Part 2: How to Create More Time in Your Day with Cortney McDermott

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January 29, 2024 • 48 mins

Part 2: Creating More Time in Your Day with Cortney McDermott

This is part two of three in a series with Cortney McDermott. Cort is a bestselling author, TEDx speaker, and mind-body expert with a Master of Science from the London School of Economics. She speaks four languages and splits her time between Italy and the US. There was a time in her life when it looked like she had it all, but in reality, she was “miserably successful." She had a series of “cold shower moments” where she realized that, despite her accomplishments, she was unhappy. She looked around and saw that it didn't seem like anyone around her was feeling fulfilled. Finding her way out of that space and helping others do the same has become her calling and a new career.

Do you tie your value to your productivity? Do you think being busy gives you self-worth? Do you struggle with time management? Cortney tells us she used to be this person too, until one day, she removed the word “busy” from her vocabulary, flipped her relationship with time, and started to focus on the things that were really important to her, and eventually, it started to feel like time expanded.

For many of us, the chaos starts when we open our eyes, roll over, and grab our cell phones. Cort tells us our brains are most programmable right before we fall asleep and right after we wake up, so avoiding the phone in bed is a small way to make a few minutes of time for ourselves and begin to cultivate stillness. In that stillness, we can access our innate intelligence and begin to see things more clearly. A lot of what we think we need to be doing is just noise. In stillness, we can find honesty that allows us to evaluate what we are spending time on and can actually let go of. In the same way, there are things that only we can do, like spend time with our family. By eliminating the "busyness," you will have more time for the important things.

However, there are seasons in life when we feel the busyness serves us, like when we are expanding in our careers or building a family. Mathew reminds us that while there is a time to turn the volume up to 10, there are also times to lower it back down to 2. As long as you realize that no one but you can control the volume of your life, you will maintain the ability to manage your own time. As many of us know, a task will expand to the time it is allotted, leading to procrastination. By setting realistic yet ambitious timelines for ourselves, we maximize what we can accomplish. No matter what, remember that you always have permission to opt out. Identify the noise and areas where you are giving too much out of a sense of obligation or outside perception, then take back your time. Link new behaviors to existing behaviors, like listening to the audiobook while watching your kids practice or doing wall push-ups each time you go to the bathroom. Experiment with patterns and habits you can associate to make your life easier.

In this episode, you'll hear: