Episode 174: Weekly Pulse Point Check Ins

9 Nov

Your Weekly Pulse Point check-in is a time to check in on your projects and see how far along you are and if you're on track to meet your deadline. It's also a time to check in with yourself and see I what you can let go of: ideas, tasks, certain projects.

Today we'll be exploring why check ins are so helpful & how you can get started creating or revamping your own. Much like the human body has a regulatory temperature, our lives and businesses also have a pulse point we can check. Identifying status points help you monitor the overall state of you and your business and help you make changes and adapt as needed.

Links mentioned during the show:

Come say hi on Instagram @mindfulprodutivit yblog

xoxo

Sarah

Transcript:

Welcome back to the Mindful Productivity Podcast. You are listening to episode 174. And I'm your host, Sarah Steckler. Today we're going to be talking about weekly pulse point check ins in your life and business what they are, why they're so important things. They you can consider some ideas for you if you want to revamp yours or if you're new to this idea and concept. And I'll also be taking you behind the scenes and telling you a little bit more about how I structure mine in my business.

These are great because they really give you a guidepost in managing your time and your energy and basically checking on the baseline needs of you and the business that you run. This is a great episode. You're going to enjoy all the details. I can't wait to geek out and get into it. So let's go ahead and do that.

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. Welcome back to the show, everybody. It's a brand new week. I'm actually recording this bright and early. It's like 05:30 a.m. Here. I've got a hot cup of coffee and I'm ready to start a brand new week. And last week was a little rough and I'm just setting the intention this week is going to be better. So sometimes it's just nice to remember that there's so many things we can't control in life and so many ups and downs. But there are things that we can come back to when we have that available to us.

Right? So just remembering that we can make the effort to drink a little bit more water or get a little bit more sleep or reach out for extra support or change our schedule if we can or what we have on our plate. There are things that you can do. And I was driving yesterday. I've been trying to donate some more stuff and declutter my home and office. This is a constant battle for me. I just attract stuff and have a hard time, kind of like paring down.

And I was driving out to the goodwill to make a donation. I had, like, a car full of stuff. Really happy about that. And I was kind of having this self pity moment where I was like, oh, man, there's just, like, always something, right? Of course, there's always something else. Like, when am I ever going to get a break? Why does life feel like it's just this endless cycle of difficult stuff? And I'm not wrong in feeling that way. I'm sure you feel that way. Sometimes, too.

But then I kind of had this moment and I come back to this moment, this realization all the time. It's not novel or new, but it was that we all have problems and they don't go away. And what I mean is there's always going to be something new to deal with, right? And that can sound really depressing. But at the same time, it was also humbling if the goal in your mind is to have this perfect day or this perfect week or this perfect year where life doesn't throw any curve balls at you and nothing is difficult, and you finally get that rest and peace of mind that you deserve because we all deserve those moments.

But if you're constantly striving for time to be like that for an indefinite amount of time, that can be a little hard on the mindset, right? Because life is just going to throw stuff your way. And I guess I felt kind of humbled and excited about this shift again, coming back to this because it was like instead of hoping and trying to make my life a certain way or trying to feel happy all the time or any one thing, why don't I just do the best that I can in the moment that I'm in, right?

That's what we talk about on this podcast all the time and remind myself that life is going to be a series of problems that feel like a river continuously, but we can learn how to manage them. And inevitably we will get better at managing different kinds of stresses. And so that was just kind of a helpful reminder. I don't know if you needed to hear that today, but I just wanted to throw that out there, and I'm really excited about this episode today. This is something I talk.

I feel like I mentioned weekly pulse point check ins a lot in a variety of episodes, but I haven't actually ever devoted a full episode to talking about them specifically and what they are and what they do and why they're important. And I thought, let's do it. Let's jump into it. So I've got some notes in my notion document here, and we'll just go ahead and get into the thick of it. So talking about all of these and why they're important. I think that's the most important thing about what a weekly pulse point check in is and why they're important.

So this is how I define them. And weekly pulse point check in. It's a time to check in on your projects and see how far along you are and if you're on track to meet your deadlines. But it's also a time to check in with yourself and see what you can let go of ideas, tasks, certain projects. And it's also a great time to check in on the status of you and your business. So much like the human body has a regulatory temperature that we try to stay at right.

And our body does things to try to keep us there and make sure everything's functioning properly, our lives and our businesses also have a pulse point that we can check. Now, those are going to be different across the board, depending on what you do and who you serve and all these things. Right. But the more that you can identify those status points, you're going to be able to help yourself monitor the overall state of both you and your business and help yourself make changes and adapt as needed.

So these weekly polls point check ins are great because it's a lot like a video game. Remember, I'm trying to think of a good video game, but I can't off the top of my head, but I played a lot, and as you might know, I'm a big, cozy gamer, so I love playing Animal crossing and stuff like that on my switch. And I love games that like auto save. That's great, because there's nothing worse than making a lot of progress for something and not having it saved.

Another reason why I love typing in Google Docs and not my email provider, not directly on social media, because I know that stuff is auto saving. Thank you. And Weebly Bolts point check ins kind of are like that auto save, right? They provide guide posts, so you get to a checkpoint in a video game and you know that you've made it so far. You know that you've done so much and you know that you're that much closer to, like beating Bowser or whatever. And so creating guide posts in your business are similar, and they're not just guideposts for how much money you're making or if you're hitting your revenue goals.

But they're also guideposts for looking at your time and your energy and your output. Right. What's the ROI of the energy and the value that you're putting into things? Are you getting a return on investment for how much of yourself you're pouring into your business? Those are good things to look at. Weekly pulse point check ins also give you that reflection time. And I know that reflecting or maybe journaling or some of that stuff doesn't always feel like unless you've already got a practice going, it doesn't always feel like the most important thing to do, because it does take time.

It can be a little bit draining, and it's not always something that you see. You're not going to make $100 from writing in Journal. Right. But what that reflection does do is it really pays you back because it's helping you see your progress and in so many different ways. Right. Like where you are emotionally and mentally in your business, but also the milestones you may have hit that weren't revenue goals that are just as important, and that progress is also going to help you feel more accomplished.

So we all, as humans need to feel that accomplishment and that validation we need to know that what we're doing is working to some degree. If we never see any kind of positive reinforcement, it can be hard to keep doing the thing right. It can be hard. It can make you feel like you're failing all those things. Check ins also help you identify and create more tangible metrics for things that you might otherwise miss. For example, I love that weekly post mine check ins, especially when I'm doing bigger launches or creating a new course or something like that really help me manage or monitor rather, things in my business that I might miss, like how I feel during and after a launch or, hey, this launch, I didn't check my email every five minutes hoping for a sale.

I actually did everything according to my launch plan, and then I just let go of the outcome and focused on going for a walk and doing things that wouldn't drive me mentally bonkers. Right. So those kind of metrics that you can start beginning to track in your business are going to help you a lot. And these check ins help you do that. They help you identify those things, right? They also help you identify patterns in your project management style and your energy management. So if you notice that you set a lot of goals to reach, whether that's at the beginning of setting up a focus project or the beginning of the week on a Sunday or Monday, and then Friday comes along and you realize, oh, wow.

I've only gotten, like, 25% of this stuff done or haven't even started the majority of what I set for myself. Then that's going to help you identify a pattern that maybe you're adding a little bit too much to your plate up front, and you need to kind of like, tone it back, tone it down. So those are some of the reasons why these weekly pulse point check ins are crucial and very helpful. And now we're going to kind of go into some of the basic ways that you could set one up in your business.

And then I'll talk a little bit more about how I set them up in my business, and that'll give you a little bit more ideas as well. That is delicious. I love a hot cup of coffee, and you know what else is delicious for your brain brain dumps. So before we get into the rest of this episode, I want to take a hot minute to tell you about the importance of brain dumps and why they can help you so much. Doing a daily brain dump is going to help you declutter your mind, get clear on what you need to do to move forward and help you make a lot more progress with your productivity and your energy levels, because you're taking out all of your ideas, all of your worries, you're putting them on paper.

And then it's so much easier to plan a path forward right when the space is clear. I love Brain Dumps. They've changed my life and my business and the lives of many other people. It's a very simple task that you can do in ten to 15 minutes a day. Even if you do one a week, you are going to see a change in your life and business because it just helps declutter your brain that much more. I'm so passionate about brand numbs. You may have heard me talking about them on the podcast multiple times, and it's one of the reasons why if you're a new listener to the podcast or maybe an OG, I highly recommend that you go check out the Daily Productivity and Brain Dump book.

