165 - The Weekly Plan
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Show Notes:
Well, I'm back from taking a month off of the podcast! This episode is going to be a little bit of a catch-up of what I've been up to, what's coming in August, a little bit of a change of plans with the podcast, but as all good. And I'm going to break down at my favorite weekly rhythm for you, which is my Sunday plan.
I'm so excited to share all this with you. I'm excited to be back—I've missed you guys! I'm so grateful that you are here listening today.
I'm so excited about today's episode for a few reasons. Number one, I'm really going to talk about Work and Play and how I plan both of those things into my week. Every week. I'm going to give you a free checklist that you can download and use in your own weekly planning.
And I just feel like I'm catching up with an old friend as they just share kind of where I've been and what have I been up to and kind of what's coming. I have loved the freedom that summer affords us as a family. I mean, at times it’s just kind of more of a loose schedule. I don't know about you, but I find myself longing for the rhythms and routines that come with the school calendar. And we're just a few weeks out from starting school back so I'm excited just to share today about my weekly plan, because I think it's going to get you excited too. But before I do that, here's a brief little catch-up from my summer. First, what we've been up to and a little bit of a heads-up about what's to come on the podcast for this month and the future months.
So, first of all, if you can't tell my voice is a little bit tired, it's a little hoarse. I'm actually recording this episode the day before it comes out, which I never do. I always record them a week or two in advance, but my amazing brother-in-law and podcast editor has been very gracious as I've completely lost my voice over the last week and a half, which is why it's still a little raspy, not quite a hundred percent yet, but we're all recovering from yet another sickness. And so if there's anything the Lord has taught me this summer, it's been this to embrace flexibility and to take care of myself.
A little snippet of July, which is the month that I took off: we went to Nashville for July 4th, visited family, celebrated America's birthday. We had princess camp. We took a long weekend to the mountains where we did a lot of hiking. We just stayed home a lot. There's been a lot of sickness again, and I feel like a broken record because I think every time I get on Instagram or every time I jump on the podcast, I'm saying this and I don't want to dwell on that, but I will say with this combination of the things I've shared with travel and camp and sickness and summer and expectations, I've learned a lot about having a family with small kids. I've learned a lot about myself. I've learned that sometimes travel can be really exciting and give me something to look forward to. And sometimes it can cause some extreme anxiety.
I have had to be willing to pivot at any moment with the plans that we've made, which results in a lot of disappointment, because I get excited about those plans and then they're canceled because of sickness or fill in the blank. And so, yeah, I'm just learning what it looks like to be a flexible mom, which is not my normal mode of operation. I like to plan things. I like to stick to my plans. And so God's teaching me to hold things loosely, to take care of myself, which is hard, but I've realized if I don't take care of myself, the wheels are gonna fall off of my little proverbial, emotional, physical, spiritual cart, and I'm going to spiral.
And if I'm honest, I've had some really high points in the last month and some really low points. It's been a month, it's been a little bit of a roller coaster for me. So our summer’s been sweet, but not what I've expected. Every camp we've enrolled in has been cut short for some reason or another at mostly due to sickness or travel, every trip we've been taken has been couched in either some form of anxiety for me, or excitement or meltdowns or sickness and we've rewritten our plans for each one in some way. And I've spent a lot of time at the doctor's office this summer, not the pool. I've spent a lot more time inside than I have outside and I'm learning that that's okay. That's okay.
So it's, that's kind of where I've been. I appreciate your grace. I'm so grateful that I took off the month of July because juggling all that I just shared with you with also producing content for this podcast, I think would have been a little too much. And I'm grateful for God's grace in that, that, that was the plan to begin with because I needed all the time in the world to just be, and to be mom and to navigate this and to recover. But I'm looking forward to the change of pace that these next two weeks are going to bring. I'm looking forward to getting ready for school. You know, I'm going to just lay low. I'm going to take care of my kiddos. I'm going to counseling. And I continue to go to counseling.
I am going to try to practice what I preach and make a good plan for me and my family every week, while also being flexible while also planning to take care of myself. And this is what I love about the weekly plan and checklist I'm going to share with you today. It really does apply in any season. It applies in summer. It applies in fall, winter and spring. It applies in the difficult weeks of your life and it applies in the weeks where you feel like you're crushing it. So I'm excited to share my plan with you that I use every week. And I'm excited to just to give you the checklist that you can download. So before I forget, nancyray.com/checklist is where you can find it.
My Weekly Plan
Let's jump in to my weekly plan. And then I'll wrap up the episode with sharing kind of where the podcast is heading over the next month and what's to come. Okay. So the first thing I do every Sunday, and if I'm honest, sometimes this is Monday morning if Sundays are crazy, but I try every Sunday to plan these things into my week:
spiritual growth
meal planning
exercise
sleep
work
play
So the first four things are foundational things in that they have to happen, and they are setting me up for success so that I can be the best mom and the best person, the best wife, I'm the best daughter of God that I can be. For the Lord, for myself, for my family, for those around me, for my friends, and that is first.
