Transcript:

 

 

[00:00:00.000] – Laura Cicholski

I am Laura Chalky. Welcome to the Finding Balance in your Business Career, Finances, Health and Life Podcast today we are thrilled to have Sabrina Cadini as our special guest. And as you probably remember, Sabrina Cadini was part of my stress relief Series we are so thrilled to have you back again. Sabrina, thanks for being here.

[00:00:19.800] – Sabrina Cadini

Glad to be the issue to be here and back with you. Laura at.

[00:00:25.090] – Laura Cicholski

Thank you. Sabrina is a holistic life coach, brain wellness coach, and the creator of the Life Work Balance System, which sounds so neat and so timely. Her system focuses on a six pillar framework that helps her clients master nutrition, movement, sleep, manage their stress and anxiety, carve out time for self care and optimize the most precious resource in their lives time, which is what we’ll be focusing on in today’s episode, which is going to be really exciting to hear about. Sabrina. Blends well being principles with neuroscience, epigenetics, positive psychology and mindfulness techniques to help busy professionals and high achievers live and work better improve their productivity and performance thanks to customized lifestyle interventions.

[00:01:20.250] – Laura Cicholski

Well, thanks, Sabrina, for being here. I’m so excited to talk to you. How are you today?

[00:01:23.920] – Sabrina Cadini

I’m great. So whenever I can talk about my favorite topics, I’m always there.

[00:01:30.930] – Laura Cicholski

Exactly what’s so neat is I remember interviewing you for the Stressful series, and it was so neat because you talked about nutrition and exercise and sleep so many important things. Mindfulness taking time for yourself, which is wonderful. And I know these health care providers in our audience and anyone else listing today is going to realize that those are important. But then time management is also important because we often feel whether we’re single, whether we’re married, whether we have kids, we all are pulled in so many different directions.

[00:01:58.440] – Laura Cicholski

And then there’s work and people are working from home. Then health care providers are working at hospitals and offices. And so I think it’s really powerful that you’re here today, and I think you’re going to be able to help health care providers and all of us. We only have 24 hours in a day. Right. But it’s how we kind of use and manage those hours. Correct.

[00:02:15.690] – Sabrina Cadini

Absolutely. You said it very well. And you know, for me, it’s always finding balance. You have to manage time, but you also have to find balance in your life. So do I always doing. Yes, we are used to that. And this is our modis operandi during the day. Right. Because we have so many things to do, so many deadlines to meet but we also think about the being part. So it’s always nice to find a balance to just relax, wind down and find time time for yourself for your inner self.

[00:02:47.760] – Sabrina Cadini

Exactly. And really find a way to regulate and balance your nervous system after a busy and stressful day. So we’ll talk about different strategies to find balance and really be in charge in control of your time every single day. Yeah.

[00:03:06.580] – Laura Cicholski

Which is so important. And I think about for us whether I know you and I work from home, but I know other health care providers are in practices and hospitals, and I think about them every day, working, especially with Covid over the past year and all the great work they’re doing, but trying to be able to regenerate the nervous system during a busy work day or whether they’re at home in the evening and sometimes for them. I think we talked about this during the Stressfully series. It’s hard to turn things off.

[00:03:29.660] – Laura Cicholski

What you’ve seen during the day, as far as what recommendations do you have for them, we can kind of start with. I know there are many angles we can take, but like when they come home in the evening, they absolutely have to find time to spend time with their family, maybe do a hobby themselves, find time to do things around the house. What do you suggest for them, as far as also being able to make sure that there’s time in there as well for just themselves?

[00:03:52.170] – Sabrina Cadini

Absolutely. I’m so glad that you’re including this question in today’s at because I think the reason why we are struggling in our outer life is that we are always busy and we don’t think about ourselves. And if you think about it, we’re living longer than our ancestors, thanks to progress in science and medicine. But we’re getting sicker than our grandparents. Right. And this is part of our modern life. I mean, we work longer, we take less breaks, we sleep less, and stress becomes chronic not only at work but also at home.

[00:04:31.310] – Sabrina Cadini

As you were mentioning between family, school, maybe aging parents that they need to care for, and our bodies get negatively affected by all that stress. And how can I say we’re simply not designed to sustain the lifestyle for a long period of time? Our stress response is good, but only as long as it serves the purpose, getting ouster of a threat or a danger. And our stress response keeps our system constantly activated. That’s when our nervous system gets is related engaging is in. That right. I think butterfly mode and we get chronic inflammation in our bodies, we get tired, we get sick and we lower our productivity, we lower our performance, we get frustrated, and that’s like a vicious cycle right. At the end.

[00:05:23.090] – Sabrina Cadini

Exactly. And so I think that we have forgotten about our basic needs as human beings. Our body is such a sophisticated machine with about 37 billion chemical processes that happen every second, and each of these reactions is interconnected. Okay. I’ll get to your question. So I’m just taking a little longer, but I’m getting there, right. But it’s also a very simple machine. It just needs the right nutrition, the right movement, the right rest and social connections in order to keep us healthy and traveling. That’s it.

[00:06:00.420] – Sabrina Cadini

Right. But we don’t give it enough of this because we have more important things to do during the day. Right. Exactly. So again, you’re asking a very great question because we need to find the time for ourselves. We need to find time for a hobby we to sign for for our families and really be able to find that balance that we were talking at the beginning. So first of all, I’d like to remind our viewers that prioritizing our health and wellbeing can add quality years to our life.

[00:06:33.420] – Laura Cicholski

That makes sense.

[00:06:34.540] – Sabrina Cadini

And this can affect not only ourselves but everyone around us, our family, our friends, our colleagues. It impacts our happiness, it impacts our career, it impacts our future. Alright. So I understand that health care providers are probably experiencing the worst time in their lives. It’s such a bad, bad situation, and it’s hard for them to disconnect for their jobs because if they’re passionate, they want to be there for their patients. They want to help them as much as they can. But they have a life as well.

