Welcome back to Modern Financial Wellness! In this episode, we dive into a topic that resonates with so many of us—how to navigate the overwhelming demands of the fall season and maintain productivity (and sanity!) as we approach the holidays and the end of the year. If you’ve ever felt a wave of anxiety triggered by the sight of Christmas decorations in October or the reminder that “Q4” is flying by, you’re not alone.

To help us work through these feelings and get practical strategies for this time of year, I was thrilled to welcome back Sarah Reiff-Hekking, founder of True Focus Coaching. Sarah’s expertise in time management, productivity, and coaching for busy professionals is a perfect fit for the “fall freakout” that so many of us experience.

We started the conversation with a real-life example—my own mini-panic at seeing Christmas decorations in a store before Halloween—and explored what triggers this seasonal overwhelm. Sarah broke down the unique pressures of fall, from shifting routines as kids go back to school, to the barrage of holidays and year-end work deadlines, and the added layer of economic and political uncertainty.

Together, we discussed how to bring ourselves back to the present moment, clarify what’s truly important, and create space for both productivity and meaningful connection. We touched on saying “no,” managing competing demands and external expectations, and setting up flexible routines so the holidays don’t just become one giant stress-fest.

Sarah shared actionable strategies—from mindful breathing to practical time blocking—to help listeners stay grounded, focused, and resilient. We wrapped up with advice on tuning out the social media “noise” and focusing on real, personal priorities.

Key Takeaways

1. Name the “Fall Freakout” and Normalize It
2. The sense of stress and overwhelm in October and November isn’t just you—it’s a confluence of shifting routines, holiday expectations, and mounting year-end pressure. Acknowledging this helps us respond intentionally rather than reactively.
3. Return to the Present Moment
4. When anxiety kicks in, the first step is to physically bring yourself back—to notice your breath, your feet on the ground, and where you are right now. Mindful grounding calms your nervous system and helps you regain focus.
5. Clarify What’s Meaningful and Important
6. Get clear on your most meaningful goals, both professionally and personally. If everything feels important, dig deeper and ask yourself: “Why do I care about this?” Prioritize your top 2-3 “big rocks” and let the rest go. Remember, not everything makes your cut.
7. Be Strategic About What You Say Yes (and No) To
8. You can’t (and shouldn’t!) do it all. Proactively decide how many commitments you’ll take on each week, leave room for spontaneity if you value it, and practice pausing before you say yes. Planning to delay a task isn’t procrastination if it’s intentional and fits your bigger plan.
9. Manage Your Environment and External Influences
10. Social media and retail environments can trigger “shoulds” and inject noisy expectations. Turn down the external pressure and lean into what’s genuinely important for you and your family. Don’t let comparison steal your joy—or your time.

If this episode resonated with you and you’re feeling ready for support, check out Sarah Reiff-Hekking at truefocuscoaching.com and connect with her on LinkedIn. She offers free strategy sessions designed to help you map your next steps and find clarity in your own life—no cost, just real advice.

Thanks for listening to Modern Financial Wellness. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe and share it with friends who might be experiencing their own ‘fall freakout’—let’s get through the holidays with more calm, connection, and clarity!

Welcome back to Modern Financial Wellness, everybody. My guest is a repeat return guest of the show, Sarah Reiff-Hekkingof True Focus Coaching is here today. Sarah, thank you so much for taking the time and joining us today. Appreciate it.

Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be back.

Well, I felt very seen recently. So recently you put out a blog post that was titled Overwhelmed. Here's how to Stay Productive between now and Thanksgiving, which in and of itself is a really intriguing title for a post. I would have wanted to check that out, but then your LinkedIn post that introduced it started with the back half of October tends to be a time when a lot of busy professionals start quietly freaking out. And that line in and of itself, I felt like you were talking directly to me and my friends and my clients and. And a lot of people in my orbit. So hopefully today we can kind of sort out some of those feelings and emotions that I think a lot of people are probably navigating right now that deal with the holidays and just everything. It feels like coming together all at once before December 31st.

So appreciate you being here to unpack that and hopefully help us have an enjoyable end of year and holiday experience and not worry too much.

Yes. Always happy to be helpful. And in my, on my campus, the trufocus coaching campus, the virtual campus, as it were, we refer to this as the Fall freakout.

Fall freak out. Yes.

You're feeling that you're in the right place, or if you're feeling like, oh my gosh, it might be coming or that's what that was, you're still in the right place.

