208. Slow Down to Expand Your Capacity

Mali List Mayer is a life coach focused on working with parents, especially with children ages 5-11. Her goal is to help people understand that time management leads to having more time. Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman is a marriage coach for women in business. Together they will discuss the topic of expansion and you.

 Welcome to the Connected For Real podcast. I'm Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman, a marriage coach for women in business. And my mission is to bring God's presence into your life, into your marriage and into your business. Let's get started. 

 And we are  live. Welcome everyone to the Connected for Real podcast. I'm Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman, and today with me is Molly coach Molly, Molly list. And I am so excited,  first of all because Molly and I were in Pratt together. So if you guys know my story, I am a graphic designer by trade. And I've been a graphic designer for 15 years before I pivoted to become a coach.

And Molly started in the same place as me with an amazing degree in Pratt Institute, and we kept in touch ever since. So this is actually a really fun conversation because this is a person that I look up to that I enjoy talking to, that I know for many years. And I'm gonna stop talking now and give it over to you, Molly.

Introduce yourself and then we'll get into an expansion. And you.  So I am Molly List Mayer. Like Bat-Chen, I did the same thing. I was a graphic designer for many years before I pivoted to become a coach, mainly for parents on time management and productivity. Helping them to get more done each day so they have time to spend with each other their families and to nurture their relationships. 

That's amazing. We all want more time. So let's talk about expanding time and, you know, that comes with collapsing time. A lot of people say get a coach and it will collapse. The time it will take to reach your goals with things like that. So here we're talking about the opposite, how to actually expand the time that you have to hold all the parts of, you know, the things that you wanna do.

So let's get into that.  So  every person. Gets 168 hours a week, doesn't matter where you live, how much money you make or not make, what kind of job you have or not have, how many kids, none of that.  And so then it becomes crucial to look at how you're spending your time  and time. Expansion actually goes hand in hand with time collapsing because if it takes you shorter amount of time to reach your goals, then you have all this extra time and that's where the time expansion comes in.

So if you are more efficient with your time, which is what I tell my clients, then you get more done, then you actually have more free time. And that's the expansion piece.  That's amazing.  Let's talk about how to do that. But first I wanna talk about what is just conceptually time and our ability to manage ourselves within time and all of that, you know, like bigger picture, because I think that, you know, people are always running to fix it.  And if we could just pull back a second and be like,  get into that. 

So  time is often referred to as a commodity, and it's not because you can't make it, buy it, sell it, get it on the black market,  you know, cook it in your oven. It just, it doesn't exist. So once time is gone, it's gone. Right? And so for me, in most of my life personally, it became about how to be more efficient with the time you have,  right?

And it's not just efficiency in the sense of  using the time wisely, but it's what you're doing within using the time wisely. Now that we have screens and we're pulled in 18 different directions, it can be very difficult to get stuff done. So I also talk to my clients about focusing, you know, what are you doing for the next hour? 

Are you working on the marketing report? Are you meal planning? But are you also checking email, answering the phone?  All of that, which takes away from the work you're gonna get done. And so it takes longer, right?  So I talk my clients out of multitasking because I don't believe in it.  I talked them into the idea of saying, for the next hour, I'm going to focus on doing one thing and one thing only. 

And I'm not gonna answer email, I'm not gonna answer my phone. I'm not gonna scroll social media at any point. I'm just going to do that one thing.  And what my clients have found is that doing that they actually get more done and it takes them shorter amount of time to finish the project, whatever it is, right?

And therefore they have more free time and it's what they do with that free time that is important because they can use that to nurture the relationship with their partner, nurture the relationship with their kids, nurture other relationships pick up an old hobby, they let go of, maybe read more, get outside more, or you know, the very least, take care of themselves, which I have found parents. 

Don't do as much as they should. They put themselves last on that to-do list and I was guilty of it myself as a parent, so I fully understand. So  yeah, I actually, in the way that you said it now, I also were sort of, was sort of picking up on  in your free time, you know, in the leftover time that's when you can use it for family.

And I'm thinking, what if it was the opposite? What if you plugged in the family time and you know, the important things that were important to you first?  Absolutely.  Yeah. That was one of the biggest game changers for me.  Right. When I help clients develop a weekly schedule, one of the things I. 

Talk to them about is the importance of time with their partner, time with their family. I mean, research has shown  that kids who sit down to a family dinner  at least four times or more a week are less likely as they get older to abuse drugs and alcohol and get in trouble with the law because they feel a connection to a larger community.

They feel a responsibility to a larger community.  And I reiterate that to my clients all the time because I want them to understand the importance of  sitting down with your kids. I raised my daughter in a home where the dinner table was device free.  There was no cell phone at the table,  and on the rare occasion, we needed to look something up.

I grabbed my phone and I looked it up,  but for the most part, we talked.  And that's important. That connection is really important. It's important with your partner, it's important with your friends. You know, you're reminding me my parents had this like, great rule that I wish we still had 'cause it was so old fashioned.

