Sarah Hart-Unger: Let’s say you set 10 goals and two of them work out and eight of them don’t, that’s a huge win! Those are two things you might not have done if you hadn’t sat down and thought about what you wanted. That is not something to be depressed about. I think that’s awesome.

Jade Boyd: So today I’m really excited to have Sarah Hart-Unger here to talk to us about finding your perfect planner and planning routines, goal setting, all of the planning related items. And I actually got into what I would call like the planner community because of Sarah’s podcast, Best Laid Plans. So this feels like kind of a full circle moment to have her on The Business Edit podcast and also Sarah, I don’t think you knew this, but you are the first person that I heard mention the Hobonichi planner, which that just tells you how not in the planner world I was before I discovered your podcast, which is so good. And for those who don’t listen to your podcast and haven’t met you yet, I would love for you to share just a little bit more about who you are and what you do.

Sarah Hart-Unger: Sure. So my name is Sarah Hart-Unger. And one of the things I do is I have a podcast called Best Laid Plans about all things planning and planning adjacent. I also am a physician. I work part time as a pediatric endocrinologist. So I actually do that three days a week. And then I also have another podcast that I co host with time management expert and author Laura Vanderkam called Best of Both Worlds.

So, lots of stuff going on. I also have a blog and do some speaking and all kinds of other fun things, but very obsessed with planning and efficiency. And so it’s been really rewarding and fun to just make this part of my career journey.

Jade Boyd: And I would love to dive just a little bit deeper there, like, how did you get started with podcasting? And especially for a lot of people listening, it is really unique to have like a traditional three day a week job and then be so involved in your podcast and have a business of that nature and like to do both at the same time.

I don’t think a lot of people do that well, one comes before the other, but you obviously do both really well. And I’m so curious on how that all came to be.

Sarah Hart-Unger: Yeah, I mean, somewhat organically. So, I mean, obviously my medical job came first, but I always had this vision of working part time in some fashion, just because I, I have had a blog since 2004 and that creative side of me has just always been something I find so natural and I’ve always loved it. And so I, I was at like an 80 percent schedule or something like that, working four days a week.

I have three kids. they are currently ages almost seven, maybe seven when this airs 10 and 12, but when they were younger, I just needed a little bit more bandwidth, but then I realized I had enough time that, like, maybe I could start a fun project. So I, at the time, had become kind of, like, online friends with Laura Vanderkam, who I mentioned, and we would comment on each other’s blogs, and then one time we met up for dinner in Philadelphia, which is where my parents are from, where I grew up, and where she happens to live.

And then a couple days later, I posted that, you know, I listened to a lot of podcasts, And maybe it would be fun to start a podcast. And she emailed me back and was like, let’s do a podcast together. I’ve been looking for a co host. I feel like we would strike a really nice balance, partly because we wanted to make it about work life and motherhood.

And yet it’s true. Like I’m a little bit weird in this space in that I have a very non flexible job on the days that I do work, and I think she wanted someone like that to kind of be a counterpart to her work life, which is very much full time, but in a flexible kind of entrepreneurial way. She’s a writer, speaker, author.

So yeah, that’s kind of how the podcast was born and that was 2017 and it’s, you know, grown and been a ton of fun. And then in 2020, as one does, I was like, what else can I do? My nerves are frayed. I love planners. Let me do a podcast all about planners that will calm everybody down when we need it most, and that’s when Best Laid Plans came to be and then everything kind of grew from there.

Jade Boyd: And I love that you say you started it to calm people down because your podcast, whenever it comes up in my feed, of course, as a business owner, I subscribe to all these different business podcasts and it gets my mind going like 100 miles an hour to listen to all these ideas. And sometimes I just need to listen to a podcast that’s fun and calming.

And so on those days, I’m like, what does Best Laid Plans have for me? So I’m really glad that you decided to take on another project in 2020 because it’s been a blessing to me.

Sarah Hart-Unger: Oh, that’s what I aim for. The irony is I’m not sure I am that calm in real life and my kids are like, Oh, it’s your nice, I mean, my voice is the same voice, but the tone I use is definitely meant to be somewhat soothing because we need these safe spaces in our lives. So, good, I’m glad it’s had that

Jade Boyd: It’s like you’re, you’re planning alter ego. I love it. So one thing that I have taken away from your podcast, and I think is really unique to the way that you plan is planning in quintiles. And I would love for you to share that process for anybody who hasn’t heard or discovered quintile planning, because it just makes a lot of sense for the way that we live our lives, and it might be the breath of fresh air that somebody listening to this really needs to hear if they’re feeling kind of stuck in their planning routines.

Sarah Hart-Unger: it’s actually funny. So I, I do, I feel like I’m known as like the quintile person. That is like one piece of my overall system that, but it’s the piece that everybody remembers. So let me delve into what that is. I guess first a tiny bit of background, which is that I made up something called the nested goal system, which is that you plan yearly, and then you look at those yearly goals every season. And then you look at your seasonal goals every month and your monthly goals every week and your weekly goals every day. So each set of goals kind of nests into the other, there’s a whole process. So It’s not that you’re just automatically dumping those goals into that smaller time frame that wouldn’t work, but you know, you have a process that’s based on that.

