Podcast

Episode 487: 4 Reasons You Won’t Rebel Against Your Calendar When You’re Power Planning

Our perfectionist all-or-nothing mindset is what makes us rebel from our calendars. That is, unless you’re planning properly as a perfectionist.

I used to be the person who couldn’t follow through with my calendar for more than a couple of days. Yet no matter how much time I spent planning everything out, I kept rebelling. It wasn’t because I didn’t have what it takes to be my own boss. It was simply because I was unknowingly making some pretty big planning mistakes that were making my perfectionist mindset working against me.

In this episode I’m sharing 8 calendaring mistakes that are unknowingly causing you to rebel against your calendar. And I walk you through how Power Planning solves for each of them in the easiest and most practical way. If you want to be able to rely on yourself to follow through with your plans whilst having lots of flexibility and freedom in your week, this episode is for you.

Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode487.

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If you’re ready to say goodbye to overwhelm, I invite you to sign up for The Power Planning Course. Enrollment is now open and will close in just 4 days time. To find out more and sign up visit samlaurabrown.com/powerplanning.

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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
Okay, so I want to talk today about a topic that I have been getting asked a lot about, and I realize I’ve never done an episode specifically on this, and I want to talk about it because rebelling against your calendar, setting things up and then not following through with them, is something that does so much damage to our self trust and also to our business if we’re not able to rely on ourselves to get shit done, and we are constantly making promises with ourselves and then breaking them, it becomes really hard to make decisions in your business because you don’t trust yourself to actually follow through with them, like everything in business, gets harder when you rebel against your calendar, not to mention you’re not then most likely getting things done that need to be done.

You probably eventually get it done, but you are working at the last minute. Everything is very stressful. You get burnt out often. You resent your business. You feel like you’re not in control of your time, and you’re just very reactive instead of being proactive in your business, and so I want to share with you why you are rebelling against your calendar and also how power planning will have you make plans that you don’t even want to rebel against. It’s not that you just won’t rebel against them, it’s you won’t even want to. And if you do want to change your plans, you have the freedom and the permission from the power planning method to do that. It is inherent in the process itself that you will adjust and update your plan.

So when we have our perfectionism handbrake on and we’re in that all or nothing mindset, we rebel against our calendars a lot. And so I want to share with you and go through why you’re rebelling and how power planning will help you to not rebel, so that you can start calendaring and following through with it, and have it feel really good, really flexible and enjoyable and like you actually have freedom in your business, versus if you are rebelling against your calendar, you will not have a sense of freedom. Even if you are working intuitively and doing whatever you want to do, you will still feel like you can’t rely on yourself and you’re not truly free. So I want to have you feeling free, being able to actually have fun new business, to work intuitively and in a flowy way. If that’s what you like to do, that’s how I like to work and being able to rely on yourself, and being able to feel like you are in control of your time and you’re not overwhelmed by everything that there is to do.

So the power planning course as well. I want to make sure you know about this. The power planning course is open for enrollment at the time of this release, and will be open for four days only. So I will link up in the show notes, where you can go to find out more and sign up. It’s samlaurabrown.com/powerplanning, and it’s going to be so helpful. So I’ll talk about that a bit more at the end. But for now, I just want to get into why you rebel against your calendar. So I have been talking to people via Instagram DM’s and emails and things like that, and just hearing more about this issue of rebelling against your calendar and what that looks like for people, and understanding how frustrating it is and how painful it is for the people who are doing that. And I get it because I used to be the person who was constantly rebelling against my calendar. That I would plan out my week. I would be time blocking. I would sit down and I would then fit my to do list and everything in my head and everything I wanted to get done, I would put that into my calendar and then within, for sure, within three days at best, but within 24 hours, typically, I had fallen behind on those plans.

I then didn’t want to keep looking at my calendar, or I didn’t want to do the thing that I had planned, and so I just stopped actually following through with the plan. And then, of course, the plan becomes outdated, and then it’s just so much work to even get the plan workable again when you’re doing it this way. And so I would just not look, and then I’d try again, often the next Monday, and then the same thing would happen. And I was so frustrated, because I loved the idea of having a beautiful color coded calendar that would just allow me to not feel overwhelmed, like I knew exactly what I needed to do, and I just had that clear plan for the week, but the way I was doing it was turning my perfectionism handbrake on and making it so hard to actually follow through.

