Episode 133: How Much Planning Should You Be Doing?

We've all done the thing where we buy a brand new planner, fill it out with all the dates, our goals & when we'll do them.... and then the ball gets rolling and things suddenly don't seem as realistic as we had hoped. 

This week we'll be talking about how to effectively plan without over-planning yourself into a place that gets you nowhere.

Learn more about Pretty Productive Life™ ⬇️

Transcript:

You're listening to episode 133 of the Mindful Productivity podcast. I'm your host Sarah Steckler and this week we're going to be talking about planning. How much planning in your business and life should you be doing? Should you be planning way out into the future or should you only be planning a week forward? I'm going to be sharing with you some of the things I've learned about planning and over planning, along with questions that you can ask yourself so that you don't hinder your success or your progress in the future when life happens. This is going to be a fantastic episode. Let's go ahead and get into it.

Welcome to the mindful productivity podcast. I'm your host Sarah Steckler and this is the place to be, to live a more mindful and productive life. If you're ready to turn daily chaos into calm and start your days with intention, then get ready to join me. As we dive deep into mindful living and personal productivity, it's time to connect with your true self so you can live the life you want to live. And it all starts now.

What is up everyone? Welcome back to the show. Let's talk about planning this week. As we all know, you can plan your heart out, but if stuff happens and you've overplanned, then you can kind of shoot yourself in the foot because then it's like, where do we go from here? So this is a topic I've been wanting to touch on for a while. We've all done this thing where we buy a brand new planner or we open up Notion or Google Doc or just get out a notebook and we start filling it out with all of the dates, all of our goals when we'll do them. And then the ball gets rolling and suddenly those things don't seem as realistic as we had hoped. Right. It's like when I teach my students about time blocking, right. I talk about how you're going to need buffers and you can't plan everything to the minute because that's not how life works, especially when you have distractions. I won't list all of them. You're an adult, you know what and who those people are. It happens. So in today's episode, I'm going to be giving you some tangible things that you can latch onto and really use to help you assess how much planning needs to take place.

I personally like planning to an extent, right. I am a type five on the Enigma and I'm an INFP. I don't really know what that has to do with how much I like or want to plan, but I know that I do like structure, right. So I like to plan a little bit in advance with my business and my life, but I don't over plan. So a lot of the creativity and the things I create happens from more of a flow state. But part of that process is really fueled by the fact that I do have structure and I do have a container for what I'm doing and when in my business and I'm keeping track of my energy drivers and drainers and what I really need to do is to sustain my momentum and sustain my clarity. Now, before we jump into all of this, I've got quite a few things we're going to cover today. And this might be one of those episodes where you take notes or you journal afterwards because some of these things are going to be questions to really ask yourself as you move forward with your planning. Speaking of planning and planners, I've been getting questions from quite a few of you over the last week about where my planner about mindful productivity is.

It is currently unavailable on Amazon and I know quite a few of you have been like, I've been trying to order one or a second one, which I think is amazing, but it's getting a bit of a makeover. In fact, it's getting a huge makeover. It's getting a little bit of a different name because it's going to have a little bit different of focus to it. And there's going to be brand new pages in there that are going to uplevel the way that you think about mindful productivity. It's still going to include all the things that you've come to know and love. We're still doing the monthly banks and the weekly sections and the reflection and intention setting prompts that I know so many of you love. All of that's still going to be in there, but there's going to be some new productivity pages in the front of the planner that are going to revolutionize, revolutionize the way that you think about your time management, the way that you look at your year. And these are things that I have been implementing since I created this planner. Like, there's been new things that I've been trying and new things I've been implementing.

And it's about time that the planner gets an update and a refresh. So it's been fun working on that behind the scenes. I'm excited to share that with all of you. There will be an official relaunch. There will be a week where it's up and live for the first time on Amazon. And if you purchase it within the first week, there will be bonuses. So if you want to know about those, make sure that you're on my email list by going mindful productivity Podcast.com and signing up. There is a form at the bottom of my website. You can also follow me on Instagram to get the most up to date news and ideas about all of that stuff that I'm working on. So really excited about that. I don't want to give you too much info yet because I'm still tweaking some of the pages and making last minute adjustments and knowing my creative process, sometimes at the last minute I can totally ditch something or totally add something brand new. So I don't want to give away too much and in case I change my mind, pass. Sarah has learned this lesson many times, but it's going to be really cool, and it's definitely going to be something that you're going to want for the year ahead, and it's going to be undated.

So it's going to continue to be undated. So you can start it, pause it, stop it whenever you need to. Which, let's be honest, that is one of the most important things that I found about planners. So let's get into this topic today about planning. How much should you plan? And first of all, you know me. I'm not going to tell you that there's a certain amount that you should plan. And we are going to be talking a little bit about both life and business today. So when you think about planning, here's one thing that I want to talk about first, and that is we often think that planning is only defined by time. What I mean is we often look at planning and we go, okay, I'm going to plan out the when of everything. When I'm doing stuff, when I have events, when I have appointments, when I'm going to feel a certain way. We almost plan in a way where we think we can dictate our mental energy or our emotional state or the state of the world. And that is a backwards way to plan. And I've learned this mistake many times because don't get me wrong, you have to make plans in your life, right?

Like, for instance, I'm recording this podcast episode today because this weekend my husband and I have plans to go to this cabin and it's going to be so fun and I'm sure that I'll be posting photos or we'll have already, depending on when this airs of that trip, and we had to plan it in advance, right? Like that's life. But what I think some people don't think about enough when it comes to planning is not only planning the when, but also really getting specific with the what. What are you going to be doing, what are the steps that you need to take to accomplish and reach your goals and what are those look like broken down into the most micro and target tasks that you can create. Inside my course, organize your overwhelm, which I have not decided yet or not whether that's going to remain its own standalone course or if that whole program is going to be rolled up into pretty productive life that is coming in the new year. That is the place to be if you want to be learning about mindful productivity and all things about running a mindfully productive business.

There's a waitlist on my website. But inside that course right now, as is, we go deep into focus projects. So I teach students what a focus project is. We talk about how to break them down. Questions to ask yourself, I give people notion templates for breaking down their Focus Project. And essentially what you're doing with a Focus Project is you're saying for the next given amount of time, whether that's a week, two weeks, a month, 30 days, whatever, this is what my main focus is in my life or business. That doesn't mean other things can't be a part of that, but this is the main thing I'm going to be working on. And then you break down those Focus Projects into subcategories and target tasks. Now, if you want to know more about this and see a little bit more about how I teach, there is a video over on my Instagram at Mindful productivity blog. If you go to my IGTV videos, I break down what a Focus Project is and why they're so important. And a lot of people have found that helpful. I'll link it in the show notes as well. But when you're planning, it's really important to focus on the what.

And here's what's really cool if you plan, I really don't think you can over plan the what because if you're taking like, let's say you want to, we'll just use creating a planner, for example, because right now I'm running a live round with my students inside a publisher Purpose, and we're working on journal creation and planners. If you want to create a planner, it's not enough to just block out 4 hours on some random Thursday and be like, planner creation, right? Because during that time, you're most likely going to be like, where do I start? How do I get going? Right? But if you start breaking those things down and you go, well, the first step I'm going to take is learn where to start, learn what kind of tools are available to me. Do I want to invest in a lot of overhead to create a very specific planner? Do I want to invest in Sarah's Published with Purpose course, where she's literally going to tell me exactly what I need to do and how with support, do I want to do it on my own, right? And so you start breaking those things down into what you know, what you already know, what you need to learn, all of that, and then you get clear on the sub phases of that Focus Project.

So, for example, in Publish with Purpose our little phases within that Focus Project of self publishing your planner on Amazon in 60 days notice, there's a time container. The first phase really is understanding how everything works and how to get your planner on Amazon. And then the second phase is really identifying what your journal is, right? We have an outline and a content breakdown. We talk about how much you should or shouldn't include in your journal or planner questions to ask yourself what your target outcome is for your target audio audience, all of that. And you get what I'm saying. You break these things down. Right? And then like further along in the program, we talk about marketing your journal and all of that. If your main focus, which isn't really a focus, was just to continue to work on something. And how often do you do this where you have something that you want to do in your business and you just keep putting it on your calendar like a time block? Just like work on this, work on this. But you're not actually making that much progress or creating that much momentum because every time you sit down you may have 3 hours to work on it, but you don't know what is in that container of time.

You don't actually know what is in within that 3 hours. So breaking down focus projects into sub phases and then target tasks helps. You know, I may have an hour and now I have this whole outline mapped out for me of like what exactly I'm doing and when. It's why standard operating procedures and workflows are so helpful. Every time I go to record a podcast, I have a whole notion template that walks me through everything I need to consider. I know when I'm putting in my intro, I know how I'm editing it, I know exactly the steps I need to take when I'm exporting it and uploading it and publishing it, all that stuff. And do I know all these things in the back of my head? Yeah. Do I need something to guide me through the process? Technically no. But it saves me a lot of time and mental energy to have those things mapped out for me. So that's a huge component of planning. It's planning out the what? It's planning out the details. Right. It's really getting strategic about all these things that instead of having to hold on to in the back of your head.

Right. Like I always tell you, your brain is not a storage facility. Instead of doing that, you already have that mapped out. So then what planning allows you to do is as you're going through your weeks or your months or maybe it's a day by day kind of circumstance right now for you, then you can get clear about the when that you're doing the what. Does that make sense? Let me know. So that's the first thing I really want you to consider. The other thing about planning and when I say planning, I mean how you do it. It doesn't matter. This applies to all of it. So whether you're using a paper planner or notion or trello or air table or click up or whatever you use to maybe plan out your tasks or look ahead, it doesn't matter. This all applies. I want you to take into account your mental energy and external circumstances. This doesn't mean trying to think about everything that may happen in the world or within your family or your friend group ahead of time or trying to guesstimate where you're going to be on the mental energy scale, right?

Because sometimes we just don't know more. So it's really understanding that it's important to put buffers in your projects. So putting buffers in your project so that you know to give yourself breaks. And also this also includes having a fallback plan. So if you have specific deadlines or little milestones that you want to hit in order to have a successful course launch, for example, what are you going to do if some of those things aren't hit, right? So what are you going to do if there's things within your plan that where you rely on someone else or you're relying on a specific thing to happen before you can take the next step? Have a fallback plan for things that you can do to keep the ball rolling if those things don't get to you on time, right? This is all part of project management too. Creating buffer time and scheduling in breaks is also really going to help you prevent burnout and help you manage your mental energy. So we talked about this back on episode let me go check. Okay. It's episode 75 of the podcast, which is the missing link between getting more done and recharging.

And in that episode, I specifically talk about Arianna Huffington and how she defines Thrive time. It's a very, very powerful episode and really what she hits home and what I'm trying to really like show you showcase here for you is if you're not planning on breaks and like pause dates or times within your workflows, then you are more susceptible to burnout. You're more susceptible to losing access to your creative brain and your creative mind. This is something I am really having to push myself to do. It is really easy to say it. It is not easy to do it, especially when you're working on a project and you're just in go mode. And for me, this time of year, like fall leading into the end of the year, that's like my active time. That's usually when I am amping something up, creating a lot of new content. Sometimes I'm launching something brand new for the first time and I have a tendency to just go, go. And I will talk myself out of eating, out of taking a break, out of going for a walk. And so I really have to put stuff within my calendar in my planners to be like, Sarah, take a break, stop working, go do something that doesn't involve working.

So really, truly it is important to schedule in breaks and buffer time for those reasons. It's also important to within your planning schedule and whether you're using time blocking or something like that, or you do something similar to me, which is every Friday, I have a weekly pulse point check in meeting with myself in my business, where I go over my business expenses. I take a look at what's working well, what's not working? Well, there's some journal prompts that I ask myself. We cover all of this and organize your overwhelm and I show you my exact process and the template that you can use too. But it's really important to make time to plan new plans because as you work through anything, you're going to have to shift and adapt. You're going to have to be like, this isn't working, or this isn't working for someone else that's either on your team or involved in the process. And you're going to have to be flexible. If your definition of planning means you sit down and write out your whole life in detail or your whole business in detail for the next six months and then you are not okay being open and flexible to changing things as you go.

As you learn. And as life happens. Then you're going to set yourself up for frustration and you won't be as successful as if you allow yourself to be flexible. So planning can hinder us. If planning isn't a continual process, planning doesn't mean that you write something down and that's it even if it's in pen in your planner, planning really means that you continue planning. It's an ongoing cycle and the more you can kind of ingrain that into your mindset, the better off that you will be. One other question that I think is so important when you think about planning is to ask yourself, what things can you take care of ahead of time to reduce your stress and protect your energy? So this is where if you can batch your content ahead of time. There have been a couple of times in my business where I have really made it a priority to batch record like a shit ton of podcasts ahead of time. This is something that I am currently working to put on my schedule so that I can record the rest of my podcast through the rest of the year. If I can get 16 podcasts recorded ahead of time, that's real good.

I even feel good when I have a month ahead of time and sometimes it just doesn't work that way, right? Or sometimes I'm in the middle of a launch or I'm creating a new product and I like doing podcast episodes every week because I literally want to be doing kind of live style updates about what's going on behind the scenes and share that with all of you. But for the most part, doing podcasts ahead of time saves me so much mental energy and it's saved me so many times because there have definitely been times since I've been running the podcast where I just can't one week or life happens or something funny happens or I go on a vacation with a friend and we're gone and I don't have time to record a podcast. And as you know, it's not the end of the world if a podcast doesn't get recorded. That's happened quite a few times in the legacy of this show, as you know. But I think it's just really helpful. And one thing too is how can you dissolve any rules that you might have for yourself? So, for example, right now I just told myself the story that I can't record podcasts ahead of time.

If I want to give live updates, which is not true. I can totally batch record tons of podcasts ahead of time. And then the night before they release or whatever, I could just record a new intro into the front of them and upload them each week. But I'd already have them done and completed. So you see how we kind of make these little nuanced rules for ourselves and then we go, oh, there's actually ways I could make this easier on myself. So point to the story here is that planning is an amazing tool. It helps you build self awareness. It helps you look into the future. We all know that, like, writing down our goals and our desires and what's working well and all that kind of stuff is very helpful if you want to actually see those things come to life. However, if you're only planning the when and you're not getting specific enough on the what, then you're not planning the most effectively, right? Or you're not planning in a way that could make your life and your business run more smoothly. So those are things to consider. Make sure that you are taking your energy management into consideration, creating buffer time and fallback plans, and plan to keep planning throughout your planning.

So, Meta, I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode. Please make sure to share it with your friends. And if you're interested in learning more about my upcoming program Pretty Productive Life, then make sure to come on over Mindful Productivity Podcast.com and get on the waitlist. We're going to be doing some really amazing things to help you in your life and business so that you can thrive and have the time freedom you want while still making a big difference in the world. I'll see all of you back here next Monday, and until then, you can come say hi. Hi on Instagram. I'm at mindful productivity blocks. Have a wonderful week ahead.