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#310: Why Time Management Isn’t Fixing Your Overwhelm (And What Actually Will)
Episode Summary
You bought the planner, you color-coded the calendar, and you’re still lying awake with 40 things buzzing in your head. Here’s the truth nobody taught you: overwhelm isn’t a calendar problem. It’s a thinking problem, and no planner can fix the belief that you should be able to do more than is humanly possible.
In this episode, I walk you through a real coaching call with a homeschooling farm mom who discovered she was working 45 hours a week plus running a household, and how one 20-minute mindset shift solved what years of time management systems couldn’t.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
- Why overwhelm is not a calendar problem, and why a new planner will never fix it
- The “five gallons into a one-gallon container” picture that explains why you feel like you’re failing (you’re not)
- The one question to ask yourself before you touch another productivity tool
Key Takeaways:
- Your capacity is a one-gallon container. Your day has fixed hours and you have finite energy. That’s not a flaw. The problem is the five gallons of demands you keep trying to pour into a one gallon bucket.
- The thought creates the opposite of what you want. “I should be able to get it all done” makes you shut down and get less done. You’re trying to shrink your to-do list with a thought that grows it.
- We can see it in others but not ourselves. That’s why coaching matters. Sometimes you need someone outside your own head to lay out the math and say, “No, you’re not being realistic.”
Memorable Quotes
“You’re standing there with five gallons of demands, pouring them into your one-gallon day, and feeling like a failure because it’s spilling everywhere. But it was never going to fit.”
“Getting it all done is not the skill that needs to be learned. It’s how to acknowledge and support yourself doing what you can do — and no more.”
“The women whose lives actually change… they’re not the ones with the prettiest planner. They’re the ones who learn to coach their own brain.”
FAQ
Q: Why am I still overwhelmed even though I use a planner and a time management system?
Because overwhelm isn’t a calendar problem. It’s a thinking problem. A planner organizes your tasks, but it can’t fix the belief that you should be able to do more than is humanly possible. If you put 20 things on today’s list, the best system in the world won’t make them fit. The real fix is learning to catch the thought “I should be able to get it all done” and question whether you’re being realistic. That’s a mindset coaching skill, and it’s learnable.
Q: How do I stop feeling like I can’t get everything done on my farm?
Start by doing the honest math on what you’re actually expecting of yourself. One farmer I coached added it up and found she was working 45 hours a week on the farm plus keeping house and homeschooling. Two full-time jobs. No human can do that, and beating yourself up for “failing” at the impossible only makes you get less done. Ask yourself one question: “Am I being realistic about what I can get done today?” Then do the one thing in front of you, and let yourself off the hook for the rest.
Q: Why can’t I stick to a schedule on my farm?
It’s usually not a discipline problem. It’s that the schedule was never realistic to begin with. When you plan a day that assumes you can pour five gallons into a one-gallon container, “falling off the schedule” is guaranteed, and then the thought “I don’t stick to it” makes you feel defeated and shut down. Build your day around your actual human capacity, and practice a thought that serves you, like “I take care of myself and my family with my schedule.”
Q: How do farm women deal with burnout and overwhelm?
The women I’ve coached for over a decade who actually escape burnout aren’t the ones with the prettiest planner. They’re the ones who learn to coach their own brain. That means catching the thought creating the overwhelm, questioning it, and being willing to feel uncomfortable emotions (like embarrassment about asking for help) long enough to get support. Chronic overwhelm is hurting women’s health, marriages, and farms, and mindset coaching skills are the way out.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Free class — August 17th: I’m teaching the one foundational coaching skill that makes all the others work, the skill that saved my life 25 years ago. There will be a replay. Sign up at charlottemsmith.com/class
- The Profitable Mindset Academy, starting late August, where I teach all 26 coaching skills the most successful women I know use in every area of their lives: charlottemsmith.com/class
- The Profitable Farmer — Charlotte’s coaching program (enrollment opens periodically) charlottemsmith.com/mastery
About the Host
Charlotte Smith is a farm marketing coach, podcast host, and the founder of The Profitable Farmer. She’s a 5th generation farmer, now supporting the 6th, together. Charlotte coaches approximately 300 farmers per year across the United States and 15 other countries, helping them shift from selling-out-but-broke to genuinely profitable through clear branding and customer-focused marketing.
