Annual planning doesn’t have to be scary
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
It’s hard to believe that we are at the end of another year. Time seems to have passed a bit differently in these last 2 years. A strange mixture of chaos, monotony and endless change. But no matter the circumstances, this time of year always gets me thinking about the year past, what I accomplished, what I didn’t, and how I’m going to make next year even better.
It won’t surprise you to learn that planning is one of my favorite activities. In fact, my 30 minute, end-of-week planning session is something I truly look forward to each week. (I also do a mini-version of this every day, looking at tomorrow.) During these sessions I reprioritize what I didn’t get to this week (usually not too much), review my task system and my calendar for the week ahead, and make sure that my plans are realistic. I don’t assign myself any tasks on days where I’m in back-to-back client coaching sessions (because, realistically and at best, the only thing I’ll be able to do other than those sessions is process email). If I’m working on a big project, I make sure to block time to work on it on a day where I have a few hours of uninterrupted time. In essence, your end-of-week plan allows you to think about your goals for the following week, and make concrete (and ruthlessly realistic) plans about how you’re going to achieve them.
Now that 2022 is right ahead of you, it’s time for some end-of-year planning. It can feel daunting because a year is a really big timeframe. So I’ve put together a resource for you that will help you get clarity on the year ahead, and then make concrete plans to make your goals happen. It’s a simple, 3 step process and you can download it HERE.
But here’s a quick snapshot of what you’ll get inside:
Define your top 3 goals for your personal life and your work life. Get clear on why these are important to you, what the actionable next step is to move forward, and when you’re going to take action.
Review last year through the lens of “keep, start, stop”. This isn’t about judgment, it’s about deciding what works, what doesn’t, and what you’d like to try next year. I’m a firm believer that we don’t always know what’s right or what will work until we actually experiment in our own lives. You experiment, you gather data, then you iterate. This is how you make better decisions and keep your life going in the direction you want.
Define your word of the year; what’s the word or phrase that will be your north star this year? (Feels a bit too woo-woo? I had the same thought many times before I started this practice. But I’ve been doing it for a few years now and it’s been really helpful in terms of focusing my limited energy, time and resources in the right places.)