And at the seasonal level, I was trying to decide, you know, how would I want to break up the year? The kind of traditional modality would be quarters. That’s how most businesses run. They’ll go January through March, then April through June, July through September, October through December, but see, I hesitated because they’re just so unnatural.

They’re not like normal cut points in that reflect the way life actually flows in this current phase of life, I don’t like to say season there, but phase of life. And so I was like, how would I divide the year if I were starting from scratch and there were no, you know, preconceived notions of what these segments should look like, and I came up with January 1st, to my kids spring break, that’s that like back to the new year and we’re back in school kind of energy spring break until the end of school that includes May or May hem May summer, whatever, and includes usually just a lot big push tests, etc. Then there is summer quintile number three, which is the end of school.

Until the beginning of the next school year, totally has its own unique feel. And the nice thing about designating the school dates is that, you know, some people live where summer starts at the end of June and then school starts like in September, like it can be defined based on your own locations rhythms.

And then Q4 is when school starts. School starts until November 1st, totally arbitrary, but I feel like November 1st until the end of December is like reflection season and it’s holidays and celebration and thinking about the next year and taking stock and, you know, valuing our time with family, etc.

Like it has its own flavor. And I also didn’t like the idea of, you know, mid August till December. being, being a whole, it just was too long. So I cut it up there. So yeah, those are my quintiles. And that is just kind of the seasonal level of my nested goal setting. I choose to divide my year into quintiles. I don’t think everyone should use quintiles or anything like that. I do think everyone should think about how. the seasons kind of work for them. My academic people, they love their trimesters. They’ll have like, you know, the fall semester and then the spring and then the summer and like three works for them. Other people in finance might do the best with the traditional quarters, or maybe there’s another kind of quarter system that works. You don’t even have to make every segment. like the same size, you could have one little mini one and if one month feels really different to you. So, I use quintiles and I think that does resonate with a lot of people who have school aged children or who are in that type of academics for their work, but I guess my thesis is you should divide the year in a way that makes sense. I do think there’s like the right number of segments and I think that right number is anywhere from three to six.

Jade Boyd: Yes. There’s a wide variety, but I do just like how you mentioned that you can be different for any person, and I’m sure everybody listening to this is kind of thinking through what their year actually breaks down to and even as somebody whose kids are not in school, I’m not in school. So I don’t run on the academic schedule, but I live in a college town.

And so there’s a lot of things in my city that do run again, like around the academic schedule. And I think a lot of people are probably in that. Season two, even if their kids don’t necessarily have cut and dry things. And then for business owners too, launches, what I have realized or just noticed from clients that I’ve worked with, they do really, really well in January and September, which are the natural, like back to school seasons. I think that we’re all just tied to the academic calendar and we get that burst of energy.

Sarah Hart-Unger: A hundred percent. I’ll give credit to Lisa Woodruff for that. She’s the creator of Organize 365. She calls them golden windows. It’s like, oh, this is when your mind is open to like personal change and I want to work on something or start something. And I do find those cut points really powerful. Like, okay, sure.

They’re arbitrary, but I don’t care. I’m going to leverage that arbitrariness in my own life. And, I’m more successful when I decide to start something at a natural cut point and it doesn’t for me have to be January, September It could even be like the summer or like whatever but when it’s a fresh start that always helps.

Jade Boyd: Yeah. When you have the energy, you got to use it because it’s not always there. You got to take advantage of it when it comes. And it’s so funny. Like I was mentioning before we started this conversation, it’s so funny that we’re having this conversation today because just this morning, one of my clients was in Slack asking me, you know, what planner can I use? It’s October right now, but she’s already booking clients for the new year and starting to plan things out as far as launches and business stuff goes for January, but she doesn’t have a January planner yet. And right now we’re in the midst of planner launch season, and a lot of exciting new planners. So many to choose from.

It’s insane the variety of planners and even within planner brands, how many options there are. And then you get into customizable planners and it can be a lot. And she was even saying, hey, I’m wasting a lot of time on this. Can you help me just find a planner? And so I’m curious as someone who reviews tons of planners, how do we navigate that planner overwhelm and actually find what is going to work for us?

What are your best tips for us?

Sarah Hart-Unger: Oh, I have many I mean, first of all, I’ll say there’s not one perfect planner So relieve yourself of the pressure to find it’s not like you’re finding your soulmate here. You can always start something switch. If it doesn’t work out, it is just a pile of paper at the end of the day. so don’t be super, super stressed out about it.

