Podcast

Episode 479: The Art of Finishing Your Day Exactly On Time (aka How To ‘Land The Plane’)

One of my favourite feelings is finishing my work day at the exact minute I planned, with everything essential complete. And this episode is a masterclass on how you can do it too. 

Tune in to learn why finishing on time is a skill worth developing, the self-image you need to develop to make it possible and the tools that make it easy. You’ll hear the practical steps to follow, what it looks like in practice and how to avoid the common mistakes and misconceptions that will stop you from finishing on time.

Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode479.

Other Things To Help You:

If you’re ready to get out of your own way in your business, you want to check out my program Perfectionists Getting Shit Done. Click here to sign up 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 479 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
I could not be more excited for an episode than this one, how to finish your day exactly on time, aka how to land the plane, as I like to think of it. And this episode really encapsulates and teaches something that I aim to do every single work day that I have. It has helped me build my self trust. It has helped me become more reliable to myself and to others as well. And it is really just something that is so satisfying when you learn how to finish exactly on time with a feeling of completeness, so you don’t have all these tasks hanging over over you that you just know, like, I needed to do that thing, but I haven’t got it done, but I had to finish on time. Like, that’s not what we’re talking about.

We are talking about finishing your day on time with a feeling of completeness and also without your day being rigid, pressured, strict. We tend to associate finishing on time with there being no hiccups in the day, like nothing unexpected. We have to follow this rigid plan, like we can’t listen to our intuition or our guts or be in flow or anything like that. It has to be very like this masculine energy, very strict, very high pressure, no hiccups, no variations. And that isn’t how I do it. And I want to teach you how I do it, because it is, again, absolutely one of my favorite, favorite things.

So the goal is to finish your day on time at the exact minute that you said you would. That’s really the ultimate satisfaction. Is to finish on the right minute, to finish with the feeling that everything is complete, so you don’t have tasks that are hanging over you, or things like, I wish I got to that today. I’ll probably squeeze that in tonight, after the kids go to bed, or on the weekend, like No, you were finishing with a sense of completeness that everything that needs to be completed today is complete today, and anything I need to do will be done in my next planned work block. I’m not trying to squeeze anything in. You have the knowing that you have moved your business forward. So you haven’t just been doing shit. You have actually been doing things that are essential, and even when the unexpected happens and you’re not feeling 100% you were able to do this.

So I’m going to be sharing with you in this episode exactly how to do that, and I want to mention too that power planning is the main tool that I use to do this. So if you aren’t yet inside my program perfectionist getting done. You can go to SamLaurabrown.com/pgsd, to sign up for the program and to learn how to power plan. And also, I have a free training that will be linked up in the show notes as well if you want to learn more about power planning. And then I would really invite you to sign up for pgsd so you can get all the information about it and all the support and be planning properly as a perfectionist.

So why does this matter? Why does finishing your day on time matter, especially if you’re someone like you’re happy to work into evenings, you’re happy to work on weekends, you’re happy to squeeze in work wherever you can like. Why should you aim to do this if you’re that person? So being able to rely on yourself is such a big one, like your life will change when you can rely on yourself, not just when you have a commitment to someone else, like you have a dinner plan or things like that, but you can rely on yourself with the commitments you have to yourself. Also there’s way less pressure and strain and stress on relationships when you can say, hey, I’m going to be finished at this time today, and you will actually be finished at that time and calmly.

So I’m going to be talking as well in this episode about there being high levels of uncertainty in your week, and how to handle that, because that’s a common thing that’s like, well, I don’t know what’s going to come up in the day, but you can learn how to finish on time with a sense of calm and completeness no matter what’s going on. So when you are able to really plan your day and follow that plan and make adjustments, I’ll talk more about that too, you’ll be able to build self trust and a better relationship with yourself. You will be more connected with yourself, more understanding of yourself. You will have so much more self awareness. You will find it easier to make decisions. Self trust does not have any downsides. It only has a positive impact on your business and on your personal life as well.

You also get to develop a personal life when you are able to finish your work day exactly on time. I’m not saying it has to be at the time I finish, which is 4:30pm it could be at 10pm it could be at 1pm it could be at 8am whatever time it is for you, the time that it is doesn’t matter. It’s the art of finishing on time. So when you do that, you also get to develop your personal life as well, not just your business life. And a lot of times we work into evenings and on weekends, because it’s more comfortable to be working than to be in our personal life and not really know what to do with the time. And a lot of us love fantasizing about having time off, and then when we get that, we’re like, I don’t really know what to do with it, I will just go back to working. So you actually, through this practice, get to develop out your personal life.

And through that. To be more connected with yourself and have a better relationship with yourself. But also get to actually do hobbies and things like that that you might have been wanting to do for a long time, but you just never seem to find the time to do. Also, it just feels so damn satisfying to do it. To say, I’m going to finish at 430 and to literally finish at 430 not a minute later, not a minute sooner, unless you want to it, just for me, creates such a feeling of momentum and accomplishment, and it means that I then get to switch my brain off. So if you want to be someone who can mentally switch off, this is something that I teach inside pgsd, and we have clean rest as the main tool to help with that. But you can finish your day exactly on time, then you get to mentally switch off, because you know everything’s complete. You have shown up for yourself in a way that you want to.

You have made progress, and you get to switch off so that when it comes time to actually work again, you can switch on, versus like, kind of being on, kind of being off all of the time that is so draining, that really creates burnout, and it is so hard to make any progress when you’re always kind of working, you just can’t access your brain in the same way as when you were able to be fully switched on and then fully switched off. So I want to share too some of the skills you will need to develop to be able to do this, and you will develop this through the practice of power planning, but these are just some of the things to be aware of.

So first of all, the skill of seeing sufficiency in your work versus insufficiency and flaws. So part of this practice is being able to say this work is complete I am moving on. The skill of allowing yourself to move on, the skill of reprioritizing. That is a very big skill when it comes to being able to finish exactly on time, there will be hiccups, there will be disruptions. There will be shit that you didn’t expect. There will be shit that you did expect but you didn’t plan for you will need to reprioritize throughout your day, the skill of being clear and being decided, the skill of execution and turning ideas into reality and the skill of coaching yourself, ie not believing that everything you think is true because it isn’t, and offering your brain more helpful truths than the ones it currently believes.

So this is a really great way to develop your self coaching, and that’s something that I teach as well inside pgsd, and something you are doing just by virtue of doing your power planning. So those are some of the skills you will be developing. So no, with that in mind, if you were developing the skill set, then it will take practice. It will take repetition. And it’s not a matter of hearing me say this and then going, Okay, I’m going to finish exactly on time today. It not happening. Me like, Okay, well, I can’t do it. No, you are developing a whole set of skills to be able to do this. And it is so satisfying when it comes together, and it will. So the self image to develop. What identity do you need to be in for this to be something that is easy for you?

So I wrote down some of the ways that I think about myself as it relates to this, and also some areas of this I’m still working on, but I have, I really feel like I’m in a great place with being able to finish my day exactly on time. It’s not to say that it happens 100% of the time, but that’s the same way that I believe, and I am someone who exercises consistently, and there are some days where I don’t exercise. So it’s all about being in the identity of the person who finds it easy, that makes it easy, that has you gravitating towards doing what you want to do, so that you don’t need motivation and you don’t need willpower. And there’s a whole module on self image inside pgsd that goes into that deeper but I just want to mention for you what is the self image you need to develop, because we don’t want to be trying to finish your day on time as someone who never finishes on time, because you will just go back to never finishing on time. You need to adjust your self image for this to all click into place.

So I’m the kind of person who finishes my day on time, pretty obvious, but that’s an important one. Like I believe that I am that kind of person because I have created that for myself through this practice, I’m the kind of person who loves time constraint and working within time parameters. I’m the kind of person who solves problems with my brain rather than giving myself more time. Like a lot of us, we just want to give ourselves more time instead of thinking at a higher level. And so having time constraints and having it clearly mapped out in your calendar when you’re working and when you’re not working really works for you, so that you can go, Okay, I only have this amount of time. If this is the result I want to create. In that time, how might I create it versus I want to do this task or activity? I don’t know how long it will take. I will see how long it takes and just kind of wading into a task.

