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Feeling overwhelmed by your family's daily grind and looking for a way out? Welcome to "Dig the Well," the podcast that empowers you to build the life you deserve. Your hosts Vikki and John are top earners at Neora. Vikki is a # 1 best-selling author and John is a retired Los Angeles Police Officer. Together they’ve navigated family challenges, raised successful kids, and achieved financial freedom.
In each episode of "Dig the Well," they dive deep into the strategies and mindsets that can help you break free from the constraints of the traditional 9-5 lifestyle. They understand the unique challenges faced by stay-at-home moms and families who are juggling multiple responsibilities and struggling to find balance. Their mission is to provide you with the tools and inspiration you need to create additional income, gain more family time, and ultimately, transform your life.
Throughout their journey, they’ve had the privilege of working with renowned figures like Jack Canfield and Jeff Olson, whose wisdom and insights have greatly influenced their path to success. They’ve also celebrated significant milestones, such as raising two valedictorian children and supporting their son, an Olympic weightlifter on Team USA. These experiences have equipped them with valuable knowledge and practical tips that they’re eager to share with you.
"Dig the Well" is more than just a podcast; it's a community of like-minded individuals who are committed to personal growth and financial independence. Whether you're worried about your family's financial security, longing for more quality time with your spouse, or simply seeking a way to reignite your passions, this podcast offers actionable insights and real-life stories that can help you achieve your goals.
Our mission is to inspire you with the belief that if we can do it, so can you. We want you to feel empowered, educated, and ready to take control of your future. By tuning in to "Dig the Well," you'll gain the confidence and knowledge needed to break free from the daily grind and create a life full of possibilities.
So, if you're ready to transform your family's future and discover the greatness within you, join us on this journey. Subscribe to "Dig the Well" and start building the life you deserve today!
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John:Ever wondered how you could turn your side hustle into a full time gig and spend more time together?
Vikki:Hi. I'm Vikki, a number one best selling author.
John:And I'm John, a retired Los Angeles police officer. Welcome to Dig the Well, where we help couples navigate the world of business.
Vikki:We've been married for 35 years, and because we built successful side business, John retired 9 years earlier than he originally planned from the Los Angeles Police Department after 25 years on the job. Now we spend more time together, and we want to help couples like you do the same.
John:Join us as we help you overcome common obstacles, and we show you how to make extra income without sacrificing family time.
Vikki:Ready to dig deep and build your well? Let's get started. Alright. Hello. Hello.
Vikki:Happy Thursday. Yay. Happy episode 13. Lucky number 13. We're actually able to call it out this week.
Vikki:Yeah. We we know what number it is.
John:We had a Friday 13th this month. Do we? We did.
Vikki:We did already. Yeah. That's great. And we're excited to be with you during this holiday season. It's crazy.
Vikki:We're wearing our Christmassy getup. I've got my reindeer hat on.
John:The ugly sweater episode because that's Santa, which I don't think anyone wants to see Santa like that.
Vikki:I know. Santa posing.
John:Mhmm. Like a bottle of wine or something.
Vikki:Oh, yeah. He does or a big beer bottle.
John:If you're Whatever.
Vikki:If you're listening to us, you can't see us. We are dressed up in our best holiday gear. That's for sure.
John:Wouldn't say it's my best.
Vikki:Yeah. The funniest. And, I actually think I look kinda cute. I've got my farmer.
John:You do. I don't.
Vikki:Yeah. But Yeah. It's funny. It's funny. We we all love this crazy time of the year.
Vikki:And, you know, if you're able to put a comment while you're listening to us, put in the chat if you have worn an ugly sweater yet this year, if you're planning to. Are you going to a party wearing an ugly sweater? Is it an ugly ugly sweater contest? We'd love to hear as I know they're still doing those.
John:Maybe you think it's a good looking sweater, but everyone else's is a Nike sweater. Put that in there.
Vikki:That is true. I have one. Maybe I'll wear it next week because it'll be the day after Christmas. Will it? Yeah.
Vikki:It'll be oh my gosh. It's coming so fast. And, and I think it's cute, but I bet people would say it's ugly now. Sad. But, anyway, we are excited to be on.
Vikki:John and Vicky here to talk about another kind of time sensitive, challenge that a lot of entrepreneurs have this time of year and when we're looking forward to the new year, and that's calendar control.
John:Yeah. Yeah. Some of the things we're gonna talk about today maybe like, almost like a New Year's resolution for some of you folks that have never really spent much time or given much thought to calendar control and time control, because it will change change how you how you do things and and make you so much more efficient, if you take that as a new user resolution experience.
Vikki:Yeah. Absolutely. Because I do think I get that the most questions on how do you fit a business into a busy schedule, especially a side business. Right? How do you start a second or third business, have multiple streams, you know, in a busy in a busy life?
Vikki:Well, it's calendar control. Yeah. Yeah.
John:And if you learn to master just that part of it part of your life, you're gonna find things are gonna go so much better for you and so much easier. And it's not just business stuff, but it's every task that you have at home, at work, you know, everything.
Vikki:Yeah. So yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, there's that Pareto's law. There's the there's a law, I should've looked at that, where whatever amount of time you allot to doing a task, you will take up all that time.
Vikki:And so that's that's a really good point on, the fact that if you tell yourself, especially, like, I think of myself around the house, I could take all day to clean the house if I wanted to clean it. But if I just say I'm giving myself 20 minutes, somebody's coming over, I even trick my mind into thinking somebody's coming over in 20 minutes. Man, I can make it clean and looking pretty good fast. Otherwise, if I give it all day, it's gonna take all day. So That's
John:so true that, you know, you think if you have a big house, you end up filling that house with junk.
