Episode 687: The Best Time Management Tip To Overcome Overwhelm And Hit Your Goals With Anna Dearmon Kornick

EBT687 – Anna Dearmon Kornick

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported. 

[00:00:37]   Megan Porta

If you are a regular listener. You know how much I love to talk about time management and just staying on track so that you can be the most productive, awesome human and entrepreneur possible.Okay, tune into this episode. Whether you are intrigued by time management or not, this is going to change your life. Anna Dearmon Kornick she is from annadermancormick.com she is a time management expert and she shares all about this strategy she uses for herself and for her clients to just be on top of all the things involved in our businesses and our lives.

[00:01:16]   

It is called the Weekly Planning Session. I do this for my own life and business. I’ve been doing it for a long time and I love it. It has changed my life for the better and I will never go back to not having a weekly planning session. Anna gives us all the key points that we need to know about, get started, how to do this most efficiently, the tools she uses to keep everything in place and on track, and even some obstacles that can get in the way of creating a weekly planning session. Loved this episode and I hope you love it too. It is number 687.

[00:01:57] Sponsor  

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[00:02:14] Megan Porta

Anna Dearmon Kornick is a highly sought after time management coach and keynote speaker, top 1% globally ranked podcast host of It’s About Time and founder of the It’s About Time Academy. A true Louisiana firecracker who has become known for making time management fun. Anna helps busy professionals and business owners struggling with overwhelm manage their time using her personality driven heart method. Hello Anna, how are you today?

[00:02:41]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Hey Megan, I’m doing so good. Really excited to chat with you. How are you?

[00:02:46]  Megan Porta 

I’m good too. I love it when people ask me that back and doing well. So excited to chat about this. It’s One of my favorite topics in the world. So you can probably see that I’m just bubbling over with excitement, which is kind of weird maybe for some people, but I get it.

[00:03:01]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

I get it.

[00:03:01]  Megan Porta 

Oh, thank you. Yes. You’re speaking to my heart today, Anna, before we get into it, though, do you have a fun fact to share with us?

[00:03:09]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Oh, my goodness. So I was racking my brain to try and figure out what my fun fact would be, and I think I’m gonna go with this one. So when I was in eighth grade, I was actually awarded the best dairy products taster in the entire state of Louisiana, which.

[00:03:31]  Megan Porta 

Okay, wait, what?

[00:03:32]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Seems totally weird. When I was in eighth grade, I. As a part of my agricultural elective in middle school, I learned how to identify cheese competitively. Did you know that there is such thing as competitive cheese identification?

[00:03:53]  Megan Porta 

No, I did not.

[00:03:54]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Well, now you do. And you’re looking at the 1998 number one cheese identifier in the state of Louisiana.

[00:04:02]  Megan Porta 

So you actually won this whole division? I did. In the entire state. Oh, my gosh. Now, do you still pride yourself on being an expert in this area, or has that left you?

[00:04:14]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

I’ve got to say, the re emergence of cheese boards and charcuterie over the last few years has just really enabled me to bring out this party trick of identifying cheeses. So it’s. It’s a lot of fun.

[00:04:30]  Megan Porta 

That’s so awesome. Do you have a favorite type of cheese?

[00:04:33]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Oh, my goodness. They’re just all so different and wonderful. You know, Muenster comes to mind for me first just because I feel like it’s. It’s underrated, but delicious. So. Muenster is so good. But it is. It is hard to top a good, like, baked brie with a. With a pastry. So, yeah, I do.I am an equal opportunity cheese.

[00:04:59]  Megan Porta 

There’s not really a cheese that I’ve eaten that I don’t. That I hate. I’ll say that. Like, some of them are, like, not my first choice, but. Yeah, yeah, you can’t go wrong with Muenster. I. I used to get that for my boys and make their grilled cheese sandwiches with it. With it when they were younger.

[00:05:17]   

And so they would go to restaurants and they’d be like, do you have Muenster grilled cheese? And it was so cute. And my husband and I were like, oh, my gosh. Kind of embarrassed, but no, that’s amazing. Amazing cheese. It’s melty. It’s not super strong. It’s just flavorful. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I could go on about cheeses as well. Love this fact about you. So cheese and overwhelm, those are your, your areas of expertise which align with mine. So good to have you as a friend. Anna, will you tell us a little bit about your business, please, Just to kind of frame what we’re, who you are, and what we’re going to talk about today?

[00:05:56]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Sure. So I’m a time management coach. And to be honest, when I was in kindergarten, at career day, I stand up in front of the class and say, when I grow up, I want to be a time management coach. But over time, kind of paying attention to the breadcrumbs that life gives us about our direction and our passion.My first job right out of college was as a congressional scheduler in Washington, D.C. managing every minute of my boss’s time.

[00:06:26]  Megan Porta 

Oh, wow.

[00:06:27]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

I then moved from congressional scheduling into crisis communications and government affairs for about 10 years, which is, you know, daily creating order out of chaos. And as much as I loved working in that super fast paced, problem solving environment, being in constant crisis mode when you don’t have clear boundaries in place or maybe a clear vision for what you truly want your life to look like and a good system in place for managing the overwhelm, crisis communications can completely knock you down.