[00:07:10.960] – Sabrina Cadini

They have a family. They have to take care of that. So they need to disconnect to recharge and protect their physical, their mental and emotional health. Right. So going back to your question. So how to stay in charge of their own wellness, find time to relax, for hobbies, to enjoy time for friends and family seems impossible, but it can be done right. Time is our most precious resource, right? Yeah. Exactly. And we are smart with it. We can find the time for what matters most because we always say, oh, we never have the time.

[00:07:48.120] – Sabrina Cadini

Yes, we do it’s that we manage them in the wrong way. Now we let time be in control of our lives. We’re not in control of our time. Right. So my six pillar framework is perfect to get back on track by working on diet, movement, sleep, stress response, carving out time for yourself, optimizing time. But all of these can take a long time to balance. So one quick fix that I always recommend to my busy clients when we start working together and they always complain, I can never find time for myself is the creation of simple and quick routines.

[00:08:28.430] – Sabrina Cadini

Okay. So I help them create one for the morning and one before they go to bed.

[00:08:33.590] – Laura Cicholski

That’s a good idea.

[00:08:34.820] – Sabrina Cadini

So basically, this will be their sacred time where they will dedicate time to themselves. And they can include family, of course. So that’s a little Oasis in their time. In their day. They have a very busy day, but they can start with some time for themselves and end the day with some time for themselves. And that makes a huge difference, even if it’s like ten minutes. But mentally they think, well, this morning I was able to dedicate some time to myself.

[00:09:04.620] – Laura Cicholski

Exactly.

[00:09:05.260] – Sabrina Cadini

It’s a different thing. Instead of going to work and say, I’m already tired, I’m already tired. So a morning routine can help them set the tone for the day and bring positivity and intention. Okay. And then an evening routine can help them wind down after a stressful day.

[00:09:26.430] – Laura Cicholski

That makes sense.

[00:09:27.300] – Sabrina Cadini

So I always suggest that they include activities that can satisfy their body, mind and spirit for holistic approach. What are the mix of everything? Okay. That makes sense in things that they can include in their morning and or bedtime routine. I’m a big fan of journaling, right? Because that is very useful to write down what you’re thinking, what you are feeling, what you’re experiencing, especially there are negative thoughts. Those lose intensity and importance. Once you write them down to like, bring down, you write them down. Exactly.

[00:10:09.220] – Sabrina Cadini

You write them down and you feel relieved and you’re like, okay, now I’m not thinking about those. Those are on paper. I don’t have to worry about that.

[00:10:18.990] – Laura Cicholski

Which is so neat. I love that. After my Stress Relief Series, I started Journaling, and it’s been really powerful and even some days, if you feel like you’re not making progress in an area and then you look back like a month ago because I will date my Journal entries. I’m like, wow, I really have come a long way, even if I’m not exactly where I need to be, whether it’s weight, exercise, nutrition or your business or jobs, work, whatever family relationships. It’s interesting. If you write it down, you can kind of keep track of where you’re at and sometimes you forget, gosh, I really am.

[00:10:50.740] – Laura Cicholski

Maybe this bothered me a month ago, and now it’s not so that’s journaling power.   Like reading and yoga too. Are those also other suggestions you would have?

[00:10:58.330] – Sabrina Cadini

Yes, exactly. Reading, yoga, prayer in exercise, meditation, affirmations. A lot of my clients create their own affirmations in the morning, and whenever they feel a little tense or they feel something is off during the day, they start repeating that affirmation or mantra to calm themselves down. And it’s very useful in for an evening routine. You can also have a warm bath to relax. And if you have kids, you can find a relaxing activity for all, such as   playing together.

[00:11:36.130] – Laura Cicholski

playing a game or something as well.

[00:11:38.460] – Sabrina Cadini

Absolutely. So that’s something that you look forward to during the day and you know that you can count on those precious minutes with family with yourself.

[00:11:48.550] – Laura Cicholski

So cuddling with your pet.

[00:11:49.950] – Sabrina Cadini

I mean, it can be anything just for yourself. And those are like, your non-negotiables within the day. Yeah. We know, really medical time to that. Yeah. I love that. That’s a great reset activity to reclaim your well being, your wellness after a stressful day. What I recommend is that they start from maybe one or two new habits and be consistent with them so that the brain learns the process and then increase the habits and the time little by little. So it’s not an overwhelming thing right.

[00:12:28.590] – Sabrina Cadini

It should be a very joyful and pleasant thing in some point in routine and anything routine you don’t want to be.

[00:12:37.080] – Laura Cicholski

Probably always remember, we always have those New Year’s resolutions of going to the gym and they joke that it usually lasts like two weeks. And then people are back to their old habits, like middle of January. Then they’re back to the normal again. But two weeks that was going well.

[00:12:51.270] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah, totally. Well, there’s no plan. I always say resolution. You just think about them on New Year’s Eve, but there’s no plan. You don’t write them down, you don’t have a clear action plan for that. So that’s why you are not following through.

[00:13:06.030] – Laura Cicholski

I love that. I love that. That’s good. And I think, what do you recommend for clients and even health care providers during the busy work day? They will have, like, they’re seeing this patient at nine, this patient at 930. So that’s all scheduled throughout the day. They know when they’re seeing patients. And some things could come up where they need to deal with things. But in emergency rooms different. But if they’re, like a regular practice, they have things scheduled. But I wonder, do you recommend doing some of that at night as well?

[00:13:30.700] – Laura Cicholski

So that you can say, like if you come home and you’re thinking, oh, I need to do they need to do all these chores and this and that pay this bill. Do this. Maybe if they say, Well, gosh, this is 08:00. And I put this on my calendar that I was going to spend time with the kids or I was going to go for a run by myself and it’s 08:00 and he looking at the dishes or whatever saying, no, I’m not going to do that.

