Cara Harvey 00:00:03 Welcome to the Purpose Driven Mom 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 in 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!

Cara Harvey 00:00:44 Welcome to the Purpose Driven Mom Show, episode 483. Today, we have a behind the scenes for you on a brand new concept that I’ve been teaching and piloting in my membership, the Purpose Driven Mom Club called the Trimester Planning Method. This was my very first time that I’ve actually taught it.

Cara Harvey 00:00:58 So if you want to go over to the YouTube video, you’ll get to see the video in the slides. There’s a lot of stuff you can like. Screenshot. This is an informal call. We do it every Friday in my group, where I teach something directly from the program live so you can ask questions and things like that. So if you hear me talking to people and answering questions, that’s what’s going on there. You can check Shownotes out at a purpose driven such podcast for 83, but I hope you go in with curiosity. I’ve had this this year about trimester planning and just realizing that quarterly planning works, but for us moms, we might need a different system. Again, go to the show notes at a purpose driven podcast for 83 and enjoy! I had a big this year when I was planning, and we always plan in quarters, right? We think about these are the four quarters. This is what we’re working with. But what I realized was holding me back was the quarters didn’t feel true to me as a mom, right? I didn’t feel like I had four quarters because of how summer, like September is part of this one quarter and like June is part of it was just like, I didn’t like it.

Cara Harvey 00:01:58 I didn’t like the way it was structured and so on. A call this past year actually, like in real time, I can’t remember which call it was, you probably go back and see it.

Cara Harvey 00:02:06 I was like, wait.

Cara Harvey 00:02:07 It’s a trimester? And so I put some thoughts together to share it with you. So here’s the thing. Instead of planning out your year goals and saying, I’m going to accomplish this by the end of the year, what we’re going to do instead is truncate it and say, I’m going to accomplish these things by the end of the trimester. All right. And the reason we need to do this is to give ourselves some urgency, right. We’re juggling so many things. Our time is limited. Right. But goal setting like, oh, okay, it’s December, I’m in a good mood. I’m excited for this. So I’m going to pick this goal that I want to work on by the end of the year. By the time we get to February, you’ve forgotten about the goal, right? Or we don’t have the urgency.

Cara Harvey 00:02:44 It’s not there. So when you give yourself a trimester method, or even if you want to stick with our quarterly planning, you’re giving yourself more urgency. We know that if you are in a time crunch, if you are having urgency, you’re more likely to get things done. It’s the same concept of I’m going to work on my goal at some point today. Verse. How we time block. I’m going to work on my goal during this 15 minutes on a co-working session. That urgency gets us there. So we pick 12 and I’m going to say 12 to 16 because while I’m teaching the trimester method today, you can use this system if you want to stick with quarterly planning. I’m actually probably going to stick with quarterly planning for the rest of 2025. And then as we move into 2026, I’m going to start the trimester plan just because we’re kind of already in it and I’m not prepared. So I want you to just think you could think trimester. You could think quarters. All right. Yearly goal planning is overwhelming.

Cara Harvey 00:03:35 Now we’re going to yearly goal over arch plan. We always check back on our goals. We’re still going to do those things. But when you take those goals and say, based on this thing I want to do, what do I want to do in the next 12 to 16 weeks? It is short enough time for you to actually focus, but long enough so you’re going to actually see some progress. But it also gives you flexibility.

Cara Harvey 00:03:54 For what that.

Cara Harvey 00:03:55 Specific 12 to 16 weeks looks like. If it’s summer break, your goals are going to look different then if you’re in the fall, or if you’re in the start of the year where you’ve got all the momentum and things like that. So I want you to think about when you’re goal setting, how can I take these big goals that I have created, crank them on down and ask myself the question, what can I accomplish in the next 12 to 16 weeks? Now, the shift here allows us to focus on one season at a time.

Cara Harvey 00:04:20 So when I’m talking trimesters, I’m talking about and we’re going to do dates. I have dates for you that we’re going to look at in a second, but I’m talking about like that first season January to summer break. Right. That looks different than summer break. That looks different than school starting to the end of the year. All those things look different. And so because they look different, what you’re doing is you’re starting to focus on just one season at a time. Instead of I have 8000 things, I want to complete them all by the end of the year, or I’m a massive failure. And then you quit by February and you forget what you said you’re going to do. It hyper focuses you. It lets you have small steps forward and looking at the progress you’re making instead of, oh, I’m not going to accomplish any of these goals for the year. Now this was the big Moving from quarters over to trimesters. Okay. Now I look at my mom’s schedule very differently now than before I was a parent.