So here are a few specific reasons why you are rebelling against your calendar. I just want you to hear throughout all of this that it’s not because that’s just who you are, that that is how it’s always going to be, and especially and in this episode, I’m talking to the person who has a desire to work from a digital calendar, like iCal, which I use, or Google calendar if you don’t want to work from a calendar, and you’re like, oh my god, I couldn’t imagine anything worse, this episode and power planning is not for you, because you will be working from a digital calendar in a way that you love, rather than in a way that makes you feel like you are in a really demanding job that hasn’t taken any of your personal needs into account. It hasn’t taken anything into account. It’s just this idealistic plan that’s been given to you so you can do everything perfectly in very short time frames and barely sleep and barely eat.

If you are feeling like your calendar is like that, power planning is going to be so amazing for you. But again, if you have no desire to work from a calendar, this is not for you. So here is why you rebel. First of all, you don’t really know why you need to do what’s in your calendar, and you don’t have an idea of how it ties into the bigger picture of your business. So for example, you might have things in there like lead generation or post on social media, and even though you know and have heard through other people that those tasks are important for your business, or it might be things like file taxes and that sort of thing, you don’t actually have a clear bigger picture for your business, so you don’t actually have the motivation required to follow through with those things, because it feels like it doesn’t really matter whether you get them done or not, and it definitely doesn’t matter whether you get them done today, so you’re just missing that bigger picture. Having a clear goal for your business that actually allows you to have more motivation for every single task that will be on your calendar.

Another one is that you have planned your tasks in a really vague way. So again, things like post on social media, start a podcast, update website, work on branding. If you are planning your tasks in your calendar in that language, it is so hard to follow through, also, because when you word things like that, you will tend to really underestimate how much time is required, or pre work that is required to be able to complete that task, and so it feels so unrealistic and so hard to follow through on that of course you are going to rebel against it. You need to have your plan set up in a really clear and concise way so that it is easy to follow through. You know exactly what success looks like, and you know you have enough time to get it done. Another one is that you are using multiple productivity methods.

So your calendar is kind of there as a recommendation or a suggestion with what you could do with your time. But you also know that you might be working from your task management system as your to do list. You might have paper to do list. You might have iPhone notes. You probably in your tired brain, have a long list of things you are like mentally holding on to ideas that you have, things that you have seen that you want to be able to do, little improvement projects on your website or social media, and things like that that you want to work on. So your calendar is treated more as a suggestion or recommendation, hence why it is easy to ignore when you aren’t actually committed to your calendar, you’re just like, Okay, well, I could do that, but I could do this other thing instead.

Another one is that you haven’t taken into account what you actually want to do and how you work best. So you have given yourself a plan that includes things that you should do or have to do or need to do, rather than actually playing into the strengths that you have working in an aligned way, doing the things that you really enjoy doing and figuring out. And this is what you will learn in the power planning course, figuring out how to set a really clear goal for your business, a growth goal, how to identify the needle movers that will get you to that goal, and how to have those needle movers be things that you actually enjoy. I know, and this could be a whole other podcast episode, but I know that it can be hard to believe, as a perfectionist that you can achieve your goals by doing things that feel easy and aligned and play to your strengths. We often have this idea that success takes a lot of hard work and has to be earned, and so what we will subconsciously do from that belief is that we will set up our business in a way that has us trying to improve our weaknesses rather than playing to our strengths.

We will overcomplicate our busy work and things that don’t matter because it feels so uncomfortable to have success be easy, it would actually be like a whole paradigm shift for that to happen, and identity shattering and just like it would just completely question our worldview. So what we do is we make it complicated and hard. And an example of this for me, I find coaching. I find recording podcast episodes. I find talking on stories going live. I find all of that kind of thing very easy. Mind you. I had to do mindset work to have that be the case. But once that was easy for me, I actually stopped myself from doing those things because it felt so uncomfortable to have a successful business based on a set of skills that I found to be easy by just showing up and chatting and sharing by coaching and self coaching and then sharing those insights with others like that just felt way too easy. And so I would try and learn webinars and set up complicated funnels for my business and like do all the things I should be doing.

And I have had the most success when I have worked in an aligned way I have played to my strengths. I have put in my calendar the things that I am good at, I’m also learning new skills, but the things that I am good at, I don’t dismiss them or overlook them just because they feel easy. So it there is a good chance and there are some tedious tasks you you do need to do to build a business, but there is a good chance that your calendar is filled with a lot of shoulds and have tos and need tos versus the things you want to be doing that you are aligned with, and most likely, you are someone as well who has other business projects and dreams and ideas that they want to be working on. Maybe that’s another arm of your business that you want to start. Maybe you want to start a whole other business. Maybe you want to start a podcast or a YouTube channel, and you don’t actually allow yourself to do that. Not only do you feel so overwhelmed by everything currently that it feels like you don’t have the time or energy, but you’re not even allowing yourself to explore what you want your business to actually look like.