[00:13:48.400] – Laura Cicholski

Other the household tasks. Do you recommend that I’m going to do what I have set aside to do? Relaxing?

[00:13:53.530] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah. That’ll be ideal if they can avoid thinking about work once they’re home. That would be great, because at least again, we’re going back to that balance. Right. The doing and the being, the doing is at work. But the being is about you when you are with family and you are at home. So that should be time for yourself. But again, it goes back to the time management thing, and we always complain we don’t have enough time. I used to do the same. I believe it or not, I used to be the same way, but I finally found solutions to the problem, and it’s successful.

[00:14:32.490] – Sabrina Cadini

People can manage their time. This confirms that all of us can do that. Exactly. So the problem is not limited time. It’s bad time management right.   You can decide to spend time on things that serve you or not up to us. Exactly. And channel our energy and attention wherever we want them to go. Right. So what I usually tell my clients is that they have to be more aware and knowledgeable about the time that they spend. If they have things to say the night, it can be because it was a very long day.

[00:15:06.550] – Sabrina Cadini

They didn’t have time to take care of that. But it shouldn’t be a habit. Yeah. They should be able to organize and finish work at the end of the day.

[00:15:17.940]

Right.

[00:15:18.840] – Sabrina Cadini

And that’s it.

[00:15:19.550]

Right.

[00:15:20.540] – Sabrina Cadini

Exactly. So I usually talk about the difference between task management and time management. I don’t know if you want to talk about I do. That’s a huge difference. And there are different opinions out there prefer task management, some preferred time management. I prefer time management because it gives you a broader view of your day of your week of your month, and you can plan accordingly. And so once you’re organized better your time, you feel less and you’re more in control. Right. So just to give an example, just to give definition, task management is how you invest your time for a specific to do.  So task management involves the planning, the development, the completion.

[00:16:12.530] – Sabrina Cadini

And this is a process that you can create yourself or maybe use a system already in place. If you work in an office and a company, maybe they have procedures. Right.

[00:16:22.200] – Laura Cicholski

Exactly.

[00:16:22.560] – Sabrina Cadini

I do certain step by step processes to complete that task.

[00:16:27.380] – Laura Cicholski

Maybe software or something. It’s like a slack or something.

[00:16:31.270] – Sabrina Cadini

Absolutely. I mean, if they work in an office, they know what I’m talking about. And task management appears easier because it’s only about one specific task, and it can help you make I feel you’re making progress. But in my opinion, unfortunately, it focuses on one single task at a time that can steal special time from your day. You only think about one task, but you don’t have your day in front of you.

[00:16:57.180] – Laura Cicholski

Right.

[00:16:57.540] – Sabrina Cadini

So you don’t know that task might take you longer. And you we find on other things. Right. Exactly. So time management, on the other hand, is the process of planning and organizing how you invest your time in your day. Okay. So by doing that, you identify priorities and you create a schedule around that.

[00:17:20.930] – Laura Cicholski

Okay.

[00:17:22.470] – Sabrina Cadini

And so this process allows you to work smarter, faster to meet your deadline, better to be more productive and efficient. And less stress, which is our goal. Right.

[00:17:32.790] – Laura Cicholski

Exactly. So we’re going towards yes.

[00:17:35.520] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah. Exactly. So we want to stop concentrating on managing single task or managing your time, which is more efficient and effective long term. We basically take a look at the bigger picture instead of getting stuck on the single action of working on that task. Right.

[00:17:54.240] – Laura Cicholski

I love that because you can even incorporate that task in the time management. But I know my husband at work. He does. He’s an engineer, but he doesn’t do any healthcare stuff. But he talks about some days they schedule meetings from morning till afternoon. And I’m like, That’s not good, because the mornings, you’re creative time where you should be doing like, yeah, I can’t get anything done. So I think I like the time management part because you can set in there. Okay. I’m going to work on the task from this time this day, and I’m going to be able to do meetings because I feel like when you were never completely imbalanced for life, we never are at work.

[00:18:30.030] – Laura Cicholski

But I think if we just focus only on one task, then you’re going to feel out of balance completely in the other areas, don’t you? Whether it’s checking emails or phone calls, right. You’re going to ignoring everyone else. Exactly.

[00:18:40.290] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah. Only you should do that for the whole week. And you were saying in a meeting, you can decide to assign maybe certain days to meetings to make it even more on Tuesday and Thursdays can be meeting days. And then I know that I’m creative between ten and 1230 every day. So I will schedule that time for creative things. And I know that I’m more productive later in the afternoon. So those would be the slots for my more productive time.  See everything is planned. It’s not like you go down your to do list and I have to do this.

[00:19:17.280] – Sabrina Cadini

This this. And you don’t really know how to manage your time. And that’s when you go home and you still have things to do because you are not able to strategize and include them in your schedule. Maybe there’s time for them tomorrow. And you don’t know because you don’t really know what’s going to happen tomorrow. Right. Exactly. He has time for a week. You can organize that. And there also is another technique that I want to talk about now that we’re chatting about it see a lot of things that this is good.

[00:19:45.630] – Laura Cicholski

This guy, right?

[00:19:48.500] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah. So I’ll finish this. But then I will talk about that other techniques to keep everything organized. So remind me if I forget because there was so much. So when you do talk about this.

[00:19:57.180] – Laura Cicholski

I have something to tell you about how I’ve changed my weekly schedule.

[00:19:59.610] – Sabrina Cadini

Too.

[00:20:00.050] – Laura Cicholski

Perfect.

