Plan Your Best Year Ever + VIDEO
Wanna have your best year ever? Schedule it!
As a coach, I’m really big into planning and managing your time. One of the best ways I’ve found to do this is to design and schedule your life first and then your business around your life. This concept is not new and I certainly can’t take credit for it, but it is a powerful tool you need to learn if you are building a business and don’t want to hustle forever.
So what is it? I like to call it Week Design - sometimes it’s called Model Week, Day Design, or Lifestyle Design, but the concept is that you schedule your priorities FIRST and your priorities here are your wellness, family, relationships, you-time. And THEN you schedule in your work obligations.
Sounds crazy right? I tried this in early 2017 - I had big plans to take Friday’s off, only work Monday-Thursday, and then that quickly fell by the wayside as I was hustling my butt off, working a few different jobs in a few different industries, and felt pressured to always be available for my clients - whoever they were and whenever they needed me.
After helping to launch Rebelle Con, a lifestyle design conference for women that took place in Richmond this past November, I was reinvigorated by Rachel Cook to dust off my Week Design and really plot out what I wanted my days and weeks to look like.
Here’s where I ended up:
- Mondays - my CEO / get shit done days. This is where I look at and prep for my week ahead. I usually meet with my own business coach on Mondays, I send email reminders for clients, have client prospect calls, and I think about and work on big picture projects. I get admin stuff done. Not glamorous, but it’s these CEO tasks that grow your business.
- Tuesdays - personal styling client sessions and work days. I have Tuesdays / Fridays set aside for my 1:1 personal styling clients. These are any type of sessions or work such as lookbooks, shopping, or wardrobe plans that I need to create for my clients.
- Wednesdays - content creation days. This day I’m most excited about! My content right now consists of a monthly newsletter, monthly style blog post, social media, and workshops. I am excited to use this day as a day to “batch” my content like blog posts. Batching is a productivity technique where you work on several of the same thing at one time. While I do one style post a month right now, once I start batching my posts, I’ll be able to work on two at one time, publish more per month while also building up scheduled content.
- Thursdays - business coaching days. As a business mentor I work with small businesses owners through the THRIVE program and as a coach, I work with other personal stylists to help them take their business to the next level - my stylists come from ALL over. I set this day aside to schedule my meetings and video calls.
- Fridays - personal styling client sessions and work days. And I close out my week with my 1:1 styling clients.
You’ll see I’m setting myself up to work typical, 9-5, M-F days, but this doesn't bother me.
On Wednesdays, I am planning to work from 9 AM - 2 PM, when my brain is the sharpest for writing and creating.
Now, this schedule isn’t set in stone. I won’t get bent out of shape if a day doesn’t go exactly as I had planned - life happens! Just a few weeks ago, I had a client that could only meet on Wednesdays, so I shifted around my content creation and styling days.
But what about coffee dates that everyone always wants to go on to pick your brain? Where do those fit? My friend Kaarin wrote an amazing article (linked here!) on this very topic, so I set aside 8 AM Friday mornings. If that person wants to get up that early for coffee, then I know they will be invested. And, bonus, this actually works really well for people that have ‘normal” jobs. So that’s MY Week Design. How do you want to set up your week?
YOUR TURN: Tell me in the comments below and let’s craft our lives and businesses in a way that works for us.
Video edited + produced by Matt Pochily
Sydney is a personal wardrobe stylist with over eight years of experience in the fashion industry. She specializes in helping women create sustainable and timeliness wardrobes that work for them, not against them. She is also the creator of BEYOND where she provides coaching services for aspiring personal stylists helping them take their styling hobby to a full-time business.
Sydney is a graduate of the Los Angeles-based School of Style, holds dual masters degrees and currently lives in Richmond with her husband and three cats. She loves black coffee, vintage, and the great outdoors.
For styling or coaching inquiries: please contact: sydney@chicstripes.com.