01 ⎸ Planning Out Your Bookkeeping Work

In this solo episode, I break down how I manage my week by planning ahead and making a thing out of it each week. I talk about the tools I use, and programs that have helped me get better at managing my time.

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Transcript

This episode is dedicated to everyone who is feeling super overwhelmed and not really sure how to manage a home kids and a side hustle or even a full-blown business. Last year in 2020, I implemented something called a Sunday evening planning, ritual. And if you want to read through this, it's on the blog.

It's at ambitious bookkeeper.com/blog and, uh, it's under 2020 reflections part two. Okay. So I have actually sent an email out to my list. Everyone in my world who's been with me for a while has probably read this. But in case you haven't, or you need a refresher, let's do this. I always start my week on Sunday.

With a Eve, an evening planning, ritual, and full disclosure. I call it a ritual because it makes me feel fancy and it helps me view it as a privilege and something enjoyable. It is a form of self care, which you are totally caring for yourself and setting your week up for success by implementing something like this, but you can call it whatever you want.

I say I made baby step progress toward this in 2020, because I was, half-assed doing it most of the year, but some weeks I'd skip it or not really make it a priority. And man, I paid for it during those weeks. So this year in 2021, I have been pretty religious about doing this. I will say right now I am recording this episode.

On a Friday evening. And I haven't had my planner all week because I left it at my office and I was traveling. So I feel kind of naked with that without it. And the fact that I'm recording an episode about my planner and my planning ritual, without it right here in front of me might be kind of challenging, but I'm going to try anyway.

Okay. So when I would skip it. My, it just, it just screwed up my whole league. So I decided near the end of the year, in the fourth quarter that I was going to make this an actual thing. And that's when I started calling it my ritual and treating it like something sacred, a sacred weekly habit. So let's, let's do a little side note on habits for a second.

I learned about five years ago, the power that habits can have on your happiness. And I owe it all to Gretchen Rubin from her book, the happiness project, and better than before in both of her books and on her podcast, happier, she talks a lot about habit pairing. I pair this habit with writing my blog, which now I think.

Pairing it with recording my podcast. Um, however, I do plan on badging out my podcasts, so that could change. So every Sunday I plan out my week and then I get to writing my blog. Um, So back to the planning, the actual weekly planning, ritual, if you're like me and you don't like being blindsided by the week.

Something like my planning, my weekly planning ritual might be just what you need. So this process helps me be super intentional and sit down to really look at what's coming up in the week and get real with myself about how much I can actually. Accomplish. I'm kind of like one of those little kids at the dinner table or serving my, my plate.

Right. And when your parents tell you, when you're little, like your eyes are bigger than your stomach, that's kind of how I feel about my productivity. My eyes are always bigger than my actual abilities. Especially once you have small children. So I open up my three main tools. I use a passion planner. Yes.

Writing things down helps me be intentional. And I love paper. So using the weekly pages, I open up a new blank week and fill in the dates. I also pull up my Google calendar on one screen of my computer and then a sauna, um, on another. So when I open up my Google calendar, I've actually, uh, shared my personal Gmail calendar with my work G suite calendar.

So all of my appointments are on one calendar, but sometimes I, um, I skip opening the actual Google calendar on my computer. And I just look at my phone because I know without a shadow of a doubt, everything's going to show up on my phone because all of my calendars are linked to my phone. So that's always a possibility too, if you don't have a bunch of computer screens.

So that is where on my personal calendar is where I put my personal appointments. And, um, I also have a shared calendar with my partner so that if people book things with me, he knows what my schedule is like as well. And then in a sauna, I open. My tasks. It's a report called my tasks in a sauna, and I look at the calendar view so I can see what's coming up in the next couple of weeks, but I also just straight up a look at it.

The list view, because if you have anything that's past due, it's not going to show up on your calendar. We've learned that the hard way on my team. Okay. So I just have to give a quick little shout out to the workflow queen and her kickoff with us on a course for helping me master using a sauna. And I'm pretty sure I still have a ways to go to master it even further.

Uh, but if you're interested in jumping into her course, I will have a link to it in the show notes. It is an affiliate link, but it also gives you a discount and you can jump in anytime, anytime. All right. So let's get back to it. Once I have my three tools up, I then get to work looking at all the appointments.

And I have this little note in my outline that I talk about CPE that I've scheduled on my calendar. This is hilarious because I actually have. A task of repeating an hour of CPE every week and I'm way behind on that. So there's that too. Okay. So my goal is to really do an hour, um, every week when it gets near the end of the year, that goal usually increases to an hour a day so that I can hit my CPE because as we know right now, I'm a little behind.

