#15. Plan Your Week in 15 Minutes or Less
Episode Shownotes:
Are you constantly overwhelmed by your weekly to-do list and jam-packed calendar? What if there was a simple process to lighten the mental load and designate time to get the most important things done? That's exactly what this episode is all about. I'm sharing the quick 3-step process I use to plan out my week and save me time. Implementing this system into my professional and home life was a total game changer and I want to teach you how easy planning can be.
Speaking of planning, I'm hosting a one-day planning event on October 27th, 2023, that you DON'T want to miss! I'm going to be teaching you my simple annual planning process and we're going to start mapping out your 2024 calendar together. Click here and I'll let you know when you can sign up!
Are you sick and tired of feeling overwhelmed by all the things? I can help. Schedule a free consult today.
Come join the FB Group SLP Support Group for more tips and tricks!
Follow me on Instagram! @theresamharp
Learn more about Theresa Harp Coaching here.
Episode Transcript*:
This is Your Speech Path: Mindful Time Management for the Busy SLP. My name is Theresa Harp and, as a mom and speech pathologist turned productivity coach, I know a thing or two about how hectic life can be. If you're an SLP who's overworked, burnt out and feeling like you're constantly falling short as a therapist and a mom, then this is the podcast for you. I cover time management and mindset strategies so you can learn to love your work and your home life at the same time. Let's dive in.
Hello, Speech Paths and podcast listeners, how are you? Welcome to another episode. I've got a good one today and I'm going to dive right in. Today I want to talk about my three-ish step process for how I plan my week. If you've been in the Facebook group, if you've been on my email list lately, you know that this is very much what I'm focusing on right now is planning, and the planning process and how I tackle it. What I thought I would do was just give you a really simple overview of how I plan my week and how you can plan your week to help you make the most of your time. I want to just share a little caveat or disclaimer before we jump in. That is, that I do plan out my weeks, generally speaking, I plan out my weeks based off of my yearly, quarterly and monthly goals. That sounds really complicated and it's actually not at all. I wanted to just mention that because I do feel that when you start out with big goals like that—yearly, quarterly and monthly—they then tie right into what your weekly plan is. It's important for you to know that.
However, having said that, there is value in walking you through this even if you don't have a yearly, quarterly or monthly plan. Maybe you don't have goals like that and you're not working those into your weekly plans. That's fine, that's okay, because this is simple and it gets you out of overwhelm and into action. I'm all about doing this as simple as possible. That is why, when I do create my yearly, quarterly and monthly goals, I do it in a really simple way. If you haven't done that yet, that's okay. Still listen to this episode, because you probably would never even know that the way that I do my week is related..it ties back to those big goals.
And if you are interested in setting big goals but you really don't know how to do it, or if you're really interested in it and you just like to do it and you want to do it and join us and have fun planning out what those goals will be, then I have good news for you. On Friday, October 27th of 2023…I don't know when you're listening to this episode, but it's about a month away from the time that this episode will be released, I'm hosting a one-day planning event and that is going to be an opportunity for you to roll up your sleeves and create your annual and quarterly and monthly goals using my time management system. We'll do that together. Be sure to save the date and stay tuned for when tickets go on sale.