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Today’s episode is titled How to End Farm Overwhelm for Good. And by the way,
it’s not that you have a better calendar. And I’m addressing this because it comes up,
especially this time of year, almost every week in our coaching calls. So I’m going to share with
you something that’s going to help you tremendously. And this is also exactly why I am teaching the
coaching skills starting in August in the Profitable Mindset Academy. So if you’re interested in
learning the coaching skills that farmers are using to change their lives in every way possible in
every area, things they never imagined possible. Be ready for that coming up in August.
There’s a free class where I’m going to teach the one most powerful foundational coaching skill.
That is at charlottemsmith.com forward slash class. That will be August 17th and there will be a
replay. And this is my life’s passion to help. Women know that you don’t have to live on the
hamster wheel. You don’t have to live not feeling amazing about everything. There is a place where
you can learn some skills and your life will feel fulfilling. You will feel like you have enough
time. Every relationship will improve. You will make more money. Your health issues will go away.
Yes, all of this. I have some interviews coming up on the podcast where you’re going to hear about
this firsthand, how it’s changed. clients’ lives, but I’m just very excited that’s coming up.
And this skill today is going to be a big one that’s going to help you.
So how this came about is I got an email from a farmer who’s brand new in my program,
and she wanted some help. And she said, I’m doing the time management program. That’s the
strategies I teach first thing before you do marketing, she said. And I’m going through the videos,
but I’m still overwhelmed. And I want to share with you what I said to her because I bet money that
many of you listening right now are in the same spot as her. So maybe you bought the planner or
you’re using an online calendar system or you got sticky notes everywhere. It’s color coded.
Or maybe you have an app trying to keep you on track and you’re still lying awake at night with 40.
things or 40,000 things buzzing around in your head. I get it. This used to be me.
But here’s what’s really happening. Your time management system is not broken.
It’s not that you don’t have a good enough system and a new planner is not going to fix it because
overwhelm is not a time management or a calendar problem.
Get that. Really let that sink in. Overwhelm is not a calendar problem.
It is a mindset issue. It is a thinking. problem. If you don’t fix your thinking,
if you don’t learn the mindset coaching skills to fix the overwhelm, it will stick around.
You’ll always be overwhelmed. You’ll take it with you in the future, wherever you go. So today I’m
going to show you what I mean with a real example from our weekly coaching calls.
All right. So if you’re new here, I’m Charlotte Smith. This is a Profitable Mindset Podcast where
we use mindset coaching skills to change every area of your life. And let’s go.
So let’s go back to this person’s message. She said, I’m doing the time management program. I’m
still overwhelmed. And here’s what I said on the coaching call. No amount of time management can
fix you or us, all of us listening, being unrealistic about what you can take on.
And this is a huge thing with women in our society. We’re raised to believe that we got to prove
our worth. We got to say yes to everything. We got to help. The more we produce, the better we are.
We’re earning our keep. It is a mindset that we’ve been raised to believe and it’s resulting in
grave illnesses. The worst thing is our health, but then our relationships,
our bank accounts are not, we’re not keeping, making and keeping enough money because of this
thing. So we just. We think we should be able to do far more than is humanly possible.
It’s a really chronic problem with women in our society. So I can teach you the best calendaring
system in the world that my clients love. And when they finally go through it, the coaching is
built in. They find 10 to 20 hours in their week. I teach it and it works because mindset coaching
is built in. But if you sit down on a Sunday or at the beginning of your week and you put 20 things
on Monday’s to-do list, the system will not save you. It will not fix that.
Here’s how I describe it. It’s like trying to pour five gallons of milk into a one-gallon
container and then being really frustrated and overwhelmed that you’re spilling milk all over the
place. Here’s what I mean. The container is your individual capacity.
