There are many gaps our generation is working to close. Whether it's the pay gap, the education gap, the wealth gap, or a combination of them all, the disparities that people of color face in their careers and education stem from years of inequality in our institutions.
Those institutions are vital to giving the next generation an opportunity to build and thrive in an equal competitive world, leaving many of us to wonder how we can create generational impact. More than ever, women are using their talents and gifts to make an impact through programming. Whether they are leaving their full-time jobs or creating side hustles, women are taking their underutilized talents in Corporate America and turning it into an opportunity to teach, help others gain access, become leaders, find jobs, and build their businesses. We are doing the work, by using our influence, our talents, and our God-given gifts to solve problems and help others.
Here are six women who have created programs and organizations by using their gifts to help create space and opportunities for other women:
Nicole A. Tinson, 27, Los Angeles/Atlanta
Nicole Tinson's organization is HBCU 20x20, which is working to prepare and connect 20,000 HBCU students and graduates to jobs and internships by the year 2020. It was launched on Labor Day of 2017 and is approaching its one-year anniversary. Nicole is a HBCU graduate of Dillard University and she attended Yale University, an Ivy League, for graduate school.
After graduating from Yale, she moved to her hometown of Los Angeles to find a job but experienced a rough job search. "I began applying to jobs only to realize that securing a job was much more difficult than I would have imagined. I struggled in securing employment, despite having the work experience and a great educational background. After one month of applying for jobs, I was finally able to secure a job in my field. I realized that if I did not have my social capital, I would not have had a job," she shared.
Six months later, she quit that job to create her non-profit Jobs R 4 U.
"We began partnering with local and national organizations to host workshops and career fairs for free in LA. In doing this, I realized so many colleagues and friends of friends also struggled in finding opportunities, particularly people who graduated from HBCUs. I would come across people with high GPAs, internship experience, campus and community involvement -- essentially everything we are told we need to secure a job in the 21st century, but for some reason, it still wasn't enough," she explained.
After doing some research and investigating, she wondered what diversity and inclusion looked like in action. From there, HBCU 20x20 was born.
Nicole is using her non-profit grassroot experience and the art of hustling to make Fortune 500 companies aware of the talent that's bred at HBCUs and connecting HBCU students with opportunities. The organization offers a plethora of resources to its members, from social media and text messaging software that keeps you up to date on opportunities, to an HBCU 20x20 GroupMe. "HBCU 20x20 is disrupting the way companies recruit and engage with a diverse talent pool by allowing us to do a lot of the heavy lifting so they can't say 'no.' We review resumes and forward them to hiring managers like a headhunter without the cost. We are disrupting the ways students and graduates prepare and connect to opportunities. We aren't just a job board. We are truly interested and [we are] meeting people where they are, and assisting them in getting to where they need to go," she shared.
Leigh Lovett & Kay White, 30, Nashville, TN
Six weeks prior to their first event, Leigh Lovett and Kay White met at a burger joint in Nashville to discuss how to bring the budding Nashville blogger and create a supportive environment that empowered the area's bloggers. That meeting birthed The Blogger Xchange, which focuses on collaboration over competition. It's a group that provides bloggers, creatives, and entrepreneurs classes, social events, and various art and workout experiences in Nashville, Memphis, and Minneapolis.
They noticed many prominent black bloggers in the city were being excluded from brand events. Those that were occasionally invited to brand events would comment later on being the only person of color in the room. "Kay and I decided we need to show that bloggers of all ethnicities have the same power to be influential as their white counterparts," Leigh explained.
Through their individual skill-sets in marketing and communications, and their social media influence, the Blogger Xchange has secured high quality local and national partnerships including Bud Light Nashville, Google Bulletin, Macy's, Forever 21, Lyft, and Cracker Barrel. This month, they are hosting their first Blogger Xchange Xpo, bringing 11 speakers together to educate bloggers with branding workshops, informative panels, and fun breakouts.
