There’s a reason so many of us flinch at the word ‘productivity.’ Every week, in spaces across the internet, I see women share that their partners told them they just need to manage their time better. As if the problem is their calendar. As if the problem is them.

It’s been used to make us feel like the problem is always us. And that’s not an accident.

Women with no children do 2.3 times more housework than their male partners. So time management is not the problem there. Unfairness is. And yet, 46% of women experience burnout at work compared to 37% of men, and Black women in leadership are most affected, with rates rising to 80%, though of course it would be wrong to suggest bad productivity advice is the cause of that, when misogynoir is.

When an employer overloads their staff and refuses to hire more, they call it a time management problem instead of a capacity problem. They make it an individual problem. Very convenient.

You can’t systemise your way out of an impossible load to carry, at home or at work. And when the advice tells you that you can, it’s not just unhelpful, it’s actively harmful, because it puts the weight of a structural problem onto your shoulders and calls it self-improvement.

What happens when we try to follow the traditional advice anyway

Some of us do try and follow the traditional advice. We wake super early, use hacks upon hacks, endlessly try to optimise, hustle, whilst still trying to be the present and caring parents and humans we want to be. And it works, for a while, until it doesn’t. Until we burn out.

Much of the advice was clearly written by people who have no idea what we are actually managing. It’s for a different life than the one we are actually living, or want to be living. It falls flat for us, if not being actively harmful, because it wasn’t designed with our lives in mind.

There’s a difference between genuinely not using your time well and having an unfair amount of work. Traditional productivity advice tends to treat every problem like the first one. Which is why so much of it misses.

What we actually deserve instead

We deserve more of the good stuff. Advice that can distinguish between a discipline problem and a capacity problem, because those two things need completely different responses.

For the moments where there is something a good system can genuinely help with, where you do have some time and some agency and you want to use it well, that’s where something like Time Buckets comes in. It’s a flexible rhythm system, not a rigid schedule. It works around caring responsibilities rather than pretending they don’t exist, and it’s built for the life you’re actually living. You might also find it useful to read about the small things I do regularly to help life feel calmer, which is a gentler place to start if the word ‘system’ still makes you want to close the tab.

Naming the structural unfairness isn’t the end of the conversation. The unfairness is real, and we can still build rhythms that mean we’re not spending our limited energy on the wrong things. Both things are true at the same time. The practical tools we use aren’t a band-aid on a structural problem, they’re a form of dignity. We deserve systems that work for us.

So if you’re reading this thinking ‘I am so done with productivity advice, I don’t even want to hear the word’, totally fair. But if you want ideas on how to spend less time on things you don’t love so you have more for the things you do, you’re in the right place.

If you’re not sure where to start, Stop the Spiral is a free tool for when overwhelm kicks in and you can’t see clearly enough to know what actually matters.

Don’t do more. Do what matters. Do it differently.

If you’re running a business from your kitchen table while the kids argue in the next room, or you’re squeezing work into the margins of a very full life, this one’s for you.

You’ve probably Googled some version of this. Maybe at 11pm, answering emails in bed, wondering why it all feels so impossible despite the fact that you’re clearly trying very hard.

Here’s the thing nobody says plainly: the version of work life balance we’ve been sold isn’t realistic for most of us. Two neat halves of your day, never bleeding into each other, a clean line between work-you and home-you. It sounds lovely. It’s mostly fiction.

And chasing it is part of what’s making us feel like we’re failing.

So let’s talk about what actually works instead.

The myth of perfect separation

The traditional advice is to keep work and life completely separate. Dedicated hours, a proper office, a clear end to the day. For some people, in some seasons, that works fine.

But if you’re a parent, neurodivergent, self-employed, or carrying a disproportionate share of the home load, a clean split often just isn’t possible. The school run lands in the middle of your morning. The dentist appointment can’t be scheduled around your client calls. Your brain doesn’t clock off just because your laptop does.

Trying to force total separation when your life doesn’t allow it isn’t discipline. It’s just a faster route to burnout.

And honestly? The reason so many of us can’t make traditional productivity advice work isn’t a personal failing. A lot of that advice was built for a very specific kind of life. One where someone else handles the school run and the dentist and the mental load of keeping everyone fed and clothed and where they need to be. That life is not our life.

So we can stop blaming ourselves for not fitting a system that was never designed for us.

Why letting it all blur doesn’t work either

On the other side, if work and life merge completely, everything starts to bleed into one never-ending pile of stress and half-finished things.