[00:07:02]   

And that’s really where I found myself, was kind of floundering, kind of working 24/7 and just knowing that life can be better than this. And I didn’t know what it could look like. But I basically, I had to walk away from crisis communications. What so many people I knew of thought was this super cool, prestigious job.

[00:07:26]   

People compared me to Olivia Pope from scandal because I was always, always, always. And I have escorted someone down a freight, down a freight elevator into a back alley in order to avoid TV cameras outside. I’ve done that. And I look back on that time and I learned so much and grew so much as a person and learned a lot about what I don’t want the rest of my life to look like.

[00:07:52]   

So I gradually found, I discovered coaching, and I realized that there was a way that I could take my unique experience and my love for helping others create order out of chaos, to help women specifically, stop feeling overwhelmed and spend their time on what matters most. So I dove into everything I could to understand the science behind time management and productivity and what are all of these different methods.

[00:08:21]   

And then when you start incorporating something as unique as our personalities into the mix, you can start to begin to see why so many of us feel like we don’t have a system that works for us or that we’ve tried so many things and they don’t work. It’s because we’re all so incredibly unique, and the way that we manage our time has to match our personality and the way that we think.

[00:08:46]   

And so now that I’m a time management coach, every single day I get to work with ambitious, driven women professionals to kind of be that matchmaker between their personalities and a way to manage their time that’s led by heart rather than just output.

[00:09:06]  Megan Porta 

I love that you recognize that it’s not a one size fits all situation, because so many. I feel like we get so much information that’s like, here’s your strategy. Here’s what you need to be doing. And it’s like, wait, I don’t. My brain doesn’t work like that. Everyone works so differently, so we have to take that into account.

[00:09:22]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Absolutely. And you know, Megan, it’s tough because we want the short, we want to be handed. Step one, do this. Step two, do this. And step three, it will work for you perfectly.

[00:09:33]  Megan Porta 

Right.

[00:09:34]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

But that’s just not how. It’s not how this works. It’s not a recipe that’s going to turn out perfectly if you just get the right measurements. It’s got to match you. And so in addition to my. My time management coaching, I’m also the host of It’s About Time, a podcast about work, life, and balance.

[00:09:55]   

And I am also the author of Time Management Essentials, the tools you need to maximize your attention, energy, and productivity. But I’m more than just a worker bee, I promise. I’m a mom of two little girls. They’re 6 and 4, and we and my husband, we all live in South Louisiana, right above New Orleans.

[00:10:14]   

So we like to do all that fun Louisiana stuff like Mardi Gras and festivals and.

[00:10:19]  Megan Porta 

Aww. Yeah, I love it. You’re a real human, too, just like the rest of us.

[00:10:23]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Right?

[00:10:24]  Megan Porta 

I love that you have a podcast and book. I’m excited to explore those. Always eager for new things to listen to and read. So thank you for mentioning those. Yeah, I was going to ask about kind of like the ADHD brain. I feel like entrepreneurs have that a lot. Do you find that’s very common for entrepreneurs?

[00:10:43]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

You know, I. I don’t know the specific stats, but I’ll tell you this based on the women I have met that are entrepreneurs. We chat and we look back on our childhoods, and we were the kids who couldn’t sit still in class. We were the kids who didn’t love to follow directions because we saw multiple paths to get to a result.

[00:11:06]   

Showing our work didn’t always look like it looked like for other kiddos. And I’ll even say I haven’t been officially diagnosed ADHD, but I’ve had many conversations with individuals who support ADHD entrepreneurs and, you know, it’s. It. I find that some of the qualities that make an amazing entrepreneur are the same qualities or ways of being associated with ADHD.

[00:11:37]   

And it just. It can’t. It makes me think about how we all. In order to support one another as a community with a common goal in the world, we need different types of thinkers and that entrepreneurial mindset. You think quick, you problem solve, but it also can make it really tough to focus sometimes.

[00:12:01]   

Right.

[00:12:01]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, I know. I think ADHD gets such a bad stigma, but you’re right. There are so many good things about. And not just like, the diagnosis of it, but that brain that works a little bit differently.

[00:12:14]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Oh, yeah.

[00:12:14]  Megan Porta 

There’s so many good things, and it does seem to align with entrepreneurship. And I just think, you know, embrace that and. Yeah, I mean, it’s not something to be ashamed of for sure.

[00:12:27]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Absolutely not. In so many ways, it gives you superpowers.

[00:12:31]  Megan Porta 

Yes. Agreed. Yeah. And I do know so many food bloggers who are like, oh, my gosh, adult diagnosis adhd. I didn’t know. I thought something was wrong with me for my entire life, and now I feel normal. And, yeah, it’s amazing how many people I’ve heard of recently who are just kind of realizing this about themselves, putting the puzzle pieces together.

