How to Audit Your Calendar: The 4 Buckets Framework (Ego, Guilt, Strategic, Heart)
Show Notes
The holidays are over, the decorations are packed away, and the reality of your January calendar has officially set in. If you are a high-achieving woman, you likely started the year with big goals, but by the second week of January, your schedule is already fighting back. In this episode, we are tackling the root cause of your time management struggles: The "Guilt Yes."
If you are the "Go-To Girl"—the one everyone hands the hose to when there is a fire, or the one everyone looks at when a committee needs a Chair—this conversation is your permission slip to quit.
I share my own messy, real-time struggle of closing a business chapter but keeping a "ghost commitment" alive. I realized that by driving to a coffee shop every week to sit at an empty table with my macchiato, I wasn't being a leader. I was being a martyr.
Free Cheat Sheet: The 4 Buckets Framework.
I know you’re busy, so I took notes for you. Download the 1-page guide to auditing your calendar, plus the exact script to say 'No' without guilt.
In This Episode:
(02:58) – The "Competence Trap": Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
(05:00) - The "Martyr with a Macchiato": Why staying available hurts your leadership.
(08:49) - Bucket 1: The Ego Yes. Doing it for the title/vanity.
(09:42) - Bucket 2: The Guilt Yes. Doing it because you're afraid to let people down.
(10:49) - Bucket 3: The Strategic Yes. It pays the bills (even if it's boring).
(11:29) - Bucket 4: The Heart Yes. It aligns with your values and fills your cup.
(12:40) - Opportunity Cost: The economics of your sanity.
(18:36) - Recap & Your Weekly Challenge: Kill the "Ghost Commitment."
Resources Mentioned:
Free Download: I created a "4 Buckets" Cheat Sheet and a phone wallpaper with the "Nice No" script so you can save it for later. Download with buttons above
Book: Hell Yeah or No by Derek Sivers.
This Week's Challenge:
Open your calendar and look at the last month. Identify the "Red Blocks"—the things you said yes to out of Ego or Guilt. Find one "Ghost Commitment" (something dead that you're still dragging around) and cancel it using the script provided in the episode.
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· Music for The Rhonda Lavoie Podcast written and recorded by Wade and Tan Fehr.
Transcript
[00:00:05] Okay. I have a confession to make and don't touch me on this because I know better. If you listen to the season finale. You heard me say I closed the TUF institute. I pivoted and this is true, but it's not the whole truth because there's still one reoccurring meeting my calendar. It happens every week at TOT Cafe, my local coffee shop, and it used to be the TUF Collaborative. I closed that side of the business, but I couldn't bring myself to close that connection piece, the connection with the members.
[00:00:41] So I did that classic nice girl thing and I said, let's. Just keep meeting, uh, at the coffee shop. No charge, just us. And it sounds innocent enough because the connection is, is fabulous, right? But now I'm literally haunting my own business because I drive to the coffee shop, I buy my macchiato, I grab our spot.
[00:01:07] And because it's free and there's no structure. Sometimes nobody shows up and I'm sitting there staring at my phone, resenting a meeting that I put in my calendar, feeling guilty that I'm wasting time, but I'm terrified to cancel it because I don't wanna be the bad guy. So if you have a commitment in your calendar right now, that is dead weight, a total ghost, but you're still dragging it around.
[00:01:40] Grab a coffee. We need to talk. Welcome back to the Rhonda Lavoie Podcast. I'm your host Rhonda Lavoie, and we are fully back in the swing of things here. Uh, the holidays are behind us that decorations are down and reality is setting back in.
[00:01:56] And that is exactly why we need to have this conversation today, because in January. We love to set big goals, but by the second week of January right now, the calendar starts kind of fighting back. Today we're zooming in on your Tuesday afternoon, we are talking about the one resource you can't buy more of. I don't care how rich you get. You can buy another house. You can buy a better car, but you can't buy back yesterday.
[00:02:30] I wanna talk to the woman who is the go-to girl. You know who you are. You are the one who gets it done. When there is a fire, people hand you the hose. When the committee needs a chair, everybody looks, when the committee needs a chair, everybody looks down the table at you and usually you say yes. Not because you want to necessarily, but because you can.
[00:02:58] We talked about the competency trap before, you know, doing things just because you're good at them. But today I wanna talk about the "guilt yes". It's that moment, you know the one when you look at your phone and you see a commitment you made three weeks ago, maybe It seemed like a good idea at the time.
[00:03:19] It's here and your stomach drops and you don't feel excited. You feel heavy, and you start thinking, maybe if I drive really slow, I'll miss it. Or you start praying for a flat tire. You know that feeling. That isn't just you being grumpy, that is resentment. And resentment is data. It is your body telling you that you're overdrawn. I need you to hear this. Being the go-to girl is a dangerous place to be. We wear like a badge of honor though, right? Oh, don't worry. I can squeeze that in. I can handle it. We fill our calendars with things that we are capable of doing, and we leave zero room for the things we are meant to be doing.
[00:04:11] And here's the hard truth. You don't have to turn every talent into a paycheck, and you definitely don't have to volunteer for everything just because you know how to fix the problem. Just because you can carry the load. Doesn't mean it's yours to carry. Drop it. So back to my coffee shop, confession, because this is painful for me to admit.
