More Time for Mom

Plan Like a PRO: 14 Neuroscience-Based Planning Tips for Busy Moms

• Dr. Amber Curtis • Episode 31

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Whether you’re brand-new to planning or a planner addict like me, here are 14 neuroscience-based planning tips that will help you maximize your time for who and what you love.

In this episode, I’m divulging the signature, science-backed planning process I’ve cultivated through years of research along with trial and error. Implementing these simple tips will save you time, skyrocket your productivity, significantly decrease your stress, and enable you to be more present for what matters most.

 

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER:

  •  Effective ways to incorporate a regular planning process and why that’s so beneficial
  • Why it’s so hard to accurately estimate how long a task or project will take (and a simple fix to overcome that)
  • The biggest mistake most women make (assuming all hours of the day are equal) and what to do instead
  • Why underplanning is key (and how to do that while still getting everything you need to done)
  • And a whole host of other lesser known or even unconventional planning tips you might not have heard anywhere else, along with numerous ways to take things up a notch for even more success!

  

AS MENTIONED:

My absolute FAVORITE planner (use code SIMPLICITY15 for 15% off)

Grab my Pinpoint Your Priorities worksheet to organize & prioritize tasks

Learn more about the powerful Pomodoro time management technique

Want to better understand your body’s natural energy rhythms? Snag my FREE guide, “Empowered: The Hidden Secret to Getting MORE Done without Burning Out!”

Join my Moms Making TimeTM Society to get the structure, accountability, and built-in rewards you need to take yourself off the back-burner, maximize your productivity, and make REAL traction on your goals. 


HOMEWORK:

 Your homework for this episode is to start simple and just start with one or two of these tips, incorporate them into your own planning process, and then send me an email or DM me on Instagram @solutionsforsimplicity because I would love to cheer you on and hear how it goes! 

 

COMING UP NEXT:

 Join me back next episode to keep unpacking hidden sources of stress stealing your time and joy, along with more neuroscience-backed insights to help you live your BEST life.


CONNECT WITH AMBER: Website | Instagram | YouTube | LinkedIn

Ready to finally get to the root of your problems and change your life FOR GOOD? Book your free 60-minute consult to learn more about working 1:1 with Dr. Amber.

