Procrastination and perfectionism are dream killers.
Having to get it ‘right’, and putting things off until you know that you will do a good job is what’s stopping you moving forward and getting it done.
If you want to learn how to kick procrastination and perfectionism in the butt and get over them for good, listen up.
I’m bringing out the big guns for you today.
In the world of coaching Lauren Cash is a total rock star goddess. She is The Time Management Queen and is giving us one hour of her valuable time today to teach us the process I use to manage my time called Monday Hour One.
Get a pen and paper and pay attention. This process can and will change your life if you actually do it.
I can’t wait for you to start applying this process and getting results.
You can listen to the episode above or the unedited transcript below.
Transcript
Meaghan Smith 00:20
Hello beautiful people and welcome to another episode of the Money Mindful Podcast. I am your host, Meaghan Smith. I am a money mindset and empowerment coach, I help women create the life they want to live on purpose. When you want to create new outcomes in your life, reach new goals or simply get everything done on your to do list. There is an initial stage where we think about what we want to do. We dream about what we want to create. But often the problem that many of us find is that we don't have enough time or we run out of time, or that we're simply too busy to get it done. Sometimes we procrastinate and ultimately we don't get done what we want to do. We don't achieve our goals. And I often hear people say and I thought this myself, I'm behind you know I'm not getting it all done. Always catching up or putting off tasks we don't really want to do. If this is you, or you can relate to this stick with me as today I have time coach Lauren Cash. Joining us to talk about all things time, how to stop procrastinating and get it done. I get an amazing amount of work done each week, including producing this podcast coaching my clients doing the day to day minutia of running a business, looking after my daughter at home a couple of days a week and having quality family time. How do I do Do it? Well, firstly, I had a great teacher and coach, and I'm thrilled to have her here with us on the show today. Lauren, welcome.
Lauren Cash 02:13
Thanks so much for having me.
Meaghan Smith 02:15
I am so excited to have you hear this is for the sake of our listeners. This is the first time we've actually met in person. I am very familiar with Lauren because I've been in many of her group coaching calls through the Life Coach School. But I know you also have your own business, Lauren, and I'd love you to tell us all about you all about your business and about being a time coach.
Lauren Cash 02:45
Yeah, thanks so much. So I'm a master certified coach now through the Life Coach School, and I own my own company called vivere co which means to be fully alive. And I coach procrastinating perfectionist on how to get more done, so that they can achieve their money goals, actually, so that they can have more money. So it's perfect that you're having me on the podcast because I think the two go hand in hand.
Meaghan Smith 03:15
Yes, I love it so much. And this is something that we discussed just briefly before that money is something that yes, we can have money goals, and we know that we need to create value to create money, but actually to create value. We need to use our time effectively. So let's just have a little bit of a discussion first about what do you think about time, Lauren? What do you think it is?
Lauren Cash 03:44
Yeah, so time is really fascinating. I have a lot of philosophical discussions with my clients about it. And so time is just a mental construct in the way that we think about the passing of the day. I've been thinking about recently if we didn't have the invention of like the atomic clock, and we didn't have like the synced up system for time zones, what it would be like in different seasons and in different locations on the planet too, because in like the summer the day seem really long. But then in the winter, the day seem really short. But to us, now that we have the light bulb and stuff like that, it doesn't seem necessarily any different. And we pretty much now like pack in as much as we can do. And we have these glowing machines and things that we can stay up late, even when it's dark out. So really time is a mental construct that we use, and we all have agreed, just like money to use as this way of measuring our lives, essentially.
Meaghan Smith 04:57
Oh, that's such an interesting way to think about it a way of measuring lives. Yes. I haven't thought about it in that way before. I love that.
Meaghan Smith 05:07
So, why do we never have enough time? This is a common thing. I know. We all we all have this I know you are super amazing at managing your time. And that's why I've got you on today. But even you, Lauren, I reckon.
Lauren Cash 05:25
Don't say such things.
Meaghan Smith 05:28
Why don't we ever have enough?
Lauren Cash 05:32
Well, we just think that we don't have enough. So it's not that we don't have enough time. But I think especially in the digital age, that we really don't think that we have enough time because there is literally no end to the things that we could fill our time with. And as we've had computers and technology and light bulb like we were talking about, there's really no end to the parameters then of what we could be doing any time unless there's something that comes in and disrupts that, like things that have been happening. I'm thinking of like COVID. I don't know if I can say that. But like things like that, that have happened this year that have interrupted our like, construct for how much we can get things done or use our time for. So I think we're always thinking that we don't have enough time because of how many options we have available to us. And I'm always working with my clients for reframing that belief that how cool is it that we have an endless amount of things that we could do with our lives that we never will get bored? There will always be so many options for what we could do with our lives and our time.
Meaghan Smith 06:49
Yeah, and the other part of that, that I was thinking while you were talking is this correlation between time and money in the sense of how similar they are We can always use up all the time. And we can always use up all the money. But then also there's that other side where we can, we can think about it differently and then respond to it. I'm not sure if that's the right way to say, but we can, we don't have to use all that time. And we don't have to use up all our money.
