Latest / The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler / [Part 3] The One Index Card That Tells Me Exactly What to Do Every Day

Transcript

[Part 3] The One Index Card That Tells Me Exactly What to Do Every Day · The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler

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  Speaker: To be cheerful and productive as a busy mom, you
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  do not need a perfect plan.
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  Just give up on that ideal right now.
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  Your plan's not gonna be perfect because no plan ever does happen perfectly,
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  and they aren't really meant to.
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  You don't need a complete task list, and you don't need an ideal
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  fantasy version of yourself.
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  What we all need every day is the answer to the question: what do I do next?
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  Where do I start?
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  Because starting is the hardest part, and that is exactly why we need a daily card.
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  And today I wanna walk you through exactly what goes on a daily card to keep us
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  productive and moving forward day by day
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  Hi, I'm Misty Winkler, and you found the Christian homemaking
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  podcast, Simply Convivial.
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  Convivial means enjoying life together, and that's the kind of feeling
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  that we want our homes to evoke.
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  But it takes work and effort and time to make that happen,
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  to build that kind of life.
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  And so we talk about those issues about home and family life management
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  here on this podcast, because I want you to be a cheerful,
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  competent, confident Christian mom
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  And I know that the daily card works, not just for me, but for hundreds.
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  At this point, we're probably over 1,000 other women doing this daily
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  card method, which I call the three by three daily card method.
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  It really is that flexible and doable, no matter what you
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  have going on in your life.
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  So today, I'm going to give you a tour of my card.
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  I will do my best to describe what's on the card with words, but if you
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  are listening to the audio only on YouTube or on the audio only podcast,
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  you might wanna head over to the video for this one, because I am going to
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  be zooming in on each piece of this card and showing you how it works.
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  So grab a basket of laundry to fold and let's dig in
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  Now, the first thing that I love about the daily card, which I started
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  off the doing on an index card like this one, and eventually I moved to a
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  Post-it note, which is even smaller.
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  But the small format was an essential ingredient to making this work.
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  I made weekly checklists.
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  I made my own weekly planner.
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  I've tried a number of different planners over the years, but the thing
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  that makes the biggest difference is doing my daily card, the very limited,
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  very visually limited daily card.
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  And the smallness is an important factor because the smallness is
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  a visible reminder to me that my day is a limited container.
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  I am not gonna get to all the things that I would like to do.
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  I never have, never will.
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  My to-do list is always going to be longer than the time I have available.
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  That's life.
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  I've accepted it, and I've learned to cope and manage and still be satisfied at the
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  end of the day by what I did choose to do.
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  Because the daily card helps me make decisions and choose
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  the most important things.
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  And that's why I would like you to try this daily card method, especially if
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  you've been feeling overwhelmed, if you can't keep track of what you need to do.
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  If you are ending the day disappointed in yourself, you need the daily card.
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  So let's unpack the different sections of this three by three daily card
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  Speaker 2: All right, so here we have the daily card for today.
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  Now, the first thing I realized that was way more helpful than I thought it
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  would be in writing out a daily card is writing out the date every day.
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  It is so easy to lose track of time and to not realize what day it is or
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  how far into the month that we are.
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  So actually writing out the date every day has been a huge help and benefit.
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  Then you will see here in this section, these are my top three
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  things that I'm doing today.
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  So right now, I am recording this daily card series, so that is
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  happening right now, and I have already finished slides for the
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  workshop that's coming up on Monday.
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  And if you can register, if it hasn't happened, if that link will be in
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  the description, and if it's already happened, then that's actually
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  gonna be the next episode to play.
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  So look forward to that.
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  That is also on the daily card.
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  And WOW, that stands for work of the week, which I picked up from a
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  friend, and that just means the things.
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  I have a little procedure list for Mondays on getting my week set up,
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  and so that is my work of the week.
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  I need to get that done.
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  Uh, but I can't get that done until after this series is recorded, so
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  we are heading into the afternoon, the late-ish afternoon, but
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  we're making steady progress.
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  And this is the summer, so homeschooling is not on the list.
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  If it was a homeschool day, then that would be one of these things
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  because homeschooling takes a significant amount of time.
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  So the top three aren't necessarily the things that I want to get done or
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  they're, they're not my wishful thinking.
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  They are the things that actually are going to take a significant
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  amount of time in the day.
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  I put those down there.
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  Of course, there was also the time when I had to put smiling as one
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  of my top three, and I'm gonna be telling that story in the workshop.
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  So stay tuned for more on that if you haven't heard that story already.
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  Sometimes smiling is the most important thing and belongs on your daily card.
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  But we've got a place to put that if that's true.
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  So then, next, the next section here on this three by three daily card.
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  So just having the three here is the basics.
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  This is what we do every day that makes the biggest difference, that
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  helps us establish progress day over day, and start fresh every day.
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  But we all know that there are more than three things to do, and
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  most of us are working on building better intentional home habits.
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  So we're going to acknowledge that on our daily card, and keep
