EP #45 | Getting S#!t done with Sarah Lovell
Welcome to the Designers Oasis podcast. I'm your host, Kate Bendewald, interior designer, mama and CEO of a thriving interior design business, built on authentic word of mouth referrals. It wasn't that long ago that I stepped away from my corporate architecture job to build my own dream, one that would allow me more time with the people that I love, the ability to serve my clients at the highest level, and to make a great living. It wasn't always easy, and I've made my share of mistakes along the way. Fast forward to today, and I've learned a thing or two. This podcast is for you - the inspired, creative, ambitious, and let's admit it, occasionally overwhelmed interior designer who shares this dream of transforming lives by transforming homes. Join me and my guests each week as we walk through practical ways to build an interior design business you love, and helps you transform your clients' lives. You can do this.
Kate Bendewald
Today, we are continuing to shine a light on mental health awareness month. A few weeks ago, we had Christy Taylor on the show, that's episode 42 If you want to go back and listen, and she mentioned that she had an ADHD coach. Having add myself I was so interested to learn more. And so I reached out to Sarah and invited her on the show. Today, my guest is Sarah Lovell. She's an executive function and ADHD coach who helps busy professional women to plan prioritize and create management systems that actually work for the way their brains work, so that they can stay on task and focus on their day to day life. She helps her clients learn about themselves, create realistic plans and use sustainable strategies to reach their professional, personal and self care goals. The truth is, even if you don't have a DD or ADHD, we all need our executive functioning skills to be optimized in order to be successful interior design business owners. So whether it's keeping your projects on budget, meaning not going down rabbit holes when it comes to sourcing, or learning how to work with procrastination in a healthy way, we've all got something to learn here. I believe every business owner will find today's episode, not only incredibly practical with tools and strategies to help you in a day to day life, but also just to put some perspective in to normalize behaviors like procrastination and overwhelm, because we're all going to feel that from time to time. So I'm so grateful to have Sarah here. Please welcome her to
Speaker 3
the show. Hello, Sarah, welcome to the show. How are you today? I Kate, thank
Sarah Lovell
you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Kate Bendewald
Oh my gosh, I am absolutely thrilled to have you. So Sarah level is with executive functioning first, I've had a hard time typing that word earlier. Now I'm not gonna be able to say it. Executive functioning first. And you are a coach that helps business owners with executive functioning and add or few ADHD coaching. So I'm, I'm just gonna say right off the top. I do have add I have I was diagnosed when I was in seventh grade. And so when I first learned about you through one of our past guests, Christy Taylor, it was like, what there's an AD D ADHD coach, I want to I want to learn more. So we reached out and I'm so glad to learn more from you today. Welcome. Thank you.
Sarah Lovell
Yeah, I'm super excited to be here. It's um, the majority of my clients right now are women who are running their own businesses. So it's, it's really amazing to be able to connect with another business owner and to talk about executive functioning and how it impacts everybody's day to day life.
Kate Bendewald
Yeah, I want to I want to start by getting clear on a couple of things. One you coach To people who have a DD or ADHD, but also people who don't, but who still need assistance with figuring out that executive functioning piece, which I want to say is everybody, but maybe not everybody knows it. So why don't you first start by explaining? What is executive functioning? And how does it show up in our daily lives?
Sarah Lovell
Yeah, so executive functioning is kind of like a buzzword that we've been hearing more of recently. And basically, executive functioning is a cognitive process, right? It's a mental process that we need every single day to plan, organize, prioritize, manage our time, start tasks, follow through on tasks, problem solve, basically, it's those skills that we use every single day, to manage all aspects of our life. And so everybody needs executive functioning skills. And some people experience more challenges with their executive functioning, or finding strategies that work for them. Because most of us were given the same set of strategies to use through school, right, use a calendar, write a to do list. And that's how you organize your day. And that doesn't work for everybody. And so that's where executive function coaching can come in. And so I do work with people who may experience more significant challenges with their executive functioning, whether that's related to ADHD or another diagnosis, but many of my clients also don't identify with a diagnosis, but have found, you know, procrastination, analysis, paralysis, decision, fatigue, managing busy work lives with taking care of kids and their own self care, just trying to find like systems to manage all of that. So that's, that's who I work with. That's how I that's how I work with people. And executive function. Coaching is like this magical job that when people find out I exist, and that other executive function coaches exist, they're like, oh, my gosh, I didn't know that there was a name for the challenge I was having having, or a person who could talk with me and figure out systems that work for me.
Kate Bendewald
Yeah. So interesting, because it makes sense to me that a lot of these things can be I believe strongly in the power of habit. And I will say, I'm one of those people who I do have ADD, I don't, I don't feel like I have ADHD anymore. That was in my original diagnosis as a young child. But now that I'm in my 40s, the hyperactivity pieces just kind of, it's more like needs a nap at four o'clock every day. It's weird, because I consider myself to be a very organized person. I do I am really good at starting projects, I definitely need to, you know, systems to keep focus through the duration of projects. I am a sprinter, not a long distance runner when it comes to projects and, and those kinds of things but always, always, always. There's, there's a couple of things that I struggle with, specifically in these executive functioning skills that you talked about. One is staying focused on like a day to day and so I have to, like create this whole environment for myself. And I still think it could be improved to really minimize distractions. The dean was the alerts having set aside times for for certain activities, and yet there are still these, you know, these days where I just look at the clock, and I'm like, How is it one o'clock? I feel like I am just getting started, you know, and so there are days were just, it depends on a lot. It depends on my quality of sleep, it depends on how I got my morning started, it depends on what was going on. Of course, you know, personal life, if I've got all the mumbo jumbo going in the back of my head, there are some days where I feel just totally depleted at the beginning of the day. And I'm just like, well, we're just gonna we're gonna do our best today. And then there are other days where I'm like, ready to go, I've got my A game. So I'm trying to be better at paying attention to what those what that looks like and come up with systems. But I wanted to hear from you because I want to I wanted to find out when you work with somebody, where do you start with them too, in order to help them sort of come up with a game plan? What does that process look like for you?
