160. Improving Your Ideal Week & Managing ADHD

Episode Transcript

Courtney Baker:
Hey guys, it’s Courtney and I wanted to share with you a free download that we have for you today on your ideal week. So we have a free template that’s going to walk you through how to do an ideal week and start using it immediately. You can download it today at fullfocusplanner.com/idealweek. I have a question for you two out of the gate here today. Did either of you have a goal that you’ve been working towards all year long that is coming to a close here in Q4?

Blake Stratton:
No. All year long? No. A lot of the year long? Yes.

Courtney Baker:
Okay, well that counts. I mean, I feel like this Q4 time is so important because a lot of times we have one or two goals that have taken all year to… Now is the finish line. It’s like whether or not we got there or didn’t get there is actually culminating into Q4. So I know I have a goal like that and so it’s a little bit like okay, this is… I actually talked about this in the last episode like this is the time, this is it. I guess it’s kind of fourth quarter in a football game where everybody’s holding up their fours. All right, this is it. Just in case anybody didn’t know in the stadium it’s the fourth quarter, okay? Let’s do this. I feel like professionally it’s a little bit of that right now, this is it. Are we going to do it?

Verbs Boyer:
So now we’re curious on your fourth quarter goal, does this look like you’re going to bring it home? You’re going to bring home the gold on this fourth quarter goal?

Courtney Baker:
Yes. I mean, my mindset is. Yes.

Blake Stratton:
This is amazing. Well, Courtney let me just say on behalf of the listening audience we were so excited to watch your YouTube debut as a break dancing influencer on YouTube. You’ve been building the channel up for a long time and this is the moment you were inspired by Verbs last year and I know it’s taken a lot of work but you can do it and we will be the first subscribers.

Courtney Baker:
Thank you.

Verbs Boyer:
Guys this is how it all starts. She be coming to Beyonce [inaudible 00:02:30].

Nick Jaworski:
Oh, wow. It’s happening right now. You have to see it on YouTube on our channel. Courtney you’re going so fast it’s crazy, right guys?

Blake Stratton:
Wow, how did you do that on the table?

Nick Jaworski:
Wow.

Blake Stratton:
How did you do that on a table? That’s the amazing part. Yeah, you’re way further along on your goal.

Courtney Baker:
Oh, my gosh.

Blake Stratton:
So it’s the fourth quarter as Courtney said, whether it’s a new break dancing career you’re trying to launch like she is or another big goal that feels like it’s on the line and you’ve got to deliver. There is a temptation to just out of the excitement or out of the anxiety, wherever you are on that spectrum to just push and hustle and before you know it you’re just reacting to everything. One of the tools that gets overlooked in seasons like this is the ideal week. But today we’re here to show you that the busier you are the more important your rhythms become. Specifically we’re going to help you reset your ideal week to serve you so that you can do your absolute best in the fourth quarter.

Verbs Boyer:
Welcome to another episode of Focus On This. This is the most productive podcast on the internet. So you can banish distractions, get the right stuff done and finally start loving Mondays. I’m Verbs here with Courtney Baker and Blake Stratton. Hey.

Blake Stratton:
What’s up Verbs?

Verbs Boyer:
Happy Monday guys. How goes it?

Courtney Baker:
Happy Monday.

Blake Stratton:
We’ve got three questions to help you reset your ideal week so that this fourth quarter you can do your absolute best work without burning yourself out. Verbs, why don’t you give us question one?

Verbs Boyer:
So question number one is to ask yourself, what must I do? These are the obligations, the commitments that you can’t really get out of. So you have to identify what those are. This can even be things that you do either at work or at home. For instance, we have a project at our home that I’m trying to get done the staining of a backyard fence. Which as the cold weather comes it becomes more important to get that done so I can’t move that around. So it’s something that’s launched in there.

Courtney Baker:
Now, wait let me ask you. This fits? It’s making it onto your ideal week forever and ever?

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah. So I have to put multiple coats on. So every Thursday I’m staining my fence.

Courtney Baker:
[inaudible 00:05:10] every Thursday.

Blake Stratton:
It’s not that he has to stain his fence, is that he is a fence stainer.

