Balancing Both Ep. 6: Behind the scenes of my quarterly planning process as a work-from-home mom & CEO!

Want to see how I pick my own set of biz priorities for myself? 

(When I'm sitting down to do the weekly content planning, podcast batching, or just backend launch task collecting.)

Here’s how I plan my business priorities week to week, and all the nitty gritty tasks that go with them - because I built my workflows around guaranteeing that everything I need to cross off today - aka, TRULY needs to be done today - is going to get done…. 

All by leveraging a simple system of calendaring and Google docs.

You’ve got this!

Alyssa

Love your daily life as a work-at-home mom: https://yourunbusylife.com/ 

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Transcript

This is the Unbusy Mom, and today I’m showing you behind the scenes: here’s my quarterly planning process as a work-from-home CEO!

Want to see how I pick my own set of biz priorities for myself (when I'm sitting down to do the weekly content planning, podcast batching, or just backend launch task collecting)?

I thought so. 

Today, I'm taking you behind the curtain - watch my regular weekly process for selecting the next week's worth of tasks for myself! 

('Cause we all know that we shouldn't be planning right as we're sitting down to work for this session. Right?)

So for this week, I'm not looking at doing any podcast recording. (Number 1, I'm ahead enough, and number 2, I'm on my period. So I have about the lowest possible energy for visibility stuff.) 

So THAT’S off my plate. But ordinarily, I'd probably be recording a short batch (like 8 or so) episodes just to keep up with content, especially since my husband is only away from his home office once a week. 

(Which is awfully convenient when it comes time to banish the kids from the living room - i.e., my workstation - and hit record!)

Anyhow. That's kind of the big rock for my week - whether I DO or do NOT do recordings, so now that I know that's completely clear, I do a simple calendar sweep to make sure that any classes, coaching calls, or CLIENT calls that I'm attending/hosting are, indeed, on my to-do list.

Because I don't keep my calendar tab open, generally speaking, so I need those "get on Zoom NOW!" reminders in my personal task list software.

Now. I'll have a little idea where I'm at in my cycle, and that partially drives what to-do's I'm putting on here for next week. 

(I'm generally doing this planning on a Friday - unless I felt super plan-y Thursday and wanted to get it done ahead of time.)

For this week, that means I get to do all the backend, planner-y stuff; for another week, it just might mean doing all my REGULAR  recording and writing and publishing tasks. Nothing special.

But I try to be aware of if I'm going to be in low energy period mode, or ovulation all the recordings and podcast interviews mode, OR wrap things up mode (toward the end of my cycle).

Next comes anything I've already flagged as needing to be completed at a certain time, i.e., date specific. These are highlighted on my Google doc "task manager," to make sure that I don't miss them.

Any with this week's dates are getting copy-pasted up to next week, moved under the correct week day, and then time of day added as needed. There.

So, what else should I fill my weekly time blocks with? Let me scroll down to my To Do Bank - yes, I keep a list of future to-dos that aren't tied to any particular date - and see if anything else sounds particularly interesting to work on. 

I want to fill every available spot - maybe just leave 1 empty for the inevitable overflow - but otherwise, all 9 need to have something going on. ('Cause I do a morning and an afternoon work block each day. Adapt this for how many work slots YOU have during your typical day and week.)

Let me see, THAT project looks interesting and fits with my projected cycle energy next week! 

(This time it's a content batch, where I'm doing all of next quarter's content ahead in one 13-week batching extravaganza. Works well for me, but your mileage may vary.)

Other times I'll do a podcast guest pitch push, or get everything together for the launch I'm planning in 2 months, or something like that. 

And just so you know, these are often 2-3 week project blocks for me - I'm not cramming everything in for a 50-podcast-guesting-tour all in 1 week, or cranking out everything for that launch (or next quarter) all in 5 days.

So half the time, I'm not necessarily CHOOSING which non-dated work set to do, I'm just continuing ON with the 3-week project I've already started. If that makes sense.

And then if I've already started on that bigger-than-1-week-project, I'm probably going to note down what are the next step to-dos AFTER this week's ones and date them for next week (so that I can get a jumpstart on the planning next time, while I'm already in the content planning or launch editing mode).

Oh, and I make sure that each work block's task is likely to take the entirety of the time allotted - don't want to run out, and DEFINITELY don't want to give myself an undoable deadline that'll require copy-pasted 3 days' worth of tasks over to next week because I didn't properly estimate how much time batch recording would take me!

So that's how I plan my business priorities week to week, and all the nitty gritty tasks that go WITH them. Because I built my workflows around GUARANTEEING that everything I need to cross off today - and I mean TRULY needs to be done today - IS going to get done…. 

All by leveraging a simple system of calendaring. But you don’t have to copy MY way of doing it - there are several different ways, one of which’ll work best for YOUR brain!

So shoot me a DM if you’ve got “how do I plan things out” questions - I LOVE talking about the planning personalization stuff. 

(Or you can book in a Present Business Mom audit, and we'll work on YOUR next week together!)