Tips for Planning BIG Things 📙

0:00Welcome to the Planner Pals Podcast, a podcast hosted by two true planner pals. I'm Jess Ojashi Curran. And my name is Mark, and I go by Mark, your pages. And planner pals, we have an episode for you today where we're going to be talking about strategies that we've used for planning for life events. This could be getting a new job. Maybe you're getting married as Jess just did recently. And as planner people, we like to plan for those life events.

0:23But before we get into our topic today, just want to thank you, planner pals, for all of your great responses answering the question from last episode, telling us about your planner journey. I'll tell you, Jess, I know every year we talk about like our favorite episodes. Last episode, I think was possibly my favorite of the year. It was so cool to hear about like your progression throughout life and how it stuck with you. And I really enjoyed talking about my like, brought back a lot of memories afterwards. You know, I think that if we're going to rank them, that's probably my top from the year as well. Not to say that like, good things aren't coming. The year is not over.

0:57I mean, I don't know what episodes we have coming up because I can't remember the plans we made. I'm very excited for them, obviously, given that she doesn't even know what's coming up. But also thank you, Planner pals, for sharing with us your thoughts and like your journey and such as well. It was also very, very special to me to find a lot of people who are like, I love Cindy as well and like I know that she was like instrumental in getting me on YouTube.

1:17So it's special to have enthusiasts of her content here too. Someone even commented and said that when I shared what my professor told me about how to study, they were like I shared those with my son. He works like hours, He's going to school. He has trouble with this. I shared that with him because it was so amazing. Like, how cool is it that we can share these things that helped us out so much with other people and then they can take it and use it and share it.

1:41Like it's just good advice like that. It is priceless. It is amazing. Thank you, Mr. and Misses Anderson for both your help and Jesses in my life. You make all the difference. Instrumental and vastly different ways. But no, I know that in this episode of particular we are going to have more advice for you. This time though, in a slightly different sense, not so much about studying, but more about that planning for big things because in the day-to-day, planning for general life, most of us have a system that works at least well enough.

2:09Some of us have, you know, the plan of peace, plan of perfection type deal going on. Some of us are just, you know, living day-to-day free ball and our plan is out here. But we're still getting things done, and that's what matters. But when it comes to those bigger things, this is where a little bit more thought is usually necessary. There's usually a little bit more that goes into it because there's just more going on. So Mark, in terms of your tip, you're big number one. What would it be when it comes to planning for big life things? So this is something I learned a few years ago that I really liked, and it's called 2nd order thinking. So the way to kind of break this down, if you think about it, first order thinking is the immediate, you know, I have this thing to do, therefore I'm going to do this. It's kind of this very like immediate call an effect type thing.

2:51It's very surface level. Not to say that our decisions and our decision making or planning is just surface level, but it's just really like that first thing that comes into your mind. And what I love so much about second order thinking is that the second order after you do the initial, it just makes you ask and then what? And for me, this works so well for my brain because Jess knows this more than everyone because of how it works is I'm just like, oh thing, do it right away without taking a breath and saying, OK, but what is this? Like a great example was like when I asked Jess if she wanted to do this podcast with me and Jess was like, OK, I'd like to see basically a business plan.

3:32What are your goals? Like what do you want to make happen? Before she even just said yes, because in my brain it was like someone asked me. I'm like, Yep, immediately I don't have any extra questions to ask. But this has been really helpful in my life because anytime I have a big life event, a big project, I use this honestly a lot more for like at home projects, but like really big projects. So like, if I'm going to like redo our front garden, that's where I used it before because my brain is like, OK, go buy flowers and dig up stuff and, and, and put them in a hole.

4:05Like, no, no, wait a second. Not for everybody. So like a lot of the times what I'll do is I'll be like, well, now it's my first order of thinking, right? I'm like, buy new plants, dig a hole. 2nd order thinking is OK And then what? Well, it's like, well, actually before I can even dig a hole, I have to get rid of all of the mulch that's currently in the dead flower bed, right? And then it's like, OK, and then what? Well, then I have to get rid of that.

4:34And then after I planted, I have to replace it, right? And it just has always been very helpful for me to kind of step through exactly it because by the time I'm done with thinking through it, and it's usually multiple orders of thinking, I have A to do list or a shopping list that I need and kind of a process in which I can take on a project. And it's always been very helpful for me. I love the idea of 2nd order thinking and it is actually a phrase that I totally like nabbed from you, but have probably been applying it completely wrong.

5:01Because the way that I at least when you first pitched it, when I first saw you pitch it, at least the way that it kind of clicked in my mind was the that very much like the end then like this is the decision to make. But what does that mean for future you? So for instance, I was thinking about that when it came to us purchasing our house, thinking about like, Oh yeah, we want XYZ. But it's like, OK, do I actually want that? Because if I have like another bathroom, that's another thing that future just has to clean or get somebody else to clean.

5:29If I get a really big lawn so that I can have that outdoor area or whatnot, who's going to mow it? Like when's that going to happen? If I get a section that has, you know, a whole bunch more land, then it's like, what does that mean in terms of my rates and counsel fees and all of those kind of things? So that's where it's kind of been most applicable for me at least thinking about the like, this is the initial decision. This is the initial want or need or whatever.

5:53But what is the kind of like flow on effect from that? You're exactly on point. I think that's how most people think about, right in my brain. I very much, I'm like, well, how can I apply this to different things? And it doesn't always mean it's the right thing because you're exactly spot on. It's like, I want a bigger house. OK, great. You know? And then what it's like, OK, well, to get that at the price I can afford, I'm going to have to move further away. That's going to increase my commute. And then like you said, all of the things that come along with it, it really does help you break it down. For someone who is very impulsive, like incredibly impulsive, this has always been very helpful for me to stop and just think for a moment because sometimes I will just do it. Like I'll give you a really great example. I'm the prime person for Instagram and Facebook ads because they know what to feed me. I just saw this really cool mechanical keyboard and I was like, I have to have it.