Sometimes you do have to try something to figure out if it’s going to work, but I also think there are some really key questions you can ask yourself to very much narrow things down. The first question I would ask yourself is, is this planner going to be my calendar in addition to having tasks and lists and tracking and stuff like that? Because that is going to really influence the types of layouts that are going to be likely to work for you. If you are going to be using it for actual calendaring as in like I have a 3 p. m. meeting in the place where I’m putting it is in my planner, that I raised my hand with this, I do use my calendar as like my source of truth there and I already have events in my 2025 calendar for that reason. But if that’s you, then that helps because most likely you’re going to want some kind of hourly layout, or my favorite would be like a vertical hourly where each of the days are in a column and you can see hours going from the top to the bottom. Because if you’re really going to be dividing and blocking your time that way, that’s just the easiest way to visualize it. There are a number of companies that offer that, but it’s not every company. So that kind of helps narrow things down to start with.

The second thing to ask yourself is, are you going to want a daily page? Like, do you like a fresh start for each day? And do you want that to actually be part of your planner? Because if so, that also is going to like really, really limit what you’re looking for. If you want both. If you want a daily page and that weekly view to kind of put time sensitive things into you’re going to have only a few choices.

So it’s great once you know what you need, if you don’t want a daily page, then great. Then you can put your search in for the weekly and then find the layout that resonates with you the best. And your search can be more dictated by aesthetics and kind of other things that appeal to you with respect to the brand.

The third thing you should ask yourself is, like, what are the deal breaker kind of physical features of the planner? Some people really, really prefer spiral. Other people really, really prefer like a bound book style. And then other people like binders or disks. So you have to ask yourself, you know, which one of those is the best for you.

If you don’t have a lot of desk real estate, then usually spiral or discbound is the way to go because you can always fold it in half and see just, you know, part of it. Size is also going to come into play. The type of paper. So are you someone that doesn’t mind having paper that has a little bit of show through, like really thin paper? We can talk about some specific planners, but a lot of the kind of fancier planners that use Tomoe River paper from Japan. They’re very thin paper, which is great, they’re compact, but they also do have some, you know, kind of ghosting on the other side. And if you want a crisp white page every time you turn the page, that’s not going to work for you.

There is the aesthetics as well. Just overall, is it very feminine and flowery or is it going to be very minimalist and professional? So thinking about that, and I would actually write down your kind of choices for all of those before you go ahead and start searching because that will like, you know, that will just make it much, much, much easier to narrow things down.

I wish there was a search engine where you could like then put all that stuff together. And I actually met with the developer once where we were like, we’re going to make planner base. And then I was like, I do not want to maintain this at all. So until AI can do it, it’s, it doesn’t actually

Jade Boyd: That’s where my mind went. Have you tried asking ChatGPT all of these things and see what it comes up with?

Sarah Hart-Unger: My guess is that it’s, it, I’m concerned it wouldn’t have like, these things change so quickly and for ChatGPT to know what’s offered this year and to have a really wide variety like I’m sure ChatGPT would give you a couple of options, but my guess is that it wouldn’t be like

Jade Boyd: Now I want to try

Sarah Hart-Unger: the best options. But I totally want to, if you try it, let me know, send me the list and I can like critique it.

Jade Boyd: Tell me if it’s good or not.

Sarah Hart-Unger: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But asking yourself those questions will help, kind of narrow things down and then you can go ahead and shop around. And I’m happy to talk about specific scenarios and specific brands that I like for each of these, you know, different things, but that framework should kind of get you started.

Oh, one more. Sorry. One more thing. Structure versus open ended. Some people want like a lot of guidance from their planner and other people are like, give me blank space and you have to figure out where on that continuum you are because, yeah, those, those people are very different and some people it’s going to very much influence what you’re looking for.

Like a Hobonichi is going to be very empty and free flowing and like a full focus is going to be like, . put this goal in this spot and like your calendar here and your to-do list there and your gratitude there and it’s gonna be much more specific.

Jade Boyd: Yes. So I would love to know your planning stack for next year. And I would love to have you go through these questions as an example. And I’m curious what your preferences are and why.

Sarah Hart-Unger: Sure. I mean, I like a lot of different planners to be honest, but, I do use my calendar in my planner, so I like a vertical weekly for that reason. So that limits me a lot. I am left-handed. Therefore my pages need delay completely flat. That’s like very important to me. So that rules out a few.

I don’t like. super feminine. I like more of like a minimalist kind of a look. And I like to have daily pages in addition to my weekly pages in the same book. I’ve gone back and forth on that. Sometimes I kind of like them being separate because there is something to be said for being able to look at your weekly while you’re creating your daily page.

I mean, I get why that’s helpful. but right now I just, tend to flip back and forth. So my planner stack for next year is, fairly minimal compared to what I may have done in prior years. But I’m going with the Hobonichi cousin again. That is A5 size, so it’s like half a page. If you take a printer paper and you fold it in half, that could like, like width wise, you know, you will get an A5 size page approximately.

So that’s kind of the size. And it does contain monthly yearly, weekly, and daily pages all in the same book. It’s very thin paper. I am not like a fountain pen user and I generally just use ballpoints like this lovely jet stream in there. and that works well for me. And then I always have some other planner that I like to put like all of my goals and lists for the year.

