“Reflect & Reset is a monthly routine for the intentional entrepreneur” - Collected Creatives 

👀  REFLECT & RESET  ✨

How to create a Reflect & Reset routine in your creative business. (And why you should even bother) 

Just reflecting on the basics has been a game changer for me in my creative biz.  Once I started doing this on a weekly basis, I managed my time better, I put my focus on what really matters and I stopped wasting my energy on things that are not growing my business. And the biggest gift this Reflect and Reset routine gave me was, it helped me see that I was totally over-giving to the point where I was completely depleted.

You always hear the “experts” saying “know your numbers”. That always irritated me, (probably because I didn't know my numbers 😂)  so I took that and “Jadey-ified” it. I agree with the principle of knowing your numbers but I know myself, If I don't make it fun and beautiful, I will not keep up the habit! And that is how REFLECT & RESET was born. 

Here’s how you can create your own Reflect & Reset routine in 3 steps.

Step 1 - The Reflect setup

Decide on your categories 

What is important to you and your business? For me, my biggies are time, money, and energy.  I hit burnout last year and if I had been tracking my time back then I would have clearly seen I was heading for a meltdown! After that hard lesson, I am now very intentional about where I spend my energy and time because over-giving doesn't actually help you or your clients…or your family!! 

Here are my categories: 

🔁  Morning Routine

🎯 Goals & Intentions & Monthly CEO

📆 Weekly R&R

🎀 Self Care & Just Jade Days

🍃 Wellbeing Care

💛 Money Dates & Month End

👩🏼‍🏫 Workshops & Masterclasses

💪🏻 Monthly Challenge

🪴 Collected Creatives

👩🏼‍💻 Your Brand Journey Client Work

🏡 Household Goodies

🧡 Us Time

💙 Me & my bonus boys time

💜 Friends & Family

🧘🏼‍♀️ Fitness & Health 

💃🏼 Fun Time

🎈 Special Events

Define the time per category 

Now that you have your categories let’s allocate the time you want to spend on each category per day / week / month.  Before you start thinking of the monthly time, first think about your dream day. How would you like your dream day to flow? And from there add up the daily time to get your monthly time goal. 

For example….

5:00 - 6:30    🎀 Self Care 1.5 hrs: Me time, visualization, praying, reading, journaling, affirmations, hair date

8:00 - 9:00    🔁  Morning Routine 1hr: Calling clients, emails and WhatsApp message, checking off tasks 

9:00 - 9:15   💛 Money Date 15 mins: Check my bank balance, do a quick recon, invoice, make payments 

9:15 - 9:30      🎯 Goals Check In 15 mins:  Review vision board, update CEO dashboard, review my goals 

9:30 - 12:00   👩🏼‍💻 1:1 Client Work Sprint 2.5 hrs: Focused time for client work, phone on plane mode 

12:00 - 13:00  💜 Break time 1 hr: Have lunch,  call a friend, faff, walk, mini meditation to reset 

13:00 15:30    🪴 Collected Creatives Sprint 2.5 hrs: Work on my business & create content 

15:30 - 16:00  💙 School run 30 mins: Pick up kids 

16:00 - 21:00  🏡 Household 5 hrs: Dinner & Family time 

That is just an example, depending on my flow and rhythm, some days I might have 3 work sprints and not pick up the kids, other days I will have 1 work sprint, and decide to take the afternoon off to spend with my bonus kids. On other days it will be month-end and then I will have longer CEO time, R&R time, and Month-end Money Dates…  It all depends on where I'm at, but my daily non-negotiables are my self-care, morning routine, and my mini-money dates. I find that those 3 things help me stay on track and on top of my work in progress….AND the NUMBERS.

Choose your tracking tools

Depending on what you are tracking you will need to find a tool or app that you like that will inspire you to keep the habit up. 

These are my go-to’s 

⏰ Time: Toggl https://toggl.com/ 

🎯 Goals: Google Keep & Google Sheets:

💰Money: Google Sheets. This is the one I bought https://www.etsy.com/listing/1247368591/monthly-budget-spreadsheet-google-sheets and I LOVE it and use it daily! 

Now that we have that covered, let's look at the Reset part of things. Don't worry if you feel unsure, it will all come together in the last section.

Step 2 - Reset setup 

You can create your own reset tasks in your task manager or you can grab my  Printable R&R Planner here Or Google Doc here to speed track your setup. 

Reset categories:

📝 Braindump 

📌 3 Must do biggies

📆 Important Dates 

🥗  Meal plan

Once you have your categories you can use a weekly printable planner, your Google calendar, or my R&R Planner. 

Step 3 - Create a routine

Choose a schedule

Choose a specific time each week when you will do your Reflect and Reset routine. I like to do mine on a Friday afternoon which helps me plan my week ahead. So that when I get to my office on a Monday morning, my weekly calendar is ready to go and I don't have to think “what do I need to do today?”. 

But as we all know life happens and sometimes Fridays just don't work out…. I then make sure I do it on a Sunday morning or Sunday night once the family has gone to bed. 

Once you have decided what time will work for you, schedule it in your calendar and make it repeat weekly. I like to set mine for 2 hours, but sometimes it takes 30 mins and other days it takes 3 hours. But I know it will get done if I have it scheduled in my calendar. 

Step 4 - The Process - Bring it all together altogether

This is what my process looks like but choose a method that works for you.

> Print my planner

> Open toggl

> Open my CEO Dashboard

> Open my banking app 

> Open my accounting app 

> Open my calendar 

> Open my pinterest app

> Open my website back end 

> Open all my social media accounts 

Once I have all those millions of tabs open I start…. 

I reflect on the past week: 

Where did I spend my time

> Time spent vs where I wanted to spend my time

> Any red flags? 

> Weekly wins

> Proud of myself for

> Heavyweights I’m carrying 

Social Stats:

> Website Traffic 

> New subscribers 

> Instagram

> Facebook

> Pinterest 

Money Reflect

> Invoiced

> Cash in 

> This month's top performers: Hosting, 1:1 Client Work, Mentorship, Etsy Shop

> Breakdown: Tax, Tithes, My Biz, My Money, My Sanctuary, My Friends & Family

Self Check-in regarding money

> What am I proud of 

> What am I ashamed of

> What was a valuable purchase

> What would I do differently

I plan my new week

After reflecting on all the above I have a better idea of how I want to plan my new week ahead. 

I start by doing a brain dump of all my work in progress, tasks, things I'm avoiding, birthdays, etc. I then take a highlighter and categories them into personal, work, family, or friends. From there I decide what are the top 3 biggies I must MUST do in the new week and allocate them to a day on my planner. I add reminders on my Google Calendar if there are any birthdays or important things I don't want to forget. 

Once I have done that I'm ready to GO! I love coming in on a Monday morning and my weekly plan is set. It’s not set in stone, I am still flexible, but this gives me an outline and a structure.