Never forget birthdays or important events using this 2020 quarterly calendar printable to track dates and see an overview of when you need to prepare!
I’ve always been intrigued by all the beautiful bullet journal layouts created for collecting all kinds of information and it’s definitely an addiction to keep scrolling on Instagram! There are so many beautiful and functional ways to keep important notes.
Recently, I saw this general layout for a calendaring system and I thought it was perfect for keeping track of birthdays and special events. Designed with the calendar up top and a list format to write out important dates, you can keep track of things on a monthly, quarterly basis and truly see the entire year at-a-glance.
I realized that it was perfect as a reminder on the wall, to make sure I send out those birthday cards and event related occasions. So important to keep connected with friends and family, right?
So I’ve designed this as a printable to add to my system and even though it fits nicely in a binder planner, it’s actually quite nice taped up on the wall as well!
Download the 2020 Quarterly Calendar Printable PDF
Check out these freebie 2020 printable calendar variations to help with your process of planning the most productive year ever!
What’s a 2020 printable calendar for?
I’ve posted about my free 2020 printable calendar previously, but after creating all the printables to help reset my life, I wanted to create another version in the same style. So the first variation is simply the entire year at-a-glance, Monday-start in a classic black and white, minimalist style.
However, as I was considering the various notes I wanted to take, whether from a tracking perspective or a pre-planning perspective, I realized there were a few other year-at-a-glance printables needed.
Similar to the project calendar printable, it’s nice to be able to have a printable for the entire year and list out action bullets for each quarter, each month or even each week. Do you ever find the need for something like that?
I decided to create these variations which are actually perpetual printables that you can use year after year. It’s just a nice way to see plans from a high-level for each of those timeframes.
It’s also quite helpful for the purposes of tracking, if you happen to want to track weekly and monthly tasks. When it comes to daily habit tracking, I try not to focus on more than one new thing at a time. Which means, I simply print the 2020 yearly calendar and cross out the days as I go – easy and simple!
Download your 2020 printable calendar variation below…
So whatever type of calendar you are looking for to help with planning, download below for free. I’m happy to share my planning printables, so that you can create your own DIY planner. I know folks who like to size these down and paste them in smaller planners and bullet journals as well. Whatever works for you!
I truly hope this 2020 printable calendar will help you dive into the new year with intention and productivity. There’s nothing like a new calendar to help you with a fresh start. And of course, ultimately, it’s a mindset thing. Every day is a new day… so I wish you an awesome one, no matter what.
This free printable is part of a series shared on this blog to help reset your life. Here are the other related posts:
At this point, I’m basically ready for the new year and can dive into my regular planning routine, week to week. When most people talk about planners and planning, they are basically referring to some type of calendaring system.
Whether you are using daily, weekly or monthly spreads, horizontal or vertical, or whatever other variations – ultimately, it’s about checking in regularly with your schedule and planning out what you are going to do day to day. Which is fantastic and already ahead of the game from those who try to keep it all in their head. I have no idea how they can do that?!
But all of this pre-planning that I have been sharing is oh SO IMPORTANT. Without thinking about your ultimate goals and what is truly a priority in your life, you can find yourself doing a lot of things, but still not finding satisfaction. And I think that’s what happened to me in the past. I have always loved to do things and I keep myself pretty busy in general. I never say I’m bored!
However, being a busy bee doing things, does NOT necessarily mean you will feel great at the end of the day. You might be doing a lot of things for other people or things you think you should do – but in the end, they do not bring you joy at all. So that’s why this whole process brings me closer to peace of mind and dare I say, planner peace?
So Many Planner Options
Just kidding, there probably is no such thing as ultimate planner nirvana. Because we are ever changing and that means our systems need to change with us. That is why I love planner printables so much. I need some type of structure, but I also need the flexibility to change things up constantly.
A perfect example is transitioning from summertime to back-to-school. I have little kids in the house and my summer schedule is nothing like the regular school year. This is one of the reasons why I don’t like dated pre-bound planners. I feel like months are wasted on minimal entries during the summer or vacations.
Suffice to say, we are all different, our lives are different, our schedules are different and thus our needs for planners are different. It’s amazing that there are so many options out there on the market and we can pick and choose whatever works for us personally.
I’m definitely a functional planner, so even though I love ALL THE PRETTY THINGS, I have to face the facts and realize my planner is for productivity, not creativity. I actually have memory keeping and creative journals separate from my planner.
