086 - Find More Hours In Your Week
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Okay, have you ever sat down and thought about everything you do in a week, all the work, all the things you're responsible for all the fun you want to have, all the exercise you need, all the sleep you need, and thoughtfully written out how you would like to live your ideal week?
If you never have, I'm so excited for you to try this. And if you have done this before, I have found one of the greatest benefits of this exercise is doing it often, because guess what? Life changes.
This week, we're going to be talking about how to get the most out of your week with the ideal week exercise.
And you can do your very own ideal week exercise by downloading a PDF that I've made just for you at nancyray.com/idealweek. When you download and print the PDF, you'll be able to write in your own week and hours and things you do, and I promise you're going to find hours in your days and in your weeks. I do every time. Grab yours below.
For the full episode, hit play above or read through it below!
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I don't know if you can hear it in my voice, but I am getting over a cold so I'm just asking you to bear with me this week if you feel like I sound a little bit off. I'm really excited to talk to you about the Ideal Week Exercise.
It’s one of the best practices you can do to get the most out of your work and play.
I feel like it's this foundational tool that everyone should have, or try at least once, because it's meant to open up your eyes to what you can do with your days and your hours and your weeks, making the most of them. I was first introduced to this concept of writing out your ideal week from Michael Hyatt, but it's not exclusive to him. Many businesses and personal blogs who value managing your time well have shared about this practice.
Okay, so this is how it works.
You take a blank week, Sunday through Saturday, and you block off chunks of time within the week for everything in your life.
Now, this can't be a week in Hawaii, like, "This is my ideal week, is to go to Hawaii for a week and do nothing." No, it has to apply to your life, it has to be realistic, and it has to make sense for the season of life that you were living in right now, it includes work commitments and responsibilities. It also includes things you need to do for you, exercise, quiet time with the Lord, date nights, leisure time, taking a Sabbath. Everything that's important to you goes in this ideal week exercise. And what makes it an ideal week is that it's your real life lived to its fullest. So again, it has to be realistic.
Now here's how I do it. I'm just going to kind of walk you through. I've actually recently done this and I always start with the things that are scheduled, things that are going to happen no matter what. So for me, I take my kids to preschool and kindergarten, and I can't really change that. That's going to happen, that's in the schedule. And then I work the few hours that they are gone at school. I work two days a week for three hours a day, and then plus nap times if I'm lucky. So yeah, that's not moving for me so that's what I start with. I kind of put those chunks of times in first.
In the past, before I had kids, I had more of a nine to five Monday through Friday work schedule, plus weddings on the weekends and photo shoots, and so I would kind of work off of that. And it doesn't matter, this is the beautiful thing about this, it doesn't matter what season of life you're in.
You start off with a blank sheet of paper and you make it work for your season.
Scheduled Things
So I start with the scheduled things: preschool, kindergarten, swim lesson, church for us, we go to the same service every Sunday, date nights—we're trying to work on having that be a more regular part of our life—, we have weekly Bible studies we attend.
All of those things I kind of block off first because I know that those things are not moving around.
Weekly Rhythms
Then I look at my weekly rhythms.
Now, these are things that don't really have appointments, but I need to do them weekly. I need to find time to make sure that I do these weekly.
So a Sabbath is a good example. Usually our Sabbath is on Saturdays, and we have church on Sunday and we kind of use Sunday as a prep for the week, kind of like a housework day, and we try to rest them on Saturday, But that's not always the case. Sometimes we have some work thing or some family thing, or we have to go to a birthday party or something. And our Sabbath day becomes kind of crazy. Saturdays can sometimes become crazy. And when that happens, we can even switch and make Sunday more of our Sabbath rest, and we'll go to church and rest the rest of the day. And then Saturday will be our get stuff done day.
I also, once a week, take authority over the paper in my house. So all the mail that's come in, the things I need to process for my kids' school. I take time to go through those things, shred things, file things, pay bills, whatever it is. My husband does this too, but we just kind of take authority over the paper once a week.
And then meal planning is something that happens for me once a week. I do that once every week. Can't get around it, but it doesn't always happen at the same time every week. So just looking at my week and finding times to really plan/?. In my ideal week, when would I like to plan for my meals for the following week? When would I like for that to take place? And I just chose Friday. I feel like for some reason planning for the following week on Friday makes sense. It takes the mental capacity of that off the table for my weekends, and then I place the grocery order pickup for Sunday. So that just makes sense and works for me. It could be something totally different for you and that's great.
