Simplify Your Life with Just 15 Minutes a Day
In the latest episode of Billable Hour Burnout, host Lauren Baptiste explores a simple yet powerful strategy that can help busy professionals combat burnout and simplify your life. The secret? Just 15 minutes a day.
How Simplifying Your Life Reduces Burnout
Lauren emphasizes that when life gets hectic, the solution isn’t to do more, but to simplify your life. By dedicating just 15 minutes a day to self-care, this small, manageable commitment can lead to big changes over time. It highlights the power of small actions and how they can combat burnout without overwhelming you.
The Problem with Drastic Changes
Many professionals attempt to drastically change their routines overnight, especially after vacations or busy seasons. This often results in:
Little or no progress in various areas
Feeling depleted within weeks
Giving up and falling back into old habits
Instead of overhauling everything at once, focusing on the power of small actions allows you to simplify your life and make steady progress that’s sustainable. Here's a short video where Lauren shares "The Power of Small Steps" in a conversation with Cait Donovan, author of burnout recover book, The Bouncebackability Factor.
The Power of Small Actions: Using 15 Minutes Wisely
Lauren points out that everyone can find 15 minutes in their day. This small window of time, when used consistently, can be transformative. Instead of wasting 15 minutes on activities like:
Scrolling through social media
Watching TV
Online shopping
Dwelling on work stress
Redirect those minutes into more meaningful activities. The power of small actions lies in their ability to help you simplify your life and create lasting habits that promote well-being.
Overcoming Mental Barriers to Simplify Your Life
Common mental barriers include:
“15 minutes is too short to accomplish anything.”
“It’s not as impactful as a full workout.”
“I don’t have even 15 minutes to spare.”
Lauren counters these with the truth: the power of small actions adds up. Small, consistent changes can help you gradually simplify your life and bring big results over time.
Ideas for Using Your 15 Minutes
Lauren suggests several ways to use those 15 minutes wisely:
Deep breathing before meetings
Taking a short walk
Getting sunshine during lunch breaks
Mindful eating
Drinking more water
These small activities tap into the power of small actions, helping you simplify your life and achieve a better balance.
The Transformative Impact of Small Actions
By committing to just 15 minutes a day for yourself, you can experience:
Increased calmness and stress relief
A greater sense of control over your life
Enhanced optimism
Steady progress toward wellness goals
Take Action and Simplify Your Life
Lauren challenges listeners to:
Find 15 minutes today to do something just for you
Share what they did (via DM, comments, or using #replay)
Subscribe to her newsletter for more tips and resources
As Lauren reminds us, “15 minutes is powerful. The power of small actions can truly simplify your life and lead to meaningful change.”
Want to know the smallest step you can take that has the biggest ROI? Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter. Each week I share insights and simple, actionable tools for you to reclaim your career, your time and your energy. You don't have to overhaul your life to feel good. All you need is 15 minutes/day. Subscribe here.
What You’ll Learn From This Episode:
Why drastic lifestyle changes often fail, especially after periods like summer
The power of starting small and consistent action
How to find and utilize 15 minutes in your busy day
Ways to overcome mental barriers and excuses
The cumulative impact of dedicating just 15 minutes a day to yourself
Watch The Full Episode:
Full Episode Transcript:
# Billable Hour Burnout - Episode 25
Your dreams the right place if you want to have the I started recording and I got thrown off. If you're finding yourself here today, here's why you are looking for more work life balance, more confidence, more ease. And you're ready to make it happen without having to burn down your life. My name is Lauren Baptiste. I'm your big four auditor, turned regulatory tax compliant, turned to life coach, and you're listening to billable hour burnout. On the show, I share simple tactical advice, mindset strategies specifically catered to the modern accountant, consultant and attorney. You ready? Let's do this.
Another episode. Let's go. This is 25. We are a quarter way to 100. I'm pumped now. I hope you had a beautiful labor Day. I know for some of us it is the last long weekend before the holidays kick in. So I truly hope that you made the most of it. I hope you had a breather. I hope you. Yeah, I just hope it was a good weekend for you. It was a really relaxing weekend for me. I made little to no plans and it was lovely. I'm also feeling the swing of getting back into things. I am taking on some new routines. I'm finding some more groundedness in myself and that's really just by creating more structure. I thrive in structure. I love structure. A lot of us say we don't want structure, but actually we all, most of us do really well in structure.
