How I Plan My Life and Business a Year in Advance
Keep reading this post to learn:
⋒ How to get into the mindset of intentionally planning ahead
⋒ 3 ways I create margin in my schedule (& life)
⋒ My exact process for planning out an entire year
A few weeks ago, I was on Instagram stories flipping through my planner for the rest of 2024, showing that I had the rest of the year planned out for work… as in, I know exactly what projects I am working on every week for the rest of 2024.
To me, that doesn’t sound wild – I’ve been wired like this my whole life…planning ahead brings me comfort and peace. But I got SO many messages from you guys on that story asking me how the heck I plan out so far in advance – and you know how we do around here. You ask a question enough times and 9 times out of 10, I make it into a podcast episode and blog post, lol.
I’m gonna come at you with some solid strategies and frameworks to follow but first, we gotta start off with talking about some mindset stuff – because Key 01 to Hustling Sanely is Get Your Mindset Right. I am a firm believer that our mindset affects every single thing in our life…for better or for worse.
Now when I was in my 20s, I planned my life in advance from a place of fear. I meticulously planned what I would be focusing on every month of the year because I was afraid that if I didn’t time would get away from me. I was approaching planning from a scarcity mindset. So not the vibe. I was definitely treating my plans like a chain. And you know what we say – our schedules and routines are tools, not chains!
After years of inner work and learning how to live a peacefully productive life, when it comes to planning, I view it as a tool.
When I intentionally plan how I am going to show up for my life, I do so from a place of excitement instead of fear. I go into planning with the intention of being a good steward of my time and so that I can show up for my life in a way that aligns with my vision.
We’ve all heard the quote by Benjamin Franklin, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail” – kinda harsh sounding but also think about the days/weeks/months that you just fly by the seat of your pants. I don’t know about you, but those are the periods of time when I feel stretched thin, constantly on the brink of burnout, and mentally exhausted before I even start my day.
When I plan how I’m gonna show up for my life, I feel at ease. I know what I want to get my best time and energy. It makes knowing what to say yes and no to easier because I have my clear vision right in front of me. I’m more present with my family because my mind isn’t reeling thinking about how I’m gonna fit everything into my life.
So that’s the pre-work to this – make sure to get your mindset right surrounding planning. Plan with intention and be willing to hold your plans with a loose grip and leave margin for life to happen. That is how we live a peacefully productive life!
Part of planning is planning for pivots – because life stays life-ing you know what I mean? The best way that I’ve learned to plan for things to change is by leaving margin in my schedule. I define margin as intentional white space. It’s not packing your schedule full to the brim. Think of it as breathing room on your calendar.
I’m gonna tell you right now – we live in a fast-paced world and margin is something you will have to fight for. It’s not just going to appear in your life. You have to clear stuff out for it to be there.
3 Things I Do To Help Me Create Margin In My Calendar:
01. Allocate more time than I think I’ll need to accomplish my goals
I’ll be honest…this takes practice, lol. As a recovering overachiever and workaholic, I’m used to packing as much as I can into a day, week, month, and year. My natural inclination is to run hard and fast after goals back to back to back. But that’s how I burned out and neglected my mental health and important relationships. And we’re not doing that again!
So now, I focus on fewer goals a year so that I don’t feel pressure as I pursue them.
02. Pay attention to what’s going on in my life during certain parts of the year and schedule my goals in a way that makes sense for that.
This one is pretty straightforward.
For example, I know that November-December are full months in The Massey household…November is Adam’s birthday and Thanksgiving and December is Everly’s birthday and Christmas. Not to mention that we are typically still on the tail end of planer season in November and into December for Hustle Sanely.
That being said, I usually don’t plan to pursue any rigorous goals during Q4 of the year. Because I know that I would feel very frantic if I was trying to wrap up planner season, plan birthday activities for Adam and Evvy, plan our holiday season, and trying to accomplish an intense goal.
03. Stay flexible
If I realize that I’m starting to feel spread thin, I have no problem moving a goal to the following quarter or even the following year. No goal is worth me sacrificing my mental health and the important relationships in my life and I learned that the hard way.
Okay so now that we’ve touched on mindset and margin when it comes to planning out a year, lets’ talk about strategy.
I use The Hustle Sanely Planning System to plan out a year in my life. It’s a system that I created that is made up of 3 parts:
01. The 5 Keys to Hustling Sanely
02. The Hustle Sanely Schedule Building Framework
03. 8 Hustle Sanely Habits
All of these things work together to help me plan and live a peacefully productive life.
Let’s zero in on some of the 8 Hustle Sanely Habits because that’s the strategy part of how I plan out a year.
So how I plan a year is a process – I start with my broad yearly vision and then I get more specific… which makes sense so that it’s not overwhelming.
