Ep #71: How I Structure My 33-Hour Workweek

Episode Summary

Jenna shares her weekly routine that supports her business, self, and family.

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Show Notes

I love my routine, and recently a client asked me exactly what it is. It's smart to learn from others and see which of their approaches could work in your life. That's why I’m so excited to break down my week for you, day by day and hour by hour.

In this episode of “The Uncommon Way”, I share my ideal schedule and the choices I make for it to unfold as gracefully as possible. With that, I know how easily life can get in the way. I’ll discuss daily approaches for reducing your cognitive load so that when disruptions do occur, you don’t feel overwhelmed or stressed.

Your mindset is key to making your routine work. The structure I have created around myself is a reflection of the structure I have created within my mind. Listen in to learn how you can build a structure that allows for professional, creative, and personal development.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

• My weekly routine.

• Approaches for cutting down your cognitive load.

• Why improving our mindset is the first step to building a schedule.

• How to make choices that support both your business and personal life.

Listen to the Full Episode:

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Full Episode Transcript:

Today, I'm pulling back the curtain on what my life looks like running a multiple six-figure service business, with the nitty-gritty details of how I structure my weeks and the practices that work for me after years of trial and error.

You're listening to The Uncommon Way Business and Life Coaching Podcast, the only podcast that helps you unlock your next level in business and life by prioritizing your Clarity and your own Uncommon Way. You will learn to maximize your mindset, mission, messaging, and strategy in order to create a true legacy. Here's your host, top-ranked business coach and reformed over-analyzer turned queen of clarity, Jenna Harrison.

Hi, welcome back to The Uncommon Way. Today, I'm bringing you a topic by listener request. Somebody asked me if I could share what my days look like, and I said, “Yes, I am an open book.”

I love topic requests, and love being able to help you out with wherever you are needing my perspective or inspiration or you're just stuck at a certain place in your business. I know that if one person's asking someone else needs to hear it, as well. So, please keep the topic requests coming.

You can find me on any of the socials at The Uncommon Way. I may not respond immediately, since I'm not on social every day but I will respond personally. You could also email us at info@theuncommonway.com.

All right, I completely and totally get the request to see how somebody else lives their life. It's very smart of us to learn from others, and stretch our brain into new ideas so that we can come up with really what works for us and our uncommon way.

When it comes to this particular topic, I still remember when my first coach sent out an email, and she was talking about how she has the same breakfast every morning. I can still remember it; I'm still thinking about it. At the time, I thought, “Oh, this is so interesting.”

She said that she was working with a health coach specifically, who helps entrepreneurs maximize their energy and their mental acuity so that they could hustle harder, basically. And when I think back on it, tap into higher levels of thought leadership, was another one, and maintain their energy. So, it was such a mind opener, to be so focused on your business that even your breakfast choices are supporting your business.

Now, it might seem obvious to some of you that, of course your nutritional choices support your day. But we're going way back in my journey here. I mean, I had thought about nutrition, maybe for fertility or some sort of physical thing you were doing, or to avoid a certain health condition. But to boost my performance as an entrepreneur? Never.

What specifically stuck with me about her story, was that the reason she wanted to have the same breakfast every day was to reduce her cognitive load. When she thought about the decision making capacity that she had in a day, she didn't want to be spending some of those muscles or some of that brain space on her breakfast.

While I obviously don't take on all the practices of the entrepreneurs that I look up to, I'll often grab one little nugget. And so, that really is my hope for this episode. That there is some nugget here that will serve you, or something that you can bounce off against your own thoughts and realize, come to clarity, about why this isn't for you and what you want to do instead.

I realize now that I do have a similar way of running my daily choices and rhythms through the filter of what supports my work in the world. And of course, vice versa. Wanting the choices I make in my business to best support my life.

I think the biggest one, is that I have a digital online service business. I can take it anywhere in the world with me because travel is so important. That was a very strategic decision from the very, very beginning because I had had more brick-and-mortar style models of businesses in the past, and I knew that that was something I really wanted to move into.

