Episode 166: Sustainable Monthly Planning
Let's re-think how we plan for the month ahead! Ever get stuck in the pre-planning zone? Where should I start? There are so many things I need to do, aaaah! In today's episode, I'll be walking you through the 4 pillars and questions you need to ask yourself to create a more realistic and sustainable monthly plan for your life and business.
Links mentioned during the show:
Transcript:
You're listening to episode 166 of The Mindful Productivity Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Steckler, and in this week's episode, we're gonna be talking about sustainable monthly planning. I feel like there's this loop that a lot of us get caught in where we will over plan or do a ton of planning, only to find that we cannot meet our expectations to get frustrated and then sometimes stop planning altogether. In today's episode, I want to talk to you about the four components of creating a sustainable monthly planning plan and how you can do that.
So get ready to take some notes, listen on a walk, and have a refresher on media different way of planning than you've done in the past. 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.
This episode is brought to you by myself, who still struggles and continues to occasionally take too much on or over plan or overcommit within my life in business, only to find myself having to reschedule or rework things. A great and very real example of this was about a week or two ago I told everyone on my newsletter that I was going to do a planning party for this current month. I had it all set up and totally underestimated my available mental energy and emotional capacity, and I really need access to that to really show up as my best self.
So I ended up having to cancel the planning party and it was a super big bummer for me anyway. And I share this to say that as business owners as people, this isn't a bad thing. I think it's okay that sometimes we have to cancel things, but in an ideal world, we have a better awareness of what we're saying and committing to so that we don't have to do that as often. Right? And it's rare that I have to do those things like cancel something I planned in my business, but every now and then, right, I get so caught up in the excitement of doing something or excited about a passion project that I overlook what's available to me.
And that is what inspired today's episode all about sustainable monthly planning. And we're talking specifically about monthly planning today because I feel like it's a good amount of time where you can take both a pretty big picture. Look at your time coming up and break things down in a more sustainable way. But before we even get into what sustainable monthly planning is, I want to touch on something real quick. And that is that there are tons of different ways to plan. And within any of these given podcast episodes, we're going to be and have been touching on several of these.
But with planning, there's going to be things that you do differently depending on your current projects, your workflows and your life circumstances. So this is just that reminder that you have to give yourself permission to plan in a way that works for you. And there's not one ongoing way that I plan in a given week or month. It really depends. One of the ways I really enjoy planning is using focus projects. And if you're interested and want a deeper dive on what a focus project is, you can go listen to episode 154 after this one.
So there's gonna be times when maybe you're gonna be doing more of a visual or aesthetic type of planning or even memory keeping kind of the tail end of planning. I still put memory keeping into the planning category because even though you're looking backwards, there's still a lot of things that can come from it in terms of oh, I really like that. I want to do more of that in the future. There's also going to be bigger picture planning versus more micro level planning, and those are going to be kind of you're going to go back and forth between those.
Right. And as we all know, there's also digital planning versus paper planning and mind mapping. And for me, I go back and forth between these things as well. I've talked about in past episodes how there's definitely times where I really need to physically write things down. That's why I use my daily productivity and brand new book just about every day because there's something about writing pen to paper that gives me more access to my brain and really makes me feel like I'm actually decluttering my mind versus just typing something up on my computer.
There's also functional planning, which is the bulk of the planning I do. And when I say functional planning, I'm referring to paper planning or even digital planning that you're doing, where there is no focus on what it looks like on the paper. It's completely functional, right? I think sometimes we get caught up in how something might look in a planner. Thus, we don't get started if you give yourself the mindset shift of I'm doing functional planning, and it doesn't matter what your handwriting looks like or what color pen you're using.
It can make a big difference in how you might stall yourself. So there's also project planning. I won't get into all of them. But I'm sharing these with all of you today to tell you that within this episode, we're only talking about one aspect of it and it's for you to decide kind of where you are and what one works best for you. Now we're going to begin talking about some of the simple steps and questions that you can ask yourself to plan your month ahead.
