✨ Join the Evergreen Entrepreneurs waitlist: https://www.evergreenplanner.com/pages/evergreen-entrepreneur

Before we dive in, you should know: this episode is really special.

It’s not just a beautiful conversation with our first official podcast guest—it’s a glimpse into how God used a breaking point behind the scenes of Evergreen Planner to reveal just how essential it is to apply Evergreen principles everywhere, including our business.

This interview was recorded during a season when things felt fragile. We’d just walked through a painful breakdown with a former contractor. Due to sheer inexperience on our part, the backend of the business we’d built in the margins of our motherhood was clunky. All of the untouched inefficiencies we’d hired the contractor to solve were draining the very margin we were teaching women to protect. I (Shelby) remember sitting down to record this conversation with a new acquaintance, holding back raw, weary tears. I had no idea how we were going to bring order out of the chaos.

God’s Providence is so astounding and kind. The woman you’re about to meet—Sherrie Williams—was His next step in answering our prayers.

At the time, she was “just” our guest: a homeschooling mama of six, a doula, and an online business manager with an uncanny ability to cultivate time with intention. I had no idea that God would later use her to bring life-giving order to our business in a way we’d never experienced before.

This conversation is about so much more than scheduling or systems. It’s about alignment. About building—whether a home, a homeschool, or a business—in a way that deeply supports what is most valuable in life instead of competing with it.

If you’ve ever felt the tug-of-war between being fully present for your family and juggling the opportunities that come your way, this episode will meet you right where you are.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• How Sherrie uses core values as a practical filter for her calendar
• Why every yes costs something—and a rubric for deciding intentionally
• How being careful with your “yeses” doesn’t mean pruning the unique, tiny ways God has called you to bless others
• Real-life ways to stack functions so relationships, work, and homeschool support one another

Scripture mentioned

Genesis 1–2 (theme): God bringing order from chaos with beauty and intention

Genesis 2:15 (theme): Cultivating what God has entrusted to us

Resources & next steps

• Sherrie’s time-cultivation resource - The Value Filter: sherrieanne.com/cultivatevalues
• Productivity Personality Quiz: evergreenplanner.com/quiz
• The Renew Course: Learn the Evergreen Planning Method:evergreenplanner.com

We believe you have wildly important things to do in this world, too. Some of them may involve larger-scale operations than you yet know how to manage, working with a team, and other things that are requiring you to up-skill.

If you’re currently building a business, writing a book, or stewarding a project that requires real operations, decision-making, and sustainability—we’re creating something for you.

Very soon, we’re opening Operations Office Hours inside the Evergreen Membership, led by Sherrie Williams.

These are live, open sessions where homeschooling mamas can bring real questions from their work—capacity, rhythms, systems, seasons, decision-making—and get grounded, life-giving help applying Evergreen planning principles to the backend of what they’re building.

As we describe in this episode, Sherrie has been applying these principles to the backend of Evergreen Planner itself—bringing order, clarity, and sustainable rhythms to our operations in a way that has been deeply life-giving for our families and our team.

If you’re already part of the Evergreen Membership, these office hours are included for you.

If you’re not yet a member, you can join the waitlist for more information: https://www.evergreenplanner.com/pages/evergreen-entrepreneur

✨ Feeling behind this Christmas? You won’t want to miss the encouragement in this episode.

If you’re feeling the constant tug between slowing down to worship and scrambling to “pull Christmas off,” this episode is for you. In this gentle, honest conversation, we remind weary mamas of this freeing truth: you are not the provider of Christmas—Christ already accomplished it. There is STILL enough time for peace, reverence, and real joy, even if the season hasn’t gone according to plan.

In this episode, McCauley and Shelby discuss…

• Why the pressure to perform intensifies during December—and the mindset shift our hearts need to truly rest
• The difference between celebrating what Christ has done and misaligned strivings
• How children remember the spirit of the home, not a “Christmas success” checklist
• A gentle reframe from the traditional liturgical calendar that can offer relief, margin, and worship—even in sickness, chaos, or unmet expectations

🎧 Listening Note: This episode was recorded during the annual virtual Christmas Planner Party we hosted within our Evergreen Membership! 🎄

After concluding the live podcast segment, we went on to cozy up with our hot drinks and have a lovely discussion with our Members. We were especially thankful for the wisdom on liturgical rhythms shared by our new partner, Allison Misulia, from Married and a House.

Afterwards, we all walked through a practical planning exercise for tackling any last-minute Christmas overwhelm and enjoyed a Q&A!

—

• Isaiah 9:6 — “For to us a Child is born…” (Prince of Peace)
• Matthew 1:23 — “They shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”

• Waiting on the Word: A poem a day for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany by Malcolm Guite
• Liturgical calendar rhythms:
  • Advent spans November 30 - December 24
  • Christmas traditionally spans December 25 – January 6
• The Cultivating a Peaceful Christmas Masterclass is available to our members inside the Evergreen Membership

Enroll in Renew January 2026, our live 6-week onboarding into the Evergreen Planning Method. This is the practical path out of endless striving and into a life-giving planning rhythm that keeps Christ at the center of your days. Our course integrates modern research in executive function with timeless Biblical principles to present a system that develops to supports you throughout any season. Our students call it “life-changing!”

Doors close on Renew January on 1/10.

—

If you’re finding your spirit groaning “I just want to enjoy Him and my family without feeling behind,” this episode is your cue to lay the pressure down and let Christ carry the weight of Christmas.

Shop: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

YouTube: @EvergreenPlanner

Quiz: evergreenplanner.com/quiz

SEO: Christian time management | planning for homeschool moms | biblical productivity | sustainable daily rhythms | reducing overwhelm | setting ROOTED goals | women’s goal setting | functional planning

Time-management is, in and of itself, a SKILL that takes time to learn.

This is a long episode, but worth it if you want a full overview of our methodology (and a whole lot of practical encouragement along the way).

In the first part, we tell the origin story of Evergreen: how a 9 page to-do list, a breaking point, and Psalm 90:12 led us to ask God for wisdom in our approach to time-management—and how over the next decade He led us to see that His Word was overflowing with answers to the challenges we faced each day.

In the second part, we walk you through a full overview of the Renew course. We recorded this before our recent rebrand so the language in the course will be a little bit different here and there. But the heart and life-changing promise remains the same—there is enough time for everything God is truly calling you to do.

Note: we mentioned a video a few times in this episode but ended up changing the way this episode was released. We eventually may put something together with the photos we mentioned inside our membership!