I am also thinking about how to reduce my cognitive load. How do I increase efficiency so that I make space for joy and ease and satisfaction in life? I have a strong belief now, I didn't always, but I do now, that any moment of time throughout the day is very valuable, and that my mind is very powerful. And so, my decision supports both of those.

I've created a very disciplined structure. But I will say, and I have proven this to myself over and over, is that while that tactical stuff is important, the systems, the schedules, the allowing yourself to be supported, that mindset has to come first.

Many of you are going to hear me say these words right now, but you won't really hear them yet. I remember being there hearing coaches talk about this, and my brain would just jump to, “Yes, but you don't have kids. Yes, but you have a team to support you and I'm still a solopreneur. Yes, but… Yes, but… Yes, but…” So, I do get it.

Again, I'm not completely discounting that, there is some truth, of course. But I'm adamant about this, and I'll be talking about it again and again, throughout this episode. So, I'm just going to repeat it: The mindset has to come first.

You can duplicate the schedule I have, with the level of support I have, but if deep down you're still attached to hustle culture, or to proving yourself to some imaginary challenger, or you have money scarcity, or simply you haven't relaxed with the pattern of heightened nervous system activation, you will have a completely different experience of your life than I do. You'll feel stressed, and most likely, you'll fall out of the schedule and you'll start working nights or something; ask me how I know.

On the other hand, there will be some of you that perceive that I'm working a lot. You might find yourself thinking, “Ugh, that sounds like a lot. So, I never want to grow my business beyond $100,000.” Of course, that's totally fine, you do not have to. In fact, that's what I used to think.

But I'll tell you that my days feel less hard now than they did at $100,000. I actually have more clients now than I did then. That's because of capacity building. I have now built the capacity to handle things that would have totally fried me before.

Sometimes I have five hours of straight calls in a day. That's an anomaly, but it happens, and I'm okay with it. I can produce more in a shorter timeframe than I ever could have been. So, the reason that I can describe myself as a busy working mom, and yet not feel the overwhelm and burnout of that statement, is again, the mind.

My interior monologue around the things that I'm doing creates peace and flow. And by the way, when I say things I'm doing, I mean, the things I'm doing to keep myself out of the stress response, which points to the other side of the whole mind body equation. Right? The body. And I could do just a whole episode on this, but, tactically, here's what that looks like.

Here are the things I'm doing throughout the day that make my experience so different. So sometimes it's just like 5 seconds of mindfulness. Those really add up throughout the day because your brain and body then start to just do it for you. Sometimes it's just 60 seconds of moving my body or closing my eyes and taking some deep breaths or stepping outside and feeling the sun on my face. Sometimes it looks like a bubble bath in the middle of the day. Sometimes it looks like choosing a book by the fire instead of TV at night.

But I'm in perpetual monitoring of what's going on in my body and then resettling it. And I combine that with the mindset side. And then together, it creates a very different experience that I used to have. And for any of you that feel threatened by slowing down, who feel that gut hit of “but then everything else gonna fall apart, and I won't achieve my dreams and everything.” Or if you are in the space where you're like, “Yeah. You know, 60 seconds of breathing deeply, that doesn't even feel that great to me. Like, why would I do that?”

Just really listen to me when I say this. It's the total experience that ends up changing for you. It's not about the 60 seconds. It's about the way your body starts to feel and think and perceive so differently. And so I'm saying this with love, but you just have no idea how much. The opposite is true, that, actually, you then can speed up so much more and how much a better life is here on the other side when this becomes your new normal.

Would I like to create even more whitespace in my week, and produce even higher levels of output? You betcha. The steps are being put in place to create more of that.

But am I stressed out that I'm not there at this precise moment? No. Whether or not they ever shift, I'm good. My life satisfaction isn't dependent on the external. And I'm in full control of my time, if I did want to change it. I know exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing, and I'm in love with what I'm doing.

We all have the same number of hours in a day. There will always be people who can do more in a day than you, and who won't be able to do as much as you. People who work more, and people who work less. I love to remind myself that people like, I don't know, Neil deGrasse Tyson, for some reason I think about him frequently as a point of reference.

