The 'Give Me Balance Planner' provides a simplified method for integrating personal life and business planning through five key steps using the CREEM framework: Connect, Relax, Evolve, Energize, and Maintain. Users are guided to brainstorm, refine, list, plan, and execute activities to achieve a harmonious balance between life and work. This planner emphasizes the importance of focusing on enjoyable activities while aligning them with overarching personal and professional goals.

1. Give Me Balance Planner
Sort your business and life in just 5 simple steps

2. At In Just 5. we hate complicated business
planning tools that don’t take your personal life
into account and vice versa.
It’s easy to try and focus on things we think will
make money, or get distracted by tedious tasks
we hate, but in the process we neglect important
parts of our life and us. We forget the fun! We
don’t focus on things at work we enjoy.
We need a simple tool to help us focus on the
right kind of activities. Activities that will give us a
business and life we love!
Forgive the food metaphor (we’re super
obsessed with food) but we don’t just want the
ice cream sundae. We want one with whipped
cream and a cherry on top.
Enter the Give Me Balance Planner. An easy way
to prioritise and balance all the different aspects
of your life, and focus on activities to improve
and grow your business and life.
While a good business coach can really help you
perfect your strategy, we like to start with this
Give Me Balance Planner and CREEM.

3. The Give Me
Balance Planner
helps you identify
and categorise
activities using
CREEM.
All the activities in
your business, life,
or even specific
projects can be
categorised using
CREEM.
”
“
CONNECT – activities where you engage with others or community
RELAX – looking after and rewarding yourself and own needs – self-care
EVOLVE – things that will improve or grow you, your business or life
ENERGISE – things you LOVE doing
MAINTAIN – things that HAVE to be done, but you’d like to delegate or get rid of.

5. 5 Key Steps
To get the most out of the Give Me
Balance, you’ll follow 5 easy steps:
1. Brain dump – capture all of your
activities and initial thoughts in the
CREEM swirls
2. Refine it – review everything you
captured in the Brain Dump and refine it
in line with your overarching goal(s)
3. List it – transfer your refined list of
activities to the CREEM table
4. Plan it – prioritise all activities and
allocate timeframes
5. Do it! – implement action plan,
monitor and update

7. Sit down with a cuppa (dollop of cream optional) and let’s do thi

8. • Decide what type of you activities would like to capture and plan eg.
Personal life or work or both, a specific project, a quarterly business
plan.
• Take a look at the CREEM swirls on the next few pages.
• Decide if you want a page for each CREEM category to give you lots of
room or if you want to capture your thoughts all on one page – in this
case use the one-pager option.
• Print out your preferred CREEM swirls and start capturing the first thing
that comes to you head when it comes to activities for each category.
• They can be activities you’re already doing, or activities you may like
to/should do. Don’t hold back or overthink it.
• Use the prompt words on the swirls and the SAMPLES at the end of
this document for inspiration.
1. Brain dump

9. I like to plan my personal and work activities
together. This encourages alignment
between these parts of my life. I capture
them on the same CREEM swirls – often
there is overlap.
You could do this or use separate swirls for
personal and work and then combine the
activities in your overall planner in Steps 2-5
but it’s completely up to you.
Remember to capture your activities using the CREEM categories:
CONNECT – activities where you engage with others or community
RELAX – looking after and rewarding yourself and own needs – self-care
EVOLVE – things that will improve or grow you, your business or life
ENERGISE – things you LOVE doing
MAINTAIN – things that HAVE to be done, but you’d like to delegate or get rid of.
1. Brain dump
“
”

10. 1. Brain dump
CONNECT
Date / /
Work ☐
Personal ☐
Other

11. 1. Brain dump
RELAX
Date / /
Work ☐
Personal ☐
Other

12. 1. Brain dump
EVOLVE
Date / /
Work ☐
Personal ☐
Other

13. 1. Brain dump –
ENERGISE
Date / /
Work ☐
Personal ☐
Other

14. 3. Brain dump
MAINTAIN
Date / /
Work ☐
Personal ☐
Other

15. 1. Brain dump – 1 page option
Date / /
Work ☐
Personal ☐
Other

16. 2. Refine it
• Now you need to refine your activities so that you only concentrate on
the IMPORTANT ones.
• Review all of the activities you captured in Step 1 – the Brain Dump
and circle or highlight only the activities that will help you achieve
your overarching goal(s).
• To encourage balance in your life and/or business, make sure you
choose some activities from each category.
• In the next step you will be transferring these important activities to a
table but first, what about your overall goal?
• In the first step it was important to capture all your thoughts, but not all
of them are relevant or will help you achieve your overall goal(s).
• Goals are important as they keep you on track and focused.
• You should have personal and work goals, which should be aligned
with each other. SAMPLES can be found at the end of this document.
• Capture your goals on the next page before moving onto Step 3.

