038: Creating Your Best Life Schedule
In this episode we bring together everything you've learned throughout The Working Mom Happiness method and use it to create the schedule that will lead to you spending your time in ways that align with your values, which is one of the keys to living a happy and fulfilling life!
Link to The Working Mom Happiness Method Company Group Program email to send to your company decision maker: https://www.womensbestlifeuniversity.com/workplace-resources
To check out The Working Mom Happiness Method coaching course, visit my website at https://www.womensbestlifeuniversity.com/working-mom-happiness-method
Learn more about The Working Mom Happiness Method course here!
To join The Working Mom Happiness Method Facebook group click here.
-
Hi, my name is Katy Blommer and my passion is helping women learn how to put themselves first, I learned all the tools for success on my own 12 year journey that has led me to finally figuring out how to live my best life. My journey included overcoming body image issues, and yo yo dieting, climbing the corporate ladder to a multiple six figure career, navigating mom guilt through a 60 hour workweek turning around marriage issues, and much more. Now, I'm truly living my best life. And I've pretty much become obsessed with teaching others my tried and true methods for creating balance, maintaining healthy habits, improving your relationship, career development, and how to stop tying your value and worth, to the way you look and how you serve others. I'm so passionate about helping others learn this, that I created the working mom happiness method to help you get there too. So if you're ready to learn how to live your best life, pull up a chair or put on your walking shoes and get ready to dive in. This is the working mom happiness method podcast.
Hi, and welcome to this episode of the working mom happiness method podcast that is all about creating your best life schedule. And what is so wild about this episode is that it is officially the last one in the formal working mom happiness Method program, which I can't believe that we're here. And for those of you who've been listening real time, first of all, thank you, I get so many messages at this point about people listening and it resonating with them. And that's why I do it. So it just I'm so excited. So send me your messages. I love hearing them. Most people message me on Instagram, you can find me on Instagram at Katy Blommer K TYB L O M M E R. But I've been so excited that I know so many of you are listening along real time, which is awesome. But if you haven't listening real time, I haven't been here for a while. It's been a few months. Actually, I didn't go back and see how long it's been since I've recorded an episode. But it's been a while. And that is not because it's not because I don't love this podcast. I absolutely love this. And I love sharing this information. It is because I was practicing what I preach, things got busy, crazy, but not in nothing in a bad way. All good things. It's summertime family vacations.
I was honored by Utah Business Magazine as one of 30 Women to Watch. And so I had some events and some things to focus on that which I was super excited about. my corporate job has been really busy. But also going really well. I've been sticking to boundaries. I am now a little over a year and a half back into that job after leaving due to burnout. And I've talked about that in other episodes. But I am happy to say I've continued to stick to my boundaries and continue loving that. And so all is going well. I just had to practice what I preached and set this aside for a minute while things were just kind of wild and in good ways. And now here we are, we're back. This is the first weekend I've had home in quite some time. And so I had some time to sit down and finish up with this last episode. Now, when I say last episode, it doesn't mean I'm stopping the podcast I'm going to continue on with having guests on. So I'm going to be talking with women who have taken this program and it has changed their lives. And I hope they will inspire you. And as we go through those conversations, you'll hear tips and tricks that have helped them that I'm sure will be helpful to you. And also, it's just nice to know that we're not alone and struggling with all the same things. So you'll hear from them. And then I'm also planning to do real time live coaching sessions. So if that's something that sounds interesting to you, obviously those would be it'd be completely free coaching sessions. We could talk about anything that I cover here in the method. So anything from you know, career development, how to create balance in your life, maybe your relationship mom, Gil all the things that we talked about body image, figuring out how to do sustainable body movement, figuring out how to put in time for yourself any of those topics, if you're willing to come on and be vulnerable and share on the podcast. I know that when other women tune in to hear somebody being coached, they can resonate with what they're hearing from you, it helps everybody know they're not alone. And then we can talk about some great tips and tricks that can help that will help others too. So reach out to me if that's something that's interesting to you. And before I jump into this episode, I also want to remind you that we have taken the working mom happiness method into companies so we now have the company group program and it can go into any company so basically what it is is the company pays for its working mom employees to take this program as a structured 10 week course in a group and it can be five p