So instead being someone who loves time constraints and who loves solving problems with higher level thinking, rather than just defaulting to, well, I need more time, because you have probably found, if you have been in that thought pattern, when you get more time, you. Just kind of waste it like you either don’t do something that was impactful with that time, or you just are very busy, but you’re not actually making progress, and sometimes you probably even waste that extra time that you were sure that you need it. And that’s because the first line that we go to is solving it with higher level thinking, solving the problem with our brain, versus with throwing time at the problem or money at the problem or other resources at the problem. I’m the kind of person who uses my calendar as a way to support myself.

That’s a very fundamental belief to have an identity, to have that this isn’t about pressure and stress and force and trying to do things I don’t want to do. I am doing this in a very self supportive way, and I would definitely say that I’m the kind of person who uses my calendar as a way to support myself, not as a way to put myself on unrealistic timelines and give myself unrealistic expectations and then force myself to follow through with it. I’m the kind of person who trusts myself to know when to change my plans and when to keep them the same. I’m the kind of person who’s highly productive, and I’m the kind of person who knows how to rest and who rests really well. And as a mom of three little ones, and if you’re a parent, you’ll be able to relate to this, even if you’re not a parent, I’m sure you will that we can be having time off the business, but it is not energizing or restorative, but we can tend to think, oh, that’s because I’m so busy and I’ve got all these other commitments besides the business.

But you can create a restful experience in your brain when you are aware of the fact that the thoughts that you’re thinking are often what is the most draining. Yes, there are circumstances like our body physically needs to rest as well. That’s part of it, but for a lot of us, it’s just our brain that is exhausting us, and we’re thinking about all the things that are incomplete, that we haven’t yet done, that we need to do soon, but we’re not sure if we can do them, and if we can, we’re not sure if we can do it well, and if we do do it well, we’re not sure if that’ll even work. It’s all that mental drama, and that’s part of this process. And what will naturally happen is that as you learn how to create a sense of completeness for yourself, you will find it so much easier to create a restful experience in your brain, even when you aren’t physically resting, whether you are looking after kids or a parent, or you have a full time job as well, or anything else, you’ll be able to create that restful experience in your brain, so that you can think at the highest level when you are working on your business.

So there are a few mistakes that stop finishing on time from being something that is possible. So first of all is the willingness to work for as long as it takes to get everything done, to work weekends and nights and whenever. And you might be someone who intentionally works weekends and nights on your business, especially if you have a full time job. This isn’t about the time of day, but typically, let’s say you’re a full time entrepreneur in your business. If you are wanting to work late into the evening, like constantly extending your work days, trying to squeeze work in quite a lot. This is something that is going to stop you from actually creating the skill set and the self image of being someone who is highly productive, who works during work time and is able to fully switch off, and having that really positive cycle that comes from that, where you are able to just work so well and rest so well, and then work even better, and then rest even better.

Like, it just gets better and better the more and more you do it. But I have seen this so often, and this is something I think obviously, in the world of entrepreneurship, people talk about like, you’ve got a hustle, you’ve got to grind like, you have to work so hard, or this kind of approach of like, okay, work life balance, and just do what you can and see how long it takes, and when it’s the people who are thinking about like, I’m just willing to work for as long as I need to work, that’s a great thing. Also make sure it doesn’t work against you, because first of all, before you extend your work day, you need to go to that higher level thinking. That’s part of the process I’m sharing in this episode. You need to actually solve for the problem that’s being presented or getting the outcome you want to get without adding more time.

And then you add more time by choice or to do something else, rather than just extending the time because you’re not willing to do the mental work required to get a certain outcome within a certain period of time. A lot of times as well. If you are someone who is like, No, I’m just so happy to work into evenings and on weekends. And I just, I feel so much better when everything’s done. I’d just rather do that. Probably you have an issue with rest and with your personal life as well, that you’d like I just love working, and I just want to be working all the time. Maybe you’re that kind of person and there’s nothing wrong like you when you’re power planning, you can power plan to work from 5am to 10pm like that’s not a problem whatsoever.

I am not here to say these are the work hours that you should have, but for a lot of us, we are working as a way to avoid uncomfortable feelings in our personal life, or potentially, we just haven’t actually taken the time to explore what we want to do with our free time that we have with our time off, and because we always know what to do when it comes to work, like there’s this laundry list of things we’re trying to get done, we’re like, Okay, well, I’d rather just work and feel productive, because if I’m in my personal life, I’m not feeling productive, and I need to feel productive to feel lovable. Like that’s the loop that we’re in with our perfectionist brains, that we associate being productive and producing and making money and being successful and taking action and making progress with being lovable and being loved by others, being accepted, and all of that kind of thing.

So you might just have that association going on, and this process as well will help you to unlearn that it does take time and a willingness to be in the discomfort of resting, of getting that clean, guilt free rest, and knowing in the beginning your brain’s gonna be like, Oh my god, what am I even doing? I could be working. And over time, as you follow this, you will get only more productive in your work time, and that creates more safety for you to take time off as well. But you have to be willing to take that leap and go first, and to not keep being in the mindset of like, I’ll rest when everything is done, because you might have noticed you don’t really rest, and everything never really gets done.

Another mistake that makes this really hard to do is being unclear or uncommitted about what you’re trying to accomplish, either this kind of like wait and see approach or see what happens, just being really optimistic and hopeful about what you’re getting done, and a lot of times not really being clear on the goal that you’re working towards, the outcome that you are wanting to achieve what success looks like? We oftentimes we just feel so behind that we’re just trying to be busy and do anything that we can, to feel like we’re being productive and taking action, and hopefully we’ll be able to eventually become successful, versus actually being willing to slow down and take the time to get clear on what is it that you’re trying to accomplish?

What does success look like here, it makes it so much easier to have a sense of completeness when you know what success looks like, versus it just being this vague feeling of like, oh, not when I see it. It’s so hard to create any sense of completeness, especially when you have a brain that only wants to add more and more and more to what you’re doing and only wants to see flaws, not knowing what your goals are. So this is obviously highly related to that it is just so hard to get a sense of progress when you don’t know what your goals are. If you are squeezing things in, like when you let yourself do things later and you tell yourself, Oh, it’s okay. I didn’t get this done today. I’ll do that tonight. I’ll do that on the weekend. I’ll do it tomorrow morning. I’ll squeeze it into my next work day, there is going to be so much less motivation to get it done during your work hours.

And this was the initial breakthrough and epiphany that I had many years ago now about clean rest and how important it is for productivity. Because when I was a student, I have a low degree and a finance degree, also a Diploma of French, which I feel like is such a perfectionist thing, to be doing all the things. But anyway, when I was a university student, that I would be kind of like trying to study all the time, in the evenings, on weekends, during the day, but I did so much procrastination. I left everything to the last minute, but I was always trying to be working on it, and when I actually just said I’m not going to do any study whatsoever. On the weekends, I’m going to go to the beach or I’m going to twiddle my thumbs or whatever, but I’m not going to do any study. I got so much more productive during the week because I needed to solve for Okay, I need to get it done this week.

I can’t actually do it later, so I’m going to do it now. But if you are constantly letting yourself work into the evenings, if you’re constantly trying to squeeze work in into either your work day, and you’re just being really optimistic and hopeful about it, or you’re like, I’ll do that after the kids go to bed, or I’ll wake up early tomorrow to do it. Even if you do do it after the kids go to bed, or you do do it when you wake up early, it really erodes a lot of self trust, and just also that that need to have it actually be done during your work hours and really create that motivation. And you’ve probably heard of it before, but maybe you haven’t Parkinson’s Law, which is this concept that a time will expand, sorry, not a time a task will expand to the time that it is given. So if, for example, you give say you have YouTube videos or you’re recording, if you give yourself four hours to record one YouTube video, it will take you four hours.

If you give yourself 45 minutes, it will take 45 minutes, we really and this is especially over time as well, when you develop a relationship with yourself where you can actually say, I can figure out how to have it take shorter time, but when we have that idea of Parkinson’s Law in mind, it doesn’t make sense to keep extending your work day. And I know, like my brain all the time is like, oh my god, three work days isn’t enough. We need to work at least for maybe five work days, ideally, seven, ideally, will be able to work all of the time. And I just know it doesn’t help me that when I have extra time on my hands, unless I’m really being so diligent with the way that I’m thinking about it, that that extra time does not equate to extra value for the business.

