Cara  (00:00.14)

We are talking all about how we can add our goals into our time blocks, which is my favorite topic ever, because it’s what helps get things done for me. So I’m gonna teach, I’m gonna show a little bit in my time block sheet. I’m gonna have a couple slides, and then we can all check in. So I hope you’re having a good start to your weekend. All right, let me screen share, we’ll jump in.

And get going. All right. So we’re gonna talk the concept of the micro three today and how you can add goals into your time locks in a way that doesn’t overwhelm you but allows you to be intentional. You know that my big thing is intentionality, right? I’m intentional with my time because I’m able to say this is where this goes. So today we’re gonna talk a little time blocking, we’re talking a little theming, and then we’re gonna talk the micro three. If you’ve said I have goals, but I have no time, right?

I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. I don’t know where it fits. I think that if you start to use some of the principles that we’re going to talk about today, you will start to see where things fit. You will start to see that maybe you don’t have as much time as you would like, but there is a place for everything. May not be as much time as you want, but it can live some learn. What I want you to do is to stop just adding things. Like you look at your to-do list, you look at your checklist, you’re like, let me just throw it on my day. I don’t want you to do that.

I want you to start assigning your tasks better. So when you’re looking at your time blocks, when you’re looking at how you’re, you know, making your time look, think about it this way. It’s not about putting more on my plate. It’s about assigning my tasks a better home. Now, yes, I said here, you don’t need more hours. Would I love more hours? Yeah, of course. We all would like them. But that is not gonna solve your problem because what might happen is you get the hours, but you still don’t do the thing. Does this ever happen to you? It’s like the weekend.

Or you have a day off and you’re like, my God, I have the whole day off. I’m gonna get so much done and you don’t get anything done, right? It’s not always about getting more time. It’s intentionality. What we’re gonna talk about today is how do you use intentional placements inside the blocks that you gift yourself to get things done and feel good about them. This is where themed time blocking is going to help you.

Cara  (02:15.513)

So, what does it mean to theme? I’m gonna do a quick let’s talk theme. I have my time blocks up here, so we’ll kind of flip back and forth to show you. But when you’re thinking about time blocks, we’re talking about three to four hour chunks of time. Time blocks are when you work, okay? Themes are how you’re using your energy. Each block should have a focus, it should have an intention. It’s not just I’m gonna work on my to-do list, I’m gonna get this decluttered, I’m gonna get work done, right?

If I know my morning work block, right? Let’s look at two examples of work blocks, is my best creation time. I’ve shared this before that like my nine to twelve, I’m let me record podcasts, let me do videos, let me my brain works better there. My 12 to 3, it’s better suited for admin. That is what helps you. So let me show you real quick. So I was actually working on my time blocks for next week already to show you a little bit about this, but I want to go to this week. All right. So what I’m talking about here when I’m talking about time blocks, and this is what we’re looking at right now, is

Three to four hour chunks. Okay. This is my real life. The themes are in color. I have given myself some themes. And again, we have so much teaching on this topic. And we’re talking about how to put the stuff in the goals inside in second. But I have given myself themes to help tell myself this is where this is going. So my self-care, I want to get it in the morning to kickstart my day. I have a personal block at the end of the day. I have a decluttering block here, a home block here.

I’ve very specifically said what work tasks I’m doing. I’m working on purpose-driven mom club stuff during this block. I’m working on summit stuff during this block. I’m very intentional about that because it tells me this is where things are gonna go. So when stuff pops up for me, I’m not frantic. I’m not like, crud, I gotta do that podcast thing. I don’t gotta worry about it. Cause from 12 to 3, which is where we’re at right now, today, when we’re done with this coaching ball, I’m gonna work through my podcast list. And we’ll talk about that in a second.

Now, I talk theme blocks someone in the face, so I’m gonna remind you if you’re not sold on them yet. Theme blocks give you less decision fatigue. You don’t have to figure out where you’re gonna get your thought catcher done, where you’re gonna get your decluttering done, where you’re gonna get your family time in. It’s already planned for you. It also gives you flexibility when your life happens because life’s gonna happen and you can shift things around. Themes also are key because you can align them with your current energy. If you know that you’re having a

Cara  (04:36.501)

Low energy day, but you really want to work on one of your goals. Is decluttering like a mindless task you can do? Maybe depending on where you’re choosing to declutter, right? What this lets you do when you theme, think about it this way: I’m choosing a lane, not a to-do list. I’m not looking at 800 items and saying I’m gonna get them all done. Okay. But remember, it’s not the only thing you’re doing, it’s where you’re focusing on. So, for example, if this was the school year, it’s summer, so it’s a little bit different, right? Here’s my self-care block.

I’m doing my self-care tasks and making sure my kids have breakfast and getting them ready to out get out the door, right? I’m still doing other things. All right. So we’re sold on themes, right? You and me together. We’re like, we love themes. We’ve got it. All right.