Lauren Cash 07:23
It's also interesting, I don't know how much you've talked about this too, with your listeners. But both of them you can think about them in sort of this Newtonian construct of there being a finite amount of both. And then, and like more scarce, so there's only a certain amount of time or a certain amount of money. And then, for both of them, you could also think about them that there's an unlimited amount of time, even though we do eventually pass away and maybe have different beliefs about what happens after death. And then with money to you could have the belief that there's always going to be plenty of it. So I don't know what you think about that.
Meaghan Smith 08:09
Well, I like to think of it like that, especially considering that money is well in Australia. It's plastic. Just I have a habit of saying paper, but it's actually plastic here in Australia. Is it plastic in America? I don't know.
Lauren Cash 08:23
That's a good question. I need to google it now.
Meaghan Smith 08:26
Yeah, I'm sure it can't just be just paper. It must be maybe something else. Otherwise, we're too quickly. Yeah.
Meaghan Smith 08:34
Yeah, but I mean, we can literally make more. I know if there's some economists listening, they're gonna be like, Look, this affects the way that the world works. If you just print more money, Yes, I understand that. But we can actually just make more literally speaking in terms of printing more, but then also with what we do in terms of, you know, I have clients now And I'm literally just making money out of having clients and this money is coming to me and then also there's other ways that I make money. I won't go into that now but it's it is really interesting how you can make it and you can also make time Lauren, don't you think we things like paying for services?
Lauren Cash 09:23
Yeah, outsourcing I even think a lot with and talk about it with my clients of like, ways I can bet I like to think of it as like bending time with like technologies, right? Like there's this app that's called like TextExpander that you can programme, like shortcuts basically in order to type and that's how I ended up when I first worked for the Life Coach School, I was just doing customer support, and I was able to get so many more responses done even faster than using like canned response templates. By using this app that you can just programme a couple of characters that then Expand your text if you're typing things over and over again. So I'm always thinking about what are other ways in which we could like, quote unquote, bend time. We still have the same amount of time in a week. But there's outsourcing and hiring out things or even thinking about, like, if we want to bake a cake. Like there's so many options for how we could go about getting this end result of the cake.
Meaghan Smith 10:27
Yes, I love that text expanding or text. expander Did you say
Lauren Cash 10:33
yeah, it's called text. expander.
Meaghan Smith 10:35
Right. I've got a look that up. Okay. Yeah, definitely putting that in the show notes. We all need that. That sounds amazing.
Lauren Cash 10:42
Yeah. And there are so many other applications like that, that we don't even think about using we just are so caught up and thinking that there's not enough time that we don't then go to work with what if there were like, what if there is enough time and I can just get more strategic? Same thing with I'm guessing What you teach your clients with their money and how to manage it and grow it?
Meaghan Smith 11:05
Hmm. So what costs us time? And I know it's not just things that we do what else? Like let's I mean, I'm kind of I know the answer to this question, but it's far more interesting if I, if we're talking a conversation about it.
Lauren Cash 11:22
Yeah, I've been thinking about even that language of costing time. Like, do I want to say that for me, I don't know if it's true for you. But when I think about it that way, it makes me think of like dollar per hour or whatever, currency you're using money per hour. And I'm really working on breaking that mentality for myself, even though it's still present. So instead of thinking like what costs me time, maybe like what is I don't know like using my time and an energy effective way. I don't know. What are you? What are your thoughts about what?
Meaghan Smith 12:05
Well, I think things like procrastinating and worrying I mean they're the biggest things for me that cost me time because I I don't know about you but when I start to worry or get overwhelmed I completely get my knickers in a knot and it's just, it's, I'm, it's like, my brain doesn't function properly anymore and then I can't get the things done that I want to get done because I'm in this funk.
Lauren Cash 12:35
Yeah, you're like not moving forward. So like we teach at the Life Coach School that's like indulgent emotions. So those are things like worry, confusion, indecision, overwhelm. These are all things when we're feeling these types of feelings, we end up not creating anything of value, including things that We would get an exchange of money if we're stuck in that. And that will essentially, quote unquote, cost us time if we stay stuck in that for sure.
Meaghan Smith 13:10
That's interesting that you just mentioned decisions. Why does decision making, like not making decisions cost time?
Lauren Cash 13:18
Because my goodness, so much. What were you gonna say?
Meaghan Smith 13:23
Well, because I know it's a common thing to mull over a decision because we want to make the right decision, right? Because we don't want to make mistakes because making mistakes takes up more time I'm putting a bit of I'm doing inverted commas in the air. I have to say these things on the podcast. But you and I both know that's not true. But let's let's talk about this.
