Episode 4: How We Plan Our Days

10/27/21 • 40 min

🗓️ Download Free Planner! evergreenplanner.com/free

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Before the Evergreen planner system, I (Clari) had never used a true day-planner. I had tried a myriad of different planners when I worked as an executive assistant before having kids, but they were the types that only had a small box, a column, or a couple of lines for each day. I also used a digital calendar to coordinate meetings and make sure nothing was double booked, but other than getting binged with meeting reminders, I didn’t really reference it or use it to effectively plan my days. My thoughts, plans and tasks were scattered among digital notes, emails, sticky notes, a half-used planner and to-do lists written on random pieces of paper.

But then I became a mom and quit my traditional job. It never occurred to me that a planner could be used to plan rest, to form life-giving family rhythms, or to plan intentional time with my kiddos—just as much as it could be used to make sure critical work projects or mundane home tasks were completed. I again wandered through my days doing what was in front of me, and working off one endlessly long to-do list.

Annie Dillard, in her book The Writing Life, wrote, "How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing."

The reality is we have a lot of agency over whether we live our days intentionally, with purpose, or whether we let them pass by, moving from task to task based on emotions or a crushing sense of urgency. But we can just as easily fall into the trap of trying to squeeze every moment of productivity out of each day, neglecting our needs for rest or even the ones we're called to love. But in order to find that middle way, we have to begin by planning each day.

The beauty of planning each day (especially when you have an entire spread and can plan with the context of your week in view, like you can with our Classic booklet), is that you are able to plan each day in a way that honors the season you're in, the ones you've been given to love, and the work you're responsible for.

And planning a lot of days, over several weeks and months, enables you to begin forming life-giving rhythms that work to breathe life into your family and help you make progress on those bigger goals (revisit our Four Rules of Planning and ROOTED Goals episodes for more on these concepts).

In this episode, we walk through how we each plan our days on the day pages of our Classic booklet. If you’d like to follow along, you can download our free printable below. This printable has all the major elements of our Day page, enabling you to see exactly what we are talking about as we plan the different elements of our day using the time-blocker, top targets, prompts, etc. Because it’s the tool we each use, we talk about our specific planner throughout this episode. However, the principles we talk about can transfer to a lot of different planners, so whatever planner you use, we believe this will be an episode you find valuable!

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

🗓️ Download Free Planner! evergreenplanner.com/free

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Annie Dillard, in her book The Writing Life, wrote, "How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing."

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

Previous Episode

Episode 3: How R.O.O.T.E.D. Goals Can Help You Thrive

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📖 Get the ROOTED Goals Workbook: evergreenplanner.com/rooted

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In typical goal setting culture, the mantra often goes something like this... "Girl, it's time to change your LIFE. Close your eyes, imagine what you want your life to be like in five years—the sky's the limit!—and write down your biggest dreams. Now reverse-engineer those dreams into a million baby steps, and do not stop hustling until you make those goals a REALITY. If you really want something, you're going to have to get up crazy early, change your habits, and become a different person. You're going to have to set the people in your life straight, too. They're either going to have to get on board, or get out of the way. Aren't your goals worth it? And if you start feeling discouraged—because those days will come (it is lonely at the top)—you're just going to have to make sure you have a solid "why" to pull you through. So give yourself a kick in the pants, and get to work."

It's.... a lot.

The problem with this? Well, for starters, you can’t fully foresee the future. You cannot comprehend the very real tradeoffs for the goals you create on paper. Oftentimes, you'll get into the thick of it and start to wonder how you can know if your goal is truly worth it. You feel a rising tension between living intuitively and following through on the goals you set.

Here at Evergreen, we believe that this tension is a real problem for women who seek to live intentionally. And we don't think that laziness, lack of motivation, or even poor time-management is really at the root of the problem. We believe the problem is that people are setting goals that don’t line up with their real life.

A bad goal setting system—one that doesn’t take into account the context of your actual lived life—will lead to guilt and frustration because those goals can't be sustained by your daily life.

But creating goals and dreaming about a different future is good. Goal-setting helps us level-up from the realm of wishful thinking and reactionary living, and begin to make the changes (big and small) that empower us and our families to truly thrive. But the key is this: your daily life has to be able to sustain your goals, so your goals can in turn breath life into your daily life.

We believe there is a better way to set goals; goals that are sustainable, produce change, and are life-giving. We call this process setting R.O.O.T.E.D. goals.

