Month: September 2019

Functional Planning

Why YOU Should Purchase the 2020 Master Planner!

About two weeks ago I launched the 2020 update to the Charmed Life Master Planner! Thank you to all those who have supported the planner over the years and have already purchased your 2020 editions, I’m thrilled to have you as part of my #MasterPlanFam! But, for those of you who have not yet purchased, or aren’t sure about whether the Charmed Life Master Planner is right for you, today I wanted to give you some insight into what I believe makes the planner special and why you should seriously consider purchasing your copy for the sake of your productivity, organization and time management in 2020!

So many options or same old same old?

I realize that when it comes to choosing a planner for yourself for the New Year, the options are seemingly endless. Now more than ever we have so much choice for how to plan, what our planners look like and the price point that works for our needs. You can buy a planner in nearly every paper size you can imagine. You can buy a planner with every binding option technology allows. You can buy a planner in your favorite color, pattern, personalized with your name, refillable or disposable, you are drowning in a sea of options. Or so it seems on the surface. If you take some time to break open most of the options out there you come to find that although many planners seem different because they look different on the outside, once you get inside everything is the same but in different packaging!

This is the illusion of choice brought to you by the genius of marketing; selling you the same old planner in a pretty new package! I can remember a few years back before the boom of planning when planners came in two options, a professional gender neutral black cover and a pink cover for the ladies because all we were to planner marketers at the time were a default color. There were never major differences between the black and pink planners, but marketers at the time knew that women were interested more in style so they made a version of their planner just for us to meet our needs; pink was apparently the need of women.

If you think things have gotten much better for women in the planner world, look again. Yea, now we have more options than pink or black, we now have identical planners updated with more feminine font selections (less business formal, more fun and script fonts) and instead of just a pink cover, we now have many many stylized cover options intended to speak directly to the personal identity of all the different types of women. Such styles of women include; The Boss, Girly, Cat Lady, Fashion Icon, Boho, Unicorn, Brainy, Goal Digger, Tom-boy, Foodie, Kawaii, Sleepy, llama and Mom! If you think I’m being overdramatic about this, I’m not- take a trip over to Michael’s Arts & Crafts and you can view on one shelf planner covers that speak to each of these caricatures of women and more- they discover and add new styles of women everyday!

Again, when you open these different planner “options” you quickly find that everything is the same, or variations on the same few styles of planners. Month on two pages, week on two pages, contacts and notes. Month on two pages, day on one page, and less notes. The options across many different planners and across many different brands boil down to styles that result in one of two major planning and productivity issues. Either they are too basic in terms of what they give you, so if you aren’t a seasoned planner or naturally highly organized your plans become a mess that lack focus (monthly, weekly). Or they are too focused on the daily planning aspect which reinforces the trope of busy = productive and prevents the user from getting a big picture view of their lives and results (monthly, daily). So, essentially, the vast majority of planners out on the market are glorified overpriced calendars! Dated or undated, all these “planners” give you are spaces to write in what you are doing on which day. No true space to make your plan, just enough space to write down the tasks, appointments and meals that fill your days. No wonder so many within the planner community switch from planner to planner looking for a system that works for them- they are simply switching from one version of the same to another!

The Charmed Life Master Planner Breaks the Mold

The Master Planner isn’t like any other planner on the market because it’s not just a calendar. The Master Planner is intentionally designed to be a Functional Planning System and incorporates scientifically researched productivity principles to ensure you are keeping organized, getting that big picture view to track the direction of your efforts, but also giving you the flexibility to drill down to your day to find focus on the task at hand. The Master Planner isn’t just a planner, it’s a productivity tool that when you commit to using it, will help you learn to plan better, manage your time more efficiently and achieve more of what truly matters to you.

Within the planner you actually have three productivity tools in one as the planner is broken into three distinct planning sections. The first section is the calendar, which is ostensibly what you are purchasing when you buy most of the other planner options on the market, but with the inclusion of dedicated space for monthly task lists and tracking in line with well researched best practices for productivity!