Vikki:Yeah. Like, well,
John:at least from our perspective. Right? There's so much so much we have in our home that we don't need. And if we lived in a much smaller home, we wouldn't have all that stuff. And it's like even the garage, think about it.
John:We moved a car out of the garage to have some more room. Well, it ended up just being filled with stuff that we don't need in the garage. I know.
Vikki:Yeah. Because we're not in a rush to get it out. Yeah. Yeah.
John:So you have that space, you're gonna take it up. So if you have that if you a lot a lot of time out, you're gonna take all that time.
Vikki:Yeah. Absolutely. So, yeah, so to today's episode is all about the power of, calendar control, why being proactive instead of reactive in your life is so important. Why why you want to have calendar control, that's being proactive. Planning your day before the day begins instead of not having a schedule and then suddenly things pop up and that's being reactive.
Vikki:And you're like, oh, I better handle that right now instead of already having your day planned and seeing pockets in your day that you can if if something does come up, you can then fit it in, right, easily, instead of letting, you know, life overtake you. Right? And and that's a lot of challenges I hear from entrepreneurs. They feel like their day runs them instead of the Converse, you running your own day. So we're talking about that.
Vikki:And, really, also lack of calendar control can lead to burnout. I just met a woman at an event, and she wrote a book on burnout today.
John:Oh, really?
Vikki:Yeah. And it's coming out in January. And that's such a hot topic because especially for entrepreneurs. You're working, working, doing, doing, and, if you don't have your calendar in control and you're not saying no to some things that aren't gonna move the needle, then you are spinning your wheels, doing all the things, and you can easily burn out and think you're not making a difference in your business. So having this is this under control is key.
John:Yeah. How frustrating is that? Like, if you don't have control over it. It's almost like the car is driving you. Yeah.
John:Driving the car.
Vikki:Yeah. Exactly.
John:Yeah. Another thing you wanna do is set your priorities first. So you wanna identify, like, the big rocks in your life, whether it's family, health, personal development, business goals, you know, whatever they are, and you wanna schedule those first, because those are the important things in your life, then make them important. Make them a priority and do those first. And then there's a thing called the Eisenhower matrix, and I don't think we have we don't have that.
John:So we can't show you what that is, but if you see what it is, it's basically a a simple matrix, and it talks about what thing what are important, what's not important, what's urgent, and what's not urgent. So you have basically 4 quadrants to this matrix. And so what you're really looking for are the things that are important and urgent. Those are your priorities. Those are the things you need to do and you need to do them now and get make sure that they get done.
John:Then for the items that are important but not urgent, you wanna set a time. Schedule that to do those when you have the time to do that. Like what Vicky was saying, when you have those little cracks and crevices in your schedule, you have some free time, do those items that that fall into that quadrant. Then on the other side, you have what's, urgent but not important. So those are things that can easily be delegated.
John:Have someone else do them. For me, it's cleaning the pool. Right? Maybe the pool maybe is done.
Vikki:That's true.
John:Yeah. It's it's important, but it's not urgent. It doesn't it's not something that I need to do. And I can hire someone to do that and, actually, a professional who does a much better job than what I could do, and it frees me up my time up to do things that are important and urgent. So the things I have to do or important, but not necessarily urgent, it's still something that I have to do, but I can do it in my time.
John:So when Mike's out here cleaning the pool, I can be doing something else that's business oriented, family oriented, whatever my my big rocks are. Right? Yeah. And then lastly, you have things that are not important and not urgent. Hit the delete button.
John:Don't waste your time. Don't do them. Don't delegate them because they're not important.
Vikki:Yeah. So there should be they should be like a no. Right? Like Right?
John:It's it's just delete.
Vikki:I I love that.
John:And then you're done with it. Never even think about it again. And then you have to you have to understand the importance of saying no to things because we all know that we get pulled in different directions. We all have work. We all have family.
John:We all have different things, friends, whatever. And you're gonna be asked to do things that it's, you might just have to say no. And it's not that you're being mean or being an a hole about it. It's just that it's something that doesn't fit into your life, your family, and you just have to say no.
Vikki:Yeah. Yeah. I think women have a tough time dealing with that. I don't I think you guys as men, don't you think you're you're when you don't wanna do something, you don't see it fitting in your master plan of moving you forward, you're you just easily say no. I Yeah.
Vikki:I think so. I think yeah. I'm a people pleaser, and I tend to wanna say yes, and it's a tough thing, but that's key, really key. I think when especially when everybody learns that, you're gonna be so much happier. I know when I've let that go, I've become much happier and have way more time in my day.
Vikki:Yeah. Alright. Moving on to number 3. And by the way, I should have mentioned we have, like, 10 topics we're talking about when it comes to calendar control. So moving on to number 3, and that's time blocking.
Vikki:And we've talked a little bit about this in a previous episode. Actually, I think in a couple episodes because important. Yeah. Yeah. That's why it's yeah.
Vikki:A 100%. It's that important. So, what is time blocking? You know, you can Google it, but I will tell you quickly. It is, setting portions of your day in your calendar to do certain tasks.
