Shifting Seasons = Shifting Calendars?
We often clean up our yards, our gardens, our balconies and swap out our clothes and shoes as the seasons change. Often though, we don’t think about the opportunity to clean up our calendars seasonally. That is, taking a look at your day to day and week to week schedule, habits and to-dos to see what must stay on our calendar and most importantly, what we can get rid of to ensure we are optimizing our time.
A quick pause for those who wonder why a fitness pro and wellness coach is sharing time management tips:
1) The number one reason people give for not being more active? Lack time. I want my clients to successfully make the changes they are after. We need to find time in which that can be done.
2) I’ve been there. I had two littles under 2 and a busy job that then grew into teenagers playing travel hockey, a hubby who coached them and that demanding job remained. I know that when life gets busy the first thing to go are wellness supporting activities. This ‘calendar clean up’ process was born out of trying to maintain my own wellness during chaotic times.
Here are my top 5 tips for a quick calendar review to help you make room for your wellness this Fall:
1) Inventory your roles and responsibilities for both personal and professional life. (e.g. CEO, parent, caregiver, volunteer etc)
2) What are the to dos that come along with those roles? Make a list.
3) THIS IS KEY: Do all of these roles and responsibilities belong on your calendar? Are there any that no longer apply? E.g. kiddos are now a certain age and they can take some of these responsibilities, in an age-appropriate way? Are there any you can remove? E.g. step down from a volunteer position if you are currently unable to make time for your health and wellness? Anything you can outsource to another family member, colleague or professional?
4) Look at your remaining roles/to-dos etc and apply the ‘now, never, next’. This is a decision making process for your calendar similar to the ‘keep, donate, sell’ idea used by home organizers. Looking at your to-do list can be overwhelming. It does not need to be, as long as you remember that not everything can be done all at once.
Don’t overthink this step. Quickly look at each item on your list and go with your first instinct:
> “Now” = indicates that this item must stay on your calendar (e.g. making meals) or that this item is urgent in the next week.
> “Never” = works in two ways. A) “never-forever” is an item which has been on your to-do list for years and hasn’t been done. If there has been no consequence to this item being left, then it doesn’t need done. Remove it. The other option is a “never-for-now'“ meaning that you need to address it, but it isn’t urgent. Move it to next month for a review (and therefore you can stop thinking about it!).
> “Next” is an important step too as we waste a lot of time getting ready to get ready. That is when you are done your “now” list, we can get stuck in wondering what to do next rather than moving right to what you have determined is the next most important item to tackle. This cuts down on our decision making (yeah!).
5) Remember your strengths. Just because your health and wellness routine doesn’t yet look like you want it to, you have other areas of life in which you are very effective with your projects and routines. This is why I coach from a strengths-based approach as I want to remind you of those strengths you already have and then encourage you to apply those skills to other areas in which you wish to grow.
That is a quick overview of the process. Once you’ve gone through it a time or two, it becomes such a quick and easy process to help you optimize your time and get ready for the season ahead!
If you’d like some more coaching support, I have taught the whole process (yes for free!) on my YouTube channel, in my Lunch with a Life Coach Podcast. You can check that out here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEZXrHtfurKLMcTf-vC7_ZiML_tSZYvre&si=Ts2-BX4vxF05kth4 and you will find that entire process (or pick and choose) in Episodes 8-14.
If you’d like to check out the workbook that moves you through the entire process, you can grab that here: https://www.deannalangfordcoaching.com/get-started/p/do-it-yourself-calendar-clean-up-workbook
As always, cheering you on to make room for your wellness!
Deanna