Episode 789: Overwhelmed and Scattered? Join This Weekly Planning Workshop With Megan Flatt

Megan chats with Megan Flatt about building a weekly planning system that actually works and helps you finish your most important work.

If your weeks feel full but your biggest goals keep slipping, this episode gives you a repeatable planning process that protects your time, your energy, and your priorities even during busy or disruptive weeks.

Listen on the player in this post or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or your favorite podcast player. Or scroll down to read a full transcript.

Guest Details

Connect with Let’s Collective
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Megan Flatt is the founder of Let’s Collective, a business strategy firm helping entrepreneurs achieve more revenue, time, and fulfillment—without the hustle. Megan is also the author of Focused: Reclaim Your Time, Ditch Overwhelm, and Do Less Better, where she blends research and practical strategies to help people do less, better. When she’s not strategizing, Megan can be found with a stack of romance novels, a fresh set of office supplies and usually a latte. Learn more at letscollective.co

Takeaways

  • Weekly planning saves time, not wastes it: Intentional planning prevents task jumping and reactive work.
  • Your calendar is the container, not your to-do list: You can only commit to what realistically fits.
  • Set work hours before setting tasks: Clear boundaries reduce guilt and increase focus.
  • Brain dumps clear mental clutter fast: Getting tasks out of your head improves decision-making.
  • Buffer time is nonnegotiable: Planning 100 percent of your time guarantees burnout.
  • Progress beats perfect weeks: Consistent review and adjustment is the system.

Resources Mentioned

Get Megan’s Memoir – Take the Exit – Step inside the story!

Focus Planning Sessions help you plan your week with clarity and consistency. Your enrollment includes weekly Monday planning calls at 9am PT (through April 3), member-led Focus Sessions for added accountability, and a two-week Focus to Finish sprint (Mar 23–Apr 3) to complete a key project. Everything is designed to help you do less—better.

Transcript

Click for full script.

EBT789 – Megan Flatt

[00:00:00]  Megan Porta 

Are you ready to stop feeling behind and start planning your week like a CEO? This episode is a hands on work along workshop with business strategist Megan Flatt. And it’s one that you will want to watch as much as you listen to it. Megan walks us through her step by step process for setting up a week that actually supports your goals, protects your time and actually feels doable. So grab your calendar, get your post it notes, get your notebook and pen, whatever you need and join us on YouTube for the full planning experience. Let’s make this week work for you.

[00:00:38]   Intro

Hi food bloggers, I’m Megan Porta and this is Eat Blog Talk. Your space for support, inspiration and strategies to grow your blog and your freedom. Whether that’s personal, professional or financial, you are not alone on this journey.

[00:00:53]   Megan Porta

Megan, welcome back. You’re back so soon. It’s so good to have you here.

[00:00:57]  Megan Flatt 

Thank you so much for having me back. I’ve been looking forward to this. I’m really excited.

[00:01:01]  Megan Porta 

Same. And in this episode we’re going to talk about something a little bit different and getting more into the nitty gritty of how to plan your week. I know this is a make or break situation. Like if you can plan your week well, you’re setting yourself up for so much success and if you can’t plan your week well, things get a little hairy.

[00:01:21]   

So you’re going to help us. This is what you do. You have clients that you help to work through this so that they can just be on top of their schedule and calendar and everything each week.

[00:01:33]  Megan Flatt 

Absolutely.

[00:01:34]  Megan Porta 

So to start, what, what is the pain point that you think will bring people to listen to this episode?

[00:01:42]  Megan Flatt 

Yeah, I think, you know, we’re still early in the year when this episode airs and people are thinking about their year goals and their, you know, we, we tend to spend some time talking about, you know, kind of the big picture things that we want to accomplish. Especially when you’re talking about your blogging career or your business or you know, these big exciting things that we do.

[00:02:02]   

But then when reality kind of strikes and you get down to that, like you said, the nitty gritty of your week. And we all have very full lives. We have kids that we’re taking care of, we have aging parents that we’re taking care of. We might have other jobs that we’re doing, you know, all of the things that, that make up our and exciting, fun, wonderful things that, that make up our full lives.

[00:02:24]   

It though sometimes those big important goals, it’s like, oh yeah, I’ll get to that, when I’ll get to that, or oh, I don’t have time for that, or I have to do these other things. And then all of a sudden the week goes by and you’ve been busy and you’ve been active and you’ve been doing stuff the whole week, but you’re not, you’re not actively moving the things that are really important to you forward.

[00:02:43]   

Um, it’s kind of that Eisenhower matrix. Like the things that are important but not urgent have a tendency to kind of fall by the wayside. And so really being intentional and sitting down and planning your week, not only does it help you make sure that those things stay on the forefront, but it also just helps you manage the, the like task jumping.

[00:03:04]   

Like we said, there’s where our lives are so full with so many different areas that I don’t know if you’ve ever read the children’s book, if you give a mouse a cookie. I feel like sometimes without a plan, that’s my day, right? It’s like, oh, I go to check my email to see if a client’s emailed me and I have a reminder that from my kid’s dentist that I need to schedule the dentist all the time.

[00:03:23]   

So then I go to schedule the dentist and then when I’m looking at my calendar, I realize I have to do that Amazon return. And then again, all of us, all of a sudden you’re like, wait, why did I sit down at my computer in the first place? So, yeah, I just love returning.

[00:03:35]   

Right, Exactly. And so that’s another reason why planning your week helps kind of combat that as well.

[00:03:42]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Well, I think this is going to be. Yeah, it’s going to be super helpful and a little bit of a different format. Before we get to that though, we’ll kind of talk through how we want you to move through this episode. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your business and just who you are, what you do?

[00:03:58]  Megan Flatt 

Absolutely. I’m a business growth strategist. So I work with founder led businesses, small businesses and businesses that have teams up to about maybe 65 or 70 people, solo businesses all the way up, and I help them be more efficient with their time. So many of my clients started out as solo business owners and wearing all of the hats and that’s really where, where this process and this kind of part of my business really came into play.

[00:04:25]   

Because if you are the CEO and the content creator and the sales and marketing director and you know, you’re wearing all the hats, then again, having structure to Your week on when are you wearing those different hats? Is really. So it’s a skill that I work with my clients on. When should you be focused on this aspect of your business?

[00:04:44]   

When should you be focused on this aspect of your business? So that’s really kind of where this planning process came from. And now I do sessions with my clients every Monday morning. We meet as a group and I take my clients through the same process that we’re going to kind of go through today so that they have time blocked out, dedicated on their calendars to plan their week each and every week.

[00:05:08]  Megan Porta 

So this is. You’re in this. This is your thing, your superpower. So you are here to guide us. Thank you, Megan. And as far as how to move through this episode, if you’re listening in the car, on a walk or somewhere where you’re out and about, that’s totally fine. Give it a listen.

