Simple Steps to Build Structure When You Work for Yourself
So you used to have structure. Either you were still in school or you worked in an office, but now you work from home and your time management has gotten all "-more like a big ball of wibbly, wobbly, timey, wimey stuff" - Dr. Who. If you crave structure but don't know how to get it, this video is for you. Hi, I'm Cassie Winter. I'm a productivity and self care expert for those who are neurodivergent, chronically ill and disabled.
Watch the video below, or read on for the full transcript.
In my signature program, the Action Navigator, I help people just like you save time and energy and heal their relationship with themselves. Now it's your turn. Let's talk about structure, shall we? Before we can figure out how to create structure, we need to know what it is. In the context of school, working in an office, or working from home, structure is usually the answer to the question, what should I be doing when and why?
Isn't that just a schedule? Yes and no. Because who is answering that question matters. If we're struggling to create structure, it's often because it's now our job to answer that question instead of our boss or teachers. If you have been successful working within structures that were created for you by someone else, it's likely because it was easier for you to make decisions about how to spend your time because someone else had already done the majority of the prioritizing and planning for you and/or you were accountable to your teachers or bosses for following through.
Let's say your teacher told you to have your 10 page essay on the fall of Sparta done by next Tuesday's lecture. Or your boss told you to have the earnings report completed and filed by end of day Thursday. Those examples are the what's and the whens. But what are the whys? If you just thought because my teacher or boss said so, that means you would be relying on external accountability to follow through with that structure.
Creating structure for yourself is not only about prioritizing and planning. It's also about being accountable to yourself. When did you show up, handsome boy? This is Oreo. His. His most recent nickname is Shadow. And he's good at that, isn't he? We'll just. We'll just go with it. Yeah. Okay. Back in the day, I did a whole video on the work of Gretchen Rubin and accountability typing. It's like a personality test, but for your accountability type.
She differentiates between external accountability, being accountable to someone or something else, and internal accountability, being accountable to yourself. Since making that video, I have come to understand that accountability is a skill that can be learned. Some forms of Accountability likely come naturally to you, whereas others are more difficult. But that doesn't mean you can't get better at the one you struggle with. I want to point out an important distinction, however.
If you struggle with a form of accountability because of a disability, it is possible to accommodate that disability. But that being said, you can't accommodate yourself perfectly and have abled results. Accommodations and skill building are still important, but they are not a cure. Disabilities are still disabilities even when they're accommodated and supported well oh no, he's trying to get in my lap. Hi. That's okay. Hi buddy. Squish.
He hates this haha. So if we struggle with internal accountability, what skill can we learn in order to accommodate ourselves? Creating and Engaging with Meaning Distinguishing between holding ourselves accountable to ourselves versus holding ourselves accountable to our values and desired experiences can be oh so powerful. Let's look at a few examples. I'm going to spend two hours working on my business because I said so versus I'm going to spend two hours working on my business because I want to be financially independent.
I'm going to spend this afternoon on my sewing project because I said so versus I'm going to spend this afternoon on my sewing project because I'm so looking forward to having a capsule wardrobe that I made myself. It will help me feel confident and enjoy going out more. Can you see how engaging with a why that's attached to our values and desired experiences gives the task meaning? By giving tasks more meaning, it becomes easier to hold ourselves accountable.
Share your own verses in the comments below. What is something you've been trying to do simply because you told yourself to? And what is the greater meaning behind accomplishing that task? How does it make you feel to engage with the true meaning behind this task? Now that you understand what structure is, and hopefully have a deeper understanding of why you crave it, let's dive into how to create it for yourself.
Before answering the questions what, when, and why, we need a broader understanding of our why, which means we need to understand what many people call your North Star. I define your North Star as the intersection between your values and the experiences you want to have. Notice how I didn't say goals? We'll get to that in a minute. Here's a simple example of a North Star. I value integrity, community, and creativity.
I want to experience playfulness, travel, and luxury. I don't include goals in the definition of your North Star because life happens especially for those of us who are neurodivergent, chronically ill, or disabled. Life has a habit of dashing our goals to the wind and leaving us feeling awful, if not hopeless. When we use specific goals to define our dreams, we tie our happiness and fulfillment to things that aren't entirely within our control.
When we use broad descriptions of things we want to experience that align with our values, we are able to pivot to new goals when we need or want to. I go into much greater detail about this distinction inside my signature program, the Action Navigator, but here's a simple example. A goal I want to travel to Egypt and spend two weeks there by the time I'm 40 years old versus a North Star.
I value travel and history and want to experience Egyptian culture. Show of hands in the comments who else was obsessed with Egyptology as a kid? Instead of a trains and dinosaurs autistic I was a horses and Egyptology autistic kid. Having specific goals like the one in this example is so important. But if we conflate goals with our North Star, it means we tie too much meaning to one specific thing that if we fail, can be devastating.