So your business is feeling more like a job than it is like a business. And also, you’re not taking into account as well with your calendar, and this is why you’re rebelling against it. You’re not actually taking into account how you work best, like what your work rhythms are. Maybe you don’t even understand what they are. A tool like power planning, it has a feedback, feedback loop in it. So you will learn how to really understand yourself, study yourself. You will be identifying your work rhythm. So for example, for me, I experimented with doing slow mornings and then working in the afternoon. I work way better and I’m way more productive when I get shit done in the morning and I finish earlier in the day and then get the clean rest in the afternoon in the evening.

But I was able to play around with it and really figure out for me, like, what times of day do I work best? And then what is the best sequencing for different tasks? Like, is it better to do a podcast episode and then write emails, or vice versa after I record a podcast episode, is it better to have some clean rest, or is it better to jump straight into another task? I have figured all of that out through power planning, and then power planning supports me to actually execute that and implement that. If you are rebelling against your calendar, most likely you are planning what you should do, or what your ideal self would be able to do, and maybe as well, especially, like, if you’re like me, and you’ve come from the nine to five, then you will be thinking like, I have to work nine to five and basically, like, what would I do if this was a job? And maybe as well, you’re still feeling like your business is a hobby.

So you’re like, hey, I need to treat this seriously. I need to work nine to five hours. But you might not be productive in nine to five hours with having like a lunch break in the middle, you might work better, working for an hour and then having a half hour break, and then working for an hour and then going for a walk and then working for an hour, and then that being your day done. And I know it can sound crazy, especially if you’ve come from like the nine to five live and or the entrepreneurship, like, the way that it’s talked about, is like you should be hustling and working 24/7, but what you will find, and you’ll learn about this in the course too, as you increase your clean rest, your guilt free rest, you will increase your energy, your focus, your productivity, so that when it is work time, you are not only because you know Your needle movers and your growth goal, you’re not only not only working on what’s actually essential, but you are able to get it done in more self trust, more quickly, more easily.

You’re able to not overthink and not procrastinate, so you don’t actually need as much time. You can get eight hours worth of work done in three hours. That’s very realistic when you were power planning, when you were actually planning in a way that not only works for your perfectionist brain, but also takes into account who you are as a human, what your preferences are, what your work rhythms are. There are a lot of students who have done power planning who love working in terms of their human design. They love working in terms of their cycle and planning differently when they are ovulating versus when they’re in their luteal phase and things like that.

So maybe you’re not taking that into account at all. That is my guess. You’re just planning for yourself a very idealistic if I was perfect and perfectly motivating, then this is what I should do if I was following what all the experts say you have to. Do to build a business, here is my plan. Of course you rebel against that. Of course you don’t want to follow through on that. That is not freedom, and that does not feel like success, no matter how much money you make from that kind of thing and that kind of approach to business on a day to day basis, you will not feel successful, and you will not feel fulfilled if you are building a business you don’t even like in a way that you don’t even want.

So what I want to talk about next is setting reminders that you and I don’t set reminders with my power planning, and I don’t recommend that you do. You can do it if you want. If you have ADHD, for example, and you struggle with time blindness, then what you could do is instead set yourself an alarm to go off every hour to keep you aware of time. But I just find if you are setting reminders for yourself, unless you are truly committed to your plans, like if your power planning, might be okay to set reminders, but if you are not, not only are you doing all these things that I’ve mentioned, but then you are having these reminders pop up to remind you about plans that you’re not even committed to, that you don’t even know if they’re going to get you to your goal that are worded in such a vague way it’s so hard to even know where to start and what to do and what done looks like.

And you’re bombarding yourself with that. And then every time you hit ignore or you exit out of that reminder, you are breaking a promise you made with yourself and depleting your self trust, which makes decision making harder, which makes following through so much harder. You can’t rely on yourself. You then as well, if you love working intuitively. You can’t trust your intuitive nudges and hunches that you have, because overall, you have a habit of breaking promises with yourself. So regardless of whether you’re power planning or not, I do not recommend setting reminders. And instead, if you need help with being aware of time, set yourself alarms that are time based rather than ones that are task based. When you are power planning, you will be using your calendar as your to do list as your plan that you are following throughout the day.

