Jade Boyd:When you’re planning your weeks, how are you intentionally making time and getting the things done that you need to get done in order to build relationships and maintain relationships and take care of the people who matter most to you?

Today, we are diving into my 4P to-do list method. And this is nothing new on the podcast, this is actually a system and a categorization that I’ve mentioned many, many times on the podcast, but I’ve never gone into detail on how the 4Ps work, why they’re important and how that allows you to systemize your life. And I do feel like so many women, especially women in business, spend their days and their weeks and their lives, honestly, wondering What am I supposed to be focused on or finding themselves touring between life and business and clients and marketing and taking care of themselves and taking care of their kids and the list goes on and on and on, and this is a very overwhelming way to live if you don’t have a systematic approach to deciding how to build your to do list on a daily basis.

And I would argue that bouncing from thing to thing and wondering what you should be focused on is not the way that we are meant to live. I just firmly believe that we are meant to live our lives and not simply manage our lives. But it’s so hard to find time to actually live your life if you don’t have a system for managing the minutiae of day to day life that will inevitably get in your way. So today I want to share more in depth about my 4P to do list method, and this is an extremely simple method that I’ve been using and refining over the past, probably three to four years to organize my to-do list and my time around my priorities each quarter, each month, each day, and each week.

So the four P’s of productivity are personal health, people, place, and profession. And so I like thinking of it as the four P’s because it’s easier to remember, but throughout the episode, I’m going to refer to personal health is personal health. People I refer to as relationships more often, but second P is people. The third P is place. And that’s really like your home, your environment, all of the household things. And then the fourth P is profession, which for almost everybody listening to this podcast is going to be your business, right? That is the fourth area that you are managing, which is a huge area. All of these areas are huge areas.

Have you ever bought like a goal setting journal or a planner system or even gone through like a free download or a life assessment or something like that where they have 12 different categories of life and they make you think of a million different things and reflect on these tiny little pieces of your life and then you come up with a million goals and a very lengthy to do list of all the things that you could be doing better and then you get overwhelmed because it’s way too much, and then you put that goal planner or that reflection worksheet in a drawer or on a bookshelf, and then you never think about it again. That is something that I have always been frustrated with when it comes to goal setting systems, and I love a good goal setting system, I love a good goal setting planner. I love sitting down for hours and like journaling and reflecting and answering creative questions that make me think differently, like, it’s not a bad thing, but I think when it comes to actually getting things done and creating systems that are manageable, that make managing the day to day life stuff feel easier and feel more effortless, it has to be simpler than this 12 to 20 areas of life assessment where you come up with a million different goals.

And so coming up with these four Ps of productivity, these four life areas that are important, for me it helps me simplify how I’m thinking about the things that are important to me, because for personal health, there’s a million different ways that you can show up for your personal health. You can’t do everything tomorrow, but could you do one thing to improve your personal health? Could you build one habit?

And same thing with relationships and your home and your business, making sure that you’re balancing these things out, knowing that different things have priority in different seasons of life or business, but simplifying it for yourself a little bit so that you’re not focused on all of the tiny little things that you could be doing better and kind of keeping yourself in that bigger picture seat where you’re seeing just these four things.

And when you’re thinking about your daily to-do list, just thinking about these four things, how you’re showing up for your personal health today, how you’re showing up for your relationships today, how you’re taking care of your home today and what you have to do for your business today.

Simple, simple, simple.

Which means it’s actually easier to execute and it’s actually easier to maintain. And even if you’re taking very small steps every single day, I’m hoping that going through each of these things and why they’re important and kind of why I’ve come up with these four categories is going to help you think differently about the way that you’re planning out your days and your weeks, and again, I do this on any time horizon. These are the categories that I think about when I’m planning anything.

So I also listed these four Ps in a very specific order because this is the exact order that I think of when I’m actually planning out on any time horizon.

So if you’re thinking about this, like the jar metaphor where you’re putting in the big rocks first, imagine that you have an empty glass jar and you have those four rocks being your personal health, people, place, and profession. You’re putting in one at a time because those are the bigger things in your life that are most important. Right? And so. Again, they go in order. So starting with your personal health, the big thing that I want you to take away from this one is that time spent on your personal health is invested, it’s not wasted. You will always get a return on that investment when you’re putting time and effort into improving your personal health.