bool or more. So five up to, there really is no cap, it could be 500 people, it's just up to the company if they want to do it in a smaller, more intimate setting, or in a larger one to just help a larger number of employees. So reach out to me if you are either a company decision maker who's interested in that, or if you work for a company that you would like to bring it in, I actually on my website, have an email you could send to whatever group whether it's your HR, your diversity, equity inclusion group, whatever group at your company would be making this decisions. I have already like a canned email, you can send to them with information about the program and details about how it works. And that's at women's best life university.com, which is my website. And I will link that specific page in these show notes for you. If that's something you want to reach out to your company to see if they would be interested in bringing it in. All right, great. So let's jump in to the very last episode of the working mom happiness method. And
I want to call out to that everything we've learned starting from Episode Number one, it all sort of culminates into creating your best life schedule, okay, everything that you've learned. And if I could narrow down the most important components or pieces of the working mom happiness method, they're all important. But the most important and critical ones are number one, creating that best life master plan, right. So I know a lot of you have been on since the very beginning. And if you haven't done that, I would highly recommend going back and starting from the beginning and listening in order, there's homework and create this document. And that's the one of the most important things is to create that best life master plan document. And then the second most important thing is the morning routine. That's episode number 12. So you can go back and check it out, you want to have that best life master plan document completed in order to read it every morning in the morning routine, okay. And then the third most important thing is going to be this schedule, creating the schedule. And then looking at it every week, and we're going to talk all about that that's what this episode is all about. So we're gonna we're gonna cover today in this episode is we're going to talk about your list of items to schedule, the 15 hour day, because that's how many hours I'm giving you. In any given day to schedule and get your things done and take care of yourself all the things we'll talk about it, we're going to cover where to begin planning your work week and your day. And then ultimately creating the schedule and what that will look like. And then I'm going to end with the very, most important thing about creating your schedule. So get excited. Here we go. Let's start with talking about the list of items to schedule. And I also should mention that this is one where you may want to have a pen and paper or something electronically, where you can write things down. If not, that's fine. If you're out walking, or you're listening in the car, while you're driving, no big deal, you can do this later. But we are going to start with a homework assignment, which is creating your list of items to schedule. And back in the beginning, in episode three, when we started the best life master plan document, I gave you the opportunity to get a free version of my plan to use as the template for your plan. And that is still available. So if you want that, go back to episode three, look into the show notes, you'll find a link there to get your free copy of my template. And in that template, you do see my items to schedule lists. And that can be a great starting point for lots of people. And you can see examples of what I'm talking about. Because we're not going to cover in that much detail here. I'm gonna go over it at a high level, but you'll see what what that is in, in my version. And there are even things the best life master plan that you get when you download that I actually created a few years ago when I first started this and so there are even things that I've added to that sense. And so you'll you'll I'm sure even make it even better than mine is but at least it's nice to start with a little example there. Okay, so you're going to create this list. And you'll see on my template it has things you want to schedule annually. So once a year, I think Do you want to do twice a year, things you want to do quarterly monthly, weekly, and daily. You're going to write those down. And so some examples off of mine that I'm looking at right now. So annually I have like doctor's appointments like my Mole check, mammogram, gynecologist, doctor appointments for the kids. We plan our vacations for the year annually. So those are just a couple of examples of annual things on mine and then twice a year I have things like go through the house and get rid of things we don't love clean and organize the garage, get the windows clean, clean and organize the closets, dentist appointments, that sort of thing.
Quarterly one of the things I have on my quarterly list is review and update all my best life Master Plan goals because we're supposed to be that's a dynamic document every quarter we're supposed to be going in and updating all the goals in there right and the other documents to boundaries can change over time.