Step two of power planning, I’ll talk about this more in a bit, but step two of power planning is little tweaks. So you will be as you go, putting a check mark emoji in next to your tasks and adjusting them as you go. So some tasks, you might find they take you a bit longer, or you need to shuffle things around, or there was an unexpected interruption, or maybe you distracted yourself, and so you need to adjust your plan so it’s still workable. You’ll learn how to do that in the power planning course. You will still get that satisfaction of ticking off a to do list, but it won’t be one where it’s endless and then you’ve just like highlighted the three top priorities for the day. Instead, it will actually be a plan that you want to follow through on, and you will have that there.

So instead of like, when people like, I can’t even remember to check my calendar, it’s because their calendar is just a suggestion or recommendation for what to do. They’re typically using multiple different productivity tools or methods to try and keep track of everything. And so of course, you forget to look at your calendar because you don’t have to, because it’s only a suggestion. When you’re power planning, there isn’t strictness or pressure from your calendar, but you will be constantly engaging with it the same way that if you’re working from a to do list, you are engaging with that to do list. So just know that when you are power planning as well, you won’t have to, like, try and force yourself to look at your calendar because you will want to look at it because it’s a plan that you actually want to follow that will get you to your goals. It gives you lots of clean rest. It has you working in an aligned way. If you have a tedious task, you’re going to have lots of rest after that task, or ample time to do that task so it’s not stressful.

So it’s just going to be so much easier to actually look at your calendar and not forget to look at your calendar as well. Having plans that aren’t workable and are easy to fall behind on is another reason that you are rebelling against your calendar. So for example, with this, and I’m just thinking about, there are so many examples I could share, but I’m thinking about because without perfection, it’s all or nothing mindset, and we are so optimistic about what we can get done, and we are imagining ourselves perfectly motivated to be able to get it done when we are making our plans, that what typically happens is that you won’t have time for lunch. You will have less time than needed for every task that needs to be completed. You won’t have put in any wiggle room.

So we call this buffer time. You won’t have put in any wiggle room in your plans. So if there is an unexpected phone call, if you have to go and pick up your child from daycare, or they’re home sick for the day, like if there’s any kind of disruption, you are immediately behind on your plans, and then you feel guilty about changing them, because you should be following through. So that is another reason. It’s just if it’s so easy. Follow through, and the little tweaks in power planning really accounts for this. And in your power hour, you’ll put in your buffer time you will anticipate things that might come up, so you already have a contingency plan in place, an extra time set aside so that it is easy to change your plans. You need to have workability in your plans to actually be able to follow through with it and have it not be stressful.

And another thing as well I’m just reading my writing here is that you haven’t probably estimated how long tasks will take you. You are just hoping and being wishful. And I think the most interesting thing about this is that a lot of times these are tasks that might not be new to you. Of course, we have new tasks to us all the time. As entrepreneurs, we are constantly doing new things, but even for tasks like writing an email newsletter or posting on social media and things like that, especially if you’re planning in a way that is turning your perfectionism handbrake on, which is making you overthink and procrastinate and do all of those different things that you actually haven’t got an idea yet about how long it takes you to do certain tasks, also knowing which tasks are you more likely to overthink and taking that into account. Also being aware of yourself doing self coaching and things like that to help with that.

But just being aware like this task I am likely to overthink, so I will give myself a little bit of extra time so that if I do overthink it and I get a bit stuck with that, that’s okay. And if I don’t, I’m allowing myself to overachieve and get it done early. So you just haven’t properly estimated, and you haven’t got a way to learn that. So through power planning and through the weekly review, when you are studying yourself, you will learn how long tasks take you, because as you do your little tweaks, you’re adding check mark emojis, and you were having roughly in your calendar a reflection of what you completed. And so each week, when you can actually reflect on at the end of the week, how long things actually took you, and you’ll be comparing that with the screenshot that you’ll take off your calendar after you finish your Power Hour at the beginning of your week, you’ll see that difference, and you’ll be able to see, okay, I completely underestimated how long this thing took me.

And then when you’re planning during your next Power Hour, instead of just hoping you’ll be more motivated and making the same plan, you can give yourself more time to do that and de prioritize something else that isn’t as much of a needle mover. And you will find that when you actually begin allowing yourself to properly estimate time, and you develop that skill through self study in your weekly review, it will be so much easier to focus and get shit done and follow through with your plans, because you are being reasonable with yourself. When we’re rebelling against our calendar, it is often because we are feeling like we just have to stand and deliver, like we have to do a perfect performance in the minimum amount of time with no preparation, with no mental warm up, we just need to, like, go in and do it perfectly and do it quickly, that creates a lot of pressure and resistance, and therefore we’re like, No thank you. I do not want to look at the calendar.