This 2024, I used a cloth and paper disc bound for that and it worked nicely, but I think I’m going to try to go even more streamlined. So I ordered a Hobonichi Weeks to do that for next year. but I’m not, I don’t know, I’m not totally firm on what I’m going to use the actual weekly spreads for. Maybe like a reading tracker or something like that.

It’s more that I want to have all the blank notes pages that are included in there to put like my seasonal goals and my annual goals and then any other kind of one off list that I decide that I’d like to keep on paper. So that’s pretty much it, oh, and I have a five year journal

Jade Boyd: I was going to ask.

Sarah Hart-Unger: 2021, so I’m in year five of it next year, and I’m so excited.

Now, is every day filled in every, like, every year? No, but, like, most days have at least a few. Like, I would say the average number of entries per day is three, two to three. So it’s fun. Like you can see COVIDy stuff in the beginning. And then like my kids getting older, I knew it would be a really fun window of time to do that.

So I will continue that for my last year in there. and that’s it right now. I don’t have any other plans. Sometimes I end up adding like a random notebook or something like that. If I have a project and I just want it to have its own book.

Jade Boyd: Mm

Sarah Hart-Unger: now, right now that’s where we are. However, I reserve the right to like pivot into random products as the year goes by because sometimes I just like to try things that come out.

And I particularly have this odd pattern of like in the spring and summer, especially the summer, it just feels so different. Sometimes I just migrate out of my system and use something else temporarily and then go back for the end of the year.

Jade Boyd: I’d imagine it’s really hard because you are actively reviewing planners and you see obviously a lot of different options. It has to be hard not to want to try all of them and hop out of your system.

Sarah Hart-Unger: I, I’ve gotten like, I’ve gotten a little better about it. I think I was really like, I would have like so many, it was like almost like, frustrating and then I did like give them away. and I’ve definitely started ordering fewer of them just because I don’t know, some of the content on my podcast has shifted away from the traditional reviews, although I still like doing them sometimes.

And I know people still like hearing them, but yeah, it is sometimes a challenge not to switch around, but yet I enjoy it when I do. So I, I don’t consider it like I used to be like, oh, this is a bad thing or something. And now I’m like, eh, it’s fun. Just like anything else.

Jade Boyd: I align with you on so many things that you went through as far as the layout, the minimalist feel more open ended aesthetics, flat lay, but I chose the Common Planner for next year. Which I did a couple years ago, and I did the full year, the undated version of that one this year, I was in the, Hemlock and Oak daily planner, but I’m going back to Common Planner and I did the two part for next year.

So there’s one planner for January through June and another one for July through December, because I also feel like I don’t want to switch up my system. I love the planner, but it does just feel good to have a new planner midway through the year and not be in the same wind the entire year.

Sarah Hart-Unger: I used an Avec this year for that reason. And look, I have it right here. It actually has no cover on it. Look how tiny this is. This is like the streamlined life right here. And the amount of data in this thing is like, mind blowing. I mean, it’s just like, so much stuff fits in this little book.

It’s kind of amazing. But yes, Sterling Ink is beautiful. Their paper is great. Some people say it’s, it shouldn’t be different, but some people say it’s better. and,

Jade Boyd: then Hobonichi, the Tomo River? Wow. Interesting. I’ve never had, actually, I’ve had a Hobonichi Weeks, but I didn’t use it for very long. I just felt obligated to try it. I was curious. And I did do like daily journaling in the Hobonichi Weeks for a little bit, and then eventually got out of it. Like, I don’t like writing on the tiny paper.

For anybody who doesn’t know what a Hobonichi Weeks is, it’s what, like, three inches by six inches. So it’s very tall, but also very skinny. So it’s not very wide paper, and it can be tricky to write on.

Sarah Hart-Unger: Yes, and they actually have slightly smaller grid squares compared to like a Cousin. I think it’s like 3. 3 millimeters versus 3. 8, so if you feel cramped, there’s a reason.

Jade Boyd: Yes, it is very tiny. You have to have tiny handwriting to fit it in the boxes. And of course, I’m a perfectionist and want everything to look super neat. And so between that and my hand slipping off the page, it wasn’t very rewarding for very long, but I did keep it up for like a month. And they’re very beautiful planners.

Sarah Hart-Unger: It was a trial.

Jade Boyd: Yes. It was a trial. Ended up not working and then I tried to repurpose it actually for baby registry planning and planning out like different things that I was going to get on different days. And of course I like in every topic I would ask my sisters, what did you get for this? Cause there’s so many options for every single thing.

So I tried to like split it out and that worked for a little while too. But that season obviously came to a close as well. But, yeah, I love the Toma River paper. I don’t mind a little bit of show through, but the common planer, honestly, it doesn’t show through very much.

Sarah Hart-Unger: Yeah, that’s why I think, I think it’s, I think the paper is slightly, different and possibly slightly better. There’s also been some like buzzing about the 2025 paper being a downgrade in certain products. in, in various circles, nothing official. No, no statements have been made or anything like that.

But if you go to the Hobonichi Reddit, you will see what I mean.

Jade Boyd: Interesting. Interesting. Some conspiracy theories here.