So I hope that this time for you, if you've been reading some of my posts over the past week, have been really encouraging, getting into a good routine. What I like to say is today is maybe the busiest you've been in a while, but it's likely the least busy that you're going to be. What that means is Q four is going to pick up, deadlines are going to pick up, holiday season is going to pick up, it's going to get darker, it's going to go colder. It's going to feel more burnout. And so now is the time to take advantage of everything that's in your favor. So that is what I talked about last week. That's just my reminder, just talking about Labor Day. But yeah, let me tell you what else is going on.
I don't know if you saw the news, but yesterday I was recognized by ignition as one of the top 50 women in accounting for 2024, which is a really exciting global recognition for the work that I'm doing, for the work that you show up here for every week, for the opportunity to get out of burnout. And so it's just my honor to continue to do this work. Thank you for rooting me on, cheering me on, being part of it, being my clients, being subscribers, being a referral part of my network. It's because of you. So thank you so much. I take any of these awards with so much love because they're all coming because of this community that we've built. So that's really exciting news.
What else is going on? Life is always 50 50. So while it's easy to share the good things, let's talk about something that's feeling a little sad. It's totally good. Everything's gonna be okay. But my little pup, she's not doing so well right now. She is not feeling okay today. She stopped eating. It's been a few days and she doesn't want to eat. She's randomly eating. She'll, like, eat some blueberries and then not. And then she'll eat some chicken and then nothing. I don't know. We've been back and forth to the vet, but, you know, being real with what's going on in my life because I want to share that with you. It's nice to celebrate all the amazing things, and it's also real to know that life is 50 50. There's always going to be good things going on, and there's always going to be little things that get in the way. Tough vendors as you're getting a renovation done or someone gets sick or family member needs you out of the blue. And was going to be really productive today and then that shift. Right. So just being honest, that's a little bit what's going on today. Not as productive as I would like to be, but that's okay because I'm there for my pup and she needs some extra love. So it's all good.
Um, and the last thing. So this is where we'll end on a high. So this weekend is my husband's birthday, so we're going to do a little weekend getaway. I'll tell you more about that next week because I want to talk about these 15 minutes. But as always, I like to go into a client's story. This is a fun one. It was my client's birthday this past, earlier this week, and so I reached out. I reached out. We had worked together a few years ago and I just want to check in and see how she's doing. It's been a minute. And I also just wanted to say happy birthday. So I sent her a note and I just said, hey, how's it going? And it was a beautiful, beautiful response. And so in. Since we've been working together, which has been years ago since she graduated from my program, she said that this work is continuing. She is advocating for herself and her family. She found a job where her commute is shorter. She feels like her work life balance has gotten even better. She said, and quote, I'm celebrating that you've made such a huge difference in my life. I still always remember how you helped inspire me to be better, and I will always be grateful for to grateful to you. And she said you were and still are the best coach.
So just getting a little bit of love. I definitely sent her so much love. She was a wonderful client to work with, but it's just really amazing to see that this work that I do with my clients doesn't end after the six month program. The idea is freedom. Freedom for good, freedom for what you want, freedom for more time, freedom for more energy, freedom for more love, freedom for more success. Right? There's freedom everywhere, and it doesn't stop at the end of the six month program. So I always love client testimonials like this because it just tells you it continues and it goes on and on and on.
So that being said, let's get into it today. This is one of the topics I love most. You may hear I am a very big start, small start somewhere. I say that on my website. I've said that on podcasts. It's really true. What I see is that women will come in and they're like, this time of year, I'm clean slate in my life. I am going to change everything. I'm cold turkeying. I'm going from a really unhealthy, maybe summer routine to a much healthier one. And I'm going to change everything overnight. Here's the problem. We take on too much all at once, and then what it means is we make little to no progress in a lot of areas. After two weeks, you're likely feeling depleted. You are thinking, why bother? You're thinking, why? Like, this is just hard, too hard. And you're likely thinking, this is what it is. Like, it's just gonna be like, I'm never gonna be healthy and have this career. I'm never gonna feel good and get here. And that is a fatal thought. Right? I talked about that in my webinar. I talked about it a few weeks ago that your thoughts are getting in the way of your. They're creating your burnout. They're getting in the way of having a life that you want so if you're falling into the it is what it is a couple days post Labor Day and you haven't worked out yet or drank more water or woken up on time, it's not over. But the question is, are you doing it the right way? Are you doing it all at once and making no progress? Or can we try a new approach? Start small, start somewhere.