Why Planner Printables?
So when it comes to my planning system, I use planner printables. And yes, I often change it up whenever I feel the need. In the past, I have tried pre-bound planners and bullet journaling. I feel like printables are a bit in the middle, where you have set templates, but you don’t have to draw them out every single time. And since I can create them myself on a budget, I definitely prefer to use digital printables.
For 2020 I’m going with a minimal black and white style, just like all the worksheets you have seen in this series. I’ve created monthly, weekly and daily calendar layouts, so I can use those that apply for whatever season I’m in. I also like my monthly calendar to have six rows, so every day has it’s own box – so I really felt the need to create my own. For 2020 it only applies for March, August and November, but I would rather have extra boxes at the end, than have to squish things into half boxes. I have always disliked the way they put two days in a box on wall calendars!
Personally, I print all the pages I need and compile them all in a ring binder on my desk. I’m not someone who needs to carry my planner with me, so this is definitely an at home, desk planner type of situation. And because I like to keep things flexible, I usually only print things out about month ahead of time. I don’t ever feel the need to have an entire year of dated calendars. If you check-in with your planning regularly, you can fill in the month or week as you go. Or literally just have a future planning page to keep a list, as with bullet journaling.
For actual appointments and dated events, I keep them all in my Google calendar for the reminders on my phone and the ease of moving things around. My paper planner is much more about my work and personal goals and projects that need to be planned out and scheduled out.
Download these Free Planner Printables
For these free planner printables, I decided to create completely blank versions to share here on the blog. Normally, I would fill in titles and dates, since I’m printing straight from my own design files at home. But leaving everything blank means you can fill in the labels and titles yourself. Whether you like a Monday start or a Sunday start, you can create your own and re-use these digital printables repeatedly.
I use variations depending on the season of my life when more or less is happening. Sometimes a horizontal layout works better and other times the vertical layout works better. It really just depends, just as there are periods when the daily page is helpful for a time period when I want to track more information. Take your pick and build your own custom planner!
I hope you will be able to make use of these free planner printables to help you create a system that works for you. Ultimately, it’s about doing the things you want to do and feeling good at the end of the day. I wish you all the best!
This free printable is part of a series shared on this blog to help reset your life. Here are the other related posts:
I prefer to start with the ideal and that’s why I haven’t talked about time constraints up to this point. Whatever you desire in your life plan, it’s a nice exercise to work through all your goals and how you can achieve them. However, after creating your project plans, even if they are partial and incomplete, you’ll still have an estimate of time required at the bottom of the worksheet.
Obviously, these are all rough estimates and there’s no way to know if you are estimating correctly or if changes will occur in the future. Actually, it’s inevitable that something will change, so you just have to make educated estimates and plan with the information you have right now. The idea is to be able to outline your schedule on a high-level, so you aren’t fooling yourself into working on 10 projects when you only have the hours to complete two.
How Much Time Do You Have?
So the first thing you need to do is to find out how much time you actually have to work on projects. We often overestimate how much time we will spend working on our goals, because there’s the rest of life and responsibilities going on that take up a lot of time.
When you consider the everyday things you have to do, your job and just resting times, there’s an obvious limitation to how many hours you can devote to projects. The process I go through to figure out the time I have available, is to print out a year-at-a-glance calendar. I have a freebie you can download on my my gumroad but any yearly calendar will do, so that you can mark it up. It’s not something you need to keep forever.
On the yearly calendar, use a black pen or marker to black out the dates that you will NOT be working on projects. These are days you literally are not going to take into account like holidays, birthdays and vacation days. We often put way too much on our plate, so be realistic. For example, once my kids are out of school for the Christmas holidays, there’s no way I’m going to be spending hours on projects. I block out whole weeks, because all the holiday stuff is going on and I will already be super busy.
Maybe you have a day job and you focus on personal projects on the weekends only. Or maybe you want to devote a certain number of hours only on weekends and never count weekdays. First thing is to simply block out all the days that aren’t available.
Then I go through month by month and consider how many hours I have available on the non-blacked out days. We are estimating here, but this will give you a good idea of what is possible for the whole year. After your normal responsibilities and life schedule, how many hours do you actually have per day to work on personal projects? It might be 1 hour day before or after work. Or maybe it’s a half-day on Tuesdays when you don’t work. It’s probably a combination of hours throughout the week, but it is limited.