Lauren Cash 13:49
Yeah, decisions are fascinating. And I read something once that the best CEOs are the ones that make the most or make the quickest decision. So the ones that can make decisions very quickly, are the best CEOs. And I think that's really true because we make decisions right in the moment, we then can see them play out and see whether or not it was helping us move towards the result or the goal that we wanted. And then we can adjust accordingly. But when we're thinking that there's just one right decision, then we'll get stuck and actually not end up making any decision, which is the worst decision of all. And it costs us a lot of time. If we're using that language because we're not getting any feedback then like we haven't moved forward to see and we're getting closer to the result that we want. By actually moving forward just staying. We're just staying stuck then in this decision to be made rather than moving forward. And that's what I see with a lot of my clients is that they mostly are procrastinating making decisions, or they're thinking that they're going To feel a certain way that they don't want to feel if they're going to do a thing or they're caught in perfectionistic thinking that there is a right way to do it
Meaghan Smith 15:11
Yeah, I definitely understand that mentality I've totally been there but I I catch myself these days. But this is something that I think it this moves moves into nicely talking about this idea of being okay about being uncomfortable because I think one of the things that holds us back from making decisions is one like what you just said, we don't want to do the wrong thing or get it wrong and for all my perfectionist soulmates out there I understand you I know where you're at but, but we need to push through to move on from this but, but it's this thing and I experienced it all the time with the podcast about just having to make decision About guests and making hard decisions to about cutting people that I thought were going to be on that now on because it doesn't fit or somebody pulled out or a topic that I recorded that then doesn't match, but you don't know these things until you actually make the decision and do it but it feels uncomfortable to do that.
Lauren Cash 16:26
Yeah. And often we think that we're going to like you were saying, like, if we quote unquote, make the mistake, we think that we're going to waste more time, but we end up wasting so much more time by staying stuck and not making that decision to get that feedback.
Meaghan Smith 16:43
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, let's get right into it. Lauren, because you are a time coach, you are an expert at managing time and I learnt from you how to manage my time even though isn't that isn't it? Like I just love the power of technology that we've never met. But something that has such a significant effect on my life in terms of being able to get stuff done every week, I learned from you. So I would love if you could talk us through the process of how we can manage our time and what we can do. I mean, I know you're not going to do a whole we don't have that much time. But let's, let's get the essence the main points of the steps that we can take to really take control of our time.
Lauren Cash 17:34
Yeah, so the process that I teach is called Monday Hour One and I co created it with Brooke Castillo from The Life Coach School and Tyson Bradley. And the way that we teach you to plan your week in that programme is to essentially get everything out of your brain and onto paper that you're thinking that you need to do. So you want to list it all out. Keep thinking, what else? And what else and get it all out on paper? Because often we're just like looping in our brains over all these things that we're thinking we need to do. And we're not then evaluating do I really want to do these things this week? Does it even make sense? And our brains are going to continue to rehearse something until we get it out of our brains and assure it that we're going to remember it because it's in some external system. So that's why we do that. So you do that process. And then what you do is if there's a project there, you're going to work on breaking that down to the steps that are actually going to be what I've been saying, our calendar, drivable, I'm making up my own word, and then you're gonna decide this is the key that everyone thinks is ridiculous and not gonna work. You decide how long you're going to give each thing, either on your list or each part of the step. What did you think about doing that when you first did that.
Meaghan Smith 19:02
Okay, um, this is the hardest part for me definitely. And I, it's a it's a muscle that I'm I'm working on. So there's things that I feel like I literally didn't know how long it would take when it's something that I've done for the very first time. So I would make a guesstimate basically of how long I thought it would take to do and I've had to make a lot of adjustments along the way. So at the moment, I have lots of gaps on certain days in my calendar because my daughter is at home. I have a three year old daughter and I'm, I do work when she's here, but I have to balance it out between being a mum with my daughter, but also understanding that I can actually get some work done when I'm at home. But a project that I think is My mind might take an hour, I might put in an hour and a half or two hours to do it depending on the time of day when it is because for sure, I'm going to get interrupted. Like without a doubt. So there's, there's those aspects of I just learnt that along the way though I when I first started, I just planned back to back all of this stuff, which just completely wasn't realistic because it didn't take into account Oh, yeah, I need to go down and help my daughter go to the toilet or actually be present with her. She needs me to help her get her cardigan on her cardigan off, like these things happen through the day, but they're the stuff that I just figured out by doing it, you know, and I'm still it's still a work in progress. I mean, the amount of work I get done now is ah, I mean, it would be four or five times the amount of work that I used to get done. It really is incredible. But I can see now that I can improve even more, you know, there's so many different ways, but you, I think it's about just letting go of the expectations in the sense that I didn't give myself a hard time about it. It's like, Oh, I thought that was gonna take an hour, and it didn't. And now I'm realising after doing it for four weeks that it takes me an hour and a half, or that, actually, if I don't look at my phone, in the middle of doing this project, I can get it done in 45 minutes, you know, there's all these.
