Have you ever moved the same task from Monday’s list to Tuesday’s list…then Wednesday’s…and by Friday you’re pretty sure that task has taken up permanent residence there?

Meanwhile, you’ve accomplished 47 other things.

So why do you still feel behind?

My guest Megan has a name for this: time debt. And once she explained it, I started seeing it everywhere.

It’s a lot like financial debt. You begin today already owing yesterday, and tomorrow you’ll owe today too. Pretty soon, no amount of crossing things off feels like enough.

For parents, especially moms carrying work, kids, appointments, meals, household responsibilities, and all those invisible things somebody has to remember, that can get exhausting FAST.

But here’s where this conversation got especially interesting.

What if the problem isn’t that women need to get better at productivity?

What if some of the productivity systems we’ve been told to use simply weren’t designed with women’s lives or biology in mind?

Megan and I dig into some fascinating territory in this conversation, including:

  • Why an unfinished to-do list can create time debt that compounds from day to day
  • How “productive procrastination” can have you organizing a drawer while avoiding the task that actually matters
  • Why advice like “Eat the Frog” might not solve the real problem
  • The surprisingly important reason Megan recommends doing a time audit before trying another planning system
  • Why putting your commitments somewhere visual can make you think twice before saying, “Sure, I can do that!”
  • How women’s biological cycles and caregiving responsibilities may make some traditional productivity systems a poor fit
  • The startling change in how many young women report feeling overwhelmed compared with college freshmen decades ago
  • What you may need to stop doing, not just organize better, if you actually want to get out of time debt

And that last one may be the hardest.

Because we parents are very good at asking, “How can I fit this in?”

We’re perhaps not quite as practiced at asking, “Should this be on my list at all?”

If you’ve ever ended a very productive day wondering why you still feel like you failed, this conversation may give you a completely different way to look at your calendar, your expectations, and that task you’ve moved to tomorrow for the fourth time.

Overwhelm is a word that comes out of women's mouths more than men's.

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Key Takeaways about Time Debt

  • An unfinished to-do list can create “time debt,” because every task that gets carried into the next day makes you feel behind before the new day even begins.
  • Many daily to-do lists are unrealistic, because we rarely stop to calculate how much time the tasks will actually take compared with the time we truly have available.
  • When our backlog becomes overwhelming, we may fall into “productive procrastination” by doing smaller, easier tasks instead of tackling the important things that feel harder.

Keep the Life Skills Going All Year Round!

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Missing #LifeSkillsNow? You can keep doing workshops! Get one from each season of #LifeSkillsNow for free to do while you’re waiting for the next season.

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And if you missed this year’s camp, it’s a fun taste of what we do each year in our free life skills camp for kids and teens.

Show Me the Life Skills!
  • A time audit can help you see where your hours are really going, including parenting, caregiving, meals, transportation, interruptions, and other responsibilities that may not appear on a traditional task list.
  • Your calendar can work like a bank account for your time by helping you see whether you actually have room for another commitment before you say yes.
  • Teaching tweens and teens to plan with a visual calendar or planner can help them learn how to estimate time, make tradeoffs, and build healthier planning habits before adulthood.

Action Steps from This Episode

  • Track how your family spends time for a few days so you can see what is actually filling your schedule without judging yourself for it.
  • When you plan your day, include the real time required for driving, meals, parenting, transitions, and downtime instead of treating every open-looking hour as available.
  • Ask your child how long they think homework, chores, or a project will take, and then compare their estimate with how long it actually takes.
  • Help your child put important tasks on a calendar so they can see when the work will happen instead of relying only on a long to-do list.
  • Before your family adds a new activity or commitment, ask, “If we say yes to this, what are we saying no to?”
  • When everything will not fit, choose something to delay, simplify, delegate, or remove instead of assuming the answer is to work faster or try harder.

Resources We Mention for Time Debt

Megan Sumrell
The Pink Bee

Megan Sumrell is a Time Management Expert and creator of the TOP Program who helps overwhelmed women create harmony through planning systems built specifically for how women’s brains work. With over 20 years of corporate process improvement experience, she teaches women to turn their unrealistic to-do lists into realistic, flexible plans that actually work with their lives, not against them.