• Psalm 90:12 – “Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”
• Genesis 1:14–19 – God placing the sun, moon, and stars as markers for “signs and for seasons, and for days and years.”
• 2 Peter 1:3 – God giving us “everything we need for life and godliness.”

• You Are A Tree by Joy Clarkson
• Learn the full Evergreen Planning Method inside our six-week Renew course, where we walk you step-by-step through the exact practices we talk about in this episode.
• Want to stay consistent with a life-giving daily habit? Our analog planner makes it simple to apply the Evergreen Planning Method in a screen-free, nourishing environment that anchors you in the quiet authority you’ve been given to take radical personal responsibility for the hours of your real life.

If your heart keeps whispering, “There has to be a better way…”—this episode is your invitation to stop trying to figure it all out under pressure and on the fly and start making the space you need to take dominion of the way you invest your most precious resource, time.

P.S. In this episode, we mentioned our productivity personality. You can learn yours now, free and in about a minute, at evergreenplanner.com/quiz

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

YouTube: @EvergreenPlanner

Get started with the Evergreen Planning Method by taking our quiz: https://www.evergreenplanner.com/quiz 

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SEO: Christian time management tips | planning for homeschool moms | planning for family business | self-care | Reducing decision fatigue | Biblical self-care practices | Christian productivity strategies | Building daily routines | How planning reduces stress | Setting priorities with intentionality | Creating margin in your life | Faith-based time management

🗣️ Submit a question for the podcast: https://www.evergreenplanner.com/pages/podcast

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Here's the rest of Shelby and McCauley’s conversation from September about why planning is one of the most powerful, yet underrated, forms of self-care.

In this episode:

• Unexpected directions your self-care will take when you use a planner
• Cultivating deep seated happiness that cannot be robbed by external circumstances
• How making progress on your goals actually nourishes your life

Biblical References:

• Acts 16:16-40

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• The ROOTED Goals Workbook: http://evergreenplanner.com/rooted
• Season 3 of the Make Space to Thrive Podcast: https://www.evergreenplanner.com/pages/rooted#14691785
• Our Wildfire Season Podcast Episode: https://youtu.be/mpkcLD2Ej6o

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

YouTube: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: https://www.evergreenplanner.com/pages/core-offer-page-membership

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SEO: Christian time management tips | planning for homeschool moms | planning for family business | self-care | Reducing decision fatigue | Biblical self-care practices | Christian productivity strategies | Building daily routines | How planning reduces stress | Setting priorities with intentionality | Creating margin in your life | Faith-based time management

🌿 Discover "enough time" with our Free Crash Course for Homeschool Mamas: evergreenplanner.com/homeschool

In this personal update, Shelby and McCauley reflect on walking through a recent “wildfire season”—a time of deep personal trial and pruning. Drawing parallels to redwood forests, they explain how literal wildfires are necessary for redwoods to thrive, clearing out competing growth and enriching the soil. In the same way, God often uses spiritual wildfire seasons to burn away what’s no longer serving His purposes in our lives—making space for something stronger and more enduring to grow.

They share how they had to lay down their business plans, rhythms, and even personal productivity systems during this season and enter into a period of deep surrender and trust in the Master Gardner.

Now, emerging into a season of rebuilding, they are using the Evergreen Planning Method not as a tool for control, but as a way to faithfully redeem the time and flex with God’s Providence. They discuss the reality that planning isn't about preventing hardship—it's about tenaciously following through on personal responsibility while remaining surrendered to the word God is doing.

The Evergreen Planning Method is designed to support women through all seasons of life—including the messy and unpredictable ones. This episode looks at the EPM from the vantage point of grabbing ahold of a Revival Season after the trials of the Wildfire.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• **Homeschool Mama Mini Crash Course** - Weave wonder, discipleship, and rich learning experiences into your days—without ignoring all of your other responsibilities or burning out.
• The Renew Course – A 6-week deep dive for organizing your schedule and mastering a Christ-honoring approach time-management using the Evergreen Planning Method.
• The Evergreen Planner – Redeem your time with this gorgeous leather-bound system.

📖 Scriptures Referenced: Romans 8:28; James 4:13-15; Psalm 90:12; Genesis 1; 2 Peter 1:3; Matthew 3:12-14; Hebrews 12:29

🤓 Nerd note from Shelby: Since recording this episode, I’ve learned that the National Park Service is now claiming that there are thousands of redwoods between 2,000-3,000 years old and a few possibly as much as 4,000 years old. Using the traditional Biblical chronology, Noah’s flood would have been in 2350 BC—about 4359 years ago. While researching for the kids’ lessons on this topic, I came across an article by the Institute for Creation Resource that connected the planting of the redwood forest to Noah’s flood. We say in this video that the redwood forests are older than all of the wonders of the world, but the National Park Service now says that earlier published ages for the redwoods were exaggerated. Even so, the groves themselves still could technically have been planted before the pyramids were built—even if the oldest original trees do not still remain.

🌿 Related Resources:

• Why Make Plans When Plans Change - blog post
• The Ongoing Ministry of Bringing Order Out of Chaos - blog post
• Why Planning is the Most Underrated Form of Self Care, Part 1 - podcast episode

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🎧 Subscribe on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/make-space-to-thrive/id1588587854

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

▶️ Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/mpkcLD2Ej6o

🛒 Shop Planner: evergreenplanner.com

📚 Learn the Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

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SEO Tags:

Evergreen Planner | wildfire season | Christian time management tips | Biblical time stewardship | Planning with God in mind | Christian productivity for moms | Proverbs 31 | Spiritual growth through hard seasons | Biblical approach to planning | Trusting God with time | Rhythms and routines for Christian women | What to do in seasons of crisis | Planning after burnout | Gospel-centered planning tools | Redeeming the time | Time management for Christian homemakers | leather planner | travelers journal | bullet journaling

🗣️ Submit a question for the podcast: https://www.evergreenplanner.com/pages/podcast

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Spent? In this episode, Shelby and McCauley dive into why planning is one of the most powerful, yet underrated, forms of self-care. They explore how intentional planning not only helps you manage your time but also reduces stress, preserves emotional bandwidth, and supports your goals for your relationships.