Sarah Lovell
Yeah, it's so different for each of my clients. Because oftentimes people are coming with specific goals that they're wanting to work on. So my my coaching practice is basically meeting people where they're at, and that's part of my background is in social work. I have a master's degree in social work. So that mental health piece is is in my background, but they Basically like asking people, what brought them to coaching, what are their big picture goals? Because oftentimes, we think about things at the thinking about the outcome, right? Like, what is that going to look like? What is that going to feel like? How is that going to change my life. But it can be really hard to actually get started on something, when we're so focused on that outcome, because the outcome doesn't help us figure out the starting point much of the time. So really taking their big picture goals, and breaking them down into like, small realistic steps. Because to your point, like life pops up everyday looks different, our energy fluctuates, are our plans change, you know, things, things pop up or get in the way, and we have to be able to like, go with the flow around that. So being able to come up with systems that work for them, where they can create that, like Goldilocks effect of structure and flexibility. Because I think a lot of times, we benefit from having structure structure, but we push up against it, right? Like, we don't want too much structure. But if we have too much flexibility, it's really hard to, like get started. So finding like that right balance of, of structure and flexibility is really important. And that looks different person to person. So yeah, so basically looking at like, what, what is it that brought them to coaching? And what? What are the steps that are going to help them get there in a realistic way, like, I'm not a honeymoon style of coaching, where it's like, we're going to change your life in a week. You know, right, like, people come in, I think sometimes they're like, I want to, like make these big, drastic changes, or I want to have a new routine or have new systems. But if, if you can do it in that short period of time, like, that's great, but can you make that sustainable? Where it's like, this is a change for you? That's that's long lasting and like making a change for you every day? Yeah, so yeah.
Kate Bendewald
So can you give me some examples of some specific either like tools or systems that you might help somebody, let's say for me, for example, the distractibility piece, and I think this is true for a lot of women that just, well, I don't want to generalize men, but I'm gonna generalize my man, my husband, he has such a one track mind, like he can sit down. And he can he focuses on work in like, the, there could be a tornado happening around him, and he would just be oblivious. He's just so zoned in. And I think that women, especially women who are caretaking for anybody, whether it's children and aging parent, their community, their commitments there tend to be beyond just themselves. And it can be hard to compartmentalize that I think, and being able to sort of tune some of those things out when they sit down to work, right. And so the distractibility piece whether you have a DD, ADHD or not, is really understandable from my perspective. So what would be some examples of some tools that you might help somebody develop specifically related to distractibility and staying focused? Because I'll just before, before I wrap up my question, the reason why this is so important is because, you know, the work that we do, you know, we're we do project based work. And we usually send out proposals that even if we're not charging hourly, we're still basing our proposals on a set amount of time, right. So we, we allocate a certain number of hours, for example, to a project. And our profitability depends on our ability to map out what needs to happen, get it done, and to stay focused, while still also creating space to be creative and time to play and time to explore. Right? We don't want to stifle that. And so I think there's this balance that can be hard to find. But that is a big thing that I hear a lot from my audiences, going way over on hours on projects. So help us kind of think through that a little bit, if you don't mind.
Sarah Lovell
Yeah, yeah, I'll start with the word balance. Because I think that, that that's such an interesting one, because we talk about like a work life balance. And I think like, when we think of that we picture a scale, right? Like we picture that everything is, is in balance, everything is 5050. When in reality, what you're describing and what real life is, is that if something requires more time and energy, time and energy needs to decrease somewhere else. And that's like the the balance that I think can be really hard to navigate and to accept. And so not wanting to, you know, say that you you shouldn't be giving your time and energy to these other things, but you only have so much time and energy every day or every week right and So being able to not have it be an all or nothing situation where it's like all of your energy is going into work, none of your energy is going into your own self care or taking care of your family or other people in your community or your circles. But recognizing that like when time and energy increases for a particular project, that it has to go down or shift in another area, while not letting that plate completely drop, right. So one of the strategies that that I talked about with clients, and again, it's so individualized because there's no one size fits all strategy, right? Like, I would never come out and say like, this is the one thing,
Kate Bendewald
ya know, and I appreciate that. That is like my mantra, it's the first line you see on my website is, I don't believe in a one size fits all approach to how you run your business. So I'm very grateful for, you know, sharing the toolkit, and then people can decide what's gonna fit best for their life. But yeah, go ahead and share some of those. Yeah. So
Sarah Lovell
a general one that I talk about with clients all the time is basically having external systems. And what I mean by that is, we all keep track of a million things in our head every single day, right? You're keeping track of everything for yourself, you're keeping track of your clients, projects, you're keeping track of being in touch with contractors, you're keeping track of if you have kids, their homework, pets, what's for dinner tonight, what are we doing this weekend? All of those thoughts are constantly there. And we're pinpointing what is the thing that I need to focus on right now? Well, everything else is still like going on in the background. And so I talked about, externalize doing all of that. So behind me, I noticed the podcast. But behind me, I have all of my sticky notes to the left of me, I have whiteboards, I have electronic systems. So those are things that personally are helpful for me to have multiple options of ways to take the things that are in my head, and organize them outside of my head so that I know that I'm not going to lose track of my individual projects, or my to do list or all of those things that are in all the different areas of my life. So I'm a huge proponent for visual systems and external systems. So as a coach, I help clients figure out what that system is going to be for them by asking lots and lots of questions, because you know, you best, right, so I can come with ideas of like, colorful, sticky notes, or a whiteboard with magnets that you can move. But oftentimes, when I ask clients a series of questions, and really get them talking, they're able to come up with an idea of a system that they feel ownership over, they feel excited about. And then they're more likely to actually connect with that system. Versus if I were to say, I personally use a whiteboard, have you thought about using a white paper? Um, so I think like, it's, it's super individualized, but like, a very common way that I approach it is figuring out like, how can you take everything that's in your head right now, and get it out, so that you can feel confident that you're not going to lose track of all of the different things that you're keeping track of?