Next, you have a dedicated yearly project planning section which is the second tool within the Master Planner. Within this section you have the space to truly map out your objectives and goals for the year and to track them so you always know where you and can actually see the results of your progress at a glance inside your planner.

The third and final section and planning tool is the Brilliant Ideas spreads. In this section of the planner you have the dedicated space to clear you mind of ideas, thoughts and plans to organize and act on them, and you have the ability to brainstorm new plans and ideas before you schedule them into your calendar. Imagine that, a planner that gives you the space to plan what you are going to do and capture all your ideas so that you are doing your best work before you schedule those individual tasks into your calendar! Truly, in soo many ways the Charmed Life Master Planner is head and shoulders above other planners and is unrivaled in it’s ability to help you focus on and improve your productivity!

I created the Master Planner because other “planners” on the market were not only failing to improve people’s productivity but they were also sending women the wrong message about their productivity. The message sent to women by most planners is that busy = productive and that the measure of your value as a woman, wife, mother, student, daughter and friend boils down to how many things you can check off a to do list in a day. I’m continuously alarmed by the number of women within my community who come to me asking me which of my products, classes or courses will help them complete a full days worth of work in just an hour or a weeks worth of tasks in a day. Of course the answer to this question is none of them will. Instead what my products, classes and courses strive to do is to give you strategy, intention and clarity to get into alignment so that you know what tasks are truly going to move the needle in your life towards the goals you want to achieve. No one can accomplish 40 hours worth of tasks in just 8 hours, but through strategy and focus you can certainly achieve the most impactful results of 40 hours of work within a single work day. But this idea that we need to check off all the tasks, do all the things and be all the things to everyone in our life as women is a detrimental state encouraged by society and perpetuated by the planner market that leaves women with a blank calendar spread and no direction or indication that she should not strive to fill up each empty space. If the point of a planner is so I don’t forget another mundane and uninspiring task that truly won’t impact my life one way or another, then I need a planner like I need a hole in my head. No, thank you!

Stop using a planner that makes you a slave to your schedule or endless to do list. Start using a planner that works with you towards the goals and dreams you want to achieve, because to me, that’s the point of having a planner and a worthy reason for prioritizing it’s use everyday! People often ask me how I remember to stick to using my planner, and honestly, if your planner was filled with the goals and objectives that light you up with passion and excitement for your life, you wouldn’t be able to forget about it!

If you’re ready for a better way of planning, get your Charmed Life Master Planner now and start seeing the difference in your days, weeks, month and year because I have seen the impact in my life and the lives of many within my community and I know you will too!

Wishing you the best for a Productive Week & Life!

xoxo,

Productivity

HOW TO KNOW WHEN DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT?

While I was creating the content for the CharmedGTD Productivity Bootcamp last month, I stumbled upon a question about productivity that seemed to really resonate with those participating in the challenge. How do we know when done is better than perfect? It was something I discussed as part of one of the prompts, to Choose 5 Projects to Focus on for the Week. The premise of the prompt was that sometimes, overachievers such as myself who like to be super productive, will say they limit their focus on projects to just five, but then ultimately schedule more than that into their week. Thus, creating a situation where we don’t have focus, our attention is everywhere, and even though someone like myself who may do this sort of thing regularly might be able to complete all the work, it raises the question of if we are doing our best work?

Those of you who have been following me for a while know I am all about the line “done is better than perfect.” You could say it happens to be my personal productivity motto. For me, it addresses the essential truth that perfect as a standard doesn’t exist and those who keep striving for this standard are often allowing fear to rule their actions by putting off finishing a project or handing in work or releasing a creating into the world because it doesn’t meet the standard of perfect. The connection between fear and perfectionism often holds people back from moving on to the next thing and enjoying the fruits of their labor, which is why my general opinion of perfectionism is that it’s a lie that fear tells us to prevent us from success. It’s a way of self-sabotaging our work and productivity so we never have to face the criticism that ultimately comes when people are doing any sort of work really. Truth is, even the most beloved and celebrated work throughout history has received heavy criticism, you can’t please everyone, so why try?