Lauren Cash 21:31
And I'm really hard on my clients about the language of it to have that. I like to take an hour and a half, or like I decide to take an hour and a half on this rather than an hour. Because when we take Extreme Ownership of how long we're going to take on something, then we have all the power back to figure out like are we going to use things like text expander to bend the time or what are we going to do to solve for this rather than Thinking that we're at the mercy of the task that it's just going to take however long it's going to take because when we do that, we're more likely to look at our phone and stuff like that. I loved your point, though, about your daughter, I have this happen all the time. Also with my clients where they forget that they're going to be home and that they have a three year old they plan for like this fantasy world, but they don't have a three year old or like employees that don't plan on having like a manager or a boss that's gonna have some say over what they do with their time. They just think that should never happen. It's so funny. So I love planning Yes, for reality, not fantasy as well.
Meaghan Smith 22:44
Yeah, definitely. Really important point. And one of the things that I learned in the training and I'm not sure if it was you who said it or Tyson was about when we do a test if we have an exam it we Get set that amount of time, it might be three hours or one hour or whatever it is, and you can't do the exam longer than the time that is available. And that for me is was the real piece where I had to go. Okay, I have to sit this for myself that this is how long it's gonna take. But this is what takes the mindset work, Lauren.
Lauren Cash 23:27
Yes, it does so much. Okay, so you all have learned that you have to decide then how long each thing you're going to give each thing from that list that you did the brain dump of all of the things and then what you're going to do is then put it on your calendar. I highly recommend a digital calendar even though I know there are so many beautiful paper calendars in the world I used to the event planner girl I myself but I highly recommended digital calendar You can have recurring tasks. And then there are lots of integrations with other software's and stuff like that. So then you're going to put on your calendar, making sure you put your free time first, this is something a lot of people don't do. And then they are complaining that their calendars like something against them that they didn't really want to do. So then you're gonna put it all on the calendar, and basically, it sounds very simplistic, then you're gonna make the decisions for what's going to fit or not fit this week, probably. And then you're just gonna do everything exactly as close to you the way that you put it on your calendar as you go through your week. And then I like to say you're going to take your field notes of like, what worked and what didn't work, and then you're going to plan those into your next week.
Meaghan Smith 24:52
This is the part I think that it kind of cracks me up, but but it's like what do you mean now we actually have to do what Because it's the funniest thing, but it seems so simple and straightforward when you talk about it. But when you're faced with your calendar on the day of what you have to do, it's really interesting. I mean, for me, I like I like to have a laugh, because I mean, why not I want to get all serious about it? But sometimes I'll see something on my calendar and just think, Oh, I'm not not I really think that's what I need to be doing. Now, I'll do something else. But I planned ahead that that's what I wanted to do. And this is another thing that I think is really, really interesting to be aware of is that we have this idea that we don't want to do something in the moment. But we actually do want to do it because we've planned that. We wanted to Do it. And that's another thing that I think was just so powerful to get my head around because there's lots of tasks like doing my tax that I really don't love doing. It's not my thing. It's not exciting in any way. However, getting my tax return, which I usually get a return each year is very exciting, getting money in the mail. And so I like to think about it like yes, I do like doing this. I do want to do this because I want to have my taxes done. I want to have it out of the way and I also want to receive a check in the mail for amounts of money that I get back because I've overpaid tax, which is really exciting and getting creating the opportunity to look at it that way. I think Lauren is really a powerful way to help will help me stay motivated. Like what about you? How do you think About.
Lauren Cash 27:01
Yeah, so I love that I love talking about that a lot. Like there's always a reason. Well, you're the one who planned your calendar for the week and then Tuesday at 3pm, you're always going to forget that you were the one that decided that for yourself. So reminding yourself, like you were saying, When your brain wants to say, I don't want to do this right now, looking at what are all the reasons why I actually do want to do it, like all you were saying about the taxes and there probably all these other reasons why you want to do them to like, not having a penalty or not having to I don't know what all of the ramifications of not doing them would be but like all the negative consequences you also don't want. So I love having that with my clients to have like coming up with the list then in the moment of like, what are all the reasons why I actually do want to do this because I was the one who decided I do want to do it and what are the results of it like I'm thinking right now I just moved into this apartment and there's some boxes like Outside in my kitchen that I really am thinking I don't want to go take to like the recycling. But I do actually want to because it'll be so nice when they're not no longer in my kitchen. So I have to, like, remind myself as to why I want to do things.
Meaghan Smith 28:16
Yes, yes. And I can imagine someone's listening right now Lauren, who's thinking, no way. I don't want to schedule my week out every single day. That sounds really prescriptive. And you know what, I don't have a life I have to calendar everything. What would you say to those people?
