Latest / The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler / Why 99% of moms don’t actually need a planner

Transcript

Why 99% of moms don’t actually need a planner · The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler

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  Speaker: I have spent more time than I care to admit looking
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  for the perfect planner.
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  One that has enough space, but not too much space.
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  Structured, but still flexible.
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  Pretty, but also very practical
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  Basically, I wanted a planner designed specifically for my life, my brain, my
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  family, and whatever mood I happened to be in on that particular Tuesday.
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  And yes, I have spent countless hours designing my own planner pages
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  trying to attain planner perfection.
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  And you know what?
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  Every hour that I spent comparing layouts was an hour that I
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  was not actually planning.
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  After years of using planners, teaching planning, designing planning methods,
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  and watching other moms struggle with this exact same problem, I've
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  come to a fairly unpopular conclusion
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  99% of moms do not need a better planner.
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  They might not even need a real planner at all.
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  What you really just need is a simple, cheap notebook and a consistent
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  practice of writing things down.
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  So I'm gonna show you why planner shopping often becomes productive
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  procrastination, why messy notes work better than the perfect layout, and
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  three simple planning steps that can all live inside one cheap spiral notebook
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  Or smaller, cheap composition notebook.
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  Or even a little tiny composition notebook.
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  Cheap, small, easy.
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  This is the exact system that has helped me stop treating my planner
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  as the solution, and start using planning as a practice that actually
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  makes a day-to-day difference
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  So if we haven't met, hi, I'm Misty Winkler.
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  I like purple.
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  I'm author of the book Simplified Organization Learn to Love What Must
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  Be Done, and also the book How to Use a Planner Without Wasting Time.
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  Because that's what a lot of our planning really is.
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  A lot of our planning is wishful thinking, or our planning is spent trying
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  to find the perfect planner, where if we fill in all the blanks provided as
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  if it was a worksheet, then we will have some kind of done-for-us system
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  that will suddenly make our life work.
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  I'm sorry, that's not gonna happen.
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  But here is what we can do instead in a cheap and easy notebook.
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  So grab a basket of laundry to fold and let's dig in
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  So here's the deal.
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  A planner is not a magical household management device The best planner
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  is a collection of notes to myself, and that's really all it is.
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  A calendar is a note about where I need to be.
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  A weekly plan is a note about what matters this week and maybe what we're eating.
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  A daily list is a note to myself about what I need to do next.
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  The format can help, but the format is not the practice the problem is that buying
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  a planner feels like we're taking action.
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  It's fun to set up a new planner, and it feels like
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  we're finally getting somewhere.
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  I can spend an entire evening watching planner reviews, comparing the weight of
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  the paper, studying weekly layouts, maybe spending hours designing my own, trying
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  to figure out if I'm a vertical layout person or a horizontal layout person.
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  And at the end of it, I still haven't looked at next week's calendar
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  or decided what we're eating for dinner, maybe even that very day.
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  The search for the perfect planner becomes a way to avoid the
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  imperfect, messy work of making an actual plan for our actual lives
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  Now, I have homeschooled five children, managed a busy home, a
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  couple businesses , written books, we have people over for dinner.
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  I've used plenty of planners, notebooks, index cards, printables, digital
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  apps, miscellaneous scraps of paper.
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  I've pretty much tried it all And the tool that works is the tool that I will
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  actually write things in, look at what I wrote, and adjust and use on the fly
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  If you've been overwhelmed with all the planner options out there, my
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  workshop From Overwhelmed to Organized might be the perfect fit for you.
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  You can go find that at simplyconvivial.com/organized
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  if you need a little help getting out of that overwhelm mode, which sometimes
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  happens when we're shopping for planners.
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  'Cause the thing is, searching for the ideal tool is just
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  delaying the uncomfortable work of actually committing to a plan.
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  A new planner creates a rush of hope and possibility.
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  It directs us and tells us what to do.
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  Just fill in the blanks.
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  Write three things that you're grateful for here.
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  Track how much you're sleeping or drinking water.
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  The pages are clean.
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  It feels so full of potential But what happens when you
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  have to cross something out?
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  When an appointment gets moved or canceled?
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  When you misspell a word or your pen smears ink?
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  When you have to rewrite tasks again and again
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  So often what I'm trying for in achieving the perfect planner is a visual creation
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  of what I wish my life was like.
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  But once the planner starts reflecting what I'm really like and what my life
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  is really like, I wanna ditch it.
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  But that is exactly the moment I need to keep it and stick with it and appreciate
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  it for the reality check that it is.
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  What planner you use feels like a significant decision, but it really isn't.
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  The significant decision is what's for dinner tonight What needs to happen
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  in my home for me to run my home well?
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  The planner is only the place where we write those real decisions down so that in
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  the moment when we need to make the choice and do the action we don't have to start
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  from scratch and rethink those on the fly because we know that's not gonna happen
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  What I have found for myself and so many other women in our
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  community, Convivial Circle,
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  where we have hundreds of women committed to excelling at their homemaking and
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  doing life cheerfully I have seen again and again that the pretty planner