Kate Bendewald
So we're talking about a brain dump, right? Okay. How and how often, I mean, seems like it's often as needed, I feel like I do a brain dump every day on my notebooks. So when it comes to putting pen to paper, let's say for me, I'm a notebook person, do you have certain suggestions for how to organize that information on paper that, again, I realized could be useful for some and not for others. But to me sometimes creating the hierarchy of what's important. gets in the way of getting it down on paper. And so I organize Yeah, what's on the paper? What do you suggest there?
Sarah Lovell
Yeah, so I think, again, there's no one right way. But I think for a lot of people, like perfectionism can pop up with trying to get things out, right? Like, we want the first version to be the right version or the beautiful version. And so I always talk about like, messy first steps are messy action. And so a brain dump can be that first draft of like, I'm going to get all of my ideas out, and then I'm going to organize them. Alternatively, I've talked with some clients where they their brain dumps or by categories, so I call them like menus or buckets. So like a menu or a bucket would be a different project that they're working on. Right. So it might be like project one, project two, project three, and then your brain dumping under each of those. and updating as needed. But I also talk with clients about, like creating lists, or Braindumps, or visual systems that acknowledge changes in your energy. And when things change during the day. Because, as you talked about, like things pop up, your plan changes, you get taken from one project to manage another project. And so how do you come back? And make sure that you know where you left off on Project One, when you're brought over to project two? Yeah, so that's one, like one strategy that we've talked about lists that I've talked about with clients is like having different lists for one for your energy, right? So it could be like, today, I'm in a creative mood. So I have a creative list of projects that I can do, or today, I'm not in a creative mood. So I'm going to be working on my admin list. So creating, like different types of options for yourself, which again, is that like, structure piece of I have an external system that I'm looking at. But then you have the flexibility piece of where's my energy at today? Like, what, what do I want to start with?
Kate Bendewald
Yeah, that's interesting. It's, it's funny to hear you say that out loud. Because, in a way, I do that already for myself, imperfectly, of course. But it's more like notice, like knowing my, the flow of the week and my habits. So sitting there talking about Sunday, scaries, I don't get Sunday, scaries I get Mondays, I have the ability to kind of check out during the weekend, and just be with my kids, which I'm really grateful for that. But when I come back Monday, and I sort of refocus, you know, everything that we're trying to accomplish and work on at a given time, when I see the list, and I see all the things, there's a part of me that gets like anxiety, and I get like, oh my gosh, so much to do. And I really trying to work on getting better at recognizing, you know, shifting priorities and knowing what's what's going to what's going to need to come first, but the other thing is organizing my week. So I've realized that, you know, Mondays are just like it just takes me to full day to kind of get organized, check in with people's, I don't typically have meetings with people except for my team. And that's been working. And then Tuesdays is a lot of writing and getting stuff done. And I feel good to kind of get that out of the way so that by the time when they rolls around, I feel like okay, I've gotten all the, like TASKI type stuff off the table. I've been in communication with people, and they're working on their stuff. And so Wednesday really allows me to get into that creative flow, where I don't have meetings, although I might do a podcast interview, because to me, that's part of the creative process and content creation. But the it feels good, because I'm not I'm no longer burdened with all of those tasks, because I've already had some momentum on them. And I know that I have the rest of the week to check back in. So I really can use Wednesdays to kind of check out and do creative work deep creative work, minimal distractions, I usually got music going, I you know, really, I love Wednesday. And so then that allows me to finish off the week by following up with people, but for sure, by Thursdays, my energy is just like, all right, and so I think it's, you make a good point to notice that energy and work with it and save some of those things that are going to help you in your low energy times that you know, you can get done during this time.