That's going to help keep you focused and give direction to your energy and your actions. So when I think about sustainable monthly planning, I think about four main pillars. I think about our capacity, sustainability, the actions were taking, and the scheduling that we need to do. So basically, that time space, awareness, a and planning really begins with questions and self inquiry. I know it can be really tempting to want to just start putting stuff in your Google calendar and start writing dates down on your calendar in your planner.
But if you don't ask yourself these next four critical questions, you're going to find that it may be hard to get the right things done, and you may have a hard time creating that sustainable momentum in your life and business. So instead of starting off planning with all the things that you want to do, which maybe is how you've done planning in the past, you're going to instead with sustainable planning, start out with this first question, which is (1) what do I have capacity for? And they will also have these questions mapped out in the show notes for your reference.
But what do I have capacity for and what I mean by this is considering your mental, emotional and physical energy levels and really also thinking about some of the work that you tend to do. So some of the maybe more deep or cerebral work that you might do for me in my business, this is usually things like podcasting, creating curriculum, doing deeper dives and creating templates and notion and all the stuff I do that requires a lot of my brain. It really requires my creative brain and the smartest part of my brain, if you will.
And I refer to that as more cerebral work within my business. That also takes up a ton of my mental, emotional, and even physical energy capacities. So I know that I can only do so much of that work on a given day and in a given week. So with that in mind, when you're considering what you have capacity for, I'm obviously not going to schedule myself Monday through Friday to do tons of that deep kind of work throughout my business because I wouldn't be able to do it.
And if I pushed myself through it, I wouldn't create the best work possible. I wouldn't be as happy with the outcomes of what I'm doing. So consider some of the work that you're going to be doing and some of the deep work through cerebral work versus more of the administrative or repetitive style tasks. So some of these things from me are, for example, every week in my business, I do a weekly PulsePoint check in or I go through and look at my sales and my business expenses.
I have templated questions that I ask myself and data that I look at, and it's pretty straightforward, and because I have all of those workflows and standard operating procedures mapped out for me. I don't have to do a whole lot of thinking. I just need to go through the checklist and all the data is where it needs to be, and I just have to kind of look at it and put it in different places and assess what's going on in my business usiness. So that doesn't take up as much energy.
So it's really important to consider what you have capacity for. And another way to think of this is let's say that you've just noticed that lately you feel extra drained, right? There's a lot going on in the world. We're still working our way through the Panini, all that kind of stuff. What might you need more space for? Right. And so when you're considering this, you want to begin by front Loading your calendar with padded time for you. Now, I know what some of you may be thinking, Sarah.
That must be nice that that's available to you. But I want you to consider that even if you have an extremely busy schedule or the idea of padded breaks doesn't even occur to you. I want you to think about what you actually need. So if you've got tons of stuff going on, you work. Maybe you're also taking care of a child at home. Maybe you've got tons of other responsibilities, and it doesn't seem like there's enough hours in the day. I still want you to take a minute to think about what would be helpful for you in terms of what a break might look like.
Add time, right space in between things, even if it doesn't feel possible right now, I want you to think about what that would look like. Now, if you're able to. The ideal thing here is to front load your calendar like I talked about with that padded time for you. So, for example, I have the Liberty of running my own business and creating my own schedule. And I know some of you listening have the same thing happening or going on. If that's the case, try to find ways, or if you're working from home, try to find ways where you might be able to front load your calendar with some padded time.
So, for example, right now, I know that I have a couple of different launches coming up. I have an affiliate launch coming up that I'm going to be doing. And I also know that I also have quite a bit of cerebral work coming up with a bigger program that I'm creating, and I want to make sure that I'm taking time at the end of the day to really unplug. So I'm actually going to put in my calendar to stop working earlier on a couple of days this week and put in chunks of time to remind myself to go to the park with my Bulldog.
