Prior to starting my business as a life coach I worked with my father in the financial services industry for over a decade. My job was to bring brand new people into the industry and help them to become successful. At that time, our measure of success was: at the end of 2 years they would be making at least $100,000 and taking at least 4 weeks off a year without working any evenings or weekends. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
We became quite good at training people up and so when I transitioned into life coaching, I began applying some of the same systems. And low and behold, they worked! So I thought I would share one of those systems with you.
I’ve shared this calendar system with dozens of clients, from business owners, to pastors and international ministry leaders, to coaches just starting out in their business and it has helped to provide freedom and structure to their respective businesses.
This system was developed by Wayne Cotton who was a mentor to both me and my father. Wayne developed this system after working for several years without taking a break which ended in a nervous breakdown. He applied the Ben Feldman quote, “If you have a problem, turn it into a process, and it won’t be a problem anymore,” and within a few years he was in the top 0.5% of insurance producers in the world and in the top 10% of public speakers in the world, all while taking 180 days off a year.
The calendar system is quite simplistic in that you just assign each day of the year a specific color and there are only 4 colors to use.
First, is “mellow yellow”. You start by planning your days off! “Time off fuels time on,” Wayne says. And I agree. Too often holidays, or time with family is squeezed in as an afterthought when in fact its that time the refuels our batteries and helps us to be more productive and efficient while we’re working. I don’t mind putting my head down and getting stuff done if I know I have a break coming up. But if I don’t know when my next break is, then there’s a good chance I can get burned out and start to become ineffective and unproductive the days I am working.
Second, is “blue sky”. These are days where you work on your business, not in your business. It’s on these days where you take a step back and evaluate how things are going. As coaches, we should be leaders in goal setting and goal achievement and so blue sky days are great to evaluate how things are going and how you would like them to go in the future. Wayne recommends at least one blue sky day per quarter, however the busier you get, the more blue sky days you’ll need.
Third, is “red tape”. These are administration days. Days where maybe you need to do work on your website, invoicing, bookkeeping, take a course, etc. They are the days when you take care of all of the things that help your business run, but don’t directly put money in your pocket.
And last are your “green machine” or money-making days. These are the days where you are actively making money in your business. Meeting with clients, leading workshops or seminars, etc.
The key is not to have more than one color per day. We’ve all had those days where we’re busy all day but don’t actually feel like we’ve gotten anything done. When we start to mix the colors, we end up with a brown day and we can typically flush those days down the toilet.
After you have planned your annual calendar, the next step is to take what you’ve planned and put it into a quarterly calendar. As we all know, life happens and things change, so each quarter on your blue sky day you can sit down and reflect on your goals from the last quarter and plan what you’d like to see happen in the next quarter. You can look at what things can be transferred from your annual calendar onto the current quarter, and what things need to change.
As 2020 quickly approaches I would encourage you to take a “blue sky” day and do some planning. Pray, reflect, and ask God what he has in store for you, and then together with him make a plan to make it happen. I pray that 2020 would be your best year yet!
(If you would like more information on Wayne Cotton’s planning calendars, or to download his annual and quarterly calendars for free, head over to www.nobrowndays.com. You’ll have to put in an email address but if you indicate that you are not a financial advisor you won’t receive any spam)
Chris Frost is founder of Strata Ltd, a coaching firm that specializes in coaching leaders in transition. That transition can be anything from not knowing how to take your business or personal life to the next level, to an unexpected loss or tragedy. Because of his unique training in coaching the heart, he is able to explore and often times help resolve areas that have kept people stuck for years. For more information go to www.stratacoach.com or email him at chris@stratacoach.com.