It does not equate to extra impact, and my brain just wants more time, because that way I don’t have to actually sit in the discomfort of I’m gonna figure out how to get it done in the time I have, or be willing to deprioritize things, and like all of that, it just wants to spend all the time and feel like that’s this magic answer. And I have played around with that so much, and I know from experience, and I’ve seen it in so many of my clients, I haven’t seen any exceptions to this that when we add more time, and we’re not actually being resourceful first and figuring out how to get it done in the time we have, if we just automatically go to Well, I need more time to get it done. When we do have that time, we only end up wasting it. And now, as a parent, that other time that I have is so much more precious than it was to me before. And so before I had kids, it’s like, okay, we’ll work in the evenings and whatever.

And I am so grateful that I do have such a strong reason to have time constraints around my work days, because it has me being so much more resourceful with my brain thinking at a higher level, solving for, okay, what actually is important here? Because I don’t have time to just spend a whole day doing whatever else like I have either I’m not going to do it at all. I’m going to find a shorter way to do it, or a more direct way to do it, or whatever, but I’m actually going to solve for it versus just I’ll just have more time. And another thing on time as well is that we can be in so much entitlement around time like well, if I did have more time to work, I would be more successful.

And I have really experienced that so many times over the years, and it really can take a little bit of mental reprogramming to undo that belief, and my brain still wants to hold on to that, that like time creates success, but instead, it’s associating higher level thinking with high levels of success versus just more time, because if it was just a matter of more time, then we wouldn’t see the results that we do today, where there are people who are very busy, who have a lot of success, and people with nothing to do, who aren’t able to create any success for themselves, like it doesn’t actually make sense when you look at other people’s situation. Our brain just loves to have a little tantrum about it. Mine does too, and I’m just now my brain still does that. I just have the self awareness to know that that isn’t the answer. I have tried so many times to solve things, but just adding more time, and it doesn’t work when I’m actually paying attention to the result of that.

First of all, it was when I wasn’t full time in my business, and I was thinking, well, if I was just full time, then I’d be more successful. And then I left my full time job. I still had a part time job, but I could work pretty much full time hours on my business, and I just spent months doing busy work because it was so uncomfortable to actually do the things I needed to do, and it was so easy to blame lack of time. So just know you might have that going on as well, just this wanting to blame lack of time. What if time? What if lack of time wasn’t the issue that’s really a really important thing to be questioning.

Another mistake that makes it really hard to do this is thinking that uncertainty means you can’t finish your day on time. So whether you have a team, whether you have uncertainty in your personal life, whether the nature of your business means that you don’t really know exactly what’s going to be happening until the moment it happens when we are in this line of thought that uncertainty means we can’t finish on time. We aren’t actually able to take control of all the things that we can take control of, and we aren’t able to actually strategically look at our week and say, Well, yes, it’s unpredictable, but the unpredictability is predictable. So I know I need this amount of time catered into my plan, because I have about three hours worth of unpredictable things that come up on an average day, and so I can have a strategy to plan for that, and to take that into account, versus feeling like, well, I have no idea what will happen, so I definitely can’t finish on time, and I can’t make any promises.

There might be days where shit happens for all of us and we can’t finish on time, or we don’t want to finish on time, but it’s really getting out of that mindset of, like, if I have high levels of uncertainty, and of course, we all think we have more uncertainty than anyone else. We all have it. I’ve coached so many people at this point, like, we like to think this is a unique problem. Everyone else has a really certain life. They don’t have kids like I have, or they don’t have the kind of business I have, or they don’t have the health issue that I have. Everyone is contending with uncertainty, both external and internal uncertainty as well. And so having a process like power planning that actually takes that into account is super beneficial, and also being all or nothing is the other mistake that makes it really hard. So this is thinking I have to finish every day exactly on time for me to be able to say, this is something I do, versus it’s a choice.

Finishing on time is a choice that I will consciously make after asking my brain how to solve the problem without adding more time. And it really is about it coming back to this isn’t about being strict with yourself or being rigid with yourself, like I have to finish on time. That is not the energy that will have you finishing on time, calmly with a sense of completeness. Like I feel very relaxed and I know I’m going to be finishing my day at 430 on the dot. I will close my laptop, I will work, walk out of here feeling as though everything is complete, everything essential will be complete. And this is the last day of my work week, so I know so it’s Thursday afternoon now. I won’t be working again till Tuesday morning, and I know that I don’t need to think about my business again until Tuesday morning. I can, if I want to, but there’s nothing to think about like, oh, when will I do that? Or what’s this thing? No, that’s all taken care of through this process.

So I want to share with you now the ingredients of this, and then I’m going to walk you through what the day looks like. So like when I’m having a day, my normal work day, where I finish exactly on time, what does that look like? What am I doing in the morning? What am I doing throughout the day? What am I doing when I finish up the day? Because there are some really practical, strategic things that go into it. So the ingredients that you need to have, there are four of them. So first of all is to decide when you’re going to finish your day, like you need to have the ingredient of knowing when you will actually finish your day. And that might be a really obvious thing to say, but for a lot of people who are listening to this like you, might be thinking, Well, I just finished when everything’s done or I’m too exhausted to continue. Honestly, for voice perfectionist, that is reality is that the only time we allow ourselves to stop is when we are literally too exhausted to continue. And so that’s another reason this is so important. If you don’t want to be burning yourself out, this is going to be the answer to that.

So deciding when you will finish your date, whether it’s 1pm 4:30pm like me, 10pm it can be different on different days. It’s not about it having to be this perfect, magical time that you finish. Just like, when would you like to finish your day? What would you like to solve for? Because essentially, that is what we are asking our brains to do. This is the time that we are solving for. And we all know how to do this when we have plans with someone else and we’re like, Well, I have to be finished at this certain time because I have a dinner to go to or I need to pick my kids up, or whatever it is. And what we want to create here is the ability to do that regardless of what other plans you have with anyone else. Like I love it the most when I finish on time and I walk out of my office and I have like, nothing I need to go and urgently run off to or do like I’m just like, and I’m done, and now I move on to my time with myself, if that’s what I have on that afternoon.

So when you are deciding what time to finish, it’s important not to take a wait and see approach. It’s so hard to get your brain to solve for things when that’s the case, and to just really be thinking about like, what do you actually want to do? When do you want to finish? Because we perfectionist, we go into this like, when should I finish? That should that comes up so often for us. What about when do I want to finish? Maybe you want to finish quite early in the afternoon. Like I had a period where I finished at 230 it was so uncomfortable, because in my brain, I’m like, Well, everyone in the corporate world where I just came from is still working, and I should be still working in all of that mental drama, but I wanted to finish at that time because I noticed I kind of stopped being productive from that time on, and I’d rather just rest and have a highly productive morning and start my workday a little bit earlier. So when do you want to finish?

Write that time down, have that time in mind, and when you are doing your Power Hour, you will have after that, either like, a commitment or clean rest in your calendar. And that’s one of the benefits as well when you are power planning, is that you will power plan out your commitments and your clean rest before your business tasks, so that you kind of just have this room to work with, of like, instead of, okay, here’s everything I want to get done, and I’ll rest in what’s left over. And this is something I really learned from Brooke Castillo is now I will plan my rest first, and then I will plan in the time that I have left what I am going to get done.

So the second ingredient is understanding how completeness is created. Because, as I mentioned, when people are saying, I just prefer to rest once everything is done, which, again, often those people it’s more like, I just prefer to rest when I’m too exhausted to continue. Is the reality. But we like this idea of like, I just love having that feeling that everything is complete. And we have this illusion. This delusion that to have the feeling of completeness, everything needs to actually be complete, and that completeness is just an observation of a reality of a task being complete, or a set of tasks being complete. And really what you need to understand, a very essential ingredient in this process is that completeness is a thought. It’s an interpretation, it’s a belief, and it’s really this, the extended thought is I got everything done that needed to be done.

When we think that thought, we have a feeling of completeness. And so that is the thought that we are going to be creating when we are doing this with our power planning, it’s not a matter of, like, I have to complete everything that my brain says is essential. Because if you’re a perfectionist, your brain is going to give you an endless list of things to do. And so it’s not a matter of, here’s how to find the energy to do the endless list. Because you don’t need to do the endless list. It is way overestimating what you actually need to do. It is filled with busy work and unimportant things and faffing about and a lot of times, just all these like Periphery activities that don’t really need to get done. And if you just did the courageous actual thing you need to do, it would be so much quicker.