[00:12:53]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

I just wish that there wasn’t a normal brain and an ADHD brain. I wish they could just both be considered normal brains, different flavors. That’s just like. That’s just my perspective.

[00:13:04]  Megan Porta 

I like that, too. Yeah, I know. People do tend to label it like that. Like I have an ADHD brain. Well, yeah, we all have unique brains. Right. And that’s kind of what you’re talking about today. We all have to treat our differently as individuals and manage our time. Well, I am so eager to hear about your weekly planning session that you endorse because it’s like, the key to success for me, and I’m so curious to hear if yours aligns with what I do. So tell us all about this.

[00:13:35]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Yeah. Okay, so first of all, Megan, I love the fact that you are a weekly planning session fan as well.

[00:13:41]  Megan Porta 

Die hard.

[00:13:42]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Yeah. And I, you know, there’s really no other way to say it other than describing a weekly planning session as the single most important thing that we can do every week. So often we feel like if we are not doing something, if we are not taking action in some way, then we are wasting time.

[00:14:06]   

You know, society really tends to favor doing over just being. And a weekly planning session is, it’s not doing, it is planning, it is sitting, it is thinking, it is making decisions. And at face value, from the outside in, it might not look like very productive time because you could be doing something else.

[00:14:29]   

But a weekly planning session is really just 20 to 30 minutes. The way that I, the way that I teach it, the way I recommend it. 20 to 30 minutes. Where you get a bird’s eye view of your week ahead in order order to identify the tough spots, you know, spot those obstacles, come up with solutions before you’re in the thick of it and make decisions that are going to enable you to move through your week smoothly.

[00:14:55]   

Decisions about travel, transportation and transitions, decisions about meal planning, groceries, snacks. It’s just without a weekly planning session, you are setting yourself up for decision fatigue. You’re setting yourself up for mistakes, to feel scattered and scrambled. And nobody wants that.

[00:15:18]  Megan Porta 

Oh no.

[00:15:19]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

A weekly planning session really is the secret of the highest performers out there.

[00:15:26]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, I love hearing that. And you get really detailed. It sounds like. So even planning your kids snacks out, I mean, how, how detailed do you get?

[00:15:37]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Okay, I love it. So I will say that I am definitely a big picture thinker. I am most comfortable when I am thinking bird’s eye view rather than in the weeds. And so while I’m not necessarily planning that, okay, after school on Tuesday, Camilla is going to have cheese and crackers. And Elizabeth, while we’re not getting that granular meal planning and grocery shopping is a huge part of our weekly planning session.

[00:16:03]   

But let me back up because there’s, there’s a flow to this.

[00:16:07]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:16:08]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

And so the way that I conduct my weekly planning session is, I mean, I start by getting that bird’s eye view of the week ahead. I’ve got my, my laptop, I’ve got my trusty notebook, I’ve got a cup of coffee usually and I’m probably listening to brown noise in my AirPods because that is, that’s like my focus noise.

[00:16:31]  Megan Porta 

I love it.

[00:16:33]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

And I get a look at the week ahead and I essentially start by spotting, okay, what are the tough spots? You know what, what do the tough spots look like? Okay, I am like just looking at this week ahead. I am going to be in the car for four hours on Wednesday and Friday.

[00:16:50]   

I’m going to be out of town speaking at a Speaking engagement for two days. So that means that there’s some planning that needs to take place now in order to make sure that things are running smoothly for the girls, for my husband while I’m out of town. And so identifying those tough spots and problem solving for them in advance, making notes.

[00:17:14]   

Okay. I need to make sure that I have clothes laid out, that the school skirts are ironed, all of those little things that if you wait until the last minute, again, it becomes a scramble from there. I. I love to add. I love, like, I can’t live without more like it adding in transition and travel time.

[00:17:35]   

Megan, I don’t know if this would surprise you, but I used to be perpetually late for everything. Back when I was still working in crisis communications as a congressional scheduler, I was late all the time to the point that there was one really unfortunate and mortifying meeting with my supervisor in which I was written up for being late 17 times in a quarter.So when I tell you I know what it’s like to struggle with this. I do.

[00:18:06]  Megan Porta 

For real? Yeah.

[00:18:08]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

What I have learned is that the reason why we tend to be late is because we underestimate transition time. It feels invisible to us. We don’t think about the time it takes to get up from our desk, refill our water, find our keys, walk to the car, back out of the driveway, and leave our neighborhood.

[00:18:29]   

Okay. We tend to just think about the point A, point B. Right. And that’s how we end up being late, because we don’t factor in driving to the doctor’s office, parking in the parking garage, walking all the way to the building and taking the elevator up to the sixth floor.

[00:18:43]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:18:43]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

And so at the beginning of each week, I make sure that travel time, drive time is literally blocked into my calendar. And so that’s taking. That’s daycare, drop off and pickup. That’s dance. That is anything that has me in the car. Because that’s a real use of our time that we tend to forget.