It’s your actual day. The real hours you have in your day to do chores,
take care of the kids, do your job if you have a job, elsewhere, and sleep.
It’s the real energy you have. It’s the real speed a human being can work.
That container has a fixed size. It’s a one gallon container.
I’m equating that to a 24 hour day, including all those things. It is not going to become a five
gallon container because you found a prettier planner. For instance, a planner does not give you
more hours in the day. Your one gallon container for milk does not transform into two or three or
five gallons. It is what it is. The five gallons of milk, as I’m using this analogy,
is everything you’re demanding of yourself. The 20 things you think you need to get done today or
this week. All the chores, the house chores, the outside chores,
the animal chores, the plant chores, the milking, the moving fences,
cleaning, homeschooling, emails, weeding, deliveries, and oh, I should also post on Instagram and
oh, I should call that person back. All of it. Every expectation you’re pouring into your day is
that five gallons of milk. So when you’re overwhelmed, here’s what’s actually happening. Feelings
come from thoughts. We know this. Biology, science, neuroscience shows us this.
So you’re standing there with five gallons of demands, pouring them into your one gallon day,
which is your 24 hour day, and feeling like a failure because it’s spilling everywhere.
But it was never going to fit. There’s no way you can do those 20 things in one day.
There is nothing wrong with the container. Your personal capacity is not broken.
It is what it is. You have the capacity to do a certain finite number of things.
And there’s nothing wrong with the milk being your work. Of course, your work matters. The problem
is the belief you have that it should fit. The belief you have that you should be able to do two or
three or four times as much as you’re currently doing, as much as is reality. And a time management
system won’t fix, it can’t fix the belief that you can and should be able to.
do more. Women will come to me and say, I only got this done yesterday, but I should have gotten
these other things done. I should have been able to do more. No, you can’t. You should be able to
do only what you get done. If you have 10 or 15 or 20 things on your to do list for one day,
you’re probably going to get done one or two or three. That is not a character flaw.
It’s not laziness. It’s just how many hours are in a day and how much a human being can produce.
So when you’re overwhelmed, I want you to ask yourself one question before you touch a single
productivity tool. And that question is, am I being realistic with what I can get done today?
Because most of you are not.
into one day. And then you’re beating yourself up at nine o’clock at night because you didn’t get
it all done. And here’s why this matters so much. Notice what actually needs fixing,
not the calendar, but it’s the thought, it’s your mindset of, I should be able to get it all done.
I should be able to do this. That’s not a time management skill. It’s a mindset coaching skill.
And that distinction is what this episode is built on. All right.
Now, I know some of you are probably thinking, but Charlotte, I’ve tried everything and I still
can’t get it done. I believe you. In fact, let me read you what farmers in my own community told me
in our December survey. This was 220 people replied to this.
One farmer wrote, I’ve tried time management and planners, but I don’t stick to it.
I’ve tried to calm myself down in the morning. I don’t stick to that. There’s so many different
responsibilities buzzing around in my head. I wish I had an off button. That is not fixed by a
planner. That’s actually fixed by learning mindset coaching skills first,
learning how to shift your thoughts to something useful and productive.
Like I take care of myself with my schedule. Another person in the survey said,
I try to have a schedule, but then I just end up putting out fires all day and get completely off
track. And another said, I am constantly adding more to my plate as if what I’m currently doing is
not enough. I got a lot of people saying they felt like not enough. Another farmer said if she had
a magic wand, it would produce an assistant who would build her a beautiful color-coded seasonal
schedule on every device she owns and a motivational speaker to occasionally remind me how badass I
am. That is her exact words. So do you hear it? Every single one of these women is describing the
same thing and none of it is a scheduling problem. It’s when you tell yourself,
I don’t stick to it. That’s a thought problem. If you tell yourself, I end up putting out fires all
day, that’s a boundaries and decisions problem, which is a thought problem. Or I keep adding more
as if what I’m doing isn’t enough. That’s a mindset issue of feeling like not enough.