And women, especially oftentimes we just feel like we have to do it all. Right? We have to do everything for everyone. We put a lot of responsibilities on ourself, but the truth is you cannot pour from an empty cup. And I know that that is an overuse phrase and something that you’ve probably heard a million times, put on your own oxygen mask first. Right? But it’s so true. And we need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed as Patrick Linchetti says, and so taking care of yourself is just as important as taking care of the people in your house and, it’s just as important as taking care of your home, it’s just as important as taking care of your business and taking care of your personal health is going to help you improve in every other area of your life too.

So it’s not just this selfish thing where taking care of your personal health is only benefiting you, it has ripple effects on every area of your life. No matter what area of personal health you’re incrementally improving.

And as a business owner, maybe you’ve noticed that in seasons where you have been taking care of your personal health, you’ve done better in business, you’ve been able to focus better, or you’ve felt more energized, or more motivated, or more organized, or just more clear headed. Whatever that might be, when you’re taking care of your personal health, there’s ripple effects for your business as well.

And my best ideas, and I’ve heard this from a lot of entrepreneurs, my best ideas come to me when I am out doing something completely mindless, like taking a walk or when I’m in the shower, when I’m doing dishes, we can’t always force ourselves as business owners to do better or get to the next level by just trying really hard and doing all the things, sometimes investing in other areas of your life make your journey as a business owner that much easier, even though you might not be able to draw a straight line or have that direct correlation on paper, in reality, that’s just the way that these things oftentimes play out. And I’m sure that you can think of examples in your own life when you’ve taken a vacation, or when you’ve taken a real lunch break, or you’ve just stepped back from your business for a while, when you’ve taken care of yourself, and then how that has impacted your business.

So when I’m planning my weeks, when I’m planning my days, the first thing that I think about is how am I taking care of my personal health? It might look different. I’m sure there’s some concrete habits or routines that you want to form on a regular basis, but every week is different. Our schedules are changeable, every season looks a little bit different. At the time of this recording, we’re going into summer, which is a huge change in schedules, and so what it means for you to take care of your personal health in this season might look different, but start by asking yourself and putting those things into your schedule.

What do I need this week? What do I need today to take care of myself? It doesn’t have to be super complicated. It can be extremely simple. And like I said, the simpler it is the better, because the more likely you are to actually do it, right? But put that rock in first, so to speak.

Okay, the second P or the second big rock that you’re going to put in your jar is people or your relationships. And the reason why this one is so important is because without people, productivity just doesn’t matter. And I need to remind myself of this all of the time because I get in a very efficient time saving mindset often, that’s just like my default state, and oftentimes people seem to get in the way of productivity, right? But that’s not actually the case because if we can achieve everything on our to do list, hit all of our goals, have perfect personal health, a perfect home, this amazing business that’s just surpassing all of our expectations, but we don’t have people in our lives to enjoy those things with, or we don’t have real relationships, we don’t have people who actually know us behind you know, the face that we put on or our personal brands or how we come across on social media, whatever that might be, and then it doesn’t really matter in the end. Right?

And so making time for people in your life, that is what’s going to matter when you’re 80. And that’s kind of the ultimate definition of productivity, right? Like not just how much you’re achieving, but how much does it actually matter? And so without people, productivity doesn’t really matter. And so when you’re building your to do list, when you’re planning your weeks, how are you intentionally making time and getting the things done that you need to get done in order to build relationships and maintain relationships and take care of the people who matter most to you?

One of my favorite books that I know I’ve mentioned a million times on this podcast is the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. And he has a quote in his book that says, hurry and love are oil and water. They simply do not mix. And this is so true. When we’re living super frantic, busy lives, oftentimes people are the first thing to go, especially when it comes to friendships as adults. It’s so hard to make time for friendships if you don’t have a regular excuse to see them on like a weekly basis or a recurring girls night out on your calendar or something like that. Right?

But even for the people in our household, it’s so easy if we’re living rush lives, constantly rushing from thing to thing, to thing, to be around each other, but not actually be in relationship or actually understand what’s going on in your husband’s life or your kids lives, whatever that might be.

And although making time for people, making time to slow down, it doesn’t allow you to cross anything off your to do list, right? Like making a spacious time to sit down and eat dinner as a family, you’re not going to feel like you got anything done. In fact, you might really hate that experience most days, like maybe you have picky eaters or there always is conflict at the table, whatever that might be. It’s not necessarily, you put this much effort in and you get this much out of it, so that’s hard from a productivity perspective too, if you are a very efficient goal oriented person, like I am, but, people just take space and the ability to slow down and be present, which is a discipline. It’s a skill it’s learned over time.