Tola Lawal, New York, NY
Ursula Stephens' former position as CEO of Xerox was a great stepping stone for black women in C-Suite positions, but since her departure, there's been little to no improvement on the presence of black women and women of color in leadership positions. Gyrl Wonder was created by Tola Lawal to change what the vision of success in our country looks like. "Our call to action from the beginning was to create lasting, proven, inspired and sorely needed pathways to success for our young girls of color. Statistics show alarmingly low numbers of women of color in leadership positions in our country. And in order for our younger generations to challenge that trend, they need the opportunities, programming, mentorship, and guidance to launch themselves as leaders in a world that desperately needs their presence," Tola shared.
Through intimate conversations with professionals, programming, and constant reminders of the power of self-love, Gyrl Wonder equips their participants with the tools they'll need to shine in a world that may want to dim their light. This summer, Gyrl Wonder hosted its first Summer Leadership Academy where students were able to visit some of the top media and entertainment companies to hear from women in leadership within an intimate setting, and they plan to host another one during the winter season. "On all fronts, the images that our young girls receive from popular media and our national representation has grown more diverse, but the underlying messages are still clear: women who look like them are still too scarcely seen as leading figures in our culture and our national history. This is the narrative that has fueled our work and urgency to ensure that our young girls see and remember that they are in fact, Gyrl Wonders."
When it comes to getting the resources she needs for programs or finding mentors to spend time with her participants, Tola has been able to manage and grow Gyrl Wonder with her attribute as a connector. "I'm a connector, marketer, and entrepreneur by nature. I love connecting with like minds and have no problem sliding into someone's DM or sending a blind email. It's ALWAYS worked for me. LinkedIn is my best friend," she revealed.
Milan Rouge, 29, Philadelphia, PA
This founder took her apparel brand, Milano di Rouge, and turned it into an empowerment movement to remind women they can make their dreams a reality by creating the Womanaire Club. "After building Milano di Rouge to the level of success it has reached today, I would get so many inquiries from women, notably women of color, on how to launch a business or get to the next of level of success that I decided I wanted to launch the Womanaire Club as a way to help other women entrepreneurs. A space where fellow women building brands and businesses can connect and gain knowledge from each other," Milan Rouge explained.
The Womanaire Club hosts a variety of programming, including meetups, sleepovers, workshops, and retreats. She used her journey to success to help educate other women on how to manage and grow their businesses. "It's not just that t-shirt anymore, I have an entire brand," she said.
Michelene Wilkerson, 24, Staten Island, NY
Michelene Wilkerson used her experience working in book publishing to find talent and her love for culture and art to create a community for young, emerging black creators. That community is called Soul Elevated, an arts and culture hub created in 2017. "When I started it, Soul Elevated was a retro-minimal moodboard. Fast forward a year later, the page is evolving into a creative community, multidisciplinary forum, and discovery platform," she explained.
The moodboard that started Soul Elevated featured thousands of inspiring visual works Michelene had screenshotted and hoarded on her phone. "When I finished the first moodboard, I had this exhilarating aha moment. I saw a space, a fresh world. I saw what I believe is a new lane, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it."
What she envisioned was a community that highlights emerging artists and other cool creators, solely focusing on emerging talent instead of established names and trending artists to showcase fresh faces and content. "More people deserve to eat--- but are we willing to give them a seat at the table? Or are we going to leave the reserved signs up and keep the feast exclusive? There's space for bloggers, but what about the experimental photographers, designers, stylists, musicians, and video creators? What about the fresh entrepreneurs and publishers who are working towards their big break?"
She began curating Soul Elevated's Instagram page and worked her way from there. "I'm familiar with the Black creative ecosystem on Instagram, so it just made sense to stay in my lane and use Instagram to create the world I wanted to see," she explained.