Sarah Lovell
Yeah, and I think like for a lot of people like having those options ahead of time, like already written out for yourself so that when a low energy day swings through or like when your energy dips in the afternoon, and you're not able to maybe do the thing that you were planning on doing, you already have your options written out for yourself. Because then you're like choosing from a menu versus like realizing okay, my day is not going the way I thought it was gonna go. And then feeling stuck. Because I think that can be like for a lot of people if our schedule if our our plan changes, it can be really hard to figure out what am I going to start on or what's going to like serve me best right now. So kind of being able to like gift your future self
Kate Bendewald
options. And I would think that on that list would include stuff like not work related, like yeah, get off of the computer, go for a walk, go to the grocery store, you know, to me like going to the grocery store, which I almost rarely do because I do grocery pickup a lot but or here's the other one that I do. I actually talked about this with Christie on that episode, which is a really fun episode, and we'll be sure to link to it. Because you work with Christy, she shared that with us on the episodes, I think it's fine to say that. But one of my like brain breaks that I do, there's a really good goodwill over here, there's always these like, crazy find. And if I'm, you know, unless I'm in a real steep deadline, but if I'm just like, hit a wall, I can hop up, go over to Goodwill for 30 minutes, 20 minutes, look around, grab lunch, and then come back. And I feel like I'm not looking at a screen. And completely shifting gears for a minute. And it gives me this, like, I rejuvenate again, if or I'll go to the grocery store, and I'll get something for dinner, which makes me feel productive. You know, like I goodwill is not a productive feeling. I'm definitely just for the for the love of looking around. But I would think that there could also be on this list of your toolkit, things that are just not work related, that allows you to just kind of check out for a moment is that also helpful?
Sarah Lovell
For sure I self care. So my whole, like coaching philosophy is that self care and self talk is truly the foundation of our executive functioning. So we need self care in order to plan, organize, prioritize, do all those things every single day for all areas of our life. But we also need those same skills in order to do self care, right? Like self care requires us to carve time out, it requires planning. And when I say self care, I think we all have a different image in our head of like, what that might be right? Like
Sarah Lovell
we're like going to Goodwill is self care? Um, yeah, that's it.
Sarah Lovell
I want to reframe that, because that is that is productive, that is rejuvenating for you re energizing for you. Yeah, self care is also like, setting boundaries, with ourselves with others with our work. If you're self employed, setting boundaries is so hard and like that is self care. Self Care is asking for help when you need it. Which being self employed, I can say like, it is hard to sometimes say like, I don't know how to do this in my business, who can I ask for help. So I think like, for me, it's like, it's that circle of like, we need self care to do all the things that we do every day with our planning, organizing, prioritizing, but we also need to have systems in order to be able to do the self care. So So yeah, I'm a huge proponent, again, of like externalizing self care, like having a list of options, because something that I talk about with clients all the time is like this feeling of limbo, where you know, you should I put should in air quotes, you should be doing something for work or your chores, or something that you're like, putting off feeling stuck on procrastinating on but like, I shouldn't be doing that. But at the same time, maybe you're not resting or doing something that would like support that like taking a break, you know, going for a walk, doing something for you. Instead, you're stuck in this like Limbo mode of I'm not doing the thing, and I'm also not relaxing. So I'm stressed about both things. And I think like that's a really common experience of like, feeling stuck. And so if you have a list of like, what are some things that I can do for five minutes that helped me, you know, feel grounded recenter whatever word rest reenergize? Like having that list can be really helpful, whether it's written down or on your phone or just like a visual reminder of like your sneakers in front of your office door to like, go for a walk.
Unknown Speaker
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Kate Bendewald
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Kate Bendewald
I realized that context switching is a big part of that mental fatigue for me. So that's, it's good to know that, you know, if you know that if I think it would be helpful personally to create a list of like, okay, things that I can do to sort of get me back into focus. It's actually happened yesterday, I and I realized that I so I've been cranking out a bunch of podcast episodes, because we're getting ready to take a trip. So we just scheduled a bunch of them. And I love love, love, love love doing this with people. But also at the end, I feel a little bit wiped I'm I'm an ambivert what happened yesterday was, you know, the plan was to do the episodes, and then I was gonna go sit down and write some writing that needs to happen for for the business. And I just could not get my act together. And there was this self talk that started to happen. And it's just like, you're pushing this deadline back, you're never going to have a done, you're gonna have to work on vacation, get it together, you know, and then I was like, You know what, screw that. And, you know, I wrote one email just to get something done. And then I said, that's enough, I will find time to do this. And I have, I've already dedicated another slot of time, but I had to move some stuff around. And so the point is, it was like this, I became aware of my thoughts. And I became aware of the self sabotaging language that I had. And I was and all of a sudden, I was like, Whoa, just chill, like, it's okay, it's fine. And then I just shut down my laptop, I lit all the candles in the house, I turned on some good music, I my kids were being wild. And had I tried to continue to do that work. While my kids were being kids, I would have just gotten mad at them. And I would have just been like, I'm trying to work, get it done. Said I was like, You know what, just go with the flow. Like, this is just what's happening. This is your life right now. And you'll figure it out. And now I feel like when I do sit down to do that writing, it's gonna be so much better because I wasn't forcing it. And that for me, that was a big growth moment.
Sarah Lovell
Yeah, well, and that's it, what I'm hearing there is like, you gave yourself the permission to do what was going to be best for you in that moment, like what was gonna like, be the best choice for you in that moment, instead of getting stuck in the limbo of like, I should be writing, I should be getting this work done, I should just push through. And to your point, like, it wouldn't have been helpful to kind of force yourself to do that work when you weren't in that, that right headspace or the right energy. And so to be able to say, I'm going to shift and take care of myself, so that I can do the work at a later time. And it's going to be better quality, and I'm going to feel better about it. And like, support myself. That's exactly what I talk about with clients all the time, like that. Permission giving, and the self, the self noticing the self talk, because it's like, well, that's what we say to ourselves matters, right? Like, we we listen to ourselves, and we're counting it as evidence, right? And so being able to notice, okay, how can I shift my thinking around this? Or how can I reframe this to support myself? And I think as like, as a business owner myself, it's you like, your your job, right? And so it's like you you want to push yourself you want to like, get things done. You want to hold yourself accountable, but how can you do that in a way that's like healthy and supportive?