Vikki:Whether it's 15 minutes, I'm gonna go on social media and actually look for my class a prospect, my class a client, my avatar, a lot of people call it your ideal client, and comment on their post. Comment in the groups that they are in and, you know, they're your client and, you know, making friends with them, socializing with them, taking things to Messenger, or what whatever the if you're on Instagram, just take it into the message, the DMs, and, becoming friends with people. So that might be 15 minutes a day, you're doing that. 15 minutes a day, you're making follow-up phone calls. 15 minutes a day, you're talking with a teammate and, coaching them.
Vikki:You know, whatever those time blocks are, it's you prioritizing the most important things that you need to get done that day and then mapping that, blocking that in your schedule to get it done. But I will say, and I think John might be talking about this in a little bit, you need to leave space in your calendar. Like, what I, like, typically do, if I'm on a 30 minute phone call, coaching call with someone, I leave time between the end of that 30 minute call and the next call, because that's where we're talking about being proactive. Things are gonna pop in. You know, maybe a kid is sick at school, and the school calls, you know, and you've gotta go get them.
Vikki:If you don't have little pockets of time to make that happen where you don't have to rearrange your whole schedule, you know, that's gonna add a lot of stress to your life. And, really, we wanna help you de stress. Nobody does well with tons and tons of stress. So that's one thing about time blocking that, yes, I block my time, but I leave blocks where nothing is happening. And maybe you just need to stretch your legs.
Vikki:Maybe you just need to get up, get away from the computer, or get away from the phone, and go get something to drink. Look out in the distance so you're not staring at, you know, something you're reading, a computer screen, make your eyes feel better. Sometimes you might even need to just close your eyes. I know I'm a napper, and every once in a while, I block in time to take a nap. And I know that sounds crazy, but guess what?
Vikki:I wake up, from that 15 minute nap refreshed, ready to go again, not in a bad mood. So, definitely, that's that's key to factor all those in. And I wanted to give you tips on ways of creating flexible yet structured time blocks, and that really, I think, is it for me. That's what I've done over the years, what I just shared. It was it is.
Vikki:I actually I'll say I learned this from, the book 10 x is easier than 2 x that we've been reading, and they talk about scheduling serious conversations 2 or 3 at most in a day. So if you're coaching people, I don't schedule more than 3 coaching calls in one day. And I know some of you that are listening and are coaches, you're thinking that's crazy. I probably do 10 a day. Well, I just know my personality, and I can give, give, give, but after a while, I'm exhausted of pouring into other people.
Vikki:And I can't I I I just know my brain needs some time off to recharge. So that's where I'm super careful about only planning 3, you know, coaching pointed calls in a day. So that's where I want you guys to be creative. You know you, you know how to be flexible, and you know how to schedule, empty time slots too in your day, and just make sure you do that.
John:You You know, I wanted to as you were speaking about, like, resetting, like, for your brain, you're saying that you kinda need that little break. And then you mentioned that about your eyes looking at the computer screen, which is great advice, and it was just made me think of something that I hadn't thought about in a while. Like, we spoke about like some of the different things that we've both done, throughout our lives. And one of the things I did was I did professional photography for a little bit. And I remember some advice that was given to me by the director of photography at CBS said that, since photographers nowadays spend so much time behind a computer, not so much behind a camera, we spend way more time behind the computer, staring at a screen.
John:They said I remember there was telling us, do your eyes a favor and look away from the screen. So take 20 minutes. Every 20 minutes Mhmm. Look away from the computer and look at something 20 feet away for 2 minutes. Let your eyes focus on something at a greater distance.
John:And I noticed that if I didn't follow that rule and I was staring at the computer screen for an hour at a time or so, when I tried to look away at something at 20 feet, it wasn't in focus. It took a while for me to focus on that. And then later, as I did that, took that advice every 20 minutes looking away, my eyes were so much better for it.
Vikki:That's so cool.
John:Yeah. It's interesting you mentioned that. Yeah. Okay. So number 4 is gonna be morning or night planning routine.
John:So I know it says morning or night, and I think it's best to have morning and night. So later, we'll talk about the nighttime planning routine, but you wanna plan the day before the day begins. Right? And so start each day with 5 to 10 minutes reviewing your calendar, and you wanna use this time to prioritize your tasks and make adjustments as needed. And then at the same time, you're gonna set your daily intentions and what I do in my routine every morning, and I don't, this may work for some of you guys or not, I don't know, but in the mornings, now I get up early in the morning and I never did that before.
John:I was always like the night owl. Ever since I was a little kid, I used to get in so much trouble because when I was, when it was bedtime, I was awake. I was wide awake. I was listening to music. I was reading.
John:I was doing something other than sleeping and I didn't really want to get up early in the morning. That just wasn't my thing and throughout most of my working career, I worked nights, so I didn't have to. So that was great for me and at the end of the career, I worked, an assignment that was daytime. So I had to get up early in the I, gosh, it was torture. Right.
John:It was absolute torture getting up to an alarm clock and having to get up early in the morning and whatnot. And now I'm kind of used to it. And I actually enjoyed those early mornings. And so we both get up usually before sunrise. Yeah.
John:And one of the things we do and we sit in different areas of the living room, but I like to face straight up the living room window and I like to watch the sunrise. We don't we the sun actually rises behind on the other side of the house, but I just love to see the mountains that we can see from our living room. We can see the top of the mountain kind of bathe in sunlight as the sunlight moves down as the sun's coming up, we start seeing other things come come into vision because, you know, when it's twilight, you can just make out like some just ghostly silhouettes and then as the light comes in, it's just it's just really cool. That's a really cool time of day. But also during that day, I look at my calendar.