Spiritual growth. I plan in a Sabbath. I plan in connection time with the Lord. And what that looks like for me right now is trying to read scripture and journal a few times a week, but I'm also planning in some worship times in the afternoon and maybe just one verse to dwell on that week. I'm learning what it looks like to really abide with the Lord and focus on the things that he's teaching me throughout my week. And that also includes going to church every Sunday, as many times as we're in town are able to, or listening to the sermon online if I missed it.
The second thing is a meal plan. This is not a particularly exciting thing for me. I don't love to meal plan, but what I've kind of gotten into the groove of doing is just meal planning for half of the week. Like I'll plan the meals for the next three or four days, place a grocery order go to target pickup and let that be it because what I've learned again, going back to flexibility is like our plans change. Our eating plans change, leftovers will take place, and it just is easier for me to kind of plan three to four days at a time.
And then I plan in my exercise. The time that I can go to the gym or get outside and take a walk or do yoga or whatever it is.
And then lastly, sleep. Man, this is, if you have young kiddos like me, this is something you plan, but you hold loosely because you know that, you know, like I did two nights ago, I went to bed at a certain time and the baby starts crying right as I'm falling asleep, and then the toddler starts crying right after that. So you plan it, but you hold it lightly. But I will say that if you can plan and get the sleep that you need, man, it's a game changer.
So, spiritual growth, meal planning, exercising, and sleep are the first four things that I do just to set up my week for success. And then I plan my Work and Play. And I'm passionate about planning my Work and planning my Play into my weeks.
Because if you know me, if you've been listening a long time, you know, you know that I tend to lean heavy on the side of work. I love to plan my work. I love to strategize for my work. I really enjoy work. I'm a three on the Enneagram so achieving is big for me, and if I can lay out a good plan and then execute that plan, man, I'm feeling really good about myself. But here's what I have learned to do: I have been trying to plan the play first.
I think it's because I tend to overdo the work and focus all my efforts on work and as I'm grading myself on the week on whether it was a successful week or a failed week, I tend to put it all in the work category. If I got all my work done or not. And I'm learning that life is so much more than work. And so as a personal discipline, you can plan either one first, whatever you want to do is fine. As a personal practice, I've been trying to plan in my play first.
Planning play
And so what do I plan into my week for play?
Well, first of all, blocking off my Sabbath is part of that. It's my downtime. It's my rest. It is time to play with the family time to watch a movie or do board games or go on a walk or hike. Blocking off my Sabbath is a lot of that restorative play time, and it's a whole day for it.
I also try to plan something fun for myself. This can be as simple and tiny as just making a cold brew coffee at home for myself and drinking it one afternoon, or it can be, you know, planning a day at the splash pad or the zoo or something fun to get out of the house as a family and create memories with the kids. It doesn't really matter. It's just planning something to look forward to in your week.
Another way that I plan play into my week is I schedule in just kind of free time downtime, like scheduling in that white space or that margin so that I can maybe do a house project or maybe do something fun. Like, I don't know, a board game or a puzzle. I'm not really a puzzle person, if I'm honest. So if you're a puzzle person listening, then that can be for you. But just like just having that buffer time to say, “Hey, do you want to go get ice cream guys? Do you want to do this?” Or during rest time thinking, “What's something fun that I can do that I've been wanting to do for a long time?”
Another way I try to plan play into my week is just planning quality, connection time with Will, my husband. So whether that's a date night or a walk in the neighborhood, or just watching a fun show or having a movie night or something, I mean, just anything just to connect with him. And that's something that we can both look forward to.
I also try to plan mind-body-soul time with each kid. And that's, that's when they get to choose 10 minutes where I'm not distracted or interrupted by anything, we set a little timer and they get to choose what we do. We get it's just mommy and Milly or mommy and Lyndon or mommy and Beaufort, and eventually mommy and Benji.
But right now he's getting a lot of one-on-one and distracted time with mommy because I am still feeding him four to five times a day. This can be worked into just any normal day and it only takes 10 minutes, but man, I see my kids' eyes light up. They love the one-on-one time with me. And if I don't do it every day, I aim to do this at least twice a week, but it really helps a number of things in my relationship with my kids. But it also just helps plan the playtime with them because as a mom, there's so much to be done and it's really hard to just play with the kids. But if I plan it in and know, it's not going to take up so much time, it really makes it doable. And really a lot of fun. I learned this from Positive Parenting Solutions. The only course I took, I can leave a link for that in the show notes, if you're interested, but it's just been really helpful for us guys.
My voice is getting so tired. I'm so sorry. Okay, I'm almost done.
The last thing in planning play into your week is just connecting with a friend that is so life-giving for me, whether it's a play date or just going on a walk or even just marco polo-ing with my closest friends or my sister, it really like is just a lightness. It brings a lot of hope and lightness and just, again, something to look forward to my week.