[00:05:26]   

But we highly recommend coming back if you really want to dig into your week and actually set yourself up for success and make a plan. Come back when you have access to your computer, maybe your calendar. What else would they need access to, Megan?

[00:05:40]  Megan Flatt 

Yeah. You know, I always say, just need a scratch piece of paper or, you know, I keep a legal pad from the dollar store next to me to kind of, you know, do this process. And then like you said, your calendar, maybe some post it notes if you need them. But we’re really going to kind of treat this episode like a little mini workshop that you can use to plan your week, just like I do with my clients.

[00:06:00]  Megan Porta 

Okay. I’m excited. Planning my week is actually really exciting because it’s been so transformative. I think we talked about this the last time we chatted, so I’m excited. I hope listeners are excited as well. I know it doesn’t sound exciting, but I promise, once you tap into the magic, you’re not going to want to go back to not planning your week.

[00:06:19]   

So I’m just going to pass it off to you, Megan, and kind of let you talk us through this. I’m here if you need anything. If you, I don’t know, just. I’m here. Like, I’ll ask questions to maybe pop in once in a while. And if you please, go on YouTube too, just so you can kind of feel like we’re all here working together.

[00:06:37]   

You can get Megan’s face and my face, and we’ll just do this as a team. Okay, Go ahead.

[00:06:42]  Megan Flatt 

Absolutely. Yeah. And if you, you know, you can kind of be planning your week at the same time so that you can, you know, ask me questions or let me know if you hit any stumbling blocks and things like that. And I do want to, I think perfect place to start is I want to address kind of one of the things that you just said.

[00:06:56]   

You’re like, oh, well, you know, this might not sound that exciting. So I love science and research and like all of that nerdy stuff. And so, so often people say, or my clients say, it’s like, oh, I don’t have time to plan. I just need, like, I have limited time. I’ve got my kids schedule, whatever it is.

[00:07:14]   

I’ve got to just get in, get my work done and get out. I don’t have time. Time to. It feels like a waste of time to, to set aside time to plan.

[00:07:22]  Megan Porta 

Right.

[00:07:23]  Megan Flatt 

But the research actually shows that for every one minute you spend planning, you actually save 10 minutes on execution. And I think that really goes back to that. Like, if you, if you give a mouse a cookie kind of analogy, that if you have a solid plan, you’re going to know exactly what you need to do and exactly when you’re going to do it.

[00:07:44]   

We’re going to build in buffer time. Because I can already hear people saying, but what about when you have a kid home from school sick? What about when a client has an emergency? What about when your Internet goes out? Right. Like all of the life things that absolutely happen, we’re going to build that buffer time into our schedule.

[00:08:00]   

And I may have said this analogy when we talked last time, but I like to think of your schedule as a Tetris game, not a jigsaw puzzle.

[00:08:08]  Megan Porta 

I remember that. Yep.

[00:08:10]  Megan Flatt 

Right. So the idea is that if we, if we look at our week and we know what all the blocks and pieces are, we can manipulate them and wiggle them around and move them into different spots when inevitably those things come up. So taking some time to plan your week is going to save you time in the long run.

[00:08:29]  Megan Porta 

Totally agree. And I’m super excited.

[00:08:32]  Megan Flatt 

Awesome. Okay, so let’s jump in. So the first thing that I always recommend, whether this is your first time planning your week or whether you’ve been doing this week after week after week after week, we still start the same way every time I meet with my clients, and that’s analyzing what happened last week.

[00:08:50]   

So I think it’s a really great place to start because it also gets. We’re all different and there’s not one universal planning way that’s going to work for everyone. That’s going to work for everyone’s schedules. Everyone’s Brain power, everyone’s natural tendencies. Some of us are early birds, some of us are night owls.

[00:09:07]   

So. So taking some time to analyze what works for you and what doesn’t right out of the gate is going to help you shape this plan to be something. Because that’s the other thing that sometimes happens is we try to follow someone else’s really strict plan, and we’re like, well, that didn’t work for me.

[00:09:22]   

What works for Megan doesn’t work for me. So I’m just not going to have a plan at all. But what I want you to do and what I want your listeners to do is, is just think about last week, what worked from last week, about your calendar and about your schedule and what didn’t work, what felt sticky.

[00:09:39]   

So it might be things. And Megan, maybe I’ll put you on the spot and you can think of some things, but it might be things like, oh, you know, I blocked out time for my exercise and I really honored that time on my schedule. Or I didn’t plan any meetings on Tuesday so that I would have one full day to focus on creating content.

[00:09:57]   

Or maybe the flip side, maybe I planned too many meetings in one day or I didn’t leave enough time to, you know, transition between activities. So kind of looking at your calendar and saying, okay, this worked for me and this didn’t work, then that helps us know what we want to bring in to this next week.

[00:10:17]   

So is there anything, Megan, that you can think of kind of from your week last week that either worked really well or maybe didn’t work as well?

[00:10:23]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, one thing that did not work that was completely out of my control is I just. I’ve been sick and my family’s just kind of had a touch of sickness, so that threw a lot of the things on my calendar off and kind of moved some to do tasks to this week. So there’s that.

[00:10:41]   

And, yeah, like I said, out of my control. But still, you have to deal with it, right?

[00:10:46]  Megan Flatt 

Yeah. Yeah. And so. And so, you know, knowing, like, okay, well, it’s again, when you have a solid plan, even when those plans get derailed, you know exactly what didn’t happen. Right. So it’s. It’s. It’s easier. Even if you are out for a whole day or out for a whole week, if you’re clear on what you wanted to accomplish during that time, then it’s.

[00:11:07]   

It’s also, again, it’s like those Tetris blocks. It’s like, okay, I need to move those into this week, or I need to Delegate or I need to get some help or I need to spend a little extra time now that I’m feeling better, whatever it is. But you know, really specifically what it is that you missed out on.

[00:11:21]  Megan Porta 

And then I’ll mention one thing that did work really well. I’m looking at my calendar from last week. I had a film day on Thursday, which is a very intense day. I have a videographer come in and we just spend the whole day filming recipes. And it sounds like. Like it wouldn’t be a bit.

[00:11:37]   

Like it would be fun. I mean, it is fun, but it is intense and it’s energy depleting for me. So at the end of the day, I knew I would be tired. I didn’t schedule anything that night and then actually booked or I didn’t book anything the following day. So Friday was totally clear, minus one tiny call.

[00:11:54]   

That was really easy. And that served me well because I wasn’t feeling great anyway. So that set me up for success.