Courtney Baker:
Oh, yeah.

Blake Stratton:
That’s a part of who he is. So it’s become part of his ideal week.

Verbs Boyer:
Hey, let me finish. I can bring this around.

Courtney Baker:
Okay.

Verbs Boyer:
As I was saying this may be work that’s done either at work or at home. If you have home projects that you know have to complete as I mentioned the staining of fence. Then you want to allot for those things in your ideal week or segment out things that you would normally do around the house. Whether it’s a one time project Courtney or a weekly or monthly project. Whatever it may look like for you and your situation but you want to allot some time to get those done.

Courtney Baker:
Actually, I redact everything that I said because I love that idea and I think sometimes when we’re talking about personal projects sometimes we don’t account for those. So when they do come up we’re just frustrated because it’s messing with… Because projects at your house they’re going to happen. So let’s figure out when would be the ideal time for me to do those things.

Verbs Boyer:
Right.

Courtney Baker:
So props Verbs, I like that idea after all.

Verbs Boyer:
Not to mention also the items that you would normally do at work. Whether it’s setting aside a block of time for podcast recording, one to one meetings. But putting those on a specific day within a specific slot. That way ideally as you look at your week, those are the times you want to hit those and avoid too much jumbling or overlap in the segments of your week.

Blake Stratton:
The second question you want to ask yourself once you’ve identified your absolute firm obligations is to look at the things that you may want to start or stop doing. So ask, what do I want to start doing? What do I want to stop doing? These are things that on a weekly basis perhaps you’re committed to but maybe you don’t have to be committed to those things. Reevaluate the value of those on your calendar, sometimes these are meetings. Weekly meetings that you’ve committed to that maybe aren’t serving the purpose that they once served. Maybe there’s commitments, small groups, memberships, things of that nature maybe you want to stop doing. Sometimes we do a quarterly preview or we look ahead and we go well, I want to do this in this quarter it’s going to require a lot of this. So I’m going to start doing this and this and this so I can get my goal done. But we don’t actually clear anything off of our plate and then we wonder why we feel so tired, exhausted, miserable, stressed or ashamed that we didn’t get the things done that we wanted to get done.
So think about what you want to stop doing. Probably want to think about that first, right guys? Think about well, what can I take off? Then once you’ve hit the minus button, then think about what do I want to put in that place?

Verbs Boyer:
That’s good Blake.

Blake Stratton:
Can you think of anything Verbs or Courtney? Anything that you’ve had to remove in order to make room for something? Or maybe you’ve even thought about that as we’re headed now in the fourth quarter.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah. I think just thinking through what goes on, on a weekly basis. But as you know what you want to accomplish or how you want to organize your week. I mean, some of those things that you want to stop doing is… There could be smaller things that you actually enjoy or look forward to doing. But where they’re placed in your week, it kind of absorbs other time and energy and will throw off your week. For instance, it’s a good idea to grab a coffee with a friend. But if you do that before work on a Wednesday when you already have a stacked day of meetings and it’s going to be more than just grabbing a quick coffee. There’s going to be conversation. You got to get up earlier, you got to have your house organized a little bit earlier before you can leave for work and that was all for a 45 minute sit down for a cup of coffee. But you might need to say no to it on that day but figure out a spot in your week where those sorts of things can happen.
Or a lunch later on with a friend outside of work. Those kinds of things it can end up being… It could be a lot bigger deal to get to those things by the time you’re there and then eating lunch and then bringing it back to the office and then you got to kind of kick back into work mode. So those can take more time than you actually think they are. Not that you shouldn’t do them but just finding little spots in your week where those may fit best could be important.

Blake Stratton:
Yeah. An example that I normally will… When I started doing coaching, I would just take coaching calls whenever, because [inaudible 00:09:55]. I’m learning the business, learning the model, training, coaching whenever and recently I hit a point where I recognized I’ve got to consolidate down in terms of what days I can actually say yes to coaching calls. Because certain things had to start happening, just system maintenance, operations wise, running this new business. So I had to stop doing coaching on Fridays, was the day that I chose and start… What I put in its place was just buffer, literally just a buffer. I have a three hour block on Friday mornings that just says maintenance. Because I know especially the busier things get the harder it is to make time to maintain anything. So you can think about it that way too, as you’re saying your ideal week is… Maybe there’s things you got to stop doing or rearrange in your calendar and maybe what you start doing is scheduling buffer. Be realistic with your real time and energy. Don’t make the ideal week well, if I’m ideal then this tool will work for me.
Instead, make the ideal week hey if I’m totally not ideal, if things are hard then this tool is going to make sure that the most important stuff still gets done.