[00:20:00.470] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah. That’s awesome. So basically going back to the time management strategy, basically, you can take a look at your calendar and see when you have time available to tackle those to do pretty much what we talked about. So step one would be having to do list. Of course, that’s the starting point. We need to know what needs to be done right between meetings, appointments, visits. If they are doctors or nurses, they have ideas, patients and everything. But they also have an office stuff to add paper work all the time.

[00:20:30.660] – Sabrina Cadini

So they really have to know what’s going on every single day. So the to do list would be the starting time. And then they have to know exactly how long those tasks take. If they don’t know, maybe there are new tasks for new projects, new projects, they have to track the time. And that might take maybe a few days that might take maybe a week just to know how long that will take. So they know how many minutes, how many hours they need to invest in those.

[00:20:59.410] – Sabrina Cadini

And I work as an independent coach for an app that I mentioned to you is the time tracking app that allows you to track time, to see where time is going, to create goals, to achieve them, and to reflect and Journal on the time that you spend. So that would be a great, great starting point. And we can talk about that a little bit more later. So once you know exactly how long your tasks take, step three would be allocate the time to each item. From your to do list on your calendar, you schedule those tasks on your calendar over a day, over a week or over a month.

[00:21:38.390] – Sabrina Cadini

So then you know how your day will be organized and you can breathe. You’ll be like, okay, so I know that this task I have some time between three and 330. That’s when nothing happens instead of rushing and saying, I know that I have to do this before the end of the day. No, I have time until three so I can take care of other things. And that’s a completely different approach. It’s less stressed. It’s more organized because you see what you can do and when, yeah, we sound good.

[00:22:11.640] – Laura Cicholski

This is really interesting because even like, you get healthcare providers that are whether they’re in the Er, when they still have in offices, they still have meetings they have to do right. Or sometimes some of them are on committees, right? Or meeting to talk about protocols for different hospital things. So they have other things going on outside or whether they’re charting or whether they’re answering phone calls. So this is good enough. They have the set schedule of seeing patients. They do have the other things that they have to bring in.

[00:22:37.500] – Laura Cicholski

So it’s kind of good to be able to see what time. I love that part as well. Now I was going to tell you about me as a business owner from home, I’ve just started doing like I’ll have for my podcast. And by recruiting videos, I’m going to have a day where I do those a week, try another day might be meetings. Another day will be admin. Another day is going to be maybe where I’m writing blog articles. You know what I mean? Another day might be business calls, but I’m trying to schedule them out.

[00:23:02.850] – Laura Cicholski

And I’ve seen people do that years ago, and I thought I never do that. But it’s kind of nice because then I know instead of feeling like, every day I have a meeting, I’m trying to do the best I can on one day, and then you feel like the next day you have time, because then I feel like, then if you have meetings all day long, then you’re not getting to the contact creation. Does that make sense.

[00:23:22.680] – Sabrina Cadini

Absolutely. So.

[00:23:23.790] – Laura Cicholski

Same thing for health care providers. They have to see patients all day. But if our health care managers, but if they don’t ever set time for the meetings where they need to discuss protocols or things moving forward, it makes it tricky.

[00:23:34.080] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah. Absolutely. And I was mentioning to you this zero based calendar.

[00:23:42.390] – Laura Cicholski

Yeah. Let’s check.

[00:23:43.490] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah. What is that about?

[00:23:47.240] – Laura Cicholski

Yes.

[00:23:47.750] – Sabrina Cadini

I think it would be a great solution talking about how to allocate time to each task from your to do list in your calendar. I can’t say enough about this because it’s a very easy way to implement for your productivity, and that can get you organize. It can help you maximize your time. It can allow you to get more done with less procrastination, which seems to be a very common trait with my client.

[00:24:18.150]

Right.

[00:24:19.170] – Sabrina Cadini

Because you see this to do list, and you’re like, I hate to do that, and you always keep it as last. And sometimes it’s last at the bottom of the list. You still have to take care of that and you bring it home.

[00:24:31.540] – Laura Cicholski

Right.

[00:24:31.970] – Sabrina Cadini

You don’t want to do that.

[00:24:33.080] – Laura Cicholski

Right. Exactly.

[00:24:34.280] – Sabrina Cadini

But if you have it at a certain time in your calendar, you know that it has to be done and you’re most likely to get it done because you see it and you know that once it’s done, it’s out of the way.

[00:24:44.600] – Laura Cicholski

So zero bit calendar. What is that?

[00:24:46.250] – Sabrina Cadini

Zero calendar can be used by anyone who has a job or also for working mothers or full time moms. I have a client. She doesn’t work, but she still uses a zero based calendar, and she’s very successful with it. Basically, you fill your calendar with everything that you have to do in Europe, 24 hours every single day, so you fill it up your base. There’s nothing available pretty much.

[00:25:15.290] – Laura Cicholski

Right.

[00:25:15.680] – Sabrina Cadini

So you include type for work that can be visits, meetings cause dictation, as you were saying, paperwork, everything. That’s why I was saying, you need to know how long those tasks because you have to block lots of time. Right. If you estimate, sometimes you might be a little short with that time, and then you get late. Right? You can behind on your deadlines. So you need to know exactly how long those class take. You block those time blocks and then you add, I don’t know if you have to go to the office or a hospital or anywhere.

[00:25:58.000] – Sabrina Cadini

You have to include travel time for meeting appointments. So at least you know that you have time to go to the meeting. Right. You don’t want to have, I don’t know, a Zoom call at 10:00 A.m., and then you have to be at the office at eleven. And you’re done at 1055. And you’re like, I have 30 minutes of driving.

[00:26:16.990] – Laura Cicholski

I’ll be there. You can’t get it.

[00:26:19.900] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah. Exactly. So at least you got the travel time. So you know that by 1030 you need to leave the house and then you include all of your chores, house chores. Errands. You include your family schedule. I don’t know. Kids, sports, right. You have to pick  them up  all. There your personal leads. So you put time for exercise, you put time for sleep, you put time for meditation, your hobbies, your morning and evening routines that we talked about. Even you put the time for your meals, breakfast, lunch, dinner.