But, I also have come to an equally problematic realization about the concept of done is better than perfect, that hits close to home for me. What if we use this concept to continue to move on to the next thing and the next thing as a means of never having to go too deep or put in too much effort into our work? It’s almost like the flip side of perfectionism, a defense mechanism against criticism that keeps some people, myself included, putting in as little effort as possible so that we can create a higher output, but at a lesser quality than we would achieve if we slowed down and created a little less but created it a little better. I definitely recall situations when I used my done is better than perfect mentality as an excuse to move on from a project without having to put extra effort into it, perhaps now I can see it was a defense mechanism I created to shield me from criticism. After all, I know criticism is inevitable, so if it comes, what better defense can I provide myself then “well, you may be right about what this is lacking, but I did all this in only a week/month, I’d like to see you do better!” It’s hard to argue with a statement like that. Yes, it’s not perfect, but how could you expect it to be in such a short time. I have to admit, I know I’ve used this anti-perfectionism stance as an excuse before, if not to others but mostly to myself, but why?

Well, again, I think this comes down to the vulnerability that comes from creating and putting out work over and over and over again that specifically goes out to the public eye, and wanting a defense mechanism to protect from criticism. For a very long time, I’ve operated under the personal belief that my lazy effort was better than most people’s “perfect.” This belief originated in college when I would very often write a paper in about two hours that received an A (I called this my two hour term paper) while my classmates would toil for days writing a paper that resulted in a C. I know that I’m a good writer/communicator/teacher so when it comes to any project that involves these strengths, I’ve essentially brainwashed myself into believing that I can get away with handing in my lazy effort because it’s worked for me for so long. Even this post I am writing right now, I am nearly 800 words into this and I started writing maybe 15 minutes ago. I have had to edit very little and so far I am very pleased with the flow of this so, guess what? Once I’m done writing, I am going to slap a photo on this and post it without thinking too much about it so I can go about my day and move on to the next thing I need to do! Maybe this sort of done is better than perfect attitude is acceptable for my free content, and maybe it works for some of my paid content too, but where do I draw the line? How do I know when done is better than perfect or if done a little better, or a little slower, or a little more is actually the standard to hit?

How to know when done is better than perfect?

Okay, so I hope we can all agree at this point that the standard of perfect doesn’t actually exist. Perfect is too vague, too non-specific, too immeasurable to base the vast majority of our work off of. That being said, I do think there are things in life that do deserve for us to reach towards an ideal of perfection, but since this isn’t a measurable objective, our standard of perfect will ultimately only be met once we have the feeling that our work is finally ready! Since there are truly no actionable tips I can share with you on how to reach that state of feeling like your work is ready, let me focus today on sharing some important questions you might want to ask yourself to double check your work to see if it’s ready for the world or if you should do a little more work on it.

How important is this work?

When thinking about whether you’re ready to finish a project and move on to the next thing or to release said project to its audience, think first about how important the project is to you and to your audience. Let’s take this post for example, I’ve already explained that this wasn’t much work at all for me to write and that I know I won’t be putting very much time and effort into this after I’m done writing, and that is because this one single post isn’t incredibly important to me. I didn’t have to write it, it was an idea I had that I wanted to share but I don’t have anything specifically important I am trying to achieve with this other than simply sharing an idea and hopefully inspiring my audience to think about this and apply it in their lives. Now, if this post were part of some content marketing I was doing, meaning it’s part of a marketing campaign for my business, well then I would probably take a little more time with it making sure it was as well thought out as I could make it. And if this post were not a post and where instead a sales page for a product, well then, you’d bet more planning and strategy would go into the time I was spending working on it. So, when it comes to whatever you are working on, before marking it complete and handing it in, determine how important the work is to you and to the audience you are creating it for. If your working on a report you send out on a weekly basis with updated sales figures for your team, yea that’s probably important to the people who get it, but you do it every week so it’s probably more important that the numbers in the report be right as opposed to you getting fancy with graphics and extra language or analysis since the life of the work is only about 7 days. If the report is meant to be shared at an annual operating meeting for your entire company, well then by all means spend some extra time on the quality of your analysis and graphics because this is a one time event you are preparing for.