It all the things can train change affirmations
are values
Don't change as often but value values can reprioritize at different times in your life, which we talked about earlier on in the program, right. So those things you can look at as well on a quarterly basis. Monthly, I have review and update goals for the next quarter. Like look at the budget for the month, I have clean bedding and linens. Yes, I usually only clean our bedding and linens once a month, I do not I know some people do it weekly. I'm, I've no judgment on that people are probably judging me for doing it once a month. But I think that's fine. And it makes my life easier to do unless
I have things like come up to date nights friend or extended family time. And then weekly, weekly, is really where the rubber truly starts to hit the road. So we're gonna just talk about that in more detail weekly and daily in just a minute. But you will list those things on your your list of items to schedule. So I want you to take the time to create this list. Sit down with it. I mean, really, if you go back and look at your values, look through your best life master plan, and just sit with this for a few minutes in 10 or 15 minutes, you could have a great list to start from, and then you can kind of add to it and refine as you go. And as you just get a little bit more experienced with this. Okay, so we'll jump into daily and weekly in detail in just a minute. But first, I want to talk about the 15 hour day, okay?
It is so incredibly common as moms that we are staying up way too late. And we have to wake up early to get the kids off to school, get the kids ready, get off to work all of those things. And we have talked about this at length in other episodes leading up to this. So I'm not going to go back into all of that. But this is where things get real with sticking to that basically and honoring that you are worthy of planning your me time during the middle of the day. Even if you have to have to ask for help or inconvenience somebody else to get that me time versus doing it in the middle of the night and then being tired all the time because you're not getting enough sleep, okay. So because of that, I only allow you 15 hours in your day to plan your schedule. So that leaves obviously nine hours that are 24 hours in a day, nine hours for sleep and winding down for sleep. And so if you are a person who doesn't need eight hours of sleep, let's say you can get by on six or seven. Number one, I always want to check with you your caffeine intake. Right, let's just like call that out. If you think you're a person who only needs six hours of sleep, and you drink caffeine all day, you're not a person who only needs six hours of sleep, like we got to just keep it real, we got to call it out. By the way, I am not saying caffeine is bad. Many, many studies have shown that caffeine and it's in and of itself is not bad. As long as you're drinking it earlier than mid day. If you're drinking it throughout the afternoon, it does have a half life that lasts in your body and it absolutely will impact your sleep. But as long as you're keeping it in the morning before midday, you're totally fine. But if you are relying on caffeine, to keep up with your six or less sleep schedule six or less hours of sleep schedule, you are not a six hour a night of sleep person. Now, I do think that there are people who need less sleep than others even without relying on caffeine, that's, that's very real. If you are one of those, I'm still only giving you the 15 hours. So the remaining hours you can spend on yourself relaxing, winding down. Maybe you can add something you like into your nighttime routine, like taking a bath or meditating or reading. But I'm still only giving you 15 hours. Okay, that's really, really important because we
the reason I created this is because the vast majority of us is working moms are exhausted and overwhelmed. And this will really help now, if you have a baby, I realized this is very difficult because babies are up in the night. And so give yourself grace, be flexible, you're going to do it on a different schedule. We've talked about that in earlier episodes as well.
Okay, so 15 hours is how many hours you get to schedule in when creating your schedule.
Let's talk about where to begin. So as I mentioned before, you're going to use your items to schedule document as a checklist, because it's already going to be based on your values. Because what I want you to do is I want you to go back through all the notes you've taken as you've gone through the program and the homework where you wrote down. Pleasure activities. Remember when we talked about thinking through what activities do you just enjoy and like doing because as we start adulting right, our lives get very routine and monotonous and we lose those joyful activities. So at one point as you went through the episodes, you wrote down your just pleasure activities.