So really, what we’re doing with this completeness is creating circumstances that make it really easy to have the thought and then the feeling of completeness that comes from the thought I got everything done that needed to be done. So we can think this thought at any time of day, like right now. You could coach your brain on how it’s true that right now, everything that needs to be done is done, and that’s a great exercise in finding sufficiency. As I mentioned, the skill of finding sufficiency in your circumstances is a really important one, just in general, for perfectionist but especially in this so that is a helpful exercise to do. But I’m not saying like during the middle of the day, you have to go and find that.

But we want to just be aware that that feeling of completeness doesn’t come from your to do list or your calendar or anything else. It comes from your brain. And so what I like to do, as well, I’ll talk about this a bit more later in the episode, is I have, like, a little mental process that I go to to, kind of like shut my mental tabs and create that feeling of completeness for myself, rather than just letting my brain just try and think about all the things, if there are any loose ends that I feel like are not tied up when I finish my day. So when we are also understanding about this completeness, we are focused on doing what is essential, and we are also knowing that completeness, again, it’s not about this like static or rigid list of here are all the things I have to get done and that can’t be changed. What it is is understanding that what is essential will move and adjust throughout the day as your perspective changes, as you are really, actually engaging with the day and getting the feedback of like, what is reality going to be like today that you are moving and adjusting and changing your plans.

This is why we have the little tweak step in your power planning. Because if you are thinking that I have this static list of everything that has to get done, then you are forgetting that your brain often believes things that aren’t true, and that is going to be one of them that you have to do everything on that list. And so part of this process, as I mentioned about the self coaching is as you go through the day as well, reevaluating like, is that actually something that is essential? If it is, does that actually need to get done today? If you because, if you don’t have the time for it, if we think I have to do this right now, I have to do this today, especially if you feel any kind of rushed energy around something, it is a time for self coaching.

I have learned that the hard way over the last couple of years, that anytime I feel in a rush, it’s because there is some unhelpful and often untrue thinking that is fueling that rush and that impatience, and that if I’m feeling rushed about something, and then give myself extra time to do it a lot of times that task didn’t need to be done. It definitely didn’t need to be done then, like it just is basically sloppy thinking and the willingness I have created for myself to actually look at, okay, brain, what is going on? Why are we in a rush about it and seeing other things I’m believing that aren’t actually true or could be questioned, which there always are. It’s so helpful, and not doing it in a way of like, nitpicking myself or anything like that, but actually being like, oh yes, brain. I know sometimes you like to feel really impatient about things that aren’t actually urgent. So let’s have a look at that.

Because very little that I do, like, it’s not life or death that I’m doing with my business. There are some people who might be dealing with matters of life or death, but most of us aren’t when it comes to our business, and our brain still wants to make everything urgent and important. And something that I have learned from my coach is really when my brain is saying this is really urgent and really important to just stop and question that, because that often isn’t true and it’s often not helpful.

So the third ingredient is being clear about how to move your business forward. If you aren’t clear about what your needle movers are, then it is going to be really challenging to create that true sense of completeness, because even if you follow the rest of the process, if the things you actually did, if you don’t know that they matter or make any difference to building your business, you’re not just you’re just not going to have that same sense of satisfaction and progress. So this really comes from being clear about what is essential to achieve your goal. You need to have a clear goal. This is why, in pgsd, you get your growth goal, we help you set that you need to have a clear outcome you’re moving towards, and you need to know which steps contribute to that. So this is all in the power planning process that you will determine what your needle movers are in relation to your goal, so that you can know that when I’m working, I’m actually doing things that matter.

And so when it comes to also being clear about what will move your business forward throughout the day, you might need to self coach to think about a better way to do what you want to do, or how to get it done in the time you have. IE, you might need to have a couple of little self coaching sessions throughout the day to increase your resourcefulness. Also do some divergent thinking, which just means, instead of thinking, Well, I have Option A or Option B, or A lot of times that brain is like, there’s option A, this is the only way I could possibly get this done, to think about, what are 10 different options I have? What are 20 different options that I have? What are assumptions that are underpinning this that I haven’t even realized I’m making that aren’t actually true? Like all of that thought work that you can do that will allow you to find an easier, simpler, more effective way to get things done, or, oftentimes it will unveil that certain tasks don’t even need to be done at all.

So all of that to say that it’s not a matter of just like, well, this is what I said was important. I’m going to do that that is very powerful, and also being willing to look at as you go throughout the week or as you go throughout the day, like okay, now if I have updated information, I’m going to allow myself to update my decision. The fourth ingredient is to know how to handle unexpected circumstances. So I teach a lot about this imperfection is getting shit done. It is a very important skill that you will learn and that we are very experienced in teaching. So a big part of this is just knowing how to like with unexpected circumstances, knowing that they are normal and everyone has them, and that you need to expect them to happen.

So if you are ever doing your planning and you’re like, Okay, well, I could do this plan if there are no hiccups, or if it’s like you just have this kind of optimism and you’re really hopeful about it, that’s not the energy we want to be in. And part of your power hour process, when you follow the steps that we have, they’re very simple. And the last one is that you are looking at, am I actually committed to following through this plan? Will I actually be able to get it done? Not from a place of like, I have to get it done, but from a place of like, am I just being optimistic here, or am I really committed to this? Is this actually a workable plan? And then we have questions inside pgsd that you can ask yourself to increase the workability of your power planning, so that you can feel confident that even if there’s an unexpected circumstance that comes up, maybe one of your kids is sick, maybe an employee that you have, or a team member or a client needs something urgently from you, and you need to do that thing that is not going to throw you off. It’s not going to ruin your plans or ruin your day or anything like that.

You need to have buffer time in your calendar to account for this. And when you’re doing your Power Hour and your power planning, as you do it each week, you will get more and more of an understanding of how much buffer time you actually need because of the feedback loop that is inherent in power planning, you will really start to understand what this looks like specifically for you. And of course, you can get coaching and support on that as well. And throughout the day, you will need to reprioritize what you’re working on so that you can get everything done in the time you have. This means some things might need to be moved the following week. Some things might need to be deleted, some things might need to be delegated. It is unlikely, I would say, based on my personal experience and the clients I have coached over many years now that for the most part, you will have a day where you just have the plan, you follow the plan. And that’s that I am constantly reprioritizing my day as I go to create this sense of completeness.

And I didn’t even mention with my analogy of landing the plane, which I will mention now, because, like, Why did I say that? Why is that a thing? Maybe you’ve heard me talk about it on the podcast before, but I think this is the perfect time to talk about it and think about it. You might have heard the analogy of when, like, you know, there’s a rocket flying through space, or whatever, or a plane flying through the sky, or, really, anything that is trying to get to a certain target. Most of the time it is off course, and it’s just constantly tweaking and readjusting to get to the place it needs to go. So I’m in Brisbane, Australia. And if I think about taking a flight to London, England, which is like on the opposite side of the world, and which I have done a few times, that if I like, I love thinking about this, how the pilot, like she will land the plane exactly on the tarmac on the other side of the world through all different weather conditions, she will know pretty much the exact time that we’re gonna get there.

Like they will say to the minute this is, and obviously there’s room for variation there, but like, this is the minute I will land on the other side of the world on a tiny strip of cement like that, to me, is so insane, and they’re constantly like readjusting and course correcting and adapting to the weather and the different conditions that come up. And yes, sometimes a flight has to be canceled, or different things like that. But ultimately, like this is the destination we’re working towards. I’m not just like flying a plane today. I have a specific location in mind, a specific time that I’m going to be in that location that is something that is very reliable, that we can depend on.

That’s what we want to create for ourselves as well, that we can rely on ourselves and depend on ourselves and have that problem solving of, okay, if I need to be there at that time, then where do I need to adjust to make that happen? Do I need to speed up? Do I need to slow down? Like all the things, I’m not a pilot. I don’t know the ins and outs of that, but I just love thinking of it like when I close my laptop at 430 on the.it just I feel like my wheels, like, you know when you’re in a plane and it’s landing and you feel that moment of impact where you just flying through the sky. And then as you get closer and closer, you kind of just know, like, Okay, any second now I’m going to feel that bump, of like, the wheels have hit the ground. We have landed in the destination. That feeling that is a feeling that I have, of like, it’s kind of this completeness, this arrival, this like, Okay, I’ve gotten to exactly where I was meant to get to.

