Cara Harvey 00:00:03 Welcome to the Purpose Driven Moms show here at A Purpose Driven Mom, we believe that it’s possible to manage your home, work on your personal goals, and grow and scale an online business. Most productivity tips out there tell you to hustle more and make you feel shame about not being motivated enough. And we’re here to dispel this myth. I’m Kara Harvey and I am on a mission to help work at home. Moms realize that they have the power to go after their dreams, take care of themselves, and manage their home without perfectionism, guilt, or having to sacrifice their sleep. If you’re ready to shift your thinking around productivity and get some practical tips to help you manage your mom life, toss your earbuds in while you fold the laundry. And let’s do this! Welcome to the purpose of our Moms Show episode 434. I got a treat for you today. You get to come behind the scenes to a purpose driven Mom think tank. This is a new structure we have for our calls over in my mastermind Group coaching program membership.

Cara Harvey 00:00:57 I don’t even know what to call it anymore because it’s evolved so much. The purpose of a mom club mom club has been around since 2019. We have changed. It’s had many iterations and right now we have moved into a new crawl structure because we want to help club members go deep onto one of their goals and move forward with the struggle they’re having. We still have our accountability calls, which are like check ins on your tasks and habits and routines, but now we’re starting a think tank. These think tanks are so fun. Here’s what happens. We have a seven minute structure. I’m gonna preview it for you where club members can get on. We host two of these a week and you can get on and ask your question. And we use timers. And one of the things we found with the timer is it helps you get the drama out and get right down to the point. So we give you one minute and that one minute, what you get to do is you get to add context and your question so you can tell us about what’s going on.

Cara Harvey 00:01:46 And a lot of times we notice before people are kind of like trying to give us so much background information that they’re not getting to the root of their actual question. So we’re trying to, quote, fix the thing that isn’t the problem, and you’ll hear that today. So you get a minute context. Tell us what your struggle is. Then you have another minute where I’ll take notes or the coach takes notes and you listen and people are going to ask questions. You don’t answer them yet. We’re just going to rapid fire. Write down what are some clarifying questions we have about your problem. This is so key because in this one minute what we’re really doing is again helping drill down. What is the actual problem? What has worked, what hasn’t. Give us some context. We then put another one minute timer on and you get to answer them. So I’ll like rapid fire you the questions back. You get to tell us what’s going on. Then you listen. Only this is the hardest part for everybody.

Cara Harvey 00:02:28 So we were like, mute, just listen in process. I’ll take notes for you. You get three minutes where everyone gets to crowdsource info. They get to to say, this is what I would do. Here’s a suggestion. Here’s something that’s worked for me and I even today you’ll hear it on this example I learned so much. I had some people had so many good suggestions that I didn’t even think of. Other club members get to come together and give you suggestions, including myself and the coaching team. You then get one minute after hearing all that to process, ask clarifying questions and then come up with one action step you’re going to take to move forward on your goal. This has been happening for a few weeks now that this is aired, it’s it’s been going on for over a month now, and it’s our new structure for two times a week. So we do this. This is a call we have two times a week. We have two accountability calls which are just support. And then we have one mini lesson teaching about the framework of the program a week.

Cara Harvey 00:03:16 So we have five calls six if you count Sunday planning that you can attend inside of this program. And club members are saying they’re loving this because they’re getting to deep dive into their own issues and struggle. They’re getting to the root cause. They’re getting an action. And it’s also very collaborative. So this is where the mastermind part of this program comes in. You get to connect with other people. You get to not be alone. I mean, how lonely is motherhood, right? Like you get to actually talk to other people, get suggestions, feel a part of a community. That’s the thing I always tell people. It’s so hard to explain for me what the club is. It’s community. It’s this, this place where everyone’s like, what is it? Rising tide lifts all ships like 100%, right? So here’s what I got for you today. We had a think tank. Today it’s October when I’m doing this, but we have a think tank and it was good. And I was like, okay, if you’re open.

Cara Harvey 00:03:57 A couple people said they were. I’d love to air it on the podcast. So thank you. Thank you so much to let’s see, we’ve got Karen, Vicky, Amy and Tara who were like, yep, go ahead. You can share my question and you can hear how we really drill down and use community coaching to help this person. Listen, the club doors are closed right now. You can go to a purpose or vermont.com/club to get on the waitlist. We’re opening up again in December. If you think this could be a tool that will help you in the new year, you’re going to want to get on the list because we’ll open in December. And just full transparency, I’ll start talking about it. The price is going up after this club opening in December, so we’re doing a challenge that you can join. We’ll open up the doors to the club. This will be the last time. It is the price it is which is $67 a month. It’s going up. Okay. So if you’ve been thinking about the club for 2025 or at any point, this is the time you’re going to want to get in because we are raising the price.

Cara Harvey 00:04:46 Okay. But listen to the think tank. Enjoy. Ask yourself, is this a tool that I think could help me with my goals? I think it is. Go check it out and have an excellent day. Okay, let us know. How can we help you today?