6:42And I've already like looked it up. I have it in the shopping cart. Like I have extra keycaps. I'm ready to go. But I have three mechanical keyboards on my desktop right now and I'm only using two of them, right? So it's I usually have just like, OK, Mark, you know, and it stops me for a moment and I'm just thinking like, OK, if you buy this, then what? It's like, OK, well, then you'd have to retire one of the other keyboards. OK, And then what? Well then where am I going to put that extra keyboard and store it? And it does start to and by the time you get there, and this is where it's helpful for me, I'm no longer interested in that impulsive buy anymore because honestly, I've now talked myself out of it.

7:18And I think that's always been like a really key thing for me, especially with again, there's a big life decision. You're looking at getting a new job, right? You kind of put those things into place. And then by the time when you're done, you're like, maybe my job isn't that bad because this is going to be a lot of work just because maybe I had a bad day. I completely understand that. I like your example of the mechanical keyboard because I was thinking about getting a mechanical keyboard and then I was thinking about, oh, you know, it's going to be really cool and the kind of thing I'm like, yeah, OK, but you used to share an office with Vogel who had a mechanical keyboard and the no, the noise drove you Batty.

7:52Like do you really want to them to be driving yourself Batty? I'm like, OK, it's a little bit different though, because I'm going to be the one typing, so if I want the noise to stop, I'll just stop type deal. But then we start thinking about, OK, how do you connect the keyboard to your computer? Is it going to be a cable mechanical keyboard? Is it going to be wireless? If it's going to be wireless, does it need a new dongle? Do you have a slot for a dongle?

8:11If it's going to be wireless, how does it get charged? Like is it going to be a USBC port that you can just like recharge over and over? Or is it going to have to have actual batteries? And we're just thinking about like a quote, small decision here. I don't know, mechanical keyboard could change your life. Very big decisions. Absolutely. So these kind of things, if we're thinking like this much stuff about just a quote, small decision when it comes to bigger life changes, bigger decisions, bigger events and such, the number of decisions you have to make as part of that is extensively. Bigger.

8:43Yeah, absolutely. So that was my first one. It's kind of my go to is a really great way to deter myself from doing any impulsive thing that I want. But what about yourself, Jess? Do you have any kind of go to method or approach to big projects or life changes? Yeah, my one in particular outside of like, you know, just get your, it's out of your head first. Always a very good place to start. But once I've done that, the most important thing for me is how I organize that information to make it usable.

9:07Because it's all good. And well to sit there with the thought swamp, as I'd like to call it, like the task list swamp of things that you're going to have to do. But if they're not organized in a way that is going to be nice and easy to then like reuse that information or get through doing all of those tasks, that's going to be a problem for future Jess. So the way that she typically likes to think of it, she being I and I being me, usually I like to try and think about it in terms of timelining. So what has to happen first, what has to happen second? But not every project is linear.

9:38In fact, the majority of projects I work on are not linear. I like to think about all of my projects in shapes. So bear with me for a second, but in terms of the shapes that my projects tend to take, we have a line linear. So one task, then the next, then the next, then the next. That's very simple. Well, it's very straightforward. Most things are not like that, though. Then we have a branching shape, which kind of looks like a chicken foot or whatnot.

10:03So this task, then that task. But after that I could do XY or Z. And then each of those might have their own kind of linear progression of tasks. So I have a little bit of choice or a little bit of flexibility in terms of what I work on next, because those things don't require each other to have already been done that that kind of makes sense. Then the third shape we have is kind of like a cycle. So that's where you have a project where you have to do the same kind of steps repeatedly over and over again before you can move on to the next thing.

10:32If we think about that in terms of a very familiar example, that could be something like video creation. You know, you plan out the topic, you write the script or write down your talking points if you want to. You film the thing, you edit the thing, you thumbnail the thing, you upload the thing, and you do that repeatedly to give yourself a video series or something like that. So that was how I approached, for instance, the bullet journal basic series where I had, you know, 40 odd different videos that needed to go into that. So part of my map for that or my timeline for it had that cyclic part where I was just making video after video after video. But there were steps before that that weren't cyclic. They were the kind of like initial brainstorming of the ideas or figuring out the sequencing of those videos and when they were going to get released and stuff. That's not a cyclic thing.

11:15I don't have to do that every single time I sit down to make a video. And that thing kind of had to happen before the cyclic portion. When it comes to mapping them out though, it can get kind of crazy kind of quickly, but I do like having the visual aspect of it. I was going to say the timeline view, a kind of linear view is the one that I always typically go for. And while some of those tests are cyclical in how they happen, I tend to just like to kind of almost carbon copy those projects.

11:39So like I also really love like just like a general timeline view of things because for me, it's helpful to break it down. And that's how I break down things at work as well, where it's just like, OK, a project has all of these different phases inside of it or tasks that have to be done within those. And what I like to do at work is I've actually just made like a little project template. I could just duplicate it each time. I've done the same thing in Notion for a lot of my projects, air tables, kind of the same thing where I do a lot of that work too. And I just think it just works so well because I like to have a starting point and then remove things from it versus feeling like I'm always adding to it.

12:17So like, I think having that little template there always works out really well. And it's funny, when you were talking, you're like, I like to think about it in all these different shapes. I'm like, Jess has like, synesthesia, but for like, graphs and information, you know, like, she sees it in colors and shapes. She doesn't see it as words. Yeah, I do definitely have different areas of life that very much I just picture them in shapes like you know the week kind of a thing that's like a doughnut shaped type deal. I don't get that.

12:43You've said that to me before and I don't get a week in a circle. A week is a straight ass line. I don't know what you're talking about circles for. Is everything cyclic, man, just going round and round? But no, I do find that giving myself that opportunity to, you know, brainstorm the tasks, figure out what needs to be done in the most general of senses. But then putting it into that sequence gives me like a map to follow to work on the project.