Kate Bendewald
Right and gentle and just acknowledged? Yeah, like you're you have a lot, you have a lot on your plate. And sometimes you just need to take a step back in order to regroup and just have that minute that's why the Pomodoro method is so popular because it gives your brain that intense focus with a break built in and so that's again, that's another and I honestly have found that that didn't work for me because it was about 45 minutes where I'd be like no I'm in up slope. I stopped now right my train of thought, but there's a lot of people who swear by it. And for those of you listening if you're not too No, you're the Pomodoro method is, is it 45 minutes and then 15 or something like that, or there's
Sarah Lovell
another one too, where it's like 20 minutes or 25 minutes or work five minute break. And then a longer term idea
Kate Bendewald
is that you're doing a focused sprint on one specific thing. And nothing is allowed to break your concentration, you just stay in the zone, do it, whatever it is, for 45 minutes, or 25 minutes, and there's Pomodoro timers, and there are people who does really, really works for So if that sounds like you, you might want to try it out. And then you stop and you give yourself a break, get off the screen for me, I go, go water my plants, or play with my dogs, or just go look at the sky. Getting off the screen is a really important piece for me. And that allows your brain to just kind of like, take a break, and then come back to it. But I take I found that that didn't work as well for me, because it's it's about that time where I start to hit my stride. And I it takes me that long to get into deep focus. And so I don't like to if I'm there, I'm just like, why would I stop and live it? Right? So yeah, I love I love the idea of having to I want to go back to something you said earlier, though, when I said I was asking you about, you know, prioritizing and you know how to, you know, it's can be so hard to prioritize, and everything feels equally weighted. And one of the things you said was you're gonna have to pull some things off of your plate. And so it seems like, if we're thinking about what that could be, you know, a lot of the people that are listening might be a one man show, right? Or maybe they have a small team of one or two. And they're just about a non growth period. So that's like hiring for work. But it seems like it could also look like having paying for somebody to do your laundry or having your groceries delivered or having somebody oh my gosh, I feel like I need to hire somebody on Thursdays because the carpool shuffle on Thursdays is like there's a pickup and drop off at 334 3530 and 630. Oh my god. Like it's I just pay somebody to take my kids to go. But you know what the truth is, I would, I would encourage people listening to think about your own community. And who's there because for me on those Thursday, there's a group of parents who we look out for each other, and we pick each other's kids up and drop them off. And we're all on speed dial. And so that could be one way that you pull some things off your plate is to ask for help and say, Can you pick up my kid from soccer practice? Or can my kid ride with your kid to theater or whatever the case may be?
Sarah Lovell
Yeah, yeah, no prioritizing, I think, yeah. That's the best thing I ever invested in for myself was my robot vacuum. His name's Trent Krim, the independent for anyone who's watched. Um, he's a wandering, amazing guy, a mother of the robot, my vacuum. But ya know, prioritizing is really hard. Because everything often feels urgent, or like the most important thing. And so when that's the case, it's like I like we were talking about, if something is taking more time and energy, that means you have less time and energy to give to other things. So asking for help, right? Asking a partner asking your community asking a co worker, or if you have a small team and assistant asking for help, or delegating help. And that's a skill to learn how to do that, like into practice that that's definitely a piece of that puzzle. The other piece would be like, I talked about clients all the time, like When Everything Feels like it's the most urgent thing, doing like a decision tree, or doing like a series of questions for yourself to really pull out like, what is the highest priority? And how can you give that a little bit more energy, and then spread out other things. So giving yourself more time for other projects or other things that are on your radar, that are still high priority, and that you don't want to have dropped completely off. But giving yourself that space and grace to say this is going to take a little bit longer. And I think that also can go back to like communication. So I know your your audience are designers, you're working with a variety of different clients, right? So being able to like talk, talk professionally and transparently, about like realistic timelines. Because I think that can be a hard thing in any profession to set. Like so looking at am I setting something that's, like ideal or am I setting something that's realistic, and then being able to kind of have that conversation to around this is, this is how long something is going to take?
