I’ve been wanting to talk to you about quarterly planning forever and just haven’t gotten around to it. Shame on me! Why quarterly planning? Because it has truly made an impact on my life and I know it can for you too.
What is Quarterly Planning?
If you have no idea what quarterly planning is, let me explain. In simple terms, it’s when you plan for the next quarter in front of you. Easy right? If you’re currently reading this in the first quarter of the year [January, February or March], then you should be thinking about what’s coming for you in the second quarter of the year.
Why Quarterly Planning?
There are a few reasons why you want to think about quarterly planning and the main one is that it breaks down the overwhelming feeling of planning for the entire year ahead of you. Additionally:
- It makes your planning easier to manage because you’re reverse engineering larger goals into bite size chunks
- You’re not looking so far into the future that you can’t imagine what it looks like
- There’s just enough pressure behind you to make you want to put in effort but not feel like there’s a fire you need to put out immediately
- You look forward to your future and get to create what you want for your life
- You get to focus on your goals and always be on top of them.
- Working on your goals and your plans regularly helps you feel like you have a purpose
- You can continuously review and analyze how your spending your time to find out if you’re being productive or procrastinating
Let’s Break a Few of These Down…
The Future is YOURS!
I say it all the time – YOU are in control of your life! Only you get to decide how you want to live it, who you want in it and what you do with it. When you use quarterly planning to look at your future, you get to imagine what it will look like.
Are you looking to purchase a new car? What about change professions or find a new job? Do you need to get up the courage to ask for a pay raise? Are you planning your next vacation?
YOU get to define your future when you ask yourself these questions and break the action steps to answer them into baby steps.
Being on Top of Your Goals is Key!
We all set goals, but do we all work on them? Not really. Think about them like resolutions. Yes, we set them every year but by February we toss them aside like yesterday’s laundry. With quarterly planning, you get the opportunity to be on top of your goals. Regardless of what you want to work on – your health, your environment, etc. – having goals is helpful to keep you on track.
Let’s say your next quarterly goal is to have a cleaner living space. What do you need to do to get there? Maybe declutter and sell some of the things you’re no longer using, hire someone to clean your house once a month or maybe even add a fresh coat of paint to your walls to brighten the space.
Tracking your progress comes along with this too. When you review and analyze what you’ve done, you get to see your progress. You may see meetings that could have been emails or invites that you probably should have declined. When you review your time, you get to see if the time you spent was productive. And yes, progress IS progress! Don’t strive for perfection because you’ll burn yourself out and probably get discouraged.
Having a Purpose is Encouraging
If we float through life without a purpose, often times we feel less than. When you have a purpose, you can feel like you’re giving back to the world and doing something to move your life in a positive direction. Don’t get me wrong, floating through life, on occasion, isn’t a bad thing. It can be necessary from time to time but when it happens too frequently, it can be boring.
When you focus on taking in bite size pieces of your life and your actions, you can decide what you want for your purpose and your life. Plus, the best part is, you’ll feel like you’re accomplishing something.
What are You Quarterly Planning for 2023?
When this post goes Live, it should be the fourth quarter of 2022. It’s crunch time, people! Now is the time to start thinking about the clean or fresh start you’ll be getting in 2023. What are your goals? What do you want to accomplish between January and March? Share them on social media so you make them real, no matter how outlandish they may seem. Tag me in your post so I can cheer you own an help you achieve them. You’ve got this, Friend!