Eight Years of PowerSheets

Friends, we're one month away from PowerSheets® launch day!! Join me as we take a little walk down memory lane in anticipation, and mark your calendars for September 24th - cover reveal day. After reading this post, you won't believe your eyes... :)

Here's something fun: I remember the very first time the words "Tending List" were spoken in our office. It was a busy season, and Lara mentioned that she had mocked up a little worksheet that was helping her check in on all of her different priorities. It was really making a difference for her!

Note: we had an amazing designer at the time, but when Lara gets an idea in her head, she just runs with it! The fact that she mocked it up herself tells you a little bit about where we saw this Tending List going - mostly just around our office :)

But then, after a few months of using it ourselves, we began to see how powerful it really was. By checking in frequently and focusing on small, actionable steps, we were all seeing big changes. We were more productive, creative, and efficient at work, and we were growing the things that really mattered to us at home.

Instead of giving our time and attention to whatever screamed loudest on any given day, we were tending to the things that mattered in the big picture - things that lasted. We were living on purpose instead of by accident.

Lara shared the sheets on social media, as one does... and the requests started pouring in. So, after a hot minute of hand flapping and what-are-we-doing excitement, we took the principles and prompts from Lara's annual goal-setting series and the Making Things Happen Conference, turned them into interactive worksheets, and combined them with the original Tending List. (And our designer actually designed them this time!)

We found a local printer. We printed the first few hundred sets of PowerSheets, and then we HAND-COLLATED THEM OURSELVES. (Friends. I can't even with that. Hours and hours and hours of my life were spent putting the pages of PowerSheets in the right order, ha!)



In 2013, we opened the Lara Casey Shop and sold our first sets. In the tradition of Southern Weddings, where we had been handwriting notes with each order since 2008, Lara wrote a note to that first customer, telling her how grateful we were and hoping she loved everything.

Well, it seemed that she did, because we soon realized it was not going to be possible to handwrite a note with each order, or even hand-pack each order as we had been - these little goal setting worksheets were spreading like wildfire.  

Yes, we shipped all of our product out of a tiny closet, and yes, we all lost several years of our lives wrestling with the Dymo shipping label printer.

Moms, business owners, students, corporate career gals, teachers, and women in all seasons of life loved them, and there was a unifying factor that holds true today: a desire to live intentionally. To not forget our priorities. To uncover good goals and do something about them.

It still amazes me when I meet someone that I never would have imagined uses PowerSheets, and when they find out where I work, starts gushing about how much they love checking in on their Tending List every month. That never gets old, probably because they sometimes still feel like little worksheets we made for our own office.

In 2015, the insides of the PowerSheets were changed dramatically, with a major revision of the goal-setting process. And in 2016, something else changed dramatically...

We took a huge leap of faith and made a spiral-bound one-year workbook for 2016. And, we spread COLOR throughout the inside and the outside, to reflect the joy and energy of the Cultivate community!

In 2016, we also changed our name from the Lara Casey Shop to our heartbeat: Cultivate What Matters. We wanted to tell YOUR stories, not just Lara's, and we've been so grateful to do that over the last few years.

What has changed the most over the years, though, is the PowerSheets process. The PowerSheets have changed and grown aesthetically (from loose binder sheets to bound workbooks, the addition of stickers and color, new features, happy yellow shipping boxes, etc.)…

… but most of all the process has been deeply refined every time we release a new edition.

As women all over the world use them, including us, we listen. And we change and innovate. Our office mottos:

If you’re not excited about it, no one will be. Which means we make products we love and use ourselves.

and

Make it better. Which means we are always taking things to the next level to help people cultivate what matters.

And that holds true for this year more than ever. Friends, just wait. We've refreshed every aspect of the 2020 PowerSheets, and we cannot WAIT for you to see them!! Mark your calendars for September 24, when we'll reveal the new covers. You won't believe your eyes :) And in the meantime, hop on the list to see the full collection first! 

Friends, thank you SO very much for your support since the black and white days. We cannot wait to celebrate with you - and begin to live out our best years yet - so soon!