So even just putting in those reminders in your calendar kind of creates the bumpers, right? If you ever go bowling and use the bumpers, it kind of creates that padding so that you're still that bowling ball, so to speak, is still headed in the right direction so that you're not going to reach burn out. So that's just one thing to consider before you get started. And it's kind of opposite from how a lot of us do planning, and I think it can be really helpful. The second question that I want you to ask yourself is, (2) what do I need to do to sustain the things that are currently working?
Well for me, I feel like so often we try to reinvent the wheel. What can I do? That's completely different. I want to have a brand new morning or evening routine, right? I'm going to create a bunch of brand new products in my my business. Instead of doing that and creating way more work and draining yourself even more, I want you to pause and instead think about what you can do to sustain the things that are already working well for you. So, for example, what are things that you're currently doing that are helping your energy level?
If you're drinking so many glasses of water every morning or throughout the day and you're like, this is really great, I feel really energized. Or maybe you're limiting your coffee or your caffeine intake or you're stopping Ping drinking coffee afternoon, something I need to get back into, then write that down. Write down all the things that are working. Well, I want you to also think about the things that maybe you're doing for fun or the interests or hobbies that you've gotten into recently that are really bringing you a lot of joy.
For example, I've really been loving getting back into reading and reading for fun, and I have way too many books checked out from the library, but I've really enjoyed making time for reading. So that's something thing I want to continue doing. I also have just recently gotten back into playing Animal Crossing on my Nintendo Switch, so I want to make more time for that as well. Make time to think about the things that are sustaining your energy and your joy because you need that to be the best version of yourself or step into more of the work that really lights you up.
Also, consider what are the income generating activities if you run your own business that you're doing that are working well, if it's not broke, don't fix it. So for me, I think about the programs I'm running and how I'm doing launches and what's working? Well, what's creating recurring income in my business? And how might I maybe tweak those things to maybe generate a little bit more but not put those things to the side? There's been times in the past in my business where something was working well, but I was excited about the novelty of something new, and so I would actually stop doing that one thing and then put all of my energy towards something else, and then I'd see my income tip and I'd be like, oh, why is that?
That's frustrating. Do what you need to do to sustain what's already working. Now, if you're doing something that you hate, then you can totally reassess, right? That's a great opportunity to do so. But oftentimes it's a lot easier to kind of do what we need to do to keep a boat, right? Already floating than trying to create a brand new, a brand new ship that we need to sail, if that makes sense. Also, consider what's working well in your relationships, right? There's things that me and my husband do where we check in with ourselves at the end of the day or after work like our highs and our lows, or we play board games or whatever.
What's working well in your relationships or your communication styles with people that matter to you and how can you keep doing them? Okay. The third thing I want you to consider is, (3) what do I have room to explore and learn about now? Maybe this isn't something that's quite as exciting to all of you, but I am someone that geeks out about learning new things. If there's something new that I can research or learn about, I will totally get excited about figuring out YouTube videos I can watch or documentaries any of that.
So if you're someone that's totally curious about life and you get a lot of joy from that, then make room to explore that. This can also be a great time to carve out time or think about where you might need to carve out time to go back through possible online courses or programs that you've invested in or that you want to make time for. I know, with the programs I run publish with purpose. For example, we have live rounds where we do our 60 day sprints.
So if you're in a program that offers recurring live rounds or live implementation time, maybe you want to check back in and see if there's room to explore that or jump back into that as well. This can also be a great time to ask yourself if there's something new or novel, right that you want to try learning or doing, like cooking a new recipe or going to a new park. It's important to make time for novelty, to keep your brain interested and engaged. Sometimes we can get really tired with routine things that we're doing in our business.
Or maybe we're even super passionate about the main program or offer that we have. But over time, it becomes very routine. Right? So to give your brain that excitement that it craves, it can be great to bring in other things to your life and business to help you through that process. So again, this question is, what do I have room? Yeah. What do I have room to explore and learn about or where do I have room to do that? So creating that space on your calendar.