Understanding what our broader values and dreams are can be transformational for how we engage with what we want to spend our precious time and energy on. So here's what you're going to do. Step one is to brainstorm your values and the broad experiences you want to have in life. If you're someone who struggles with basic needs like food and shelter, don't forget to include those. For example, I want to experience stable housing, and I want to experience always having enough food.
It's okay for your list of values and desired experiences to be long you can always narrow them down later. Essentially, don't force your brainstorm to result in a certain number of items, large or small. Let it be what it's going to be. You can always refine it in the future. If you want help brainstorming, I recommend using my Anytime Pages journaling technique.
You'll use the journaling prompts what do I value? And what experiences do I want to have in my life? If your lists are long, you may want to prioritize them. I'll be talking more about prioritization in the next section. You can use the same tools I'll mention there to prioritize your lists of values and desired experiences. Once you've got a first draft of your North Star, it's time to shift back to our three questions of what, when, and why.
First up, what you probably already have an idea of what's on your plate right now. Work, medical stuff, chores, etcetera These are your what Simply list out all of the current goals, projects and tasks that are currently on your plate. If you're in a place in life where you have very little on your plate, you can use your North Star to choose what to add to your plate.
By answering this question based on my values and desired experiences, what are some short term and long term goals that I could consider to help me experience those things? For example, instead of booking a trip to Egypt, what's an accessible thing you can do to experience a bit of Egypt within your current means? Maybe you could research Egyptian recipes. Pick one you'd like to try and make it. Once you have your list of what's the next step is to prioritize them.
Prioritizing is the skill of deciding what is more important and therefore deserves attention and action first. If you struggle with executive dysfunction or brain fog, you know how difficult and exhausting prioritizing can be. I have graphed my favorite prioritization methods on two spectrums, the first being how much decision making is required, the second being how accurate is this method at determining your true priorities? The prioritizing grid is my favorite method because it reduces decision fatigue while still being very accurate.
I want to save you time, so instead of spending another hour explaining each method in detail here, I'm going to refer you to my free Anytime Reset. It's a thinking aid that can help you reset your day by creating a plan to help you stop feeling overwhelmed and resistant and start feeling productive, accomplished, and fulfilled. And part two of this reset includes explanations for each prioritization method in detail.
Click this link to get free access to the Anytime Reset and discover which prioritization methods work for you and your unique brain and body. Once you have a prioritized list of what's on your plate or what you'd like to add to it, you can move on to the next question. When Scheduling I find scheduling to be one of the most tedious and annoying admin tasks I ever have to do, and like the dishes and laundry, there's always more scheduling to do.
I've done many videos on scheduling, time blocking and routine building. In particular, these are the two skills I recommend developing in order to answer the question when. That being said, it's important to learn time blocking and routine building in a way that works for your brain, especially if you're neurodivergent. So I'm going to refer you to the videos I've already done on these topics. Down in the description box below,
there will be two playlists, one for time blocking and the other for routine building. Choose a video in one of those playlists that resonates the most with you. Please don't overwhelm yourself and binge watch all of them, even if the urge is strong. Once you've decided on a scheduling method and learned about it, start small. Schedule a day at a time until you get the hang of it before moving on to scheduling a whole week.
I'm going to repeat that because it's really important. Once you've decided on a scheduling method and learned about it, start small. Schedule a day at a time until you get the hang of it. Before moving on to scheduling a whole week, please don't overwhelm yourself at last we have arrived at the question why? When? We break down the question what should I be doing when and why. Answering the what and the when involves prioritizing and planning, whereas answering the why involves understanding your values and desired experiences, attaching those values and desired experiences to the things on your schedule to create meaning, and engaging with that meaning to hold yourself accountable to what's on your schedule.
If you used your North Star to answer what in the first place, you've already attached meaning to the things you've scheduled. If you want to go one step further, add your why to each thing on your calendar so you don't have to depend on your memory. If you didn't use your North Star to answer what, it's time to go through each thing you've scheduled and attach the parts of your North Star that are relevant.
For example, if you have work from home scheduled tomorrow from 9am to noon, and you have the value of integrity and the desire to experience stable housing and always having enough food, you would add those to your calendar, thereby attaching a deeper meaning to working from home tomorrow morning. This way, when something comes up on your calendar for you to do, you can engage with that deeper meaning in order to help create feelings of motivation.
Instead of being accountable to yourself because you said so, you become accountable to the values and desired experiences you have chosen for yourself, which if you struggle with internal accountability, tends to be much more powerful. I hope you enjoyed this crash course on structure, what it is, why you may have been struggling without it, and how to create it for yourself. There are even more tools to help reduce procrastination and improve internal accountability.
In fact, this topic is one of my main focuses on this channel and inside my signature productivity and self care program, the Action Navigator, designed for those who are neurodivergent chronically ill or disabled. It's packed with tools and techniques for mastering your time, getting organized and offering yourself radical compassion. If that sounds like exactly what you've been looking for, use this link to learn more.
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