#342: The Secret to Better Planning
Listen in for the Secret to better planning.
Hello my friend. How are you doing today? I'm really excited about this episode because it ties in to what I have been talking to my timepiece for lawyers group around planning and how to do better planning. So much of what prevents us from planning better from using a calendar to plan our work, to really think through and problem solve in our practices, has to do with our mindset, has to do with what we believe is possible for us. So today I wanna talk to you about what's possible and give you inspiration to begin making change in your life. So this is what I wanna share with you right now. If, if the words planning or calendar make you feel anxious or nauseated, I want you to stick with me because I want to help you change that reaction. It will change your life when you do, you'll be more focused, more committed, more empowered to change your life when you do.
And that's where I started too. I did not like the idea of planning. I actually could not get my brain there. It didn't even register that I could plan. And I used my calendar for appointments, hearings, all of that good stuff, but I didn't know how to truly use my calendar to plan my work, and that was to my detriment. And most of the lawyers start in that exact same place. They feel buried under the work. They're unsure to how they're gonna climb out of the hill of work that they're under. And at first, learning a new skill like planning can seem impossible. But I wanna promise you this. When you begin really understanding what's possible for you and stoking that fire of what you desire, what you want to change in your life, which I'm gonna help you with in this episode, you are gonna change things.
You're not just gonna be putting out fires. You're not just going to be, you know, playing whack-a-mole with your cases or flying by the seat of your pants and hoping for the best. You're not gonna be using dread to fuel you on late nights to get work done. You are gonna have plans and you're gonna follow through on those plans because you're going to learn the skill of better planning. This is what I wanna share with you in this episode, and I'm gonna share with you a thought experiment that is gonna help bring home these points. Are you up for it? I did this thought experiment with my Timepiece for Lawyers Group and it was incredibly helpful just to shine a light on what had held them back from taking control of their time in the past. My goal is that by the end of this episode, you see a new path forward for yourself where you can take control of your time and feel more confident in the practice of the law too.
Now, before we do this thought experiment, I wanna let you know about my group coaching program Timepiece for Lawyers that is gonna be open for enrollment soon to be the first to know when it is open, and you can enroll. Go to dina cataldo.com/timepiece and enter your email address. And when you do, you are going to get something special. I'm gonna talk about that in just a second. So timepiece for this round starts in January of 2025, but I am enrolling in late November, early December. So you wanna make sure that you are on the list now 'cause you don't want to miss it. It's gonna be amazing. I've done this round before, but I'm gonna do this even better, even bigger. And to start you off giving you a jumpstart, a headstart, before you even join Timepiece, I've created this beautiful guide. And if you're not watching this episode on YouTube, what I have here is a robust guide.
It is the three sneaky problems stealing your time and productivity and how to fix them. Now, I made this robust workbook intentionally to give you your time and your productivity back, and I'm using three specific skills that I teach my clients that will help you get immediate results. And I want you to download this and get those results for yourself. Go to dina cataldo.com/timepiece and download your guide. This is a 19 page workbook. There are places where I'm gonna be asking you questions that you would be journaling inside of this guide. So I highly encourage you to print it out and go through this work. It walks you through a process to solve some of the hidden issues. I often see holding lawyers back from taking control of their time. So don't miss this opportunity to get a headstart on changing your 2025 for the better.
Go to dina cataldo.com/timepiece right now and download your guide. Okay, so let's play a little shall we? You wanna do a little thought experiment with me? Okay. The reason I wanna do this thought experiment is because what I have learned over the years is that what we believe becomes our cap in life. We can't perform better than our belief. So when our life is hard, we don't have the belief that we need to make it easier. Sounds simple, right? For example, if you believe you can only make $250,000 in your practice without burning out, then that becomes your reality. You can't make more than $250,000 because you don't believe that you can do it without working harder. The brain can't solve for problems because you can't even believe that there's a possibility that you can do it. So 250,000 becomes your cap. That's it. That's as far as you can go because your brain shuts down and tells you beliefs like, I can't do it because it's really hard.
I can't do it because it's gonna take more time. I can't do it because fill in the blank. And when you have those beliefs, you're stuck. You cannot move forward. Now, if you did believe it was possible, if you just had the belief that maybe it was possible to make $250,000 while doing less work or make $350,000 while doing less work, then you can start to problem solve. You can start to play, and that's where the thought experiment takes place. And this is why possibility and the belief and possibility is so important because when you start to problem solve, you start to create a plan and that plan starts to form and you can begin to put it on your calendar. You can begin to make your life easier. So these are questions that might come up when you start believing in possibility, what might I need to change about how I work to make more money?