He works at the Natural History Museum, he writes books, he has a podcast, he speaks all over, on and on and on. Yet, he has the same number of hours as me. What matters for your quality of life is how you experience your time and your routines and your choices.

The thing that I'm most proud of when it comes to this episode isn't the schedule that I've created for myself, although I've made some very smart choices and it suits my current needs, but what I'm most proud of is the experience I've created for myself.

And the consistent evidence I see of an upward trend in the things that matter in my life. How relaxed and joyful I am as I move through my day. The kinds of results my clients are getting. The amount of time that is spent in my zone of genius, versus outside my zone of genius. How mindful I am, and how I prioritize the things that really regenerate me. How much I treat myself like someone I love and adore. Those are the kinds of things I'm tracking and that I'm optimizing for.

It's very important that I make one caveat here at this point, which is when I say all of this that I've just said about my experience, this is my usual experience. Yes, there are days, or even a week, where I'm in the space of ‘this is too much and I just can't,’ or I blow things off and time flies and it seems like nothing gets accomplished. Totally. I have a human brain.

But my typical experience is what I'm talking about, and that's what I think all of us need to focus on. That's what's most helpful for us all to focus on, rather than the times when we kind of “fall short.”

So, let's break it down. I wake up at 6:40 every weekday. If I didn't have a child, I'd probably be up working until 2:00 each night, and then I'd be sleeping in and having a leisurely morning. I'm a night owl, and I really feel my creativity and focus kick in right around 10pm. For those of you familiar with ayurveda, I definitely tap into that pitta dosha right around then. I wake up and just zoom, come online.

But that is not my current reality right now. It's 6:40 on weekdays and 8am on weekends. If you're wondering how is that possible, if I have a six-year-old, that I can sleep in until 8:00, it's because Dylan stays up in his room until those times. He plays with Legos and things if he wakes up early. That definitely happens on weekends. We leave some little snacks up there for him.

We do have a monitor, in case of nightmares or if he's sick, and just so that I can know what time he's waking up. I know if he wakes up really early we're going to have a little more crankiness throughout the day. But when the monitor flips on, when he wakes up, I just turned it off and I go back to sleep.

Because when I don't sleep well, I really notice it. I, myself, am more cranky, I have brain fog, and I just have more of a negativity bias. I'm less optimistic about life, and I judge others more. So, as soon as we brought Dylan home from the hospital, we started working on great sleep habits. I personally believe that the habit of good sleep is one of the greatest gifts you can give your child. Another great gift you can give your child, is a well-rested mama. I believe that so fully.

So, we read that it really comes down to getting enough calories in them when they're infants. And of course, their stomachs are small, so they have to eat frequently and regularly, including during the night. If you do that, rather than just having them eat when they wake up and are hungry, then they'll be able to sleep and they develop the pattern of sleeping.

Maybe that's true, or maybe it's totally been debunked and we just got really lucky with Dylan, but he started sleeping well within a few months, and still sleeps very well and very soundly through the night. When he did wake up, we just kept it very low energy and calm, with few words, so there wasn't lots of snuggling or play time to really incentivize him to stay up or keep waking up.

For those of you wondering, Dylan and I are very touchy and affectionate, so I don't see a negative effect from not co-sleeping with him. But I'm not a child psychologist, so this is obviously for information purposes only.

Anyway, I get up, well rested. Dylan gets up, well rested, and I help him fix his breakfast. I let my dog, Sky, go outside, and I load up her automatic feeder, so we don't have to think about feeding her for the rest of the day. My husband and I have a very good division of labor now.

There's one other thing that we do, Dylan and I. So, I have this eye condition where I need to put warm compresses on my eye twice a day. I use that as a meditation time, as well, kind of a grounding and settling time. Well, Dylan has become drawn to this, so he'll finish his breakfast and he'll come in the room and snuggle up in bed with me.

And so, we started doing kid meditations on Insight Timer. They have all these kid meditations that are really cute. Right now, our current favorite is a dinosaur meditation. We'll just sit there like, imagine being on the back of a dinosaur, swaying steps, and it's just very relaxation oriented.