Kate Bendewald
Yes, oh, this is so good. And you know what it's reminding me of, I need to be better at this. Because I am one of those people that I make, I make a brain dump, oftentimes, each day or like I make one at the beginning of the week, and then it usually evolves over the week. But that is the number one thing that causes me stress and anxiety is not prioritizing that list. I do better when I have done this before. And I think I just got out of the habit, but I used to create quadrants. And the four corners were like, you know, project a, project B, personal to no admin stuff. And that alone was a such a simple thing to do. But I was reminded to we recently had Molly crouch, and I'll link to the show notes on this. Because we're I don't think I mentioned this at the top. But just a reminder for our listeners, where we're focusing right now on mental health, for the month of May, because it's total health awareness month. And so Molly crouch came in and talk she, she helps coach women related to, you know, building a business with more ease, so that you can really find that balance. And so she has, she definitely has a cool way that she talks about helping to prioritize, because I feel like, the biggest cause of overwhelm is a lack of clarity. And so that lack of clarity, it can happen, I know, for me, if I don't take the time to organize that list, or at least highlight or put a star by or whatever, like start here, that that is what leads to overwhelm. And so whatever you're working on, if, you know, I, the when I met, I'm thinking about the things that I do that when I'm at my best, right when I'm having a good week, you know, there's a couple of things that I do to help prioritize. And when I don't, you know, shit falls apart. I'll just say, I'm going to just share with it with the audience and know this, we do have a YouTube channel. So if you're watching this on video, you can see this, but I have my paper calendar, I'm just going to talk about some of the tools. And I will set and I will map out my week of what I have to do on the paper calendar. But then what I do is on my Google Calendar, so I've got my stuff, like, for example, this week talking to you. I knew that we were going to be talking today on on Friday. But I knew that I needed to prepare for our conversation and doing some reading and researching and planning kind of the conversation. And so I gave myself an hour and a half to do that. And I actually have to put it on my calendar and say, on this date for an hour and a half, I'm going to dedicate to planning to talk to Sarah. So when I do that list, those those top three priorities have to go on the calendar. Because if it's not on the calendar, it's not going to happen. For me, at least. And I think that's one of the tools that I find the most helpful otherwise, it just gets put into the, you know, fringes of time. And then and then I'm not doing my best work, I'm not doing my guest justice, right, by showing up unprepared or whatever. So that's a big help. I got these, by the way, this, where did I go for these, it would do their target. But I want to say it was The Container Store has. I love office supplies, I have a love affair with Office Supplies, but I have this little the people watching it's a little to do post it note and it says top three priorities. And every day I fill one of these out and it's my top three priorities for the day. That helps me to get prioritized because if I look at that big long list, it gets overwhelming. So I can keep this right in front of me. And I know I can do that. And then the other thing I've talked about this a lot is the Time Timer, showing that you're for those on video. There I love you. Time Timer is a visual timer. It and this was really helpful, especially doing client work when you're sourcing. One of the things I hear from designers is when I'm sourcing for a client, I feel like I need to scour every end of the internet like to the depths. Like I feel like there's always something better than the next, you know, vendors website or whatever. And so they find themselves going down rabbit holes, and this is where they lose a lot of their profitability is maybe they set aside 25 or budgeted 2530 hours for sourcing. And here they are 4050 hours in that is really a huge hit to your your profitability. First of all, you need to be giving yourself the right amount of time and that takes practice, right you're just going to have to do more and more projects to understand how long it takes and you'd be able to budget for that. So if you're early in the stages of You know, your interior design career, just know that you're gonna go over on time, eventually. But if you're really tracking your time and taking, taking the time to track it, then you can get better at predicting your time. But once you've been at it for a little while, here's the thing that's been so helpful for me to keep from going on hours using the visual timer. And I'll say, Okay, I'm gonna give myself 15 minutes to source lighting for the kitchen, or an hour to source lighting for whatever you know, and then I can just focus on lighting. And when the timer goes off, whatever I've pulled, I'm going to, I'm going to just leave it at that, and I'm going to move on to the next thing. And one of the things that almost always happens is either I end up love, like going back to the very first thing I picked that or let's say I move on, and now I'm looking at fabrics, or, or furnishings or whatever, I will inevitably come across something in my journey looking for something else. Or let's say I'm at a showroom, right, for example, use the same supply there. And I ended up accidentally stumbling across something else that I love. But the point is giving myself a hard stop, and just saying that's good enough, has been a game changer for me and not going over time. But it has to be visual for me. And I know we're all visual people here. So a huge tool for me. What are you What uh, what else? Do you use the Time Timer for?
Sarah Lovell
Yeah, I'm a huge proponent of the Time Timer, because yeah, we don't not everybody feels time, right time blindness is, is real. Time blindness is real. So somebody like, everybody experiences time differently. And I could like nerd out talking about this forever. But briefly, I'll just say like, we all like you said, you know, your husband. But like, there's there are people in our lives who will say like, Yeah, I'll be ready to leave in five minutes. And if we didn't go and tell them it's been 15 or 50, they might not know how much time has gone by right? Like they don't feel time passed in the same way. And so being able to visualize time can be extremely helpful. So there is Kate and I held up like we each have the actual like Time Timer that you can like an old league with you. I'll link to the show notes of the Time Timer for Amanda. Yeah, there's also a there's a free app download for iPhone, and I'm guessing Android to the time timer app, you can download it for free. I recommend that to clients who are like wanting to try out a visual timer. And I talk with clients who are trying to figure out how how long projects take them, especially if it's projects like your audience where you're doing it repetitively over and over again with different clients. Having a system to track like, how long do I think this will take? If it's not something that you're putting a deadline on? Like, how long do I think it'll take to? I don't know, do a rendering. I went to Endicott College so I'm like best friends with lots of interior designers. So I like you know the words. I know the words. I don't know what any of them mean, but
Unknown Speaker
that works. I
Unknown Speaker
love that. Yeah, I'm
Sarah Lovell
have a long time ago. But, um, but ya know, so like, being able to like put an estimate on Okay, I think this is going to take 25 minutes, timing yourself, seeing how long it actually takes, and then not being hard or judgmental or like, tough on yourself if it takes way longer or way under, but just viewing it as like, I'm learning about this for myself like this is something new that I'm practicing. But yeah, I'm a huge I love the Time Timer. I love the visual timer. I also really like auditory, like setting an alarm or a timer to keep track of time. Not everybody likes the that. But if you're somebody who wears like a watch, like an apple watch or something, you can even set those just to vibrate. So just to like help you feel the passage of time can be helpful. And then I was laughing when you were talking about making decisions because there was a research study that was done. I'm not going to remember all of the details on it. But basically it was that when we're given too many choices. We get overwhelmed and we shut down and it becomes really hard to make a decision. And so they've found that when we have a like specific amount that we're choosing from so like, think about tomato sauce at like Shah's or Hannaford these are all New England stores versus like a Trader Joe's right to Trader Joe's only sells five tomato sauces but if you go to your grocery store, there's like 50 of them right? But doesn't matter. It's going to take you longer to decide The big grocery store than it is at Trader Joe's. But chances are the pasta sauce is going to be just as good for either and you're not going to say I wish I had picked one of the other 49 other pasta sauces.