[00:12:02]  Megan Flatt 

Really smart. So kind of knowing. And that’s one of the things that I suggest that you think about and you look at when you’re planning your week is kind of knowing your energy cycles and knowing, you know, we talked a little bit last time about like how our energy cycles over the month, but even kind of knowing, just in a general sense, like, are you, you know, is your, are you better at focusing earlier in the day or later in the afternoon?

[00:12:24]   

Do you do better when you have calls earlier in the day or later in the day? You know, if you have a day of filming, you know, are you feeling super energized and wanting to dive into something else or are you wanting to have some, some downtime? And so that when you go to plan your week, you know some of these tendencies about yourself.

[00:12:39]   

So great. Those are great, perfect examples. Okay, so the first thing that I, I like to joke, slash, not joke, that every problem can be solved with a brain dump. So that is the first kind of tangible step of planning out your week. And this is where I just use like a legal pad from the dollar store.

[00:12:57]   

It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. We can talk a little bit about kind of digital versus analog planning. I’m a big fan and maybe, maybe it’s my age, but I’m a big fan. Plan of. I use all of the digital tools, especially when I’ve got teenagers and a husband and everyone is linked to the family calendar and all of those things.

[00:13:16]   

And my clients all have access to this calendar and my team and all of those things. But when it comes to this kind of Monday morning process of planning my week, I am, I love to go analog. I love to get out a piece of paper and a pen. I love to look at a, look at a calendar, you know, on paper, spread out in front of me.

[00:13:33]   

And again, there’s some research that tells us there’s kind of that brain body connection like that. It’s like we tell our, you know, we tell our kids if they were studying for an exam, they can’t just sit and read their notes and then expect to do well on the exam. We want them to engage some different parts of their brain.

[00:13:49]   

And I feel like it’s the same thing. I feel like if you, if planning your week means just pulling up your Google Calendar and looking at it, you’re not really engaging all of the parts of your brain to really kind of get it into your system so that you can access it. So I think, think that taking this time to do things by hand and then you can transfer them back to the digital platform so that they’re more accessible and you have them on the go and all of those things.

[00:14:15]   

So with that said, the first thing that I do is I just do a big brain dump. Again, this is at the start of your week, or maybe some people like to do it on a Sunday evening or whenever you’re doing it. And I just want to do, I just want to write down everything that’s coming that’s popping into my mind or clouding my mind.

[00:14:32]   

The tasks that I need to do, things that I need to remember, errands that I need to run, people that I need to email. And this is also a chance to kind of call all the different places that some of those tasks kind of accumulate. So I’m, I’m writing things down just out of my brain, like, oh, yeah, I’ve got to, you know, I’m looking at my list right now.

[00:14:50]   

I’ve got to get an oil change. I want to batch some content for a launch that’s coming up. I need to, you know, so I just start writing things down that pop into my brain. And then I also want to kind of look. I look at last week’s list. I look at maybe over the weekend when I was out with my family, I maybe jotted down some notes in my phone of something I thought about.

[00:15:09]   

Or I might check my email. You know, don’t use your email like a to do list. So if there’s emails in there that you need to reply to get them down on your brain dump. And so just doing this big brain dump, and I set a timer for myself and I just think through everything and it just gets it out onto the paper so then you can process it.

[00:15:31]  Megan Porta 

I love that. And I love that you said clouding your mind. Because sometimes we don’t even know that it’s lingering and causing us distress until we get it out and we’re like, okay, that feels good just to get it on paper, right?

[00:15:43]  Megan Flatt 

Well, I like to joke that a mommy brain isn’t a reliable place for information, but I feel like our brains are just. It’s just not. Then your brain, it’s like having those computer tabs open. Your brain is having to do so much work just remembering what there is to think about. That by getting it out on paper.

[00:16:02]   

It’s like, okay, I don’t have to remember to think about it. I just have to problem solve now. Now I can just think about it. And then when it comes to doing the brain dump, this is again where it’s just however your brain works. So you might just create this one running list of everything that pops into your head.

[00:16:21]   

One thing that started working for me because like I said, I do this every week and it works for me, is to kind of have two columns. So one column will be kind of work and business, and then the other column is kind of more home and personal. For me, it works like, as it pops into my head, I can kind of flip between the two columns, like, oh, that.

[00:16:40]   

Get an oil change goes on this side of the paper. Batch launch content, goes on this side of the paper. You know, book plans for a trip, go on this side. Return a client email, go on this side. For me, my brain can kind of go back and forth. Sometimes it’s easier, especially when you’re starting.

[00:16:55]   

Don’t even worry about it. Just get it all out on paper and then you can kind of segment it after the fact.

[00:17:01]  Megan Porta 

So would now be a good time for people to pause and maybe do. Do the. Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:17:06]  Megan Flatt 

That’s what I was.

[00:17:07]  Megan Porta 

Five minutes or. Yeah.

[00:17:11]  Megan Flatt 

Yes, to both of those. I set my timer for five minutes. And then you can always, you know, it’s like, wait, I thought of a few more things. I need two more minutes. Great. But I do think the timer kind of helps you create a container so that then you don’t slip back into that.

[00:17:26]   

Like, give a mouse a cookie because you’ll write something on the list, right? You’ll write down like, return that client email. And then your little brain wants you to go return that client email. So When I have the timer running, it’s kind of a reminder to me. It’s like, no, this is my five minutes to just focus on this brain dump list.

[00:17:44]   

But the amount of time is. Maybe you’re the type of person that needs a little more time or a little less time. But yes, if you’re using this episode as a workshop, this is a great point to pause and do that brain dump. And then we’ll jump into the next.

[00:17:58]  Megan Porta 

Step, and we should insert elevator music or something, some calming music, so you can sit and brain dump. But instead, yes, just pause it. And while you were talking, I was kind of dumping things out. I’m actually leaving this week for a retreat Thursday morning, so I feel like I have a lot to do before then.

[00:18:18]   

So this is so timely because you know how it is before you leave anywhere, it’s like you have, you know, like, I have a hair appointment tomorrow, and then I want to do my nails, and then there’s all these work tasks that I want to get done, too. So I’ve kind of been compiling those.

[00:18:33]  Megan Flatt 

Great. Yeah. And there’s so many things. There’s kind of the things that you have to do for the project of traveling, and then there’s the things that you need to do to get your business ready for you to travel.

[00:18:44]  Megan Porta 

And.

[00:18:44]  Megan Flatt 

And then there are things you need to do to get your home ready for you to travel. So, yeah, the perfect week to kind of do that brain dump. And this is a good reminder, too. We’re calling this weekly planning. You know, I like to set out, set aside time to do it on Monday morning.

[00:18:58]   

But you can really do this process for anything. You can plan anything this way. So even if you’re saying, like, hey, I need to sit down and just map out my. It’s Wednesday, and I’m leaving on Friday, and I just need to map out what I need to do for the next two days.