Cara Harvey 00:05:18 Now, depending on your parenting journey at the moment, your life, you might want to stick with a quarter at a time. If you are someone who is giving yourself a clear summer break. Whether you’re homeschooling, traditional schooling, whatever, whether your kids have flown the nest, like if you’re like, I like to break it down like this, then follow the trimesters, right? Trimester one is that start of the year into summer break, right? We get to that place. Trimester two is that summer break. And then trimester three is start of the school year to the holidays. And it really is a different vibe. The way I attack my goals, what I want to work on, those things differ based on where I’m at in the year. So I want you to start thinking about that mindset instead. Now here’s how it works. And here’s where I’ve got some goals. Some. We’re gonna put these slides inside of the program. You can screenshot. This is what it’s going to look like.

Cara Harvey 00:06:07 And it’s a little bit different okay. Trimester one is start of the school year till 14 days before winter break. All right I want you to start building in planning and reflection 14 days before the next trimester starts.

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Cara Harvey 00:07:06 Trimester two, right, is when school resumes till about 14 days until summer break. Trimester three is summer break until about 14 days before school starts.

Cara Harvey 00:07:20 And I’m going to show you some examples here. Okay. Here’s the difference in this that I’ve not had in the program before. It’s this planning and reflection periods. All right. Now could we make your trimesters a little bit longer? Yes. But I’m actually going to encourage you to stop them two weeks before the actual trimester ends so that you can plan and reflect when you are building in your calendar. And again, I’m going to start this for 2026 planning weeks. You’re going to avoid the rush of, oh crud, it’s almost the end of summer break. I should be planning, right? You’re going to give yourself time to reflect, reset, and refocus your goals. Hey, I said this goal was really important to me at the start of the year. I’ve since changed my mind, etc. you’re going to set realistic and intentional goals based on where your life has been in that season, okay? And rest itself is productive. So instead of grinding the entire 12 weeks like we’ve been doing, I actually want you to take maybe grind, right? Work on those goals for 12 weeks and then take 2 to 4 weeks.

Cara Harvey 00:08:27 You can take more time if you want. I leave two, but you know, two, three weeks to rest, to recharge, to reflect. This will have you actually understanding what you’re working on. And this is what I want you to be doing during your planning week. All right. I want you to do our reflection process. Now, doesn’t this look familiar? This is the same reflection and vision setting process that we teach at monthly planning. Reflect on it. Celebrate. Let go of the goals for the next trimester that aren’t working. Okay? Set your vision. Pick your goals. Make your action plan, build your support and then recharge. I always say, and I’ve been saying for years, you want to start your planning before you need it, right? So we always start our monthly planning a week before we need it. When you’re doing your quarterly or your trimester planning, I want you to start multiple weeks before you need it so that you’re ready to go. So now we’re going to get into some specific plug and play dates.

Cara Harvey 00:09:24 So here’s what you’re going to want to grab for yourself from the school calendar. Or if you’re homeschooling however it looks like for you. All right. I went in and did my this is my actual trimesters based on it. You need some anchor dates first. So if you don’t want to do this now and you’re like, all right, I like this concept, I’m going to think it through and then start it in. You know, for January, you want to find your first day of school for the year when your winter break starts, when school goes back. When summer break starts, and then the first day of school for the next year. So what I did was and again take a screenshot or write these down again, you’ll get the slides will be in saw. You need these dates in order to have these dates. You grab them from the calendar so that you can plan out an appropriate trimester. And you can plan out reflection planning, rest, recharge as well. Okay, so once you have these dates we’re going to kind of put them in.

Cara Harvey 00:10:20 So as I said first day of school two winter breaks, right. Or two weeks before winter break. Then you’re going to have two weeks of planning school to summer, two weeks of planning summer, first day of school, two weeks of planning. So I took those dates that I got from my kids school calendar, and I plugged them in for myself. And I really encourage you to plug them in for yourself for next school. You know, starting next year, if you’re going to do it like me and do it next year. So school started this year, August 25th, and it went. And then two weeks before winter break is December 7th for me. All right, so it’s two weeks before winter break. So my plan this year that I’m going to do is from December 8th to December 23rd, which aligns beautifully because that’s when we’re doing our 2026 planning. I’m going to spend those two weeks in planning and reflection. All right then I’m going to give myself, you know, two weeks off to recharge, rest, etc. then I’m going to say my next trimester, January 5th to May 25th.

Cara Harvey 00:11:26 That’s two weeks before school ends. And I’m going to spend May 20th 5th to June 15th planning out my summer trimester. Three. Summer will start June 15th, and then two weeks before school starts is August 10th. That’ll be my shorter trimester. And then I will spend this time planning. Now, something I want you to note. There’s a couple of things. Trimester three is the shortest one for me. They don’t have to be the same time. They don’t have to always line up. Okay, I’m doing it based on seasons. The other thing I want you to notice is notice here how I have this right. Planning and reflection. Right. And then winter break starts. And then I don’t start trimester two for another two weeks. This was an intentional choice that I recommend you do as well, is you plan out for your third trimester and then you relax. You back up from the goals. You take a step out of it and say, all right, well, I know that I want to give myself time over the winter break.