13:07Now, when it comes to actually drawing this up or whatnot, as said, it can look a little bit crazy. It doesn't necessarily make for the most aesthetic looking plan. So when it comes to certain parts of it, then how do I take my map, take my crazy map of how I'm going to be tackling this and turn it into something that is going to be a little bit more usable in the day-to-day. So typically for a timeline view or that kind of like linear sequence, this is where you have a checklist that is written in the order of the things you want to get done. So A then B, then C type deal.

13:38When it comes to a cyclic portion though, those ones I typically like to do a table for because it's the same set of tasks that you repeat. So it's like on one edge of the table, whether that's the top or the side, you put all of those tasks in the order that they will happen. And then on the other edge of the table, you'll put each of the iterations of that. So if we think about it in terms of like video content creation, that would be all of the tasks that you need to do for a video along the top.

14:03So plan the thing, script the thing, film the thing, yada yada. And then down the side, it could be like an abridged or abbreviated version of all of the video titles. So you give yourself this grid that you can then just go and check off the different parts as as you do them very easily maps out the progress that you're making on that project. I love that and one of my favorite things to do before we even get to that point is just using sticky notes to kind of map it out kind of in a very pliable way. I think with us being such planner people and everyone's a bit different in this, but I, I don't like to write instead of my notebook when I don't know that it's going to be in an order.

14:40So very often I'll write out like tasks or things that have to get done. And if I'm like, oh, but that thing has to go in there and I'll like draw a line and like write it in there. I'm like, and now I have to rewrite the whole thing over again because it needs to happen in this order. So what I've actually been doing is I have kind of a mix of things. I have reusable sticky notes that I'll use often. You write on them with little like whiteboard markers, but they can stick on any surface if you don't want to have to always reuse like tons and tons of sticky notes, but I have tons and tons of sticky notes as well.

15:09But I just love to just do that and plan it out. It was actually something I learned. I had taken a course in storytelling and that was the process that they made us go through was like start with your ideas and you're going to put them, you know, on this board. I think I physically had a board you could do this in mirror or fig jam or wherever you want digitally if you don't want to do it. But I love the analog because a lot of of us people love analog everything when it comes to stationary of doing that, because then I can move them around without having to like erase, put it away somewhere else. Try to figure that out.

15:42And that has always been very helpful for me so that I can get to the point that you're talking about there, which is this is the way in which this will happen because it's going to happen each time. But like getting to that point for me, I always find difficult because I think I've reached what I think it needs to be. And then I go through that process and I'm like, oh crap, actually I forgot about this. And a lot of the times I'm like the instant template maker, like I was saying before. And I'm like, wait, now I have to go back and change my template.

16:09And in many cases I've already duplicated that several times for like new random ideas. Like I need to find a better process so that when I do change it or something changes in my process, like it just changes everywhere. But I feel like that's really hard to do again. I I've never figured out that's why. Like I kind of moved away from Notion because I felt like every time I wanted to add new, it did more than I needed it to do. I was like, I just fought a new project.

16:35Can you change add this to every project that already exists? I don't care if it's already done and I can never quite figure it out. So figuring out before putting it anywhere digitally or writing it down has always been helpful for me. Not to get into like a Notion basics tutorial or anything like that, but if you go into the property section of any kind of new template, you can add things and have it add to everything, which is nice. But when you're actually changing like the structure of a page, that is where it won't necessarily update the previous ones. If it's a, if it's a table property or a database property, then yes, it'll add it to everything if you want it to, but you still have to go and like input the data for those kind of the back catalog.

17:13It'll just have a section there dedicated to the thing. At least as far as I understand. I'm still still a little bit of a Notion noob. I'm very much enjoying it. But yeah. Yeah, I know there's definitely probably ways to do it, but I remember when I tried it, when like the newer version came out with like the whole project planning timeline stuff, I was like, oh, I'm just going to make all these templates and do these things. And the next thing I know it was like duplicating task for the same project over and over again.

17:38And I was like, I didn't do this right. I'm going to, I'm going to move this over here because this is now a lot. It's not working the way I wanted it to. That's very fair. I think having it work the way you want it to, regardless of where you're planning, whether that's like in your, you know, physical planner or a digital space or anything like that, that's really important, especially when it comes to these big events and big life projects and whatnot.

17:58Because it's big because it's going to be like, you know, a lot of working pieces and whatever you need to have things organized and you need to have them in such a way that future you, you're doing favors for. You're not going to like throw them under the bus because you're like, oh, this works good enough for me right in the second where I completely understand what I'm doing. And then you pick it up two days later and you're like. All the time.

18:18That's literally or like, I have this great impulsive idea and I'm just like, wow. And then I'll find something, you know, months from now. And I was like, Oh yeah, that's where that went. I did like your point about sticky notes because I have a weird relationship with sticky notes because I used to have quite a lot of them, especially having come from being a teacher and such. We had a lot of those available to us so I had quite a a stock of them. I just don't enjoy using them though because I feel like they're so wasteful.

18:46I'm the kind of person who will write on a sticky note and pencil so that I can erase the sticky note and reuse it later, but I don't enjoy doing that either. So what I typically have found to be doing nowadays when it comes to for writing a list out, first of all, I'll write it somewhere that I don't mind as messy because then I can reorder it and restructure it to my heart's content. And then go and write and we'll finalise pretty copy somewhere else. Typically I'll do that either in a scribble book, like, you know, just a very basic kind of little soft ring bind kind of notebook or whatnot.

19:16Or just in something that I don't mind scrapping after the fact. Or often I'll do it digitally because then you can just, you know, cut, paste, reorder and such to get into a sequence that is ideal and then move that into my physical planner. But when it comes to goal planning in particular, given the fact that I knew that when it comes to brainstorming ideas for a project or goal, oftentimes my thinking is not super linear. I'll think of things that I need to do first when I'm like halfway down a list or whatnot. I've just done it in such a way that rather than relying on the ordering of the items in the list to be the order in which they get done, I set that up in an Alistair method so that then I could just map them to particular weeks instead. Now, if you're like Jessica, what is this? What is Alistair method?

