With recent events as they are, I felt compelled yesterday to film a video update for you sharing my thoughts on what is going on in the world and how we can use the power of planning in these uncertain times to bring us purpose and comfort. If you have been feeling anxious or isolated, please know that if you need anything from me, I am only a message away and I have set the intention for myself to be available as best I can to you in my community.
The world might not be business as usual for many people, and if you are one of those significantly affected, my prayers go out to you. During this time, however, I am choosing not to feed into any negativity or drama and I believe it’s best if we stick together in this. So, check out the video, I do hope that it gives you a simple strategy for taking your life day by day and focusing on what matters right now.
Today, I want to talk to you about the #1 time and money saver that I believe everyone should keep in their planner! That time and money saver is Meal Planning. As you may remember, earlier this week I announced the release of the Master Meal Planner printable insert bundle, and today I want to explain more to you about those inserts, how to use them and the process I follow to plan and prepare my meals each week.
My goal in creating the Master Meal Planner Inserts, as is my goal with all my products, is to share information and tools to help make your life better. From my years of studying and researching the topics of productivity and planning, I have found that although no two lives are the same, there are essential strategies that can be used by nearly anyone to set better expectations, streamline their tasks and ultimately reallocate their time towards higher priorities. Much thought, planning and feedback from my community went into creating this tool to make it as useful and actionable as possible.
My hope is that this meal planning tool helps you close the gap, learn an essential process and strategy for time management, and helps you reallocate time to your goals so that you too can develop an action oriented attitude towards your life. Whether or not you understand it at this point in time, when you purchase a tool like the Master Meal Planner, you’re taking a major step in the right direction to help you get your life in order. You’re making an investment in your future and in yourself that most fail to make. There is nothing more important in my mind than acknowledging your shortcomings and then making an effort to correct them- it’s the basis of all progress and the precise reason why human beings are able to achieve wonderful and sometimes miraculous feats. So, I know that when you purchase the Master Meal Planner inserts, you are taking a step towards a better and more fulfilling life!
The final thing I want to share with you before we begin with today’s topic, is that in the circle of life there is no right or wrong time to start getting your life in order and making your dreams a reality. It is never too early or too late to begin taking actions to design the life you have always wished to lead. If the only time is the present, then the present is where we must begin.
The #1 Time & Money Saver Everyone Should Keep in their Planner
How often do situations like these happen to you?
• It’s dinner time and you’re starving, but when you open your fridge you have no clue what to make. You shift around some raw ingredients, pace back and forth to your pantry but you are absolutely stumped. Yes, there is food in their, but no meals. You order delivery instead.
• It’s the end of the week and the fridge is empty- time for a grocery shop. You get to the grocery store and walk around looking at everything trying to piece together meal ideas in your head. You pull out your phone to search pinterest, but alas, your grocery store gets terrible reception. You have a few go to meals that you can rely on in your memory, but you are completely unprepared and can’t remember what ingredients you have at home or all the ingredients you even need to begin with. You walk around purchasing everything you can think of, hoping for the best and spending way to much money on random things that may not even form a complete meal. When you get home, you find you’ve forgotten a few key ingredients but purchased extra things that won’t even go into the meals for your week. Whatever, you’ll make it work, right?
• You are dead set on sticking to this new healthy eating plan. You have the recipes, you know what you can and cannot eat on the plan, everything is set, right? Wrong. A busy day hits and you’ve forgotten to pack your lunch, so you power through without eating, not wanting to make a mistake on your new plan. Once you get home, you are starving and although you have what you need at home to prepare your healthy dinner, it’s so much chopping and then a 30 minute cook time on top of that. You cave, and have a snack that is not quite on plan while you decide what to do. Instead of taking action, your hunger cues kick in and you grab another questionable snack while you think. One thing leads to another and suddenly you realize you’ve eaten a complete box of snacks instead of just buckling down to make that healthy dinner you had ready to prepare in the fridge. Ugh!
Look, if any of these situations sound like you, let me reassure you, I have been there too! I don’t know what it is about cooking and meal times, but even when we have food in the fridge and the best of intentions, we often make very poor decisions that ultimately cost us time, money and our will power. This is why I firmly believe that Meal Planning (and Prep!) is the #1 Time and Money Saver Everyone Should Keep in their Planner! Thanks to my meal planning practice, meal time now looks less like those situations above and more like this:
• It’s dinner time and I head to the fridge, there in storage containers are my dinner options for the week. I decide between one meal or another, pull out the prepared ingredients, plate my portion, heat it up and enjoy! Dinner now takes me all of 5 minutes to prepare.