Yeah. Yeah. So I can describe. You know, I would love to hear from you what your clients and people in your orbit are thinking and feeling about this season. But funny enough, my wife and I were away this past weekend for a wedding. So we got away. We didn't have the kids, we were traveling a little bit. We had an afternoon off and we just went shopping.

We ended up in anthropology and Anthropologie had their holiday stuff out. Right. It's holiday season in retail, holiday music, Christmas music playing in the background. And I felt myself leaving the present moment, which was a weekend away. And my wheels just started turning like, oh my God, the holidays are upon us. Year end is upon us. So talk us through what happens in this time of year that has us all kind of freaking out and quietly, you know, feeling that stress and that overwhelm.

Yeah, I feel like it's a confluence of things. So number one, we do we hit the holiday seasons, and it starts with Halloween, and sometimes even sooner than that, depending on your religious persuasion, there may be holidays leading up on. All sorts of holidays, right. State holidays, all sorts of things that start to create and interrupt our regular flow. I think the other thing that happens for working parents is that there's a transition from August into September, at least on the East Coast. I know maybe for many folks, you know, middle of August is even when they're transitioning kids to school. And so there's a transition on the. What is.

On the brains of working parents, which is most of us these days, right. And that, oh, my gosh, I need to get my kids settled so that I can then be focusing on what I need to on the business and professional side. Because when my kids are settled, it's easier for me to focus. So there's this wobbly time where we get kids into school, and then I feel like a lot of professionals are in this place in October where they're like, okay, we got the daily grind kind of figured out. Now I know what hours are mine. Yeah. And what do I want to do with those hours? And then Halloween comes and. And all of the.

Oh, we're in Q4 comes and, oh, my gosh, what were those goals that I set anyway? The beginning of the year, the beginning of the quarter, wherever you are located in terms of connecting with your goals or. I didn't really have goals. I had an idea of where I wanted to be. And, oh, my gosh, I only have two months left, Right. So I think a lot of things pop up. And then also this particular year, we're recording this in 2025, I feel like because of the political and economic climate, there was a slowness. I don't even want to say there was a locked feeling for many of us in the first half of the year about what's happening. Watchful waiting, right? Is this safe to be operating my business? And what is changing? What do I need to be doing? Should I be spending money? Should I not be spending money? All of those things.

And it's compounded on the personal side. Then we go into summer, which has its own kind of rhythm, and we all sort of went, oh, business is happening. Okay, cool, let's go, let's go. And now this fall, right? All of a sudden, crap business is happening, and we're almost at the end of the year, right? So you add that on top of we're heading into Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's and Hanukkah. And all of the other holidays in there. Oh, my God. Right?

Yeah. It's interesting. With summer, I feel like I give myself permission to check out, and I feel like a lot of you give yourself permission to slow down a little bit, go on vacation. And that transition through the beginning of school as you described, I think you're dead on where it's a big change. You're going into that period of time where the kids are going to have a new routine and what does aftercare look like and who's picking up and dropping off and lunches and all that. And I think you describe it beautifully. It's this giant, chaotic transition and this confluence of all these different things that kind of put us. I.

I woke up, it was, I guess, November 2nd when I had my freak out. Like, oh, my God, it's the end of the year and it was Christmas music in a. In a store that kind of triggered me. But I think we all kind of are faced with. With that moment, like, oh, all right, now what? So acknowledging that it's a big transition, there's a lot going on. How do we help people start to think about, where do you go from here? How do I start to kind of calm my. My body and mind and. And be as productive as I can and get the things that I need to get done completed and not freak out, but also have some, you know, quality time with your family and enjoy the beautiful holiday seasons that are upon us.

Yeah. I think the most important thing is to notice it's actually not January 31st yet. Right. And there is a lot of time between now and then. I know eight weeks doesn't feel like a lot, but we do have eight full weeks. And depending on who you are, you might be like, oh, my God, Sarah, only eight weeks. Let's notice eight weeks, minute by minute is really quite a lot of time. So if you, you know, bring yourself back into your body and notice right now, in this moment, what is really most important for you to accomplish between now and the end of the year and dial into that.

Instead of what my social media thinks I should be doing, what my friends thinks I should be doing, what my kids are wanting to do, that is unrealistic and is never going to happen, but I think could we do that? You know, like. And also the other piece we haven't handled is people handling senior parents that need additional support through this time as well. Right. So getting really clear, first of all, on your business or professional side, what is it that you really do want to get accomplished that you have control over between now and the end of the year and put the big rocks in first. Right. Get really clear on those things that you're focusing on. Let the rest go. Go ahead.