Kate Bendewald
You know, I think this is why I used to love grocery shopping. And I think as I got older, I started to hate it. And I think this was even like pre pandemic, I started to dislike it. But and now that the, you know, order online is so, so much easier, but at the top, like if I put in orange juice or whatever, it will show me the last orange juice that I bought. And I can just do I do not have to three Think it over it knows what I want. And it I think unconsciously, I'm realizing that that was allowing me to just get it done without having to think about it. I just did a video on on decision making and habits. And the point I was trying to make was in the same way that indecision can be a habit, right? We overthink everything. And we overanalyze everything, decision making can also become a habit where you, you don't allow yourself to fall into the decision making trap about everything. Literally everything. And I did this the other day, I was on a walk and I started in my brain, I don't even know it was probably related to the renovation because we're we're renovating our home. But I was in my head, going back and forth. It was like this mental chatter. And all of a sudden, I was just like, stop, it doesn't matter. Just you already made a decision there. You do not need to bemoan this, it is wasting your energy. Think about something. And I realized that was me because I've been actively trying to build a habit of thinking to myself, do I need to be mulling this over still? Or can I move on? And and I think the actively consciously it has to be intentional. intentionally thinking about is this something that requires this much mental energy? Or can I just move on and I, the more you're aware of it, I think the more you'll realize there's a lot that you could just let go and make a decision and move on with?
Sarah Lovell
Yeah, well, we make so many decisions every single day, and especially business owners, like you're making all the decisions, maybe you're bouncing the idea around with your team. But like your the amount of decisions that you make as a business owner is probably way more than you realize. And then if you add in on top of that, a family, your own personal decisions, like so many decisions every single day. And decision fatigue is real. So like you get into that of like, people, my clients talk to me all the time about the fatigue of like, what's for dinner? Like, what am I going to cook for dinner tonight, like and cooking is a whole nother executive functioning thing, but, but like, it's something that we have to decide every single day, right? And so being able to, like, take some decisions off of our plate again, by externalizing writing down what are all of my options, like having a running list of options. So it's like I'm not trying to think of everything I've ever eaten or cooked or every place I've ever ordered from because again, going back, like all those things that are swirling through our head every single day, to be able to go and say I'm gonna pull out this recipe book and I'm going to pick this recipe and feel good about that choice because that's what I have in the fridge, like narrowing it down in that way. And then going back to what you were just saying the self talk piece of like not ruminating on a decision. Like was that the right decision? Should I go back and change it? How like, am I feeling okay enough with this. So like noticing that self talk and like having something that you can just pull for yourself as like a reassurance like I made I made a choice. I feel good with my choice. The client is going to be happy like something that like you can just remind yourself quickly and have it in your toolbox.
Kate Bendewald
Yeah, I love that. Oh I'm just thinking of all of the way like that toolbox is just growing and I just I you know thinking of outsourcing you know, we talked earlier about laundry, having someone take your kids for you asking for help having groceries delivered but the the meal planning to I mean, depending on where you are and in terms of its people, cooking for them is one of the most relaxing things to do and I There are days where I feel that way and there are days where I just can't be bothered. So a couple of you know, like meal planning kits, although I've tried a lot of them If not loved the outcome of what I got. But there was a period of time where it worked because it made me I didn't have to think about what we were gonna have this stuff just showed up and we got it done. But there's another downshift ology as a website, I'll link to this in the show notes, she does these really cool meal planning and meal prep based on seasons, so you are eating seasonal foods. And I love her stuff that you can print out because you just like prep a bunch of stuff at the beginning of the week, and then you just don't have to think about it, you can mix and match those ingredients for all these different recipes that she provides. So there's all sorts of tools like that out there that can help you, oh, and plan to eat, I'm just thinking about like a lot of our audiences there. You know, a lot of times it went through also keeping everybody fed and happy and alive. So it's not as a point of stress for you, if it's causing it taking up a lot of time, there's so many resources out there that can help kind of take some of that off your plate so that you you can focus on the stuff that really lights you up and fills you up. And then one last thing, because I'm thinking about it, I see it on my on my little tab up here, there is a plugin, at least for Chrome called clearly. And do you know how you go to website so the destructibility piece for me is a big problem that I'm getting better at though. It's called clearly it's a plugin. And so if you go to a website, and it has all these flashing, like ads, and blinking stuff is extra stuff like jumping up your site, you can click the clearly out and it removes everything. But the text and the headlines is so you can read without the distractions of everything else blinking. And that is huge for me.
