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Every year, you pour yourself into making the holidays special for everyone you love. The decorating, the baking, the gifts, the traditions. But somewhere along the way, did it stop feeling special for you? If you've ever reached the day after Christmas feeling more relieved than happy, I see you. I did that for way too many years. The holidays have always been my favorite time of year. But after becoming a mom and adding more extended family, I noticed I was almost dreading them because they'd become so much work. So I finally sat down and asked myself why this kept happening year after year, and what I needed to change. In this episode, I'm sharing the four things I now do every fall that have turned the holidays into a season I get to enjoy right alongside my family. None of them take a ton of time, and you can start on every one of them today. In This Episode, I'll Cover: Why your favorite holiday activities start to feel like chores, and the simple calendar move that keeps that from happening.The gift-giving expectation that quietly lands on so many women after marriage, and the conversation that takes it off your plate.How I started baking Christmas cookies in July without it feeling like one more thing on my list.The question that helped my family let go of traditions nobody loved anymore.My bonus tip for this year, for every woman who's always the one behind the camera.________________________________ 💻 Free Training Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you?  You’re in the right place. Sign up for my free, on-demand training and learn how to take control of your time—no matter what life throws at you.  👉 www.megansumrell.com/freetraining ________________________________ 📱 Get The Pink Bee App Access planning tools, trainings, and support all in one place.  👉 www.onelink.to/qxdcwu ________________________________ Thanks for tuning in! Megan 🩷🐝 www.megansumrell.com www.instagram.com/megansumrell www.youtube.com/@the_pink_bee www.facebook.com/megansumrell

Years ago, I went to a full-day "best year yet" workshop at the end of the second week in January. I'm coachable to a fault, so I did every single exercise they gave us. I walked out with an enormous workbook and what I thought was a beautiful plan for my year. That plan was basically useless before I'd even finished unpacking. Part of the problem was that nobody in that room ever asked what my real life and my real capacity looked like. The other part was the timing. Every planner starts in January, every marketer is shouting "new year, new you" (my least favorite message ever), and so that's when most of us finally sit down to map out the next 12 months. Right after the six most demanding weeks of the year, with a full-blown holiday hangover. If you've ever built a plan in January and watched it fall apart before spring, friend, this one's for you. I'm sharing why January quietly works against the plan you're trying to make, and when I do my annual planning so January gets to be just another month. In This Episode, I'll Cover: What happens when you bring your holiday-hangover energy to your annual plan, and why pushing through anyway can backfire.Why the plan you make in early January is secretly built on the chaos of the last few weeks, and you won't even notice it happening.How January and a good chunk of February can be gone before your plan even gets started.The month I've been doing my annual planning for years instead, and what it changed about how my January feels.________________________________ 💻 Free Training Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you?  You’re in the right place. Sign up for my free, on-demand training and learn how to take control of your time—no matter what life throws at you.  👉 www.megansumrell.com/freetraining ________________________________ 📱 Get The Pink Bee App Access planning tools, trainings, and support all in one place.  👉 www.onelink.to/qxdcwu ________________________________ Thanks for tuning in! Megan 🩷🐝 www.megansumrell.com www.instagram.com/megansumrell www.youtube.com/@the_pink_bee www.facebook.com/megansumrell

If you love paper planners but your actual life has to be digital, you have probably felt stuck between two bad options. Go digital and lose everything you love about paper, or stay on paper and miss half of what your family adds to the shared calendar. I have been recommending one tool for this for years, and today I got the founder on the show. My guest is Katy Allen, the creator and owner of Artful Agenda, the only digital calendar software I give The Pink Bee stamp of approval to. Katy built it after she had to quit paper planners entirely, because her husband's tour schedule and her kids' schedules lived in Google Calendar and she was not about to do double entry. So she built the paper planner experience she missed, stickers and pretty layouts and all, on top of software that actually syncs. In This Episode, I'll Cover: The difference between a digital planner and actual calendar software, and why that distinction changes everything about what you can do with it.The one feature Artful Agenda has that Google Calendar, iCal, and Outlook all get wrongWhat to do about the shared calendars you can't control, like the school or PTO calendar dumping every meeting onto your view.How to pull work, personal, and the kids' stuff out of three different calendar systems and see it in one place without picking a side.Connect With Katy and Artful Agenda: Artful Agenda (affiliate link, includes a free trial): www.megansumrell.com/artfulInstagram: www.instagram.com/artfulagendaFacebook: www.facebook.com/artfulagendaYouTube: www.youtube.com/@ArtfulAgenda ________________________________ 💻 Free Training Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you?  You’re in the right place. Sign up for my free, on-demand training and learn how to take control of your time—no matter what life throws at you.  👉 www.megansumrell.com/freetraining ________________________________ 📱 Get The Pink Bee App Access planning tools, trainings, and support all in one place.  👉 www.onelink.to/qxdcwu ________________________________ Thanks for tuning in! Megan 🩷🐝 www.megansumrell.com www.instagram.com/megansumrell www.youtube.com/@the_pink_bee www.facebook.com/megansumrell

