Tag

teamupdate

December 22, 2021

Why We’re Taking This Week Off

If you’ve been following us for long, you know that we are passionate about encouraging and empowering women to craft lifestyles that fuel their most life-giving goals. Culture likes to tell us that we can either have a thriving business or be home-loving women, but not both. We simply don’t buy this. We believe we can honor the business responsibilities we’ve been given, and also serve our families by being fully present, especially this Christmas week.

That’s why this year we’ve decided to shut things down and take the next week off business activities so we don’t have the pressure of being on our phones, pulling out our laptops, or cramming in work blocks into our holiday plans. Instead, we’re going to cozy up with our families, slow down to soak in the goodness of the season, and fully celebrate the joy of the birth of Christ.

What does “off” mean?

  • The shop is still open! You can place orders at any time, but those orders won’t be packed up and shipped until Tuesday, December 28th.
  • We won’t be checking our inboxes regularly. If you’ve interacted with us, you know we place a high value on serving our customers well. If there is any issue with a product, we will make it right. If you have a question, we want to give you answers. But, we won’t be checking our inboxes and responding until Tuesday, December 28th.
  • Instagram will be pretty quiet. We want to be off our phones, and focused on our loved ones this week (don’t we all?)! We may pop on to share some holiday cheer, but otherwise things will be pretty quiet.

As we head toward Christmas, we find ourselves so incredibly thankful for how the business has grown this year. Thank you for all the ways you have supported us in 2021! You all have really blown us away this holiday season. We are so grateful we can take a week off to be with our families, and encourage you to do the same.

We wish you and your family the Merriest Christmas!

September 29, 2021

Self-Compassionate Planning + We’re Launching Our Podcast!

Planning, Pressure & Shame

When we launched our business in 2019, something caught us off guard. After years of field-testing different prototypes with ourselves and friends, we finally had our planner system on the market. The planner had become an indispensable part of our own lives, and we wanted to get it into the hands of others. Orders poured in and we were thrilled to see how other women would use this tool to fuel their goals.

But then we started getting emails and messages from women wanting to know how we thought they should spend their time. They weren’t just wondering whether they were doing this planning thing right—they were wondering if they needed to overhaul their entire lives in order to justify having bought a planner in the first place. These women were feeling both pressure to make perfect plans and shame when their days turned out differently than they imagined. Some were even feeling weighed down by the perception that their planner should look beautiful, even in the midst of their planning.

Now, don’t get us wrong, we’re down for an artful planner spread any day. And we believe there is so much to be learned from the planning community–hacks, tricks, best practices, etc. But we don’t believe that intentional living—and planning as a means to form an intentional life—has to be laden with pressure and shame. We believe quite the opposite.

Using a planner is not about super-womaning our way to an awesome life, or about forcing those around us to bend their lives to make our dreams happen. It’s not always about making a lot of money, or reaching an impressive personal goal, or cramming our life as full as it possibly can be. It’s not about making inflexible plans that don’t adapt as we go.

But we also know that giving up all of our power to be proactive is a sure path to overwhelm. We believe planning is about forming a rhythm that leads to a lifestyle that fuels realistic and life-giving goals, so that those goals can in turn breathe life into your rhythms. We’ve found this is only possible if you take a self-compassionate approach to planning.

What is self-compassionate planning? It is making the best plans you can—consistently over a lot of days—and yet having grace on yourself as you go, knowing that plans do change and that flexibility is key.

Friend, we don’t know your biggest dreams, your biggest pain points, or the goals you’ve set for yourself this year. But we’re excited to put the Evergreen Planner in your hands as a tool that you use to reach those goals.

And as for a self-compassionate mindset?

Well, we’ve got something for that too.

Our Podcast

We’re passionate about helping women craft intentional lifestyles that empower them to achieve their most life-giving goals. When our team gets together to support each other, we end up having these amazing conversations that encourage each of us to stay focused on the things that matter most.

So we decided to throw up some mics so we could share our conversations with you.