It's available for you on Amazon. You can find your copy also in digital form. If you're an ipad or tablet user by going to Mindful Productivityblog randombook and grab your copy, this is going to help you so much. It's a wonderful eight by ten desk size soft cover planner. I use it every day, and it's helped me so much. So if you do anything today, go grab your Daily Productivity and Brain Dump book. I'd love to see how you use it. All right, let's get back into the podcast.

Okay. We're off to phase two of this podcast. Episode. Phase two. We need some, like, intergalactic sounds, but that's not going to happen because I do post production on this, and it's very simple. But now we're going to talk about some of the basic things that you can use to set up a weekly pulse point check in in your business. So let's break it down, shall we? Bum bum bum. I want you to first think about how you can begin identifying what's working well and that's in quotes, because that's going to look different for everyone, right?

But what's working well and what that looks like for you and your business. So again and I talked about this back in episode 173 where I was talking about I think it was 20 or 21 things I have done and never done in my business. How you run your business is going to look different and you get to decide what that success looks like. But if you know that what looks good for your business is having a lot of calls every week because maybe you do discovery calls, and that's how you get clients.

Then that would be a good working well metric, right? Like that, a full calendar of booked calls for me. That would be bad because calls drain me. And my business plan is to have as few meetings as possible. So if I can have no meetings in a week, that is like a big win. So I want you to get clear on those things. I also want you to get to know your metrics. So think about both what things you want to track in your business because there's going to be metrics that aren't important that don't necessarily matter.

Kind of like Instagram followers like, does that really matter for me? It doesn't really. It can impact your reach and everything. But Tediously counting and seeing how many people follow and unfollow me every day or every week, that doesn't really make a difference in how much money I'm making in my business or how much I'm helping my students, right? That doesn't matter. So get clear on your metrics and how that data presents what you want to collect and when and what it means. So this could mean social media metrics.

Obviously, you want to look at sales in your business, business expenses, all those things, but also you also want to look at life metrics so life metrics can be things like your energy level based on projects. If you want to get an idea of what I mean by this, definitely go listen to episode 169, where I talk about the simple standard and how you can use that for project planning that takes into account the energy of your tasks and helps you break those down. You can also listen to episode 154, where I talk more about focus projects as well.

But life metrics are identifying things that you can track in your life that sustain, maintain and give you energy. A great way to look at this is looking identifying the four different pillars of your energy drivers and what drives you. I know I'm dropping a lot of resources right now how these are linked in the show notes as well. But if you check out the Energy Driver Habit tracker I have that's going to help you break those things down even more. A couple of quick ideas, though, are like, how much water are you drinking?

How much sleep are you getting? These are all things that you can track daily and then check in with yourself during that weekly pulse point check in. So those are a couple of ideas, and now I'm going to break down what my weekly pulse point check in looks like and talk a little bit more about the details. Why do these things and some more ideas for you? So I love to do my weekly pulse point check ins on Fridays. So I have this time locked on my calendar for 11:00 a.m. Every single Friday, and I like to give myself a full hour of time to do this.

Now, if I've had, like, a heavy week and I really need to reflect or write some stuff out or whatever, then I'll give myself extra time. But an hour usually lets me accomplish these main basic things. So the first thing that I do and these are just some of the cozy things I do I love, and I do this from my home office, but I love to get a cup of coffee and then I put on some cozy jazz music in the background. Again. Go to YouTube.

Search for Jazz Playlists Morning Jazz any of that stuff that has helped me so much. It's like the perfect little background music to my work. Sometimes that really helps me focus. And so I set on something like that in the background, have my cup of coffee, turn some twinkle lights, right. And then I start looking at my business metrics. So that's the first thing I do, because it's usually the thing that I'm like. I don't really want to have to do this. But once I get going on that, I build a lot of momentum, and it becomes really easy for me to finish out the whole check in process.