Speaker 2 00:04:58 Okay, so I am struggling with my morning routine. That used to be nothing to ever think about. And you said something a couple weeks ago in Sunday planning that because you were having trouble sticking to certain routines or certain times a day, and you said, well, maybe their routines need to change. And so that kind of got me thinking. And so I got back into my Monday through Friday morning routine journaling and have on my coffee before I get ready for work and then go to work. But I’m finding that on the weekend, I don’t necessarily want to do that, but then I don’t go in my office, and so then I don’t check my planner or my to do list. I just do whatever the heck I want, and it’s starting to kind of stress me out.

Speaker 2 00:05:52 And I’m thinking, why? Why is this doing this? But so I’m something’s missing and I don’t know what.

Cara Harvey 00:05:59 Okay, so is the question, how do I know you? Give me the question. What would you say? The question I think the.

Speaker 2 00:06:05 Question is how do I evaluate a new morning routine specifically for the weekends, I think.

Cara Harvey 00:06:15 Yeah, and I’m glad I asked that way because I wanted to ask a question. And at first I was like, wait, is the question? Sorry. Again, I’m just going to model as we go into this. But the question I was like, oh, is it? I wonder if Vicky’s question is like, well, how do I make my morning routine work? But that’s not really the question, right? And so this is why these think tanks are really important, because I think it helps us get down to like what really is the problem. So okay, so how do I evaluate my morning routine specifically on the weekends? Okay.

Cara Harvey 00:06:41 Great. Let me restart the timer. We can ask clarifying questions to get some more input. Okay. Anybody have questions? Good.

Speaker 3 00:06:52 How do you want to feel on the weekends?

Cara Harvey 00:06:55 I was wondering if there are, like, certain things you want to get done on the weekends. Are they the same as during the weekdays or are they different? And then I guess a second question I had was like, do you have to have a morning routine on the weekends? Is another question I’m thinking of.

Speaker 3 00:07:14 Do you think it would be helpful to ask yourself on Friday or the next Saturday? What do I need to have for a morning routine tomorrow? Because every week is different.

Cara Harvey 00:07:28 And then just logistics. Have you ever done a time audit before that we teach in the program. Do you have experience with that?

Speaker 3 00:07:35 And then my last question sorry is like related to your mindset. Is there something that you feel like if you don’t do it right, that you’re telling yourself a story about, like why it’s not enough.

Speaker 3 00:07:48 Okay, let me.

Cara Harvey 00:07:49 Restart our timer, Vicki. And then I’m going to rapidfire you some questions here okay. Yeah. How do you want to feel on the weekends?

Speaker 2 00:07:58 I want to feel like I don’t have any pressure. Like I don’t have a time schedule.

Cara Harvey 00:08:04 so then do you feel like you have to have a strict routine or are you looking for something else?

Speaker 2 00:08:08 Well, I think where I’m going off track with it is. Well, why? I think I have to do this, this, this and this every day. I don’t I’m not sure how I got to that point, but like, I’m finding that on the weekend I’ll drink my coffee in bed and I’ll watch Food Network, and then I’ll kind of think about my menu and plan my meals. And but I like had planned my meals on a different day. So it’s like, oh, well, I need to change the day I play my meals. But then also then I don’t always go in my office, which is kind of like my home base, like where I make sure everything’s organized.

Speaker 2 00:08:47 And so then on Sunday night, I don’t feel like coming in here for Sunday planning. And so I say, oh, I’ll do it Monday morning. Well, then that’s Monday night. And then that’s Tuesday morning. And I’m doing planning now. So that’s what I don’t like that feeling of like I’m behind. I don’t know what’s going on for the week.

Cara Harvey 00:09:07 So it sounds like a mix of like you don’t want things to be time bound or pressured, but it would be helpful to have some routines set in there to make sure that you’re ready to start the week. Correct. Good. Okay. And then can I just ask a couple of the other follow up ones that we have? Yeah. Have you had you had experience doing time audits before? I’ve done them.

Speaker 2 00:09:27 Yeah I’ve done time audits before.

Cara Harvey 00:09:30 Yeah. Tara’s question is an interesting one. Like do you feel like you have to have, like the right routine? Like, is something in there holding you back from letting it be more fluid?

Speaker 2 00:09:38 I think it’s just that the only thing I feel like I have to do is my planning, and maybe I need to do it more of it on Friday, Friday evening after work instead.

Speaker 2 00:09:54 Or, you know, instead of saying, oh, I have to do it Sunday morning.

Cara Harvey 00:09:59 Okay, cool. All right. I’m going to start the timer for any suggestions we have. And then Diane, I’m going to move your question of like doing a Friday closeout down to suggestions since we didn’t answer that. But it sounds like that could be a good suggestion to I’ll put three minutes on. And then if anybody has any ideas on how we can help Vicky kind of audit what’s currently going on or, you know, and start to craft this new one, go ahead.

Speaker 3 00:10:22 I was thinking if you could have like a pretty basket or something and just move like your planner, just your minimum amount of supplies into your common area, just like as a weekend ritual, like now I put it in this place and it’s there. More insight.

Cara Harvey 00:10:38 I would go through your current weekend, Saturday or Saturday, Sunday morning routines. And, you know, just anecdotally from what you remember. And I would do like a light audit where you don’t need to write down all the times, but what’s actually happening.