Lauren Cash 28:38
Yeah, so I think there's a lot of people who think it's very like black and white or all or nothing. So you get to decide for you when you calendar how you want to calendar and if you want to have what you believe to be like ample free time, then you can do that. But you get to decide on purpose, what you want your calendar to be, so that you can create the result results that you want in your life. So I would say the only reason why you would want a calendar is so that you can guarantee that you're going to complete the goals that you want to complete. If you're already doing that in your life and you feel really satisfied with what you're achieving and accomplishing, then go ahead and keep doing that. But if you feel like I really can create, you know more money or increase my net worth, or whatever else your goals are, and you're not doing it right now, being really specific with your time in a way that serves you and what you want your life to be like. Then you can use the calendar and that way and it's not against you, it's totally for you. You can schedule a nap you can schedule going for the walk or whatever else drinking the tea or coffee. It's to be used as a tool for you to create your dreams not to be used as like this. Like very strict regimented. flogged self flagellation practice.
Meaghan Smith 30:03
Yeah. And that's the thing. I think that surprised me the most. Because now that I plan my time, so, like in such a disciplined way, like every week, I plan my time when I'm going to do for the for that week. I do have so much more free time. Like that's the really amazing thing is that on the weekend, it's Family Fun Time, like it is family time. Like I'm not doing work on the weekend. Well, I only do work on the weekend when I've deliberately planned to do it. And that's kind of really life changing stuff because I'm actually getting to do what I want to do. And the other part that I find most interesting as well is that when you calendar it out, and you can see it visually for the week. It really brings me back down to earth because sometimes I have these Massive lists of things that I want to do. And I can get more done when I really put my mind to it. Like, I've just been on holiday for two weeks and the four weeks preceding the holidays, I worked hard. I as you know, we booked this in a long time ago, and I did lots of interviews before the holidays have we'll all be coming out over the next few weeks. And because I knew that during the holidays, I wanted that time off. I really wanted to just be with my family and not be having to do the work that I normally do each week. But when you block the time in over the week, it's really what's the word like? It actually shows you what you can and can't fit in because sometimes I have to go No, actually I think I'm being a bit unrealistic here. If I want to work between 930 and 230. When I've got to go pick up my daughter from school, this is what I can fit in And really being able to see that and be being real with myself that that's that's it. It's got to finish at that time.
Lauren Cash 32:10
Yeah, that was huge for me. I used to be somebody who's like extremely busy, very frantic, always having 5 million projects. I still have like a million right now. But I was somebody who was always just like beating myself up for not getting to some things. But once I finally started doing sort of the math of it, using the amount of time and the processes that I have now then I was able to really see and make the decisions and really cross the things off or put on the backburner. What really wasn't going to fit into right now. And I found that I was so much more able to then relax during my actual time off, because I wasn't looping on thinking, Oh my gosh, I should have gotten these things done. And I didn't because I finally was doing the math. of all of it.
Meaghan Smith 33:01
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So let's just do a brief recap and see where we're at. So we've, we write out a list of everything that we need to do. And, and you mean everything. So all the steps, everything that's on your mind, get it all out on paper. And then we take each item on the list and decide how long it's going to take us to do. And then we transfer that to a calendar.
Lauren Cash 33:28
Yeah, and if you have a project or a bigger thing, you'll really want to make sure you break it down into those calendar -izable steps. So it doesn't just say write a book from like, two to four on Tuesday, you want to say exactly what section of the book you're gonna work on.
Meaghan Smith 33:46
Have we missed anything?
Lauren Cash 33:48
I don't think so. And then you put it on the calendar and you follow it exactly. It just sounds way easier than it actually is. And then you celebrate though at the end of the week. top three things that you accomplish that week and really look over the week and then see what are the outstanding things that I need to take into account when I plan my next week.
Meaghan Smith 34:12
And I think it gets easier as you keep doing it. Because when you first when I first started, from my experience, it was tedious. When I first started writing everything, it wasn't tedious writing it out, but actually locking it on to the calendar and working out how long it was going to take. That was tedious. But now it really does take me under an hour to do and I can do it. And because I've practised it, I can just do it. But in the beginning, it did take me quite a while to work out how I was going to do it. But as I say to to you, who is listening all the time, like with all these things that we do, whether it's money or a new project, or I don't know, a new recipe you're learning like in the beginning, there's always going to be this stage where, well maybe there's not for you, and maybe you who's listening? Is this amazing? Let's just do everything perfect straight up, but I am not that person. And I take it takes me time and I make lots of stuff ups along the way. And I'm, but I also realise now that I'm always slower in the beginning. You know, I mean, wow, to produce one podcast episode when I very first started oh my gosh, it took me so long. There was so much to learn and now I'm just like, Bang Bang Bang like it's done another episode out form.
Lauren Cash 35:34
Yeah, I can't, I can count. There are so many people who want to get coached on just getting podcasts and there's lots of drama around the time with podcast creation, which makes sense.
Meaghan Smith 35:47
That's a good niche. I
Lauren Cash 35:48
know right? There you go.
Meaghan Smith 35:53
What about big projects by Lauren because this is a weekly process and some things take longer than a week so What do we do in that situation? Are you thinking that we just plan out like in a six month block or a three month block if we've got a big project? Or how do we manage that, you know, in our head and on our calendar?
