Today we focus on planning out a whole month – let’s start with February.
I have made it a routine to sit down once a month – in the final week, usually – and outline my plans for the month following.
Because I can, I usually make a day of it – I get out of the house (away from distractions) and take myself out for the day to the city. I treat myself to a nice lunch (often with a friend) and then spend the rest of the day holed up in either a cafe or a library to do my planning.
This process – the ritual of setting aside planning time – is a way of nurturing both myself and my business. It’s quite addictive!
You may have already listened to it, but if not, I highly recommend that you listen to the Members-Only Podcast on how to have an effective planning day right now.
You may not have a whole day, but I urge you to schedule in some form of this monthly planning – whether it be an evening, a morning, or just a few hours. Like all planning and important-but-not-urgent work, it may be very tempting to put this off to focus on more urgent tasks – don’t.
This is the high-level stuff that will make a huge difference to the growth of your business in the long run.
Today we’re going to practice this monthly planning!
Take the Feb sheet/priorities you made yesterday, and break it down.
If you’re using Trello, now is the time to pull that out and put it to work. If you’re not, please just modify what I cover below into whatever system you are using.
Here’s an example of my monthly recurring task board for Create & Thrive (just so you can see sort of what I’m talking about below, but instead of recurring tasks, you’re putting in the tasks that will help you achieve your priorities).
Start a new board called ‘February 2019’ and open it up. Inside, create your first List, and put in your 3 Priorities.
Now, the rest of this will differ for everyone. You have to decide what your other lists will be, and what will go on them.
You might just create a separate list for each of your priorities. Or, you might have different aspects of your biz, and create a list for each (e.g. I have a list for the C&T Blog, one for the Podcast, one for the Thriver Circle, one for Epheriell… etc). In each of these lists, create cards for each of your main tasks/projects for that item during Feb.
Bonus points if you can break your cards up by week (just write ‘Week 1 – ‘ in front of the task/project on each card, for example). This helps you to organise all your tasks by timeline, so you don’t over-commit to anything in any particular week.
You may also like to add in a list for March – it’s a bit of a catch-all place where you can put tasks that pop up over the month of Feb that you want to address in March when you do your planning for then.
This is also the point where you add in any other repeated tasks, appointments, or additional tasks/projects that don’t fit under the banner of your Priorities, but need doing in Feb.
The idea is to have a crystal-clear plan for the month ahead, all broken down into the tasks and projects that need to get done, week-by-week.
This is also the point where you put any dates into your calendar. So, if you have Cal or another digital calendar, put them in now. Also, if you got a whole-year wall calendar, like I suggested last week, put the appointments on there, too, so you can see how your month is stacking up.
This board will become your guide for the whole month of Feb. You’ll be referring to it regularly, to see what’s coming up each week, and to see how well you’re keeping yourself on-task.
Normally, you’ll have this monthly plan to work from when you’re planning your weeks.
However, since we’re almost to the end of Jan, we’re going to cheat a little, and tomorrow, we’re going to sit down and plan out next week – the final week of January.
Action Steps
1. Plan February! Break down the steps to achieve your Priorities and put them into your monthly plan, week-by-week.
2. Add in any other tasks, projects, or appointments – including putting them into your calendar if you haven’t already.