[00:19:05]   

And when we forget about it, we’re late. I mean, that’s it. So travel time. And then really taking a look at. Okay, based on what this week looks like, what should our family meals look like? Huge advocate of meal planning. Just because there is nothing worse than opening up your fridge on Wednesday evening at 7:00 when everybody’s hangry and grumpy and all you’ve got in the fridge is a piece of cheese and some hot sauce. Like, but it happens.

[00:19:38]  Megan Porta 

It does.

[00:19:39]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

And so, you know, this is really. This is where my husband Comes in. I mean, we have a really solid partnership here. And I kind of go over, hey, here’s what the week looks like. And he takes that, and he creates our meal plan for the week. It’s awesome. He creates the meal plan for the week.

[00:19:56]   

He’s also in charge of school lunches for our daughter, who’s in daycare because she has to bring a lunch every day. And so he’s able to map out. Okay, based on what the week looks like, here’s what our meals will look like. So if we know that we’re going to have a Tuesday, that maybe we’ve got tennis lessons and other things going on, we’re not going to plan a complicated dinner.

[00:20:21]   

We’re going to have leftovers from Monday, or we’re going to do a crock pot meal. Okay. Like, all of those things that really help you move smoothly through your week because the decisions are already made. From there. He puts together the grocery list, and a lot of times he takes both girls with him to the grocery store.

[00:20:37]  Megan Porta 

Amazing. That’s so great.

[00:20:40]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

And from there, I check the weather and I pull clothes for the entire week for both of my girls. I mean, they’re six and four, so. And one has school uniforms, and the other just still lets me pick out her clothes. And so that way, I’m not a morning person, Megan, at all.

[00:20:59]   

I am so groggy in the mornings. And having those five little outfits hanging on a hook in their closet, it helps all of us start each day on a much better. On a much better foot.

[00:21:13]  Megan Porta 

Absolutely.

[00:21:14]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Really and truly, that is it. It’s. Let’s take a look at the week ahead. Let’s make sure that, you know, I didn’t mention this explicitly, but let me make sure the time blocks are in place that enable me to hit the goals that I have in. In my business. A lot of things are recurring, to tell you the truth.

[00:21:32]   

I mean, that’s kind of where we get into creating an ideal week. That’s kind of a rinse and repeat that contains those most important elements of each week in order to, you know, keep things moving forward. But at making sure that travel time and transition time is there. Talking with my husband so he can make that meal plan and get that grocery list going, and then checking the weather for the week to make sure that we have all of the clothes that we need ready to go.

[00:21:58]  Megan Porta 

And that’s such a simple thing, too. And it might be an oversight for so many, but weather. I live in Minnesota. We never know. Like, literally, it could be Snowing one day and 70 degrees the next day. So that small detail literally takes 10 seconds. And it can just help you think through.

[00:22:16]   

If nothing else. Think through. Like, we might need to shovel on Thursday morning because it’s supposed to snow on Wednesday night. And just having kind of a loose plan for those sorts of things is.

[00:22:26]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

So huge, because it’s when we’re caught off guard that we end up in a spiral. And, you know, the thing is, Megan, what I have, what I hear from a lot of women, is that I make a plan, but then I get a curveball or something comes up and everything gets thrown off course.

[00:22:46]   

And I’m certainly not suggesting that we don’t get curveballs. I mean, that’s like.

[00:22:51]  Megan Porta 

That’s life, right? It happens. Yep.

[00:22:52]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

However, there are so many curveballs. There are so many just things tough, tough situations that could be avoided just by having a weekly planning session and spotting the potential problem before it becomes a real problem. I mean, if you wait until Thursday morning to look at your schedule for Thursday, that’s when you discover that you have a dentist appointment that conflicts with a meeting where you’re supposed to give a presentation.

[00:23:25]   

I mean, you scheduled that dentist appointment six months ago, so of course you forgot about it. But now you’re in chaos mode. You’re in overwhelm mode, because you’ve got to figure out what you’re going to do about this conflict. Because you waited until Thursday morning to see what was on tap for the day.

[00:23:42]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Don’t wait, people. Look ahead. I loved what you said about just transition time and scheduling that in just making a plan for that. Because for so long, I glossed over this, and I would look at my calendar, and it would be like, okay, you have a call at 9. You can squeeze in a workout before then.

[00:24:02]   

But I never accounted for the margin. So then I was like, wait a second. I knew I was gonna work out, and I knew I had a call. Why am I scrambling? Well, it was because I didn’t account for, like, you have to take a shower and you have to do your hair.

[00:24:15]   

And so all of that stuff matters. Like, all of the stuff that goes in the margins really matters. And when you can sit down and think about that and put it into your calendar. Oh, my gosh. That was a game changer for me when that finally clicked in my brain.

[00:24:29]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Oh, yeah. I mean, those invisible things in our calendar are what trip us up.

[00:24:35]  Megan Porta 

Invisible things? Yes, exactly. 

[00:24:40]  Sponsor

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[00:24:59]   Megan Porta

And I think it just takes a little bit of time. Do you find that too, to kind of get into the groove with it and like, oh, that’s right. Okay, this does take me 20 minutes and it’s before my call starts. And just remembering that from week to week, when you do your planning.

[00:25:13]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Yeah. You know, it can, it can take a little bit. It can take a little bit of time to bring that awareness to what you’re doing, to notice and to get into a groove. Or you can fast forward that awareness and identify where you are spending that invisible time by doing a time study or a time audit.

[00:25:35]   

I mean, this is something that I love to do with my clients who are like, where is all of my time going? Like, I feel like I am busy doing things all day, but I’m not getting anything done. And so on occasion, I’ll encourage them to track their time in 15 minute increments for an entire week because it brings so much awareness to what you’re doing and the decisions that you’re making about time.And that’s where you really start to see. Oh, my gosh. It takes me 45 minutes to do daycare drop off, not 30. No wonder I felt rushed every time I walked into the office.

[00:26:11]  Megan Porta 

I hear you. I know time audits are huge and they’re so revealing. I still do them periodically and every time I do them. And I feel like I have a really refined schedule every time I’m like, oh my gosh, this either took me way longer than I thought or way less time than I thought is always eye opening for me.

[00:26:29]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Oh, yeah.

[00:26:30]  Megan Porta 

I think everyone, everyone, especially if you’re an entrepreneur, should do a time audit pronto.

[00:26:36]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

That’s always my, yeah, 100%. It just, it’s so revealing.

[00:26:43]  Megan Porta 

Oh, isn’t it? Like, sometimes it’s like hours off. Like what I think and what actually happens is literally hours off during the course of a week. And it’s like, what? How did that happen? Yeah, it’s crazy. Okay. I was also going to ask you about tools. Do you have any tools that help you stay on track? So I assume you have one spot where you keep all of this information.

[00:27:09]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Yeah. So that’s such a great question. And I actually talk about this in my book on the chapter on organizing your mental clutter. Because, you know, it’s one thing to have an organized desk. But so much of the mess in our lives is in between our ears. It’s in our heads because we’re hanging on to things instead of getting them out of our heads and onto paper or into a system.

[00:27:33]   

And so I recommend having really two types of tools for, whether it’s for your weekly planning session or your tasks and to dos or just to keep your life on track. And it’s really a high tech tool and a low tech tool. And when we think about, you know, what are, what’s the purpose of these tools in our lives?

[00:27:56]   

I mean, it’s really a place to, for things to land. It’s really a place for us to capture those ideas and those thoughts and those to dos. Because when we don’t have a consistent place for those things to live, A, we either try to keep them in our heads or B, we end up with seven different notebooks and 37 post it notes all over our desk.

[00:28:16]   

Because we’re just trying to get it out of our head and put it somewhere, but then we don’t know where we put it. It reminds me, the Devil Wears Prada where Miranda Priestley is like, where’s that blue post it note from last Tuesday? Or what? Whatever she says, that’s how we are. We’re like, wait, I know I wrote that down somewhere.

[00:28:34]   

Where did I put it? And so the way that you can just alleviate so much of that stress is to have just two tools. If you can. Two tools, something high tech, something that you can access on your computer, on your phone, something with information that lives in the cloud so that you can’t lose it.

[00:28:56]   

And this can look like something as simple as the notes app on your phone because it can go with you anywhere. Or something a bit more robust, like a project management system, something like Trello, Asana or ClickUp, because those tools, they’re able to serve as both a task manager and keep you on track with dates and deadlines.

[00:29:15]   

And also a repository, a place to keep thoughts and ideas so that you know where to find them when you need them. And then a low tech option. And a low tech option is something that you can just handwrite. It’s a notebook, it’s a planner, it’s a notepad, a legal pad. Because there is something so critical about the thought to hand to tactile connection that really helps us, us commit to whatever that thing is that we’re writing down.

[00:29:49]   

I mean, everybody has heard the stat at this point that when you write down your goals, you’re 43% more likely to achieve them. And it’s because that act of writing things down really, it inspires this commitment in you, whether you realize it or not, because you’re making an idea real by putting it on paper in a way that feels very different from typing it into a digital tool or voice noting it into, into your phone.

[00:30:19]   

And so I with combining a high tech tool and a low tech tool, you’ve got a cloud based way to keep track of all of those ideas and to dos. But with a low tech tool, you’ve got something that you can grab and jot down a few notes to get something out of your head in that moment until you can put it where it needs to go.

[00:30:41]   

You know, when it comes to specific tools, I personally love using Asana as my high tech tool. I’ve used Trello in the past. I have a ton of friends who use ClickUp, I have friends who use Monday.com, I mean there are so many options, they all do basically the same thing. But Asana is the tool that I have chosen and committed to making work because it’s important to know that there are always going to be so many different options.

[00:31:08]   

And a lot of times we get this idea that oh well, this tool didn’t work for me, so I’m going to switch to this one. When in reality a lot of times it’s that the system wasn’t working for you, not the tool itself.

[00:31:22]  Megan Porta 

Right, right.

