Episode 456: 3 Practical Ways To Stop Getting Overwhelmed By All Of Your Ideas

Today’s episode is for you if you get overwhelmed by how many ideas you have for making your life and your business better.
I’m sharing 3 practical things you can do (beyond Power Planning) that will help you create positive constraints around your ideas so your brain doesn’t hold back your best ideas for fear of overwhelm.

Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode456.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

  • Why you’ll be more productive when you have positive time constraints
  • What to do with decisions and ideas that don’t need to be taken care of right now
  • How to pick a ‘theme’ for each quarter
  • Why you need a not-to-do list is and how to create one
  • Examples of all of the above from my life and my client’s lives too

Featured In The Episode:

Learn Power Planning Today

If you want to get shit done without burning out, I invite you to watch the free training I’ve created on how to plan properly as a perfectionist with Power Planning. By the end of the series, you’ll be ready to start using Power Planning today to get your perfectionist mindset on your side so you can get out of your own way. Go to samlaurabrown.com/plan to watch the training today.

Take The Perfectionism Quiz To Get Your Perfectionism Score

If you’re not sure whether perfectionism is what’s making you get in your own way, I invite you to take The Perfectionism Quiz. It takes less than 3 minutes to get your personalised perfectionism score and to be one step closer to releasing your perfectionism handbrake. If you love learning about yourself and you’re ready to get out of your own way, go to samlaurabrown.com/quiz to take the quiz today.

Sign Up For My Program

My program Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (aka PGSD) teaches you how to plan properly as a perfectionist so you can get shit done without burning out. To find out more about the program and be the first to know when the doors open, join the waitlist today: samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.

Listen To The Episode

Listen to the episode on the player above, click here to download the episode and take it with you or listen anywhere you normally listen to podcasts – just find Episode 456 of The Perfectionism Project Podcast!

Subscribe To The Perfectionism Project Podcast

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Introduction
Hi and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project, a podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release their perfectionism handbrake so they can get out of their own way and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the Perfectionist Getting Shit Done group coaching program, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business. You can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject

Sam Laura Brown
Today, I’m going to be sharing with you three practical ways to stop getting overwhelmed by all of your ideas. Essentially, this episode is going to be about idea management. And there are so many ways that you can manage your idea, but I just wanted to share three of them with you that I have personally use. And I have shared with my clients as well, so that you don’t either stifle ideas before they can bloom because you don’t want to get overwhelmed. And you’re already anticipating not executing them and not being able to handle so many ideas and that you’re going to go into that analysis paralysis and not actually get shit done. Or maybe you just have so many ideas, and you’re the kind of person who has a constant stream of ideas, but you don’t actually implement them, you just feel so overwhelmed by what to do, you’re constantly kind of like, reconciling what to do, you have endless to do lists, like you just, there’s not enough time in the day to get everything done that you want to do.

And to really see all those ideas come to life. And so I want to just help you think about your ideas and manage your ideas in a more effective way. So that you don’t subconsciously repress ideas, and so that you don’t get overwhelmed by them. But you can have a healthy relationship with ideas where your brain feels like it can actually share those ideas with you and bring them to your conscious awareness. And you can actually sit with ideas without feeling this rush to make decisions, or without kind of feeling like you’re the person who keeps putting things off again and again. And again, simply because it’s not the right time to make a decision on something. So I’m really going to be sharing just practical things with you in this episode.

And this was inspired by a coaching call I just did inside my program, perfectionist getting shit done, where we talked about some of the things that I’m going to be sharing with you in this episode. So I thought I would bring it to the main podcast, and share with you how to stop getting overwhelmed by all of your ideas, so that you can actually get shit done, do it without burning out and do it without having to think about ideas in a negative or unhelpful way that you can, again, have that really healthy and positive relationship with ideas with your creativity with your brain.

So first of all, I want to mention before I get into the three things, that power planning, which I of course teach, and you can go to the show notes, if you aren’t yet power planning to watch my free training on how to do power planning, you can get started with it right away. But you need to have a productivity method that you’re using a productivity tool that creates positive constraints. So if you’re working from an endless to do list, or an overschedule, calendar, or an email inbox, or post it notes, or you’re working from a paper planner, like all those different productivity tools that don’t actually create positive constraints, it is so easy to get overwhelmed and to get lost in all of your ideas.

And even if you might have a system, for example, where you have that long to do list, but you highlight your priorities, or maybe you have three things that I need to get done today, you still want to actually have a productivity method, a productivity tool that actually allows you to have constraint, true constraint in terms of time periods, for different tasks, it’s flexible. So power planning really creates flexible structure for you. But you need to actually have the reality of how much time you have brought to your attention. I know it’s really uncomfortable. But say for example, if you had that long to do list, and then maybe you highlight your three priorities, or your one priority, you might spend way too much time on it. So you’re not actually really doing it in the best way that you can, or you might spend too little time on something or get sidetracked.

And we really want to have basically a tool that works for your perfectionist brain, and really just works for your human brain as well, that wants to distract itself. And that wants to not be doing the hard challenging things that might need to be done. So if you’re not power planning yet, then go to the link in my show notes. And you can learn how to start power planning because that is really the foundation of what I’m going to be sharing with you in this episode.