I use the calendar and do some quick math to make totals for each month. How many hours do I really have each month to work on projects? It’s a lot of scribbling and estimating, but it’s still valuable information on the ideal. So yes, this is ideal, because we often want ourselves to work more than maybe is even possible. When you have an estimate of hours for each month, you should probably go back and knock off 10%-20% of the time you to account for unplanned events, sick days and just downtime.
I realize it might be difficult to make these decisions and everything might feel like a guess, but that is okay. Again, we can only make decisions based on the information we have on hand. So make your best guess and go from there. You will still be much more informed without having done this exercise. And as the year unfolds itself, you can always do this exercise again. Your work schedule might change or a major life change happens, so you just have to re-evaluate and re-plan!
Scheduling Projects on Your Project Calendar
Once I have my available hours and my list of projects with time estimates, then I can start scheduling in my projects for the entire year. When I first completed this exercise, I realized that I had a lot less time than I thought. We often think, whoa, it’s a whole year, I should be able to complete all kinds of projects.
But when you really break it down, you’ll realize there is limited time and it’s better to set a realistic schedule than to always feel behind on a million projects. Honestly, if you literally finish all your projects and have loads of time left, there’s no doubt you’ll be able to find something else to work on… so I think that is the last of our worries.
It’s much better to complete what you say you will complete, building up your self-confidence year after year. And even if you fall short, each time you are going learn what your limits are and make better more realistic plans.
Ongoing Versus One-Time Projects
We are all unique individuals and have different goals, so you might have projects that seem ongoing versus projects that are a one-time, get it done and it’s finished kind of thing. Fitness and health goals are often more like building habits that should be ongoing. Whereas planning your wedding or building a website is more or less a one-time project that finishes on a set date.
I think the process can still be similar when it comes to planning and scheduling. You still want to make a list of tasks and prepare yourself to take action. And when it comes to scheduling, you just need to estimate the time required every single day or week or month. You have to account for meal planning or exercise time within your schedule. Ultimately, you have a set amount of hours to use, so schedule things in as you see fit and make sure you aren’t overloading yourself.
For one-time projects, I think of them very linearly. If the project takes 20 hours and in a month I have 25 hours, then I’m probably only going to get that one project done. If you like working on multiple things in parallel, you just have to split the hours and see what fits in your available time. That’s sort of what you are doing with ongoing projects – basically allotting the hours needed each week for that project.
Digital Calendaring
One tool you can use to visually see your schedule before it’s set in stone is Google Calendar or any digital calendaring system. You can create a new calendar that is separate from whatever you might already be using and just block out time to see how things fit. With digital calendars you can shift and move things easily and set reoccurring events for ongoing projects. You aren’t actually scheduling exact times for projects, it’s more just to see how things can fit in the time you have available.
Once you have a rough overview to look at, you can see if what you have documented looks realistic. And this is when you need to set challenging, yet achievable plans. One of the biggest issues I hit upon when planning is not allowing down-time and rest times in between tasks and projects. We sort of think if we have 4 hours that we would be working those entire 4 hours. But honestly, we know that is unrealistic! Literally, you have to go to the bathroom at some point, right? It’s easy to get distracted and switching tasks means you have to switch your frame of mind and it’s not easy to jump from one thing to another.
There’s also the time to decompress when you finish a big project, before starting the next one. It can’t possibly be the very next day!
So build in buffer time and try to be brutally honest of when you can get things done and if the expectations you have are realistic with your life.
Finally…
I know this process might seem overwhelming at first. I certainly felt a bit of dread at the beginning, mostly because I realized that I really didn’t have enough time to work on all my projects. Ugh! When I blocked out my calendar and estimated the hours per day, my totals per month didn’t really allow for 5 projects a month – hah!
We all have limits and I think it’s important to admit them and force ourselves to be more realistic. Even though you have project plans written out, it doesn’t mean you have to act on them immediately. Maybe order things in priority and see how much you can get through to truly understand your pace from month to month.
And remember that the plan and schedule you come up with will morph and change over time. We can’t predict everything that is going to happen in the coming year, so something is bound to change and shift. That is life!
Ultimately, we just want to be as prepared as we can and have a high-level overview of the direction we are heading in. It helps to calm my nerves and makes me feel less anxious about what I can accomplish in the coming year. I think knowing that really helps with your personal satisfaction at the end of the day.