[00:31:23]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

And so we can kind of, I call it like tool hopping to go from one platform to the next in search of that magical unicorn that’s just going to work perfectly for you and have every single bell and whistle that you need, but they’re all basically the same. And then my low tech tool is literally just a notebook from Target that goes in I.

[00:31:45]   

That goes with me when I travel. I mean, I don’t like take it in my purse everywhere that I go, but it just, it goes with me. And it’s easy. In the past I’ve used a planner as a low tech tool where I kept a daily to do list. But I’ve found that just using a notebook is just so much easier for me.

[00:32:02]   

And I encourage you to do a little trial and error to figure out what’s going to be best for you. Because maybe for you a legal pad is where you feel best. Maybe you want to have a pretty journal that you keep track of things in. I like my, my blue and white striped notebook from.

[00:32:20]  Megan Porta 

I love it. Yeah. And that probably applies to just everyone having different brains and the way Everyone works so differently. So what you do is so different from the girl next door. Yeah. And it’s okay, right, to just be okay with that because some people are like, in our space, I need to use fill in the blank because everyone else is doing it or I heard about it on a podcast.

[00:32:42]   

I’m like, no, no, not necessarily. You can make pretty much anything work as long as it jives with you and how your brain works.

[00:32:51]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Yeah, 100%. And I’ll even. I’ll tell you this. Part of the reason why I stopped using a planner as my low tech tool is because I realized that I wanted the planner to be pretty. I wanted it to look perfect and pretty and organized and that I was less likely to actually jot down the.

[00:33:16]  Megan Porta 

Notes in my interesting.

[00:33:18]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

It, like, let it serve its purpose because I wanted it to be pretty. Like, I couldn’t get over that weird planner perfectionism. But transition. Transitioning to a notebook completely solved that for me.

[00:33:31]  Megan Porta 

See, so it could just be something little like that, like some hiccup that you aren’t even thinking of. That is so funny.

[00:33:37]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Yeah.

[00:33:38]  Megan Porta 

Well, I’m glad that helped you get past it. If somebody wants to start this, it might seem like an overwhelming task, but I think it’s actually pretty simple. But I’d love to hear your thoughts. How do we just get started?

[00:33:51]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Yeah. So let’s say that you want to start a weekly planning session. Because you are totally on board with the fact that it’s going to change your life and make every week feel amazing. I would encourage you to start by making a brainstorm list of what are the things that you think you might need to make decisions about during the week, like, what are the things that you need to plan?

[00:34:12]   

And of course, it’s going to be different for all of us. You might want to do a financial or budget check in. You might want to incorporate your fitness plan. If you’re doing a fitness program into your calendar, you may want to incorporate your husband’s work travel into. You know, it’s going to look different.

[00:34:34]   

And so it’s just kind of sitting and thinking, okay, so what, what are the things that I want to plan? Another really great way to come up with your weekly planning agenda is to whether it’s a phone note or a physical notebook, pay attention over the course of the week to every time you feel friction, every time something feels scratchy or not easy.

[00:34:57]   

Was it forgetting about an appointment? Was it getting to soccer practice late? Was it running out of snacks for the lunchbox in the pantry? Where did you feel the friction? Because that’s a clue to something that you can add to your weekly planning agenda. So once you have an idea of what you need to plan, now we need to decide what tools do you need to be successful with making that plan?

[00:35:24]   

Because the worst thing in the world is to sit down with your hot cup of coffee to start your weekly planning session and realize that the softball schedule is on the bulletin board by the back door. And so on the way to the back door, you pass the laundry room and the clothes need to be moved from the washer to the dryer.

[00:35:40]   

And then the next thing you know, it’s two hours later and you’re reorganizing the pantry and you don’t know how you got there.

[00:35:46]  Megan Porta 

I think we can all relate to this scenario, right?

[00:35:49]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

It’s like if you give a mouse a cookie, like, one thing leads to the next. And so you want to treat it. You’re going to love this. You’re going to want to treat it like a mise en place. You want to have all of your ingredients for your weekly planning session with you when you sit down.Because, I mean, if you have to get up and walk across the house, it’s over.

[00:36:10]  Megan Porta 

Danger zone.

[00:36:11]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Exactly. Exactly. So know what you need, what tools you need in order to make it happen. Then you want to decide when. When are you going to do your weekly planning session? A lot of people love Sundays. A lot of people love Friday afternoons. Some people love first thing Monday mornings. You could do it Wednesday at 2pm if you want to.

[00:36:32]  Megan Porta 

Anytime. Yeah.

[00:36:32]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

But what’s most important is that you try to be as consistent as possible. Because when you plan in seven day increments, you begin to feel a rhythm. And there’s a, A. There’s a. There’s a flow and there’s consistency. I have a friend who’s a realtor who spends her weekends at open houses and showing homes.

[00:36:54]   

And so she has weekly planning Wednesday because the weekends don’t make sense for her. And so there are. There are no rules. You can do it whenever you want. Just try to be consistent.