You find yourself answering emails while making pasta. Brainstorming content while folding laundry. Feeling guilty every time you try to rest because technically you could be working. That’s not integration, that’s just overwhelm with a nicer name.

The Sweet Spot: Integrated Enough, Separated Enough

Here’s the reframe that actually helped me:

Work and life balance best when they’re integrated enough to support each other, and separated enough to sustain each other.

Not perfect halves. Not a rigid split. A thoughtful blend that has some shape to it.

What healthy integration actually looks like

Integration isn’t chaos. Done well, your planning systems work across both home and business. One brain dump, not five separate lists on three different apps and a Post-it stuck to the kettle. Prepping dinner early creates space for an evening work session without resentment. The invisible load (the mental weight of running a home and a business at the same time) gets accounted for, rather than just squeezed into the margins.

If you want to go deeper on this, this post on making life feel calmer is a good place to start.

What healthy separation actually looks like

Separation is less about building walls between your roles and more about creating enough protection that you can actually breathe. Being able to log off without the guilt spiral. Having time that belongs just to you, not your clients, not your kids, not your inbox. Choosing when you’re available, rather than being permanently on, so your work has a shape to the day instead of expanding to fill every available minute.

We deserve that. And if boundaries are something you’re working on, this post on life and business boundaries is worth a read.

How to Actually Balance Work and Family Life

Build rhythms, not just schedules

A schedule tells you what to do. A rhythm tells you how to move through your day, and there’s a real difference between the two.

“Work 9 to 12” is a schedule. “Mornings are for focused work, afternoons are slower, evenings belong to the family” is a rhythm. One breaks the moment something goes wrong. The other bends.

Start by noticing your natural energy patterns. When do you do your best thinking? When do you hit a wall? When do you need to switch modes? Build your day around those instead of forcing yourself into someone else’s ideal structure.

On days when the energy between you and the kids just isn’t flowing, these small energy-shifting ideas can help you reset without derailing the whole day.

Make the invisible load visible

One of the biggest reasons work life balance feels impossible is that half the workload is invisible. The mental load of managing a home, tracking everyone’s appointments, remembering to order more toothpaste. It’s work, even when nobody counts it as such.

Writing it down, putting it in a system, sharing it where possible. That’s the first step to making it manageable. You can’t organise what you can’t see.

If you’re looking for a simple system to hold all of it in one place, these Notion board ideas are worth a look.

Give your working day some shape

One thing that makes an immediate difference is simplifying how you structure your work time. Not more detail, less. Three clear priorities, not a list of twenty.

If you want a quick place to start, these three steps for simplifying your working day are practical and genuinely doable in a limited window of time.

Give your time some shape with Time Buckets

Rather than a rigid hour-by-hour schedule, Time Buckets give your day a flexible structure. Broad blocks of time with a clear purpose that flex around real life without falling apart completely.

So instead of “9am emails, 10am client work,” you have “morning: focused work, midday: life admin and transitions, afternoon: lighter tasks and family.” The shape holds even when the details shift. It’s the system I use myself, and the one I come back to every time things start to feel like too much.

Get the Time Buckets Method here

Work Life Balance Tips That Actually Stick

If you want somewhere practical to start, these are the moves that make the biggest difference:

Audit your time honestly. Where is it actually going? Not where you think it’s going.

Name your non-negotiables. What are the things that, if they happen, make the day feel okay? Protect those first.

Account for the load, not just the tasks. Your planning should include the mental load, the transitions, the energy it takes to switch between roles. If it’s not in the plan, it doesn’t get done and you wonder why you’re exhausted.

Build in genuine off time, not “I’ll rest when this is done.” Scheduled, protected, guilt-free. It counts as part of the plan.

You Don’t Need Perfect Balance. You Need a Better Rhythm.

There’s no perfectly balanced life where work and home never collide, and we can stop waiting for it.

What we’re actually after is a life with enough shape to feel manageable, enough flexibility to handle what actually happens, and enough breathing room that we’re not permanently running on empty.

You can’t systemise your way out of an impossible load. But you can build rhythms that mean you’re not spending your limited energy on the wrong things. And that matters.

If you want to start with one tool, make it Time Buckets. A simple, flexible system for giving your day some shape without locking yourself into a rigid schedule that falls apart by 9:15am.

Get the Time Buckets Method

And if overwhelm hits before you get there, Stop the Spiral is free and takes about five minutes.

Don’t do more. Do what matters. Do it differently.