Let's talk about your week, shall we? This is my three-step process. Before I am doing this, I have already filled in what I call my non-negotiables. My non-negotiables are the appointments, the commitments, the time demands that I have on my calendar that I've committed to. I've already plugged those in. If you haven't done that, that is where I would start. First, look at your week and fill in those appointments. The reason why we do that is so that you know and so you can actually see on paper your available time here. You do this in a paper planner or a digital planner or an electronic planner. You want to have those filled in so that you can actually see the available time to get things done. So that way, when you're creating your weekly plan, you are doing it in a realistic way. Okay, all right. So once you've done that, assuming you're starting out with those non-negotiables, then here are the three steps that you're going to take to figure out your weekly plan. Step one—if you know me, you'll probably guess this—step one is a brain dump. Okay, so you're going to brain dump anything in your head that you want or need to accomplish for the week. So for me, there's two ways you can do this. You can do a general brain dump, just kind of, you know, like pen to paper, write it all down. Or you could use my Time Buckets System, and if you're not familiar with that, that's not a problem. What you would do essentially, is you're identifying the major parts of your life and those become your time buckets. Another way to think of this is the different roles that you play, or the different areas of your life that take up considerable time and energy. That's basically what I mean when I say time buckets. So this will look a little different for everyone, but for me, my time buckets. I have four. They are me, a “Me” Bucket, a Family Bucket, a Business Bucket and a Household Bucket. Those are the big areas of my life where I like to devote my time and attention and energy. Okay, so for me, when I'm planning my week, I use my time buckets and I look at each bucket—Me, Family, Business, Household—and I'm brain dumping anything that I want to get done for the week, right, if it comes in my head, if it like pops into my mind, I'm putting it down on paper. I'm not filtering. Okay. So I would ask myself what are the things I want to do this week for me? What do I need to do for the kids? What do I need to do for the business? What do I need to do in my house? So, for example, this week on my buckets, what I have are for me, my bucket is reading three chapters of a coaching book that I'm reading. Also want to schedule a chiropractor appointment because I've had back pain for forever and I need to get into the chiropractor. Okay, so those are two things in my “Me Bucket.” For me…no, I'm sorry, for my Family Bucket…a couple of things in there for this week are work on their Halloween costumes and schedule dentist appointments. My Business Bucket record podcast episodes and make some updates and changes to my website. And then the Household Bucket: work on the garden, finish cleaning out the garage. Okay, those are not all the things on my list, but those are just some examples to help you understand. So whether you do this in time buckets or you do this in just a general list, it does not matter. Do what works for you, okay? So that is step one. You’re brain dumping anything that you want or need to accomplish. So all of those things that are floating through your head you're writing down on paper. Okay.
Step number two you're going to prioritize. Now, there's different ways that you can do this, and I do believe that this is one of the areas where people really benefit from coaching, because we don't always know how to prioritize tasks. That can be a podcast episode in and of itself, but what I will offer to you for today's episode is to look at that list and highlight the things that are Must Do's and Urgent. They are the things that you absolutely have to do this week because there is a deadline involved. Okay, so you're going to start there, highlighting those things. They are urgent. There is a deadline. They have to happen. Okay, those are your Must do's or your Have To's. Okay, then I would look—and so you're highlighting them or kind of like circling them so that they stand out..you're grouping them in one way, okay…then I'm going to mark the things that are on there that are more of the non-urgent priorities. They're the Want To's, they're the things that, yeah, I want to do this. I don't want to like, I don't want to keep thinking about this. I want to get it done, but it's not necessarily something that I have to get done this week, right? So for me, going back to what was on my list, for example, the reading, the three chapters of the coaching book, that is actually a Must Do, because I am working on…I’m in a course, we have a class on Monday, that is our homework that needs to get done. It is a must do, okay, versus, say, working on the Halloween costumes. That's something that you know it's not really urgent. I still have quite a bit of time before we're getting to that point. So just to kind of give you an example of how I categorize those things. Okay, so either you can do this, your priorities, you can do this in terms of, again, your must do's or your have to's and then your want to's. Okay, so the urgent things and the non urgent things.
Another way that you could prioritize this is just simply giving yourself like a one, two, three rating scale, and so you're thinking about okay, what are the things that absolutely have to happen this week? And anything that falls in that category gets marked as a one. Anything that is something that, like, you do want or want or have to do, but it's not urgent, that would get marked as like, say, a three or could be. You know, it could be something that you could save for later. And then anything that's not a one or a three becomes a two. Okay, so you have to think about there's many ways you could prioritize. You have to think about what works best for you and if you need help with that, book a consult—side note—just get on a call with me and I'll help you. I'll talk you through how you might do that and I'll talk you through how I can help you long term.