This was exactly what was planned that I would arrive in this destination. That’s what I love doing. That’s why I call it landing the plane, because it also really takes into account the reality that there are things that happen, there are adjustments that need to be made. And I think the saying is like, you know, 90% what am I saying? 90% 97% of the time, you are actually off track. But ultimately you get there. Because when you’re off track, you just make all these little adjustments to get yourself back on track. And if you’re on a flight and you watch, like, you know how you can see the little image of the plane going across the world, especially if you’re doing a long haul flight, and you can see it bigger picture that it is constantly like, not actually lined up with the destination, but it gets there because of those constant tweaks and adjustments that are being made.

So that’s why I call it landing the plane. And I just want to wrap up this episode by sharing a bit about what my day actually looks like as it relates to this, like, how do I fly the plane, so to speak, and also, like taking off, because that’s a very important thing as well. So first of all, before it’s even like getting to what happens in a day, there are a few background things. So I have a growth goal for me that’s a million in revenue in a 12 month period. So I have my dates for that, like I have it all set out the way that we do it inside pgsd. So I have my growth goal I’m very clear on, like the ultimate where I’m landing the plane. Then I also have my quarterly goals. So my goal is broken down, and we have a formula that you can use inside pgsd. You don’t just divide it by four to have your quarterly goal. You follow this process, and you have your quarterly milestones that contribute towards your growth goal so you can grow into the person who can achieve that goal by the end of the year.

So then, within your quarterly milestones, like I have my mini goals that I have for the quarter that I’m working towards, and so then I have my weekly plan that contributes to that. So that is when I’m doing my power planning and my Power Hour, I know what my needle movers are. I know the things that are actually going to make the difference. I have planned in workability, clean rest, contingency plans. So again, the free training on power planning. If you don’t know what I’m talking about with power planning, then go to that link and watch that training, and also join us in pgsd so you can learn the full process and plan properly as a perfectionist like it is such a key tool. It is something that I am so proud of bringing together after so many years in personal development and learning from all different places and just actually creating a planning and productivity tool that works for your perfectionist brain instead of against it.

So I just really want to invite you in to learn it and to get any coaching and support as well, of course, that you could want or need with anything that I’m talking about today, so you have done your power planning, and then it comes to he actual day. So as I’ve been going about my day today, I’ve just been noting down, like, Okay, what do I actually do at each stage of the day to be confident that? Like, I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen today. Also, the twins are home sick from daycare today. Steve is thankfully looking after them. But also, then I have an extra opportunity for distraction, or to give myself an excuse to distract myself. And so it’s just like, I know that I’m going to finish exactly on 430 I know that it’s not because, like, I have to finish at 430 if I want to. I could finish at 445 I could finish at five, I could finish at six, really, if I wanted to, but I want to finish at 430 so how do I know that’s true? And what am I doing throughout the day to accomplish that?

So first of all, I’m just going to now walk you through what I do. So in the morning, before I start working, and typically, like, when I wake up, I don’t look at my phone or anything like that. Like I don’t have social media on my phone or anything like, I really treat the mornings, especially, very intentional with what I put into my brain. But depending what I have planned that day, I will often, just like, go quickly into my phone and see but unless I have a call with someone else, which doesn’t happen very often, like, most of my day isn’t spent on calls. Most days I don’t have a call, I have my pgsc call each week, and that’s really the only main calls that I have that’s recurring. So unless I have a call or a commitment with someone else, I know that I can get to my actual, like, start of my work time and look at my calendar then.

But for some people, like, if you have, you know, depending what your situation is, you might need to look at it first thing in the morning. But unless you really need to, I wouldn’t recommend that. So what I do once I have actually sat down at the time I planned. This is another thing you need to decide, or I highly recommend deciding when you’re going to start your day. Of course, part of power planning is that you have your little tweak step, which means making adjustments and keeping your plans workable. So it’s not a strict, rigid time, but if you don’t know when you’re going to start your day, it’s really hard to solve for what you’re going to get done, how to finish on time. And ultimately, a lot of times when we don’t know exactly when we’re going to start our day, we are just kind of being avoidant. And what is much better is just planning to start your day at the latest time that you would start it.

So if you’re like, I don’t know if I really like, for me, for example, we drop off the kids in the morning to day care of my work days. Like, I don’t really know, like maybe someone is going to be having a tough morning, and it’s going to take a lot longer for us to get there or whatever. So what I do is I plan for my work day to start at the latest time that it would actually start at. So for me, that’s at nine o’clock when, typically I am home by eight, if not 830 and ready to work, because I get ready myself as I’m getting the kids ready as well in the morning. So I just planned though that I’m going to start at nine versus, like, well, I don’t really even know when I’m gonna start, so like all of that, we just want to be out of that mental drama, and just if you don’t know what time, decide that it’s going to be the latest time that you recently expect.

So it could be like 11am it doesn’t matter what time, but having the start time is so powerful. So what I will do? The first thing I will do is I will go and look at my calendar, at my power planning, and see what is my plan for today, because I use my calendar as my to do list. So a few things I was like thinking about what questions I’m asking myself as I’m looking at my calendar. Because I’m not just saying, like, this is what I have planned, but I’m also evaluating, is this still workable? Is this something that I’m committed to following? Because if you were trying to follow a plan that you already know isn’t really going to happen, or is a bit too overly optimistic, or whatever, then it’s not as powerful as it could be, and it doesn’t mean at some point in the future, during that day, you’re not going to update it, because you did realize it was too optimistic, like what happened to me today.

But you can start that with, I am committed to solving for this, and I’m willing to have new insights along the way, but it’s not we just don’t want to have that feeling of like, I already know I’m not going to do that. I already know that I’m not going to be able to get that done in that time. Or I already know like I haven’t actually planned in lunch, and I need to eat. So we just love to be so optimistic. I think it just gives us this sense of control, and this really this illusion of control that we think like we can just do all the things and be better. And it just gives us so much hope that ultimately, doesn’t help us, but we can become, I think, pretty addicted to that optimistic feeling. And a lot of people say that’s a really positive trait. And I think in some circumstances, yes, in others, we really have it work against us. And so what you want to do, and this is what I do in the morning, is I mentally picture myself going through the day.

So I think about like, the different times and doing the different things, and I’m really just checking, like, is this actually achievable? Is this realistic? So I wrote down a few things, and I’ll share them with you. Have I given myself enough time to get the things done that I needed without pressure? Because when I’m power planning, I’m planning for results, not just activities, and I’m giving specific amount of time. So it’s different to time blocking, where you might be, like. Say, if you have a launch coming up, like launch, launch, and have all these different vlogs for just like launch, no, it’s like, outline this podcast episode, record podcast episode. Outline next podcast episode. Record next podcast episode. Work out, then I have lunch, then I have shower and get dressed, and then I have the next thing. So it’s like just knowing as well, that how you plan out the day really matters. So when you’re power planning, you’ll learn how to do that effectively in a way that really works for your brain as well.

But I mentally scan through, have I given myself enough time to get everything done without a feeling of pressure or stress or, like, rushing and just not listening to what my head’s saying, but listening to my body, because my body’s gonna tell me, like, if I feel a sense of overwhelm, there’s something to pay attention to that. If I feel a sense of dread, it’s not to say you’re not gonna ever have to do things you don’t dread. But if I just feel like, oh my god, like I can’t actually get this day done then and maybe there is a really challenging task, I might need to give myself buffer time after it, because it requires so much courage, or, like, I need to have a really hard conversation or whatever. I need to take that into account with my plans. I want to use my calendar as a way to support myself. So is there anything that I already know won’t happen? Like, I’m already like, I know I don’t actually have time for that, or that doesn’t really matter, and I’m just actually trying to be hopeful or busy with that, or whatever. So then removing that out of the calendar. Do I have enough time for lunch? Do I have enough time for task switching? Is there anything that I’ve forgotten that needs to be done and added in so either because something new has come up that needs to be done.

