Get answers to your questions about marriage, parenting and family life from experts and parents of 7 children!

Rachel Denning (00:10.51)
Getting things done is one of the most critical ingredients for achieving your dreams and goals and building a lasting family legacy. Yet it's also one of the hardest things to do because of the natural ebbs, flows, and interruptions of family life. There are mouths to feed, diapers to change, laundry to fold, meals to prepare, and dishes to wash. How can you even think about taking action towards your big dreams and goals? Well, that's what we're going to dive into in this episode.

I've spent years reading business management and productivity books, and I always come away thinking how absolutely unrealistic their advice is for parents with children, especially if you work from home. But in this episode, I'm going to share with you the strategies I have learned and developed that have helped us to seriously get stuff done. These are the secrets to our success in being able to do it all, homeschooling seven kids, traveling the world.

creating an extraordinary marriage, and building a multi -six -figure location -independent business. Learn how you can become more productive without neglecting the things that matter most, your spouse, your children, or your household. This episode is sponsored by My Family Charts and Systems. Learn how to do more with less stress and have more cooperation at home. Click the link in the show notes to learn more about this system.

Rachel Denning (01:34.478)
Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. I am your co -host, Greg Denning. My amazing wife is here with me. We're sitting in our home office. Here's where we're moving soon. So we're basking in the comforts of having a home office while we have it, because that will go away soon. But we have big dreams of big offices.

and big libraries and amazing stuff. We have the coolest dream, I think. I mean, I'm a little biased, but I think our dream is the coolest. Because we're going to create this retreat center in, well, we have one kind of set up in Guatemala. We're going to do a big one in Portugal and a big one in France. And have it set up where you and we'll have couples retreats and retreats for men, retreats for youth and families. And.

have this retreat center set up where everything inside and out is all for inspiration and learning and growth and living an extraordinary life. So that's what we're moving towards. And it's so exciting. And that's why we are willing to give up the comforts we have to pursue the dream.

It's always what's required every time. You have to give up the comforts you have in order to move forward towards the dream. And it's always an unknown. There's no guarantees. And so you walk away from what you have to go after what you want. And it's scary. It is scary.

And sometimes it doesn't work. Well, let's say it never works out like exactly like you hope. Sometimes it works out way better than you hope. That's happened to us tons of times. That's that serendipity. You go chasing something and something even better that you couldn't have dreamt up happens. And then sometimes you're like, well, that didn't work at all. So let's regroup. But you're right. You have to be willing to walk away from what you currently have in order to get something greater. Yep. Whoa.

Rachel Denning (03:38.445)
Not at all related to the topic. Not at all, but just relevant. You got to be able to get uncomfortable. Today's topic is about the secret to getting things done. In every aspect of life, we've got you got to figure out how to get things done. Now, you might hear that and be like, well, yeah, duh. But day in and day out, do you really think about it? Hold on, though.

Oh yeah, duh. Some people think that, but we have met people that are like, I don't have any schedule. No schedule. Schedules bring me stress. Goals make you feel bad. Exactly. Well, I have a goal because you just feel bad when you don't accomplish it. And schedules are stressful and overwhelming. So you're right. There is the other side. The other side of that is no goals, no schedule, no plan. Just be. And I can understand that. In fact, we've done that before.

And I can understand where that's coming from. And I can understand the part of wanting to be productive, but relying on hope as a strategy. Man, I hope I can get things done. Hope is not a strategy. It's never been a strategy. But I remember times early on in life where I hoped to be able to get things done. And of course, I didn't. Or everyone's all that lucky, like a blind squirrel finding a nut.

But it wasn't, there was no way to be consistent in like how to repeat the result, right? Yes. And I think especially as parents, I know as a mom, that you feel that you don't have a lot of control over your schedule, over your life, over what you can get done. And there's definitely time periods when that's true. I would say when you...

sometimes when you're pregnant, sometimes when you have a new baby. Yeah, man, infants are... That's a challenging time and it does require more flexibility and more of that just being sort of existence. But I do believe that...

Rachel Denning (05:58.413)
you grow out of that and can gain more control over your schedule. And then of course, as your children get older, you know, even when they're one year, two, five, you get more and more control over your schedule. So we also want to keep that in mind. We're not, we're not, this is an advice for a pregnant mother that has a young child. Or a nursing mother, right? Right.

There are times and seasons. So if you're a nursing mom, you're not in the mode of like, let's get things done. Right. And so we have to remember that. Now there are ways to be a little more productive. You know, I would, I had, I remember simple strategies I had, say like when I was nursing and I, wherever I would nurse, I had things like right there. I had a book right there. So every time I sat down, I could pick up a book to read. That just made me feel better.

Because otherwise I'm like, I'm not getting anything done right now. I'm just sitting here, right? And yes, be in the moment and enjoy the bait and all that. But still my productive, ambitious self was like, I want to be doing something. And so I enjoyed reading while my baby was nursing. So there's things like that you can do. But it definitely was not the.

get things done mode. And it shouldn't be because infants require care that that's our most important priority at that time. Well, and a warning to those of you who are high achievers, you know who you are, you orderly people who live by your schedule and you've always just kind of been driven. I find that high achievers, high performers are just like that. They're just like, let's go, go, go, go, go, go. So a warning for you all.

man, you gotta stop sometimes and just be, you gotta ditch the schedule sometimes. So it's almost opposite of what we're gonna talk about today. Like those of you who are overly task oriented, you gotta chillax, man. And in fact, if you're gonna use your schedule, use your schedule to plan downtime. I just, I interviewed a gentleman on the Be The Man podcast recently and we talked about that of like scheduling in.