Before you buy a planner for the new year, I want to walk you through a neuroscience-backed planning process and give you 14 powerful tips to help you plan your busy life. Welcome to More Time for Mom, where overwhelmed moms get science-backed strategies to overcome the hidden sources of stress stealing your time and joy. I'm your host, Dr. Amber Curtis. Ready to make more time for you? Let's dive in. If this is the first time we are meeting, I am Dr. Amber Curtis, a certified life coach, a behavioral science professor, a trauma-informed neurosomatic practitioner, and mom of four young kids. So I breathe and live and work all things, your nervous system, stress regulation, and living your best, most peaceful, purposeful life, which is why I love to share all of these tips with you. In this episode, I wanted to pull back the curtain on the planning process that I have refined and really, if I may say so, perfected over the years. I am such a planner or planning addict. I not only love getting a new planner and filling it out, but I am addicted to planning as a way to quote unquote balance my busy life. So I will always be shouting from the rooftops how invaluable I think planning is and yet I have found over the years that a lot of women don't know the tips and tricks that I use in my planning process and have become second nature. So I've got 14 neuroscience-backed planning tips that will change the way you plan your life. These are ultimately in random order but definitely stay tuned to the end because they are all so important and the ones towards the end are especially unconventional. Tip number one is of course to make time to plan. This sounds so obvious, but it's so easy to get busy and just dive into your day or feel like you're behind on so much already that taking any extra time to sit down and make a plan just feels like you can't do it in that moment. So many women love buying a new planner, but then don't actually use it or don't stick with it. And I think that's simply because they are complicating the planning process or wanting their plans to be perfect and understandably getting frustrated when your plans fail. These tips aren't going to keep your plans from failing per se, but they are going to give you peace of mind and help you You know, make the best possible plans so you have the best possible chance of success, barring all of life's good, unforeseen, unexpected circumstances. Planning really doesn't take much time once you're used to it. Starting out, it can feel really tedious, but like anything, the more you do it, the easier and more familiar it will be. I love the quote that plans are useless, but planning is everything by Dwight D. Eisenhower. And then, of course, I am also so motivated by Benjamin Franklin's famous quote that if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. I get so frustrated when my plans get thrown off track. But for the most part, I find that that happens fairly rarely now that I have this proven planning process. I highly encourage you to have a regular time that you sit down to plan. One big time every week for maybe 30 to 60 minutes, depending on how complicated your life is. And then that you also sit down for 5 to 10 minutes at the start of each day to review and adjust your plans as needed, as well as solidify your absolute top priority for that day. You have to be so brutal. I know how tempting it is to want to do it all, and on paper it can look feasible to crank out your entire to-do list. But I'm telling you, you really have to narrow it down to the one thing that absolutely has to happen And then, as long as it does, you can consider that day a success, no matter how much else went undone. And of course, usually, you will get way more than just that one thing done, but clarifying what is absolute top priority is so key. Now, what you use to plan doesn't really matter. I am personally a physical pen and paper planner kind of girl, I have been using Day Designers flagship planners for over 5 years and I am seriously obsessed. I will link some videos and resources where you can check out reviews I have done and my planning process in video form if you want to see how that works. But even if you prefer digital planning, it doesn't matter. The key is to have a planner, whether physical or digital, and then sit down on a regular basis to go through the process of planning. That is what is so invaluable. I will also say that in addition to my physical planner, of course, my husband and I have been searching for a way to communicate and coordinate our very busy schedules, as well as keep track of kids appointments and school events and all of those good things. So we do also have a shared Google calendar that syncs with our phones and gives us those really helpful reminders before something comes up. If you really care about doing what is scientifically shown to help you the most, then neuroscience really would suggest that using a physical planner is ideal because the process of handwriting something is shown to commit it to memory that much better. And there is just something about connecting your mind with your body that gives you more dopamine than you get just from looking at a screen or clicking a little box. Tip number two is to color code the different categories of your life so that when you are planning, it is really clear, both on your to-do list and in your planner or calendar, what something corresponds to. I use different colors for personal things, kid-related things, household things, work tasks or events, which for me, I further split out between my academic job and my business, and then a good old catch-all other category. You can color code things even on digital planners as well. For instance, in the shared Google Calendar that my husband and I use, I set up sub-calendars for each of those categories and designated the respective color for each of them so that when they show up, we can immediately see what kind of thing it is. Your brain loves any simple visual cues that you can give it, so that's where color coding is invaluable. If you're a workaholic like me, it can also be really helpful for just gauging how much work-life balance you have. For instance, if you see way too much work-related stuff in that color, then it's a sign you need to maybe slow down, pull back, realign with your priorities. Third thing is that it is essential to have a good prioritization method long before you ever schedule things into your planner. On top of knowing your deep core values, I have previously talked about my personal 5Ds prioritization method that I have put into a handy PDF worksheet, and it really guides you through the process of not just figuring out what is urgent versus important, but more importantly, how much physical and mental energy each task requires versus deserves, and whether you are the only one that can do it, or if it's something that might be delegated or dumbed down, et cetera. So I will put a link in the show notes for that PDF worksheet if you are interested. It's so handy, and my clients just rave about it. Definitely go back and listen to episode one, titled The Problem With To-Do Lists, where