by Kristen | Sep 27, 2020 | Perspectives
September was the month that we really took the time to talk about specific strategies that you can use to bring your vision to life, to execute. Some of the topics we dug into included – Weekly Planning, Time Hacks, and Reflection and Adaptation. The August and September Planning Series is supposed to be something you can come back to over and over to really help you get reinspired and refocused – so check back in when you need a boost!
Here are the 10 most important things I think you can take away from the September Planning Series:
- The first, most important, step to good weekly planning is simply setting aside the time to get it done. Be selfish. This is time for you to make sure you are moving towards your dreams.
- Integrate working towards building positive habits in your weekly plan. These will help you “shortcut” some effort later on. I can’t recommend the book Atomic Habits. enough.
- Make sure you share the weekly plan with your work teams and family. They can’t be expected to help you if they don’t know what is going on.
- Some weeks feel like you literally have NO time. But many times, it is possible to find time by fitting in some smaller projects in the downtime- waiting for school pick up. Think about some “fringe” times that might help you fit more in.
- Set a timer and figure out what you can knock out in a “five minute burst”
- Just say no. Everything you say “yes” is a “not” to something else.
- Reflection is easily overlooked, but critical to improving your planning process to ensure you are meeting your goals.
- The weekly review is a critical piece of the reflection process – without it, you don’t truly learn from the lessons of the week.
- Manage your discouragement and celebrate your wins. This is about getting better every day, not complete perfection.
What’s Coming in October
I have had to slow down to a weekly post to accommodate my school schedule, but Work and Mom is still super important to me, so I am going to marry the work I am doing for my doctoral Literature Review with my blog! As we get ready to vote in December, I am going to be taking a deep dive into the Motherhood Penalty. The long-term wage disparity that exists for working mothers across races, ages, and educational levels. Stay tuned!
by Kristen | Sep 17, 2020 | Perspectives
It is hard to believe that we have made it through the August/September planning series all the way to the final section on reflection. It has been quite the journey- but we aren’t done yet. Before we get to the end though, we have a few more things to discuss: celebrations and rituals, changing directions, and dreaming big. So- still big work left to go!
Celebrations and Rituals
One of my favorite things about my planning process is checking items off of my big whiteboard in my office and my weekly cheat meal. These rituals may seem small, but to me, they are the little ways that I celebrate a successful week. I may not always check every single item off of my list, but for the most part, I am able to make progress on at least a few things. Which is worth celebrating.
Creating fun rituals help you ingrain your progress and towards your overall vision into your planning process.
Tony Robbins has a great article with some ideas for how to celebrate your success.
Changing Direction
If, during your reflection, you realize that something just isn’t working or that you don’t have passion for something anymore, change direction. Shift your priorities. Your goals and your vision are about you. It is only through setting plans and making adjustments that you find your own true north and it may not be anything like where you started.
Finding work-life balance is important and part of that is figuring out what works in your life.
You are not a failure if you get into something – new project, a new group, etc – and then decide it is not for you. This is how we learn, the true failure is never trying anything new at all.
Dream Big
Bill Gates famously says that people overestimate what they can do in a year and seriously underestimate what they can do in five. Dream big. If you want to be the next YouTube influencer, start recording videos. If you want to learn to play the violin, get a violin. If you want to run a marathon just start running.
You can do whatever you put your heart and time into. So get started.
by Kristen | Sep 15, 2020 | Perspectives
Reflection is the final phase of the planning process. Taking the time to check in with yourself to see how you are progressing in your goals is critical to success. Through the process of reflection, you build self-awareness, which enables you to better understand what you are doing well and what you are doing that could be contributing to poor performance.
The Role of Reflection and Adaptation
Reflection in a vacuum will be a nice exercise, however, it will not help you get better. That is where adaptation comes in. Consider these definitions:
Reflection – consideration of some subject matter, idea, or purpose
Adaptation – adjustment to conditions
So, in short, you think through how things are going, and then decide how you need to adjust for the next week.
This process has been really powerful for me, because when I was trying to manage by checklist, I would become aware that I wasn’t able to get done ALL the things I wrote down. Weekly reflection allowed me to take the time to thinking through what is reasonable to do in a week. Sometimes, my reflection reveals that I undershot what was possible.
For another perspective, check out Michael Hyatt’s article on the Importance of the Weekly Review.