John:That's the first thing I look at, you know, of printed material or whatnot. I don't start the computer. I don't do anything other than I open up my calendar and I look at what I have planned for the day. Then I prioritize those things. Right.
John:I go back to that Eisenhower matrix and I figure out, okay, these are the things I have to get done today. These are the things I'll get done when I can. And then the things I'm gonna delegate, I delegate, and the things that aren't important, delete. And it's I I think that's such an important part of getting your day started because you get your day started kind of right. Right?
John:Like, they always said breakfast is the most important part, meal of the day. You wanna and now what they're saying with an intermittent fasting
Vikki:Now they're saying it might not be true. I know. It's so funny.
John:But the the point of the thing is you wanna start your day on the right foot. Then if you can get your day started that way, things tend to fall in place a little better and a little easier and you don't get sidetracked and you don't even if you do, if something comes up that isn't exactly as planned, it's okay because you have your day planned. You know what comes next. You know what you're gonna you're gonna do so you can get past those little setbacks.
Vikki:Yeah. Absolutely. I love that. And, you know, it's funny as you were describing your mornings. This morning was really fun.
Vikki:It was before dawn when we were both got up, and I think it was, wasn't it the book, The Miracle Morning, where we started getting up early? If you haven't read that book too by Hal Elrod, Miracle Morning. So good. But we yeah. You're right.
Vikki:Not that long ago, a few years ago, we started getting up early. And this morning, our Christmas tree is in that window that John was talking about. Oh, yeah. And the and we actually have a pine tree out front. We live in Southern California.
Vikki:We have a pine tree in the front yard. And, actually, I have a of them. Exactly. And we're thinking about cutting them down and planting something else. But right now, I'm really enjoying because our Christmas tree is inside the house.
Vikki:The pine trees are out sight, and then they were just starting to glow, and it just looked gorgeous. I wished I could've, you know, snapped a photo. I guess I could've picked up my phone and done that.
John:We got tomorrow morning.
Vikki:But I feel like photos don't do it justice. You, like, had to be there. It just it felt like we were in the mountains, you know, because the background looked almost like snow even though it wasn't. So Yeah.
John:You're right. The photos really don't do it justice. So we have some friends that are in Switzerland right now. Yeah. And they've been sending us pictures.
John:And, Keith even said that on one of them, he said, you know, these pictures don't do it justice and they looked amazing. Yeah. He's got the Matterhorn in the background. He's got just the mountains in Switzerland. It's all snow covered and to us where the pictures were just amazing.
John:We've been to Switzerland.
Vikki:We've had time. Yeah. And we were jealous. We were jealous. Beautiful.
John:Yeah. But he was saying that the pictures don't do it justice. So you can take a picture tomorrow morning and just
Vikki:I know.
John:Not gonna look this up.
Vikki:I know. It won't. So, you know, I know this is off topic, but cherish every moment. Like, yeah, don't take life so seriously that you miss out on those little things for sure as you're building your dream as an entrepreneur. So number 5, batching tasks.
Vikki:You know, I would have thought I would have learned this many years ago, but I don't feel like I did. I feel like it was 2020 when we were coached, but we got we hired a LinkedIn coach. Shout out to Scott Aaron, if you're listening. Scott. Scott Aaron?
Vikki:No. Is that I think anyway, he's a LinkedIn coach. Scott, I'll have to look it up. Yeah. But, anyway, really good LinkedIn coach, he and his wife, and they they were having us, batch some content for LinkedIn, some videos, 3 minute videos on different, ingredients in our product, not talking about who makes our product, but just educating people.
Vikki:Right? Giving free content like we're doing here with our podcast, giving free content for all y'all. And and I realized, oh my gosh. That's brilliant. Instead of, like, at drudgery, like, oh, we have to make another video today.
Vikki:And then the next week, oh, would you would you just think you're done and then, oh, I have to make another one and it's you know, if it's not something you love to do, if you love to make videos, it's great. Right? But if it's, you know, out of your comfort zone, which for most people, that kind of thing is, batching content is so amazing. You know, set yourself free. Try it if you haven't.
Vikki:If you're coached or you just know that you need to, do something out of your comfort zone, do it. Schedule time in your calendar to do it in batches. Right? And if it is a video and you wanna make it look like different days, you just go change your clothes, come back on, do it again. In fact, we did that creating this podcast.
Vikki:Didn't we do 3 in one day? Just put different clothes on. You guys didn't even know. But, then, you know, you know, if you have a crazy month coming up and you've got to get some content out there, even if it's creating a PowerPoint, you know, it doesn't have to be a video, but you know you're gonna be speaking somewhere and you need a PowerPoint for this. But then a couple weeks later, you're speaking someone out somewhere else and you need another PowerPoint.
Vikki:Go ahead and batch it. Do it all in one day and get it out of your hair. And better yet, like John was saying on that matrix, if somebody else could do it for you, pay for it. Pay somebody else to do it. There are such great, content creators for you.
Vikki:You know, all VAs out there that don't cost very much at all. Your time is worth money, and I know that's kind of a different subject, but we talked about that years ago. I remember John calculated out how much we make in a day and then how much then divided that by how many hours in that day. And I remember one time you you I think it was around $500 a an hour. Mhmm.
Vikki:It was it was a crazy amount. So if you've never thought about that when you're, planning your day and thinking trying to do everything instead of paying someone else, think about that, what your time is worth if you were actually doing the tasks that are gonna make the the cash register ring. Right? So
John:because the the guy cutting mowing your lawn isn't you're not paying him $5100 an hour to do that.
