Calendar Management: Why your intuition is more important than you think
What happens when we spend hours creating a plan and schedule that would work in an ideal world but doesn’t hold up with life’s unexpected twists and turns?
Many of my clients end up getting overwhelmed, sitting in indecision, and sometimes even giving up on planning altogether. This leads to lots of frustration, disappointment, and time wasted.
If this is you, I see you.
Many factors can throw off our carefully planned schedules, and it’s difficult to navigate these obstacles with confidence.
When it comes to creating adaptable and flexible plans (that don’t feel like a prison), your intuition is so important.
Your digital calendar is one of the best places to plan with and practice trusting your intuition.
In this post, I’ll guide you through how to identify your intuition, why it’s so hard to listen to, the benefits of using your intuition in your calendar management, and give you helpful tangible examples.
What is your intuition?
To me, my experience of intuition is simply a gut response to a decision, big or small, without necessarily having logical reasoning for it. Intuition can show up as a physical sensation, imagery, synchronicities, patterns, and more.
Curious about all the ways your intuition might be showing up? Check out Bustle’s 14 signs your intuition is speaking to you.
Also, personally, human design has also really helped me tap into my intuition. As a manifesting generator, I have a sacral (or gut) yes or no response to external stimuli and decisions.
However, at the end of the day, your experience of your intuition is what matters most.
What is YOUR experience of your intuition? How does it show up for you? Comment below and let me know!
Why is it so difficult to listen to your intuition?
For many reasons. The 3 biggest that I see are:
It’s almost impossible to tap into your intuition when you’re tired, overwhelmed, anxious, stressed out, in your head, or busy. If you’re often in these states… that’s your answer.
We confuse fear, critical, or “should” voice as intuition. (My intuition shows up as neutral, calm, and clear.)
Intuition isn’t often honored as an important business or time management skill/strategy in our culture. Even though 85% of CEOs in this one study confirmed that intuition was central to their decision-making process
We all have intuition, whether we realize it or not.
The more we understand it, the more we can apply it to better our lives.
The massive benefits of listening to your intuition
Honestly, the benefits of listening to yourself reach far and wide. But when it comes down to it, you get days that add up to a life more beautiful than you could ever imagine.
Listening to your intuition allows you to live a life true to you.
What’s better than that?
My clients, and I, often feel like we need proof to trust more. If you’re like us… I can confidently say you already have proof!
Ask yourself, “What’s happened in the past when I’ve listened to my gut?”
Ease, flow, peace, accomplishment, success, abundance. For me?
Changing my offerings in my business, then selling them out.
Choosing to become a digital nomad and experiencing more peace and freedom than ever before.
Being super tired, putting my work down, opening Netflix for a brain break, and watching an episode that gave me tons of ideas allowing me to return and accomplish what I was doing way faster and easier.
What’s happened in the past when you HAVEN’T?
Frustration, guilt, resentment, suffering, pain, delays, and spending loads of time and energy overthinking and NOT making a decision.
Some more personal examples:
Forcing myself to do a workshop with someone, spending a month marketing, and having to cancel it because of the low attention and excitement it received.
Attempting to be a morning person and work out first thing, always being miserable when I do it and when I don’t guilt-trip myself.
Not deciding what to do with my day so just go along with whatever comes up in my inbox, and ending the day feeling like I did nothing.
How do I use my intuition in my digital calendar?
Now you know what intuition is, how it shows up for you, and how important it is to listen to it.
Unfortunately, time management or calendar management advice rarely recommends you listen to your intuition.
The typical advice is to time block your whole day or week to the minute and perfectly stick to it. Then, if you can’t then something is wrong with you.
Good thing I’m not your average time management coach!
I know it’s nearly impossible to perfectly stick to your schedule every day, all day, AND be happy. I wouldn’t even want to anymore.
So, let’s start with what calendar management even is.
What even is calendar management?
Calendar management is the process of prioritizing your time and managing your life through the use of a calendar(1).
I use my digital calendar to organize and manage everything in my business and life. It’s basically my personal assistant, and it’s free!
Linking calendar management and your intuition
You can use your intuition when you’re creating a daily or weekly to-do list and/or schedule.
You can also flex your intuition throughout the day and week by moving time blocks around when you feel like doing the thing.
Tangible examples of intuitive calendar management
Asking yourself how your schedule feels to you.
Leaving gaps to move around tasks when you feel like doing them.
Dragging and moving time blocks/containers around without guilt.
Using language that feels good to you when naming events.
Putting tasks when you’re most energized, creative, and excited.
Scheduling time to work on goals and dreams that are deeply important to you in your calendar so they finally happen!
Ask yourself, “What it would look like to use my intuition more in my calendar?”
When you use your intuition in your calendar, you can…
Trust and listen to yourself more, leading to more peace and fulfillment.