Throughout this episode, they explore:

• The power of proactive planning and why it’s essential for taking care of your future self
• How planning can help reduce stress, decision fatigue, and mental clutter
• Why rhythms and routines provide the margin you vitally need to manage an abundant life
• How planning allows you the relaxation you need to consistently pour into your loved ones instead of feeling like you always need to hide from them in a bubble bath
• Why self-care fundamentally requires you to take the time you need to reach a state of mental clarity and peace about your life’s direction

Biblical References:

• 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 – “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.”
• John 10:10 - “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.” — Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
• The Evergreen Planner – The core planning tool discussed throughout the episode, designed to help you proactively care for your time, reduce decision fatigue, and create rhythms that support your life.
• The Renew Course – A 6-week challenge to help you to start working with the strengths of your personality, organize your entire life with the Evergreen Planning Method, and set up sustainable rhythms that actually make sense in your season of life. (We guarantee that your future self will thank you for taking this course.)
• The Evergreen Collective – An exclusive online community where you can connect with like-minded women, access resources, and receive support on time management and intentional living. Available to planner subscribers or Renew course students.
• Other Podcast Episodes:
  • Episode 13: Why You Need a Hub for Your Brain - An entire episode on how the Evergreen Planner can specifically help you to organize your brain.
  • Episode 5: The Story Behind ‘Make Space to Thrive’ - A deep dive into why you need margin in your life, what exactly margin is, and how to find more of it in your schedule so you can reap more peace, clarity, and energy from the way you plan your days.

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

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SEO: Christian time management tips | Proactive planning for self-care | Reducing decision fatigue | Biblical self-care practices | Christian productivity strategies | Building daily routines | How planning reduces stress | Setting priorities with intentionality | Creating margin in your life | Faith-based time management

🎙️ Submit a question for the podcast: https://www.evergreenplanner.com/pages/podcast

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Overwhelmed? In this episode, Shelby and McCauley delve into the profound truth that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness—including enough time.

Throughout this episode, they explore:

• the real reasons why we often feel like there isn’t enough time in the day, despite the biblical promise that God equips us for every task He calls us to
• the challenge and high calling of time-management
• the time boundaries God built into creation itself
• how to combat perceived stress
• the importance of creating rhythms, setting priorities, and combatting decision fatigue through proactive planning

Biblical References: Genesis 1:2-3; Genesis 1:14-19; 2 Peter 1:3

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• The Evergreen Planner - The core planning tool discussed throughout the episode, designed to help you manage your time according to biblical principles in just 15 minutes each day.
• The Renew Course - Our 6-week course that dives deeper into the Evergreen Planning Method, providing detailed guidance on how to apply it to your unique life and circumstances.
• The Evergreen Collective - An exclusive online community where members can access time-management resources, join in discussions on intentional living, and receive support from like-minded women. Hosted in a private app, away from social media to foster focus and intentionality. Open to planner subscribers or students of Renew.
• Other Podcast Episodes:
  • Make Space to Thrive - An episode from Season 1 that shares the story behind the phrase "Make Space to Thrive."
  • Planning while Postpartum - An episode from Season 2 that offers tactical advice for managing time during the postpartum period.
  • The Rooted Goals Podcast Season - Binge Season 3 where Clari and Shelby unpack the Rooted Goal Setting System and share practical examples of ROOTED Goals in their own lives.

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

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SEO: Christian time management tips | How to manage time biblically | Overcoming overwhelm as a Christian | Biblical approach to time management | Christian productivity strategies | Faith-based time management | Managing stress as a Christian | daily routines for Christians | Setting priorities as a Christian mom | Combatting decision fatigue | Reducing overwhelm in Christian life | Christian goal-setting strategies | Intentional living for Christian women | Time stewardship for believers | redeeming the time

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This podcast is a replay of a live masterclass I (Clari) taught for the Evergreen Collective in November.

Advent and Christmas are my favorite times of the year, but it also happens to be the one of the busiest times for the business, which means I need planning strategies that are easy to implement and help me do what I most want: to celebrate the birth of Christ in very meaningful ways with my family and to be a person who exudes peace while doing it.

You can access the video replay of the masterclass & the free workbook here: https://www.evergreenplanner.com/pages/how-to-cultivate-peace-avoid-seasonal-overwhelm-masterclass

✨✨✨

May this Christmas be your most peaceful yet!

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

📖 Get the ROOTED Goals Workbook: evergreenplanner.com/rooted

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In this episode, we talk about the sixth and final letter in the ROOTED acronym: Developed by Providence. The ROOTED Goal-Setting System reminds you that the Kingdom of God does not rise and fall by your efforts—but that you do have the responsibility to do your part, exercise your influence, and steward your resources.

Having a Christian growth-mindset allows you to set goals with an "amen" posture towards God's unknown plans for the future, knowing that when you give your goals back to God, you can trust Him to develop them in the best of ways.

Join us as we talk about how this Christian growth-mindset has played out in our real lives and goals over the last quarter (including our goal of recording this podcast)! We chat about goals that have had to change, how we stay motivated in the messy middle of goal development, and how our planner enables us to pivot effectively into new or changing goals as we follow the Lord’s leading.

Links we talk about in the show:

• Purchase the ROOTED Goals Workbook here!
• Download the free Developed by Providence resources (which includes pages from Shelby & Clari’s planner to see how pivoting in goal-setting plays out in our lives!)

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

📖 Get the ROOTED Goals Workbook: evergreenplanner.com/rooted

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In this episode, we talk about the fifth letter in the ROOTED acronym: Etched Into Your Memory. For a goal to be sustained in the long-run, it has to stay top of mind. Enabling your brain to think about your goal often and easily will ensure you can make progress on your goal even in the most chaotic of seasons.

Join us as we talk about the exact process we take to make sure our goals aren’t forgotten in the busyness of everyday life and responsibilities! We talk about how we use our planners to support our goals and to train our working memories to take action whenever possible, enabling us to make steady progress until a goal is accomplished.

Links we talk about in the show:

• Purchase the ROOTED Goals Workbook here!
• Download the free Etched Into Your Memory exercises

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

📖 Get the ROOTED Goals Workbook: evergreenplanner.com/rooted

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In this episode, we talk about the fourth letter in the ROOTED acronym: Tailored to Your Lifestyle. If you want to craft compelling goals that are grounded in your unique calling, then you’ll have to give yourself permission to develop creative solutions that make sense for your particular circumstances. Sometimes this means tailoring your goal to match your lifestyle, and other times this means tailoring your lifestyle to match your goal.

Join us as we chat about how taking time to tailor your goal and your lifestyle will prevent unnecessary tension between the two, and enable you to actually follow through even on the most challenging goals you set!