Daily Rhythms
So once I look at my weekly rhythms, then I look at my daily rhythms. Okay, I want to wake up, have coffee and spend time with the Lord every single morning. I want to exercise at least three times a week. So that's not really daily or weekly. It's kind of in the middle because it's three to four times a week. Getting dressed and getting ready for my day. Spending quality time with each child for a little bit every single day. I want to do better about these things.
Like something like right now, I've been sick. I've had a cold, I'm not exercising. So that has not been happening for me. I have not been spending as much time, individual time, with my children as I want to. If I'm honest, I'm not getting dressed fully all the time like I want to be. Usually I'm in workout clothes or whatever. I just don't get to putting on makeup or doing my hair. So having these things kind of planned in, it's eye opening. It's like, okay, I really do want to do these every day. So I choose the time and I write them in.
Play
Then the next category that I work on as I'm writing out my ideal week is the leisure and fun category. Now, this is different from Sabbath rest. Sabbath rest is not doing anything other than resting. There can be some leisure on a Sabbath, and you can absolutely go for a hike as long as it's something that fills you up, but I'm talking about making sure you plan some play, some fun into your week.
I am always guilty of being really efficient and really awesome with my work time. I kind of thrive on that. I love that. I love to work. I love to accomplish things. I'm really not as good about planning play and fun and leisure activities into my week. But let me tell you what, when I do, my mind and my heart are overwhelmingly joyful and grateful that I did those things.
The Lord created a beautiful world for us to live in and to enjoy, and I think it's so important that we don't miss out on that and become workaholics or still concerned about work all the time that we miss out on the beauty around us.
So just some examples of things that you could consider planning time for in your week.
For me, playing the piano. I have gotten away from playing the piano over the last several years. I love it. I want to plan time for it. I'm still trying to figure that out because I feel like my free time is when the kids are sleeping and it can't play my piano when the kids are asleep, but I'm still working on that. So maybe it's when all the kids are at school. Maybe that's how I start my quiet time at my house, is just play a couple songs for a few minutes and then get to work. Just thinking about ways that we can have more fun and experience more joy in our lives.
If you love to garden, you should totally block off a time every week in your garden, or maybe multiple times a week.
If you love reading, really blocking off time. Okay, when is your reading time? When is it going to be? Are you going to do 15 minutes every day in the morning? That's what worked for me before kids and I loved it. I would read 15 minutes a day every morning, along with my quiet time. And I read at least a book a month, sometimes two. Now I read about 15 to 20 minutes before I fall asleep at night and I leave my phone in a different room and that's been really, really great. But you just have to plan a time to read if you want to be a reader, otherwise it's not going to happen.
All right, Another example. If you want to be outside and just go for a walk or go for a hike and just get outdoors more and just to enjoy it, to do nothing else, but just enjoy being outside, when could you do that? You have to write that in.
So quick recap, I start with the appointments and things that won't move. Then I go into my weekly rhythms, then daily rhythms, and then leisure and fun. And then as you do that, you're going to also remember, okay, okay, we need to factor in some relationship maintenance, right? Like the date night thing I mentioned, maybe some fun individual time with every kid. There's going to be other things that pop into your mind that you are going to want to take care of or that you're going to want to do and plan into your weekly rhythm.
Take your time, light a candle, get a cup of coffee. Just take time to fill it all in and know that you're not going to get it right the first time. You'll want to cross something out. But also know that this isn't supposed to be absolutely perfect.
I know it's an ideal week, but don't get so hung up on it being so perfect that you don't actually complete it. Make a mess, cross stuff out, maybe do it in pencil at first and then go back in with a Sharpie and some colored pencils and make it more solidified. Whatever you want to do, but don't give up because it's not perfect.
So the purpose of this exercise is to see how your ideal week compares to your real life and see if there are any changes that you can make.
Usually they're little easy changes that you can make to how you live your life. It's a good comparison to see how you're spending your time in reality versus how you want to be spending your time. Is there any time that's being wasted right now that you would rather put to good use?
I think one of the most valuable benefits of this exercise is that you actually do build more play into your life. You build more leisure and rest, and that's just so good for our bodies and our minds to really build that play into our lives because it has to be a balance of work in play just to enjoy life.