So here are three practical things you can do to manage your ideas. And you don’t need to be doing all three of these, I’m just going to be presenting these to you and you have the option to choose one of them if it resonates with you. Or you could do a couple they’re not mutually exclusive. But I just want you to listen to this and think about okay, how am I use this like which one of these resonates with me to actually be able to create some positive constraints for myself so that I can have ideas without feeling like I have to do all of them right this second without feeling like I’m the kind of person who’s not making decisions and putting things off simply because now isn’t the right time to make that decision or it’s not urgent or important to make that decision.

So the first one is a decisions for my future self list, and I can’t remember to be honest what I used to call this list or like I’ve done past episodes on it years ago, I’ll share an example of how I use it. But for now, I’m going to call it the decisions for my future self list. This is really just a way to park your ideas for a future point in time. And we want to do this so that we get as much of your mental load as possible. So this is really a strategy, if there are decisions that you have been thinking about making, but you don’t need to make them just yet, instead of having them in the back of your mind, or when you’re doing your power planning that come up every week, you can actually park that idea for the future, so you can get it out of your mental load.

So a couple of examples. So one thing that I really did this way that was with my podcast. So this podcast, for the first few years, it was completely a solo show, I only did solo episodes, there were a lot of reasons that I loved and still love the format of doing a solo show. But my brain every now and again, would be like maybe I should have guests on the show. And there’s so many great reasons to doing that. And do I want to do that, and I kind of entered this indecision and confusion about do I want to do it, do I not want to do it, and then I would find it would be hard to execute certain things I already had ongoing, because I needed to make that decision in order to move forward.

So what I did multiple times, I want to say I did this for at least like a year and a half. But I would decide, okay, I’m actually for now going to keep doing a solo show on the podcast and not have any gas at all, and at the beginning of next quarter. So a quarter is a three month period in the year. So at the beginning of next quarter, whether that’s April or July, or October or January, I’m going to revisit this and then make a decision for that quarter. So that it’s not just in my head of do I want to do it or not the pros and cons like just entertaining and keeping myself busy with that confusion. But I’m deciding in this moment, I’m gonna keep doing it the way I’m doing it, which is a solo show. And that at the beginning of for example, July, I’m going to put in my calendar in my power planning that I’m going to be making some decisions.

And I can revisit this and then you have a little list whether it’s a Google Doc, or whether it’s in your iPhone notes or whatever, you have a place where you can put these ideas so that when your brains like, ah, should we be having guests on the podcast or not, or whatever that is for you, that you can tell your brain, we have got that covered, we’re going to be deciding about that in July for now we’re going to keep doing it the way we’re doing it. So essentially allows you to make a decision for now, knowing that you can revisit it later and then deciding when you will revisit that decision, it’s so important to decide when exactly that will be like one day that will be on because if you’re like oh, I’ll think about that again in the future, then it’s still this open loop in your brain, it’s still on your mental load.

So we want to say, here’s a specific time that I’m going to make that decision whether it’s a week later, or a quarter later, or a year later, I’m going to revisit this decision then. And I have the option to make a different decision. But for now, I’m just constraining myself to whatever the decision in the moment is doing a solo show, so that I’m not arming and own about it. And that really allowed me to create so much content and be so committed to the way I was doing it because I wasn’t constantly entertaining. Do I do it? Do I not do it? What do I like better like all of that kind of, I don’t know, just like all the mental drama and confusion around it.

I want to share an example as well from today’s coaching call. One of my clients she was wanting to do for her it was doing a new intro and outro for her podcast, and updating the client videos on her sales page. And these were things that she was finding when she was doing her power hour at the beginning of her week that these things constantly kept coming up that she wanted to do them. But they weren’t actually the needle movers for her to build her business. They were just things that were kind of like nice to have, they were already sufficient, like her intro and outro were already sufficient as they are the same with the client videos, but she still wants to do them. So what I offered to her is what I’m sharing with you on this episode, which is you can actually decide, for example, right now,

that is sufficient what I have, and at the beginning of next quarter, I will have my list of decisions that I’m going to revisit. And at that point in time I can decide, Okay, do I want to do a new intro and outro? Or not? Do I want to update the client videos on the sales page or not? So that the mental chatter of like, do I want to do it do I not want to do it isn’t there anymore. And also, and this is a really important thing. I’m not gonna go too much into self image, and identity, but to really be productive. You need to create the self image and identity with yourself that you are a productive person that you don’t put things off. But there are things that you will need to strategically put off that’s really important, but we just don’t want to have this identity that you’re a procrastinator or that there are always these things on your mind that you don’t know when you’re going to do them.

So in terms of really establishing and maintaining an identity with yourself that you are a productive person. And if you’re putting something off, its strategic, this is a strategic way to do that, so that you can maintain it that you are a productive person. So I’m not gonna go too much into the self image stuff here. But we want to just always be approaching productivity in a way that supports you to think really highly of yourself. It doesn’t mean you need to be perfect in order to believe you’re a productive person, or like perfectly productive. But we want to be acting as if you are that productive person, until you really start to embody that. And until that becomes a norm to your brain. And so things like there’s these three strategies that I’m sharing with you, in this episode, coupled with power planning as well, is really going to help you create and solidify that identity.