How did the summer holidays treat you?  Did your kids act like angels? Did you have loads of client work and tried not to worry about it on hols? If like me, you walked a fine tight-rope of playdate swaps and late nights, this blog post is going to come in useful for you, kids or no kids, to help simplify your day going forward, especially for those holidays days or when you don’t have a lot of hours in the day due whether it’s due to lack of childcare or other commitments.

First things first, if you are feeling over-whelmed and too busy, you are not alone.  It’s completely normal to feel worn out, especially when you are adding childcare into the mix of running a small business. Watching Instagram feeds of “successful” families enjoying a summer break and wholesome kids being outdoors having fun is not always helpful and adds comparison-itis into the mix. So that might have left you feeling a bit ‘hmph.’

In this article, I will give you 3 tips to simplify your working day.  I want to ease the pressure so that you don’t feel stressed about taking some time off to enjoy your family or have some self-care time whilst still growing and moving forward in your business.

Clear your mind AND your desk to lighten your load

Before getting started with an un-muddled day, spend 5 minutes sorting out your workspace. Remove as much clutter as you can and make it a nice space to spend time.  When you sit down to do your work, you don’t need your mind wandering off to think about tidying up.  Clear space physically and mentally so that you can spread out and use the resources you have available to you.

Do you have a starting work ritual? It’s a great way to signal to your brain that you want to get productive and get going promptly.  You decide what it should be, even something as simple as getting a drink to have beside you or lighting a candle.

I am a big advocate for the Pomodoro method so work out how much time you realistically have to work that day and break it down into 25-minute chunks.

Ready?  Let’s get started.

3 Tips to Simplify Your Working Day

1. Planning

“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” — William James

To really simplify your day, you need to know what you are actually hoping to achieve and make the tasks as realistic as possible.  Firstly, take a look at your to-do list and see if there are any items on there that can be struck off – have you been meaning to do something for three months but never got around to it?  Strike it off.  It can’t be that important.

Next, look at the list to find out if there is anything you can delegate.  This could be both for work or personal life, perhaps its sorting out play dates for the kids for a few days – get your partner involved with some of the mental load.  Finding that social media is simply taking too much of your time?  There are a host of fantastic VAs who may be able to help and also be a sounding board for new ideas, even on an ad-hoc basis.

The last two categories are the juicy ones, write out your “Grow your Business” and “Maintain your Business” tasks and pick 2 from Maintain and 1 from Grow and make that your list.  That’s it, no more than 3 tasks to start with.  In order to be more productive, the best way is to simplify and do less not more, but do it really well.

Another note on planning – at the end of your day, re-visit the list and check off the items you did and make the next list for the following day, meaning you can start the day right away.

Get started on your 1^st task and make sure that is the one which is going to benefit your business most.  If you have a limited time, be objective and focus on the areas that will keep the business moving forward.

2. Take a break!

I talked about this at a recent networking event, but breaks save lives!  It’s essential to take regular breaks so that your brain can refresh, you can move your body and generally stay focused on the task in hand.

When we try to work straight through, often even through lunch, that’s when procrastination station kicks in and we can fall into a social media scroll hole.  It’s absolutely fine to spend some time scrolling through Insta, but set a timer so that you can re-focus when the time comes.

As I mentioned previously, I love the Pomodoro method, so each time you finish a focused block of work, set a timer and have a proper break.  I created a list of 31 ideas for what to do in those 5 minute breaks.  Will you challenge yourself to try them all over the holiday period?

Limit your hours.   You don’t need to be working all the hours of the day.  I find that with a focused list and set hours I am forced to be more productive.  I also then get a proper break when I switch off without feeling that I always need to be available for my clients.

Keep an eye on your energy “flow” If you are more productive in the morning, make that the time to power through your list and then build in time for a nap or a snuggle on the sofa with the kids when you are feeling more depleted.  One of the benefits of running our own business is that we have the flexibility to do this.

3. Automation tools to un-muddle your day

When thinking about productivity, automation and tools really are your friends.  I talk a lot about Trello and Asana and these are fab tools. There are also some other free tools you can use to help simplify your day.

Turn all your notifications off so that you can focus on completing your to-do list and quietening some of the din that comes with being always connected.  There are quite a few apps that you can use for this which are either desk-top or phone-based.

Use scheduling tools to plan out your social media content so that you can free up more time to be working on your business. I have some planning resources on my website that help you plan ahead for the most return.

Email can be a real drain on productivity and drafting replies to clients and prospects is time consuming.   An alternative approach is to send a voice message. It takes a couple of minutes to record and means you can build a more personal rapport with your contacts.