[00:37:04]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:37:04]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

And then there’s one really important last step, Megan, and it is to decide in advance how you will reward yourself for doing. Yes. Because when we are new to weekly planning sessions or really any type of new habit that we want to install in our life, whether it’s working out or a cleaning routine or whatever, we have to have external rewards while we wait for the internal intrinsic rewards to kick in.

[00:37:39]   

Because if, I mean, if you I know you’ve been a weekly planner for a while now, but if you go back to when you first started doing weekly planning, you did it that first time, you’re like, okay, I did it. And then you make your way through the week and you’re like, okay, well I guess I’ll do this again.

[00:37:53]   

And you do it. But it can take a few weeks to really feel the difference and to think, oh wait, my life feels different. I have, I have to do this, this. Because I like this feeling.

[00:38:09]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:38:10]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

And so that feeling is going to be the most powerful motivator to keep this habit going. Because you don’t, you don’t want to go back to feeling scrambled. But while we’re waiting for that feeling to kick in, we need a little treat. So decide. What is your little treat going to be? Are you going to finish your weekly planning session and then go get a fancy coffee?

[00:38:33]   

Are you going to, you know, buy that new fancy ingredient you’ve been wanting to incorporate into a recipe?

[00:38:41]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:38:42]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Like let’s go get something fun. Are you gonna meet up with a friend after or are you gonna go do it at your favorite coffee shop? Because when you have that little reward, that thing to look forward to, you’re going to be more likely to follow through.

[00:38:56]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, that’s so true. It does take a while to catch up with itself. Right. Like the, the reward doesn’t feel real. I’m trying to think back. I think it was probably four to six weeks before I was like, oh, life is different. This is really good. And I never want to go back to how I felt.

[00:39:15]   

So that now is my motivation. But until that catch up happens, I love the idea of a self reward. All of us have those things that we don’t allow ourselves to indulge in that we deserve right for doing. I mean this is a big deal to put a system like this motion. So reward yourself.I love it.

[00:39:36]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Yes.

[00:39:37]  Megan Porta 

Amazing. And maybe, maybe even writing a list of what your self rewards would be so that you can just kind of pull one out of the bag each week. Like, oh, I’m gonna. The coffee idea. Great idea. Or lunch. I like doing just a lunch by myself without anyone around. Sometimes I just like the quiet, you know?

[00:39:55]   

Yeah. Just whatever it is, I love it.

[00:39:58]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

That’s a great idea because you’re essentially able to create a little reward menu.

[00:40:02]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, reward menu. Love that so much. Is there anything that you see as a common hang up or obstacles that get in the way of people planning these sessions?

[00:40:13]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Oh my goodness. What I see Most often is people starting out of the gate wanting to have this super elaborate, detailed weekly planning session that in. That’s going to take two hours. Like it? And.

[00:40:26]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:40:27]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

And what ends up happening is that we have the best intentions. We create this. Okay, well, I’m going to plan this, I’m going to do this and review my budget. I’m gonna map out my workouts. I’m gonna do this and this and this and this. And then we realize, okay, I need to do my weekly planning session today.

[00:40:43]   

But it feels so big and it feels so cumbersome that we avoid it and we don’t wanna do it because it feels hard. And our brains don’t like to do things that feel hard, no matter what your personality is. Like, we, our brain likes to keep us safe. Safe and likes to keep things easy for us so that we can burn as few calories as possible in case we get chased by a bear.

[00:41:07]   

Right. It’s crazy. And so I always recommend. Yes. If you want to come up with that elaborate weekly planning session, go for it. But I’m gonna ask you to create a best effort. Like what’s, what’s a, what’s a best case scenario? Like, like if you get to do all of it and then what is your bare minimum?

[00:41:30]   

What’s your best case scenario and what’s your bare minimum? For me, I know that if I can scan the calendar, if my husband can meal plan grocery shop and I can get those outfits pulled, we’re gonna, we’re gonna be fine. Yeah, we’re gonna be fine. But if I, if I, you know, have more time, if I want to sit down and do the whole version, I can’t.

[00:41:54]   

So often we get this all or nothing mindset and this is definitely where all. Or something is going to help you feel more successful and smooth moving into your week. So I’d say that’s most common is having this idea that it has to be this whole big thing and then we just avoid it because it’s too big.

[00:42:15]   

So create that best case scenario, but also figure out what your bare minimum is like that you can do in five minutes to tops. Yeah.

[00:42:21]  Megan Porta 

Because you don’t want to stack overwhelm on overwhelm. Being overwhelmed by a weekly system is not the point. The point is to decrease your weekly overwhelm. So you don’t want to create this system that’s just going to set you up for failure to begin the week. Right.

[00:42:38]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Because then you dread doing it.

[00:42:40]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Right. And that’s not the energy we want no, no. Going into the week with dread is zero percent. We want to do the opposite. That this is supposed to do the opposite. Correct?

[00:42:51]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Yes, definitely.

[00:42:53]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. And do you, you said that you, when you have an ideal week, you sit down and you spend like 20 to 30 minutes or what is your, what’s your baseline and what’s your ideal?

