the Blog

In this episode, we talk about the third letter in the ROOTED acronym: Outlined for Clarity. Clarity is key when it comes to giving your brain an objective that it can actually process, prioritize, and tackle in the day-to-day.

When you break down a goal into tangible action-steps, you are equipped to move past your vague theories about what it will take to make your goal happen. You’re able to see the gaps in your knowledge about the process, which compels you to research until you have concrete and actionable understanding.

Listen in as we talk about exactly how to take a vague goal and break it down into actionable and compelling steps!

In this episode, we talk about the second letter in the ROOTED acronym: Organically Growing Out of Your Context. You need goals that take your real life context seriously and embrace it. You need goals that connect with where you are right now, and that respect that you’re here for a reason. Recognizing the season you’re in and identifying the contours of your priorities can empower you to identify the next right step—the one that can realistically begin to build the lasting change you want to see.

Join us as we talk about why this is one of the most critical steps in setting ROOTED goals, a step that most other goal-setting systems completely ignore. We talk all about what this looks like in our lives and how embracing our context has empowered us to craft and execute meaningful goals year after year!

In this episode, we talk about the first letter in the ROOTED acronym: Rooted in Your Core Calling. Grasping the unique calling of God for your individual life is a life-long process! But leaning into your core calling is an essential part of creating goals that fully resonate over the long-haul, compel you to follow-through, and produce a lot of satisfying fruit along the way. 

Join us as we talk through discovering how your core calling is playing out in your life today, and how that should impact how you set goals! We also talk a lot about how this part of the ROOTED Goal Setting System is not meant to weigh you down, but give you freedom to lean into your God-given strengths, passions and responsibilities!

Tired of goal setting systems that pump you up, introduce massive tension between your goal and your daily responsibilities, and then leave you feeling like a failure?

We were too. So we created a system that is mercifully realistic, embraces everyday responsibilities as valid, and helps us become more deeply rooted in our broader life callings. We believe that the best goals are the ones that fuel a great way of life, and that a great way of life will fuel great goals. If you want more than a mountain top experience—if you're ready to actually translate your goals into action—then The ROOTED Goals workbook was created for you.

The Pomodoro Method

Tonight, I (Shelby) am using what’s called The Pomodoro Method—but with my own twist (which I’ll get to in a minute).

The method was developed by a university student who had a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato (pomodoro means tomato in Italian). With his original time-management technique, you use a kitchen timer to discipline yourself to short, focused bursts of work, with short breaks in between.

"Do you struggle with consistently using your planner? Do you ever get lost in your planner, and feel like you spend all your energy figuring out how to use it instead of making progress on your actual goals? You need the Evergreen Planner, my friend! This planner was designed by three entrepreneurial stay and home mamas who know what it's like to wear a lot of hats and juggle lots of plates. This system was designed for women like you, who also need to keep track of lots of responsibilities and see how they all interact with each other." - Rachel Tenney

We were so excited to see Rachel's review of the Evergreen Planner on YouTube. Rachel is a dear friend and has been a long-time user of the Evergreen Planner.

Many of you know that the Evergreen Planner system was born from worksheets that Shelby created in one of the most hectic seasons of her life. What is perhaps less well known, is that the beautiful leather cover we sell was born from McCauley's vision for creating a planner that was both beautiful to look at, extremely practical to use, and would last for years to come.

The first leather covers that we used were handmade by McCauley on her living room floor. But we knew that wouldn't be a practical way of getting them into the hands of an entire planner community, so McCauley spent a few years searching for a leathersmith who could take her handmade vision and turn it into a beautifully refined handcrafted leather product we could have available to our dear customers.

A Season of Chaos

Earlier this summer I (Clari) was about ready to call it quits with this whole intentional living thing. We had moved to a new town, went through weeks of delayed home renovations, dealt with the whole family getting sick, travelled a bunch, and then came back to a place that felt anything like home. All our normal rhythms that we had built in our old home to sustain our daily habits and responsibilities had fallen apart, and I just didn't even know where to begin to pick up the pieces.

Every time I had a spurt of energy to do something about my situation, I found myself contemplating the chaos without a clue as to where I should begin.

About that same time, a dear friend text me requesting tips on how to best maximize her Evergreen planner and I couldn't decide if I should just laugh or cry. There I was as a co-owner of a company who sells a planner that is supposed to make intentional living intuitive and I couldn't get my life in order. She had asked me how I was using my planner, and the truth was I was hardly using it at all. Like all my habits, the habit of daily planning had fallen to the wayside after so many months of not having a lot of control over my days (anyone who has gone through a slew of home rennovations knows precisely what I'm talking about here).

By default, the homeschool life is full of the unexpected.

So how can you, as a home educating Mama, leverage your foresight, creativity, and problem-solving genius to set up easy-to-maintain systems for an amazing homeschool year? Having a strong planner that operates as a dynamic hub for your brain really helps.

By default, the homeschool life is full of the unexpected.

So how can you, as a home educating Mama, leverage your foresight, creativity, and problem-solving genius to set up easy-to-maintain systems for an amazing homeschool year? Having a strong planner that operates as a dynamic hub for your brain really helps.

In the last post, I wrote about the best ways to optimize your planner for looking at your month as a whole, and also how to utilize your planner when getting into the details of each day and week. Today, we're diving into how life-giving rhythms can support your homeschool day!

By default, the homeschool life is full of the unexpected.

So how can you, as a home educating Mama, leverage your foresight, creativity, and problem-solving genius to set up easy-to-maintain systems for an amazing homeschool year? Having a strong planner that operates as a dynamic hub for your brain really helps.

Over the next three posts, I (Shelby, the residential homeschool nerd) am sharing my best tips, planning strategies, and proven systems for providing my children a consistent and rich homeschooling experience—even when life keeps on throwing the curveballs.

It’s noisy out there. And that’s affecting your productivity big time. And instead of just talking about it, we decided to do something about it. Starting with our own content.

The Problem with Noise

The noise isn’t just annoying and overwhelming. It’s not just draining your time and attention. It’s also draining your willpower.

Between the 800 million videos on YouTube, 430 million active users on Reddit, and 200 billion Pinterest pins, you already have every single imaginable time-management and productivity fact / idea / strategy / inspiration you could ever hope to need immediately available to you—and in just a few taps, too.

Your problem is not that you just haven’t found the right resource yet...