The adult meditation that I love doing is just an intention setting meditation. Where we sit and really realize what are our thoughts and fears, potentially, about the day? What do we fear might happen? Then, can we shift that and start thinking about what we desire to happen? Really getting into that energy, that will create new results for our future, rather than just repeating the past.

So, Dylan and I will do one of those two. We’ll lay together, do that little meditation until he starts fidgeting, because he's Dylan. At some point, we definitely get the small patterns of a few moments or a few minutes of quiet time. I know it is so great for him.

Anyway, yeah, I kind of have that initial morning time with him, but then Ben is the one that takes care of loading up Dylan's backpack and getting him out the door in the morning. He is a genius, you all, when it comes to gamifying things that Dylan needs to do.

They'll have this big race and competition to see who can do all the things; eat the breakfast, drink water, brush teeth. And whenever I try anything like that, Dylan is like, “Mama, I only play that with daddy.” We used to have such unpleasantness every morning, and I am so grateful to Ben for just taking that over and gifting the all of us this loving morning experience.

So, Dylan leaves just before 8:00 to catch the school bus. And my mom, she lives nearby, she's also a huge help to me. She comes to walk Dylan to the school bus, and then walk Sky and throw the ball for her. Shy’s and active breed, she's a Border Collie, and she needs to exercise at least two times a day.

That used to just add another component of in our life, but now, even if I didn't have mom, I would send Dylan to the bus stop by himself. We can do that; we live on a military base. And I would have a dog walker. I would not be taking away from business time to walk the dog.

Old me would have thought, “I'm not going to pay that much for a dog walker each week.” But nowadays, again, I value my hours, whether in or out of business, at my hourly rate; even though I don't have an hourly rate. But still, as if what I could earn in that hour.

Honestly, my mom loves the morning exercise, and loves seeing Dylan and being close to us, so it's really a win for everyone. I get ready in about 30 minutes, sometimes more if Ben had an early meeting, and I was the one getting Dylan out the door. Or if I'm answering Voxer messages, which I do a couple days a week, it can lead into a longer time. But typically, it's about 30 minutes.

I do that by only styling my hair once a week. I've trained my scalp to produce less oil. And then, sometimes on a Wednesday or Thursday, I throw in some dry shampoo. Maybe sometimes I'll wash my hair, but I really only style and straighten it once a week.

I keep the makeup really simple, I just have a tinted sunscreen, mascara. And then, when I'm feeling really fancy, I'll do my brows. But that is the work uniform. Speaking of uniforms, I wear a lot of black. So, simple mix and match.

Though sometimes, maybe I'll throw in a top with color. But for me, it's really about the texture of the materials and the craftsmanship, versus the color or the patterns. So, I don't have to spend a lot of time deciding on clothes.

This really speaks to the importance I place on this concept of “the rock.” Giving yourself that simplicity and that stability, which helps with your nervous system regulation, so that you can then stretch yourself and take risks, be more present and engaged, and be more creative in other areas. Dress, I believe, is one reflection of that.

I can say that I was very influenced by designers in New York City in the early 2000s. When I was there, I was working in jewelry design. I was very tapped into the design world. I noticed how people at the top of their game, thinking of Donna Karan and Vera Wang, and even Calvin Klein or Steve Jobs really, would wear simple uniforms day in and day out, and then have a wildly vibrant and creative outward expression.

It speaks to how much I value the life of the mind, and how I want to use my mind for very creative, bold, brave, thought leadership in the world. But now, I've trained my brain to question everything so I can come up with so many counter examples of people who express through their clothes, as well as their work.

But right now, I love dressing in this way. Except for some of my summer beachy clothes or ballgowns for military balls, I don't have a whole lot of color. I keep things very easy and simple for dressing.

The one place where I might place some thought is with my jewelry. I used to have a jewelry design company, and like I said, I worked in the industry for years, so I have several of my own pieces that I've made, plus others that I've collected from travels and whatnot. I do love me some precious metals and gemstones, especially if they have really clean lines.