And so we gave some examples, right, they don't have to be big things where you leave the house, they can. But it could be as simple as you know, one woman who took the program just really likes to take some time to put together a puzzle. So she planned time in that. And then another woman
used to love to paint and hadn't done in years and actually just set up a little easel and a little paint area in her home and started painting again, and loved that. So those are just to remind you of what we talked about when we went through that before, but you have your list of pleasure activities. We talked about tracking your energy in the the episode that was all about how to protect your energy. And
like knowing what times of day, you're more energized, versus less energized, and scheduling accordingly, or scheduling things according to throughout your day and your months, when you're more energized versus less energized. We talked about tracking your menstrual cycle, and understanding and having on your calendar, what days are sort of your worst days from a PMS perspective and planning to take it easy on those days, or if you do absolutely have to do something hard and stressful on that day for some sort of life or workers and making sure you have time to recover in there, just really being very deliberate about all of these things. And the other reason, so those are all related to your values and your best life master plan document, as you saw through very deliberately as you've gone through this course. So it's going to be really important in creating your schedule, this is very different than any time in your life, you have ever created a schedule, it's very deep, it's very thoughtful. If you've gone through the whole program, which I highly recommend, you've put a lot of time and effort into aligning this with your values and how you want to spend your time because that is one of the main components of happiness, right is that we are spending our time in ways that is aligned with our values. And that's what creating this schedule is all about. It's so hugely important for happiness. And that's what we're trying to do here is alignment with all those things that we know are going to bring more joy and happiness. And also with our goals, we went through a lot of work in the beginning of the program to come up with our goals. And we're going to schedule time in for those. Okay, so
where to begin, you're going to look at your list of items to schedule, okay. And you're going to start with. So after you do that,
you're going to start to plan your schedule around what so we're looking at the weekly schedule. So basically, the way that you're going to do this is every Sunday, I recommend Sunday, sometimes Monday mornings work better for people, that's fine, find what works best for you. And your rhythm, Sunday tends to be the best time especially for the most of us who work a traditional Monday through Friday work schedule, but find out what works best for you. And you're going to start with the items that are already scheduled like so for example, your work hours, okay, so when you think about a 15 hour weekday, for most of us, eight of those or more of those hours are going to be scheduled for work. And we don't really have a choice about that if we want to keep our job, right. So we're going to start with the things where we don't have a choice. So for example, like if your kids are in sports, they have practice times or game times that you're gonna have to take them to or you're gonna have to go, I shouldn't say have to a lot of us enjoy watching our kids play sports, I actually enjoy it. But when I say have to, I mean, there's a time set for that. And either you have to do it, or you have to find somebody else to do it at that time. Right. So we're going to start with things. Appointments if you have a doctor's appointment or a dentist's appointment, that you cannot change the time of you don't have control over the times of right, as we look at the week, and we're going to schedule those things in first, okay. And then, and then around those times, we're going to schedule around those times the items that you worked in your homework that I just talked about, like the pleasure activities, that sort of thing. What do you want to do for your me time throughout the week, and you're going to schedule those in and that I cannot emphasize how important that is. You might think that sounds silly, you might think I'm never ever going to do that. It is so incredibly important to deliberately schedule in your me time, time for yourself during the day. So if you're somebody who tends to only watch your TV or read your book, or whatever you like to do to wind down for bed
or not even for bed, whatever you just like to do for yourself to just take a mental break and just relax. If you're somebody who you have found yourself doing that after everybody goes to bed and then you're staying up too late and not getting enough sleep, you are worth it to schedule that in during the day during waking hours. And that way you can just take a little bit of wine downtime at night and go to bed on time because you don't feel so deprived of time for yourself now. This is
A lot easier said than done. And we talked about this back and like the mom guilt and the protecting your energy, I've touched on it in multiple episodes, so I'm not going to go as deep on it here. But you are worth it, even if it means asking for help or spending some money to get a babysitter, or asking your husband to take the kids, if you have little kids, while you scroll Instagram for 30 minutes, you're worth it. And society has taught us that that is stupid, and it's a waste of time, and that our value and our worth comes from serving all those around us. But the reality is, you're gonna do it anyway later that night and lose sleep over it. So you want to do it, it's helping you process stress in some way, or it's helping you to wind down or it's some sort of me time. And by the way, it doesn't have to equal scrolling Instagram, I'm just giving you a constant.
A common could think of the word, a common example of you know, something that a lot of us do.
