching your financial goals. We want to help you take the guesswork out of your budget, improve your marriages, and even bring your kids in on the conversation.

3:21We can help you no matter where you're at, whether you're the single mom who's never had$500 in her savings account or the millionaire who's paid off four real estate mortgages. And we're not going to shy away from the tough love. We'll tell you what you need to hear and encourage you at the same time. This is the Financial Coaching for Women podcast. we're excited to have our very good friend Callie back on the show you guys have heard her before but she is a time management expert an international speaker hello she's a big deal and she's the host of the top ranked uh podcast that we've been on uh called perfect ish and she helps ambitious women master their time without guilt or burnout yeah so and she has a perfect framework which is really cool.

4:03She's taken the word perfect and used all the letters for her pillars. And it's just really, really awesome to see her put this into practice for all these high achieving women. She's the founder of Calico and she now lives her perfect-ish life on the beaches of Pensacola, Florida. And she, guys, she's a professional violinist. Yeah. And she truly, yeah. And she used to be a news producer for NBC. Super. She's got an amazing story. We are so excited for her to share all her wonderful wisdom with you guys. Yeah. I remember the first time I saw her was on stage at church playing that violin and she's one of our business besties.

4:38She's got a lot of good tips to give you today. So we hope you really enjoy it. Allie, welcome back to the Financial Coaching for Women podcast. You were so awesome last time, just serving our audience so well. And you are a time management coach. Is that how you classify yourself, tell me what's your like official definition.

5:00Kali Brigham:Yes. Yes. I am. I am a time management coach that is not all about having to get up at 5am and having a perfect planner and finishing your to do. So am I a time management coach? Yes, I am a time, but I'm a real life, perfect ish time management coach. And I'm so honored to be on here with you guys. This is a big deal. You're a big deal. So thank you. I know. So I was just thinking like, you're like the bougie time management coach of our bougie on a budget. It's like, we just go hand in hand, like peanut butter and jelly. I was going to, I was going to say we are, yeah, we're like Sunny and Cher and what else, what else are we?

5:41We're like sushi and what do we have when we're having sushi together?

5:46Kali Brigham:a beach. No, we do. We have piles and piles of ginger. We're like sushi and ginger together. That's definitely something people relate to. No, actually when Vanessa said that, it did make me think because what you're saying is similar to what we're saying. The conventional wisdom about time management is not going to work for you. That's not realistic. And that's actually less, that's you wanting less for your life than what we want for you, right? As far as your budget. And so you want more for us. You want us to be able to live our best life, but not in just a saying, right? But aligned to who we are, what we're called to do and what we're capable of doing as well without all of the, maybe the less than awesome practices that we have.

6:27So let's start off by like kind of, you know, you are our business bestie, okay? Everybody on here is our budget bestie and you can be that too, but you're also our business bestie and you've kind of evolved your business in the last, as you've been working with your clients and like listening to your audience and stuff. So you've kind of developed now your perfect dish and you've got your pillars. So tell us all about that.

6:48Kali Brigham:Yeah. So I think that the name of sort of my brand of perfect-ish tends to so resonate with women. They hear it. They're like, oh, yeah. Because the deal is, you know, we do have a level of excellence that we want in our life. So do you. That's what you're teaching people, right? Not restriction, but freedom. Not lack, but abundance. And so when you hear the word perfect or perfectionist, I mean, let's be clear, there's a little leaning towards it. Like I do want to be sort of perfect. I mean, I want to be a sort of perfect mom and wife and friend and everything else. But the reality is I'm not going to hit perfect.

7:28Kali Brigham:That's where the ish comes in. So how about instead of trying to be perfect, how about we perfect it? How about we take areas of our life and we just work to be better at it so that it is smoother, so we do like it more, so there is more joy. So what I've done is I've taken that as far as how it aligns with our time. And so the little acronym to help you remember it, and there's a process through it, but the first part, the first letter is P. And a lot of times I equate this to a food diary, but I'm sure I could equate this to a budget. The whole idea is there's no point in even trying to figure out how to manage your time if you don't know where it's going.