Alright, move away from apparel and into meals. Again, not a lot of variety. I'm not quite like my coach, who ate the same thing every day. But what’s interesting, is we have a cookbook on Blue Zone cuisine. Those are the areas of the globe where there are more centenarians, and people are living longer and healthier lives.

In the foreword, they were talking about how they've noticed in these cultures that they really kind of tend to eat the same ingredients over and over in different ways. There's a hypothesis that that might help their immune system better recognize, I want to say intruders but it's not intruders, just basically recognize foreign pathogens I guess, that the immune system would need to attack.

Because they have such a regular input into their bodies, it's very apparent when something is not self, or not normal. Again, just interesting anecdotal evidence that made me think’ hmm.’ But really, it is again, just for cutting out the cognitive load.

And so, I have about three breakfast choices that I choose from. And just so you know, my decisions are never, ever based on what's fattening, I don't diet at all. In fact, I look for ways to add more healthy fats in my diet. And even if I'm consuming dairy or sugar, it's always full fat, real sugar, and not a sugar substitute or a fat substitute, or anything like that. So, I don't usually snack, and therefore my choices are more about what fills me up and sustains my energy until the next meal.

The reason I don't snack is just because I don't remember to snack. Potentially, there's some neurodiversity, some ADHD, and when I do start working I tend to hyperfocus, and so I'll just stay in there. Often, I'll skip meals. I have to remind myself to eat a meal.

I'll eat mostly vegetarian, plant-based, for breakfast and lunch. Sometimes at lunch, I'll have fish or dinner leftovers, because they usually do tend to have meat. So, for breakfast, again, I will choose from either a bean burrito if I have a tight morning. I want to have my burrito as I'm, for instance, doing my hair or getting ready. That's kind of a very convenient, easy choice for me.

Or I will have eggs and Ezekiel bread with peanut butter, and then apple butter on top of that. Or I'll have oatmeal with some sort of coconut oil or butter and nuts mixed in and a little bit of honey, and some fruit with yogurt.

A typical lunch is something like stir fried veggies with tofu, and maybe brown rice, or Indian food, something of that style. Kind of like a Mexican bowl, that type of style, where there's some sort of rice base, usually brown rice base, and then some veggies.

So, many of these meals do come from delivery services. We currently live in the middle of cow country, rural Pennsylvania, and we have to drive two hours to get to a Whole Foods. And really, the only healthy takeout around here is Chipotle. So, a lot of it is delivered so that I can just throw together what I need to throw together.

When I have calls starting at 9:00, obviously I start at 9:00. Other days, I may start at 9:30 or 10:00, if I've maybe been answering Voxer messages. Or maybe I get a hit about some podcast idea that I want to jot down before breakfast. Sometimes I love having breakfast while I'm watching a training video or something, that's really fun when I can do that.

But you'll see that other than my really very brief morning meditation, I don't have the kind of morning routine that others prioritize and swear by. I tend to just get right into it. At this point, I still have a fair amount of one-to-one calls. I still do all of my own sales calls.

I only work until 3:30, when Dylan comes home. Plus, I often take a half hour or 45 minutes to make lunch and have lunch with Ben. So, I move at a fairly healthy clip, let's say.

I tend to have my client calls on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Typically, two to three a day. I have sales calls on Mondays and Fridays. And then, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, that's when I have calls for my own development.

So, at any given time, I always have a coach. I have some sort of business development. Like, I'm working with a designer for the website and that requires me thinking and making decisions or creating copy, right? Or I'm working to launch a podcast, or now I'm working with someone to help with podcast growth, etc. So, some sort of business development.

I have my therapy, as well. I've been doing EMDR therapy for about a year. I highly recommend it to anybody that has kind of trauma responses, or anything going on where you are triggered and you're like, “Whoa, that did not seem like a measured response.”

Then, there is also, typically some type of professional development, some training to broaden or to deepen my skills as a coach. So, four things that I'm doing at any given time for my own development. With the remaining whitespace, I may be reviewing client work, or meeting with an accountant, or responding to an email, or there's something that I want to post myself on social.

But I spend very little time on social. I have a team that does that for me. They repurpose the podcasts clips, and I have a VA that posts all of it for me. So, I'm often going days without even opening the apps. But with things like this, I purposely don't leave myself tons of time to do them, because otherwise I know it will expand and just consume more time.