[00:19:11]   

Great. Use this same process.

[00:19:13]  Megan Porta 

It doesn’t have to be Sunday night in order to be anytime.

[00:19:17]  Megan Flatt 

Exactly, exactly. In fact, a couple of my clients have found that they like to do a little mini version because it’s. It’s hard to know, you know, especially when you’re just starting out, like, how long things are going to take you. Like you said, what if you get sick? What if one of your kids gets sick?

[00:19:31]   

So a lot of my clients like to do a little mini version of this. We do it on Monday morning, but then they do it again kind of on Wednesday morning so that they can kind of say, okay, here’s what I thought I was gonna do. Here’s what I said I was gonna do.

[00:19:42]   

Here’s what I got through on Monday and Tuesday. Let me adjust the plan a little bit on Wednesday so you don’t feel like you have to just kind of throw your hands up in the air and wait till next Sunday to do it again.

[00:19:51]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:19:51]  Megan Flatt 

So great. Okay, so we’ve got our brain dump list. You paused, you came back. You’ve got your brain dump list. We’re gonna set that aside again. I think the last time I was on the podcast, I shared my favorite analogy of. Of making a. Making a big bowl of soup. So basically what we just did was we went into the refrigerator and we pulled out all of the potential ingredients that we might want to put into this pot of soup we’re making.

[00:20:16]   

And that’s essentially what the brain dump list is. We’re not saying every single one of these items has to get done this week. It’s just a place where we’re saying, here’s some things that are, again, clouding my mind. Here are some things that I need to think about. We might push them out into another week.

[00:20:29]   

We might push them out into another batch of soup. But. But. So we’ve got kind of our ingredient list here. And now we’re going to turn to our container, and we’re going to kind of decide, like, what container. What size container do I have to put this soup into? And our container is our calendar.

[00:20:47]   

So now we’re going to set the. Set the brain dump list aside and pull out our calendar. This is where I like to use a weekly calendar. I buy a, you know, a calendar that’s separated in a weekly spread. Like I said at the beginning, I have my digital calendar. My digital calendar runs all the way.

[00:21:04]   

You know, I was putting things on it. They’re happening next fall. Right. That’s the beauty of a digital calendar, is you can be adding all sorts of things to it. My paper calendar, I do just for this process, and I do it a week at a time. So if you look at my paper calendar for next week, it’s completely blank because I haven’t planned out that week.

[00:21:22]   

But. But what I want to do is I want to sit down and I want to. I want to start to create some containers on my blank calendar. If you don’t want to use. We just. We just did this session. We’re recording this podcast on a Tuesday. So I just did this session yesterday with my clients, and a couple of people were asking, there’s A couple of other ways that you can do this.

[00:21:40]   

If, especially if you’re super digital, if you’re super mobile and you don’t really want to have a separate paper calendar, then you can just do this on the same legal pad. You can just write out kind of Monday through Friday on, on your legal pad. And it’s just a chance for you to visually see how your week is shaping up.

[00:21:58]   

One of the other women in my group yesterday said that she actually just prints out for our session. She prints out her Google calendar for the week so that she can. It’s already, you know, kind of already populated. Right. But she can look at it and, you know, she can highlight things out.

[00:22:14]   

So there’s definitely a couple of different ways that you can do this. But like I said, I like to grab my paper calendar. And the first thing that I recommend you do, and I may have even said this last time, but it’s. I think it’s one of the most important things that you can do.

[00:22:29]   

And if it’s the only thing you do to plan your week, I think it will have a big impact. And that’s setting your work hours. So for most of us that are working, you know, working from home, we’re working flexible schedules. We’re. We’ve chosen businesses or professions or projects that allow us to be flexible and move around our kids schedule and other schedules.

[00:22:53]   

It’s really easy to get into this mindset that you can work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And the problem with that thinking is that it also sets you up to kind of always feel like you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know, you’re with your kids and you’re thinking, oh, but I’ve got to return that email.

[00:23:11]   

Or you’re, you know, you’re sneaking away after dinner to return emails and you’re thinking, gosh, I should be playing with my kids. Or if you don’t have kids, it’s like your, your own health. You know, you go to the gym or you’re doing other things, you’re thinking about, oh, I should be doing this other thing.

[00:23:24]   

So I think the very act of just deciding what realistic work hours are for you and setting those on your calendar makes such a huge impact. And it doesn’t matter what they are. They don’t have to be the same every day. They don’t have to be the same every week. Again, that’s why we sit down on a weekly basis.

[00:23:42]   

And I like to just on my paper calendar, I bracket out what My work hours are for each day. So if Monday, it’s like, okay, on Mondays, I work from 9am to 3pm, but maybe on Tuesdays, I work 6am to 8am and then 4pm to 6pm so again, it doesn’t matter what your work hours are, but deciding when you’re working and when you’re not, I think is really important, not only for productivity, but maybe more important for mental health.

[00:24:14]   

And it just really kind of helps give you a sense of, this is the time I’m supposed to be doing this, and this is the time that I can do other things and focus on other things.

[00:24:26]  Megan Porta 

Amazing.

[00:24:27]  Megan Flatt 

Good, good. So this would be another point. If you want to take. Take a minute. Actually, let me give you one more prompt, and then we’ll. And then I’ll prompt you to pause because. So once you’ve set your work hours again, if you go back to our analogy of the soup container, this is us getting our storage containers out of the, you know, out of the cupboard and deciding like, okay, well, I can make six quarts of soup because I have six quart containers.

[00:24:50]   

I don’t want to make 10 quarts of soup because I don’t have enough storage containers. That’s kind of the analogy to what this process that we’re doing. So the first thing is, is we’re setting our work hours. The other thing that we need to do is we need to fill in our calendar with things that are already taking up time.

[00:25:06]   

Because it’s one thing to say, oh, well, I just blocked out 30 hours. My work hours for this week total 30 hours, but I’ve got 15 hours of client calls. Okay, well, then you don’t have 30 hours to fill with your soup ingredients, which are over here on our. On our brain dump list.

[00:25:24]   

So the first step is set those work hours, and then the second step is put your set appointments on the calendar. So again, whether that’s client calls, whether that’s workouts, whether that’s, you know, medical or health appointments, anything that already has a set appointment, set time on your calendar goes in this, in this equation right here.

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[00:26:37]  Megan Flatt 

Well, but see, I always say that knowledge is power. And so often we kind of just. We just kind of like bull in a china shop, like, put our heads down and we just kind of rush into our week. Like, I will get it all done. I will muscle it all down. And I can see, I’m watching your face right now as you’re looking at your calendar.

