Episode 331: The Weekly Meeting With Yourself

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Well, I've talked about this tactic before, and I want to share it with you again because it just came up recently in a conversation I was having. With someone. And so sometimes we need to be reminded more than we need to be taught something new. And so this is a kind of an example of that specifically. And so I'm calling this episode the Once Per Week Meeting with Yourself. In other words, what we actually call it is Sunday night planning. But I want to do a deeper dive into— and I'll try to keep this to less than 10 minutes or so— episode, but the importance and the value of actually planning out your week and what are some of the things that you actually do in that session? Now, I'll tell with you, share with you that, uh, there's an asset, there's a template that you can use if you go to blueprintos.com, blueprintos.com/assets, and then you'll be able to see the Sunday night planning template on there for you to be able to access. So, but let's talk about, before we get into tools, let's talk about maybe philosophically why we need to do this. So you've heard me say structure, process, and routine is— and, and as entrepreneurs, small business owners, we desired freedom, which is why a lot of times why we started our business, freedom or flexibility. And so anything that looks like structure or process and routine, we can often push against that. Now, some of you, I did an episode called The Discipline That I Wish I Had just recently. And so when I'm I'm talking about is though somewhat similar to discipline, but I look at it a little bit differently. So structure, process, and routine. Well, what's an example of that? And I believe that this is it. Now we talk about communication rhythms with your team, and those are different things that you do. So those are like your one-to-ones and your weekly team meetings that you do. But this meeting is specifically with yourself, and this is roughly a 60-minute meeting. It can go longer than that over time depending on the complexity of your business, how many locations you possibly have, or how many businesses that you may be running. Many of you may be multi-preneurs that are out there, and so that can go over 60 minutes, but traditionally it never goes over 90 minutes specifically for me. So what are the, some of the things that we do in this Sunday night planning? Well, I'll get there in just a second. Let's talk about when you actually do the planning for your week. And so whatever you call it, The reason we call it Sunday night planning, it's your weekly planning. You're planning out the week, but before we get there, why Sunday nights? Look, I've seen traditionally 3 different times people have ran this meeting with themselves. It's either going to be Friday afternoons. It's going to be Sunday evenings, or it's going to be Monday mornings. Let's talk about Monday mornings and Fridays. Monday mornings can often be. Unless you get up early, can be pretty hectic. You're into the work week. Maybe you're going to work out. Maybe you have younger kids and they're getting ready for school, et cetera. And many of you may be starting your meetings at 8, 8:30, 9 o'clock on a Monday morning. So that means you're going to have to get up early to plan some of those things and plan out the week. At that point, for most people, it's a little too late. Well, what about Saturdays? Why not Saturdays? Well, Saturdays, we like to and architecting our perfect repeatable week. I like to architect Saturdays to be free day Saturdays. You got to have one day per week that you get completely away. Now, if you get Saturday completely away and then you use Sunday morning to be with family time as well, by the time you get to— that's about a day and a half, or maybe even a day and three-quarters— by the time you get to Sunday night, you're going to be probably itching to get back into the work week in some shape, form, or fashion. And I also think that there's value in planning out the week on Sunday night, being able to go to bed at a good time, and then wake up the next morning knowing that the week is already set into place. I think there's a, a lot of strategic value in doing that.

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Well, what about Friday afternoons? I think a lot of times I've had a couple of people just start trying to do this on a Friday afternoon, and then over time they're playing golf on a Friday afternoon, they're going to play tennis or pickleball or other things are coming up on a Friday afternoon that they just don't want to do it. Then. And so that leaves us to, well, should we even do this at all? Is this one of those things that's a small hinge that swings a big door? Well, in my opinion, I believe that it is. I believe that it— this is something that absolutely can set the pace for your entire week. Now, I'm not going to go exactly step by step in this episode of exactly what you do in a Sunday night planning session, but I want to talk about the importance of how you start, and that is to look at your wins from the previous week. We like to say that business is hard and it gets harder. And so because of that, it's hard for us to try to find the wins. In fact, I think the most important thing you can do for yourself is to protect your confidence. And so one of the ways that we do that is by building a routine and a process in place to plan out your week. And the very first thing that you do is to look back on the previous week and to grab your wins. Inevitably, I've done this now for years. Wish I could remember exactly whenever I put this into place. I'm gonna say it was roughly 2018, 2019, possibly. Um, I wish I knew the exact date of that, but neither here nor there. I still to this day have to go back and look at my calendar, look at the week and see like, oh, what all did we actually get done that week? And I will Every single time, remember, oh yeah, I forgot that that was a week that actually was a win. And there have been some tough, tough weeks, some very challenging weeks. And I mean, many of you have experienced that. If you've been in business, you've had some weeks that were really challenging. And so it gets hard to try to find the wins, but just doing that exercise, I can find either the win, I can find the progress that we made even in some of the really difficult, challenging, yucky weeks that we've had. In business, I can still try to find the lesson that I learned there. I can find the progress that we made. I can find the, you know, either we either were winning or we learned something. And that's kind of an example of that. And so that helps gives me a lot of confidence that we are making tangible forward progress every single week. So that's number one. I think also, so we've talked about when should you do it. Now, if you're able to do it on a Monday morning, you're able to install that into your, you know, structure of your week, then by all means do it. I do mine at 6:30 to 7 PM depending on possible kids' activities going on. 6:30 to 7 PM so that, that way I'm done by 8 or so, um, uh, my time. And then I've got, I've got that done and I feel like I've already started the week off with a lot of confidence because I've looked back on the previous week. The other thing that I do that's really important is I will review what is it we're trying to execute on this month. I'll talk about this maybe in another episode. We have the kind of the cadence of plan quarterly, execute monthly. And so I'll look back and what is it we're actually trying to do this month? And then I'll look at what, what is it we said we wanted to try to get done this quarter? And that, that routine that is embedded in that What were the wins from last week? What was it that we said we were trying to get done this month? What is it we were trying to do this quarter? What is it we said we wanted to try to do this year? And then even for 3 years, looking at my 3-year vision. So that is the lenses that I will look at every single Sunday night planning session that I do. I'll go back and say, and I do it in that reverse order actually, is I look, what were the wins from the previous week? What are we trying to get done this month? At the time this podcast is dropping, it's February. So I'll look at our February execution document. What are we trying to get done in the month of February? And what did we say we wanted to get done in Q1? Then what are we trying to get done this year? And reminding myself of those things. And then finally, looking at the 3-year vision. So my 3-year vision that I set in 2021 is actually ending this year in December of 2024. And I've already started a document to look at what do I think the 3-year vision is going to be for December of 2027. I don't look at that on Sunday nights, but just saying that I have a document, begin to kind of dump things into that asset. So again, wins for the week. I do it Sunday night, 6:30 to 7 o'clock start. 60 minutes roughly is how long it takes. You can speed it up and get through it in, say, 20 to 30 minutes. It can go as long as 90 minutes depending on the complexity of your organization and how many businesses that you're running. I'll start with wins. I'll look at what are we trying to get done this month? What are we trying to get done for the quarter? What are we trying to get done this year? And what's the 3-year vision? And just those things alone, if you'll just do those things and then start to play into, okay, well, if that's the things I wanted to get done, then I need to make sure that that's it. That's a part of my week this week. So I'll stop right there. If you'd love to access the template, the tool that I actually do use, uh, go to blueprintos.com/assets and you'll see the Sunday night planning template there for you to use. Alright everyone, hope this served you well. Till next episode, lead well.