So you’re pulled towards productivity, when your self image is aligned with being a productive person, you get shit down without burning out, that means that you will default to productivity, rather than defaulting to procrastination and putting things off. So it’s very, very important. And this is really supporting that as well. There’s decisions for my future self list that you can create. The second thing that you can do is to pick a theme for the quarter for the month for the week, for whatever time period you want to have, I would suggest a quarter in my program, we have your growth goal, which is a 12 month goal. And then we work in quarters, I love having just a longer period of time than a week or a month that can be little Sprint’s that you do. But having a theme for the quarter really just helps you zoom out and see the bigger picture because we can tend to get really lost in the weeds, and hyper focused on little details that don’t really matter very much.

So I just want to share a few examples of when I have done this, and also a client example as well. So a time that I had a theme for the quarter that I want to share with you is in quarter one of 2021. So I was due to give birth to my daughter in the middle of that year, Lydia. And so what I wanted to do was set up my program to be able to deliver results to clients without me having to be there, I really wanted to create the business where it wasn’t needing my presence in order to operate. And so that meant that I needed to focus on different activities than I normally would. So what I did for that quarter was at the beginning of the quarter a batch recorded podcast episodes, I did like 13 episodes in a week, which is pretty normal and easy for me to be able to do I have created the identity, and also systems around supporting that. But I did that. And then I was able to spend the rest of that quarter focused on hiring PGSD coaches, creating the training for them, onboarding them, I really was able to put my energy and attention into that.

And it was really important to have that as a theme for myself, because it really required a lot of courage to be approaching my business in that way. It felt like my business was my baby. And I just went through this whole identity crisis when I was going through that of feeling like my baby’s grown up and doesn’t need me anymore, which is maybe a little bit weird to say when it’s a business. But if you have a business, you can probably relate to that feeling of like wanting to feel needed by your business. Even though we’d love to have the freedom not to be needed, it can just feel a bit jarring to make that transition. And so I needed a lot of emotional capacity for that work I was doing, as well as the mental capacity to actually figure out the logistics of that because I didn’t know many people who had done that before, I really had to figure that out as I went. And so I was able to really say okay, there are things my business needs me to do.

And I’m going to batch create them so that my main focus is going to be on hiring the PGSD coaches, onboarding them and making sure they can deliver results to our PGSDears without me having to be there. without me having to be listening to every single call, I can just create a system for the business where I can know that they are getting results. They are getting what they came for, without me having to hover or actually be there. And so I did accomplish that. But it was from really having that as a theme. And deciding that that is where I was going to put my mental and emotional capacity for that quarter.

For me right now just to share and I haven’t done a personal update podcast episode in a little while. And I’m going to be doing one again soon. I really really miss doing that. But right now for this quarter coming up. So we are about to go into quarter two of 2024. My focus is really around the content engine so to speak for the business, delivering results to you ahead of time before you ever pay me before you ever become a client of mine through this podcast through the emails that you might receive it. If you’re an email subscriber of mine through the Instagram content that we create as a business owner that I feel like I have been through a period. And I’m just kind of like popping out of it now.

But through a period of just really like not trusting myself with content feeling like I need to sound like I know everything, and that I’m an expert on everything and just not sharing in the way that I know is the most beneficial to you, and the most compelling and engaging where I’m really just sharing like, here’s what I’ve learned, here’s what I’ve seen, through my own experience, and through working so many clients, but also like not having to be this like all knowing kind of version of myself that I can just be like, here’s things I’m figuring out. And I don’t know, and I’m like working on this better. And I’m learning this thing from that person. And I’m just really wanting to return to the way that I know how to create content with episodes like this as well, where I’m not trying to make it sound like I know absolutely everything but like, hey, there are some things I’ve learned that are going to be really helpful.

And I do have expertise around the things that I am sharing with you. But also the way I’m thinking about it, I don’t have to feel like I know everything or that no one could ever like pick apart what I’m saying or whatever. Like I’m just in a place of self trust and service and really wanting to help you and not holding anything back. I feel like I’ve been through a period as well of like, kind of holding back in the content I’ve been creating. And I never used to do that I used to share all the things and the people that I love working with and have invested a lot of money with, they are people that share all the things on their podcast, particularly I love podcasts, as you can probably guess, but sharing all the things and then I always want to work with them to do that next level of work that deeper layer and to really create mastery. And so I’m really just going to be returning to that approach.

And so that needs to be a focus for me because I’m needing to kind of like change the way that I’ve been doing things and set up a few new systems but also just like mindset wise, make some shifts in the way that I’m thinking about content creation and delivering results and like the way that my business operates, so that’s going to be really a main focus for me in quarter two. So that’s having a theme for the quarter. I want to share an example as well that one of my clients shared on the call today so she is a therapist.

And she was talking about what actually I asked her could she share her insights on needle movers and figuring out what’s most important because she has just achieved her quarterly milestone that she has. For her growth goal. She just achieved it. And since we were on the topic of how to figure out where to put your time where not to, I asked her to share her insights from having achieved that milestone, how did she figure out where to put our time where not to put our time, and there was so many incredible things she shared, if you’re a PGSDer, definitely go to the PGSD, private podcast and listen to that recording, because it was amazing.