Where can I increase my value to clients? Where can I improve my efficiency? Where can I improve the efficiency of my staff? What kind of plan can I make to implement these actions? How can I do this while working fewer hours? Those are just some of the questions that we can begin to formulate when we simply believe in the possibility. This was something that came up with a client recently too. Like she was stuck at this cap not believing that she could create more money without working harder in her practice. She actually wanted to decrease her goal. So I want you to know that if your brain is doing this, it's normal. And what you've gotta start doing is believing in possibility, something different. So as we approach 2025, I wanna offer to you that a lot of people have belief for a week or two and they feel really excited about their goal, but then they stop believing.
That's why so many people give up on their goals in the new year. They have these New Year's resolutions that they're gonna change their lives because you know, they, they wanted to to make a change in their life and for two weeks they saw possibility for two weeks they could hold onto that possibility, but because they didn't address their mindset around their goals, around the possibility, they didn't have the support that they needed to keep that possibility belief, they reverted back to their old habits. So no matter how good the plan was when they first started, they didn't address the belief in themselves, the belief in their capacity, the belief that they could do it, that it was possible for them to do it. It's like the lottery winners who suddenly come into millions of dollars and then it all goes out the window after, you know, a few months.
They didn't address the mindset that had them in a lower income bracket in the first place. And their mindset, because they weren't working on it, didn't give them the capacity to hold onto those new dollars. So they were revert to the old belief that they can't do it, that they're lazy, that they, you know, this is lawyers. Now I'm talking about that they're lazy, that they don't have enough willpower. All those old beliefs, they all come back because the mindset is a habit. It is something we've gotta work on. And so what I wanna do here is help you get awareness around the caps on your beliefs around planning and using a calendar to plan. Because you can't really plan without using a calendar. You need to have a calendar. Otherwise, it's not really a plan, it's just a guess. <laugh>, it's just a desire, right?
So when you think about planning your week and using a calendar to plan your week, what thoughts come up for you? Just, just think about it right now as I go through these, these are some thoughts that I'm gonna give you that came up for my time piece for lawyers in the first couple weeks of the program. Planning is extra busy work and I don't have time for that. I won't be able to stick to it. I hate planning. I can't use a calendar to plan work because I don't know how long things will take me to do. The calendar pins me down and I feel trapped. I can't use a calendar because I do transactional work and there are days I need to make sure I'm open for deals to close. There were also a couple more positive thoughts thrown in there. Like a calendar is a tool.
Planning makes sense. The calendar is great for appointments. But notice how no one came into timepiece thinking, I can totally do this. Oh my gosh, I love planning. This is gonna be easy. This is gonna be a snap. No. And in fact, I would wager that nobody goes into learning a new skill with those beliefs. Before they came into the room, they had placed an unconscious cap on what was possible in terms of how they managed their time and how they managed themselves in relationship to time and their law practices. It was just an unconscious cap. And so what they were doing is learning a brand new skill and they were getting support, learning that skill and showing up every week and practicing that skill. I'm gonna share with you that the transactional lawyer that I just mentioned who thought they couldn't use the calendar because they had deals closing that that that person also believed that the calendar pinned them down.
But by the end of our 12 weeks together, in fact I think it was by week eight, they believed they had control of their time. This lawyer changed their cap on what was possible for them. And now because they believe they have control over their time, this lawyer can now devote time to growing their practice because they've decided they have time to, but they couldn't get there without that initial belief in possibility. That was why they signed up in the first place, was just that having that belief in the possibility, but then they needed the support to keep going. It's like having that New Year's resolution. If you don't have the support and the mindset combined, you're not going to be able to go the distance. And so that's where the support comes in. So why do we have this unconscious cap on possibility when it comes to managing our time when it comes to better planning or anything else for that matter, it comes down to the messages we've received and believed over the years.
When we receive information from an authority in our life, we often take it as truth instead of evaluating it for ourselves. And a lot of times it's not a message that is straightforward and in words Most of the time it's by actions, how we observe the world. For example, you may see a lawyer who you consider as well-respected, spending 12 hours at the office and constantly responding to emails and you receive that information. Your subconscious brain downloads that information as the way you must be in the world if you want to be a well-respected lawyer. It's very subtle. And so we've gotta keep an eye out for it. Here's the truth though. We get to decide what's possible for ourselves to challenge our current belief about what is possible requires us to question all of those old inputs, all of those old beliefs, and asking ourselves, what if, what if it is possible to do high quality work to perform at my highest best performance levels for my clients, to serve my clients at my best and do it in a way that makes my clients happy.