Yeah, I was just going to ask a quick question because I like the way that you described. You might have to refresh my memory, but you talked about kind of getting into your body. So what can I ask you? What does that look like? Because that is an exercise or a practice or a habit that I think a lot of people struggle with, is giving themselves the time and space to actually think about what the big rocks are. And everybody just continues to react to the world around them. So can I just ask you to maybe talk a little bit more about what that might look like or how people.

Absolutely, absolutely. So oftentimes we end up in this reactive kind of panic mode. Right. And that's kind of what happened to you in anthropology, where you went, holy crap, Christmas music and Christmas hats and ornaments and.

Right.

But it's not. We just had, you know, Halloween and I'm not ready there and I'm supposed to be present with my wife and oh, my God, we have to go shopping. Right. Or whatever it is that. Right. Or where are we having Christmas? What are we doing for the new year? What is our. What is our holiday rhythm? No matter what religion you practice? Right. So.

And what is the year end rhythm? So in that moment, you want to, number one, you know, you know, acknowledge the freak out. Okay. All right. Left. My body there went into a completely different place. Right. And then take a deep breath and give yourself a minute or two just to come back inside your body. And the reason why I say take a deep breath is because oftentimes when we're in that reactive panic place, we actually stop breathing or hold our breath or we're sort of panting, Right.

We're not getting enough oxygen in. And one of the things that. And that's a stress response. One of the things that turns down the stress response and that turns off the stress response is a deep inhale into your belly. Okay. And starting to notice exactly where you are in the present moment. All right, so this is mindfulness, right? 1, 2, 3. Yep.

And some of that might be like, oh, let's just notice I'm standing in anthropology. Oh, yeah. My feet are actually on the floor. I can feel them in my shoes. I can feel them touching the ground beneath me. Oh, wow. I just went into, you know, I went to December 31st and holy crap, what's happening next year? And, oh, My God, I haven't shopped. Right.

Okay. Huh? Where am I right now? What am I really doing?

Yeah. And that's exactly what I did. I was almost thinking to myself, man, we need to get back to the hotel, and I need to pull out my laptop. Right. I had left that moment with my wife away from the kids, a weekend away at a wedding, and I had kind of gone somewhere else. So you're talking about physically bringing ourselves back to that present moment, noticing our feet on the ground. That's such great advice.

Yeah. Notice that your body's there. And lots of people will recommend the deep breathing as well. Again, that turns off the autonomic nervous system, which is connected to that stress response, which causes that automatic cascade of negative thinking. Right. Which is like, holy crap, I got to get to my laptop because I got to do that stuff because, oh, my God, it's almost January. Right. And you're not really in relationship with the current moment.

Got it. Okay. That's super helpful. So again, I'm glad we. We went back there and talked about that a little bit more. So now that we're in the present moment, it sounds like the next step is to go back to what's most important. What are the big rocks? Do you have any advice for folks on determining what's most important?

Yeah, this is something that takes a while to work into if you're new to the concept. So one of the things I work with people on when I work with them more closely is really, what are your long term, meaningful goals? And I use the word meaningful in a very precise way because meaning wakes up the human brain. And things that are meaningful and important to us, we are more motivated to do, we're more focused on, and it's easier for us to do so. And again, lots of times we're given goals either on the work side, or we think we're supposed to have these goals, or a partner wants these goals, or our kids have these goals. And we're not actually taking the moment to say, how does this relate to me? And am I really interested in this? Is this really meaningful and important to me? Right. So for a proxy, if you have annual goals, then it's a good time to take a look at it. Many people have them on the work side or they're giving them on the work side. Right.

So the trick if you're given them is to ask yourself, why do you care about those goals? And sometimes they're going to be things you're really passionate about, projects you really want to do you know clients you want to meet, all of those things. Sometimes it's, I want to keep my job. And this is a piece of keeping.

My job, which is totally legitimate. Right. There's things you have to do.