When is this work due and how flexible is the due date?

The next thing to think about when it comes to whether done is better than perfect in your work is the due date for the project. If you are done a project today that is due next month, well then you have some time to think about it and adjust. If your project is due tomorrow, there is only so much you can do in that time. If you have flexibility with your due date, meaning you can ask for more time because perhaps you feel like you really want to do the extra work, then ask for it. I don’t think there is anything wrong with pushing out a due date in order to get a better product if you just aren’t happy with it!

Who is going to see this and what investment was required?

I’ve mentioned a few times already the concept of the audience for your work, this is essentially the person or people who will see it and I’d say one of the most difficult things to determine when we are doing our work is guessing at the expectations of that audience so you can please them. In some cases, you can actually talk to your audience and find out what they expect so you can tailor your work to those expectations, but if you can’t, it’s up to you to use what you know about them to determine the standards. Another thing to keep in mind about your audience is the investment they have made into the work you’re producing. So, again using the example of this blog post, no one had to pay to read this, it’s freely available. If this were an article or content in one of my products however, then I need to evaluate my work in terms of pleasing my paying customers who’s expectations I want to meet and exceed with this content so that they find value in it and are willing to purchase again in the future. If you are doing a project for work, clearly you are being paid for your work, so there is a level of professionalism and standards your workplace may have, and if you are working on a project that might go out to a client or customer of your job, again, consider their investment or their potential investment in your company if their expectations are met or exceeded with your project.

Can you beta-test this with your audience before releasing it?

Something I try to do as often as possible is to beta-test my products with my audience, meaning that I will get volunteers from my community to try out a class or course before I release it publicly. That way I can make important changes before it is seen my a wider audience and I am actually able to consult with individuals who belong to the audience I am trying to please. Even if you are not running a business as I am and creating products for sale, this is still a concept you can likely use in your own life. When I was in college, something I neglected to explain to you about those two hour term papers was that I would very often write those papers a week or so before the due date and then hand them in as a first draft to my professor to review. They would gladly accept my paper early, would read through it in a day or so and return it to me with their corrections and input to make the paper better according to their expectations. So, once I had those corrections all I needed to do was spend a little time making the changes they gave me and then hand the paper back in on time for that A! Seriously, this process gave new meaning to the term easy A! It’s not just with business and school that this can be applied, you can likely also do this with certain work at your job- in fact, I bet for important projects your boss may even already schedule in time to meet with you to review your work which might seem daunting except for the fact that this actually makes your job easier because you can put less effort into the first draft than you might think, and then put in more effort once the project has been reviewed. This isn’t about getting out of doing work, but this is about knowing when to put in the most work, and for me, I have found that once you have your audience’ input, then you can do the bulk of the important work instead of doing a lot of work ahead of time before you know what they want and how they will react to what you’ve produced.

Could this work be changed or upgraded in the future?

The final question I always ask myself when I am working on a project is how permanent the results of this work really are, if I put out a post with a spelling error in it, is this permanent or can I change it? If I release a planner insert with a spread I’m not 100% thrilled with, can it be changed and released later? For much of my work the answer does tend to be yes, and I do spend a good amount of time taking feedback from my audience and upgrading or updating products in a stream of new iterations in order to bring the end result as close to perfect as possible over time. A great example of this from my business would be my Charmed Life Master Planner inserts. When I first released that insert pack back in the summer of 2015 I was pleased with it, I knew it worked and had value as it was, but I still wasn’t sure about a few pieces in the design. Year over year I have been taking the feedback from my community and those who purchase the planner to tweak the design. Again, because perfect isn’t a measurable objective, some people may have seen my first iteration of inserts and thought it was amazing, even if I felt like there was more potential. But, if I had no released those inserts as is back in 2015 and then every year since, I would likely not have refined the design to the place it is today, which I am so very pleased with! So think about your projects and what you are working on and if you can release it now with the intention in your mind to learn, adjust and refine as you go along!