But you know, those old phones that were connected to the wall if we were at any meal and we were all sitting around the table eating, nobody got up to get the phone.  The phone kept ringing. And it was in the days where you had no idea who's calling. This could be  the phone call of the year. That was change your life and you know that thing that you need to know. 

And it was just like, Nope, nobody's picking up the phone. We couldn't care less who's calling? 'cause right now this is more important. And it taught me something extremely powerful and I wish that we still had that. It was interesting because then I went to someone else's house and her father had the, you know, it was at the time already they had like the phones without the wires, so it was wireless.

And the father was able to take it with him everywhere he went. And the wireless phone was right there on the table in case somebody calls. And it was shocking to me because for all these years I thought, this is how you have a meal. You do not. Pick up. You do not care who is on the phone.

 We don't even wanna check nothing. And it is just like shocked me. I remember feeling that and I was already like 21 when that happened. And I remember like the actual  takeback of, Ooh,  wow. When I was  growing up,  my parents tried to get my paternal grandmother to get call waiting  and her response was, if somebody's trying to reach me, they'll call back.

Right?  It's such an old fashioned concept.  When I'm working on something and I'm focused on it,  there's only two people I will answer my phone for and they have to call once and then immediately call back for me to do it. And that's my daughter and my mother. That's it. Anybody else? When I'm done with the work.

I'll call you and it annoys people. I get that. My daughter who's 20, will be like, why didn't you pick up my phone call? And I was like, because I was working,  but what if it was an emergency? I said, you would've called right back. She's like, true. I said, see?  Yeah. So  we have a rule about that. My husband knows, you know I know, and he knows that if somebody calls twice, then it's an emergency.

So I one time called and then hung up and then realized, no, I really need to call. And I called him and, and he, he answered, and, and I was like, ah, I just wanted to tell you, blah, blah, blah. He is like, what's the emergency? Like, I don't know what happened. Like, I'm wondering what you're talking about. Hey, you called twice.

I'm like, oh, I did. Oh, I'm sorry. That was totally a mistake. But it, once you have these.  Very clear rules in your mind, then you can live by them and it makes your life simpler because then you don't have to wonder and you don't have to worry and you don't have to anything. It's just like, oh, he knows to call twice.

And if he didn't, it just means that it can wait.  Exactly.  And that's, I mean, I think that's where people make the mistake is we're in a culture where it's instant gratification. People expect an email response in five seconds. They expect you to return a phone call in five minutes, and it's like, no, I'm in the middle of something.

You're gonna have to wait  because this is more important. And that's what I work with with my clients is understanding that when you're developing a weekly schedule, not only are you putting the work on it, but you're also putting family time and couples time and time with your friends or time with yourself because that's just as important as everything else. 

I love that. And you even put it on your calendar like it's an appointment, you're not gonna schedule anything else for that time and you're gonna honor it. And that's the most important thing.  And I think when we talking about, you know, we have a whole month on time, so I don't wanna get like too sucked into that, but  it's deeper than just time,  right?

 It's the promises that you make to yourself that you're keeping just like you would keep a promise to someone else.  Yeah.  I mean, I  had a client very early on in my coaching who one of her concerns was  she didn't feel she was having enough time with, with her children. And she ran two businesses.

She had three kids, all boys. And I said to her, do you have 45 minutes a day?  For your kids. And she was like  45 minutes. And I was like, yeah, 45 minutes.  And she's like, I guess. And I said, okay. So every night before each kid goes to bed, 'cause they went to bed at different times, spend 15 minutes with them. 

And the difference that made in her relationship when she, after she started it  was amazing because each kid got 15 minutes with just mom,  right. To stories to talk, whatever it was.  It's really powerful. Now multiply this,  it makes total sense that your relationships get stronger.  Right.  I'm just thinking now multiply this by eight  and understand why I'm like exhausted. 

But like, yeah, I, one of my biggest things is I try to spend time with the kids and I found that in the season that I'm in right now.  They're not necessarily all gonna get one-on-one time every single day, but they're going to be able to have access to me for a bunch of different touch points throughout the day.

So, you know, in the morning we have a long morning,  you know, till they finally go out. We wake up around here pretty early, because my three-year-old decided that he's jet lagged. Just kidding. But like, he wakes up at five and there's nothing you could do to change his schedule. So we're all up really early.

Everybody's eating breakfast, they're all playing games. They're all running outside, they're going inside, da, da, da, da, right? And my baby. And there is, there's a lot of different ages around here, so there's also a lot of different needs and there's a lot of different things going on. So within the different touch points in the day. 

Every kid has the ability to connect, which I, I really love. This is something that I did intentionally. And then once a month I, I try to do one kid at a time, you know, I'll take them out or I'll do something fun,  mommy and me time  important because it helps you when you spend one-on-one time with each kid, it helps you to understand that kid.