Sarah Hart-Unger: Yes, yes, but I, I, I got mine and it seems to be fine. I’ve been using it already. I’m happy with it.

Jade Boyd: Okay, good to know. I’m also curious, besides your ballpoint pen, what are some other of your favorite planning accessories to use?

Sarah Hart-Unger: I don’t use that many to be honest. I use a lot of mild liners. My latest, very minimalist thing that I do is I make check boxes outta the mild liner. I just fill in the box and it makes like a perfect little square. And I’m like,

Jade Boyd: Oh, nice.

Sarah Hart-Unger: me happy. It’s like color and it, I don’t know. yeah, I mean, a given day, that’s all I use.

I have some flags. Midori, what are they called? Like the monthly tabs. Stick on tabs that I like to use in the Hobonichi. I do have a fun little stamp that I got from Hobonichi. I think the brand is Pochito. P O C H I T O. don’t quote me on that. I can send you a link to it. But it’s super cute. They come in a bunch of designs. And the one I have has like a little book, and a little microphone, and a little TV. So if I like, want to decorate my page, it’s a push button style, so the ink pad’s already there and you just put it on the page and press the button and it like magically puts the cute little picture on there.

So that’s as decorative as I get. I don’t use a ton of stickers. I don’t do like the sticker kit thing. I’ve never done that really. I’d say I have more of a functional bullet journal esque style than a like stickered up, very feminine, plenary style. Yeah.

Jade Boyd: It did not prevent me from getting a whole bunch of Passion Planner stickers recently because for my brother, he just started college this fall. And so obviously I was like, I’m going to get you a planner and the Passion Planner is really, really great for college students. And he approved. So I was ordering it anyway, and it was hard to resist.

They have some really, really cute stickers. And every once in a while I’ll stick one on if I’m like journaling this year, I’m using my planner as a journal too, because daily pages are just like, way too much for me to just plan, especially in the hemlock and oak. There’s a lot of real estate on the page.

So I’ve been doing both in one and putting a sticker on it sometimes makes me fill the page without having to write as much. So that’s my little hack.

Sarah Hart-Unger: My five year journal has some stickers in it because I just think it’s fun to like commemorate. I’ll even put like the Trader Joe’s stickers in there. Like I’m indiscriminate, like whatever I find. So that’s cool. Passion Planner is such a great student planner. It’s super, super structured. So I think that’s a great choice for your brother.

Jade Boyd: Yes. And also has the time blocking for anybody who is keeping their calendar in their planner as well. For people who are looking for their, maybe not perfect planner, we’ve decided that’s not a thing, but looking for the best planner for them in this era of their business. What do you think people often overlook or like what mistakes do people make when they’re searching for planners?

Sarah Hart-Unger: I think people tend to err on the side of too much structure, to be honest. They, they find a thing and they’re like, ooh, that would be cool to track. But if you’re not already tracking it, just because it looks cool on a page and someone has kind of suggested it to you, like you don’t need to add that and you probably won’t on a consistent basis.

So I think people tend, they tend to err on the side of too much. And particularly if you’re not using a planner at all, I would kind of go for one that’s like smaller, has less sections and less dictated to you. And then you can always kind of like add to that, if that makes sense.

Jade Boyd: Mhm. I agree. And also, I really admire people who can have multiple planners and keep up with them and have multiple planners for different areas of their life. I have no idea how they do it. I can only have one planner because it has to be in front of me at all times, otherwise I will not look at it and it will not help me.

Sarah Hart-Unger: I agree with you. I don’t, I don’t totally understand the concept of like work planner. I think for some people they have so many complex work tasks and maybe they don’t have an electronic system for that, that it makes sense. for most people, I feel like work is going to be pretty electronic. And so, I don’t know, I think most people probably are better off with one, but yeah.

Jade Boyd: So getting into digital versus physical, I would love to know how you balance using both and like recommendations you have for balancing both because I’m the same way I put everything in ClickUp, which everybody here knows by now because I talk about ClickUp all the time. But there’s something different about having a piece of paper right in front of you.

And having the like discipline to look at everything that you shoved into your digital space that’s unlimited and then looking at your calendar and being like, okay, here’s what I can actually do today. But I’m curious how you balance both and if you have any tips.

Sarah Hart-Unger: Yeah, so calendar wise, I don’t personally use a digital calendar other than for reference. I mean, like if someone, there’s a soccer game, it’s going to dump onto my phone’s calendar so I can like check it that way. But anything I’ve actually committed to doing, like I’m decided it’s happening in my life or even my kid’s life, if I, it means I’m driving them is going into my paper planner.

So it’s almost like I use the digital sources as a reference to make sure my paper is the source of truth and up to date. And so for things like work meetings and my soccer calendar, as I see stuff pop up, then I look at my paper calendar, decide if it actually fits or not. And then like accept or decline accordingly. And I do kind of like a weekly audit where I make sure that all these stuff coming at me are being processed so that I’m making that intentional decision on paper. That’s like more for calendar ing. For like tasks, I actually do a lot of that on paper as well, but REFERENCE stuff all goes into Apple Notes, so if it’s like, you know, a document I might need to find or like podcast show notes or advertising scripts or like things like that, that’s all kind of like, sorted in my digital filing cabinet and for me I use Apple Notes for that just because it’s like, so easy and minimal and I know some people have had issues with it, but I never had.

