Do you make plans for your week? We all have busy lives with a lot to fit in! Having a plan can make your week awesome and give you time to spend with your dog. We can use our time intentionally or habitually.
Do you make plans for your week? We all have busy lives with a lot to fit in! Having a plan can make your week awesome and give you time to spend with your dog. We can use our time intentionally or habitually.I did a Facebook live recently on my strategy for planning my week with intention. Below is the recording of the live chat. It was filmed on mobile, so if you want to watch at a larger size, click on the icon on the lower right of the video to expand it to a full screen.
What Are Your Priorities?
Whatever you really want to train or do with your dog, plan for it intentionally and block out time to give you the space to achieve what you want during the week. If we don’t do that, it’s easy for our week to get filled with other things that might be habitual (scrolling through Facebook is an example of something that might be habitual but not the best use of our time!).
We all have priorities or excuses. We make excuses for things like working out …. I can’t because I don’t have time. We make excuses for things that are not a priority. It’s okay to not have certain things as priorities, but don’t make excuses. No one wants to hear them, least of all yourself! Just decide what YOU want to do, and be intentional about your planning for that.
Getting Things Done
Decide your goals for the week… these are the things you really want to get done. Set no more than 3 to 5 depending on what your week looks like. Next, look at what you want to do each day and make an appointment for yourself to do it. This can include things like relaxing too, so give yourself blocks of time for the things you want to do. We also need to minimize distractions. Each of us has many things that are a distraction, and we need to know what they are and recognize that these distractions are not going to help us get s&!t done!
It’s easy to create a plan. Make a list of 3 to 5 things you want to do and block out time for that. Be fair to yourself with your list and keep it achievable. Put it in your calendar. Set timers during your day if you need to, and there you have it… your week is set to be awesome!
- Set priorities / goals.
- Create daily commitments.
- Limit distractions.
- Get s&!t done!
The style of daily planning you see on the whiteboard in my video above is simple, flexible and easy to use, and I’ve included a PDF for you on this blog post. You can click here to download the PDF of the planner or click on the image below.
Let me know in the comments what you want to make time to do with your dog this week!
Today I am grateful for everything that can fit into seven days with some intentional planning.
I do some planning. I will go upstairs momentarily and do some ‘right’ around cone. We have the left down pat on cue. What is so great is that you don’t need much time. So little time is required for each session. Before I go garden, I’ll do my cone work. Maybe two or three minutes depending on how quick Badger picks up from yesterday.
Just read and downloaded this: Will make me set a goal and do it everyday even if its only for five minutes!
You are an inspiration!
I commented to my husband recently that there are too many events/people that prevent me from training consistently. I went back to prep school and found this little gem. Will be slotting off time for sure. I am now feeling more confident. I can do this!
Thank You this was a gem for me. Prior to completing the calendar I felt very overwhelmed looking at this week. Now I can see that I have lots and lots of free “Units”. It is a great feeling that I have control over how I will spend these units. THANK YOU
I will put notes in my personal calendar to train/play with my dog. I already do that so it will be easy!
Thank you, Susan!!!! So timely as I was sitting down to write my note cards with my to do lists on them!!!
Yes, I am a Realtor! I make plans but have to be flexible. 🙂
What if you’re not working towards anything specific, what do you set as goals? My dogs are old and well behaved and we don’t do any sports. They have reached a high level of obedience, so there is nothing that needs work and any new skills would be overkill at this point because they never do anything wrong. What would some good goals be for us?
Hi Marianne, many of us with older dogs follow Susan’s lead and create adventures for them. Here’s a great blog post on this very topic to enjoy.
https://susangarrettdogagility.com/2013/08/rolling-out-a-big-adventure/
Hello there!
Brilliant brilliant idea!
*being printed off as I type*
What Jack and I do on a regular basis due to ongoing challenging personal circumstances, is actively train whenever we’re out walking. I suppose Jack being a rescue and I was his 4th home meant we had to “stitch” training so that this infiltrated into our every day activities. ESPECIALLY as Jack is 1. my first dog 2. He came with serious social fear aggression with other dogs and would turn on me as well.