17. MY PERSONAL GOAL(S) TIMEFRAME DONE
• ☐
• ☐
• ☐
2. Refine it
My overarching goals which all my activities must be aligned to are:
MY WORK GOAL(S) TIMEFRAME DONE
• ☐
• ☐
• ☐
MY OTHER GOAL(S) TIMEFRAME DONE
• ☐
• ☐
• ☐

18. 3. List it
• Now transfer the IMPORTANT items you circled or highlighted in the
CREEM swirls and transfer them to the following table.
• List the activity under the relevant category.
• REMEMBER to check that these activities must help you achieve or be
aligned with your overall goal(s).
• If you believe an activity is IMPORTANT but doesn’t contribute to your
overall goal, then include it, but make a note to yourself that you need
to revisit it later – these are often MAINTAIN activities you may try to
delegate or get rid of if possible. Alternatively you may need to revisit
your overall goals.

19. connect relax evolve energise maintain
ACTIVITIES ACTIVITIES ACTIVITIES ACTIVITIES ACTIVITIES
• • • • •
• • • • •
• • • • •
• • • • •
• • • • •
• • • • •
• • • • •
• • • • •
• • • • •
• • • • •
3. List it Date / /
Work ☐
Personal ☐
Other

20. 4. Plan it
• Now you have a refined list of activities across the different CREEM
categories, you need to prioritise them and allocate timeframes.
• Transfer the activities from Step 3 into the Action Plan on the next
page. You may need to print out extra copies of the following table to
capture your key activities.
• Choose whether you want one action plan for work and one for
personal or combined, and choose a time period for the action plan.
• You should also choose one activity from each of the CONNECT,
RELAX, EVOLVE and ENERGISE categories, that you would like to
focus on for this time period.
• Also identify one activity from the MAINTAIN list that you would like to
delegate or get rid of.
• Then specify how you will celebrate or reward yourself after completing
each of these focus activities.
• Make sure you give a priority number to each activity, add extra detail
where needed and specify a deadline or critical day of the week.

21. 4. Plan it My Action Plan
My number 1
priority activity to
CONNECT during
this period is:
My number 1
priority activity to
RELAX during
this period is:
My number 1
priority activity to
EVOLVE during
this period is:
My number 1
priority activity to
ENERGISE
during this period
is:
My number 1
MAINTAIN activity
I will delegate or
get rid of (circle
1) is:
I will celebrate this
achievement by:
I will celebrate this
achievement by:
I will celebrate this
achievement by:
I will celebrate this
achievement by:
I will celebrate this
achievement by:
Circle time period for this plan below:
Date / / This week
Work ☐ This month
Personal ☐ This quarter
Other This year
I will do it by:
/ /
I will do it by:
/ /
I will do it by:
/ /
I will do it by:
/ /
I will do it by:
/ /

22. PRIORITY
#
ACTIVITY DETAIL/COMMENT DEADLINE DONE
• ☐
• ☐
• ☐
• ☐
• ☐
• ☐
• ☐
• ☐
• ☐
• ☐
• ☐
• ☐
• ☐
• ☐
• ☐
4. Plan it My Action Plan
My other priority CONNECT, RELAX, EVOLVE, ENERGISE and MAINTAIN activities for this period are:

23. 5. Do it!
• Don’t forget to track your action plan
and your progress.
• You can track it in hard copy using your
action plan from Step 4.
• You may like to use a daily to do list.
• Alternatively you may like to put
reminders in your calendar.
• Do whatever works for you.
• Don’t be afraid to revisit you goals and
plans at any time. Think and dream big.
The sky’s the limit! but most of all…
Have fun!

24. Samples

30. Don’t forget to check out our other free business resources at www.injust5.com. No email address required.
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www.injust5.com