I walk through this 5Ds formula in great detail. Whichever prioritization method you decide to go with, I definitely recommend that you go through that process on a weekly basis as part of, and ideally before, your actual planning process so that you are reviewing all of the things that could or should be done. Reassessing deadlines and looking ahead to the future so that those big projects are getting some time and attention now before it's down to the deadline. And then you're so clear on exactly what has to happen that particular week. If you use my5D's formula, then ideally, the only tasks you are scheduling in for the week ahead are the things that you need to either dumb down or do well. And of course, you start in with those few things that do require your best time, attention, and energy, and then move on as you are able. Tip number four is something you have surely heard in other places, but is likely not common practice and makes a world of difference. That is to batch your tasks and block your time. I'm lumping these two together because I really see them as inseparable parts of the same process. For maximum productivity, you want to start by grouping similar types of tasks together. For instance, all the things that you need to do on your computer versus all the things that you need to do around the house, or all the errands that you need to run, or all the similar type of work you do for your job. The specifics will be unique to your own situation, but batching tasks is so great because then, when you are completing them, Your brain doesn't accrue the switching costs of going from one type of task to another. You may not realize it, but switching back and forth does really exhaust your brain and increase the chances of decision fatigue and other kind of mental cognitive byproduct building up in your brain. It detracts from your focus and therefore your efficiency. so you can save all of that time and energy by doing similar kinds of tasks the same time. The second part of that is then blocking out specific times in your schedule where you are going to do certain kinds of tasks, even if you don't do this step. I highly recommend blocking your time based on when you will or won't be working, So that you have clearer work-life boundaries, one amazing time management technique that I will always be shouting from the rooftops is the Pomodoro time management method, where you work in 25-minute chunks, take a 5-minute break, do another set of that, repeat a couple of times, take a longer half-hour break, I have explained it elsewhere, but it is definitely driven by neuroscience insights into how long the brain can focus before it naturally needs to take a break. You may have experienced this yourself without even realizing it. where you are trying to work on something and the clock just keeps running, but all of the sudden you notice that you start to hear background noises that you had previously been ignoring. Or you feel the urge to go get a drink of water or use the restroom. These kinds of signals are your body's way of saying it needs a quick break so it can recharge and then come back and focus some more. If you want to take all this up a notch, then I really recommend you have certain times of the day or the week that you block out time for these certain kinds of tasks. For instance, you could try having themed days where you run errands on one day of the week and you do all of your household related items on another day of the week. Or you do admin, financial, logistical types of tasks for your work on certain times of days or, again, certain hours within each day. But consistency is what creates predictability and saves your brain the cognitive energy of having to decide in each moment what it's going to do. Doing the same things at the same time in the same place wires that as habit into your brain. So then your brain automatically does what it knows it's supposed to be doing instead of trying to decide in each moment what the most important thing is. You're much more likely to stay on track with your plans if you follow the same kind of plan over and over. The fifth tip is one that I know you have personally experienced but might not have incorporated into your planning process. It is so important to double or even triple the amount of time that you estimate something will take to complete. The planning fallacy is a real science-backed phenomenon where we humans are notorious for underestimating how long something takes to complete. And so you have probably thought, oh yeah, I can get that task done in an hour. And then you made other plans, but you didn't finish the task. And then you don't know when else you are going to be able to come back and get it done. Or you're up against a deadline so you have to keep going and other things get pushed aside in order for you to complete that first thing. The way around this is, again, to give yourself way more time than you think you could possibly need. And the more you do certain kinds of tasks, the more you will not only be faster at doing them, but have that greater awareness of a realistic time frame in which they will get done. Now, this is a bit of a Goldilocks formula here, because Parkinson's law also shows that a task expands to fill the time you give it. If you only have one hour, chances are you will get that thing done, or at least get it to the point that you know you can cut the cord and send it off, right? The deadline is here. You have to finish. If you have all day to work on something, your mind just plays games with you and convinces you that you've got plenty of time, you'll get it done later, and you either don't start soon enough or it just goes on and on and on when you probably probably could have gotten it done in a lot less time and moved on to other things. So we want to really find that sweet spot where you are setting a realistic and even very comfortable time limit for getting things done so that you feel the push to complete it within that window, but you're not underestimating how long it takes so badly that there's a subsequent domino effect causing you to fall behind with other things or feel like you have gotten into a hole that you just can't dig out of. I have definitely been there and it is not fun. Tip number six is related to planning in that it is something I firmly believe you should plan and yet hardly anybody does. And I myself have struggled with this so, so badly. But that is that you should really only check email at certain times of the day. And plan those windows into your schedule so that you get in the habit of doing them at certain times, but not constantly checking for new emails or opening your email app on your phone while you're stopped at a red light, or when you get frustrated with your kids and then you're looking for that escape. Because if we open email without actually having the time to read them and process them in the moment, we don't remember to come back and actually do what we needed to do. It's a whole big mess. And I have been wrestling with this for many years now. I have gotten extremely firm with myself Far from perfect, but I went as far as to take