Rachel Denning (08:10.701)
time periods and even days or weeks where you are forbidden from checking email, answering texts, like you just have to break away and have some downtime to decock. So those of you who are very much scheduled and task oriented, you need to schedule time away. And I would definitely say that is a part of the strategy we're going to talk about today. You and I have scheduled time that we go away. For example, we went to Portugal in March for our anniversary.

And that was scheduled time away where, for the most part, we didn't do any work. It was just two weeks of us. It was just two weeks of us enjoying no schedule. We just got up when we wanted. We did what we wanted, went where we wanted. We had a very flexible itinerary. That time is magic. And it contributes so well to your overall productivity that seems counterproductive or counterintuitive there.

But that downtime does help you be more productive. And so you actually have to schedule downtime in your day, in your week, in the month, in the quarter, in the year. There needs to be chunks of downtime in order for you to be more productive overall. And so those of you who are like, yes, that's my language, downtime. I want downtime all the time. We're also speaking to you. And there's a warning for you of like, yeah, but you got to get things done.

And if you look at every part of your life, life overall is better, more meaningful, more fulfilling, more effective, and in ways easier when we're more productive, when we get things done, when we're effective. Well, and one of the things I've said in our coaching before, that all of us have these dreams of things we would like to do.

experience or have. But the reality is, I've said that everything you want is going to require more effort and work than you're currently doing. Like that's why you don't have the thing you want right now. That's why you don't have the life you dream of right now is because you're not doing the work that produces that life. It's not matching up.

Rachel Denning (10:39.437)
You have to be able to do more to achieve what it is you want. Like, that's just something I don't know that people realize. You have to become more productive, more capable, more skilled to get the thing you want because that's the price you have to pay in order to achieve that. And that's why you don't have it now because you haven't yet gained those abilities. Oh, that's huge.

We could end this episode right there. No, I'm serious. That would be enough of like, look, you don't yet have what you want because you haven't done it yet. And I guess that's why we're doing this. Because many of you, like I used to be, and in some ways still am, like, yeah, but how? How do we do that? How do we pull that off? What's the secret to getting things done? Because I'm already so busy. Yeah, I got all this stuff and things I got to do. And.

And most of you listening here, you have family. So it's marriage, parenting, relationships with extended family, community, people you work with. Then you have jobs or own businesses. You have church stuff. You have hobbies, projects going on, a house to take care of, investments to watch. And then things you just love to do. Like for us, it's travel. We want to travel all the time. So planning trips and then going on trips takes up a lot of our year. And so we have a lot going on.

How do you get things done? And that's what we want to talk about. And ultimately for me, I think the very first fundamental step is that you have to care.

And that seems so elementary, so basic, but we can't skip over it. You genuinely have to care. And it's, maybe it's caring as a whole, but it's also caring in each aspect. Do you care enough to organize your life? Well, I mean, before that, do you care enough to organize your mind so that then you can organize your life? Do you care about being effective?

Rachel Denning (12:48.749)
as a parent, do you care about the quality of your marriage? Do you care about the condition of your house, the condition of your body, the condition of your vehicles, about contribution, about making a difference? I mean, you go through every aspect of life and you have to honestly evaluate, do you care? Because if you don't care or you don't care enough, you might look at it and be like, oh, that's gonna take some effort. Nah, I'm okay.

And you settle for OK. I think that's what happens so often, is you find people, they just acquiesce. They settle for less than they could have or could be because they're like, it's good enough. It's fine. Yeah, it's OK. And they're OK with OK. So my first recommendation is don't be OK with OK. Well, something you like to say a lot is you get what you tolerate.

And I think that in every major turning point in our lives, ours personally, we made a change and pursued something bigger or grander because we stopped tolerating what we had. We literally like, we're done with this. We're tired of living in this trailer, right? We're tired of doing this. Like we're done. And so we cared about...

whatever it was that was bothering us in a way, we're also caring about what bothers us and we're paying attention to it and we're not just being okay with it. Because a lot of people do do that. They're like, well, we just need to be grateful and we just need to accept. And we're like, yeah, that's a good strategy sometimes, but sometimes it's a terrible strategy. Sometimes you need to be like, no, I'm not accepting this. I'm not tolerating this anymore. I am done either with this behavior or with this treatment or with this income or with this location. I'm done.

And so you start caring and you stop tolerating.

Rachel Denning (14:53.517)
And then you actually have some sort of motivation to make change. Yes. And so you raise a standard there. It's like taking a standard and raising it. And it can come down to even just wasting time or the quality of your use of time. Because not everything you do is of equal value. Well, I think it's directly connected there. Because once you start, once you stop tolerating.

things and you're like we've got to get out of this let's use a living situation you know maybe you're crowded in a small house and your family needs more space or it's just cluttered that comes over cluttered or both you need more space and it's too cluttered and so you think we're getting out of here well what do we have to do well we have to earn more money in order to earn more money what do we need to do well we better start a side job or something or a side business well that means we got to stop wasting time

So it's connected here because you start to see, wow, the wasting of time or just my time spent in pure entertainment is directly contributing to our cluttered and cramped living space. So because I care about improving my life in this area, I simply cannot afford to be spending my time entertaining myself. Exactly. I've got to be more effective. I love that. So the first piece then is caring.

