Hello beautiful people of Expansive Capacity! Hello beauty!

It’s Superpower Sunday time! 🙂

This is all about how we can implement wee changes that can turbocharge our *existing* superpowers so that we don’t dim our own lights due to inertia, stress, or any other upper-limit problem that reveals itself along our path.

This month’s superpower is all about color-blocking the calendar.

Get ready… I’m showing off my calendar for the week ahead and detailing yet another ingredient in how I’m able to focus my states of flow so easily.

Okay, so first off… you’ll notice NO RED. This is important. Red is associated with urgency. And as any good Pressfield-loving creative knows for sure: URGENT is someone else’s label for how I prioritize my time. So… no. No red. It’s not good for the brain to feel that anything is on fire, barking at us, screaming for our attention. It trains stress responses in us that are already too amped up as it is.

Next, let’s go through the categories on the sidebar of my Mac’s calendar: Masterminding (2 hours this week, one for actors, one for creative entrepreneurs), Personal Life (coming off a getaway at the Hacienda, reminding myself to listen to the Hay House MP3s every day during the free summit, pole class, Pilates privates, sober coaching, a session with my mind-body doctor in Chicago, a mastermind that I’m a part of for working on health and self-love, and a couple o’ personal to-do type things as well), To Do’s (these are those tasky JFDI things that just have to get done and sometimes I’ll roll them onto certain days because of the likelihood they’re gonna happen based on the moons and such — I also of course have a bajilliondy tasks in Asana and Slack and such, but these are ones that are calendar based vs. project based), Writing (only the BonBlast this week, and I don’t always put that on my calendar but after a few days at the Hacienda, I find I need it in front of me because I forget what day it is otherwise), Casting (nothing this week, unless I get another SOS from Bernie), Speaking Engagements (this is a bit of a catch-all that includes touring, teaching, speaking, book-signing, and even private coaching [names blocked out for privacy] as well as some of the planning elements involved; over time it also took on the non-on-camera online course offering tasks, like posting the March EC page for instance), Development (this is my favorite category because it entered my calendar when I started having meetings about things that didn’t exist yet, but they’re GONNA happen and OMG I so so so love that goodness; also included are meetings with my team members, meetings with people in masterminds I pay to be a part of, and anything surrounding next-tier Bon), Recurring Payments (I unchecked this for today because we’re gonna do all of March on the beauty of celebrating money, honey), Birthdays (holy cow do I love what I know about everyone just by knowing your birthday!!), and Holidays (all three of these last calendar categories are synced with a Google Cal situation).

Okay. Got all that?

Now, here’s what makes things flow like crazy: I clock in not based on TIME for about half of these things.

What?

Yup.

Of course, appointments — Pilates privates, group session with my doctor, team meetings, private coaching, mastermind meetings — happen on a schedule. Got that. But everything else? I clock in based on category.

So let’s take Tuesday the 26th, for example. I know my Like a Boss care package is due this day. That’s a mastermind group I’m a part of and we had a Zoom sesh last week. The facilitator provides an aftercare delivery — much like y’all get a post-Zoom email with homework, plus things like our Aligned Hustle Calendar and this Superpower Sunday email and your already-received Woo-Woo Wednesday one too — and it’s available at our membership portal on that day. At some point that day, I’ll want to do something that feels development-category (I’m willing to bet this will happen between my CoCo — this is actually the old nickname for a mastermind I’m a part of that’s now called What Works — Zoom with a fellow masterminder and the Team Cricket Feet Zoom I have with our newest hire on that same day), and that’s when I’ll go see what’s in my Like a Boss care package. I value what we do in this mastermind — even if all I do is download the PDF for now — so walling off time to engage with that part of my investment in next-tier me is important to me. Most likely, I’ll go to the membership space to offer support to a fellow masterminder or, if I have a question, I’ll go ask it then.

Next, at some point, Keith needs to return the rental car we got for our trip to the Hacienda. I’ll encourage him to do that as I leave for my private Pilates session, since these are both categorized as personal life. I’ll probably convince Keith to walk home by way of Pilates to “pick me up” for a walk home from there. We may or may not stop at Sidecar. 😉 Where’s my Energetic Hygiene Triangle?!? Also categorized as personal life but also scheduled at a particular time for that day is another mastermind I’m a part of, Fierce Love Collective. This one is less about development of next-tier Bon and more about general health and wellness, hence the color blocking of blue (personal life) instead of teal (development). Most likely, as I’m getting warmed up to go on-camera for that Zoom, I’ll make a visit to the Hay House Mystical Connections Summit page to download any new PDFs or MP3s from the day’s training, so that’s why I’ve put that non-timed item up there near that session.

The only other thing that’s timing-specific that day is a private coaching call (all you see are the dots after the blocked-out name; it’s a session with one of you beauties — *waves*). You’ll notice I put another speaking engagement (pink) item nearby because as I’m prepping for or finishing that call, I may decide it’s time to add the IMDb tracking vid from my staging folder to a course page in Get in Gear for the Next Tier. I’ve been rolling this particular item ever since I did the screenshare and thought, “Ooh! Yes! I’ll add this to that day we do all the IMDb profile overhauling” and then came up with another few tweaks, got my team to log some data for me, and now it’s back on my plate more fully fleshed out (thanks, team!). Also nearby is a to-do list item (in grey) and that’s something that can happen at any point and will probably get rolled over to Saturday — where you can see a handful of parked-status things — but I’m optimistic that I’ll have that sexy, action-oriented Sagittarius moon backing up my meal planning for a few weeks of Whole30 we have coming up.

When anything non-time-reliant “rolls” on my calendar, I put it where it’s got a better chance of happening. Again, this is part woo-woo (Use Your Moons, baby!) and part practical structure of where things fit into my day! That’s why I can say if it doesn’t happen Tuesday, it’s rolling to Saturday. Why would I set myself up to “fail” by moving it to days I know it’s just not gonna happen?

Oh! I should mention — and I’m reminded to mention this because I *just* received an email from Dr. Stracks’ office with the Zoom link for our group session on Monday — I make very good use of the NOTES field in my calendar. Each of these items that is contingent upon an online space, there’s a link to that space in the notes of the appointment itself. So the email I just got from Team Stracks has a link in it. That link will now go into my Monday appointment. So when it’s time to meet up on Zoom, I’m not frantically searching email for the link to join; it’s in my freakin’ calendar, which is synced to my phone, should I be taking the meeting on the go.

Same with physical appointments — address, parking info, details on my rate of pay for the speaking engagement, whom to bill, etc., that’s all in the notes field. With things like my Pilates privates, the notes include how many more sessions are in the package I bought (and when), so accounting is covered too. So, my calendar is part show bible, part history, and of course part planning tool. When you book a coaching with me, your notes about what you’d like to tackle and anything I need to check out ahead of time… all that goes in here too.

Phew! Feeling more efficient already?

What sort of colors can you assign to the tasks and appointments in your life? And can you begin to use the power of clumping similar items or grouping things in tune with the moon to become even more efficient and focused? What about adding notes more consistently so you’re not wasting time hunting for info you KNOW you have? I’d love to hear how you choose to play with this. Meet me in the dojo and share!

And of course, ask any questions you may have about all this. I know… it’s a lot. I’m basically sharing the inside of my brain, one item at a time here in Expansive Capacity. Glad it’s helping you shape some new goodies in your life!

Start with your March Aligned Hustle Calendar! It’s waiting for you at the Welcome page and it’s packed with goodness!

All my love,

Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!