The magic wand to designing a life you love

When it comes to designing a life you love, there is one tool that has more power than perhaps any other in helping you turn your dreams into your reality and create a life you love. 

It is the critical step that takes your intentions, dreams and desires out of your imagination, off the pages of your journal and into reality. 

Using this tool is what will take you from being someone who has dreams and desires for the life you want to be living to being someone who is actually living their dreams and the life they really want to be living.

I’m talking about…a calendar.

When it comes to designing a life you love, your calendar is your canvas. It is the true magic wand that helps to take your dreams and intentions off the page and into your life.

Plenty of us use calendars in our day to day lives to keep on top of things at work, book in appointments and arrange social plans. 

But the magic happens when you start to use it to create your life, by taking your list of things you want to fill your life with - from time with friends, to more sleep, to a monthly massage, to changing career -  and giving each of those things dedicated time and dates in your diary.

Suddenly your dreams and desires are now booked and ready to happen.

So if you’ve never really used a calendar before, or if you have a calendar but only use it for work, appointments and social arrangements, then you’re about to discover the true power it can actually have in your life.

Develop a strong, committed relationship to your calendar and you’ll really start to create and live the life you dream up.

Here is how to do it:

Step 1: Get a calendar with a weekly view and hourly slots

If you don’t have a calendar that you use to schedule in all your commitments, with hourly slots, then now is the time to get one. You can choose a digital or paper one, but make sure it allows you to see your week in one go and each day needs to be divided up into hourly slots.

I use Google Calendar so that it syncs with my phone and I can colour co-ordinate different themes.

Step 2: Once a month or once a quarter sit down and design into your calendar the life you want to be living and the self-care habits you want to make sure you weave into your day or week

Daily commitments

Always begin with your wellbeing. It is THE foundation to a happy life. So start by looking at your daily calendar and book in the things you know you need to feel well and happy in your body, but that you often let slip.

So, for example, if starting the day with a nourishing breakfast is an important one for you, but something you usually forget to do, then get that in your diary as a daily date with yourself, setting your alarm to get you up 15 minutes earlier if necessary.

Eventually those nourishing breakfasts in the morning will become a natural part of your normal routine and you won’t have to schedule them, but until that happens, keep them as firm dates in your calendar.

Weekly commitments

Now let’s look at what you want to book in on a regular weekly basis as a fixed commitment - things you want to do for your wellbeing and happiness eg. time for exercise, dates with yourself, hobbies etc

Decide when in the week you want to commit to doing these things and book them in.

Also book in time each week dedicated to focus on any big changes or dreams you’re wanting to make happen this year. By creating dedicated time to focus on them, those changes and dreams are far more likely to happen.

Monthly commitments

Next schedule in the things you want to do monthly -  eg a massage, trip to the countryside, dinner for friends etc. If you need time to research, invite friends, make bookings in advance for these things to happen, then make sure you book in time for that too.

One-off yearly commitments

Finally, take a step back and look at your whole year ahead and block in time for the fun adventures, holidays, courses and outings you want to enjoy throughout the year, even if for now you can only pencil them in because you’re not yet sure on the exact dates.

Again, if any of these require a good amount of planning and research, then block out time to do that too.

Step 3: Use your calendar to manage your energy during the working week and protect yourself from burnout

One of the biggest causes of burnout is people trying to squeeze way more into their working day than they actually have the capacity for. This is where your calendar can be used as a powerful tool to help you manage your energy and not over-extend yourself during the working week. 

Design in regular breaks and space to breathe

Make sure you have space to breathe between appointments and sessions working on different tasks - these will look like blank gaps between the hourly slots of at least 10 minutes. Time where you can breathe, stretch, get some fresh air, chat to a colleague, call a friend, dance around your kitchen (or a meeting room 😂), have a snack - whatever you works to help you switch off for a moment and recharge your batteries. 

Colour-code high intensity tasks so that you don’t put too many into your day or week

A game changer for me has been to colour-code the work tasks that require a lot of energy, like coaching sessions and live events and to make sure I never have more than 2 or 3 of those a day and never more than 6-8 of those a week. It has stopped me from overloading my week with high intensity tasks and ultimately burning myself out.

Block out time to work on projects and tasks that need to be focused on so that others can’t fill up your week with meetings 

One of the biggest challenges I often find people face from working in teams is this new digital-aged problem of people booking you into meetings whenever you have space in your calendar so that often the week comes to an end and you’ve been in back to back meetings and haven’t had the time you need to get through your projects and tasks. 

One way to deal with this is to block time in to work on those projects and tasks at the start of the week so that in your calendar you are already busy. People will then have to work within the available time you have, rather than you trying to squeeze your work around a week packed with meetings. 

So there you have it - your steps to unlocking the potential of your calendar and using it to design your life so that you thrive and create the life you really want to be living. 

Give it a go and let me know how you get on!