Wednesday, November 10, 2021 – 35 minutes

Here’s how to get an extra day per week. 🤯🤯🤯 I know. That’s a lofty promise. Know this going in: information is maybe 20 percent of the battle. ACTION is the other 80 percent.

What we learn in this episode:

1. First up, get organized. Build a weekly cadence that works for you.
2. Define what you want to do. More time working? Playing board games? Napping? You *can* fit them all in.
3. The one thing you HAVE to do to grab that precious chunk of time.

No matter what you do with your calendar, time fills up. So take charge. Grab what you need. The more you don’t think about work on rest day, the more blazin’ your guns will be when you get back.

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Connect with us

• Instagram, aka my happy place: @knap.creative

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Episode Transcript

Note: This transcript of the episode was machine generated and has not been edited for correctness. It’s provided for your convenience when searching. Please excuse any errors.

I know, that’s a pretty freakin’ lofty promise. I’m going to tell you how to do it, and I’m also going to tell you what you need to do WITH it to make sure you get the most out of it.

Know this going in: Information is like, 20 percent of the battle. 80 percent of it is ACTION. Don’t forget that.

Ready? I know this one’s juicy so let’s rock and or roll.

First up, GET YOUR SHIT ORGANIZED

This isn’t going to happen overnight. It’s going to evolve and change as weeks and months pass by, but let’s talk start building the foundation.

You need one paper.

First, take 10 minutes and enter EVERYTHING that you do. Shaving your legs. Washing the sheets. Emptying your inbox. Planning your content. Taking the dog for a walk. Scrolling Instagram. Folding laundry. Emptying the dishwasher. Learning. Client work.

Whatever doesn’t make it into those ten minutes isn’t that important, so quit doing it.

KIDDING. But seriously, we don’t need to get that hardcore.

There are some things that you’re going to have to do every day. Highlight those in one colour.

There are other tasks that should be done about once a week. Highlight those in another colour.

Now, try to come up with a loose weekly cycle that’ll work for you. Wash sheets on Mondays, meetings on Tuesdays, water plans on Wednesdays, client work on Thursdays, catch-all / flex Fridays, etc.

Some of the stuff you’ll be able to bunch together – ie, laundrypalooza + learning time (if you’re an audio learner like me, which YOU’RE LISTENING TO A PODCAST RIGHT NOW SO… BUSTED). Prioritize tasks according to what will ACTUALLY fit into a certain time frame; ie while your toddler is awake, you’re not getting shit done at your desk so do the dishes instead.

It feels like a lot in the beginning, but you don’t have to stick to it like glue. Tweak it as you go. After 2-3 weeks this gets so so much easier.

A quick note on one task that needs to be in your weekly cycle.

1. Figure out something for food. I know not everybody’s a meal planner, but figuring out what to eat takes up a ridiculous amount of mental bandwidth.
   1. I plan my meals & grocery list at the same time. Look in the fridge. See what I need to get rid of. Look at the weather forecast. Look at my calendar. Plan accordingly. If I can repeat something, I will – soup & buns on Wednesday because I have fresh buns from the grocery store and my husband has pool league. Junk food on Saturday because I know that nobody’s going to be pumped about potatoes and beans.
   2. Takeout and hot dogs are allowed to be on your meal plan, my friend. My workday meals are THE ACTUAL LAZIEST.
   3. We all have a friend who has theme days: “meatless monday, taco tuesday, etc.” Because having SOME structure is already super duper helpful.
   4. I have a friend who always makes sure she has certain ingredients on hand, and then she can cycle through the “regular” meals however she feels like it. She doesn’t have to run to the grocery store for salami when she wants a charcuterie, because she knows she’s going to want it every week haha. What are YOUR pantry staples?

I’ll stop harping on it, but seriously. Game changer.

Now let’s dial it back to what that looks like on a daily basis. I don’t do this all the time, but when things are particularly crazy I’ll start my day by writing down alllll the tasks. Then I’ll either

1. Loosely time block my day from there; ie 8-8:30 inbox; 8:30-10 this client; 10-1 meetings; etc ORRR
2. Star the three most urgent & important tasks. Knock those out. Move to the next three.

Both of these methods have been SUPER helpful for me. OH, and I KNOW there are a million distractions throughout your day. You can’t turn off notifications because your kid might throw up at school, or you forget that Slack is still on. When a distraction comes up, I jot it down to address right after a block. That way I’m not jumping around all day, but I know that I’ll get to all the important things.

MAN so many little things that we all do to make it work! Hopefully there was a good reminder in there for you somewhere!

To recap getting your shit together,

1 – Daily habits honestly probably mostly happen without having to think TOO much about them, but create a list so you can have it handy

2 – The weekly cycle!! Build your week. So so important.

3 – Time blocking, whatever that looks like for you.

First and a halfly, DEFINE WHAT YOU WANT TO DO

Do you *want* to spend all of your time working? Playing board games with the kids? Napping?

If you didn’t choose the third option I don’t know if we can be friends.

Okay let me be real I actually love doing all of those things. And they’re all important! You CAN fit them in.

For work, force a schedule.

• If you have kids, consistent childcare is a total game changer and 100/10 recommended. (I know it’s easier said than done; that’s why I said info was only 20 percent of the battle) If you’re not quite there yet, stay tuned for the episode where I talk about slow business growth & what to do about it. But all of this still applies. Netflix is a great babysitter if you need it to be — just SET A SCHEDULE, stick to it, and quit feeling so dang guilty about it!
• You’ve probably heard this hack a hundred times, but have a schedule within your work schedule too. Content planning day. Admin day. Client work day. Meeting day. Yeah?

For naps and board games, let’s move to Step 2!

Secondly, are you ready? Here’s the magic. JUST TAKE IT.

No qualms. Take it.

Being crazy organized is obviously helpful, that’s why we covered that first.

You know how your time just… fills up?

Your kids went to school and you thought you’d have HOURS to fill. Of course there’s still stuff to do, but there should be SOME extra time in there right?

You’re waiting for your grocery order and you’re fifteen minutes early. Instead of catching a cat nap or calling the bank you fill it up with Instagram. I know. Gaps are weirdly uncomfortable.

No matter what you do with your official calendar, TIME FILLS UP.

It’s up to you to GRAB a chunk (like a hungry toddler grabs a cookie) (or like I grab my husband’s butt when he walks by)

You HAVE to TAKE it.

I take Sundays… and on a less extreme level, usually a nice juicy chunk of Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays too. (That’s right! I barely ever work. But when I do, I bust my ass.)

I will not hang out with you on a Sunday. I sign out of Instagram. I take my nap very seriously. My mother in law feeds me soup. My husband feeds me pizza. I sit by the fireplace. I let my kids watch movies. I let myself watch movies. I clean up only the very barest minimum. It’s my favourite day.

Maybe it’s easier for you to be antisocial on Tuesdays. Be unavailable. Don’t answer your texts. Turn on an autoresponder.

Yeah, I get it… your to-do list is a mile and a half long. When are you going to fit it in if you take a whole day just for you?

Here’s the interesting part: I come in guns blazin’ with all the juicy ideas on Mondays. The more I DIDN’T think about work on Rest Day, the more I actually get done the following day.

You, too, NEED to rest for your brain to function.

And it’s not just going to float into your life like, la la lah!

Grab. It.

The first few weeks are going to be hard. You’re going to feel… itchy. But once you get it in there, you’ll never go back.

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In a nutshell

1. Organize your week
2. Define what you WANT to do
3. Put work into a box
4. And GRAB ON to your leisure time – hold it for dear life

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