Cara Harvey 00:10:51 And then you could even make a chart where it’s like not pro con, but like, do I like it or do I want to change it? Right? Like, oh, I watch this on the Food Network on Sundays. I like that habit or I actually don’t like that. I think that’ll help you do a little auditing.

Speaker 2 00:11:04 Okay.

Speaker 3 00:11:06 Why? I’m thinking to like a list of activities that you might want, because I get kind of restricted feeling on the weekends too. But maybe a list of things that you enjoy doing. I’m like thinking of my teacher days, like write them on popsicle sticks and like not putting them in a linear way, but some way that you have like a menu to choose from. Follow your intuition. something that doesn’t feel restrictive but feels like look at how many options I have.

Cara Harvey 00:11:35 Yeah. More choice, I like that a menu that’s a good word too I think also when it comes to the weekend and the mindset of switching it around for me is rhythm versus routine.

Cara Harvey 00:11:50 So I wonder if a suggestion could be starting to work on that mindset of during the week. I have my typical and using that typical morning routines, and on the weekends I follow my weekend rhythms, which is like I’m still doing these things. I think that it feels like unlocking pressure of like time bound, but I still like to do the things like I don’t work out on the weekends, but I still like to get up in the morning and like, do some of my self-care tasks and they feel lighter. So I think that’s the mindset work around that. Anyone else have anything else we want to add in for suggestions?

Speaker 3 00:12:22 I feel like putting in some recurring routine before Monday morning to make sure, like a Sunday plan is something that you one of your options is like, when am I going to sit down with my planner and get things set up so I know where I’m going? Like set up your planner for the week ahead so that it doesn’t feel like a waterfall on Monday.

Cara Harvey 00:12:42 Or even adding to Diane’s suggestion of like a Friday closeout of what you want the weekend to look like.

Cara Harvey 00:12:47 I have a lot of people I’ve coached on these calls that they used Fridays to plan their next week, and they don’t do it on Sundays. And then that way when because they were finding the same thing. That way when Sunday hits, it’s like, I don’t I can just edit my planning and not have to do the whole planning. All right. That was a lot. All right. What do you. Oh, Karen, did you want to add something quick? Yeah.

Speaker 4 00:13:07 I just want to say I, I’ve been using my timer more like I have a timer for, like, the store call. So I was doing other things today. And then my timer goes off for the for the call, and I’m like, oh, I gotta get on the call. And I set it a little bit ahead of time. I do that for Sunday planning as well. And so it just reminds me to get back on track. I give myself like 8 or 10 minutes of prep time to get on the call.

Speaker 4 00:13:27 And that’s been working fantastic for me.

Cara Harvey 00:13:30 Awesome. All right, Vicki, if you want to ask anybody any questions, process through verbally or and let me know your action for the week.

Speaker 2 00:13:38 No, I thank all of you for your input because that’s very helpful. And so I think what I’m going to do is kind of a combination and do kind of an audit and also make like a menu of things. So that and I do have an alarm set for seven. Well for me the time is 730 for Sunday planning, but I have an alarm set for 715 and the alarm goes off. And sometimes I’m okay to come in and sometimes some not, but and then. But I do think I’m also going to kind of do a little bit more on Friday, just so that I don’t feel once I get to it, it’s not a big deal. I don’t know why I’m I just don’t want to do it at night. I think that’s my problem.

Cara Harvey 00:14:21 And that’s okay. I think I think that’s the thing to think about.

Cara Harvey 00:14:24 Like, when does it work for you? Because a lot of people say, oh, I’ll do it Monday. Monday is not happening. I also do a lot of my planning. I do the bulk of it Friday, and then I’m just editing and auditing on Sunday before we get on. And then I’m finishing up when we’re on live, so. All right. Awesome. Take a quick second because I wanna invite you to join one of my new favorite apps is called Brand Club. I am all about trying to get my side hustle on, right? And one of the things I hate doing is taking money out of my pre-planned budget for tiny things that pop up, like the snack stand during football season, or the $10 you have to Venmo somewhere else because you need it for school. And I found Brand Club to literally fill that gap for me. Here’s what I do with it. Every single day I go in, I earn between a dollar and $1.50. It takes me two minutes and I just fill in some surveys.

Cara Harvey 00:15:09 Super simple. Very easy. I also will link it to my Amazon, my Walmart and my target account. So when I buy things anyway, I get cash back. Takes me about ten days, but I earn $10 and when I get my $10, I cash it to my Venmo girl math. I’m using it all the places I want to share with you a $3 code to get started, because you need $10 to cash out. So let me give you $3. I’ll get $3 if you sign up. I really appreciate it. Go to a purpose driven romcoms brand club. Do it on your phone because it’s going to bring you up to the app so you can download it. It’s a really easy way to just get some side money going, so you don’t have to take it out of your regular budget and make some money for yourself. That’s a purpose driven mom.com/brand club. All right, Sarah, lay it on us. You ready?

Speaker 3 00:15:50 All right. I am trying to organize my Trello because I think it’s I’m going to try and have all of my 2025 goal setting and planning on there.

Speaker 3 00:16:06 My one of my annual goals for this year was to have, like, a digital and hybrid digital and physical planning system, and I think Trello is the place that works best with my brain for that. I’ve just used Trello in such a spastic way until now, and I need like I need to wrangle it. I need to know where, because a lot of times I’ll create boards and then I’ll put things there. I opened one up today. I didn’t even recall doing the work to like, break down one of my goals. And there it was already done. And I just think I have like too many categories and I don’t know where to find things and how to organize it to be. All right.