So those are the different ways that I try to plan play into my week. I will say I don't do all of them every week. I have the checklist and I try to do at least some of them every week, but I might not get with a friend every single week, Will and I might not have a date night every single week. I think eventually we'll get there, but right now it's just a lot for our family. So I just encourage you if you can't do all of these things every single week, that's fine. I think the two that I definitely try to do every week is a Sabbath and just planning something fun to look forward to.
Planning work
Okay. Moving on to work. Let's talk about how to plan your work into your week. This is kind of my method of planning my work into my calendar.
And when I say work, I'm talking about my work, but I'm also talking about kind of the work-y things of motherhood and running a household. For example, the first thing that I always do is write in my appointments. So that could be an appointment with a podcast interview that I'm doing, but it also could be a dentist appointment that I'm taking my kids to. So I just sit down and I write down all of the appointments or the time-boundary things that I have for my week that can't move around, then I plan for two to three hours of deep work first. Anyone else read the book Deep Work by Cal Newport? It's so good. And basically all that means is it is an uninterrupted time for you to work on the most important thing that you're trying to get done in your work that week, just one thing that would be awesome if you could knock out. You put your phone away. You quit all your apps. You don't answer any text messages. You don't take any calls. You don't do emails. You work on a project, a content piece that's important, or whatever project it is that you need to do to move your business or your work forward.
So plan for two to three hours of deep work, then plan for a minimum of an hour, just to dream and brainstorm in your work. So think about things like this:
What steps would you like to take next in your life?
What do you love most about your work and how can you do more of that?
If money or time weren't an issue for you, what would you choose to do next?
And then take some time and write them all in a work journal or your normal journal, if you have one. But I really liked to keep a work journal where I write down notes from a lot of conferences or things that I go to. I just have it all in one place, and then I can dream and brainstorm really big picture stuff about my work. So go buy one if you don't have one, because I think it's really fun to kind of keep that in its own place, but having time designated to dream and brainstorm about your business is what keeps you excited about work. It's what keeps you coming back and excited to do what you're doing.
And then lastly, planning admin time. This is the housekeeping stuff of work. This is the stuff that has to get done, even if you don't love it. So put on your ninja mask and be the email ninja I know that you are an answer as many emails as you can within an hour. Knock them out, answer them, get that inbox down, you know, make calls that you need to make, do the things that you need to do in your work that really aren't that glamorous, but they just have to get done. So you can plan for this 30 minutes every day or a two hour block a week, or, I mean, it just depends on your work and how much admin that you need. But my encouragement to you is really to devote time to this, to knock it out, instead of just doing it, kind of all over the place throughout your week.
So that's it in a nutshell, first plan spiritual growth, your meal plan, exercise, and sleep so that you can show up and be the best mom and wife and worker bee that you can be, and, and then plan the practical aspects of your week—your play in your work.
And I just encourage you try to do it by planning your play first. See if that makes a difference in your mindset this week and gives you a little bit more joy as you look forward to your week.
Okay, let's talk about what's to come on the podcast! I'm starting a new rhythm here, and I am planning to release episodes every other Tuesday. Now I'm really sorry if this is a bummer to you. I have gotten so many sweet messages from people saying they look forward to this podcast every Tuesday, but here’s why: I'm trying to do a little less scrambling and throwing things together and a little more quality content that's well thought out. And have you joined Patreon? You'll get a bonus episode every now and then, too. But at this point in my life, I just, I'm trying to find a rhythm that's going to work. And so from now to the end of the year, we're going to move to every other Tuesday. And then we're going to re-assess in January.
Now, also in August this month, we are focusing on kind of a theme here on the Work and Play podcast, which is Work. I'm focusing a little bit more on the work-y side of things and so I have some really amazing interviews planned for you with some of my favorite people and authors. It's going to be packed full of really great content. And I'm excited to just have more of a work focus with of course, faith and motherhood and home life, all of that tied in because it always is, but it just feels right. Kind of as we transition out of summer and into more of a routine to focus this month on work rhythms and systems and things like that.
I talked about back in, what was it? I think May—The Blueprint Model a little bit, my friend Shannon Skidmore came on the podcast. She taught us how she runs her business, her online business, completely free of social media, which was just so fascinating. And I'm excited to have her back on the podcast(!) and in two weeks she is opening the doors to her course again, The Blueprint Model, which has changed my business and my life and really taught me the numbers side of business, which is really intimidating for a lot of us creative people. So if you are interested or want to get on the wait list for that, go to nancyray.com/blueprint. You'll learn a little bit more about it there, but I'll send you an email when the doors open for that. That's happening this August as well. And I'm going to be leading a small group of people through the blueprint model again. So if you want to be on the wait list for that needs to read.com/blueprint, and that will be kind of part of our work theme. So I'm excited. Stay tuned for some really great stuff this August. Thank you for bearing with my tired voice today.
I'm just grateful for you. I'm grateful for you listening. I'm grateful to be back on the Work and Play Podcast.
I'm going to close with a quote that my husband says. it's from his business that he works with C12. This is what they say all the time:
“Priorities are what we do. Everything else is just talk.”
And as you take what we've talked about today, let's just remember priorities are what we do and everything else is just talk. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in a couple of weeks.