Cara Harvey 00:12:22 We at a PDM like we take off, we don’t have calls. We actually rest and recharge so that we can all take time with our families. I am personally suggesting that you do your reflection and again you can spend time over the winter break fine tuning this, but it’s important to step back if you’re constantly in go mode, plan reflection mode, right? You’re going to just feel like you’re always on. I think this is the best time of year to let yourself recharge. Not only is the winter like the best season for your body physically to recharge, it’s actually super interesting that like, our body prefers to be in hibernation until spring. Spring is actually probably biologically the best time to create new goals, because our body’s meant to hibernate in the winter, so to speak. So I really recommend that you give yourself a little bit of a break. Well, Carrie, you didn’t give yourself a break between the end of school and summer starting. I didn’t, but that’s because the nature of the season.

Cara Harvey 00:13:19 That’s because summer looks a little bit different for me, right? If I was homeschooling year round, I might not give myself these specific breaks, or I might have a different break. So you can go ahead and adjust it how you want. So I’m going to go back just because I want to show you this one. If you wanted to take a screenshot to set yours up again, giving yourself those two weeks in between winter break starting and winter break ending to just simply exist. To recharge, to have joy, to enjoy life. You can plan, you can get the things finished. That’s totally fine. But it’s I think it’s important that you give yourself time to not think about your goals for a little bit.

Cara Harvey 00:14:01 It is time to get ready to be planning 2026. Now, I know, I know what you’re thinking, but I’m still trying to figure out 2025. This is the best time to get started. Why? Your brain is full of things that you don’t want versus what you liked about this year.

Cara Harvey 00:14:15 You have time while you’re wrapping gifts, or you’re in the car, and when you want to win some prizes, and then you can buy some of these holiday gifts, that’s all the things that we’re doing and more at our 2026 planning event. Every year we run this annual event. This year we kick off on December the 1st so that you can have time to create your vision, create your plans, think about what you want and make that vision board. Now get excited about it. Hey, maybe put a couple of those things that will support your goals on your wish list and take the time to close out the year. Well, I know you’re feeling overwhelmed with what’s happening right now as we’re starting to head deep into the holiday season, but trust me, it is worth the time we give out a ton of prizes. We have an incredible community And you’re going to lead with a very clear plan of what you want to achieve in 2026. Head to a purpose driven 2026 planning now and get your seat.

Cara Harvey 00:15:08 Now listen, I’m going to have those two weeks be intentional. I’m still going to work on my morning routine. My evening routine. I got to keep my house cleaned. Whatever. But because those two weeks tend to be so in flux. Right? Like, I’m. I’m here and then I’m here, and then I’m here, and then we’re relaxing and then we’re going to this thing and then we’re traveling. I find it smarter to put less pressure on myself during that time, and instead give myself actual time off. I don’t give myself a lot of actual time off. And I think that if you’re not doing that, no matter what your job is, you’re going to burn out. So I just really suggest it. You don’t have to. You can extend your first trimester. You can have it, you know, bleed into this. I’ll probably work on my planning, like these days, and then I’ll have some stuff. Maybe I want to finish up. So I might work on some planning here.

Cara Harvey 00:15:56 All right, so it’s all your choice. What I’d like you to do is create your own trimester schedule and then decide, do I want to use this trimester schedule for right now? Do I want to just try it and jump in and just make it shortened? Or do I want to wait and do it next year and then put it in your calendar? So one of the things I went and I did in my other work calendar is I put these two weeks for 2026 and here inside my calendar. So I know when I’m starting my planning for the next trimester and then finish up any planning you have. It’s September 12th today. Maybe you have some planning, you want to get finished, maybe you’re like, oh well, it’s almost October. All these things. What planning do you need to do to be able to move forward? I’ve kind of identified that I’m going to follow the quarter system until December 8th, and then I’m going to kind of just like take that time period, end it and move it on.

Cara Harvey 00:16:45 What do you want it to look like for you? So moving into the end of the year, moving into next year, I just want you to think what system do you want to follow? Do you like because some of you might prefer quarters. I have just found after doing this for a few years, I think I prefer trimesters better. So do you like quarters? Do you want to do trimesters? What questions do you have? And see how again, there’s no right or wrong, there’s no black or white. But what from this can you take to add and be a different tool inside of your toolbox to help you when it comes to planning?

Cara Harvey 00:17:18 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 home where 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.

Cara Harvey 00:17:38 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. Thanks for listening. We appreciate you and I can’t wait to connect with you more outside of the podcast.