Cara Harvey 00:16:50 So what would you say is the one question you want to ask how?

Speaker 3 00:16:55 Like what should I use my bigger categories? How should I organize my Trello so I can easily or more easily find things?

Cara Harvey 00:17:03 Okay, yeah, that’s kind of what I read done. Or how can I best use? How can I get my Trello organized to find things easier? Okay, let me give a minute for questions.

Cara Harvey 00:17:16 Everyone’s probably like me too. That’s my question too. So if you have a if you have a clarifying, feel free to ask. I just want to kick off with the first question. When we get to rapid fire, I would say is like, how are you using the workspace feature currently? What’s the time limit you want to put on yourself to get this organized? Like when do you want to have it done by anybody else can jump in. I’m just talking. I.

Speaker 2 00:17:41 I think you need to be the one to define the big categories. I think you can take what you. Well, I guess the question can you take what you the boards you have and kind of put them group them together differently like by find a subject matter that they all relate to. And that’s kind of how I what I did. So but I guess just can you summarize what you have by group. That’s there we go.

Cara Harvey 00:18:19 All right. Cool. Let’s work backwards then with Vicki’s question. Yeah. Do you feel like they would be easy to connect together, common boards to categorize them.

Speaker 3 00:18:27 In my physical planning system, I have my eight categories of life, and that was one of my ideas when I was working through this. Today was like using one of my areas of life and then have like a sub because currently my boards are like, yeah, they’re all they’re either planning or house or like a, a course that I’m taking or but sometimes I have like a course dashboard, but then the course is so big that I make its own workspace and it I don’t know, do you.

Cara Harvey 00:18:58 So yes, you feel it’s not a system. They could be categorized. They’re not currently categorized because that’s really right. Do you use the workspace feature?

Speaker 3 00:19:07 I have like probably 50 workspaces. 30 I don’t know. I’m looking at them right now. There’s a lot.

Cara Harvey 00:19:14 Yes. Okay. When do you want to have this. Because if you’re going to be using it for planning is this I want to use this for November planning January 2025. Do you have a deadline for yourself when you want to get the system together?

Speaker 3 00:19:24 I’m doing one workspace just for like, getting my routine set for the end of October.

Speaker 3 00:19:30 If I have this set up by December 31st, I’d be like over the moon.

Cara Harvey 00:19:36 All right, so end of the year ideal, but sounds like maybe like one workspace. Maybe a month could be good. Okay. All right, everybody, let me put a three minute timer on for some suggestions. Now that we have some more context. All right. Who’s got some thoughts or ideas for Tara.

Speaker 5 00:19:57 Set a timer and decide how many boards work for you and leave you peaceful.

Cara Harvey 00:20:08 Like tell me more.

Speaker 5 00:20:09 So you only you can answer that question, right? And you’ve had enough experience with Trello to know the number that stresses you out.

Cara Harvey 00:20:18 So yeah, like how many you actually need? It was making me think too. Like, I do this with my emails when I’m like, cleaning emails, like stuff I’m not ready to handle. I just like put in a folder. And then once a week I go in and I handle it. I wonder if there’s a way to kind of like restart or okay, restart your Trello to clean it up, cause, you know, stuff’s overwhelming to like, look at, but it’s not as overwhelming when you’re starting from scratch.

Cara Harvey 00:20:42 So what if okay, two options you can, like, literally shove all the boards into like a workspace and pull them out how you want to pull them out. Or if you have another email, you could use another email to make a new Trello account. You could take the boards that you want to keep and make them templates, and just send them to yourself, and then copy the board as a template. Like just start it on this new count and like start fresh on this new account, getting organized. And then what you’re going to see is, hey, I haven’t used this. I haven’t even tried to use this board in six months. It’s you know what I mean? It’s not the board that I need. My brain’s going, okay, I’ll let other people go. But I was just thinking I was like, that could be a good idea. I would say, also, if you’re going to keep all the boards together because they can be categorized. I would make a like a list, you know, paper and just kind of go through each of your boards and just try to like put through like, hey, these are my holiday boards.

Cara Harvey 00:21:37 These are my course boards. Like just to do an audit of those. I also like how you said, like, hey, I want to get this one board or section or workspace. I couldn’t remember what you said done by the end of the month. I think that’s just to co-sign that. I like that idea of making these short term. I’m going to focus on this section of my Trello each month or each week or whatever.

Speaker 2 00:21:59 Yeah, I, I like the idea of starting fresh or if you can, just like I’ll sometimes put a whole bunch of stuff in like an archive folder or an archive board, and then at least they’re still there. And then I kind of start fresh, like in my same account, because it didn’t dawn on me to start a whole neutral account and then just pretty soon you aren’t even going to that archive anymore. So clearly you didn’t need any of those. And then after a while, I ended up deleting some.

Cara Harvey 00:22:35 Yeah, that archive idea came to me on Fridays.