But one of the things that she shared was that her theme for the quarter was on infrastructure the upcoming quarter, and that she had identified that there is friction that needs to be solved, and that she had previously had constrained and had different things for her quarter. Like when she came into the program, her theme was really around clients and just those things. And now she has the money she’s wanting to be making that she’s able to then build the infrastructure to support growth of the business and have a season of the business where she’s focused on long term infrastructure in terms of systems and processes.

Things like setting up different accounting things and things like that, that are a bit boring. But it also necessary that now she’s at a place where she can focus on that, because in previous quarters, she had been constrained to generating revenue, to serving the people that she works with and to doing notes and things like that, that she needed to create to be able to run her business. And so it was just such a great reminder, for me listening to that, about the power of having a theme for your quota. One of the things as well that she said on that call was like, what are the Lego blocks that I’m building my business on? And to kind of think like, if you were building your business, or like building a house, where there is the foundation, and then there’s all the different things that happen in a certain order. I

t’s not that there’s this perfect order that you need to do things. But if you can think about it, like zoom out, this requires you to zoom out and see big picture, what are those first things that need to be in place? And then what are the next things, I know that we can really want to be doing everything all at once. But if you think about building a house, it doesn’t make sense to be working on like putting the roof on when you haven’t yet poured the concrete. So you need to actually do things in a certain order. And so you can trust yourself with whatever it is you’re working on, to know what that order is. And to know that if you don’t actually know you can go somewhere to get that information. But there’s no perfect way to do it. There are different approaches that you can take.

But just asking yourself, what is this season for? What are the Lego blocks that I am needing to build, like, what’s the next one for me to put on. And knowing that like, if that doesn’t work, you can always change what it is and things like that by just having a theme is so powerful. And I want to mention to my coach Stacey Boehman, one concept that she talks about is having three essentials. So having your three essentials for a quarter, this is basically just constraining yourself to these are three things that I’m going to be working on. And as a business, for myself and my team, we have three things each that are our essentials for the quarter that we work on, as well.

So the third thing I want to share with you is a not to do list. So this is just another way that you can create some positive constraint for yourself, so that you can focus your energy. So I as someone working three days per week, I don’t have time to do everything I want to do. But regardless of if you’re working five days, seven days, like you probably don’t have time to do all the things that you want to do. So when it comes to my examples around a not to do lists, and I’ll share a very specific place you can go to hear about this in a second in a past podcast episode. But really, by the nature of me power planning, so I’m very present to how much time I actually have where my time is going where my time is best invested.

But also like i just i the busy work I used to have time for I just, I can’t actually have it in my calendar for too long, because I will notice because things aren’t happening and moving the way that they need to be moving. So I have naturally like a not to do list. And I’ve over time developed a very constrained approach to business. Because I just know the nature of like, I would want to be jumping from thing to thing to thing. If I get into the messy middle of something my brain my perfectionist brain would prefer the new beginning when nothing has gone on and everything is still perfect. And I can be so optimistic about the future. When I’m in the messy middle of something, and things aren’t going to plan and I need to figure out a solution. And I’m getting met with like failure and setbacks and all of that, that I want to just jump to a different thing.

So I just know that about my brain and I think like the human condition that we really need to be in that growth mindset to be able to be engaged with the messiness of figuring something out. So I love not having the option to jump to other things. So for example, when it comes to the platforms that I use to promote and market the business that I have, I have an of course, there are so many different platforms, but I love constraining myself in that way and having a not to do lists. So I have podcasts, Instagram, email is and a website. And there are so many other platforms that I could be sharing on. And for example, like when we post on Instagram, it automatically gets posted to Facebook. And there are things like that, where it’s like, there’s no actual mental energy going there.

But YouTube, for example, which at the moment, I’m like, I would love to be an AI offered thing is like, I would love to be like back on YouTube. Because I used to do YouTube, I think I stopped in maybe 2019, or 2018. But I had a couple of years where I uploaded a lot of videos to YouTube. And especially with power planning, there’s lots of like visual things I want to be able to show you. And just like documenting my own, like productivity and things like that, like I love sharing in that way. But I’m not letting myself do that, until I’ve actually been fully committed to the things that I currently have on my plate. And I’m really taking care of those things like actually being able to reward myself with that, rather than trying to escape like, well, this thing isn’t working. So I’ll do this other thing instead. So YouTube, something I’m thinking about, but I’m constrained to not doing that, even though it could be a fantastic idea.

It’s just really, the priority is about constraint and simplicity. Because if we dilute our focus too much, we can’t actually move anything forward. Even if they are the right things, if you’re kind of like half assing everything or like if you have 100% of your attention to give in any given week. And you have like 5% here, 10% here, 10% here 10%. Like, it’s really hard to create any kind of real momentum or any feeling of momentum, because everything’s just like moving along at a very slow pace. Instead of being like, Okay, well, here’s where I’m really going to focus and really funnel my energy into. And it just really creates that opportunity for exponential growth. And also learning as well, if you’re kind of like dabbling in a lot of different things.

It’s really hard to have enough data to be able to tell like what’s working and what isn’t working and what needs to change. So also like YikTock, Pinterest, like I grew my blog. Initially, this business started as a blog, I grew the traffic for that through Pinterest. So there’s things like Pinterest and Facebook and like, my brain just really wants a new beginning rather than being in the messy middle of my current commitments. And so I kind of right now, my approach with the not to do list is I don’t have a formal not to do list. But I have constraints around like, here’s what we’re focused on. And we need to have a really great argument to change that. It’s not that it can’t be changed. But the default is like if in doubt, keep it the same and keep doing what I’m doing. Because I just know, my brain just wants to do all the things and wants to be in that new beginning.

