050 - Master Your Year: Transform Your Life Through Strategic Planning

Welcome to another episode of Women Powering Ecommerce! In this milestone 50th episode, I'm thrilled to delve into a topic that's close to my heart: the significance of planning and scheduling for the year ahead. It's a journey I've embarked on over the past couple of years, and the differences I've witnessed by embracing organized planning have been nothing short of transformative.

Let's start by rewinding a bit. Picture a time when chaos ruled my schedule—I was all over the place, with an unbalanced life that left me feeling unfulfilled. Late nights, frantic mornings, and a day spent extinguishing metaphorical fires, feeling indispensable but far from satisfied. Sound familiar?

It took a toll—I barely had time for myself, let alone for cherished moments with family and friends. It became a wake-up call; this couldn't be the blueprint for success as my business grew. So, I took the reins and decided to design my life through proactive planning.

Planning isn't just about structuring work; it's about prioritizing fulfillment. I realized that constantly being reactive—responding to every demand and urgency—wasn't sustainable. It was time for a shift.

So, here's the method I've honed over time—a roadmap to guide the next 12 months:

1. List Vital Events and Life Categories

Start by jotting down key events and life categories for the upcoming year. Not every minute detail, just the significant milestones. For instance, work commitments, vacations, quality time with loved ones, spiritual growth, and personal development. These are the anchors that need a dedicated spot on your calendar.

2. Strategic Calendar Placement

Get that calendar out—physically or digitally—and strategically map out these vital events. Vacation? Block it in. Work commitments? They go in next. The secret here? Stressing the importance of vacation. It's tempting to sideline it amidst work pressures, but it's your energy reset button.

3. Prioritize What Matters

Life moves at lightning speed. Blocking out time for family, friends, and personal growth is pivotal. Regrets often stem from not making time for these cherished connections. So, I consciously earmark specific periods for family reunions or friend meet-ups on my calendar. This ensures it happens—no excuses.

4. Integrate Into Your Daily Routine

Now comes the crucial part—integrate these plans into your daily schedule immediately. Don't let those carefully crafted plans gather dust. Transfer them to your everyday calendar, whether it's on your phone or a physical planner. This step solidifies your commitment to these events and goals.

The beauty of this method lies in its ability to create balance and fulfillment. By addressing the significant aspects of life first, the rest falls into place, just like fitting rocks, pebbles, and sand into a jar—the big priorities first, followed by the smaller ones.

Embracing this approach has transformed my life. It's created space for what matters most, allowing me to grow, enjoy, and contribute more effectively.

Wrapping Up

I hope this journey through proactive planning resonated with you. If it did, consider supporting our podcast and community by rating, sharing, and subscribing. Your support fuels our mission of empowering women in the e-commerce world.

Join us on social media and your favorite podcast platform for more insights and inspiration. Thank you for being part of this incredible journey. Remember, as you plan ahead, you're not just organizing your days—you're crafting a life that fosters balance, growth, and fulfillment.

Until next time!

Episode Transcription

050 - Master Your Year: Transform Your Life Through Strategic Planning

(00:01)

Welcome to this episode of Woman Powering Ecommerce. Join me every Tuesday as I take you behind the scenes of my journey as a female e-commerce entrepreneur. Together, we'll explore the highs, the lows, inspiring you to take action and achieve your own business goals. So let's get started.

(00:33)

So today marks episode 50. And to celebrate, I wanted to emphasize in this episode the importance of scheduling and planning for the entire year ahead. And personally, it's a topic I really love. It's something I've been working on in the last past two years. And I've seen tremendous differences from planning a whole year in advance.

from not doing it and I wanted to highlight today the transformative power of organized planning. So let's dive right in. First of all, a little bit of background for you. So I used to be, believe it or not, all over the place. I think that life decided for me and I had a very unbalanced schedule. I used to go to bed very late, wake up late, and then run, go to work, and then...

just put out fires all day because I did not know I could prioritize things and just thought I had to, I needed to feel like very valuable by putting out fires in the day. So in the end, that was really unfulfilling. And eventually I realized, okay, I need to do something about this. This is not gonna work, especially when your company grows with time, you realize you can't go on like this forever. So.

It worked a lot doing this for a while, but I ended up wasting lots of time because without a clear plan and vision, I didn't have time left to take care of myself or have any time for friends and family. There's been a few years, a few years back actually, for actually a period of years where I barely saw my family or friends or made time for friends in general. I don't like, there would be a time I couldn't tell you who my friends are.

if I'd spent any time with them, it was just not a thing because I was constantly just, you know, working and going to bed, getting up, and then starting that all over again, which is pretty unbalanced. So reflecting on the turning point, it happened when I decided to take control and design my life through proactive planning. And when I actually decided that I had the power to design

(02:53)

my life by planning ahead of time, by adding what made me fulfill and not just always doing things for others. Like I said before, for example, if I went to work, I was just always accepting the request of all my colleagues or employees and I did things for them and just took care of emergencies, urgencies that weren't that urgent in the end, what I learned from. So