Right.  And, and also it takes them out one child. But I have an older sister and having the ability to have concentrated time alone with each of my parents meant that my parents got to know  the person I am versus the person my sister is. And that we are two different people and, you know, need different things, have different wants.

And so they way they related to each of us was different.  Right, and also gives, gives you the po, the abil, the ability to see the person outside of their role as like oldest, youngest, middle, right? Like sometimes you're the victim all the time, but then when they see you just on your own, you have the ability to get out of that persona  because you're not being compared, you're not being in that, you know, same environment.

It's a really powerful thing.  Right? And that's another thing, you know, when I talk to my clients about the free time, their finding is, you know, the ideas of what they can do with it. Whether it's more family time, one-on-one time with each child, you know, couple's time, whatever it is they wanna do. And they're usually. 

Shocked when they find that if they focus their time, they have more free time and they're like, oh, I can go get my nails done with my daughter. Oh, you know, I can take my son to park and get ice cream. Things like that. 

Yes. And also something I really like about, you said you don't like multitasking, but this is different than multitasking is pairing. So like you're saying, if the kids have to go to the park anyway and you like to go outside or you like to go out for ice cream or whatever, like pair it. Right. So a lot of times I'll take one kid to visit my grandmother or to do something that I anyway want to do, and then it ends up being a double, double whammy. 

Exactly.  Very cool. So let's talk more about the  productivity staying focused because I think a lot of people are trying so hard to get a lot done and you know, I just wanna like pause and say that  the problem or maybe the opportunity or however you wanna look at it, is that you look in the world and you see people who all have the same amount of time in the day,  but they're  reaching different things and creating different things and maybe  measuring themselves against  those same parameters.

And so it's good and it's bad, but it just makes us realize that it really has to do with a lot of your own decisions. Yes.  I. So let's talk about that.  Well,  when I work with a client, the first thing I have every client do prior to the first session is what's known as a time diary. 

And a time diary is that you write down your time and how it's spent by the hour or the half hour for three days,  you must include a weekend day. 'cause we often spend weekends differently than we do weekdays, and it doesn't have to be consecutive.  And they start to see where they're wasting time.  Oh, I spend an hour scrolling social media.

I binge to watch three episodes of my favorite show. Things like that, where if they planned better and said, okay, I'm going to, you know, watch the current episode of my show,  you know, stream it every Wednesday night after the kids go to sleep.  Then they're not spending time on the weekend binge watching, you know, three, four episodes, whatever it is.

And so I get them to see that even if they take the things they like that they wouldn't necessarily consider as, you know, oh, I should put that on my schedule and put it on their schedule. They actually  are more efficient, more focused, have more free time. And I think that's the key and important thing to understand is when we use our time efficiently, we find time.

And that's time expansion.  Yeah. You know what's interesting? You're talking about writing your time diary, and I'm thinking they do the same thing with food, right? When you're unconscious of what you're bringing into your mouth and what you're eating, you're constantly chewing and you're doing things and you're multitasking.

And like you said, you're not really focusing, you don't notice how much you eat. And then they tell you write it all down, and you're like and in that moment already, just the awareness is enough because you're realizing, oh man, if I sit here and rot for the next two hours on my phone, I have to write that down.

So let me like stop now and make a decision to do something that I am choosing. Right? Like trust, the awareness is enough  in most cases. Yes. In some cases, no.  'cause it becomes a habit and you have to break the habit.  Right.  You know, I had a client who was consistently running late for work.  And when I talked to him about what he spent his morning doing,  and he's like, well, I get up.

I, you know, take a shower. I go to get breakfast, I turn the news on. And I said, oh, there it is. And he is like, what? And I said, the problem is you're watching the news and you're not gonna get up from the news mid story.  Right.  And they're gonna put teases throughout the, you know, the segments so that you wanna stay later to listen to the segment that's coming up. 

So my suggestion, yeah. Instead  is don't watch the news,  but maybe,  you know, go on a news site and see what the top stories are and pick one to watch while you're eating breakfast. And then when that story is over,  you get out the door and you go to work.  That helped.  Yeah. I'm thinking of like, this is like the first primitive, you know, addiction thing where they were trying really hard to get you to stay and stay and stay on TV or on, you know, whatever was before your phone.

 Yeah, it's really powerful. I, I was also thinking that you were gonna say that the news was an input first thing in the morning that  was sort of messing with how he was, you know, running his day. It was, instead of him being in charge, it was sort of taking over. But that, that's just an interesting thing that came up for me while you were talking.

It did, but the other piece of it was,  it was a habit.  Hmm. Like his morning routine included watching the news. So  by having him go on a news site, he can pick what he wants to listen to. So he has the choice to say, I wanna listen to, you know, the sports scores, which was something he really liked.

Or I wanna listen to, you know, a news piece on what's going on in my local community versus Nat, you know, national or international news. And so his day was less affected because he was able to pick what he wanted to. Right.  Yeah. And just as an aside, if you've ever figured this out, the reason the weather and the sports is always at the end of the newscast is because that's what people wanna hear.