Lauren Cash 36:11
Yeah, so I recommend as soon as you have the project, so maybe or if you're an employee and your boss hands you a project or you decide as an entrepreneur to do a project, one of the first things that you calendar for that week or the next week is an additional spot for breaking down the project and doing that entire Monday Hour One process that I described, just on that bigger project. And then you can calendar it out and even block out where you're going to put it on the calendar. But then when you go to do your Hour One process for that week, you can adjust to what you actually want it to be for that week. So you want to make sure you're planning additional time for planning and foresight for that big project in the same exact way that you're doing. For Monday, Hour One but I like to tease it out so that I'm not having myself do it all within that Hour One process or else I'll be doing it for like three hours rather than an hour.
Meaghan Smith 37:11
Right. Okay. Okay. So what about Lauren? How can we use our time to create more money? Because I know you're good at this. Let's let's talk about this topic because we want to use our time to create money. How do we do it? What do we do?
Lauren Cash 37:31
Well, there's a lot of different ways. Well, step one is working on decreasing those indulgent emotions that we talked about working on making decisions not being confused, deciding how long things take all of this mindset work that we've talked about, then working on increasing the value that you create, within your time. So how could I create more value in the same amount of time at a higher level, that'll get an exchange of more money. So I'm thinking, like in my coaching practice, when I am creating value for just one client, a private client, that's going to be a different exchange than let's say, if I have my group coaching programme that there are like 40 people in, we're going to be and like creating so much more value for so many more people that the exchange and money value is going to be a lot higher there. So as you're going you can work on creating more value and less amount of time. And then, as you're working on doing that, I would say getting really creative about the way that you bend your time so that you can use less time but still create that high value like we were talking about with like applications or outsourcing things and stuff like that. And then I don't know how much I'm guessing you talk about it to like investing, right? Like we can invest our money to go to work. For us, without us even working in that value exchange in the moment us actively working on that? What are your thoughts about how to increase that value of our time, essentially, and create more money?
Meaghan Smith 39:14
Ah, well, I love this topic, and you just just put a stop sign up at some stage. You may have unleashed something there Lauren. Well, yeah, I absolutely agree. I mean, from the business side of things, what you've just said, and this is something that I am getting better at. Now, you know, this is a new thing for me, in terms of as the listeners know, I've started my coaching business just this year. So there's a lot of business things that I'm learning in terms of what I'm thinking about all the time, like, how do I create more value for my clients, and I think of that in a sense of what they're getting. So that you know, I'm just sent something off to one of them. new clients today in the mail, and she has no idea that she's getting this thing in the mail, which I just find so exciting like to do those kinds of things for my clients. But this is ways that I can add value for them because they don't even know that that's what they're going to get for their, their money. So that's one thing. And then also, I love what you said about in the future, like, this is what I will I'll be working towards in the future where, yeah, it's like, yes, you can work one on one with a client. And there's an exchange of money there. But you can also do group coaching, you know, and this is and so then yes, you're delivering more value. I mean, you have to really come up with the goods when you're doing that because, you know, you have to be able to hold the space for a group of people and be able to coach them but yeah, you are getting a lot more money in return for doing that work. But there's also things like in business where people can create a An asset that creates money for them whether they're doing anything or not in that designated period of time. So for example, you might have a membership where you have to do work. It's not like you're not working but the money comes to you in a different way. It's not all I do this hour of work and then I get this dollar amount paid to me. You're providing a service that you're putting value out there and people are paying you every month or every week or whatever for that. So if it's like a gym, I'm in the gym gets paid money, whether you go and work out or not.
Meaghan Smith 41:43
Yeah, so memberships is one way and then e courses and books is another thing. So for example, you might have a business where you're a makeup artist, let's say I'm just randomly pulling things. out of the air here, but you might have an ecourse about how to apply makeup or a particular style of makeup or, and it might be, yeah, just a few videos and a mini course with a booklet that somebody can download, you know, somebody can just download off your website and pay some money for and learn about how to apply makeup and you can be making money from that at the same time as that you're actually at a wedding or a band gig applying makeup on people so there's all these different ways that you can be making money and then from the investing side I mean, that's a whole nother ballgame that is so available to people but and I bang on about this all the time, Lauren, because, you know, investing in I don't know what it's like in America with buying houses and things like that, but I mean, it probably is it's the Australian dream, being able to own your own property. And lots of people talk about how it's so difficult these days for millennials. And I actually think that's total BS, and only because it's just the way that we think about it. I mean, if you're thinking all the time that you can't afford to buy a house, of course, you're not going to be able to buy a house. And I won't go into because I've spoken about on so many previous episodes, but everything I've done in terms of investing in property and investing in shares, it all took time, you know, and I made mistakes, and but I just kept at it, I just kept doing it. And you know, now I have a few investment properties. I have investments in shares, and that's money that comes in that I don't, you know, money will be paid into my bank account twice this month from my two investment properties, and I'm not doing anything like I might have some email interactions with the property managers. if something gets sorted out, but the I mean, they go I pay somebody money to manage the property. So if something happens, so we've just renewed the lease and they've managed all of that I haven't talked to the tenants, the property managers do that. That's what I pay them for. If something goes wrong, they send me an email and say, this has happened. Are you happy to authorise to get the tap fix? And I just wrote a quick email back and say, yes, do it. And then it just happens. And these are the things that I think that it's really important to ask yourself questions. And I know that you're really good at this, Lauren, about how can I make this happen? Like, how can I achieve this and I just recently talked about how I first got the money together to invest in shares and I did that by putting away $15 a week. $15 That's it. That's all I put away because at the time you were on one income, this was a while ago when we had my first baby and, but I just knew I wanted to put money aside. So $15 a week, that's what I put aside. That's what we could afford at the time. And then after a few years, bang, we had a few thousand dollars and we're able to invest it and then now that's just like ticking away nicely and in the future, that will be a lot of money. And it's really, it, you can just apply it to anything. It's like a little tiny seed of a plant, you just have to start and start doing it and keep going and keep taking action. Just repeat the site, you know, repeat doing the things that like in terms of investing, like keep putting the money away, but in terms of business, it's like, just keep going.