So crossing my fingers, it stays that way. That’s kind of my, my preferred landscape. And then I have the odd Google sheets for various things that make more sense to track that way. And then I use Gmail for my like primary email universe.

Jade Boyd: One of my clients this morning was just talking about Apple too, and I’ve never played around with Apple notes. I’ve always been a Google keep person, which I think they’re pretty similar. There’s some differences for sure. But, yeah, everybody needs a notes app on their phone.

Sarah Hart-Unger: Yes, your second brain, as Tiago Forte would say, he wrote the book, Building a Second Brain, and yeah, you can use, there’s like OneNote, there’s Notion, there’s, I’m sure ClickUp has some sort of version of it even built within, there’s so many different things, I don’t think there’s any one right choice, but having something that you are using and regularly maintaining is key.

Jade Boyd: Yeah, I’m curious. We are also it’s planner launch season, but also we’re entering the reflection and goal setting season. And I feel like people either sit on one side or the other. Either I absolutely love goals. I cannot wait, or I hate setting goals. I don’t know why anybody would do it. And it’s frustrating and disappointing, and I might as well not do it.

And I’m curious. Especially now, and even in the productivity space, there’s been this shift where it has moved kind of away from the girl boss, you can have everything into the more like, just enjoy your life, be present. Let’s get rid of this toxic productivity mindset. I’m wondering where you sit in that balance, being somebody who does enjoy planning and goal setting, but also somebody who. You know, wants to enjoy their life and be realistic. I’m curious what your thoughts are on that pendulum and trends that you’ve seen, but also how you balance that in your own life.

Sarah Hart-Unger: I think this is so interesting. So, to me, this is like, kind of a problematic framing of goals to begin with. Like, I do believe in goals, but I do not believe goals have to mean kill yourself and girlboss. Goals can be I’m going to have a restful year. To me, goals are all about intention rather than being about one specific way of being, whether that’s aggressively getting stuff done or, like, very much laid back, focus on resting, relaxing, whatever it is. I just think of goals as I am deciding what I want my X block of time to look like. I 100 percent understand that it’s not always going to come to fruition and I want to build that into my process.

That’s why we’re not just setting annual goals and then going about our year thinking they’re all going to happen. That’s why we’re going to each month say, Huh, is now the right time to do this? Is now the right time? How do I feel? Etc. So, yeah, I guess I’m not anti goal. I believe that goal setting can be compassionate. I believe that goal setting doesn’t have to mean a specific vibe. And I do believe in the act of very intentional reflection. I think about what we want at different time points so that we can craft a life the way we want our life to live, we only get one of them. So yeah, that’s my, that’s my goal soapbox and how I don’t think those two are at odds.

Jade Boyd: And I think what you hinted on, on checking in with your goals throughout the year, I think that’s one of the reasons why people get really frustrated with goals, because the goals that we might set at the beginning of the year, halfway through the year might not make sense anymore and might not feel exciting or aligned.

And we can either let ourselves think like, oh, I failed at that or just accept that we are constantly changing and our goals are changing too, and it’s not a failure or you don’t get graded on your goals. It’s okay to change them, and that doesn’t mean you failed. It just means that you changed your mind and that’s okay.

Sarah Hart-Unger: Hundred percent. And I think that having that compassion and reflecting on what worked and didn’t work is that, that’s where like compassionate goal setting comes in. This is not a test. It’s okay if, I mean, I could set a bunch of goals for 2025 and we can have another pandemic and they wouldn’t be doable.

I still think it’s kind of worth thinking through the process because who knows maybe one of them does make sense and I push it through or maybe they don’t but at least I kind of know where I wanted to go if that kind of makes sense. And I also think that partial, like let’s say you set 10 goals and two of them work out and eight of them don’t, that’s a huge win! Those are two things you might not have done if you hadn’t sat down and thought about what you wanted. That is not something to be depressed about. I think that’s awesome. And then, you know, maybe the year went a different direction than you thought. Maybe it went a better direction than you thought.

Different doesn’t even have to mean worse, but it doesn’t mean that time spent thinking about it was wasted. Because it might have been the momentum you needed for those two. And maybe those two were really the ones that were the most important anyway.

Jade Boyd: So you kind of hinted on this earlier, but you do go through your nested goal setting process. And I would love to dig a little bit into what that is and what goal setting is going to look like for you in the new year.

Sarah Hart-Unger: Yeah! So, nested comes from the term nesting dolls. I think some people are like nested, like you’re sitting at home and you’re like in the nest and it, it’s not, but I mean, I kind of like that imagery too, but it’s the idea that like each time frame kind of sits in the next one so that every time frame you’re kind of looking up above, and using that to inform your shorter time frame, but you’re not using that to just dump in.

