Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 83 | How Often Should You Re-Evaluate Your Weekly Rhythms?
Transcript
- 0:00And the most important thing, again, we look at is the weekly rhythm. What are things that feel like they're just missing? Hey, guys, welcome to the 5-Minute Fatherhood podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeff Bethke, along with my friend and mentor, Jeremy Pryor. Join us Monday through Friday as we chat about quick tips, skills, and ways to help equip you on your journey as a father to build your multi-generational family team on mission. Stay tuned.
- 0:31What's up guys? Welcome to the five minute fatherhood. How often should you reevaluate your weekly rhythms? One of the things that you will hear Jeff and I talk a lot about is that one way that you can be a multi-generational team on mission and try to figure out how in the world you actually get stuff done. How in the world do you like manage a family, raise kids, have a job, uh, do all of these things. And we are, are, uh,
- 0:56idea there that really comes straight from Genesis 1 is to live in a seven-day rhythm. And so one of the things that we really want to encourage you guys to think about is establishing a weekly rhythm and then beginning to refine that over time. And so one of the questions that came up in our homeroom Facebook group was, how often should you re-evaluate those weekly rhythms? And this is, for us, a constant thing. And so we have really three tools that we've implemented for this. One is the weekly meeting. And so one of the most important things
- 1:24to do during a weekly meeting. And this is if you have no kids or young kids, you can do this just with your spouse, but a weekly meeting where you're talking through all the different issues that are coming up around the household. But I think one of the most important things to ask in that weekly meet as a standing agenda item is how is our weekly rhythm?
- 1:42Are there any tweaks we want to make? So you're constantly tweaking, like, maybe we shouldn't do that on Monday. Let's do that on Tuesday or let's do that on Thursday. Let's do that in the evening instead. Okay, that's not working. We've tried that for three weeks. Let's go ahead and tweak. That kind of constant refinement of the things that repeat is what really causes you to have long-term efficiency and effectiveness as a family team. So we really encourage living in weekly rhythm and also constantly tweaking it.
- 2:09So the weekly meeting is one place that can happen. We do that also now with our kids. We have older kids. The second place this could happen, the second tool that's really critical is an annual family summit. So we really recommend you guys that every year, usually around the first of the year, maybe between Christmas and New Year's, when we do this,
- 2:26is to actually go away and really spend time evaluating what happened over the last year. And the most important thing, again, we look at is the weekly rhythm. What are things that feel like they're just missing? Are there nutrients that the family really needs? Are we not having enough fun? Are we not really getting into the word? Are we not really relationally connecting? Are there rhythms that we can establish that would really address some of these systemic problems in the family? Like, let's figure that out and let's really evaluate that and talk as a team about that. So an annual summit, this could just be like a 48-hour conversation
- 2:54kind of thing. And then what we try to do is really check in quarterly and do more maybe half-day conversations around evaluating the rhythm and really looking at how we're doing against the goals or the rhythms that we implemented during the annual summit. Do that on a quarterly basis. So those are the three tools.
- 3:10One is a weekly meeting that's maybe an hour long. One that's an annual summit that goes on usually for about two days, once a year, and then some kind of quarterly check-in where it's just a longer, more detailed, more relaxed conversation about how things are going, making sure you're tracking things. It's really difficult to stick with anything more than 90 days before you should reevaluate it. So those quarterly check-ins are really critical. But Jeff, how have you thought about this one?
- 3:36Yeah, and I think what's funny is that we're almost identical in exactly the same kind of ones and ways that we kind of hedge and protect and guide and reevaluate. So I would say all those, amen. So then I guess I'll just add one more thing I would say to those listening is also know your own personality. Because I think there can be kind of opposite ends of the spectrum that can kind of happen and play out in different ways. And what I mean by that is like if you're the person that constantly –
- 4:02want certain things to deliver very, very quickly, then I think you need to be careful of evaluating so much and too much to the point where you're not actually allowed to like, let them be and actually like serve you and like actually let them like kind of lie in the ground, like a more of like a tree, like let them lay, let the seeds be under the ground and let a tree or a plant slowly, but surely grow. So I think some people need to hear that.
- 4:24But I think that's different though than iterating and tweaking because I actually think me and you, and I think in a tip I always tell people is like that should be happening every second of every day. So there's a difference between saying like let's try a new rhythm, let's throw it off, let's try a new rhythm, let's throw it off. And people doing that too quickly to actually like know like what does it do for you guys? Does it serve you guys? Does it help you guys? Does it allow you to flourish? That I don't think should be happening very quickly. Tweaking and iterating, meaning adapting and doing reevaluating small changes upon a rhythm you already have,
- 4:51I think should be happening all the time. And that's actually the fun creative part because then the pressure is off because then you start having Sabbaths and you start having family meals and you start doing date nights or whatever. And instead of saying, Oh, that wasn't perfect this week. We're just, we're done. We're done. We're not doing it. They kill that rhythm. You actually say like, Oh, let's, let's iterate that one step. Let's do it an hour earlier. Let's do it later. Let's make sure we pull out these plates. Make sure the kids do this activity. Like,
- 5:12So then it actually is less pressure. And so I would say really check yourself and everyone knows their own personality and kind of like what routes they go down quicker. But I would say that was what I would end on is give the rhythms themselves a little bit longer time than you think, but then actually also be quicker to iterate and change them in the sandbox that you've been given and play around and mess with them until they keep getting better and better.
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