Yeah.  So they make you watch the entire newscast just to get to that.  Yeah, it's like the sales rack is in the back of the, and go on the weather app on your phone or on your computer or go to weather.com or you know, your local station, you know, site and look at the weather. You get all that information quickly without having to sit through  25, 30 minutes of  news that you may not be interested in. 

Right.  Yeah. I was thinking of the sales rec in the back of the store.  They know you wanna see the sales, so they're gonna put all the way back. So you have to go through all the things. It's the same idea of how are we allowing someone else to control our time?  It was really interesting. Yes.

Just the, just the concept in general, who is leading.

Right. It puts you in, it puts you in the driver's seat.  Right. I love that.  So, you know, there's a lot of coaches out there and we're all doing very amazing work. And the cool thing that I like to do is to really hone in and like, what is your niche within the niche? Within the niche? Like at the end of the day, what is your superpower?

So my superpower,  and I come to this as by experience because as I've said, I'm a mom myself, is I really like working with parents who have children ages five to 11. And the reason for that is  kids at the younger ages can be very trying on a parent's, patients and nerves and mental health.  And by helping parents develop a weekly schedule and understand how to be more focused in their time and understand how to develop, you know, good routines, good habits,  and therefore have this free time that they found that they can spend with their kids. 

It gives 'em a more rewarding relationship with their child. And as the child grows, they continue to have that strong relationship. So I would probably say my superpower is helping parents by managing their time, understand that they're developing strong relationships  with their kids, their partner,  their family, their friends. 

Yeah, I love that. I think that by the time they get to you.  They've gone through the trying period of having kids under five, which is, you know, not easy.  No. And now they're like almost sort of ready. But the other thing that happens when your kids pass the age of five, which I wouldn't know because I just keep, you know, staying in the stage of young kids.

'cause I, you know, I have eight kids and they're pretty much two or three years apart. So every two or three years I go back in time to, oh, we're doing this again. But meanwhile, my older ones are getting older and what I'm realizing is that the more independent they are and you know, five is really fun because they're able to take care of themselves and do things and they're old enough but not old enough.

You know?  Right.  That creates time in itself.  The fact that you don't have.  You know, little dependent people that are sucking your time. Yes.  So can we talk about that for a second? Because I think a lot of people are just sitting there going, the time isn't mine to begin with, and therefore I can't manage it because I am not the one in charge. 

Agreed.  In that sense when I talk about, you know, working with parents, with kids five to 11, it's because a lot of those parents don't realize, don't, you know, don't think about it or don't embrace the fact that yes, at five years old, your kid can do enough stuff for themselves, that you can get back some time.

And yes, when they're younger than five, they need a lot more help, you know? They can't get dressed. They, you know, can't make their own food. You know, things like that. But if you start at five with helping your child understand there's things they can start to do for themselves,  then they feel a sense of accomplishment because they got themselves dressed, or you know, they tied their shoes  and you have a little more time to yourself. 

Mm-hmm. So it goes hand in hand in teaching your kids  how to quote unquote be independent as they grow. And that gives you more time. Now, there are some parents who will, you know,  smother their children, you know, from day one till they're in their twenties and, you know, wanna make them breakfast and, you know, wanna do all these things.

And that's, I'm not saying that's wrong, but there's two ways to do it. You can do it that way where you just keep doing everything. Or you can gradually, slowly hand things over to your children so that you get time back gradually slowly as they get older. 

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  Yeah.  Yeah. I'm loving this I'm thinking just like that guy who was watching the news, he sat there and had to tell you step by step what he does, and to him, it wasn't obvious. 

Right. And sometimes when a person says, my kids are sucking all of my time, I have no time to myself, I am, you know, completely drained, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. At the end of the day when you have to actually say what you do,  you don't realize how many pockets of time you had by yourself that you wasted because you just were so depleted that you're trying to grab at anything.

And of course, the easiest stuff to grab is the junk food. The easiest stuff to grab is, you know, the brainless, mindless waste of time. And I'm not telling anybody that like they're wrong in, in doing that. It's just the way the brain works and that's okay. But when you get intentional and you actually look, you're like, oh, that's really cool.

And this is what happened to me.  With my journey of prayer, I was always being like, you know, I can't, there's no time I, you know, I just can't find time to pray in the morning. I'm constantly running after my kids, you know, my go-to was like, there's a reason why women aren't obligated and time-bound commandments because we have no time.

You know? But when I challenged myself,  I realized that actually I can pray in the morning, and it allowed my kids to learn that they can also do things that are individual within the space and time, even though we're all in the same room. You know, this was, by the way, really a great blessing.  In Corona time when we were all stuck in the house.

Suddenly it was their first time seeing that we adults have a life beyond just being their parents. Mm-hmm. And  before Corona, there was like a very clear segregation between, okay, now is family time. I need to get you all out of the house, go to school, do the thing. And then I have my space and I work until you get home.

