Welcome to the Elevated Edit Podcast.

I'm your host, Blakely Ramsey, and the goal of this podcast is to discuss all things personal development, wellness, and the art of editing your life in an elevated way.

From mastering morning routines to mastering your mindset, we're going to sift through the noise and empower you to take elevated action.

Make sure you catch the show notes.

For all the details.

Enjoy the show.

Have you ever noticed how you can get an entire week's worth of tasks done the day before you leave for vacation?

All of a sudden, you're decisive, you're unstoppable.

Suddenly, the thing you've been dragging out for two weeks, it is done in 37 minutes.

That's not magic.

It's actually Parkinson's Law.

And it might be the reason that your life and your business feels heavier than it needs to.

So, first, let's define what Parkinson's Law even is.

It essentially is that the work expands to fill the time available for completion.

So if you give yourself two hours to make a social media post, it's going to take you two hours to make that social media post, versus if you only gave yourself 15 minutes to create that same post, it would likely take you 15 minutes to create that same post.

And this can go across the board.

This can apply to offer development, writing emails, launching programs, doing the laundry, mowing the grass, doing the dishes.

There are so many places and so many activities and so many tasks that this applies to.

And one of the really important things that I want to point out is that more time does not mean better results.

Sometimes it can mean spiraling.

And I hear a lot, especially from women, they say, you know what?

I'm going to give myself two weeks.

I'm going to give myself two weeks to come up with this offer.

I'm going to give myself two weeks to outline this challenge, or I'm going to give myself two weeks to do whatever it is.

And it's like, well, what if you gave yourself an hour?

And, like, you can see people freak out immediately, and they're like, no, it's going to take me two weeks.

I'm like, but who says it's going to take you two weeks?

Like, why don't you give yourself an hour and see how much you can get done?

That is, personally, a game that I love to play with myself.

I love to see how quickly I can get something done.

And this isn't about, like, rushing through something or panicking or, you know, like, hustling through something.

It's sitting down, being incredibly focused and you will find that if you give yourself an hour to do something, not only are you not looking at your phone and you're not, you know, doomsday scrolling on TikTok or listening to what Aunt Joy said about Uncle Jim Bob on Facebook.

Like you are also looking at your task ahead of you and going, okay, what actually has to get done in order for me to feel like this is complete?

What is it going to take for me to get this 80% done?

And I have really been living in this minimum viable product in all areas of my life here lately, especially in business, but in my life as well.

Like, how can I get this 80% done?

I can refine it later, I can perfect it later, I can get feedback later, but how can I get it done?

Because the thing is, is you can't edit a blank page, but you can improve a finished one.

And a lot of women especially, we get into this trap where we want things to be perfect.

And so when we start on a project, we're like, okay, this is going to be so incredible.

I'm going to dedicate all this time to it.

I'm going to research, I'm going to look at how so and so did it and I'm going to read this book and I'm going to read this article and then I'm going to, you know, create an outline and blah blah, blah and da da da.

And you have all these big ideas and then you never actually get to the end of the project.

You're just spiraling because you had all these other ideas come up in the meantime.

And that is why it is so incredibly important to just monitor and audit how long you're actually giving yourself to get things done.

Because you want to have momentum and you want to be able to build the self trust and shut down noise.

And one of the easiest ways to do that is to shorten your deadline to give yourself an hour, two hours, one day.

If you start to get into the oh, I'm going to give myself two weeks, I'm going to give myself a month deadline.

I'm going to give myself a two month deadline.

You should have some red lights flashing in your head of like, okay, hold on, wait, is this actually going to take me two weeks?

Is this actually going to take me a month or is my work going to expand to fill that time?

Because you better believe even if something would take you an hour to get done, if you give yourself two weeks to get it done, it's going to take you two weeks to get it Done.

And you might think, well, my product would be way better If I spent two weeks on it.

But are you 100% sure on that?

Or could you spend a lot of that time, you know, trying to perfect the fonts or perfect the colors and analysis paralysis and you're convincing yourself that you're actually making progress, but are you really?

I know for me personally, I have found that this year, if I give myself a super short deadline and I go, okay, this is what done looks like, this is what 80% looks like and I crush it.

I get it done and I've got a minimum viable product about an mvp, I've got something finished, then I know, okay, this is exactly what I need to refine.

This is exactly what I need to do research on.

This is exactly what I need to get feedback on, instead of just spiraling in my own world and sitting around trying to figure out, oh, well, maybe I should do this, or maybe this is what this should look like.

I know exactly what I need to work on and it can help so much to create that momentum.

And like I said, that self trust and you can tie into that vacation mode energy because y' all know what I'm talking about.

I hope it's not just me, but when I am in vacation mode, I don't overthink anything.

I am like, okay, here's my task list.

I'm giving myself two hours because I got to get home and pack.

We are getting all of the things done and all of a sudden you can take the emotion out of tasks, you can take the emotion out of projects, and you can just sit down and really focus and really just knock things out.

