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Do you want to start using a planner to make sense of your time management, but you feel intimidated by the actual process of planning? Or perhaps you were an organizational rockstar at one point, but it feels like your wherewithal has flown the coop?

You’re not alone.

Most women have (or currently do) struggle with those same feelings. Even the ladies at Team Evergreen are intimately acquainted with them!

Your planner is a hub for your brain. 

But is there ever a right time to take a break from your planner?

From the hearts of three fellow busy women, let us offer you some solace with a resounding YES.

The planner is absolutely incredible for charting out rhythms, decluttering your mind, storing tasks and reminders, housing the flexible structures you want to build into your days, providing real-life context for your goals and plans, and helping you get laser-focused on the things that matter most in just minutes. 

But sometimes life happens in such a way that trying to dive into our planners feels heavy, out-of-context, or forced.

One of the main benefits of using a planner on a daily basis is the resulting automation of thought processes.

Automating thought processes can do so much to free up mental bandwidth and reduce decision fatigue (did you know that was a thing?!).

On our day spreads, we have our regular prompts which lead you through a set of intention-strengthening exercises: "What are your top targets for the day? What are you thankful for? What are your seasonal goals and why are they so important?" etc.​

But there's so much space in your planner system to make it serve you in unique and powerful ways. One of the ways to automate your own, personal thought processes is to develop a series of "Intention Lists."

Last week, we asked this question:

What are the most overwhelming areas of my life? If I were proactive in these areas (instead of operating in a default, reactionary state), how could I clear the excess and focus on what matters most?

In this post, we're going to get really practical and tactical.

Understanding the (Designed) Problem

I used to think my life was overwhelming by default, and that I simply didn't have enough time and mental energy to do everything I believed I was called to do. I didn't sit around and watch TV, and I'd even turned all of the notifications off on my phone, but I still found the days to be far too short.

Last week, we wrote about the importance of having the proper perspective when it comes to valuing time. If you haven't had a chance, it's worth reading right now.

For many of us, time-wasting doesn't look like one would expect. We're not laying around on the couch all day every day, eating Cheetos and watching reruns. We're actually really busy—always going, doing, hustling, and racing from one thing to the other. That's how we feel, anyway, and the result all too often does look like Cheetos-and-reruns-on-the-couch for a lot longer than we think is healthy, because we feel too worn out to do anything else with our pockets of free time.​

It's the typical song and dance of our busy culture.

But what if a large amount of our busy-ness itself is the drain on our time?

Stop for just a second and ask yourself: what is a week of your life actually worth?

We only have 4,452 weeks from the moment we're born until our 85th birthday (if we're given that many years).​

Just...let that sink in. We have fewer than 5k weeks in an entire (generous) lifespan, and yet, sometimes we just let a "bad" or "off" week (or several) slip away without seriously evaluating underlying causes and lessons we could be learning.

Now, don't misunderstand: sometimes a week that's way more heavy on rest, fun, or flexibility is needed. Sometimes, crises (internal and external) endow a week with a heavenly purpose that we cannot immediately grasp from our point of view in the moment.

"Uh oh, Elizabeth, be careful. You're sloshing it out."

My four year old stops her stirring for a second, processing my words. She sees where a small puddle of batter is now splatted on the counter top. She adjusts her grip, and then begins to mix again, slower this time.

"It's okay, Mom." She says in a confident tone. Then under her breath, more to herself than to me, "It's all a part of learning."

I'm pretty sure she got that phrase from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, and I'm completely in love with it.

​Last week, we wrote about productivity personalities, how to feed strengths and compensate for weaknesses, and how these ideas have played out in our Evergreen Team dynamics. In this post, we're going to look at social energy and communication styles, and the ways doing all this work around who you are and who you're working with can help you work more compassionately and productively as an individual and on a team.

Social Energy

Way more popular than productivity personalities, is diving into the concept of being "introverted" vs "extroverted."

You start right where you are.​

• You embrace the realities of your context.
• You set (and KEEP!) a daily strategy and reflection meeting with yourself.
• You purge unrealistic expectations.
• You get serious about facing the deeper problems.
• You carve out time for adequate sleep and rest (you can’t solve problems or show up well for your relationships if you don’t get enough sleep!)
• You develop rhythms for your basic responsibilities.
• You clear focus time for the important things that keep being pushed to the back burner.
• You adopt a growth mindset.

Pretend we’re at a coffee shop together. 

I’m your best friend, and you’re pouring out your heart.

You’re telling me you don’t have enough time to do the things that are really important. 

You feel stuck.

So I do what any good best friend would do. I lean in real close and I say, “You know what? You’re in control of how you spend your time because you’re an adult.”

(Just a little tough love—and then I buy you another coffee with extra whipped cream on top because I’m a 2 and you’re my person.)

Last week, we talked about how to set solid quarterly goals, and then use them to get back on track.

But, if you're like most people, the one question that tends to trip you up in your intentional living aspirations is this:

What if I set epic goals, but then things change?

We can totally relate to this.

In fact, just yesterday, Shelby realized that TWO of the THREE goals she set for the quarter no longer fully made sense to pursue.

No matter how skilled we may be at developing solid rhythms, we all know what it's like for life to get a little bit "off track."

Whatever has thrown us off, we could all benefit from one key tip: set three focus goals for the rest of the quarter.

How exactly do quarterly goals help to get us back on track?

Imagine writing down your three main goals first thing in the morning, and then connecting with your motivating "why" for each one. You've just set up an accountability mechanism for yourself. You'll start to become acutely aware of when you're spending your time on non-essential things.