The goals that we’re gonna put inside, we’re gonna talk this now. They don’t get their own time. It’s not like I’m only gonna work on side at this time. It’s living inside of your theme. And I’m gonna show you how to do that. Now, the micro three concept is the concept of picking three small tasks, not big ones, three small tasks that fit your theme for that theme. The point of this is that you give yourself attentionality.

Now there’s a concept of the big three. You maybe are familiar with it, where the big three says, these are the three things that I’m gonna work on for the day or the week. And I like this because it gives you a little bit of a focus. But if I only look at those three things, what about the rest of my life? As a mom, I am a multifaceted person. I wear many, many, many, many, many hats. I wish I could just be like my big three are.

Work, work, work. What about my kids? You know, or personal, personal, personable. What about work? Right. I have so many things that I do. So the concept of the micro three is essentially saying, not for the day, I’m gonna pick three big things, but for the time block, I’m gonna pick three things. Now, caveats. This is an example of this for this week. But Kara, you have five things in there. Yes, because I’ve been working on my stack for a while now, and that’s something I choose to do. But

Cara  (06:44.748)

I want you to start with three. So you’re going to make sure you pick three small things to fit in there. All right. Now, a couple things I’m going to show you. Let’s look at a work example, right? I have a coaching call. Okay. That’s an hour of my time. I want to check my email and my click up. I can do that in 15 to 20 minutes. I have a list of tasks I need to do for the club that take about an hour. And then I have about a half hour to 40 minutes of macaroni kid work I have to get done. All right.

So while these are not so small that they’re 15 minute tasks, they’re small enough that I know my theme and I can focus on it. Looking at my self-care block, I do 15 minutes of reading, a half hour of a workout, I listen to this is the my Bible app, I listen while I get ready, I empty the dishes and I do my study, right? They don’t take long. This gives me urgency because it’s saying, hey, I have these self-care goals. Where are we gonna fit them? Right here. How are they gonna fit in? Where’s the time for them?

And it’s not, this is the only thing I work on. So then I get to the end of the day and I’ve only worked on one thing. This way I can chunk out multiple rules. Now, yes, could we make faster progress, quicker progress, more deep progress if I just focus on one thing for the entire day? Yeah, of course we could. But I don’t know about you, but my life is not like that. My life does not allow for me to wear one hat all day. My life has me wearing multiple hats.

All day. And I think that’s what’s important. So you start with what’s my theme? And then you add your tasks. So let’s look at Friday. I want to be transparent and show you how I set it up too. Some of my time blocks I like to write the whole micro three in. And you know, I don’t have a rhyme or a reason to. I just like it. I just like to write it in. Okay. So some of my time blocks I write my whole micro three in. You see it here, you see it here. Some of my other time blocks.

I just write a theme’s. And that is because I have another doc. So this is my work doc. All right. This is July, for example. This is the stuff I need to do. So I have a flow for the Purpose Your Mom Club. The first week of July, I always do the slides for next month. So I’ll work on August slides for my Friday calls. The second week, I work on the book club. The third week, I prep for monthly planning. And the fourth week is a buffer for projects. See how it’s not a 15-minute task, but it’s a micro task.

Cara  (09:08.335)

So when I go in here and I see that it’s time to work on club stuff on Tuesday, I don’t have to think what am I doing? I head over to my work list and I pull this up here. Now I have a similar one for Macaroni Kid. I’ll show you all of it, which is a side job. It’s a website that I run and it’s set up a little different because it doesn’t take me that long. I can run this business in 30, 60 minutes a day. So, because I’m running a website. So I have a couple things I have to do. So when I get to my Macaroni Kid block, I don’t have to think, what are the tasks I have to do?

I need to check my email. I need to pitch five businesses. I need to share something in a Facebook group. That’s all I have to do today. All right. So I don’t write those tasks out here. I printed out this thing, this one right here, right? So I print this out and I put it here. This is how I like to organize my stuff, right? And you can see some circles, some stuff didn’t get finished. So I like to make it fit on one piece of paper, honestly. That’s like the only reason I don’t put everything there.

Maybe you have a planner layout and all of it doesn’t fit. So I have different boards for that. I also have some stuff in Trello. So when it comes to Girl Scouts, right? That’s a block. So Friday this afternoon I’m gonna work on Girl Scout stuff. Cool. Let me head over to here. I was working on my July planning. Okay. So when I go to my thought catcher for the week and I go to Girl Scouts, I don’t have to think. I’m like, I know that these are already the tasks I need to accomplish.

For Girl Scouts, when I sit in my Girl Scout blog, could I write these out on here? Yes, but logistically, it would make it so big and then I wouldn’t have the space I want. So I prefer to just keep it here, print out my themes essentially, and then refer back to the appropriate list. But what I want you to see is that I’m very intentional about what I’m doing. Now, for Girl Scouts, there’s more than three tasks here. Where is it? Right? There’s there’s whatever, this many tasks.