If you've looked at a calendar lately and counted the weeks between now and December 31st, you probably thought what I thought: that is so much time! Then I actually counted. And the number on my calendar and the number I really have were nowhere close. Planning your time is a lot like having a financial budget. And right now most of us are spending from an account we think is full, but it isn't. In This Episode, I'll Cover: The four-step exercise I walked through to find out how many weeks I actually have left this year.The first thing I layered onto my calendar that instantly took 25% of my capacity off the table.Why knowing your real capacity is the opposite of scarcity.Join Plan-a-Palooza: https://www.megansumrell.com/plan ________________________________ 💻 Free Training Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you?  You’re in the right place. Sign up for my free, on-demand training and learn how to take control of your time—no matter what life throws at you.  👉 www.megansumrell.com/freetraining ________________________________ 📱 Get The Pink Bee App Access planning tools, trainings, and support all in one place.  👉 www.onelink.to/qxdcwu ________________________________ Thanks for tuning in! Megan 🩷🐝 www.megansumrell.com www.instagram.com/megansumrell www.youtube.com/@the_pink_bee www.facebook.com/megansumrell

Have you ever said out loud, "I wish I had a wife"? I know I have! For years I thought the answer was to hire it out in pieces, so I had a nanny for my daughter and a cleaner coming every week. Then I'd look at whether a laundry service was worth it, or whether I could find somebody to walk the dogs on the days I just couldn't. By the time I added it all up, I was looking at eight or nine different people for eight or nine little pockets of my life and the math stopped making sense. And not one of them was taking the thinking off my plate. Turns out there was a whole category of help I didn't know existed, and I really wish I'd known about it ten years ago. My guest this week is Kelly Hubbell, founder and CEO of Sage Haus, and she's here to explain what a household manager actually is. In This Episode, I'll Cover: What a house manager actually does, and why it is a completely different job than a nanny or a housekeeper.What this really costs, and the number of hours a week most families start with.The difference between handing off a task and handing off the thinking behind it, which is where most of us get stuck.Why this isn't only for households with young kids at home.Mentioned in the episode: Book an introductory call: sagehaus.com/pinkbee Connect with Kelly + Sage Hause sagehaus.comlinkedin.com/in/kellyhubbellinstagram.com/mysagehaus ________________________________ 💻 Free Training Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you?  You’re in the right place. Sign up for my free, on-demand training and learn how to take control of your time—no matter what life throws at you.  👉 www.megansumrell.com/freetraining ________________________________ 📱 Get The Pink Bee App Access planning tools, trainings, and support all in one place.  👉 www.onelink.to/qxdcwu ________________________________ Thanks for tuning in! Megan 🩷🐝 www.megansumrell.com www.instagram.com/megansumrell www.youtube.com/@the_pink_bee www.facebook.com/megansumrell

All I wanted to do was finish my daughter's baby book. Months 11 and 12 of her first year of life were the only thing left, maybe eight pages, and I wrote it on my list almost every other week for three years.  It never got done. But you know what did get done? Just about everything for everybody else. I know you have one of these. It's the project that needs a free weekend, or two full days, or a few months of real effort. You can look at your calendar two months out and see wide open space where it could finally happen, and then those two months arrive, and puff, the space is gone. So you tell yourself you'll get to it "when things settle down", or "when this season is over", or "when I have time". For three years I kept asking myself what was wrong with me. Where was my discipline, my willpower, whatever people call it. That wasn't it at all, and today I'm telling you what was actually going on, because I promise it's happening to you too. In This Episode, I'll Cover: Why "when I have time" and "when things settle down" never actually show up.Where all that open space on your calendar disappears to Why the projects nobody else is asking you for are always the first to fall off.________________________________ 💻 Free Training Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you?  You’re in the right place. Sign up for my free, on-demand training and learn how to take control of your time—no matter what life throws at you.  👉 www.megansumrell.com/freetraining ________________________________ 📱 Get The Pink Bee App Access planning tools, trainings, and support all in one place.  👉 www.onelink.to/qxdcwu ________________________________ Thanks for tuning in! Megan 🩷🐝 www.megansumrell.com www.instagram.com/megansumrell www.youtube.com/@the_pink_bee www.facebook.com/megansumrell