From there, pure, genuine relationships started to form and her followers wanted more so she started to brainstorm offline opportunities to bring Soul Elevated. As a result, Michelene created the first quarterly event series Young, Black and Rising. She never put together event before, but since the first YBR, she's had over 100 attend each event and has partnered with brands like Urban Outfitters and Penguin Random House. "I think it shows how necessary this work is. It's bound to go far."
Her future goal is to turn Soul Elevated into a digital media production company and editorial website. "Right now I'm building my community and building my external network. If Donald Trump can be elected president, you cannot stop me from living and fulfilling my best Black life. Never."
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I’ve shared before that waste means “to consume, spend, or employ uselessly or without adequate return,” and if you are doing things that don’t really give you an ROI on the minutes and hours that you will never see again, to a large extent, you are definitely wasting your time. One way to avoid doing that is to manage your time wisely, and one way to do that is to incorporate a quote by author Stephen Covey: “The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” That’ll preach. A few sermons.
So, how can you know, without question, that you could stand to do some fine-tuning when it comes to time management? Well, for starters, if the following eight things apply to you on some level, you definitely could use some work on improving your time management skills. ASAP too.
1. You Spend Too Much Time on Social Media
GiphyReportedly, 10-15 percent of marriages are sexless. To be a part of category, it means that you have sex with your spouse no more than 10-12 times a year. What this basically boils down to is if you only engage in copulation once a month, you technically fall into this demographic (by the way, you’re considered to have a healthy marital sex life if you engage in coitus no less than once a week).
Where am I going with all of this? Well, whenever I have clients who are sexless and one or both of them tell me that they don’t have time for intimacy, one of the first things that I ask is how much time they spend on social media — and boy, you should see their faces. LOL.
There really is no telling how many times I’ve shared on this platform that most people spend somewhere around 2.5 hours, daily, on social media AND that most people are fine with intercourse lasting between 7-13 minutes. So nah, it doesn’t fly that if you’re not gettin’ it in with your partner, it’s because you’ve run out of time. A quickie alone gives you PLENTY of it.
It won’t feel that way, though, if you’re on social media for — shoot, the length of time of a movie (and then one sitcom episode). And that’s what you’ve got to watch about your time, in general, because if you are online a whopping 150 minutes each and every day — think about all of the other things that you could be getting done: exercising, meal prepping, goal-setting, catching up with family members and friends…so much, chile.
Social media as a form of entertainment or escapism is cool. Most experts say that beyond 30 minutes a day is leaning into it being somewhat counterproductive, though (unless you are getting actual work done on it). So yeah, if you want to become a master at time management, using self-discipline while being on your social media accounts is a great way to start.
Social media time management hack: Turn on a 30-minute sitcom and scroll as you watch it. Once it’s over — BING! You know that you’ve been on IG, TikTok or Facebook for 30 minutes straight.
2. You Are (Almost) Always Late
GiphyBack in my 20s, it was nothing for me to be late — if I showed up to something (that I said I was coming to) at all. And boy, was I being selfish, entitled and disrespectful of other people’s time. Yeah, you don’t really realize until you’re on the receiving end of someone’s tardiness (especially perpetual tardiness) just how irresponsible it can be to not show up at the time when you said that you would. Because really, if it — whatever “it” is — was gonna be, whenever, why was a time set in the first place?
Not to mention the fact that being late tends to have a ripple effect because, unless you and someone else were going to be together for an entire day, they typically have other things to do after leaving you — and your lateness could affect their already planned schedule.
Effective time management means that you plan things when you know that you can do them, you give yourself enough time to arrive on time — and if, for some reason, you’re going to be late, you respect the person enough to let them know.
Besides, people who keep schedules tend to be less stressed — and because they value other people’s time enough to not waste it, their relationships tend to be more easy-going too. That’s because respecting time cultivates trust; it makes you appear reliable which is always a good thing.
How to be on time hack: Add time to your time. What I mean by that is, if you told someone that you would meet up with them at 6:30 and you are 20 minutes away, add 20 minutes to that time. It helps when it comes to unexpected traffic and prevents you from rushing.