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  is more of a hindrance than a help because we want it to stay pretty.
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  We don't want it to have any misspelled words or the wrong color or crossed out
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  tasks or scribbles from our children.
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  But a cheap notebook eliminates that concern
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  There is nothing expensive or high stakes about a cheap spiral notebook
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  And sometimes the fill in the box method of planning that a pre-designed planner
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  gives you is wishful thinking on paper that is actually getting in the way
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  of you engaging with your real life.
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  And so what you do with a spiral notebook instead, without any fill
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  in the blank options that make planning feel like homework, we're
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  just writing down what we need.
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  Write down the next list that is popping into your head right now.
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  Get it down.
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  If you don't need it, that's fine, just turn the page
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  tear out the page if it's bothering you
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  Did your pen run out of ink or did your toddler spill milk on it?
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  Oh, well, grab another one.
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  They're 25 cents at the back to school supply sale.
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  Like, no problem.
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  Low stakes.
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  It can fit in your messy real life.
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  And a workable plan is actually just your notes to self, the things that
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  you are thinking in your brain that you need to get down on paper so that
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  you can move forward with decisions you have pre-made, with those notes
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  to self, the meal plan for the week.
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  It doesn't have to be in a calendar format.
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  It can be a list in a notebook.
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  I first learned about using a notebook as a planner back when I was homeschooling
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  all five of my kids, and life was so busy.
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  And a new family moved to town and started attending our church and our playgroup.
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  They moved from across the country With five small children.
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  And what I instantly noticed at our playgroup was that this mom
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  carried a cheap spiral notebook with her wherever she went.
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  And if someone mentioned their favorite park or what dentist they
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  used or any kind of new piece of information that she wanted to
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  remember, she just wrote it down.
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  And she just had pages and pages of notes and phone numbers and names and ideas and
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  lists of things to buy and unpack and do.
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  And she just kinda casually flipped through it, looked at what she
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  had written down, crossed things off here or there, and made the
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  next note to herself as she went.
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  It didn't need categorization.
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  It didn't need organization in a kind of aesthetic sense where if
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  anyone happened to open up any page, they would be impressed.
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  No, she was actually organized.
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  Not organized as a kind of aesthetic attainment, but actually keeping
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  information where she could find it, where she looked at it and kept
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  what she needed and crossed out what she didn't and kept moving.
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  That's real organization.
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  It doesn't have to be overcomplicated, And we shouldn't
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  be planning to impress others.
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  We should be planning to just manage our own real life better
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  And you might do that better if you used a cheap, basic notebook.
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  Maybe you say, "Well, a spiral notebook is too big for my purse."
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  Well, fine.
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  Get a tiny little composition notebook.
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  Like, look how small that is.
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  But it's just paper.
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  Yours doesn't even have to be purple.
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  But mine will be
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  You can use these without feeling the pressure to keep it perfect or pretty.
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  You can have different pens, whatever pen or pencil is on hand, because you're
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  not going for an aesthetic creation.
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  It's not a creativity outlet.
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  It's not a scrapbook page.
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  It's an actual tool for remembering what you need to
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  remember when you need to know it.
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  And so you write things down, and you flip through and look at what you wrote down.
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  That's what a planner really is.
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  That's what an effective working planner really is.
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  So whatever planner you have, is it working?
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  That is, is it holding the information that you need, and is it there for
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  you to look at when you need it?
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  What's getting in the way of you either writing down what you need
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  to know or then looking at it after you have it written down?
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  Maybe your planner needs a better home.
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  Maybe your planner needs some kind of pen attachment so that it's always handy.
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  Maybe you need to remove all those blanks and boxes and templates
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  from your planner and just go with straight normal blank paper
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  writing things down and looking at it is what will make your planner finally work
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  And you know, just writing things down and then looking at it is why
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  the daily card works so well for me and for the hundreds, maybe even at
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  this point thousands of other ladies who have tried it in my community.
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  It's not impressive.
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  It's not necessarily beautiful, and it's not a complete life management system.
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  It's the kind of thing you can't overthink.
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  It's just a small place where I write down the three priorities for each day
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  That's the practice that helps me move from feeling overwhelmed with all that
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  there is to actually recognizing that organization is writing things down,
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  looking at them, and doing something.
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  We need that bias toward action.
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  And I explain all about this in my free training, From Overwhelmed to
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  Organized, which you can find in the episode description, or you can go
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  to simplyconvivial.com/organized,
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  simplyconvivial.com/organized
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  And watch the free training because it is possible for you to not feel overwhelmed
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  no matter how long your to-do list is.
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  You can have a full, busy, intense life that you actually love and enjoy doing.
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  Overwhelm is optional.
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  Let me show you how to step out of overwhelm and into organized
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  mode with this free training.
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  I'll see you there, I will help you repent rejoice, repeat