[00:26:54.240] – Sabrina Cadini

Those will be blocked time for you because otherwise it will never be the time for that, right. You will need to eat your lunch in front of the computer because you don’t have the time for that, right? Right. And also, I always recommend that they include breaks, Breaks at work every hour, so it can be five minutes or 15 20 minutes every few hours for water, socializing little stretch. Get up from the chair. There exactly reseated long hours at the computer. Time for social media. Do they like to scroll?

[00:27:30.200] – Sabrina Cadini

Find time for that? It can be ten minutes at 515. Fine. Put them in their calendar. So at least you’re not tempted to do it during the day. You know that you have time assigned to that, right? You don’t have to miss it. Right. And then buffer time. This is also very important to decompress before and after meetings or calls. You have a long call. You know, it will be like 1 hour long, take ten minutes before after that call and before another activity. So you have time to reflect, think, maybe write some notes.

[00:28:05.880] – Sabrina Cadini

I have the time to do that, right? Yeah.

[00:28:10.870] – Laura Cicholski

Those are all good tips and obviously from health care providers. If they’re an emergency room or critical care, it could be different. They may not be able to do. They may be running to eat lunch, but I think on days if it’s their days when they can. And even there are people in the family practice setting, they should be able to hopefully schedule their lunch. Shouldn’t be able to do different tasks like that. The zero based calendar seems really, really good. Like, go ahead.

[00:28:35.720] – Sabrina Cadini

No, go ahead.

[00:28:36.780] – Laura Cicholski

I was just going to say I like to the time for social media because as we know our phones, I often will check my phone because I have kids and a husband and I work from home. And so I’m always worried about missing a client call or email that I need to. But then now I’m thinking about scheduling times where I even put on there. I get back to you. I’ll get back to you quickly, but I may not check my phone every hour. You know what I mean?

[00:29:01.440] – Laura Cicholski

Because otherwise you’re constantly checking and you can’t get a lot of other things done. So I like your buffer for social media and checking exactly as we were saying about the emergency doctor.

[00:29:13.670] – Sabrina Cadini

You can maybe if you can create some cushions, like half an hour in the morning, half an hour in the afternoon where you don’t schedule anything and you may be another job to take a change or something. Exactly. So you know that for half an hour during that time, you can probably move your blocks around. But you know, that half an hour might be needed for emergencies. But at least basically, you schedule everything happening in your day, from tasks to meetings and also leisure time and is provided with a visual representation of what you’re going to accomplish that day, since each task has the time window.

[00:29:53.870] – Sabrina Cadini

So you know exactly what is going to happen. Your personal time is protected. There’s no more saying I’ll do that later when I have the time to time never comes. Exactly.

[00:30:06.970] – Laura Cicholski

That thing will be. No, I’ve had that. Have you ever had that happen? Where all of a sudden I’m like, oh, this task because it was on the Todo list on Monday. It’s Friday. It’s still there. Apparently, I didn’t want to do it, right?

[00:30:18.040] – Sabrina Cadini

Absolutely. Yeah. So if it’s there in the calendar, you’re most likely to stay committed to it.

[00:30:23.710] – Laura Cicholski

Right.

[00:30:24.460] – Sabrina Cadini

And also schedule you’re doing nothing. I you know, the relaxed time schedule. It because once it’s there, nobody will take it away from you. Right.

[00:30:34.310] – Laura Cicholski

And it goes back to the importance of taking vacations. They say sometimes people don’t take enough vacation. Is it’s so important because you can kind of get away and you can relax with your family? It’s good mentally and physically. So going back to you, I know I interviewed Lisa Dunlap for she’s a nurse practitioner and also now I think she’s like a wellness coach for nurses. And she said that when she saw patients as a nurse practicioner, she said, oh, my goodness. She said I would like be taking.

[00:30:59.540] – Laura Cicholski

And she has three little kids, I believe. But she said I would be taking home these charts on the weekends and nights to be able to finish up with patients and dictate afterwards. And so she was like, I finally realized I needed to ask others that were able to get it done right away. Obviously, every physician, every nurse practitioner, every PA, every nurse has their own ways of doing it. But if there are some that maybe are newer to the industry or they’re thinking, Gosh, we had a system that works now.

[00:31:25.520] – Laura Cicholski

Covid hit it’s different. What do you recommend for them? Because a lot of times when I was in PA school, they told us to do the dictation right after your soap note right after you saw a patient. But then, is there a certain allocated time you suggest for answering the calls and looking at the lab work? What do you think? Do you know what I mean for people that call you the nurses? Yes.

[00:31:45.940] – Sabrina Cadini

Absolutely. Well, I think that prioritizing should be very important to do so, knowing what needs to be done first. Right. And we know that everything looks urgent important.

[00:32:01.110] – Laura Cicholski

Right.

[00:32:01.530] – Sabrina Cadini

We can’t really diversify, because when we are working and when we are on, like doctors and nurses, it’s very difficult to be able to  say, well, this is more important or most urgent than others.

[00:32:17.150] – Laura Cicholski

Of course, everything is exactly. I know.

[00:32:20.770] – Sabrina Cadini

But for the emergency. So that really depends on the case and the urgency.

[00:32:27.010] – Laura Cicholski

Right. Right.

[00:32:27.760] – Sabrina Cadini

But if there’s something that can be organized, then the prioritizing is, I think, most important. And there’s a great technique that is something that I wanted to talk about earlier when we were chatting called the Eisenhower Matrix. I don’t know.

[00:32:44.050] – Laura Cicholski

I heard that about it. No, I haven’t.