So like, in the morning, I also check in in Asana, which is how we project manage everything as a team. To see, like, is there anything that I’ve forgotten about. I haven’t, like, assumed that there will be. But also, I’m running a business, things change. So just looking at like, is there anything I’ve forgotten, instead of like, oh my God, I didn’t realize I had to do that thing. I’m squeezing it in at the end of the day and extending my workday like I’m actually going to do everything I can to preempt the same way that a pilot is going to look at the weather conditions, to do that before their flight, and to really take that into account, like I’m looking at ahead of time and being engaged with it. Of like, what do I think might come up today to disrupt me?

Because if we’re in that all on our team mindset, and we are thinking that if there’s any hiccup or any disruption, our plan will be ruined and we won’t be able to get anything done, and we’ll just spiral then, or we have to work really late then we don’t actually want to check in with our team or with your partner or with your kids or with anyone else to say, like, Hey. Is there anything you’re needing from me today that I should like? It might be helpful for me to know about now, and there might be something and you can plan for that and know it ahead of time, versus being caught off guard, being frustrated that will happen sometimes as well, but the like, the better I’ve gotten at this. It’s really a big part of it is just being willing to be engaged in the reality that there will be stuff happening in my life and that me knowing about it sooner rather than later, and doing so without mental drama about it, but like having the skill set of taking that into account really helps me know that I can finish my day on time. Have I got enough buffer time for unexpected things to happen?

So for example, on a day where the kids are home, even if I’m not the one looking after them, I need extra buffer time because there is a higher likelihood of something unexpected happening, rather than me just being like, well, if everything goes perfectly to plan, this is what I can get done. Do I already know I’ll finish late, and if so, to adjust my plans. Or this is such a big one, because there will be days you will choose to finish late, or you will want to have I let everyone know who needs to know about it. Some days there might not be anyone, but instead of being like, Oh yeah, I’ll definitely finish at five, see you at home for dinner. If you already know, if it’s 9am and you already know that you will not be home for dinner, you will not be home on time, or whatever that looks like for you, or that you need to work when you had promised your partner you’re going to watch Netflix with them tonight or whatever. it’s saying ahead of time. Like, hey, I already know that I’m not going to be able to finish on time, and this is why you don’t even really need to set but like, Hey, I’m just giving you a heads up. This is when I’m going to finish tonight.

And then if you say, okay, instead of finishing at five, I’m going to finish at seven tonight, and then you actually finish at seven, you still get all of the benefits of this. And it’s not about like I have to be so strict with it, but this as well, is part of a tool for your relationships with other people. And if there are other people in your life, which there probably are, who want to be able to rely on you and not resent you and your business for when you are like, Oh no, I always have to be working. I’m so busy and oh my God, and that all that drama, just like, No, I finish on time when I said I would, and if I need more time, I communicate that as soon as I’m aware of that, so that the other person can take that into account the same way that you want to be able to take things. Into account as soon as you could know about them.

So that might take some growth, like some personal development, to be willing to have that conversation. If you tend to just be like, Oh my god, I’m so sorry. And like telling people after the fact, because you don’t want to feel the feelings that would come from telling them ahead of time, and maybe that is shame or embarrassment or just feeling guilt or whatever it is just so much better. Like, there are days if I know I’m going to work late, I just say, Hey, is it okay with you? Like, this is what I’m planning to do. I’m planning to finish a little bit later, or I want to have an extra work day, or whatever, instead of, like, when I try and squeeze it in, it just it doesn’t help me, it doesn’t help anyone else involved. And so I just want to invite you to communicate more openly when you do know that you’re not going to finish on time, and if you know your work time that you aim to finish at is completely unrealistic, and say, you try to finish at five every day, and every day you actually finish at six or seven or 10pm just actually plan to finish at the time you have been finishing.

And then, as you develop this skill set, then you can bring your end time earlier. But instead of the equivalent of being someone who wakes up at 80, I’m being like, I have to wake up at 5am just actually start practicing waking up at an 8am alarm, and then make it a little bit earlier as you create that identity and that self image. So all of that to say, it’s not about you have to finish at a certain time. And it’s definitely not about like, please do not hear with any of this you have to work corporate hours. You definitely do not. My workdays tend to look like that because I have kids who go to daycare who have those set hours. But you can work whatever time you want. You can start super early and finish super early. You can start super early you can start super early and finish super late. You can start late and finish late, whatever you want to do. It’s just really like being in integrity with what you said to yourself and what you said to others.

And part of integrity is that you are your word. And this is one of the values we have as a business, is being your word, and that means doing what you said you would, and because the reality is, you’re not always going to be able to, as soon as you know that’s not possible, communicating that to anyone else who is involved and communicating that proactively, like, as soon as you know that you aren’t going to be on time somewhere, instead of messaging someone after you’re already meant to meet them, you’re like, sorry. I’m like, Well, of course you are, because you should have been here already to be like, Hey, I’m only just getting in the car. Like, not even then, because you might not even get in the car till after the time. Hey, already know that I’m not going to be there on time.

This is actually when I’m expecting to be there. Like, we often just feel so guilty letting people know ahead of time, but it is the best thing you can do to build trust and integrity in relationships, even if it is a little embarrassing or uncomfortable or something that’s new to you. So it’s having that kind of communication with yourself and with others as well that’s really a skill you’ll develop through doing this, and is really, really powerful, especially if you’re a people pleasing perfectionist and you have a hard time letting people know that you’re going to be disappointing them, and you just try to disappoint them without drawing attention to it. To actually own like, Hey, this is what I’m going to be delivering to you today. And I know it’s not what you want, but this is what I have to offer.

So also knowing that you are going to not de prioritize things. So we’re going through like picturing the day. So for example, when I did it this morning, I knew I am not going to de prioritize my workout. I’m not going to deprioritize my lunch like those things are getting done. Those are really the essentials for today. And I want to record two podcast episodes. And then I also wanted to record an episode for the 12 week challenge, the power planning challenge we’re doing inside pgsd. I recorded an episode for that. Those are the essential things that will not get de prioritized, and also I might need to adjust the way that I do them, but those are the essential things my brain always wants to deprioritize the workout 100% and just recently, I have just been recommitted again to like, oh, everything in my life is so much easier when I work out every day, even when my brain doesn’t want to.

So I just do a lunchtime workout. Now that is just part of the plan. It starts at some point, beginning at 1pm like, between one and two is when I do that, and I treat that as a commitment with myself, as if it was with someone else. And this whole process really helped with that as well. And as I mentioned, if you have a team checking in with them, hey, what’s going on today? Is there anything you need from me? And also, if you do have a team, because I know quite a few people listening do or you might have clients or things that you’re working with to really begin to create an expectation or a tone or like a rule, or whatever you want to think about it as is that people that you know ahead of time if they’re going to need something from you, versus like, Hey, I know you’re about to finish in five minutes. I just have this quick question. Like, no, if you have a quick question, you need to get it to me at least two hours before my finish time because I have other things that I’m doing, or whatever that looks like, but you get to set the tone for that.

And so if you are getting a lot of unexpected things, especially the last minute, it’s really just looking at like, How can I retrain the people who work with me and for me so that they are not expecting me to do things at the last minute, and especially if you just keep extending your workday to accommodate that, of course, they’re going to keep asking that. You have to change the tone. Not be like, Oh, if they didn’t ask, I wouldn’t have to do it. No, you have to set the tone. You have to step up and do that.

So then as I go throughout the day, so I’ve looked at my day like this morning, okay, I’ve made some adjustments. I’ve made some little tweaks to my plans. And then as I go, working off my calendar using the check mark emoji. So you’ll learn all of this inside perfectionist getting shit done, adding a little check mark emoji to update my plans so that by the end of the week, my day is going to be able to be looked at and studied during my weekly review. So today, for example, just to share a bit more about my actual day today, I had an overly optimistic plan, and I kind of knew it when I did my plan, but I also like, I think I could self coach on it to have this actually happen. But then as the day went on, I was like, actually, I have just been too optimistic. So even with all of like, the checks and balances I mentioned, there will be some things that slip through, and that’s not a problem. Like you’re human, you have a human brain. Like this isn’t about doing it perfectly or whatever. I think part of doing it perfectly, if we would use that term, is to just be engaged and present and connected with yourself, and not making yourself wrong and dismissing yourself.