What if that is possible and I have time for myself and I'm sane and I'm getting sleep? What if and when we can get to the what if that's where possibility starts to open up. That's where we start to change our caps on our belief, where we can begin to get curious and ask ourselves questions to help us problem solve. So we have to, if we want to be better at planning, we've gotta really learn the skill of planning and we've gotta learn the skill and then put ourselves in motion to do it over and over and over again. Even if at first we don't believe in ourselves a hundred percent, we don't believe in what's possible at a hundred percent. I have never undertaken anything new in my life with a hundred percent belief that it was possible. It was always, I think it's possible.
I I, I wanna believe it's possible, right? I always started there and then I threw myself into learning a new skill. That was how I've been doing it over and over and over again. And it is working for me. And as I do, I start to build my belief about what's possible for myself. There was, and I also wanna share this with you about planning. There was no planning 1 0 1 in law school. Most firms do not teach any sort of planning, right? They teach you that you just need to work harder longer and sacrifice yourself for the job. That's what I was taught. There was no such thing as planning beyond how you plan for your trials, how you plan for your preliminary hearings. That was it. And when you don't know how to plan, you do the only thing you know how to do, which is push through and work as hard as you can.
You grind, you use dread as your motivator, right? You put out fires. Those are the tools that are in your toolbox. I wanna expand your toolbox from staying late at the office, right? Bringing work home on the weekends, sacrificing sleep, skipping, drinking water so that you don't have to go to the bathroom as often and you can bill more, right? Like I want you to expand your toolbox and you can do all the things I just mentioned for a while. You can grind to a certain point, but eventually it catches up to you. Eventually you hit a breaking point. And I see this with my clients over and over and over again. And it's so heartbreaking to watch them go through this. But when they open themselves up to the belief of what's possible and they start to work on themselves, things begin to change.
And I know you didn't go to law school to suffer. That was not what you signed up for. So if you've been thinking, oh my gosh, there's gotta be a better way, your intuition is right, there absolutely is. To get there, you've got to allow yourself to do something different than you've done before to overcome the upper limit of your belief right now, you have to get yourself into motion even when you don't yet believe a hundred percent. You need to believe that it's possible that things can be different and keep believing it until you see a different result. And keep believing and keep falling on your face and keep believing and keep, you know, not following through and keep believing. That is the secret. That is the secret. You've got to keep going until you see the result that you want. And that's what got me into action when I didn't yet fully believe I could get my time back, that I had enough time to build a business on top of my full-time career as a criminal prosecutor.
That's what got me into action. When I didn't quite believe that I could build a business that could replace my income as a lawyer, I had to just keep believing and keep trying and keep learning new skills and keep moving forward. I needed to believe it was possible. And that got me into action. And when I took action, I started seeing change. I started collecting evidence that I was right. Yes, yes I am right, this is working. And then I started to believe that it was possible stronger. It became 50% belief that it was possible in 75 and 80, 85, and then a hundred percent right? But I didn't start at a hundred percent. I started with doubt. I started with lots of doubt. But I needed to overcome that doubt with just the belief of the possibility that there was a different future for myself, that I could do something different.
That's what got me into action, into doing something different. I needed to keep believing. When my brain wanted to tell me things like, just keep doing what you're doing, you'll be fine. It'll get better. Never did. By the way I had to fix it for myself. It wasn't gonna just magically change. And I couldn't just keep doing the same old thing, expecting new results. I needed that new skill under my belt and it took time to learn these skills better planning doesn't happen overnight. You actually have to keep doing it over and over again. Whether it's time management and planning or it's building your business. Each of those skills, you need to just believe what's possible and then keep going. The subconscious brain will create so much resistance to change. So you've gotta be the one who overcomes that resistance and do things that make you feel uncomfortable.