Cara Harvey 00:22:37 I was talking about was it Trello? I talked about this with somebody else, had a similar like question where they couldn’t find it, was that they couldn’t find their Trello because it was logged into a different Trello. Maybe it was yours. And I was like, start a new Trello. And my brain went, woof! All right, Tara, follow up questions and an action step at the end of the minute.

Speaker 3 00:22:56 Okay, I’m going to commit to a limited amount of categories. I think using my areas of life would make sense. And then I can have like a sub topic and then it would just I’d have a system that I can use across both realms. So maybe just going in and renaming all of my workspaces just with that area of life to get my head around how many I have from each section will give me clarity, because I’ll just let myself comb through them and not go like deep into lists.

Cara Harvey 00:23:35 Yeah, I like it. At this point.

Speaker 3 00:23:37 I can’t even make a new workspace I think I’m at.

Speaker 3 00:23:39 Is there a limit of workspaces?

Cara Harvey 00:23:41 I mean, I haven’t hit it yet, but I’m sure there is somewhere.

Speaker 3 00:23:45 Because I don’t have like a plus for more workspaces.

Cara Harvey 00:23:48 So yeah.

Speaker 3 00:23:49 Combing through them and like being the mindset piece of releasing the need to hold on to things for the just in case. That’s something I do with my decluttering to all that. Like I have to trust that I’ll have the information that I need when I’m in this situation. Like I’ve gotten myself through life so far.

Cara Harvey 00:24:11 Yeah.

Speaker 3 00:24:12 I got to save me.

Cara Harvey 00:24:15 I like that. That’s a good one. All right Tara I put all your extra suggestions if you want to keep them. Speaking of Trello, I do recommend you can use a notepad, but if you have a list of anyone doesn’t, just best practice. If you got an accountability calls, I recommend in the Purpose Driven Mom Club like Trello board, the main board that we have made where it has like the saw lessons and everything, there’s a section that is accountability calls.

Cara Harvey 00:24:36 I do recommend you keep a list for yourself, a card for each week when you get on calls so you can type your notes. So when you get on, you’re like, that’s what I said I was going to do. You can copy this and put that right in there just to keep yourself organized. So you can use whatever system you like though. But my brain works in Trello so. All right, Karen I’m going to grab your notes. Heavens. Hi. Hi. How are you?

Speaker 4 00:25:02 Oh. I’m okay. Funny, I thought I.

Cara Harvey 00:25:05 Had wedding planning and all that.

Speaker 4 00:25:08 Yeah. So all that wedding stuff went great.

Cara Harvey 00:25:10 Yeah. Good, good, good. So good.

Speaker 4 00:25:12 Yeah, it was a great wedding.

Cara Harvey 00:25:14 Excellent.

Speaker 4 00:25:15 Super fun. So I am.

Cara Harvey 00:25:19 Well, let me grab my timer real quick. Okay. I’ll forget. Okay. All right. And go. So I am.

Speaker 4 00:25:24 I have two more weeks left in my mom’s condo condo to get stuff out. Places like either decide what’s coming home with me and what’s going elsewhere, like the goodwill or whatever.

Speaker 4 00:25:36 Like, I also feel like I just need to rest a bit. And so I was thinking about that, like Pomodoro technique or something where I can do both, but I have a hard time, you know, read reading too long and and whatever lingering over lunch and things like that. And so I need to find a way that it’s more do the thing and then get the reward versus chilling and my reward.

Cara Harvey 00:26:02 Okay. So give me one sentence of your question then let’s see.

Speaker 4 00:26:05 So I would like help implementing like say a three things checklist and then rewarding myself with 20 minutes of reading my book or having a cup of tea.

Cara Harvey 00:26:21 All right, well, I’m going to write. How can I best implement an action reward system without getting stuck in the reward? There you go. I love the reward too, though. It’s I.

Speaker 4 00:26:33 Know, I know.

Cara Harvey 00:26:34 It’s a challenge, so. Okay, let’s, let’s ask some clarifying questions, and then we can give some good suggestions. I’m wondering, do you find that there are certain rewards that pull your attention more than others?

Speaker 3 00:26:49 Do you are you aware of why you might be resisting taking action on the things that aren’t feeling easy, that you can work through?

Cara Harvey 00:26:59 Yeah.

Cara Harvey 00:27:00 I was going to ask a similar like are there certain tasks specifically to. Yeah.

Speaker 3 00:27:08 And are you willing to give yourself a time limited reward to give you some dopamine to get into the more unpleasant task and then, like, make it like a reward sandwich reward. First a little bit of action. More reward.

Cara Harvey 00:27:26 Okay, let me change my timer and then we’ll get some answers to these Karen okay. So yeah. So are you wondering like why do you think you’re struggling here with resisting taking action on something. Yeah.

Speaker 4 00:27:39 So the two thing mostly is because I hate making phone calls. And so I need to call up this organization to see my mom was heavy into her Swedish heritage. So I have a lot of things, and I don’t like calling people and asking favors like I want to. So I feel like I because I want to call and say, hey, can I donate this to your next like live auction or something to make money for the for this organization? But I feel like I’m burdening them.

Speaker 4 00:28:04 Like I hate feeling like I’m calling and being like, hey, you know, I got all this, like, stuff. So it’s the phone calls and then not feeling like I’m giving. I’m asking. I don’t like that feeling.