3. You Don’t Have Daily Goals
GiphyIdle hands are the devil’s workshop. King Solomon was once inspired to say that. Hmph. While we’re here, he also said that idle lips are his mouthpiece (just sayin’ — Proverbs 16:27). Anyway, as far as the hands thing, when you don’t have goals, it can be really easy to waste time — maybe because you’re bored, maybe because you’re antsy, maybe because, whether it’s consciously or subconsciously, you are looking for ways to use up your time. Problem is, when your time isn’t being utilized wisely, you can end up killing time — time that you will never get back.
It can’t be said enough that we all get the same 24 hours in a day and within each day, many productivity experts say that it’s important to have somewhere between 3-5 daily goals. It’s a good way to use your time wisely, to feel inspired and motivated and to make progress in various areas of your life.
How to set daily goals hack: Before turning in each night, pull out a journal or your phone and jot down three short-term goals that can be done the following day and two longer-term ones that you can start on. Make sure one long-term goal can be completed by the end of the week.
4. You Overestimate Your Multitasking Capabilities
GiphyMozart once said, “The shorter way to do many things is to only do one thing at a time." That said, I am always tickled whenever a female client (it is ALWAYS a female client — LOL) brags to me about how good she is at doing a million things at once. Listen, just because you can do that, it doesn’t mean that you are doing each of the things well. Science says so. And while some experts say that two is the limit and others say four, when it comes to checking things off of your to-do list, try to avoid doing several things at one time.
For one thing, it reduces the chance that you will make a mistake or overlook something. Also, it can prevent you from feeling anxious or frazzled. Yeah, even if you think that you are getting a lot done by multitasking, it can create unnecessary pressure and stress into your life and who needs that? It can also up your chances of doing things over — and that definitely can be a waste of your time.
How to multitask less hack: Meditate before starting your day. This means not looking at your phone, especially. Why? Because when you see all of the texts and notifications that are in it, that is typically what tempts you to attempt multiple things at once. Instead, ease into your morning quietly and calmly. Then prioritize what needs to be done and only do two things at a time.
Knowing that you were thorough is so much more satisfying than feeling like you did five things at once at an average level.
5. You Overwhelm Yourself
GiphyKnow what else can come from super multitasking — you find yourself feeling so overwhelmed that you become mentally and physically stagnant. In fact, many mental health experts say that it is very common to find yourself procrastinating whenever you are overwhelmed. Why? Well, when you sit and think about doing things that you may not want to do, that can overwhelm you.
At the same time, if you keep putting off what you need to do (good or “bad”), for days on end, until stuff piles up, the very thought of getting it all taken care of can tempt you to procrastinate — which only leads to a bigger pile of stuff to get overwhelmed with.
As a result, rather than what needs to be done, you intentionally seek out distractions that don’t really benefit you in the long run (more times than not).
How to stop overwhelming yourself hack: Write down what needs to be done in the order of their importance. Then go for a walk to clear your mind and commit to doing a couple of the things upon your return. Do them and then take another quick break before doing a couple more. The breaks will keep you from feeling stressed out from the weight of it all. Think of it like tearing down a mountain — a stone at a time.
6. You Don’t Have a Sleep Schedule
GiphyYou NEED sleep. Sleep IS NOT a luxury. And for goodness’ sake, stop saying that you’ll sleep when you’re dead? You’ll be dead when you’re dead. All of this said, I doubt that health experts will ever state that you won’t need between 6-8 hours of sleep every night. Sleep boosts immunity, so that you don’t “lose time” getting over being sick. Sleep gives you energy, so that you can actually get things done. Sleep helps with your cognitive function, so that your memory, concentration and productivity are intact, so that you can do things well.