I try not to schedule anything at all on Wednesdays, so that I can have some concentrated space for creating content or the business development that I was just talking about.

You might have heard me talk about mindset and manifestation, and you might be wondering now, “But when do you sit down and journal about your subconscious beliefs? Or declare your desires or do visualizations?” There was a period where I needed to do a lot of that stuff, but now it just happens while I'm walking the dog or I'm brushing my teeth.

I've had clients say, “I've created so much transformation here, in the Clarity Accelerator, and it's been amazing. But now, I just need to take a break for a bit. All this personal development stuff, it's kind of grueling.” But I don't think of it in that way. For me, it's a very comfy, happy space to be in communion with my higher Self.

And so, when I approach my limiting beliefs, or belief building, I do so from a place of curiosity and anticipation. It's actually something fun for me to do, daydream as I walk my dog, for instance.

And as I'm uncovering things about myself, I'll be like, “Oh, interesting, I guess I was thinking that. Oh, that's so good to know. Oh, I can see how this idea seems a little sticky. But I'm recognizing progress and evidence. And that's so exciting to think about, what's going to unfold as I release more and more of this thing that's been holding me back.”

It feels very good. But it's happening all the time. I no longer have to create the space for my brain to do that, thinking that otherwise, it won't happen. I'm just always doing it.

I realized, funny enough, I forgot to talk about social media. I know a lot of you are spending a lot of time on social media. Of course, I've said that I have a team that will repurpose my podcast excerpts and put that out for me, but I do look over all of it. I rewrite a lot of the posts, to make sure it's something that I would actually say and something that I actually believe in.

But starting a habit that I began when my son was a newborn, I really only do that in a focused way, about once a month. So, once a month, I'll go and I'll review everything, I'll batch it together, and then I'm done for the month. That's something that I started doing long ago when I was creating my own content. And I've continued that pattern now, as I am reviewing content.

If I'm going to spontaneously take the dog for a walk or do some yoga or journal or anything, I do have the space to do that. If I want to get a massage or have lunch with mom, I have the space to do that. But mostly, that's when I do my newsletter, and anything proactive that I want to do in my business.

So, when I say proactive, here are the things that I'm currently focusing on for my business growth. I've brought on a new operations manager. So, I'm spending more time with her now to get her on boarded. I'm looking to diversify my lead acquisition; the way that I bring people in to know about us and hear about us.

My people tend to spend a lot of time with the podcast, so I'm placing particular focus there. And you'll probably see some changes coming up in the podcast in the future. I'm looking to create highly effective ways of getting my clients results, without needing the personal time with me. But I am not jumping into anything. I'm doing that very carefully and methodically, monitoring client results.

Then, of course, my long-term vision hinges on creating a very strong community of women who are creating these uncommon businesses and lives. So, I'm always looking for ways to enhance that experience and help my people develop even tighter bonds in the collective.

All of the business activities that I do, or that I invest in, need to support those pillars. Again, it's helping me with decision making. I also stagger all of them. So, even though they're things that I would love to do, they're just not on the calendar for a while.

Last thing about the work week, I also work Sunday mornings. Dylan goes to my mom's. I believe it's very important for him to have time with older generations. And Ben finally gets some alone time. He's an introvert, but his job, and his extrovert son, currently don't allow him much introvert time. So, I'm by myself during those Sunday mornings, and that's when I create my podcast episodes for y'all. Right now, it is Sunday.

If I were working all of the time, Monday through Friday, from 9:00 to 3:30, and then Sundays for a few hours, I'd probably be at about 35 hours a week of work, but it rarely works out that way. I'll talk about that in a second.

But yes, on weekdays, I stop work at 3:30, I get ready to pick Dylan up from the bus stop, then we'll walk home, he'll decompress a little bit, I'll make him a snack, and when he's ready, we'll often play a bit or color or something until Ben comes home.