Now, I can only imagine, right, because I've been there myself, when you try to create a routine for the first time and you're struggling, you're going to be feeling frustration because maybe you're noticing that you're unable to carve out the personal time that you'd like to be. You might be feeling a little overwhelmed because you're like, more is more, and I can't do more of, like, cooking homemade meals on top of client deadlines. Maybe you're feeling some guilt because you're really not able to prioritize yourself the way that you would like to be. And you're noticing that your other commitments, your emails, your maybe kids school, now it's back to school, is taking precedence over your own well being. Maybe you're experiencing some resentment, right? This could arise because of a lot of different things, because of your job, because of your partner, because of responsibilities at home, because of other obligations at work that are just getting in the way of you feeling good. Right? Imagine wanting to feel stronger, but then all of a sudden you just feel like you never can. Because maybe this certain client wants you to have a standing meeting at 08:00 a.m. and that just throws off any opportunity, right? Resentment can build. Exhaustion can build, right? You keep trying, but you can't make time for yourself. Like, it's exhausting. Energetically, physically, mentally, all of the things. And then eventually, because over time, we talked about it goes on and on, and you're not really getting where you want to go. You can feel a little helpless. So I get it. Women come to me feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, guilty, resentful, exhausted, helpless and burned out.
Now, I know you don't have a lot of time, right? We work in these busy professions. But here's the thing that you need more than anything. This is it. This is it. When a woman is busy, the answer is the opposite. When things are complex, we create simple. So if you don't have time, what I'm going to invite is 15 minutes. 15 minutes. There's a doctor, Doctor Sukharaj. Dylan says you should sit in meditation for 20 minutes every day, unless you're too busy. Then you should sit there for an hour. You heard that, right? You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day, unless you're too busy. In that case, you should sit there for an hour. Now, I get, like, there's almost a little, like, when I first heard that, I was like, ugh. Like, that feels a little cringey. I'm like, oh, well, if I had 20 minutes, then I would give that. And if I had an hour, I would give that. But the point here, this doctor is saying, is that the need for it is higher than ever. So you're coming to me, and you're like, wow, I'm so busy. There's so much going on. I'm so overwhelmed. And you need this. You need these 15 minutes at least, more than anything. Like, should this day forward, let's not let another day go without giving yourself 15 minutes.
This is actually one thing I say to all my clients when they come to me. They're like, what is it? What's entailed? What do I have to do? How much time is invested? And I say 15 minutes a day. If you want to give more, great. But if you want to hit it, 15 minutes a day, and you'll get out of burnout. And it works every single time. Now, I get that you might not have time for an orange theory class every day, right? That's what we're doing when we're getting up working from eight to eight, and then we still have to do all the things at home. Like, we might not have time for that. But I do know you have 15 minutes a day. And how do I know? Because I know. No, but truly, I know. You're spending over 15 minutes on your phone. You're spending 15 minutes watching tv. You're spending 15 minutes online shopping. You're spending 15 minutes wanderlusting or thinking about your next vacation. You're spending 15 minutes or way more thinking about quitting your job. You're sitting in the car stewing for over 15 minutes about how overwhelmed you are, how much you got to get out of this job, how much, like, how did I get here? In all of these toxic thoughts, you're spending 15 minutes or more a week numbing after a long week of work. That can mean a lot of different things, right? It can mean alcohol. It can mean drugs. It can mean tv. It can mean doing gambling. It can mean a whole host of things. But you're spending 15 minutes numbing out. And you're spending 15 minutes just doing a lot of things that don't serve you, that aren't serving or supporting or adding to your well being, but actually taking away.
So now that we all know we have the time, and then what happens? The brain goes from, like, I don't have that time, but we just decided, right? There's 15 minutes. And you may have excuses for why these 15 minutes aren't good enough. 15 minutes is a really short period of time, you might say, by the time I put my sneakers on, I can't even go for a walk. Right. It takes me 15 minutes just to get ready to go outside. Right. We also may say 15 minutes is underwhelming. It doesn't feel as tangible or as powerful as, like a 1 hour cardio class. But 15 minutes is powerful when we do it cumulatively, I promise you, 15 minutes is enough time. Your brain is telling you why it's not enough, why it's not going to get you the results, why you've been trying so many other things in different ways. And 15 minutes isn't going to really make any impact. But I'm telling you it does. When you apply little bits consistently, it changes how you show up.