Vikki:Exactly. Exactly.
John:And the other thing too is even if, you were thinking, well, gosh. You know what? It does still make sense for me to do mow my own lawn, to to maintain my own pool or whatever. Sometimes by paying someone else to do it, it gives you some free time, gives you that reset time that maybe it's better for you to have than to go from one task to the next task to the next task without any kind of a break. Give yourself a break.
Vikki:So good. So good.
John:And OSHA says that. Who? OSHA.
Vikki:Oh, really?
John:Occupational safety.
Vikki:Yeah. They do, actually.
John:Yeah. Well, it's it's kind of a joke. They just you have to take breaks. Suck. They require the law requires employers to give employees breaks.
John:So give you're your own employees, so give yourself a break.
Vikki:Right. That makes totally total sense. And one last thing about batching content is, it reduces your overwhelm. Right? Instead of always feeling you're switching gear feeling like you're switching gears, like, oh, I have to answer these emails.
Vikki:Now I gotta go over here. Now I've gotta do this. Now I have a phone call. But by staying in the zone and batching, you're not gonna be as overwhelmed switching gears all the time. So that that's totally true.
John:Yeah. So the next the next topic is gonna be planning for the unexpected, and we actually spoke about a lot of these things already. Get it having buffer time, right? So you want to leave room in your schedule to be flexible. And that's going to help you with your sanity for 1.
John:But it also helps you be more efficient because you have that flexibility. You have the time. Okay. This didn't go as planned because things won't always go as planned. In fact, generally, they don't.
John:Right?
Vikki:Exactly.
John:Then you really have to be flexible. You can't just be locked into a certain a certain way that things happen. I know we used to train that way when I was, you know, when I was a policeman and we would do entries. We served a lot of warrants. That was one of the things our unit did.
John:We served a ton of warrants and on those warrant entries, there's a certain way we go through doors and there's a certain technique that we use And, it's it can go one of 2 ways depending upon the first one going through the door. They kind of set the the the technique for the ones that follow through that doorway. And we would we would try and plan it out to be a certain way, but what if the first one through, number one through did the other? So if I'm going through second, I have to adjust and I have to I can't have it so locked in my plan and not and be inflexible because the whole thing's gonna go south on us. So the second one through the door has to key off the first and just go with whatever plan is laid out in front of them.
John:So just plan for the unexpected and just have a backup plan, especially for critical tasks. Right? You have to have some sort of a backup to where if it doesn't go, which like we said, it probably won't. If it doesn't go, you can make it happen. And if you think about some of the critical things we do in this country, like NASA, when they're sending men to the moon, right, and up into space, they have backups for backups for backups because they know things are gonna go wrong.
John:They expect it. And when they do, they don't just fold because there's lives at stake. They just say, okay. We're going to plan b. Plan b didn't work.
John:Okay. We're going to plan c. Don't worry, guys. We got you covered because we have a plan for this. So just plan for that.
John:You're you're gonna find that things will go so much smoother, and you'll stay sane.
Vikki:Yeah. And I'm I'm thinking about, also, like, we we just got a new projector for me because I'm gonna be training at some meetings coming up. And, I know we had an old projector, and I had to bring all the connectors, and I had to bring I had to plan for the unexpected always because you didn't know what you're walking into. Speaking in different rooms, you don't know what how you can connect your your, laptop and projector to maybe a TV or, you know, to the actually, projecting it on a screen. Sometimes I would bring an extra screen because I didn't know if what if something happens to the screen that the hotel's providing.
Vikki:So, yeah, it's really true, to always come with a backup. I bring extras of everything I know you always have. Even in police work, now that I think about it, I love throwing in the police stories. John and his backpack or war bag would have extra socks, extra underwear. I know that sounds crazy, but that was in case you had to spend them like, it was a late arrest and you'd be there the next day.
Vikki:You had, like, extra, like, extra T shirts, all kinds of extra. You just plan for it. Right? Yeah.
John:In fact, there's there's a backup for everything we had. And Yeah. And that was true even in photography. Yeah. When when I would go especially on assignments that required lighting, I had extra lights, extra stands, extra camera bodies, extra everything, and it just it it reminds me of something that happened.
John:We were at an event, and there was a professional photographer there, and the guy's exceptional. And he had 2 lights, but he needed 2 lights. One light didn't work, and he couldn't figure out how that light didn't work. He made it he made it all work with the single light, but I guarantee you he probably wasn't happy with the images he captured when he went back and and edited them on the computer because the second light makes all the difference in the world. But he's a good enough photographer.
John:He still made it work with a single light. But what if he had brought a backup? What if he had brought another light? He could have said, okay. You know what?
John:This didn't work. Boom. I'm gonna just toss it back in the bag. I'll put the light that does work on.
Vikki:Right. Right. So whenever you can. It's really smart. Yeah.
Vikki:And, planning yeah. So planning for that unexpected, totally critical. Number 7 is using tools to stay organized. And, you know, many of you know this, but, that really is part of calendar control, time management, if that's really a thing anymore. Now they're saying you can't manage time, so that's why I think a lot of people are saying time blocking and things like that.
Vikki:But, tools are critical. So, obviously, I've really switched to a Google Calendar. I just found that that Google plays well with others where Apple doesn't always. Sorry, Apple. But it's so easy because I have an iPhone, John has an Android, but we can connect our 2 calendars so easily using Google.