So an example of this a client example and a coach on this this morning on the call is I have a client who is a dietician and wants to return to building her business through networking and connecting in real life versus social media and was just kind of finding that she’s on social media because she thinks she should be versus like previously, she had built her business through like in person networking and connecting and loves doing that. And so when I was coaching her, this is just something that I posed to her as an option that I want to also give to you as an option is that you can create a little container for yourself like a little period, where you have the thing on your not to do list, for example, just to get specific with this.

So for her saying, okay, instead of being like, I’m going to do a little bit more networking, and a little bit less Instagram, like streamline that and kind of just like make little adjustments to instead say, what if I had for the next quarter on my not to do lists, and I love doing and not to do lists by quarters. But what if for the next quarter, I didn’t do Instagram at all? And maybe for example, and I love going to extremes with things. This is something that I learned from Tim Ferriss like asking yourself extreme questions, to really bring up answers that wouldn’t otherwise come up when we’re wanting to make incremental improvements and changes. So for example, if we said like, Hey, you have two hours to get your Instagram account set up so that if anyone comes across it in the next three months that they are taken care of.

So basically you can treat your Instagram account like a business card, you pin a few posts at the top or do some highlights or whatever you need to do so that people can get on your email list or wherever it is they need to go to be connected with you. And in this case, she has a VA already so you can have instead of you doing all the checking and as she said like babysitting of the Instagram account and making sure like everyone’s welcomed and like no one’s waiting for responses. Know that you could have someone else be doing that if you want, or you could just not have it be done at all and set up a few things so that they know where to go and trust that they will be redirected, and they will find you elsewhere.

But if you said, Okay, for the next three months, besides a little bit of setup time that I’m going to give myself, I’m actually going to put all of the energy that I was putting into social media, I’m going to now have Instagram on my not to do list for this period, I can always go back if I need to, I can always return to what I’m currently doing. But what I’m going to do is I’m going to focus all that energy on to the networking and the connecting in person and doing that kind of thing. And it’s so powerful as well to do it this way. Because what will happen is, and in this case was like, I can’t even imagine it not working that if I made that shift, that I wouldn’t be able to get clients and all of that. But I said to her, like, let’s imagine it doesn’t work. Because a lot of times when a decision feels so aligned and feels so energizing, that we almost have this entitlement to it working because we feel good about it. And that really doesn’t help our resourcefulness, our resilience, we actually just get kind of lazy and entitled about it.

And so what happens, and it’s not to say it wouldn’t work. But what happens is that when we are approaching things in this way, it is really hard to solve when they aren’t working. Because we’re like, well, it just mustn’t work, because I thought it would and I felt great. And so we just returned to the thing that we were doing before. So I said to her, Well, if it didn’t work, what would you do? Just like what I’d returned to an Instagram was like, but what if the thing you would do is actually solve for the networking and the connecting, working? And you stuck with that? Rather than going back to Okay, well, that didn’t work on my back to Instagram, like, what if you could get anything to work? And you created a container with yourself where you weren’t then able to be like, Okay, well, I’ll go back to posting on Instagram.

Or if you have a week where you are doing a lot of networking and like you aren’t signing clients or like whatever indicators you need, they’re not happening, that in tha

t moment of feeling disheartened, a lot of us like we really like going into action and like over actioning and being busy with things. And it’s very easy to do that with social media content creation and things like that. So we want to make sure that we can create for ourselves a little opportunity to pause and reflect. And to say, Okay, well, Instagram in this example is on my not to do list. And so I’m going to take a minute and really self coach and see like, what’s the thinking that would have been going back? Or like changing my decision? And do I like those reasons? And am I willing to sit with that for a day for a week, like, Am I in a rush about it, because I know that when I’m in a rush about making a decision, that there’s something going on that like I’m not trusting myself and thinking there’s a right way to do it or that I’m super behind, like there’s just some faulty logic going on in my brain that is creating a rush.

And that I when I work from that place, I create messes and like so many things that I need to solve for in the future, because I wasn’t willing to actually just be in a place where I was not rushed about it. And so we all make decisions in different ways. And it’s like, in terms of human design, if you’re familiar with that there are different ways that some of us like have that gut feeling. Others of us like myself have more of these like waves where I’ll have like, when I think about a decision this high, emotional high, and then an emotional low about it, like just feeling like it’s the best idea ever than it’s the worst idea ever. And then I’ll get to this place of like calm and groundedness.

So it’s not to say you need to take a lot of time. But just notice if you’re in a rush about making a decision, but having the not to do lists is really a tool to give you a second to pause and reflect and say okay, well, this wasn’t my original plan to be going on Instagram, for example, when I had planned to put my energy into networking and connecting. So given that’s the case, I’m going to take a bit of time to explore and really see what’s going on. And I can update that decision. At any point in time. I’m in charge of that. But I set this up for myself for a reason.