Links we talk about in the show:

• Purchase the ROOTED Goals Workbook!
• Download the free Tailored to Your Lifestyle exercises
• How to Build a Morning & Evening Rhythm podcast episode (Apple, Spotify)
• How We Plan Our Days podcast episode (Apple, Spotify)
• How We Plan Our Weeks podcast episode (Apple, Spotify)

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

📖 Get the ROOTED Goals Workbook: evergreenplanner.com/rooted

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In this episode, we talk about the third letter in the ROOTED acronym: Outlined for Clarity. Clarity is key when it comes to giving your brain an objective that it can actually process, prioritize, and tackle in the day-to-day.

When you break down a goal into tangible action-steps, you are equipped to move past your vague theories about what it will take to make your goal happen. You’re able to see the gaps in your knowledge about the process, which compels you to research until you have concrete and actionable understanding.

Listen in as we talk about exactly how to take a vague goal and break it down into actionable and compelling steps!

Links we talk about in the show:

• Purchase the ROOTED Goals Workbook!
• Download the free Outlined for Clarity exercises
• How to Build a Morning & Evening Rhythm podcast episode (Apple, Spotify)
• How We Plan Our Days podcast episode (Apple, Spotify)
• How We Plan Our Weeks podcast episode (Apple, Spotify)
• Six Tips to Get Out of the Crazy podcast episode (Apple, Spotify)

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

📖 Get the ROOTED Goals Workbook: evergreenplanner.com/rooted

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In this episode, we talk about the second letter in the ROOTED acronym: Organically Growing Out of Your Context. You need goals that take your real life context seriously and embrace it. You need goals that connect with where you are right now, and that respect that you’re here for a reason. Recognizing the season you’re in and identifying the contours of your priorities can empower you to identify the next right step—the one that can realistically begin to build the lasting change you want to see.

Join us as we talk about why this is one of the most critical steps in setting ROOTED goals, a step that most other goal-setting systems completely ignore. We talk all about what this looks like in our lives and how embracing our context has empowered us to craft and execute meaningful goals year after year!

Links we talk about in the show:

• Purchase the ROOTED Goals Workbook!
• Download the free Organically Growing Out of Your Context exercises
• Download the free Rooted in Your Core Calling exercises

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

📖 Get the ROOTED Goals Workbook: evergreenplanner.com/rooted

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In this episode, we talk about the first letter in the ROOTED acronym: Rooted in Your Core Calling. Grasping the unique calling of God for your individual life is a life-long process! But leaning into your core calling is an essential part of creating goals that fully resonate over the long-haul, compel you to follow-through, and produce a lot of satisfying fruit along the way.

Join us as we talk through discovering how your core calling is playing out in your life today, and how that should impact how you set goals! We also talk a lot about how this part of the ROOTED Goal Setting System is not meant to weigh you down, but give you freedom to lean into your God-given strengths, passions and responsibilities!

Links we talk about in the show:

• Purchase the ROOTED Goals Workbook!
• Download the free Rooted in Your Core Calling exercises

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

📖 Get the ROOTED Goals Workbook: evergreenplanner.com/rooted

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Setting a ROOTED Goal is all about creating a symbiotic relationship between your daily life and your goals. It’s about creating space for personal growth, and channeling your productivity in a way that cultivates peace. In this introductory episode we talk about the ROOTED Goal Setting System as a whole; how it came to be, how it’s different from typical goal-setting systems, and how the ROOTED mindset can set you free to tackle your biggest dreams, while not letting go of your day-to-day responsibilities! Join us for a refreshing conversation that is sure to renew your goal-setting drive!

Links we talk about in the show:

• Purchase the ROOTED Goals Workbook!
• Taming Your To-Do List podcast episode (Apple, Spotify)

Note: The Taming Your To-Do List Guide mentioned in the podcast has been reworked as part of Renew! This six-week course will teach you the Evergreen Planning Method from the ground up and help you find the time you need to do everything God calls you to do.

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

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Have you wondered how we approach planning? Or what advice we give when we talk with friends about planning? Curious to know more about us? In this first Ask Us Anything episode, we dive into questions we received from our community that range from personal to planner questions to general productivity questions. Join us for a laid back and fun conversation!

Questions we answer in this episode…

1: Where do I start with the Evergreen Planner system if I’m overwhelmed? It’s such an extensive system and it’s hard to take time from all my urgent tasks to figure it out. (1:10)

2: How are you all related? (5:45)

3: When I sit down and plan, I get really excited about the possibilities, but then nothing ever goes according to plan. What should I do? (6:20)

4: How do you plan when you have chronic illness? (10:52)

5: How do you take your coffee? (13:40)

6: How do each of you use your Annual booklets? (15:48)

7: What was your process for creating the Evergreen Planner System? (22:53)

8: How do you set goals and get work done with little kids? (27:35)

9: You have an afternoon without kids, how do you spend it? (36:38)

Do you have a question you’d love for us to answer next time? Email us at hello@evergreenplanner.com!

Links we mentioned in this episode:

• Quickstart Your Planning - Episode 9
• Download the free Quickstart Your Planning Guide
• 6 Tips To Get Out of The Crazy - Episode 11
• ROOTED Goals - Episode 3
• Purchase the ROOTED Goals Workbook

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

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Time-blocking is a powerful productivity tool for maximizing the amount of time you have available, and for liberating your time to focus on what matters most. Yet we’ve found that many women are intimidated by time-blocking, and don’t know how to make it work for them, or feel like it’s just too structured and stiff.

In this episode we chat about why time-blocking is one of our favorite time-management tools, one we come back to again and again. Then we dive into our simple step-by-step process of how to make time-blocking work for your unique rhythms and lifestyle! So whether you’re old hat at planning, or just getting started, you’ll find this episode full of practical tips for utilizing time-blocking in your days.

Links we mentioned in this episode:

• Quickstart Your Planning - Episode 9
• Download the free Quickstart Your Planning Guide (this guide includes the free printable day planner we mention in this episode!)
• Our episode on Margin: Make Space to Thrive - Podcast Episode 5
• ROOTED Goals - Episode 3
• Purchase the ROOTED Goals Workbook
• Read the full episode blog post here.

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

📖 Get the ROOTED Goals Workbook: evergreenplanner.com/rooted

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Your productivity will fluctuate based on the season you find yourself in. It can be easy to get caught up into thinking we should be able to plan and execute tasks regardless of what is happening around us, but this simply isn’t the case!