Vikki:And I just I love it, but and and believe me, I don't make any we don't make any money referring Google. We don't have an affiliate link or anything, but also things like Trello is another great tool that we used for a time. Actually, that came from our LinkedIn coach. Trello, Asana, there's so many out there. Talk to your favorite, coach to ask what their favorite tools are when it comes to organization.
Vikki:The benefits of a paper planner, though, to me and John, you know, you heard us talk about this. I think it was last episode or maybe the episode before, but we talked about having a paper planner, a hard copy, I still call it, and then and digital. Because on the fly, that's great for digital to kinda know, but, you know, nothing like handwriting and the act of writing and how that cements in the brain, you know, what you have going on that day and the next day. And then you know what? My favorite still one of my favorites, and John laughs at me all the time.
Vikki:The final tip on, on on using tools is actually my alarm on my iPhone. I do it all the time. He's like, your alarm's going off again. Your alarm's going off again. Because I get Google reminders on my Google Calendar.
Vikki:Like, I have it set to tell me 30 minutes before, 15 minutes before, whatever. But there's something with me. I need the I just need a and John will say, you know, Google has, like, a much softer, nicer, I don't know, you know, alarm. And I'm like, I know, but that doesn't do well here. You know, this I don't know.
Vikki:Anyway, I just love thing
John:is you leave your phone. You know, you'll leave the room, and she'll leave her phone in the room, and then her alarm goes off. There's alarms going off all day long and that alarm goes off. And then I'll sit there and look at her phone and I look this and she's not in the room. And I'm thinking, well, she's gonna hear it.
John:She's gonna come in and she's gonna turn that thing off and she doesn't and it just goes on and on and on.
Vikki:But if I'm doing the right thing I had I was wearing pink yesterday. If I'm wearing my Apple Watch I'm showing my Apple Watch if you're not watching us on YouTube or Rumble. That's one of the reasons you got me the Apple Watch too. I can turn the alarm off. Though, but
John:you're not turning it off.
Vikki:I knew he was gonna bring this up.
John:That that sound, that alarm sound is now it's I feel like Pavlov's dog. Right? I hear that sound. And if I hear anyone else that has that sound, which a lot of people do. Right?
John:Because it Yeah. Seems like they have an iPhone. So I'll hear that in a crowd and I'm like looking around for Vic, first of all, and then I realize she's standing I mean, that's not her. So I know it's someone else, but it just sends shivers up and down my spine when I hear that sound now. So now you've created that thing.
John:I just have
Vikki:a negative Sorry.
John:Reaction to that Apple alarm sound.
Vikki:It's just it's just for me since I have so many different Zoom meetings, this, this, and this, that I I for the most important ones, I set the alarm. So it's not all the time, but yeah. I know. I'm sure I irritate you. Just yeah.
John:No. But it makes sense. I was just Yeah. Kidding about it.
Vikki:We joke about this all the time. Just like Apple versus, don't get us started on Apple versus Samsung, you know. Yeah. We're a
John:house divided for sure. For sure. So okay. So number 8 is involving your family. And then why syncing calendars with your spouse or family is essential?
John:We talked about that. Right? It just it just makes sense, like Vic was saying that we we use, like, Google. We can then sync our calendars. Whatever it is you use, it doesn't have to be Google just as long as somehow you sync your calendars.
John:And if you don't use a digital calendar, spend like, we talked about the the 5 minutes in the morning when you're going over your calendar, include your spouse or the rest of your family in that in that time. Because that way you can then sync manually whether you write it in or talk about it or however you figure out your daily events that you include everybody, the whole family, so that everybody's in sync. One of the things that before we did this, and and even since we've been doing this, there are times that we don't. Like, we'll miss a day. We won't sync our stuff up together.
John:And I'll tell you, it's frustrating when there's something I had planned Yeah. And there was something Vicky has planned at the same time. And then it becomes like, okay, we're gonna arm wrestle to see who gets to do it.
Vikki:Yeah.
John:And what's really bad is there have been times where we've had one car, like during COVID, it was ridiculous to have extra cars when we weren't hardly driving anywhere. Right. You're paying insurance on those cars. So we went down to 1 car. Well, then after COVID lifted and things opened up again because we're out in California.
John:So California, unlike some other states, we pretty much shut down. I mean, the only things that were open were strip clubs and and and, liquor stores. And since neither of us frequent those those establishments, and there's nothing wrong with them if you guys do, I mean, I'm not I'm not, shaming anyone for that. I'm just saying that we didn't need to drive anywhere.
Vikki:Right.
John:And then once the the state opened up and all of a sudden now we were driving again, then it was an it was a fight. Okay. Who's got the car today? Or I need the car at 1 o'clock. Well, I didn't know that.
Vikki:Right.
John:So then it made it really important for us to sync our calendars and then get another car. Right. Which we we do both. We did both.
Vikki:Yeah. But it's so true. And how many times that that we taught you know? So it's not a perfect world. You know?
Vikki:What we're teaching, we do it, but things fall through the cracks sometimes. So just know you're normal. If you're fighting, not and we never fought, but it was just like, I I didn't have that. Well, I told you, no. You didn't.
Vikki:So it's so much easier when you have the calendar sync.
John:And I usually found out that there I did know about it. Like Vic will say, I told you that I had this whatever I had to do. And I'm like, oh, yeah. That's right. I do remember you saying something about that, but it was outside of that planning time.