Schedule it in for yourself. And it doesn't have to be every single day. I mean, ideally, I would like you to schedule in some me time every single day, but let's baby step into this, it can be a few times a week. Okay? So you're gonna do your me time,
then you're going to figure out what activities make sense for family and relationship connection time. Okay, so you can see a theme here, we're basically starting, we're starting with things that sort of have to be on the schedule. But then the next thing is us pleasure activities, me time, how do I work that in, then we're going to time for with family, and relationship connection. And that's like,
pretty challenging to our subconscious programming there. Because society would have taught us our whole lives, that we should put our relationship connection and time with our kids first. And that is absolutely not the case. Not true, we have got to start putting ourselves first. So we're putting your me time and your pleasure activities first. And then you're going to time with family and relationship connection time if you're in a romantic relationship. Okay, after that, you're going to look at your list of goals. So you're gonna take your best life master plan, and look at your list of goals for the quarter. And then you're going to schedule in two to 310 to 15 minute slots that week to work on your goals. And we talked about this back when we talked about goals, the way to achieve your goals is by breaking them into the next 10 to 15 minute activity to get towards meeting that goal. And so you're going to schedule those in two to three times a week could be 15 minutes on your lunch hour at work. That way, you won't be interrupted by kids, if it's just something you need to like look up online, or Google to start. But that's, that's the next thing you're going to do. And you got to make sure you get those on. Okay. And then after goals, you're going to go back because in
just I can't remember was one episode ago or two episodes ago, we talked about cleaning, laundry, yard work, grocery shopping, meal planning, all of those things, we got really sort of tactical, and you thought about how many times a week you want to do those things, who's going to do them all that good stuff. So whatever you decided there, you're going to schedule in next into that 15 hour a day schedule. Okay. Now,
super important. And we're going to talk about your workday specifically in just a minute right now, we just sort of glossed over it and said, it's just like a time chunk that you have to kind of plan around, right. But remember, you can use your lunch hour or breaks at work to knock out little pieces of goals because my favorite thing, small consistent actions done over long periods of time will change your life, and they will help you to achieve your goals. And achieving goals helps us to feel like we're progressing in life. It helps us to spend our time in ways that are aligned with our values, which is the key to living like your best and happiest life and progressing in life. I promise you this stuff is so life changing. Like it's wild, when you start doing it, how life changing it all sort of starts to culminate and happen with creating this schedule. Okay. And notice how I said creating the schedule and not sticking to it and we're going to talk about that more in just a minute. But creating this schedule is where it all starts to come together and you start achieving those goals little by little and it is so invigorating and it just, I just get so excited and passionate because I promise you it will change your life. Like if you trust it, even though you don't want to do it and it sounds dumb. It'll change your life. Really.
I cannot stress it enough. Okay, so you've got your cleaning your your laundry, your yard work, your grocery shopping, your meal planning all that stuff like you've got that baked in now. Okay, and now this is really, really important.
So after you have all of this stuff in
and for most of us, it's going to take up like all of the hours for the most part.
By the way, I also like doing like if you can get in a decent chunk of some kind of me time or family activity. If family activity sounds horrible to you don't make
It could be a family activity, make it be me time, like a bigger chunk on one of the weekend days or one of the days you have off, that's great too, I highly recommend that.
But for your meet times, they can just be like 30 minutes, one hour, right? You don't have to make them on regular sort of weekdays that long. But if you do a longer chunk on the weekend, that's like amazing and even better, but you don't have to, it can be small and baby steps. And that's totally fine, too.
Then once you've sort of got it just like roughly laid out, you have to ask, Where can or should I ask for help. I don't love shirts, I try to avoid shoulds. I'm air quoting shoulds as much as I can in life, but this is one that I believe in, you should be asking for help more than you are. So when you look at your schedule, and it feels completely overwhelming, and there's too much to do, and all the hours are taken and packed, I want you to go in and look at the items that you can ask somebody else to do for you. Okay, and this applies to your workday as well. We're going to talk about that in a minute. But think about it now outside of your workday. Do you ask your spouse to do something for you, even if they're going to be frustrated and think it's time you go back and listen to the relationship Episode How to ask how to speak to them in a way that will help to get your needs met. If your spouse simply can't do it, maybe you don't maybe you don't have a spouse? Maybe your spouse is working all the time. Maybe they're just not going to do it.