And like a friend of mine in Alaska likes to say, sometimes you give a crap or it's broken and you don't give a crap. And so fix that thing. Care. Go ahead. Well, I'm kind of moving on maybe, but because I would say then related to this is getting clarity. So you have to start caring and in a way.

that means stop tolerating.

Rachel Denning (16:54.189)
And then once you, cause for me, I know sometimes it's often, I'm not sure what I want, but I know what I don't want. Boom. That's a great place to start. I'm tired of this. And so that's the first step for me is like, I'm done with this. And then it's like, okay, well, what do I actually want instead of this? Instead of this living situation, what would I rather have instead? And so there's something that happens simultaneously. The...

the caring increases as the clarity does and the clarity increases as the caring does. And so those kind of work together. And you start diving in as like, what don't I want? What do I want? Why? Why should I want it? Like what's there? What's the motivation? And often it's a lack of exposure. If you've always lived around people that live in certain conditions, you may not know any different. And every once in a while you go and get exposed to something, you're like, whoa, that's...

I didn't know that was possible. Yeah, well this is incredible. And exposure is a game changer. So we have to regularly, consistently, adamantly be exposing ourselves and our children to new and different things. That exposure will change your entire outcome in life and the quality of your life by exposing yourself and your children to possibility. Because otherwise you don't know any different. You get comfortable with the level that you're living in.

And then you look around, usually, you're like, you're, you're, you know, the people around you and you're like, okay, you know, this, this is how people live. But no, that's not true. It's just how this little group of people live and exposure will show you something like, wow, either I didn't know it was possible or getting around it, you know, it's that principle proximity starts working in your favor. You're like, I love this. And you're, you're intentionally getting around people who are doing things that you're not doing and living in a way that you're not living. Which.

A lot of people avoid doing that because it makes them feel uncomfortable. It makes them feel inadequate. It makes them feel like now their life isn't good enough or they're not good enough. Like there's a lot of reasons that people actually avoid doing that. And they choose to stay in these circles, these groups of people that are living the same way they are because they feel comfortable there. They feel justified for their existence, being the way it is instead of feeling like, wow, I'm...

Rachel Denning (19:16.621)
I'm really sucking at this and I need to do better. Or I could have a lot more, but I don't. So I feel bad because I'm not good enough, I'm not lucky enough, I'm not whatever, fill in the blank. So it's fascinating that the very thing that could help them change and get what they want, they actually avoid because it makes them uncomfortable.

Ultimately, that's it's born of insecurity and self doubt because you're right It is uncomfortable when you go exercise with people that are stronger than you that are faster than you when you try to engage in a conversation with people that are more educated than you are When you try to participate in activities with people who are wealthier than you are Whatever it is, man, it's uncomfortable and humbling. Yeah, it is just humble pie for me. I

on a regular basis to train in martial arts or in fitness or name all the things we work on. I love being around people that are better than me and I come home with your tail between my legs kind of like, oh boy, there's another massive surfing. You just came home, was it this week or last week from a training session and you're like, yeah, they kicked my trash pretty much. Cause you were working with black belt SWAT team guys that are...

Highly trained. And a literal grand master. Oh yes, grand master. And so, you know, it's actually really, really good for me and us. Maybe just me, maybe I'm the only one. You get going along, you're like, all right, I'm... I'm pretty bad at it. I'm a pretty tough guy. Like, I'm pretty strong and I can fight. I can fight and I'm good. And then you go and you're just like, I got worked so fast, I didn't even have a chance. Like, didn't even have a chance.

And all the while I'm thinking, I think I can get a punch in. Nope. He was just toying with me like a cat with a mouse. You little mouse. You're so cute. How cute you are, but completely ineffective. And it's, that's good. It's humbling. One thing Greg and I say to each other that we understand is like, you have to be the small fish in a big pond.

Rachel Denning (21:41.133)
where a lot of us like to, we enjoy, we feel comfortable being the big fish in a small pond. We're the big man on campus. We are the top dog. And that's where we want to be, but that's not where you grow. Because the campus only has seven people on it. Right. And you're Mr. Tough Guy. There's no growth there. There's no expansion. Exactly. So if you remain in the small pond as the big fish, you can't achieve your dreams because your dreams...

in the big pond. But going there you're going to be the small fish. Interestingly some people will set aside or let go of big dreams because they realize they got to move to a different pond that's uncomfortable and humbling and difficult. So if you've done that, if there are dreams that you've given up on or ideals that you've let go because they're...

maybe you told yourself they're not realistic or it'd be too much work or whatever. And there are times when it is too much effort or too much work or it is wrong. That it's not aligned with what you want most. But if you've let something go because of fear or insecurity, whatever, bring that thing back to life. Care some more and bring that back. And I didn't anticipate talking about this, but you're absolutely right. Exposing ourselves to a higher level of doing things and people who are.

living in a different way is a critical element to getting things done because it's going to cause you to rise. And when you as a being become more productive and more effective, it will spill over. It's just like that spillover effect. Every part of your life starts getting better and easier because you are better. Right. But you don't and until you have that exposure, you don't really have the motivation to get things done.