In this episode, we talk about how knowing your productivity season is a key time-management skill that can help you set goals and priorities accordingly.

We have found there are three main seasons of productivity:

• Surviving - 1:20
• Reviving - 5:20
• Thriving - 7:27

We talk in-depth about each of these seasons, and discuss different strategies for how to approach productivity depending on the season you are in. Join us for a conversation that is practical, encouraging and full of ideas you can implement right now!

Whatever season you're in, the most crucial step is knowing what your next-right-step goal is. The ROOTED Goals Workbook was designed to help you identify, strategize and execute your next-right-step goal. It teaches you to plan and prioritize tasks in the context of your life, whether you're surviving, reviving or thriving. Download your workbook today!

Read the full episode blog post here.

Links we mentioned in this episode:

• Quickstart Your Planning - Episode 9
• Download the free Quickstart Your Planning Guide
• ROOTED Goals - Episode 3
• Purchase the ROOTED Goals Workbook
• 6 Tips To Get Out of The Crazy - Episode 11

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

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Living mentally scattered can leave you feeling frustrated and overwhelmed. You spin your wheels, tackling whatever is in front of you at any given moment, and then feel discouraged that you don’t make progress on the things that matter most to you.

In this episode, we talk about why you need a hub for your brain, a tool that can help you sort, prioritize and tackle all the ideas, plans and goals you have banging around in your head. We talk about why we created the Evergreen planner, and how each of our core products (the Annual, the Classic and the Cover) was crafted to infuse more peace into your day.

Read the full episode blog post here.

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

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Effective yet flexible rhythms are one of the key building blocks in a sustainable and intentional lifestyle. But trying to copy a guru’s routine, whether for work or home life, quickly becomes overwhelming. There are dozens of “best practices” out there, so where do you start? How do you decide what you need in your personal rhythms?

In this episode, we walk through how to build a morning and evening rhythm that is uniquely crafted to your life! We talk about what our rhythms look like these days, and how we keep them flexible, but effective. We even discuss how rhythms can adjust and change in different seasons, such as when dealing with chronic illness or a postpartum season.

If you’re craving some order in your life, but don’t know where to start, this is the episode for you!

Read the full episode blog post here.

Other podcast episodes we mention:

• 6 Tips To Get Out of The Crazy
• Planning While Postpartum

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

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If you’re in an overwhelming season, it can be really hard to know where to even begin. Friend, you are not alone. We know those seasons well. This episode is full of practical advice and encouragement to help you get out of survival mode.

We talk about how to navigate crazy seasons to begin to regain a sense of normalcy and get back to life-giving rhythms. We discuss focusing on what you can control and making progress (whether little or big) every day. We give six simple steps for beginning to take control of the crazy. These aren’t pie-in-the-sky ideas, these are the real steps we have each taken to bring more peace to the chaotic seasons we’ve been through.

6 Tips to Get Out of the Crazy:

1. Focus on nourishing food and sleep - 0.38
2. Carve out space each day for quiet - 2.48
3. Get all the details out of your head - 8.42
4. Take action on the next-right-step before planning more - 11.24
5. Sometimes it’s a “get out of survival mode” bootcamp - 14:57
6. Build a morning rhythm - 19:10

Note: The Taming Your To-Do List Guide mentioned in the podcast has been reworked as part of Renew! This six-week course will teach you the Evergreen Planning Method from the ground up and help you find the time you need to do everything God calls you to do.

Read the full episode blog post here.

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

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Are to-do lists your go-to when you know you have A LOT to do? We can relate. But the truth is that to-do lists are not a time management strategy, and they can actually hinder your productivity. When you rely too heavily on to-do lists, you end up overwhelmed, executing tasks haphazardly and not feeling like you ever make progress on the things that are most important to you.

In this episode we talk about how to use to-do lists effectively, and how to take a massive to-do list and distill, prune, and prioritize it to the most essential tasks that will fuel your productivity and leave you feeling like a task-crusher. We discuss the power of choosing top-targets for each day and how this practice of daily prioritization can help you make consistent progress on your biggest goals.

(The offer in this episode has ended, but you can still purchase Taming Your Todo List in our shop!)

Read the full episode blog post here.

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

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It can be difficult to know where to start when trying to create a personalized time management strategy or learn how to maximize your planner, and it is overwhelming to try and do that while not losing track of everything already on your to-do list. If that tension sounds familiar to you, this episode for you!

In this episode we give you our Quickstart Your Planning Guide based on the acronym PLANS. This process will enable you to simply and effectively begin forming your own personalized time-management strategy, while still executing all those day-to-day responsibilities you can’t let slide while you figure out how to maximize the use of your planner.

Download the Quickstart Your Planning Guide here.

PLANS stands for:

Pencil in what you did.

Leverage the brain dump.

Access your working memory.

Nurture a flexible mindset.

Sharpen your time-management skillset.

The process represented by this acronym is one you can return to again and again in different seasons to help you begin to form a time management strategy that is personalized, simplified, and increasingly intuitive.

Read the full episode blog post here.

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

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In this episode, we give you a tour of the Evergreen Planner System.

There are so many planners out there—so did we decide to create another one? What makes our planner different?

We created this system because we couldn’t find a planner that felt intuitive—that brought all the different areas of our lives together. We didn’t want a planner for mom life, and another for our business, and a notebook for our hobbies, and something else for homeschooling. We wanted one tool.

So we created a planner that is minimalistic, intuitive, and extremely versatile. Instead of asking you to change the way you organize your thoughts, this planner was made to change and flex with your evolving needs.

When Shelby tucked her homemade worksheets under her arm on her way to her sister’s house one spring morning, she never would’ve believed that their lives were about to change forever. What she imagined would be a quick, casual chat about these personal-development exercises she’d created for herself actually turned into a flurry of innovation.

McCauley had been feeling pretty overwhelmed with her own attempts at getting organized. Her ideas and tasks were scattered between a cheap planner, two different calendars, and a few random notebooks.

What if the countless hours Shelby had been pouring into time-management research were combined with McCauley’s knack for designing aesthetic products that actually worked the way they were advertised?

The two entrepreneurial sisters went to work at the kitchen table—babies swaddled and strapped on—cutting and pasting together a dream planner. Instead of tweaking the hundreds of existing planners, they threw all convention out the window and started over.