So, I’m looking at the clock, it’s been an hour and ten minutes since I started writing this post and I have just hit the 2,600 word mark, so I think I’ve said everything I wanted to say on this topic. I hope this internal commentary on this post hasn’t turned you off, you know I don’t usually add these sorts of details, but for the topic of this post I thought it would be helpful for you to see in real time (sort of) what my unedited process for writing an article is like. If you have thoughts you’d like to share on this, please do leave me a comment below so we can discuss and I’d love for you to share more personal insight into how you determine whether your work is done and perfect or not! Thanks for stopping by and spending a piece of your day with me, I do hope it was inspiring and enlightening for you!

xoxo,

Functional Planning Productivity

The Productivity Edit | FREE Seasonal Planning Class

This past Saturday I hosted the most AMAZING live planning class called THE PRODUCTIVITY EDIT! I really believe this may have been one of my absolute best live classes! Not only did I share some really great information to put your planning into perspective, but I also heard from so many of you that the content and energy of the class was very inspirational in helping you to step into the role of Editor-in-chief of your life, energy and time!

Those of you who have followed me for some time may remember that I am a great lover of magazines and each September I go out and get the “September Issues” of fashion magazines as an annual tradition to help feed my creativity. September is considered the New Year’s of the fashion world and so the very best and most up-and-coming content, design, photography and style is integrated into these key issues. It was with this inspiration in mind that I walk you through the very creative and original content of the class to help you think outside the box at how you can approach your planning and productivity this season!

So, the content of the nearly 3 hour class was definitely on point! And to add some extra icing on the cake, we also walked through some POWERFUL activities for getting focused on curating the next season of our year intentionally!

Those activities came in the form of guided worksheets from the workbook that accompanies the class, called THE PRODUCTIVITY EDIT Workbook. This valuable workbook is a must for anyone who wants to get the most out of the activities and planning strategies we walked through in the class.

THE PRODUCTIVITY EDIT Workbook is a 46 page PDF workbook that you can get in my shop, print out and use to creatively curate and plan the next quarter or season of your life!

• Do you struggle with traditional planning because you consider yourself more visual or creatively focused?

• Do you have goals or a vision for the direction of your life that you struggle to prioritize alongside life’s more urgent tasks?

• Do you find that you have different priorities or objectivess to manage through different seasons of your year?

• Could you benefit from a streamlined process for planning on a seasonal basis that can then be used in conjunction with any planner or time management system?

THE PRODUCTIVITY EDIT Workbook is a Seasonal Planning Guide for Curating & Editing Your Life that walks you through the 5 activities we performed within the class that follow along with the concept of stepping into the role of Editor-In-Chief of your life.

THE PRODUCTIVITY EDIT Workbook will help you:

✔︎ Learn to approach each new season of your year with a fresh vision and inspiration for the life you are intentionally curating!

✔︎ Align they key people in your life with your objectives and expectations to get the support you need to bring your goals to fruition.

✔︎ Set clear intentions for what you will achieve each season and use passive manifestation techniques to help you find the solutions, people, and resources you need along the way.

✔︎ Edit down your objectives into manageable plans that you can easily track and accomplish.

✔︎ Turn the everyday tasks and expectations of daily life into a streamlined plan with clear responsibilities and defined schedules.

So, what are you waiting for?

Check out the FREE class and get your copy of THE PRODUCTIVITY EDIT Workbook because this new approach to planning might be exactly what you need to blend inspiration with action for a successful season ahead!

I can’t wait to see what you accomplish with the help of the workbook, so please do keep in touch and share the progress you make designing your personal magazine for the season!

xoxo,