• I’m starting to get a little hungry but I have some time to spare to prep something from scratch. I take a glance at my meal planner and remember that I bought the ingredients to make avocado toast for some lunches this week. I head to the kitchen and whip up one of my favorite quick and easy lunches.
• It’s Saturday morning and I’ve been sticking to this new healthy eating plan all week, so it’s time for a little treat. Luckily, I prepped a few on-plan muffins precisely for this moment of sudden craving. Diet disaster averted!
Aren’t these situations so much nicer to encounter throughout our week than the alternative? I think so, and that’s why I am a dedicated weekly meal planner and prep-er! Yes, meal planning and prepping can take up a good block of time, but it’s time I plan for and time that I save (or should I say, saves me) throughout the week from deciding, preparing and cooking meals.
And my meal planning and prepping process is made infinitely more easy, thanks to the use of the Master Meal Planner Inserts. So, let me explain what exactly those are and how you use them.
How to use the Master Meal Planner Inserts
Let me guide you through the inserts included in the Master Meal Planner and how to use each to maximize your meal planning process!
• The first set of inserts of the Master Meal Planner are called the Meal Master Lists. These inserts are where you can list out all the different meals you make or want to make and then check off the category for each. The categories for meals are breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack/dessert. When listing out each meal name, you can designate one or more of these categories by check mark to quickly locate meal inspiration when planning. There are a few different ways you can organize meals on this list. The first is to just do a complete brain dump of all the meals you can think of and then add more as time goes on. The next option is to dedicate a page or a spread to a collection of recipes for each season, for each member of your family that you cook for, or by dietary restrictions. For example, you could make a dedicated list for your favorite meals and another for your partner, child, etc. You could use one sheet for vegetarian meals, another for gluten free, or any other dietary restriction or category that applies to you. You could even dedicate sheets to cooking methods like BBQ recipes, crock pot meals, or freezer meals. As the meal planner inserts are print on demand, you have the space to play around with these lists in different ways that make sense to your lifestyle so consider those options and how you can add an extra level of organization to your meal planning process through the organization of your meal lists.
• The second set of inserts in this planner are the Weekly Meal Plans and consist of two worksheets, a grocery list and a meal planning matrix. Again, as the inserts are print on demand, it is up to you whether you want to use one set of these inserts for your whole family or break out meal plans for individuals if you prepare different meals for different folks. Also, it will be up to you whether or not you meal plan for one week at a time or more, however, the plans are organized per week and broken down into breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack columns with rows for each day beginning with Monday.
• The third and final set of inserts in this planner are the Recipes. This section is a dedicated area where you can track recipes relating to the meals on your master list. Each recipe worksheet is a two page spread which should be enough room for you to write out even longer recipes, or feel free to paste in printed recipes or recipe cards onto these pages if that suits you better.
The Meal Planning Process
Finally, let me outline for you the basic meal planning process I use and recommend.
The aforementioned avocado toast, made from scratch with low carb bread!
Meal Planning is the process of predetermining your meals for a specific period of time, either a week or perhaps even up to a month at one time. Once you have a plan in place for your menu, you can take some time each week to do meal preparation, cooking and/or portioning out food for your weekly meals and storing them properly for future meal times. Meal Planning and Prepping can be an excellent way to keep yourself on track if you are following a specific diet, but even if you are not, it is both a major time and money saver as you are able to define a menu ahead of time and bulk prepare meals. Prepared and portioned meals can be a life saver when your week gets busy or if unexpected events inevitably disrupt your week and normal eating patterns.
Step #1: Make a list of all of the meals and snacks you would like to eat and can prepare at home. Break down the meals into categories for the meal time they belong to, for example, breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, or dessert. Make sure that you either know how to make these meals already, or have the recipes saved somewhere for easy access, such as in a recipe book, or saved on a Pinterest board.
Step #2: Plan out your meals for each day, for the length of time you desire, from at least 1 week to up to 1 month maximum. Although the amount of time you choose to plan out is up to you, I find that planning any more than a month in advance can be a little too much as plans, tastes or cravings can change.
Step #3: On a day of your choosing before the next week begins, make a list of groceries you will need to prepare all your meals and snacks for just the coming week and then shop for them. If you follow store sales and want to stock up on frozen or non-perishable items for future weeks as well, that is fine, just keep in mind that it’s not advisable to fully prepare more than one weeks worth of food at one time, simply because the food would most likely spoil.