So I had wanted to record two of the 12 week challenge recordings and four podcast episodes. And what I actually did was kind of like the equivalent of when you say, say, like, if you have a workplace that you drive to, and someone asks you, like, Okay, how long does it take you to get there? And the answer you give is, how long it takes you in perfect traffic with, like, no hiccups, kind of answer of like, Oh yeah, it’s a 15 minute drive. But really, it’s probably actually a 21 minute drive, but you’re just actually in your brain pretending or hoping that you get the best case scenario. So with my podcast, I already know, like typically, I will give myself half an hour to outline the episode and an hour to record the episode, and so I had given myself 15 minutes to write out the episode, show not show notes, like my notes for it, and then 30 minutes to record.

And typically, like, the shortest episode I would do for this podcast is 30 minutes. And so I already knew ahead of time that it wasn’t really gonna work, but I was like, Oh, but I really have these things I want to do today. So like, let’s just see. And so again, as I’ve shared all about this, like my brain can still be like, Okay, I just really want to be optimistic about it. But that’s not a problem when you are able to support yourself by saying, Okay, actually, what I’m going to do is just do 1-12 week challenge recording, and I’m just going to do two podcast episodes, and I’m going to not beat myself up about it, not make myself wrong for it. I’m going to trust myself going back to the self image. I’m going to trust myself that I know when to change my plans and when to keep them the same. I’m going to allow myself to change my plans and give myself twice as much time for each of those things, and enjoy recording my episodes and allow myself to do longer episodes, because I haven’t been doing as many episodes lately, and I just really have episodes like this, where I just have a full process that I want to be sharing with you, and I’m going to allow myself to do that. And could I self coach to do a shorter episode? Yes, and can I do episodes in that amount of time? Yes. But also I like doing these episodes as well, and that’s okay, and I’m going to allow myself to do that.

So it really is all about, like, how you treat yourself in the process of your plans changing or having different realizations, versus like, No, I have to do four episodes and that kind of tense energy. I don’t want that. Or really just like, pressuring myself to do it or or realistically, for a lot of us, we actually do it the way that makes sense, but then we make ourselves wrong for that and create this negative association with changing our plans, or, like, honoring something that makes sense. So like, actually just makes sense to have myself record it as longer episodes and spend more time on the outlines because they are more intricate episodes that I’m recording. And I know there are times I do the other kind of episode where I write quick notes, and I am not doing this style of episode with so many dot points that I’m going through, and that’s okay, and I’m actually just going to allow myself to do this.

So it saves so much time to not have, like, the mental beat up going on. So then it’s, as I said, like, keeping on working off your calendar. And know that, especially in the afternoon, like, my brain wants to disengage and like, it doesn’t want to keep looking at the calendar. It just wants to, like, do anything and just kind of work on this little thing or tweak that, or, like, go into polishing and perfecting and busy work and all of that. And I just need to keep bringing my brain back to my calendar to the plan, and that’s easier, of course, when your plan is one that’s supportive, but even when it is a supportive plan, it means also I’m doing courageous things. I’m putting myself out there, I’m being vulnerable, I’m doing tedious things, or whatever like that’s a big part of building a business, is all these different things. And my brain just wants to do anything else other than that, and so it’s going to want to disengage, and I just need to bring it back and reconnect and keep looking at my calendar and adjusting it.

And there are times like when I’ll look and I haven’t looked, say for like an hour or so, like I have just done something completely different, or it’s taken me way longer, and I just adjust it following the power planning process. I just adjust it, and I keep going. And if something needs to get de prioritized, then it does again. The skill of reprioritization is a very important one. So that is part of what you’ll be doing. If you make yourself wrong for reprioritizing, then you aren’t going to be able to do this. A big part of it is removing any judgment that you have any self criticism that you have for changing your plans, because when you do that, if you make yourself wrong, it only makes it harder to actually create plans that are really supportive. It just it’s really counterintuitive how it works, but if you aren’t actually treating yourself kindly, you will make plans that make it hard to do that, and you aren’t going to be able to fully support yourself with your calendar and be able to get shit done without burning out, which is, of course, what I’m all about teaching you how to do so again, self coaching might be needed when you are going to need to reprioritize something, or if you Have the like, a certain outcome you want to create.

So a few I can think of, so many times I’ve done this, but like, I have a certain number of emails I need to write. Say it’s for a launch, say it’s just a normal weekly email. And I don’t have as much time as my perfectionist brain wants to have. And so instead of being like, Okay, well, I need, I guess I need to work into the evening, like, Okay, well, if I did want to get these emails done in that amount of time. Instead of just seeing how long they take, I will go. I will spend like, 15 minutes self coaching and looking at, Okay, how many emails need to be written? What amount of time do I have overall? How many minutes per email is that? And this is all tedious stuff our brain, of course, does not want to do. How many minutes is that? What does this look like? And then, for example, I’m thinking of one specific one where it was like, Okay, I have, I can’t remember exactly how many emails I have, like, 15 emails that I want to write. And I have, essentially, I think it was like the equivalent of 10 minutes per email. And I can write email in 10 minutes, but generally it takes me for a new email, like, say, 20 to 30 minutes to write that.

So what I’m going to do is I’m going to go through and find, okay, what are some emails that I’ve already written that I can repurpose and resend out, and then which emails do I want to write as new emails? I’m going to have some time for new emails, but most of the time is just going to be repurposing emails that I’ve already written and not being in this perfectionist thought of like everything has to be new and original and from scratch like that does not help us in business. It really makes it hard to do anything where we’re constantly recreating things from scratch and thinking that’s the good way to do it, and having this moral view about it, but being like, Okay, if I want to actually get this done and finish on time, then what do I need to do here? And thinking about if you were doing this, it might feel foreign at first to do it just so you can finish your day on time, and like, follow through with the plans for yourself.

So to think like if you had plans with someone else, and say, like you couldn’t work on it any of the other days, because you already have things planned. This is another great thing about power planning. You already know what you’ve got planned on the other days. So you know, if I don’t get this done now I have to deprioritize something else versus from a to do list. We kind of just have this delusion that we have this endless amount of time. So it really just brings you to the reality of the amount of time that you actually have to do it. So if you look at when you are whatever task it is that you have, and I’m going to do a whole separate episode on this, because it’s a whole other topic, but the self coaching required to be the person who can solve for getting that done in a certain amount of time, whether it is writing a series of emails, whether it’s editing a video.

And a big key, I’ll just say, is, instead of waiting into a task like seeing how long it will take is you sit down ahead of time. You give yourself, say, 15 minutes, maybe 30, if it’s the first time you’ve done it, and you think through, okay, what is actually the process I’ll need to follow? So say, if I’m trying to edit a YouTube video, I’m going to need to first of all, import all the video to my video editor. Then I need to do whatever, review all the video. Then I need to do this, then I need to do that. And you can really map out this is how it will actually take and there are things like that that I’ve done that I’m, like, when I used to have a YouTube channel, like, I’m not going to edit videos anymore. I’m just going to hit record the same way I do with this podcast, because it’s just such a process to edit them and like, be so finicky with it, like, I’m. Is actually going to record YouTube videos from start to finish with no editing, and I know I’m not going to edit it, so I’m not going to repeat things, because I already know it won’t be edited out.

So there are so many powerful decisions that can come from like really getting present to what is the process that I need to complete. Do I want to complete it now that I’m fully aware of what the process is, and just even if it’s something you’ve never done before, your brain does have a good idea about what’s involved and what a process is if you’re going to hire someone to help you, like, Okay, first of all, maybe Google this, and then after you’ve Googled this, maybe do that, or after you’ve done that, then maybe do a little bit of planning your calendar, because now you have more information. You know exactly what needs to be done, but it’s really important not to just wade into tasks and like, kind of feel them out as you go. Anytime I do that, I faff about so much, I waste so much time, and it just takes a little discomfort and mental energy to go, Okay, I’m gonna think about it ahead of time. What do I need to do? How much time can I give myself for each step? What could I do to speed this up or simplify this process where my perfectionism come up, then I’m going to want to get really finicky with things and going back to that skill of being able to see sufficiency and be able to move on.

