“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.”

~Pablo Picasso~

“Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.”

~Thomas Edison~

“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.”

~Alexander Graham Bell~

The life of an entrepreneur includes wearing a lot of hats, including most prominently being a CEO. The main jobs of a CEO are to analyze, reflect, and make decisions. Doing those things is often a challenge, since many times we are also the marketing department, the creative team, communications, finance, etcetera. All of that tends to keep us pretty busy.

With all of those roles and in such an action-driven culture, it can be counterintuitive to stop and think about what you’re doing. It can even feel like there isn’t time. But we are all given the same amount of time; it’s all about prioritizing and using it well. And part of that is not being all action all the time. We can break down planning times daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly.

Daily, set aside time to plan the next day (15–30 minutes) and think through the urgent versus important tasks on your list. Make sure you include something fun.

Weekly, set aside time to plan the week (about an hour). Leave yourself one day off. Keeping a Sabbath will help you to recharge from the busy week and give your mind a bit of space to recalibrate and be creative. Resting plays an important role. Don’t be surprised if some of your best ideas come on your day off, when you’re in the shower, or on a walk. That space and time??

Monthly, plan one full CEO Day to think about the bigger picture in your business. Communicate that you will be unavailable to others that day. If you have a company partner, this can be a day that you spend together. Try to get out of your normal environment for the day. I have one day a month that I drive up the mountain (in the summer) and just sit under a pine tree in my chair and journal, write notes, and think of where I want to go next.

In addition to the one CEO Day, I take another day to plan the quarter. I often take this as a weekend (a long weekend, if I can). Most often, I will either go away for the weekend or stay in a hotel (staycation). I also believe in taking at least a couple of days off, completely a quarter. Sometimes this takes the form of mastermind getaways, where I meet up with a small group of entrepreneurs and we both work and relax. In fact, much of the amazing ah-ha moments come when we are simply chatting over dinner.

Planning yearly really focuses on looking back with gratitude and looking forward with hope. This is not the heavy lifting time of my planning (that happens during the quarterly planning time).

We need longer breaks during the year. I advocate for two full weeks off during the year. I know when you are a team of two (you and Jesus), it’s tough to take the time off, but it is 100% necessary. I take an extended break over the Christmas season and also take time during the year to vacation with my family.

So, to sum up, I make sure to take time off as planned: one day a week, a long weekend a quarter, two weeks a year.

Carving out these times and being intentional about planning will give you a clear focus and help you to use the time that you have in the best ways possible. So instead of shooting in the dark and hoping that what you do is going to work, you can think it through and make a plan for how to do it. Taking those steps back has been instrumental for me in creating and curating my own business.

Here’s Your Next Step:

If this blog stirred something in you — that whisper that maybe you’re called to more — don’t ignore it.

At NACWE, we help Christian women entrepreneurs build businesses that honor God, grow income, and nurture real friendships.

 Want support from a community of faith-driven entrepreneurs?

 Join NACWE today and step into your calling with clarity and courage.

Because leadership isn’t just for someday.

It’s for such a time as now.

“For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

~Galatians 1:10 (ESV)~

“Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves even when we risk disappointing others.”

~Brené Brown~

“I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.”

~Dwight D. Eisenhower~

If I could advise you about one thing in life, it is this: do the things you need to do so that you can do the things you want to do. This sounds simple, but sometimes the things that have to get done take over the day, and the important but non-urgent things fall by the wayside, pushed to the back of the agenda even though they would greatly benefit our businesses or lives. There’s nothing inherently wrong with things being urgent; it just means they have some kind of deadline. The problem comes when we assume that because things are urgent, they are the most important.

Urgency—especially false or overblown urgency—can absolutely control us and our quality of life. One way that we can counteract this is by minimizing procrastination. If we do things ahead of time instead of waiting until the very last minute, then we won’t be racing to put a card in the mailbox the day before someone’s birthday or getting the car repaired because we neglected standard maintenance. So there are some ways we can care for ourselves in this area. One of my favorite thinkers and writers, Brené Brown, puts it this way: “Compassionate people ask for what they need. They say no when they need to, and when they say yes, they mean it. They’re compassionate because their boundaries keep them out of resentment.”

However, urgent items are often imposed on us by other people. This is where setting clear and firm boundaries is vital. Just because someone asks you to do something does not mean you have to say yes. To quote Susan Gregg, “No is a complete sentence.” In other words, you are not obligated to explain to the person why. When there is something, you want to do, it is also okay to define the parameters in which you are willing to complete the task. It might be useful to get in the habit of reminding yourself regularly: “Someone else’s lack of planning does not constitute making it my emergency.”

For example, I run the tech team at my church. We have practice on Thursday nights. It has been communicated to our staff and leadership that all announcements, special slides, and other extras need to be given to the tech team by Wednesday (this gives them a grace period that I don’t announce, but the topic of giving yourself buffers will be saved for another day). When someone walks up on Sunday morning with something they would like to add to the visuals, we have a clear boundary established that allows us to say no. Communication is key.

Prior to establishing the boundary, our team would try to fit it in if we could. It may not seem like it wouldn’t be a big deal to say, “Yes, if we can make it work.” But in reality, all those “yes” choices did was stress out the volunteers. For the long-term health of the team (the most important), I had to eliminate the possibility of a last-minute “urgent.” This was because if I continued to allow that stress—even if they could technically get it done—I would lose volunteers. Building a great team and being kind to them is more important than the ability to accommodate someone else’s lack of planning.

One of the tools that I use when figuring out how to prioritize things in my own life and figure out the most important to my purpose is the Eisenhower Decision Matrix. This is the idea that there are four categories:

I. High Importance and Urgency
II. High Importance, Low Urgency
III. Low Importance, High Urgency
IV. Low Importance, Low Urgency

This matrix can help us separate things out and know what we need to focus on and what is most important to us. We often let important tasks get trampled by the urgent ones. We also know that if something is truly urgent then we also cannot ignore it. It does need to be done. Therefore, the goal is to get the urgent done as efficiently as possible so that we can move onto the important without the urgent hanging over our head. We need to also try to do less of the trivial, which is neither very important nor very urgent, to make time for the important but not as urgent, such as long-term planning, eating healthy meals, creating new systems, etcetera. Those are the things that bring life and growth to your personal and business life.

Here’s Your Next Step:

If this blog stirred something in you — that whisper that maybe you’re called to more — don’t ignore it.

At NACWE, we help Christian women entrepreneurs build businesses that honor God, grow income, and nurture real friendships.

 Want support from a community of faith-driven entrepreneurs?

 Join NACWE today and step into your calling with clarity and courage.

Because leadership isn’t just for someday.

It’s for such a time as now.