So these metrics are things like sales, any failed payments that I might need to follow up on with any students. I also review my Journal and my planner sales here, and I get an overview for both my real and my forecasted income. So this really helps me know if the ship is sailing and things are good and business expenses have been paid and everything's working smoothly. Right. So I have a lot of back end automations in my business, but you got to check them, right? So if either you or VA or someone on your team, you want to make sure every week, at least that you are making sure that things are running smoothly.

So this is also a time where I'll go into the back end of my email provider of my course platform. I'll check in with my students in my Facebook group for technical stuff and see if there's any issues making sure that everything's running smoothly, because every now and then someone will purchase something and something won't trigger. And I'll get an email like, I didn't get access to this. And so I'm always on top of that because I want to make sure that these problems are solved within a 24 hours time frame and that people never feel like, oh, my gosh, Sarah is a fraud, right?

I listen to a podcast and I bought something and I didn't get it. So there's always things to check on, because the backbone of your business is the people that support you and the people that buy from you. So all those things are really important to check. But also, I just want to remind you that no one's perfect. No business is perfect, even if you have the most perfect automation set up. Sometimes tech fails. Right? And so there's going to be moments where you have to do a human part and make sure things are working.

So that is one of the first things that I do during my check in. I then get into reviewing some of the following things. So if I'm currently utilizing a more indepth like morning or evening routine, which again, the shifts and changes I don't have, like, a miracle morning thing that I do or anything or some top tip to give you, there's different things I do. And honestly, these really vary based on the season. So we just hit Daylight saving time here and the time changed.

It's so dark, we're like, oh, my gosh. And that's going to change. That's going to change when I go on my walk or if I go in the evening or the morning, it's also going to change my energy level. Like, I just tend to have more energy when it's lighter. So those are things I check in on, and you may think that you don't need to check in on your routines every week, but there are subtle changes that you can make over time, and especially too, if you know, you're going to have a trying week or for me, I've got a couple of different counseling appointments coming up this week, so I'm like, okay, I definitely know that it's going to be a little heavier week on those days when I'm talking about stuff.

So maybe on those days or maybe this week I want to shift up my morning routine. Or maybe I want to get an extra, like, 30 minutes in on a walk. All things to consider, right? Adjusting and changing things. I think, as I don't know, as humans as perfectionists. If you identify that way, sometimes it can feel like I just want to establish the perfect morning routine and then never have to change it. But I found that it really is critical and crucial to changing them.

Sometimes every week, it just depends. Then I also like to check on where I'm at with a given focus project. So if you're new to focus projects, this is basically like a work sprint. They can last a week. They can last 60 days. They can last more. But typically I like to keep them under 60 days. It's typically a focus project. In my business, it's not necessarily the only thing that you're working on, but it's like one of the main things. So this can be things like podcast, batching, creating curriculum, doing a launch, or a launch plan for an upcoming launch.

Those kinds of things. And I'm breaking down. The focus project basically tells me, like, when I'm doing things, all those tasks are broken down. I'm taking a look. I know my energy and what to expect what best days to do things and knowing all of that really helps me create and maintain that momentum so that I can reach my goals within my given time frame. So during a weekly pulse point check in, I'm checking in on my focus project and say, Did I meet my goals for this week?

Am I on track to finish what I started this month? Is there any place where I'm not delivering in the way that I want to? Did I do these tasks? Are there any loose things that I need to tie up all those kind of things? Side Note If you are interested in hearing some of the ways that I block out and create, like weekly theme days in my life in business. You can always go listen to Episode 170 because I give you a ton of different ideas, and I share all the five different days that I currently use throughout and within my business.

Another thing I check in on my weekly pulse point check ins is any unfinished micro tasks. Right? So I have, like, a master task list that micro tasks. I consider things that aren't tied to a focus project, right? Like they're just like, one off things or maybe emails you need to get back to, or maybe you're doing a CLab with somebody. So I have those. And then if any of those are loose, I make sure to kind of tie those up as well and check in on those, because sometimes there's just, like, little things that you're like.

I'm going to do that. I'm going to reach out to that person or get back to them on Instagram, and then you just don't. It can turn into this big deal. So I try to get those done every Friday. I also like to take time to then stand up from my desk, move around and tidy up my office space and my desk. So this seems really simple and obvious, but it's so helpful. Right? Take everything off my desk, wipe it down with a clue rock wipe like, dust all those things, and also take a look at my surroundings.