The Evergreen Planner was developed to answer to these industry-disrupting questions:

• What if you could see your week’s agenda at the same time as you plan your day?
• What if you never felt lost in your own planner?
• What if your planner could lead you through a simple series of prompts that quickly helped you organize your thoughts—but without overwhelming or distracting you?
• What if your planner only contained the things you actually need to get organized and make progress—and nothing that you don’t?
• What if your planner could be so classy that it actually elevated your aesthetic?
• What if your planner could seem so intuitive, personal, and dynamic that it felt like a natural extension of your arm—a fully-functioning hub for your brain?

Shelby and McCauley stopped at nothing to design a system that would effectively answer these questions. Even when it was suggested to them that their booklet designs would be too expensive to even manufacture, they pressed on, knowing that our groundbreaking dutch door layout would be key to planning with real life context.

Before it was even brought to market, this planner underwent a lot of rigorous field-testing. Every bit of feedback our beta testers gave us went into the refinement of this planner through six major prototypes.

The result is our wildly effective three-part system:

The Annual is the doorway to the system. This 12-month calendar booklet provides a birds-eye view of your year with the powerful addition of plenty of flex space to map goals and plan your year. Each month spread is followed by three blank bullet grid pages. Learn more here.

The Classic is the muscle of the system. It’s an undated 5-week planner booklet with weekly and daily spreads. This is the only planner booklet you’ll find on the market with a dutch door layout that allows you to see your day and your week’s agenda simultaneously. Each week spread has a vertical calendar to write dates, habit trackers, and plenty of customizable flex space to write lists, map week goals or brain-dump ideas. Each day spread has a  time blocking section, correlating to-do list, micro-journaling prompts, and plenty of flex bullet space. These booklets come subscription box style every quarter—or in a year bundle—so you never run out of planner. Learn more here.

The Cover is the glue that binds the whole system together into one unit. Handcrafted locally in genuine leather and designed in a traveler’s journal style, it protects your planner booklets with class. It has six pockets in varying sizes to carry loose papers and lists, extra spine elastics for additional booklets, and two elastic loops to hold pens or washi tape. It’s enduring, and incredibly stunning. It is a piece you will use and treasure for years. Learn more here.

This planner has become an integral part of our intentional lifestyles. It helps us bring our goals into context with the realities of our lives, and translate our long-term intentions into daily choices.

We dive more into this in today's episode, and share the impact that this innovative system has had on each of our lives. We also invite you to imagine how it might change the game for you.

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

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Planning while postpartum? At first glance it sounds over-the-top, almost an oxymoron. In the past we've even written about how the postpartum season can be an excellent time to take a break from your planner. So why did we choose to do an entire podcast episode on planning while postpartum?

You have to remember that when we say "planning", we are talking about self-compassionate planning. And perhaps there is not a better time to practice self-compassion than when you are in a season of recovery like the postpartum season. When we say planning while postpartum, we aren't talking about planning our biggest goals, or mapping our business' trajectory for the next year; we are talking about the simple, but extremely useful, form of day-to-day planning that helps us get out of our heads, sort our priorities, and let the non-essentials fall away.

Postpartum should be a season of rest. One where we focus on healing and soaking in those newborn days that pass so quickly. It should be a season where family and friends rally around to bring meals, help with other children, and take over housework. And even when this ideal can't happen, we can still choose how we will approach our season of recovery. We can choose to set expectations for ourselves a little lower so we are able to focus on what matters most.

But it's incredibly hard to rest when you have a smattering of to-do's rattling around in your brain. It's hard to know what's essential and what can be left for another day (or dropped completely), when you're foggy from sleep deprivation. It's hard to track how well you're healing physically, mentally and emotionally, if you try to do it all in your head.

And that's where a planner begins to make a lot of sense.

In this episode, we talk about the unique ways we (Clari & McCauley both had babies this past spring, so navigating the postpartum season is fresh!) and other mamas have used the planner while postpartum.

If you're pregnant or in the postpartum season, give it a listen. We believe you'll find it both encouraging, and also inspiring as you navigate the postpartum time. And if you have any friends who are in that season, we'd love it if you'd share it with them!

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

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Every Monday is a fresh start.

You have an entire week before you, a clean slate, and it can seem like the possibilities for productivity are endless!

But then you move through each day and it can be easy to slip back into dealing with whatever seems most necessary in each moment, and you find you’re only taking care of the small details, rather than making progress in the most significant areas.

Or maybe you make significant progress on your big goals, but meal planning and laundry is falling off your radar. How do you balance it all? How do you create week rhythms that serve your long term goals, your weekly work needs, and your family?

In this episode, you’ll get a peek into how we (as business owners running a growing company with nine kids under the age of six between us!) plan our weeks. You’ll get to hear how we each approach week planning, and get ideas you can apply in your own unique way. As we say in this episode, we are all about flexible planning that is individual for each person.

Our spreads aren't always beautiful, and they aren't always full to the max, but they are always utilized for exactly what we need each week.

That is the beauty of a flexible planning system; it serves you each season you are in, exactly how you need it to.

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

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If you've been following us for long, you are familiar with our favorite hashtag: #makespacetothrive. In a world full of hashtags, this may seem like nothing more than a snippet of motivation, a pithy phrase, or something fun to add on on top of photos. But for us, #makespacetothrive is a reminder of a key practice that moves us from overwhelm—to intentional living. It's become such a core phrase, that when we were brainstorming names for our podcast, it easily made its way to the top of our list.

Back in 2016, Shelby was living in a non-stop, head-down, shoulder-to-the-grindstone hustle. She and her husband supported their tiny family with a home business and were always behind on deadlines. Every moment taken to just sit down and breathe—even just to eat dinner together without multitasking work—invited a crushing air of guilt into the atmosphere.

But there seemed to be no way to simply hustle more. After brain-dumping a giant todo list that took up seven sheets of paper, Shelby realized she was going to have to upgrade her productivity strategy, or she and her husband would never get ahead of the train.

In her typical style, Shelby turned to Google to help her figure it out. Her husband gave her a couple of books he thought were relevant. They scheduled a meeting with a business mentor. Something, anything had to give. But every tip and tool she found seemed to yield a mere 1% improvement to their current situation. It just wasn't enough to move the needle.

But then she found it. The missing piece. Shelby will tell you that learning this strategy radically altered how she approached her life in that season, and continues to be a practice she benefits from today. This is the element that has proved over and over again to be THE #1 strategy to consistent achievement and success in her life, and it's one she's found so many people completely miss.