And right now we're just kind of going through all these questions and we're writing them out, and then we're going to get into the next phase. So the question here is, what does my time for the next month look like? Pretty straightforward, right. But sometimes we forget to do this until the last minute or until we're in that week already. And if you put something off and then you find out that the last week of the month, you have a bunch of appointments. It can feel very frustrating.
Right? Like, oh, I still have so much work to do on this project, but I forgot that I had a dentist appointment in this that and the other I agree to a webinar, and then you can almost feel resentful of things. So that's why it's so great to do this at the beginning of the month to check ahead of time. So (4) what does my time for the next month look like? So where might I have prior commitments, meetings, events or routine stuff going on? Right. Make note of it and make reminders and also circling back to everything.
Right. When you look at your capacity, if you have something like maybe you have a routine dental visit and I know for me when I go to the dentist and I have to be in a chair for a couple of hours, even just for cleaning or something like that, I tend to get headaches. I tend to be super exhausted afterwards, and I don't really have access to my creative brain. So with that in mind, if you have an event, or maybe you're doing something online or even going live on Instagram with someone, all those things to me personally drain my mental energy so very quickly.
So it's really important that I'm not over committing even with the internal stuff I'm doing in my business. So if I have any of those things going on, that is not a day, Sarah, to try and create a bunch of content or try and record a bunch of podcasts. Right. Because I'm going to have limited energy. So maybe that's a day where I take a half day. Or maybe it's something where I'm planning more administrative or back end tasks. You can also use this time to look at where and when can I work?
So again, if you're running your own business or if you have a more flexible schedule, then this can be a great opportunity to maybe schedule in some different chunks of time for working. Also, give yourself permission to know that this can shift and change. Right. There are times when my husband is working over the weekend or something like that, and maybe I'm in a big mood to take off a Friday and then do a little bit of work on a Saturday morning. You can totally schedule in those chunks of time and be flexible with yourself.
And then we'll breaking things down into chunks help. So if you're working on a specific project or specific work sprint or something like that, will it be helpful to designate specific time for specific projects and tasks? I highly recommend doing this right. Like time chunking time blocking. I love doing this with my podcast. And again, the more that you play with this and experiment with all of this, the more you'll see, maybe things that you can combine when or what times the day or week work best for creating content or writing or any of those things.
And then you can break those down and schedule those out. The key here is to not over schedule yourself, right? You're not trying to give yourself a minute by minute schedule ahead of time only to feel frustrated. But it's to give yourself an idea of what your time might look like future planning in a way that's flexible. And so by doing this and taking this time to go through these four main pillars or forming questions, you're going to help yourself create a more sustainable monthly planning schedule because you're going to be considering your energy capacity first, which is so important because we all love road trips.
Right? And we all can think about all the places we want to go on them. But if we just get going and hit the open road without considering how much fuel we have in our tank, then we're going to get frustrated when we break down on the side of the road. So just like that, it's important to monitor your mental and emotional and physical energy capacity before you even get started on planning your month. So going back real quick to recap these four questions. I highly recommend trying buying this out this month.
And hey, if you're a week or midway through a month, it's still a great time to plan out your month. Don't make weird rules where you can only plan for the month at the end of the month or on the first of the month. And if you miss that day, then I guess the whole month's just gonna be scattered. No, you can plan any time. So again, these four questions real quick to recap are what do I have capacity for? What do I need to do to sustain the things that are currently working?
Well for me? What do I have room to explore and learn about in the month ahead? And what does my time for the next month look like? I hope these questions were helpful in thinking about sustainable ways that you can plan out your month ahead, and I can't wait for you to get started to find more resources, including my planners and journals. You can head on over to Mindful Productivity, blog. Com, and you can find more resources, printables and guides. Thank you so much for listening to the Podcast I hope you have an amazing week.
And I'll see you back here next Monday with a brand new episode.