You’ve got to fix this. And the magic wand answer, she doesn’t actually want a schedule. She wants
someone to manage her mind for her. The motivational speaker wish, that’s the tell on that.
She wants someone to calm her mind down. This is what mindset coaching is. This is where you learn
it. So the tool was never the missing piece. The missing piece is the skill of catching your
thought that’s creating the overwhelm and changing it. All right. You can learn this.
And as a matter of fact, if you don’t learn it, you’re going to struggle. Your life will not feel
fulfilling. So let me show you what it looks like. On coaching calls, I get a front row seat to
this exact problem. over and over. And I want to walk you through a recent coaching session when a
woman came to me with something that looked like a scheduling problem, and then look what we did in
the coaching call to reveal the actual problem. So she’s a homeschooling mom.
She raises chicken, pork, and beef, and she came to the call completely overwhelmed. And since
coaching is questions, what I asked her is, why are you overwhelmed?
What’s the thought making you feel overwhelmed? And she said that I’ve got too much on my plate and
I can’t do it. Just say that thought inside your head right now. I’ve got too much on my plate.
I can’t do it. It makes you feel terrible. And here’s the thing I want you to hear because it’s so
predictable. Whenever you feel overwhelmed, you are thinking some version of that.
There’s so much to do. I can’t get it all done and I should be able to every single time.
It’s some version of that. So then I asked her, because feelings drive actions, when you feel
overwhelmed, what do you do? And she said, I get short with the people around me, my kids and my
husband. I get irritable. I get depressed and I shut down. All right.
Pay attention to that because it is similar for all of us. The thought there’s so much to do and
some version of that. and I should be able to get it all done, but I can’t,
makes you shut down, which means you get less done. So you’re giving yourself a thought that you
think is innocent, like, ah, I can’t get it all done and I should be able to get more done. And
you’re making your list longer. The thought creates the exact opposite.
of what you actually want. You’re trying to shrink your to-do list and the way you’re thinking
about it, I should be able to get it all done, is actually growing your to-do list because you
have less time to spend on it because you shut down, you get stuck, you feel like you’re going
through quicksand. So then in the coaching call, we did the math. I walked her through the math.
I guided her through what she had committed to and what she was expecting of herself.
Because it’s a great reality check. I walked her through it and she was spending 37 hours a week on
farm work. The labor, the marketing, the bookkeeping,
getting ready for markets. Then her Saturday market, over six hours door to door from packing the
coolers to unpacking when she gets home. We added that up and it was 45 hours a week outside of her
house. On top of that, when I kept going and asking her and then what, she’s the sole housekeeper.
Her husband’s gone. She’s the one home keeping house and she homeschools. So I paused her right now
in the coaching call and said, all right, are you aware that you’re working a 45 hour a week job
and then you have another full-time job, at least, stacked on top of it?
The reason you’re overwhelmed is that what you’re expecting of yourself is actually not humanly
possible. You can’t work a 45-hour week and then have the energy,
mentally, physical capacity to take care of the house and homes, cool the kids. You just can’t do
it. And then this part breaks my heart. You’re beating yourself up on top of it.
You’re saying, she was saying, well, I should be able to get this done. And she said,
That’s what I was wondering. I wasn’t sure if I was being realistic. Now, when you’re listening,
you might be able to see clearly that, of course, she’s being unrealistic with herself. But the
problem is, and this is why coaching is so crucial, we can often see it in other people,
but we can’t see it in ourselves.
Others are taking on far too much. We can say, oh, give yourself a break. You can’t get it all
done. But then we beat ourselves up for not getting done all that we think we should. And this
woman couldn’t see it for herself. She needed someone outside of her own head to look at, lay out
for her the 45 hours plus the home job of keeping the house and homeschooling,
meals, all of it. And say out loud, no, you’re not being realistic.
This is five gallons of milk. You’re trying to pour into a one gallon container and that will never
work. And then you’re beating yourself up for it not fitting. The container was never the problem.
