Start with Scheduling

To answer the “how do you do it” question, my gut reaction answer is probably that I schedule everything. It is honestly the fundamental building block for my ability to get things done — and my first suggestion for anyone to achieve their goal(s). Start with scheduling.

You may be thinking, “well, thanks for nothing, Captain Obvious” because you probably already do that, but do you schedule the big stuff, the important stuff? I don’t mean the work deadlines or kids’ doctors appointments or when to change the air filter in the house. Don’t get me wrong – those are important. But I’m referring to the big picture stuff: do you schedule time for the more meaningful things in your life that get you closer to achieving your dreams, get you closer to changing your life for the better or get you closer to the person that you want to be?

An example or two is probably in order. An easy one: mentoring is super important to me. I could leave it at that and make time to mentor as much as I can, when I can – but the likelihood of me actually doing so is probably not great if I’m not intentional about devoting some time to it on the front end. Another problem with not scheduling — overcommitting and stretching myself too thin because I don’t have any visibility into how much time I’m spending (or giving away). My solution? Start with scheduling.

With my goal of mentoring at least once a month, I calendar “Mentoring Mondays” weekly. It is set with a reminder that pops up every Monday at 8:30 a.m. If I’m slammed for the moment, I snooze it. I will do this in hour increments the entire day if necessary. If I’m slammed for the week, I dismiss the reminder. There is no problem with snoozing or dismissing the reminder if something else pops up and takes priority, but the likelihood that I would skip mentoring for an entire month is low because of the reminder. This makes my goal of mentoring at least once a month very achievable.

You may be wondering what I do when I get the reminder, when I don’t dismiss or snooze. Sometimes it’s a substantive email or text to one of my mentees – checking in or following up. Other times, it’s more administrative in nature – scheduling a lunch or call or sending them an article. If I have been really on top of it, I dismiss the reminder because I already have a lunch or call scheduled and the scheduled lunch or call will “count” as my mentoring for the month. Obviously, no hard rules because well, I made them up so I can change them – but this system gets me where I want to be. It gets me to a place where I intentionally nurture these important relationships.

What has really helped me about this system is it has allowed me to be intentional about how much time I am devoting to my goal. It helps me be able to say no and set boundaries, guilt free because I know that I’m contributing in a meaningful way to something I’m passionate about – but at the same time, if I get a request that doesn’t work within my system, I’m able to say I can’t, but how about next week? Granted, this may mean that I can only have 52 calls or meetings in one year, but this system also helps me gauge whether I can take on another mentee or not.

This “system” works with a lot of goals. It doesn’t have to be weekly – it just has to be intentional.

Here are some of mine:

• When I was in private practice, business development was calendared weekly.
• Resume review annually (Always want to be prepared!)
• Review Linked In every 6 months
• Thankful Thursdays – sending a gratitude email or thank you card every week
• Personal (or Professional) Development Fridays – reserving at least 30 minutes to personal / professional development, whether that is reading an article, listening to a podcast or watching a TedTalk
• Visiting my parents (who live an hour away) every two weeks with the kiddos
• Date night once a month with husband
• And my newest – blogging once a week

Scheduling is certainly not a panacea but it’s a great start. Obviously, you need to follow through – but the likelihood of you following through is probably higher if you at least write it down / schedule it. I’m sure there’s some study or back up for that, but I’m just sharing from my personal experience. It took my husband and I over 4 years since having our first kiddo before taking a trip without the kids, yet we both would say our marriage is important to us. It wasn’t until we were intentional and scheduled something, did it actually happen.

Another example – family time may be important to you. The year just started but have you thought about how many family getaways or vacations you want and when you want to take them? Have you at least tentatively blocked off some days now to guard them against work travel and conferences and other things that “pop” up and easily fill the calendar? I also use this approach and schedule quarterly mental health days with some of my vacation days. The hubs is at work, the kids are in daycare and I do whatever I want to recharge – whether it’s a spa-day or reading by the pool or doing a really hard workout and then taking a delicious nap.

My closing thoughts? Start small. You don’t want to have too many goals or be overscheduled, which causes its own stress. Probably sounds crazy, but I try to schedule at least one weekend of the month where nothing is scheduled (no birthday parties, no social meetups) so that we can relish the freedom of doing whatever we want. Yes, I just wrote that I schedule unscheduled time. Don’t judge.