September 16, 2025 • 34 mins
What if staying aligned with your goals didn't require doing more—but doing less on purpose?
In this solo episode, I walk you through exactly how I structure my days, weeks, and months so my time, energy, and money are all pulling in the same direction. I start with the nervous system piece—because if I'm wired for busyness, I'll sabotage white space—then share the practical scaffolding that keeps me focused on what truly moves the needle.
You'll discover:
- The "crowd it out" method — Put the most important things in first, then let everything else fill around them
- My non-negotiable guardrails — No Monday appointments, hard stop after 4 p.m., a real lunch, and no more than 2–3 Zooms per day
- Energy-saving batching strategies — Like stacking podcast recordings to eliminate context switching and preserve mental bandwidth
- The 80/20 rule in practice — Plus the 80/20 of that 20% for laser focus on what truly matters
- Boundary mastery — Why my default answer is "no" unless a request clearly serves my priorities
- Life-force energy as a success KPI — Tracking not just metrics, but how alive and energized you feel
- Seasonal business rhythms — Using my "Upward Cycle of Success" (emergence, visibility, culmination, fertile void) to build in natural ebb and flow instead of constant grind
- Annual planning that honors your whole life — Our family-first approach where personal "boulders" get calendar priority before business goals
If you're ready to create results with more ease and integrity, this episode is your step-by-step blueprint.
“There’s a difference between what we say we consciously want, and what our nervous system is wired for.” –Kate Northrup
🎤 Let’s Dive into the Good Stuff on Plenty 🎤
00:00 Introduction to Abundance and Prioritization
01:04 The Importance of Time and Energy Management
02:08 Dysregulation and Productivity
03:23 Aligning Actions with Priorities
05:30 Establishing Rules for Time Management
07:26 Batching for Efficiency
10:36 Limiting Meetings for Productivity
13:32 Setting Boundaries and No Policies
18:53 Annual Planning and Business Cycles
23:01 Maintaining Relationships
28:30 Planning Around Personal Life
31:08 Conclusion and Call to Action
Links and Resources:
Digital Do Less Planner
The Money Reset
Embodied Wealth Method
Boundary Boss by Terri Cole
🌿 Ready to create more by doing less?
In my book, Do Less: A Revolutionary Approach to Time and Energy Management for Ambitious Women, I guide you through the art of aligning your energy with what truly matters—so you can reach your goals without burning out.
This isn't just another time management book. It's about redefining success in a way that actually supports you and brings ease into your life. Do Less is packed with practical tools and insights to help you focus on what matters most, harness your natural cycles, and truly thrive.
Grab your copy and start creating the abundant, spacious, and deeply aligned life you deserve. 🌸✨
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kate Northrup (00:00):
If your nervous system is wired for, better stay
(00:03):
busy, otherwise I'm not going tobe loved, or I better stay busy,
otherwise I'm not going to besafe, then it's going to be at
odds with being able toprioritize what matters. Welcome
to Plenty. I'm your host KateNorthrup and together we are
going on a journey to help youhave an incredible relationship
(00:26):
with money, time, and energy,and to have abundance on every
possible level. Every week,we're gonna dive in with experts
and insights to help you unlocka life of hunting. Let's go fill
our cups.
So this question came in from myfriend Ashley, and the question
(00:48):
was, how do I structure my day,week, and month, and
essentially, how do I structuremy time to align with my
priorities and my financialgoals? And I love this question
because time and money are sointerrelated, and this is
something I think about a lot.Because my first book was called
(01:08):
Money, A Love Story, All AboutMoney, And my second book was
called Do Less, which is reallyabout time and energy
management. So this is somethingI have a system for. And my Do
Less Planner is really based onthis system, as is my program.
It's a self study program, Healthe Way You Work. So generally
(01:28):
speaking, my number one thingthat I do is I crowd things out.
So what do I mean by that?Rather than figure out how to
fit things in, I first put inthe most important things so
that everything else getscrowded out that doesn't matter.
(01:49):
Because you know, everyone'sheard of Eisenhower's matrix,
the important urgent, and thenthe not important not urgent,
And most people get stuckwasting their time in the
category of the importanturgent, but unfortunately also
the non important urgent,especially because we are so
(02:09):
often operating in fight orflight.
We are so often dysregulated inour workday and in our lives
that we're just stressed andrunning from this thing to the
next thing, or we're sooverwhelmed that we can't think
straight. And so we aredysregulated not only in our
relationship with money, we'realso dysregulated in
relationship with time, andwe're so conditioned to think
(02:32):
that the busier we are, the moreimportant we are, or the busier
we are, the more we're going toget done, or the busier we are,
the more worthy we are. And soproductivity has become this
holy grail, and a lot of it hasto do with our nervous system
patterning, quite frankly.Because if you have a nervous
(02:53):
system that is wired forconstant busyness, if you were
raised by a mother who wasalways running around and
couldn't sit down and put herfeet up, if you were raised by a
working mom, by parents who werereally driven for achievement
and productivity, and then ifthat was focused on you as a
(03:15):
child of like, you need to getstraight A's, you need to
achieve in x y z, we're proud ofyou because of your
achievements, we're proud of youbecause of how much you got
done.
We're proud of you because ofyour degrees. All of that leaves
a mark in your neuralprogramming. So know that any
time we're having a conversationaround scheduling and priorities
(03:39):
and financial goals, we're notonly talking about time. We are
also talking about our nervoussystem, and our subconscious and
unconscious wiring in terms ofwhat it tells us, and what it is
creating, the behavior that it'screating, that's not always
logical, and that's not alwaysactually in alignment with what
(03:59):
we consciously want. There's adifference between what we say
we consciously want, and whatour nervous system is wired for.
If your nervous system is wiredfor, I better stay busy,
otherwise I'm not going to beloved, or I better stay busy,
otherwise I'm not going to besafe, then it's going to be at
(04:22):
odds with being able toprioritize what matters. Because
the truth is for most of us,what actually moves the needle
is not very many things. Andwhen you get really good at
scheduling in what really movesthe needle, you end up with a
lot more free time. And when youend up with more free time, and
you have associated rest withthreat, your unconscious, your
(04:47):
subconscious will do anything itpossibly can to prevent you from
having white space in yourcalendar, because white space is
a threat. I remember this verywell.
When I was in my 20s, and I wasan anxious little nervous Nelly,
I would see white space on mycalendar, and I would freak out.
So I scheduled myself.Oftentimes I would have a
(05:08):
breakfast date, a lunch date, adinner date, I would have coffee
dates in between, I would havecalls scheduled up the wazoo,
and I would have it so that Iwould never be alone. Because
essentially, I was too afraid tobe alone in the quiet, because
it was so terrifying to be bymyself. I essentially, you know,
I just like had a lot of unfeltfeelings, and it felt too scary.
(05:29):
So I wanted to preface thisconversation with that. Because
the truth is the mechanics ofscheduling in alignment with
your priorities and yourfinancial goals is pretty
straightforward. But healing ournervous system so that it feels
safe to do less is somethingelse. The good news is if you're
following along with my moneywork with Relax Money or The
(05:51):
Money Reset or the EmbodiedWealth Method, any of the things
I offer there, the nervoussystem healing work will work
for your relationship with timeas well because our scarcity
programming shows up inrelationship to our money, in
relationship to our time, inrelationship with relationships,
in relationship to all sorts ofthings. So the nervous system
(06:11):
healing work works across theboard.
Okay, so how do I crowd thingsout? Number one is I have a few
rules, policies, And so they arethe following. Number one, I
don't take appointments onMondays. So Mondays are my
appointment free day, and thatis an easy way to always know
(06:33):
that one day a week I'm going tohave breathing room. I also do
my best to have an appointmentfree day on the day before I
travel, and on the day after Itravel, because that way I have
enough space for transition, forbeing with the kids, for
(06:54):
unpacking, which to be honest,I'm completely terrible at, for
just like reintegration, so forprep, and then reintegration.
So those are some of my rules. Ialso don't schedule anything
usually past four p. M. I knowthat I like to have that last
hour to take a walk, or go inthe sauna, or go home early to
(07:18):
be with the kids, so that lasthour of the day, I tend to not
schedule anything. I take alunch break, like an actual
lunch break, not eating at mydesk, like an actual pause
during the day, I'll either gooutside, I sit at the table in
our office with real silverware,often a real napkin, sometimes I
light a candle, sometimes Mikeand I have lunch together,
(07:40):
sometimes we go down to the clublevel of our building and he
grills and we eat outside, butlike having a proper lunch
break.
And then I love to batch things.So I have looked, I've done the
work to look at my work life,and I know what are the 20% of
things that get me 80% of theresults. And honestly, as you
(08:03):
refine things, I've been at thisfor fifteen years, so I have
enough data at this point toreally even be able to dial it
in further, so there's not onlythe 20% that gets me 80% of the
results, which for me iscreating content and connecting
with people. Those are my two.But now I can take those two
things and dial them in evenfurther.
(08:23):
So now I'm taking that original20% and looking at, okay, what's
the 80% of that 20%, and what'sthe 20 of that 20%? So what's
the 20% of connecting withpeople, and the 20% of content
creation that gets us 80% of theresults in terms of connecting
with people and contentcreation? So then I can look at,
(08:47):
okay, well what kinds of podcastepisodes, for example, do the
best with our audience? Whatkinds of connections are the
most important for me to pourinto, right? It's not just like
I'm not gonna have coffee justwith whoever I'm going to really
be paying attention to.
Does this connection make mefeel alive? Is this person
someone I really love spendingtime with? Is there an
(09:09):
opportunity here for greatercollaboration, right? I'm not
going to just say yes to anykind of connection. Now I know
that only certain kinds ofconnections make sense for me,
and only certain kinds ofcontent creation make sense for
me.
Because there's theeightytwenty, but then there's
(09:29):
the eightytwenty of your 20%.And then you could take it and
dial it down even further. Sonow that I know my 20% that
gives me 80% of the results, Ialso know that I want to make
sure those things go in thecalendar, and I like to batch
them in the following ways.Number one is I batch my
podcast. So currently we'rebatched like nine months in
(09:54):
advance with certain types ofcontent.
I've never been this prepared inmy life for anything. It's
amazing. It's almost like I'veprepared myself for like a year
off by accident. And that's thepower of batching, because on
these recording days I know thatI'm in podcasting mode. I am in
the mode of on camera, I do mymakeup once, I do my hair once,
(10:16):
I have the outfits in my office,and I just get it done, boom
boom boom boom boom.
I have my videographer here, andwe do a whole bunch of them,
whether they're guests, whetherthey're solo episodes, whether
they're some combination ofthose two, so that I'm not
bopping back and forth whereit's like, now I'm in a team
meeting, now I'm writing anewsletter, episode. Now I'm
(10:39):
making art with my daughter. NowI'm Because context switching
wastes a ton of energy, and Ilove to just batch in a whole
day. This is my whole focus, andthen I'm done for months in
advance. That can really, reallyhelp.
So I schedule out. I don't workon Mondays. I really don't take
appointments until like ten a.M. In the morning.
(11:01):
I don't take appointments afterfour p. M. Then on any given
day, I try to limit my number ofany kind of meeting, any kind of
Zoom to two, maybe three. If I'mon more than three Zooms in a
day, my eyes start to cross, andI don't actually get enough time
to make headway on mypriorities. I know my priorities
(11:25):
because I've done theeightytwenty analysis, I know
what moves the needle in mybusiness, every time we do a
launch, we do a launch debrief,and we know like what brought in
the most leads, which kind ofleads converted the best, which
of our affiliates made the mostsales, like we have which kind
of content brought in the most.
(11:46):
So we have all the data to beable to know, okay, this works,
let's do more of that, becausethere is no need, and I learned
this the hard way, I did anepisode about it recently called
something like Simplify toAmplify, or this, I don't
remember what it was called, butit was about our journey to
nearly 3,000,000 whileincreasing our profits. And I
(12:08):
talked about in that episode,which was a talk I did at our
Relax Money Live event, I talkedabout the years I spent being
addicted to starting new thingsall the time. I had not built
the somatic body, I hadn't builtthe nervous system capacity for
the level of steadiness that wecurrently have in our business.
I required a certain amount ofstress and pressure to feel the
(12:32):
kind of adrenaline that I neededto feel alive, and what felt
safe to me was constantlyreinventing the wheel and having
a certain amount of busynessrequired. Now we do a lot of
rinsing and repeating.
So our most recent promotion,while it certainly required an
(12:53):
intensity of presence, and anintensity of the number of
people we were serving. It didnot require an intensity of
reinventing an offer, rewritingevery single email, reinventing
every single bonus, like havingeverything brand new. We pretty
(13:14):
much knew we've done thisbefore, this is our fifth time,
so now we're in a mode ofrefinement. And that I really
recommend is getting to a placewhere you're in a mode of
refinement and you can have thedata about what works at any
given time, so that when you'relooking at your priorities and
(13:34):
you're looking at your financialgoals, you can actually know,
okay, this worked, this didn'twork, I'm going to double down
over here, I'm going to not dothis over here, because I'm
tracking the metrics and I'mtracking the data to know that
was true. And in addition totracking the actual data, I also
recommend tracking your own lifeforce energy, because if you're
(13:56):
doing something and it's quoteunquote working on paper, like
bringing in traffic or bringingin customers, bringing in sales,
that is wonderful, however, itis draining your life force.
So no amount of money orexternal visible results is ever
going to be worth the cost ofyour depletion. So also be
(14:17):
looking at, okay, what feelsgood to me? What is energizing
to me? So I will not be on morethan three Zoom calls a day
because it depletes my lifeforce no matter how many great
opportunities there are. We justcan't do all the things, and
that is okay.
(14:39):
I have to know that I'm gonnahave to say no more than I say
yes, and I have no policies. Ifyou want to see what my no
policies are, they'll be belowin the show notes, but you can
also just do a quick Google KateNorthrop no policies, they're
published right on my blog. Somy no policies are guardrails
because I am a very enthusiasticEnneagram seven. The Enneagram
(15:04):
seven is in fact the enthusiast,and I want to say yes to
everything. Nearly everythingsounds exciting to me.
So it's hard for me to determinewhat is and is not good for me,
because I can see possibilitieseverywhere. I'm also a
manifesting generator. And so Ijust I have a lot of energy. I
have a lot of energy to do a lotof things. So I created my no
(15:27):
policies based on years ofexperience, having said yes to
things that I ended upregretting.
That while I was doing them orafter I was doing them, I
thought, you know, in the end,that was more trouble than it
was worth, or that was not fun,or that was really draining, or
(15:47):
I felt annoyed before, during,or after it. So then I created
my no policies. Those help me asguardrails to protect my time,
and honestly, to protect myselffrom myself. Because left to my
own devices, I still say yes totoo many things. We have a
couple of layers to help me fromdoing that.
(16:09):
Number one, every request of mytime has to go through
katenorthrup.com/requests. Sowhen somebody asks me for a
podcast interview, to do asummit, to do any kind of
interview type things, they haveto go to
katenorthrup.com/requests. Thereare a series of questions that
(16:29):
they need to fill out, and theygive me and my team all the
information we need in order todetermine if it's a fit or not
for our goals. That also reallyhelps me, because once a week I
go look at the spreadsheet ofthe requests all at the same
time when I'm in the mindset of,okay, a yes to anything means a
(16:53):
no to something else. So thisrequest of my time better be a
match for my priorities.
And so I think about, okay, ifit's a podcast interview, do
they have an audience that isfull of my ideal customer?
Because as much as I'd love togo talk to like a bunch of auto
(17:15):
mechanics in Cincinnati, doesn'tmean I couldn't help them, but
they're not my ideal customer,right? It wouldn't make any
sense for me. So I'm going to bea no for that versus something
where it's like, oh, I have anaudience in the room of 500
female entrepreneurs, then I'mlike, great, all day long, let
me go over there, those are mypeople. So that is very helpful
(17:38):
to batch the requests, so I'mdoing the accepting and denying
all at once.
And then one more layer is Ialready have a series of things
that I tell my team to say no tobefore it's even ended up on the
spreadsheet. And so they justknow that I'm always a no to a
(17:59):
certain kind of thing, and thenthey just know they can say no
on my behalf, and then becauseI'm just typing no in a
spreadsheet or I'm typing pass,it actually really helps me to
say no because I wish thisweren't true about myself, but I
still don't like saying no. Andso if I was in personal
communication with the personover email asking me, I would
(18:22):
unfortunately be more likely tosay yes, because there's still a
part of me that wants to dosomething for them, and I love
that part of me. She's sweet,but she needs to take a back
seat. And so instead, I've setit up so I'm writing pass on a
spreadsheet, and then my teammember is doing the accepting or
the declining on my behalf, andthen she's also scheduling it.
(18:44):
The other thing that I do that'sreally helpful is I used to just
do podcast interviews ad hoc,like the virtual ones. So it
would be like, oh, now I have apodcast interview on Tuesday,
and then I have another one onThursday, and then also next
Wednesday. And they were likekind of all over the place. So
then I switched it to, okay, I'monly doing podcasts on Wednesday
(19:05):
afternoons, but honestly Ididn't even like that, so here's
what I do now. I have two weeksa year where I do my best to get
as many podcast interviewrequests that come in scheduled,
all at the same time.
We do one in the run up to myRelax Money launch, so it also
(19:27):
has a side benefit of creatingthe illusion that I'm
everywhere, because I've had allthese podcast requests, and then
I record them all in this oneweek, and then I request that
they be released in this twoweek period when we're promoting
our free event every year, andthen all of a sudden there's all
these podcast episodes featuringme, and people are like, wow,
(19:49):
you're everywhere, and I'm like,well not really, it just was a
timing thing. And then I do asecond week in the fall, and
that way, again, contextswitching, I'm not trying to
write my book, and thenswitching to a podcast
interview, and then going backto answer emails from my team.
I'm not all over the place. Thatweek I'm just doing virtual
(20:11):
podcast interviews, and I'm notscheduling anything else. And
that also really helps.
The other thing we do is we doone big live launch a year. So
I'm not doing promotions all thetime. We do one big enrollment
period a year, which meansduring the month of April I am
all in on my signature program,enrolling as many people as are
(20:36):
ready to be served, and thencome May, I am all in on serving
them for the thirteen weeks thatI teach the live content. So I'm
a sprinter. If you saw mythighs, you would see I am built
for sprinting.
So we sprint for the enrollmentin April, and then I deliver the
program from May to August, andthen I do one live coaching call
(20:58):
a month until the end of thatyear long program. So that
cadence for me really worksbecause I know I can give it my
all for a month, but when weused to launch this program two
times a year, it was actuallytoo much for my system, and it
was too much for our team, and Icouldn't give it my all in the
(21:18):
way that I would have wanted to,and we just did our biggest
enrollment ever. We absolutely,as a team, we left it all on the
field or left it all on thedance floor, depending on your
preferred metaphor. I think youknow which preferred metaphor I
would do. And that was reallyprofound.
(21:38):
So coming back to kind of morestructure here, blocking out
times that I'm unavailable, andthen batching things that I am
available for has really helpedme to protect my time. The
biggest threat to yourpriorities and your financial
goals is not you. It's people'srequests of your time and you
(22:00):
saying yes to things that arenot the highest and best use of
you. So we really have to getgood at saying no. And I'm not
the best at it, I'll be honest,but I'm getting better all the
time.
And one tip I have for you iswhen a request comes in to make
your default that it's a no. Andthen if your default is a no,
(22:26):
you can play with saying noinside yourself, and then seeing
if you're disappointed. I dothat. Because if I say it's a no
automatically, if I'm like,everything is a no
automatically, then I'll knowimmediately if inside myself I'm
like, aw, but I really want todo it, you know, I really want
(22:46):
to do it. And I also know whatmoves the needle in my business
because I have the historicaldata and I pay attention to it,
and I also know what makes mecome alive.
And the thing is, this is notabout perfection, this is about
evolution, so something I wouldhave said yes to five years ago,
I'm not gonna say yes to it now,right? But it didn't mean it was
(23:08):
wrong then, it just means weevolve, our priorities shift.
You know, I'm also a mom. Myrelationship with my kids is a
priority. My relationship withmy husband is a priority.
We do a date night every singleweek. My kids don't like it that
we go out. I don't care. Right?Like, I'm every time they
complain about date night, I'mjust like, girls, my
(23:30):
relationship with your fatherreally matters.
I'm sorry you don't like it. Iwill see you in the morning. The
end. And I don't mean to be, youknow, I'm like, I miss you too
when I go out, but our marriageis really important. And so
there will be friction, therewill be people who don't like
what you decide, there will bepeople who are disappointed by
(23:52):
your no, there will be peoplewho are ruthless about trying to
get you to change your mind, andyou just have to have really
good mother effing boundaries.
And my friend Terry Cole wrote awonderful book called Boundary
Boss, so if you struggle in thisdepartment, I would definitely
recommend reading Boundary Boss.I also really love the book
called Drop the Ball by TiffanyDufu, which is another fantastic
(24:14):
book about not needing to do itall, and setting boundaries in
certain ways around your chosenlife. I will also say that I
have seasons for things. Know,those of you who've read, if
you've read my book Do Less, ifyou ever worked with the Do Less
Planner, or were part of theOrigin membership or have taken
(24:34):
my program Heal the Way YouWork, you know I love to look at
times seasonally and cyclically.So there are times like this big
enrollment period we just didfor Relax Money, there are
seasons of go, go, go, go, go.
Like it was April was freakingintense. It was a lot. I would
(24:55):
never be able to keep up thatpace for the entire year, but I
know I can go all in becauseit's seasonal. Over the summer,
we do very little in ourbusiness, because it's
summertime. I want to be with mykids.
They're not in school. I want tomake memories. I want to go
swimming in the lake. I want togo get ice cream in the middle
of the day. You know, like Iwant to do those things.
(25:17):
I want to catch fireflies. Andso not that I would be doing
that in the middle of the workday anyway, but regardless,
that's what matters to me. Sosummertime is really chill for
us. I really go super light,really basically from
Thanksgiving all the way throughthe beginning or the January is
(25:37):
a very light time for us,because I also know I want my
focus to be on making magic atthe holidays. I want my focus to
be on creating beauty andcreating connection, and I also
know in that wintertime energy,I don't feel like doing a lot.
I feel like resting. So I dolook at my calendar that way in
terms of what are the seasons inour business where I'm gonna be
(26:00):
in go mode, and then what arethe seasons in my business where
I'm gonna be more in rest modeor more harvest mode or more in
a culmination phase. So I havethese four phases, I call it the
upward cycle of success, and thefour phases kind of in work are
emergence, which is when you'regetting a project going, you're
(26:21):
planning, you're initiating,it's like springtime energy,
it's like the follicular phaseof the menstrual cycle, and it's
like the waxing moon. Thenthere's visibility, and this is
for any project or any season inyour business. So visibility is
when you are in sort of highsummer energy.
It is the same as the full moon.It's the same as ovulation. It
(26:45):
is really when you are outthere, like being visible. So
when we were in the launch forRelax Money, we were in
visibility mode, right. We had45,000 people taking this
workshop.
We had 160 affiliates. I was ona million podcasts. It was just
like a very high visibilitytime. And then after visibility,
there's culmination. So rightnow in our company, we're in a
(27:08):
culmination time.
We're dotting I's, we'recrossing T's, we're caring for
our members, we're making surethey have everything we need,
we're tying up all these looseends after the launch, we're
looking at our metrics and ourlaunch debrief, and all of those
things. So that's more of aculmination phase, and that's
like Autumn energy, waning moonenergy, and the luteal phase.
(27:30):
And then there's the fertilevoid, and the fertile void is
like the wintertime, it's likethe dark of the moon, it's the
menstrual phase of yourmenstrual cycle. Anyway, so the
winter energy is more of thepause. Now in terms of business,
we obviously, we take time offduring the year.
We'll take several weeks offduring the summer. We take a
couple weeks off over theholidays. We always take spring
(27:52):
break off with the kids. Sothere's times we take real time
off, however, in an overallcompany structure, because we
have an online business, it'stechnically open 20 fourseven,
right? Like we can be makingsales all day every day.
We can be serving people all dayevery day, right, because people
are taking our programs, they'relistening to replays, they're
(28:14):
doing their thing. And so wedon't go full stop ever in terms
of the digital nature of ourcompany, but a winter season or
a fertile void season for us iswhen it's just kind of like
business as usual, and we'rejust coasting. So we're putting
out the podcast every week,we're putting out my weekly
notes of plenty, We are doingbusiness as usual. We're not
(28:39):
really ramping up for anything.We're not ramping down.
It's more of just a coastingenergy. So what's so critical is
to build in those four phases.It doesn't mean that the timing
of it is going to be that likeactual springtime will be all
emergence energy, actualsummertime. That's not what I
(28:59):
mean, please don't take it soliterally. What I mean is when
you know that you're going tohave a full on season in your
business, schedule accordinglyto then have some off time, and
have these ebbs and flows sothat you're considering all four
of the different kinds of energysignatures that are required to
(29:20):
fulfill the act of creation inyour business.
And then finally I will say thatMike and I do annual planning,
we use Jesse Itzler's big asscalendar, I love his calendar,
he's married to Sarah Blakely,and it allows you to see your
entire year all at once, andMike and I plan using that. We
(29:41):
do an annual planning getaway,we also plan separately for our
company, so we know kind of whatpromotions are gonna be
happening at any given time, butfor the annual planning for our
family and for our personallife, what really helps is to
put in the boulders ahead oftime, like weddings, school
(30:01):
vacations, big family holidays,big family birthdays. We put
those things in first, and thenwe build our business schedule
around it. Ultimately, we builta business so that we could be
as present with our family aspossible. We are living in the
sweetest years.
Our littlest is seven. Our biggirl is gonna be 10 in
(30:24):
September. I am so, so awarethat it is not going to be long
before they don't want to spendas much time with us. And I'm
going to feel sad about that,even though it will mean more
freedom. And so I'm so awarethat like this is it.
This is our season of parenthoodthat is the sweetest, and it is
(30:45):
waning in certain ways, and so Idon't want to miss it. And so I
built, like I started mybusiness in my 20s for this. So
having those big rocks or thoseboulders put in our calendar so
that we can plan our businessaround our personal life, not
the other way around, makes anabsolute huge difference, and it
(31:08):
also means we don't miss any ofthe moments that we did this
whole thing for in the firstplace. Hopefully that helps you
out with your concepts ofplanning and productivity and
healing your relationship withtime. I'm so glad you asked this
question, Ashley.
Enjoy and let me know how itgoes putting it into action. If
you're ready to revolutionizethe way you work as an ambitious
(31:31):
human, you have to get my book,Do Less, A Revolutionary
Approach to Time and EnergyManagement for Ambitious Women.
This book is my love letter torecovering overachievers, and it
is an evidence based journey toshifting the way you relate to
time and energy so you canexperience better results with
(31:54):
less stress, less overwhelm, andavoid burnout. You can go ahead
and get your copy over atkatenorthrop.com/book.
If your nervous system is wired for, better stay
(00:03):
busy, otherwise I'm not going tobe loved, or I better stay busy,
otherwise I'm not going to besafe, then it's going to be at
odds with being able toprioritize what matters. Welcome
to Plenty. I'm your host KateNorthrup and together we are
going on a journey to help youhave an incredible relationship
(00:26):
with money, time, and energy,and to have abundance on every
possible level. Every week,we're gonna dive in with experts
and insights to help you unlocka life of hunting. Let's go fill
our cups.
So this question came in from myfriend Ashley, and the question
(00:48):
was, how do I structure my day,week, and month, and
essentially, how do I structuremy time to align with my
priorities and my financialgoals? And I love this question
because time and money are sointerrelated, and this is
something I think about a lot.Because my first book was called
(01:08):
Money, A Love Story, All AboutMoney, And my second book was
called Do Less, which is reallyabout time and energy
management. So this is somethingI have a system for. And my Do
Less Planner is really based onthis system, as is my program.
It's a self study program, Healthe Way You Work. So generally
(01:28):
speaking, my number one thingthat I do is I crowd things out.
So what do I mean by that?Rather than figure out how to
fit things in, I first put inthe most important things so
that everything else getscrowded out that doesn't matter.
(01:49):
Because you know, everyone'sheard of Eisenhower's matrix,
the important urgent, and thenthe not important not urgent,
And most people get stuckwasting their time in the
category of the importanturgent, but unfortunately also
the non important urgent,especially because we are so
(02:09):
often operating in fight orflight.
We are so often dysregulated inour workday and in our lives
that we're just stressed andrunning from this thing to the
next thing, or we're sooverwhelmed that we can't think
straight. And so we aredysregulated not only in our
relationship with money, we'realso dysregulated in
relationship with time, andwe're so conditioned to think
(02:32):
that the busier we are, the moreimportant we are, or the busier
we are, the more we're going toget done, or the busier we are,
the more worthy we are. And soproductivity has become this
holy grail, and a lot of it hasto do with our nervous system
patterning, quite frankly.Because if you have a nervous
(02:53):
system that is wired forconstant busyness, if you were
raised by a mother who wasalways running around and
couldn't sit down and put herfeet up, if you were raised by a
working mom, by parents who werereally driven for achievement
and productivity, and then ifthat was focused on you as a
(03:15):
child of like, you need to getstraight A's, you need to
achieve in x y z, we're proud ofyou because of your
achievements, we're proud of youbecause of how much you got
done.
We're proud of you because ofyour degrees. All of that leaves
a mark in your neuralprogramming. So know that any
time we're having a conversationaround scheduling and priorities
(03:39):
and financial goals, we're notonly talking about time. We are
also talking about our nervoussystem, and our subconscious and
unconscious wiring in terms ofwhat it tells us, and what it is
creating, the behavior that it'screating, that's not always
logical, and that's not alwaysactually in alignment with what
(03:59):
we consciously want. There's adifference between what we say
we consciously want, and whatour nervous system is wired for.
If your nervous system is wiredfor, I better stay busy,
otherwise I'm not going to beloved, or I better stay busy,
otherwise I'm not going to besafe, then it's going to be at
(04:22):
odds with being able toprioritize what matters. Because
the truth is for most of us,what actually moves the needle
is not very many things. Andwhen you get really good at
scheduling in what really movesthe needle, you end up with a
lot more free time. And when youend up with more free time, and
you have associated rest withthreat, your unconscious, your
(04:47):
subconscious will do anything itpossibly can to prevent you from
having white space in yourcalendar, because white space is
a threat. I remember this verywell.
When I was in my 20s, and I wasan anxious little nervous Nelly,
I would see white space on mycalendar, and I would freak out.
So I scheduled myself.Oftentimes I would have a
(05:08):
breakfast date, a lunch date, adinner date, I would have coffee
dates in between, I would havecalls scheduled up the wazoo,
and I would have it so that Iwould never be alone. Because
essentially, I was too afraid tobe alone in the quiet, because
it was so terrifying to be bymyself. I essentially, you know,
I just like had a lot of unfeltfeelings, and it felt too scary.
(05:29):
So I wanted to preface thisconversation with that. Because
the truth is the mechanics ofscheduling in alignment with
your priorities and yourfinancial goals is pretty
straightforward. But healing ournervous system so that it feels
safe to do less is somethingelse. The good news is if you're
following along with my moneywork with Relax Money or The
(05:51):
Money Reset or the EmbodiedWealth Method, any of the things
I offer there, the nervoussystem healing work will work
for your relationship with timeas well because our scarcity
programming shows up inrelationship to our money, in
relationship to our time, inrelationship with relationships,
in relationship to all sorts ofthings. So the nervous system
(06:11):
healing work works across theboard.
Okay, so how do I crowd thingsout? Number one is I have a few
rules, policies, And so they arethe following. Number one, I
don't take appointments onMondays. So Mondays are my
appointment free day, and thatis an easy way to always know
(06:33):
that one day a week I'm going tohave breathing room. I also do
my best to have an appointmentfree day on the day before I
travel, and on the day after Itravel, because that way I have
enough space for transition, forbeing with the kids, for
(06:54):
unpacking, which to be honest,I'm completely terrible at, for
just like reintegration, so forprep, and then reintegration.
So those are some of my rules. Ialso don't schedule anything
usually past four p. M. I knowthat I like to have that last
hour to take a walk, or go inthe sauna, or go home early to
(07:18):
be with the kids, so that lasthour of the day, I tend to not
schedule anything. I take alunch break, like an actual
lunch break, not eating at mydesk, like an actual pause
during the day, I'll either gooutside, I sit at the table in
our office with real silverware,often a real napkin, sometimes I
light a candle, sometimes Mikeand I have lunch together,
(07:40):
sometimes we go down to the clublevel of our building and he
grills and we eat outside, butlike having a proper lunch
break.
And then I love to batch things.So I have looked, I've done the
work to look at my work life,and I know what are the 20% of
things that get me 80% of theresults. And honestly, as you
(08:03):
refine things, I've been at thisfor fifteen years, so I have
enough data at this point toreally even be able to dial it
in further, so there's not onlythe 20% that gets me 80% of the
results, which for me iscreating content and connecting
with people. Those are my two.But now I can take those two
things and dial them in evenfurther.
(08:23):
So now I'm taking that original20% and looking at, okay, what's
the 80% of that 20%, and what'sthe 20 of that 20%? So what's
the 20% of connecting withpeople, and the 20% of content
creation that gets us 80% of theresults in terms of connecting
with people and contentcreation? So then I can look at,
(08:47):
okay, well what kinds of podcastepisodes, for example, do the
best with our audience? Whatkinds of connections are the
most important for me to pourinto, right? It's not just like
I'm not gonna have coffee justwith whoever I'm going to really
be paying attention to.
Does this connection make mefeel alive? Is this person
someone I really love spendingtime with? Is there an
(09:09):
opportunity here for greatercollaboration, right? I'm not
going to just say yes to anykind of connection. Now I know
that only certain kinds ofconnections make sense for me,
and only certain kinds ofcontent creation make sense for
me.
Because there's theeightytwenty, but then there's
(09:29):
the eightytwenty of your 20%.And then you could take it and
dial it down even further. Sonow that I know my 20% that
gives me 80% of the results, Ialso know that I want to make
sure those things go in thecalendar, and I like to batch
them in the following ways.Number one is I batch my
podcast. So currently we'rebatched like nine months in
(09:54):
advance with certain types ofcontent.
I've never been this prepared inmy life for anything. It's
amazing. It's almost like I'veprepared myself for like a year
off by accident. And that's thepower of batching, because on
these recording days I know thatI'm in podcasting mode. I am in
the mode of on camera, I do mymakeup once, I do my hair once,
(10:16):
I have the outfits in my office,and I just get it done, boom
boom boom boom boom.
I have my videographer here, andwe do a whole bunch of them,
whether they're guests, whetherthey're solo episodes, whether
they're some combination ofthose two, so that I'm not
bopping back and forth whereit's like, now I'm in a team
meeting, now I'm writing anewsletter, episode. Now I'm
(10:39):
making art with my daughter. NowI'm Because context switching
wastes a ton of energy, and Ilove to just batch in a whole
day. This is my whole focus, andthen I'm done for months in
advance. That can really, reallyhelp.
So I schedule out. I don't workon Mondays. I really don't take
appointments until like ten a.M. In the morning.
(11:01):
I don't take appointments afterfour p. M. Then on any given
day, I try to limit my number ofany kind of meeting, any kind of
Zoom to two, maybe three. If I'mon more than three Zooms in a
day, my eyes start to cross, andI don't actually get enough time
to make headway on mypriorities. I know my priorities
(11:25):
because I've done theeightytwenty analysis, I know
what moves the needle in mybusiness, every time we do a
launch, we do a launch debrief,and we know like what brought in
the most leads, which kind ofleads converted the best, which
of our affiliates made the mostsales, like we have which kind
of content brought in the most.
(11:46):
So we have all the data to beable to know, okay, this works,
let's do more of that, becausethere is no need, and I learned
this the hard way, I did anepisode about it recently called
something like Simplify toAmplify, or this, I don't
remember what it was called, butit was about our journey to
nearly 3,000,000 whileincreasing our profits. And I
(12:08):
talked about in that episode,which was a talk I did at our
Relax Money Live event, I talkedabout the years I spent being
addicted to starting new thingsall the time. I had not built
the somatic body, I hadn't builtthe nervous system capacity for
the level of steadiness that wecurrently have in our business.
I required a certain amount ofstress and pressure to feel the
(12:32):
kind of adrenaline that I neededto feel alive, and what felt
safe to me was constantlyreinventing the wheel and having
a certain amount of busynessrequired. Now we do a lot of
rinsing and repeating.
So our most recent promotion,while it certainly required an
(12:53):
intensity of presence, and anintensity of the number of
people we were serving. It didnot require an intensity of
reinventing an offer, rewritingevery single email, reinventing
every single bonus, like havingeverything brand new. We pretty
(13:14):
much knew we've done thisbefore, this is our fifth time,
so now we're in a mode ofrefinement. And that I really
recommend is getting to a placewhere you're in a mode of
refinement and you can have thedata about what works at any
given time, so that when you'relooking at your priorities and
(13:34):
you're looking at your financialgoals, you can actually know,
okay, this worked, this didn'twork, I'm going to double down
over here, I'm going to not dothis over here, because I'm
tracking the metrics and I'mtracking the data to know that
was true. And in addition totracking the actual data, I also
recommend tracking your own lifeforce energy, because if you're
(13:56):
doing something and it's quoteunquote working on paper, like
bringing in traffic or bringingin customers, bringing in sales,
that is wonderful, however, itis draining your life force.
So no amount of money orexternal visible results is ever
going to be worth the cost ofyour depletion. So also be
(14:17):
looking at, okay, what feelsgood to me? What is energizing
to me? So I will not be on morethan three Zoom calls a day
because it depletes my lifeforce no matter how many great
opportunities there are. We justcan't do all the things, and
that is okay.
(14:39):
I have to know that I'm gonnahave to say no more than I say
yes, and I have no policies. Ifyou want to see what my no
policies are, they'll be belowin the show notes, but you can
also just do a quick Google KateNorthrop no policies, they're
published right on my blog. Somy no policies are guardrails
because I am a very enthusiasticEnneagram seven. The Enneagram
(15:04):
seven is in fact the enthusiast,and I want to say yes to
everything. Nearly everythingsounds exciting to me.