[00:04:43] I told you I closed TUF institute. But the collaborative, but the collaborative the people, that's harder. I love these women, and because I felt guilty about closing the business, I tried to find a loophole. I thought I could just keep the conversation going and the meetings going and that connection going. I thought it would be, you know, a, a gift to them, but here's what I actually did By closing the business and stop charging, I remove the priority.
[00:05:19] When people paid to be there, they showed up. . We had an agenda. When I made it casual, I gave everyone permission to put it last on their list. And honestly, they're right to put it lost on the list. They aren't showing up because they value their time.
[00:05:38] They have other priorities. But me, I'm still driving there and sometimes I'm sitting there at an empty table and it hit me the other day. I am not doing my members any favors by showing up. I'm supposed to be a leader, but what am I modeling right now? I'm modeling that it is okay to wait around. I'm modeling that my time has no value, and if I don't value my own time enough to cancel a dead meeting, how can I expect them to value it. By showing up. I'm not being nice. I'm just being a martyr with a macchiato . We have to stop confusing being available with being a leader. It's about being strategic.
[00:06:29] Take the Agent Advisory Council, so that's the AAC for, uh, my realty company, eXp Realty here in Saskatchewan. I was the chair. It was a big title. It was a big responsibility. But I looked at my capacity and I realized I cannot do this job well right now. And for me, that matters. If I can't do it with excellence.
[00:06:53] I don't wanna do it at all. So I stepped down as the chair. I didn't leave the council completely. I'm still a member because that only takes about 30 minutes a month, and that fits. But I released the heavy lifting because the ROI.
[00:07:08] So the return on investment wasn't there for me anymore. Compare that to the SCC, my school community council, I'm the chair of that. And trust me, being the chair of a parent council is work. It is thankless sometimes, but I kept it because that ROI is massive.
[00:07:30] It keeps me connected to my daughter and my nephew's school. It lets me know what is happening in their world so I can help them. That Yes is worth the energy.
[00:07:40] The AAC chair Yes, was not.
[00:07:43] So when you look at your calendar, it's not about burning it all down. It's not about asking, does this Yes, actually pay me back.
[00:07:51] I wanna pause here just for a second because I can practically hear your brain buzzing through the microphone. You're sitting there thinking, okay, Rhonda, that sounds great. Just say no, easy for you to say. But it's not, is it? It's messy because in the moment, everything feels important. So here's the cheat sheet I use in my own head to stop myself from going crazy. When I look at the chaos of my week, the AAC, the SCC, the coffee shop, the clients, the kids.
[00:08:27] I realize there are actually four buckets of Yes, and I want you to do this with me. Don't just listen. I want you to mentally scroll through your calendar right now. I'll wait. Just, just do that quick scroll, what your week looks like, what do you have coming ahead, and then let's sort this.
[00:08:49] Bucket number one is the "ego yes". I know, right? We have all been guilty of this one. I know I have. This one was the AAC chair for me. What did I say? Yes to that initially, if I'm being really honest. It sounded good. It was shiny. It made me feel important to say I'm the chair of that for my company. It feeds that vanity a little bit, doesn't it?
[00:09:15] We like the badge. We like the title, but does it serve my actual life? No. If you have things on your calendar. That you are doing because they look good on a resume or because you like being the important one in the room, but you actually dread doing the work. That is an "ego yes".
[00:09:41] And you need to, and you need to get over yourself and let it go. Bucket number two. Is the "guilt yes". This is the one that gets us, this is the, the coffee shop. I'm not doing this for money. I'm not doing it for joy.
[00:10:00] I'm doing it because I'm terrified that if I stop, I'm a bad person. You know that feeling, that martyr syndrome. You think if I don't bake the gluten-free cupcakes, the school concert will be ruined? Spoiler alert, the concert will go on. Buy the cupcakes.
[00:10:16] It's fine. The "guilt yes", is the most dangerous one because it masquerades as kindness. You think you're being nice, but resentment isn't kindness, especially to yourself. Now bucket number three is the "strategic yes". Let's be adults for a second here. We run businesses or have careers. We have bills to pay.
[00:10:49] A "strategic yes" is the stuff that pays for my macchiato. Does anybody love doing their taxes? No, I'm pretty sure not. Well, and I guess if you do, good for you, but most of us don't. Does anybody love cold calling or dealing with compliance paperwork? That's big, big in my world and no, most of us don't love that.
[00:11:13] But it has a clear ROI. This is the bucket where you put on your big girl pants and you get it done. You don't have to love it, but you do have to respect it because it fuels your life. If it pays the mortgage or builds the business, it stays. And finally, bucket number four is the "heart yes", this is the school community council. Now hear me out on this because I don't want you to think A "heart yes", means rainbows and butterflies because being on the parent council is work. Do I sometimes wanna skip the meetings, put on sweatpants and watch Netflix? Yeah.