And then again, I'm only with you and da, da da da. And then I put you to sleep. And I go back to work and I do the work, and then I go back. You know, I go into my night routine and and so on. So there's like so clear home work, home work, even though I was working from home. So to me it didn't  make a difference, it was just, the difference was the kids. 

And suddenly we're all finding ourselves in the same place. We're all stuck at home. Everybody's here. And they're starting to realize that, oh, I have meetings.  They have to be quiet outside the door. I disappear for an hour and then I come out, and then now I'm with them. But then my next meeting is in 15 minutes.

And between this and that, I also have to eat. So I'm running to the kitchen and they, you know, wait a minute, they also wanna eat. So it just became like the, this relearning of how to manage yourself within  the family unit when there isn't the separation.  Yeah, I mean, Corona was eye-opening for a lot of people in that sense.

There was a lot of difficulty for parents in,  you know, working and helping their kids go to the school and juggling all of that and realizing that they couldn't do both at the same time. And you know, companies having to understand that, you know, my employee has a five-year-old  child and that child needs to go to school.

So from, you know, nine to 12,  I don't have this employee working for me every day because they're helping their kid go to school. And I think that  also forced people to think about how they spend their time because  their time was drawn in so many directions that they needed to be clear. This, at this time, I'm doing X at this time I'm doing Y at this time I'm doing Z.

So that, you know, everybody in the family knew what the schedule was. Okay. Mom's got school in the morning, dad's got school in the afternoon. You know, so dad works in the morning, mom works in the afternoon. We don't bother dad in the morning. We go to mom, you know, we don't bother mom in the afternoon, we go to dad.

Things like that became necessity,  right? To make sure everything could get done.  I think the, you know, things just started sharpening up because we were forced to, you know, also a lot of marriages were rubbing against each other  because they were suddenly in the same place and they suddenly had to communicate better and they suddenly had to be more clear about their values and about what matters and what doesn't matter, and about their boundaries and about all sorts of things.

That it's okay in most cases to be fuzzy about things and just go through life. But then when you're pushed into a corner, you have to really start to get extremely clear.  And I think this is one of those things that getting a coach and sitting down and looking at your time, looking at what you're doing, looking at your goals, looking at where you're going. 

Is very sharpening to who you are, what are your values, what matters to you, and then how are we going to do that uniquely to you? And that's what I really love to do. Right? Yeah.  Yeah. I had a colleague in my last office job who said, the only stupid question is the one you don't ask.  Oh. And his point was, you need to ask.

And you know, I tell that to clients all the time, you're not gonna get what you want unless you ask  for it.  Yeah. Your partner, your, your family is not, they're not mind readers.  Yeah. So, if you need something, you need to ask for it.   At the same time, you need to be clear  what you're asking of them or what you're asking for,

yeah.  You know, it reminds me of art school when we used to have brainstorming sessions and  you had to come up with the most ridiculous things first and only kill it after, because some of those crazy ideas were the things that were the most successful.  And you would never know until it comes out of your brain and somebody else hears it and says that, that that was genius.

And you're like, it was 'cause it sounded extremely terrible in my head, you know? Yeah. And not only that, some of the most successful things in the world,  what came out in the end wasn't what they set out to do.  Right. Yeah. You know, it's like they started with one thing, ended up with another, and it became very successful.

So, you know, that's the, the point is, unless you are clear on what you want and asked for.  You don't know if you're gonna get it or not.  Right. You know?  Yeah. It's that simple. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about that. When it comes to expansion,  we're all looking to expand. I talk about expanding your vessel and opening yourself up to receive more and also have the capacity to hold more.

So you know, I bring this analogy of the plate. When people say, oh, I can't sign up now because I have too much on my plate. And I say, what do you do when you have too much on your plate?  And they usually say, you take something off. And I'm like, no, you'll get a bigger plate. Right? You expand the capacity and now you can have all the things.

So instead of saying, well, you know what, because I'm a parent now, I can't work anymore. I'm just going to kill work and focus on parenting. Or you know, by the way, that creates so much resentment. It's terrible. Don't do it. Unless this is what you really want and then do it.  And the opposite is like, oh, I, I have to choose between my marriage and my business.

And it's just, you know, impossible. It's like you don't have to choose. The point is you can't expand. So let's talk about that a little bit more because we're getting somewhere really good.  Right? So  there is no such thing as work life balance and there is no such thing as work life harmony. It is about more or less a ying and yang, which is there are gonna be times when work demands more. 

You have to give more. And there are times when family demands more and you have to give more. And if you have the right, you know, habits, routines, skills in place, then doing that  can be easy. But part of what makes it easy is good communication. Mm-hmm. So if you need more time for work, making sure that your partner and your family, your kids, extended family, maybe babysitters, you know, dog walkers, whatever it is, understand that.

