Reaching Your Highest Potential With Sylvia McClellan

Welcome to the Personal Development Trailblazers Podcast! In today’s episode, we’re talking about how to step into your highest potential.

Sylvia is a mother of two, who spends her days homeschooling, home making, homesteading, and working on her many businesses and projects. After recognizing that a well-balanced life is so much more than simply checking off items on a "to do list", she created an individualized planner system-ACME Planner- to help others take the next steps in organizing and prioritizing their lives. The ACME Planner is now featured in several podcasts, with several upcoming so stay tuned and connected to see what Sylvia's doing next!

In this conversation, Sylvia shares her journey of overcoming challenges related to ADHD and finding effective tools for organization. She discusses the importance of digital organization, cleaning techniques, and building routines that support personal and professional growth. The dialogue emphasizes the significance of planning, project management, and the transformative power of writing down tasks to achieve clarity and efficiency. Sylvia also reflects on her aspirations to embody the qualities of a Proverbs 31 woman, highlighting the ongoing journey of self-improvement and the resources available for those seeking to enhance their organizational skills.

I mention my mother the most in my blog because she is the one who influenced my planning, as well as the one who planted the seed to design my own planner business. She has been a very hard worker, and was truly the only one there for me when I was younger and going through a lot of emotional craziness, to even now being able to call her and we can talk about anything.

The Amanda Teacher Student Layout has two checklists with ten check box spaces on the left with a weekly tracker. There are five rows and seven columns. This design can be divided into five days with seven categories or seven days with five categories.

The T Dashboard layout is a weekly view designed to give a quick overview immediately. The left is divided into eight boxes, one for each day of the week, and the eighth box is commonly used for decorations or a notes section. The checklists provided can be labeled into three categories, with ten check box spaces. Underneath are three labeled sticky notes, and below that are two weekly trackers.

The very first layout and most basic is the monthly layout. The monthly layout should always be your first stop for your most important information, future planning and planning ahead. Any day-specific and timed-events such as birthdays, doctor’s appointments, bills, or anything high priority you don’t want to forget, should always go into the month first, then shuffle down to your week and then to the day depending on your flow. Most monthly layouts are going to be four or five weeks. You can store a lot of information on a monthly spread and depending on your needs, a monthly planner or wall calendar may be all you need.

You should now have a decent-sized list of life main and subcategories, and more specific areas you want to keep track of. I want you to continue to add to that list for the next few weeks. Whenever you do a task, I want you to think about, is this on my list, how often do I do this and how long does it take? I want you to also start thinking about who I am now, and who I want to be. Start making a list of the weaknesses and strengths you have and how they can be improved. I want you to start diving deeper into your categories and get even more specific.

You have that brand new planner sitting in front of you – either physical or digital –it’s a blank canvas staring at you –your mind starts to RACE. What do I start writing down? I don’t want to mess it up. The idea of now setting up that planner has become overwhelming, so you put it aside for another day…. which never comes.