On October 4th, 2021 (that’s this Monday!), we’re launching our podcast: Make Space to Thrive.

Self-compassionate planning

Our first season will run for eight episodes, and will be available on all the major platforms.

We’ll be talking about our four rules of planning, taking a deep dive into our R.O.O.T.E.D. goals system, discussing planning while postpartum, how we plan our days & weeks and so much more. We’re so excited to share all we have learned and are learning with you all. But more than anything, we’re excited about taking some of the pressure off, and bringing encouragement to the wonderful women we have met since launching our business. This podcast is for each of you, from our hearts.

xx,

Team Evergreen

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Did you know you can try a piece of the Evergreen Planner system toady for free?! We want every woman to have the tools she needs to be able to begin planning intentionally, which is why we’ve created a free day planner sheet that has all of the major features of our Monthly booklet. Check it out!

July 7, 2021

July 2021 Team Update

Hey dear ones, today’s blog post is going to be a bit different! We’re coming at you with a personal update, since so much has happened in the lives of Team Evergreen this year! 

The first big adjustments came when McCauley moved out of her little white house—and Shelby moved into it! Fun fact: McCauley and Shelby actually used to share the master bedroom of that little white house as sisters before they each married! After their mom moved out, Shelby’s family lived in it for a few months, and then when they had to move a few hours away, McCauley’s family moved into it! Now that McCauley’s family has moved into their more long-term home, Shelby’s family was able to slide back into that darling little house that she felt they had to leave all too soon. 

So, yes, we’ve definitely been playing a bit of musical houses over here. 😉

While Shelby was neck-deep in moving, Clari gave birth to her baby! Her third son, Stellan was born on April 15, at 9 lbs and 9oz. He’s basically a copy-and-paste of his two big brothers, with the fluffy blonde hair and big blue eyes. He’s in the 99th percentile in basically every category, is already sharing his baby-chattering opinion on things at the team meetings, and has a smile that will absolutely melt your heart! He’s going to get to take his first beach trip with his family shortly, and the rest of the team may be more than a bit jealous of that fact. With the way Clari holds together all the backend processes at Team Evergreen while rocking her boy mom life (while starting in on preschool with her oldest!), she definitely deserves a coastal vacation!

Shortly before Clari returned to work, McCauley went into labor. Shelby was turning in for the night after an evening work session when the call came from Philip that it was showtime! Shelby hopped into the car and tried not to cut the six minute drive to McCauley’s house in half from speeding. McCauley labors like a true pro, and it wasn’t long before Nancy Ro came into the world at 1:42 a.m. on April 30th, at 8 lbs and 10 oz, 21” long. She’s behaved and stayed looking like a snuggly newborn for a bit longer than her big siblings seemed to. You could stare at her perfect rosy cheeks and long dark eyelashes for hours. Some of us certainly have been.

And because life always seems to work out this way, Shelby spent the next few days following her new niece’s birth juggling night-nanny duties _and_ helping to get her family fully moved into the little white house (which had to first get a fresh coat of paint on the walls). Thankfully, due to her family’s minimalistic tendencies, the packing and unpacking process wasn’t too intense, but she is very glad to finally be settled in—besides all of the bookcases she still needs to paint. Now she’s in full swing with preparations for the upcoming homeschooling year, and her mama heart couldn’t be more full.

So, Team Evergreen has finally and fully emerged from our maternity leave season, and is digging into all the things that need to be done for the third quarter of the year. We were able to have one of our full-day, mega-productive, in-person team meetings in June. As always, we ended the day marveling at how, when we all three get together, we can pour over finance details and project plans for hours on end without it even feeling like work!

The feeling of being a part of this team is golden. And from the bottom of our hearts, we also want to thank you for being a part of the Evergreen Planner story. 

We each have our own unique life circumstances and callings, but what a fun thing to unite with you through the passion we share for living intentionally and making space to really thrive. 

We do hope you’re having a super delightful Summer, gang.

xx,

Team Evergreen