[00:32:46.890] – Sabrina Cadini

Okay. This is something that I’ve been using for years, first on myself and with my clients. And it’s a great way to prioritize tasks and projects, because, again, we tend to think that everything is urgent and it’s most important, and we’re stuck because we have too many things to do, right? They don’t know where to start from. So we usually resorts do multitasking thinking that we’ll get everything done, right. But that’s not actually a multi task can actually slows things down. Exactly.

[00:33:14.710] – Laura Cicholski

You can’t get anything done. Sometimes it works a little. Look at this. I know.

[00:33:21.280] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah. So the way the Eisenhower matrix, the Eisenhower is from the American President. So you take a piece of paper and you create, like, a square and you divide it in four quadrants.

[00:33:32.800] – Laura Cicholski

Okay.

[00:33:33.530] – Sabrina Cadini

So the first Quadrant will be for important and urgent. So these are the tasks that you have to do first.

[00:33:41.460] – Laura Cicholski

Okay.

[00:33:42.510] – Sabrina Cadini

And then the second Quadrant will be for important, but not urgent. Okay. These are things that you can schedule. Okay. And then the third Quadrant will be for not important, but urgent. Okay. And these are tasks that you can delegate. For instance, if you have the office staff, physicians, medical assistance, interns, volunteers. I mean, there are so many people who are there eager to help you because I want to learn the business. Do it right. Don’t hesitate to delegate.

[00:34:19.290]

Right.

[00:34:19.890] – Sabrina Cadini

And then the fourth Quadrant will be for not important and not urgent. So these are tasks that you can eliminate because they’re not relevant or maybe schedule for a later time next week, next month. They can wait. That makes sense. So that requires a lot of awareness because you really have to sit down and go through each task that you have to do and really think which category they fall in. And you realize there are more things that go to the second 3rd, quote, four Quadrant than the first one you’re like you thought about that’s true.

[00:34:57.740] – Sabrina Cadini

Maybe important an urgent only a couple that I can take care of right now. But the rest can wait. That’s true.

[00:35:05.120] – Laura Cicholski

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

[00:35:06.750] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah. So this was you to take a free breath, because you’ll see that out of ten things you have in your list just for today, maybe only three will need your attention.

[00:35:16.430] – Laura Cicholski

Exactly.

[00:35:17.570] – Sabrina Cadini

And the rest and wait. That can wait until tomorrow. You don’t have to take them home. Right.

[00:35:23.740] – Laura Cicholski

Exactly.

[00:35:24.220] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah.

[00:35:26.270] – Laura Cicholski

Yeah. Maybe if someone has normal lab work, that’s nothing’s urgent, whereas the ban of some scan that something was abnormal that that needs to go talk to right away and stuff, too.

[00:35:36.900] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah.

[00:35:37.150] – Laura Cicholski

I know it has to be challenging for healthcare providers, because I’m sure as you’re seeing patients, and then in between, I wonder if that’s when that’s the whole not important but urgent. Some of those where they say the medical assistant call them back right away and they deal with this for me. Or you have my permission to let me know right away when you run into something that’s abnormal labs or something that’s on your date.

[00:36:00.450] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah.

[00:36:00.760] – Laura Cicholski

That’s really good. I’ve heard of parts of that before, but I didn’t know it was called the Eisenhower method. That’s really neat.

[00:36:06.760] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah.

[00:36:07.420] – Laura Cicholski

I love that. I love that.

[00:36:08.940] – Sabrina Cadini

Pretty cool. Yeah. And also, I would say, setting boundaries between work and family time. It’s key today, especially if you’re working from home. Maybe some of them are able to work from home. And recent studies have shown that there are blurred lines between working family responsibilities today because we end up working more hours. There are no office hours anymore. And to create more pressure or stress because you have less time for family, you feel guilty, you can’t Cook, you can’t pick up the kids from soccer practice, and that creates a sense of tension and pressure.

[00:36:46.830] – Sabrina Cadini

You know, also say no. Say no is one of the biggest things today, and it’s always hard to do because you feel it. But it’s very useful. For many reasons. You will be able to focus more on urgent and important tasks. You experience less pressure, and you will have more time for what matters more to you. So it also could be realistic of what you can do at work and also in your life. I mean, too many projects will not do any good, too. Right.

[00:37:21.500] – Laura Cicholski

Yeah. Kind of focus on maybe we try to focus on that one. Like you said, use a time management method, but try to allocate it for that one task and figure out what you can do. And obviously, for providers, it’s a little bit different, but. And I like the fact that I, like, all these things are bringing up. I feel like saying no to our phones is good.

[00:37:38.400] – Sabrina Cadini

Do you know what I mean?

[00:37:39.400] – Laura Cicholski

Like, no to electronics? Because we’re in the era. And now where my kids? I don’t know what they would do without their phones. We’re just growing up because my kids are like, wow, what did mom and dad, what did you do without your phones? And I said we actually went outside and played. It’s an amazing concept. It really is. They’re really they’re like, Weren’t you bored? And I was like, no, I said, I think I had my first flip phone when I got my first job out of College.

[00:38:02.410] – Sabrina Cadini

I think, you know what I mean.

[00:38:03.850] – Laura Cicholski

I didn’t have a phone before that. We were fine. But I feel like things because I feel like sometimes for me, if I’m always checking it, I’m never really there. And granted, you get a physician or a PNP that’s on call, they have to have it with them. I get that. I understand. But on the days when they’re not on call, if their families with them and they can feel like they can break away from it, they even have they sell these boxes that my daughter wanted to buy at Walgreen.

[00:38:27.940] – Laura Cicholski

It’s a little box that you can lock your phone up. And she’s like, I want to buy that. And I was like, I don’t know if we need that, but it’s a good idea where you could put all the phones in there.

