How to Navigate Life Without Missing Important Moments (Ep. 3)

Have you ever felt that sinking feeling when you realize you forgot something important to someone you love? 

This may happen more than we’d like to amidst when we’re juggling countless responsibilities and the chaos of everyday life.

In this conversation, I’m sharing the template for a 20-minute proactive weekly planning session that will completely revolutionize how you manage your week. 

By the end, you’ll have a blueprint to confidently navigate each day to get more done and plan for those important moments before they happen.

Because the frantic scrambling through our days isn’t helping us feel any more accomplished or helping us show up like we want to for our families or ourselves.

Here's where you can go to grab the 5 Ways to Calm the Calendar Chaos:
theothersideofbusy.com/chaos

00:00 The Importance of Proactive Planning

00:15 Introducing the 20-Minute Weekly Preview

02:06 Step-by-Step Guide to a Productive Week

13:06 The Critical Role of Rest in Productivity

15:59 Wrapping Up: Your New Weekly Preview Routine

Follow me on Instagram for more time management tips
Or send me a DM:
https://www.instagram.com/jenna.piche

LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennapiche/

5 Ways to Calm the Calendar Chaos:
https://theothersideofbusy.com/chaos

Transcript

0:00

Have you ever had that sinking feeling when you realize you forgot something that was extremely important to someone you love? Amidst the chaos of everyday life. All of the things that we're juggling. This might happen more often than we'd like to admit. Well in today's conversation, I'm going to share with you a 20 minute proactive cleaning template that you can use to completely revolutionize how you manage your week. By the end, you'll have a blueprint to confidently navigate each day to get more done. The end plan for those important moments. Before they happen. Because the frantic scrambling through our days, isn't helping us feel any more productive and isn't helping us show up the way we want to for ourselves or our families. As women, it's easy to feel over-scheduled over tired and some days just over it. It's time to ditch the guilt. Still get things done and have time left for ourselves and the most important people in our lives. How do we do that? You're about to find out. Hey there. My name's Jenna Piche. And here you'll find the latest biohacks mindset shifts in calendar control strategies to get you to the other side of busy. I bring you insights on how to get more done during work hours, so you can shut it off and prioritize what truly matters. In today's conversation. I'm going to share with you how you can proactively plan your week. To skip the drought of missing something important. But also empower you to confidently navigate your week intentionally getting the right things done. Make sure you stick around to the end though, where I'm going to share with you. One mistake that most people miss when they're planning their week, it's a game changer for your focus. And once you do it, you'll wonder why you weren't intentionally planning this all along. All right. So how do we avoid these heart-wrenching situations of dread. In other situations like it, when we forget something or we drop a ball. The key to keeping up with life. Really lies in taking the time out to take a look at what's coming and proactively plan for it. I'd like to introduce you to a 20 minute weekly practice I use called the weekly preview. Now, this comes from the full focus planner and it's an intentional reflection and planning practice designed to help you create the proper consideration for your priorities. And the week's demands. So here, I'm going to outline six steps. That'll go through helping you celebrate your success, learn from your missteps and really recalibrate what you should expect for the coming week based on what you learned from last week. This is going to leave you empowered to step into the week. Feeling like you have learned and you are head of the game. So step one. Recognize your wins. You know, as high achievers, we tend to measure the gap between where we are and where we want to be. Uh, not the gain of how far that we've come. So step one in this weekly preview process is just looking at the past week and recognizing where did you win? Right. By using and reflecting on what we have done. You're going to build confidence in what's to come. You'll prove to yourself that you can do really hard things. And then that hard thing that might be coming in your week. It's totally manageable because you were able to do these other things that were huge wins. It also gives you the sense of accomplishment, which can lead to positive momentum and that can really help you move forward. So step one, recognize your wins. And write them down. Step to conduct an after action review. Did you know that after every mission, the military does, they conduct an after action review. They say even the best laid plans fall apart. As soon as you hit the ground and the same can happen in your week. But so many people don't take the opportunity to learn from what went well and what went wrong last week, because we just don't create the space for that kind of reflection. So in step two of this weekly preview, I invite you to conduct an after action review on your week. This is going to help you think about what you can learn and what you can adjust moving forward. Okay. So ask yourself, what were my weekly goals for last week and how far did I get. All right. And then based on that, let's say you give yourself a percentage. I wanted to get this thing done. I only got 50% of the way there. Great, what worked and what didn't. This is really an opportunity to take stock of. Did you get distracted? Did certain things get in your way? Um, did the week blow up? Did you not have the resources that you needed to move forward? Or did you simply just not create the space you needed intentionally to really make progress on that? After you ask that question, then you can ask. What can I keep improve? Start and stop. Right? This is the kiss method. A little different. Keep improve. Start, stop. So you can look at the prior week and