Year-at-a-Glance Project Calendar
So once you have a general understanding of what projects you have time to work on, use this year-at-a-glance project calendar to write down where each project falls. This gives you a really nice year-long overview of what is happening throughout your year.
I have a box version where you can simply bullet point the projects ongoing for each month. This works well also because each row is one quarter of the year. However, I also created a landscape version where you are meant to write, draw or washi tape in each project in timeline fashion. For projects that are year-long or don’t fit well into being listed month by month, the timeline view might be better.
Use whichever version works for you or both if you want a written version versus a more visual bar graphic version. Turns out perhaps we are creating fancy Gantt charts for our projects!
I hope this project scheduling process has been helpful for you and at the end of your planning session, you’ll have a nice overview of your projects for the year. I love seeing all my projects on the project calendar printables, giving me a neat and tidy way to see it all at-a-glance.
This free printable is part of a series shared on this blog to help reset your life. Here are the other related posts:
This project planning template will transform your dream into an action plan, so you can follow the steps forward toward success!
Goals without Plans are Just Dreams
We all want to accomplish things, but even after you take the time to develop S.M.A.R.T. goals, if you don’t have a plan, you might still struggle to execute and succeed. Project planning is simply the process of defining what you want to do and how you are going to do it – in detail – so that you can get it done by simply following your plan, step-by-step.
In the professional project management world, project planning is a huge undertaking that maps out large-scale projects. There might be multiple teams of people involved and many moving parts and dependencies. It makes sense that they need to document and organize everything in order to keep an eye on the big picture.
You might think that your personal goals should be straightforward, so you don’t need a written out plan. And I agree that from a personal perspective, our goals probably don’t need super fancy Gantt charts or 100 pages of documentation. But you still need to have a plan of action and writing it all down gives you a lot of clarity.
The only way to get yourself results is to actually take the actions to complete your goal. I know it sounds simple and obvious, but I think we have all been there before – completely overwhelmed and not getting anything done at the end of the day.
Project Planning
To set yourself up for success, take your goals and create a project plan for each goal. I’ve created a project planning template printable to help with the process. All you have to do is print out multiple copies and fill them out. If you have a particular challenging goal, you can even split it up into multiple phases to make it easier for you to take action. The more you can break something down, the easier it will be to approach.
Although I’m talking specifically about goals developed from the life categories we’ve explored previously, you can develop a plan for any project you have in mind. Anything that requires multiple steps and considerations needs a project plan.
Now, if you already know what to do, it might literally be as simple as a list that you go through to complete. It CAN be very simple, but simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. How many times have we set goals and intentions, but not acted upon them, right? I really challenge you to write it all down. As you go through the process, often new ideas and parts will come up and you can keep adding to your project plan to keep track of everything.
The beauty of a project plan is that it forces you to consider all parts of a project and possible problems. It’s time to take a good hard look at the project details and the idea is that you end up with all the information needed to get started.
Sometimes when you tackle a new project, you might not know all the steps required to complete the whole project. That’s totally okay. The idea is to put down all the information you DO know and importantly, the very next action you need to take. Maybe it’s research, so you find out what to do next.
Think of the project plan as a living breathing document, because as you go along, you might add tasks or rearrange the order of tasks. You can tweak the plan along the way. Make your best estimates on the time required, just so you have an idea on how long the project might take. Again, you can edit as necessary along the way.
A project plan is not set in stone, so that you have to follow it through, no matter what. It’s can morph along the way because the point is that it’s a tool to help you take action. You just need to know what the next step is.
Also, remember that you can add documents, informational bits and any other related material with your project plan. Think of it as creating an all encompassing “file” for the project. Having everything in one place will make it easier for you to execute and that is the key. I use all these printables to help with my productivity and organize everything in a big binder with page protectors to hold extra materials.
What’s next?
Print out the project planning template for all the goals you have set from the last blog post and start planning! This process can be really fun and there’s nothing like making beautiful plans for the future. If you find things getting a bit messy, no worries. Print another copy and rewrite your plans in a more organized fashion, if you want to reorder tasks or edit some of your answers to be more concise. It’s a process that can actually help you “work out” the project details, until you end up with something you understand and can take action on.
This free printable is part of a series shared on this blog to help reset your life. Here are the other related posts:
Don’t just drift through your life. Use this goal setting worksheet printable to set smart goals and move forward with intention.
Need direction or working hard without the satisfaction?