[00:11:52] A hundred percent. But when I ask myself, does this matter to my core values, does this help my family? The answer is a, hell yeah, it fills my cup even if it tires out my body. So I want you guys to look at your week. If it's an ego or a guilt, we need to grab the machete and make a cut. If it's a strategic or a heart, we keep it.
[00:12:20] We schedule it and we show up even if sometimes we don't want to. Now actually deleting these things from your calendar, that's the hard part. Why is it so hard to send that email? It comes down to the concept called opportunity cost.
[00:12:40] Now, I didn't take Economics 1 0 1. I learned my economics in the real estate, trenches in the real world, but the math is actually really simple. Opportunity cost just means that every time you spend a dollar on a coffee, you can't spend that same dollar on a pizza.
[00:12:57] The money's gone. You can't spend it twice. Time is that exact same currency. Every hour I spend driving to the coffee shop and sitting at that empty table is an hour. I cannot spend recording content for you. It is an hour I can't spend with my family. We treat our calendar like it's magic, like we can just keep printing more hours. We say, I'll just work harder or you know, I'll get a little less sleep.
[00:13:29] But this puts you in overdraft and that interest rate. Is your sanity and ultimately your health. So we have to stop trying to be the hero of the calendar. Do you know what I mean? That need to be needed. We want the gold star. Oh, don't worry. I can make it work. Sure I can host that meeting. We do it because we want to save the day. We want people to say, wow, she does it all. But look at your calendar right now. If we color coded it, how much of it is red? How much of it is things you dread that isn't heroism?
[00:14:12] That is self-sabotage if you're saying yes to someone else, but that yes, makes you resent them. You aren't doing them any favors. You're giving them a half-assed version of yourself. Do everyone a favor. If it's not a hell yeah, let it be a no.
[00:14:33] So how do we fix this? Because I'm in the thick of this with you right now. My calendar's a mess too. I think maybe we should do this together. Here's the plan first. Let's look at the damage. I want you to open your calendar and I'm gonna do this too. So where's my phone? Okay, so here's my phone and I gotta open the calendar.
[00:14:55] And I want you to look at last month and look for those red flags, those red blocks, those things that you said yes to for your ego or because of guilt, and identify them. And if. It's a recurring meeting that you have coming up, and
[00:15:15] if it is red, if it is, we cut it, then we need to create some friction. This is where the philosophy of Paced comes in you. You guys remember the app that I'm creating? We usually talk about Paced for stopping screen addiction, but the psychology's actually the same. We need to create a pause button or some friction.
[00:15:36] So when someone asks you for your time, especially in person, and when you feel put on the spot. I want you to not answer. This is very challenging for us, especially if you're Canadian, because we just love to please everybody it seems. Um, but I want you to stop and I want you to not answer, and I want you to, if possible, put a 24 hour lock on answering.
[00:16:07] Tell them I need to check my capacity and I'll text you tomorrow. Give yourself the cool off period. Don't commit to something that you can't cash in on. And finally, we need a script. When you look at that calendar and you realize you need to cancel something, like, I need to cancel the collaborative. How do we actually say it? Well, you keep it simple. You don't need a three paragraph apology explaining why you are a terrible person.
[00:16:44] You just say, thank you for thinking of me, to ensure I am respectful of your time and mine. I have to decline this request as I don't have the capacity to give it the attention it deserves end email.
[00:17:04] Keep it simple rambling on and on, and saying how sorry you are, and apologizing isn't being respectful of yourself, simply saying no to a commitment isn't rude. It's actually respectful to them and to you because if you say yes to this commitment and you only partially show up, that's being rude.
[00:17:29] So I have another point to make here. There is a rule by Derek Sivers that I didn't know until I started researching for this podcast episode, but I'm actually quite intrigued by this guy now. Um, I want you to write this down. If it is not a hell yeah, it is a no.
[00:17:49] He actually has a book, I believe it is actually entitled, hell yeah. But again, I'm, I'm gonna say it one more time. If it is not a hell yeah, it is a no. This is kind of a, a filter. If you're looking at an invitation and thinking, I guess I should, that's a no. If you're thinking, well, it might be good for networking, that's a no.
[00:18:14] Unless your immediate reaction is hell yeah, I wanna do that. You're stealing your time from your future self. Protect your time like it's your bank account because you can make more money, but you can't make more time. So here's the homework for the week, and like I said, I'm doing this with you.
[00:18:36] I want you to find that one ghost on your calendar, that one commitment that is dead, but you're still dragging it around and we're gonna kill it. I'm going to send the email to my collaborative group. I'm going to close that chapter properly, and I want you to make your call or send the email.
[00:18:55] Let's get that white space back so we can actually breathe. And listen, I know you're probably driving or multitasking right now, so don't worry about trying to memorize those four buckets. I've actually put the whole framework and the just say no script into a free cheat sheet for you and you can find them in the show notes at rhondalavoie.com.
[00:19:15] You don't have to take the notes. I did it for you. And finally, if you need help creating that friction in your, in your digital life, if you find yourself saying yes to your phone too often, check out the Paced App.
[00:19:28] We're building the tool to help you reclaim your focus one step at a time. The wait list is open at getpaced.app. I'm Rhonda Lavoie. Keep it real and get it done. I'll see you next week.