say, what did I do that went really well. What did I start doing that I want to optimize or improve on? What do we want to. Start that I haven't already done. And then what do we need to stop doing? That's really getting in my way from doing things intentionally to move forward. All right. So many of us miss. The opportunity to learn from our past, because we skip this step, but we get so much. Rich insight. When we just take a look. And make course correction. So step two, do mini after action review in the week. Step three to your weekly preview is to review your lists and notes from the past week. Okay. So if you keep a notebook or a remarkable, or you take notes in your laptop, wherever that might be. Pull out your notes from the whole week. And go through them. Go through your meeting notes, go through those random little notes you make in the sidebars. And make sure to capture those things. All right. So with that review, you're taking a look at. What action items need doing all right. Do those need to make it into a digital project management system? Do they need to make it on a list for me to prioritize our schedule sometime this week. What items maybe did you delegate that you need to follow up on. Did someone have a deadline that they missed? Did you delegate something extremely important that you want to follow up on and make sure that people have the tools they need to move forward? Or what did you differ from your daily priorities? That really needs to be rescheduled. Right. Because some of us know we have the best plan for the week and then something happens and we have to recalibrate. So go back and take a look at what the week's priorities were. And how you need to shift what needs to get done into the coming week. To stay on track. All right. With this. It just gives us this moment too. Make sure that nothing falls through the cracks. Right that we capture those to reduce from those meetings that we capture that great idea and make sure that it gets scheduled so we can get done. Because it's going to keep us on task. All right. So step three is going through those old notes and meetings and really making sure that you've captured any actions that you need to take to move forward. Step for your weekly preview. Is to perform a weekly overview. Now, this is likely where you thought I was going to start with this weekly peer review. Right. But the prior three steps really set you up for success here. And now we're going to take a look at the coming week. All right. So I want you to look at what goals do you have coming up? Um, For the quarter for the year. And are you on track? What projects are coming up and what deadlines are associated with those projects? Take a look at your calendar and see what events are coming up. What meetings do I have on the schedule? I this step really allows you to take a 20,000 foot view. At your week. And understand what's coming. So I want you to ask yourself. What's the next best action I can take. To move a certain goal forward. How are my key projects progressing? And what can I do to keep them on track this week? Maybe what deadlines are approaching and what do I need to prioritize to make sure they stay on track? And then what events and meetings are coming up. What do I need to do to prepare for those things? How do I need to allocate time to prepare for them? And this isn't just in work. This is also with your personal life. I have felt that sinking feeling from the beginning of this episode, because I forgot my four-year-old's bike on daycare, bike day. Thought I was winning and then he showed up and saw all of these bikes. In the parking lot in my heart just sank. Right. And I could've prevented his heartbreak from me not bringing his bike and having to run off anyway. If I would have been able to get above the noise and take this 20,000 foot view. At the day. At the week. So it will really cover your personal and professional goals if you're doing this right, because this is where you catch those unexpected things that you really didn't have on your radar. This also helps you catch things like an appointment, maybe a key meeting that you need to have a deliverable for. So you're not trying to get these things done the night before to make sure that you're prepared. All right. So this step really helps you align your time intentionally with both your core values. And your longterm goals. And this also is where the rubber hits the road sometimes on our goals. So sometimes we don't make progress on our goals. Maybe we set a goal at the beginning of the quarter, and then we realized we didn't really hit that goal because we didn't make weekly action to get there. So by looking at your goals, by looking at the calendar and what's coming up, you really can make sure. That you are keeping an eye on all of those things that are important to move them forward. I also like to, as part of this do meal planning here, I know some folks who listen to this podcast are carrying that weight of helping run a household and a family. And. This really helps me get a handle on where are we going to be this week? Where do the kids need to be? What are my nighttime commitments? What are my partner's nighttime commitments? And how do we need to play in you? You know, fueling and nutrition of my family around it. So you can go check out the show notes. I will link to episode five where I talk about the meal planning system that I use to help me save time. And the hassle. Uh, as I do that as part of this weekly preview. So go check that out in the show notes. All right. Step number five. To this weekly preview process is to designate a weekly big three. Okay. So how many of you enter your week with some vague idea of what you want to accomplish? Right. And then you look back at the week and you're like, gosh, I feel like it really didn't accomplish. Anything? Well that's because you didn't go into the week with a set plan. So if you don't have a plan. Anything we'll do, or it won't feel like any sense of accomplishment. So instead I invite you to choose a weekly, big three. These are the three most crucial tasks that you need to prioritize this week. I, these are significant accomplishments. Not, I need to return so-and-so's