8:09Kali Brigham:Does that sound familiar to you guys? Yeah. Right? Okay. Time, money, money, time. Same difference. And one of the things that I think is so critical is that we just take a time mirror and we take a look at it and we just get real. And there's no judgment in realness. As a matter of fact, I like to tell my clients and my podcast listeners all the time that we're scientists. We're not judges. So when we plan our time, it's actually taking a quick audit and looking at it and getting realistic. And I guess I'll just say this now. I could say it later, but I'll say it now. I think the biggest factor in that is if we pulled back.

8:50Kali Brigham:So if we took a bird's eye view, we pulled back and we looked at your calendar as a whole. And let's say, Vanessa, Shana, let's say I didn't know either one of you very well. If I looked at your calendar, I know that's a sad thought. Okay. Thank God I do. No, I do. I do. I do. Just play along with me for this. If I pulled back and I looked at your calendar from a bird's eye view, what would I say that I knew about you? Like, what kind of person would you be if I just looked at where you spent your time? Well, then I say that about myself. Like, if I pulled back, what does that say about me? What does it say that's important?

9:29Kali Brigham:because it's one thing to want to be a mom who spends time with her kids, but am I spending all my time at work? Like what is the reality check of our time? And this is not to judge ourselves. It's just to have an awareness so we can do something about it. So that's, I think too, and I'm sure you guys would say that to your, about your clients with their money. When you look at their bank statements or you look at their credit card statements, or you look at their checking account, there's no hiding. Like this is what they can want to be like a certain kind of person to invest their time or their money.

10:04Kali Brigham:But the reality is what's actually happening. So that's where we start, if that makes sense. And I know that's where you start with your clients too. Let's just pull back the curtain. No pretending. We can't get better if we don't acknowledge where we've been. So that's the first step. Do you want me to keep going or do you have some thoughts on that that it equates to? well yeah I do have I have a question I do I know you're okay everybody's really shocked that anyway what I love about you know and you have your pillars that that all are from perfect perfect dish is the custom like so we we resonate so much with what we do it's so it's like you know carbon copies but just like you said for time or money and we want you to build a custom so yeah you get the data you figure it out and I know you have a lot of different things that you teach in that.

10:52But then when you're building your own, that's what we do. We want you to build a custom budget. That's like you said, it's realistic to your life, not some, some plan that some dude that was a sales manager came up with in the eighties that we have to do for time management, right? This is the custom schedule to you, according to you. So how do you like, what do you have to say about that? How does, how do we do that? How do we get there?

11:11Kali Brigham:Yeah, well, absolutely. It is not a one size fits all. And that's why I joked at the beginning that it's not going to come from a perfect planner. It's not going to come because you saw somebody on TikTok or you saw somebody that said, this is how you should organize your day. This is how you should sort your day. That's where we fall short. And that's where we compare. That's when we start to beat ourselves up. That's when we start to cycle and we start to spiral and we start to feel bad. And then when we feel bad, we fall into our old bad habits, right? And so it doesn't serve us at all to try to follow someone else's schedule.

11:46Kali Brigham:Now that doesn't mean that we can't have sort of some guardrails and so, right? Yeah. And, and, and that's what I want to, that's what I want to focus in on. So let me give you, let me give you an example. Okay. If you're, if you're listening to this and you're not driving down the road, you can do this. I want you to take your writing utensil. So if it's your stylus on your iPad or your pen or your pencil, okay, this is an all skate we're all going to do it together and i want you to put it in your non yeah everybody everybody together non-dominant hand oh no right we already know this is not going to go well so if i'm right-handed which i am put it in my left hand if you're left-handed put it in your right hand and i want you to write your name on your piece of paper oh gosh okay so everybody do it unless you're driving yeah yeah oh no yeah how's that feel feels like somebody's gonna look at this and think that a child wrote it.

12:41I mean, like a three-year-old child. Be careful on your child thing. Like, I just want to show, is it really good? Do you see that? That's actually

12:49Kali Brigham:pretty decent. That's not bad. That's not bad. Oh, going bigger. I think that was the key. Anyway, bigger, go ahead. No, you're good. I mean, all the emotions that it starts to bring out, it feels messy. It feels awkward. Didn't take time. Like it, it took me to really think about it yeah now at the end of the day you wrote your name so you did do what you set out to do gold star where's my a plus yeah but how did it feel it didn't feel great okay so we're not gonna end there thank goodness switch your writing utensil to your dominant hand and write your name how do it feel easy comfortable yeah easy peasy lemon squeezy without you didn't have to put energy into it or thought it came natural.