So they give you that leeway to do that so that when you come back from that period, you don't feel like you've missed out on anything. You don't feel like your family is, you know, pissed at you or you know, aggrieved. It's more, we have this deal and I needed a period. Time more for work, and my partner picked up the slack at the family and vice versa, when it's his turn or her turn, I'll do the same. 

Right. And that's the important thing.  Yeah. You know, I had a client who would go into a different country to take care of her parent  and then come back exhausted. And it would just create a whole slew of reactions from the drainage, you know, like I get there and I'm all on and have to do this, this, this, this, and this.

And then I take care of my father and I'm doing all the thing, and then I come back and I have to like crash and  refi myself up.  And then it starts all over again a couple months later when it's my turn again to go take care of him. And I said, what if you had a system in place that supported you while you were at your father's?

Right? Like what if your favorite foods were waiting for you? What if you had someone cooking meals for you when you're there? What if you had, you know, a massage every week while you're in his country and then when you come home  you have systems in place at home that would, you know, sort of allow you to crash in a way that is softer and smoother and sort of like allow you to rejuvenate faster.

So what do you need in place for this to happen? This was an amazing conversation because she suddenly realized that she's allowed  to take care of herself while she's taking care of her father, and she doesn't have to be completely drained and broken by the time she gets back, which was a complete.  180 from what she was living through. 

Right. And then the other thing with that is not just have processes and systems in place for her, but if she's leaving her family for a large period of time to take care of her father, have processes and systems in place in her family so that they can continue to function a top form while she's gone so that she's not coming home to, you know, a broken down family.

Right.  'cause that's key too. She may be broken down, but coming home to a family that's broken down that she now has to build back up along with building herself up at the same time.  Right. That's why she was crashing and burning.  Right. To a certain extent.  Yeah, it's amazing that we all have our own experiences and when we are in the experience, we don't see a way out because we're just so enveloped in our own issues  and only through helping other people and being helped by other people because it's always a give and take.

There's always that need for sharpening each other. Right.  Only through that are you able to see, oh, it could be different. What if we could play with this a little bit? What if we can adjust it? And that's what I, I've just been so fired up about. Is don't, don't do this alone. Don't do anything alone like you don't.

Life was not meant to figure it out on your own and pretend that everything's okay. It's actually meant to be in community. It's meant in, you know, to be in, in that belonging. Right?  Yeah. I mean, I tell people all the time, you know, the amount of time it takes to double a recipe and cook double a recipe is not that much more than doing a single, right?

So why not make a second casserole? Why not roast two chickens and put one in the freezer for those days when you don't feel like cooking or there's so much going on that you don't feel, you have the time to put a hot meal on the table so that instead of takeout, you're going to your freezer and saying, oh, I've got this lasagna.

I've got, you know.  This roast chicken that I pair with a salad for my family and go that way.  Yeah. And they all look at me and they're like, oh.  And I said, not only that, if you put a note on the top of the item as to how to defrost it and how to reheat it, you don't even have to be home.  Right. You could call home and have your teenager take the chicken out of the fridge and put it in the oven for your partner.

You know, it's, it's that simple. And they're all like, oh. And I was like, yes.  You know? Right.  You know what? I think it's been really amazing for me was marrying my husband and he's so systematic and I had to learn from him all sorts of cool things about just letting things be easy because I didn't have that experience.

So.  In my family, every meal is created by a creative artist who just looks at what there is and makes up a recipe. And it's very nice most of the time. And sometimes it comes out terrible and that's fine 'cause it's part of the creation process. But my husband's a scientist and he follows directions and he does things the same way every time.

So his meals are always the same, pretty much. He's learned a little bit, I'm rubbing on him a little bit too much, and now he's just playing with the recipes. But for the most part, he's very much like, you know, to the law. And he doesn't care that we're eating the same thing every single week as long as we have a system.

So it is so much easier when you have a system in place. I did not even realize until I had to face it.  Yep.  Yeah. I mean I meal plan and have for many, many years. Because it  makes two things easier. It makes deciding what's for dinner way easier because it's already decided. And two,  it makes grocery shopping easier, right? 

Because you actually have a grocery list, this is what I need to buy for this week for meals. And there are basically  about three ways you can meal plan. I mean, you can meal plan by the week, meaning, you know, meatless Mondays, taco Tuesdays, you know, wacky Wednesdays where people serve breakfast for dinner, which little kids seem to like, huh.

Or you can say, you know, Mondays is chicken and Tuesdays is fish and Wednesdays is pasta. And do it that way. Or I know people who pick recipes and, you know. The month of March is 31 days, and they will pick 31 recipes  and just have them stacked out so they know this is what I'm cooking.

Now, there may be a time when they're going out and they're not cooking and they can adjust as needed, but they literally just, they know what they're cooking from day one of the month till the end of the month.  Interesting. And so it makes it easier. Do they always just follow that, like, the first of the month is always x and the, the second of the month is y No, they can change it up  Interesting.