I teach planning for a living, and almost nothing I mapped out for this summer actually happened the way I planned it. Since the middle of June I have been on 22 airplanes. Three of those trips were booked with about 48 hours notice, and three separate times I had to disappear from work completely and hand this business over to my team. From the outside, that probably looks like a planning expert whose planning failed. And if you have ever watched your own plan go up in flames and thought "why do I even bother," this episode is for you. Because I hear women call themselves failures over this all the time, and it breaks my heart every single time. There is something happening here that almost nobody names, and once you see it, you stop measuring the year by whether the plan survived it. In This Episode, I'll Cover: The three choices you get to make about anything you can't get to right now.What an annual plan is actually giving you, which is not the thing you think it is.The reason you can end a year nowhere near where you planned and still feel zero guilt about it.________________________________ 💻 Free Training Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you?  You’re in the right place. Sign up for my free, on-demand training and learn how to take control of your time—no matter what life throws at you.  👉 www.megansumrell.com/freetraining ________________________________ 📱 Get The Pink Bee App Access planning tools, trainings, and support all in one place.  👉 www.onelink.to/qxdcwu ________________________________ Thanks for tuning in! Megan 🩷🐝 www.megansumrell.com www.instagram.com/megansumrell www.youtube.com/@the_pink_bee www.facebook.com/megansumrell

If you have ever decided you're just not a confident person, this episode is going to change how you think about that. My inner critic gets real noisy sometimes, and I'm guessing yours does too. I hear this from women constantly, that you either have confidence or you don't, and if you don't, that's just your lot. Dr. Cindra Kamphoff is here to tell us that is not how it works, and what I loved is that she didn't just tell me confidence is something I can build. She handed me the tools to do it. Cindra has a PhD in performance psychology, spent four years as the mental performance coach for the Minnesota Vikings, and runs the Mentally Strong Institute with a team of 15 coaches. Her whole message is that confidence is not something you're born with or without. It's a habit, which means it's something you get to keep growing.  In This Episode, We Cover: Why confidence disappears right when you need it most.How to stop replaying a mistake for three days straight.The three questions that shut down the voice saying you're not good enough.What the research says about why women hold back more than men.The two-minute habit that quietly rebuilds your belief in yourself.Mentioned in the Episode: Get Cindra's new book, The Confidence Habit: www.confidencetools.com Connect With Dr. Cindra Kamphoff: www.cindrakamphoff.comwww.instagram.com/cindrakamphoffwww.linkedin.com/in/cindrakamphoffwww.facebook.com/drcindrakamphoff ________________________________ 💻 Free Training Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you?  You’re in the right place. Sign up for my free, on-demand training and learn how to take control of your time—no matter what life throws at you.  👉 www.megansumrell.com/freetraining ________________________________ 📱 Get The Pink Bee App Access planning tools, trainings, and support all in one place.  👉 www.onelink.to/qxdcwu ________________________________ Thanks for tuning in! Megan 🩷🐝 www.megansumrell.com www.instagram.com/megansumrell www.youtube.com/@the_pink_bee www.facebook.com/megansumrell

Every household has one: the person who knows when the prescriptions are running low, when the pet food is almost out, which kid has a field trip on Thursday, and when the car is due for an oil change. That person is "the glue" and it's a job that never came with a job description. The advice we all get is to ask for help...delegate, get something off your list. So you do it, and somehow you feel exactly as heavy as you did before.  In this episode I am breaking down the difference between holding something and doing something, why those are two completely different jobs, and what has to actually change if you want the weight to move off you for good.  In This Episode, I'll Cover: What is still sitting on your plate after your partner does the exact thing you asked them to do.The measuring stick most women were handed growing up, and how it is different from the one our partners got.Why "what can I do to help" is the wrong question, and the one I actually want to hear instead.How to pick the first thing to hand over, and the two words that decide whether it sticks.Mentioned in This Episode: A Better Share by Dr. Morgan Cutlip: https://drmorgancutlip.com/________________________________ 💻 Free Training Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you?  You’re in the right place. Sign up for my free, on-demand training and learn how to take control of your time—no matter what life throws at you.  👉 www.megansumrell.com/freetraining ________________________________ 📱 Get The Pink Bee App Access planning tools, trainings, and support all in one place.  👉 www.onelink.to/qxdcwu ________________________________ Thanks for tuning in! Megan 🩷🐝 www.megansumrell.com www.instagram.com/megansumrell www.youtube.com/@the_pink_bee www.facebook.com/megansumrell