Okay, so you've brain dumped the things, you've prioritized them. Now step three this is the fun part for me is you're plugging them into the days that you want to get them done. So what I do is I go and I look at my weekly calendar and again, remember that includes those non negotiables, those commitments, those appointments right, those are already there. And so I look at the things that are my ones, my twos, my threes, or I look at my Have Tos. I start there, I start with the ones, or I start with the half twos and I start plugging them into the days that I'm going to do them. I have to plug them in there, I have to put them on the calendar for that day, or else it doesn't get done. And when I do this, you know there's a method to the madness. I'm not just like picking any day and throwing them on on a day just so that they're, you know, accounted for. I'm actually thinking through okay, what does this day look like for me? What are, you know, what's my energy going to be like primarily- I mean predictably- on that day. Of course you can ever predict that, now with total certainty. But for example, I know, for me I teach late on Wednesday nights and Wednesdays are just generally… Wednesday after school up until class is over is just crazy. It's very hectic. So Thursdays I'm typically tired, low energy, you know, my brain's just not quite as like, crisp or sharp, so those are the days that I'm not going to work on, say, recording a podcast episode or you know, I don't know, different tasks that kind of require like deep work or things that require me to really focus and have energy. But I might put in like the little tasks that are easy to do and don't require a lot of energy, like scheduling the dentist appointment, scheduling the chiropractor appointment, stuff like that right. So I'm plugging them into the day that I think makes the most sense, based on available time, based on predicted energy and based on their due date, the urgency, okay, and so I start plugging them in. Now, that is, on a very basic level, how I do it, and really I don't make it much more complicated than that. Quite frankly, I want to remind you that I've got my quarterly and monthly goals that are going to be plugged in to my week as well. I just didn't really mention those. But essentially what, when you start out your year planning what your goals are, or when you start out your quarter planning out your goals, or your month planning out your goals, it's very easy to break those things down into sub tasks or sub goals and plug them into your weekly calendar, just like this. So if I had, say, a quarterly goal of you know, I don't know, 20,000 downloads on the podcast, I will have already identified what those sub steps are, those subtasks are, in order to hit that goal. And so there's probably going to be something that I'm plugging into my weekly plan that relates back to that big goal, and I share that with you, just so that you understand, I guess two things: one, that we don't need to live in this state of reactive mode where we're only plugging in…it's not even really reactive mode, it's like survival mode, where you're plugging in the things that you just have to do and the things that you want to do that don't have a deeper connection to big picture and what you want to work on in the areas you want to grow in in your life. Right, these are things that are anchored down to bigger, bolder tasks, bigger, bolder goals. Okay, because it is possible, even when you're in a busy, crazy season of life, to have goals like that and to break them down into simple, easy ways and work them into your week. And then, the second reason why I mentioned that is because I want you to know that it is possible to take those big goals that you might have and to break them down into small, bite-sized pieces so that they are achievable. So I'm talking to both people out there, those of you who are thinking, “No way, Theresa, I can't even come up with goals right now, like we're just in survival mode, we're doing like the bare minimum.” I challenge that. I'm going to challenge you on that. I want you to challenge yourself on that. And I'm also talking to those of you who are like, “Oh yeah, I've got tons of goals. I know all the things I want to work on, but I don't know how to…I don't know how to actually make them happen. I don't know how to actually plug them into my planning so that they are achievable and attainable.” Right?
Okay, so I said this was going to be a short and sweet episode. I want to just recap those three steps for you and give you some action steps to take with you so that you can start implementing what I'm talking about. Okay, so just to recap, after you've got your non-negotiables filled in on your calendar, so your appointments, your commitments, all of those things, then you are: number one, brain dumping what you need to accomplish, number two, you're prioritizing which tasks are most important and which tasks are least important, and then, number three, you're plugging them into the days when you want to get them done. Simple, right?
Okay, if this is exciting to you, if this feels like motivating and inspiring, and it's like, yes, I think I can do this, maybe I want some help. Come join the Facebook group, and that is one of the action items I want to give you. I want to encourage you to come and join the SLP Support Group on Facebook, where we can do this together. We can work through it. You can share your weekly plan, you can have an accountability post, accountability threads. We can work on this together, collectively, as a community. And then the other action that I want you to take, or consider taking this week, is to try this process, try this three step process, and to support you in that, after you've joined the Facebook group, what you can do is two things: you can set up your accountability post. You can put an accountability post in the group and let us know what you're working on, and what I would encourage you to do is just sit down, turn off distractions and set a timer for 10 minutes. I promise you that if you are focused, you can sit down and get a good chunk of this done in just 10 minutes time. It does not have to take long, it does not have to be hard. Okay, and you don't have to do it alone. Join the Facebook Group, get support. If you want to take this to the next level and start working on this one-on-one, reach out and schedule a consult and we'll talk about if this could be a good fit for you, how I can support you with your time management and your goals. And just last but not least, one final reminder that if you love setting goals, or if goal setting feels a little bit scary for you and you feel like you need some support, you want to have some goals for 2024, but you're not quite sure how to start, make sure you come and join the planning event that's taking place on Friday, October 27th. Okay, I'll be sharing more about it in the Facebook group and here on the podcast. Okay, there's also a link in the show notes if you want to get added to the email list so that you're notified when tickets go on sale. All right, that's all I've got for you this week Short and sweet, very actionable. Let me know what you think. I hope this is helpful and I will talk to you all next week. Bye.
*Please note that this transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors.