MotherShip: The Solo Mission

Do you have a plan?

“Tell me if you can relate to this: When a new week approaches, you feel stressed out because you’re not prepared at all. By the end of the week, you feel frustrated because you didn’t use your time in the most productive way.” 

That comes from How to Plan Your Weekly Schedule for Success by Catherine at A Blissful Mind.

She goes on to say, “This anxiety and dread usually happens when you go through the week without a plan. If you don’t know what you need to get done and when you’re going to work on it, the chances of it happening are pretty slim.”

Plan the work!

Weekly planning is one of our favorite “work smarter, not harder” tools. In MotherShip, we call this planning the Solo Mission. 

Simply put, it is the hour (or less) that you set aside each week to plan for the week ahead. We invest this time in planning in an attempt to stay ahead of our chaos; knowing full well that we can never totally escape it.

In the Solo Mission, we tackle the calendar, the carpool, the meal planning and the grocery list and maybe even book a date night. It reduces our unknowns and helps us anticipate and avoid (most of) the “fires” which, in turn, helps us avoid burning out.

Here’s an overview of what you’ll find in MotherShip…

Solo Mission Weekly Planning Agenda:

• Thoroughly review calendar; rearrange anything that conflicts; ask for help where necessary
• Thoroughly review MotherShip for the week; rearrange anything that conflicts
• Thoroughly read emails; add items to calendar
• File important emails; delete junk mail; respond to those needed; forward tasks to TickTick
• Look at your upcoming Monthly Target. Decide on the Tasks you intend to focus on this week.
• Look for time to work on Yearly Missions and schedule it into your TickTick Inbox
• Inbox Race: Add due dates to as many TickTick Inbox items as you can tackle this upcoming week

We work to coordinate our calendar with our to-do list and our inboxes because we recognize that the synergy between them is what breeds productivity, effectiveness and peace of mind.

Alternatively, having undermanaged inboxes and dates buried in emails that never make it to the calendar is fruitless and only contributes to our overwhelm. It means we ultimately have to work harder (rather than smarter) and moms don’t have time for that!

Work the plan!

So, spend an hour or so each week planning! Customize our list to suit your life and then watch the magic happen! After all, no mom ever says, “I wish I’d been less prepared, had more surprises and could have put out more fires.”

If you could benefit from a system that gives you peace of mind, get the MotherShip app and get your ship together!