But when you develop through the feedback loop of the weekly review, when you develop the skill of knowing how long tasks take you, and this has been achieved by creative entrepreneurs to artists. I did an interview on the podcast with Rachel Brown, who is an artist, who talked in that episode about how she has used power planning to understand her creative process and how long creating art takes her. So it’s not just for people who have a business where there’s no creativity involved and it’s just like, Do this, do this. Do this for creative entrepreneurs too. I think this is so important to help you understand your creative process and really lean into that and work with that, rather than working against it.

And finally, another reason why you are not following through with your plans and you are rebelling against your calendar is because you are completely overwhelming yourself. It’s kind of like the result of everything that I have talked about is that you will feel overwhelmed. You will feel like I can never get this all done. I don’t know where to start. I don’t have enough time, even though you have calendared out what you want to do, and you have done it in a way where you think you might have enough time, you inherently understand it’s not clear enough. You don’t have enough time, or you won’t have the energy to do it in the time that you have given yourself with the amount of rest you’ve given yourself, and so it feels completely unachievable. You’re setting yourself up for failure. You are feeling so overwhelmed that you then procrastinate, and you’re just like, oh my god, I just need to do something.

So I’ll check email and I’ll reconcile my Xero account for my accounting software, like you were just gonna pick off the little quick and easy tasks rather than doing the things that are actually going to build your business and working on those new creative projects, launching an online course, anything like that, if you don’t have much time, if you are feeling overwhelmed, you are not going to pick those tasks that really matter. So I want to talk about power planning, and specifically how power planning supports you to have a plan that you actually want to follow and that you won’t want to rebel against. Again. I am a former calendar rebel, if you will. I would not follow through with my plans. I tried, I tried so hard to follow the advice on calendaring and time blocking, and I did all the different things the Pomodoro method, like paper planners, all the things that I could find, because I so desperately wanted to be productive.

I wanted to feel on top of my business. I wanted to feel capable. I wanted to feel like I was getting shit done. I wanted to feel like I was making the most of the limited time that I had to build my business. When I first started, I was a full time student, a law student and a finance student. Then once I graduated, I was working full time in an accounting role at one of the big firms in Brisbane City, where I live. And then I had a part time job. Once I left that full time job, I had a part time job, and I was building my business on the side. And then once I was full time in my business. I then became a mom. I had my daughter, Lydia, then I had twins, and so it’s just, I’ve just, it’s so important. I just really want to make sure, you know, it’s so important to not be overwhelmed and to have a plan that you actually want to follow, that works for you, that works for your lifestyle, that works for your goals and that you have and that plays to your strengths and really supports you to be the entrepreneur and the business owner that you want to be without feeling like you are burning yourself out. You’re never able to switch off. You’re never, never, oh my god, I can’t say never, never able to take a vacation, especially a laptop free vacation. I want that for you so bad. So I’m going to share with you about power planning, and then I’ll talk a little bit about the power planning course.

So there are a few elements and four particularly that I want to talk about within the power planning course, and power planning overall, that will support you to have plans that you actually want to follow and that you won’t even want to rebel against. So first of all, and this is one of the first things you’re going to do in the power planning course, is you are going to set a growth goal for your business. This is a 12 month revenue goal that is set in a specific way that really supports you as a human and your perfectionist brain and your business as well. So you are going to feel clear. You are going to feel like you actually have a goal that you want to grow into. It’s going to be challenging, but it’s not too challenging. It’s not overwhelming. It’s an invitation to become the next version of yourself and for your business to enter its next iteration without that being something that is going to feel completely overwhelming or impossible, or you’re in this like fairy tale thinking that you might have had before when you’ve set a really big, unrealistic goal, because you’re feeling really motivated, or you intellectually understand how to do it, but you don’t.

You’re not actually yet the person who can do it. So the growth goal is going to give you so much. Motivation, because you will be clear on where you are trying to get to. We perfectionist. We hate wasting effort. We have a fear of wasting effort and time on the wrong things. If you don’t have a goal and you don’t know where you are going, you are going to feel like you are wasting time on the wrong things. Because, of course, you are, because you don’t even know what you want those things to add up to. So you’re going to set your growth goal. I will teach you how to do that in the power planning course, so that it is really easy to plan properly with power planning, to figure out your needle movers and to get clean rest as well. If you don’t have a clear goal, then everything feels so important, and you never feel like you have enough time to get everything done. But when you do know the goal, you’re able to actually figure out what’s a needle mover and what isn’t and let go of the things that aren’t needle movers.