[00:43:03]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Yeah. So I’d say that I’ve been doing this for so long now that rather than sitting down and doing a 30 minute planning session start to finish, I’ve actually started doing bits and pieces of the agenda throughout the day. And I find that that is what works for me really well now because I have a six year old and a four year old and they are, they are wild and I love them.

[00:43:36]   

But if there’s a quiet moment while they’re coloring on a Sunday morning, I’ll grab my laptop and stand at the kitchen island and get that bird’s eye view and chit chat with my husband about what the meal planning can look like. And then maybe later in the day while they’re in the bathtub, that’s when I’ll check the weather and pull their outfits.

[00:43:58]   

So I think that’s another misconception that it’s a good myth to bust is that a weekly planning session doesn’t necessarily have to be this sit down ceremony where you go through an agenda. I will say that if you’re just getting started, you should do that because that’s what ingrains the process and helps you identify what you truly need to plan and what your decisions are.

[00:44:20]   

But for me, I, I do mine in bits and pieces throughout the day rather than in one fell swoop.

[00:44:28]  Megan Porta 

Again, not a one size fits all situation.

[00:44:31]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Yeah.

[00:44:31]  Megan Porta 

Do. Yeah. Adapt it to your needs. If you have a large family, then it’s better maybe to do it the way you do it.

[00:44:37]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Yeah. It’s what fits our life. Life. And I like that. You know, there are times that I will sit down and I’ll really, you know, review quarterly, the quarterly plans and I will, you know, review our budget. But those are more. Maybe on a monthly basis I’ll do like a bigger one on a monthly or quarterly basis.

[00:44:58]   

But it’s. If the purpose of this time is to prep me for the week ahead, I want to make sure that I focus on that first.

[00:45:05]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Okay. Is there anything that we’ve missed that you want to be sure to cover before we start saying goodbye?

[00:45:11]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Oh, my goodness.

[00:45:12]  Megan Porta 

We could probably do a part two on this. I feel like we haven’t even touched the Tip of the iceberg.

[00:45:18]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Totally. You know, I think that we’ve. We’ve talked through how to get started with weekly planning, the importance of it not being one size fits all or all or nothing. And I think the most important thing to remember is that it’s. Everything is trial and error. And we have to approach a weekly planning session.

[00:45:40]   

Life recipes, all of it. Like an experiment where we want to learn and see what happens, rather than a test where we’re going to get a pass or fail grade.

[00:45:49]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Oh, I love that. Thank you so much. This was so fun. I could chat about this all the time. If you have another angle, please come back and be a guest again. Anna, it was such a pleasure to have you.

[00:46:03]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

I would love to. Thank you so much. This was so fun.

[00:46:07]  Megan Porta 

Do you have either a favorite quote or words of inspiration to leave us with?

[00:46:11]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Okay. Yes. And I. This has been my favorite quote since I was in middle school, and I just can’t. Can’t move on to anything else. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge. And I love that so much because. Because it’s one thing to know something, to know the step by step, but when you have imagination, you’re able to create new things and identify new paths and ways of doing things.

[00:46:45]   

Problem solving is using your imagination. And so often we think about imagination and using our imagination as something that kids do when they’re playing dress up or fairy tales. But. But we, as adults, we have to use our imagination every single day. And so that quote is such a reminder to me to let yourself lean into your imagination, because what could be.

[00:47:10]   

Oh, my gosh. Is almost infinitely more important than what currently is.

[00:47:16]  Megan Porta 

Oh, amazing way to end all of this. Thank you so much for that, Anna. Where can people find you if they are looking to. Oh, gosh. A lot of people are looking for help in this area. If they need just a little bit of guidance with time management, do you have anything that could assist them?

[00:47:33]  Anna Dearmon Kornick 

Yes. So, Megan, first, I would love to invite y’all to tune into my podcast. It’s About Time. With new episodes that go live every Monday. So if you’re. You’re listening to a podcast right now, just pop over in your podcast app, search for it’s about time. Go ahead and hit follow so that.

[00:47:49]   

That you get the next episode whenever it goes live. But if you’re looking for something to go a little bit deeper, and maybe you’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed lately, I think we all have to some degree. I’ve actually put together a free video series that walks you through the same steps that I use with my client to navigate your way out of overwhelm and create a blueprint for your version of Balance.

[00:48:13]   

It’s called Blueprint to Balance and you can get instant access to that just by going to blueprinttobalance.com amazing.

[00:48:20]  Megan Porta 

Thank you. And then we will put together a show notes for you Anna. We’ll put everything in there that we’ve talked about today including everything you just mentioned, your book, your podcast, et cetera and the link that you just mentioned as well. You can head to eatblogtalk.com/annadcornick so head there to get all the info.

[00:48:41]   

And thank you again Anna for being here and thank you for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

[00:48:50]  Outro

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. If you are craving accountability, focus and connection at a low monthly cost, join the Eat Blog Talk accountability group at eatblogtalk.com/focus. I will see you next time.