quarterly planning

14 Jul 2021 by Marcia Francois Leave a Comment

How to do a quick and effective half-year review

It might be that I’m such a big fan of reflecting and reviewing precisely because it doesn’t come naturally to me.

I recognise the process as valuable though which is why I take the time to do a half-year review every year.

Your review is only a 20 – 30 minute process but it will make you feel that you closed off the first half of the year and can focus afresh on the 6 months ahead.

What do you need?

20 – 30 minutes
A drink of your choice – hot or cold
Notebook/ bullet journal
Pen

You could type into a computer or your phone but I recommend doing it with a pen and paper so that your brain slows down enough to process as you think through the questions.

Here are some questions to ask yourself. Use all, or just use the first 5 questions:

What went well, and why?
What could be better? How?
What have you learned about yourself?
What energised you? How can you bring more of this into your life?
If you chose a word of the year, has it been guiding/ inspiring/ clarifying for you? How are you living out your word of the year? Do you need to change your word? Here’s your permission slip if you want to do that.
Looking at your goals, have you made good progress and are you on track?
Are there any goals you need to let go of? Let them go and be kind to yourself.
Do you know why those goals were no longer motivating you?
Looking forward… what are the 3 main things you want to focus on for the next 3 – 6 months?
Do you have the necessary support? I would love to help you .

Reset and refresh sessions

I will send you a prep pack once I receive your payment which you work though and return to me 48 hours before your session so I can spend some time beforehand preparing.
We meet on Skype or Zoom, whichever option you prefer.
We will discuss what you want to keep in your life going forward and more importantly, what you want to let go of.
We might set new goals and develop action plans, or tweak existing goals to suit where you are right now.
My goal is that you leave the session encouraged, inspired and that you have clarity on the way forward.
The sessions are 60 minutes long and your investment in yourself is $75/ R1000 (previous clients get a discount!)
I encourage you to book another session in 6 months, but only if you think it will be helpful.

Contact me now to schedule your session. I work with clients all over the world so we will find a time that will work for your time zone.

Filed Under: 31 days of enough time, Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Mindset, Organising, Personal, Planning, Time management, Work with Marcia Tagged With: coach with marcia, four tendencies, goals, half year planning, quarterly planning, review, strategy of monitoring, strategy of scheduling, time management

7 Apr 2021 by Marcia Francois Leave a Comment

{planning} Let’s do our quarterly planning together

Here we stand at the start of a new, fresh, shiny quarter. If 2021 didn’t start as you wanted, you can let the first quarter go with all the expectations you had for it and just dive into this new quarter.

I spoke before about how and why I love quarterly planning.

Last quarter (Jan – March) I did my quarterly planning but I kept it in my bullet journal. That was…okay, but more inconvenient as I kept having to flip back and forth in the bullet journal to find my list.

This time I decided to write out my list as I did last year but I would then stick it up on the cupboard door in my study (where I now spend 90% of my time!) so I can see it all the time and take action.

And that’s exactly what I did.

This is how an **upholder** gets self-imposed stuff done – this is the strategy of monitoring and scheduling. I’ve scheduled an appointment with myself at lunch time every day to read the day’s lesson and go play with my camera.

Some things I want to do this quarter:

play more (I’m doing Superhero Photo again – it’s a photo course I did about 8 years ago – I saved the emails and am working through them again)
plan next quarter’s holiday and hopefully a mini-break at the end of the month as it’s our anniversary
get some inexpensive but effective stuff done in the house (paint my downstairs)
do some once-off coaching sessions (see more below)
see more friends than I did last quarter

Now over to you.

What went well last quarter? Can you replicate it again this quarter? What did you specifically do or which things were in place helping you have that success?

What do you want to do differently this quarter? Are you using your tendency to help you get those things done? If you’re not sure how, book your 75-minute Four Tendencies coaching session with me for $75. If you’ve come on one of my workshops, you get $20 off. Paypal me and let’s get your session scheduled. I can’t wait to coach you.

Filed Under: Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Outer order inner calm, Personal, Planning, Time management, Work with Marcia Tagged With: coach with marcia, four tendencies, goals, monthly planning, quarterly planning, review, strategy of monitoring, strategy of scheduling, time management

3 Feb 2021 by Marcia Francois 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

You do the planning properly once and then you just implement.
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.
It will take longer as you consider the entire 12 months.

My blog/ newsletter planner and 2021 bullet journal

Quarterly planning

Because you’re only planning for 3 months, it’s often easier to do because the planning is for a shorter time.
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.
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.