So yeah, but I learned to just add things to make myself fulfilled and I'm not saying this in a selfish way I mean, you know this example if you go on a plane the oxygen mask comes out Who are you gonna give it to yourself first or the person beside you? Well, of course, it'll be you So it's really in that way that I'm saying and since I've been doing this I've had more time and more energy to give to others. So more contribution opportunities. So making sure you plan ahead of time not only makes you feel much more relaxed, confident about where you're going, it just in the end allows more space for so many more beautiful things because you've actually thought things out instead of letting life just happen to you. So what do I do? I thought I'd just share my steps because I juggled for this for a long time. Actually, I don't even think it's a struggle. You just do it and you don't realize it's a problem for a long time until you feel burnt out or overwhelmed with life in general. So if it can help anyone, great. I'm just here to share what I did and what I still do. So first of all, detailing the process. I list all important events and life categories for the next 12 months. And what I'm explaining now is just for like, if you wanna plan out a year ahead.

And I'm not talking about planning every single detail of your life, but at least the big things that you want. Want to make sure you make time for it. So and to make sure I don't forget anything, I just list any life categories or events that I know I'll have to attend or want to attend for the next 12 months. So, for example, this year, a month ago, I did my planning for 2024 and there were actually four events I knew.

(05:14)

were very important and I wanted to attend and I already knew the dates so I just put them in. And then you list all of your life categories once those are put in there, because you know you'll go anyways. So then you make sure to list your life categories and to make sure I don't forget any and to make sure it makes space for all of them. I've decided on work, vacation, dates with my husband. We make sure we make time for those.

spiritual, and family and friends. So those are, I think if I'm not forgetting any, those are pretty much the categories all make sure I actually plan for in advance. So what I did this year was I printed out next year's calendar and I strategically added vacation. I actually planned the vacation ahead of time.

like I said before any work events, things like that, that I knew I'd be attending and just any other significant commitments you wanna make sure you add in there. That's what I did. And I really, once that's done, I still really stress out the importance of vacation. It would be so easy to leave that out just because it's easy to just, you know, we could work forever like.

nonstop, right? There's always something to do, but I really wanted to recharge my batteries and make sure I made that a priority. So that's number one thing. I wanna make sure I blog time out in advance. And just to give you an example, today, I've had this huge day at work, okay? I'm having like, there's so many fires to put out. And yeah, sometimes you have those fires and you don't have, they are the important things to do in a day. So I'm working around those and...

I was sitting at lunch and talking to my husband and we're like, are we going to even take our vacation in a couple months? And you know that's a very risky thing to say and the answer is you still, you need to take your vacation. It's so important. That's what will just give you the energy and just the right balanced mindset to just move on and move forward. So vacation yes, but another thing that I really...

(07:32)

find is important is blocking time out for your family, your friends, spiritual growth, personal development, because life goes by really fast. And if you don't do that, and if you don't do that intentionally, then eventually you realize that you just didn't make time for it. And I think that's one of my biggest regret from the last couple years. I really did not make enough time for my family and friends.

So I'm not saying I'm perfect at all right now. I'm still really working on that, but it's much better. And just adding that to your calendar, we're gonna see one side of the family at this period in the year, and then we'll go back at this other time. And it really, really helps. You block it in, you have no choice, you have to do it. Because again, life really goes by fast and you wanna make sure that you don't miss out on what's the most important, which work is very important, but.

the people you love and you treasure or even more important. So, but sometimes in the day to day, we tend to forget that, I find. And then next thing to do, so you added everything on your beautiful printed out calendar, you wrote everything, you blocked the time, super proud. And then you take those papers and then you put them aside and forget them. That's what can happen, but that's not what we wanna happen. So next thing you wanna do and that I did right away,

is added to my calendar. Like I don't even wait a week. I just like same day, you take what you planned out and you make sure to add it to your calendar. I use my phone calendar, the calendar in my phone. So did that, that way it blocks it out. You block those times and then it makes it even more confirmed that you're actually gonna make that happen. So.

It's been, like I said, it's been two years I've been doing that. It's not, it hasn't been that long, but since I've been doing it, it's been great. It's been great. I feel my life is much more balanced out in making time for very important things, really just help you move on faster in general, just grow faster, have much more fun, feel much more fulfilled. So yeah, so that's what I learned.

(09:55)

greater sense of fulfillment in general. And that's a great feeling. That's really a great feeling. And I really emphasize that by prioritizing the most important aspects of life first, and then the remaining time becomes more effectively managed, and you'll have time for all the other little things you used to do anyways. It'll work. It's the same principle as putting in a bowl the rocks first, then the pebbles, and then the sand.

It's really that principle. So I hope this really helped you. And if it did, take a moment to rate, share, subscribe to the podcast if you liked what you heard today. And again, I value your support in allowing me to help more women entrepreneurs in the e-commerce business. Thank you for being part of this journey with me. I hope you gained valuable insights and inspiration today to keep growing and taking action towards your goals.

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