When it comes to achieving our best intentions, I find myself feeling one of two ways. Either I feel lost and adrift in all the busyness of the world or I work hard and do lots of things, but still don’t get the satisfaction of having done the right things to achieve my goals.
Those feelings mean that I need to take a moment to clarify my goals and set S.M.A.R.T goals to work towards. Learning about this process has not only improved my productivity but also level of satisfaction at the end of the day.
This blog post is a continuation of my Reset Your Life series. I previously talked about drafting my life plan here. However, the life plan document is a general mission statement type of plan. You outline your major goals and dreams for the various categories of your life – from health to career to family, etc.
Whatever your life plan contains is perfectly fine and suited for you. We all start somewhere and we all want different things. The problem is that we usually set goals that are very high-level and vague. It’s similar to setting New Year’s resolutions. For example, goals like losing weight or feeling happier or making more money – those are all valid goals and wants on your life plan.
However, you need to take the next step in using that information to set concrete goals that you can achieve.
S.M.A.R.T. Goals
That’s why we need to focus on S.M.A.R.T. goals which is a mnemonic from the project management world that helps us set an objective that we can actually follow through on. The letters stand for different attributes we need for every goal.
S for specific
M for measurable
A for achievable
R for relevant
T for time-bound
Some of these might be self-explanatory, but going through an example will help to clarify each attribute. So let’s take losing weight and formulate a goal that is actually S.M.A.R.T.
If we set a general goal of losing weight, it’s extremely difficult to know how much weight is enough to consider yourself successful. That’s why sometimes you work hard and get results, yet still don’t feel satisfied. It’s because you didn’t define what success truly is for the particular goal. We need to go through the five letters to refine the goal into a clear objective that we can tackle and finish successfully.
Be Specific
First, we need to be specific, so for losing weight you need to put a specific number of pounds to truly understand what you are shooting for. Is it 10 pounds lighter or 50 pounds? Or is it getting down to a particular dress size?
Measureable
Second, we need it to be measurable. So this is easy for losing weight, because you simply have to track your current weight and over time, keep weighing in to see how much weight you have lost. That’s why it makes sense to have a number of pounds or number or sizes to lose. Often specific and measurable go together. In the past, you might have just wanted to lose weight generally, but dropping 5 pounds doesn’t feel like an accomplishment anymore, if you didn’t define that as success. You have to be able to measure your progress and know where the finish line is.
Achievable
Third, we have achievable and this is something you need to decide on yourself, depending on the situation and perhaps your past performance. Giving yourself the goal of losing 80 pounds in one month might be too much of a stretch, right? So consider a goal that challenges you, yet still feels within reach.
Relevant
Fourth, we have relevant and I tie this back to my life plan to help evaluate if a goal is actually helping me to get closer to my life plan objectives or not. Is it worth it and does it actually align with your ultimate goals. In my process of resetting my life, I use the items listed in my life plan to come up with my goals, so they are definitely relevant.
But this is an important aspect to consider whenever you take on a new project or idea, because often we get lured into doing something exciting that ultimately doesn’t even align with our life plan.
Time-Bound
Finally, we have time-bound which is to give yourself a deadline to help schedule this goal out. Depending on how much time you have, you might have to adjust your specific goal as well.
Let’s go back to our losing weight example. Maybe we need to lose 20 pounds before our wedding date in one year or whenever the final dress fitting might be. Or maybe this is a long term goal to fit into a size 10 by 2025. So it might actually make more sense to simply pick the next milestone, so a certain number of pounds by a date or certain size by a closer date. It’s a lot more approachable than plopping down a giant goal that goes way too far into the future.
Whatever goal you have, make sure to go back through the S.M.A.R.T. goal attributes to finalize the details. It’s best to be able to write your goal in one sentence, so that you can motivate yourself by re-writing and re-reading it often. Once you have a goal to shoot for, then you just need to plan your project and start one step at a time!
Goal Setting Tips
I have found that having a goal setting worksheet really helps to work through a goal that I’m considering. Seeing it all on paper helps with clarity, finalizing the details and even determining if the goal is worth shooting for at the end of the day.
If you have your life plan template complete, it should be fairly easy to go down the list and write does all the goals you have chosen for yourself, following the S.M.A.R.T. guidelines. The process of goal setting helps you set your life direction with intention, so you achieve precisely what you want. As you continue with this process over and over again, you will raise your self-confidence as well.