A lot of people waste time because they aren’t performing well and it’s all because they aren’t getting the quality rest that they should. If you are one of these individuals, you should really consider implementing a sleep schedule. At the end of the day, all it means is you are prioritizing sleep — because you absolutely should.
How to start a sleep schedule hack: A part of what comes with having a sleep schedule is incorporating a bedtime routine. Check out “These Sleep Hacks Will Make Getting A Good Night’s Rest So Much Easier” for tips on how to make that easier for you.
7. Pleasure Isn’t Prioritized
GiphyRecently, a friend of mine wrote to me to say that their boyfriend (of quite some time) decided to, pretty much out of nowhere, break up with her a week before her birthday. When I asked her what her availability was so that I could treat her to lunch or dinner, she shared with me that most nights, she is working until 10:30pm. What in the world, chile?
If you don’t have a good and consistent work/life balance, you also low-key suck at time management because you absolutely were not put on this earth to do nothing but work all day and night long. SMDH. Pleasure is about enjoyment and some of your time is absolutely to be filled with that. If you don’t carve out leisure time to do things that make you happy — you 1000 percent suck at time management.
How to prioritize what pleases you (more often) hack: One hour a day during the week. No less than three hours, at least one day, on the weekends. Devote that time to nothing but what you enjoy doing. It keeps the stress levels down and also makes it easier to do the tasks that are less fun that need to be done.
8. You Don’t “Tithe” Your Time
GiphyAlthough tithe is a word that most of us don’t hear unless it’s in reference to church (Malachi 3), the word actually means “a tenth part or any indefinitely small part of anything” — and yes, when it comes to your time, it’s really important to tithe it out when it comes to things like your health regimen, self-care and decompression.
So, that said, be honest — do you tithe your time in the sense of making sure that within your 24-hour day, time is set aside for certain things? Now, to be fair, 10 percent of 24 hours is 2.4 hours, right? So, while some of these things might need to be combined — doing some yoga while binge-watching a show would qualify as “tithe timing.” So would taking a bubble bath and listening to your favorite podcast.
How to tithe your time hack: No matter what is going on, make sure that 2.4 hours, DAILY, is set aside for a bit of “you” time — you in the sense of doing what reminds you to prioritize yourself.
BONUS: You Remain in Cyclic Nonsense
I can’t believe that it’s basically been a year since I released my third book (what is time?). In it, there is a chapter entitled, “The Nice Guy Narcissist” and although the man’s name (and certain details that would make it clear to some folks who I am talking about) isn’t present, my circle knows who I am referring to.
Anyway, one of my friends loathes him so much that she doesn’t deal with him on any level — even has him blocked on social media. Meanwhile, a guy who has been basically wasting her time since she was a teenager (who she allows to put her through all sorts of mental and emotional roller coaster rides and she’s middle-aged at this point), they play the block/unblock game on a monthly basis.
That same energy she has for who hurt me? She needs to give her own self a triple portion for the clown in her life. In fact, I’ve said to her that I think she is actually projecting on “my guy” because she doesn’t have the courage to do the same with her own (ouch and amen).
And that is why the video above this point is so fitting. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that you’ve seen a hamster in a hamster wheel before. Hmph. All that running and not getting any damn wear. Cyclic patterns are just like that — and if you are in a cyclic situation, how can you NOT be wasting your time? What can going around and around and getting nowhere be a way of using your time wisely. You wanna master time management? Leave the people, places, things and ideas that are counterproductive AF TOTALLY alone. FOR GOOD.
A way to get off of your own hamster wheel hack: The thing that is your “wheel,” think about the ways that it takes you backwards and keeps you stuck. Then get REALLY HONEST about what needs to be done to move you forward. THEN DO THAT THING.
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Author Micheal Altshuler once said, “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot” — and as I wrap this up, when it comes to time management, truer words have not been spoken.
The beautiful thing about time management is you have the ability to manage your own.
Hopefully now you know how to do that a bit better.
So that you can get the absolute most out of your time.
Amen? YES.
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