20:01This is essentially a system of kind of. Applying different tasks in a list 2 particular blocks of time. A lot of people use it in terms of like a weekly task list. So they'll have columns of like MTWTFSS for each of the different days of the week. And then across from the task in question and underneath the relevant column, you put a dot to say, yes, I'm doing this thing on that day. I use that in my weekly task lists because I use daily logs typically.

20:30So at the start of the week, I don't have a box set up for Friday. I'm, you know, don't have a space to write down my Friday tasks just yet. So I'll write it in that kind of weekly task list view and put a little dot under the F column to say oop in box 0. That's happening on a Friday. But I also do this with my gold plans across 1/4. Instead of using Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, rah, rah, I use the week numbers. So like one through 13 for the weeks of that quarter.

20:54I. Don't even know how you know what week it is. It's like I don't even know what day it is most of the time. I'm guessing maybe your calendar shows you. You must have it somewhere that like lets you know what week it is. I've never been up by the week person. Yeah, I make sure that I have the week number on the end of my future log calendars. You can barely see it there in grey so that then I don't get confused. But it's just so that I can keep them nicely mapped out.

21:16And it's just, it works better for my brain. But I'm also the kind of person who, like, you know, doesn't enjoy monthly planning. I want to do cyclic planning because I like working on four week blocks because then each week is 20, 25% and everything's very like same samey match matchy. Like the amount of time I have in cycle 1 is the same amount of cycle 2 is the same amount of cycle 3. Unlike monthly planning where it's like, oh, this one's got 31 days and then that one only has 30, but this one only has 28. Unless it's a four year gap and then it hasn't. Like who?

21:43No, why? They should have just organized the calendar so that there was 13 months. That would have been better. Just if you could make it odd to make it even, that would just be fantastic. Yes, that would be fabulous. Place the powers that be, the people in charge of calendars. Let's go with 13 instead of 12. My goodness, yeah. One of the big things, I've never been the type of person that can really work that way. It's another reason why I love talking with you about this stuff, because our brains do work so differently, but they come from a good place. I think for me, the biggest thing, instead of trying to figure out the weeks and kind of those pieces, I like to break it down really depending on the person. I was just talking to a buddy of mine at work. We were talking about how we forecast work and how we plan for work.

22:25So my team, I work in weeks and months. And so everything that I do with my team, I break it down that way when I'm like, OK, we're going to be doing project discovery and this will lead into my next part, which is essentially that linear planning. But how I do it, you know, I take a look at a task or a phase and what I've done with my team is we've broken it down. We've done T-shirt sizing essentially for projects and tasks where it's like an extra large takes, you know, 20 hours.

22:52A large takes this much. We break it down from there. And he was talking with his team. He works in minutes and hours and days. And I was like minutes. And it's because like he has a production team. And so they really are like notching it down to like how quickly can they get a task done. And it's so interesting because I love to think about the scalability of things. It's kind of like part of my job is that like, how do you take a very small team in a very small project?

23:20And then how do we break that up into something much larger? And I love it because it's like a little brain puzzle that we have to figure out because like I said, for my team, we're breaking it down into, you know, the weeks and the months and going that way. And so when I think about tasks, and I do this for myself as well, especially with like those bigger projects that are coming up is I like to estimate how long I think that it's going to take to accomplish that.

23:45And I always give myself cushion because there is never a perfect day. There's always something that's going to get in your way. And especially if you're working on something like a home renovation, for instance. And this was something that bothered me and I learned because we just did our first one a few years ago is, you know, when someone's like, well, you know, to put in the kitchen cabinets, that's going to take 4 weeks to do. I'm like, what do you mean 4 weeks to put in kitchen cabinets? And it's like, well, because we have to order it and they may or may not come in on time.

24:15And then after they get here, you know, we got to install them and hopefully everything goes OK. And like in our case, I'm glad we buffered in that time because like we got some kitchen cabinets and, and the doors were all messed up and like scratched up before they even got put up. Well, they had to be sent back out and then come back in. But that still kept us like in that project plan. So something I like to do is actually kind of takes off from that next step that we talked about, like those sticky notes or even taking those sticky notes and then putting them into some type of order, whatever that looks like, is to think about the amount of time that task is going to take with a little bit of cushion inside of there.

24:52Because I just think it's so helpful to think about if you're are taking on a really large project. I mean, if you're taking on, you know, something large like a wedding, for instance, there's so many top level themes and then so many tasks that come below those that have to happen. So it's like, you know, something like order the flowers for your wedding. You know, it's like, OK, but there's so much underneath of that that gets tucked under that goes into thinking about like what happens with that?

25:20And I love breaking projects down like that. It does give it a little bit more thought. Like I said, as an impulsive person, I tend to be like, let's do a thing. And then it's like, OK, well, how long do we think that's going to take? Because especially, you know, let's, I was actually about to do a project for my backyard, which is going to be a lot of hardscaping. And I was like, OK, go buy all the pipes and all the stuff for the, the French drains and the rocks. And then you're going to do all the stuff. And I was like, no, I don't need a backyard field of rocks and pipes and all of that.

25:50And so like, I broke it down into like, OK, if I'm going to be digging a French drain, how long realistically as a person that works Monday through Friday, has events on the weekends, Like how many weeks do I think this would actually take me to do? And then, you know, it was like, OK, well, if we figure that out, like then I don't have to order the rocks for the, the pho river that I'm building in my backyard, this dry bed river or whatever the hell I looked up on Google to do. But I don't need to do that yet because there's so many things that need to happen 1st.