John:And I think Right. It's important that you you spend that time with your family because that that 5 to 10 minutes and big deals, 5 to 10 minutes of your day. Right?
Vikki:Right.
John:And those those those minutes are precious because you can get so much done in that time and sync it all together with the rest of the family, and then everybody's on the same sheet of music, and it's great. Include your kids in it too. Even if your kids aren't building your business, they are in a sense because they're they're pulling time away from your business and it's good time. Right? It's it's it's, quality time.
John:You wanna spend time with your family. You wanna spend time with your kids. So make sure that they're a part of that. So if there's something that's important to them that they wanna do, you wanna make sure not to not to schedule business stuff if you can during that time so you can spend that time with with them.
Vikki:Right. They're the big rocks that we kind of alluded
John:to in the
Vikki:beginning.
John:That's why we're doing all this.
Vikki:Right. You take that jar. You know what we're talking about. Right? You take the jar, and the big rocks are what you put in first.
Vikki:So that is family. You know, all the family birthdays, that's what goes on our calendar first. Then the medium size rocks, if you will, are, for me, business and whatnot, and then the sand that fills in all the cracks or all the extra fun stuff that, isn't number 1 family, you know, or, entrepreneur driven. Right? So, yeah, absolutely.
Vikki:I'm with you a 100%. And just one quick thing on the calendar there with the kids, I would, always keep a a handwritten calendar at at kind of on the, refrigerator. So the whole family knew, and I would have the kit, make sure the kids had a different color. Like, green was for money. So green was the pen that we used when it was business related.
Vikki:We always did blue because we're a blue family when it was family family stuff. So those the family went on
John:for family meaning police family. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Vikki:Yeah. Blue family meaning police family, but it meant our family too. And, and then my I did pink for stuff that was for me and then John had another color, but, you know, color coding, but having everybody share in that calendars is huge.
John:Yeah. And another thing to do too is set aside some time to celebrate victories. Right? Celebrate wins. I think that's important for the whole family, and it teaches the right thing for for the kids too because it's they see that we're not just doing everything we do just to do it.
John:We're doing it for a purpose, and then we're we're excited and happy about the things that we do accomplish because they're meaningful. And if they're if the kids see that, they're meaningful to you, it becomes meaningful to them also.
Vikki:Yeah. 100%. Yes. And then weekly and monthly reviews. So yeah.
Vikki:So I don't know about anybody else, but I was a girl scout leader and girl scout when I was little, when I was in scouts, and my mom was a leader, then I followed in her footsteps. Our daughter was a girl scout, then I became a leader. And I will say 1 you know, say what you want about scouting because I know it's controversial a little bit right now. But the Girl Scouts of America are huge on, plan, do, review. They are so great at that.
Vikki:Right? So you plan so, like, your calendar is you planning the success of your life and your business. That's truly what your calendar is. It's your plan. And, if it's not on there, you know, then you're failing.
Vikki:If you don't have the action steps to make your dreams come true and goals come true, you're kind of failing, so you need to get that on your calendar. But, it's really smart to review after you've after, you know, the week's gone by, review your week and and look at where the benchmarks that you set for yourself, the goals that you set. Did you make them happen? What stopped you from make making that happen? Was it just laziness that you procrastinated on doing certain things?
Vikki:You know, be truthful with yourself. And even, you know, with the family, it's smart to plan, do, and then review it as well. Like, if you go to a family function and maybe there is a blow up. Right? It's smart to, you know, let everybody simmer down, but then talk about it.
Vikki:Right? So but same with your business life. So to me, that's critical that you should weekly review yourself. And, also, after the month and we talked about that. I believe it was last week.
Vikki:I actually held up that my planner and talked about goals and goal setting. It was the goal setting episode. So, yeah, that's huge, and I definitely learned that in girl scouts. And, actually, I should say my sorority. Any any pi beta phi people out there put it in the chat?
Vikki:I was in a sorority. I was president, and they taught us a lot of leadership skills. It was wonderful, but a big thing was always reviewing, and we would even send into the home office the review of what we had done. Even I'm in an alumni club right now, and they want us to plan, do review as well. So, of course, in your in your, personal life.
Vikki:And then, yeah, John already talked about that. Yeah. Celebrating your successes. So, that's that is critical. I'm such a big cheerleader that I always wanna celebrate successes.
Vikki:Yeah.
John:So yeah. And then can I add this about scouting? The Girl Scouts, everybody knows Girl Scouts for their cookies. Right? Yeah.
John:They just have the best cookies and all that. I don't know how many people know about Boy Scouts and their kettle corn. That is amazing.
Vikki:Yeah. I hope that.
John:Yeah. If and they never get any press. Right? And it's always the Girl Scouts and the cookies, which there's nothing wrong with it. That's great.
John:They have great cookies. But if you get a chance to try some of that kettle corn from the Boy Scouts, my Yeah. Maybe a kettle corn.
Vikki:Our son was a Boy Scout for a little bit. Yeah. That kettle corn is great, and I always try to buy from other scouts. So good. Yeah.
John:It's a good cause. Yeah. Anyways and then the last thing that we really wanted to talk about, and it goes back to, earlier. I think it was number 4. Yeah.
John:Morning or night planning nighttime planning, and I said it's probably best to have both. So this is kind of an end of day reset, and it's kind of like plan again, planning the day before the day begins. Right? So we take another 5 to 10 minutes. At the end of the day, first, you're gonna review everything that you accomplished and hopefully got everything done on that part of the matrix that was important and urgent.
