Growing the Future

Everything in Time with Kate Sauser

Episode Summary

Kate Sauser, 25, shows up on paper as someone who shouldn't have time for anything: policy manager at Grain Growers of Canada, teaching at the University of Saskatchewan, refereeing high-level hockey, playing competitive softball, helping on the family farm near Churchbridge. The room invited her because they keep asking how she does it all. Her answer is practical and honest: she doesn't have a secret, she has a system, and she has ADHD, which she discusses openly as both a challenge and a driver. The conversation walks through the problem (the over-committer's loop), the decision (working with time or against it), and the practice (to-do lists, hard stops, calendar discipline, habit stacking), and closes with a live exercise asking the audience whether they spent yesterday or let it happen to them.

Episode Notes

The person everyone asks how they do it all is usually the last person to have a tidy answer. Kate Sauser is a policy manager at Grain Growers of Canada, a fifth-generation farmer from Churchbridge, SK, a high-level hockey referee, a competitive softball player, and a master's student finishing her thesis, all at 25. In this conversation, she shares the three-part framework behind her course on time: the problem most operators carry but rarely name out loud, the single decision that changes how the whole calendar feels, and the practical moves that make it work week to week.

 

Topics and Timestamps

0:00 -- Pre-registration responses: what does "I don't have time" actually mean?

1:00 -- Live intro: "How Does She Do It All?" and platform housekeeping

3:00 -- Kate's background: family farm near Churchbridge, Grain Growers, U of S, hockey, softball, 25

6:00 -- The over-committer's honest answer: time is relative to what you decide to do with it

9:00 -- Live poll: which of these sounds like your week?

11:00 -- Why technology makes the time problem worse before it makes it better

12:00 -- Kate's daily to-do list system: schedule blocks, high-priority vs. rolling low-priority tasks

14:00 -- Pen to paper: why writing it down works better than any app

15:00 -- "Everyone gets angry at time but doesn't work with it" -- the shift that started everything

16:00 -- The $86,400 analogy: if you had that many dollars to spend today, would you waste it?

18:00 -- The "Everything in Time" tattoo and the philosophy behind it

19:00 -- Modern myths about time and the scarcity loop they reinforce

21:00 -- Harry Siemens on day-timers, five priorities, and why four and five often disappear by noon

22:00 -- Hard stops and focused blocks: how Kate finished her master's thesis

25:00 -- ADHD, late diagnosis at 23, and the paralysis that comes before the system

31:00 -- Is ADHD a disability or a superpower? Kate's answer

34:00 -- Turning guilt into fuel: how a negative emotion becomes next-day productivity

37:00 -- Burnout is real: Kate's honest account of hitting the wall and what actually helps

38:00 -- Attitude as a daily choice: Harry Siemens' 1986 motto and why Kate agrees

42:00 -- Calendar as a bank account: if you want to be rich with time, check it often

45:00 -- Alex Clark in the chat: values alignment and what "pouring from an empty cup" actually means

45:00 -- Habit stacking: doing two things at once with purpose, not guilt

49:00 -- Kate's live exercise: "Did you spend yesterday, or did you let it happen to you?"

52:00 -- CTA: Everything in Time -- Kate's full course inside the Growing the Future Mastermind

53:00 -- Close and upcoming: Dr. Sylvain Charlebois on Friday

 

Resources Mentioned

Atomic Habits -- James Clear

The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control -- Katherine Morgan Schafler

Verity -- Colleen Hoover (fiction; mentioned as Kate's last great read)

Goodreads -- book-tracking and rating app (goodreads.com)

Google Calendar -- Kate's primary calendar tool

75 Hard -- fitness and discipline challenge referenced for habit stacking

 

Connect with Kate Sauser

Grain Growers of Canada: graingrowers.ca

 

Connect with Growing the Future

Website: growingthefuture.ca

YouTube: Growing the Future

Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast

LinkedIn: Growing the Future