email off of my phone. You can go into your phone's settings and go to the mail app and just click off the email accounts so that you don't want that email coming through. And then your brain won't see that you've received new emails. I found that this extra step was so much more successful for me than just turning off notifications because that little red dot telling me that I had new emails was just too tempting. And I was checking email all of the time, but again, not actually being productive and following through. It is crazy how addicted our brains are. 2. The dopamine hit of a new notification, maybe having gotten something new and important, or feeling needed and special because someone has reached out to you, but that really detracts from your ability to focus and be present So I am on a mission to help you with that. And taking email off of your phone, having regular times where you allow yourself to check email is so, so helpful. I personally challenge myself to keep my phone on airplane mode until long after I get the kids off to school. And then I have about a half hour window in the morning that I check email. I typically check it again midday and then once more right before my work time ends I often do I admit I often succumb to the temptation to check email again right before bed but I always regret this because more times than not there is something that catches my attention or some new fire that has come up, and then I end up skimping on sleep and staying up to address this issue instead of just letting it be, right? And almost always, it's something that truly could have waited until the next day's business hours, but I just have to get stronger and more disciplined. I hope you see a common theme in many of these, which is that we want to really give ourselves the best possible chance for work-life balance. The world is not going to give that to us. And I don't have to tell you how many different directions you're pulled in all of the time, even without our phones and without email and social media and these other things. So cutting back and really being strict with yourself goes a long way. Seventh neuroscience-backed tip for best planning practices is to schedule in a minimum of one mental health or CEO day every single month. Ideally, even every week if your schedule allows. I know this is easier said than done, and it's really easy to maybe block off the day in your planner But the challenging part is to keep that as a set appointment with yourself when the day comes. It really is so important for your mental health and for your brain to not feel pressure to get anything done. Maybe this is the day that you go get your hair or your nails done, or you let yourself binge a little bit of your favorite show. Maybe you do end up needing that day to catch up on undone tasks, but ideally it is a day that you can take for free to just do what you want to do in the moment. And you would never have gotten that time if you didn't plan it in first. Similarly, tip number eight is that you have to leave yourself cushion time. Some call this margin or white space or buffer time, but it's all the same idea that you need to give yourself extra time to pad whatever you put in your planner, right? Whatever's on your calendar. It always takes longer than you expect to drive somewhere. There are always all the little things that come up during the day, whether that is getting pulled away from what you were doing in the moment, or your toddler's nap doesn't last as long as you expected. There are just so many things where you have blocked out time in your planner and yet you didn't actually get to use that full block for whatever reason. Having extra cushion time really helps ensure that if tasks take a little longer in the moment, you're not stressed, you can show up to your next block as your ideal self, being intentional throughout the day, Taking little breaks to reset and check in with yourself, think about how you're doing, take a breather. We just don't do that enough. And especially not when we have booked ourselves up so much that we are going from thing to thing to thing to thing to thing. Ask me how I know. It is so crucial to under-plan, otherwise you are just setting yourself up for stress. I know a lot of us are overly ambitious and we are used to performing at a high level. We just wish we could work the same level we did before we had kids. But that's not our reality anymore. Even if you try to push through and kill yourself to get something done, It's not good for you to skimp on sleep, forgo your workouts, whatever, right? It really all just infringes on our self-care and especially on how we show up for our families. We are not our best selves when we feel so frazzled, so we have to take control of that by under-planning and leaving so much cushion time in our plans. This ninth tip is something that people always tell me they wish they had thought of sooner, and that is to set soft deadlines for yourself well in advance of any hard dates something is due. You can decide how long you think you need to complete something, but give yourself extra margin so that you push yourself to get it done before it's actually due. That way you again have time to finish it up if for any reason it got pushed back or to improve upon it, edit it, revise it, like make it the best it can be instead of just throwing something together at the last minute. Tip number 10 is like my secret sauce. If you have listened to me before, you know that I speak about this quite regularly because I'm on a mission to make sure everyone better understands how beautifully your brain and body were designed. You may or may not know that you have five, yes, five natural energy rhythms. The big tip here is that you need to know in advance how much energy you will or won't have at given times of the day, week, month, and year. If you want to work together more closely, I love helping you identify these energy rhythms for yourself, helping you anticipate how your physical and mental capacity naturally fluctuate so that you're not planning in big, tedious, cognitively or physically demanding things in windows that you're not going to have the energy to complete them. I love helping women maximize their productivity by identifying their peak performance windows, right? When all of these natural rhythms align and you are at your best, most powerful state, and then you can complete things so much more easily and efficiently and effectively than any other time. It really does wonders, but again, the mistake that a lot of women make is thinking that all hours of the day are equal and then maybe starting out the day with tasks that aren't that important in a window that is perhaps your peak energy time of that day. Now, it's different for everyone, and it's truly not as simple as just assuming all people are morning people or night owls. There's a lot more nuance, and every single person has has a unique combination of these energy rhythms. So it's, again, something that you want to identify and refine and track for yourself. But it is so possible, and it makes a world of difference. This is really what I credit when