Sarah Lovell
That is amazing. I did not know about that one. That's I'm going to start using that. So thank you,
Kate Bendewald
clearly, yeah, we'll be sure we'll list out all of these in the show notes. Because I think like you said, for some the executive functioning pieces, like organization is something that I'm not terrible at, I'm actually really good at it. But there's other pieces, like the distractibility and feeling overwhelmed because it's hard to prioritize, you know, those are aspects that are more difficult for me. So depending on where you fall, and you know, there's a there's a handful of categories within executive functioning that you've mentioned at the beginning. And so it makes sense that people would need sort of a custom menu of options to choose from, depending on their energy, depending on what it is that they're struggling with. And so hopefully, some of these things that we talked about talked about today can help people start to build that, that menu. Before we wrap up, I'd love for you just to share a little bit about how you work with your clients. So we'll be sure to link to your website executive functioning first, but would say, you know, I know you have a waitlist right now, if somebody were to start working with you, what are the kinds of things that you could expect to gain working together with you, Sarah? Yeah,
Sarah Lovell
so I think for me, I always want clients to learn more about themselves. So like to be able to learn what their strengths are, and to build on those strengths. Because I know today, we talked a lot about some of the challenges that people experience with executive functioning. But as you just mentioned, Kate, like, oftentimes, there are lots of strengths there. And so being able to really bolster those strengths. When I work with clients, I want them to leave coaching with like a set of very specific tools that work for them. So whether that's related to time management, planning, organizing, oftentimes clients come with like very big goals or projects that they're trying to figure out how to break down how to spread out over time. So those are things that I work on, like one on one with clients. And then in all of my coaching, we talk about self care and self talk and where that pops up every single day. And so helping people navigate kind of the stress, the overwhelm, and the anxiety that can come with some of the challenges related to executive functioning. So I work with clients one on one, I do currently have a waitlist as a one woman show, it pains me to have a waitlist, that because I want to be able to work with people in a very, you know, just very one on one way. I only work with so many one on one clients at a time. And then I also do small group coaching. So right now I'm launching my first cohort, we start actually in May. And so that's a group of eight women. And we're going to be working together as a group over the course of eight weeks. And that group is specific for women who either are running their own business, growing a side hustle or working busy jobs. and balancing, like, wife on top of that. So I'll be offering more group coaching again in the fall and in the future. But another way to connect with me is through Instagram, I do quite a bit of posting on there, and love connecting with people on Instagram as well. And that's at executive functioning first,
Kate Bendewald
I was just about to ask, yes, I was actually peeking on there this week, and you actually provide some really great and helpful techniques and tools and resources right there within within your, your Instagram feed. So I always think that's, that's helpful. Well, I just, thank you so much, I feel a lot of validation, today listening to you. Because, you know, it's, it's true that there was a long time where there was, there was a lot of shame that I carried around, you know, feeling inadequate, that, like, I could never get as much accomplished in the week that that I set out or, you know, it's like compared to what are you compared to who and so I feel like I finally, there was a period of time where I had made it my mission, I'm like, I'm gonna get off of medication, I don't want to take medication anymore. And, and I did for a little while when I was pregnant, but I wasn't able, you know, to really get through my work this again, this is me, personally, I've been diagnosed. And I got so down on myself, because I wasn't able to, even with all the systems and tools I've created to, to function at my best and feel good without that piece helping me out. And so I've sort of resigned myself to you know, this is a small dose, it's healthy, it's safe, you're getting stuff done, your mental health is better because of it. So I stopped beating myself up over that. It just said, you know, what, just work with the systems that you have, and who cares if it takes medicine to help you sort of get into that zone, what I love is knowing that I can take break, I don't take it on the weekend, I don't take it during the holidays or vacation. And, and it's fine. And it is what it is. But I think that normalizing it and just bringing attention to it. Ditching The shame is really an important conversation to have. And I'm, you know, that's kind of why we're doing this here today. So you've, you've really been a great resource to help us sort through some of those. I appreciate it.
Sarah Lovell
Oh, thank you so much, Kate. Yeah, thank you for opening up the conversation around executive functioning and how it connects with our mental health and how it impacts truly everybody every single day. But it is so important to like normalize and validate that some people experience significantly more challenges with it. And if you're one of those people listening, like you're not alone. And I think like that's, that's something that I feel so fortunate to be able to do in my work is to help people learn about themselves and learn that, you know, maybe they've been using systems that don't work with their strengths or don't, don't fit for them. And so that's not, that's not a problem with them. That's it's figuring out what works for you. So yeah, I think it's an important conversation.
Kate Bendewald
All right, well, you're doing some great work, Sarah, we we appreciate it very much. I think this is gonna be a very helpful episode. Thanks for coming. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Kay,
Sarah Lovell
have a great day.
Sarah Lovell
You too. Bye. Bye. Bye.
Kate Bendewald
Thank you so much for letting me spend part of this day with you. If you're loving this podcast, please share it with a friend who you think might also love it. Or perhaps you can take just 30 seconds to open your podcast app and leave us a five star rating. And if you have just an extra minute, go ahead and leave a review. This helps me so much and it helps other designers like you to find the podcast. It also adds fuel to my motivation to keep making great episodes just for you. However you choose to help, please No, I appreciate you so very much. Thank you, my friend. Have a wonderful rest of your day and I'll see you next time.