Then there's this very highly orchestrated maneuver. I'm laughing at my description of this, but it's pretty accurate actually, where we take care of business. Like, one of us walks the dog while the other plays with Dylan. And then we switch off, so the other person works out, and then the other person's with Dylan.

Unfortunately, we don't live around other kids. One of the greatest benefits of a military base, is that the kids are safe to just run around in little packs and have tons of unstructured, unsupervised play. There aren't any fences so the kids have big open fields and things. That's a big reason why we chose this assignment. Why we chose specifically to live on-post rather than off-post, which we frequently do.

But unfortunately, the housing is divided by seniority, and so most of the people around us who are older, like us, have older kids. Dylan's friends live within a bike ride, but he's still not always looking both ways when he crosses the street, or with cars backing out of driveways.

He just gets really distracted, and so that's not an option yet, for us to just send him down there. And so, he really considers us his best friends and playmates. He's very, very active, so really exercising him and exercising the dog and exercising us, that's really the focus of our afternoons.

Ben and I switch off each day with the working out and the dog walking, like I said, and also with cooking and cleaning up dinner, and putting Dylan down.

For my own workouts, I have pretty short, concentrated workouts. I'll do either yoga, or I'll do something that is more kind of like circuit training, but here in the house, using body weight. So, lots of squats or lunges, and kind of high-intensity circuit training, where you're going for a short amount of time, Not necessarily full high-intensity training, because my specific game really is more of the strength building, although there's a cardio component to it, but I'm not trying to lose weight. I'm trying to build muscle and tone and strength.

Then, of course, have my yoga to keep myself flexible, and not just get all tight and bubble muscle, where I can't even get down on the floor with my son anymore because I'm just so inflexible. During the week, there's usually some kind of sports practice for Dylan. Again, Ben and I'll switch off taking him there, or sometimes my mom will take him.

In the warm weather we have a little more to do. There's a farmers market with live music that we’ll often go to once a week. There's another little outdoor kind of bar area here on-post, where they typically have a bouncy house. Again, that’s one day a week. The kids all get together and play together, so we'll go there.

But those things drop off in the winter. Like I said, we do not live in a vibrant city. We will soon, starting next summer, so we'll see how things change. But right now, there aren't really restaurants we want to go out to, or events that we want to be a part of. So, our life is very, very quiet.

After Dylan goes to sleep, Ben and I like to catch up on our day. I don't know if I mentioned it, but Dylan goes down at about eight o'clock at night. Then, Ben and I like to catch up on our day a bit, and once a week we sit down and we sync all of our schedules. We think about meals for the next week. We get that all planned out and ordered, and usually make one run to the grocery store, only on the weekends.

Then we relax maybe, and watch a show from 8:30 to 9:30, sometimes to 10:00. At which point, I get ready for bed. I put on all my night creams and do all the things, and then do a final nighttime meditation. I try to get to sleep by 11:00pm.

I just described the ideal scenario. I say I like spontaneity and adventure in life, but the truth is, I only like it sometimes. I love my routines. Also, I have a 2 line in Human Design, a profile line, which is The Hermit. And I do love to hermit. Part of the reason is, because I haven't yet told you about all the things, all the reality, that disrupts the schedule I just mentioned.

So, there are doctor's appointments. There are doctor's appointments for my son, and sports physicals, there's getting the dog groomed. We’re thinking of moving to Spain, so now we have to hop on a call with an attorney, or we need to research the schools over there. Or it's time to create the yearly Christmas Calendar, so the grandparents can see Dylan's best pictures from the year. Or Ben has a conference, so now I'm a single mom this week, etc. etc., right?

Living where we do, we don't have a lot of domestic help. We can't hire a house manager to make sure that the carpets are getting cleaned, and the laundry gets washed and folded. So, there are many things that I'm still doing that I don't plan to be doing forever.

Because I understand that managing a child and running a house is a job. Our way of living was really designed for a single breadwinner, and then the other spouse, usually the woman, taking care of everything else. We don't have that anymore. And yet, the number of hours in the day has not increased.

