We’re diving into the world of scheduling by zooming out to look at our ideal work schedule for the week.
Do you need a new ideal week planner?
As trial and error has already taught you, the perfect planner can’t make your schedule feel peaceful, productive, and profitable. You need a combination of reflective, coaching questions and a tool that is flexible to work for your brain and your life’s goals. And for me, that’s going to be a digital project management tool over a paper planner every time. End the search for the perfect planner and let’s build you a custom solution once and for all.
Do you need a new ideal week template?
I could sell templates for different parts of my Asana workspace and provide a video tutorial on how to slide those into your Asana account. But I’ve talked to many people who have tried templated solutions in the past. They don’t use them any more than they do the shiny new planner that they heard hype about online.
What works for me isn’t the same as what your brain needs. Press pause and build a solution that is a perfect fit. It’s worth it to get your ideal work schedule right and place it in a tool that can manage your business life.
The secret to why people purchase my course
There are situations when having me come into the business and build a custom Asana workspace 1:1 is the best option. But the happiest teacher business owners are the ones who rewatch the schedules set up for success module in my course every year to reset and optimize their schedule for the current season of life. It’s a tool they are so grateful to have in their back pockets and I’d love for you to have it too.
–> I’d love to support your business
Learn more here
–> Do you have a win-win story to share with the teacher business community?
Apply to be a guest here
–> Let’s chat business on Instagram @teacherjaniceva
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Read the transcript:
Janice Cook 00:00
Welcome back to Your Win-Win Teacher Business. In episode number eight, we’re diving into the world of scheduling by zooming out to look at our ideal workweek.
Janice Cook 00:13
You’re listening to Your Win-Win Teacher Business, a podcast for teacher authors who want to make a big impact in the world for teachers and students and have fun doing it. I’m your host, Janice Cook, here with a pep talk to start your week off strong. Some seasons of running a business feel hard and sticky, but it shouldn’t feel like that all the time. Let’s make your business a win-win, together.
Janice Cook 00:39
It’s so common to arrive at the end of a day, a week, or even a year, feeling frustrated that things didn’t go our way. But do we even know what an ideal week would look like, or what it would feel like? Do we know what the target is that we’re trying to achieve? We can’t really program the GPS to get us to our destination, if we only have a rough idea of where we’re going. So this is yet another place in the world of business where we have to slow down before we can speed up.
Janice Cook 01:13
It’s time for some real talk about busy versus productive. How many times have you worked long hours all week, responding to inbox notifications, starting new projects, and trying to do all the things only to end the week tired, frustrated, and no closer to your big goals? This is because busy and productive are different, and so it’s really important to make sure the tasks we put on our schedule for the week are true CEO tasks and directly relate to the big goals we’re trying to achieve. Time is our most valuable commodity, and we have to constantly question the tasks we’re choosing before we dive into them. Do you need to go to that free webinar? Does the topic align with your current goal? That cart that’s closing soon for a workshop or a membership, it feels so urgent and time sensitive, but if it doesn’t align to what you’re actually trying to accomplish, it’s okay to stay on your path and trust that it will come around again in the future. The negative feelings we get at the end of a long work week often stem from choosing tasks that didn’t truly bring us any closer to our big goals. It’s okay for this to happen once in a while, but if it’s happening often, then how will our business ever thrive and grow?
Janice Cook 02:41
There’s this fun joke about starting your own business where you trade the 9 to 5 for the 24/7. So let’s talk about the hours that we want to work in an ideal workweek. We sometimes feel frustrated after a week where we’ve been working longer days than we want to or seven days a week when that was never our plan. I just wonder who said we needed to do that. Aren’t we our own bosses? It’s funny how we lose control of our own work week from time to time. There will always be more to do. The art of making an effective work schedule is knowing how many hours a day you want to be working and then filling up the container with the tasks that are truly the most important first. It’s amazing to work with clients who wish they could work a six day week instead of seven, or a four day week instead of five together. We shift some mindsets, put efficient systems in place, get laser focused on our goals, and build a path to get as close to that ideal schedule as possible.
