A Well-Designed Day: Living with Intention

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Ever wanted to lead a more organized life that left you feeling more accomplished, too? Entrepreneur Whitney English shares her advice for doing just that!

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4word: Share with us how you started your company. Why did you want to start it?

Screen Shot 2016-01-19 at 3.03.16 PMWhitney: The idea for Day Designer came from a very genuine place – there were no daily planners on the market at the time! Honestly if there were, I wouldn’t have created it. I was looking for a business idea that was “blue ocean,” something that wasn’t being done. I also had a lot of respect for other people who had created products, and I didn’t want to create something that would be in competition with them.

There was also a personal motivation in it. I couldn’t find a planner that worked for me. There was literally a pile of dusty planners, sitting half-used, in the corner of my office. Necessity is oftentimes the mother of invention, as they say.

 

4word: Has being an entrepreneur been a good fit for you and your loved ones? 

Whitney: I was an entrepreneur long before I was a wife or a mom. I started my first business when I was 22, and wasn’t married until I was almost 30. So it wasn’t a major lifestyle change for anyone. Entrepreneurship was just sort of part of the package.

 

4word: At the beginning of the year, we all think a lot about what we want change in the coming year and “more balance” is often on top of the list. What do you see as the biggest hurdle most women face in designing and balancing their life? What would you recommend women do to handle goals or items they weren’t able to “check off” their lists?

Screen Shot 2016-01-19 at 3.03.03 PMWhitney: I’d actually say that the biggest obstacle to balance is guilt. When we are with our kids, we feel guilty that we’re not working. When we’re working, we feel guilty about not being with our kids. I’ve learned that balance is about picking a point on the horizon, and keeping your eyes on that, and not letting guilt and or others’ opinions get in the way. Journaling is a great way to reflect on your day, identifying what you WERE able to get done, instead of focusing so much on what was expected of you – and maybe what didn’t happen.

 

4word: Tell us about your new tool launching this month called “Well-Designed Year” and why you created it.

Whitney: The Well-Designed Year is a life planning system designed to help individuals who are feeling like they may need a reboot. I created it about five years ago when I was on a personal journey of reprogramming. I had found myself with a successful business I thought was my passion, but a quality of life that left me frustrated and exhausted. Well-Designed Year is a three-part tool that guides people on a journey to discover what principles, themes, threads, and elements need to shift in their lives, develop a plan to make those shifts, and then be held accountable to it.  

 

Screen Shot 2016-01-19 at 3.03.35 PM4word: We love that on each Day Designer planner sheet, you have a space to record what you are grateful for. Share with us why you include that.

Whitney: We included the space to practice gratitude because, quite simply, I believe gratitude changes things. It’s easy to get caught up on the future when planning out our days, weeks, and years, and we can forget to be present in the current moment. For me, offering thanks for what I have on any given day keeps me grounded in the present and I wanted to provide space for others to develop that practice.

 

4word: What is one recommendation you would have for the professional Christian woman who is seeking to grow this year?  

Whitney: Read Visioneering: God’s Blueprint for Developing and Maintaining Vision by Andy Stanley. It’s a great business book from a faith-filled perspective.

 

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It’s never too late to start laying out what you want to accomplish. Get started on organizing your year, and your life, today with Whitney’s Well-Designed Year life planning system! Also, be sure to check out Whitney’s free downloads under her “Printable Library.”

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As a serial entrepreneur, Whitney English started her first company at 22 years old with babysitting money. The company quickly grew to generate seven figures in revenue but ended with Whitney filing bankruptcy due to a shifting economy and new technology.

She’s started more than a dozen other businesses since then with her most recent ventures being Day Designer, best-selling planners that help women live a well-designed life and Biz Designers, an e-course to help individuals start or stabilize a new or existing business.

Whitney is a wife and mamma to three. She believes that people matter, mercy trumps grace, and ordinary is beautiful. You can read more from Whitney on her blog, Twitter, and Instagram