Even if you’re a perfectionist and you have trouble letting go of things, you will be able to let go once you use a needle mover matrix to distinguish what’s essential and what’s a nice to have. So the second thing is power planning. So there are three steps. They’re very simple. Anyone can learn them. Of power planning, and that is your power hour, your little tweaks and your weekly review. So those are the three steps that you’re going to be following every week, and I just want to briefly describe them to you so you understand what this looks like. So during your Power Hour, which is going to happen at the beginning of your week, it doesn’t have to be Monday, but it can be. You’ll identify your needle movers and schedule them in your digital calendar in a way that you won’t want to rebel against. You’ll have a flexible plan that will get you to your growth goal and give you plenty of guilt free, clean rest.

So in the power planning course, you will get access to the power planning companion that guides you through the process, and also the power planning modules will teach you exactly how the power hour works, how to identify things that might distract you or interrupt you, and make contingency plans, how to schedule out your clean rest so that you actually get some rest without feeling guilty about it. You will learn the full process. It’s very simple. And there’s also a bonus, if you are worried that you won’t actually be able to fit your to do list into your calendar, and your past self has maybe been procrastinating on a lot of things and has put a lot on your plate. Then there is a bonus workshop. It’s called your first Power Hour, taught by me, and I will walk you through step by step, your first Power Hour.

I will help you avoid common mistakes that are made or things that are easy to overly focus on. I will help you complete that first Power Hour successfully and really make sure you are able to and supported to do the essential things in your Power Hour. I’ll guide you through it. It’s very simple, but I will support you through that. I will help you sidestep any overwhelm that might come up as you navigate your very first power hour. So that Power Hour is really you laying out your plan in a way that you can actually follow through on. That will get you to your goals, plays to your strengths, feels aligned, gives you rest. And I know that might sound too good to be true, but that’s just because you haven’t been planning properly as a perfectionist.

The second step. So this is what you do during the week. The second step is you do your little tweaks. So throughout the week, Life will be life in interruptions are inevitable, and also inspiration will strike like you will have creative ideas come in, and that’s why you’re going to make little tweaks to your calendar so that you’re always clear about what to work on, without ever feeling trapped by your plans or like you’re falling behind. So you will constantly be working your plans and keeping them workable and making little or sometimes big adjustments to your plan so that you can keep following through no matter what happens, no matter if you do have to go and pick up your child from daycare or anything like that, you will be supported to stay focused on what’s essential or to completely deprioritize work. If you need to focus on your personal life, you’ll be supported to do that through that little tweaks process.

I will teach you what to do, and it will give you permission to actually change your plans and to not feel bad about that, you will actually be able to follow through as well, because there is that flexibility. I feel like, as perfectionists, if we feel like we are being forced to do something and there’s so much strictness and rigidity, then, of course, we rebel against it. But when it’s like, okay, well, here’s the plan, and if you do want to change it, you can. Often we’re like, Okay, well, I’m just gonna follow through with it, and if I do need to change it, then I’m just gonna change it. It just removes the guilt, the judgment, the shame that makes it so hard to be productive. And step three is a weekly review. So at the end of the week, you’ll spend 15 minutes following the weekly review framework to study yourself and your business with ease. And each week, this means you will only get more productive, more organized, and find it easier to follow through with your plans.

I’ve already talked about this in the episode, but you will be actually studying yourself and what happened in the week in a really compassionate way. You’ll be comparing how your calendar looks at the end of the week with how it looked before the week started like after you did your power hour, you’ll take a screenshot and see what you had planned out, and then you’ll compare the two and say, Okay, here’s what works so well about this week. And you’ll get the exact prompts inside the course, but you’ll be, generally speaking, looking at, here’s what worked really well. Here’s what I’m celebrating, here’s what didn’t work so well, and what I’m going to do differently next time. But you will be, in just 15 minutes, understanding so much about yourself, how you work best, how you rest best, what tasks are the needle movers for you, which ones aren’t actually needle movers and aren’t adding up? You will see that through your weekly review.