Optional: Weekly Meal Prep
Once you have completed your menu planning and grocery shopping for the week (or more) you may want to take your meal planning process one step further by doing some meal prep! This is a process that I undertake the weekend before a new week begins, and I find that it saves me a tremendous amount of time, energy and stress when I have all my meals prepared for the week instead of having to prepare them one by one each day.
When it comes to meal prep, you can choose to be like me and cook and store all your meals for the week ahead of time, or you can be more selective about the preparation you do.
Option 1: Precook and store all meals. Once you have your menu planned and groceries purchased, dedicate a portion of the day 2-4 hours depending on the length of your recipes, to bulk cook all meals. When I do this, I choose meals for the week that have similar cooking times or temperatures so that I can prepare the ingredients and then cook multiple meals at once in the oven, on the stovetop, in my crock pot, bbq or even air fryer. It might seem like a lot of work to do at one time, and perhaps the first few rounds of this might take a bit longer, but as you get used to the process, you’ll naturally begin to understand how to streamline and optimize even further. Once everything is cooked, depending on the meal, I make sure to properly store each item to retain freshness. Most items I cook go into the refrigerator, are sealed and handled properly, and are eaten within a week. If you are skeptical of storing meals for this length of time before eating, one major tip I have for you is just to practice good food safety. As most of my meals are stored and eaten over several days, I remove portions from storage with clean utensils and heat them up individually. I don’t let stored food out of the refrigerator for more than a few minutes to prevent contamination or spoil. I also tend to only prepare as much of the meal as necessary to maximize freshness, so toppings are usually added at the time of consumption, again as a measure to prevent spoilage.
Option 2: Precook select meals. If you don’t like the idea of having all your meals ready to go for the week, you can choose to precook a few meals to have on hand. For this I’d recommend focusing on preparing bulk dinners or tedious meals like school lunches that you won’t want to forget about. It’s easy enough to cook a large batch of a favorite dinner and consume it over a few nights and that becomes a great way to ensure you have something ready to go and don’t need to turn to delivery or fast food if time gets tight. You could also prep a few freezer meals- recipes that you can precook and keep in the freezer and defrost or finish cooking at a later time. Again, even these semi-prepared meals can save you time during the week or prepare for situations where the main cook of the household might not have the time to get the job done and needs to pass the baton to another.
Option 3: Prepare and Package Ingredients. Perhaps your meal choices require fresh preparation each day, but you can save yourself some work by cleaning, cutting and portioning ingredients ahead of time. Anything you can do to save yourself time during the busy week by cutting down on prep or cleaning will be valuable. So cleaning, slicing and storing fruit, making a batch of hard boiled eggs, rolling up lunch meat, or even just dividing something like a tub of yogurt or snacks into ready to go portions can be a life saver!
Well, I know that was a lot of great information, and now you should have a clearer idea of the purpose of the Master Meal Planner, the inserts included with it, and now understand the general process for meal planning. Now, I think you can see how Meal Planning is truly the #1 Time and Money Saver Everyone Should Keep in their Planner! If you agree, click the button below to purchase your Master Meal Planner and get started planning, organizing and prepping your meals asap! I know establishing this practice will be a game changer for your life and time management for sure. Can’t wait to see what you cook up with the help of this awesome tool!
If you have any other questions about the Master Meal Planner, feel free to let me know in a comment and I’d be glad to help you!
Meal Planning is truly one of the best secrets to successful time and life management! We all gotta eat, but in our busy day and age, fast food or delivery has become our meal planning time saver and backup plan, much to the chagrin of our wellness. I believe in a better way- a home cooked, menu planned, and meal prepped way.
The Master Meal Planner provides you with all the tools you need to save yourself time and money eating for your best life. With a little bit of planning and this indispensable tool, you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to take back control of your time by learning to manage necessary but often tedious area of your life!
Inserts Included with the Master Meal Planner
• Master Meal List: List out all your favorite meals and categorize them by breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack/dessert so you have a list at the ready when planning your meals.
• Grocery List: Keep a running list of groceries to ensure you purchase everything you need for your meals
• Weekly Meal Plan: Plan out your meals for the week to take the guess work out of meal time and cut back on decision fatigue and poor dining choices.
• Recipe & Notes: Keep your recipes organized so you have a quick reference of ingredients and instructions to make meal prepping quick and easy!
• BONUS Cover Art/Dashboards: Your purchase includes 2 unique Cover Art designs you can use to create a dashboard or divided section for your meal planner.