As the months go on, but you know, that's cool.  Yeah. And there are, like for instance, if you're doing a meal plan that's like, you know, Mondays is chicken, Tuesdays is fish, Wednesdays, you know, is pasta. You can also pick four to six recipes and say, these are the chicken recipes I'm gonna choose from in the month.

Right, right. And then each week you pick which one you want.  So there's lots of ways to do it that just, and it just makes it so much easier. It's a little more difficult now that I am an empty nester to meal plan. Just 'cause it's just me. And it's, you know, why do I want a meal plan for one person?

But I do it  and I then always have leftovers. And leftovers can be another dinner, it can be lunch,  you know, whatever you choose. And so it's just, it's easy. 'cause then I don't have to think I know what's for dinner.   This is so beautiful. You said something so important and I want to slow down here  just because I'm only cooking for myself.

What's the point? You know? And that is something that we.  Very nice, good people who have been doing for everybody and everything all the time  tend to fall into, which is like, ah, it's just for me, so who cares? And I was like, no, no, no, it matters. It matters more than you think. And I'm so proud of you that you still do it even though you're like, ah, whatever.

But if you didn't do it, you would start to feel it so quickly and you would be paying prices that you wouldn't even be aware of because it's just all, you know, starting to like  go in all the directions. Yep. When I was in my twenties, I lived in an apartment and the oven broke  and they came and fixed it, and then it broke again.

And I called the management company and they're like, okay, we'll get you, you know, an appointment with the repair people. And I call back 10 days later.  I was like, okay, I'm still waiting for my appointment. And the woman literally was like, oh, she's probably a single woman living in New York. She's like, it's just an oven.

And I looked at her and said, I cook dinner for myself almost every night. I use my oven, like turn it on to bake something at least two to three times a week. She's like, here's the number for the repair company.  So, you know, for me, cooking is a way of showing love to yourself. Yes. It's a way of, you know, slowing down, sitting down  and taking note of who you are  and you know, getting in touch with yourself.

And so I've always viewed it  as that,  you know, so that's the important thing.  You know what happened here? We're talking about expanding time. We're talking about expanding your capacity. And what ended up happening is that we're talking about slowing down. We're talking about not multitasking. We're talking about all the things that seem to be the opposite of what you would expect.

Exactly. And you know, you gain time when you meal plan  because you don't have to think each day, well, it's for dinner. Do I need to stop at the grocery store and pick something up as part of dinner? It's done. And even if you do have to stop at the grocery store, you know that ahead of time,  right? 

And it's one less decision to make. And you know, when we have less decisions to make, we actually function better. Because by the end of the day, you don't wanna be making decisions. You're tired of making decisions.  Why they call it decision fatigue. So it's, you know, and then you eat healthier.  You're not going for the junk food, you're not going for the frozen dinners. 

Right.  You know, it's, it's just been so fun. It's so fun to go in all the different directions of expansion and how to create that time and space for the things that matter, because Exactly.  We're realizing more and more that if you're not leading, then you're following, and Exactly. If they're feeding you what they want you to consume, then that's it.

Like you've given away your power. And with expansion, I think  that's really the most important part, is like, you know, I have the calm method, which is the four steps to creating Flow. And that's exactly what, you know, when you create flow, you have more space, you have more abundance, you have the capacity  to  hold all the parts of you.

It's just so fun. This is like what lights me up the most now I'm like awake again. And step one is connect to yourself, which you would think is such a not necessary step because like, come on, we gotta get things done, let's go, boom, boom, boom. It's like, no, actually you gotta slow down. You gotta take a deep breath, you gotta check in.

Right? What do I want? What matters?  Exactly. And interestingly, I read several months ago an article, and in the article the woman journalist said, it's not empty nesting, it's open nesting because it's an opportunity for you to sort of recreate who you are now that your kids or kid is, in my case, out of the house.

And  I found that so interesting because the idea of empty means they're all gone. It's empty. Open means you're open to new possibilities.  I love that.  Can we put that on like a big T-shirt? Oh, it's great.  I love it too. 'cause I was like, oh, and it's why, you know, last fall I went on a big trip and my daughter's like, you're going get a trip without me.

And I was like, yeah, I am. It's a trip I've wanted to do for a long time. I went to Sicily and I said, I'm celebrating that you are out of the house and I have this space to myself. And she got so upset and I was like, but understand, you know, it's not, I'm not doing it meanly. It's like, oh, I have an opportunity to sort of do things for myself and take care of myself and really focus on me  when you're not here.

And that's great. And that just means that when you are here, I'm more focused on spending the time with you. I've done the things I wanna get done or need to do when you're not here.  Yes. That kind of, that kind of, you know, made her happy, but not quite.  I think it also models for her that she's allowed to take care of herself and do the things that make her happy,  even when there's not other people doing it with her, even though it's not exactly how she thinks it should be or whatever.

