Women on Instagram shared their biggest work time management pain points with me. Let's cover three of them today!

Links you might enjoy:

• 🌿 Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.

• 📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.

• ✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you're ready for a full time management system that's realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It's helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.

When US society talks about time management, the conversation often assumes the goals of productivity and efficiency. Do more in less time. Move faster. Cram it all in. But here’s the truth I want to unpack today: I believe our real goal for time management (at least for people similar to me) is more peace of mind and clarity and less stress, and less stress isn’t always efficient — and that’s okay.

Today's episode digs into:

• Why American productivity culture gets it wrong by idolizing efficiency as the key to getting the life you want.

• How to reframe your goal so that calm and breathing space (not constant speed) drive your decisions.

• Why creating margin in your day — even if it’s “inefficient” — leads to better quality work, more joy, and less burnout.

• Three practical strategies to help you implement this shift:

  1. Build in padding to your calendar (for commutes, deadlines, and transitions).

  2. Let go of commitments to make space for that padding.

  3. Ask grounding questions like “How do I want my life to feel?” and “What do I want the pace of my life to be?”

As I share in this episode, I still want to do a lot — from running a business to raising kids to having a full life outside of work. But the only way I can do it with any joy is by optimizing for less stress, not more efficiency.

If you’ve ever felt like productivity hacks left you running faster but enjoying less, this episode will give you a fresh, practical framework: optimize for breathing space, not efficiency.

Enrollment for the Bright Method program opens September 10 at 10:00 AM CST. With this 10-week system, you’ll learn how to bring these ideas into your own life using a realistic, calendar-based approach that accounts for everything — personal and professional. Learn more at kellynolan.com/bright.

Links you might enjoy:

• 🌿 Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.

• 📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.

• ✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you're ready for a full time management system that's realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It's helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.

Career transitions aren’t just about the potential new job — they ripple into every part of your life. In this episode, I sit down with Sarah Wagoner, a certified leadership and transformation coach, to talk about navigating career changes while also accounting for the realities of your whole life — from raising young kids to caring for aging parents.

We dig into:

• Why you can’t separate your career from your personal life (and how ignoring this leads to burnout).

• The “moment of awakening” many women hit when work no longer feels aligned — often triggered by a new baby, health crisis, or family shift.

• How to use an energy inventory to understand what lights you up at work — and what drains you.

• The importance of knowing your values during your current phase (because values shift!) and using them to guide decisions at work and home.

• Boundaries as a filter — not a wall — and what that looks like in practice for professional women.

• Examples of how Sarah’s clients have designed their careers and leadership roles to fit their real lives — including moving into leadership roles, taking consulting contracts, and saying no to roles that didn’t align.

I especially love Sarah’s approach because it parallels how I teach time management for working moms and professional women: your calendar has to reflect your whole life – the personal and the professional (not just work) – for it to work because your time and energy are limited, and your plans for both have to work together as one has an impact on the other.

If you’re in a season of asking:

• Is this job still right for me?

• Do I even want to move up, or do I miss the individual contributor work I used to love?

• How do I juggle my career and the demands of family life without burning out?

…this episode is for you.

Sarah shares practical tools, grounded strategies, and thought-provoking questions to help you re-meet yourself after big life changes — so your career actually supports the life you want in this chapter.

To connect with Sarah, you can find her at:

• On her website, www.sarahwagoner.com
• On Instagram: @sarahwagonercoaching
• On Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahkwagonercareerandleadershipcoach/

• 🌿 Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.

• 📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.

• ✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you're ready for a full time management system that's realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It's helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.