Cara Harvey 00:28:17 This was kind of connected to my question. Do we think that the problem is actually that you’re getting stuck in the reward because it’s enjoyable and you want to do it? Or is the problem that you’re finding yourself resistant to the tasks for that reason and the other emotional reasons connected to the task?

Speaker 4 00:28:34 Yeah. 100%. Like if I, if I spend time like reading I’m like oh darn it. It’s already, you know 430 they’re going to be closed now and I don’t have to I can call tomorrow. Yeah.

Cara Harvey 00:28:44 So do you think it’s you’re using the reward as. Because at first the way you made it, the way I process it in my brain was like, I’m struggling to take action because I’m enjoying my reward. But as you answered questions, I’m wondering, are you struggling to take action because you’re avoiding the task? Or maybe both.

Cara Harvey 00:29:03 But is that what you think.

Speaker 4 00:29:04 Yeah. Yeah.

Cara Harvey 00:29:06 Task avoidance. And also I’m dealing.

Speaker 4 00:29:07 With the deadline right now. So I got two weeks. I got to figure out how to get things places, because if I wasn’t knowing that it’s valuable to somebody, like, I could just take it to the goodwill and be done with it. But but in this area, I mean, everybody’s like heavy Scandinavian. And so there’d be tons of people that would be like, oh my gosh, this is the coolest thing I’ve found. And and I love that feeling too. That kind of like sort of gift giving almost, where you’re making somebody happy with something that you provided. So I’m kind of in that thing where I’m, I don’t know, not trying to burden somebody or whatever, or I’m asking a favor that I can’t repay or I don’t know.

Cara Harvey 00:29:47 Okay. Yeah, but it sounds like it’s not so much I really want to go read my book. It’s. I’m avoiding the task. Yeah.

Cara Harvey 00:29:54 Okay.

Speaker 4 00:29:54 You caught me.

Cara Harvey 00:29:55 Out. Yeah, well, I just wanted to push there because that’s not where we started. And I think that’s really important to note. Like, that’s not where we started. And now we’re like this place. Okay. Because if if the question weren’t really was I’m enjoying my reward too much. That’s different suggestions then I’m avoiding my task, right? And that’s what’s cool. Yeah, it’s cool about this. This process. We’re doing all right. Three minutes. Let’s help Karen give her some suggestions.

Speaker 5 00:30:21 I suggest writing down on a piece of paper an introduction sentence like, hi, my name is Karen, and I just want to thank you so much for being with me. It’s Thanksgiving and the holiday season, and I would like to give you a gift if you think that this would benefit your life.

Cara Harvey 00:30:44 something. Yeah, like a script, I like that, yeah. I think also if you have a list of maybe there’s multiple places you want to call instead of batching together like I do a cold day because I hate talking on the phone, so I want to bang them all at once.

Cara Harvey 00:30:57 But sometimes that can also feel daunting. So maybe if it is using the formula to like break it down. When we were doing one call a day and then I want to throw in Terry’s like reward sandwich. I love that. So I’m going to the sandwich was awesome. But then under your suggestions to all right, anybody else toss me some suggestions.

Speaker 3 00:31:15 Similar to the sentence starter when you’re on the phone, a sentence to say to yourself to anchor in that you are coming. All of your intentions are so good. And what you want is to share these special things. So to ground yourself like some sort of affirmation and then knowing when to pass that boundary off to them and like if they don’t want it, they can say no, and that’s okay.

Cara Harvey 00:31:40 Tara, have you on the mindset today? That was.

Speaker 4 00:31:41 Good. I know, I.

Cara Harvey 00:31:43 Like that, Vicki. Good.

Speaker 2 00:31:44 Yeah, I’m the same about the calling of people and I’m fine to email. So maybe you can go online and figure out a way to do it.

Speaker 2 00:31:54 Because I try to find any way to communicate other than calling people on the phone. And then so but obviously sometimes you have to get on the phone. So what I do is I try to plan something like a reward right after I do it, so that my brain knows that I’m going to survive the call. Like why it’s so scary? I don’t know, but it just helps me to know that, okay, there’s something to look forward to once I do this horrible thing.

Cara Harvey 00:32:29 Yeah I like that. I was thinking too about like your altruistic heart in this whole thing to back to some of the mindset. It might be helpful to like write out like a, like a persona of like the person you’re hoping to like give them a name and be like, you know, this is going to this person. And like, you don’t know that, right? But like, they’re going to appreciate it because this is why it’s good. Like connect to that. Because that sounds like that’s an important core value for you.

Cara Harvey 00:32:57 all right. Last thoughts okay. All right. Let me restart. You’re going to have a minute here. And if you want to ask clarifying questions and let us know the action you’re going to take this week. Yeah. So I thought all.

Speaker 4 00:33:10 Those were great. So I’m going to write a script like this a little thing. And I’m also going to go online and try to find like the person online I should be contacting versus just calling a phone bank or something and trying to explain what I’m explaining, which I get all like blah blah, blah. And then if I, if I find somebody with an email, I can send them photos of the items to and then that person can be like, oh, we would love to auction those off, or we would love to have a pop up sale, you know, whatever, and just go from there and then maybe follow up with the since I do only have two weeks, like maybe follow up with a phone call like in a couple of days.