So I want to share with you an episode that I recorded quite a few years ago now. But I recorded specifically on the not to do list and how to create one and in this episode, I haven’t gone back and re listen to it. But I can remember roughly what I said in that episode. But it’s about how I was having a not to do list and what was on that not to do list. And how I really decided whether I wanted to change that not to do lists or not and all of that. So if you want to hear more about that concept, it’s episode 228 called, the five reasons you need a not to do list and how to create one. So I will link that up for you in the show notes as well. But just to recap, this is really all about having a way to manage your ideas so that your brain feels safe to offer great ideas to you but you don’t feel overwhelmed that you need to implement them right now overwhelmed with where to start, or you don’t unintentionally and create the identity and the self image that you’re the kind of person who puts things off simply because it isn’t actually the time that a decision needs to be made. And it can be made at a different point in time.

The other day, I was actually listening to podcast episode. And it was so fascinating. And this could be a whole other thing to talk about. But I just want to quickly mentioned that when it comes to decision making, there’s so many, so much advice around how to make really good decisions and all of that, and it’s something I love studying and learning and coaching on. But something he mentioned that not a lot of people mentioned. And it’s true, I really haven’t heard this is like, but when do you need to make that decision, there’s like how to make the decision and also the timing of the decision. And so we just want to make sure we’re not forcing ourselves to make a decision that doesn’t need to be made.

Of course, maybe you err on the side of procrastination when it comes to decisions. And you have unmade decisions for like weeks and months and years. And that’s something to look at. But also just like the timing of the decision, it is a legitimate decision to say, I’m going to decide not to make this decision right now. And in the future, I’m going to make that decision. And here’s exactly when in the future so I can release it from my mental load. So yeah, all about idea management, the decisions for my future self list, picking a theme for each quarter, month or week or whatever time period works for you and creating a not to do list. I hope you have found this episode incredibly helpful. If you’re not yet power planning, make sure you watch the training in my show notes so that you can begin power planning because that is really going to help with the core of this. If you’re just working from an endless to do list or maybe you just like have everything in your brain. You need to change that to be able to actually have the best ideas possible and not get overwhelmed by them. So yeah, I hope you’re having a beautiful day and I will talk to you in the next episode.

If you want to get shit done without burning out then I invite you to watch the free training that I’ve created on how to plan properly as a perfectionist with power planning. By the end of the training. You’ll be ready to start using power planning today to get your perfectionist mindset on your side so you can get out of your own way in your business. To sign up and watch the training. Go to samlaurabrown.com/plan.

And she was talking about what actually I asked her could she share her insights on needle movers and figuring out what’s most important because she has just achieved her quarterly milestone that she has. For her growth goal. She just achieved it. And since we were on the topic of how to figure out where to put your time where not to, I asked her to share her insights from having achieved that milestone, how did she figure out where to put our time where not to put our time, and there was so many incredible things she shared, if you’re a PGSDer, definitely go to the PGSD, private podcast and listen to that recording, because it was amazing.

But one of the things that she shared was that her theme for the quarter was on infrastructure the upcoming quarter, and that she had identified that there is friction that needs to be solved, and that she had previously had constrained and had different things for her quarter. Like when she came into the program, her theme was really around clients and just those things. And now she has the money she’s wanting to be making that she’s able to then build the infrastructure to support growth of the business and have a season of the business where she’s focused on long term infrastructure in terms of systems and processes.

Things like setting up different accounting things and things like that, that are a bit boring. But it also necessary that now she’s at a place where she can focus on that, because in previous quarters, she had been constrained to generating revenue, to serving the people that she works with and to doing notes and things like that, that she needed to create to be able to run her business. And so it was just such a great reminder, for me listening to that, about the power of having a theme for your quota. One of the things as well that she said on that call was like, what are the Lego blocks that I’m building my business on? And to kind of think like, if you were building your business, or like building a house, where there is the foundation, and then there’s all the different things that happen in a certain order. I

t’s not that there’s this perfect order that you need to do things. But if you can think about it, like zoom out, this requires you to zoom out and see big picture, what are those first things that need to be in place? And then what are the next things, I know that we can really want to be doing everything all at once. But if you think about building a house, it doesn’t make sense to be working on like putting the roof on when you haven’t yet poured the concrete. So you need to actually do things in a certain order. And so you can trust yourself with whatever it is you’re working on, to know what that order is. And to know that if you don’t actually know you can go somewhere to get that information. But there’s no perfect way to do it. There are different approaches that you can take.

But just asking yourself, what is this season for? What are the Lego blocks that I am needing to build, like, what’s the next one for me to put on. And knowing that like, if that doesn’t work, you can always change what it is and things like that by just having a theme is so powerful. And I want to mention to my coach Stacey Boehman, one concept that she talks about is having three essentials. So having your three essentials for a quarter, this is basically just constraining yourself to these are three things that I’m going to be working on. And as a business, for myself and my team, we have three things each that are our essentials for the quarter that we work on, as well.

So the third thing I want to share with you is a not to do list. So this is just another way that you can create some positive constraint for yourself, so that you can focus your energy. So I as someone working three days per week, I don’t have time to do everything I want to do. But regardless of if you’re working five days, seven days, like you probably don’t have time to do all the things that you want to do. So when it comes to my examples around a not to do lists, and I’ll share a very specific place you can go to hear about this in a second in a past podcast episode. But really, by the nature of me power planning, so I’m very present to how much time I actually have where my time is going where my time is best invested.