Okay. So I write everything that is set in stone on my calendar, and I code it color coded personal versus business related versus anything else that's going on. So that's step one. I then write in my main focus for the week. So if you have a passion planner, or even if you don't, you could go online and look at, you can download like a sample of their weekly spread, so you can see what I'm talking about.

Um, but every day, And every week has like these little boxes for your main focus. Sometimes I have two main focuses and, uh, the week that I am recording this podcast, my main focus is my podcast, uh, as we are launching and I'm trying to batch record a bunch of episodes and, uh, Yeah. So this is like I said, a feature in the, a weekly plan PA the weekly passion planner.

And it really, he helps prioritize things when something extra pops up, I can decide if it fits with my focus for the week or if I, if it should just be pushed out. Um, like I said before, it's really hard to juggle little children, school schedules, family schedules and all that kind of stuff. So. You're like focus on one main thing.

Paramount really, because we can't actually accomplish everything that we think we can, even when I have like three main things, one thing gets done. Step three is I have a personal to-do list and a work to do list. And this is also a feature of the passion planner, which I love. And this is where I just list out a couple of key tasks that I don't want to forget about.

Sometimes they're task ish and sometimes they're project ish. If it's like a major project that needs to be finished, it gets put on the list or major project that I need to work towards. It gets put on the list, but it might not still be my like main focus. But if there are certain little tasky things like male grandma's birthday present, or in the personal to do list, there's actually an errands section.

So if like I need to go check the PO box, I'll put it on there. Um, that's helpful too, because those are priorities, right? Like maybe schedule a meeting with X client or calls so-and-so. Those can be put in those little lists. There's not a ton of spaces. I want to say. Maybe there's like nine lines. This is where I'm like, I should have planner in front of me, but it's at my office.

So, uh, yeah, there's not a ton. So you can't just write out your whole task list. It's really, really just four priorities and two to keep you focused so that you're not overwhelmed with. And then step four is I have a small habit tracker for my top three daily habits. I'm working on, this is such a joke.

I'm not even doing this right now. I shouldn't even talk about it. But when, when I wrote this blog, which I'm now converting to a podcast, I had been trying to work out every day journal every day and do CPE every day. Cause it was near the end of the year. I would say right now I'm not doing like any major habit tracking.

Um, but that's something that you could. Fit in there in that like little to-do list area, a passion planner actually has stickers that you could put in there that are more like habit trackers, step five. I fill in some random ideas in the blink space that I've been thinking about and don't want to forget.

And sometimes I just, I mean, I, I work with my planner open all week and, uh, in that blank space, I will write notes that I want to remember from a meeting or like someone recommends a podcast or a book. I just, I just jot it down in there. And then occasionally I'll go back through my planner and see what's what random notes I've, I've left and kind of compile them into another journal of mine.

I might have a problem. Okay, then step six. I look, I did I take a look at last week spread and see if there's anything I need to carry over that didn't get done. Usually this is a yes. And then step seven, I pull up a sauna again, the, my tasks list and I check off stuff, stuff that I've already done and forgot to check off.

Cause let's be real. That shit happen. And then I shift things around for the days that my calendar is less full on. For instance, if the week is really full, um, Friday is , theoretically open. Usually take meetings or anything, but it's a due date. It may be it's a due date for tax estimate. So I'll keep it that way.

In case the last minute stuff comes,  creeps up these days. I don't really actually work much on Fridays, so I try not to ever schedule anything on a Friday. And, maybe another example is. Tuesdays might be the only other day than Friday that I don't have client or team meetings, which not true right now.

Tuesdays are when we actually have our, our team meetings. And it's also one of the days that I have open on my calendar for people. Well, the book with me, so Tuesdays are generally pretty busy, but I do have, um, maybe personal appointments or whatever, then I'll be prepping later in the day for a client onboarding meeting on Wednesday morning.

Yay. For new clients. Stuff like that. Okay. And then step eight, then I'll take a step back and look at everything and tell Telia which time I've booked on the calendar. Um, it usually is a lot. And then I start to start thinking about, okay, can I realistically achieve this? Can I realistically have back-to-back meetings on Tuesday?

