My Inspiration for the Change the World Planner

The inspiration for this planner started back in the fall of 2016 when I read the book, How to Live a Good Life by Jonathon Fields. If you haven't read it and this resonates with you, please check it out. The main point of the book is that everything we do can be put into 3 buckets: vitality (self care), connection (with family and friends), and contribution (how we contribute to the world).

I've always been pretty good at filling my vitality bucket, but this book helped me create routines that I can do every day. I try to do these things when my vitality bucket are low: go for a walk, do yoga, meditate, journal, read, color, or dance.

My connection bucket gets filled up when I spend time with my kids, whether it is playing legos or going on a hike together. It also gets filled up when I spend time with my husband and family members.

My contribution bucket basically ran dry once I become a mom. I had left my corporate job and I didn't feel like I was contributing to society in any way. Many people told me that being a mom was the most important contribution I could make to the world, and I agree, it is definitely my most deeply rooted value but my contribution bucket still wasn't feeling full. I was looking for a way to fill this void when I started Ubuntu Goods. I didn't know anything about the buckets at that time, I just knew that I was craving a way to make a contribution to the world while I was here on Earth and leave a legacy. That is exactly what Ubuntu Goods has given me. It fills up my contribution bucket so much that I sometimes get obsessed with it and neglect the other buckets. I always have ideas of things I want to do, blog posts I want to write, charities I want to help, new products I want to add to our store...and these ideas can easily take me away from being present in the moment with my family.

So, this planner is for people like me. Maybe you don't know the means that you will contribute yet but you know you have lots of ideas that could impact the world. Maybe you are a blogger or business owner. There are a million things you can do every day to build your business or blog or career, but if you are working with an empty bucket somewhere else, your heart will not be in it. It will feel forced and it will not resonate as well with your customers or readers.

I used to function from this forced, pushing, hustling, state not too long ago. For some reason I thought I had to do so much more than necessary every day in order to be successful. And I believe my viewers and customers picked up on that. Thanks to my business partner, Lindsay,

I learned that we can pick and choose the ideas we act on by choosing only those that align with our values and vision for our company. I used to constantly message and text her about my latest, shiny idea, so she created a Google doc for us to keep our ideas in. We then started meeting once a quarter to discuss which ideas aligned best with our vision and values, and turned those ideas into goals. We then created action steps and due dates to turn those ideas into reality. And it has worked for us! It is all thanks to Lindsay that we have this great system in the planner. I am just a more visual, pen and paper kind of person and wanted to have a paper copy of the same system to carry with me everywhere.

I'll share with you how I run my business now: every day before coffee I meditate and check in with my 3 buckets and see how I'm doing with each one. This tells me how much work I CAN do that day. If my vitality bucket is low, I first do something like go for a walk or journal before getting to work. If my connection bucket is low, I plan a fun activity to do with the kids like finger painting or going to a museum. If I feel like my contribution bucket is low I head to my planner and journal my ideas and turn those ideas into plans for the day. I'll share with you soon about exactly how I do that since this post is getting ridiculously long. I hope this will resonate with some of you, if not, no problem, but if it does, let me know! I'd love to hear what you do to fill up your "buckets" daily.

#planner #sustainableplanner #changetheworld