If circumstances mean our activity needs to be minimised (ie Anorexia, dissociative disorder or weather conditions) as live in small one bed flat no enclosed outside space, but a big communal car parking area – again a repertoire of Recaller games can be done just as well inside, they may need to be tweaked a little due to personal situation.
I am in fortunate position in many ways (despite fragile health)as Jack and I are one to one all the time all the time. So we both get one anothers undivided attention!
This print out is super idea for us currently. Personal circumstances have escalated in terms of seriousness, and with the colossal AMOUNT involved to see to this will enable me, I HOPE, to reduce the amount of wasted time procrastinating. Social Media has stopped which has freed us up no end –
Thank you so much for this – a fantasictally useful “heads up” for us at a horribly challenging time. Reminding me to focus on what really matters at the end of the day. Jack is my reason to carry on so it is only right that training comes first and foremost.
Thank you Susan
Ness & Sir Jack Spratticus x
You are doing so much, Vanessa–I’m inspired! Much luck and love to you and Sir Jack!
Fab idea will download and use this
Just what I need, Susan. My planning skills are nil so Thank you so much for this help. My dog will love it too. More play for her
Thanks for the inspiration!
Listening to you catches my attention and gives me the desire to be with my dog and have some fun instead of sitting around ignoring him!
Thank you Susan for the kick in the bud that you just gave me with this blog post and video. Needed that 🙂
Although I know all these things, I sometimes have a hard time living intentionally and let distractions fill my life. I believe that’s the main reason that I don’t train my dog consistently. I haven’t made it a REAL priority. Printed out the form and NEXT WEEK WILL BE AWESOME (starting today).
Thanks !
Caught up Thanks to vacation, Me and bosties doing Lesson 7 tonight but had to revisit videos to see how exactly to do things, penciled how it is done so I know and can have them do it and set up course in backyard where also getting ready to make my own dogwalk and Aframe out of Pallets, filling spaces with boards from another pallet and making my dogwalk 21″ because she is blind and don’t want her to fall and get hurt. Then will cover with yoga mats so it has traction and protect their paws. Caught up on Recallers but still do them too expecially Hot Zone and love Crate Games and so do they and now Thanks to you they LOVE COLLAR GRAB GAME and love their collar grabbed or put on knowing it going to be fun. Sorry for the long reply and as always. God Bless you and he will say Excellent Job when you get in Heaven
I love to daily plan! There is actually a couple really good planners that I have used that have those time blocks. They are so easy and fun to use.
Last year I used a planner called a Day Designer: https://daydesigner.com/collections/academic-year-2019-original-daily-planners
This year I am trying out the super cool Erin Condren Planners: https://www.erincondren.com/?msclkid=887817e40ce41f28062b4ab2958b05c0&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=WP%20-%20Search%20-%20Brand&utm_term=erin%20condren&utm_content=%5BGEN%5D%20Erin%20Condren%20-%20Exact
These are available through Amazon as well.
The Day designers are exactly the same as what Susan shows but for every day and it was so helpful for helping me get my priorities set. Check them out!
Thank you for this. I have been on the habitual side of life lately and I am going to use this to turn things around for me. I have been in “Recallers” for a couple of years and have not made time for training for some time. I am making it a priority to be intentional and use this tool to help me going forward.
Susan, thank you for making this video available here, it’s great! I would have missed it because I’ve deleted my Facebook account for good some months ago. Lots of love from me and my last little old bulldog Berry, who turned ten yesterday, whoop whoop! (she says give it a try, mum, and don’t forget to make tracking a priority!)
This is great.Thank you!I am just in week one of Recallers and was really panicking as to how to organise my training games with my 3 pooches..Now, thanks to this chart, Easy Peasy .😀
I watched this the other day, got inspired, ordered a white/memo board for my wall ready to get some organisation into my days, and for my Recallers training plan, as soon as it gets delivered! Working from home on my own I’m terrible at wasting time on things and getting distracted online and hours go by (and I think my dog gets easily distracted 😂). It’ll be good to give me a focus for each week.🐾☺️
Awesome, Donna!
I loved this video and topic. I am really bad about planning and then waste what little time I do have on silly time sucks (FB perhaps….), so I am already implementing this and taking control of my time and training. Week 1 has been a success 🙂