Ep. 347: How I Stopped Giving My Time Away and Took My Life Back

Today I want to talk about time boundaries.

And not in a theoretical way.

I want to walk you through the very specific things I’ve done to stop giving my time away to other people… and start living my life on purpose, my way.

Because before recovery, I gave my time away constantly. And I didn’t even realize that’s what I was doing.

I used to think my problem was time management.

It wasn’t.

It was that I didn’t have boundaries around my time.

Which meant… my time belonged to whoever wanted it.

If someone texted me, I responded immediately.
If someone emailed me, I stopped what I was doing and responded immediately.
If something came up, I dropped everything.

And what I didn’t understand back then is this:

Every time I did that, I was abandoning myself.

One of the biggest changes I made was incredibly simple.

I turned off the ringer on my phone.

Before that, I remember getting pissed off at people for texting me all the time, like they were interrupting me.

And then I had this realization:

They’re not interrupting me.

They’re just texting.

I’m the one interrupting myself.

That was a huge shift.

So I turned off the ringer.

Now I check my messages when I want to.

And what’s interesting is I never told people to stop calling me.

But over time, people just started texting first.

Because I trained people around me by changing my behavior.

Another thing I did with my phone is I turned off almost all notifications.

Because I don’t need to know that something happened on the internet.

I don’t need to know the second an email comes in.

I only want to know what I want to know.

That’s a boundary.

And it’s a time boundary, but it’s also an energy boundary.

Because every notification is a pull on your nervous system.

When I worked at Yale, I had my email set to ding every time something came in.

And I would stop whatever I was doing and respond or fulfill the request.

I had a reputation among colleagues for being very responsive.

Which was great for other people…

…and terrible for me.

Because I couldn’t get my own work done.

Especially anything that required deep thinking.

Now I use time blocking.

Now I have dedicated time each week for:

• my podcast 
• my newsletter 
• social media 
• podcast pitching 
• pitching for speaking gigs
• networking
• finances 
• and of course coaching

Instead of my time being up for grabs…

I assign my time on purpose.

Then I started  TRAINING MY BRAIN TO STAY one topic at a time.

This is where the Pomodoro technique changed everything for me. If you’re not familiar, it’s a productivity technique where you work for 25 minutes then take a 5 minute break.

Because, as a multi tasker my brain had been trained to leave.

I would start something…
think of something else…
and immediately go do that instead.

Over and over again.

So when I started using Pomodoro, I did something different.

When a thought came up, I didn’t go do the thing.

I wrote it down.

And eventually I didn’t even need to do that anymore.

Because I trusted:

• it’s already handled 
• it will come back 
• or it’s not important 

And what started happening was…

I could actually stay with what I was doing.

And that’s when I started experiencing flow.

Where time kind of disappears.

And I became more productive than I had ever been.

I wanna say something about the five minute breaks that are built into the pomodoro technique

 in the beginning I did not want to take those breaks but I forced myself to do it 

one reason is that a fitness instructor I had said “sitting is the new smoking” and I was like Oh my God that’s horrible 

so I made it a point to get up and a walk up and down the stairs at least once during my 5 minute break 

it’s not just good for your body to take breaks, it’s good for your mind 

I used to be afraid that I would forget where I left off and I wouldn’t be able to get back into it and I found that’s absolutely not true 

when you give your brain a break, it’s really easy to get back into what you were doing.

 if you’re a creator you may believe “I have to keep going with this, I can’t stop or I’ll lose my place or Ill lose my flow.”  my experience is that’s just simply not true

I sometimes use those breaks for things like unloading and loading the dishwasher

I can actually do that kind of a thing during my 5 minute break so I still get things done around the house, but I don’t get sucked into cleaning an entire room the way that I used to 

Also, I don’t always take 5 whole minutes and sometimes I take more than 5 minutes

And all this isn’t just about work.

This shows up in my relationship too.

My sweetheart and I have a rhythm.

We see each other Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday nights.

We’ve done this for years.

And that time is sacred.

Not perfect. But consistent.

And what that does is it protects:

• connection 
• predictability 
• emotional safety 

Because we’re not just squeezing each other in.

We’ve made our time together a priority and it’s intentional.

Another boundary I had to learn was around leisure.

Because I wasn’t good at fitting it in

So I literally blocked time in my calendar called:

“Sacrosanct Barb Time.”

And the only rules are:

• no work 
• no recovery 

That’s it.

And what I do during that time varies. It could be napping, cooking, reading, watching Hallmark movies, doing puzzles, talking to a friend.

But the point is…

I stopped treating rest like something I need to earn.

Another big shift was moving my podcast recording time off the weekend.

For years, I recorded on Sunday afternoons.

And sometimes even late Sunday nights Like 11:30 at night.

Because I had to get it done by Monday for my podcast producer.

I kept telling myself, eventually, I’m going to move my podcast recording time to during that week.

And eventually someone said to me:

“What are you waiting for?”

so I moved it to during the week.

And I can’t even tell you what that changed.

Because now my weekends actually feel like weekends. And speaking of weekends, I used to coach any day of the week until the end of 2023 when I stopped taking clients on weekends.

All of these things might sound like productivity tips.

They’re not.

They’re boundaries.

And more specifically…

They’re internal boundaries.

Because what changed wasn’t just my schedule.

What changed is that I stopped treating other people’s access to me as more important than my relationship with myself.

If you’re constantly feeling like you don’t have enough time…

I want you to consider that It might not be a time problem.

It might be that your time isn’t protected.

And the question becomes:

Where are you giving your time away…
and calling it “just the way things are”?