[00:26:55]  Megan Porta 

You’re like, oh, gosh, I have, like two. Two hours tomorrow to get my list done and everything else. I suppose I just need to be okay with either trying to delegate or move. Like, maybe I’ll squeeze it in during the retreat. We’re going to have some work time. I don’t know.

[00:27:10]  Megan Flatt 

Yeah. So, I mean, that’s. But that’s the thing. This knowledge is power now, you know, you’re not trying. You’re not going to end up having, you know, missing something or not getting something packed for the trip. You get to kind of make my. I don’t know if. If you like to set words of the year, but I.

[00:27:27]   

I said a word of the year for 2026, and my word for this year is intentional. And I think that this is like that perfect example of you’re getting to intentionally make a decision rather than your calendar and your to do list kind of ruling your life, because you can decide, you know what, I’m going to stay up a little bit later or I’m going to get up a little bit earlier because I really want to get a couple of these other things done.

[00:27:51]   

Or I’m going to cancel this meeting that I had because I could push that out for a couple of weeks because I really want to go get my nails done before the retreat. Like, but you can intentionally make those decisions rather than, like, just kind of, you know, having your calendar and your to do list kind of run your life.

[00:28:08]   

And that’s what I always say. Like, once, you know, okay, this is the container I have, then you can intentionally decide what you’re putting into that container. So I really appreciate that you sharing that you did have this moment. And it’s also okay to be A little bummed or a little bit like, oh, I wanted to get all of this stuff done and it’s not going to be realistic for me to get it done.

[00:28:31]   

But wouldn’t you rather know that now than when you’re kind of right in the middle of it and it’s feeling a lot more intense?

[00:28:39]  Megan Porta 

Absolutely. Yes.

[00:28:40]  Megan Flatt 

Yeah. Great. Okay, so if you haven’t already, pause this episode now and do these next two steps. So again, you’re blocking out your work hours on your calendar and you’re putting in all of the set appointments on your schedule. And that’s going to give you where you still have these holes and these gaps in your schedule to fill with the things that we brain dumped out first.

[00:29:04]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:29:05]  Megan Flatt 

Okay, so now we’ve got. This is also a great time, and this is kind of what you and I were just talking about. This is a good time to look at your calendar and kind of make some strategic adjustments. And that might look like, oh, I was going to meet a girlfriend for coffee.

[00:29:21]   

But gosh, I’ve got a lot of stuff going on this week. I’m going to see if she can reschedule. Maybe she can reschedule for an evening or maybe we can reschedule for when I get back from my trip. So, so this is the time that you can kind of look at your calendar and make some adjustments there.

[00:29:35]   

Or maybe this happened to me last week where I had scheduled so many back to back calls, when I was looking at it, I was like, I’m not going to have a break to go to the bathroom or get anything to eat. So again, instead of like having to cut a call short or, you know, ask one of my clients, hey, would you mind?

[00:29:51]   

Which of course you can do. It’s no problem to say, like, I need to run to the bathroom. But like, it gave me that chance ahead of time to be like, oh, wait, let me just see if I can shift this by 30 minutes. That’s going to give me a break to get lunch.

[00:30:02]   

And so this is the time where you can kind of look at that or make sure you factored in things like driving, you know, like, oh, I have this call here and then I have to be at this appointment here. Do I have enough time to, you know, get there? So this is, this is also why we’re kind of looking at our calendar, to make sure we have those types of things built in.

[00:30:23]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Good, good.

[00:30:25]  Megan Flatt 

Okay, so the next step, again, we’re going to kind of step away a little bit. So we’ve got Our brain dump, we kind of did that part. We’ve got our calendar now we want to step back and the first thing, and using your trip as an example, is deciding if, for this next step, if this is even a week to think about those bigger goals.

[00:30:44]   

So this is the time where I like to kind of step back and I, and I flip to that page in my planner or go into my project management software, wherever it is, where I set those bigger goals, where I set those, those projects that I want to make progress on over the quarter.

[00:31:01]   

Because most likely when you do that brain dump, those are kind of the more mundane task things. Again, if I look at my, my own brain dump, it’s like get an oil change and batch write some content, right? It’s kind of some of these task things. But there I might have not thought to put, if I have a project to, you know, do some client outreach this quarter.

[00:31:25]   

So I might have not put that on my brain dump with that initial thought. So this is the time where we want to pause and look, okay, what did I say my big goals and my big projects were for this quarter? And what action steps do I need to take this week to move those projects forward?

[00:31:43]   

And it’s also the time that you can say, you know what, I’m, I only have two hours of free time and I’m leaving, I’m leaving out of town. This is not the week to move my project forward. And again, that’s okay. And it’s so much better to know and maybe you’re already kind of looking ahead to next week and say, but you know what?

[00:32:04]   

Next week I’m going to really make it a priority to block out time to do, you know, x, y, Z. And so you go into this a lot more intentional rather than getting to the end of the quarter and saying, I never had a chance to do the thing that I wanted to do.

[00:32:18]   

It’s, you get to actively decide each week, okay, I can get this one 15 minute task done for my big project. And it’s not, it’s not huge, but it’s moving me one step closer. Or you can say, oh, I’ve got this chunk of time on Friday afternoon. I’m going to block out some time to focus on this project again.

[00:32:40]   

We’ll talk about that in just a second. So just using that brain dump list again and making sure that those big important things are on the list and making sure that you’re putting, we talked about this last time, making sure that you’re putting tasks on your brain dump List, not whole projects.

[00:32:58]  Megan Porta 

Right.

[00:32:58]  Megan Flatt 

So I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t want to necessarily say, oh, client outreach, because that’s. That’s a whole project.

[00:33:05]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:33:06]  Megan Flatt 

But I might want. But I might want to think, like, oh, I wanted to brainstorm a list of past clients that I wanted to reach back out to. So my goal, my. My focus for this week on that whole big project is just to brainstorm out the list, and that needs to go on my.

[00:33:23]   

On my list. Okay, so let’s pause for a minute. Megan, how’s it feeling? How’s it feeling for you?

[00:33:28]  Megan Porta 

It’s good. It’s funny because I was thinking about a bigger project I’m just trying to chip away at, and I wrote down on my brain dump list here that I’m going to spend 15 minutes tonight doing it while I’m chilling with my husband. So you kind of read my mind on that.

[00:33:46]  Megan Flatt 

Yeah. And I think again, it’s a lot of times, and this is a little bit of a tangent, but I think it’s important when we’re talking about weekly planning, a lot of times we think of these big projects in one big chunk, and either consciously or subconsciously, our mind won’t let us start on it until we have a big chunk of time, because our mind, like I said, either consciously or subconsciously knows, oh, this whole project is probably going to take me eight hours.

