"I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change.” Jim Rohn
What if I could help you find ONE habit that took about 30-60 minutes each week, but freed up about 10+ hours each week. Would you be interested to hear what it is?
It’s called, weekly planning. Sexy right?
YET, HARDLY ANYONE DOES DETAILED, WEEKLY PLANNING
How do I know?
One of the line items in our client intake form called the Health Audit is “My goals are written, prominently displayed, and regularly reviewed.”
Hardly anyone ever gets a point for that keystone habit. Most people spend their week either on auto-pilot, or with a vague, non-scripted idea of what they want to accomplish.
And they wonder why progress toward important goals seems to go at a snail’s pace.
WHY YOU FLOUNDER IS ACTUALLY QUITE SIMPLE
1) You don't have a master plan and 2) you’re not capturing key lessons and adjusting. Weeks turn into months, months into years, and time goes by while you react to so many aspects of life.
Now to be fair, life will always have interruptions, and there will always be the need to react (adjust) to the unforeseen, but that isn’t the kind of scenario I’m talking about. Let me give you some examples.
EVIDENCE YOU AREN’T A PLANNER.
Ever say:
Oh crap, it’s already dinner time?
Dang it. The bills are due again?
Shoot, I don’t have time to make breakfast!
What? Soccer practice is today?
Ugh, I don’t have time to workout!
Seriously, we’re out of groceries?
How come I don’t have any clean socks?
Where did all my study/writing time go?
Whose turn is it to wash the dishes?
How is it bedtime already?
OK, be honest. It’s not like any of those things should sneak up on you, right? They happen every day, or week, do they not?
But things like the above sneak up on all of us...myself included.
Why?
WE DON’T TAKE PLANNING SERIOUSLY
The life you want, doesn’t just happen. You have to plan it, prepare for it, and adjust your plans week in and week out.
Trying to achieve an important goal--like adjusting your routine so you can get your health in order--has a ripple effect throughout all areas of your life.
Failing to account for that ripple effect is where almost everyone gets bogged down.
12 QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU DO BETTER PLANNING
How many hours per week would it take to:
Get into the kind of shape you want?
Maintain the kind of shape you want?
Feed yourself well each week?
Do all the life maintenance chores take each week?
Have enough downtime to genuinely feel refreshed and at your best?
Rearrange your environment to reduce temptation?
Cultivate your important relationships?
Learn enough to answer the above questions?
What would have to fall off your schedule to:
Accomplish the above?
Ensure you get enough sleep?
Stop wasting emotional bandwidth?
Reduce unnecessary interruptions?
If you quantify what’s above, how many hours are left?
You see the point? Those aren’t easy questions to answer. Answering them requires a high-level strategy, and then a detailed, weekly, flexible, master plan that you adjust regularly.
WHAT IF YOU COULD ANSWER THOSE QUESTIONS?
Do you think…
It might bring to light some trade-offs you need to make?
You might be better about protecting your time?
It might change your results?
I do.
THE BEST REASON TO BECOME A WEEKLY PLANNER?
Just last week on one of our group coaching calls, I asked one of our long-term clients (who has put eating well on auto-pilot) how many hours she estimates she saves herself each week by protecting 1-2 hours a week to plan and prep meals for the week.
Her answer? 10-15 hours.
Seriously! For every two hours of planning and prep, she buys back 10-15 hours she used to spend reacting to “Oh crap, it’s dinner time already.”
What could you accomplish with an extra 10-15 hours?
THE KEY TAKEAWAY…AND SOME GOOD NEWS
If you’re not planning well for the other moving parts of life, why in the world would you expect to be successful making (and protecting) time for your important health habits?
Like a good vacation, it’s never going to happen without careful planning. Period.
The good news: You don’t have a biology problem. You have a planning problem. And that, is fixable.
YOU DON’T NEED MORE ANSWERS, YOU NEED BETTER QUESTIONS.
Hopefully the above not only gave you some upgraded questions, but a kick in the pants to build the habit of detailed, weekly planning into your weekly rhythm.
Strategic weekly planning is liberating, kills overwhelm, and pays you back with accelerated progress.
There are plenty of great ways to do it. Go find one that works for you.
You got this…but not without the key habit of planning.
Go make it happen.
Christian
PS. If you could use some help knowing what to plan, along with a realistic sense of how much time your goals will take, reach out. This is what we do all day every day.
Want to see what a Full-Spectrum, Health-Transformation Plan looks like. Click here?
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