Yeah, there's always something that you have to do. But I want you to wrap your head around why you care, doing care, doing. Why do you care about it? So get really clear between now, whenever you're listening to this podcast and the end of the year or whatever time point is that you're gonna know you're gonna start to take a break for year end. Right. For many of us, it's around Christmas, and that week between Christmas and New Year's is often downtime and then maybe a few days after New Year's. So if that's really your time capsule that you have to work with right now, then you want to say, okay, on the work side, what's the most important stuff? And I would start with like 1, 2, 3. Don't go to 57 because you're not going to get it done right. And that needs to go to what's meaningful and important.

What's going to move the needle forward on those most important, important goals, not the things that people are yelling at you most about or loudest about, because that can be really distracting. So you want to go to meaningful and important and then do the same thing on the personal side. Right. So if you don't care about Thanksgiving so much and you don't mind, you know, and you're happy to have a scaled back, you know, gathering with people, fine. And you want to work on the Friday, fine. But if that is not your thing, you really want to have a nice day with people that you're close to and reconnect, then set that up and be really clear about when you're going to turn off work and when you're going to turn it back on so you can have that space.

Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that here. And I will say or share with folks who don't know. I've taken some of your courses and done some work with True Focus. And one of the things that I go back to most often is probably reviewing my meaningful goals. I find that to be one of the most helpful lessons that I learned in going through the work with you and your team because it refocuses me on the things that, that I want to do that are important to me. And to your point, kind of reflect out all those external demands and the chaos and the noise that I tend to overreact to and if I'm not paying attention to what's, what's most important to me. And I love how, you know, if, if your meaningful goals has 57 things on it, you've probably missed the exercise, I assume. Right.

I, I, I'm thinking of a lot of my clients and the people that I work with tend to have some form of neurodivergence and specifically adhd, where everything's important. Right. And they really struggle with that. So I'd encourage folks in that boat to maybe spend a little extra time trying to sort out what, what's meaningful to you or what is somebody else's demands that are being dropped in your lap that, you know, I don't know if you have any experience with, with adhd, but just wanted to kind of call that out. It's really easy for folks in that boat to feel like everything's critical and everything's important and it's know when it comes down to it, it just can't be right. There's got to be some things there you can get rid of.

Yes, yes. I work a lot with adults that have adhd. All of my programs are ADHD friendly. And I, I think the most important thing is again, getting clear on why do you care about that thing and what if you accomplish it? What is it moving forward in your life that's going to help you understand if it's meaningful and important? And also it's helpful to talk through as somebody outside of your own head, particularly if you're in that moment where it all seems like it's just got to get done and I know there's not enough time, then we all kind of get stuck in that place. I do this myself. I have colleagues and friends that I regularly say, okay, help me think this one through. What's a strategic way to make this happen? Do I need to do all of these things? If I do this one thing, can this other thing go away? Right. And I think you really need to lean into a more strategic conversation.

And that's just sometimes hard to have in a vacuum in your own brain when you're already in reactive panic mode.

And I love the way you put that. What does it mean if I accomplish it? I don't think people think that far through the scenario. And I think if people, more people ask themselves that question, they'd find that there's not really a good answer at the end of that. I don't know if I'm articulating that really well, but I think at the end of that, you know, line. You may find that, you know, the world's not going to end. My. My parents are still going to love me. If we scale back Thanksgiving or Christmas, you know, whatever, it might be like, the impact of us not accomplishing or accomplishing something might not be as critical as we originally thought if we spent some time kind of reflecting on that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that, you know, you can have frank conversations about, hey, things are crazy for us this season. What are the most important things that you want to, you know, get to be able to do that? Represent how you want to spend your fall, your holidays, whatever it is for you, and, you know, ask people and then get clear. We've done this exercise, you know, in my family, and we do it regularly. And I ask myself, things are changing, right? I used to have that little kid running around. Now he's 23, living in Brooklyn, doing his own thing, Right. And so. So I want to be available when he's home.

His schedule is. Is shifting. And when we're together, I want to know what are the most important things for him, as well as my husband, that the three of us do together and what are the other things that are like, yeah, you know, I. I don't care if we do that or. Or, yeah, we usually do that, but I. I just as soon have movie night with popcorn mom, you know, so sometimes just having that conversation makes a big difference.

Yeah. I'm thinking of a client that I've been working with for a long time. We just had this conversation where. And something you just said made me think of it. I feel like we all fall into routine, right? So what may have been really important and meaningful to us in the past, it could be years down the road before we reflect on whether it's not. It's still fulfilling that meaningful goal of ours. In this case, it was a husband and wife who are thinking about what's important to them financially. And one of the decisions that they made was to scale back their giant Christmas holiday party, which way back when they had a house and the aunt stopped doing it, or somebody got sick, so it defaulted to them, and it became this big thing that they got a lot out of for many years.

But now that the kids are getting older and things are changing and people are kind of moving away, it was the right time for them to scale that back, which was also, you know, freed up some cash. They spent a lot of money on this thing, so it was, you know, kind of financially beneficial to them as well. But she said something similar, which is, you know, I just, I haven't thought about it in a while. It was just something we did. Right. We fall into these routines. So every now and again making sure that those routines still serve us would probably be, you know, a good idea. It's, it's really timely.

Yeah, well, yes, and particularly this time of year because there's a lot of routines that just sort of show up and that we just, you know, people are like, what are you doing on Christmas Eve? What are you doing on Christmas Day? What are you doing on Thanksgiving? What are you doing the day after Thanksgiving? Blah, blah, blah. Oh, we need to have year end, you know, holiday parties, we need to have year end celebrations, we need to have brand new year celebrations, like all of this stuff. And the question is, do you care about it? Is it meaningful and important to you? And if so, why? What do you want to get out of it? And if part of what you love is like decorating a full on spread, inviting friends and family and that is what you love, go for it. But if you hate every minute of it, then I would ask yourself, what would you love to do that would have the same effect? That would make it easier for you.

Right, right. And again, I think a lot of people assume that they're going to let others down when I think if you talk to everybody that might be invited to that, they don't want to put pressure on you to host that beautifully curated experience if it's not something that's enjoyable for you. Yeah. So anyway, again, very, very timely with something that I think a lot of people are dealing with. So where are we? We've decided what's important to us, what's meaningful, what else comes to mind that we might be able to help folks kind of think through and in this challenging time get really clear about what.

You'Re saying no to. And I know that that's a hard part because lots of us feel like we can't really say no. But the reality is you can't do it all. And there are going to be wild cards that come up whether it's, you know, that holiday party at the kids school that they didn't tell you about till three days ahead of time or something on, you know, your, your bestie friends group or on your family side that you. I really want to do that and I can't because of this other stuff. Okay. So it's number one, it's okay to say no to that. But I think also you want to be strategic about the things you're saying yes to now and leave enough space if, you know, wild cards pop up for you around the holidays so that you can say yes if you want to or just make a decision.

You know what wild cards come up, that one off party that you know isn't already in the plan. I'm just gonna say no. And a lot of working parents just need to be able to set that rhythm for themselves and their families. Right. But pick what works for you. Like some people, like, being spontaneous is like the most fun thing, period. All right, so how many times in a week are you allowing yourself to be spontaneous when it comes to holiday gatherings or it comes to fall festivals or whatever it is? Right, right. So notice and notice the days that work best to be spontaneous.

Right. So spontaneous spontaneity on the weekends might feel amazing, but on a Tuesday night at 8 o' clock when you know you have a 7am meeting, the next day might not.

Yeah, yeah. It goes back to if you say yes to everything, it doesn't leave time for when these, you know, things that you would want to take advantage of, these wild card opportunities, being spontaneous, if there's no room left, then you can't take advantage and have some fun along the way, which is really, really important. Yeah, yeah.

And one of the things we tend to do is overpack. Right. So, and this is one of those things that you can really think about proactively now. How many times do you like to go to a gathering, a holiday celebration, out with friends, whatever it is, out with family in a week and then you can start to create a guideline for yourself and then there's the like to and what works with all of the other stuff I have to do question. Right. So you might be somebody who likes to be out all the time, but you know, two nights a week is your max if you're going to get the other stuff done that needs to get happen and that amount really fuels you as opposed to drains you. Right. So you can start to ask yourself, and again, it's not going to be a perfect answer the first time, but you can start to just set a guideline for yourself and see what happens when you implement the guideline.

Right. So it's almost like pre establishing some rules for yourself. What am I going to say yes to, what am I going to say no to and why? Right. Connecting that to your meaningful goals or just what's important to you, what's meaningful in general, it doesn't even necessarily have to be a goal in this context, I guess but what are the important things? Right. I. I want to spend time with my parents. They're getting older. Right.

So if something comes up, I'm gonna try to take advantage of that, or I. I want to be present at the school party, even though they sprung it on me. Right. So I will say yes to those things. And. But I'm only going to be doing one or two things a week, because that's what I can handle. Right. And thinking about that ahead of time.

So you have a framework to go on. So when the invite is sprung upon you, you have a track to run on. It sounds like, so to speak, ahead of time. So you're not reacting and just saying yes because you can't say no.

Absolutely. And if you need to write down those guidelines for yourself, and then when somebody asks you or your family if you can do something, then you say, hold on, let me get back to you. And even if you get back to them in 10 minutes or in another day, give yourself time to say, all right, what's the impact on what needs to get done for the rest of the week, the rest of the month, the rest of the year if I do this thing, particularly if it's a big thing, that's going to take a lot of your physical and emotional resources.

Yeah, that's actually great advice. So pausing before you say yes or no, giving yourself time to reflect so you're not instinctively responding. And I know for myself, I tend to instinctively respond yes. My wife, even more so, she loves to say yes, but just pausing. Right. You don't have to answer right away. You could say, I'll get back to you.

Yeah. And create that conversation ahead of time. Right. So if, you know, you say yes all the time, then you want to practice saying, let me think about it. I'll get back to you. And you know, I know years ago, sitting in physical meetings with people, I literally used to sit on my hands. So I didn't raise my hand to be. Do everything because I was really.

And I wanted to get. I wanted to be involved and, you know, all of that. So, you know, what is your equivalent to sitting on your hands for a minute and assessing what that thing is going to add to your life? Because you're saying yes to something, it's adding. Is it going to take away from stuff that are actually more important to you? Really helpful concept.

Yeah. Yeah. And if you're adding, you're saying yes, and you're adding, I can't help but feel like it's. It has to take away Right. If nothing else, it's taking away time. Right. Which is really critical. Yeah.

And time's a non renewable resource and we forget about that. Right. So the time that you spend doing something you can't get back, you can make more money, you can, you know, get another client, you can, you know, there's lots of other ways to get other things, but time once spent is gone. So take a moment and ask yourself, how do you really want to spend this fall for yourself and your family and your business? And what do you want to be able to say that you have accomplished? And start from right now getting clear about what those actions are in a way that's going to be doable.

Any advice along those lines for folks that are trying to then schedule those important tasks or get the things that are critical completed? Any, any thoughts on kind of the day to day management of that?

Yeah. So one of the things I teach when I work with people more closely is the concept of what I call a flexible template for your week. It's my version of time blocking. Notice I don't use the words time blocking because what happens when most people do time blocking is they make a really pretty picture in their calendar and then the second they don't follow it, it all goes out the window. So I want you to have some flexibility there. But with getting the big rocks in, the most important things done, you want to have a plan about how those things happen so that when the last minute stuff comes up, you already know that you're going to handle the important stuff that are, that's moving your goals forward. So for some people that might be, you know, an hour a day on this particular thing, it might be a locked in hour where you're, it's always from 9 to 10 in the morning or it's always from 7 to 8 before people, other people get going, whatever it is. But you're going to work it in, in a way that works for you in the week and give yourself some flexibility.

So if you have to move it, it's not the end of the world. You just don't want to blow yourself off.

Right.

And creating that time map proactively is also going to calm you down because you're going to say, oh, I have this project, it usually takes me X amount of time to do it or I don't know how much time it's really going to take me to do it. But let's start with three hours this week and three hours next week and then see where I am with it. And if you have held those hours ahead of time and you're dedicated to keeping them sacred for that task. Then you're going to be able to relax knowing you're going to get that done while the other stuff is happening.

Right, right. And in the article that prompted this discussion, I think you talk about the fact that there are a lot of things that we're probably putting a lot of stress on that I need to get it done. But if it happens in January, it's not the end of the world. Right. So making sure again, you're going back to what's meaningful, important, critical, and blocking those off and coordinating your time around those things. And a lot of the other stuff, if it slips into the new year, it's, it's, you know, being comfortable letting those things go and being really clear on what's, what's actually important.

Right. And planning to delay something is not procrastination. And so if you plan to delay something and you're doing it in a proactive way, then you're gonna feel better when you get to January and now it's on your list, as opposed to thinking you're supposed to be doing it all fall, not getting to it. And then in January you feel horrible because you haven't gotten there. It's a whole different perspective and you're gonna actually free up a lot of energy for yourself. Cause you're not gonna be beating yourself up about, about that thing.

I was going to say that's almost like an interesting time slash emotional, well, being hack. Right. So something that's proactively delayed to the appropriate time is not procrastination. And getting that off of your mind and your chest, that's. That's actually pretty cool. I like that a lot. I'm going to use that.

