It's Sunday. The day I lay out my plans for the entire week to make sure I get closer to reaching my goals.
One of the biggest shifts from being in corporate to being an entrepreneur was figuring out what to do and when. There is no longer a structure in place dictating the week's tasks and no boss to keep you on track, or quite frankly, yell at you if you're slacking. We all have our days. So I needed a way to keep myself on track to make sure I would continue working towards the right goals and spend my time on the right things.
It starts with the vision. The end goal. The crazy audacious dream. I had the audacity to create a vision for this business that, if I share it with anyone, is typically met with an eye roll and a "good luck." Little do they know, that simply fuels my desire to ensure I achieve that goal. So thank you naysayer!
As I was saying, it starts with the end-ish in mind. I know where I want to be in 5 years, so from there I plan out what I think I need to achieve to get there. Then, I break it down into what I think I need to do every year, every quarter, month, week and day. What are those things that will really move the needle for my business? With that in mind I designed this simple little printable planner. You'll find it in the link below and can print it off for yourself at home. This planner works if you're trying to keep track of business life, mom life or just life. I actually have one for business life and one for life life.
Here's how I use it. In the box on the top right that says "Priorities this Week" I write down 1-3 needle moving tasks for the business (number of priorities depends on how much time I think the things will take). So what are 1 to 3 things this week that I can do to get me closer to my crazy dream. Then I break down what tasks I need to do to achieve those priorities and I schedule them into my Monday through Sunday boxes. Assigning them a date is simply a way to hold me accountable to doing that task on the respective day. Then, the "When There Is Time" box is basically that never ending to do list of things that aren't necessarily pressing but do need to get done at some point.
Here's an example to make the above a bit more clear. A priority this week might be to reach out to three stores that don't know about SOAK Bath Co and eventually have them carrying the product line. Then in the Monday box I would write, reach out to "ABC Boutique", reach out to "DEF Boutique" and reach out to "GHI Boutique." Then I have the rest of the week to schedule in a production day, shipping days, web development days etc. The idea is to lay out the week ahead of time so you don't get to Thursday and wonder... what the heck did I do this week?!
If I'm a mom, I might do something like... Priority this week is to homeschool the kids and get them registered for Fall sports programs. Schedule homeschool days in the appropriate Monday through Sunday boxes, I'd assign windows of time for homeschool like 9am to noon then 1pm to 3 pm (this will obviously depend on your kids and life in general)! Then I'd include "Register for Fall Programs" under the appropriate day. It is really just a guide to help declutter the brain and stop holding in all those to do's.
Hopefully you've found this somewhat helpful and can adapt it to your own life if you like. The link below will take you to the downloadable PDF
Candace