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  track of it, because those little things add up and matter so much.
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  But it's the little things that we tend to discount, and neglect, and put off,
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  and not count as getting something done.
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  And we, we need to stop not counting them, but to really identify them and
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  acknowledge that we've done important things by putting it on our list.
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  So I'm gonna grab a pen here, because I have done See if I can
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  do this while holding one-handed.
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  I have read my Bible today.
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  I have had two of my waters today, and I have smiled and had cheerful
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  conversation with my kids today.
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  All right.
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  So then what we have here, this is the routines section, and this
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  is the personal habits section.
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  You can call it self-care.
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  You can call it personal habits.
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  You can call it what you need to but every day we want to read our
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  Bible, drink our water, and smile if we're going to stay the kind of
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  happy, wise women that we want to be.
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  So the routines, AM fifteen means a morning routine that's only fifteen
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  minutes, a afternoon routine that is only fifteen minutes, and transformation ten.
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  Sometimes I write TT, and sometimes I write T and the number ten.
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  But this is an extra ten-minute task that is something that is
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  bothering me, that needs to happen, that I might procrastinate on.
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  I write TT or T ten and then write out what that thing is today.
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  This is an alternative to a deep cleaning plan that it's surprisingly effective.
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  Then the PM fifteen is the evening after dinner routine that only takes fifteen
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  minutes, but the fifteen minutes is key.
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  Then the personal habits, read Bible, water, drink water, smile.
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  And then on mine, this is a little bit extra, but I had extra room,
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  and so I do have a d- daily zone, so I spend fifteen to twenty minutes
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  in a different zone every day.
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  Monday is kitchen day.
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  So I just reminded myself of that.
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  And then I have a little motto here that is my current focus, "Smile and start."
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  So another surprising benefit of keeping a small written plan is that you have
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  something to write things down with.
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  So one little hack is on the other side to keep a running list.
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  So this is the day's main focus, but as I moved through the day, I
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  thought of different things that I should do, might need to do, and so
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  I just jotted them down on the back.
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  Now, the top one here is wash the dishes in the utility sink, and as I was jotting
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  things down, I realized, you know what?
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  That is actually my transformation 10 for the day, and so I moved it over here.
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  But the process of writing down a few extra things that need to happen
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  soon-ish or that I can't forget, having a place to write them down, even if
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  the T's aren't crossed or the, you know, all the I's dotted, is so helpful
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  to just get it off of your brain.
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  So keeping something that you can jot notes to self on of any kind, that you
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  can give yourself a motto where you can just track those small things that
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  make a difference is a game changer.
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  All right.
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  Speaker 3: And now we're back.
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  So the win with a daily card isn't that you have a day that goes as planned.
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  The win is that you have a visible reminder with you of what to do next,
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  of where to put your time, and then when something happens that derails your day or
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  changes your priorities, you can see it.
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  You know it.
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  You can say, "You know what?
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  My kids started puking, so I am not going to be recording today," or whatever it is.
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  You could say, "You know what?
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  What I did really was more important than what I thought I was going
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  to do at the beginning of the day.
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  So I'm totally fine with that, and maybe I'm even going to cross that off and put
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  what I am actually doing today on here."
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  Because this is a low stakes card.
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  This is garbage at the end of the day.
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  We're going to start fresh every single day with a brand-new card.
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  And that kind of fresh start every day, continuing to iterate the small things,
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  is where you will find progress in your home and in your attitude, and how you
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  can learn how to end your day satisfied.
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  We go into detail in making our daily cards work for us in everyone's particular
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  situation inside Convivial Circle.
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  In fact, in July, we're doing the daily card challenge where all the
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  conversation for the month with prizes at the end of the month for people who
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  have done 20 index cards, 20 daily cards.
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  Might be an index card, might be a post-it, whatever
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  People who do that will get stickers, and encouragement, and extra videos.
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  And we'll be sharing and talking about how each one of us is making it work
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  in our own particular contexts, which helps us think out of the box, and be
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  encouraged with one another's small wins.
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  It helps to have people to talk shop with, to have like-minded moms working
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  on cultivating the same habits and attentiveness in our homes and homemaking,
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  and that's what Convivial Circle provides.
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  So if you want support in making your daily cards, then Convivial Circle is
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  for you, especially right now if you're watching this in June when our daily card
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  challenge is about to happen in July.
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  But actually year-round, the daily card is the key piece that we keep coming
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  back to, that our mentor members and the community manager will help you
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  will point you back to, so that you can build the reps
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  of consistency that matters.
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  It matters in the little things.
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  Not in big projects or building your ideal life, but in learning
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  how to pick the next best thing and then following through on that.
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  That's what makes all the difference, and that's what we
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  are all about in Convivial Circle.
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  Go to convivialcircle.com
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  to enroll today.
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  Can join us and put in your reps to build a productivity system
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  that will move you out of overwhelm and into feeling organized, and
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  even being organized, actually.
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  Convivialcircle.com
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  to join us inside the community.