Yeah, it's a really important one. You know, I talk to a lot of people who will say, sarah, I'm procrastinating, procrastinating on abc. And then I'll say, well, sounds like B doesn't really need to get done for a while. Yeah, but I'm not getting to it yet. Well, but it's in your plan that you don't need to do it for a while. You're not procrastinating on it, you're consciously delaying it. And that's really smart. Right? You don't want to be doing it right now.

You want to do these other things right now.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. Anything else? Any other tips, tricks, anything else that kind of comes to mind for the fall and the upcoming holiday season we should cover before we let you go.

Yeah, I think, you know, it's a good time also to. To tune down the social media, tune down the news, tune down the things outside of your own head that are making you feel like you should be doing stuff and lean into what is it that, that you really want. Right. And our environment pulls us so much, Jim. And your example of being in anthropology and being transported to New Year's. Right. Is really, I think, apropos for the moment and what happens in the fall. So remember, you have control over that and your environment, your physical environment predicts a lot of what you're going to do and a lot of what you're going to think about.

So if you don't want to think about Christmas yet, then turn down whatever signals are giving you that message.

That's such great advice. I think it's important during all times, but especially the holidays. The social comparison and what's put out on social media I think is excessive. Right. It goes to an extreme and I think it puts a lot of external pressure back to what we were talking about before, where there's this pressure to kind of live up to some arbitrary social media standard about what this season is supposed to look like. That at the end of the day, you know, those images or those standards, although in and of themselves not realistic, but not important to us. Right. So we're, we're trying to manage to somebody else's, you know, standard or vision of what this is supposed to look like and putting a lot of pressure on us and just wasting a lot of our own time.

So I think if people take nothing else away, a little less social media, a lot less noise, external noise would go a long way. I think that's, that's great advice. Anything else, Any other tips or tricks? Anything else coming to mind? I think we covered a lot in a short period, period of time.

Yeah, I think we've covered a lot. And if you're at the point where you're thinking, oh my gosh, I know these are things I should do, but I'm having a hard time implementing. Pick one thing, just narrow it down, make it simple for yourself, and know you can always reach out if you want to talk about working with me.

Speaking of which, where should people reach out to you? Check out your work. Where do you want them to go?

Yeah. So my website is truefocuscoaching.com and if you are interested in talking about if and how I might be able to help you, you can apply for what I call a strategy session and you just go to truefocuscoaching.com apply forward slash and it's like a two minute application. I'm going to ask you a couple questions so that I'm prepared for the call and so are you. And my promise for that call is to talk about what your next best moves are, to manage your time and tasks in a way that work for you. It's no cost and you should walk away with some good steps. If you want to talk about how to work with me, more happy to have that conversation, but at least you'll walk away knowing what the next direction is you should take.

That's awesome. Highly encourage people to take advantage of that. Again, I've been a client of Sarah's and True Focus Coaching. I still go back to my most important meaningful goals and refer back to a lot of what I've learned and been able to implement into my own personal and professional life. So encourage people to check out truefocuscoaching.com any other social media or anything people should check out.

I'm on LinkedIn. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. We post free content there all the time. Also on my website there's a resources tab. A lot of blog posts, a lot of free information there. Feel free to peruse around and yeah, LinkedIn's my favorite place to hang out these days.

Yeah, and that again, that's where the content that you put out is timely and extremely value add. Because here we are having this conversation based on a LinkedIn post that you made about freaking out about the holidays. So, so definitely get over to LinkedIn, go to trufocuscoaching.com, check out Sarah and her work and definitely apply for the strategy session. Sarah, can't thank you enough. It's extremely invaluable to have you here and share your expertise. I know a lot of people are silently struggling, or maybe not so silently struggling with the upcoming holidays. So we appreciate your time and your expertise and thank you again for joining us.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. And you can do it people.

You can do it. You can do it. We got your Got it. Yeah. Thanks for listening everybody. If you enjoyed what you heard and you wouldn't mind hitting the subscribe button, I'd appreciate it and we'll look forward to talking to you. Seeing you again soon. Thanks.

Take care. Thanks again again for listening to this episode. A quick note, although I do hope that the information that we talked about was helpful in no way is anything discussed on the podcast to be taken as specific financial advice, please consult your own advisors and do your own research when you're making important financial decisions.