Can you ask a friend can you ask a neighbor we we avoid at all costs inconveniencing people who love us, because society has taught us that our value and worth is rooted in serving all those around us which quite frankly, is BS, we are valuable, even if we do nothing. People who love us will still love us, even if we do nothing that is very real, that we avoid it at all costs. And we should stop doing that. Because the truth is we want to help the people we love, we and we genuinely mean that we want to help them and support them. And they feel that way about us. And we should take them up on it in order to get our meantime in and do things that we think are silly little things like watch a show or scroll social media. And I know that like you're listening, and you're probably thinking that's ridiculous. And I would never do that. Let's just say your ultimate goal is to get to a point where you value yourself enough and you believe in yourself enough that you would do that, that you would call your neighbor and say Hey, can I can you take the kids or maybe you don't have a neighbor who you're that friendly with, that's probably rare these days, I don't actually but a friend or somebody close by or maybe your your mom or your dad or your husband to take the kids so you could watch a show. That's all that's all you're gonna do. You're just gonna lay in your bed and watch the show for 30 minutes or an hour. That should be your ultimate goal. And I promise you that when you get to that point, you're going to be living your freakin best life. Like I promise it's, it really does work that way. It's just so terrifying for us to get over societal subconscious programs that have taught us that's crazy. And we're not worth it. But you are you're absolutely worth that. So pause. And always every week ask Where can and should I ask for help? Okay. All right, let's get into planning your workday. So again, same thing on Sunday night, you're going to look at your week. So this time, you're just looking specifically at your work calendar and what's coming up? What's the schedule? What things do you have going on? How's it going to impact your energy? Do you have a big stressful presentation or meeting coming up? If so, what time? Do you need to block out before that to prepare for it? How is that going to suck your energy? What do you have going on later that night after you're exhausted from doing it? You don't want to plan some sort of big social activity, the night like the night of when that day you have something big and stressful and exhausting. Because all you're gonna want to go home. All you're gonna want to do after that exhausting event at work is go home, and take off your bra and get in your bed and watch Netflix like know yourself, right? Know yourself. Now, if that's not you, and you're energized by a big presentation at work awesome. Like go out with the people or if you are energized by going out with people that energizes you do it. But all I'm saying is like, know yourself, just and really pay deliberate attention to that. That's all about protecting the energy, like we talked about before. So what's coming up this week? How will it impact your energy? Do you need to block out time during the week to prepare for anything that you have scheduled?
Okay, what meetings are scheduled that you don't control the timing, take a look at those if the time is outside of your boundary or your sort of Workday area, because
if you have a job like mine, I don't have a set start and end time. And I work globally. So I have meetings that can come up at 6am 7am My time I typically don't have them on the later end because I'm I'm on mountain time but sometimes I
Do just depending on where they are in the world, and I coming back after burnout, I created hardcore boundaries about my schedule. And so I don't take those super early meetings, unless it's absolutely required, but they're few and far between. And I really protect that. Because taking control of my mornings has absolutely changed my life, which I've talked about in previous episodes.
So if they take a look at those meetings, if you have something coming up that you didn't catch before, that is outside of your boundaries and your work area, same thing, who can you delegate it to? Who can you ask for help? Can you be bold and brave, and ask that person to meet at a later time, right? Really take these things seriously, because you're worth it. And I promise you that if you do it in the right way, in a professional way, and you you're vulnerable, and you share that is not going to damage your brand. Now.