There’s more than three tasks and stuff like that here. So my goal then is to do them in the order they’re listed, because I’ve listed them in urgency. If I get my three tasks done, I feel good about it. If I have more time, because they really only take like some of these, right? I just need to take five minutes to look on my calendar. Again, five minutes. Like I can move through some of these very fast. I get them done, and then I can transfer them over. So

Cara  (11:33.141)

When it’s time this afternoon at three o’clock after I’m done with my work block, yeah, I’m gonna wanna hang out with my kids, I wanna do some family stuff, whatever, but I know I have to get at least three of my Girl Scout tasks done during this block or whatever number I decide. This is what gives me urgency. It’s not, I’m gonna do it by the end of the day, I’m gonna do it by the end of the week, I’m gonna do it by the end of the weekend. It’s by the end of the block, I’m gonna work on these specific tasks. The other reason this concept works, especially with the theming, is on Tuesday, I had a thought.

Something I want to do for Girl Scouts. Instead of panicking and saying, no, I must do it now, I put it on my Girl Scout list. And then I know that Friday I can work on it. And it lets me feel a little bit more at ease. So what I want you to do now is think about next week. And that was what I was doing actually before we got on, is thinking about my planning. So we know our planning steps, but in case you’re unfamiliar, I’ll share them with you. My planning steps include putting in your appointments, like anything that’s already on the calendar. That’s what I’ve done here. This is my week.

next week already on the calendar. Okay. The second step though before you put in your goals, and I often forget to say this when we’re on planning, so I’m trying to get better at saying it, is to choose your themes based on your goals. I know that I have a decluttering goal that I want to finish my decluttering my bedroom this month. So I need to have a home block somewhere, right? So I can go in and say maybe this is my home block. Now I like to color code stuff, but we’ll say that’s my home block. Now

Let’s pretend I’ve already done all the blocks. I’ve added them in. We know where they’re at. Next week, work stuff’s gonna be hard for me because you can see I have a lot of different things happening next week. It’s pretty busy for a summer week, but it’s okay. I’ll make it work. So I could either during my home block, I can either look back at my Trello board at the things I had, or I could write down here, in my home block, I know that I wanted to declutter drawer one. But see how, yeah, see how I just like I don’t like it.

So I might even see, I don’t like the formatting, which is honestly it’s really the only reason. So I’m doing my dresser. So drawer two and drawer three. Those are my micro three. If I can do those three things during my home block, I’m intentional. I know what I have to do. Again, I use a variety of systems that work for me. Sometimes I don’t want to use my trello board. Sometimes I don’t want to use the docs. Sometimes I don’t want to use this. It’s just based on like what I really need and set it up for myself there. All right. So what I want you to do this week is I want you to go through.

Cara  (13:59.127)

And ask yourself, what is that goal that I really want to focus on? Which time block does it fit in the most? And what is a 10 to 15 minute version of it? If my goal is decluttering, great. Maybe it’s not that I do three decluttering tasks, maybe it’s I do one. Right? Make it smaller so that it fits. This is how you go from I don’t have the time to do anything, to how can I assign my time a little bit differently?

Now, today for coaching, if you want me to help you with any of your time blocks for next week or get ahead, let me know. It’s like one of my favorite things to do. but you can see now it’s Friday. I’m working on this now. My goal is it’s done by our Sunday planning. We don’t have Sunday planning this week because it’s Father’s Day, but my goal is that it gets done and so it’s planned out. This way I can look at the week with intention. I’m not scrambling. If there’s anything I need to get prepared over the weekend, I’m ready to go. as you can see here with my themes.

I’ve kind of color coded purple is for my goals, green is for work, and blue is where I’ve added in like fun, like family fun stuff, because I wanted to make sure we were doing it. I also have this red color, which is for my thought catcher tasks. Why? No rhyme or reason. I just like the color. So I don’t want you to get so hung up on it has to like look a certain way. But the goal is what’s my intention? If you wanted to use a paper planner, you only have so much space, right? You could essentially just put your

goals, your themes, I’m sorry, in each block, and then have a second page in your planner, a second place where you keep your micro three written out. Sometimes I would do this when I had a paper planner, I would just write my themes in each of the blocks, and then I would keep a legal pad with my micro three with like the actual schedule for the day. It’s one of the reasons I actually moved off of paper planners into using this Google Docs system. I just didn’t have enough room. Literally did not have enough room and space. So now I just use this, I make this each week.

I print it out. I keep it here on my desk because this is where I spend the majority of my time. No, I don’t bring it with me places. It works and I have some good systems. So, anyway, if you need some help or anything like that, just let me know. and let me stop my share. So, one of the things that I’m gonna have to do is I typically give myself one Girl Scout block a week where I’m just doing computer stuff. And a lot of it is like, I just want to spend time planning next month. I want to get ahead, I want to think about things, I want to do the financial worksheets, whatever. Right now,

Cara  (16:19.268)

I give myself one block a week. On the weeks I have scouts, that one block a week is me facilitating. On the weeks I don’t, they’re planning. So I have a planning block. Well, now that I’m the service unit manager, I need to add a second Girl Scout block a week. So I need to look at that because now I need a second block a week to work on some stuff. So that’s how I organize it.