And talking about work, you do get more out of your work hours. You will be more productive. You will get more out of it. No matter what they look like, whether they're two little three hour chunks of time that I could every week, whether you're in a weird kind of young motherhood season of life, or whether you have a lot of work hours, it doesn't matter. You get to block those work hours for focus. You can theme them if you want.
I would encourage you not just to circle them as work hours, but get in there and block off every single individual hour. How do you want to spend it? Hour one is on emails. Hour two is on, I don't know, writing. Hour three is on marketing. Whatever it is for your work, get in there and really be intentional about it.
Now, guess what is not the purpose of this exercise.
Believe it or not, you're not supposed to live out your ideal week.
I have done this exercise for years and I want to just go ahead and tell you, your ideal week is probably never going to happen. If it does happen, it's like a unicorn week and you should never expect it to happen again. Now, I don't say this to burst your bubble, but to set you up for some real success with this, which in my opinion looks like this.
You write out your ideal week, you have that document for this season of your life. You know the things that you want to start incorporating into your weekly rhythm to really get the most out of your work and your play.
Then you make a detailed schedule of your upcoming actual week, trying to factor in the new things that you've discovered or planned into your ideal week in a realistic way. I'll give you an example.
This week Will and I are going out of town. Boom, ideal week is already gone. We're gone Thursday through Sunday. So a lot of those rhythms I planned for Friday and Saturday and Sunday, they're not going to happen. I'm going to be packing for most of Wednesday. My work, everything is different this week. But what I can do as I'm planning for this upcoming week, I can glance at my week while writing out my detailed plan of my actual week to prioritize the most important things into that week’s schedule.
The ideal week exercise is so good and helpful because it's simply helps you plan your time according to what's most important on a weekly basis. I think this exercise is more comprehensive than an ideal day exercise because there's something about the rhythm of a week that our bodies and minds need. We need to see our work. We need to see our weekends. We need to see our Sabbath. We need to know the bigger picture of our daily and weekly rhythms and how they work together.
If you're ready to try it, your free printable below.
And always feel free to reach out to me via email or Instagram and let me know how it went. I really love to hear from you and would love to hear if this really impacts and changes your life in a positive way.
Now, it's time for the Work and Play Cornerstore, which is where I share a book I'm loving and a thing I'm loving. I'll get a small commission for anything bought through these links, which help me to continue to bring this podcast to you every week. But the price is normal for you, so it's a win-win.
Today I'll be adding the book What's Best Next, which try to say that fast five times, I feel like that's a tongue twister, as well as my wedding ring to the corner store, which sounds crazy, but I'll explain why in just a minute.
First, let's talk about the book. This is one of my all time favorite books on productivity. It is so good. I need to reread it. I loved it. The tagline of the book is how the gospel transforms the way you get things done. When we take God's purposes into account, we see that the way to be productive is to put others first, to make the welfare of other people our motive and criteria in determining what to do and what's best next. As both the scriptures and the best business thinkers show, generosity is the key to unlocking our productivity. And it's also the key to finding meaning and fulfillment in our work.
I'm not going to lie, I read that from the back of the book. That's why it sounded so eloquent and so good, but it reminds me of an old episode on my podcast, episode nine, The Secret to Success in Business. And in that episode, I talk all about how serving and being generous really is the key to success in business. So it's very similar to that, but I love this book. Y'all know I'm an Enneagram three and it's like productivity meets the gospel and it just makes me really happy. So I highly recommend this book. So good.
All right, the second thing in the corner store is my wedding ring. Not my actual, actual wedding ring, not the one with the diamond and the gold and all that. But what happened was when I became pregnant, I switched over to a QALO ring. That's Q-A-L-O, and it's a silicone wedding ring. I don't know if you've heard of these, but they're gaining in popularity. I'm actually wearing mine right now. I have really dry hands in the winter. This is just something weird you'll now know about me, but sometimes the metal from my wedding rings bothers my hands. And when I was pregnant, my fingers got really swollen. And when I work out, I really hate to wear my real wedding rings because, I don't know, something about the metal and the metal and getting all sweaty, it just bothers me.
This QALO ring is so great. And guess what? It's a silicone wedding ring, it's white. It is rubbery. It's very easy on my skin, very easy to take on and off. And I wear it quite a bit because it's just so comfortable and I'm never afraid of losing it or when I'm just handling the kids. I feel like I can be super active in it—I love it.
I'm going to close with words from Matt Perman, the author of What's Best Next. He says,
"You are satisfied with your day when there is a match between what you value and how you spend your time.”
Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.