Speaker 4 00:33:49 So that, that oh my gosh, I’m so excited. No, not excited to meet the calls. But I’ve got like something to like do the plan.

Cara Harvey 00:33:55 No, these are really good suggestions. I want to pause real quick to invite you to the planning event of the year. It is time for the Purpose driven 2025 Best Year Ever Planning challenge, and this year we’re offering it up absolutely for free. We’re going to use the Four Seasons method to help you create your anti hustle roadmap for 2025. Conquering your goals, working on your tasks, and going after your dreams. This is going to be where we are going to set the vision for your year so you can hit the ground running in January. We have done this event five years in a row and this year it’s going to be bigger than ever. We are offering it up free because we really want as many moms as possible to get a vision set for their year. You can get your free spot at a Purpose Driven mom.com/20 25. Planning this five day absolutely free challenge kicks off December the 8th and runs through the 11th.

Cara Harvey 00:34:50 So while you’re wrapping gifts, running around in the car, doing all of your errands, you can also do something for you. We know it’s a busy time of year, Mama, I get you. But why not set the time now to think about how you want things to feel in the new Year. Head to a purpose driven romcom slash 2025 planning. Grab your free seat, invite a friend and I cannot wait to see you. I saw you pop on. we’re right at the end. But if you have a question or if you just let me know and we can go through your questions so I don’t mind. Stay in this much.

Speaker 6 00:35:24 I have a question. I’m driving. So I’ll be able to see what you write for me, but.

Cara Harvey 00:35:28 All right, give me one second, Amy, then, and I’ll pull up your notes so I can take good ones for you. And then I can email them to you. Yeah. All right. Let me see. Baa baa baa baa baa.

Cara Harvey 00:35:40 All right, I’m going to drop my timer on. Oh nope I don’t want to stop recording. No cancel timer. All right. You can hear the beep I think for the timer. Then Amy, or I’ll just let you know. You have a minute. Give us context and your question.

Speaker 6 00:35:53 My question is I am in planner fail. I’ve done Trello. I that worked for a while and then I fell off. I have a bunch of paper planners and I make plans and then I remember to look at them. So I need some way to actually like use a planner consistently so that when I make a plan, I don’t then just go on with my day and be like, oh, right, I had a plan.

Cara Harvey 00:36:22 Yeah, okay. I think yeah, that’s pretty much it. Yeah. Okay. So I think I have that one. How do I like consistently actually use my planner. Does that sound like right or right. All right. Let me restart our timer for a minute.

Cara Harvey 00:36:37 And if you guys have clarifying questions toss them out. An email ask you at the end.

Speaker 2 00:36:49 Have you decided digital or paper? What will you use? Like you’re the one that has to answer like. Is it a combination of the two? Is it? Is it just paper to start out and get in a routine?

Cara Harvey 00:37:11 I’m wondering if your planner is something you carry with you or not. Kind of to go on to Vicki’s question like do carry it around the house, carry it in your pocket book or is is it digital?

Speaker 3 00:37:22 At what time of day do you feel like your brain starts spinning about? Like, what am I supposed to be doing right now?

Cara Harvey 00:37:36 Have you ever been successful at using actually using your planner before and what have you felt worked? All right, let me just type this last one and I’ll restart. Okay. We got one minute. I’m going to rapid fire you. Amy. Yeah. Tell us about the planner. Digital paper. Does it go with you? Where does it live?

Speaker 6 00:37:57 Yeah, those are all the things I’m trying to figure out.

Speaker 6 00:38:00 I like the idea of digital because paper and I don’t tend to get along. The only thing I do successfully right now is we use a family calendar, but I don’t want to clog that up with, like, my stuff. That’s digital. I’ve tried carrying the paper one with me, and then I forget that I have it with me at work and I get home and I’m like, oh, right. That’s why my bag was heavy today. Oh.

Speaker 7 00:38:24 Yeah.

Speaker 6 00:38:25 I think the most successful. There was a lot of time when I was really doing all the club stuff, like I did pretty good with the Trello, and then it kind of fell apart. And then I just. I couldn’t keep up, I don’t know. So. Yeah.

Cara Harvey 00:38:41 Okay. And have you.

Speaker 6 00:38:42 Had like it to work I’m like overwhelmed.

Cara Harvey 00:38:45 This is as soon as you get to work. So right away it is there. All right I assume.

Speaker 7 00:38:51 It’s all right.

Cara Harvey 00:38:53 I’m gonna put a three minute timer on.

Cara Harvey 00:38:55 And if anyone has suggestions, we can toss them out.

Speaker 7 00:39:02 Nope.

Cara Harvey 00:39:04 All right, go ahead, friends.

Speaker 3 00:39:06 Could you find a 15 minute pocket of your day before that overwhelm starts to sit down? And this is like, think about your personality. Is it better to have follow your intuition in that moment, in that day? Or would you rather have like, a structured plan that you did at one bigger block of the day? I just changed my suggestion midway. But think about personality. Would you rather do like a 15 minute chunk every day or like once a week, getting the plan out and then following day?

