As a recovering busyaholic, the most important thing I can teach you is that structure, discipline, routine and productive-based habits will be the most freeing thing you’ll ever do. Gone are the days of waking up guessing at what you should be doing and beating yourself up for procrastinating the morning away. If you want to be truly successful, and I know you do, go grab your colored highlighters, crayons, and pencils and download the calendars provided here. We are going to plan out your year and it’s gonna be easy.
The key to freedom is planning and committing to a calendar based on your life values and purpose.
What do you want to accomplish this year? Did you decide on a plan to get in the best shape of your life, create more wealth and the love and lifestyle you most want? Well, then the “Freedom Calendar” will help you accomplish your dreams considering your whole self. This is a wholistic based way of designing your life. I was first introduced to this concept by business coach Lin Eleoff.
The definition of Freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.
But what does freedom mean to you? What does it look like for you? Think about this as you go through these prompts with me.
Print the monthly calendar below and let’s get started -- I’ll walk you through the process. Spoiler alert, your FREE TIME gets scheduled first.
Just following the color-coded system to CREATE your Freedom Calendar and get exactly what you want in your life.
1. Calendar your Free Time first. COLOR YELLOW- the color of FREEDOM. Use the yellow highlighter and color in the 52 weekends in the year off. Presto! You now have 104 days off in the year to do with whatever you please. Next color yellow all the official holidays that you’ll observe (in the US there are approximately 10 holidays). Find another 30-50 additional days off depending on how much you want to work and your goals. I suggest everyone take off at least 4 weeks a year--so an additional 20 days. You might balk at this, but if you plan your life this way, you’ll be so much more productive. It’s waaaay more possible than you think. The goal is to work your way up to get 6 weeks off a year.
2. Calendar your Special Events Dates - COLOR ORANGE - the color of JOY. Use your orange highlighter to color in birthdays, anniversaries and other special occasions like weddings and graduations. You’ll never forget one again. That will be a thing of the past.
3. Calendar your Planning Strategy Days - COLOR PURPLE - for creativity and ambition. Color 3-5 days of each quarter in purple to plan out your business and personal life.
The very first purple day of each quarter is reserved to plan your personal time. How do you plan to take care of your mind-body-spirit & lifestyle for the next 90 days?
How about your mind? Do you plan to work on your abundance mindset with a coach? Do you plan to see a therapist to process through a recent loss. Do you plan to self-coach and journal daily?
How about your body? Do you have an exercise or a weight loss goal? Maybe you decided to try eating all non-processed foods or cutting out flour and sugar.
How about your spirit? Will you practice affirmations, a meditation and/or creative visualization?
What about your relationships? Do you have special friends that you’d like to connect with, dates you’d like to go on either with someone new, or your partner or spouse.
What about your lifestyle? Will you have a morning and evening routine that nourishes and energizes you? Will you spend days in nature at the beach or in the mountains? Can you see how fun this is getting?!?
Now, what are your business goals? Take the rest of the days to plan out your business goals for the following 90 days. Get specific. What do you want to create? What are your income goals? Do you need to create a new product or service? What’s your marketing plan? Does it include a blog or podcast? Do you need to learn a new skill? Maybe take a writing class, a touch-typing class, or speed reading and retention class.
NOTE: When you’re first getting started with this process, I recommend using the first day of the month for planning as well. Then once you get the hang of it, continue with just the first 3-5 days in the quarter.
4. Calendar your Admin Days - COLOR RED - the color of your foundation. Color in the days of the week for your admin tasks, such as accounting, book keeping and documentation.
5. Calendar your CREATE DAYS - COLOR PINK - the color of creativity. For me, these are my Content Days - blog posts, emails, podcast, writing a new program, or email sequence for an online class I’ll be teaching. My admin days are scheduled on Fridays which typically I can accomplish in a half day. Then I use the rest of the time for any overflow that I didn’t get done in the week. If I’ve planned correctly, I don’t have much overflow and I can skip out for Friday afternoon yoga to start out the weekend right.
6. Calendar your Generating Income Days – COLOR GREEN FOR PROSPERITY & ABUNDANCE. The number of days depends on the kind of work you’re doing and how much money you want to generate.
7. LAST STEP- Create a more detailed 90-day calendar for the 1st quarter you’re working with. Ask yourself, “What and where do I need to spend my time planning?" Starting with how you’re going to take care of your health - so mind-body-spirit-relationship-lifestyle. This is the kind of work I go into more depth with in my individual sessions with private clients.
This is a simple but extremely powerful way to organize your life and achieve a healthy work-life balance. Don’t underestimate this just because it’s fun and creative. I assure you you’ll see how much freedom you CREATE when you run your life laser-focused like this. Gone are the days of your life running you. You’re the one in the driver’s seat.
As you go through the process of creating your freedom calendar, if at any point you get stuck, do not give up. If you have any questions, jump on a mini session with me and I’ll walk you through it.
Now, "What should I do today?” is a thing of the past!
When you don’t plan - you don’t usually have a clear division of your work and non-work-related days - especially if you’re an entrepreneur. So often times I see clients burnout and unable to even enjoy their days off because they’re constantly having a nagging thought— “I should be doing something else?”
Click on the yearly calendar or the link to download the PDF. And use these links to download the quarterly calendars.
When you do plan you allow for so much freedom to do all the things you want to do in your work and personal life and you get to look forward to ALL of it!
When it’s not planned, it feels like a drag. Don’t kid yourself. It’s no fun not to have a plan. Things you could be looking forward to, the stress you could let go of in the not-knowing, the decision-fatigue you can escape – just by creating your plan. It makes life so much more enjoyable and meaningful. Remember, the point of life is to experience joy.
Let me know how it goes. Don’t worry if you didn’t start this at the beginning of the year. Just get started now.
Have fun planning.
