My husband Kyle stood by the coffee pot, resisting the urge to brew a full strength flask of pour over. I stood by the stove making dinner. We were both staring pensively at the kitchen sink, thinking through the new problems we each faced.

We couldn’t have planned for that at the beginning of this week.
 

Thankfully, “that” was not any kind of a crisis—not even close. It was just one of those mundane situations that creates a domino effect in your schedule when you've been given so much abundance to steward. We’ve built plenty of margin into our family’s week rhythms to handle situations like these.
 

But this week was unique: our whole family onboarded with a new chiropractor, I was taking my mom to an out-of-state book sale, and our typical margin day had been committed to helping someone in an extraordinary situation with an all-day project. That meant we needed to run a tighter ship than usual schedule-wise in order to meet our responsibilities to the family business, my husband’s remote day job, homeschooling, and our local community.
 

So the unexpected logistics threw a significant wrench in our confidence that we could pull the rest of the week off without canceling something that was important to us.
 

Standing there in the kitchen, we sidestepped the temptation to put the kids to bed, brew the coffee, and pull a late-nighter to get more work projects done right then and there when we were thinking about them. (That would’ve been canceling sleep, which is also very important to us! Ha ha.)
 

Instead, we engaged in something we’ve come to practice like a lifeline: a fast but wildly effective joint planning session.

Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There!

Kyle has a favorite quote when it comes to financial investing. It comes from the founder of the Vanguard Group.
 

“Don’t just do something, stand there!” — John Bogle
 

Mr. Bogle was teaching that having a reactionary approach to investing is what causes a lot of people to lose money. The key is being strategic at the outset, and then calmly trusting the decisions you made when you were in an objective headspace—regardless of what the stock market is doing.
 

This mindset is extremely helpful when it comes to having a successful planning session with your husband. Instead of jumping the gun when everything around you shifts and emotionally throwing all of your plans and lifestyle decisions out the window—take a minute to just stand there and think.
 

While adaptability is absolutely a strength when it comes to navigating the constantly shifting dynamics of abundant living, if we are not intentional, this adaptability can quickly devolve into reactionary living. Being in a reactionary headspace is like pouring gasoline on all of your carefully crafted plans.
 

One spark from a tiny change of plans, and your overarching goals have caught fire. Next thing you know, you and your husband are in a heated conversation about “what are we even trying to do with our life again?!”—and everything can spiral from there very quickly.
 

10 Tips for a Successful Planning Session with Your Husband
 

1 - Have a joint commitment to serve Jesus wholeheartedly, and obey His Word. All of the rest of these tips assume that you both have a personal relationship with the Lord, His Spirit comforting and counseling both of your hearts, a unified dedication to the advancement of His Kingdom, and a true desire to self-sacrificially love one another.

2 - Assume you’re on the same team in every conversation. Do not let the “mything is going to get the chopping block here, I just know it” anxiety creep in. Earn the trust of your spouse that you will not attack “their thing” when the going gets tough. In marriage, the commitment is that everything is “our thing” (Matthew 19:6), even if enjoyed separately.

3 - Have a deeply compassionate approach to each others’ unique challenges and limitations. I have chronic health issues that have at times put me in bed for days or weeks at a time (thankfully, my health has taken a drastic turn for the better in the past year!). My husband was diagnosed with ADHD years ago. Trusting that the other person is truly doing their best (”love believes all things”), and being merciful and encouraging when the other person legitimately errs is critical.

4 - Have a joint 5 year vision and 10 year vision. Then know and understand the specific goals each spouse needs to meet this year in order to accomplish your 5 year vision.

5 - Know and understand the specific goals each spouse needs to meet this quarter in order to accomplish the rest of your goals for the year. Meet quarterly(ish) to update and adjust each spouse’s goals accordingly.

6 - Go through the Renew eCourse separately, and then come together to sync your Week Audits. This is an absolute game-changer. Once you both have the skills taught in Week Commanders, you can do this quarterly(ish) when you discuss and update seasonal goals. And the family rhythms you design together will actually STICK.

7 - Optional: know and understand the specific goals each spouse needs to accomplish this week to stay on track with quarterly goals. I say this is optional because it truly depends on your season and dynamic. My husband and I work together at Evergreen Planner (he’s my project manager). Our kids work for my husband’s side hustle (they earn money by fulfilling orders). I have an extensively supportive role in my husband’s battle with ADHD that comes with a lot of practical implications. We have to keep each other updated to thrive with these dynamics. But we’ve also been in seasons before where our work is a lot more separate (i.e. when he worked outside of the home and Evergreen was just my little side project). In those seasons, we didn’t necessarily need to know each other’s weekly goals—we just had to stay supportive of the other. But in every season, we’ve needed to sync our Week Audits (i.e. our family week rhythm) consistently. That’s always been the clincher.

8 - Stay in a creative headspace when a plan changes and you need to go back to the drawing board to figure things out logistically. Fear and anxiety is the creativity-killer. You’ve got to stay optimistic and creative when discussing solutions, or else tension is inevitable.