Important Additional Information
The Master Meal Planner Insert Bundle comes with three sizes of inserts. Personal Filofax (3.75″ wide by 6.75″ high), A5/Half Letter & A4/US Letter are ALL INCLUDED in this bundle!
If you have any questions about printing, with your purchase you will receive a set of printing instructions for Personal, Half Letter, A5, US Letter and A4 printing as well.
Want to Learn More about My Meal Planning Process?
The video above outlines key questions I receive about meal planning, as well as my meal planning and prep philosophy. If you are new to the idea of meal planning, I would recommend checking out this video to get a sense of the process and inserts included in the Master Meal Planner.
If you have any other questions about the inserts, please do let me know! And don’t forget, to celebrate my birthday this month, I have a special discount code you can use in the shop.
As someone who has been a public personality in the planner community for several years, I am often asked about the many different ways you can fill and use your planner, so in true planner fashion, I’ve been keeping lists with different ideas. I’d like to start sharing these lists here on the blog, focusing each installment on a different category of activity.
In the first installment of this series, I shared 13 Items to Schedule In Your Planner. Today, however, I want to talk about Task Lists. Planners and lists go together like peanut butter and jelly, so there are plenty of different types of lists you can make and keep in your planner. These 7, however, are ones I consider essential for your productivity!
7 Task Lists to Keep In Your Planner
General Inbox: This is going to be your catch all of tasks and to-dos, anything that doesn’t go onto another list, will go here!
Chores: I love to keep a list of my daily, weekly, monthly and less frequent chores in my planner to keep me on track with cleaning my home to ensure I don’t miss anything.
Work Inbox: Like the general inbox, except for work related tasks only.
Goals: People who keep their goals listed out on paper are 42% more likely to achieve them, so it’s a nice list to keep in your planner.
Projects: A list of all the projects you’re working on, and taking it one step further, listing out each project as an individual task list is a great way to keep your objectives organized and make it easier to execute.
Systems: I consider systems reoccurring projects. A list of action steps necessary to complete a specific objective. If you have systems you use in any area of your life, codify it and keep the list in your planner.
Self-Care: As a woman, I feel like there is a lot of maintenance, hygiene and general self-care that needs to be completed regularly. Keep a list of your handy in your planner. Here is a free download I created specifically for it.
For more productivity tools and resources for planning, download your copy of my FREE Productivity Toolbox by clicking the image above!
I hope this list has given you some ideas for task lists to add to your planner. I hope you’re enjoying this new series so far and make sure to check back often to see more planning ideas. I’d love to hear what other task lists you keep in your planner, so be sure to share in the comments.
We’ve come now to the end of February 2020 and I have to say, looking back at this month, I am so proud that I was able to get myself back into the swing of creating regular content for you all in the form of blog posts, youtube videos and even some great free resources and inserts for you! So, I thought it might be a good idea to put together a link roundup of all the different content I created this month so you have a quick reference guide to ensure you didn’t miss anything you might be interested in.
I’m going to call this monthly installment series ICYMI- which stands for In Case You Missed It! For those of you who have been with me for a while, you might remember that years ago I used to include a section in my email newsletters called ICYMI which was a roundup of all my content created since the previous newsletter has been sent, and it was a great way to ensure my regular community members didn’t miss anything I created. I put a lot of work into the content I produce for you, and so often my content answers questions I regularly receive my community- so I absolutely want to make sure you see everything and learn as much as you can from what I’m sharing! So, without further ado, let’s jump into the content you may have missed this month!
I hope this roundup helps you locate any content of mine you may have missed this month. I’d love to hear which content was your favorite from the month and what you’d like to see more of from me in the future. Please leave me a comment below and share your thoughts!
I can’t believe March is just a few days away! For those of you who don’t already know, March 13th is my birthday so it’s a month of celebration for me for sure! As you may remember, this year I am focused on creating a whole new set of freebie inserts for my community, so when I was thinking about what I wanted to create for March, I thought it would be appropriate to create a celebration tracker.
This beautiful tracker is a slightly different design than you might be used to because I have not broken out the months, instead, the insert is an open list form. I don’t know about you, but I don’t love using celebration trackers where you are given a set amount of space for each month because some months have more birthdays and anniversaries than others and some months have none at all for me personally. So, I would prefer to keep a list with date references and not waste the space.
Something else you will notice about this insert is that is has some columns you don’t see in the usual celebration tracker inserts. You have a column for “candles” which represent the celebration number; age the individual is turning this year or number anniversary. You have a column for “card” indicating whether you have purchased or sent a card. Finally, you have a column for “gift” indicating whether you have purchased or sent a gift.