How many times have you worked with coaching clients or this has happened with our own teenagers as they've grown and matured, they've reached a point where they kind of conceptually understand this idea of getting up earlier, but then they get up early and they don't know what to do with themselves because they don't have the drive, the motivation, the vision, the clarity to see why they should be getting more done, if that makes sense. Otherwise it's like, what's the point? Why get more done? Why be more productive? Why get up early?

Rachel Denning (23:59.757)
I do, I get up early and I just sit there because I don't know what to do. Or what I've also seen is we gain some ground and it feels fantastic. We make progress and we think, dang, I've arrived. This is great. And so we often grab low hanging fruit, so to speak, like the easy changes, the easy improvements in any or every aspect of our lives. And we think, man, this is really great.

And we settle off right there. I'm done. So instead of continuing to level up, we level off because you're like, wow, this is so much better than what I was just experiencing. Like we consistently see this with coaching clients and people in our programs. In six months to a year, you can drastically change your quality of life. I mean, how you're doing life and experiencing life just totally different. It's amazing. And you can be so happy and fulfilled and thrilled by the results. This is great. And then you just level off.

you may slide back down or you may even maintain that position. But we want to encourage you to keep progressing, keep growing. To me, that's the purpose of life. Because there's never ending leveling up. Yeah, there's so much more to enjoy and experience as we continue to rise. So another thing that I want to really emphasize is that if we do not keep our life in order, then...

everything and everyone else will encroach on our lives and create chaos and stress and overwhelm and ineffectiveness. It's almost just this like law of, it's the law of the garden in essence. Like if you don't consistently pull the weeds and keep the plants in order in the garden. Plant the things you want. Plant the things you want and protect them.

nourish them and weed around them, then just the default is that the weeds will come in and overtake it and overgrow it. And you'll go back out in a couple of weeks and your garden is overgrown and like the plants are shriveled up or dying and like, ah, right? And there it is again. And you just, you guys can picture, right? Can you picture with my walk out and then like just this weedy, nasty, gnarly garden and you're like that feeling, that feeling of walking out and like, ah, right?

Rachel Denning (26:18.573)
So we have to keep our lives in order. We have to keep things organized. We have to be the gardener. Orderly. We've got to be the gardener in our own lives. Which comes back to the caring. Like, if you don't care if there's a weed patch out there, you're not going to go out there and do anything about it. But then you also have to have the clarity. Like, well, why am I going to weed and what am I going to plant? Because a weedy garden sucks.

Just like a lame life sucks. That's, oh man, sometimes dear friends and listeners, I just want to grab you by the front of the shirt and like, don't do this to yourself or your kids or your family. Do not accept the weeds. Do not accept the cruddy life. Yeah, care more and enjoy, like you've got a taste, so to speak, you have experience.

what it's like to have that organized life, because it feels so good. And the benefits and rewards of it, right? Comes back to that. And so it requires us to mature as gardeners in our own life and to keep things orderly. Again, from the inside out, it's always from the inside out. Like we read this morning in our devotional from Azam and Thinketh with our family, he said, your circumstances are...

merely the just reward of your thinking and your feeling. Oh man, that's so simple and so profound. Like the situation and circumstances in your life, whether you're effective or productive or not, whether you really struggle getting things done or not, is merely a reflection and a just reward for your current patterns and habits in thinking and feeling. Boom. And caring or not caring. Yeah.

having clarity or not having clarity. And having a plan or not having a plan, having a schedule, not having a schedule. And so it all fits. So that's the big picture. That's the foundational piece of being productive because you can't or won't be productive unless you have that understanding, unless you have, unless you care, unless you stop tolerating, unless you have clarity, unless you have a vision.

Rachel Denning (28:42.893)
Otherwise you won't be motivated to do any of the strategies, tips, techniques that are out there for productivity. Like all of that is useless if you don't really care and have clarity about what you're pursuing and why you are being productive. Exactly. The best tactics and strategies in the world won't help you because you're just, you'll just look at them and be like, that's nice.

But too much work. Yeah, back to my entertainment. So the next principle I want to mention here is the principle of focus. What is it you focus on? As you study the lives of great achievers, you find that they tend to focus on results where unsuccessful people tend to focus on methods.

they're focusing on what I have to do and successful people are focusing on what I get if I do or when I do that thing. And there's a difference there and it's significant. Because if you focus on the end result, it's a draw, right? That's your why, that's your motivation and it draws you towards like this magnetic force and you'll push through doing consistently what needs to be done with excellence to get there.

But if you're only focused on the method, what I need to be doing, the method isn't always pleasant. Now, I did a podcast recently on the Be The Man podcast about learning to enjoy the journey. In fact, just having an absolute blast. Getting into the methodology and the work and just loving it, right? Just like, this is great. You can pursue greatness and the strain and the grind and the work and love it. It's totally possible. But it is...

quite frequent, for example, that I don't feel like working out or I don't feel like doing the next set or even the next rep, the repetition of an exercise. And fortunately years ago I learned to not pay attention to those feelings because I'm not interested in whether I feel like doing it or not.

Rachel Denning (31:07.117)
In a moment of clarity and inspiration, I decided, yes, these things are good for my life. These things produce the results that I ultimately want. And so I focus on the results and I disregard whether I feel like doing it or not. Now I'm not disregarding like, oh, my body hurts or I should rest, I should take the day off or that feels like an injury. I'm not talking about that. I'm just saying you're like, you're getting the druthers, right? You'd rather not do it. You're feeling lazy. You're like, oh, I just...