Of course, remember that it’s easy to get carried away in this process. We all have big dreams and we want to get there as fast as possible. But we have to be realistic to our life situation and resources available. So just take some moments to evaluate if your goals are exciting and challenging enough, but also attainable. Remember that you can always break up goals into different milestones, so start with phase 1 or part 1 first. Smaller chunks are always more approachable and easier to accomplish.
Finally, I wanted to mention also this idea of performance goals rather than outcome goals. Although sometimes we need to be specific with outcome goals – like if you really need to lose those 10 pounds to fit into a wedding dress. But other times, the specific outcome might actually not be in your control – or even be exactly what you ultimately care about.
With more experience you might have enough information to know that if you take certain actions you will certainly achieve certain outcomes. But often this is not the case, so when it comes to a list of goals, I think it’s good to mix them up so you have some outcome goals as well as some performance ones.
Performance Goal Setting Example
Let’s go through an example of what I mean by performance goals. Going back to losing weight, maybe you don’t actually care about your weight number or dress size. Maybe you wanted to lose weight because you know you need to eat healthier and feel better about yourself. So a performance goal is based on things you can do and control, rather than what might or might not happen as a result of taking those actions.
Here’s what I mean – consider someone who has a lot of trouble losing weight. They might not know if it’s even possible to shed those 50 pounds by a certain date. It’s all new territory. And of course maybe they just want to be healthier and a specific weight number might really be arbitrary. So think about what can you change or do that would certainly contribute to losing weight. Maybe like switching to a vegetarian diet, meal planning at least the weekdays and stick to it for 3 months before reassessing.
The idea is that the goal is really a serious of actions you can definitely achieve, it’s all in your control. You don’t really know how much weight you might lose at the end of that time, but you do know that you can meal plan 5 days a week, switching to vegetarian healthy meals for 3 months.
Performance goals are especially important if you are new to goal setting or you have little experience in what you are doing, so you can be sure on outcomes. A lot of people have income goals. But you will never know if you can sell enough or get enough clients to hit an income number without more experience. So you can switch it to a performance goal of things you can control. Like making 5 sales call every day. Or adding 5 products to your shop every day. Those are specific, measurable things you can do that would contribute to your income. You don’t know if someone will be your client or buy your product at the end of the day, but ultimately you can only concentrate on what is in your control.
So that is basically the difference of performance goals versus outcome goals. I think there is a place for both kind of goals, it really depends on your situation, your experience and many other factors.
To make the process more straightforward, I’ve created a goal setting worksheet printable that you can download to use for evaluating your goals. Whatever dream you have in mind can be evaluated using this free worksheet. Afterwards, you will have much more clarity on what you want, if it’s possible and be on your way to the next step of translating your goal into an actual project plan.
Think of this worksheet as a way to brainstorm and work out any thoughts you might have in relation to the specific goal. Don’t worry about getting all the steps or information exactly right though, because your project plan will actually have those details. This worksheet is for formulating your goals. Afterwards, if you decide to go for it, then you can create your project plan of tasks to work on.
What’s next?
I hope this goal setting worksheet printable will help you with your planning and remember to print as many copies as you need. If you are anything like me, there are so many goals and dreams to evaluate and it makes sense to consider them all and then pick the most exciting high priority ones. Here’s to taking action with intention and moving forward with more clarity.
This free printable is part of a series shared on this blog to help reset your life. Here are the other related posts:
Want to reset your life and get guidance on how to propel yourself forward with intention? Check out this life planning template and create your own!
So after completing multiple deep journaling sessions, the first step to reset your life, I ended up writing 8 full pages! It was fantastic to have that feeling of weight lifted from my shoulders. And in writing my thoughts out, it helped to clarify a lot of my goals and aspirations as well.
If you still feel that there is anything in your heart that needs to get out, please write it out. From fears to doubts and worries to dreams, goals, and bucket list items. Again, it’s to get everything out and let go of the past to enable you to move forward.
Brainstorming to create a life planning template…
Now we must move on to the next step and set yourself up for an amazing year and decade. Personally, I find it difficult to just list out goals. I really like the idea of categorizing my efforts, so I did some research in the arena of life planning. I found that there are categories that people usually go through to check-in on their life and progress.
I know that not all categories apply to each and every person though. We have different seasons in life and there might be a year when you put little to no emphasis on certain categories. So my thought is to just have a master list and each year go through to pick and choose what will guide my goals for the year.