And what was this missing ingredient? MARGIN.

Margin is planned white-space for your day, your week, your home, your brain—space to breathe in #allthethings.

In other words, margin gives you SPACE to thrive.

Margin looks like many simple things in our lives:

• daily space to sit down, breathe deep, drink a hot cup of coffee, and have a strategy meeting with ourselves using the prompts in our planner
• leaving for an appointment (or church or event or party) 15 minutes earlier than needed so that when we hit traffic or forget something or have a driveway adventure with a toddler, we're not melting down ourselves
• taking time to re-write your goals in your best handwriting, allowing you to fully emotionally process them and then display them so they stay top-of-mind
• asking: "what can I say 'no' to, cull, or renegotiate about this week to make it easier and calmer?"
• getting up before the children (whether in the morning, or before naptime is over) and doing essential things so they don't get missed
• taking time to exercise instead of putting off health goals until your workload lightens or the kids hit a magical age
• keeping our homes clean, decluttered, and well-managed so that spontaneity feels fun instead of chaotic
• saying "no" to a stretch goal in the business so we can make a nicer dinner than usual for our family just because we want to
• turning off all of the notifications on our phones (except for calls from our husbands and mama, of course) and limiting social media so that new information isn't constantly taking a toll on our emotions
• using our time-blocker to add 15 minutes of padding to the transitions in the day (meals, commutes, meetings, etc.), so we don't have to feel like insane people to get anything done on time

Margin transforms your schedule from a never-ending endurance race to a strategic agenda filled with life-giving rest periods. Margin helps you focus on what's essential, and then protects your intention, so that you can truly show up in the things that matter most. Margin allows you time to process stuff instead of letting it build up and eat away at your mental bandwidth. With a lightened schedule, opportunities to be flexible, and a decluttered mind, margin exponentially reduces your stress—which in turn empowers you to be more creative, make more thoughtful decisions, and tackle complex problems with confidence and energy.

If you've been living a life based on hustling as much as you can from when you wake in the morning to when you crash at night, planning margin into your life will feel like a breath of fresh air. Slowing down is one of the easiest ways you can move yourself from a place of overwhelm, to a place of peace. When you begin by ensuring you're well rested, well nourished (physically + otherwise), and you've distilled your commitments to the things that matter most, you are able to show up for the people and responsibilities in your life with zeal. You will bring a life-filled energy that simply cannot exist when you are run down by a never ending to-do list.

When you build margin into your days and weeks, you are giving yourself (+ your family) the space to truly thrive.

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

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Before the Evergreen planner system, I (Clari) had never used a true day-planner. I had tried a myriad of different planners when I worked as an executive assistant before having kids, but they were the types that only had a small box, a column, or a couple of lines for each day. I also used a digital calendar to coordinate meetings and make sure nothing was double booked, but other than getting binged with meeting reminders, I didn’t really reference it or use it to effectively plan my days. My thoughts, plans and tasks were scattered among digital notes, emails, sticky notes, a half-used planner and to-do lists written on random pieces of paper.

But then I became a mom and quit my traditional job. It never occurred to me that a planner could be used to plan rest, to form life-giving family rhythms, or to plan intentional time with my kiddos—just as much as it could be used to make sure critical work projects or mundane home tasks were completed. I again wandered through my days doing what was in front of me, and working off one endlessly long to-do list.

Annie Dillard, in her book The Writing Life, wrote, "How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing."

The reality is we have a lot of agency over whether we live our days intentionally, with purpose, or whether we let them pass by, moving from task to task based on emotions or a crushing sense of urgency. But we can just as easily fall into the trap of trying to squeeze every moment of productivity out of each day, neglecting our needs for rest or even the ones we're called to love. But in order to find that middle way, we have to begin by planning each day.

The beauty of planning each day (especially when you have an entire spread and can plan with the context of your week in view, like you can with our Classic booklet), is that you are able to plan each day in a way that honors the season you're in, the ones you've been given to love, and the work you're responsible for.

And planning a lot of days, over several weeks and months, enables you to begin forming life-giving rhythms that work to breathe life into your family and help you make progress on those bigger goals (revisit our Four Rules of Planning and ROOTED Goals episodes for more on these concepts).

In this episode, we walk through how we each plan our days on the day pages of our Classic booklet. If you’d like to follow along, you can download our free printable below. This printable has all the major elements of our Day page, enabling you to see exactly what we are talking about as we plan the different elements of our day using the time-blocker, top targets, prompts, etc. Because it’s the tool we each use, we talk about our specific planner throughout this episode. However, the principles we talk about can transfer to a lot of different planners, so whatever planner you use, we believe this will be an episode you find valuable!

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

📖 Get the ROOTED Goals Workbook: evergreenplanner.com/rooted

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In typical goal setting culture, the mantra often goes something like this… "Girl, it's time to change your LIFE. Close your eyes, imagine what you want your life to be like in five years—the sky's the limit!—and write down your biggest dreams. Now reverse-engineer those dreams into a million baby steps, and do not stop hustling until you make those goals a REALITY. If you really want something, you're going to have to get up crazy early, change your habits, and become a different person. You're going to have to set the people in your life straight, too. They're either going to have to get on board, or get out of the way. Aren't your goals worth it? And if you start feeling discouraged—because those days will come (it is lonely at the top)—you're just going to have to make sure you have a solid "why" to pull you through. So give yourself a kick in the pants, and get to work."

It's.... a lot.

The problem with this? Well, for starters, you can’t fully foresee the future. You cannot comprehend the very real tradeoffs for the goals you create on paper. Oftentimes, you'll get into the thick of it and start to wonder how you can know if your goal is truly worth it. You feel a rising tension between living intuitively and following through on the goals you set.

Here at Evergreen, we believe that this tension is a real problem for women who seek to live intentionally. And we don't think that laziness, lack of motivation, or even poor time-management is really at the root of the problem. We believe the problem is that people are setting goals that don’t line up with their real life.

A bad goal setting system—one that doesn’t take into account the context of your actual lived life—will lead to guilt and frustration because those goals can't be sustained by your daily life.

But creating goals and dreaming about a different future is good. Goal-setting helps us level-up from the realm of wishful thinking and reactionary living, and begin to make the changes (big and small) that empower us and our families to truly thrive. But the key is this: your daily life has to be able to sustain your goals, so your goals can in turn breath life into your daily life.