Make decisions that will give you the freedom you want.
Have more energy, be more productive (in the good way), and be happy with yourself and how you spent your time.
Your intuition is the most important, yet underrated, time and life management skill out there.
Now you know how crucial it is…
Intuitive scheduling and time blocking? Yes, please!
Enroll in Digital Calendars For Humans now.
5 Self reflection questions for an end of the year review session
5 Self reflection questions for an end of the year review session
We 21st-century humans move through life at such a high speed, whether it feels fast in the moment or not, we often miss what’s right in front of us.
As a time coach, reflecting is the key to intentionality, healing, growth, progress, and success.
Self-reflection or introspection helps you acknowledge what you did, who you were, and what went right.
It can also help you determine what can go better moving forward. Better meaning more authentic or aligned. Not better according to society or guilt.
Want to feel more aware of how you spent your time?
Want to more easily celebrate yourself? Feel more compassion, motivation, and confidence?
Grab a pen and paper or open a fresh google doc to reflect on your last year with me!
Before continuing, PAUSE!
Before we pause and reflect, let’s get super meta and pause to take a few big deep breaths.
Feel free to close your eyes, put your hands on your heart for a gesture of self-compassion, and take three big deep breaths.
Open your eyes, when you’re ready, and we'll go ahead and get started.
5 Self-reflection questions for an end-of-year review session
Q1: What happened in your life and business?
The first question that I always need to journal or think about to decompress from the past year was: What happened in my life? What happened in my business or job?
Here’s what happened in my life and business and what I learned in 2022.
Pause reading this blog, and take some time to journal about this question. I’d recommend 10 to 15 minutes. Feel free to open up your digital calendar or planners to help jog your memory.
Q2: What happened in the world around you?
The second question is: What happened in the world around me?
So not just in your personal life, but expanding out to what happened in your community and the world.
In 2022, we seem to be recovering from COVID, wars and revolutions broke out, elections were had, and so much more. I often forget about how current events in the world impact me and add internalized stress and anxiety.
Feel free to take another 10 to 15 minutes to jot down all the things that happened in the world around you that you can think of.
Q3: What goals did you accomplish? Not accomplish?
The third question is: What were the goals that I set at the beginning of the year? Which of them happened, and which didn’t?
If you want to go deeper, ask yourself why you think that was the case. For the goals that happened, what supported you in accomplishing them? For the ones that didn’t happen, how can you give yourself permission to let go of them?
If you need help letting it go, go back to the last question, what happened in the world around you? What happened in your life? Hopefully, those two questions will give you a bit of permission or compassion around why they didn't come to fruition.
Pause reading and journal about that connecting to the last two questions and truly start to see kind of how all these things that impact our time, ourselves, and our lives start to fit together.
Q4: What have you learned over the past year?
The next question that I always love to reflect on is: What significant lessons can I gather from the last year of my life? Some additional questions are:
What have I learned from all the things that have happened?
What did I learn about what makes me successful?
Then, ask yourself: How might I carry these lessons with me into the new year?
Again, pause reading here to take some time to journal about your takeaways now.
Q5: How can you celebrate yourself and your efforts?
The fifth and final question is: How can I celebrate myself and my efforts?
If you're here reading this and reflecting on your last year, that is enough to celebrate. I’m celebrating you reflecting and reviewing the past year because it’s 100% going to set you up for success.
A simple and easy way to celebrate yourself is through self-talk. You can say to yourself, “Thank you for making it through another year. Thank you for reflecting. Thank you for caring about me. Thank you!!!”
Another question you can ask yourself is: What do I need to do to make sure I actually celebrate myself?
It’s really easy for people to move right past celebrating themselves. This is the most important part of the end-of-year review session. You deserve celebration and acknowledgment!
Ok, I lied. Q6: Where would you like to be in a year from now?
With your above reflections and this question, it’s time to create a plan for 2023 that is sustainable, realistic, and most importantly authentic to you.
Want to end 2023 knowing that you made the best use of your time, energy, and attention?
Want to be able to take more time off to rest and take care of yourself than ever before? Or discover the strategies that will help you stay focused on and follow through with what matters most in your life?
Whatever it is, I'm here for it.
Click here to learn how time coaching can support you as you thrive into the next phase of your life.
12 Simple ways to celebrate yourself without spending a dime
The antidote to being exhausted: Celebrate yourself
You're working extremely hard to make your goals and dreams happen.
Even though you love what you do, you're exhausted.
You're often hard on yourself because you feel like you should be further ahead or doing more.
When someone says, “Take a break,” you don't even know what you would even do with that break.
If you’re feeling any of these things I just listed above…I see and hear you.
You are working really hard trying to do what you might feel is enough, but is really the job of like 5 people.