Courtney Baker:
Question three is, what practices do I need to stay grounded? So I think this is a really important question and I think it’s one that can kind of get overlooked when we… Maybe if you just started out looking at an ideal week. You’re just probably thinking okay, what do I need to do? How do I get all these things in here? How do I shove all the things in the container? This question actually helps you look at it through a different lens of okay, well how do I get the rest that I need? I can’t just work with no rest. That’s not going to last very long. So when and where can I build in the things that I need to rejuvenate? That might be exercise or it might be hey, on Thursday nights that’s the ideal time for me to go connect with other people. It may be that on Wednesday mornings you walk your neighborhood with a friend, whatever those things are that really give you the fuel to drive all these other activities in your ideal week.
Maybe even as simple as this is when I do my evening ritual, this is when I go to bed. We’ve talked a lot about sleep on this podcast and we always kind of joked about it because it feels somewhat juvenile to talk about going to bed. But it’s actually still important for us and I don’t know about YouTube but this person has a big birthday this year. Still talking about bedtime for this person. So this is just when is the ideal time for those things? Again, I think it’s without this practice of asking those questions. If we don’t know what the ideal is there’s no way that we’re going to get anywhere close to it. So this question I think is a really important one.

Blake Stratton:
One thing you mentioned that was interesting to me about that Courtney, was the connection with other people. Well this is when I do this with a friend and this is such a great reminder that you don’t want to productivity your way out of relationships. Because relationships are what’s going to help keep you grounded and keep you motivated, keep you inspired and ultimately keep you productive in what could be a really intense quarter for you. So that was a great reminder just to consider that in your ideal week. It’s not just when am I going to do all this work and how can I optimize? Blah blah, blah. But yeah, I’m a person. When am I going to connect with friends? My most important relationships. Those life giving connection points. When are those going to happen?

Verbs Boyer:
Before we move too quickly on to the next segment, Courtney you mentioned you had a big birthday coming up?

Courtney Baker:
Yes.

Verbs Boyer:
Okay.

Nick Jaworski:
Only Courtney has this birthday coming up.

Courtney Baker:
Not true.

Nick Jaworski:
So it’s just Courtney.

Verbs Boyer:
[inaudible 00:14:31].

Nick Jaworski:
Only Courtney.

Courtney Baker:
Not true.

Verbs Boyer:
Is this an indication that you’re switching brackets, right? You’re going from one bracket to the next.

Courtney Baker:
So is Nick.

Nick Jaworski:
I’m entering into that 25, 26 insurance bracket for auto insurance. That’s where I’m headed into, yes.

Verbs Boyer:
Nice. Okay.

Courtney Baker:
That’s right. Yeah. Same, ditto. For this part of our show we have one of our Full Focus Planner Certified Pros. If you’re new here these are folks that have been trained by us and can help people get trained to use the Full Focus Planner better. So right out the gate if you’re interested in maybe accelerating your usage of the planner or just need some added accountability or some goal accountability, our Full Focus Planner Certified Pros are a great place to find that. So I am going to invite Cindy on. She’s one of our Full Focus Planner Certified Pro but also a business accelerator client and does coaching with us. I got to be with Cindy just two weeks ago and I didn’t even know she was going to be on the show today. So Cindy, welcome to the podcast.

Cindy Wolford:
Yeah. Thank you.

Courtney Baker:
Would you share a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Cindy Wolford:
Sure. So I own a cleaning company in Cincinnati Ohio and I am on the cusp of launching a coaching, teaching program to teach other people how to start their own cleaning business. Whether it’s solo or a company with employees and I’m actually… As part of their welcome kit they’re getting a Full Focus Planner. They’re getting the Win at Work, Succeed at Life and a No-Fail Habits book that’s in their welcome kit. I’m going to be using the Full Focus Planner, like literally if you want to accomplish this, this week. This should be your daily big three. This should be on your weekly big three. We’re using it, it’s going to be integral in our program.