Meaghan Smith 45:55
Like if you listen to the first episodes of my podcast, please don't You might not get as much value from the podcast that I do now. But so what this is how we develop things. This is how we create more value in the world and essentially make more money.
Lauren Cash 46:18
So good. I love that.
Meaghan Smith 46:20
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I told you that I would keep going on and on if you didn't stop me.
Lauren Cash 46:27
I didn't because I was so amazing. And I just hope that everyone really thinks about that also in their ability to manage time, like if you just start with one little thing, like just one half an hour, you're not going to check your phone while you do a task or you're going to not multitask and you're going to single task or whatever mono task. Just pick one little thing that you can do that's really going to start to show you the return on your time investment or your money.
Meaghan Smith 47:01
Yeah, I think it was my maternal health nurse actually, who said to me when I, when I had my first daughter, she said, Listen, you can do whatever words she said something like, you can do everything, but you can't do it all at once. Something along those lines. And that really stuck with me because there's lots of times in my life where there's been lots of things that I want to do. I mean, right now I have so many ideas of things that I want to produce and create. And I have to constrain because it's just get one thing done, and then get the next thing done, and then get the next thing done. So when I was buying the last property that we bought, I wasn't in the middle of doing things with share investing and starting a business. You know, like, there's all just, you can do it all, but just pace yourself. That's what works for me. I mean, I think you, as you get better at managing your time, you can fit a lot more in in a smaller amount of time, but also just realising that there's no hurry to get to where you want to go. There actually isn't. And I tell myself that all the time. And every time I look backwards, I see how much I've got done. And it's, it's quite an amazing feeling when you're in the present moment, and you can look back and see everything that you've achieved. And for me, I find that really helpful because that reminds me that it's okay, just keep doing the next thing. Like, we're going to be there before you even know it.
Lauren Cash 48:43
Mm hmm. Yeah. And what usually when we're like in that hurried energy, we're not going to be doing our best work and we're also going to be feeling terrible through the journey and that's not what most of us want. So the Hurry, you can drop That and it's not gonna be any better when you get there and you might as well enjoy as you create what you want to create.
Meaghan Smith 49:09
Yeah, look, let's just talk about that just briefly Lauren because I think this is an important point about, it's not going to be better when we get there. Because I know that we someone listening going, but hang on, if I get a job that pays more money, my life's gonna be better for sure, right? Or if I have a few investment properties, like Meaghan, my life's gonna be better. Let's, let's, let's put people straight here. Let's sort them out. Lauren.
Lauren Cash 49:38
Yeah. So even though there might be things that we think are better about that, when we have it, we're still gonna have the emotional spectrum of the human experience regardless of like I'm thinking about I finally became debt free this year, and I thought for sure my life was going to be amazing. Amazing, like a million times better than when I was carrying the debt. And yes, I'm super proud of myself for paying it all off in like less than three years. But I still like I still have all of the spectrum of the same emotion as I did then. And it's all about like the rate at which I'm investing or making money, I just transferred it to that problem now.
Meaghan Smith 50:26
Yes, and I think that this is such a key point with, with everything that we do is realising that you can just create something or go for something that you want in your life just because you want to, you're not going to feel better when you achieve it. I mean, you will feel it's not like you're not going to feel good. Of course, you're going to feel good, but you're still going to have stuff in your life that doesn't feel good. That's always going to be the case we're going to have this 50/50 I've talked about this concept on the podcast before THis 50/50? Have? You know, we might I might be in Greece on holiday with my family. But if my daughter, I don't know, does something annoying, I'm still going to feel annoyed.
Lauren Cash 51:11
Because your thinking she shouldn't be doing that.
Meaghan Smith 51:13
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right. So moving forward to wrapping up, Lauren, if we were only going to focus on one aspect to improve on in terms of managing our time, what's one thing that we could take away from today?