Now, if someone decides, maybe you, on this call today, we talked about Labor Day resolutions last week. Now we're feeling into the energy of what's possible, what's now, what now? How might you feel? You may start to feel, if you decide on this strategy, you may start to feel calmness. You may feel relief. Like, finally, I'm taking 15 minutes a day and that's all I could give, but I'm going to make these 15 minutes count. You may start feeling more optimistic. You may start to feel I have control over my life, over me, over my well being. You may start to feel a whole host of different feelings just because you're doing something consistent. We can't often commit an hour a day, but we can commit 15 minutes. So I want you to start thinking about the power of 15 minutes. Right? We talk about 1010 wins. They say, you give me 20 minutes, I'll give you the world. This is the same thing. You give me 15 minutes, I'm going to get you out of burnout free.
Now, the best news about this is that it's 15 minutes, but it doesn't have to be 15 consecutive minutes. This is the secret. You can break it up and you're someone being like, 15 minutes. I thought that wasn't enough. How do I break it up even smaller? Well, imagine, you know how every meeting starts three minutes late? I laugh because I know that. I know that every meeting starts a few minutes late because we're waiting for someone to join. What if you kept your camera off and you just did deep breathing for two minutes before every meeting? You would hit your 15 minutes if you had a little break of time on your lunch break to just sit outside or stand out and get sunshine on your face, right? That could add up. Do that a few times. 15 minutes. If instead of a cigarette break, right. If you're smoking, then at least get outside and breathe some air. I don't know. Let's balance that out. But if you're not smoking and you go outside, right, you can take your own cigarette break and not smoke, but like, go breathe, go take a moment, go walk. Little breaks add up and 15 minutes, right, you could do it all at once. You could break it into smaller chunks. There's the power of on your commute, you can use it, you can do it between meetings, you can do it depends on what you're doing, right? So you could just say, you decide, I'm just going to do more deep breathing. You can do that in so many different places. If you're going to go for a walk, you can find times. Park your car on the other side of the parking lot. If you work from home, do a lap after you close your laptop for the day and do a lap around the block to get your 15 minutes in and consider that your commute. There's so many ways to create 15 minutes. And even if you're like, I don't, maybe it's not a physical goal that you're going for, but more of like a health goal. Create 15 more minutes to actually sit and eat your meal. Create 15 minutes to make sure that you fill up your water bottle regularly. Set up 15 minutes or whatever it is you want, but commit to it. Make it yours.
Now, I know as you're going through this, thoughts are going to come up, feelings are going to come up. You're not going to go from frustrated to empowered overnight. It's going to be a slow go, but if you want it to be a faster go, here's what I'm going to tell you. Are you on my newsletter? Are you following along? Are you watching these weekly? This is the power to get you from where you are to where you want to go. I have information coming out regularly, daily. I have webinars monthly. I want you to take advantage of this moment. So I'm going to invite you by starting, to start by subscribing to my newsletter. My newsletter is a weekly information resource that will provide inspiration. Information. Opportunities, events. Next steps. 15 minutes is powerful. 15 minutes can change your life. You could either think 15 minutes isn't good enough, it's not going to get me anywhere. Or 15 minutes is going to change everything. It's going to get me out of burnout.
This is today's episode, the power of 15 minutes. I want to know first, I'm challenging each of you. Go out today. Find 15 minutes. Do something for yourself. Step two, let me know what you did. Send me a DM. Put something in the comments. Give me a little hashtag replay. If you watch this after the fact and tell me, what did you do this morning? 15 minutes a day is powerful. So I invite you to take advantage of that moment.
All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you like what you heard, drop and let me know. You can find me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube. Wherever you hang is where I hang. So I am there for you. Make sure that you keep coming back week over week. Small, consistent tidbits of information coming at you every week. I always make sure that these are under a half hour, so they're digestible, they are informative, they're fun, and they give you exactly what you need to get out of the burnout and get the work life balance you've always wanted.
All right, everybody, this is today's episode. If you want more information about me, Lauren Baptiste, my company, Acheloa Wellness, or my one on one coaching program, freedom, visit acheloawellness.com. you can subscribe to my newsletter there. You can subscribe to it on the profiles of each of these accounts. And that is where all the magic really is. All right, everybody, I'll see you next week. Bye.