26:21And I think actually, when I like actually planned this all out, like I wasn't going to get to like the fun stuff because I got to dig holes and build walls and do stuff until like next spring. So it was just one of those things that was helpful because otherwise I would have took myself to the hardware store. I would have been like, all right, I need all this PVC pipe in these drains. I need to rent a trench digger. Oh, I'm also going to buy all of the stone because I need to old retaining walls and then I need to bring all this river rock because I'm doing this like that was just kind of nutty. And then I know it was and that's why I was like, OK, Mark, we're going to take our time here. But it's also helpful too, especially when you're dealing with a lot of money to break those projects down. And then that way you're not just spending truckloads of money upfront when realistically you could be breaking that down a little bit more.

27:08So like taking those tasks, breaking them down and then giving timeline stem is helpful. So at least in my case, a little tip that I like to use because then I can be a little bit more realistic stick about projects like that and what they're going to cost. And can I break that down into increments versus it being like one large sum? Especially for the impulsive persons that we both are. Because you're sitting there like, oh, and I, I told myself no. And I didn't go out and buy all the things. I'm like, I would have bought all the things. I would have been right there like, you know, filling up the cart like, Oh yeah, I want this one as well. And that's the problem, right?

27:39Because if you haven't mapped it out in your head how the whole thing is going to work, it doesn't need to be the whole thing. But like at least sufficiently, if it's not sufficiently mapped out, you do run the risk of buying stuff that just doesn't end up fitting with the project as it actually turns out. Or, you know, it's a great kind of like a first idea of something and then it turns out that like actually don't need that one, need these 3 instead or something like that. Now I have this random one thing that I purchased to start with and it doesn't fit.

28:07I'm very much that way, especially when it comes to like office reorganization because I'm, I get very excited about different ways to like hold pins and storage and all of that kind. And I think I'm like, oh, this is going to be the one that changes it all. This is how I'm going to store XYZ and then I get it and it just doesn't work or it doesn't fit with the rest of everything else. One of the things that I purchased, like the first thing that I purchased to store my pens in that was like not just a pencil pouch or something like that was these little acrylic drawers from Muji.

28:36We do not have a Muji store where I'm based. We, I don't think we even have one in the country. So I had to pay like 140 bucks to get a Muji set of drawers. It's only three drawers, 3 little acrylic drawers. I hate them. I hate them so much. They're hideous. They're not, they're not with me anymore, but I kept them for the longest time because I spent that much money on them. I got them for my acrylographs. They fit the acrylographs really nicely, but I hated the way that they slid in and out. They would get like stuck and such and they wouldn't go with anything else that I had in my office because they weren't, you know, modular.

29:07For other brands. They're probably Mooji Modular, but I wasn't going to go buy more Mooji when I didn't like the first Mooji. Whatever. If you're sitting there at home with your emoji drawers being like, Oh my God, Lysolanda salamander, they're the best thing ever, I apologize. They just work for me. Instead, what I now have is some beautiful, gorgeous, very budget friendly Kmart drawers. I know not everybody has Kmart. Well, ha ha, we still have it in New Zealand because we don't have Walmart or the furniture store or IKEA.

29:34We have to have something, guys. OK, I love my Kmart drawers. They work so much better. But they also don't work for telegraphs. Now I need calliograph storage. I'll get there eventually, but that's a future made problem. I remember what I was redoing my office. I forget if we talked on the podcast about this or maybe just on another thing. And I was like, I went out and I bought all these different size containers to see what fits. And you were like, why don't you just draw the and measure inside of your drawer to see what you had to buy?

30:01And I was like, you shut your mouth. It was more fun coming home with bags filled of options than it was to find a solution in the store. But that just goes to show like there's so, so many different ways to to go about it. The one thing I can say, and this is I think the most important part is that I did return the items that I didn't use. And I think that's probably the hard part for some people. I think if you're not the type of person that will go out of your way once you go out, then then you've wasted money, right?

30:30Essentially. But I can't say I did return the things that I didn't use. I used it all because I was just like, no, this is all going to work. But I had one stack and I was like, can we can we do it? Can I was like, no, you only have so much space now, Mark. Like it's not as unlimited as it was in the previous space, but it just always cracks me up. I just think it's so funny, like that's not my first thing. It's like measure a drawer and then take a piece of paper or a measurement to a store and then find a solution. I'm like, I have this idea.

30:59I think this will work. We'll see what happens when we get home. Yeah, whereas I'm like, you know, getting out my little scribble book, meticulously measuring things up so I can take it to the store because I'm not the kind of person who will return things once it has come out of the store with me. It's like, no, Jessica, you have sealed your gauge. Like, that is it? This is yours now. You can find a new home for it. You will not be taking it back. Maybe I just don't want to do the walk of shame back into the store.

31:20Like it didn't work. I'm sorry. And I know that there's like not really any shameful feelings to be had around that, but it's just not something I do. Well, James at Kmart doesn't remember you. Jess, I'm sorry to hurt your feelings, but like, unless you really know him well, like he does not care that you're returning anything there. The best part is that you don't even have like actual service checkouts there. It's all just like auto like self checkout type things.

31:43James and I haven't even had an interaction yet and I'm already worried about what he thinks. James is like an acronym for some type of like service return system. You know, like James. I'm so sorry. It's like please scan your next item. You shouldn't have done that. He's judging you. He's not even real. This is what AI goes too far When it starts judging you for the stationary that you're buying, you need to go away. I agree. So I do have a question for you just because I mean, obviously your most recent big life event was getting married.

32:17And I've known that you've blogged, blogged like a lot about this as you gone through your process. But did you do anything about like actually how you're planning for your wedding? You probably already have a video on it. I may have just missed it, but like, did you have kind of like before you even got into it, did you have a plan that you knew that you were going to go about soon or was this part of that planner chaos experimentation to see what works before you got there?

