Hello! As I get older, I appreciate more and more the power of planning for the upcoming new year. I start in November and finish before the last week of December. I fill out the same forms year after year. I settled on Making the Most Of Your Creative Talents. The forms ask you to reflect on the current year and what you discovered, accomplished, created, etc. From there you decide what you want your new year to look like and commit to checking in and when throughout the upcoming year. I have added Letter to my future self milestones to remind myself to check in. The letters have been a gift to myself, how I see myself in 1-3-6 to 12 months from now. I paste them in my iCal and forget about them until I arrive at that date. I find these very motivational if I saw myself say 10 pounds lighter or finished a project by that date. If I am not where I envisioned myself to be from the past, then I make plans to get there. Look to the past to plan the future and look to the future to motivate from the past. Thanks for sharing your planning process. Fun to read.
Oh I love this—especially the idea of writing notes (with a calendar item as a reminder) to oneself with this sort of information. The idea of using the same form is also pretty compelling, and I can see that being useful (keeping the prompts consistent so you can see the changes happening in the responses). Thanks for sharing this!
For the last several years, I've created my own personal planner to start with November, the month of my birth. That allows me to have a line of transition that's personal while also engaging with other collective lines of transition like New Years Eve/New Years Day, the government fiscal year, and the academic year. With the planner, I have the chance to revisit/remix/refresh the way I'm breaking down my to-dos and what I'm logging/noting. It is a diary/planner and the custom layout that I've designed also allows me to have an overview of the month below the turning pages of each week. I like being able to move in or out of various levels of zoom, and having a physical planner removes me from the distraction machine when I'm setting up my intended meetings, tasks, and goals for the week. My spouse and I also keep a shared physical calendar of the entire year on which we can put things we know well in advance (conferences/travel/etc) so that I can understand when peak periods of activity may be for one or both of us, and use that context in simplifying decision making at the quarter or monthly level. The visual nature of both the planner and the wall calendar is also great in supporting and promoting reflection. How often I've experienced a "wow, all that was just in the past x weeks/months" - its also a reminder that no matter how much we feel like there is so much to do, there is also way more that we've done than we may easily recall.
I love the idea of having a custom planner for this purpose. Seems like an effective way of making sure the vital (macro and micro) elements of your life don't fall by the wayside, while also giving yourself the opportunity to regularly check in and make adjustments, where necessary. The shared calendar is a great idea, too—I find myself doing that for myself and my own plans, but the impact would be even greater (in terms of realizing how much "life" has been lived over a relatively short period) with my partner's info commingled in there, too. Thanks for sharing this!
Me too! My birthday is mid-January so I often do my yearly planning then after all the craziness of Christmas/New Year, and I re-assess and adjust around EOFY in June/July.
Also, that's quite the achievement designing your own planner! Well done!
Hello! As I get older, I appreciate more and more the power of planning for the upcoming new year. I start in November and finish before the last week of December. I fill out the same forms year after year. I settled on Making the Most Of Your Creative Talents. The forms ask you to reflect on the current year and what you discovered, accomplished, created, etc. From there you decide what you want your new year to look like and commit to checking in and when throughout the upcoming year. I have added Letter to my future self milestones to remind myself to check in. The letters have been a gift to myself, how I see myself in 1-3-6 to 12 months from now. I paste them in my iCal and forget about them until I arrive at that date. I find these very motivational if I saw myself say 10 pounds lighter or finished a project by that date. If I am not where I envisioned myself to be from the past, then I make plans to get there. Look to the past to plan the future and look to the future to motivate from the past. Thanks for sharing your planning process. Fun to read.
Oh I love this—especially the idea of writing notes (with a calendar item as a reminder) to oneself with this sort of information. The idea of using the same form is also pretty compelling, and I can see that being useful (keeping the prompts consistent so you can see the changes happening in the responses). Thanks for sharing this!
For the last several years, I've created my own personal planner to start with November, the month of my birth. That allows me to have a line of transition that's personal while also engaging with other collective lines of transition like New Years Eve/New Years Day, the government fiscal year, and the academic year. With the planner, I have the chance to revisit/remix/refresh the way I'm breaking down my to-dos and what I'm logging/noting. It is a diary/planner and the custom layout that I've designed also allows me to have an overview of the month below the turning pages of each week. I like being able to move in or out of various levels of zoom, and having a physical planner removes me from the distraction machine when I'm setting up my intended meetings, tasks, and goals for the week. My spouse and I also keep a shared physical calendar of the entire year on which we can put things we know well in advance (conferences/travel/etc) so that I can understand when peak periods of activity may be for one or both of us, and use that context in simplifying decision making at the quarter or monthly level. The visual nature of both the planner and the wall calendar is also great in supporting and promoting reflection. How often I've experienced a "wow, all that was just in the past x weeks/months" - its also a reminder that no matter how much we feel like there is so much to do, there is also way more that we've done than we may easily recall.
I love the idea of having a custom planner for this purpose. Seems like an effective way of making sure the vital (macro and micro) elements of your life don't fall by the wayside, while also giving yourself the opportunity to regularly check in and make adjustments, where necessary. The shared calendar is a great idea, too—I find myself doing that for myself and my own plans, but the impact would be even greater (in terms of realizing how much "life" has been lived over a relatively short period) with my partner's info commingled in there, too. Thanks for sharing this!
The planner: https://agencyk.bigcartel.com/product/split-planner
Me too! My birthday is mid-January so I often do my yearly planning then after all the craziness of Christmas/New Year, and I re-assess and adjust around EOFY in June/July.
Also, that's quite the achievement designing your own planner! Well done!