Do things that maybe even make you feel nauseated, but they are different. And doing something different will get you different results. Taking that action means you need to stoke your belief in what's possible. So I wanna ask you this question as part of our thought experiment here in this episode. What do you want to believe is possible for you? Do you want a life where you have more time for friends and family? What does that look like? Are you at home making dinner with your family each night? Are you going for walks with your spouse? Are you making vacation plans? Are you playing video games with your kids? Are you going to soccer games? Are you fully present with them? Not thinking about email and simply enjoying being with them? What else do you want to believe is possible? Do you wanna life where you go to the gym four times a week?
How do you feel in your body? Stronger, faster, more energized? What kind of workouts are you doing? Are you doing yoga? Are you lifting weights, running picture yourself, having that life, the one where you are physically fit and get to devote energy to your wellbeing? What else do you wanna believe is possible? Do you want a life where each morning you get to sit with your cup of coffee and your journal? How do you feel relaxed at peace, grateful that you have this time to be alone? And simply think to simply enjoy your favorite coffee, to watch the sun come up. What else do you wanna believe is possible? Do you wanna believe it's possible that you have a life where you can go home, stop thinking about email and just read a book before bed without worrying that you miss something at the office?
How do you feel sitting up in bed just reading? What books are you reading? How do you feel knowing that you get to read your favorite book tonight? Are you anticipating knowing the ending of that new book that's on your nightstand? If you are not thinking about what you want and why you want it, and thinking about that possibility and living in that possibility and using it to fuel you and your belief in possibility, you will not change, you won't. You have to have that picture for yourself. What is your life gonna be like? Like you're gonna stay stuck and you're gonna stay frustrated and you'll stay overwhelmed if you do not begin to fuel that belief in possibility. I want you to have more for yourself because I know what's possible. I know what's possible. I see the changes in myself. I saw the changes in my students, I see the changes in my clients all the time.
And all those thoughts that I mentioned at the beginning of this episode were lawyers said how they hated planning and that it wasn't possible for them. Well, I had those thoughts too, but when I stoked my desire for something different, I put myself into rooms where they did different things where they learned and they taught different skills. So then I saw different results and I could change myself, right? I needed to do something different. I needed to be around people who wanted something different because I wasn't learning the skills that I needed where I was. Now, when I think about my calendar, I think thoughts like it's so freeing, it makes my life so much easier. I'm so thankful that I do this for myself because I really look at my calendar as an act of self-care. It really helps with my wellbeing throughout the week.
And this is the best tool. I didn't start believing these things right away. I built this belief brick by brick, by believing it could be possible that this could help me, that I could get better at planning. I just had to believe that it was possible. And then I began to see, ah, yes, I, I'm seeing results, I'm seeing a difference. And then I started to, to accumulate these beliefs like, wow, this calendar is an amazing tool. So thankful I get to use it did not start that way. Here's an example of what becomes possible when you put this thought experiment that we've been doing here into action. One lawyer started out in timepiece worried that if they started using a calendar and setting time aside to get work done, that their employees wouldn't be able to contact them when they had questions and their clients would be frustrated because they weren't getting back to them immediately.
But this lawyer decided something needed to change and decided to implement what they were learning in timepiece. And when they did, their whole world changed. This lawyer began planning weekly meetings with their staff, and they found these meetings to be incredibly productive. Not only did a weekly meeting end the interruptions so that they could be more productive during the day, it also improved relationships between this lawyer and the staff. Staff felt more supported because they had dedicated time to ask questions, and the lawyer had more energy to lead effectively and get work completed faster. They were actually be able able to stop and say, Hey, how's your week been going? You know, have that conversation versus just a quick stop and ask a question. It wasn't that quick anymore. Now they had dedicated time. It was focused time. This lawyer used to believe that planning was pinning them down and now they saw that they had control over their time.
This is what's possible when you start learning how to plan better to believe something new. We often need support. Our brain reverts without the continued feedback helping us move forward instead of backwards. And that's why I created timepiece for lawyers to help lawyers who felt overwhelmed and knew something had to change to get the support and skills that they needed to move forward to make that change. That's the kind of freedom and control that I can help you create in timepiece for lawyers. So not only do you get a simple step-by-step process to help you think clearly about planning your week. You get weekly group calls to help you problem solve, adjust your plan depending upon your needs. You get tools to handle frustrations without falling off track. And those tools include things like how to process emotions. 'cause we feel frustrated during the day.