32:38So this is the hard thing about planner chaos and experimentation is that I was only planning on getting married once. So like I have the skill set for if there's a next time, but I'm not really planning for a next time. It took me long, it took me this long to get here. Now maybe you could share that with others. Now you'll become someone else's wedding planner. Exactly. Oh my gosh. See, I love wedding planning. I love planning in general, but then like weddings are just so much fun as well. So now as mine's over, I'm just like, oh, sad sea turtle, what am I going to do with all these skills? But no, before I got started, you know, back when we first got engaged and such, of course, I was already into journaling and the likes.

33:16I'm like, oh, awesome, I'm going to put together a wedding planner. I'm going to like, you know, deck it out. I'm going to have all of these layups and spreads and stuff. I'm going to be so organized, be the most organized bride that ever brided or something. And then I started making one when we actually got underway with planning. And I'm just like, this is not the most efficient way to do this, especially because there were other people involved. It's not just me, myself and I lonely islanding it and doing everything myself.

33:40I had to make sure that Vogel was filled in. I had to make sure that my vendors were filled in and all of that. So I ended up doing the majority of my planning via e-mail and a Google Sheet, which as self-proclaimed Excel queen, like light TM kind of a thing. I don't like Google Sheets. It's like the ugly cousin of Excel. I'm sure that the Google Suite lovers out there just like blasphemy. How dare you. But Excel is just like my first love, really. So to be using Google Sheets for this process felt like kind of sacrilege.

34:11But because I was working with my wedding coordinator and she shared that document with me to start with, I knew she had access. She had written out all of the kind of budgeting information for me and such. She helped me break down that budget. She had all of the tasks that I needed to do. So I was like, if I use this, then she knows where I'm up to and she knows what I need help with. I could go through and add comments to the document. I could go through and highlight sections and she could see that.

34:36And I didn't have to then send a bunch more emails than I already was sending to get the information I needed from her. Also, because a lot of the information you'd get from vendors and such would be emailed to you, it just made more sense to have things mostly sorted through there, which was also a space that Vogel could access so that he at least felt like he was involved in the process. That was very kind of you to let him feel that way, you know?

34:59I gave him like 1 task. I OK, so you know, leading up to the wedding and such and he's saying like, oh, I'm really stressed out about the wedding. I'm like, why you're not doing and not in like a really this Nick anyway, but maybe a little bit. But I'm like, OK, well, explain this feeling to me. Why are you feeling so stressed out? He's like, oh, I have to write vows. I'm like, yeah, and. And here's everything that I've done today. I've emailed you the spreadsheet.

35:26Yeah, here's my laundry list of tasks. But he got to point and he's just like, OK, yeah, no, I understand. Yes, I I'm allowed to be stressed, but you're probably also very end or more stressed. Is there anything I can do to help you type thing? I'm like OK, sure you can order the cake. That can be your job. Like we need a cake for supplying of the B Aziz like you can do that. So he sent like 2 emails to places to hear back from them and the e-mail response came back from one of them kind of around the middle of the day when he was working.

35:56And I'm just like no, I want this done. I'm doing it now. So I just took care of it. I'm like Yep, this is the thing I can give you a job, but can I let you keep it? No, it's mine. I must finish this off. So I ended up doing the like, you know, after the initial e-mail he sent, I did the rest of the back and forth. I went and made a spreadsheet of the different options. So they given us and went and looked up beer ratings and stuff and compared the price to comparison of like, you know, this is how much the keg is, but this is what the leader edge is and this is the rating of the beer. So this is the one we should get and all of that type thing. And then he gets off work at, you know, 435 or whatever and he's like, oh, I saw that an e-mail came in from the the bottle store.

36:32I'm like, yeah, that's dealt with. Don't worry about it. And here's this. I sent you this spreadsheet. This is how we came to this decision. Pretty much here. Here's all of my second order thinking that went into this. I love that. Well, that just really does kind of show you like how your brain works, right To to easily be able to do that. Like it is a skill that has come very naturally to you. I do think it's so interesting, like you said, like initially you thought this needs to be a notebook just because that's where we live most of our lives.

37:01And it's amazing again, how quickly you realize like that maybe isn't the right thing about it. Like, you know, I know I've talked a lot about like my Swatch book that I have, like I have a digital Swatch book that exists in air table, does everything that I need to do. But I still love the experience of like making that and making the Swatch and writing it down and doing all of that, like brings me pleasure. So did you do anything inside of an actual notebook? Maybe he's probably maybe more memory keeping than anything else, but still connected to that. That helped you balance that part of your brain? Or were you just like, Nope, everything digital and like, that's just where it ended up being. Originally I did set myself up by wedding journal and I did start to populate it like with my checklist of things to do and all of that type of a thing.

37:48But I just, it wasn't the place that I was looking for that information, but I would go back to the sheet like the Google Sheets version. So I ended up just mainly using that. But when it came to doing my quarter three goal setting, because I was starting to feel a little bit like scatterbrained mess. And I wanted to bring all of my goals and projects together into my goal planner, this one which is allowed to be a little bit messy. So it's like, you know, I I get a little bit like loose and free form with it.

38:13It still looks nice to most people when I show it to them. They're like, that's not messy. I'm like, it is for me. Just like, bear with me for a second, but most of what I did was this type of thing where it's just OK, giant checklist of all of the tasks. Here are the weak numbers. Let's map them to the weak numbers and then cross them off as we go. So this just went on for a couple of spreads, just just the two of them as I started to think of extra tasks that needed to be done.

38:37But keeping it in here and then pulling from there into my weekly task lists worked really well. But that's also how I do the majority of my goal setting now. I plan all of my goals out in my goal planner. And then each week at the kind of like end of one week, start of the next, I come back to here and pull out all of the tasks that need to be done across the multiple goals that I'm working on so that I can see that kind of head down, condensed, simplified list. Rather than looking at, you know, the task swamp or whatever that can get a little bit overwhelming. You're just focusing on the ones that are like, OK, this is what needs to be done right now or what can be done right now versus here's the laundry list of everything that needs to happen for this project.