Courtney Baker:
That is amazing. Is your business called Full Focus Cleaning? Because I kind of love it.

Cindy Wolford:
No, it’s Cleaning Up. Cleaning Up is the name of our-

Courtney Baker:
That is awesome.

Cindy Wolford:
Yeah.

Courtney Baker:
I love that.

Cindy Wolford:
Yeah.

Courtney Baker:
That is amazing and thank you for including us as part of what you’re doing. I just love the way that so many of you are integrating the Full Focus Planner into the service that you provide in a really creative way. I think it’s a win, win for everybody involved. Well, that’s awesome. How did you become a planner user?

Cindy Wolford:
Before I joined Business Accelerator two years ago. I was kind of an on again, off again person. I would use it sometimes, use it not sometimes. In the last three to four years, my work has gotten a lot more focused and I have ADHD. A pretty good hefty case of ADHD so planning is even more important and I would say the last two years it’s just been really the saving grace for me. So in addition to medication that I’ve started about a year ago, that was also extremely helpful too.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. Do you mind speaking a little more towards that of how the planner… How utilizing that has helped you with ADHD?

Cindy Wolford:
Sure. So a lot of people think ADHD means you can’t focus at all and that isn’t exactly what it means. It means that we can’t regulate when we need to focus. So if there’s something we like to do, we can hyper focus and hyper plan in some ways. But if it’s something we don’t like to do laundry, something at work we can just put it off. You might think okay, that’s procrastination but it’s in a chronic way and it has real life consequences of not meeting deadlines and things like that. So the other thing that I tend to struggle with is inattention like total distractions. So for me the three things that I really struggle with are attention and focus. Whether it’s one thing, one task, one activity. Organizing and prioritizing my thoughts, my projects, my tasks, my days and time management and meeting deadlines. So how the Full Focus Planner helps me is it reduces distractions because my Full Focus Planner does not ding at me and there’s no Facebook on there which is really good.
It also provides just a phenomenal structure and scaffolding for breaking down my goals and projects into manageable chunks. That is one of the biggest things that helps anybody, whether you’re a student or a grown up with ADHD is breaking things down. So that is just the thing in the Full Focus Planner and then the last thing that it helps me do is it helps me use an external tool to manage my time. So I have my ideal week and I say all right, this is the time I’m going to do my workday startup. That’s when I look at email and Slack and go down a couple Facebook rabbit holes and then I also do that at lunch and at the workday shutdown. But if I look at… I have everything over on another monitor so that also I don’t get distracted. So that’s another thing I do and so I just really love how the planner provides the scaffolding that our brains need. Also, normal folks need too because our lives are really complex anymore even if you don’t have ADHD it’s complex.

Courtney Baker:
Well, thank you for sharing about that. I know that this comes up a lot in the Full Focus Planner Community. So if you have ADHD and have questions about this, certainly go to the planner community and ask them. It’s such a wonderful group of people to help provide experiences, things that have worked, don’t work, all those good things. Even tagging Cindy to maybe give her experience or if you’re interested in working with some of our certified pros like Cindy, you can always find them at fullfocus.co/directory. All right, Cindy I’m curious. I mean, it seems like the planner really has so many different tentacles for you in using it yourself. Now, starting to use it with your coaching services for starting cleaning businesses. I wonder if you kind of can even step back and pull up to a 3000 foot view and just talk about how the planner has impacted your life.

Cindy Wolford:
I would say probably the biggest thing it has done is really shine a spotlight focus on goals. Really goals and being able to… It’s not just 12 months from now I want to lose 50 pounds or whatever. It’s okay, so if I want to be in my healthiest body what does that mean each quarter? What does that mean each week? Each day? So that’s a personal goal, for example or even a work goal. So if I want to launch this in the next four weeks here’s what we have to have done in the next two weeks, in the one week. Just really breaking things down to something that I think I can’t lose 50 pounds but oh wait, I can go exercise three times this week.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah.