Probably not. I might need to shift some things around or, um, Sometimes that means like asking a client to move a meeting because let's be realistic. Like I can not have back-to-back meetings if I'm working at home now that I'm in my office, it's a little more feasible. Um, but if, you know, for some reason I end up having to be at home, I can't, I can't really do back to back meetings cause I generally have to deal with children in between.

So, uh, that is pretty much it. I do like to. I do like to plan how much I want to work during the week. And this is where looking at it visually on the planner. Once you fill in all the appointments that people have already booked with you or personal appointments and drive time, I used to spend a lot of time driving, um, then seeing like how much time you actually have left to, to do the client work and how much time you actually want to be doing that.

And. That is definitely a difficult thing to implement, to basically decide. I only want to do like 10 hours worth of actual client work this week. Well, can you actually fit it on your calendar? Um, visually looking at it helps you figure that out. And sometimes, uh, I think it's called Parkinson's law. Like if you only give yourself 10 hours to do a job, You'll find a way to get it done, but if you leave your calendar completely open all the time and you're like, yeah, I'll just work here and there.

And everywhere it'll end up taking you 40 hours. You'll fill the time and the space with the things. So I do like to set myself. Even if it's just like an intention at the beginning of the week, like I only want to work 10 hours and this is I'm going to work really hard to getting everything I need to get done in that 10 hours.

It really makes you prioritize when you finally do sit down. The other reason I like to do this and list out my top priorities is because sometimes that is the reality of finding just little pockets of time to get stuff done. And. I will, no, I just have my planner out there. So when I have 20 minutes to sit down and do some work, because my kids are entertained for a little bit, I have this list of priorities and I know what to tackle first when I do have that time.

So that's pretty much how I plan out my week. We'll do a little recap at the end, since I kind of went off on some tangents, but having the week planned out really helps. Just not feeling so overwhelmed when you go into the week, not feeling blindsided about meetings that you might have. Um, I used to be an over preparer, like a major over-prepare.

I would sit down like the night before a client meeting and prepare for that meeting. And then I would sit down again, 15 to 30 minutes before the client meeting and prepare again. And that just really stressed me out. Um, You might end up doing that at the beginning of your business. Like if you're at the beginning, you might feel like you need to do that to just really have the confidence to go into those meetings.

But as you really get to know your clients and you understand kind of what's going on, you'll find it. Almost easier to not prepare for the meeting until like an hour before or 15 minutes before granted, you have to have had all the work done. I'm just, I'm talking, preparing for a meeting as in like going through the financial statements and coming up with some notes and key points to talk about not doing the actual bookkeeping work.

Like that's a given it should already be done. Um, I used to really stress myself out and over, over prepare for those things. Now I pretty much just plan right before the meeting. I'm kind of getting off on another tangent. That is a whole nother episode of what to do in client meetings. Don't worry, it'll be coming up, but this planning ritual overall takes me about 15 to 20 miles.

Not the planning ritual before a client meeting, but the planning ritual of my week, depending on how many times the kids or partner interrupts me. And I hope that you've found this useful and you can implement something similar to help you go into the week with confidence, knowing how much time you want to work and knowing what you need to tackle.

Um, so let me do a little recap. Scrolling up on my notes. Okay. Step one. Open your tools. If you're using a paper planner, I highly recommend the passion planner. I'll drop a link in the show notes, another affiliate link, uh, your Google calendar or outlook or whatever you use to keep all your appointments in.

If it's on your phone, just pull up your phone and then another screen with your project management management software. I'm going to do a plug for a sauna and workflow Queens kickoff with a sauna course, use, click up whatever, whatever tool works for you. If it's broken, don't fix it. So pull up your three tools.

Then step one, write everything that's set in stone on the calendar and code it personal versus business. And then step two, write in your main focus for the week. Maybe it's two focuses, but hopefully just one, if you're, you know, like me and have a lot of shit going on, uh, step three, fill in your to-do lists of the major.

Tasks or projects that are priorities. Step four F uh, do your habit tracker. If you like step five, fill in some random ideas in the blink space. Uh, then step six, look at last week's spread and see if there's anything you need to carry over. Pull up your project management, software tasks, check off anything you didn't already.

You check off step. Take a step back, look at everything and tell you how much time you have booked on the calendar versus how much time you actually want to be working and then make your adjustments. All right. So I'd love that for you to join the conversation on Instagram snap, a little pick, share this in your stories.

Tag me. I'm at ambitious bookkeeper. Let me know if you're going to start this Sunday planning, ritual, or if you already have something similar going on and I will talk to you next week, same time.