[00:38:35.880] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah. You know, there’s a restaurant in New York City that started to do it a few years ago. They have on the table, and they would encourage the patrons to put their phones in the box to enjoy the meal experience. And that was cool. But, you know, going back to your daughter with the phone again, the body wants to move. The body wants sunlight, you know, and so it’s essential that you forget about your phone and you go out and play. Yeah, you got to walk, because that’s what our body system needs.

[00:39:12.040] – Sabrina Cadini

And you know, it’s funny because we are always looking for strategies, techniques, tools, apps to be more productive to improve our performance. These are the ultimate tools, our body and our brain. These are the most amazing resources that can really, really improve our productivity. We can become happier, more productive, more creative if the system works. Oh, my God. We can achieve anything we want.

[00:39:41.170] – Laura Cicholski

Exactly.

[00:39:42.160] – Sabrina Cadini

I know.

[00:39:42.580] – Laura Cicholski

I love that what you’re saying. That’s amazing. And I think you’re right. And I think it’s like you said, creating, saying, no. Sometimes. So maybe electronics, setting boundaries. And I think, like you said, taking time for ourselves and also for people that work from home or whether it’s even is so important, I think for us to get out of our cubicles or for me, I’m thinking about starting putting my laptop somewhere different in a different room of the house, because right now I’m in, you’d see, my living area.

[00:40:09.360] – Laura Cicholski

So on our bar in kitchen. But then I like to work down here because I’m where my kids are and stuff. But at the same time, I’m always like, if I’m cooking, I’m looking at my laptop. So I’m thinking about another room. And then when I come down here, I can be present. But same thing, like for providers at work or at a hospital. I’ve heard I had some people I’ve interviewed. They’ve mentioned, if you can get out of the cubicle, go for a walk outside, or even walk around the building.

[00:40:32.870] – Laura Cicholski

Just a change of scenery throughout your busy work day can really just kind of help to bring a little bit of a break, and then maybe at home if they don’t have to bring their work laptop with them. That’s good.

[00:40:43.250] – Sabrina Cadini

You know what I mean? Absolutely. Yeah. Nature is refreshing and resetting for it is. So it’s really, really helpful to disconnect and reconnect. I don’t know where I read this quote. It says, contrary to our tech devices, we need to disconnect to recharge. We don’t plug ourselves. We need to disconnect from everything we do to recharge and have more energy or technical. We plugged in, right? Yeah.

[00:41:17.860] – Laura Cicholski

Exactly.

[00:41:18.810] – Sabrina Cadini

It’s different. And now that we’re talking about taking a walk in nature or really getting out of the cubicle, mindfulness is so amazingly powerful, and it can take, like two minutes of their time. It doesn’t change anything in their schedule. In their own team, they can do it between patients just to have a little reset. It’s a little reset button for them just to be able to think now.

[00:41:47.120] – Laura Cicholski

If they’re doing like a 1 minute. I know I’ve talked about this especially serious, but if they’re doing like, if they’re newer to mindfulness and just want to take 1 minute break, is that where they’re kind of doing the whole body scan from head down? I’ve done that before where I’m seeing the lines, the grocery store, and I’ll think about my head. Is it all the way down? You know what I mean? Because it’s like a good use of time for me on my phone. But what do you suggest?

[00:42:07.160] – Laura Cicholski

Is it thoughts because they might not be able to close their eyes? Is it just kind of like some deep breathing? Is it just so relaxing?

[00:42:13.750] – Sabrina Cadini

I usually do it in three steps, depending on how long you have. If you have five or more minutes, you can go through the three steps if you only have 1 minute focus on your breathing.

[00:42:25.500] – Laura Cicholski

Breathing.

[00:42:26.310] – Sabrina Cadini

Okay, super simple. And follow your breath in and out to follow it. Just pretend that you are with your breath nose down to your lungs and to your belly. If you can go down to the belly, because that’s when the powerful breathing exercise is and that alone can bring your body to homeostasis or balance, because the brain sends a signal to your body that everything is okay and we’re safe because we have time to pay attention to our breathing.

[00:42:58.180] – Laura Cicholski

That makes sense.

[00:42:59.600] – Sabrina Cadini

And we can do that. And we’re consciously breathing. We know we realize that we’re breathing. The brain realizes that, and it’s like, okay, if we have the time to do that, and if we can pay attention to that, it means there’s no danger. And so our auto system switches from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic mode, which is the realization modee.

[00:43:21.420] – Laura Cicholski

So even if you encounter later on, like, a stressful event or whether it’s a stressful patient encounter something stressful at the patient or they’re running. They can stay calmer during that moment. So it’s almost like prevention. It’s like going to the doctor for screening, right. You don’t find anything, right. Exactly.

[00:43:38.050] – Sabrina Cadini

And they keep the doctor away.

[00:43:40.000] – Laura Cicholski

Exactly. We like doctors, but it’s good to not have to go less. You go for your physical right now.

[00:43:46.200] – Sabrina Cadini

It’s good to have a doctor as a friend. Right.

[00:43:48.450] – Laura Cicholski

Specialize the physical. Yeah. You don’t want to have to go to stick. You want to go for the physical and for the prevention techniques and stuff like that. That’s really, really powerful. And then you talk about, like, the performance, right. Be more productive. So how does like looking at your own time management? How does that help? Like the performance? Is it because you feel like you can get things done versus focusing on everything, every fire that comes up? Is that why exactly.

[00:44:19.330] – Sabrina Cadini

I mean, stress will always be there.

[00:44:21.230] – Laura Cicholski

Last minute emergencies will always be there because that’s like.

[00:44:24.440] – Sabrina Cadini

We can’t be in control of everything, especially those external triggers, right. Emails that you have to respond to immediately. Boss has some urgent task for you. The computer shuts down right in to a meeting, right? Yeah.

[00:44:38.800] – Laura Cicholski

Exactly.

[00:44:39.190] – Sabrina Cadini

A last minute family emergency. Anything can happen, or they – nothing we can do.

