Hello Dears,
Welcome back to part 4 of the 5 easy steps to planning.
Here are 5 steps to planning
Step 1. Journal
Step 2. Highlight your to-dos
Step 3. Prioritise your to-dos
Step 4. Schedule them into your planner
Step 5. Do them
Let’s recap;
You’ve done the journaling part, and the highlighting your to-dos. You’ve prioritised your tasks, and you have delegated some of these to others, always remember you don’t have to do everything yourself. And now it’s time to schedule your tasks into your planner.
The scheduling part is what I love the most for a couple of reasons.
- I get to choose how I want to spend my day.
- I’m in control! I have control over my day; no one else does.
- I have the freedom to choose when I want to do a task.
- I get to see where I’m spending my time.
- I get to schedule enjoyable things into my day.
- I spread out business to-dos so that I don’t get too tired or overwhelmed.
- I can move things around if I’m having a depression day or days.
I hear you, and you’re telling me that you are no way in control of your day because you have work, kids and a hubby. It’s all taken out of your hands, people wants and needs’ get in your way and then the day is over.
Let’s start by changing some of the words we use:
Firstly you are one of the lucky one who chooses to go to work.
Choose to work??? “I have bills to pay, kids to feed. I need to go to work there is no choice in that.”
I understand but doesn’t “I choose to go to work” sound better? I mean you could choose to stay at home and sit on the sofa all day. Remember you chose to take your kids to after school sports activities, you chose to say yes to baking a cake for your friends birthday. You chose to go to the gym. You chose to pick up after your kids and hubby. You could make them pick up after themselves or have someone else take them to sports, buy a cake for your friend and not bake it yourself.
By changing how you phrase your words, can make you feel
- Proud that you have a job and are providing for your family
- Rewarding feeling to watch your kids grow up because you are at home with them
- The feeling of freedom
- The feeling of joy because you are creating something remarkable
- A sense of purpose
- It stops you from feeling negative.
- Grateful that you are spending quality time with friends and family
Your words make or break a person or yourself; they can lift you or pull you down.
Before you add any to-dos for others
Plan in the most important person into your planner and that is you! This is the time you get to think about yourself first. If doing sports is important to you, then you write that into your planner first. Don’t let anyone take your self-care from you, not even a parents evening or hubby’s work schedule. YOU COME FIRST because if your cup is empty, there’s no giving to others.
Blocking of time
There is a lot of information out there on time blocking and the best person to explain it is Jordan Page from FunCheaporfree.com she explains it like having a school schedule.
You could create your own life syllabus.
If you schedule your tasks out like you would a school schedule, then you can plan out when you want to concentrate on a subject/task that you give yourself. Your subjects could be
- Family
- Office hours
- Food prep/ groceries shopping
- Homework
- Self-care / sports / dreaming
- Zoom calls
- House /cleaning, decorating
- Date nights/family meetings
To create your life syllabus, you decide what you want to do for the above subjects. Let’s take family time; you would write down what’s important for your family and what you want to do with them. Sundays you would do a meal plan and block off time to go shopping. On a Wednesday evening, you could do a self-care night and then you would have a list of things you like to do to pamper yourself.
You’re blocking off time in your day to work on the above subjects. You decide how much time you are going to allocate to your subjects. You could use school lesson minutes 45 or 90 then take a break and move onto the next subject.
How you create your syllabus is totally up to you. It’s your life you get to create it just the way you want to.
Think of yourself as a teacher who is creating the school year syllabus. How would you create your own life syllabus? Leave a comment below.
Yours
