This Saturday I found myself standing in several inches of liquid beef tallow.
The fryer had overflowed at the Soda Fountain. There were five order tickets on the pass waiting to be filled. And there I was, wielding a squeegee, attempting to guide the wave of oil into a more appropriate location, whilst trying not to break my neck on the slippery floor and keeping the kitchen limping along.
Needless to say, this was not on my planner.
Neither were the cracked wheels, flat tires, snakebit horses, wire-cut horses (remind me why I have horses?), or employee call-ins I’ve dealt with lately.
That’s life, isn’t it?
It’s no secret that I’m a planner girl. It’s the only way I survive my weeks with bazillions of moving parts.
But sometimes I think we (me?) misunderstand the point of planning.
The end goal isn’t to create a perfect schedule that our lives will obediently follow, because hahahahahahaaaaaaha. Ha.
The aim is to have a loose structure that keeps us (me?) from crashing and burning when chaos hits. Because chaos is like death and taxes— it’s always comin’ for ya.
After years of juggling businesses, animals, kids, deadlines, and projects, I’ve kinda stumbled into a system that works pretty well for me.
It’s a little discipline, a little flexibility, and knowing the difference between what MUST happen and what would just be nice.
Here’s how I do it (most of the time):
1. Tag the Non-Negotiables vs. Hopefuls
This starts in my planner, which is my external brain. You could use a notebook, a scrap of paper, your phone, or keep it all in your head. I, however, will implode if I don’t write this stuff down.
Anyway.
At the bottom of each weekly spread in my planner, I have four columns where I keep running lists of everything I need or want to accomplish that week.
I usually divide them into categories like home, online work, Soda Fountain, errands, etc., although the categories change a little from week to week.
But here’s the kicker: not everything on those lists has equal importance.
Some things are non-negotiable. These are the things with real deadlines, real consequences, or someone depending on me to complete them.
Writing a blog post. Recording a podcast. Preparing for a supper night at the Soda Fountain.
Other things are what I call my hopefuls.
Painting a room. Ordering wallpaper. Organizing a closet. Cleaning the barn.
I’d love to get those things done. And I will, eventually. But nobody’s world will implode if I don’t paint the dining room this Tuesday. (Even though I might throw a little temper tantrum because I love working on projects like that…)
In essence, I’ve learned to NOT treat my to-do list as if every item is equally urgent. That’s a recipe for a meltdown in my world. Ask me how I know….
2. Put Your Non-Negotiables on the Calendar FIRST
At the beginning of each week, I identify the things that absolutely must happen and immediately assign them to specific time slots.
I don’t just put “write blog post” on a list and hope I eventually get around to it.
I decide the exact day and time I’m going to write it. (This is why I love the hourly slots in my planner. They hold me accountable.)
I try to have ONE major non-negotiable for each day.
One. More than that, and I’m often setting myself up for frustration.
And that one thing? It comes FIRST. And I mean first.
Before I clean the kitchen. Before I clean the barn. Before I tackle the seventeen tiny tasks that suddenly seem soooo very appealing.
Because for me, procrastination doesn’t look like sitting on the couch scrolling my phone. I’m much sneakier about it. My procrastination often looks like being extremely productive at all the wrong things.
In fact, before I sat down to write this very post, I suddenly found myself with an overwhelming urge to research stock tanks at my local farm stores.
Is that something I need to address eventually? Yup.
Do I need to do it BEFORE my big creative non-negotiable of today? Certainly not.
But I was feeling the resistance that comes with sitting down to write, and my brain conveniently decided that researching stock tanks was very, VERY important.
Thankfully, I caught myself and shut it down.
Steven Pressfield talks about this kind of resistance in his book The War of Art (one of my all-time fav books), and boy, is it sneaky.
But now that I know how to recognize it, I’m brutal about protecting my non-negotiable of the day. If the article is due, the article comes first.
That means I often pound away on my laptop with crumbs on the counter, stuff all over the floor, and messy, unbrushed hair. Because if I follow those “make the house perfect first” rabbit trails, I’ll be there all day.