people ask me how I am able to do all that I do as a full-time working mom of four who also runs a business and leads a very full, full life. I have found this to be so helpful. If you want more information on these five natural energy rhythms, then check the link in the description where you can snag my free empowered guide that talks about this hidden secret to getting more done without burning out. It is such a game changer. Tip number 11 is so counterintuitive, but it is to purposely plan fun in first. As I just got done reviewing in episodes 27 and 28 on how to hormone hack your goals, you have to work with your brain. And the brain is really only motivated to do things that feel good or help you conserve energy and avoid pain. Really, those rewards are the most motivating. So when you start your work blocks by doing something that makes you feel good, or you tie doing a hard thing to also getting a reward for doing it, it really incentivizes you to do it better and faster. and feel so good throughout. Obviously, what you consider fun and rewarding is very personal. I, for instance, love to start my day by listening to my favorite podcasts and having my favorite cup of coffee. Sometimes I really love to go and get breakfast with my husband before we each set in to work. I sometimes watch a short little episode of my favorite show because then I feel like I filled my cup and I got to do the thing that I know I won't have time to do later in the day or when kids are around. Even if it feels like a guilty pleasure or an indulgence, I don't want you to discount the benefit you are receiving from that by giving your brain the dopamine hit and allowing it to feel satisfied so it can then set that desire aside and focus and be productive after. On that note, tip number 12 is to make sure that you are getting the physical satisfaction of crossing things off as you complete them. I get so much pride and joy from physically crossing something off in my planner, but digital habit trackers and apps or, you know, your, your calendar reminders, they are great too. Any type of system that is going to make you feel like you can close that loop in your mind because open loops where tasks don't feel like they are done, or you haven't actually like finished the whole process and told your brain that you are finished, they just drive us crazy. They just take up space in your mind. And so crossing it off as it's completed really gives your brain peace of mind that it can move on. One other thing that I do here is that if there is something I scheduled for a certain day or week, but then didn't finish, I circle it in my planner so that I make sure to include it in my planning for the coming week. Then I also periodically look back through my planner and try to find patterns in what those things tended to be or why they might have gotten set back and then adjust accordingly moving forward by allocating more time for those kinds of things in my future planning. It also just very quickly gives your brain a sense of how much you completed versus how many, maybe few things you didn't get done. And that helps you be more realistic so you don't schedule as much in the next week. If you are looking to up your productivity, then tip number 13 is to keep a running list of things you can do in 5, 10, 15, 30 minute increments so that if you miraculously find yourself with extra unused time, you can get those kinds of things done. Whether it's loading the dishwasher, sending a birthday card, texting a long distance loved one, adding toilet paper to the Walmart delivery order, right? You know, there's anything that you might put on this list. But I highly recommend keeping this list in your planner so that you can pull it out and be productive whenever the opportunity arises. A lot of times these are the little tasks that don't necessarily need to get physically planned in. They could be batched with other similar kinds of tasks, but more often than not, they are the kind of tasks that you might be tempted to defer or delegate. But if you find yourself with extra time, you can pull them out and get them done. Now, I, of course, want you to remember that around here, we are no longer conflating our worth with our productivity. So please don't take this as any pressure to be productive or to maximize every minute of every hour of every day. That's not what I'm trying to say. I am simply offering this as a tip If you feel like those little things are constantly nagging at you or you're falling behind on them, like these are the things that you can pull out when you find yourself with a few extra minutes. And I have found this method to be really, really helpful. Tip number 14 is the nearest and dearest to my heart because as someone who is always dreaming and, you know, just has these big ambitious goals for herself, I really want to encourage you to plan in regular time for your goals. So often as busy moms, we are last on our to-do list, and especially those hobbies, those dreams that you have, they just feel like they're never going to come to fruition because you are inundated with so many more immediate things, maybe bigger things that seem more important than making traction on your goals. But I want to remind you ever so gently that even 15 minutes a day adds up to over 90 hours a year. When we say we don't have time for something, what we are really saying is that it's just not that much of a priority. If you have dreams on your heart, if you want to make your goals a priority, this is a very simple, actionable, realistic way to do that. Taking 15 minutes isn't hard when you are clear on what you are doing in that time window and why you are doing it. So start there, schedule regular time to work on your goals, into your plans. And if you want more structure and accountability and rewards for doing that, that's exactly where my mom's Making Time Society comes in. So link in the description. We would love for you to join us. These women are always making more time for themselves and the dreams on their heart. It's so amazing. Alright, those are my 14 top neuroscience-backed planning tips. I can't wait to hear which one you found most helpful and are excited to try. I've put a bunch of links in the show notes in case you want to check out any of the resources I mentioned. Your homework for this episode is to start simple and just start with one or two of these tips, incorporate it into your plans, and then send me a DM on Instagram or email me through the link in the show notes because I would love to cheer you on and hear how everything is going. Join me back next episode to keep unpacking hidden sources of stress, stealing your time and joy, and more neuroscience-backed insights to help you live your best life. Until then, remember nothing you do changes how wonderful and worthy you are. Have a great day. I know more than anyone how precious your time is, so the fact that you spent it listening to this podcast means the world. Make sure to subscribe, and if you got value out of this show, I would be so honored if you'd leave a review and share this episode with another busy mama who needs to hear it. We've got this.