But also like i just i the busy work I used to have time for I just, I can’t actually have it in my calendar for too long, because I will notice because things aren’t happening and moving the way that they need to be moving. So I have naturally like a not to do list. And I’ve over time developed a very constrained approach to business. Because I just know the nature of like, I would want to be jumping from thing to thing to thing. If I get into the messy middle of something my brain my perfectionist brain would prefer the new beginning when nothing has gone on and everything is still perfect. And I can be so optimistic about the future. When I’m in the messy middle of something, and things aren’t going to plan and I need to figure out a solution. And I’m getting met with like failure and setbacks and all of that, that I want to just jump to a different thing.

So I just know that about my brain and I think like the human condition that we really need to be in that growth mindset to be able to be engaged with the messiness of figuring something out. So I love not having the option to jump to other things. So for example, when it comes to the platforms that I use to promote and market the business that I have, I have an of course, there are so many different platforms, but I love constraining myself in that way and having a not to do lists. So I have podcasts, Instagram, email is and a website. And there are so many other platforms that I could be sharing on. And for example, like when we post on Instagram, it automatically gets posted to Facebook. And there are things like that, where it’s like, there’s no actual mental energy going there.

But YouTube, for example, which at the moment, I’m like, I would love to be an AI offered thing is like, I would love to be like back on YouTube. Because I used to do YouTube, I think I stopped in maybe 2019, or 2018. But I had a couple of years where I uploaded a lot of videos to YouTube. And especially with power planning, there’s lots of like visual things I want to be able to show you. And just like documenting my own, like productivity and things like that, like I love sharing in that way. But I’m not letting myself do that, until I’ve actually been fully committed to the things that I currently have on my plate. And I’m really taking care of those things like actually being able to reward myself with that, rather than trying to escape like, well, this thing isn’t working. So I’ll do this other thing instead. So YouTube, something I’m thinking about, but I’m constrained to not doing that, even though it could be a fantastic idea.

It’s just really, the priority is about constraint and simplicity. Because if we dilute our focus too much, we can’t actually move anything forward. Even if they are the right things, if you’re kind of like half assing everything or like if you have 100% of your attention to give in any given week. And you have like 5% here, 10% here, 10% here 10%. Like, it’s really hard to create any kind of real momentum or any feeling of momentum, because everything’s just like moving along at a very slow pace. Instead of being like, Okay, well, here’s where I’m really going to focus and really funnel my energy into. And it just really creates that opportunity for exponential growth. And also learning as well, if you’re kind of like dabbling in a lot of different things.

It’s really hard to have enough data to be able to tell like what’s working and what isn’t working and what needs to change. So also like YikTock, Pinterest, like I grew my blog. Initially, this business started as a blog, I grew the traffic for that through Pinterest. So there’s things like Pinterest and Facebook and like, my brain just really wants a new beginning rather than being in the messy middle of my current commitments. And so I kind of right now, my approach with the not to do list is I don’t have a formal not to do list. But I have constraints around like, here’s what we’re focused on. And we need to have a really great argument to change that. It’s not that it can’t be changed. But the default is like if in doubt, keep it the same and keep doing what I’m doing. Because I just know, my brain just wants to do all the things and wants to be in that new beginning.

So an example of this a client example and a coach on this this morning on the call is I have a client who is a dietician and wants to return to building her business through networking and connecting in real life versus social media and was just kind of finding that she’s on social media because she thinks she should be versus like previously, she had built her business through like in person networking and connecting and loves doing that. And so when I was coaching her, this is just something that I posed to her as an option that I want to also give to you as an option is that you can create a little container for yourself like a little period, where you have the thing on your not to do list, for example, just to get specific with this.

So for her saying, okay, instead of being like, I’m going to do a little bit more networking, and a little bit less Instagram, like streamline that and kind of just like make little adjustments to instead say, what if I had for the next quarter on my not to do lists, and I love doing and not to do lists by quarters. But what if for the next quarter, I didn’t do Instagram at all? And maybe for example, and I love going to extremes with things. This is something that I learned from Tim Ferriss like asking yourself extreme questions, to really bring up answers that wouldn’t otherwise come up when we’re wanting to make incremental improvements and changes. So for example, if we said like, Hey, you have two hours to get your Instagram account set up so that if anyone comes across it in the next three months that they are taken care of.

So basically you can treat your Instagram account like a business card, you pin a few posts at the top or do some highlights or whatever you need to do so that people can get on your email list or wherever it is they need to go to be connected with you. And in this case, she has a VA already so you can have instead of you doing all the checking and as she said like babysitting of the Instagram account and making sure like everyone’s welcomed and like no one’s waiting for responses. Know that you could have someone else be doing that if you want, or you could just not have it be done at all and set up a few things so that they know where to go and trust that they will be redirected, and they will find you elsewhere.

But if you said, Okay, for the next three months, besides a little bit of setup time that I’m going to give myself, I’m actually going to put all of the energy that I was putting into social media, I’m going to now have Instagram on my not to do list for this period, I can always go back if I need to, I can always return to what I’m currently doing. But what I’m going to do is I’m going to focus all that energy on to the networking and the connecting in person and doing that kind of thing. And it’s so powerful as well to do it this way. Because what will happen is, and in this case was like, I can’t even imagine it not working that if I made that shift, that I wouldn’t be able to get clients and all of that. But I said to her, like, let’s imagine it doesn’t work. Because a lot of times when a decision feels so aligned and feels so energizing, that we almost have this entitlement to it working because we feel good about it. And that really doesn’t help our resourcefulness, our resilience, we actually just get kind of lazy and entitled about it.