It’s all the extra stuff you think you should be able to do. I learned this the hard way too when
my own kids were little. I tried to work full time with my kids at home and realized very quickly I
couldn’t. I had stress and anxiety. I was, things were out of control. I was physically sick.
And I thought, something’s wrong. I should be able to do this. That was when I first learned
coaching skills. This was 25 years ago. My kids were little. And I figured out through learning
these skills that I’m hardworking, we all are, but we’re not machines.
I had to learn the skill of letting myself off the hook to get it all done and realize I’d never be
able to get it all done. Getting it all done is not the skill that needs to be learned. It’s how to
acknowledge and support yourself doing what you can do and no more.
We have limited, finite, physical, mental, emotional capacity to get things done.
And sure, we can work harder, longer hours when needed on a temporary basis.
Something’s happening in our lives that we got to put in a long, long day because the cows got out
and we need to fix the whole fence where they ran through it. Or the heaters need to be put on
through the orchard because we’re having a frost and we need to work a really long day or two to
take care of it. We could do that temporarily. But expecting that day to day is hurting us.
Women are getting all sorts of autoimmune diseases and they just aren’t enjoying life.
They aren’t feeling fulfilled. Families are hurting. Because we expect ourselves to get far more
done than is humanly possible. And then we beat ourselves up for not doing it. And then we get less
done because we’re beating ourselves up. And then we’re short with our family and everyone’s
hurting. Now, here’s why this is a coaching skills challenge and not a calendar challenge.
Once she was able to see the five gallons she had tried to take on.
the real solutions appeared. As soon as she could see the problem, the solutions appeared.
As soon as a coaching question helped her have awareness around the problem, she saw how to solve
it. She could get her employees covering more of the labor. She hired a house cleaner.
And do you know what was blocking the house cleaner? It wasn’t money. Her farm had the cash flow.
It was a thought. She said, well, I feel like my house is too dirty for a house cleaner. And she
felt embarrassed for another human being to see her house. That’s like refusing someone to hire
someone to clean your barn because it’s full of animal mess. But that’s the whole point. So the
last piece of coaching is this. What if feeling embarrassed that your farm is dirty or your house
is dirty is just the price we have to pay for getting help? On the other side of feeling
embarrassed is a really amazing feeling that you’re getting help and getting things that you’re
getting support in the areas you can’t keep up. What if you can feel embarrassed or any other
negative emotion you might feel and do it anyway? Because that’s true of almost…
in this business, the social media posts, the price increase, the dirty laundry, embarrassment,
fear, worry, anxiety, overwhelm, stress, not good enough. That is the currency of running a farm
and a house. The calendar could not fix this for her,
but instead calendaring with seeing the thought I should be able to do it all.
My house is too dirty to get help and being willing to feel the negative emotion.
That fixed it all. As soon as she was willing to sit with, oh, I’m embarrassed and that’s okay.
Oh, I’m scared. I don’t feel good enough. And that’s okay. I can feel it. It’s not, I’m not saying
it’s okay to feel that we want to feel that, but it’s okay to acknowledge that that’s what’s going
on right now. Oh, I’m feeling embarrassed. I’m acknowledging that that is the reality of this
moment. And that’s okay. I can feel it. It’s not going to hurt me beyond feeling uncomfortable.
And then when you sit with that, it dissipates within 90 seconds and boom, you’ve got your
solution. You’re now able to hire someone to help or whatever. Ask someone to help.
Ask your mother, your mother-in-law, your neighbor, your kids, whomever it might be, your
husband. So let’s put this all together. This farmer didn’t need a better planner.
She needed someone to show her the truth by asking her questions. She was very swiftly able to see
that 45 hours working outside the home plus housekeeping plus homeschooling is not humanly
possible. And she needed to stop beating herself up for failing at this impossible and instead be
willing to feel embarrassed and not good enough, long enough to get help. Her problem was solved
with about a 20 minute mindset coaching call. All right. So first is the awareness.