I like to call myself a maximalist because I have a lot of things. I own a bunch of, like, squishmallows'any time. We have to move. The movers are always like, oh, is this your daughter's room? And my husband's like, no, that's my wife's room. She just is in her 30s and has a bunch of stuffed animals. It's fine, but that's what my office looks like. And I have a lot of different planners that I'm using at any given time. So every week I like to ask myself, what are you doing next week?

Right? What are you working on and what needs to be within your grasp? Do you need to have that stack of turtles right next to your computer? Do you need those right there or those going to hinder you from taking action? So if I can create a clear space, a fresh start, then when I come back Monday, I'm going to be less distracted. Right? It's also fun to put out seasonal decor. So right now it's November. I'm already decked out in Christmas stuff. I have a beautiful, super cute artificial white Christmas tree in my office.

If you want to see all of my tons of decorations, you can always go follow me on Instagram at Mindful Productivity Blog. I usually share them with my stories and have highlights, but that makes me feel cozy. Right? So this time of year that's going on. So last Friday, that was one of my things that I was working on was getting things all tidied up whenever one day that was that I worked on that. So those are things that I also do in my weekly pulse point check in, and then I also take time to look at my current time blocking schedule and see what adjustments I need to make.

I'm not one of those people that can tell you from, like, 06:00 a.m.. To 10:00 p.m. Every second that I'm taking a drink of water or going to pee or every single minute is not accounted for. That's not my idea of ideal time blocking. Instead, I like to block out time in sections and chunks for things I'm going to be doing when I'm going to be creating curriculum or creating podcast episodes, outlining stuff, writing blog posts, and also time when I'm going to be learning and receiving information and also reading for fun or going on a walk or taking my Bulldog somewhere.

Those things are all incorporated into my time blocking schedule, and every day can look different. So I'm taking a look at what I currently have on the docket, so much so to speak. And then I'm making adjustments as I need. And one thing I want to touch on that you may have noticed is that this whole weekly pulse point check in thing, we're not doing a whole lot of planning, right? Like, I'm not breaking down new stuff or making huge business decisions. Instead, I'm focusing and using this time to look at the energy of my business, what's sustaining it and sustaining me and making a clear and intentional time just for this where I'm not making business decisions helps me make business decisions later because I'm getting clear on what's working well for me in my energy management, what's working well in terms of the metrics and all the things I need to track right again.

It's like taking the pulse of your business in real time is the heart of your business beating. How are you feeling? How is your business feeling? So that's what this time really is for. And again, there's tons of ways that you could structure this. You could do this a ton of different ways. I would love to hear. Maybe some of the things that you might do in a weekly pulse point check in in your life and business. Feel free to tag me on Instagram and share those things.

It would be fun to just discuss all those. So this also really serves as an end tie to the end of my week. And I think this is really important because it can be really hard, especially as a new business owner, especially as someone like working from home for the first time to identify the boundaries around when you're working and when your weekends and when your day ends. So having this weekly pulse point check in it can happen anytime in your business. But I like having it on Fridays because then I know, like, okay, I've wrapped things up.

I've tied everything up with a neat bow. I know what's going on in my business. I know there's no big fires I need to put out, and now I can go take the rest of Friday off, go for a walk, maybe get some starbies and then enjoy my weekend. And that really gives myself that sense of permission and ease going into the weekend. So I'm not left with something else humming in the back of my mind like, oh, did you check on this? What about that?

You know what I mean. So I really love weekly pulse point check ins. I think they can be so incredibly helpful. And again, these are all just ideas and ways. I do it. You can take these, leave them and create your own. So let me ask you, did you find this episode helpful? If so, it would mean so much to me. If you would take just two minutes out of your time to write a written review on Apple podcast. This helps more people find the show, and I feel like it helps a lot more than just leaving a quick review because people read these things.

I know I do, and I like to hear what people get out of a podcast before I subscribe and really commit to listening to a show. Thank you so much for being here. As usual. If you want to read the transcript, find the show notes or get links to all of the things I talked about. I know I threw a lot your way. Then you can always find more by going to mindfulproductivityblog.com. Thank you so much for listening. I will see you back here next week.