So you’re going to have that flexible structure, you’re going to have realistic time estimates. You’re going to be working in an aligned way, and you’re going to be keeping that plan workable, so you won’t want to rebel against it. And I just like, it’s not to say, like, with my power planning, I’m definitely making those little tweaks and making adjustments. And there are times where I’m like, I want to do something else completely instead, and I allow myself to do that. It feels so freeing because I’m the boss and I created a business partly because I wanted freedom. So I have the freedom to change my plans, but I don’t have the overwhelm that comes with not having clear plans. And there’s something to be said for this as well. If you are someone with a lot of uncertainty in your week, which most likely you will be, if you’re a human maybe like me, you have little ones. Maybe you have demanding clients or customers like there are just so many different things. Maybe you have you’re looking after your parents and you need to keep going to hospital to help them.

Whatever it is, we can often be in this mindset that if there’s a lot of uncertainty, we’re not able to plan. But if you have a lot of uncertainty in your week, you will benefit from power planning the most, because what happens is, if we’re like, oh, there’s too much uncertainty to even make a plan, not only is life challenging because there is a lot of uncertainty, but we’re adding extra uncertainty by being unclear about what we need to do in the business and what’s actually achievable. And so it means that every moment you do have time to work on your business, you’re having to decide from scratch what you want to work on. And if you don’t have much energy, you’re going to pick the easy things, the things that you are good at or familiar with.

And you’re not going to be picking those needle moving projects, or you’re not going to be putting the time side to just putting aside time, when I say putting aside time to just think and dream about your business and plan the bigger picture, like you’re going to be so busy putting out fires and being reactive to your customers and clients and just checking email and checking social media and then checking email again, that you’re not actually going to be able to escape that overwhelm procrastination loop where you have the long to do list, you feel so overwhelmed that it makes you procrastinate. Then you feel guilty, so you try to get shit done, then you feel so overwhelmed again because you’re so behind. So you make the to do list longer with like you can consolidate it all together, add new things, and the cycle just repeats and repeats.

Your business can’t grow when you’re overwhelmed, it just can’t when you are overwhelmed, when you aren’t able to think clearly, you aren’t able to do what’s needed, and you’re definitely not able to do it to the standard that you actually want to be able to do it to. So when you have your power planning, and when you’re actually able to plan in a way that works for your perfectionist brain instead of against it, it’s going to be so much easier to be motivated. You’re going to be so much kinder to yourself. You’re actually going to have freedom in your business, and you’ll be able to move yourself forward in a way that isn’t possible when you don’t have clarity on what needs to be done. I love the concept, and this is what power planning really is, of having a plan and adjusting. It is better than having no plan at all. So much better for so many reasons.

The next thing number three, clean rest. So inside the course, you will learn about clean rest, how to schedule it in, what to do in your clean rest, how to think about clean rest so that you actually get the benefits of it. This is when you were getting brain rest. You were resting without guilt. So if you are feeling tired, exhausted, burned out, if you just don’t have the energy, maybe you have time, but you don’t have the energy, emotionally or mentally to follow through with the plans that you have, then it’s because you are not getting enough rest. And I know as perfectionist like I hear this all the time. This used to be me. I like working. I enjoy it. I love thinking about the business. I love working. It’s okay if I’m working all the time, it’s not a problem. But what got me on to clean rest and what had me actually start doing it myself and then teaching it to my students and other perfectionist entrepreneurs is that when I wasn’t resting, the first of all, my brain was tired, but also it meant I should be working in my head, 24/7, so I was always feeling behind. There was always more to be done, and there was no reason to get things done when I had planned, because I could always do it tonight or tomorrow morning or tomorrow lunchtime, I could always be like, Oh, squeeze that in tomorrow. Versus when I have clean rest, not only is my brain rested, and therefore it’s so much easier to focus, to stay on task and to not get distracted, but it means that there is also time constraint and positive time pressure in the week, so that I am then forced to prioritize.

I don’t have as much time for busy work. And also, I’m actually, with this clean rest, able to really just be able to focus on what actually matters and get it completed. And I know we think about like, I’ll rest when everything is done. That’s something I hear so often. And what I want to offer to you is the reason you don’t get everything done is because you’re not resting, because you can always do it tonight or tomorrow or squeeze it in. You’re just on this, like treadmill that’s always going you’re just always kind of jogging along in your business, versus there’s time when you’re working and you’re focused and you’re concentrating, you get yourself back on track if you get distracted or if there are interruptions, you adjust your plans as needed. And there’s time when you’re resting, you can mentally switch off. You’re not having to think about your business if you don’t want to be you’re not stressing about the finances or when you’re going to create that piece of content that you said you’ve been wanting to create now for a month.