So it's hard for me to determinewhat is and is not good for me,
because I can see possibilitieseverywhere. I'm also a
manifesting generator. And so Ijust I have a lot of energy. I
have a lot of energy to do a lotof things. So I created my no
(15:27):
policies based on years ofexperience, having said yes to
things that I ended upregretting.
That while I was doing them orafter I was doing them, I
thought, you know, in the end,that was more trouble than it
was worth, or that was not fun,or that was really draining, or
(15:47):
I felt annoyed before, during,or after it. So then I created
my no policies. Those help me asguardrails to protect my time,
and honestly, to protect myselffrom myself. Because left to my
own devices, I still say yes totoo many things. We have a
couple of layers to help me fromdoing that.
(16:09):
Number one, every request of mytime has to go through
katenorthrup.com/requests. Sowhen somebody asks me for a
podcast interview, to do asummit, to do any kind of
interview type things, they haveto go to
katenorthrup.com/requests. Thereare a series of questions that
(16:29):
they need to fill out, and theygive me and my team all the
information we need in order todetermine if it's a fit or not
for our goals. That also reallyhelps me, because once a week I
go look at the spreadsheet ofthe requests all at the same
time when I'm in the mindset of,okay, a yes to anything means a
(16:53):
no to something else. So thisrequest of my time better be a
match for my priorities.
And so I think about, okay, ifit's a podcast interview, do
they have an audience that isfull of my ideal customer?
Because as much as I'd love togo talk to like a bunch of auto
(17:15):
mechanics in Cincinnati, doesn'tmean I couldn't help them, but
they're not my ideal customer,right? It wouldn't make any
sense for me. So I'm going to bea no for that versus something
where it's like, oh, I have anaudience in the room of 500
female entrepreneurs, then I'mlike, great, all day long, let
me go over there, those are mypeople. So that is very helpful
(17:38):
to batch the requests, so I'mdoing the accepting and denying
all at once.
And then one more layer is Ialready have a series of things
that I tell my team to say no tobefore it's even ended up on the
spreadsheet. And so they justknow that I'm always a no to a
(17:59):
certain kind of thing, and thenthey just know they can say no
on my behalf, and then becauseI'm just typing no in a
spreadsheet or I'm typing pass,it actually really helps me to
say no because I wish thisweren't true about myself, but I
still don't like saying no. Andso if I was in personal
communication with the personover email asking me, I would
(18:22):
unfortunately be more likely tosay yes, because there's still a
part of me that wants to dosomething for them, and I love
that part of me. She's sweet,but she needs to take a back
seat. And so instead, I've setit up so I'm writing pass on a
spreadsheet, and then my teammember is doing the accepting or
the declining on my behalf, andthen she's also scheduling it.
(18:44):
The other thing that I do that'sreally helpful is I used to just
do podcast interviews ad hoc,like the virtual ones. So it
would be like, oh, now I have apodcast interview on Tuesday,
and then I have another one onThursday, and then also next
Wednesday. And they were likekind of all over the place. So
then I switched it to, okay, I'monly doing podcasts on Wednesday
(19:05):
afternoons, but honestly Ididn't even like that, so here's
what I do now. I have two weeksa year where I do my best to get
as many podcast interviewrequests that come in scheduled,
all at the same time.
We do one in the run up to myRelax Money launch, so it also
(19:27):
has a side benefit of creatingthe illusion that I'm
everywhere, because I've had allthese podcast requests, and then
I record them all in this oneweek, and then I request that
they be released in this twoweek period when we're promoting
our free event every year, andthen all of a sudden there's all
these podcast episodes featuringme, and people are like, wow,
(19:49):
you're everywhere, and I'm like,well not really, it just was a
timing thing. And then I do asecond week in the fall, and
that way, again, contextswitching, I'm not trying to
write my book, and thenswitching to a podcast
interview, and then going backto answer emails from my team.
I'm not all over the place. Thatweek I'm just doing virtual
(20:11):
podcast interviews, and I'm notscheduling anything else. And
that also really helps.
The other thing we do is we doone big live launch a year. So
I'm not doing promotions all thetime. We do one big enrollment
period a year, which meansduring the month of April I am
all in on my signature program,enrolling as many people as are
(20:36):
ready to be served, and thencome May, I am all in on serving
them for the thirteen weeks thatI teach the live content. So I'm
a sprinter. If you saw mythighs, you would see I am built
for sprinting.
So we sprint for the enrollmentin April, and then I deliver the
program from May to August, andthen I do one live coaching call
(20:58):
a month until the end of thatyear long program. So that
cadence for me really worksbecause I know I can give it my
all for a month, but when weused to launch this program two
times a year, it was actuallytoo much for my system, and it
was too much for our team, and Icouldn't give it my all in the
(21:18):
way that I would have wanted to,and we just did our biggest
enrollment ever. We absolutely,as a team, we left it all on the
field or left it all on thedance floor, depending on your
preferred metaphor. I think youknow which preferred metaphor I
would do. And that was reallyprofound.
(21:38):
So coming back to kind of morestructure here, blocking out
times that I'm unavailable, andthen batching things that I am
available for has really helpedme to protect my time. The
biggest threat to yourpriorities and your financial
goals is not you. It's people'srequests of your time and you
(22:00):
saying yes to things that arenot the highest and best use of
you. So we really have to getgood at saying no. And I'm not
the best at it, I'll be honest,but I'm getting better all the
time.
And one tip I have for you iswhen a request comes in to make
your default that it's a no. Andthen if your default is a no,
(22:26):
you can play with saying noinside yourself, and then seeing
if you're disappointed. I dothat. Because if I say it's a no
automatically, if I'm like,everything is a no
automatically, then I'll knowimmediately if inside myself I'm
like, aw, but I really want todo it, you know, I really want
(22:46):
to do it. And I also know whatmoves the needle in my business
because I have the historicaldata and I pay attention to it,
and I also know what makes mecome alive.
And the thing is, this is notabout perfection, this is about
evolution, so something I wouldhave said yes to five years ago,
I'm not gonna say yes to it now,right? But it didn't mean it was
(23:08):
wrong then, it just means weevolve, our priorities shift.
You know, I'm also a mom. Myrelationship with my kids is a
priority. My relationship withmy husband is a priority.
We do a date night every singleweek. My kids don't like it that
we go out. I don't care. Right?Like, I'm every time they
complain about date night, I'mjust like, girls, my
(23:30):
relationship with your fatherreally matters.
I'm sorry you don't like it. Iwill see you in the morning. The
end. And I don't mean to be, youknow, I'm like, I miss you too
when I go out, but our marriageis really important. And so
there will be friction, therewill be people who don't like
what you decide, there will bepeople who are disappointed by
(23:52):
your no, there will be peoplewho are ruthless about trying to
get you to change your mind, andyou just have to have really
good mother effing boundaries.