9 - Have a mutual shortlist of things that absolutely don’t get the chopping block when things change. Our shortlist is this:

• our confidence that God is doing something good with His unexpected Providences (1 Thessalonians 5:18)
• our kids’ sense of stability that comes from having enough relaxed and playful family time (Ephesians 6:4)
• the other person’s overarching goals (Philippians 2:4)
• key lifestyle habits that make optimal functioning sustainable—such as regular family devotions, healthy sleep, our family walks, and eating home cooked meals (Psalm 127:2)

10 - Keep a sound mind about the tradeoffs you do need to make. Say you and your husband have a rapid planning session and decide to forego your big trip to Costco—which will mean a couple of Walmart pickups in the meantime. If sticking to a dollar-specific grocery budget is not on your shortlist, this decision would be fine! Don’t catastrophize it, believing that all of your hopes for being frugal have just been washed away forever. (Obviously, we know nothing of this line of “reasoning.” 😉) Take things in stride, put your big Costco trip on the calendar for later (then protect it), and move on with your life.

If you’re constantly planning from a place of anxiety, you will be washing away all of your margin time with a lot of emotional reactivity.
 

Making Space for the Other to Relax

“What do you need? What are you feeling anxious about?” I asked my husband. I didn’t have the answers yet, but I knew that my “next-right-step” in that moment was to simply make the choice to stay centered and offer him the space to express his concerns first.
 

(Lest you imagine otherwise, my husband is a strong servant leader in our home and he usually beats me to the punch on this one. I learned this approach from him.)
 

My husband visibly relaxed and the concerns started pouring out of him. I silently surrendered each one in prayer as he let them flow, asking the Lord for wisdom about which ones I was called to actively help him handle. I’d just looked at my planner, so I could visualize the rest of my responsibilities for the week.
 

“Would it make a big difference for your week if I covered for you in the house so you could just have the rest of the night to catch up on work?” I asked him.

The relief that washed over his face let me know I was spot on. “Yes, that would change everything.”
 

I smiled and told him to consider it done. He took a deep breath and a few minutes to process what this meant for his schedule. Once I could tell he’d moved past his anxiety and had gotten into a stronger headspace, I ventured my own concerns.
 

“Right.” he said, brewing decaf tea instead of coffee. “Tell me what you need. What are you feeling anxious about?”
 

I listed my concern that my most critical work goal for the week was at risk. He opened Notion on his laptop (he’s Evergreen’s project manager) and we discussed all of my urgent and important tasks. I worked on dinner and felt ministered to as he suspended his own preferences for how our weekend would go and creatively reconsidering his side of things in order to carve out extra deep work time for me.
 

After sorting through my tasks and examining my Week Audit, he proposed a plan for the rest of my work week that would help me hit all of my targets. And it didn’t involve working any evenings (which currently does not work for me as a nursing mama whose baby likes a good dream feed at 5am).
 

With the late-nighter averted, I served dinner, we ate, and then I loaded up the kids to run Kyle’s errand. By the time I got home and put the kids to bed, he was already cleaning the kitchen (something I’d promised to do for him).
 

“I’m 15 minutes ahead on work!” he grinned. Our rapid planning session had relaxed him enough that his ADHD loosened his grip on his brain and he had flown through his cognitively demanding work responsibilities while we were gone. This meant I was free to put the baby to bed and grab a shower, allowing me to get to bed even earlier.
 

Planning and Executing With a Sound Mind

While preparing for bed, 2 Timothy 1:7 came to mind: "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."
 

When Paul wrote these words to Timothy, he was reminding him of the impact that God’s grace should have in our lives—power, love, and soundness of mind. These qualities are not just abstract spiritual gifts, but deeply practical tools that should transform how we approach everyday life—including how we manage our time and relationships.
 

God has given us power. This power doesn’t come from our own strength, but from His ability to equip us for every good work. When we face conflicting needs—like my husband and I did—we don’t have to be afraid that we won’t have enough time, energy, or resources. One of our local elders often reminds us that God’s reality is based on a fundamental harmony of interests. The power to overcome the fear of not having enough time comes from God, who gives us strength to meet every challenge head-on with confidence.
 

God has given us love. It’s easy to prioritize our own needs and desires in the face of conflict, but the love of God gives us enables us to look beyond ourselves. This love compels us to serve and support each other, to listen, and to seek creative solutions that benefit not just ourselves, but those around us (Colossians 3:12-17; Philippians 2:1-4). When we prioritize love in our planning, we shift from self-preservation to mutual edification and flourishing.
 

Finally, God has given us a sound mind. A sound mind helps us think clearly, calmly, and creatively. Instead of succumbing to panic or frustration, we can use the wisdom and discernment God provides to manage our time with purpose and intentionality. This clear-headedness allows us to plan from a place of peace, not fear.
 

As Christians, we are called to seek first the Kingdom and trust God with the rest (Matthew 6:33).

Obedience to our Lord’s instructions in everyday moments like these will ultimately empower us see solutions that passivity, strife, and self-protective fear would otherwise blind us to.