The Weekly Review
I love my weekly review. I typically do it on Sunday mornings when I am planning the next week. During this time, I will literally review the things that happened during my week in order to make an even better plan for the next week. Somethings on my weekly review checklist:
- Did I accomplish my big three from the prior week?
- Are there any things that I would change about the prior week?
- What did I do well? What am I grateful for?
- Are there any things that need to carry over from the prior week?
- Where do I need to place my focus for next week to be a success?
The weekly review is your place to make an honest assessment of how things are going. I typically write my reflection directly into my planner, but you can certainly do it in a journal, on your computer, whatever makes sense for you.
Don’t Get Discouraged
You will definitely have times that your week did not go well. You may not have accomplished anything on your list. You may have argued with your kids all week. You may have missed a deadline at work. Your weekly review is not the place to beat yourself up about it, it is your place to evaluate what potentially went wrong and how to get back on track.
Sometimes, we are our own worst critics and your planning process is not the place for it. Be kind to yourself, no one knows your barriers as well as you do. But also don’t write off the places where you could do better. Push yourself, but without being mean.
Good news! More on reflection later this week. Happy planning!
by Kristen | Sep 10, 2020 | Perspectives
This week’s section of the Work and Mom Planning Series is all about ways to find more time. As we discussed last time, time hacks really don’t exist, we still just have the same 24 hours. Its how we fit that into our day that counts. It’s how we make strategic decisions that help optimize the time we do have. In this blog we are going to touch on three more strategies – personal development, outsourcing, and saying no.
Personal Development
Some of this might seem a little preachy, but it has to be said. Learning to do certain things will save you time. If every time you have to do a PowerPoint presentation for work is painful, learn PowerPoint, it will save you time in the long run. If you don’t know how to cook quick meals, learn, it will save you time in the long run. If you want to read more books, take a course in speed reading.
Get good at the stuff that you need to know how to do and it will pay dividends in the long run.
For me, this was listening to books on tape. I couldn’t do it. I was a terrible listener. But I kept practicing and now I can take classes in the car while commuting. (I even miss a commute- darn you 2020).
Outsourcing
Outsourcing can come in a variety of forms. Sometimes it is ordering in Thanksgiving Dinner from a grocery store. Sometimes it is hiring a housekeeper. Sometimes it is just giving your kids some chores to reduce some of your load.
The idea here is that there are just some tasks that are time sucks for you that someone else might be able to do more efficiently. These don’t always have to be things that cost money. You could do something for your neighbor that they don’t like to do, while they take over one of your household chores. You swap carpool days.
Creating solid load balancing with your spouse is also key. Although women have a tendency to shoulder more of the household task load, it doesn’t have to be that way. Spread the chores around.
For more ideas, read this article from Huffpost, 10 Ways to Outsource Household Tasks.
Just Say No
Recently I read a book that made the point- for every time you say yes to something, you are actually saying no to something else. So before you say yes, think about the things that you are potentially saying no to.
Last year, I decided to join the neighborhood HOA Board of Directors. It was an impulse decision. It was a terrible idea. By saying yes to this one thing, I lose an entire Tuesday night monthly for 12 months with my kids. I missed Halloween with my boys because I was responsible for the Halloween party.
Before saying “yes” remember to think through what the “no” is.
I’m sorry in advance if I didn’t provide for you any magic. There are no missing hours that can bump you from 24 to 26 hours. But there are lots of things that you can do to optimize your time.
Remember to share your experiences, tips and tricks in the comments!
by Kristen | Sep 8, 2020 | Perspectives
So, the title of this blog post may have been a little bit misleading- time hacks don’t really exist. The idea of time hacks is a little bit like the idea of fad diets, they may work for a time, but in the long term, will not provide the desired result. Even I fall into this track, publishing articles like Professional Development Tips for the Short on Time, the in general, instead of tricks, many of us need a new relationship with time.
That being said, there are some definite strategies that you can employ today that will help you make the most of the time you have. We all know that person who can fit so much more into their 24 hours than it seems everyone else can- some of these strategies will help you do the same.
Today, we will talk about three time hacks. The final three will come in the next blog post. Happy reading!
Fitting Things in the Fringes
In the book The Fringe Hours: Making Time for You , author Jessica Turner makes a case for using the pockets of time that you naturally have throughout your day to practice self-care and other things that you enjoy.
This idea ultimately can extend not just to the stuff you want to get done, but the stuff you have to get done. Some ideas:
- Do you need to do more professional development? Listen to relevant podcasts in the car.
