My top 10 planning hacks

I love planning.  
Lots and lots of planning.
I wish I could say I have time to do all the planning I want to do,
but let's be honest, I waste time with Netflix and TikTok instead.
That's okay, though.  Sometimes that "wasting time" is our mind, body, and spirit
recovering from all the daily input and stressors.

But every year around this time, I go full-speed PLANNING MODE to prep for a new year.
I have found it both helpful and invigorating to plan for a new year with new opportunities.

Fresh starts are endless, necessary, and exciting.  

Please enjoy my top 10 planning hacks:

1. Meal plans
2. Brain dumps
3. Weekly and Monthly reviews
4. Daily plans and intentions
5. Planning as a form of memory keeping
6. Habit tracking
7. Goal setting 
8. Lists and collections
9. Budget and finance
10. Notes and important information

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To further understand what each one of these hacks entails, let's dig a little deeper:

• Meal plans:  I don't plan out breakfasts or lunches, but I do plan out our dinners for every night of the week for the entire month.  THIS DID NOT HAPPEN OVERNIGHT.  I had to start small and work my way up to this, but I have been planning meals for the entire month for several years now.
  • ​Of all the planning hacks I am sharing with you, MEAL PLANNING has had the most impact on my life and my family's life.  I went from tachycardic rides home scrambling for dinner ideas and trying to envision what was in my pantry and refrigerator to knowing what is for dinner and having the ingredients on-hand.  Life changing.  100%.
• Brain dumps:  I love a good brain dump.  I just get a BIG blank sheet of paper and start writing down every thing that pops into my mind. 
  
  • Book vet appointment.  Call in prescription refill.  Order birthday gift.  Email teacher.  Clean out top dresser drawer.  Ask friend to check mail while we are out of town.  Drop pants off to be hemmed.  Renew NP license.  Schedule tax appointment.
  • I then group the tasks, ideas, etc into categories so that I can accomplish them in a more intentional manner.
    
    • ​Errands
      
    • Computer work (email, online orders, banking)
      
    • Calls to make
      
    • Home
    • Work
• Weekly and Monthly reviews:  This is a practice I need to implement more consistently.  When I do it, I can definitely feel the difference as I plan for the following week or month.  My weekly or monthly reviews include the following categories:
  • ​What worked
  • What didn't work
  • Adjustments
• Daily plans and intentions:  On the days that I wake early enough or go to write out my daily plans and intentions, I almost always have a better, less stressful day.  Not every day's intention is going to be blissful or serene.  Some days are intended for WORK or TASKS, but it can still feel good to finish out a day the way you intended it to be lived.
• Planning as a form of memory keeping:  This is more of a reverse-planning for some people.  Journaling or writing notes in a planner or digital format about daily events and emotions can serve as a record of sorts.  You may choose to archive your planners as a reference for personal or professional reasons.  Facebook and Instagram seem to be holding most of our memories these days, but I digress.
• Habit tracking:  I have mixed feelings about habit tracking.  I think it can make a person feel really good or really lousy, and I'm not sure either emotion is the goal of developing a habit.  Some people love habit tracking and it works for them.  
  • ​Habits I have tracked in the past include:
    • ​Water intake 
    • Workouts
    • Sleep  (I do track sleep daily with my FitBit, but I don't write it down)
    • Reading
• Goal setting:  Much more than habit tracking, goal setting is more my speed.  I like goal setting, because there is usually a purpose or an end in sight (instead of just tracking 8 glasses of water every day for the rest of my life).  
  • ​I love setting quarterly goals that may (or may not) feed into a yearly goal.
    
  • I then break those quarterly goals down into monthly tasks.
    
  • An example would be:  
    
    • ​Annual goal to read 24 books.
      
    • Quarterly goal would be to read 6 books.​
      
    • Monthly goal would be to read 2 books.
    • While 24 books sounds daunting, 2 books per month sounds more achievable.  I can also see that to reach my goal I would need to read about half of one book every week all year on average.
• Lists and collections:  I love a good list or "collection" of ideas.  Here are a few of the lists I have kept in my planners.
  • List of books read for the year, date finished, ⭐️rating
  • Movies watched for the year, date watched, ⭐️rating
  • Prayer list (I do this monthly and update it accordingly)
  • A Wants versus Needs list
• Budget and finance:
  • You can put bill due dates on your planner as reminders or list your monthly bills and cross them off as you pay them.
  • There are entire planners dedicated solely to budgeting and finance.
  • I usually denote paydays and any expenses that are only quarterly or annual so that I don't forget about those.
• Notes and important information:  I have so many ways I have used my notes pages in my planners over the years, but here are a few:
  • Password info (obviously not always safe to do this)
  • Doctor, dental, vision appointments for the entire family 🩺
  • Monthly task list or monthly bill list
  • Meal plan, birthdays, Errands, To Buy ideas

​I hope this content gives you ideas and energy towards
the art of planning as it affects your life.

Some of my best days were planned. 
Some were not.
And that's okay.

Listen to your body and follow its lead. 
Your body knows what plans feel good for you.
Godspeed. ☀️

​Please support my fellow hope*writers by reading their work based on the prompt word PLAN:

A New Plan, Again by Ashley Olivine
https://www.ashleyolivine.com/a-new-plan-again/

A New Year Plan by Regina Marcazzo-Skarka
https://reginamarcazzoskarka.com/2023/01/01/january-1-2023-a-new-year-plan/
​

how do I use a daily planner?

my top 10 productivity hacks

weekly review and weekly tasks

which weekly planner should I choose?

planning for the entire year ahead

how I plan meals a month at a time