They all skip today. That kind of crap. Like, no, I'm not, I'm not, ask me if I care because I don't. Right? This is how I talk to myself when there's another set to be done. And so, you know, and it's, it's, it's in the middle of summer in Georgia. It's hot and humid. And I throw on a 40 pound vest and go outside. I'm like, whew, it's hot and humid. It's uncomfortable.

And I'm like, I don't care. Nobody asked you about the humidity level or the temperature, sissy boy. Right? And I'm like, I'm not looking for those conditions. Like, well, I will work out and be healthy if all these things line up. It's not too hot and humid outside. Like, I'm at 65 and it's just perfect and everything's great. And if my neighbors will line up and cheer as I go past, that would be great.

then I'll work out, right? Like, no. And, you know, the working out metaphor is perfect because it's, we all understand that and it's representative of the process, but this is essentially the same thing you're going through no matter what it is, whether you're trying to write a book, trying to write an email, create a business, homeschool your kids, like.

We all face these moments of, I'd rather not do that. It's too uncomfortable. It's too much effort. They won't just sit down and listen to me like I ask. You know, people won't just call me up and give them to go to bed. Yeah. People won't just call me up and give me money. Like it's so much work and effort. And so we end up not getting the results because we're focusing on.

Rachel Denning (33:33.965)
the methods, we're focusing on the process, we're focusing on the work required instead of like, okay, wait, what are the results we're trying to get? And if that means I have to call 27 people a day, or I have to find a better way to get through to my kids and inspire them and encourage them to sit down and do the work, then that's what we have to do, rather than saying, oh, it didn't work, it was too hard. I guess I'm not gonna do that. That's a perfect example.

So teaching your kids life skills or having them help out around the house is, you know, you think, well, man, if I just do this, there's no fight and it'll get done faster and better. So I'll just do it. I'll just do it myself instead of getting my kids to do it. But then the kids are like, what are you teaching your kids? Sweet, I don't know if you're gonna do anything. Casual, do anything. And then if they ever leave your house, because why would they? You do everything for them. If they ever leave, they don't have any life skills. So yeah, it is.

slower and more effective. And you often have to come up with some serious persuasion skills in your diplomacy, right? And sometimes there is a battle like, yeah, you little bugger, I love you, get over here. You're helping out because you gotta pull your weight. Life isn't this free ride where people do things for you. Right. Well, I just did a reel. I want to expand on this a little, because I just did a reel on Instagram and it was talking about getting our kids to do chores and how...

Well, it came from our podcast episode we did about chores. But I talked about how we give our kids a good reason for doing the chores so that they're like, oh yeah, that makes sense. I'll do the chore. Now, someone left a comment that was funny. They're like, yeah, we do this too. And we joke that it's the harder way to do parenting and to get your kids to do chores, which is true. It requires more effort. You have to understand.

Personally, philosophically, like why do we do chores and why does it matter and what are the reasons? Why do I do chores? And then you have to learn the diplomacy and the influence to be able to explain that to your kids. It requires a lot more effort, thinking, personal development in order to effectively do it so that you explain it to your kids in a way that they understand it and then they want to do the chores. That's a lot more work. It's a lot harder. But the results you get...

Rachel Denning (36:02.893)
are powerful and long lasting and overall more beneficial for your children and your relationship with them than just, you need to do chores because I said so and I'm the boss. Absolutely. So, but you're right, there it is. The method. The method is, it's work. Is work. Yeah. It's effort. Now, if you want, this is why this one's a perfect example.

Because the end result is a child who grows up to just be, well, and is as a child, a great child, then grows up to be a superb human being as an adult. That's the end result. But it requires the uncomfortable methods. And so if I focus on the result, I'll do the methods. If I focus on the method, I'm not always going to feel like that. I'm like, ooh, not today. I don't feel like, ooh, ooh. And I come up with every kind of excuse again and again and again. And so I don't ultimately get the result because I didn't like the method that was required.

Here, I'm sorry, I'm gonna give another example. Because one of the things I do, a lot of, in fact, I have a little course on it, is charts and systems for our family, because I'm constantly doing charts. Like I've been doing them for years. And something that people will say to me when they try to do it, it's like, oh, I did a chart and it didn't work. And I'm like, well, that's probably because you, as the parent,

didn't follow through, you didn't problem solve, you didn't look up, look at the reasons that the chart wasn't happening and then do something about it. A perfect example just happened within the last week. I had charts going for all my kids, my little girls who are eight and five had stopped doing their charts. And as I examined it, it was because I pay them for doing their charts and every day for the little girls, I pay them every day because that's more motivating than.

getting paid every week and I didn't have cash one day to give it to them and you know it's like two dollars or something but I didn't have it. Immediately their motivation dropped. They didn't want to do it anymore. Well it's easy to just say oh I guess this system isn't working. I guess I tried the charts it's not working they lost motivation. No I had to get creative about how to re -motivate them to get them back into going.

