Category: planning

Last week I shared my “to-do list system” (if you missed it or want to read it again you can find it here).

This week, as the subject line suggests, I’m sharing how to create your current “Ideal Week.”

I say “current” because sometimes when people talk about “ideal weeks” they’re talking about how things will look and feel when you hit that goal or are “where you want to be.”

What I mean for Ideal Week is, how you’d like your current week to flow.

To get started write down:

1. The things you do daily and how long you spend on each one (meditating, reading, exercising, checking email, checking social media, making phone calls, whatever it is for you)
2. The things you do each week and how long it takes to complete them (Each step of sending your NL, creating social media posts, networking, phone calls, etc)
3. How much time you spend with clients each week/day – or how much time you want to spend (I generally have client calls on Wed and Thu).
4. When are you working? What are your hours? When do you start and when do you leave?
5. When is lunch and how long?

Start blocking out the time on a calendar where you can see the entire week by the hour.

I created a separate Google calendar just for this. With my Google calendars I can see my business/personal calendar and my ideal calendar at the same time and move things around as needed – this way I make sure I don’t forget something I do weekly (wait, didn’t I do that already, nope, that was LAST week).

Here’s what to do with that week calendar:

1. Decide if you’re doing Monday-Friday, the entire week or something else
2. Add lunch to each day
3. Add the things you do each day
4. Add your client time to the week
5. Add the things you do each week
6. Add time to plan next week to Friday or whenever works best for you
7. Breathe!
8. The remaining time is for your business building projects. Those tasks on your MASTER list that don’t fit into any of the categories that have already been added.

Depending on how full your week is, it might not seem like there’s a lot of time left for the projects – THAT’S OKAY. Knowing that will help you NOT to over plan your week. And if you can always adjust your Ideal Week as needed (it’s YOUR week after all).

You can watch the Wednesday Live with Evie I did on this topic here.

What are your questions around this? Maybe you’re wondering how to set this up for yourself? Comment below with your questions.

Last week someone in a Facebook group I’m in asked for suggestions and tips on a “to-do list system.” What she was currently doing wasn’t working.

I responded and then realized I’ve never shared this method with you – although I’ve talked about it broad terms before.

Before I get into the nitty gritty, I’m reminded that about 4 years ago I did a very informal productivity survey over the phone with some of my business buddies and acquaintances.

When I asked if they had to-do lists I heard the following responses from people who didn’t have one:

1. When I have time and I’m not really busy, then I keep a to-do list.
2. When I have a to-do list more seems to get done.

When you’re really busy is exactly when you need a to-do list, because when you have one more gets done.

Yes, when you’re really busy it’s tempting to think “I’m too busy to take time to write a to-do list.” However, the time to create this system for yourself will keep you on task AND save you time.

How will it save you time?

You won’t have to spend 5 minutes (or more) every time one task is finished to mentally go through everything that needs to be done and pick the next item. Only getting to the end of the day to remember that you forgot to do something super important.

And it will prevent what I used to do all the time: you stop doing the current task 5-15 minutes away from it being done because your brain starts thinking about what you need to do next and you move on to that. Now you have a bunch of almost finished tasks hanging around.

So, without further ado, here’s the system I shared:

I have three lists:

1. A Master list – everything you want to get done.
   It’s important to have this list so everything is written down in ONE place.
   
2. A Week list – what you want to accomplish this week
   This is important to have because you can strategically decide ONCE what projects and tasks you want to complete this week.
3. Today’s list – what you’ll do today.
   This list is super important because it prevents overwhelm. You’re only looking at today’s list and don’t have to think about everything else you want to do.

When I don’t create these lists I get very overwhelmed because it feels like everything has to be done now and then I do nothing but watch YouTube or play silly games on my phone.

When I am working with these three lists, something amazing happens—I get a lot done and I’m NOT overwhelmed. This happens because I feel like I have a plan in place (because I do) and it will all get done.

So, how do you get started?

If you don’t have a master list, or haven’t done a brain dump recently—this is the time.

Take some time to write down EVERYTHING floating around in your head. Then start to group by project (things that need to be done weekly, monthly, home, website, client, whatever makes sense to you). This becomes your master list.

For your weekly list pick 5 Most Important tasks this week (these are things that if NOTHING else gets done, but these do, you’ll feel like it was a good week). 5 important tasks for the week, and 5 additional tasks. Don’t forget to estimate how long each task will take and write it to the right of the task.