[00:34:15]   

So I need to wait until I have eight hours free on my calendar. When does that ever happen? Right, so exactly what you just said. If we’ve. If we’ve broken the project down, and we say, yeah, I don’t have eight hours this week to work on this project, but I’ve got an hour this week and an hour next week and an hour the next week and an hour the next week.

[00:34:35]   

You’re going to get that project done probably faster than if you wait for. For the magical day when you have eight free hours.

[00:34:42]  Megan Porta 

Yes, the elusive magical day.

[00:34:45]  Megan Flatt 

Exactly. Exactly. Excellent. Were you gonna add something? Nope.

[00:34:50]  Megan Porta 

I was gonna say, if you’re back, then what do we do next?

[00:34:54]  Megan Flatt 

Great. So we’re. So we’re getting there. We now have pretty much all of the pieces that we need. So we’ve got our calendar and we’ve got kind of. We’ve made some adjustments to it. We’ve gotten kind of realistic with what our work time looks like. We’ve got our brain dump list. So the next thing I like to do, and again, this is where I get like, super kind of nerdy and super visual, is I like to Use a highlighter to, to visually represent those open times on my calendar.

[00:35:22]   

Again, I’m a very visual person. You can’t see in my background, but I’ve got like a whole year’s worth of wall calendars up. I’ve got post it notes everywhere. I’m a very visual person. So for me it’s really helpful rather than just looking at like a bunch of white space on my calendar, which for me is misleading because it’s not factoring in, you know, kind of everything else that needs to happen in those open times.

[00:35:47]   

So I use a highlighter to highlight out what I call my focus time. And I’ve gotten even more nerdy with it in the past year because I am working not only on my business, but I’m also working on kind of a side project of doing some fiction writing, which I think I mentioned last time too.

[00:36:05]   

So now I like to highlight on my calendar. Yellow highlight means business projects or business time. And then pink highlighter means writing time. And so it just helps me visually kind of look at my calendar and decide ahead of time if, okay, today I’ve got two hours of yellow highlighter. It means I can fit in two hours worth of tasks from the business column, so to speak.

[00:36:33]   

And then on Friday, I’ve got three hours of pink highlighter. That means I can work on some of my writing project in that time. And again, it’s going back to. If we go back to the soup analogy, it’s kind of like I want to make two different flavors of soup. So I need to make sure I can’t use all six of my containers on one type of soup.

[00:36:53]   

I won’t have any containers left for the other type of soup. So taking some time with your calendar now, but when you first start out, it’s just about blocking out some that empty time so that you can visually see. And you did it naturally when you said, oh, I only have two hours to get this done.

[00:37:11]   

That’s exactly what we want to do with this kind of highlighter method is we want to see, yes, we blocked out 30 hours worth of work time, but once we fit in all of the other things, you may only have four or six or eight hours or one hour to move other projects and tasks forward.

[00:37:29]  Megan Porta 

Right, okay.

[00:37:31]  Megan Flatt 

And the other thing that I think is really important about highlighting out the time is I really, really believe in the importance of buffer time. And this is kind of what you talked about when you found that you were sick, is that if we have six hours of open time and we schedule Six hours worth of tasks.

[00:37:54]   

We’re not taking into account that sometimes tasks take longer than we think they’re going to take. We’re not taking into an account that a client might have an emergency and need. Need our support on something. We’re not taking into account that we might get sick or our kids might get sick. So having some buffer time, If I have six, I like to use kind of the 80, 20 rule.

[00:38:13]   

I only want to schedule about 80% of my time and I want to leave 20% of my time for. Sometimes you just need to sit and scroll Instagram for a few minutes. Right. Like I want to leave a little bit of time in my schedule to, for, to be realistic about that. So if I have, you know, if I have a six hour workday and I’ve got two client calls and that means I have four hours left, I’m probably only highlighting out two and a half of those hours to say, okay, then I’ve got a two and a half hour chunk to get up to work on my tasks.

[00:38:48]   

And that gives me some buffer time to go to the bathroom, to get something to eat, to if, if something takes longer. If I need to move something around on my schedule, it gives me some buffer space in my calendar. So we want to block out that focus time and then we start matching them up.

[00:39:06]   

Because again, at this point we’ve got the calendar kind of set and we’ve got our, we’ve got our task list and so now we want to start matching them up. And so kind of knowing like, okay, I’ve got about. I only have two hours worth of highlighted time versus I have 20 hours of highlighted time is really going to change when we go back to this task list.

[00:39:30]   

What we’re moving over.

[00:39:32]  Megan Porta 

Okay, so I don’t have a highlighter. I was just going to say, but I am using colored pens here. So I’m, I’m, I’m on task here. Megan, sticking with you, I’m so excited to have a plan for leading up to my trip.

[00:39:49]  Megan Flatt 

Right. And even if you don’t have that highlighter, you can just kind of going through and kind of counting and saying, okay, I’ve got 10 available hours. Let’s take that down to seven available hours. And then you can look over at this at your task list and you can start to what I call triage your task list.

[00:40:07]   

So I want to look. And that’s exactly. You started doing that naturally. You’re looking at your task list going, okay, these are the important things that need to get done this week. And I usually just indicate that with a little star next to them. And then the things that can get pushed out to next week or beyond, I’ll put a little arrow next to those.

[00:40:27]   

And then anything that I can delegate to someone else, I will put their initials or their name next to it. It’s like, oh, have my husband do this. Have my. I have a. I have a brand new driver in the house, so maybe he needs to take the car to go get an oil change.

[00:40:42]   

Right? He needs to learn how to do that. So, you know, so I can delegate out some of those tasks. And then I’m left with, okay, these things with the star are the high priority for this week. The other things are safe. The other things are listed there. I don’t have to remember them in my brain.

[00:40:58]   

They’re there. And when we do this process next week, we can move those things onto the list for next week. Then I can take those priority things. And again, this is where different brains work different ways. Sometimes it’s really helpful to take those things and actually put them on your calendar. Like you would put a doctor’s appointment on the calendar.

[00:41:16]   

Put batch content from two to three on Thursday and, like, schedule it like an appointment. Sometimes that works really well for people or for certain tasks or what I have a tendency to do again because I’m highlighting out the time is I’ll just put the day of the week on my task list.

[00:41:36]   

So I might put batch long launch content. I’ll write Thursday next to that. So then when I get to Thursday and I see that highlighted yellow time, I just scan my list. Oh, I said I was gonna do this on Thursday and this on Thursday, and that’s what gets popped into those times.

[00:41:53]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:41:53]  Megan Flatt 

So that. That is kind of the whole process. What. How are you feeling? What are you thinking? What questions are coming up for you?

[00:41:59]  Megan Porta 

I feel so good. And this is kind of how I move through my week anyway. But do you know how it is when you have something that’s disruptive? Like, not like it’s bad, but the retreat is disrupting my week a little bit. So I feel kind of like I get frozen. Like I’m just gonna get as much done as possible.