What are the things I’m going to want to perfect that don’t actually need perfecting, like preempting that ahead of time is so powerful. So I’ll talk about that in a future episode coming out. But you keep working through your calendar, I keep working through my calendar, and then at the end of my day, I give myself 15 to 30 minutes to complete the day. So this is time to wind down. So instead of thinking that the last task I have, I’m going to finish that at the minute that I’m going to finish my work day, which also my brain wants to say that as well. Instead, it’s actually I am going to give myself, like that, buffer time. I always have buffer time at the end of any workable work day, I’m going to give myself some time to wind down, which really means, like, closing tabs. Highly recommend you close tabs. Closing tabs. I’m going into Asana. I’m like, checking off any tasks I had to get done for the day. I am like, just tidying up my desk. I’m just like, actually finishing up my day. Instead of doing that after the time. I give myself that time so that I can actually leave my office at the exact minute.

So giving yourself time for that is key. It does take more than 90 seconds as our brain likes to think like, oh, that doesn’t take me long at all. It does actually take, like, to mentally close those tabs in your brain too, and to be like, Okay, there’s this like, Okay. I’m thinking, what things might I be thinking about across my days off. What about this thing? What about that thing? Like, anything like that I am getting and creating with my brain the completeness of, like, Okay, I’m gonna do that next week. I’ll put that in my calendar now, or I’ll write a note about that here. Like, everything, I’m preempting what will come up in my brain, and my brain will feel incompleteness about and I am then doing the mental work to create completeness around that.

And so if there are any things by the end of that time that I’m like, I just didn’t get them done today, I haven’t updated my power planning, and this is really the last thing I do in the day, is that I will do the final update of my power planning and put all the check mark emojis in and move anything to other days that need to be moved, or anything like that, so that I actually have at the end of my work day everything that was there, like that has been essential, has gotten done, anything else has been deprioritized or deleted or delegated, or whatever else. And I’ve had my eye focused on what my goal is, what’s essential? Like, what are those needle moving tasks? So I know I’ve moved myself forward, and I don’t have any like, Okay, hopefully, and this is, like, such a big thing to look out for, hopefully I can get this done tonight, hopefully I can get this done on the weekend. Hopefully I can squeeze this in somewhere, like I have tried that in so many different ways. It just never works. And it just even when I do have the time to do it, and I do get it done, it just is not an impactful use of time.

And me spending that amount of time instead of my personal life is such a bigger needle mover than me having an extra 30 minutes or an extra hour for my business. So with that said, it’s just like building in that time for yourself at the end of your work day to actually mentally close those times and physically too as well, tidy up, do your final update of your power planning. And really, I love to then look at like, Okay, what have I got on tomorrow in the next few days? So when I finish up today, I’ll see like, hey, I really have nothing on my calendar. Like, I just have a lot of clean rest. I’ll be looking after the kids and all of that on those days as well. But I don’t have a lot of commitments or specific time bound things, because I love to be so structured in my work days and that my days off, I’m not as structured, so that my brain doesn’t resist the workday structure.

So I know as well on Tuesday morning, I have time there for my weekly review, for my power planning like I’ve got everything there that’s needed, so I can trust my future self is going to be thinking through anything that’s needed. I have my iPhone notes and a specific one that’s saved as a widget on my iPhone. So it’s super easy to go right into that any little mental things that come up are like, oh, I need to do this, or I didn’t ask Daisy about that, or whatever. I will just write it down there so I know there’s just one place it’s captured, versus like, I have to do that now. No, I don’t. I’m gonna write it down and trust my future self and also just having one central place to get it is so important, versus, like, I have a little note here, I write some things down here, and something’s down there, and like, you need to have a note taking system you can trust. So I just have my iPhone notes, and I know that as part of my Power Hour, I will look in that and see, okay, what little things that I think about that I need to actually work on now.

So the final piece is to use your weekly review. So this is like after the day is complete. Whenever you do your weekly review during the week, to use that to study yourself. To use that weekly review to look at, okay, my goal for that day, and just not even all today, is just think about one specific day if you’re working on this, my goal was to finish at a certain time. And I can see it when I look at the before photo of my power planning, I can see that was the plan, and this is what actually happened. And then reconciling anything you need to going through the weekly review prompts that we have as well to support you with it, but really understanding and studying what went on for you and what you would do differently next time, not what you should have done differently, but what will you do differently next time? How can you make it easier to finish on time? What came up that you didn’t expect? Are you starting to see patterns and trends and themes that you can take into account? Do you need a lot more buffer time, like things like that, when you’re going through the weekly review that will come up?

But I just want to mention that, because we perfectionists can really approach anything like this, where you are developing a set of skills that we think, like, I’m going to try it once, and then it’s going to work, and then it’s going to be great. And if it didn’t, we’re really in that perfectionist entitlement about it like that. If I try it once, it should work, and if it if it doesn’t work the first time, it can’t work or it won’t work. And so instead, we want to be in, oh, this is a new skill. And any new skill we’re developing, it needs a feedback loop. It needs a way for you to look at and examine what went on. We don’t want you to just try harder the next time. Like, no, let’s actually study and understand what went on for you, so that the next time you’re planning out your week, you can actually take that into account. And this means week after week after week when you have how planning, it gets easier to follow through with your plans.

You are really planning in a way that works specifically for you, and like, I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way at this point. I have now power planned for so many years, so I hope it’s been really helpful. Like, this is a skill that I have talked about with a lot of people, individually, and that I haven’t done a podcast episode on before, but it is one of my favorite things to do, which sounds so nerdy to finish my day exactly on the minute to land the plane, but once you do it to you will know what I’m talking about. And the days that I do do it, which is most days at this point, I have been working on this for quite a while now that I just get such a sense of momentum that I know was never possible for me when I was working from an endless to do list, or when I was expecting that if everything was complete, I would magically feel complete, and that I’ll rest when everything is done.

Like, there’s a reason that you only stop working when you’re exhausted or you have commitments with someone else, so you literally have to stop working, or you just work into the evenings and whatever, when you’re like, Okay, I finally feel like everything important is done, like you actually get to create completeness for yourself, proactively in a really powerful way that gives you such a sense of control and empowerment and really for your business as well, like it’s so important to be able to feel like you are someone who can be relied on, and you are in charge, and you’re not just Like at effect of whatever’s happening in your business and whatever’s happening in your life, but you are in control of it, and this process that I talked about in this episode is really there to support you with that, and it is going to have such a big ripple effect as well in your business, just from the kind of person you become through developing these skills and this self image and doing this work, you will be showing up for your clients and customers in a different way.

You will be handling negative comments and haters in a different way. Every area of your business will be positively impacted by you becoming the person who can do this doesn’t mean you have to finish at a certain time, but being able to rely on yourself to finish when you said you would accessing your high level thinking to solve for how to get things done in the time that you had allowed yourself to do it, trusting yourself to adjust your plans, like all of that that I shared in this episode, there is no downside to it. It is only going to help your business, your relationship with yourself, and your relationship with others as well. So with all that said. This has been a meaty episode. I hope you have found it incredibly helpful. I also want to invite you inside perfectionist getting shit done, my coaching program for perfectionist entrepreneurs to do this work, to learn the simple steps of power planning and to be really walked through the process of this, because in this episode, I have shared a lot with you, and inside pgsd, it’s broken down to exactly what you need to learn when you need to learn. It short, concise lessons, exactly when you need them.

And really it is just something that, instead of just hearing this and being like, Okay, I’m going to try to do that myself. Like, of course you can. But also, if you want to get the best results, and if you actually want to get results, I highly recommend getting the right tools, like learning power planning in full, getting the support with it, having community around you, like a community of business friends who are also power planning and getting shit done, and who you can talk to about all this. It makes such a difference. And I know if you love this episode, if you have listened all the way to the end, you are going to love pgsd. So samlaurabrown.com/pgsd is where you can go to find out more about the program and sign up. I hope you’re having a beautiful day, and I will talk to you in the next episode.

Outro
If you struggle to build your business due to procrastination or overthinking or maybe you keep burning yourself out, I want to invite you to join my program perfectionist getting shit done inside, I will teach you my proven process for getting shit done as a perfectionist entrepreneur. In case you didn’t know, perfectionists can’t follow the same productivity advice as everyone else, when we do, we get in our own way. So let me teach you what works inside the program. It’s simple, and anyone can learn to sign up today, visit SamLaurabrown.com/pgsd, I’ll see you inside.






Author: Sam Brown