Today, we’re going to be chatting about the importance of a personal CEO day.  It’s a day that you can dedicate or it’s a time block that you set aside to think about and plan the personal side of your life. As we are approaching the fourth quarter of the year, I want you to prepare not only for what’s going on in your business, but also what’s going on in your personal life as well.  I have an entire episode, Episode 28, that walks you through a CEO mindset and quarterly planning.

So if you’re ready to gain some actionable steps on how you can step into the role as CEO in your motherhood and your personal life, then let’s jump right into it.

Why do you need a personal CEO Day or Time Block?

1. Keeps You Accountable

I’ve always been very free spirited when it came my business and personal life and once I started to take my photography business seriously, I realized that I couldn’t just wing it in my personal life, I needed to have a strategic plan. When I leave myself to wing it, nothing truly gets done. I don’t get any closer to my goals and all the things that are so important to me in my personal life, they just don’t happen. If they do happen, they happen sort of last minute, they happen very quickly and there’s no planning involved.

2. Helps You to Think of Where You’re Going

A CEO day helps you think about where you’re going and mapping out a plan of how you’ll get there. This plan is not going to restrict you, but is going to help you become the person that you want to be. It will also help you lead and guide your family and create the atmosphere and the culture that you want as well as the family values that you want to instill upon your children. This plan will help you to be able to take care of the things that have to be done on repeat in your family. You will now have a strategy for how to make sure that all the things that you want to accomplish as a family are finally put into action.

3. Allows you to Course Correct Much Sooner

With a CEO day, you can course correct much sooner if you ever get off track. It’s crucial for you to check your schedule every week and all the things that are going on in your personal life. You will see what you have scheduled and you will be able to forecast and see blind spots before they become an emergency.

Things to Focus On During Your CEO Day

Now I’m about to share with you some of the things to focus on during this personal time:

• Your Schedule

The first thing is to focus on your schedule. Look at what’s coming up next this week and this month, and really start to get a clear picture of what’s going on. Set up reminders in your phone for important calls or appointments or whatever else you may need to help clear some of your brain space. This is going to be so helpful and will set you up for success.

This is also a really great time for you to look at those personal appointments or those special trips that you’re going to want to do without your kids, so you can schedule babysitters for that. I highly recommend that you do this personal CEO day with your spouse, as it is a great time to have check-ins about both your schedules. You can plan your next month together and schedule in personal time where you’re going to want to hang out with friends, have date nights together or have family trips or activities.

• Budget

Look at your budget, review it and update it. This will be different for everyone, but just like you would in your business, check in with your budget. Do this with your personal life as well, making sure that you are keeping good financial records and that you have a plan for where your money is going. That way, you’re not always wondering where it went.

• Meal Planning

This is something that I think a lot of mamas struggle with, myself included, because it just feels so daunting. So my first tip is to get your family involved; however, I think it’s easier for you to have an idea of where you’re going before you ask for their help. Create a master list of your favorite meals and every time a meal is made and your family enjoys it, add this recipe to your master list. You can keep this master list organized using apps like Trello or any other app you’re comfortable with. Another thing that you could try to do is coming up with meal categories. So on Monday’s it’s Crock Pot night, on Tuesday’s it’s Taco Tuesday, then Wednesday is Italian night, etc.

• Meal Prepping

You can also think about meal prepping. Maybe you’ve started to plan your meals in advance and you can start to schedule in when you’re actually going to prep this food. Anything that you need to do in advance to prepare your food, you must ensure that you schedule it in.

• Scheduling and Planning Out Errands

Now, if you’re like most mamas, you typically run errands on an ongoing basis. It’s never methodically thought out or planned, so if you can start to think about all your errands you need to accomplish, you can actually save a lot of time, energy and gas by batching your errands and creating one or two days a week where you solely focus on running errands on those days. Ensuring that you’re planning out your errands carefully can really make a huge difference in your schedule, but also make a difference in how you feel. Because remember when we are talking about being the CEO in your motherhood and in your life, you want to make sure that you are feeling peaceful, joyful, and restful. So making sure that you think things through and have a plan is going to be key to finding that peace and that joy that you’re looking for.

• Planning Things with Extended Family & Friends

Now as an adult, I think it is so much harder to carve out time to spend with our family and friends. So this is something that is really important and during this personal CEO time, you can think about. who are the families that you want to connect with more? What type of activities do you want to do with your extended family? Have the space and the capacity to actually think through this. A lot of us started our photography business because we wanted more time freedom to spend with our family. But what often happens, is we get so exhausted and tired doing the day to day business tasks that we forget to truly live. We forget to truly enjoy the reason why we started our business in the first place. So remember to plan things with your extended family and your friends.

• Goal Setting

There might be a number of other things that you’re thinking about right now, and maybe you have a specific goal in mind that you’re working on, this CEO day is the perfect time to review that, focus and start to think of the action steps that you will take to make your goal a reality.

I promise you, if you set aside the time to implement a CEO Day, you will feel like a rock star! You’re going to wake up every morning, not feeling dread or confusion. You are going to be focused and know exactly what you’re supposed to be doing because you’ve had the time and the capacity to think about that.

So I hope that you found today’s episode to be helpful. I would love for you to share it by taking a screenshot and tagging me over on Instagram @ThePurposeGathering and let me know if you already have this personal CEO time set aside every week. If not, I would love to hear what you are most excited about and when you plan to do this.

If you’re looking for more support and you are wanting to connect with other like-minded mom photographers, join us for our next hangout where it’s going to be all about workflow, what it looks like to systemize your business and make a step by step plan on how to get things done in your business. So head on over to thepurposegathering.com/hangout, and I’ll see you there.

Until next time Mama, I am always here rooting for you and you are not alone on this journey.

Resources

• The Purpose Gathering Group Coaching Program
• Join our Facebook Community
• Find me on Instagram: @thepurposegathering
• Website: thepurposegathering.com
• Episode 28: CEO Mindset + Quarterly Planning