So let’s do an example. Let’s say you’re setting the monthly goals for the month of February. You are going to go ahead and start by looking at your. Seasonal goals that you set for the beginning of the year. And you’re going to integrate three things. You’re going to integrate.

Okay. What, do I feel like doing from this list? Any of these things actually resonate with me right now? Number two, what do I have going on in my life already? Like what’s on the calendar? What’s coming up? What are things that I might not have even anticipated when I wrote that seasonal list? And then number three, holistically, what is my vibe right now for this month? Am I tired? Am I energetic? Like, am I raring to go? Like, is there something else that’s stressing me out big time? And you can put those three things together and then you’re crafting your goals for the month. When you sit there on your week to make your goals, you’re looking at your month list and so on.

So basically each level kind of sits in the level above and the hierarchy goes from annual goals to seasonal goals, to monthly goals, to weekly goals, to daily goals. So that, you know, each day you’ve created those weekly goals and you’re going to integrate those three things. So like what makes sense? What kind of resonates me off of this list? What do I already have on my schedule and how am I feeling? Put those three things together and that’s going to make your to do list. Not just. Automatic, like, oh, week said I had to do this. I will dump all on today and get none of them done and feel bad. Like, there doesn’t need to be any feeling bad.

This is just a set of ideas to draw from because if we’re just starting from scratch every day, we’re unlikely to get to some of those big picture things that in the long run are going to help us get the things we wanted to begin with. But at the same time, we don’t want to go the other extreme and just kind of assign ourselves pieces of some giant task throughout the year because that’s going to backfire.

I feel like this hits the balance between those two things.

Jade Boyd: Yeah, and do you have a planning routine? Like, do you go to a special place or, you know, leave your house, which this year for the first time I might even go to a hotel because I feel like I just need to get out to have some clarity of thought.

Sarah Hart-Unger: So for annual planning, it’s a big thing for me. And that’s actually what spawned Best Laid Plans Live. So I have a two day retreat that women come to. Last year, we had 20. This year, we have 30. Laura actually joined me as co host this year. So in Fort Lauderdale, like we plan in person. We have a whole workbook.

I lead people through sessions. And there is a home version of this that you can do online with me called Best Laid Plans at Home. If you’re interested. And you want like a guided annual planning session. I offer that. but in addition, you could also completely DIY it. You could do a retreat with your partner.

You could do it by yourself. You could, use a like goal directed planner like the PowerSheets is one popular one that kind of works you through a lot of those annual planning type questions. But yeah, I think annual planning deserves a lot of attention. kind of a big chunk of time, but obviously we’re not going to do that every day, right?

The smaller the time frame, the smaller the ritual. So my daily planning ritual does exist, but it’s like 10 minutes in the morning with my planner and my cup of coffee before I go out for my run. And then kind of imagine each time horizon it’s scaled. Right? So my weekly planning might be a couple of hours on a Thursday.

My monthly planning might be more like half a day. And then I try to do it a full day or so of reflection and thinking about things for my seasonal planning. So, yeah.

Jade Boyd: For a lot of people listening, they might be hearing this and think that is a lot of time for planning, and I would love to hear your response to this. And even listening like to you now, hearing it in the context that I’m in. So I just had a baby this summer. So a lot has changed. And those are definitely the planning routines that I used to be in.

And I’m trying to configure like, what does that kind of look like moving forward? Like I said, might need to go to a hotel to get enough time away to actually think about things. But you have three kids as well, and so I would love to hear, and you can get up on your soapbox if you want to the value of that time and does it really feel like a lot of time to you?

Sarah Hart-Unger: I am working on a bigger project and I add part of one of the chapters, I added up like all the minutes if you did what I just said, and it came out to something like 1.5% of your waking hours in the year. And like, that’s a pretty good deal, right? Like, maybe let’s round it to two, 2% of your waking hours to plan to actually go through the other 98% with direction and knowing what you want and like setting. I think that is like an amazing, deal. And I do find that like, and I’m talking about like adding up the 10 minutes per day, plus the week, plus the little, it, it has such a profound effect on helping me kind of move with more intention for creating more activities that I enjoy for saving time to sometimes prevent things that would have been very reactive if I hadn’t caught them.

And with kids, there’s a lot of things where you need to do that planning ahead, more so like spontaneity works. More when you don’t have a baby when you do if you want to, you know, go to that work retreat you already need to be thinking about childcare maybe months in advance So there’s actually like more planning tasks that kind of go with having kids I will say like the elaborateness of my planning rituals has shifted somewhat especially during the like very sleep deprived baby phases like when they’re little and they’re not sleeping through the night and they’re like eating all night long.

I did have to dial certain things down down because during that phase, my energy wasn’t where it needed to be. So I think I still did planning, but it was definitely a little bit lower key. And my life didn’t have as room for quite as much, although it still had room for some, I would not say to go down to zero, but I will say a few of our attendees of our workshop live had young kids and they were like, this is the break I needed. This is what my brain was craving. So if there is a way to get some time and if you do work and you have some kind of childcare, then the easiest way to do this is to just take a day or two of PTO and just like corral yourself to, to do it. And if you can’t take the nights because you still have a baby that like needs you at night, then at least you could take like, you know, an eight to five or so.