Janice Cook 03:55
For me during weeks when my children are in school, I want to work two or three hours in the morning and two or three hours in the afternoon, and then transition to being a whole person and a mom. During weeks when my children are not in school, I want to wake up at the same time and head into my office for a bit in the morning, but then unplug from work once my kids are ready to start their day. They’re old enough to get themselves breakfast, get themselves dressed, and take their morning showers. They come down to my basement office for help with hair styling, and we get to connect after they’ve had a chance to wake up slowly. That works well for us in this season. I fill my cup and do the most important work tasks, and then I let the rest wait until the following morning.
Janice Cook 04:43
Your ideal work week is personal. That schedule that I described is perfect for me, and it might sound awful for you. That’s why you’ll find a lot of coaching questions inside my DIY course to guide you through a menu of choices as you build the ideal work week that fits your desires. Don’t try to copy off a schedule you saw in a Facebook group of a seller you have labeled as more successful than you are. Take the time to turn within. Find out what you actually want your day to look like, and then let’s build a path to get to the revenue number you need within the work day and work week that you want.
Janice Cook 05:28
And let’s talk about how to measure success while we’re dabbling near the comparisonitis of it all. I hated meeting with my building administrator about how I was going to measure that I had reached my professional goals each school year. Was it keeping my classroom afloat enough? Happy students? Happy parents? Grades submitted on time? No major missed deadlines? Survival? Wasn’t that enough? As a business owner, I certainly have revenue numbers that I need to meet in order to feed my family and continue to have this job be a job that is a win-win for my needs in my season of life. Personally, I’ve never found peace and happiness chasing year over year growth as a way to measure success and failure. I think that’s a really slippery slope.
Janice Cook 06:20
I value time flexibility more than money. In this season of life, I measure success in the ability to say yes. When a new extracurricular or social opportunity becomes available for my kids, they know they will be able to get a ride if they need a chaperone in order for an event to run. They know it’s a yes if they need last minute supplies for a group project or a school event. They know they can sign up for it, and Mom will help them make it happen. So if I’m able to be present with my kids each day, flex for what they need, and meet my minimum revenue benchmark – for me, that’s how I measure a successful year in business. Could I make more money? Sure! Could I work more hours? Absolutely! Would I be as happy as I am today? That’s a big fat no.
Janice Cook 07:12
We started this episode inviting you to get curious about how you feel at the end of the next work week. Since my ideal work week is personal, and how I measure a successful week is also personal. I can use that measuring stick at the end of my week to listen to those feelings and decide what they mean. And I guess today’s episode is an invitation for you to do the same. Did I use the time I was allotted in the best possible way, or did I slip into some tasks that kept me busy but didn’t move me closer to my goals? The sooner I notice that, the sooner I can set myself up for success the following week to get my goals back on track. Did the hours I worked align to the hours I planned to work? Did I step out of the office for a few hours to attend to a family matter? If so, do I need to take back a few hours of work time out of the weekend family bucket for deadlines to remain on track? Or am I confident, as I look into next week that there’s enough time to absorb the tasks that didn’t get completed this week? There are no wrong answers here, just a lot of curious questions to guide us towards the right next step.
Janice Cook 08:32
If you already own a copy of my DIY course, when was the last time you zipped through the module on setting up your schedule for success? It’s not unusual for course students to crave a schedule reset before summer vacation, once the back to school shift happens, or as they turn the page on a shiny new calendar year. Re-watching sections of courses you already have is a life hack I don’t think people lean into often enough. If you don’t yet own the course, I’ve been told it’s worth the price for the scheduling module alone. When I think back to the years of my business that I was operating without an optimized schedule and what that cost me, I wish I had learned how to set my schedule up for success as early as possible. I’ll leave a link to the course in the show notes so you can take a closer look.
Janice Cook 09:25
Next week, you’re in for a treat. It’s our first guest conversation. You’ll hear from another teacher business owner about a time when running their business did not feel like a win-win, and what they did to solve the puzzle.
Janice Cook 09:41
Thanks for making this podcast a part of your day. I’d love to help you find clarity with your next step in business. Go to cookfamilyresources.com/hiring-guide I’ll also leave that link in the show notes for you. This guide is packed with good news for those days when you feel like you can’t possibly do it all. It might be time for you to invest in paid support, but the truth is, there are a lot of free steps to explore first. After you dive into that guide, I’ll be in your inbox every Monday morning with more actionable tips to help you enjoy running your business again. See you in the next episode.