13:36Kali Brigham:It was quicker. It was okay. So both results ended up with writing your name. So again, if you said, all right, this morning routine that I need to have, I need to get up at five o 'clock. I need to have 30 minutes of quiet time. I need to do my workout. I need to be okay. At the end of the day, you could have a morning routine, but might it feel like it's not you, right? When you wrote your name, that didn't feel like me. It doesn't look like me. It doesn't feel like me. Well, that's where the customization comes in. So I wanted to give you that example first, because the next time something feels like you're writing with your non-dominant hand, I want you to stop.

14:15Kali Brigham:Say, wait a minute, maybe this routine, this rhythm, this way that I'm organizing and spending my time, maybe it's not bad, but maybe it's not for me. So let me give you, let me give you a couple of examples and then we can talk through it a little bit. All right. Let's talk about an introvert and an extrovert. And let's say that they're scheduling their time. And I teach everybody to do all of your, I call it a brain drain, your planning. I teach everybody to do it on a Friday, actually. I know every time management coach is like Sunday nights when you sit down, you meal plan. But honestly, y 'all, like I don't want to do that on Sunday night.

14:55Kali Brigham:I'm, I'm either checked out. Yeah. I was going to say you're either checked out. You're still in weekend. We've also forgotten everything from the work week. Like it's all gone, baby. Yeah. And guess what you're having to do on Sunday night. Now think about Monday morning, which most people don't want to do. They want to either finish their weekend or they want to have self-care. They want to be with their family. And yet we force it in there on a Sunday night. So I teach people when your energy is better, when you can close out your week and guess what? You can totally enjoy your whole weekend because everything's already set.

15:27Kali Brigham:You've done a meal plan and you've done your weekly, you know, everything you need for your week. Okay. Anyways, let's go back to this. So let's say that when you're doing that and you're an introvert and you're planning out your week, but everything you're doing is around people. That should be a red flag to say, as an introvert, I need to go back to that week and say, hmm, maybe I shouldn't be meeting someone at a coffee shop to, you know, have a game for two hours because as an introvert, that's just not where I work best. Or if I have to, then let me go ahead and margin in, you know, 30 minutes, even if it's a drive home, but like nothing on the radio, nothing.

16:11Kali Brigham:So you can sort of like, ah, come down for that if I'm an introvert. So if I'm an introvert, my week, my day is going to look a little bit different. I need to schedule in non-people time or else I'm going to get burned out, right? Those famous words, burned out, guilt, all that. But the flip side, where are my extroverts at? If an extrovert is planning their week and there's not interaction with people, that girl better get herself out of her house, out of her space, and into a coffee shop and into a co-working space and into a place where she's working with people. So that's just one example.

16:49Kali Brigham:When we talk about how do we customize our time and our schedule, let's just start there. If you're an introvert, then you're going to know. It is mission critical that I schedule in some blank space, some white space, some non-people time, even if that means that my schedule looks a little different than someone else. And then the flip side for the expert. That's just one example of how someone can operate from their best when you know yourself and you start to customize it. Does that make sense? No, I think that's great. And I love how you talked about like you can start comparing yourself to others.

17:28And we talk about that in the aspects of money because it's the same thing. And everything that you're saying, and I was like, oh my gosh, yes, yes, yes. All of our listeners right now can go, that is us in the money world. But also, this is a little bit of us in the time management situation. because you do look at everything out there as far as time management and what you should be doing and how you should be time blocking and you should be spending this amount of time in the morning and at night doing A, B, C, and D. And then they feel like a failure. So then they turn into like this anxiety or analysis paralysis, right?

17:58And then they do nothing because now they're frustrated with themselves. They're not doing anything that they're quote unquote supposed to do based on what everyone else tells them that they're supposed to be doing. So they shut down versus you are saying, no, you need to find what we tell our clients with our money. No, you need to find what is working for you. What do you like to do? What's important to you? Are you an introvert? Are you an expert? How do you work best? How do you show up best? Where do you show up best? You need to ask yourself all those questions and do this audit. So that way you can form this customizable schedule and be successful at it.