There are two ways I recommend for creating today’s list. Pick the one that will work the best for you:

• Pick 1 Most important task, 2 important tasks, and 2 additional tasks. These might not line up exactly with the titles on your weekly list, because sometimes priorities change as the week progresses.
• Look at your calendar and notice how much time you have in the morning and afternoon to complete tasks. From your weekly list pick your tasks for the morning and afternoon. Keep in mind how long you estimated each task would take. Always error on the side of not scheduling enough!

One of the beautiful things about this system is you don’t need an expensive planner. All you need is a notebook or two. I have one binder with my monthly and weekly lists and a small notebook with today’s list.

You can watch the Wednesday Live with Evie I did on this topic here.

What are your questions around this? Maybe you’re wondering how to set this up for yourself? Comment below with your questions.

Welcome to 2017!

I’ve spent the last couple days dreaming what I want 2017 to look like and doing some planning. No surprise there though 🙂

Today I had planned on wrapping up that planning, but instead found myself wrapping up a different project. I completed my last promotional task for ICF Chicago. I’m grateful for the time I spent volunteering with ICFC, but it also feels good to be done.

From there I dove into my email. Gmail manages my email and I let it sort it into the 4 categories it gives you. All newsletters end up in one category and in a week I can easily accumulate over 100 emails there.

I generally skim through for the emails I want to read now and save the rest for later.

I realized that there were a number of emails that I haven’t read in a while. Looking over them I realized a majority are from people that I personally LOVE, but I’m not actually interested in their business content. I’m more interested in their lives and personal Facebook posts.

I must have unsubscribed from about a dozen lists today after having that realization.

There is a theme here, you might have noticed it—it’s wrapping things up and letting things go.

I’ve let go of a few things in the last couple of weeks. They include:

• Volunteer positions
• Email subscriptions
• An old hurt that was holding me back
• Christmas traditions that no longer are helpful
• Clutter in my Facebook feed
• My old newsletter format (I loved the simplicity of this format so much last week that I’m keeping it!)

I was driving somewhere the other day (I don’t remember where) and was thinking about my goals and what I want to accomplish/complete next year. And I thought about how I wanted to plan for meeting those goals and completing those things.

I started to think about my time in cubicle-land (in my previous profession). There I was responsible for my projects, I took support calls for two to three clients, researched those issues, and sometimes did tasks that were part of co-workers projects.

But most of my time WORKING was spent alone with a computer.

In retrospect there were two unspoken rules from my time in cubicle-land:

1. Overwhelm is normal, because anything else means you aren’t pulling your weight and are causing others more work!
2. REAL work is done just me and the computer. Everything else is more of a distraction.

These unspoken rules don’t serve me as an entrepreneur (a case can be made that they didn’t really serve me then either).

I realized this pretty early on for rule #1 and started working with it. I occasionally need to remind myself it’s not true if I fall into old habits.

But I only recently realized there was a rule #2. It’s caused me to rethink how I do some things and what kind of projects are actually important.

December is generally a pretty busy time of year for people, especially personally. With the holidays, there’s lots to do and places to be.

In the past this caused a huge amount of stress for me in my business.

Why?

Because I didn’t adjust my business schedule to work FOR me.

You see, I love my time alone. I need time by myself each weekend to do things I enjoy and aren’t work related. My work week is significantly affected if I don’t do that.

And my personal rhythm is to slow down in December. I want to curl up on the couch and watch my favorite programs (my favorites are murder mysteries where there’s also light-hearted humor). I want to put old favorites on the TV and put together jigsaw puzzles (or sit in silence). I want to read something that’s been on my shelf all year.

December for me is about slowing down, taking time for myself, and reflecting. It’s also about taking days off to spend with family and celebrate.

And if I don’t adjust my schedule for these things, I will drive myself batty.

So, here are some quick tips (that I’ll elaborate on in this week’s Live Stream):

1. What are your non-negotiables?
   For me, they’re things like family Christmas’s and recharge time.

2. What are the one or two things that you most want to complete this week for your business? These are the things that if nothing else is accomplished, will make you feel like you moved forward this week.
   This is usually important, but this time of year it’s super important for me. It moves my business forward and gives me permission to take care of myself (or do something else) at this time of year.

3. What can wait?
   Some things we think we should get done before the end of the year and put a huge amount of pressure on ourselves, but honestly, they’ll wait until January. Or, in some cases, we can let them go completely.

What it all comes down to is: know thyself.

What’s going to support you this holiday season?

Are you like me and slowing down or are you ramping up and going full speed? One’s not better than the other, what’s important is what works for you.

Join me here on Wed (Dec 14) at 10:30am to learn more about preparing yourself and your business for the holidays and ask your questions.