Rachel Denning (38:28.749)
And so I sat down with them and we talked and we talked about, you know, the things they wanted to buy or get or do or create. And then I even took them to the store because there was a lot of resistance at this point, because I actually, we had visitors and I let it go for over a week or something. And so by the time we were trying to get back into it, there was a lot of resistance. I said, okay, do your chart today and I will take you to the store today to look at the things that you could buy in the future from all of the.

money you'll earn from your charts. That right there motivated them. And so this is the idea behind being productive and pushing through the methods. Because if you want those results, you have to get creative. You have to think about what's standing in your way, what's not working, and how you can influence, motivate, overcome those obstacles in order to move ahead.

and get the results that you want. Then plus, not only are you improving, increasing your own productivity, but you're increasing family productivity because when you can motivate your, say your kids to do their studies or to do their chores, that's like multiplying your own efforts. I now, like cloned myself, not exactly, but you know what I mean? Like I have...

extra helpers in the house that help us to get more done in the house because they're doing the charts that I set them set out for them to do. And so now it becomes a compound effect that ripples through the whole family experience and ultimately through the family legacy. Exactly. Whoa, that's huge. What was so cute about the girls too is they didn't just go get whatever doodads they they ended up getting some crafts and little things to work on. So.

The reward system isn't just frivolous and silly. It's actually their reward that they're so motivated for is fostering creativity. It's education. They're learning new things, practicing new skills. They've been sewing these little amazing little things. And they spend hours sewing beautiful things, putting them together, and then writing and names and all this stuff. It's just so cool watching them. And they're motivated and excited to learn. We're not.

Rachel Denning (40:50.925)
having to make them do it, they're begging to be able to do these things. So it's setting up systems. Again, the tools only work when we work. The strategies, the systems, they only work when we work. And that's part of getting our lives organized. And it's the secret to getting things done. Well, I guess I want to emphasize this point too, because I try to be a very productive person myself. And so the fact that I...

had to take them to the store. I guess I didn't even emphasize this enough. That was a major quote interruption to my schedule, right? Because I don't, we don't usually go to the store a lot. Like we travel a lot, but when we're home, we're home. I order things online, groceries, Amazon. So we get most of our stuff delivered. Going to the store, it doesn't happen very often. I think that's one of our secrets to getting things done. It's true. Stop.

going to the store. Stop doing errands. And so going to the store was a big deal. And actually they had asked me to take them to the dollar store a couple weeks ago and I was like, oh, it just wasn't in the schedule. And so that combined with not getting the paid because I didn't have the cash, I didn't have the small bills, demotivated them. And so I had to overcome my own resistance and interruption to my own productivity to re -inspire them.

to get back into the thing. So it's again, we're talking about this, the methods and not being put off by the method that you have to use to get the results. You have to be willing to do those things, even if it's interrupting your schedule to go to the store, right? So I had to overcome my own resistance to motivate them to do the things that would get the results I wanted. And even then I was present when that was happening, you still had...

them do their things and you did your things and then fit that into your schedule so you could go out and come back and get into it. Yeah. Be more effective. So I think that's a good lead into looking at our schedules and planning what you're doing. Because if we don't deliberately and intentionally schedule our time, then someone else or something else will take it. It'll come right in and take over. So if you don't plan your life, somebody else will.

Rachel Denning (43:10.157)
If you don't use your schedule, including your kids, yep, somebody else will. Especially your kids. And that's again, it's just kind of that law of nature that if you don't fill and care for the garden, it'll just get overcome by something else. And this is true with your schedule and your plans. If you don't have plans, somebody else will use it for theirs. I do want to intercede with maybe a little interstep here because I know this worked well for me.

Perhaps even before you start planning your schedule, one of the things I did for a while was tracking my time. There's an app you can use that tracks your time. I actually used a spreadsheet that tracks your time. Because at first, I know as a mom, we're kind of like, I really don't know what I'm doing all day long. I have no clue. Or we think we do. Or we think we do. I talk to people all the time, like, oh, I'll do this. We'll track it. Yeah. Let's see. And then you sit down and you're like, what did I actually do today?

So I started tracking my time and in fact I was tracking every 15 minutes of my day. And it's very fascinating because it brings awareness. You're like, oh wow. First of all, this is I think something that's helpful for moms is that you actually realize that you are getting more done than you thought you did. Because a lot of things that you do, you forget about it, you don't even know. So that brings.

some peace and comfort. You're like, oh, okay, I'm not just spending all my time picking up messes. I actually did a lot. I read from a book, I did this, I listened to a podcast, you know. Maybe it's 15 minutes during the day, but you're like, okay, over time, over the week, that adds up. So that's one thing it does is it helps you to see that your life is not completely the chaotic mess you thought it was. There's a little more structure there than you realized.

Or in some cases, it is the chaotic mess you think it is. If that's the case, then this is the perfect opportunity to have that awareness. So tracking time can be very valuable because it is bringing that awareness of how am I spending my day and overall, how am I spending my week? What am I doing throughout the week? Then once you have that awareness, it helps you get a little more.

Rachel Denning (45:31.437)
Structured about well, how do I want to spend exactly and that's where we really get into the planning exactly because and it can start that basic level like okay wait a minute if I if I had an ideal week if I had an ideal schedule and plan if I could kind of wave the magic wand so to speak like what would it look like and The coolest thing that sounds so like Cartoon fairy tale, but it's a

I just interviewed this guy his episode. I haven't published it yet, but it'll be coming out soon He wrote a book called the life in air and his name is Steve cook He's a friend of ours that we met in Guatemala years ago and he was extremely successful real estate investor and Then he stopped sitting up and this is costing me my success in business is costing me far too much with my family and my faith and So he shifted his whole approach and now he just he that's what he does. He coaches

He's still an investor, but he coaches entrepreneurs and business owners how to design their lives and design their schedules. And he starts, literally starts by designing an ideal schedule. And he recommends, you guys need to listen to the podcast when it comes out, but he recommends about 25 hours of work a week. And he's like, and you stick to it and you honor your schedule and it forces you to be effective and productive. So.