We believe there is a better way to set goals; goals that are sustainable, produce change, and are life-giving. We call this process setting R.O.O.T.E.D. goals.

• Rooted in your core calling Grasping the unique calling of God for your individual life is a process. But leaning into your core calling is an essential part of creating goals that fully resonates over the long-haul, compel you to follow-through in the execution of them, and produce a lot of satisfying fruit along the way. The soil of your core calling forms a rich environment for setting sustainable, healthy goals that actually energize you.
• Organically growing out of your context - You need goals that take your real life context seriously and embrace it. You need goals that connect with where you are right now, and that respect that you’re here for a reason. Recognizing the season you’re in and identifying the contours of your priorities can empower you to identify the next right step—the one that can realistically begin to build the lasting change you want to see.
• **Outlined for clarity **** Clarity is QUEEN when it comes to giving your brain an objective that it can actually process, prioritize, and tackle in the day-to-day. When you break down a goal into tangible action-steps, you are equipped to move past your vague theories about what it will take to make your goal happen. You’re able to see the gaps in your knowledge about the process, which compels you to research until you have concrete and actionable understanding.
• Tailored to your lifestyle - If you want to craft compelling goals that are grounded in your unique calling, then you’ll have to give yourself permission to develop creative solutions that make sense for your particular circumstances. On the flip-side, you’ll also need to make some strategic adjustments to your lifestyle so that it actually supports and fuels your goals. (Having a strong sense of clarity will massively help with this.)
• Etched into your memory - For a goal to be sustained in the long-run, it has to stay top of mind. Writing your goal out daily and keeping it in sight will begin to train your subconscious to recognize the opportunities you have to make progress on it.
• Developed by Providence The R.O.O.T.E.D. Goal-Setting System reminds us that the Kingdom of God does not rise and fall by our efforts—but that we do have the responsibility to do our part, exercise our influence, and steward our resources. When we give our goals back to God, we know we can trust Him to develop them in the best of ways.

Setting a ROOTED Goal is all about creating a symbiotic relationship between your daily life and your goals. It’s about creating space for personal growth, and channeling your productivity in a way that cultivated peace. With this system, you can start to craft a lifestyle that not only sustains but actually fuels the vision that God is growing in your heart.

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

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1. Write down what you did. For several days or weeks, use your planner to record what you did. By starting with the rhythms and habits you already operate in, you can recognize patterns, and evaluate what’s working and what’s not. You can then design incremental change that serves your family, makes sense for the season you’re in, and builds into a sustainable lifestyle.
2. Build your repertoire of planning skills. Think about it like becoming a skilled cook in a kitchen. You must build your planning and productivity skills over time, as you come upon new challenges. Learn as you go, practice patiently, and you’ll soon feel equipped to adapt your new skills to fit any given situation. Just as a skilled cook would not feel the pressure to use every technique they know every time they prepare a dish, you shouldn’t feel the pressure to exercise every single time-management or efficiency muscle you have every single moment of every day. You simply build your repertoire of skills for when you need them.
3. Train your subconscious. The more you write down your goals and priorities, the more you are teaching your brain to focus on what is important to you. This builds a “working memory” around your priorities, enabling you to waste less energy on deciding what you need to do next in the day-to-day, so you can give more brain space to bigger goals and projects.
4. Maintain a flexible mindset. Even with the best planning, life still throws punches and things play out in ways you could’ve never anticipated. Instead of mislabeling yourself as “failures” because of circumstances out of your control, you have the choice to strengthen your positive influence in any given situation. You can take a proactive approach to these challenges—whether big or small—by adopting a mindset that inspires you to pivot and handle the inevitable changes to your plans in creative and life-giving ways.

Remember, these rules are not a once-and-done process, they are a cycle that you can move through again and again. The truth about intentional living is that it has to be adaptable, because your life will change constantly. The schedule rhythms you were following in January are likely not the ones that will work well in September. These four rules will help you to constantly adapt, change and perfect your planning processes, while doing it in a way that is unique to your lifestyle, season and needs.

Note: These 4 Rules evolved into our PLANS acronym. You can hear about the development of the PLANS acronym on Episode 09 - Quickstart Your Planning. You can also download the free Quickstart Your Planning Guide we created here!

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew

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You want to start getting organized around the things that matter most to you. But where do you even begin?

In our first episode, we offer an effective shortcut for diving into the world of time-management and productivity—without getting overwhelmed.

1. Write down what you did. For several days or weeks, use your planner to record what you did. By starting with the rhythms and habits you already operate in, you can recognize patterns, and evaluate what’s working and what’s not. You can then design incremental change that serves your family, makes sense for the season you’re in, and builds into a sustainable lifestyle.
2. Build your repertoire of planning skills. Think about it like becoming a skilled cook in a kitchen. You must build your planning and productivity skills over time, as you come upon new challenges. Learn as you go, practice patiently, and you’ll soon feel equipped to adapt your new skills to fit any given situation. Just as a skilled cook would not feel the pressure to use every technique they know every time they prepare a dish, you shouldn’t feel the pressure to exercise every single time-management or efficiency muscle you have every single moment of every day. You simply build your repertoire of skills for when you need them.
3. Train your subconscious. The more you write down your goals and priorities, the more you are teaching your brain to focus on what is important to you. This builds a “working memory” around your priorities, enabling you to waste less energy on deciding what you need to do next in the day-to-day, so you can give more brain space to bigger goals and projects.
4. Maintain a flexible mindset. Even with the best planning, life still throws punches and things play out in ways you could’ve never anticipated. Instead of mislabeling yourself as “failures” because of circumstances out of your control, you have the choice to strengthen your positive influence in any given situation. You can take a proactive approach to these challenges—whether big or small—by adopting a mindset that inspires you to pivot and handle the inevitable changes to your plans in creative and life-giving ways.

• A little about team Evergreen and our heart behind starting this podcast
• Our shortcut for understanding and getting organized around your unique dynamics
• A practical tip that helps you shift your mindset from never feeling like you're doing enough
• How planning is a lot like cooking—and how learning on the go is a super-effective approach

We'll be back with The Four Rules of Planning - Part 2 next week!

Note: These 4 Rules evolved into our PLANS acronym. You can hear about the development of the PLANS acronym on Episode 09 - Quickstart Your Planning. You can also download the free Quickstart Your Planning Guide we created here!

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Web: evergreenplanner.com

Instagram: @EvergreenPlanner

Learn the Evergreen Planning Method: evergreenplanner.com/renew