And I am meeting so many women this year, so many high achieving women, and it really does make me sad because this is plaguing so many of them is they really think that they need more time than they actually do.

Whether it is working on a sales page or working on a social media post, or working on something, anything, they in their minds automatically give themselves way too much time to get something done.

And it's like, what else could you be doing in that two weeks that you gave yourself to finish this task?

Like, the people that are succeeding in business and oftentimes the people that are succeeding in life, they're moving quick.

They are, yes.

They're slowing down and taking time to, like, focus and make sure that a certain level of excellence is done.

But once they reach that level of excellence, they're 80%.

They're not still analyzing things and still trying to make it perfect.

And still trying to edit this and add this and do that.

They're getting things done, and then they're worrying about refinement later.

And that's what I found this year is like, speed is everything.

You have got to get something done so you can get feedback.

Because nine times out of 10, if you are anything like me, the first version of anything that you create is probably going to be crap.

I mean, it has taken me a long time to get my messaging down, my sales pages down, my funnels down.

I mean, all the things that, you know, initially I spent a lot of time working on.

I was like, oh, I'm going to have to give myself a week to work on this sales page.

And now I'm like, no, I'm going to give myself 45 minutes to work on the sales page.

I'm going to send the link to my accountability group and one of my coaches, they're going to rip it apart, and then I'm going to spend another 45 minutes doing their edits, going to send it to them again, they're going to rip it apart again, and then I'm going to spend another 45 minutes working on it, and they're going to go, okay, that's pretty good.

So three hours, tons of feedback, tons of refinement.

Instead of me going, okay, I'm going to give myself one week.

I'm going to work on this.

Not going to ask for any feedback.

I'm not going to show it to anybody.

I'm just going to sit over here in my own little world and I'm going to let my thoughts spiral and I'm going to get inspiration from TikTok and I'm going to look at a thousand other sales pages.

I mean, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

It ends up being a spiral.

I just encourage you that if you are someone who is struggling with feeling like you never have enough time or feeling like it takes you forever to make progress, really sit down and look at how long it actually takes you to get stuff done versus how long you're giving yourself.

You know, do you really need two weeks to work on something, or is that just the default that you had in your mind?

Could you actually get it done in a day?

Could you actually get it done in three hours and test yourself?

Now, this is not about, like, panic and rush and putting out stuff that is low quality.

Like, that is definitely not what I'm recommending at all.

But I would challenge you to push yourself outside of your comfort zone when it comes to completing a task or completing a project, whatever that looks like, I would just challenge you to think about how you think and think about, you know, do I actually need two weeks to work on this or is that just my default mode?

And look at all of the tasks in your life and think, okay, am I spending five hours on this because I really need to spend five hours on it, or should it actually take me 45 minutes?

And I'm in fact not being intentional, I am self sabotaging because we know I talk about this a lot on this show.

Self sabotage.

She likes to show up in sneaky, sneaky ways.

So pick a task, set a random time, like a 32 minute timer so your mind goes, oh, that's kind of a random time.

And then do the task and see what changes.

See what happens when you set that timer.

And you might not get it done, but just see how much progress you make when you actually give yourself tangible timelines instead of these far off random, like way too long timelines to give yourself.

Because speed is so important.

Speed allows you to get things done so that you have something to reiterate so that you have something to refine, you have something to work on.

Because if you don't have anything to work on, if you don't have anything that's at least 80% done, how are you ever going to get feedback?

And how are you ever going to quote, unquote, perfect it and refine it and do all of the judging that I know that you want to do?

So this episode is all about embodying that vacation mode energy.

This came about because I in fact had one of these days last week and I feel like I'm pretty good at getting things done very quickly.

But let me tell you, the day I leave for vacation, you will never meet another beast like that version of me.

I move so fluidly, so efficiently.

I am like the gazelle of productivity and time management.

Truly I am.

And so I personally as well, I'm trying to embody that energy even more.

And so I've done that this week.

I've really sat down and analyzed how long is this taking me and how long should it actually take me?

Am I overthinking in certain portions of this?

Am I over analyzing in certain portions?

Am I dilly dallying?

Am I spending more time on TikTok than I need to?

Am I spending more time on Instagram than I need to?

Am I checking my email too much?

Like, what am I doing that is bloating the time that it takes me to get this done.

Okay, I hope that you got some value from this short and sweet episode.

If you can believe it, next Friday is the 100th podcast episode.

I am mind blown.

I'm doing a huge shebang in the office.

If you are local, message me on Instagram at the Blakely Ramsey.

I would love to send you an invite.

The invite is out to the public, but I can send you the address and the times and everything.

I am so stinking pumped.

It's going to be such a good time.

I can't believe 100 episodes.

It is wild.

Okay, hope you got some value.

Send this to a friend, leave a review and I will see you in the next episode.

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