It's back to school season, and if you're the one in your house tracking every form, portal, email, and schedule change, you already know what's coming. All that information lands at once, and it turns into chaos fast. That first week or two back is overwhelming for two reasons: a huge amount of change hits all at once, and it's a total shift from your summer atmosphere to your school year atmosphere. In this episode, I'm sharing three systems I put into place every single year to get ahead of that overwhelm, not to prevent the chaos, but to make sure I'm not the one carrying it all by myself for the rest of the year. In This Episode, I'll Cover: Where I tell every piece of incoming information to go so it stops living in five different places at once.The one weekly appointment with myself that keeps me from reacting to every email and notification the moment it lands.Why I intentionally leave a window of my calendar blank the first week and weekend of school, and what that protects me from.The tool at the center of our house that means my family stops asking me what day it is.Resources Mentioned: TOP for Students digital course: https://megansumrall.com/studentEpisode 251 - Family Communication Center setup: www.megansumrell.com/blog/how-to-create-an-effective-family-communication-center-with-the-skylight-calendarEpisode 312 - Family meetings: www.megansumrell.com/blog/family-meetings-that-actually-work-with-christy-keatingYouTube Skylight Calendar Tutorial: https://youtu.be/85fSKIYyTi0________________________________ 💻 Free Training Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you?  You’re in the right place. Sign up for my free, on-demand training and learn how to take control of your time—no matter what life throws at you.  👉 www.megansumrell.com/freetraining ________________________________ 📱 Get The Pink Bee App Access planning tools, trainings, and support all in one place.  👉 www.onelink.to/qxdcwu ________________________________ Thanks for tuning in! Megan 🩷🐝 www.megansumrell.com www.instagram.com/megansumrell www.youtube.com/@the_pink_bee www.facebook.com/megansumrell

Time management, planning, cooking. These are fundamental life skills that we don't get taught in school, and if we're honest, not always at home either. Today I'm bringing back one of my favorite guests to talk about the one we haven't covered yet: teaching teens how to actually cook, not just survive on cereal and takeout. Katie Kimball has been teaching families how to cook for 17 years, and she just launched an entire new program built specifically for teens. I wanted her back on the show because this conversation goes somewhere I didn't expect. We don't just talk about recipes. We get into why teens need a completely different approach than little kids, what to do if you think your teen already missed their window, and the mental health payoff that comes from a teen knowing they can actually feed themselves. In This Episode, I'll Cover: Why it's never too late to start, even if your teen has never touched a stove.The three things every teen needs before they'll actually take over in the kitchen, and what happens when you skip one.What cooking has to do with your teen's anxiety.How to know if your teen is ready to go solo in the kitchen, or if they need you standing beside them first.Grab the free Teens Cook Real Food sample lesson: https://www.raisinghealthyfamilies.com/worklife Connect with Katie: www.raisinghealthyfamilies.com www.instagram.com/raisinghealthyfamilies www.facebook.com/kidscookrealfood www.youtube.com/@KatieKimball ________________________________ 💻 Free Training Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you?  You’re in the right place. Sign up for my free, on-demand training and learn how to take control of your time—no matter what life throws at you.  👉 www.megansumrell.com/freetraining ________________________________ 📱 Get The Pink Bee App Access planning tools, trainings, and support all in one place.  👉 www.onelink.to/qxdcwu ________________________________ Thanks for tuning in! Megan 🩷🐝 www.megansumrell.com www.instagram.com/megansumrell www.youtube.com/@the_pink_bee www.facebook.com/megansumrell

Think back to January. You set some goals for the year. Now be honest, have you made any real progress on them? If that question stings a little, you're not alone, and it's not because you picked the wrong goal or lost your motivation. It's because most of us were never taught the planning structure that actually holds a goal together past March. In this episode, I'm breaking down the four levels of planning that work together to carry your goals through the entire year, starting from the ground up instead of the usual top-down approach. In This Episode, I'll Cover: The most detailed level of planning we do, and why it's actually the one that gives you the fastest wins.The level that quietly prevents you from waking up next month just as overbooked as you were this month.Why one specific planning rhythm is what keeps you connected to your longer-term goals and tells you when it's time to pivot.The biggest mistake I see people make when they try to run all four levels off their Google Calendar alone.Where most people's goal setting completely falls apart, and it has nothing to do with the goal itself.Mentioned in this episode: Plan-a-Palooza - https://www.megansumrell.com/plan ________________________________ 💻 Free Training Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you?  You’re in the right place. Sign up for my free, on-demand training and learn how to take control of your time—no matter what life throws at you.  👉 www.megansumrell.com/freetraining ________________________________ 📱 Get The Pink Bee App Access planning tools, trainings, and support all in one place.  👉 www.onelink.to/qxdcwu ________________________________ Thanks for tuning in! Megan 🩷🐝 www.megansumrell.com www.instagram.com/megansumrell www.youtube.com/@the_pink_bee www.facebook.com/megansumrell