Now, perhaps you won’t need to send a card or a gift for a certain celebration, which is absolutely fine, but you have the option to track either task if you do. Sometimes I have the problem of purchasing a gift or card ahead of time and I might forget I did this by the time the date rolls around, so for me, these columns will help me remember these details. I’ll likely use a colored highlighter to fill in a box if I know ahead of time a specific celebration needs a card or gift, and then check the box off once it’s purchased. That should help me personally to keep more organized, and I hope that helps you to do the same as well!
Now, as an extra little celebration for my birthday this month, I also want to share with you a special discount code that you can use this month only in my shop.
Use code MARCH25 at checkout to receive 25% OFF one regular priced item in my shop!
If you haven’t purchased your copy of the 2020 Master Planner, it is still early enough in the year to get yourself planning and organized if you are feeling like you had a rough start to the year or could use some extra inspiration to get a jump on your projects and goals for the year.
If you are still struggling on your annual goals or feel like it’s too late to set them, YOU GOT THIS is the tool you need! My YOU GOT THIS Goal Setting & Planning Workbook is an action oriented guide to get clear on your goals, lay them all out in your planner, and remove obstacles that stand in your way!
Either of those items are the perfect gift to give yourself this month to take small but decisive steps towards the life you want to live and the changes you know you need to make!
Today, I am starting a little series here on my blog where I will share different ideas with you for important information to keep in your planner. As someone who has been a public personality in the planner community for several years, I am often asked about the many different ways you can fill and use your planner, so in true planner fashion, I’ve been keeping lists with different ideas. I’d like to start sharing these lists here on the blog, focusing each installment on a different category of activity.
Now, in terms of how to schedule these items, I think these are items that could be listed in your monthly or weekly spreads- especially if you use an hourly layout type weekly spread. I personally like to use little icon stickers to represent specific activities but that isn’t always necessary. For the activities on the list that have a specific time slot for completion, I recommend listing them on your weekly spreads, but for the rest of the activities that are just outlining general date information, you may want to keep them on a monthly calendar or on an overview style calendar.
For more productivity tools and resources for planning, download your copy of my FREE Productivity Toolbox by clicking the image above!
I hope this list has given you some ideas for items to schedule in your planner. I realize this first installment is a bit basic in terms of the information, but I know my audience is varied and that not everyone is at the same level in their planning prowess, and these little reminders can be so helpful sometimes! Now, as I mentioned earlier, this is going to be a series here on my blog, so check back often to see more planning ideas. I’d love to hear what else you like to schedule in your planner, so be sure to share in the comments.
I want to let you in on a little personal development secret.
This year can absolutely be your best year ever.
How do I know this?
Because when you have been involved in personal development as a lifelong journey the way I have been, you begin to understand that no matter the ups and downs that life throws at us from year to year, season to season, the one thing we always have control over is our actions. Ultimately, it is our actions that define the success of a year, and when you take the time to learn from your past- your past mistakes and your past success as well- you can use that information to make better decisions and take better actions in the present. That means, no matter how wonderful or how terrible you think years past have been, you have a solid foundation of knowledge to reference to make this year the best year of your life. Armed with all that you already know and understand about yourself and the patterns that bring you success or failure, all you really need is a simple action plan of steps to execute to bring your best year to fruition. So, here are 6 simple (but not always easy) steps to your best year yet!
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6 Steps to Your Best Year Yet
#1. Choose the direction you are headed
The first step to having your best year ever is to clearly understand the direction you are headed for your life that would definitively make this year great. After all, how can we ensure your year is great unless we know what greatness looks like and feels like for you. Each of us will have a unique perspective for what would make a year great. What areas of our lives we want to see improvement or change in, what specific milestones we want to hit. It’s important to start your year off with a big picture vision for what you want to accomplish.
Now, to be completely transparent with you, from experience I have seen that very often this first step is the hardest for people to execute on. Although some people are blessed with a definitive vision for what they want their life to look like in the future, most people have a general feeling that what they have right now isn’t enough but they aren’t sure what they really want from life. If this is you, know that it’s completely normal to feel this way, but that this is ultimately a symptom of your general mindset. I’m going to talk about mindset more in step 6, but for now, understand that if you are struggling to see a bigger picture for your life, you likely have limiting beliefs that need to be challenged having to do with your potential and what is or is not possible for your life. It is very common for me to work with students who have been taught not to expect much from life, and that you certainly shouldn’t set goals and aspirations for things bigger than your current station in life. This is unfortunately a common symptom of small minded beliefs that have been passed on through generations, but it is not a true reflection of the world. In our current day and age it is extremely common for people from humble beginnings to lead marvelous lives and expand their worldview. Whatever you can dream for your life, you can achieve with the right mindset and a good plan to get you started.