Just three simple steps! For more tips come join my Facebook group.

You start with a great system. Perhaps you get set up on Trello. Maybe you start bullet journaling. Whatever it is, it’s going to take a little maintenance to make sure you have a working system that you can look at any time you need to know what you need to do next.

I know, I know, organising your organising sounds silly, but whatever system you use, if you don’t routinely make sure it’s working for you, then a) you’re not being as efficient as you could be and b) it’s going to get in a mess.

I don’t want to make organising your business and life more complicated than it has to be, so this should each only take a few minutes.

A good time to do this one is when you are planning your week out. Which again, shouldn’t take you too long.

You can do these weekly, or you could do some of these just once a month, but I schedule them all in for every week, and then if I don’t want to do them that week, or don’t need to, then I, shhh…. Don’t do it.

1.Organise Your Lists or Boards

Whether you use notebooks or Trello, keeping on top of the various lists you need for your business will help things stay in ship shape.

These are the things that I cover when I organising my Trello lists, but yours will probably be different, and if you don’t use Trello you can still use a similar method by either going through your notebooks, or planners or other digital tools and applying a similar strategy.

– Dashboard – I check that anything that has been completed is move to the ‘done’ list and add any extra actionable points for business and personal life. This board also has emails that need a considered response and also events, so I check on those here too.

– Calendar – check for any dates that are coming up, that all the right things are in. Did you have anything else you forgot to add?

– Weekly plan board – checking that everything is falling on the right day for the week ahead,and that anything I have actually done is archived. Anything that doesn’t need to be done that week anymore, I move back to where it needs to go.

– Ideas board. Do you have any other quick ideas to add. Are there any ideas there that really don’t make sense anymore and you’re going to scrap? Get rid of them. Anything you want to do that week, move it to your to-do list or your weekly plan board.

I schedule each of mine into Trello as an individual card and then use the card repeater power-up to make sure it comes back the week after.

2. Getting your notes in a form that makes sense

You’re on a call and writing down notes.
You have a random product idea and write it down on a scrap piece of paper while you’re out.
You get an A3 sheet and plan out your quarter.

Great, you’re doing this stuff.
Now you want to make sure you get it into an actionable list.

If you use a digital system, then start by getting it all into the right areas.

Client notes from your call into an email, document or Trello card.
Product ideas onto an idea board, or a product development list or board.
And get your quarter plans into your planner or a project development board.

When you’ve done that you can get rid of all those scrappy bits of paper.

I don’t do this every week, as sometimes I don’t have any notes to transfer, so if you don’t this is one of those ones you just file, or only schedule in for once a month.

3. Email and message purge

Email personal
Email business
Facebook messenger
Instagram messages
Whatsapp
Text messages

An email over here, a text over there. With notifications and flagged and unread messages everywhere, it’s hard to concentrate. Attention residue is the name psychologists give to that problem we have of not being able to focus on something because our mind is still on something else. An overload of messages, in whatever form they come in, doesn’t help.

Go through each of these and…

Read,
Delete,
Delegate,
Action,

…or add them to your to-do list.

A way to make this really easy to go is to use an application like Station to bring several of these together.
www.getstation.com

4. Organising Files & Folders

OK this one really might just be me, but speaking for myself, my files and folders get in an absolute state. I save stuff to desktop, my downloads folder is out of control and I still have 4000+ files that need organising back from when I moved everything over to Dropbox.

Don’t even get me started on screenshots.

So every Monday I schedule in 10 minutes of organising.

– Move everything from downloads to my Dropbox
– Move anything from desktop to Dropbox
– Move anything that is hanging around in the wrong place in

NOW, you could just be super organised and do this right when you save stuff, by changing files to the right names, and saving them in the right places.

But I guess what I’m showing you here is that I know we don’t always have time to do all of the ‘right’ things we should be doing, so instead, we sometimes have to patch.

That’s cool.

And it’s why you’ll never see me judging the way someone organises, you do you boo. But also I’ll help show you some awesome stuff along the way.

Another great thing you can do is change where your screenshots go, and also rename them at the time of screenshotting, I’ve just recently started doing this and it’s a game changer! Here’s how you do it. 

5. Weekly bookkeeping

This one is self-explanatory.

If you don’t have a bookkeeper, just this one little thing will help you out so much. Just five minutes a day, or half an hour a week, however long you need to keep on top of it.

I’m all for batching (grouping tasks together to save time) but when it comes to things like bookkeeping, if you are more likely to put it off because you hate doing it, then you’re better off doing little and often.