[00:42:18]   

And I don’t do my normal planning. So this is so timely for me to sit down and like, yeah, this can actually happen. And I can have a little bit of breathing room too. So this is great.

[00:42:29]  Megan Flatt 

I think that’s so. I’m so glad you brought that up. And someone brought that up in my session yesterday. As well, because she said, she basically said she’s like, well, I’m traveling this week. Should I even bother planning this week? Or the way she phrased it was, this is kind of an abnormal week because I’m traveling.

[00:42:45]   

Should I even bother planning? Listen, do we ever have a week that’s normal?

[00:42:49]  Megan Porta 

No, I was just gonna say that no week is normal.

[00:42:52]  Megan Flatt 

No week is normal. So. Yes, so. So I think that’s. I think that’s the other. We kind of have this vision of this, like, perfect, beautiful week where no one gets sick and no one interrupts us and everything, all the content flows from our brain like water and. Right. That never happens. So I think all the more reason you need to plan every week.

[00:43:12]   

Even if it’s a travel week, even if it’s an abnormal week, even if the kids have a short day at school. Like, it’s all the more reason to plan it so that you’re always going into those weeks intentional. And you’ll notice that I don’t, I don’t try to plan my schedule down to like the.

[00:43:28]   

At 9am I’m doing this at 10am, I’m doing this at 11. Because we need to leave in some flexibility. But again, whatever your kind of tolerance for that is like having enough of a schedule, like I said, even if all that means is this is when my workday starts and this is when my workday stops.

[00:43:46]   

Even if that’s all it is, even if it’s just getting the important things, maybe leaving lots of room for, you know, for, for flexibility and for the muse to find you and for kids to get sick and all of the things is great. But maybe you’re saying, I’m going to schedule Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons are locked in.

[00:44:04]   

They are my time. They are the time I work on this thing. Not I don’t let anything. The rest of the week can. Can get scheduled any way that it happens. But I’m locking in these times. So. So again, this planning process can look however it serves you. Use the pieces. If you’re like, step one made a lot of sense, step three doesn’t work for me.

[00:44:24]   

Great. Use the parts that make sense for you and create your own kind of weekly workflow.

[00:44:29]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, yeah. It is going to be very customized. Nobody, no two people work the same as far as scheduling.

[00:44:37]  Megan Flatt 

No two people have the same life, no two people have the same schedule, and no two people’s brains work the same way. So it really is kind of picking and choosing. And it’s like, oh, it works better for Me, if I do this, or one of my clients is desperately trying to get me to host the sec the session on Thursday afternoon because she wants to plan her week on Thursday afternoon for the next week.

[00:44:56]   

And so great. If that’s when it makes the most sense for you to plan your week, do it Thursday afternoons, right?

[00:45:01]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, absolutely. All right, what do we do now, Megan?

[00:45:06]  Megan Flatt 

So that’s so like I said, that’s basically now you should have a pretty clear picture of what your week looks like. And then what I like to do is each day I do a super mini version of this, like a five minute version of this where I’m just taking my, I’m taking my big brain dump list.

[00:45:24]   

I’m scanning it for what I said. You know what I said? Oh, this, this. I was going to do this on Thursday, I was going to do this on Thursday. And I’ll, I’ll create a little an actual to do list for the day of. Okay, this is what I said. If anything popped up, you know, maybe it’s like, oh, I’ve got to return this email to my kids teacher.

[00:45:41]   

I didn’t know about that on Monday. But I add that to my to do list and then I can just start working through my calendar for that day because I should have like, okay, here’s the client call, here’s the client call. Here’s a, here’s some buffer space. I’m going to go get myself lunch.

[00:45:54]   

And then here’s that focus time that I have blocked out. Here’s the three things on my to do list that I’m going to put into that time. And then you can just kind of adjust. Maybe you only get to two things. Maybe, you know, you don’t get to all three things. So then you can adjust things, kind of move forward from there.

[00:46:07]   

And then when, remember the way we started this whole thing was analyzing what worked and what didn’t. We’re going to do that next week. So you, you plan this out for this week. It shouldn’t, it’s not going to be perfect. It’s not going to work perfectly either because of something you did or didn’t do or something the world did or didn’t do.

[00:46:25]   

And so then when you get to this next, when you get to this process again next week, you’re going to start out by saying, okay, what worked last week and what didn’t. And then you start with your adjustments there.

[00:46:36]  Megan Porta 

I think that part is key because this is where people can get tripped up and give up. And like, well, that was A fail. But it’s not. That didn’t work. Yeah. Like, you’re. You are constantly evolving this process. I learn every single week. Something to change.

[00:46:52]  Megan Flatt 

Yep.

[00:46:53]  Megan Porta 

Like, something to add. In my film days, I didn’t used to put a buffer day after, and I regretted it for over a year. I was like, why am I so tired by the time the weekend rolls around? So you learn things as you go, and in a year, you’re gonna be, oh, my gosh, so much better off with your energy and your schedule and every other thing.

[00:47:13]  Megan Flatt 

Well, and not only that, I always feel like we. We change, you know, the season of our lives change. Our business changes. So, you know, your kids schedule changes. So you know what your. What is working for? Your weekly planning right now might need to look different in the summer. It might need to look different next fall.

[00:47:37]   

You know, if you get a really great opportunity with your business, then you may need to restructure how you plan your week. And again, I think if we go in with this, like, mindset that, like, it can only be planned one way. It has to be perfect. I have to figure out the perfect way to plan my week that has to work for every week for the rest of my life.

[00:47:55]   

You know, that’s when we. When we pitch it out the window and say, oh, well, that didn’t work for me.

[00:48:00]  Megan Porta 

Right, right, right. Okay, so a little grace with yourself. No. Perfection. My 18 year old asks me that every day. Do you expect perfection? No, no, no. Just little bits of progress and that’s all you need to do.

[00:48:12]  Megan Flatt 

Exactly, exactly.

[00:48:15]  Megan Porta 

All right, so now are we, like, master planners? What do we do from here? Megan?

[00:48:20]  Megan Flatt 

Yeah, so you’ve got, you know, so now it’s. Now it really is. It’s tweaking it. It’s making it work for you. It’s deciding, you know, what works, what parts. You want to keep testing out different parts. Not. Not, you know, kind of like you said, not throwing the baby out with the bath water.

[00:48:33]   

Like, really decide, like, hey, okay, I like, you know, you might. There might be some things that you want to start thinking. I love. Like, where can we make decisions once? So while I’m not a huge fan of having, like, a really rigid schedule, there might be some things that, if you’re not already, you want to start building in.