If you have read Hal Elrod’s The Miracle Morning (Amazon affiliate link), you will know that he describes his Level 10 Life method, where you basically try to meet satisfaction in the 10 areas of life he has defined. Some other life coaching websites and associations have 7 areas up to 12 areas. Here’s a more comprehensive list that I found from my research.
Examples of Life Planning Categories…
Personal Development
Health/Fitness
Well-Being/Self-Care/Mental Health
Spirituality/Character/Values
Family/Parenting/Quality of Life
Friends/Social Life
Love/Romance/Emotional
Finances/Wealth
Career/Business
Entertainment/Fun/Recreation
Charity/Volunteer/Giving/Life Vision
Physical Environment
Notice there are lots of slashes, because there’s more than one way to describe an area of life. Honestly, we all can personally establish our own categories, because we define things uniquely and lead unique lives. What might be a category for us, might not be for another person. Pick the words that resonant with you personally. You might be in a season of life that health is actually just all about mental health, so it would make sense to make that it’s own category heading, right?
Printable Life Planning Template Idea
So I decided to create some printables to write out my life plan, which is just an overview of where I feel I’m at in each category of importance to me and what I want to accomplish. It would be like my guiding principles that would affect what projects and actions I take throughout the year.
The printables come in either boxes or rows and 6 or 12 spaces. I think that accommodates most people and you should fill them in order of priority with your personal categories. For example, instead of “love” or “romance” you might actually have the name of your significant other. It’s so much more personal in that way!
For this process, I read through my journaling brain dump and pulled out main points that helped me to shape my life categories. I actually rewrote things several times, because the act of writing it out helped me to organize and sort things in my head. In the end, I printed a fresh page to write down concise bullet points.
Personally, I ended up with six categories and decided to use the rows format to try and be as concrete as possible with specific milestones. Use whatever works best with your categories and goals.
Download Boxes or Rows Life Planning Template Printables…
For each category you rate your current state – 1 being not good versus 10 meaning perfect. Then you list the goals you want to achieve that would contribute positively to that category that would help your rating go up.
The box version lets you just list bullet point goals, whereas the row version has short-term, mid-term and long-term columns for each category. Alternatively, you can list the low, middle and high end goals for certain areas. For example, some people have income goals and they like to put in a range, such as lowest benchmark to middle and then dream sky high amount. It’s a way to give yourself a range and generally milestones make a goal much more approachable.
Also remember to order your life categories as you see fit. Whatever is priority for you should be first. I would love to work on everything but I have to face the truth. Some things will take priority over others – at least this year as the focus. Give yourself that visual cue of the hierarchy, in case life gets busy (because it will) and you can make better decisions on what to focus on.
What’s next?
So, happy life planning to you! And remember that you can download and print as many copies as you need to refine your categories and really work it all out on paper. Then you will have a life plan that is a high-level guide that will help you make plans and drive your actions and efforts in the coming years.
These free design printables are part of a series shared on this blog to help reset your life for the new year. Here are the other related posts:
The first step to reset your life is to do a braindump of everything, anything and all of it. It’s important to get all the thoughts out of your head and onto paper.
I know first hand that life can feel so overwhelming.
As we head into a new year, I always find myself filled with anxiety. A new year gives us the perfect opportunity for an obvious fresh start, so it can be exciting, invigorating and motivational. That’s why New Year’s resolutions are so popular.
But I have a big melting pot of feelings and often I find myself frozen in fear and overwhelmed by all the great possibilities of the future, coupled with fearing a crushing disappointment of repeating my inadequacies of the past. Whew. Whoa. I said it.
Feeling like I’m unable to change old patterns and living the same’ ole same ‘ole life – that is scary to me. But I also know that it’s normal to have fears and doubts. We all have them. We simply have to believe in the possibility of change and move forward confidently. That’s why I created the progress not perfection printable mantra.
As we head into 2020, it’s a whole new decade starting up, bringing an even greater emphasis on new beginnings. I feel the need to pivot and really try to feel more on top of my life so that I don’t have these anxious feelings at the end of every year.
There has got to be a way to move forward bravely with confidence. Even if I feel the pressure and anxiety eating away at me… I also feel the hunger of wanting more and truly believing that change is possible. And don’t get me wrong… there are many good things in life. But that doesn’t mean I can’t want more… to improve… to optimize and progress!
Let’s reset life for 2020 together.