It is an art and doing it in the right way matters. So reach out to me if you want to talk through it. And you have questions because I know that can be a little scary, but I promise you are worth it. And I promise it will make you a better employee. more productive, more strategic, happier in general. So look out for that. What career development activities do you want to work on that week? What are your work goals, specifically, right, and you might have some of those in your best life master plan. And if you do great schedule a few like a couple of different 1015 minute sessions to work specifically on those things. Because a lot of times, we have some work related goals that actually have nothing to do with whatever project we're working on, or what takes up our time during the work day. Like if you lead a team, a lot of your time gets taken up with people asking you questions and needing things which is fine. But it can really, we can lose track of time as it comes to meeting some of our career development goals. And so scheduling them in really can make a difference. Okay. And then
the other thing is, as you look at the week, work week coming up is to block time now for getting your most important thing done each day. So we talked back up in career development about the one thing, there's a book by Gary Keller called the one thing where they did this studies that you're most sort of successful and productive at work, if you just each day, narrow down to what is the most important one thing you need to get done. And so if you can block consistent time for getting your most important thing done each day, life changing, career changing, it's amazing. Most of us, our schedules will allow us to do at exactly the same time every day, but you can at least look at the weekend, say okay, what's it looking like? Where can I block my 30 minutes, my hour or whatever, maybe it's longer depending on the thing to get my one thing done my most important thing done that day. So take a look at that. Okay. And then the other thing that I recommend is, and you can maybe do this as part of your morning routine. But if that feels stressful to you don't you could do it. The very first thing as you start your workday as you first get to work every day, just take a quick look at your day, because we know that things change on a daily basis. And just like remind yourself, what is the most important thing to get done today? Do I need to move anything around to make sure it gets done? Do I have my time scheduled to get it done? Or did that get taken up by something else? How am I feeling energy wise? Is there anything that I can change in my schedule today to help my energy? Do I need to ask for help? Can I delegate anything today? When am I starting and stopping work today? What do I have going on that night? What might challenge my boundaries today? And what is my plan to deal with that? Just thinking through these things? This is what being strategic is. It's looking at each day each week, like a chess game, looking at a couple of moves ahead, right? The amount of stress and toll this can take off your shoulders. Just planning and thinking through these things at the beginning of each week. And the beginning of the of each day is like incredible. We don't realize how stressful it is flying by the seat of our pants all the time. It is very, very stressful and exhausting. And part of why a lot of us are feeling exhausted all the time. And then you can look at like what's the plan for food today? Do I have time on my calendar to eat lunch? What are we doing for dinner? Do I need to throw something in the crock pot in the morning who's making dinner that that sort of thing. You can kind of look at those things on a daily basis. And that can really, really help. Okay, so logistically, you might be wondering, about like, Well, where do I create the schedule? Or how do I do it? I am leaving that completely up to you. And I'm doing that because people have such different preferences on what type of calendar they like to use. So for example, for me, what I do and what works best in my life that I've learned is to put everything in my life on my Work calendar. That's where I am, I'm spending all the time in there. I have an assistant at work who knows that I do that. And it's just it's just where I if I put things on a different calendar than my Work calendar, I'll miss them and I won't get them done. I always think that I'll look at it but I don't I've tried it over the years or I feel like every year what when January rolls around, I see all the cute paper planners like all the ads for those and I just want so desperately to be a person who uses a paper planner and like has cute handwriting and uses stickers and you know, I really do like I desperately want it
Do that person because I just like sounds so cool to me. And it always makes me think I'll be more organized. So every year, I spend like a ridiculously too much money on a cute planner. And then I do it for like, legit three days. And then I don't do it because it's too hard. And it's not who I am. And I just can't keep up with it. And but some people do love that and they thrive in a paper planner. And so that's why I have totally left it up to you. But just like, know what works for you be who you are, and and find something that is sustainable, because this stuff is so important promise it will change your life if you stick to it. And if you do it. Okay. So basically what you're doing here with creating your schedule is you're choosing where and how do I want to create that schedule? Is it on a paper planner? Is it using my work electronic calendar? Is it using a work in a personal electronic calendar? Do I have like one of those dry, erase things up in my kitchen or whatever, that I put everything there. Whatever works best for you, but figure something out, find something that's sustainable, get consistent, and stick to it. So then you're going to do all the things we just talked about, you're going to sit down every Sunday, or whatever works best for you. But that's what I recommend. And what's really cool is that you will get so much better and quicker at this as you do it as you get more practice. And if you start to make it a habit, that's really where the rubber hits the road and you start to hit goals and you start to just your life really starts to absolutely change. One of the other things that I forgot to mention back when I was talking about the 15 hour day. So the 15 hour day incorporates time to wind down for bed, but it does not include your morning routine. So I really feel that your morning routine should actually be scheduled, you should choose the time you're going to wake up and you do your morning routine, right when you wake up, as we talked about in episode 12, all the details are there. But you're scheduling that into your 15 hours in the morning. So again, life changing, super important, okay. So really creating your schedule is the culmination of all of these things that we've learned about. So it's going to be what leads you to actually take the actions to live your best life, which means spending your time in ways that align with your values help you achieve your goal be with the people, you want to be around and spend time on yourself. Relaxation, unwinding,
energizing yourself with pleasurable activities, all of those things like super, super important I can I like a broken record, but I can't repeat it enough. So
I think we are now to the moment where I'm going to tell you the most important thing of all of this schedule stuff, the number one most important thing and then I will wrap it up because I know I like to keep these under 30 and I have really been talking. I'm so passionate about this. Number one most important thing as it relates to creating your schedule is creating the schedule.