[00:44:46.010] – Laura Cicholski

Right.

[00:44:46.280] – Sabrina Cadini

But our stress response is the one that helps us be freak, freaking out or in control and be a little more analytical and be able to respond accordingly. But if you have everything that you know, you have to do, planed and organize, that takes at least of 50% your stress away, because at least you have the foundation time. You are prepared for everything that should be done. If there’s no emergency, it will be a very smooth day because you have a right in client. You know what I may have exactly.

[00:45:22.160] – Laura Cicholski

And things can come up. But if you have certain times to handle those emergencies or something, and if you’ve kind of done some breathing when you’ve had a break, then you can hopefully weather through that.

[00:45:32.930] – Sabrina Cadini

If you already identified, maybe people you can delegate to, you have to leave for an emergency. You know, you can count on someone again.

[00:45:39.370] – Laura Cicholski

So exactly.

[00:45:41.190] – Sabrina Cadini

A plan a plan B. Right.

[00:45:43.440] – Laura Cicholski

Exactly. Yeah.

[00:45:44.820] – Sabrina Cadini

So what to do? And so that you don’t have to be, like a frantic when you come back because nobody took care of her.

[00:45:53.580] – Laura Cicholski

Exactly.

[00:45:54.240] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah.

[00:45:54.790] – Laura Cicholski

Nothing worse than going on vacation. And then you were working out a project or something. Right. And then my husband has solve that before at a previous job where he came back and he was like, wow, nothing got done while I was gone. Like, nothing.

[00:46:06.930] – Sabrina Cadini

I’m like, wow. Gosh. I know it’s interesting.

[00:46:12.430] – Laura Cicholski

Too, because you talk about, like, and then we’ll go to your website, too. We have to kind of finish up here. But it’s interesting, because when you talk about, like, even I know I’ve talked with other people the importance of checking in, whether it’s relationships, whether it’s, you know, friendships, business clients or probably for when the providers see their patients, they’re checking in to see how they’re doing. But it would be nice. I think I like practice managers, leaders, physicians can check into with their staff and everything too right to see.

[00:46:38.930] – Laura Cicholski

How are things going? Where can we do a better job here, right. Where can we do?

[00:46:42.920] – Sabrina Cadini

You know what I mean?

[00:46:43.830] – Laura Cicholski

How are we doing for time and even maybe because a lot of times the health care managers are well versed on some of these time management stuff. If they can even teach their staff some of these techniques, I would think that would be helpful or call someone like you in to do that right to help out?

[00:46:56.670] – Sabrina Cadini

Absolutely. Absolutely. And if there’s an environment office environment where the team is working closely together, I think that having maybe online calendars and share the availability is also useful so they can schedule meetings when everybody is available. And that again takes the stress and the pressure down.

[00:47:19.590] – Laura Cicholski

Right it and even doing wellness training or anything. You know, how they used to have to do continuing medical education, although they do that separately or if they have wellness seminars or something. I’m sure they had to do covid updates. I’m sure about PPE and stuff. They probably had emergency meetings, but the importance of asking how their staff is doing. I think Dr. Elia Gregorys, during my dress sleeve series, talked about that. Don’t just say, how are you and keep walking. Like, how are you really doing?

[00:47:47.800] – Laura Cicholski

He always talked about how important that was.

[00:47:50.640] – Sabrina Cadini

You know, that reminds me, a client of mine. We’ve been working together for a few years. She’s been a long time client and she has a small team. She’s a small business owner and she always did mental check ins before their meeting. Internal meeting the team just to make sure that everything was fine and they didn’t have any problems or issues. And also she implemented a ten minute buffer time between all the internal meetings. Between meetings, the team members get up, go to the restroom if they needed stretch get a sip of water, exchange a couple of words with their colleagues just to release that tension and everything,  and then go back in the next meeting.

[00:48:40.260] – Sabrina Cadini

It was a great way to relax a little and have more and more energy. And she experienced an increase in productivity in energy. And the team was working much better together. Yeah.

[00:48:57.590] – Laura Cicholski

Which is really very good. Well, everything. Everyone needs a break. Everything needs a break. If you kept your car running, our cars are made to run hour after hour, but the engines get warm after a while. It’s good to turn it off a little bit and let it recharge. I like that the ten minute buffer and the fact that she was checking in with their team. I think if more team did that, that would make for even a better work environment, which is now what we want for everyone.

[00:49:19.920] – Sabrina Cadini

We’re all humans.

[00:49:21.470] – Laura Cicholski

We’re not machine, right?

[00:49:23.140] – Sabrina Cadini

We are working. We’re human beings, not human doing exactly.

[00:49:28.750] – Laura Cicholski

Yeah.

[00:49:29.440] – Sabrina Cadini

Again, we need to take care of ourselves.

[00:49:32.140] – Laura Cicholski

Exactly. I know. I love how you brought it back to this whole time management going back to productivity, mental well being, lower stress. I mean, that’s amazing. It’s really good. Thank you. You’ve given us so many great tips today. Thank you for being a thank you. Where can our audience find you?

[00:49:49.700] – Sabrina Cadini

Yeah, very easy. My full name SabrinaCadini.Com. That’s my website, and I have a blog. I don’t write as often as I used to, but I am amassed a good amount of blog post, and hopefully you can find more tips. And there’s also a little booklet that you can download, so. Yeah. Awesome.

[00:50:11.090] – Laura Cicholski

Thank you. Well, you’re very busy with your coaching, so that’s good. I mean, you’re helping clients directly, which is awesome. Well, thank you for being here. You’ve given us so many wonderful tips. I know you’ll help a lot of these healthcare providers with things, and we’re just so happy you were here.

[00:50:24.100] – Sabrina Cadini

Thank you so much. Laura. Always a pleasure.