I do the following meetings to help me plan out a year in my life and in my business:
+ Yearly Vision Meeting
+ Quarterly Check-In Meetings
+ Monthly Check-In Meetings
+ Weekly Prep Meetings
+ Daily Planning Meetings
These are 5 of the 8 Hustle Sanely Habits that are part of the entire Hustle Sanely Planning System. I’m gonna tell you what I do during each of these meetings to help me plan out my year!
Yearly Vision Meeting
During my yearly vision meeting, which I typically do in November before a new year, I brainstorm goals that I want to work toward (personal and professional) the following year. I use categories to help me keep my thoughts organized:
~ Personal Well-Being
mental/spiritual health, hobbies, self-care, etc.
~ Relationships
partner, family, friends, etc.
~ Physical Health
exercise, sleep, nutrition, etc.
~ Finances
budgeting, saving, giving, etc.
~ Vocation
career, education, life mission, etc.
~ Spaces
house, office, vehicle, etc.
These are the categories that you’ll see in our 2025 planning products – eeeek!
So I go through these categories and think about what I want to accomplish by the end of the following year. In 2024 I had 15 goals total – some are pretty big goals (like launching new courses in my business and redoing our backyard) and others are smaller goals, like go to church 2x a month in person.
No one but you knows your capacity – don’t feel like you need 100 goals. If 5 feels good to you, do that. You can always add more later down the road.
After I decide what I want to accomplish by the end of the following year, I put everything that I know for sure is happening in my life (both personal and professional) on my year at a glance spread in my Peacefully Productive Planner. So one-off planned events (like travel) and then recurring events that happen every year (like celebrating birthdays and anniversaries).
This helps me to see which months are full and where I have more space.
So for example, on the personal side, I fill in any trips that are already planned – Adam and I always go on a little getaway for our anniversary, which is in April so that goes on the cal. I put in all of our immediate family’s birthdays. Stuff like that.
Then on the professional side, there are a few recurring events in my business that I add:
I already know that planner season is happening from July-November so I add that.
I know that I’ll be prepping new content for the BFF Membership in February, May, August, and November.
I know that I’ll be prepping for BFF enrollment in March, June, September, and December.
I know I’ll be running a live group coaching program sometime in Q1 for the Hustle Sanely Lifestyle course.
You get the gist!
After I get what I know about my year on my yearly spread, then I start scheduling my goals by the quarter.
I’ll go down my list of goals and decide which quarter I’m going to work on each goal according to what is going on in my life and business already according to my year at a glance that I just mentioned filling out.
So by the end of this, I have a list of my goals for the year with which quarter I want to pursue each goal in.
Quarterly Check-In Meetings
During my quarterly check-in meetings, which I do before the start of each new quarter, I decide which goals I want to focus on during each month of that quarter.
I already know what goals I want to focus on during the quarter from my yearly vision meeting – so now I just have to go one step further and decide which specific month or months I’m focusing on that goal.
Monthly Check-In Meetings
During my monthly check-in meetings, which I do before the start of each new month, I decide what action steps I need to take each week in order to make my monthly focus goal happen.
So on my monthly spread in my Peacefully Productive Planner, to the left of each week, I jot down what my focus is that week.
Weekly Prep Meetings
Then during my weekly prep meetings, which I do before the start of each new week, I look at my monthly spread and see what my weekly focus is for the week and write down the action steps that I need to do to move the needle on that focus. These become my Weekly Top 3, which I write in the top left section of my weekly planning page in my planner.
Daily Planning Meetings
And finally, during my daily planning meetings, which I do every day, I finalize what 3 tasks are the most important for me to get done the next day (aka my Focus 3) to make progress on my Weekly Top 3.
So see what I mean by starting broad and then narrowing it down as I go?
For me, I have WAY more wiggle room in the first half of the year than I do in the second half of the year. Because of planner season for work and birthdays and holidays in my personal life, I know that the second half of the year doesn’t have a ton of margin so I typically don’t plan a lot of intense goals for the second half of the year. I tend to work on my bigger goals in the first half of the year.
And that, in a very quick nutshell, is how I plan my life and business a year in advance!
If you enjoyed this blog post, I cannot recommend my Hustle Sanely Lifestyle course enough! The course itself is split up into 3 parts:
LEARN IT: I teach you what the Hustle Sanely Planning System is
SEE IT: I show you the Hustle Sanely Planning System in action in my own life
DO IT: You do a collection of curated exercises to apply the Hustle Sanely Planning System to your life
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I hope this blog post got your wheels turning for some routines that you can start to implement in your life! If you enjoyed it, please let us know over at @jessmmassey and @hustlesanely on Instagram!
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