Catch the thought in the moment. Why are you feeling overwhelmed? Oh, I’m telling myself I should
be able to do all this. And then question it. Is it true? Are you being realistic? Would I know
this factually or am I guessing I should be able to get it all done? And then. Choose a thought on
purpose that supports you. Deliberately pick a thought that serves you and you know it serves you
because it feels good. It feels better. It’s just as easy to think a useful thought as a painful
one. It’s just as easy to think, I’m going to take care of myself and my family with my schedule.
That’s available to you right now. What if you thought that? Instead of, ah, there’s so much to do.
I should be able to get this all done this week. And I’m not, it’s not working. Those thoughts are
jump up first, but it’s just as easy to practice thinking. I take care of myself and my family with
my schedule. This is what I mean when I say coaching skills are the most important skill you will
ever learn in your life. More important than. Email marketing, more important than pricing,
more important than any tool I could hand you. These have to come first. When I give people the
tools, email marketing tools, all the tools I teach, when I give them them without mindset
coaching, they don’t work. Mindset coaching has to come first. So I can hand you the perfect one
gallon container, the calendar, the planner, the whole system and teach you to pour perfectly.
But remember what the milk is. The milk is your brain’s demands, the thing you told yourself you
should be doing. And if your brain keeps insisting on five gallons of work,
keeps piling on all the shoulds and keeps believing that more is the answer to you feeling better,
and it keeps refusing to make the decision, you’ll still be overwhelmed, even with the best system
in the world. So the tools organize your tasks, but only the mindset coaching skills.
Only by implementing these things will you learn to manage your mind. And your mind is where the
milk actually comes from. I’ve watched this for, oh gosh, I’ve been doing this work with farmers,
coaching them for over a decade, thousands of coaching calls. The women whose lives actually
change, who get profitable, who are calm,
who heal physical ailments caused by stress, who stop working late into the night,
who stop beating themselves up, whose marriages improve, whose families become peaceful and calm
and tell me, The skills carry over into every aspect of my life. They’re not the ones with the
prettiest planner. They’re the ones who learn to coach their own brain. So practice what I showed
you here today. Here’s what I want you to do too. If you listened to this episode and you
recognized yourself at all, the much bigger to-do list than you can actually get done.
You’re not getting everything done that you wanted to in a day, if that’s you. Adding more as if
what I’m doing isn’t enough. I have a free class coming up and it’s in August,
August 17th. There’ll be a replay and it’s at charlottemsmith.com forward slash class.
In it, I’m going to walk you through how this actually works, how the farmers you heard about today
learn to catch these thoughts and change them and why that one skill I teach about,
I’m teaching 26 coaching skills. starting in August in the Profitable Mindset Academy.
But this class is you’re going to learn the one foundational skill that makes them all work. All
right. This skill is downstream of your pricing, your marketing, your health, and your family time,
and your feeling fulfilled, all of it. All right. So this class,
August 17th. It’s the skill that saved my life, literally. I was told I would not live longer than
a year if I didn’t change one thing. And I found this through help right after that.
This was 25 years ago. And then you’ll hear about the Profitable Mindset Academy too,
where you learn all the skills that are so life-changing and so crucial and what the most
successful women I know are incorporating into their life. So one more time before you go,
this week when the overwhelm rises up, and it probably will, especially because it’s summer, pause
and ask yourself a question. Am I trying to pour five gallons into a one-gallon container right
now? Am I demanding more of myself than is actually humanly possible? Chances are it’s a yes.
So in that moment, let yourself off the hook. Ask yourself, what one thing do I have to do right
now? What one thing can I get done right now? Not, oh, I’ve got so much to do,
but what one thing can I knock off my list in the next, in today?
That’s what fits in the container. If you get that one thing done, then ask yourself,
what’s the next one thing I can do today? And then come learn the skill,
August 17th, that makes that possible every single day. All right, I got you. Can’t wait to share
with you more. I’m going to be touching on these coaching skills every week. And I just can’t wait
for the Profitable Mindset Academy to start this fall. It’ll start in late August.
I guess that’s still summer. And I hope you will join us. All right. Take care. I will see you in
the next episode.
