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.

If your life feels chaotic, it's likely not a time problem.

It's more likely a systems problem.

Today I'm giving you one simple rule that is going to help you reclaim your time, clear your mental clutter, and help you feel more in control.

It is called the 10 minute rule and it is going to change everything.

There is a problem that I feel like plagues a lot of women, especially high achieving, multi passionate women, and that is that we often get stuck in analysis paralysis because we want to put the very best out there.

I know you probably do.

If you are creating something or working on an event or working on a project, whatever it is, whether it's in a work capacity, a church capacity, a personal capacity, a volunteer capacity, you want to show up as the best version of yourself and you want your work to be the best version that it is.

And so because we have this high level of excellence, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves and we get stuck in analysis paralysis and we have decision overload, which then leads to a lot of lingering tasks.

And if you were anything like me, a lot of times when we have those lingering tasks, that is going to lead to sometimes hours of us doing everything else except for what we actually need to be doing.

Does that sound familiar?

If it is, I'm raising my hand too because I am just as guilty of it.

But.

But the unfortunate thing about this is that it leaves open loops in our brain every time we don't make a decision or don't finish a task or we procrastinate something that actually truly needs to get done.

We have these open loops and they drain our energy, our focus and our confidence every single time.

And the unfortunate thing is, a lot of this we're not even aware of.

We're just like, oh, you know, it's not a big deal that I'm procrastinating that or oh, I'll do that later.

And we don't realize that every single time we're not keeping our promises to ourselves, no matter how small they are, we are making a little dent into our self confidence.

Now, I do want to take some pressure off of your shoulders.

Give you a gift that you are not lazy.

You just don't have a system to handle these problems.

Everybody deals with this.

I have friends all across the board from stay at home moms to women that own, you know, multi seven figure businesses.

We all struggle with this.

So do not feel guilty if this is where you are.

I'm going to give you something today.

If you are just like in the weeds struggling with this, this is going to help you.

Give you just kind of like a mindset shift around making decisions.

So it's going to be called the 10 minute rule.

It's very simple.

But like I always say, simple is not always easy.

So just let it sink in for a minute and then if this is something that you're struggling with, I think this is going to help.

So here's the rule.

If it takes 10 minutes or less, do it immediately or delegate it or schedule it.

So if it takes 10 minutes or less and it needs to be done now, go ahead and do it.

Just knock it out.

If it can be done at a later time, like say it is an idea that you have or a project that you want to work on, or an idea for an event that is several months away, you can take that off of your daily running to do list and you can add it, you can delegate it, you can delegate it via or defer it.

You can defer it via Trello or Google Calendar or wherever it is that you save tasks that need to be done but they don't need to be done right now.

Even if you've got like a notebook system, like a this is, this is my page of things that need to be done later.

And you keep a running list and you put a date of when you need to start working on it.

Maybe check that once or twice a week.

If it is something that you don't necessarily need to do, you can delegate it.

A lot of times a lot of things on our to do list we can delete altogether because it sounded like a good idea at the time and it's actually just busy work.

But most of the things on our list are going to take 10 minutes or less.

So just go ahead and do it.

And this is going to look like responding to a quick email.

I know that I have so I know you have procrastinated.

Responding to a quick email, putting laundry in the dryer, raising my hand.

Again, that one's a difficult one.

Tidying up your desk after a work day.

This next one gets me every single time.

Sending calendar invites or zoom links.

I don't know why that is something that makes me so stressed out.

I think I'm scared I'm going to get the wrong day or I'm going to click the wrong time zone or whatever it is.

And this gets even worse the more you work with people in different time zones, because you're constantly checking their time zone, checking your time zone, making sure you have it in the right.

It's a whole thing that is something that I really struggle with, but.

And it has to get done, so I need to just go ahead and do it now.

Why would I procrastinate it?

Because it's just what we're prone to do.

This is another one that trips me up.

Making a return.

There have been times where I have literally waited until the day before the expiration of the return was, or whatever it's called to do a return.

And it's so simple.

I mean, literally all you have to do is print the label and take it to the store.

It's not like it's rocket science, but it is something that I will procrastinate on.

And so I have when I get in those.

Because I feel like I get in seasons and you might experience this too.

I get in seasons where I just get so stuck on things and I have all these little tiny tasks and I have all these open loops and sometimes I have to spend almost a whole day, like, getting caught up on my tiny tasks.

But when I do, it's like a sigh of relief.

It makes me feel so much better.

And this works because it stops the buildup of energy leaks so you no longer have that constant running loop in your brain of, oh, shoot, I forgot to do that.

