In today’s guest podcast, my husband and I share how we’re approaching some huge life changes and trusting our STEP systems to help us make everything happen.
My husband, Josh, will be graduating from college in April (yay!) and will be starting medical school this fall. We are preparing to declutter our whole apartment, establish better family routines with our baby, move several states away, create family memories with some upcoming travel, and accomplish some work/personal goals. It’s starting to feel like a lot! Can you relate?
Instead of feeling bogged down by the details, we did a mind sweep and got everything out of our heads. Here’s a snippet of what was on that huge mind sweep:
- Talk to the landlord about moving out a month early
- Get quotes on moving pods and learn how we can store our things for two months
- Create a budget for our upcoming moving/travel/family expenses
- Research what activities we will do as a family while traveling
- Have dinners with friends and family before we leave
- Finish scanning family photos
- Talk to current medical school students and get ideas for moving/prepping for school
- Celebrate upcoming holidays and birthdays with loved ones
- Attend a few community events before moving
- Sell some furniture on FB Marketplace
- Use as many ingredients and food items in our apartment as possible before moving
- and on and on and on 🙂
We then determined how each of these items would fit into our STEP system. Most of these items are large projects (or huge projects with several subprojects), but some of them were routines.
As we determined what category each item fell into, we could start creating a plan and a timeline. All of our moving-related projects, for example, couldn’t be done all at once. We had to figure out details with our landlord first before making plans to move out. Then we could start calling for quotes on moving pods and storage. Then we could start decluttering parts of our apartment that we wanted to start packing up first.
Slowly but surely, we started completing one project after another! By prioritizing our projects based on their deadlines and importance in our lives, we could easily decide what would make it onto our Current Projects Lists. As we broke each project up into Next Actions, we were able to delegate things to one another and share the workload. For example, I like to do more of the phone calls, emails, and online research. Those Next Actions became my responsibilities, and other home, family, and errand-related Next Actions became Josh’s.
It’s tempting to add everything to our list at once–we want to get everything done and see that it’s right there, front and center, on our to-do list. However, this is when we usually start to get weighed down and feel like everything is accumulating into a mountain that is impossible to tackle.
At LearnDoBecome, we recommend not having more than 7-8 projects TOTAL on your Current Project List at any given time. These 7-8 projects span all areas of your life, and when new projects come to mind, they can be added to your Next in Line or Someday Projects List.
These lists have been incredibly helpful for us because we’re human and we know that it’s just not possible for us to do everything all at once. Instead of feeling like we aren’t doing enough or we need to add more things to our lists, we know that those future projects will be waiting for us! They are safe and can be added to our Current Projects List when we have the time and space for them. It’s so freeing!
We’ve also had to be a lot more intentional about our time and resources. While doing our Weekly Review, we try our best to create the upcoming week in a way that allows us to maximize time together as a family, complete lots of Next Actions, work, do homework, and find time for fun/meaningful memories with loved ones.
It’s taken some time and effort to develop good routines that allow us to do all of these things. However, all of the energy that we’ve put into these routines has been worth it because it has brought us closer together as a couple and has helped us take advantage of every moment we have left before moving. As we get ready to move far away from family, our community, and places that we’ve grown to love, we really don’t want to have any regrets.
These big life changes have truly been made easier thanks to our STEP system and Command Centrals. We can confidently move forward into this new chapter of life, knowing that we did our best and that all the important details have been managed. I couldn’t be more grateful for the peace that I feel amidst this very busy time of life.
Of course, there are going to be lots of new projects to work on and routines to create once we get to our next destination and my husband starts school. That’s just a fact of life. 🙂 But I know that we have the tools to handle whatever comes our way–and we know that we can renegotiate and simplify where needed.
Thanks for joining and listening to this episode of the podcast! Are there some big life changes coming your way? Are you feeling prepared to manage all the projects/details that go along with these changes? We’re here to support you and are sending love your way!
-Alia
Related Links!
[PODCAST 80]: A Deep Dive into Actually Completing Current Projects and Next Actions
[PODCAST 48]: A Fun, Logical Way to Set Up Your Routines List!
[PODCAST 197]: To-the-Point Questions to Assess Your Level of Organization
STEP for Students Information Page
Upcoming ARISE Bonus Class!
Preserving photos and memories is more than just “organizing.” It’s a great way to build relationships, to consider our own lives and purposes, and to create a vision for who we want to become.
This is an ARISE membership bonus class, and members of the STEP Mastery program have the option to join live and/or watch the 48-hour replay. After 48 hours, the recording will only be available in our ARISE members’ area.
More details to come! And for those utilizing only our free resources for now, we’ll share a great podcast/video on the topic that you can enjoy!
Our ARISE membership – an amazing gathering place for community members that are using their Command Centrals to refine relationships, health, finances, individual purpose, and more. We focus on a new topic each month, and this is an amazing opportunity to receive coaching and support from Team LearnDoBecome. You can sign up for a free, 7-day trial here.
Want to learn about our STEP program and build your Command Central? Click here for our information page!
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