In fact, the New York Times published a pretty famous article showing that working moms now spend more concentrated time with their children than stay at home moms did in the 70s. So, I used to have drama around all of that. Like, “Well, I should be able to do it all.” But I've released a lot of that. I should not be able to do it all, and I want my house manager, dammit. So, to be continued on that front.

Now, quick note, you might be thinking, “Wait, but how many doctor's appointments are you really going to?” When I was younger, I'd go once per year, maybe have a mammogram, go to the dentist once, and that was it. But now, there's more things that crop up. I don't want to play into the stereotype of things start breaking down when you're 50, or anything like that.

But I do go to an eye doctor. There are different kinds of laser appointments and micro-needling, and maybe physical therapy, and several dental appointments. In my experience, more things have accumulated now than I used to think about. Now I try to only schedule one or two of those extra things a week, but they do invariably take away from the ideal of this complete work week.

And, we do travel frequently. We were in Spain for all of July. We were getting Dylan enrolled in kindergarten in August, and there was some drama so it took a fair amount of my time dealing with the district, and all the different things. I had surgery in September. Then, in October, we had the Clarity Collective retreat in Mexico. We celebrated my husband's birthday in the Turks and Caicos.

We do have this blissful period in November to regroup, but then, in December, we're taking Dylan out to see Ben's parents in Texas, and then going to see my dad and stepmom in California. In January, Ben is going to be a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins for a couple of months. So, he'll be gone for a half week, and I'll have some juggling to do being alone here.

Plus, I would really like to take Dylan to Disney World, since we might be leaving the States in the summer. We'll see. Because in February, Ben and I are headed back to Majorca to checkout schools in person, and really make that final decision for ourselves.

And then, if we do end up deciding to leave after Ben retires, leave the States, I will need to take another trip there in the spring in order to secure my Digital Nomad Visa and be able to bring the family over. Of course, in March and April we'll be prepping for Ben's retirement and our move.

So, because of things of that nature, I used to work almost every night to compensate for everything I'm describing here. Because not only do some of those things, like the research, bleed over into the day… For instance, the only time we could meet with the attorney is during my work day. But also, whenever I'm traveling, my client calls get moved to the weeks before and after. So, those are busier weeks too.

And so, again, I used to work almost every night. In fact, I would only take nights off because I felt guilty about not giving Ben any “me” time. Luckily, that has changed. Maybe I'll work a night if I haven't finished my podcast, or I didn't plan well, or something kind of comes up out of the blue. But it is more and more rare.

When it does happen, I don't beat myself up about it, or even really have any big thoughts about it. I just kind of get it done. That really goes back to the mindset work that I talked about at the beginning. Because what keeps me sane isn't the schedule, it's the mindset.

Although, of course, my schedule is a reflection of my mindset, right? In the way that I'm able to make choices. And what makes things feel crazy, isn't all the to-dos of life, at least not 100% the to-dos, it's your reaction to them. What you make it mean, if you do or don't do those things.

I've built up a tolerance for, and really a compassion, for the part of me that wants to work so much, that does have big dreams, that wants to move things forward and get things done. And because I can manage that, I'm not needing to react to it. I'm not letting it drive me in the way that it used to.

All of the mindset things I mentioned earlier, the fears about money, the needing to prove myself to people, needing to prove myself to myself, what it would mean if I did or didn't accomplish this thing, what it would mean if someone had a negative thought about me, if I didn't get this thing to my contractor on time and I would, in some way, disappoint them...

All of those things really used to drive me and take me out of my agency. The structure that I've created around myself is very much a reflection of the structure I've created in my mind. That structure and routine, which really represents the masculine energetic, is what allows my creativity and my downloads and my playfulness. And in essence, really the feminine energetic, that is what allows it all to flow so easily and regularly and to manifest powerfully.

All right, you all, I hope that that was helpful. Again, please reach out to me if you have any more topic ideas, or even any questions about this one. As you make your way through this journey yourself, just remember that deep down you know who you are, and each day you're stepping further into what you're here to create. Have a great week.

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Come join us and supercharge every other tool or tactic you'll ever learn, from Facebook ads to manifestation. Just go to TheUncommonWay.com/schedule and set up a time to talk. I can't wait to be your coach.

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