There’s something so fresh about entering the autumn. Although the official start of fall is nearly a month away, the end of August signals the start of a new chapter for many. School is starting for students. Businesses are starting the 2nd half of the year and close to entering the 3rd quarter. Whatever your situation may be right now, September is only a week away, so I wanted to share how I plan out my months.
It’s been a while since I posted anything! Amidst a world pandemic, my blog fell a little by the wayside. However, I’m looking forward to getting back into it. I’m going to be broadening the range of my content, and I hope you enjoy some of the other things that I’m planning to share with y’all!
I’ve been an avid planner since grade school, but my favorite planning method of late is using the Bullet Journal. I’ve been an avid Bullet Journal-er since the end of 2015. I love how the system is totally customizable to whatever you need!
There are so many people out there that have beautiful, artistic journals that are honestly works of art. My Bullet Journaling methods have definitely morphed and changed throughout the years, and right now I keep it pretty minimal in a ring bound planner (specifically the Michaels Creative Year A5 Binder By Recollections in Mint – I love the teal color!). It’s cheaper than a traditional FiloFax, and I love that I can move the pages around as needed.
I’m not going to get into all the specifics of Bullet Journaling today (definitely check out their website if you want to know more), or even necessarily my full planner system. But I wanted to share with y’all how I plan out my month ahead to reach my goals I have set for the year.
The 1st thing I do when planning out an upcoming month is set up my “month at a glance” pages. I keep it pretty minimal and close to the original Bullet Journal Method, though I use some color (just for fun). On the left side, I have a full month calendar written out in a list form where I can jot down any appointments and deadlines. On the right side, I have my monthly “Goals and Projects” page that I list out all the goals, projects, and tasks that I want to complete that month. This 2 page monthly spread is pretty close to the original Bullet Journal method; however I created categories for different areas of my life on the “Goals and Projects” page. The categories I use are Personal, Organizations, Blog, and TI/Work, but you can change this up to whatever you need.
Once I have my bare-bones month at a glance pages set up, I then go into my actual planning routine. Here are the 4 steps I take to plan out the upcoming month ahead.
1. Review Next Month’s Google Calendar for Upcoming Birthdays, Holidays, and Appointments
First, I go straight to my Google Calendar and sift through each week to see what commitments I already have for the upcoming month. Do I have any upcoming appointments or deadlines? If so, I write them on my calendar list in my journal. While I don’t really reference this list a lot in practice throughout the month, I use this page more so to see when I have really busy times during the month. Also, the act of physically writing down and acknowledging these appointments helps solidify in my brain that they exist and I need to show up to them. Otherwise, I’ll probably forget if they only exist digitally.
Another benefit to looking over my Google Calendar is to remind myself if I have any tasks I need to do for an upcoming event or appointment. For example, if I have a friend’s birthday coming up in a given month, I’ll add “Buy birthday present for ____” to my monthly task list. Or, if I have a presentation coming up, I’ll add “Presentation prep” to my monthly task list. If I have any projects that are due in an upcoming month, I’ll usually add them to my monthly goals & projects list too.
Even if you aren’t a paper-and-pen planner, I highly suggest you at least review your calendar for the next month to remind yourself of your own upcoming commitments and deadlines.
2. Review Yearly Strategy – Plans & Goals for 2020
In the very front of my planner, I have a “Yearly Strategy/Plans & Goals for 2020” section. This is where I like to do more long term planning. It’s nothing fancy – just a 2 page spread where I list out each month of the year, and I write out any upcoming events, projects, or deadlines that need to happen that month. I don’t have a dedicated time to fill this out – I just add to it as things come up.
As I’m planning for the upcoming month, I’ll review what I have listed in my Yearly Strategy for the current month that is ending and the upcoming month. I’ll cross off anything that doesn’t need to happen anymore and things that I finished, and then I’ll add anything on my yearly strategy list that still needs to be completed to my Projects and Goals page for the month.
I like using this approach in addition to Google Calendar because it allows for more flexibility. For example, if I know that there are certain milestones I need to complete each month for a given project or goal I’m working on, I like to write that out in my Yearly Strategy rather than in my Google Calendar. I may not have a date that those milestones are necessarily “due” on that I can assign a Google Calendar event to, but I know that I’ll want to complete them within a certain month. Writing out these milestones and deadlines in my Yearly Strategy also makes it easier for me to visual breaking down goals and projects throughout the year as compared to trying to do the same thing digitally in Google Calendar alone.
If you would prefer a “digital” method of having a yearly strategy, Trello could be a great resource for this!
3. Review Yearly & Quarterly Goals and Set Monthly Goals & Projects
Now that I have my solid appointments and projects that I know have to be completed in the upcoming month written out, I review my yearly and quarterly goals. If you aren’t writing out your goals, you should definitely try it out! It makes them much more concrete and defined. However, writing out goals alone won’t help you achieve them – consistent review is the key for this. That is why I make it a habit to review my yearly and quarterly goals at the end of every month.
When I review my yearly and quarterly goals, I think about what the next step is that I need to take for each of those goals in order to achieve them by the end of year or quarter, respectively. I then write each of these next steps in my monthly Goals and Projects list in their respective categories.
If I feel like my monthly Goals and Projects list is getting too long, or if I think I won’t have time to work on something, I acknowledge that with myself and choose to leave it off the list. I try to be very intentional with setting out goals and projects for the month. I don’t want to overwhelm myself with too many projects for a given month, nor do I want to commit to so many things and end up not accomplishing anything.
Don’t feel pressure to put something on your task list for an upcoming month if you don’t find value in it! If you know it is not going to get done, or if it isn’t adding value to your life, leave it off the list.
4. Review Last Month’s Unfinished Business & Determine Priority Projects
The last thing I do to plan out my month ahead is reviewing the “unfinished business” from the previous month. Unfished business refers to any lingering tasks, goals, or projects that I didn’t complete. I am very intentional when reviewing my unfinished business.
I don’t automatically move forward all those unfinished tasks to the upcoming month’s goals and projects list. When reviewing these unfinished projects, I’ll ask myself “Why did I not complete this? Why wasn’t that project a priority over the other projects I did complete?” These questions really help me decide if this is a project that is worth pursuing and adding to my goals and projects list for the next month, or if it is something I need to drop because it is not worth doing anymore.
I intentionally leave reviewing the last month’s unfinished business as the last step in my planning routine. I used to review the previous month’s unfinished business as the 1st step in my monthly planning routine. However, when doing this, I found that I would always move forward so many tasks from the previous month that I wouldn’t leave room to add in my “big rocks” – activities, projects, and goals from my quarterly goals and my yearly strategy. By bogging myself down so much with what I didn’t finish in the last month, I was keeping myself from looking forward to the future and preventing myself from accomplishing the goals I had set out to do.
There you have it – my 4 step monthly planning routine to achieve your goals and reduce overwhelm! If you are interested in more planning content, let me know! I can also show how I do my daily, weekly, and quarterly planning routines and reflections.
What is your monthly planning routine?
I really like how you talk about adding your unfinished items last. Things change and that’s okay. I feel like sometimes I really beat myself up for not accomplishing every task on my to do list. I think I’d really enjoy a post expanding on editing your goals and accepting that it’s okay to re-prioritize things. Great post, Sammy! I look forward to your new content!
Thank you so much for the kind words! I look forward to sharing more on goal setting soon 🙂