And my friend Terry Cole wrote awonderful book called Boundary
Boss, so if you struggle in thisdepartment, I would definitely
recommend reading Boundary Boss.I also really love the book
called Drop the Ball by TiffanyDufu, which is another fantastic
(24:14):
book about not needing to do itall, and setting boundaries in
certain ways around your chosenlife. I will also say that I
have seasons for things. Know,those of you who've read, if
you've read my book Do Less, ifyou ever worked with the Do Less
Planner, or were part of theOrigin membership or have taken
(24:34):
my program Heal the Way YouWork, you know I love to look at
times seasonally and cyclically.So there are times like this big
enrollment period we just didfor Relax Money, there are
seasons of go, go, go, go, go.
Like it was April was freakingintense. It was a lot. I would
(24:55):
never be able to keep up thatpace for the entire year, but I
know I can go all in becauseit's seasonal. Over the summer,
we do very little in ourbusiness, because it's
summertime. I want to be with mykids.
They're not in school. I want tomake memories. I want to go
swimming in the lake. I want togo get ice cream in the middle
of the day. You know, like Iwant to do those things.
(25:17):
I want to catch fireflies. Andso not that I would be doing
that in the middle of the workday anyway, but regardless,
that's what matters to me. Sosummertime is really chill for
us. I really go super light,really basically from
Thanksgiving all the way throughthe beginning or the January is
(25:37):
a very light time for us,because I also know I want my
focus to be on making magic atthe holidays. I want my focus to
be on creating beauty andcreating connection, and I also
know in that wintertime energy,I don't feel like doing a lot.
I feel like resting. So I dolook at my calendar that way in
terms of what are the seasons inour business where I'm gonna be
(26:00):
in go mode, and then what arethe seasons in my business where
I'm gonna be more in rest modeor more harvest mode or more in
a culmination phase. So I havethese four phases, I call it the
upward cycle of success, and thefour phases kind of in work are
emergence, which is when you'regetting a project going, you're
(26:21):
planning, you're initiating,it's like springtime energy,
it's like the follicular phaseof the menstrual cycle, and it's
like the waxing moon. Thenthere's visibility, and this is
for any project or any season inyour business. So visibility is
when you are in sort of highsummer energy.
It is the same as the full moon.It's the same as ovulation. It
(26:45):
is really when you are outthere, like being visible. So
when we were in the launch forRelax Money, we were in
visibility mode, right. We had45,000 people taking this
workshop.
We had 160 affiliates. I was ona million podcasts. It was just
like a very high visibilitytime. And then after visibility,
there's culmination. So rightnow in our company, we're in a
(27:08):
culmination time.
We're dotting I's, we'recrossing T's, we're caring for
our members, we're making surethey have everything we need,
we're tying up all these looseends after the launch, we're
looking at our metrics and ourlaunch debrief, and all of those
things. So that's more of aculmination phase, and that's
like Autumn energy, waning moonenergy, and the luteal phase.
(27:30):
And then there's the fertilevoid, and the fertile void is
like the wintertime, it's likethe dark of the moon, it's the
menstrual phase of yourmenstrual cycle. Anyway, so the
winter energy is more of thepause. Now in terms of business,
we obviously, we take time offduring the year.
We'll take several weeks offduring the summer. We take a
couple weeks off over theholidays. We always take spring
(27:52):
break off with the kids. Sothere's times we take real time
off, however, in an overallcompany structure, because we
have an online business, it'stechnically open 20 fourseven,
right? Like we can be makingsales all day every day.
We can be serving people all dayevery day, right, because people
are taking our programs, they'relistening to replays, they're
(28:14):
doing their thing. And so wedon't go full stop ever in terms
of the digital nature of ourcompany, but a winter season or
a fertile void season for us iswhen it's just kind of like
business as usual, and we'rejust coasting. So we're putting
out the podcast every week,we're putting out my weekly
notes of plenty, We are doingbusiness as usual. We're not
(28:39):
really ramping up for anything.We're not ramping down.
It's more of just a coastingenergy. So what's so critical is
to build in those four phases.It doesn't mean that the timing
of it is going to be that likeactual springtime will be all
emergence energy, actualsummertime. That's not what I
(28:59):
mean, please don't take it soliterally. What I mean is when
you know that you're going tohave a full on season in your
business, schedule accordinglyto then have some off time, and
have these ebbs and flows sothat you're considering all four
of the different kinds of energysignatures that are required to
(29:20):
fulfill the act of creation inyour business.
And then finally I will say thatMike and I do annual planning,
we use Jesse Itzler's big asscalendar, I love his calendar,
he's married to Sarah Blakely,and it allows you to see your
entire year all at once, andMike and I plan using that. We
(29:41):
do an annual planning getaway,we also plan separately for our
company, so we know kind of whatpromotions are gonna be
happening at any given time, butfor the annual planning for our
family and for our personallife, what really helps is to
put in the boulders ahead oftime, like weddings, school
(30:01):
vacations, big family holidays,big family birthdays. We put
those things in first, and thenwe build our business schedule
around it. Ultimately, we builta business so that we could be
as present with our family aspossible. We are living in the
sweetest years.
Our littlest is seven. Our biggirl is gonna be 10 in
(30:24):
September. I am so, so awarethat it is not going to be long
before they don't want to spendas much time with us. And I'm
going to feel sad about that,even though it will mean more
freedom. And so I'm so awarethat like this is it.
This is our season of parenthoodthat is the sweetest, and it is
(30:45):
waning in certain ways, and so Idon't want to miss it. And so I
built, like I started mybusiness in my 20s for this. So
having those big rocks or thoseboulders put in our calendar so
that we can plan our businessaround our personal life, not
the other way around, makes anabsolute huge difference, and it
(31:08):
also means we don't miss any ofthe moments that we did this
whole thing for in the firstplace. Hopefully that helps you
out with your concepts ofplanning and productivity and
healing your relationship withtime. I'm so glad you asked this
question, Ashley.
Enjoy and let me know how itgoes putting it into action. If
you're ready to revolutionizethe way you work as an ambitious
(31:31):
human, you have to get my book,Do Less, A Revolutionary
Approach to Time and EnergyManagement for Ambitious Women.
This book is my love letter torecovering overachievers, and it
is an evidence based journey toshifting the way you relate to
time and energy so you canexperience better results with
(31:54):
less stress, less overwhelm, andavoid burnout. You can go ahead
and get your copy over atkatenorthrop.com/book.
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