Now, typically, the women who are attracted to this program are achievers. Because as achievers we get ourselves exhausted, we're typically are people pleasers, when we're achievers and we get ourselves exhausted. And so let me tell you what's gonna happen, I already know I'm predicting the future for you, you're going to start this, you're going to be all in, you're going to be super motivated. And then you're going to schedule it for the first week. And you're the first week your schedule is just gonna go to hell. Like you're just, you're not going to get any of the things done at the times that you put in, things are going to change. And it is going to just stress you out because you're an achiever and creating schedules, like creating a list and you got to check the boxes, and you got to do the things right.
That is not what this is about. It just is just so not because that just goes against everything we've learned, right? That's just like adding more pressure and more guilt here Play and probably when the episode started, I probably should have said this at the beginning. You were like, Oh, one more thing to do. Now I have to create this freakin schedule, right? Which I get it because I it the beginning of doing all this, I felt the same way. And I thought the same thing because I I am of course an achiever.
That is not what this is about success is in every week. And it's okay, if you miss a week here and there, like but most weeks consistently doing it, you have a habit on Sundays or whatever they were true. Success is in just creating the thing, just creating it. That's it. Just like success is just in creating your best life master plan and reading it every morning. That's it. That's it, you do not have to actually get all the things on your schedule done at the time that you said you're gonna get them done. You don't even have to get them all done period. You are not failing. If your schedule goes to hell, you are winning, you're winning. And I know you think I'm crazy. I know it but I promise you if you can let go of the Achieving pressure and the guilt of not sticking to the schedule. And you can trust that just creating it every week will change your life it will absolutely change your life. Because just creating the schedule
He is starting to reprogram your subconscious by scheduling in time for yourself, and spending your time in ways that align with your values. 99.99% of us have never lived our lives this way before. We've never done this before, in this way, thinking so deeply about how we want to spend our time and what's important to us, and then creating a schedule based on all of it. It's like groundbreaking, and it changes your life just by creating it, I promise you, I know that sounds insane. And you don't believe me. But I swear the success is in creating the schedule. It really is. And just looking at it in each morning, taking a quick peek knowing what's coming up, as we talked about, and then each Sunday sitting down and thinking through these things, it will change your life. I promise. You don't have to stick to it. You just have to create it, and then look at it every day, you're going to try to stick to it. But if you if it all goes to hell, if you're not failing, you're winning. Okay, I cannot stress that enough. All right, good.
Hopefully, that all made sense. I again, cannot thank you enough for listening all the way through every episode of the working mom happiness method. And again, please
share it on your social media leave a rating on the podcast platform. That's what helps to show it to more women because the goal here is just we're all struggling with the same things. So this is all just meant to help. So thank you so much. And I will be back soon where we do interviews and live coaching sessions.
Thanks so much for listening to the working mom happiness method. If you liked what you heard, please be sure to subscribe and leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from listening for show notes or to enroll in the working mom happiness method coaching courses, visit www dot women's best life university.com