But I know that as a business owner, I get my best stories and my best realizations when I am around other people and having conversations or experiencing new things and just making space to like slow down and be curious and get to know other people and invest in my relationships, even if it doesn’t necessarily produce anything. That again has so many ripple effects on my business and on my personal development and on my personal growth, and so, making time for people can also increase your productivity, even if it’s not a A causes B completely predictable thing.

Okay, the third P, and the third big rock, so to speak, to place in your jar is place, and this is all about your home. And the reason why I have this as one of the four big pieces of life is because especially as women, we take a disproportionate amount of responsibility when it comes to managing our homes and our environment as entrepreneurs, especially if you’re working from home, either part time or full time, it can make or break your productivity.

It can make or break your daily experience and your ability to show up for the things that do matter to you, but also managing a home just takes a freaking lot of time and it takes a lot of effort and it takes a lot of thought. And I do think it’s one of those things that we take for granted, thinking that managing a home shouldn’t be hard or it should be easy, or, you know, it doesn’t actually take that much time, but when you tally up everything that you do on a daily and weekly basis, or even the things that you have to do throughout the year, when home maintenance stuff comes up, like, managing a home is a full time job in itself. And there are so many things that can get in your way when it comes to growing your business if you don’t have a system for managing your home.

And I think that our homes and our environments are also, they also just disproportionately affects women and that might be part of the reason why we take so much responsibility or care so much about what it takes to manage our home or take so much upon ourselves because we care more about it typically, but I always remember this piece of research from a book called The Cozy Minimalist Home that’s talking about, like clutter and our houses and just talking about the scientific research that shows that cortisol, which is our stress response hormone, right? It actually rises for women when we have excess stuff in our homes.

Like, our environment causes cortisol, like a physical response from us that affects our ability to function, or affects the way in which we function, affects our tolerance for other things that are causing stress and cortisol increases in our life, right? And so part of taking care of your home is also just taking care of yourself, but again, you can’t draw a straight line from taking care of your house or having systems in place to manage your house and all the tasks that come along with that and then a direct correlation to its impact on your business, but I guarantee you it has an impact on your business.

And it also has an impact on the people in our house, right? Like it has an impact on, ourselves, our personal health. Yes, our ability to create good habits, of course, on our business. I’m sure there’s some correlation there to how much time and focus you have to invest in your business, depending on what your household state is in, but also it’s a way to show love and take care of the people in our house and our family too, because creating a home that’s welcoming and inviting and facilitates relationship building, that in itself is a way to take care of your relationship. So all of these things are so interrelated, which is why it might only take one tiny change in one of these areas to drastically improve every area of your life. Like it doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t need 12 different areas of your life where you’re improving in all of them at the same time, just pick one. And I guarantee you’re going to see those ripple effects.

So third rock is place. Taking care of your household stuff, whether that’s when you’re sitting down to plan out your week or your day, what do you need to do to take care of your house this week?

So the first three rocks that we talked about, again, just to quickly recap so far are personal health, people and place. And up until this point in my business, I have been focused on helping business owners create systems and strategies for the business part, which is the fourth rock. And we’re going to talk about that in a second, but I am super excited to announce that I am creating a membership to help you systemize these first three areas of your personal life, because if you’re looking at the four Ps, three of them have to do with your personal life, right? And then the fourth one has to do with your business, which is a whole beast in itself. And that’s why I created The Business Edit, my group coaching program. That’s why I created the Organize Your Business course, and that really tackles how to systemize that part of your business, how you can do less, but better in business and be the most productive entrepreneur and business owner you can possibly be while living intentionally.

But as business owners, these first three things oftentimes get in the way of our business and so I oftentimes find myself with clients talking about these first three things because life is unpredictable. We cannot separate our business and our lives. And inevitably things are going to come up in your relationships, in your personal health, in your home that are going to affect your ability to show up for the plans and projects that you had set out to accomplish in your business.

So, this is something that I’ve been chewing on for a very long time, but I’m super excited to finally put it into practice this year. It’s not going to happen until later in the year. So if you’re listening to this, this summer, make sure you go to the show notes and join the wait list to sign up when doors open later this year.

But like I’ve been saying, these are three really big rocks in your life. Three really important things that impact and affect every other area of your life and you. In your business, and it’s very silly to be working harder and not smarter at these things, because if you have to try really, really hard on a daily basis to take care of yourself, that makes your life really, really hard to live, right?