39:16Which when you look at things that are, you know, big life events, lots of tasks, lots of things to do, you can get to that point of like a cool that looks like way too overwhelming. And I'm just going to bury my head in the sand. If you just pull out the ones that can be like right now focus, it just makes it a little bit more bite sized and easier to tackle. It's a really, really great tip. I was thinking through that. Yeah. Whenever you're looking at that monster task list, you get so overwhelmed. And a lot of people to get get that like analysis paralysis, where you're just like looking through it all and the letters start merging together and turning into other things. And you're just like, wait, like, how in the world am I going to get all this done?

39:53Like thinking about really intelligent ways to be able to break that down is a really smart task for me. My brain, I always think about it as like drop down list again, because my brain lives inside of like digital product design, you know, where it's like, OK, it's a lot of information, let's go and just tuck that underneath of here. Like and when we make it to, it's one of the things when we were actually talking last week about our planner journeys, you know, there was, I think it was To Do List was one of the apps that I used to use and they used to at some form.

40:24I don't know what it looks like now. I've been touched in years, kind of have that. So you had your top level? Task that she wanted to get done and then you would set all of them underneath of it and like as you ticked them off and gave you a little percentage. I use this in work also with like air table does a very similar thing with task and big projects because I love it so much. I think it's such a great way because it does like it just tucks everything else away and then you just expand the one thing to see like, OK, this needs to happen in this time frame and it's something very cathartic. I'm not the right word, but like satisfying, gratifying. That's why we love like checking things off in notebooks to like check that and see like a little number, move a little bit. I was like, oh, OK, I'm doing good. This is great.

41:06You know, when you see that, you've got like a little tiny nugget left to do. And a lot of the times for me, that's the motivation I need because I'm like, OK, I'm almost there. Let's just get it done. Sometimes it gets in my way, but it all depends on it. Like from playing like a video game, for instance. And I'm like almost there. I will like avoid other things just because my brain is like, you have to complete that thing. You're almost there. But it also is very helpful at work when you're like, OK, one more task to be done with this, like, let's just get it done. Sometimes it takes a motivation, but sometimes just that little nugget of getting to 100% is enough for me. The thing that I find the hardest about the percentage based completion is that it I get a little bit too anal about it.

41:47Let's be real. And like, no, not all of these things should be weighted equally. And I've kind of been thinking about that for a current project that I'm working on, which is called like my future me problems list. So essentially anytime I think of a task, I'm like, ohh, I really wanna do that. But it's not a right now thing and it's probably not of this week thing and it's probably not of this month thing. It goes on to the someday maybe list or the future may problems list. I got to a point where the future me problems list was just looking like just a little too long, just like maybe just a bit too many bit too much stuff on there. And I'm like, OK, in quarter three, we're going to take it down.

42:19We're going to tackle this list. We're going to get these things off of here to the extent where I was kind of committed to the idea of I'm either going to complete or scrap all of my future me problems by the end of the quarter. So the initial task for me was just going through and doing some pruning and I got my list to 100 things. I'm like, OK, we're going to treat it like each task is weighted the same, which means every time you complete a task on the list, that is 1% completed towards the goal.

42:45So when I went and wrote it out, we've got like a full spread of the different tasks that I need to do. But I also didn't wanna have to go and count up every time I did something. So I found a use for the Dang sticky note and gave myself a tally. So at least now I'm gonna use the sticky note, but I'm currently at 58% of the way through. I know some of those things are not gonna happen this quarter. They've kind of already been pushed off as another future problem. That's gonna be a quarter 4 jest problem. And some of them I'm like, yeah, you're probably not happening in quarter four either, but I kind of wanna keep you around because I do wanna do this someday.

43:21That kind of like hopeful wishful, kind of like planning for yourself. You're like, I wish I was the kind of person who would do this. So I'm going to keep it on the list even though it probably will never happen. Well, something that's been helpful for me if you're not the type of notebook person, I've been trying to put my mind like outside of just a notebook because I know so many of our planet pals and viewers for our Youtubes and things like that are not always into notebooks.

43:42And there's like two things that I really like. One of them I've been using for a while, which is the Ugg monk, the analog cards, which are great because it lets you break things down into to like today, next and someday. And the someday reminds me very much of your like future me problems kind of thing because I have a lot of stuff on here. I've actually been moving it back because every week when I'm filling out a new card or every time I fill up a card, I'm like, oh, that didn't get done, That didn't get done.

44:08It's very similar to like how you use a bullet journal when a task isn't getting complete, you're just like, I'm going to move that to my future log. But recently finishers just sent me this because they have a similar type thing. I haven't gone into depth on this just yet. But what was interesting about it is that their cards say must do and should do. And I was like, oh, this is a very interesting concept. And then on like the information card, I'm like reading through this.

44:33And The thing is that I don't know that I necessarily agree with this, but it was very interesting like a mindset to think about. It's like this whole like mantra on the back. It's like the must do's and the should do's, must do's move you forward. Should do's invite distractions, must do's demand discipline? Should do's temps with ease? Must dos are promises kept to yourself? Should dos derail your progress? And I'm going through this and I was just like, I get what they're trying to say, but I don't agree with it necessarily because the should dos and the must dos.

45:09I, I look as like mustard, like I have to get this done today, right? Like this has to get done and there's only three spots. So like I love that. I always do like a top three for the week or things like that too. But like should do this, though. Maybe it should have been a different word because it's kind of like, well, I should do this, but I have to do these other things. You know, it's like secondary, but that doesn't always mean that it's unnecessary or that it's going to stop you from what you're doing.

45:37I guess in theory, if you have must do's and should do's, if you're tackling a should do before your must do. And sorry, if this is getting into like a word salad, then I understand it. But like, I don't know that I necessarily agree. Again, I've only spent like less than 10 minutes because I just finally opened this box. But when you were talking about that, it reminded me of this and I was, it's like, you know what, like I kind of get it, but I kind of don't. Like, I don't know if I fully agree with like the mantra of it, but I think the cards could be helpful. Just not living by their rules.