You get clear about what it is you want in your schedule, what would be great, what would be ideal. Pencil it in and then try to honor that. Try to make that happen. Try to make it a reality. It's huge. It's huge. Now I want to emphasize right here, it's so simple and yet so significant. There is a gigantic difference between...

waking up and knowing what you want to work on today versus waking up and wondering what you should do. Yeah. It doesn't seem that significant, but it's huge. Or waking up and just doing whatever is thrust upon you, which happens with moms a lot. I know that from experience. You literally wake up. I remember those times when you wake up to your kids saying, I need this, I need that, I need that. And you go through your whole day like that.

Rachel Denning (47:57.229)
And I understand why that happens, but you can be more intentional so that you know what you want to do that day and you provide more direction to your family so that they help you and allow you to be able to get those things done. Exactly. And so I do, I actually do want to add that right here because as we're talking about scheduling and like, you know, you're talking about creating this ideal schedule.

Um, from the perspective of a mom, I know for me, cause I, I do like, I'm really into business and I like reading business books and, and, you know, all kinds of time management books and things like that. Like I like those things, but I've always found it unrealistic for a stay at home mom. Because when you create this ideal schedule, I've done it before.

I know Brian Tracy wrote years ago, he's like, I have every half hour of my day scheduled. And I'm like, I'm going to do that. It's going to be amazing. Right. And then your kids disrupt it all. And so for me, I've learned to schedule in a different way and create routines in a different way where it's not like every half hour. It's more like chunks of time. And during those chunks of time, it's, it's essentially a focus. I'm focusing on this specific part of my life. So for example,

In the morning, I have a chunk of time which could be anywhere from, depending on when my kids wake up, could be anywhere from an hour, maybe two hours, to let's say 10 minutes. But during that chunk of time in the morning, I'm intentional about how I use it. I focus it on personal growth and development. That could be exercising, that could be reading, that could be writing on my book, that could be anything I want to do in my morning routine. Then the next chunk of time, I devote to...

Family slash education time. And that's from whenever my kids wake up until let's say lunchtime. During that time, I'm flowing with whatever's happening in family life. I'm getting a drink of water, I'm doing this, I'm making food. It looks very chaotic. But I know in my head and in my schedule, that chunk of time is family time. So whatever happens during that time, great. I'm there, I'm available, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna help, I'm in it. I'm not thinking about business, I'm not thinking about...

Rachel Denning (50:25.773)
what I want to get done for personally, I'm not thinking about all these other things. Yeah, the thoughts might come up, but I'm like, right now, this is this time. This is what I'm doing. So I'm focusing on anything education or family related. And what if, what if a business call or text or email comes up during family time? I usually ignore it until later. Okay. Yeah. So, and I'm, and I asked this specifically because I had a coaching client recently reach out and like, Hey, how

How do we do this? Specifically, how does Rachel do this? How does she work on business and family? How do you combine the two things? Because they want to intermix and mingle all the time. And before you had the schedule and this kind of these. It's not so much as schedule as it is a... There's no hard times. Yeah, no hard times. It's just principles. I mean, there is a type of time. It's generally 8 .30 to 9 a .m. until...

12, 30, or 1 p .m. But it's never a hard time. It's never a hard time. And the question was like, wow, because before you got set up like this, it's just everything's a chaotic mess. Everything flowed everywhere and I felt overwhelmed. It's always encroaching on each other. One thing over here, over there, and you don't feel like you get anything done. Right. Okay, so it's personal, then family, and then after lunch. Then after lunch, it's business time, essentially, for me. And so that's, like I tell my kids, I'm like, hey.

If you want my help with something, especially for education or whatever, that's in the morning. If you need to use my computer for studies, that's in the morning. In the afternoon, I'm using it. So they know that that's my work time. And they can still come in my office and ask me things and talk to me. But mostly they know I'm going to be in my office and I'm going to be working. And you know, especially on this, and this is important, I think, to emphasize, during work time, you know there will be little interruptions from the kids. Yes, absolutely. And you can address it.

and get back to work because it's work time. And you can tell them, this is my work time. I got you. And you've already spent time with them. You've already dedicated time to them because you're good. So it starts to work and it builds this relationship. There's training and conditioning involved, but it starts to work and it works way better than nothing. Right, exactly. So that to me has been way more effective and less stressful on me than trying to have this hard and fast.

Rachel Denning (52:51.949)
At 9am I will do this, at 9 .30 I will do this. That just doesn't work in my experience with family life. At home family life.

Man, this is, this stuff is so important.

We have to figure out, and there's going to be some trial and error and some experimentation, but we have to figure out how to get things done. We have to figure out how to move forward. How to get, what I love to emphasize here is palpable progress. Like evidence, overwhelming evidence that would hold up in court. Are you making progress? Are you getting things done? Are you moving things forward? Could that hold up in court? Because we go along, oh, I'm so busy.