- Do you need to catch up on thank you notes/birthday card invitations? Work on them while you wait at sports practice.
- Do you need to read that book club book? Make sure the book goes with you, so you can read in some downtime.
- Do you need to get in more exercise? Do 15 minutes of yoga while the oven preheats.
There may very well be more time in the day than we have found time for- think about where you have “fringe” time and come up with a strategy for how to use it.
Five Minute Bursts
For me, the idea of five minute bursts was born from the Covid-19 crisis. My nine-year-old wanted to do stuff with me, and I was furiously trying to work from home and take care of his little brother. I didn’t have time to spend three hours helping him clean his room or do elaborate art projects, so we invented five minute bursts. If I had five minutes between meetings, we would set a timer and clean his room for 5 minutes or practice multiplication or go for a quick walk.
Now that the boys are back in school I have extended this concept to work. If I have a few minutes, I look at my to-do list and find something that I can knock out in five minutes. This helps me spend productive time knocking something out that I might have otherwise spent looking at Facebook or staring at my email.
What do you think you can accomplish in five minutes?
Reducing Cognitive Effort
Barack Obama, somewhat famously, wears the same thing every day. Mark Zuckerberg does also. Steve Jobs was iconic in his black shirts. This isn’t about style, it is about reducing cognitive effort. This is one less decision they have to make every day.
For women, it is a little tougher because our fashion requirements are a little higher, but choosing your outfits in advance can help. Or having a capsule wardrobe.
Outside of the realm of wardrobe, reducing the amount of time that you spend on choosing dinner by planning a menu in advance. Or doing your daily to-do list the night before. Or autodrafting your bills.
Find anything you can to reduce the number of decisions you have to make throughout the day- your brain will thank you!
Try a few of these ideas out this week and see how it works out! Would love to here your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.
by Kristen | Sep 3, 2020 | Perspectives
Now that you have your first weekly plan, this blog is all about how to make accomplishing your weekly goals easier. The worst thing that can happen is that you get to the end of your week and you look back at your weekly plan and say “Oh crap, I forgot all about all of that stuff I meant to do.”
This isn’t to say that you will be a failure if you don’t get everything done. It could be that you wanted to read an entire book and you only read half. It could be that you wanted to exercise 5 days, but only made it to three. The important thing is not that that you achieve every goal every time, it is that you are always making progress little by little by little.
Achieving your vision will not happen overnight if it is big and amazing enough. But you can get there if you just keep trying.
Creating Visual Cues
My first tip for achieving your weekly goals is to create visual cues. The two visual cues that I use are the dry erase board in my office and the menu board in my kitchen.
I put my work/personal goals on the dry erase board in my office so that when I am at an in-between point in my day, I can look at it and decide what to do next. It becomes my guidepost for how I schedule my time.
One of my goals is to eat healthy and lose weight. Planning my meals in advance helps make it easy to make good decisions about my meals. I have the food ready and I have made a commitment to my family to make certain things.
Tools of the Trade
Having a good planner is absolutely integral to success in weekly planning. There are so many good planners on the market now that have “fill-in-the-blank” elements for your weekly priorities, schedules, and goals.
My personal favorite is the Full Focus Planner by Michael Hyatt. These planners are one-per-quarter and follow a really similar framework to what I have described. Plus, you can get a discount with a subscription and a purchase comes with a full suite of training videos on how to use the planners. For me they are truly “all the things.”
If the Full Focus Planners aren’t up your alley- I have also previewed the High Performance Habits planner and The Best Life Planner. I used the Best Life Planner for a little while- it is reviewed on this site. I haven’t used High Performance Habits, but I love Brenden Burchard and the book High Performance Habits, so I have high hopes for that planner as well.
You may just like to have a notebook, but I find that having some kind of calendar extremely helpful. I’m kind of a nerd for planners though- so make sure to tell me what you like.
Communicate with Your Family/Team
This is simple, if you do not share your plan, no one can help you with your plan. By having a posted menu, you don’t have to answer your kids questions about what’s for dinner. If your team knows your weekly priorities, they know where to focus their efforts. If your spouse knows the sports schedule, he/she can help with child pick up.
The more people who know how you are setting your priorities, the more your plan and your vision becomes part of your life. And that make it easier to achieve.
Be clear about where you want your week to go.
In the next part of our planning series, we are going to review some time hacks to help you meet your goals.