Oh, I completely forgot to text them back.

Oh, I forgot to send that email.

Oh, I forgot to do that.

Every time you have that thought, it drains your energy.

And if you've got 20 open loops, you're going to be tired before you even get out of bed in the morning.

There have been seasons in my life where I have definitely experienced that, so I'm giving all of these lessons from learning them the very, very hard way.

This also works because it reinforces your identity as someone who executes.

I mentioned this earlier in the episode, but when we keep our promises to ourselves, we build our confidence, we build our identity.

We think about ourselves as, wow, I'm someone who gets things done.

This is exciting.

And I think a lot of times when we think about keeping promises to ourselves, we think about the big promises.

Like, I'm going to stick to this workout routine.

Or I'm going to stick to this work schedule, or I'm going to stick to, you know, cooking dinner every single night for the next three months.

Like, we think about like the macro promises, but we forget about the micro promises.

Like, you know, I told myself I was going to, you know, respond to that email, or I told myself I was going to send that calendar invite, or I told myself I was going to make that return.

We don't think about not keeping those promises, but those promises and not keeping them can hurt our confidence just as much as the big ones.

So just keep that in mind.

And then it also creates momentum that spills into everything else this ties back into that reinforces your identity.

If you can keep the tiny promises to yourself, you'll go, you know what, I think I can start that YouTube channel.

Or, you know what, I think I can start that business.

Or, you know what, I think it is time for me to get ready for that promotion or whatever it is that you are like needing that boost of confidence for.

Keeping tiny promises to yourself every single day will help reinforce your identity and it will help increase your confidence.

So you go, you know what, I'm actually ready for this.

Now there is a tiny upgrade to this rule, this 10 minute rule.

If you want to really spice it up, block 10 minutes at the same time every single day to clear your micro task.

I have a friend who does this.

She actually does 30 minutes, but y'all know I like to start small and simple so you actually execute on it.

But she will take 30 minutes.

She Time blocks it into her calendar and that is her time to get it all done.

And she will literally keep a little notebook of all the tiny tasks that she that doesn't really fit in anywhere.

They're not big needle movers, but they still need to get done.

Just admin task and she will make a cup of tea or make an espresso and turn on some jazz music, make it a whole thing, light a candle and she will knock her task out, she'll print off all her return labels, she'll send all the emails she needs to send, she'll send all the links she needs to send.

She'll you know, touch base with her CPA, check her QuickBooks.

She'll just kind of do the whole back end.

30 minutes.

Something else that she does that is really cool and I've done it a couple of times, but I need to start being intentional about doing it more.

Instead of keeping a list of things that she needs to do, she keeps a list of things that she's already done.

And so in her 30 minute walk, she will have a blank piece of paper and she will keep up with everything she does in that 30 minutes.

If she sends a text message, she writes it down.

If she sends an email, she writes it down.

If she creates a spreadsheet, she writes it down.

And she said, blakely, like, that is one of the things that has helped my confidence the most and helped my self esteem is, you know, I'll look back on 30 minutes and I'll go, man, you know, I really didn't get a lot done.

I know I sent an email or two, but she said, but when I actually write it down and I see like, whoa, I got a lot done, it completely changes my self esteem, my mindset around myself.

So if that's something you're struggling with, maybe try that out.

I've done it a couple times.

It felt really good when I did it, but it's just not something that I've been intentional about.

And so now that we're talking about it, I'm like, you know what?

I think I might try that today.

So this is what systems really are.

I want everyone to experience how amazing a life ran on systems can feel, because it can feel effortless.

You can show up as a person who people go, like, how does she get it all done?

And the truth is, you're not getting it all done.

Your systems are getting it all done.

And systems don't have to be these complicated frameworks or really expensive tools.

They are simple rules that remove friction.

So I would love for you to, if you're struggling, like, if you're in a season where you have a ton of open loops, you find yourself procrastinating a lot.

I want you to try the 10 minute rule today and then message me on Instagram at the Blakely Ramsey.

You can send me text or you can send me a voice note.

Y'all know I love a voice note.

And let me know how it goes, Let me know if it helps, Let me know how much you got done in your 10 minutes and I will cheer you on because I love hearing from y'all and I love hearing how y'all implement all of the little tips and tricks I give y'all every week.

And with that, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and I will see you in the next episode.

Thank you for tuning in to the elevated edit podcast.

I hope you found today's episode inspiring and full of actionable tips.

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Keep growing, glowing and elevating your life.

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