Yeah, what do you actually do? What do you have to show for it? Well, and that's the thing about because when you're creating some sort of schedule or routine like this you're being more intentional about it because then if I'm like, okay, this is family time or education time Well, that's my whole focus. So now what am I gonna do with it? Like I have to be more intentional about how I use this time because

this is dedicated to this purpose. The same with my work. When I'm actually working, I need to be focused and productive. I need to produce these palpable results because otherwise why have a work time if I'm not gonna produce anything from it? And so it forces you to be intentional, to pay attention, to be productive during that time because otherwise you might as well be doing something else or nothing. It necessitates...

Rachel Denning (54:32.781)
But yeah, and you could be doing something else and you could be doing nothing and some people do. But ultimately that's, it's unfulfilling. It's not producing the results. It's unsatisfying and it might, it might feel pleasurable. Less stressful, less effortless. Let's just coast, let's just drift. But nobody ever coasted to the top of anything. And some people say, well, I don't want to go to the top. Well,

You probably want to go to the top of something. If it's coconut tree, I don't know. Why would you not want to rise? Why would you not want to be the top of health and spiritual growth and mental stand? Well, what's the word? Mental? Clarity? Mental? Awesomeness. Mental fitness. I get a great education in emotional well -being.

Why would you not want to have all of those things in parenting and marriage? Or at least a few of them. Let's get to the top of what's possible in an extraordinary marriage. But no, I don't want to get to the top. Babe, let's just settle for a really mediocre marriage. Let's get to the end of our life and say, well, that was OK. How lame. Being married to you was OK. It was OK, babe. We had an OK 50 years together. Oh, that's disgusting. Oh, man. So you have to...

Like get in and have a desire to go somewhere. But the point being, if you look inside, there is something you want to be at the top of. Absolutely. Whether that is spirituality or physical fitness or mental, emotional health. And no matter what it is, it requires this effort and time and attention and intentionality. And all of that requires you to manage and direct your time.

and how you use it, how you spend it. You know, you don't have to be...

Rachel Denning (56:32.653)
pushing papers and trying to produce financial reports in order to be productive. If you want to be spiritual, you need to be productive because you need to have time to be spiritual, to practice meditation, to practice, you know, to pray, to read, whatever it is. Like it requires the use and the effort and the energy of time and energy. And getting better and better at it. It takes practice. Exactly. Getting better and better at it. Cause even something like meditation, you know, requires you to get better at it in order for it to be.

truly beneficial, and that requires effort. Yeah, so I guess to clarify, getting to the top doesn't necessarily entail any kind of competition, like you're above others. It's just, it's pursuing greatness. It's reaching upward. Two quick thoughts before we wrap up. One is we have to eliminate distractions. Emails, messages, screen time, TV, alerts, whatever, other people's agendas.

we've got to get better and better at saying no and figure out systemic ways to eliminate distraction. For example, I have most, if not all notifications turned off on my phone. I get notifications from text messages from my family. And then I do get Instagram notifications because Instagram is part of my business. But other than that, I'm always amazed when I see someone's phone and they have like all these notifications, I'm like, whoa.

Yeah, no wonder you're constantly interrupted and overwhelmed. And in all honesty, the notifications are literally set out for addiction. And so many of you are addicted to notifications. You get a little hit. You get a chemical hit in your head every time there's a little notification. Yeah, I know some of your coaching clients even before you've talked to them and you're like...

Oh, I end up getting distracted with this and that. And I'm like, how does that happen? Well, the YouTube notification shows up and you're like, turn off the YouTube notifications. You have that turned on? And then emails. I unsubscribe from pretty much anything and everything. My email box is meant for very important communication. That's it. And so this is just an example. We say no to so much, no, unsubscribe, no notifications. Because all of it adds up in taking time away from you.

Rachel Denning (58:54.829)
It's weeds in your garden. Which reminds me, I have about five emails that I've just been quickly deleting because they've made it so hard to unsubscribe that I haven't unsubscribed. So no joke, I think three to four times a week, there are four or five emails I'm just quickly deleting and I'm doing that every day. Now it's just a few seconds, but it's three to four times a week I'm deleting these five emails because they made it so hard to unsubscribe. If they make it hard to unsubscribe, I mark them as spam.

Nice, nice. Okay, there's a little hack there. So I need to get rid of those. I just brought that up. One last thought I just want to really emphasize. I have my philosophy journal and in my philosophy journal I wrote down that if you and I are not spending at least three to four hours a day on our most important work, then we are failing to lead our lives well. And I wholeheartedly believe that. And...

And it's going to look different for each of us what's most important. Well, that's part of the clarity piece. Some of us don't know what is my most important work. But if we get that clarity and then we do it, game changer. Life changing literally to get that dialed in. So can't emphasize enough here the importance and the reward. Not just, hey, we got to do this. You guys like.

Wow, it is so much better. Everything is better when we're dialed in and we're more effective and more productive. Exactly. Going back to kind of how we started, everything you want, everything you dream of or imagine of having or creating, it lies on the other side of effort. It lies on the other side of productivity because you have to become more productive.

and be able to do more and create more in order to create that life you dream of. Fantastic. Okay, so pick one or two things you work on right away. Get dialed in on this. You can be more effective and productive starting today and especially tomorrow. Go ahead and subscribe to the podcast if you haven't yet. Share it with friends, family or colleagues. Go ahead and leave us a review up to five stars if you like this. And as always, reach upward.