Jade Boyd: Yeah, it feels like such a chicken and egg situation for a lot of people. It’s like, oh, you’re feeling really overwhelmed, well what are your planning routines look like? But then it’s like, oh, you’re too overwhelmed to find time for planning. Like one has to come if you’re going to get out of that cycle of overwhelm and feeling like you are being reactive or you do feel like you’re not making time for the things that are important to you.

Like you said, it does take a lot of intention. Because we’re all busy people, and if we don’t plan things out and think ahead of time, we can miss a lot of opportunities, and the days go by so quickly, the years go by so quickly, and it’s easy to, to not take a step back and think about, like, what do I actually want for my life? Or, you know, a lot of business owners listening to this. What do I actually want for my business? And we can get caught in those routines where we’re doing the same thing over and over again, without taking that step back. So I agree, super powerful. And it’s interesting. 1.5%. That’s very small, I’m glad that you did the math on that. That’s really interesting.

Sarah Hart-Unger: Yeah. We have a lot of hours. As I learned from Laura Vanderkam, she taught me well, 168 hours per week. That’s a lot. I mean, we’re sleeping for like maybe 50 of them, but like, that’s still a lot.

Jade Boyd: Yeah, totally. And I want to close on this question. So you’ve obviously built a really successful podcast, two very successful podcasts. And like I said, a lot of business owners are listening to this. Many of them are considering starting a podcast. I’m obviously a podcaster and personally want to hear your answer to this, but what do you feel has been the secret to your success?

And you can answer for either podcast if you feel like they’re different.

Sarah Hart-Unger: I mean, first of all, I don’t feel like I’m that successful. Like the numbers may look good, but if anybody thinks I’m like earning a full time living off of my podcast specifically, like they are very wrong because I don’t know how big you have to be for that to happen, but bigger than me, I do have sponsors.

So it’s like, okay, I’m not going negative or anything like that. But yeah, however, podcasts of course can be used to share news about other things that offer that might be really helpful for business. Yes. So I a hundred percent understand, like, that side of things, but just in and of itself, unless anyone thinks I’m, like, earning a million dollars per episode, that’s just a very few people and most of them are, like, celebrities, so unfortunately, no. I don’t know, be consistent. I definitely come out with stuff pretty much every single week. Laura and I have never missed a week. We plan ahead. We get stuff done. Like literally, I think once we had record when I was fleeing from a hurricane, Irma in 2017, but we were like, we are getting an episode out.

Okay. So, and that was kind of fun. It was, it was, don’t worry. I was not risking my life. We were just like having a conversation about, fleeing a hurricane. So, but yeah, being consistent, talking about something that you are passionate about and love because if you’re not excited about the topic, then you’re going to come off as boring, so

Jade Boyd: And you’re going to run out of stuff to talk about real quick.

Sarah Hart-Unger: Yes, I think you’re right. So I think those would be my top two. And then it’s some of it’s luck. I don’t even know. Like, I mean, some people got way luckier than I did. So it’s all on a spectrum.

Jade Boyd: Yeah, for sure. One question that we’ve been closing the podcast with recently is what’s one thing you think business owners can stop doing? And you can say like women in general, if you want to, what is one thing we can stop doing?

Sarah Hart-Unger: Stop doing. I would stop, well, this is a little bit controversial, but to the extent you can, I would stop scrolling social media thinking that connections there are going to explode your business, because in most cases, that’s probably not true, and for most people, that behavior probably is like a net negative in terms of stress and time spent.

Jade Boyd: Have you broken up with social media?

Sarah Hart-Unger: Yeah, I don’t do social media.

I haven’t, I, I hadn’t, I have an Instagram, like it exists, but like in 2021, I kind of put an away message and I haven’t touched it since then.

Jade Boyd: Yep. Yep. For sure. I recently called out one of my clients because we were doing a time tracking challenge this month in my group coaching program. And some of them were like, ah, I’m kind of scared to do that. And I’m like, yeah, I talked to several of you in the middle of the day on Instagram. So I’m very curious to know what we all find out.

It’s definitely a problem for a lot of people, especially business owners. Like you said, it can be a dangerous trap because there’s so much good that can come from having real conversations there, but also it is a little bit of a black hole and you can get suction very quickly. So one thing we can stop doing scrolling social media mindlessly. Where can listeners find you after the show for those who want to get connected and being your world?

Sarah Hart-Unger: Yeah, not social media. So you can find me at my old school website, which is theshubox.com. T H E S H U B O X. com. You can find me at Best Laid Plans Podcast, and Best of Both Worlds. And if you happen to be interested in planning 2025 with me, you can find information on that at theshubox.com/courses.

Jade Boyd: Perfect. And we will link all of those in the show notes. So thank you so much again. This was so fun, Sarah. Thanks for being here.

Sarah Hart-Unger: Thank you for having me Jade.