In this blog, I'm going to share with you why celebrating yourself is so important and some ideas on how to reward yourself so you can stop downplaying your strengths and achievements, and feel your best.
It's time to celebrate how amazing you already are!
Why celebrating yourself is key to success
We live in such a fast-paced society, and we are taught from when we're kids in school all the way until we retire to get as much stuff done as we possibly can. When we care more about the number of tasks done, it’s easy to minimize what gets done and our efforts. That's why the conversation around burnout has become so loud.
When you only think about what's next, your goals, and the future, you deplete yourself.
When you’re depleted you’re not your best. It’s difficult to be productive, creative, and thoughtful when you’re drained.
How do you remedy this?
Since you’re here, you can guess: Celebrating yourself.
When you celebrate yourself for the things you do get done, you’ll have more energy, motivation, and momentum allowing you to achieve your goals much faster (and easier).
When you reward yourself, you're building your self-accountability muscle helping you follow through easier and procrastinate less.
When you pause and acknowledge yourself, your confidence and self-worth grow.
The result? Feeling fulfilled and content.
How to reward yourself without spending a dime
One common misconception I hear is that people believe they must spend money on themselves in order to celebrate and reward themselves. They think of going to a spa, going out to a fancy dinner, going online shopping, or even going to a store.
What happens when you don’t have the extra funds or time in your budget to do those things? You feel like you can’t celebrate yourself.
While there's nothing wrong with spending money on yourself, it’s extremely important to me to make acknowledging yourself more accessible.
Here we go!
1. Pat yourself on the back
Literally. In the past when I’ve finished a small task, I will pat myself on the back, give myself a high five, or someone else who’s around me. (Usually my husband)
2. Be your own cheerleader
Stand up and celebrate, cheer, shimmy, dance, or do anything that feels really good to just give yourself that energy.
3. Verbalize it
You can verbally tell yourself, “good job,” “way to go!” “hell yeah, (insert your name)” out loud or in your head. You can say anything that feels good and celebratory.
4. Share it with someone (or yourself)
Text or call a loved one to share something that you are proud of yourself for doing. You can also just write it down on a piece of paper.
I used to use my paper planner as a have-done list, where instead of all the things I wanted to get done, I wrote down everything I did.
5. The beloved bath
Take a luxurious celebratory bubble bath, of course, if you have a bathtub. Think: How can I make this bath feel like a luxury spa treatment? Oils, candles, music, tech-free, flowers, herbs.
6. Pick yourself a wildflower bouquet
Go for a walk, pick flowers and bring a little flower wildflower bouquet home to yourself.
7. Soak in nature
Grab a blanket, lay outside, cloud watch, and enjoy the weather. If it’s not sunny, run around in the rain.
8. At-home spa day
Take inventory of the things you already have at home that would make a nice at-home spa day (also, see the beloved bath above). You could: Paint your nails, give yourself a facial, and if you have one willing, get a partner to give you a massage.
9. Look in a mirror
Check yourself out in a mirror and say something meaningful or silly: “You go!!!” or “Damn, I'm fine!”
10. Have fun in the kitchen
If you like baking or cooking… check your inventory and bake something that you’re in the mood for.
11. Pass it forward
Being of service is one of those things that feels really good to my soul while making a difference in my community. Volunteer or give back to an organization you care about.
12. Permission to be “lazy”
Give yourself some guilt-free trash TV Netflix, scrolling Insta/Tik Tok time, or a delicious nap. Taking time off might feel extra challenging, read more about why you feel guilty here.
Wondering which idea to pick, or didn’t find something for you?
You can come up with your own way to celebrate yourself because the ideas are truly endless.
Pause, tune out the noise, and ask yourself, “What would feel joyful, energized, and really good to my soul?”
That’s your answer!
Once you have an idea of what feels good to you, open a note on your phone or take out a post-it note at your desk and write them down to easily come back to.
Caution! It can be easy to fall into the trap of toxic productivity with your rewards.
A lot of time, people think, “I want to clean the house, I want to weed the garden, etc.” While those are amazing to get done… Does your inner self really want to do the dishes? Go outside and mulch? Maybe! So make sure to check in with yourself first.
When (and how to actually) celebrate yourself
Another common misconception is that you have to wait until the very end of your project. For example, if you're building a website, it took me months and months and months to build my website and I felt like I couldn't celebrate myself until the entire big website was launched and ready to go.
That's not true! You don't have to wait until the end of big projects. In fact, the more you celebrate the small milestones, the more motivated and energized you’ll be.
Celebrating yourself can be a daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, or intuitive practice.
In terms.of making sure I actually celebrate myself, I schedule time in my calendar. At the end of each day, I have an event to review what I did as well as at the end of each week to do a more thorough review.
So I’m curious: What frequency would feel appropriate to you? How might you make celebrating yourself a priority?
Let me know in the comments below!