DO THIS: I recommend spending some time journaling about all the wonderful things you want life to bring you. Take your time with this step, dream big, and if you reach a point where you feel like you want something but you also feel like it’s not possible for you to achieve it, push back on that limiting belief because I have found through experience that most things in life are possible in one form or another if we get creative about our solutions.
#2. Turn your vision into actionable goals
Once you have come to the end of your journaling about the future, it’s time to take your vision and turn it into actionable goals. Now, do keep in mind that this one journaling session for your future isn’t the be all and end all of all your goals. It’s just a jumping off point to get you started. As you turn your vision into goals, you may find that in order to achieve one goal, you will need to complete one or more other goals first. And that once a specific goal is reached, you may want to follow it up with something else. Keep all these goals in mind, again, don’t worry about how many goals you are creating, because there is enough time for you to accomplish everything you want in some way or another. So many goals branch off from other goals and dovetail together that when you weave together your goals for the vision of your life over the next 1, 3, 5, 10+ years, you really do have time to have it all!
DO THIS: Use the acronym S.M.A.R.T to turn each dream for your future into a Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Time Bound Goal. Specific: what are you specifically trying to accomplish? Measurable: How can you track or measure when you have reached the goal? Actionable: What actions can be taken to affect the outcome of the goal? Realistic: How can you realistically achieve the goal? Time Bound: When do you want to accomplish this goal by, how much time should it take you to accomplish it and where in the course of your expected life does it make the most sense to work on this goal?
#3. Give your goals a practical plan
So far in this process you have started with big vague dreams, then turned them into actionable goals, and now you must give each goal a set of practical steps to execute on. For some of your goals the path for achievement will be pretty clear to you. Some goals like getting a specific degree or having children are more straight forward. That doesn’t mean you might not experience certain obstacles to achieving them, but you at least know how to get the goal done. For some goals, you may need to do some research to understand the best way for your to approach and successfully accomplish the goal. Luckily, Google is ready to supply a steady stream of insight and information for nearly any goal you may want to accomplish that you might be unclear about. Finally, some goals are a bit more abstract and may not have a set of directions at the ready for you to use to execute on. Again, some resources online may be helpful, it might also be helpful to find someone with experience like a mentor to help guide you, but if no good information can be found, just start with a plan that seems to make the most sense to you. When it comes time to execute on plans, it’s rare for anything to go completely according to plan anyway, but getting started and taking your first step in any direction towards your dream is a start none-the-less.
DO THIS: Create an action plan for each goal that is due to be worked on in the next year. Don’t worry about creating complete action plans for each and every goal, as year to year you can reassess your goals and create the desired action plans.
#4. Get out of your own way to get things done
Once the time has come for you to execute on your action plans, this is when the real resistance comes in. If you thought it was difficult to just imagine the future vision for your life, wait until you actually start to take action. That’s when the deepest, darkest limiting beliefs of your mindset will rear their ugly head! Your mind will find anything, any tiny little reason for you not to take action towards your goals, so be prepared for this. It’s quite normal and expected for this to happen- in fact it’s a scientifically understood part of the human brain. You see, your brain is a wonderful organ that manages practically all the functions of your body, but it does so by living in the metaphorical past. Anything you have experience with is acceptable for your brain, but anything new, like these big new goals and plans you’re making to change your life, are viewed as a threat. So the best thing you can do is take things slowly, step by step with your action plans and find a way to establish a routine where you give yourself dedicated time to work on your goals.
DO THIS: Aim to create a habit of doing at least one thing for your current goals each day and track your results. Taking small but steady action is a great way to build new neural pathways in your brain that establish permanent patterns and routines for you to go after your goals.
