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If you’re here, you’re likely a fellow Projector (I’m a 4/6 Splenic Projector, more about me at the very bottom of this article) and I’m wondering if you’ve had the same experience I’ve had trying to understand what being a Projector really means and more importantly, how to use it in life and business.
A sustainable business starts with a more spacious schedule
Whether you’re new to learning about your Projector (Human Design) superpowers, or you’re well versed in this, regularly reviewing your schedule is a critical element to sustaining your energy.
When Projectors have sustained energy, we move mountains when the aligned invitations show up.
If you’re an empath and/or an introvert on top of your Projector qualities like I am, then adding spaciousness to your schedule is doubly important.
But, we first gotta talk about privilege.
There is a lot of privilege in creating a spacious schedule. Having the privilege of choosing your own schedule is likely one of the reasons you became an entrepreneur in the first place. Depending on if you’re just starting out or you’ve been in business for a while, this varies from person to person and what kind of business model you have.
A spacious schedule sounds lovely AND sometimes it’s not realistic depending on your circumstances.
Are you a parent of a special needs or neurodivergent child? Caring for aging parents? Managing a chronic illness or pain? Tending to your mental health?
Not to mention things like having to work multiple jobs to cover rent or a mortgage due to the fact that affordable housing is disappearing.
The list of things that impact us on a daily basis is endless and what we are NOT going to do here is use toxic positivity or spiritual bypassing as a way to invalidate what’s very real for you.
Please take the tips in this article with a grain of salt and adjust for your goals and your unique lived experiences.
There is no schedule that is better than others. You’re not a failure if you can’t take bubble baths every weekend or take a nap every day. (I don’t do either of those things but in case the fake Instagram life is the picture you see in your head when you think about a spacious schedule.)
What I’m sharing with you are common things I hear from many Projectors and my own personal experience, which I hold with a lot of privilege as an able-bodied White woman with no kids and financial stability that allows me certain privileges. While I do manage mental health lows and chronic autoimmune conditions, I have a lot of privileges, too.
Pull up your calendar
My first recommendation is to pull up your calendar while reading this and just see what kind of spaciousness is or is not visible on your calendar.
I’ll wait. 😉 Seriously, pull it up.
Just notice what you see. There’s no need for judgment here. Is it full? Is it too open? Are you constantly thinking of everything in your head and it doesn’t even make it to your calendar?
Just notice.
Whose priorities are you prioritizing?
What things are on your calendar?
If you’re a parent, of course, your kids’ stuff is going to take priority. Even so, ask yourself, is there someone else who can help me?
As a Projector, you know what needs to be done and how it needs to be done, but that doesn’t mean you have to be the one doing it. (seriously, it’s not your job to manage the universe, even though you’re damn good at it.)
Feeling resentful is often a shadow side for Projectors. Resentment creeps in when we haven’t left any energy for ourselves and what is important to us personally.
Take a look at your schedule and if YOU and what you desire are not priorities on your own schedule, this will reduce the amount of energy you have to give to the aligned invitations when they do come your way.
What can you say no to? What can you renegotiate?
As a business owner, when planning out your year, I recommend this tip to all of my clients, not just the Projectors:
Put your own time off and vacations in your calendar first. The second thing you put is our own launches. The third thing is collaborations with other folks if that applies to your business.
Nothing time
This is where your creativity is unique. The hundreds of Projectors I’ve taught and talked with over the years tell me the same thing: the need time in their schedule where NOTHING is planned. This is laughable to the mom of a newborn or a toddler. This can be nearly impossible with a special needs child.
So start with five minutes. Just five minutes a day where you breathe. Yes, you may have to put yourself in your closet or the bathroom, and just start with five minutes.
Get horizontal (just lie down and breathe)
You know that moment when you realize you’re depleted? For me, it shows up with the inability to make a decision. I’ve been making decisions allllll day.
Managing my business, and marketing, and my team, and my mental health, and… and… and… and when I get asked what I want for dinner, I sometimes snap. It’s just too much. It’s just dinner, right? But it’s energy that I don’t want to utilize for such a decision.
Can you relate? Those pesky simple things that put you over the edge?
That’s when you get horizontal. Lay on the couch. One of my favorite things to do is lay on the floor and do a few stretches. And then I just lie there. I close my eyes for a few minutes and breathe.
If you don’t do this already, just try it.
Choose your client-facing time wisely
Early on in my business, I would live for the weekends because that’s when I could get caught up on the work I needed to do after serving clients all week.
I had lousy boundaries with clients. I would accommodate their schedule and time zones, even though I knew my energy would not be 100% present because I’m not a morning person, for example.
Create boundaries
If you’re a service-based business working with other humans, it’s tempting to be overly available and generously accommodating.
You get to choose when you work with clients.
I typically don’t start any appointment before 10 am. On my coaching days, I work with clients from 10-3 pm and I take a 45-minute lunch break. I have 15-30 minutes in between clients. This schedule works for me because I don’t have many openings for private clients and focus my work on my courses, group programs, and events. I typically deliver my group coaching and course calls on Thursdays.
However, if you have a brick-and-mortar location, blocking your time out like this is a bit tougher so start where you are with what you have.
Slow down by choice not force
If your schedule is full and you’re getting more and more depleted, it’s been my experience that your body will force you to slow down and create space for yourself. I’d rather build rest into my schedule before my body rebels and gets sick. Perhaps I’m more sensitive to this because I manage autoimmune conditions that if I push myself too hard, then I’ll be out of commission for a couple of days and that’s not a trophy for success.
A Sample Schedule:
It took burning out to recognize I was not creating a sustainable business and I had to make some changes so I started out small.
I started by not working with clients on Mondays and not teaching my courses or group programs on Fridays. Then no email or Voxer responses on the weekends. (I thought in order to prove my value to my clients and to keep them happy, I always had to be available. This is clearly NOT true, by the way.)
Then I started blocking out more time over the years to the schedule I have now:
📝 Mondays are dedicated to admin, marketing, and creating content.
🖥️ Tuesdays and Thursdays are my client-facing days after, which is when I do private coaching and do my group teaching. I also meet with my team member on Tuesday. I run my business with a part-time virtual assistant.
🎯 📖 Wednesdays are a spill-over day, networking, and education day. This is when I get caught up on things from Monday if necessary. I listen to the courses and programs I’m a participant in. This is also when I schedule coffee chats with colleagues to develop relationships and collaborations.
I swap Tuesdays and Wednesdays in my schedule depending on things like grad school (at the time of writing this, I went back to college after a 20-year break so I need a day dedicated to school).
💜 Fridays are ME days. I take care of my life on Fridays: grocery shopping, doctor appointments, haircuts, picking up my littles from school and getting ice cream, going to a coffee shop, etc.
📧 Let’s talk about email: I like to schedule 15-45 minutes in the morning, Monday through Thursday to reply to emails and Voxers. I remove email from my phone except when I’m traveling. And this is hard because I got into such a habit of checking my email throughout the day.
I have the weekends for me and my family.
Does every week go according to this schedule? Nope. Life happens and you adjust as you go.
Final Tip: Start Where You Are with What You Have
I already mentioned this earlier, but it’s so important to remember this. Let go of comparison and allow yourself to make changes over time. If you’re an all-or-nothing type of person like I am, remember this is a process, not a checklist.
Things will ebb and flow. Things will adjust. Life will show up differently in different chapters. There’s a season for everything.
