Hi everyone and welcome to 2020! Some of us might have popped champagne and danced into those symmetrical new digits but I have a feeling that most of us just slept into the new year, blissfully aware of the fact that we would soon be woken up (most of us super early) by our own tiny minions.
Now I really get excited by fresh starts, even if they are actually just another day of the week, same routine and most of the shops are closed on the 1st of January anyway. But we can all create our own magic if we want to right? We had waffles for breakfast at Wimpy today because they were open and it was awesome.
So let's just take the pressure off and enjoy easing into the new year together, shall we?
Now you definitely don't have to feel like you need to be going at full speed in the first week of January because I can assure you no one's watching - they're either still on holiday or wishing they were. So let's rather use the time to start forming some plans so that we can roll over into action once we get back into our usual routines.
Goal setting and actual planning for the year ahead are two quite different things. An example of a goal might be to have 10 new clients by June 2020, or to be more organised in your admin by the end of the first term. Note that these goals all have the same things in common - they are specific, they are measurable and they have a deadline. Now planning for them will be a different process. For those of you in the service based industry, planning to reach a deadline for a project will have a very specific timeline and end date. But for creatives running a product based service, things might be a bit more loose and that's why I want you to be intentional about your planning, so that you don't wake up by midyear and realise you've been dreaming and staring into space for most of the time.
Ok, so if the idea of sitting down to plan a few months ahead into 2020 gets you all anxious and sweaty, or just downright depressed, the following 3 tips to plan for the year ahead might help you out of that situation:
Number 1:
Invest in a planner - whether it be a desk planner or a diary. I've said this many times before, but there is just something so very empowering and super positive about writing your dreams and goals on paper and keeping them somewhere visible in order to hold yourself accountable. For me, I write my big to do lists and deadlines in a day to day paper diary and then usually make shopping lists on my phone, as I know I'll always have it with me. Then for our household, we use a desk planner to synchronise everyone else's calendars - so all the big days, deadlines and to do's go on there so we can try and make sure nothing falls through the cracks.
Number 2:
Decide HOW you want to plan your year.
Do you want to set one big goal per semester or per quarter, or would you prefer breaking the year up into smaller chunks and taking it one step at a time?
Some of us might have a combination of the above approaches and that's actually really good. Do what works best for you.
So if you are doing the smaller chunks, start by planning your personal goals and work goals for the next 3 months only. Once you have that down, you can go on to the next 3 months and that will get you to halfyear. Try to think of these goals as events or deadlines popping up like locations on a timeline.
Now remember that if you are in the service based industry, your goals and projects are two completely different things.
When I started planning for the very first creativ & kin meetup last year, I gave myself 6 weeks and set the date. That way, it was easier for me to figure out what I had to do weekly to get to ...
