I absolutely love this time of year!
It’s a time for celebrating and getting together with family. It’s a time for reflecting on all of your achievements for the year. It’s a time for backyard cricket and it’s a time for beach, sun and plenty of outdoor activities (at least here in Australia!).
But it’s also a time that I use to plan ahead for the next year. 2017 is now just one week away and I absolutely love kicking off each New Year in style! I’m about to share with you a simple tool to help you make 2017 your best year ever.
If you want to get serious results in your life or business in 2017 then it’s important you are clear on what you are doing and when you are doing it and ensuring it’s actually scheduled.
Nothing gets done unless it’s scheduled.
That’s why today I want to share with you a simple but powerful tool that I use to ensure that I am clear and focused on what needs to get done in the following year.
It all starts with this 2017 calendar…
5 Steps to Scheduling the Best Year of Your Life
Scheduling your lifestyle and the activities you plan to do in 2017 will help you to forecast your income and ensure your life is balanced the way you desire it to be.
So often people have a dream and a vision for their life but they don’t spend the time to actually map out what that looks like.
- If you want to take more holidays, schedule them in!
- If you want to make more money by developing and selling a product or service, schedule it in!
- If you want to  achieve major goals like completing a marathon or losing 20kg of weight, schedule the deadline in!
Here’s how I plan out my year. Feel free to copy or adjust it or add to it depending on what you’re trying to achieve in your life.
Step 1) Schedule all of the birthdays of your family and your closest friends.
It’s important to celebrate with those closest to you and having it scheduled reminds you of planning ahead to get something special and also so you keep the date free.
Step 2) Schedule all of the holidays you wish to take.
For this, start with the public holidays. If you’re in Australia, I’ve already scheduled the public holidays for you in the template. Otherwise, delete the Australian holidays and insert the public holidays for your location.
Next, schedule the time your leave from your job or the time off you wish to take from your business. Next year, I’m planning to take a break once every 3 months and take a short trip somewhere with my wife and daughter.
Scheduling holidays is super-important. It gives you something to look forward to which keeps you engaged during the time you’re working, but it also serves as a time to relax, rejuvenate and refocus on what you’re achieving in your life.
Step 3) Schedule the major business/career events that you want to achieve.
For example, I’ve scheduled the product launches, community challenges or other promotions that I plan to do in 2017 for my business. This provides me clarity on what I need to focus on and when as well as a better prediction of my income for the year.
Step 4) Schedule weekly or regular activities that you will need to complete to move you towards your larger goals.
For example, I’ve scheduled when I’m going to be publishing a blog post or video to my business. Although I haven’t yet determined exactly what each blog post is going to be about, I’ve given each date a general topic that I will be covering which feeds back to what you have asked to know more about (eg, is it Personal Development or is it Business).
Step 5) Schedule the due dates of your goals for the year or any other ad-hoc activities that you want to accomplish.
This is another great way of reminding you of the major goals you’re trying to achieve. As you have already scheduled your major work commitments, this could be any other goal related to your health, relationships, finances, personal growth, fun & recreation or physical environment.
To see how satisfied you currently are in each of the different areas of your life, do the Wheel of Life assessment. It takes 5 minutes and provides a great starting point for this exercise.
Entering the New Year With Clarity
This process doesn’t take long to do. I whipped my calendar up a couple of days ago in about an hour. Over the next few days I’ll be fine-tuning it.
Going into the New Year with clarity on how many days you’re going to have off versus how many days you’re going to be spending on creating versus how many days you’re going to be spending on promoting etc really helps you to feel calm and collected about the year ahead.
You can enter the New Year with full knowledge that your life is going to be balanced and that you will achieve the things that you have planned to do (as long as you stick to it). It will also help you to avoid getting stressed or overwhelmed.
Next Year I have 117 days scheduled to be off. This means I’m going to be working for the remaining 248 days. Now that I know this, I have a real sense of peace knowing that about 1 in every 3 days for the whole year is going to be a day that I can relax and do anything I wish to that I haven’t planned for.
It also gives me comfort that I can better predict how my year is going to unfold and how much income I’m going to make from my businesses.
Your Turn
I’ve given you the tool and the process for getting clarity on the year ahead. Now, my challenge to you is to take 30 minutes, right now, and create your year. At this time of year, lots of people talk about making the next year their best ever but few actually take the time to plan it out and make it so.
If you can’t do it right now, then schedule 30 minutes to do it in the next few days.
If you know of someone that might benefit from this tool and process, I encourage you to share this with them.
As a head’s up, I’m going to be opening up the doors to my Launch Your Life Academy next week, where you can get my step-by-step blueprint for creating your life masterplan and taking massive action.
Have a great weekend and speak to you in a few days!
Brendan
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Brendan, I got very useful knowledge from your blog. Thanks.
Hello Brendan, nice post I like the ideas you have here they are really effective however a lot of people struggle a lot with discipline making it hard for them to follow through its important for them to be confident enough to believe that they can make time regardless of the fact that they may believe they do not have the time. Thanks for the great information.