phone call. All right. They should be the things that are going to move you forward. Because we only move our goals forward one task at a time. So what should fall into this weekly big three? Well, again, by looking at your goals, you're going to see. What they are, what are my quarterly goals? And then here you can ask what's the next best action that I can take, that I should prioritize this week. These are also things that might be urgent and important for upcoming meetings, but things that really need to happen. And the way to think about this weekly, big three. As really, if I got nothing else done this week. What are the three things that I would need to do to make this week a win? And then write those things down. Okay. Then prioritizing these things is the way that you make sure you're consistently moving forward towards your goals. Despite the daily distractions. All right. So in a moment, I'm going to share with you the one thing that most of us don't plan, that's costing us. Tons of productivity and accomplishment. But first. If you're ready to dedicate 20 minutes to this proactive planning process that I'm outlining for you here. Awesome. I invite you to go create a recurring calendar events. Time between Friday and Monday. And enjoy the proactive planning. And just peace of mind that you get from incorporating this practice. But I know some of us. Need a little more time and help to get a handle on how we can best approach our weeks without full-on panic attack. When you look at your calendar. So I've put together something really valuable for you. It's a free resource called five strategies to calm the calendar chaos. And in it, I'll share with you a way to free up space on your calendar. And the exact words you can use to negotiate out of those commitments that are just no longer worth your time. You can sign up for that at theothersideofbusy.com/chaos or click the link in the show notes. All right. So the one thing that most of us are not accounting for or planning for that's costing us significant. Productivity. Is rest. So many of us attempt to keep up with this hustle, culture, pace thinking. Being busy and working longer hours will make us more productive. But when we're sleep deprived or just burned out. The work takes longer than the quality suffers. Not to mention, we don't show up in the areas of our life. As well as we want, right. We're a mere shell of what we could be. When we are not resting. So take a moment intentionally before your week starts to plan out how you're going to incorporate self-care. Because you can't pour for an, from an empty cup. We know this when we hit a wall, right? You get to the end of your Workday and you have nothing left to give your family nothing left for your partner or your priorities, or just a hobby. Oh, you want to do is pass out on the couch or doom scroll social media, right. So instead we intentionally plan rest. Ask yourself, these questions. How will you promote and protect your rest time? Particularly at night. What time are you going to go to bed? What time are you going to get up? And what kinds of things do you need to say no to? So you can protect that time. How can you provide adequate nutrition to fuel yourself? How can you show up? Well, And not skip lunch. Or then binge on a food that is not healthy for you because you haven't created the time when we are adequately fueled, we can show up and focus better. So how can you create space such that that is possible? Where can you make space to move your body? Research shows that when we are moving our bodies, our brains are freed up to really let go and process so that when we come back to work, we can be more focused. So where in your week are you going to prioritize this? Not only for your productivity, but also for your overall health, so you can show up well, What are you going to prioritize time to connect with the most important people in your life? Where are those people in your life that you want to spend time with? Is it a partner? Is it kids? Is it parents? Is it friend groups? And where's that going to fit in your week? When finally, what kinds of hobbies or rejuvenation practices are you going to make space for? Are you gonna make it to a volleyball league or make sure you make it out to a girls night or a date night? All right. How are you going to protect the boundaries between work and life that are going to empower you to recharge? And to be effective during work hours. If you don't plan your time off, you're going to be tempted to drift back into work. So please be intentional here. Prioritizing rest is going to help you improve your focus and your productivity. Not to mention your overall life satisfaction. And those are your six steps to make up your proactive planning template for the week. Called the weekly preview right now, this weekly preview process doesn't need to take a lot of time while you might start by setting aside, say 30, 40 minutes for this. As you get used to it, you can do it in as little as 15 to 20 minutes. The key is to establish a rhythm and consistency that works for you. Your schedule and your personality. All right. But I recommend completing this sometime between Friday and Monday morning. Using this practice regularly can help you reduce the overwhelm. See what's coming, enhance some clarity and make sure you are actually taking steps toward those goals and making progress. Right. It's also going to help you proactively fit in those priorities in life. That don't. You don't seem to have time for when you are only focused on work. It's also going to help you optimize all of your resources, not just your time. So mastering this weekly preview process is really the toolkit. To help you navigate the complexity and the chaos of modern life. And it's that guilt of forgetting something that you didn't see coming. So I hope you take this practice and you leverage it to really improve your days and your weeks. With that. If you heard something that you found helpful, will you please send me a DM on Instagram? I'm@Jenna.piche. or you can just click the link in the show notes here. All right, until next time may the work that you do create meaning. and the life that you deserve. I'm rooting for you.