#5. Keep the details of your life organized
There are few things that can steal time away from us taking action on our goals like the necessities of everyday life. We all have to live, right? That means we each have a set of non-negotiable tasks that belong on our to do lists right there beside the action steps for our goals. So, as much as possible to mitigate this, I like to organize and systematize the mundane elements of my life. Organizing your life isn’t always the easiest task, but it is absolutely one that yields tremendous long term results. So, identify the areas of your life that are the biggest obstacle to giving time to your goals and find a way to system
DO THIS: ID a mundane or routine area of your life to systematize. A system is essentially a protocol for dealing with the task on an ongoing basis so you don’t have to think about it each and every time the task comes up. A great example of this is meal planning and prepping. Everyone has to eat and deciding on what to eat right before each meal adds to your decision fatigue each day and takes up valuable time you could be working on your goals. Instead, pick a day of the week to create a complete meal plan for the week, go grocery shopping and then prep some meals ahead of time. This process may take a few hours one day, but by bulking the task you ultimately will save much more time an energy than it would take to cook each meal individually each day. Of course, there are plenty of other areas of life you can systematize if meal planning doesn’t work for you, so consider where you end up spending the most unnecessary time and develop a system for minimizing your effort in this area of your life.
#6. Control your mindset
Mindset is your personal view or attitude toward yourself, your potential and the way the world works. Your mindset has been specifically crafted by your direct experience in life and the information you are given by those around you. Although your mindset is a liquid concept with the potential to evolve throughout your life, for many people, it solidifies by about the age of 7. Meaning, the experiences you had as a child, plus the experiences, lessons and stories shared by your direct family and community have solidly shaped your outlook and world view. But, our mindsets are simply a collection of experiences and beliefs- not necessarily true or false, but usually limiting in some way. They have the power to color our outlook of the world and affect the way we respond in different situations. If you have a strongly positive mindset, you may see the world as full of possibility and eagerly welcome and overcome challenges. But if you have a more negative mindset, you may be limited in the things you believe you can do, accomplish or deserve and you will act in accordance with these beliefs allowing even small obstacles to derail your progress or even worse, finding any excuse not to start on a journal to a cherished goal. Because mindsets are formed so early in life, most of us having been living with our intact and unchecked for the majority of our life, so it takes a lot of patience and self awareness to reprogram your mindset to overcome limiting beliefs. The best thing to do to start the reprogramming process is to handle limiting beliefs as they pop up on your journey. You can identify your limiting beliefs by paying attention to the things you try to avoid, or things you think negatively about yourself. Negative self talk is a major red flag that a limiting belief is present.
DO THIS: As you identify your limiting beliefs, one by one, in the moment that they arise, I recommend doing the following. First writing down the limiting belief that is holding you back in the moment. Next, identify where this belief came from. Did you learn this belief from family? Was it something that played out in your own life that you assigned to yourself? There is always a source for each of our limiting beliefs- a person or a situation that was a catalyst for it. Then, write down an example of when your limiting belief is actually untrue. Identifying evidence that goes against a limiting belief is one of the best ways to break down the stereotype and overcoming it. Finally, write out a phrase that is in complete opposition to your negative belief- effectively turning your negative limiting belief into a positive expansive belief. Every time you face that limiting belief again in the future, stop and force yourself to say and act on the positive belief instead. In time, one will be replaced by the other.
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So those are the 6 simple (but not always easy) steps to your best year yet! I know I gave you a lot of action steps and information to process here, but truly, these six steps are just the tip of the iceberg for your success. The deeper you go into each of these steps, the more you will uncover about your personal goals, aspirations, productivity, and mindset. For that reason, if you would like additional guidance as you work through this process, I would absolutely recommend the YOU GOT THIS Workbook.YOU GOT THIS is a Goal Setting & Planning Guide that not only walks you through these 6 steps in depth with much more example and information, but also contains dozens of activities and worksheets to help you clearly map out this process and bring it to life for your best year ever!
So, if you are serious about taking focused effort to improve your life through goal setting, planning and organization, click the button below to purchase your copy of YOU GOT THIS now!
In today’s video I am walking you through an activity I like to do to organize my habits and routines called My Ideal Day! I encourage you to download the free insert and create your ideal daily schedule to keep you on track with your goals for the year!
My planner aesthetic has certainly changed significantly over the past several years, as has the way I choose to decorate the planner itself. Where I was once drawn in by brighter colors and mixing bold patterns, adding flair to my planner with stickers, washi tape and other ephemera- now I prefer a cleaner, simpler and more elegant look. My color pallet has gone down to basic black and white with muted tones of nude and grey. I do love a pop of emerald green in the mix- used sparingly of course! But things have been refined quite a bit to create a vibe or aesthetic for my planner that aligns more with my personal style.
After all, I truly believe that although our planners are at their core, tools for our productivity, it’s important that they fit into our lives in a way that makes them inviting and exciting. I consider my planner an accessory of sorts- a living vision board of my aspirations brought to life in paper and ink, expressed in words and images. The way I feel about my goals must be reflected in the way I feel about my planner. I want to open it up each day- multiple times a day- to feel aligned with where my life is headed, excited about the things I get to do and the opportunities I’m creating for myself in my life. That’s why it’s so important for me that my planner has an intentional vibe (or vibration) in line with a specific aesthetic, because our planners can be great tools for manifestation if we let them.
So, today I want to share a few tips with you to help you create a unique vibe and aesthetic for your planner without needing to use stickers or washing tape to decorate. I know for many of us in the community- where we may have once been drawn to this ephemera, as we have progressed, it has become the content of our planners that has really taken center stage as opposed to the hobby crafting or decor. But that doesn’t mean our planners have to be bland. They can and should absolutely be beautiful and well organized as a reflection of the plans we make inside of them.
Without further ado, here are 5 ways to style your planner without stickers and washi tape.
Choose and stick to a color scheme.
The quickest way to create an intentional vibe for your planner is to define and stick to a color scheme by choosing a handful of colors that work together to tell the visual story of your planner. These colors you choose should then be used to help you decide different aspects of your planner like the color of the cover or binder, the paper and font colors used for inserts, your pen and highlight colors, and the stationery items you keep inside your planner. One comment I often receive about my planner (as well as other aspects of my life) is that “everything matches” or rather that everything coordinates. Matching is when everything is the same color/pattern, coordinating is when everything is within the same intentional scheme. The simplest way to get things to follow an aesthetic is to limit and stick to a color scheme and ensure that nothing deviates from that color scheme.
Layer textures and patterns in pockets.
Next, let’s cover the art of layering. As with other aspects of design like fashion and home decor, layering is another technique that can be used to create a deliberate aesthetic in your planner. For this technique, you will need to rely on the organization pockets of your planner to create a three-dimensional visual experience when you open the planner up. Now this can be done in the pockets of the cover or through the use of additional pocket inserts that can be added to the front of you planner to create visual depth. Using the pockets of your planner cover as a prime example, layout a few key pieces of inspiration mixed with functional stationery within your color scheme. Keep in mind that its good to vary items by size so that each item is visible, and that working with odd numbers is always more visually appealing. So that would mean if you are decorating a pocket, choose 1, 3, 5 etc items to put in the pocket as opposed to 2 or 4. As you can see in my example, my passport pocket has 5 items of varying hight organized so that each item is layered but visible. I’m also using a paper clip to ensure that certain items stay put and don’t move around in the pocket, but this clip also adds an additional element of depth as well.
Select a cover with the right vibe.
For this tip I am referencing both the planner cover itself as well as the front dashboard of your planners inserts. These two elements of your planner are very much the first thing you see when using the planner, so it’s important that thought and intention are put into their selection. When it comes to the actual cover of the planner, it’s important that the style, color, pattern, material and even the brand of the planner itself be in line with the vibe you are aligning with. You could want a simple black leather cover and assume any black leather cover will do, but all brands and all leathers are not the same. Make sure that the quality and feel of the planner is in line with your style. Then of course, when it comes to the inner cover, or dashboard of your planner, although this element will likely be some form of paper or plastic, choose something that sends a direct message through the imagery, pattern or style. That message, of course, should be the vibe you are setting for your planner and it’s aesthetic!
Add vellum overlays throughout your planner.
An element of planner decor I have long admired but only recently began to use myself is printed vellum overlays. In one sense, they are a wonderful way to add inspiration to your planner through printed words or imagery without having to decorate inserts with stickers and washi. But what I also love about vellum overlays is that they again add a sense of dimension to your planner because depending on what you have printed on them, you can usually see the next insert in your planner underneath it. If you are someone who likes to print and add pictures or quotes to your planner, consider using vellum paper next time as it really does stand out by adding an unexpected level of interest to your inserts as you are flipping through your pages!
Fill your planner with goals and dreams that truly light you up.
I’ve said it before and I will happily say it again- if the sole purpose of my planner is to keep track of mundane life tasks and appointments, I need a planner like i need a hole in the head! I keep a planner, not to manage my time but to manage my goals! A goal is a dream with a deadline, yes? And those goals aren’t going to manifest themselves! They take a fair bit of intention, planning and execution to come to fruition and that’s where your planner comes in. No matter which planner you are using and what your planner looks like, never loose sight of the fact that your planner is the physical manifestation of your future and life story being written in real time- and that’s a serious vibe that no amount of aesthetic can ever beat!
I hope these 5 tips have inspired you to create an intentional vibe for your planner this year! I would love to hear what you thought of this information and the aesthetic that you’ll be using in your planner so please do leave me a comment below!