John:Right? It's urgent, so hopefully you got them all done. And then you got probably a big big chunk taken out of the things that are important but not urgent. Right? So you wanna look at what you've accomplished.
John:And for those items that were important and not urgent, those go into the next day. Just rewrite them down for your your next day, in your plan. And then in the morning, you're gonna see if now are they urgent? Maybe they are, and it's gonna be moved to the top of your list. And then you plan for the next day to start with a clear mind.
John:So, it is nice to be able to wrap it all up and you'll sleep better because you put kind of a pin in it. Right? It's you've got it. You've got the plan already set up for the next day and you don't have to give it another thought until you wake up and then you spend that 5 to 10 minutes in the morning, taking pictures of the sunrise, right, and then just, planning out your day. And then again, celebrate small wins.
John:It helps keep your motivation high to keep doing these things that are that are gonna help carry you along. And I'll tell you one thing I sleep well at night. Then I think one of the reasons why I do, or I can tell you this, the nights that I don't sleep well is when I haven't done a good job of that end of day reset. If I haven't really figured out a plan for the next day, because at some point at night, I'm gonna wake up and the thing that's gonna hit me is I'm gonna be thinking about those tasks that I need to do that upcoming day. And I haven't figured it out yet.
John:And I just keep thinking about it and thinking about it. And once once my mind gets rolling that way, falling asleep again is next to impossible. I might as well just get up at 2:30 in the morning and start my day because I'm not going to go back to sleep.
Vikki:Yeah. Absolutely true. And I was as you're saying all that, that's me too. And I bet those of you listening, that's you too. And so we've just helped you with your sleeping better at night.
Vikki:If you if you plan the day before the day begins, you take it out of your head, put it on paper or digitally, and you're gonna sleep better.
John:Yeah. I can tell you the subconscious has such control over you. Whether you whether you wanna think it does or not, it actually controls you. And, by taking that time at night to figuring out what you're gonna do the next day, and like I said, you put a pin in it, it's finished, I've got a plan, I'm good to go, your conscious mind tells your subconscious that, hey. We're good to go the next day.
John:Yeah. And then your subconscious is okay. We'll figure it out.
Vikki:Yeah. It's so true. So so very good. Really cool. Well, we've given you a lot of tips today.
Vikki:10. 10 new ideas or maybe these these are ideas you all knew about, but it finally sunk in. Right? The student is ready when the teacher appear or the teacher appears when the student is ready.
John:There you go.
Vikki:Everybody gets twisted around, but it's true. Right? Maybe you're ready to hear it now finally. So but, honestly, trying too many things also can derail you. So just just pick one thing that we talked about today, one of our 10 ideas, and really hone in on that this week and the and the coming I was gonna say the rest of the month, yes, but it's Christmas and holidays and New Years.
Vikki:But take it that into January and take that one idea and really put it to use. And leave it in the comments. You know? Come back to this episode and tell us how it worked for you and how it changed something with your life and your business. We would really love to hear from you.
Vikki:And along those same lines, we're still in the middle of our holiday giveaway. Yes. So, we are doing 3 weeks of holiday giveaway. We have not picked any winners yet. So if you're hearing this, maybe you meant to to enter the giveaway.
Vikki:Maybe you've heard the 2 previous episodes. So it was 11, 12, and now 13. We're telling you about this giveaway. Basically, how to enter is like or so like our podcast, subscribe or follow on whichever it is on whichever platform because they call them different things. Leave a review if you can.
Vikki:I've noticed on Spotify, you can't leave a review, but on Apple Podcasts, you can leave a review. YouTube and Rumble, Rumble are video places where our podcast lives as well, but there, you can easily leave a comment on both of those. And so do that. Leave us a comment. We would so appreciate that.
Vikki:But then in the show notes, we're gonna give you our Bitly link, and it's I'll just tell you. It's bit.ly, and then it's capital d, capital t, cap capital w for dig the well, and then holiday giveaway. But holiday is capitalized and giveaway is capitalized. And the reason I'm telling you all this is the uppercase and lowercase matter. So it'll be in the show notes, what I just said.
Vikki:But you click on that, it's gonna take you to a link to register to be to win up to $800 in prizes. And we're not saying you can't win more than once. Okay? So we're actually gonna put all the names in a hat, and we're giving away $200 groupings of incredible clean skin care, hair care, wellness, and weight loss that has changed our lives. So we're just giving it away.
Vikki:We're just giving out free content and free products, and we're just excited, to get to know you better, build a relationship with you on this podcast, have you listen every week. We're just really, really excited about what about being entrepreneurs ourselves and sharing any any little tidbit that we've learned that could possibly help you. So thanks for joining us, and we Merry Christmas.
John:We won't Christmas.
Vikki:Yeah. We won't see you.
John:Happy holidays.
Vikki:Yeah. Happy holidays, everybody. Our next episode is gonna be the day after, and we're keeping it, guys. So merry Christmas and happy holidays, and we'll see you on the next next one. Bye.
Vikki:Thanks for joining us on Dig the Well.
John:We hope you feel empowered and ready to take on new challenges.
Vikki:Remember, if we can do it, so can you. Keep learning, keep believing, and going after your dreams.
John:And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with someone who needs a little inspiration or maybe a nudge in the right direction.
Vikki:Help us grow this community of go getters. Together, we can achieve greatness and get back to family.
John:Thanks for listening, and let's keep digging the way.