You won’t be thinking about that, and then it just creates such a positive productivity cycle where you are resting without guilt, working with focus, and working without complaint, and really getting such a sense of freedom in your business, not resenting it anymore, having the laptop free vacations. That is what happens when you practice clean rest. And this can be one of the hardest parts of power planning, is the clean rest aspect, and it is one of the most powerful, which is why I continue to teach it and practice it myself and really support you to understand what clean rest is, how to actually get it so that you can be more productive and also have a personal life outside of your business. If you are feeling really stressed about your business, most likely it’s because there’s not much else going on in your life, or there is other stuff going on.

Maybe you have a family and kids that you want to spend time with, or other hobbies, but you’re either not fully present with those, or you’re doing them as an escape, or you are resenting them because they’re taking time away from your business because you should be working, because you’re so behind. So power planning just helps you escape that overwhelm procrastination loop and allows you to calmly and confidently get shit done when you’re working and to mentally switch off and get that brain rest when you are not working and having the flexibility too. It’s not about being perfect at either of those things, having the flexibility to be a human about it and to adjust those plans as and when required. And the final thing I want to talk about is the needle movers. So I’ve already talked about this throughout the episode, and in the power planning course, there is a bonus that we have added that is called the needle mover masterclass.

And in that, you will learn the needle mover matrix and how to identify what’s important versus what isn’t you might have used like the Eisenhower matrix before, which is identifying what’s urgent and important and prioritizing based on that. I do not recommend that. So in this course, in the power planning course, I will teach you how to identify your true needle movers so that you don’t have to work as hard. You can work smarter and not harder, and you can work your ideal work hours because you are very clear on what is essential to get you to the growth goal that you have for your business. And when you are also planning out your needle movers, it really just counters all those things I mentioned earlier in the episode that are making you rebel. So you will have when you’re power planning, clear and specific tasks. They’ll be broken down. They are easy to follow through on. They are clear. You know exactly what success looks like and what needs to be done, and you haven’t underestimated how long it takes you are able to actively and accurately estimate that, and you know you can adjust it if needed.

So if you’re doing a lot of new tasks, you have more buffer time in your calendar so that if it does take you longer, it’s not a problem, and it doesn’t throw you off, and it doesn’t mean you have to say to your husband or wife or whoever, like, Hey, I’m going to be like, three hours late for dinner tonight. I have to work late. I’m sorry. No, you will still be able to finish your day when you planned because of the growth goal, power planning, clean rest and needle movers and how they will support you to follow through with the plans you actually want that will get you to the goals that you actually want to have in an aligned way that works with your strengths. And yeah, I’m so passionate about power planning. It was such a game changer for me, after spending so long studying productivity and business and mindset and learning all sorts of different methods. And it’s not that no other methods work, it’s that this method works so well for the perfectionist brain, and I want to share it with you.

I want you to be able to have. Have plans that you want to follow through on, and you actually follow through on and you’re kind to yourself when you are not following through on them, and you just adjust your plans and keep going. That is how to build a successful business, how to have freedom, how to actually enjoy running your business and not feeling like your business is running you. So the power planning course is open for enrollment at the time of release of this episode, it will be open for four days only. Doors will be closing at 11:59pm Eastern Daylight Time, so New York time on Sunday the 22nd of September. So in the show notes, you will see the link for where you can go to find out more about the course and sign up any questions. Email support@samarbrown.com and we will get back to you ASAP so you can get yourself inside. You can start planning properly as a perfectionist, and you can say goodbye to overwhelm and goodbye to being the person who rebels against your calendar.

It doesn’t have to be the case anymore. You can follow through. You can rely on yourself. You can trust yourself. You can feel on top of your business, I want to invite you into the course to teach you how to do that. Also, we have three bonuses to give you personal support, and four weeks of that so you have plenty of time to do the course. It only takes an afternoon to do it. You’re going to have a Facebook group, a private Facebook group where you can get any questions answered, three live group coaching calls with me, as well as a private podcast for the coaching call replays, so you can listen on the go. So I’m just so excited for this enrollment we are doing for the power planning course. It hasn’t been offered as a standalone course for 18 months. I don’t know if, I don’t know when we will be offering it again, so I want to invite you inside. I want to invite you to start planning properly as a perfectionist. I hope you’re having a beautiful day, and I will talk to you in the next episode.



Author: Sam Brown