46:08Like I'm already breaking the rules of this system and I haven't even started using it yet. I I understand what you mean though, because to me I should do is something that's like an expectation placed on you by something external. So it's like I should drink 2 liters of water a day. That is something that, you know, societal norms, society tells us. In theory, I know, don't quote me, I'm not a doctor. In theory we should be getting X amount of water or whatnot.

46:33But if my current goals are not to improve my hydration, then rebel brain will be like suck it. No, you're not my manager, I'm not going to do it. I am also a big believer in that there are no musters. Everything is optional, everything is choice. It's just that the consequences kind of suck for some things if you don't do the thing. It's interesting, yeah. I'm excited to spend some more time with this because as a person who's been using the Analogue cards for a while, another card system and I know there's more out there than just that. There's one that pops up in my Instagram feed all the time and I'm like, I kind of want to try it just because I've seen it so much and I've used this one system, but it is just an interesting way to like break it down even like again, if you're not the type of person that needs like a giant running list or that overwhelms you, you can't think about it. There are other ways to do it.

47:18Another term I learned someone messaged me that's called fake monk. So instead of using the Ugg monk cards, they essentially just make their own with index cards and they call it their fake monk cards because they set it up the same way. But there are a lot of different ways to like utilize these other systems for yourself without having necessarily to like buy all into them to do it. But I think it very much is like, again, the planner chaos part of my brain was like, let's experiment.

47:44Let's see. Like how do we know if it doesn't? And it's going to probably be a waste of time because like one of my next like little challenges I want to do, I don't know if I'll be able to actually do it would actually be to not use my bullet journal, but only use another system for a certain amount of time. I've done that with planners before where I give it like 2 weeks and a planner, which isn't really enough time, honestly. I know it's not, but like if I give myself two weeks of just using one type of a system to see if it works, I'll be interesting to see like how much I miss the other things because I've been such a notebook list person for so long.

48:18Like if I have to change my brain into thinking in a different way, like, can I actually do it? But I get excited about that because I think about like, what can I learn more about myself or the way I plan projects or the way I organize my life when I'm not using the tool that I'm used to using? I was also, you know, given the fact that it's a new plan, a season especially, and I know that's part of probably why I'm feeling my feels, but sometimes I feel like I just get too comfortable with where I'm at and I need to change something just for the drama of it.

48:50Literally, I'm just going to go and buy a Hobonichi even though I know that the paper is not going to be for me and I don't like the pre structured thing and the number of spaces for each day is just going to give me the heebie jeebies. But why not? Yeah, just throw yourself in the deep end like that. I'm not calling you out. I am calling me out here. Oh no, I definitely bought one. Thought I was going to use it and then like used like 6 pages of it and then was like no this isn't really for me.

49:15I mean we've all been there. I like the designs. That's the way they get you is that they come with these cool designs. Like this year it was like Tamagotchi looking pixel people and I was like hell yes I need that but I don't need it because I have 100 other unused notebooks next to me. Yeah, I think that like one of the most important parts for me when it comes to planning essentially anything but big life events in particular is picking the space with intention.

49:39Like we kind of talked about that idea of the wedding planning stuff ended up digital because it needed to be shared. It was already established. I was so new to it kind of thing and then the information was just going to end up duplicated if I put it somewhere else. But there are other projects where you know, the goal journal is going to be completely sufficient and planning in here is going to be great. And then and there are going to be other projects where I really do need that kind of expanded timeline view.

50:02And I want to be really messy with it. And even though the gold journal is my messy space, it's too messy for the messy space and I need a messier space, which is where the scribble book comes into it. Or oftentimes graph paper. I love graph paper for messy planning. Graph paper is great because you can do your your crazy math and it still kind of looks neat. And then you can just draw little sunflowers along the punched out holes because you can't keep your mind on track and that's OK. And then if you don't use graph paper, it ends up looking even crazier and hideous.

50:31And you don't want to put this in your planner because you're anal and you're a persnickety biscuit and you want everything to look nice and this doesn't look nice, but it helps. See, my thing is about the organization. So it's funny, I have the same thing I talked about. I was working on my backyard project. So I have like a giant piece of paper that I've been doodling on to and then writing things in. And I'm always like, OK, but like the problem is, is like where does this go?

50:52So like I've been keeping it, you know, inside of here, like put together so I don't lose it and it creates a little fun book. But that's the problem I have with those like large graph papers. It's because I'm like, but where does that live now? Because I need it to reference it, but like I doesn't fit inside of AA5B5 square like all the normal sizes that I have without folding it up into a little origami shape. So like that's my hard part is like, where does it live though?

51:20I have one plastic pocket that all of my crazy maps live in. This is the only place that they live and so anytime I make myself a crazy map it just goes into the plastic pocket so I know that they are all in there. Is it the greatest system? Probably not, but I don't make so many crazy maps that it doesn't work, so this works for me. I like that a lot. Awesome. Well, I think we went through a lot of ideas here, Jess. And as always, you know, we want to hear from you plan our pals to understand how you plan for these big life events or life changes, things that are going on.

51:50You know, we talked a lot about a lot of different methods today and systems and way in which we've done it, but we would love to hear from you plan our pals. How are you organizing and planning for your big life events or big projects that are happening? You can always drop a comment on the YouTube video if you want. You can also hit us up on [email protected] and of course, leave comments over on our socials at Planner Pals podcast.

52:12I think that this is a very timely conversation, especially as we're kind of getting into quarter four. And I know for me personally, I love doing a whole bunch of projects in quarter 4 because I really want to make the most of the last three months, like really kind of get to the end of the year feeling very proud of my progress, whether it's on goals that I said at the start of the year and I still haven't done anything about or other things that come up like Vlogmas. Very much looking forward to reading all of your ideas, Plan of Powers.

52:36And as always, thanks for watching.