Unfortunately, this just takes discipline, and I don’t know any magic tricks around it.
Sometimes I don’t feel like doing the thing. Sometimes circumstances are inconvenient. Sometimes I end up answering emails in a tire shop waiting room (stupid tires…) because my day got derailed and that’s the only time I have available.
But I will do whatever it takes to get that non-negotiable done.
And that commitment to myself has moved the needle forward in my life more than just about anything else.
3. Then Fill In with the Hopefuls
Once my non-negotiables are assigned to their time slots, I start looking at the rest of the week and pull other tasks from the columns at the bottom of my planner.
If I have a free afternoon, maybe I can work on the bedroom remodel.
If I have an unexpected hour between calls perhaps I can order supplies for the next house project.
If I finish my writing earlier than expected, maybe I’ll go practice my roping.
This is also why I love having everything written down in one place. I don’t have to keep a mental inventory of every possible task. Everything is captured, categorized, and waiting for me on paper.
Which is extra important when the week goes sideways….
4. When Everything Goes Wrong, Let the Hopefuls GO
I’m sure you NEVER have this happen, but some of my weeks refuse to cooperate. Shocking, I know.
Like the day the fryer overflowed…
That day, I’d planned to deep clean the prep room at the Soda Fountain, along with a bunch of other little tasks. Not surprisingly, I accomplished exactly NONE of them.
My new priority became: feed the customers and don’t break your neck trying to clean the grease off the floor.
And I didn’t beat myself up about everything I didn’t get done, which was a major win.
Because a day that doesn’t go according to plan isn’t automatically a failed day.
Some days, success means crossing off twelve things. Other days, it means getting the ONE important thing done while everything else falls apart around you.
5. Bank Progress on the Good Days
I love this little trick:
When I have one of those glorious (rare) days where nothing breaks, nobody calls in sick, and there are no unexpected disasters?
I use it, baby. Every single minute of it.
I cruise through my non-negotiable(s), and then I attack that hopeful list with laser focus.
Maybe I knock out three house projects. Or I run errands I wasn’t planning to get to until next week. Or I get ahead on content.
It’s allll the flow states rolled into one and it’s delicious.
I think of it as banking progress.
Now hear me: I’m not trying to cram productivity into every waking minute. I’ve just learned that an uninterrupted afternoon is a luxury, and future me will be grateful I used it well.
(And yes, sometimes I rest or take a nap on an open afternoon, too. But most of the time, I’m so excited to work on my projects that working on them is more restorative to me than sitting on the couch.)
Then, when something inevitably goes sideways later in the week, I’ve already made progress on things that would otherwise be hanging over my head.
So the Secret Sauce Is…
Discipline + flexibility. That’s it.
Sometimes we assume these two things are opposites. Like you’re either rigid and scheduled, or you’re relaxed and spontaneous.
But they’re not mutually exclusive. We definitely need both.
I’m very disciplined about the things that truly matter, and I’m (mostly) flexible about almost everything else.
And this is precisely why I love my paper planner so dang much. It’s where I dump the 287 things swirling around in my brain, figure out which ones actually matter, and give them a place in my week.
It’s also why I designed the Old-Fashioned on Purpose Planner the way I did.
Those four little columns at the bottom of the weekly spread are probably my favorite part. They give all my lists and hopefuls somewhere to live until I have time to tackle them.
And since I can’t seem to leave well enough alone, we made the 2027 edition even better—with a tougher cover, improved garden and meal planning pages, moon phases and equinox notes, and more room for all the scribbles.
But at the end of the day, productivity isn’t about complicated apps, perfect routines, or color-coded schedules. It’s about knowing what matters, putting it on the calendar, and doing the work. Then having enough flexibility to roll with the punches when life inevitably gets weird.
Because sometimes life hands you a beautiful, uninterrupted Tuesday.
And sometimes it hands you hot beef tallow oozing all over the floor.
I need a planning system that works for both.
If you do too, the 2027 Old-Fashioned on Purpose Planners are available to order now and should be shipping out SOON!
-Jill
Leave a Comment