[00:48:51]   

Like. Like that, you know, like, okay, well, Thursdays are always recording days, and. Or Tuesdays are always client days, or Fridays are always the day that. That I run. Erin, you might want to start making some. Some, like, blanket decisions about your Week. That just makes your week planning go faster because you’re not trying to decide, like, ooh, well, where could I fit in recording.

[00:49:13]   

And I, you know, where can I. Oh, maybe I could squeeze it in here. It’s like, oh, no, you just know that those happen on Thursday. Or you’re not feeling like, oh, I need to run to Target. Let me drop everything and run my errand. It’s like, oh, no, I do my errands on Friday.

[00:49:24]   

I’ll just save that for Friday. So making some kind of big decisions, kind of blanket decisions like that can really help kind of smooth out your weekly planning process.

[00:49:33]  Megan Porta 

Okay. Who knew that this? Isn’t it funny how things just happen when you need them? I needed this today, and I did not plan to have this chat and to. And to need it. Right. This was so timely. You have no idea how much you’ve helped me. Just kind of mentally unload what needs to get done before the trip.

[00:49:54]   

Letting. Oh, here’s another thing delegating. So on my list, I was like, well, I could mail those books that I want to mail, but my husband’s going to be around this week and I know he probably has a little extra time. So I typically would have tried to do it myself, but just seeing it on paper, I was like, he can probably do that.

[00:50:12]   

I’ll ask him about it.

[00:50:14]  Megan Flatt 

Exactly. Yeah. I think it again, it just gives us a more realistic. And taking this time, it gives us a more realistic view of what. Of what we can and can’t accomplish in any given amount of time.

[00:50:25]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Okay. Anything kind of to wrap up. Is there any last thoughts, any last prompts, additional prompts? Like, I don’t know, you have something.

[00:50:35]  Megan Flatt 

Else to come through. I feel like we did a pretty good job of going through those. I think. One, a prompt that I love is that one of my clients said years ago, and I think about it all the time, she said, how do I do the most good with my available amount of time?

[00:50:54]   

And I love that as kind of a filter question because we do this big brain dump. And even though I said, you don’t have to get all of these things done, and it’s like, again, our brain says, I wrote it down, I have to do it. I have to figure out a way to fit all of this in before I leave.

[00:51:10]   

Right. So just going with that prompt of like, how can I do the most good with the available amount of time I have, then that is kind of a reframe to be like, oh, if I do these three things that’s the. That’s my highest good. That’s gonna. That’s gonna be the most. You know, you mailing the books is not your highest good.

[00:51:33]   

You know, it’s not the most important thing that you need to do before you leave on this trip. And so kind of using that as a little bit of filter to reframe.

[00:51:40]  Megan Porta 

And like you said earlier, just being okay with that, being okay with your decisions, because it ultimately is my schedule, my calendar, and my life. So if I make the decision, then I need to be okay with that. And sitting down and doing this kind of allows that process to happen.

[00:51:57]  Megan Flatt 

Right? Right. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:52:00]  Megan Porta 

Okay. Well, thank you, Megan, so much. This is so valuable. I can see people coming back to this episode too, for weekly planning. And I hope you guys do. If you want to use this as a guide each week until you’re in the groove, definitely do that.

[00:52:12]  Megan Flatt 

Absolutely. And I wanted to extend an offer to your listeners as well. Like I said, I do this process with my clients every Monday morning. We do it at 9am Pacific Time. If you. We are in the middle of kind of. We do it in kind of a quarterly session. We’re in the middle of a session right now.

[00:52:29]   

If your readers would like to join us or, I’m sorry, your listeners would like to join us, then I will give you a code or a link that they can purchase and we’ll. I’ll add you to my client calendar and you can join us on Monday mornings and go through. It’s. It’s just time that you can block out on your calendar and join us for this planning process.

[00:52:48]   

And come, come once or twice or come every week. Whatever works for you.

[00:52:52]  Megan Porta 

That’s amazing. Do you have anything else to offer? I don’t know what you have going on right now in your business. Anything that you feel would be helpful for food bloggers that you want to mention?

[00:53:05]  Megan Flatt 

Like I said, I think doing this planning process I think would be really helpful. And so I think that would be, again, even if it’s just taking some of these concepts and figuring out how you can apply it to your food blogging business, I think is really important. Because, you know, food blogging, like anything else, it’s not, it’s not just your to do list, isn’t just like, oh, work on my blog.

[00:53:30]   

It’s all of these different places. And I think we kind of touched on it a little bit about the idea of wearing different hats. So I think that’s another good reminder too, is like there’s going to be different Times. Sometimes it’s hard to switch hats. Like if you have like your creative writing side or if you’re, if your listeners are doing like recipe development or testing, like that sometimes takes a different part of your brain than the, like, how do I market my blog?

[00:53:55]   

Right. And so giving yourself different times on the calendar or again, that’s where it can kind of be like, okay, on Friday I test recipes and you know, Mondays I work on marketing. And so I think that can be like thinking about if you were a company of 20 people, each with a different role, you know, how would, how would you know?

[00:54:15]   

Today I’m wearing the marketing director’s hat. Tomorrow I’m wearing the recipe tester hat.

[00:54:20]  Megan Porta 

And you do offer coaching, correct?

[00:54:23]  Megan Flatt 

I do offer.

[00:54:23]  Megan Porta 

In addition to your focus sessions, yes.

[00:54:26]  Megan Flatt 

I do offer one on one coaching. So if you’re looking for an executive coach, if you’re looking for someone to help think through your business with you, be that thought partner. Be kind of that, that business partner that you don’t have to, you know, you don’t have to include into your business. That’s what I’m here for.

[00:54:42]   

And we can, we can map out these projects together. We can map out your week. We can talk about setting priorities, like maybe you should be more focused on this right now than this. And we can talk through all of that as, as your coach. And I’d love to. There’s a, on my website you can sign up for a call to find out if, if, if we’re the right fit and if I’m the right person.

[00:55:01]  Megan Porta 

To work with and we’ll put all that information in your show notes or you can go to your website, which is. Let’s Collective co. Correct.

[00:55:09]  Megan Flatt 

Just co. Yep, let’scollective co.

[00:55:12]  Megan Porta 

Okay, awesome. So go there if you’re interested in those focus calls or coaching. And thank you again, Megan, so much for this. Thank you for helping to clear the clutter from my mind. I needed you this week. I needed you today.

[00:55:25]  Megan Flatt 

Great. Perfect. I’m so glad it worked out for you too. And thank you so much for having me again.

[00:55:29]  Megan Porta 

Yes, thanks for being here and thank you so much for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

[00:55:43]   

Thank you so much for listening to to Eat Blog Talk. The best way to support this show is to share it with another blogger or friend who could use encouragement. Today. Let’s share the love. I will see you in the next episode.


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