ROOTED Goals are:

Rooted in your core calling Grasping the unique calling of God for your individual life is a process. But leaning into your core calling is an essential part of creating goals that fully resonates over the long-haul, compel you to follow-through in the execution of them, and produce a lot of satisfying fruit along the way. The soil of your core calling forms a rich environment for setting sustainable, healthy goals that actually energize you.
Organically growing out of your context - You need goals that take your real life context seriously and embrace it. You need goals that connect with where you are right now, and that respect that you’re here for a reason. Recognizing the season you’re in and identifying the contours of your priorities can empower you to identify the next right step—the one that can realistically begin to build the lasting change you want to see.
**Outlined for clarity **** Clarity is QUEEN when it comes to giving your brain an objective that it can actually process, prioritize, and tackle in the day-to-day. When you break down a goal into tangible action-steps, you are equipped to move past your vague theories about what it will take to make your goal happen. You’re able to see the gaps in your knowledge about the process, which compels you to research until you have concrete and actionable understanding.
Tailored to your lifestyle - If you want to craft compelling goals that are grounded in your unique calling, then you’ll have to give yourself permission to develop creative solutions that make sense for your particular circumstances. On the flip-side, you’ll also need to make some strategic adjustments to your lifestyle so that it actually supports and fuels your goals. (Having a strong sense of clarity will massively help with this.)
Etched into your memory - For a goal to be sustained in the long-run, it has to stay top of mind. Writing your goal out daily and keeping it in sight will begin to train your subconscious to recognize the opportunities you have to make progress on it.
Developed by Providence The R.O.O.T.E.D. Goal-Setting System reminds us that the Kingdom of God does not rise and fall by our efforts—but that we do have the responsibility to...

Next Episode

Episode 5: The Story Behind “Make Space to Thrive”

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If you've been following us for long, you are familiar with our favorite hashtag: #makespacetothrive. In a world full of hashtags, this may seem like nothing more than a snippet of motivation, a pithy phrase, or something fun to add on on top of photos. But for us, #makespacetothrive is a reminder of a key practice that moves us from overwhelm—to intentional living. It's become such a core phrase, that when we were brainstorming names for our podcast, it easily made its way to the top of our list.

The story behind the phrase...

Back in 2016, Shelby was living in a non-stop, head-down, shoulder-to-the-grindstone hustle. She and her husband supported their tiny family with a home business and were always behind on deadlines. Every moment taken to just sit down and breathe—even just to eat dinner together without multitasking work—invited a crushing air of guilt into the atmosphere.

But there seemed to be no way to simply hustle more. After brain-dumping a giant todo list that took up seven sheets of paper, Shelby realized she was going to have to upgrade her productivity strategy, or she and her husband would never get ahead of the train.

In her typical style, Shelby turned to Google to help her figure it out. Her husband gave her a couple of books he thought were relevant. They scheduled a meeting with a business mentor. Something, anything had to give. But every tip and tool she found seemed to yield a mere 1% improvement to their current situation. It just wasn't enough to move the needle.

But then she found it. The missing piece. Shelby will tell you that learning this strategy radically altered how she approached her life in that season, and continues to be a practice she benefits from today. This is the element that has proved over and over again to be THE #1 strategy to consistent achievement and success in her life, and it's one she's found so many people completely miss.

And what was this missing ingredient? MARGIN.

Margin is planned white-space for your day, your week, your home, your brain—space to breathe in #allthethings.

In other words, margin gives you SPACE to thrive.

Margin looks like many simple things in our lives:

daily space to sit down, breathe deep, drink a hot cup of coffee, and have a strategy meeting with ourselves using the prompts in our planner
leaving for an appointment (or church or event or party) 15 minutes earlier than needed so that when we hit traffic or forget something or have a driveway adventure with a toddler, we're not melting down ourselves
taking time to re-write your goals in your best handwriting, allowing you to fully emotionally process them and then display them so they stay top-of-mind
asking: "what can I say 'no' to, cull, or renegotiate about this week to make it easier and calmer?"
getting up before the children (whether in the morning, or before naptime is over) and doing essential things so they don't get missed
taking time to exercise instead of putting off health goals until your workload lightens or the kids hit a magical age
keeping our homes clean, decluttered, and well-managed so that spontaneity feels fun instead of chaotic
saying "no" to a stretch goal in the business so we can make a nicer dinner than usual for our family just because we want to
turning off all of the notifications on our phones (except for calls from our husbands and mama, of course) and limiting social media so that new information isn't constantly taking a toll on our emotions
using our time-blocker to add 15 minutes of padding to the transitions in the day (meals, commutes, meetings, etc.), so we don't have to feel like insane people to get anything done on time

Margin transforms your schedule from a never-ending endurance race to a strategic agenda filled with life-giving rest periods. Margin helps you focus on what's essential, and then protects your intention, so that you can truly show up in the things that matter most. Margin allows you time to process stuff instead of letting it build up and eat away at your mental bandwidth. With a lightened schedule, opportunities to be flexible, and a decluttered mind, margin exponentially reduces your stress—which in turn empowers you to be more creative, make more thoughtful decisions, and tackle complex problems with confidence and energy.

If you've been living a life based on hustling as much as you can from when you wake in the morning to when you crash at night, planning margin into your life will feel like a breath of fresh air. Slowing down is one of the easiest ways you can move yourself from a place of overwhelm, to a place of peace. When you begin by ensuring you're well rested, well nourished (physical...