18:29Yeah. I want to add that. I I want to add my secret schedule sauce. It's called naps. Okay. So if you could just add, so I'm an introverted extrovert, right? I'm an extroverted introvert. I don't know what the difference is, but I need a nap. Ambivert. You're an ambivert. I'm that one. But I also realized I need a nap. Like I go a million miles a minute and that's never going to change. But then if I don't get, which is hard, but if I don't get, I literally can take a 10 minute nap. If I don't get that, then I become mean and I'm still going a million miles a minute. That's not, that's just a lot of mean, mean things to a lot of people really fast.

19:02so that's like one thing that I I realized about myself I'm not gonna slow down but I need to force that like unplug and unplug and then I'll be a nice person again and the similar thing with our schedule like Callie we we go hard Tuesday and Wednesday for coaching and we have built in Thursday as a we're not coaching day because we need to we need to like re you know re what is it called recharge recharge so that we can come back Friday and podcast coach you know and like give it all, give it all, all we got there. And so like, I love that you're saying, like, think about you, think about your life, your goals, your, the way that you perform the best, the way that you can be the best version of you.

19:40And that's how you build your schedule. Yeah.

19:42Kali Brigham:You know, I like to say that I slept my way to the top. And when I say that, I mean, girl, I'm a 15, 20 minute power napper. Hello. And I have, I used to think that that was a weakness. That was a sign of weakness. and I would never tell anybody that like I would never tell like if I sounded groggy when I got on my first call after my nap I'd never tell them it's because I was sleeping and then I realized that's a superpower that's a superpower for me that allows me to tap back into an energy time to be able to not apologize for the way that I am hustling that day or the way that I'm withdrawing that day for just a little bit too and so yeah I'm with you on that I see nothing wrong with that.

20:27Kali Brigham:And on that note too, I think just throwing out a couple other examples, we've talked about introvert or extrovert. I think let's also talk about energy, like times of day that you have higher energy, which leads me to that, what you were talking about, Shana. If you are, if you are driven as a morning person, that's when you put your most important tasks that use your brain power the most. And maybe you knock it out by 9am. And then the rest of the day are maybe the less important tasks, the calling, you know, to schedule a dentist appointment or, you know, kind of working on a project. I know that the things that don't require that much energy.

21:07Kali Brigham:And I also suggest if you don't like doing those things, habits stack them. So I take a very long walk in the morning and that's when I'm going to call and sit on hold for five minutes before I make my, because I don't want to have to do it during a time when I have to message. Yeah. Voice message Vanessa and Shayna in Messenger. Out of breath. They know it. I'm walking. I'm talking. It's all good. But that's important too that you batch your high capacity tasks in your high energy time. Otherwise, you're fighting. Let me give you another analogy. I like analogies. So I live out on Pensacola Beach and it is a little barrier island.

21:49Kali Brigham:And you never know when I leave my house, if I turn east or if I turn west, which way the wind is blowing. It's blowing one of the ways, but I never know. Sometimes it's from the east, sometimes from the west. And when I go out and I, well, I like to say I go for a run. It's like those memes, like what I think I look like running, what I actually look like running, but I'm a jogger. So fine, whatever. I go out for a run and because I am also an outgoing introvert, Shayna, I'm an ambivert and I need that time where no one can find me. No one can talk to me. No, they can chase after me, but they're not going to get me.

22:25Kali Brigham:They have to catch me first. Yeah, exactly. Well, when I leave, if the wind is in my face, so let's say I'm running east and the wind is coming at me, it is hard, right? It's noisy. I can't keep my eyes fixed where I'm going. I have to look down because the wind's in my face. It pushes against me and it makes me slower. It makes me slow down. It's not enjoyable, but I'm still getting there. When I turn around and I come home, that's when I'm like that meme of like, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Like here I go. Yeah. But in reality, but the real deal is I'm running faster. I mean, I can shave off a minute or more in a mile when I'm running with the wind.