And so what happens, and it’s not to say it wouldn’t work. But what happens is that when we are approaching things in this way, it is really hard to solve when they aren’t working. Because we’re like, well, it just mustn’t work, because I thought it would and I felt great. And so we just returned to the thing that we were doing before. So I said to her, Well, if it didn’t work, what would you do? Just like what I’d returned to an Instagram was like, but what if the thing you would do is actually solve for the networking and the connecting, working? And you stuck with that? Rather than going back to Okay, well, that didn’t work on my back to Instagram, like, what if you could get anything to work? And you created a container with yourself where you weren’t then able to be like, Okay, well, I’ll go back to posting on Instagram.

Or if you have a week where you are doing a lot of networking and like you aren’t signing clients or like whatever indicators you need, they’re not happening, that in tha

t moment of feeling disheartened, a lot of us like we really like going into action and like over actioning and being busy with things. And it’s very easy to do that with social media content creation and things like that. So we want to make sure that we can create for ourselves a little opportunity to pause and reflect. And to say, Okay, well, Instagram in this example is on my not to do list. And so I’m going to take a minute and really self coach and see like, what’s the thinking that would have been going back? Or like changing my decision? And do I like those reasons? And am I willing to sit with that for a day for a week, like, Am I in a rush about it, because I know that when I’m in a rush about making a decision, that there’s something going on that like I’m not trusting myself and thinking there’s a right way to do it or that I’m super behind, like there’s just some faulty logic going on in my brain that is creating a rush.

And that I when I work from that place, I create messes and like so many things that I need to solve for in the future, because I wasn’t willing to actually just be in a place where I was not rushed about it. And so we all make decisions in different ways. And it’s like, in terms of human design, if you’re familiar with that there are different ways that some of us like have that gut feeling. Others of us like myself have more of these like waves where I’ll have like, when I think about a decision this high, emotional high, and then an emotional low about it, like just feeling like it’s the best idea ever than it’s the worst idea ever. And then I’ll get to this place of like calm and groundedness.

So it’s not to say you need to take a lot of time. But just notice if you’re in a rush about making a decision, but having the not to do lists is really a tool to give you a second to pause and reflect and say okay, well, this wasn’t my original plan to be going on Instagram, for example, when I had planned to put my energy into networking and connecting. So given that’s the case, I’m going to take a bit of time to explore and really see what’s going on. And I can update that decision. At any point in time. I’m in charge of that. But I set this up for myself for a reason.

So I want to share with you an episode that I recorded quite a few years ago now. But I recorded specifically on the not to do list and how to create one and in this episode, I haven’t gone back and re listen to it. But I can remember roughly what I said in that episode. But it’s about how I was having a not to do list and what was on that not to do list. And how I really decided whether I wanted to change that not to do lists or not and all of that. So if you want to hear more about that concept, it’s episode 228 called, the five reasons you need a not to do list and how to create one. So I will link that up for you in the show notes as well. But just to recap, this is really all about having a way to manage your ideas so that your brain feels safe to offer great ideas to you but you don’t feel overwhelmed that you need to implement them right now overwhelmed with where to start, or you don’t unintentionally and create the identity and the self image that you’re the kind of person who puts things off simply because it isn’t actually the time that a decision needs to be made. And it can be made at a different point in time.

The other day, I was actually listening to podcast episode. And it was so fascinating. And this could be a whole other thing to talk about. But I just want to quickly mentioned that when it comes to decision making, there’s so many, so much advice around how to make really good decisions and all of that, and it’s something I love studying and learning and coaching on. But something he mentioned that not a lot of people mentioned. And it’s true, I really haven’t heard this is like, but when do you need to make that decision, there’s like how to make the decision and also the timing of the decision. And so we just want to make sure we’re not forcing ourselves to make a decision that doesn’t need to be made.

Of course, maybe you err on the side of procrastination when it comes to decisions. And you have unmade decisions for like weeks and months and years. And that’s something to look at. But also just like the timing of the decision, it is a legitimate decision to say, I’m going to decide not to make this decision right now. And in the future, I’m going to make that decision. And here’s exactly when in the future so I can release it from my mental load. So yeah, all about idea management, the decisions for my future self list, picking a theme for each quarter, month or week or whatever time period works for you and creating a not to do list. I hope you have found this episode incredibly helpful. If you’re not yet power planning, make sure you watch the training in my show notes so that you can begin power planning because that is really going to help with the core of this. If you’re just working from an endless to do list or maybe you just like have everything in your brain. You need to change that to be able to actually have the best ideas possible and not get overwhelmed by them. So yeah, I hope you’re having a beautiful day and I will talk to you in the next episode.

Outro
If you want to get shit done without burning out then I invite you to watch the free training that I’ve created on how to plan properly as a perfectionist with power planning. By the end of the training. You’ll be ready to start using power planning today to get your perfectionist mindset on your side so you can get out of your own way in your business. To sign up and watch the training. Go to samlaurabrown.com/plan.


Author: Sam Brown