It's like, no, you do you, it's so great that you're celebrating. I celebrated this morning that my daughter went to first grade after an hour of  know all of the trials and tribulations of trying to get her out of the house.  I, I waiting for the moment. When you model for your children behaviors such as, you know, taking care of yourself and taking care of your, you know, partner relationship.

And, you know, being there for your parents or you know, his parents or other extended family members. Then they see that and they mo and they wanna do it. It's like, oh, well mom does it or Dad does it, you know then it must be something you should do.  Right. Versus if you tell your kids this is what you need to do,  you know, they might be like, Ugh, I don't wanna do it.

But if they see it, they're like, oh,  I see how much joy, you know, mom and dad get from spending time together. I want that when I  grow up and get married.  Yeah.  Yeah. I love that. This is so beautiful. It's really wrapping everything up for me  in the most simple way, right?

Because one time we went to a retreat and I took my aunt to be my cook, right? I was like the one creating the retreat. And I wanted there to be a person cooking live while we're having our sessions so that you could smell the food in the kitchen and feel really loved and taken care of, and you could put in your 2 cents about what you like and don't like.

There was a really great feeling, and my aunt is awesome like that, so she also made it really great. And on the ride home she says, do you realize that we are our entire, you know, society, we'll pay to get away  and do nothing like go back to doing the things that we could do for free,  but we just don't because 

you know, it's not worth my time to sit and just breathe or to sit and eat or to cook or whatever, but like it is, it is like we're talking about the counter intuitiveness of cook your own meals, plan ahead. Really nurture yourself and you'll see how much more time you have in your day. That makes no sense in paper, but then you actually put it on paper and you realize, yeah, because I'm not subconsciously trying to escape, trying to distract, trying to fill my holes by noise.

So I don't have quiet, I'm actually okay with the quiet. And this is a real shift.  Oh yeah. I think for a lot of people and there's so much noise because between, you know, with screens and you know your phone and email and videos and all that, there's just so much out there  filling up your void.

That we often don't realize that it's not quiet. And then when we sit down and say, okay, we're just gonna sit, it's like, wait it's too quiet. Like, where's the background? Right? And it's like, no, that's okay.  You know, it's okay to sit down with a cup of tea and just chill or read a book,  you know, with nothing else going on. 

It's really beautiful outside today. And it, it was, it was cold for a couple days. So the whole day today, and it's only two o'clock in the afternoon, but the entire day, every time I had some time, I went outside, I sat on the ground, I, and I touched the ground, and I just sat there and I, you know, either I was eating something or I was just sitting, whatever.

But.  I found myself grabbing these moments and really grounding myself. It has been such an amazing experience. Like person sitting there thinking you know, oh, she probably does this all the time. No, I don't. That's why this is so exciting, because I know it in my head,  but for me to actually give myself permission to pause everything and just go sit down outside for five minutes and then come back in and do more work is, is really powerful.

And I'm hoping one day I listen to my own podcast and be like, oh, that's a good reminder. Let's go outside and play. You know?  Exactly. You, we need to get outdoors. I mean, I live basically five minutes from Prospect Park, the biggest park in Brooklyn, and I walk in the park several times a week and you know, I often forget  I'm in the middle of New York City  when I do that because the park is so beautiful.

I'm out in nature and I'm like, oh.  I'm, you know, I'm in Brooklyn, I'm not, you know, in the country somewhere. And it's needed,  right. You know, as I've said, parents put themselves last on their to-do list,  and we need as parents to take care of ourselves because if something happens to us,  we're of no use to our partners, to our kids, to our work, to anything if we're not in good shape.

Good form,  right? Yes. Yes. This has been so fun. I love catching up with you. I love having you on my podcast. You guys know   longest friendships that I could think of that are really meaningful. So thank you for coming on. You're welcome. How do people find you? People can find me.  My website name.

Is life management pro.com. Or they can just shoot me an email at Mali List.  And that's MALI Mayer, MAYE r@gmail.com.  And just an interesting aside, I was named after my great-grandmother, which is why it's spelled that way.  So M-A-L-L-I is is your great-grandmother. Yeah. That's so beautiful.  I like that. 

Very cool. So thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you to the listeners for coming.  And if you wanna go back and listen to the entire series on expansion, you can listen to expansion in God, expansion and marriage expansion and business. And then this one was expansion in you. And I love that we were able to really wrap it up in this way. 

Reminding ourselves to slow down, to think ahead, to really pause, in order to create better time management later is a great reminder. So thank you. And don't forget to be connected for real.

 And that's it! Thank you for listening to the very end. I would love if you can leave a review and subscribe to the podcast. Those are things that tell the algorithm this is a good podcast and make sure to suggest it to others. Wouldn't it be amazing if more people became more connected for real?  And now take a moment and think of someone who might benefit from this episode. 

Can you share it with them?  I am Robinson Bat chen Grossman from  connectedforreal. com. Thank you so much for listening and don't forget you can be connected for real.