Or if you have to try really, really hard, on a weekly basis to take care of your house and you don’t have any systems in place and you’re feeling like you’re living in chaos and constantly dropping the ball on things or feeling like you’re not doing enough or feeling like you don’t even know what to do next, that is so true. so overwhelming and that’s a really hard way to live your life, but there are really simple processes and systems that you can put in place to manage these things so that you can spend more time living your life than managing your life. And oftentimes I think that we just fall into that default mode of working really, really hard to manage things when there’s a much easier way to do things.

And so, like I said, I’ve been operating with these four P’s in my own life for three to four years at this point and feel like I’ve put really great systems in place and really great processes in place so that it does not feel like an uphill battle to manage these big areas of my life and I’m able to be realistic about what I can accomplish or what I can fit into my schedule on a given day or a given week.

And also just let go of a lot of expectations because if you follow anybody who focuses on any one of these areas, I just feel like they, it can be so overwhelming the amount of things that you could potentially do when it comes to investing in your personal health or investing in relationships or investing in home systems, especially. Oh my goodness, some of the, like, even just cleaning systems or decluttering systems that I’ve seen, it’s like, okay, if I have a year of my life, maybe I can get this done, but that’s just not realistic.

And so I’m really excited to package a system of what it looks like to balance these different areas by focusing on how you can do less, how you can minimize the time you’re spending managing things and maximize the time you’re spending actually just living your life and enjoying free time and creating white space.

So like I said, coming later this year, but if you’re interested in focusing on life systems, as well as business systems, make sure you head on over to the show notes and join the wait list.

Okay. And then the last P the last rock to put in is profession, which like I mentioned for almost everybody listening to this podcast is going to be your business and so notice that I definitely believe in a life first approach to building out your schedule or to building out your daily to do list. So this is the fourth thing to go in, knowing that taking care of your personal health, the people in your life and your home are more important and are going to build a really solid foundation for you being able to build a sustainable and productive business as well.

And this entire podcast is about systemizing and strategizing how to grow your business by doing less but better. But just know this is one rock of the four rocks that I think of when I’m planning out my weeks and my days.

So I would challenge you to write down these four categories and try this. Try planning next week by thinking about what you’re putting into your calendar in these four different categories. Try planning tomorrow even by looking at your to do list and categorizing things into these four categories or planning your time blocks around these four categories.

What time of the day can you invest and dedicate to your personal health? What time of the day can you set aside to have focused time in relationship? What time of the day are you going to dedicate to working on your business and not getting distracted by all the stuff in your house?

And if you do try it out, let me know what you think. Let me know what challenges you come across. I would love to chat with you about how this works or doesn’t work for you. I am so curious to hear your feedback. So connect with me on Instagram at jadeboyd. co. I am always in my DMs, I’m the person who answers everything.

So if you listen to this episode and put this into practice, please reach out and let me know how it goes for you. I’m so curious to hear what your experience is because this has been really transformational and really life changing for helping me simplify the way that I look at getting things done, both in how I manage my to do list, but also in how I manage my time. And I hope that it can do the same for you.

So again, if you’re interested in joining the membership, that’s focused on simplifying your life later this year, make sure you head to the show notes and click on that link to join the wait list and the first thing that we’re going to focus on is personal health. So we’re going to take these categories one at a time, break them down into the exact processes that you can use to pursue your own version of personal health, because this is not a copy and paste thing, right?

What it looks like for you to take care of your personal health in this unique season is going to look different from every other person in the membership. So this is not about giving you a checklist on all the things that you’re doing on a daily and weekly basis, this is helping you uncover your goals and your vision for your own life in each of these categories and systemizing your version of success in each of these areas.

Because you do need a system.

You do not need another to do list. You don’t need another list of tasks that you’re supposed to check off of some arbitrary list. You need a system that’s actually going to make these things easier. And if you’re able to create the system that works for all of these four areas, instead of just one of those areas, right, there’s nothing that bothers me more than buying, like, a, workout tracker workbook, and then also having a meal planning workbook and like a million different things.

It’s so complicated to keep track of everything, but if you can do it all in one place and come up with a really simple streamlined system, which is exactly what this membership is going to teach you how to do. Everything gets so much easier. So I am so excited for this. I hope you can tell. I think I’ve been on my soapbox for this entire episode. And if it sounds appealing to you as well, again, make sure you go to the show notes and join the wait list.

So until next time, business minimalists, take what you learned today and get 1 percent better this week.