You've heard the dreaded B word. Budget. Maybe you've never found one that actually sticks or maybe you're the opposite, and you feel pretty on top of your money already. Either way, this episode is going to shift how you see it. I first found Mike Michalowicz back in 2019 when I read Profit First, and it completely changed how I manage the finances here at The Pink Bee. So when his newest book, The Money Habit, came out, I devoured it. This one applies those same principles to home finances, which means you'll love it even if you're not an entrepreneur.  One of my favorite parts of this conversation is when Mike and I realized his money system works exactly like the way our community already plans their time. Turns out the thing that finally makes your money make sense is treating your bank account like your calendar. In This Episode, I'll Cover: Why traditional budgets set you up to fail before you even start, and what Mike says to build instead.The number of hours a day the average person spends worrying about money, backed by a 2025 study that genuinely stopped me in my tracks.The system Mike uses to take money out of one confusing pile and give it the same at-a-glance clarity your calendar has.The one word swap that changes whether you stay buried in debt or actually dig your way out.Where to start if the whole thing feels like too much, because you do not have to do it all at once.Connect With Mike Michalowicz: www.mikemotorbike.com www.facebook.com/MikeMichalowiczFanPage www.instagram.com/mikemichalowicz www.linkedin.com/in/mikemichalowicz ________________________________ 💻 Free Training Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you?  You’re in the right place. Sign up for my free, on-demand training and learn how to take control of your time—no matter what life throws at you.  👉 www.megansumrell.com/freetraining ________________________________ 📱 Get The Pink Bee App Access planning tools, trainings, and support all in one place.  👉 www.onelink.to/qxdcwu ________________________________ Thanks for tuning in! Megan 🩷🐝 www.megansumrell.com www.instagram.com/megansumrell www.youtube.com/@the_pink_bee www.facebook.com/megansumrell

Last week I turned 53, and I've found myself sitting with the lessons that took me decades and more than a few hard moments to truly understand. These aren't quick tips or things I read somewhere. They're the truths I learned by living them, the ones that eventually became the foundation for the work I do and everything I now teach women about their time and their capacity. This episode is a little different and a lot more personal than what I usually share. I'm opening up about five of these lessons, and I want you to know going in that none of them are about doing more or adding to your already full plate. Every single one is about giving yourself permission to finally put something down, and my hope is that you walk away feeling a little more seen and a little less alone in whatever season you're carrying right now. In This Episode, I'll Cover: The part of caregiving nobody warned me about, and the trip that made me realize it.The rest lesson I still catch myself getting wrong, even though I know better.What I finally did after years of saying "I'm drowning" and having nothing change.What I would say today to a woman who's just been told she's using her kids as an excuse.Resources Mentioned: A Better Share by Dr. Morgan Cutlip: bit.ly/4p9psDB________________________________ 💻 Free Training Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you?  You’re in the right place. Sign up for my free, on-demand training and learn how to take control of your time—no matter what life throws at you.  👉 www.megansumrell.com/freetraining ________________________________ 📱 Get The Pink Bee App Access planning tools, trainings, and support all in one place.  👉 www.onelink.to/qxdcwu ________________________________ Thanks for tuning in! Megan 🩷🐝 www.megansumrell.com www.instagram.com/megansumrell www.youtube.com/@the_pink_bee www.facebook.com/megansumrell

Most people think the goal is to turn all their routines into habits. That belief is quietly wrecking a lot of good routines. I've been hearing this come up over and over in my community, and I finally had to address it head-on. So many women are beating themselves up over something that isn't even a real measure of success. In this episode, I'm clearing up the confusion between routines and habits once and for all, and sharing why the answer might completely change how you feel about the routines you already have. What You'll Learn: Why the most common definition of "success" with routines is completely wrongThe one thing a routine actually needs to be The real reason copying someone else's routine almost always backfiresTwo traps that are probably keeping your routines from sticking________________________________ 💻 Free Training Overwhelmed? Frazzled? Tired of your calendar controlling you?  You’re in the right place. Sign up for my free, on-demand training and learn how to take control of your time—no matter what life throws at you.  👉 www.megansumrell.com/freetraining ________________________________ 📱 Get The Pink Bee App Access planning tools, trainings, and support all in one place.  👉 www.onelink.to/qxdcwu ________________________________ Thanks for tuning in! Megan 🩷🐝 www.megansumrell.com www.instagram.com/megansumrell www.youtube.com/@the_pink_bee www.facebook.com/megansumrell