In the last blog post, I shared how I reviewed my 2020. In this blog post, I’ll share how I plan for the year ahead.

Essentially there are five steps that I follow when doing this planning. Before I jump into those points, there are a few best practices I want to sure.

Be sure to allow yourself some time to think and reflect. You don’t want to rush this process or try to complete it while distracted. If you have regular planning or couples retreats, you might want to think about combining your yearly planning process.

Avoid setting goals that are fashionable and instead focus on what is meaningful to you.

Now let’s jump into the 5 steps for planning your successful 2021:

1. Review your low points in the past year or your regrets
2. Review your high points and most positive experiences including where you were, what you were doing and you who were with
3. Identify “three-month sprints” within the year and target a few areas to focus on. New habits take at least 21 days or longer to form. Rather than tackling too many at once, try to pick one or two areas to focus on.
4. Remember to include your regular planning and couples’ retreats into the year. Schedule these in advance on your calendar.
5. Break down your three-month sprints into well-defined actions by the week and by the day and get granular with it.

Reviewing low points and regrets

This is an obvious place to start given most people will want to “right their wrongs” from the past year. The biggest example for me from 2020 was not spending enough time with my family. COVID-19 certainly played a part in this but it was something I intended to improve on even before the pandemic. This is a MUST IMPROVE for me in 2021.

Reviewing high points and positivity

Compared to the low points where we are trying to “right our wrongs” or improve on something we didn’t do, this is all about doing MORE to create high points and positive experiences. Think about the great experiences you had last year. Where you were and what you were doing. The people you shared those experiences with. This will form the basis for scheduling out your year to make sure they include time with these same people doing the types of things that brought you joy.

Three-month sprint focus

Planning 12 months in advance can feel like a monumental task. Instead of trying to plan out all 365 days or even all 12 months try breaking it up into “three-month sprints”. This allows you some leeway and also provides a way to help you focus on a few areas versus accomplishing everything on your goals list. You always hear about people breaching work and life balance. I’ve found this to be a myth. Trying to balance it all results in spreading yourself way too thin and diluting your results. You will have to make sacrifices to achieve great things. The key is to make sure you don’t go too long without addressing a focus area. I “tune” my sprints based around key events such as relocating, starting a new job or the holidays.

As an example, this is what my sprints look like:

January to March: Focus on physical health, spirituality and physical environment. [starting a new role at work]

April to June: Focus on physical health, fun & recreation and physical environment. [preparation for relocation]

July to September: Focus on significant other and family. [transition and stablization]

October to December: Focus on significant other and family (holiday celebrations). [stabilization and investing in relationships]

Regular planning retreats

If you’re not already doing regular planning retreats then I absolutely you recommend starting this habit in 2021. There is a reason that companies adopt this practice in their planning cycles. Having clear milestones and review periods throughout the year provide you with focus and mile-markers along the journey. Knowing you are going to meet and review on progress ensures you keep your eyes where they need to be. I would recommend at least one yearly planning retreat but if you could do quarterly that’s even better. This allows you to time your three-month sprints to these reviews.

Breaking it down into tasks and actions

None of this planning leads to actual results unless you can break it down into its component parts and distill it into the actions you are takin on weekly and daily basis. I incorporate this into my weekly planning sessions that usually occur on Sunday. I break down all my key focus areas and map out what activities and actions I will take during each day of the week. As an example, for Physical Health I’ll track my meals and my exercise regimen. This helps me in my weekly review to see if I accomplished what I needed to do or if I am falling short and need to make adjustments.

This is an overview of my planning process. In the next blog post, I’ll show you my specific journals and charts so you can see how I translate planning into action.