“...until the people show up.”
Once upon a time, I was a certified small group leader through my church. That literally means nothing other than I got to attend a couple of “trainings.”
In one of those trainings, they talked about how important and wonderful being part of a group and in community is…until the people show up.
Translation: people are tricky and messy.
Every single one of us are, at one point or another.
That’s the price we have to pay in order to be in relationship with each other.
But dear reader, it’s so, so worth it.At the end of our lives, it’s going to be our people who get top ranks in the things that matter the most.They are worth the time and effort.
This is why one of the core pillars of Sprouted Planner is People.
Intention, Reflection, People, Simplicity.
Yet, in the hustle of our everyday lives, our most important relationships (our home team) can VERY EASILY slip down or off the ol’ to-do list. Not on purpose at all. Not because they don’t matter. Life just lifes.
The only way to combat this people-slip is with intention.
Your planner can help you with this! That’s the whole point of the People section and reminders: to help you be intentional about your VIP relationships.
People in Sprouted Planners
“People” is a working section in the beginning prep pages of a signature Sprouted Planner (Daily, Weekly, or Hourly). It’s under the “Values” section because our people are highly valued.
I borrowed heavily from both Shauna Niequest and Greg McKeown when designing the People section.
Shauna introduced me to the term/idea of our home team: the small group of people who are most important to us. They are the ones we could call in the middle of the night, or the ones we’d gladly give up our time to help them. They are the people we want to personally tell big, important news to. These people are typically made up of spouses, children, certain family members, close friends, and often those coworkers we end up being incredibly close to.
Greg introduced me to the concept of relationship importance levels: 1x, 10x, 1000x. Your 1000x people are the people who you should be investing the most amount of time in. If things are not OK with these people, then everything in life feels hard. This is typically a spouse and children, but can absolutely include a few key others (like parents and/or a sibling).
Your 10x people are the people you want to actively do life with. They are important to you. This is often direct family, your closest friends, and possibly those “work wife” coworkers, dearest neighbors, and so on.
The 1x people are still important but they are not your priority people. They can still be friends, acquaintances, working relationships, parents of your kid’s friends, church folks, even cousins and more distant relatives, etc. Any of these people could eventually bump into your 10x list with the right time and circumstances.
Marrying these two concepts, your 1000x and 10x people are your home team.
Inside this section in your Sprouted Planner, you get intentional about your people by doing the following:
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List your home team people.
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Color in the importance target with 3 different colors. Use these colors to color the circle next to each person’s name, according to their importance level in your life.
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In the lined boxes under each name, jot downhow often andhow you want to pour into this person.These are your intentions.
For the record, my people section has a couple 1x-ers. They are still important to me, but they’re not going to get the same energy and effort as my 10x-ers.
Intention to Action
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Fair.
Might I add that at least the intentions were there. That’s an important first step. The 2nd step is equally as important: action.
On every monthly spread, Sprouted Planners have a small intentional checklist to help you plan out your intentions. The checklist is: Monthly Reflection, Values, People, Year List, Previews.
As you plan out your month, you’re going to review your People section with this eye:
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Who do I want to focus on a little extra this month?
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What did I put as an intention under each person?
If you’re like me, there’s a couple people I want to intentionally spend time with on a monthly basis: a date day with my husband, coffee with my mom, and dinner with our best couple friend. As you’re planning your month, get those scheduled in.
To get really tactical, I think there’s 2 ways you could do this:
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Make the scheduling of these things a task on your to-do list, or
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Text or *gasp* call these people to get them on the schedule as you’re planning
If your intention to connect with a person is to text/call, then you could find a habit tracker to hold you accountable. For example, if you have people you want to check-in via text on a weekly basis, you could find a 52-weekly habit tracker and put those people’s names on it.
You could even schedule a daily or weekly reminder into your phone to connect with people: Wednesday comes and BING: text 5 people today.
For some people, connecting with their people is easy-peasy. For others (raising my hand here), it’s more of a struggle due to busyness and being introverted. I could go for a decent amount of time without talking to people outside my home and not think twice about it. Therefore, I HAVE to be more intentional about staying connected.
Ideas to Connect With Your People
Sometimes we over complicate how to connect with our people. On the other hand, maybe we keep it too simple and surface level. Here’s a list of 20 ways to connect with your people: some are super simple, and some are more involved.
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Invite them over for dessert (way less pressure than a whole meal)
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Grab coffee at a coffee shop
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Try a new place together (shop or restaurant)
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Text: “Thinking about you. If you get the chance, I’d love to hear what’s going on with you.”
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Host a game night
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Cowork together
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Ask them to help you with something (like decluttering)
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Suggest a show to go to (concert, comedy, play)
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Grab a drink
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Call them for their opinion
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Send a card
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Shoot them an email
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Randomly text them news about yourself of your kids (“Oliver lost his first tooth!”)
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Send them a memory you just had that involved them (or a picture memory that popped up)
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Birthdays! Easiest touch point.
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Pray for them (not every touchpoint has to be outward)
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Plan a trip together
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Sign up for a hobby or class together
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Volunteer together
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Schedule a walk or hike together
Expect Messy, Not Perfection
To close this all out, I’d be remiss if I didn’t circle back around to the fact that people are messy. We all have expectations and opinions and stupid mouths sometimes. Your feelings will get hurt. Their feelings will get hurt. You won’t show up when you should have, and vice versa. Don’t even get me started on political views.
Expect that conflict will happen within relationships at every level.
If you deem the relationship worthy, then you need to employ good practices to keep that relationship intact.
First, grace upon grace.We all need so much grace from each other.
Second,open and honest communication.Ahhh so awkward! Get over it. Do it anyway. Did your feelings get hurt? Tell them. But tell them as gently as you can. Your goal is reconciliation here.
Third, forgiveness. When warranted and necessary. Ask for forgiveness if you were in the wrong, or even just for your part of it.
Fourth, create boundaries if and when needed. Some people - even those on your home team - don’t get to know everything because they’ve shown they can’t be trusted to keep something confidential, or they can’t handle a civil conversation about certain things. There still needs to be grace, communication, and forgiveness. And beyond this, sometimes (oftentimes) boundaries are necessary.
The greatest impact
The greatest impact we can make in life is through our relationships. As a spouse, parent, daughter, sibling, aunt, grandparent, friend, neighbor, coworker, person in this world.
Be wise with your time and efforts. I’d argue that it’s better to go deep and narrow when it comes to your people, than it is to go wide and shallow with whoever is a touchpoint in your life.
This is why knowing WHO and HOW OFTEN we want to invest in our people is a hugely worthy endeavor.