We feel angry during the day, and those kinds of emotions suck our energy. They take away our peace. I was talking to a client the other day and she was noticing how amazing she felt, and she actually said the words out loud, I love my job. And to her, it shocked even her because she came to me initially not believing that at all. She did not love her job <laugh>, but because she learned the skills that I teach in timepiece, she said, oh my gosh, I love my job. I love it. And this was something that was totally foreign for her. And I wanna offer to you that that is what's possible for you when you have the proper tools and when you start believing that it's possible for you. And you'll also get tools that address anxiety and help you reset your nervous system. So I wanted to share some of this with you because Timepiece for Lawyers is about to open up for enrollment, and there's so much support that I offer you there, and that when you just believe in this possibility for yourself, you can then take the next step forward for yourself.
And if what I'm saying to you resonates, then timepiece for lawyers is for you where you get the support, you get a supportive community of lawyers cheering you on every step of the way because every single lawyer in there is heart centered and wants to succeed. And if you are succeeding, they're succeeding, right? Everybody's there to help each other. There was so much beautiful support that I saw in this last round, suggestions that people had about tools, and it was all, it was just really lovely getting to see how everybody interacted with one another. And when you get to have these interactions and you begin to see that you're not the only one struggling with these things, you start to build confidence in yourself. You begin to see, oh, wait a minute, I'm not the only one. We're all here learning these skills. And that's because no one's taught us these skills in the past.
So to make this shift that I'm talking about here, you've gotta build key skills, and I help you focus on the most important ones in timepiece for lawyers. In this episode, we talked a lot about mindset. Right away inside the group, you get a simple tool to begin implementing to help you focus your brain differently around work. This is something that I have never seen at a law firm, let me tell you, it had really great reviews from the lawyers I worked with in the last round. I had a private client tell me it was brilliant and she couldn't get enough of it. And it helped lawyers create instant calm before starting their day. And they got more accomplished because of it, because they were planning better. And you're also gonna get simple trainings that you can access 24 7. You can binge watch them or you can space them out at your convenience.
In addition to giving you my simple planning process, I'm adding in case studies so you can see what's possible for you. I know this was so helpful for me when I was learning new skills, is seeing what was possible. So some of my clients have been generous enough to share their calendars with me so I can share them in timepiece with you. You can see what other lawyers' calendars look like from everything from transactional attorneys to those taking on a hodgepodge of cases. You get to see what's possible. And each one of these lawyers started where you are feeling overwhelmed and like they had no control over their time, and now they feel in control of their time. They plan, and each of them have their own way of doing things. So not only will you hear about how to plan and see what's possible, but you are gonna get all of these different ideas about how you can plan better.
And you're also gonna be hearing within the group, during our group calls, how they're doing it and what they're doing to make things more efficient in their office, right? This, this is the beauty of a group call where you actually get to hear other people and what they're learning and seeing possibility for yourself. And when you start doing this practice of planning, you never feel like planning traps you. You actually see that it frees you to have the life that you want. When you start planning effectively, you'll feel more in control of your practice and of your life. You'll stop spinning your wheels on busy work. You'll start focusing on what truly moves the needle in your practice. And you'll finally create the freedom that you've been craving, the freedom to leave work at work and enjoy your evenings, your weekends, and life outside of your law office.
You start to be able to create space for you to just leave in the afternoon and get your nails done if you like. And instead of dreading work or grinding through your day, you'll have peace of mind that you know exactly what needs to get done and focus on that because you've planned ahead of time. I think my, I think of my calendar as my assistant and my assistant tells me what I do throughout the day. Each time I look at it, it's telling me, ah, this is what's next. So I stay focused on what I know is most important. So timepiece opens in about a week. So if you know you need a change, what you're doing isn't working and you want help, I encourage you to sign up for timepiece. And the interest list is open right now. You can go to dina cataldo.com/timepiece.
When you sign up now, you'll get instant access to my free guide. Three Sneaky Problems, stealing Your Time and Productivity, and How to Fix Them Now. And you can grab it at dina cataldo.com/timepiece. This is not gonna be up for, it's probably gonna be up for another week. So if you want it, make sure that you grab it. Now. You don't have to figure out how to stop feeling overwhelmed, alone. I promise it's possible to build a practice and a life that you love. And if this episode spoke to you, take one small step. Just one small step for yourself. And maybe it's downloading this guide, maybe it's taking this guide and starting to implement one part of it in your practice right now, because that one step is gonna help you feel more calm, more focused, and allow you to have more of a life that you want. Remember what you want matters, and you have the power to take control of your time and take control of your life at any time. I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day, and I will talk to you next week. Bye.