Lauren Cash 51:33
I think the one thing I would want people to know is that they just need to be able to look at the math of their time and that they can really do a lot more than what they think they can if they look at that and start to consciously manage it in the way that we described.
Meaghan Smith 51:54
Okay, amazing. Amazing. And do you have a practice or habit or Something that you'd be willing to share about money that you do that on a day to day basis or whatever, but just a habit that you do that you'd be happy to share that we might benefit from.
Lauren Cash 52:10
Yeah, so for me the practice of I use an app I don't know if you've ever mentioned it, but you need a budget, I use that to budget my money. And I love opening it usually on a daily basis, if not daily, weekly now, and really like reconciling my accounts and making sure my allocations to what I want my money, what jobs I want to give my money are all balanced out. And the more I've looked at my money over the last three years, the more I've increased my income, the quicker I paid off my debt, all of that has really changed just by looking at my money and becoming friends with it in that way.
Meaghan Smith 52:54
Yeah, I love that. I really do and do you do that personally and for business?
Lauren Cash 53:00
Don't do it as much for business. I was doing my own books until this month, but I'll still on a monthly basis look really closely at my business books.
Meaghan Smith 53:10
Yeah, yeah. I totally agree. It just creates that awareness. Yeah. And you're this you're the second person recently who's recommended that software I have had a brief look at it, but I haven't actually used it. I've gone in and checked it out because I've heard about it before. It might be American, maybe
Lauren Cash 53:28
it is American. I love it just because you're not planning kind of a lot of the software's I feel like you're planning sort of retro actively, or like based on what you've done in the past with your money. So or you're planning for money that hasn't actually come in yet in a lot of the software. So what you're doing with you need a budget or why NAB is you're using the actual money you have in your possession right now and deciding what you're going to do with it. And then it has a lot of have abilities to do like savings goals or stuff like that. So that's cool.
Meaghan Smith 54:05
That's interesting. I like that I might have to have another look, I'll put a link to that in the show notes too. So we've got that in text expander. And of course, we need to put a link to you, Lauren, because I know that people are going to be listening going, Oh, she's great. I need to get coaching from Lauren. So, Lauren, where can we find you?
Lauren Cash 54:25
Yeah, so you can find me at vivere dot c o, which is V i v e r e.co. Or if that's challenging, you can go to the Lauren cash calm and it'll redirect you to my website.
Meaghan Smith 54:38
Now we'll put a link in and just Lauren, tell us a little bit about what can people get coaching with you on like, how can somebody work with you?
Lauren Cash 54:49
Yeah, so right now I'm booking out the remaining spots of my client roster for the fall and winter of this year. I'm American, fall and winter I'm doing that. And then I also am working on speaking of courses and things like that I'm working on a course that I'll be launching coming up too, so you'll have to look out for that. And if you can't get in to work with me right now, I have this awesome guide for how to get to and maintain inbox zero so that you're not in your email and you're actually focusing on getting your money goals. So you can start with that if you want to go there
Meaghan Smith 55:32
so good, so good. And I've been to Lauren site and her Instagram. And you just need to go and have a look because it's so beautiful.
Lauren Cash 55:42
Oh, thank you yeah. rebranded. So I love it now so much more.
Meaghan Smith 55:48
Yeah, it looks really good. And Lauren's very fancy folks. So, but I don't think you have to be fancy to work with Lauren.
Lauren Cash 55:58
No, I just like being fancy. Cuz it's fun.
Meaghan Smith 56:01
I know, right, isn't it? And you know, the other thing I love and I know I sort of say this all the time, but I love that somebody listening, who's listening in the UK or who's listening in Thailand can work with you because of technology. You know, I love that I coach like a couple of my clients. I click coach, someone in Sweden last night, and on Friday, I'll be coaching someone in America. And it's just it's I love it. It's amazing, isn't it? It just brings us together the world. Thank goodness resume.
Lauren Cash 56:38
Right. It's so amazing. I love it.
Meaghan Smith 56:41
Me too. All right. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for giving us your precious time today to be on the podcast. I've really enjoyed having you on the show. Thank you.
Lauren Cash 56:55
Thank you so much for having me.
Meaghan Smith 56:57
You're welcome.
Meaghan Smith 57:00
Okay, well, if this is your first time taking a deeper dive into how to manage your time, I suggest you go back and re listen to this episode. There is a lot to learn from the discussion today. And make no mistake if you actually apply what we discussed today and get coaching on any of the drama that comes up for you. When you schedule work on your calendar, you will literally change your life in terms of how much you can get done and move towards achieving your goals. This is very powerful work that I apply in my own life every day. And it is one of the processes I use to actually get done what I need to get done to create the life I want to live on purpose. So if you want to take this work deeper, and actually get it done, achieve your money goal And life goals, you can schedule a complimentary consultation with me to discover how you can reach your goals deliberately. You can reach out to me anywhere that you are following me or you can make a booking through the money mindful website. Until next time, have a beautiful week. Bye Bye.
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