It will make everything a little less daunting when it comes to doing your tax return.

So download those CSV’s, reconcile your statements and collect your receipts.

OK fine, that’s over the top.

BUT did you know that breaks are essential for productivity?

Did you know these great reasons to take a break?

• A physical break to get your body moving can reduce the negative effects of sitting for long periods of time at a desk or laptop.
• A break helps prevent ‘decision-fatigue’ basically meaning you are better and quicker at making decisions when you have taken a break from your work.
• Breaks increase productivity and efficiency. A period of focused work along with short and longer breaks have been shown to be one of the best ways to maximise your productivity.

Pomodoro technique

I swear by the Pomodoro technique when it comes to periods of focused work. It’s a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980’s.

This is how to use it:

• Decide on the task to be done.
• Set the Pomodoro timer (traditionally to 25 minutes).
• Work on the task.
• End work when the timer rings and put a checkmark on a piece of paper.
• If you have fewer than four checkmarks, take a short break (3–5 minutes)
• After four Pomodoros, take a longer break (15–30 minutes), reset your checkmark count to zero, then go to step 1. I use this timer to help me make sure I take breaks and don’t go too much over break time!

But how do you fill those 5-minute breaks? Here are 30 ideas to give you a quick break after your focused period of work.

Treat them like a treat! Enjoy them and you’ll convince your brain that you love focused work.

31 Ideas for 5-Minute Breaks

If you’re at home

Working from home can be so distracting, but it also has the perks of being able to do these great break ideas.

1. Put on some happy music and do a funny dance – think Phoebe running style.
2. Open a door or window and take some deep breaths. Feel grass under your feet. Pick a flower. What can you see, smell and hear?
3. Make a cup of tea! Don’t do this every 5-minute break thoughor you’ll be buzzing.
4. Have a look in the fridge to have a think about what you’re going to make for dinner. Plan out your meal for lunch or for the evening.
5. Grab a snack. Blueberries and nuts could help increase your focus! Dark chocolate too. Shh.
6. Run your hands and wrists under cool water, and wash them with some lovely smelling soap.
7. Top up a water bottle. Add ice and/or some slices of fruit.

Social Media

If you love scrolling through social media, there’s no reason you can’t. Just make sure you limit yourself so you don’t spend hours on there for pointless reasons! This is where the timer comes in useful.

9. Post something on Twitter
10. Scroll on Instagram. Don’t forget to double-tap. Might as well.
11. Visit your favourite Facebook group. Make sure you pin your favourite and most useful Facebook groups to the left-hand side to make them super easy to find.
12. Is there a regular sharing thread in one of those groups? Share your link or win or message there.
13. Love Pinterest? Get in there. Pin 5 pins.
14. Head to Youtube and watch a music video you love

Your body

Moving our bodies is so beneficial. Physical exercise actually makes our brains work better.What?? And how comfortable we are, often determines how well we can work.

15. Have a wee. You know you’ve been holding it for too long!
16. Dance around! Try this playlist.
17. Do 10 x jumping jacks, 10 x squats or 20 x sit-ups.
18. Stretch out your body at your desk. Try this tutorial.
19. Do a quick body check. Are you warm enough? Too hot? Is your chair uncomfy? Get yourself comfortable.
20. Do a short meditation. The Calm app, or Headspace are great for this.

Educate yourself

Got a load of things you want to watch, read or listen to?  Whenever you find something you want to watch, bookmark it or save it to a Trello board so that you know what to watch when you have your 5-minute break.

21. Watch an educational YouTube video.
22. Read a few pages of a book. A great idea if you want to read more but struggle to find the time!
23. Find that newsletter/blog post/message you wanted to read
24. Research a skill that you want to learn, or something you’ve been trying to figure out.

Organisation

Want to double up on the productivity? Do these little tasks. Just don’t get distracted. You might not find these as fun, so make sure you use with caution!

25. Those ideas you had while you were working. Get them on your list, sort by ‘do now’ ‘do one day’  ‘delegate’ or ‘bin it’
26. Do a little walk around the home. Grab any empty mugs or glasses or plates that are lying around and take them to the sink. Don’t get distracted.
27. Put on a load of laundry. Don’t do it all. Just one load.
28. Take out washed laundry, and hang it or put it in the tumble dryer.
29. Take ten things from upstairs that should be downstairs and put them where they should go. Or vice versa.
30. Respond to messages or texts, or check your alerts.
31. Call your Mum back!