30 Mar 2022 by Leave a Comment

{Goals} 2022 goals – a quarterly update

We’ve spoken a few times about setting quarterly goals which is a really nice way to take stock sooner than just every year and readjust your sails if necessary.

You might even like the idea of seasonal goals.

If you do set annual goals, now is a great time to reevaluate if you…

  • still want to continue as you have been doing
  • know what’s working well for you
  • haven’t even set goals for the year

When I took the time to write down what’s working well, what’s not going well and what I want to work on for the next quarter, I realised that things felt busy for a reason as a lot happened and went well. Here are some things I noted down:

  1. I read more than 30 books so far, and listened to a very fun audiobook at least once a month, like Mary Jane, Daisy Jones and the Six, and currently I’m listening to Rachel’s Holiday.
  2. We had four high school visits and we’re now ready to apply to high schools when the application portal opens.
  3. I’ve successfully carved out writing time every week (I’ve now had 12 weeks of successful writing time every Sunday).
  4. We took two family holidays – one just after Christmas til into the new year, and one during the March school holidays.
  5. The work from office transition is now going well and helping me to maintain reasonable work hours – yay!
  6. I started Spanish again this year and am loving it.
  7. I am up to date with Project Life from Sept 21 to Feb 22, am almost up to date on my holiday collages (two to go!) and enjoying my photography (delight is helping me!).

There are three things which have not gone well, one of which is friendship. I think that some of my friendships have fallen by the wayside. Some I feel inclined to tend and some I don’t. This is actually growth for me as in years past I’d take all the blame for any distance; now I realise that there are two parts to every relationship.

Still, I need to check that my friend dates are successfully scheduled now that the work-from-office situation is a hybrid one.

A few things I have as goals for the next quarter:

  1. check if my regular friend dates are still on the correct schedule and day
  2. send quarterly treats to my parents
  3. finish my collages
  4. apply to the high schools for both kids
  5. book next holiday!
  6. apply for passports!
  7. update my will (last one done when the kids were 7 months old)

How has the first quarter of 2022 been for you? Did you set goals? Are you going to start setting goals now? What worked well and what didn’t?

Filed Under: Goals, Intentional living, Personal, Planning, Reading, Time management Tagged With: , ,
3 Feb 2021 by 3 Comments

{planning} The joy of quarterly planning

  • This is how I start my quarterly planning.

I’ve been an annual planner for the last 25 years. Until last year and the lockdown. I felt quite despondent and hopeless until Gretchen Rubin suggested making a 19 for Covid-19 list. After I made my first one for 3 months and saw how well it worked for lockdown, I just kept making a new list every 3 months.

Annual planning

  1. You do the planning properly once and then you just implement.
  2. Because you have the long-term view, you tend to take seasonal fluctuations into account, e.g. you might want to take 2 – 3 holidays a year – one in autumn, one in spring and one at Christmas.
  3. It will take longer as you consider the entire 12 months.
  • My blog/ newsletter planner and 2021 bullet journal

Quarterly planning

  1. Because you’re only planning for 3 months, it’s often easier to do because the planning is for a shorter time.
  2. If you no longer want to do something or if something is not working, you can change your goals and planning for the next quarter. Yes, you can do this for annual planning but we often don’t. The mere fact that the planning is only for 3 months changes your mindset about sticking to something you’re not enjoying.
  3. Useful in these pandemic times where things change quickly (lockdown levels) and where we might need a change.
  • Papermate Inkjoy and Pentel Energel 0.7 mm pens

My quarterly planning process

Last year, I just wrote down 19 – 20 things willy-nilly the first time I did my quarterly planning, but the next two times, I wrote down goals in the main 7 areas of my life.

The more structured approach worked well for me so that is how I will continue to do things this year. Do the same if you like a bit of structure or just go wild and write down some things. I do suggest at least having one or two goals in each of the work, home and personal/ relationships category.

I make a mindmap on a page in my bullet journal, put branches for the various areas – family, friends, health and fitness, house/ finances, work (day job) and OrganisingQueen (night job – ha!) and play/ fun (my word of the year). Any of my planning (even for this blog post!) starts with a mindmap.

Hint – I like a branch for my word of the year so that I put concrete goals to make my word alive for me.

Do you think you’ll give quarterly planning a try? What are your categories?

PS I talked more about quarterly and seasonal goals here.

Filed Under: Covid-19, Four Tendencies, Goals, I love stationery, Intentional living, Personal, Planning, Time management, Work with Marcia Tagged With: , , ,
9 Apr 2018 by 2 Comments

A goals reprieve – quarterly and seasonal goals

I wrote in this Instagram post “April is the new January”, partly as a joke but mostly because I really believe that any time you want to set goals is perfectly in order and just great. Please set any goals rather than no goals.

You know that I set annual, monthly and weekly goals so I’m firmly in the detailed goals camp.

However, today I’m talking to many of you who need permission to lighten up with your goals.

Maybe you want to set quarterly or seasonal goals instead?

Let me give you some ideas:

Quarterly goals

In my Let’s Do This workbook (you can still get it here) there’s a page for quarterly goals. I put this in the workbook originally because some things in my life (personal/ house/ holidays) happen very much in seasons.

For example, the first part of the third quarter of the year is all birthdays around here.

Can you think of what happens in your life in terms of quarters? Birthdays, work pressures, house projects, annual holidays? Perhaps if you set goals in quarters it would help you instead of making you feel overwhelmed?

Seasonal goals

We’ve all seen those summer lists on Pinterest and Instagram. I do some seasonal lists but definitely not summer (summer is not my favourite season as long-time readers know). I do make a Christmas list (which happens during our summer), autumn and winter lists though.

Here’s my current autumn list.

I find seasonal goals very helpful in reminding me to get to the things I do want to do, but if I don’t write them down and name them, they often go by forgotten.

E.g. in Spring, I always put jacaranda photowalks on my list. Our city is carpeted in purple blooms and it’s just gorgeous.

The co-host of the Best of Both Worlds podcast, Sarah, divided this year into quintiles (I had never heard of this before) but it made perfect sense because she was on maternity leave for the first two months of the year, and then the rest of the year is divided as she saw fit. Loved it – makes sense for her situation.

I re-read her post now as I’m writing this one, and I realized she combined the concept of quarters and seasons.  By the way, Sarah is an upholder 🙂

So try something different – grab a page or your bullet journal and write down a few autumn/ spring goals, or some 2nd quarter goals.

Has this helped you to reframe from the standard periods of annual and monthly goals?

Did you set some goals? 😉



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