It’s not about getting more tasks done or checking off lists. It’s about re-aligning my efforts towards the things that actually matter to me personally and contribute to my life positively. The goal is feeling good about time spent, good times and projects accomplished. Rather than feeling crushed by the busyness of modern lifestyles.
Who’s with me?
Now, the very first step when it comes to fresh starts is journaling. Actually, it’s really a pre-step. The idea is to get everything out of your head.
Call it a braindump, morning pages, writing stream of consciousness or journaling to specific prompts – whatever you want. But the point is to write it all out. It’s always helpful to get thoughts out of my head and onto paper. The act of thinking and physically writing thoughts down activates both sides of our brain, almost like every cell in your body will be sent the message!
I know there can be resistance to writing, if you don’t feel like you are a writer or your hand cramps up or you happen to hate your handwriting. But you have to put that all aside and know that these are not grand plans that have to be written beautifully or neatly. On the contrary, let yourself have free reign and just let it flow. In fact, at points, I might just be scribbling something, before some more words come out and I keep on writing…
Brain Dumping
Although it’s great to have a journaling practice, so that you are constantly brain dumping. Just like there’s periods of spring cleaning and deep cleaning for houses… the end of year is a great time to do a deep journaling session or sessions. I think you can braindump in list format, free journaling or following writing prompts – perhaps all three methods – to ensure that you explore ALL thoughts.
I will be treating this as an exercise to literally EMPTY my mind of EVERYTHING. I recommend doing this in multiple sessions during the course of a week, to help yourself truly let it all out. If you are familiar with David Allen’s Getting Things Done book and method… he often talks about how our brains are meant to process, but not necessarily to remember every little detail.
In sharing this process, I know that some people like to see examples or see what other people journal about – but I would suggest NOT sharing your journaling with anyone. I believe that it goes down to the subconscious level, even if you happen to be a very open book type of person. If you keep your writing private, it will give you the freedom to truly let your feelings and thoughts flow out onto the paper with no filters whatsoever.
I’ve designed a lined printable page that has the Brain Dump heading for those who want to follow this process and keep all the pages in the same style. I’m putting all my pages in a binder, so that is why I’m creating these printables. But you can just as well use blank sheets of paper or a notebook of your choice. It doesn’t really matter what you use, rather it’s more important that you actually go through the process.
Keep writing until you truly feel there’s nothing else to write out and you feel a bit at peace that it’s all out on paper. Again – it’s all your thoughts, feelings, worries, aspirations, lists, projects, wishes, dreams… EVERYTHING. No filter need apply. Trust me… you will feel SO GOOD after these types of sessions…
If you are having trouble journaling, here are some prompts that help me:
To practice writing, you can write your own biography, as if you had to explain to someone brand new your life story. How would you describe yourself? How would you highlight your past milestones? What is your current state of affairs?
Think about the past year and happy moments. What has brought you joy, so that you want to keep them in your life? People? Events? Projects?
What accomplishments are you proud of? What do you need to celebrate and remember?
Evaluate the various pillars of life planning: personal health/development, love/social/friends/family, career, finances, entertainment/hobbies, spiritual or whatever fits with your life as a major component. Think about each pillar and how you would rank yourself – are you happy with the situation or do you find something lacking? What do you want to improve?
What disappointments from the last year come to mind? What has bothered you, been a pain point or something you truly would like to change?
Can you pull out understanding, lessons learned and thoughts from writing about disappointments or mistakes from the past?
What are your greatest fears? What doubts do you have that really take up space in your mind?
Have you ever told yourself, oh, I can’t do that – or related limiting beliefs? List them out and journal about why you feel that way about yourself.
Turn things around and explore your strengths. Things you are good at and proud of. You might consider taking the VIA character strengths survey to find out what your core characters strengths are and list them out to elaborate on them and journal to know yourself better.
What are you grateful for, thankful for and why? Elaborate.
Journal your dreams, goals and aspirations do you have for the future.
What is your definition of success? How do you want to feel at the end of each day. Physical items you want in life? People you want in life? Accomplishments you want in life? Write what you want, but also think about the past and what has ACTUALLY brought you joy.
I will be taking multiple days and sessions to journal and write all my thoughts out before trying to organize or come up with goals or resolutions. At this point, it’s just about writing it ALL out.
Hello! I'm Linda, the girl behind this printables blog. I post free printables and share my creative projects along the way.
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