Cindy Wolford:
I can do that. So it really takes the large not impossible but overwhelming, something that could feel impossible to something that is very doable.

Courtney Baker:
What has that meant for you? I mean, if you kind of look back over the last few years without the planner. Are there things that you might not have been able to accomplish without that ability to distill those goals down?

Cindy Wolford:
I would say it has helped me when things come up, pandemics. I mean, who thought of a pandemic.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah.

Cindy Wolford:
That really threw things into so much chaos with my business and I don’t think… When things were chaotic is when I used my planner the most. Because I just couldn’t rely on my memory. I couldn’t rely on well, I’ll just remember to get that done, no, no. I had to write down everything, every voicemail, put a check next to everything that was completed. That is the only way I was able to survive and grow through the pandemic for example.

Courtney Baker:
That’s amazing. Okay. This is my last question but probably my favorite. What is your favorite planner hack that you do with the planner?

Cindy Wolford:
So something I do is I will put in large boxes of time and I call them time boxing or sometimes people call it the Pomodoro Technique. So if I have a two hour chunk where I need to get done a bunch of writing, I literally use my timer and it’s a little hexagonal timer. I’ll have two hours but obviously I would go crazy if I thought I can’t sit still for two hours. But I can sit still for 20 minutes. Boom, there’s my 20 minute timer and then I do whatever it is I need to do. Then I give myself a five minute break and I look at Facebook or whatever it is I need to do. So that way I use the time boxing or Pomodoro Technique, however you want to call it. With my planner and I’m able to put in big chunks of things to do. But again, it breaks it down into manageable chunks. I can sit down for 25 minutes and [inaudible 00:25:00].

Courtney Baker:
I love that and now I need the link to that little clock you have there.

Cindy Wolford:
It’s awesome. It’s on Amazon.

Courtney Baker:
Yes.

Cindy Wolford:
It’s a hexagonal timer.

Courtney Baker:
Can we get that in the show notes, Nick? Where we can find that. Okay. Great.

Cindy Wolford:
I did this instead of my phone because my phone is a distraction.

Courtney Baker:
Yes.

Cindy Wolford:
So this is just super simple.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. I love that and it’s a physical… I sometimes find with a tool like that sometimes it reminds you that you have that at your disposal of like oh, why don’t I set this for 20 minutes? To use that when sometimes it’s like your phone has so many resources on it, sometimes you forget about everything that’s there.

Cindy Wolford:
Exactly.

Courtney Baker:
So that’s a fantastic tip. Again, I just want to remind everybody if you’re looking for someone that is a certified pro that’s been trained by us and can help you utilize your planner at a higher level. There’s so many different things that they can help you with. Again, I’ve actually had people ask why would I need help using a planner? This is not just a planner that you buy at Target and write the date at the top. This is a system to help you achieve the life that you want, to achieve the goals you want. So I don’t know about you, I think for Cindy and Nick and I we would say that’s incredibly valuable. So again, if you’re interested in working with a Full Focused Planner Certified Pro you can find them in the Full Focus Planner Community on Facebook. But also at fullfocus.co/directory. Cindy, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s great to see you again and I know I’m really excited for the launch of your business and look forward to seeing you at our next round of Business Accelerator Intensis.

Cindy Wolford:
Awesome. Thank you.

Courtney Baker:
Thanks, Cindy. Today’s tip to level up your focus is to schedule an hour on your calendar this week to revisit your ideal week. If you use a Full Focus Planner you’ll find it in your planner. If you don’t and need a template to conduct an ideal week, go to fullfocusplanner.com/idealweek to download your copy today.

Verbs Boyer:
Thanks for joining us on Focus On This, this is the most productive podcast on the internet. So please tell your friends about it if you have not already joined us in our Full Focus Planner Community, right there on Facebook. Lots of great conversations going around planner usage, lots of tips, lots of advice and maybe you have some advice you’d like to submit as well. But until next time, we will be here next Monday with a brand new episode so until then.

Courtney Baker:
Stay focused.

Verbs Boyer:
Stay focused.