Cara Harvey 00:39:42 Thinking of implementation? I love a timer for this sort of thing, so I check in my planner at the end of every single time block. It’s just a habit I have where I’ll go to my planner for the day, and I audit my tasks and it helps me stay on top of my day. So in order to create that though, I started with a timer. So I started at 12 when my time switched over, an alarm would go off that says check your planner.

Cara Harvey 00:40:04 And that’s like how I. And then I weaned off those timers. I don’t need them now. They’re part of my day and now I don’t need to. And I also now don’t need to check in as much. But suggestion for implementation of the planner is using a timer in order to create reminders to check your planner.

Speaker 2 00:40:21 And I would think, just maybe, make a plan for just the next day or the next two days until you can follow that, because you have to. I went through this too. Like you have to get to where you trust that you’re going to follow the plan because, oh, I could make plans like crazy, but I wasn’t following them. So it and maybe I’m just thinking if you’re not doing looking at it at all. Just start small and just to one day and then get in the habit of it, and then two days and then until you can see that you’re you’re following the plan.

Cara Harvey 00:41:10 And I would also think this would be a good accountability buddy type of a goal.

Cara Harvey 00:41:16 Right. Like my goal, the goal is I want to check in with my planner. I’m sure there’s people that also have this goal. You could probably post in the club group and, you know, come up with a system of like, hey, midday every day, let’s just check in with each other. Now, that might not work, cause you might not remember to check in with each other. But if there’s multiple people maybe, like, a little like there’s four of you in a group or something, a little Facebook message, you know, something might pop up to remind you maybe altogether you could, like, hit all the days or something like that.

Speaker 3 00:41:45 And if you’re just starting this habit, maybe make a decision on what’s the thing that’s causing the most stress and say, I’m only going to use my planner for this to start out and just know that you’re going to that one place when if it’s work or but choosing one focus to start with to later build on.

Cara Harvey 00:42:04 Because they’re so smart.

Cara Harvey 00:42:05 I love all these. Okay, Amy, I’ll give you a minute if you want to ask clarifying questions and then let us know the action you’re going to take.

Speaker 6 00:42:12 I like that the alarms idea I live in die by reminders, so that makes a lot of sense. So for on the what kind of planner to use I think I need to just like pick something and try it for a while. Like oh I got the one conference I could use that and then I forget that I have it. and yeah I just want to try to plan, I need to do a time inventory for work because I don’t know what I do all day. I know I’m busy all day. I don’t know what I’m doing. Pretty sure it’s different every day. So that probably comes back to time block.

Cara Harvey 00:42:53 Then let me push you. I want your task. I’m sorry. Bossy. I would highly suggest your task this week. Then to be. To start with one thing. Because you’re starting a rabbit hole around all the things you have to do, which is very common, right? You started with.

Cara Harvey 00:43:04 I like the timer idea, so maybe it’s I use the timer to check my planner multiple times during the day. And what that’s going to have is a secondary effect is essentially like it’s going to help you start to craft a time inventory, too, because you’re actually going to be seeing what you’re getting done.

Speaker 6 00:43:22 Yeah, that makes sense. All right I’m going to set some reminders. Actually look at the plan and actually make a plan. So I have something to look at.

Cara Harvey 00:43:31 I like it. And I’m going to copy this right now and open my email. I’m just going to send you this via email very messily or. Yeah, this was really, really great today. Hold on. Let me just send this to Amy. It’s messy. It’s not formatted, but now it’s in your inbox. Thank you everybody. This was super fun. I feel like we got a lot done. Everybody got a good one suggestion minimum that they can work on and then check in if you have more questions about this, like when you get off think tanks you can go to the Facebook group crowdsource in there.

Cara Harvey 00:44:00 This is like a if you even maybe you can’t get on a think tank, crowdsource the Facebook group, you know, and you can even say like, hey, I can’t get on a think tank, but this is my struggle. I’m wondering if you have suggestions. It’s kind of one of the, it was one of the catalyst for us bringing these to the call, because people were asking questions in the group, but we wanted to structure it for you. So thank you, everybody. Yeah. Janet got some stuff done. I saw you busy over there. I’m here for that. Have a wonderful day. Show up to the calls this week and let us know if we need to look at that. Tara. Yes. Yeah. See, I think sometimes we just need. That’s why we always suggest get on the calls. Right? Because even if you don’t have a question. one, thank you for people who, like, also just gave suggestions. That’s great. We got to connect with each other in a different way than we’ve connected before.

Cara Harvey 00:44:43 Like, you kind of get to know each other a little bit better, which I love. You know, it’s lonely on the side of the computer, I know. And then we get some really great ideas. So have a good day. I’m going to get this up in the portal. So if you were coach today, by tomorrow this will be up. So if you want to go back and rewatch. Otherwise have a good one friends. Bye. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Purpose Driven Mom show. If this episode served you in any way, we would really appreciate it if you headed over to wherever you listen to podcast, hit that five star and leave a review and a rating. That’s how more moms can find us and we can grow our community. If you had a tip or an make sure you come over and tag me at a Purpose Driven Mom on Instagram and share it with your friends. The best way for us to get this message out there of less hustle and less shame and more intentionality, is for you to share it with people you know need to hear it.

Cara Harvey 00:45:30 Thanks for listening. We appreciate you and I can’t wait to connect with you more outside of the podcast.