Have You Started Your Planning For Next Year Yet? Now is the Time to Get Ahead of That.
November can be, unsuspectingly, a crazy month. For many in retail, it is the ramp up to the busiest time of the year. And with more promotional activity throughout the month, Black Friday, now spans most days in November. Additionally, the end of the quarter and year are looming. That in itself creates a lot of activity. Finally, there is the planning element that we all know needs to happen, but, well, those first two things often get in the way. What to do?
As the days slide off the calendar quicker than we might expect, planning can take a back seat and get lost. Then we end up scrambling in the final days of December, another very busy time, to try to ready ourselves for the new year. Whether it is personal goals, or business strategy and initiatives, it will feel rushed and incomplete. Working ahead is the only prevention of that. We are only mid-way through November as this publishes, so there is still time to be ahead of the curve versus trying to play catch up at the end of the year, or worse, the beginning of next year. Here are some things you can do right now to get jump started on your planning for the upcoming year.
Create a list of projects
What are the most important things you already know you want to work on next year? Begin to capture details of what that looks like, how long they will take, what investment of your time will be required, and the window of time in which you intend to complete them. This allows you to see everything in one place and will enable you to begin plotting those out.
Review your current routines
This is the perfect time to begin looking at how you currently spend your time and what might need to change for the future. Map out your existing meetings, calls, or other known recurring events that you have to work around, or could adjust. These could include things like conference calls you attend, or calls you host (depending on your role), or regular meetings. If you want to have larger scale team meetings next year, begin to plot those out, so you can see them with other events. Knowing how you spend your time currently plays heavily in what you’ll be able to accomplish or need to adjust. This is a great time to do a time tracking activity to see where your time goes.
Create a calendar for the new year
Calendar planning can be fun and daunting at the same time. It is a fabulous feeling to see a blank calendar in front of you with every possibility open. Then, suddenly, as you begin filling things in, you realize we never have as much time as we think, or want, or need. Thus, the need for planning and prioritizing. I would recommend getting a year-at-a-glance calendar to do this type of planning. It allows you to see the full year at one time and helps visualize what things look like at a macro level.
I use a wall calendar from Neuyear that looks great and lets me see everything. It has options for horizontal or vertical views and comes in a laminated version (to allow for dry erase) or paper view. I HIGHLY recommend the laminated (dry erase) version, so you can easily make changes throughout the year. I would also suggest using vis-à-vis (wet erase) markers to avoid accidental smudges. It is a little more difficult to make changes, but better than realizing you just leaned up against your calendar and wiped off several events. (If cleaning up our real calendar was only so easy.)
Plot out important dates for yourself first. I always start with birthdays, holidays, and any vacation days I know I want to take. (This is also part of the fun, personal planning and thinking about upcoming vacations.) Then, you can begin to fill in other work and business related dates. Yes, conflicts will likely begin to arise, but better to know now than in several months when the options are more limited in what you can do about them. This is the greatest thing of this type of planning ahead on a visual calendar to see where those conflicts arise.
Prioritize
This final step may seem obvious after everything covered above, but you will need to give priority to certain things. You will find out that not everything fits on the calendar exactly the way you hoped it would. Again, the best part of this is knowing you are already working in the future. You have the luxury of knowing what space or time you do have and where things might be able to move around to fit on the calendar.
This is also a super opportunity to share and coordinate with peers, teammates, or your supervisor to work on how everything can come together and what does and doesn’t fit neatly in the next twelve months. Collaborating on a calendar can be just as fun (and frustrating) as doing your own. If nothing else, spread the word to start planning now for the year ahead.
I’ve said it in nearly every planning article I’ve written: planning is often overlooked or undervalued in our daily routines. I believe in it, research it, write about it, and still have struggles with it. It must be intentional and practiced. Doing so with a ‘blank’ slate for the year ahead is the perfect start to getting ready for the upcoming year. Take advantage of the benefits that come from using the time right now to look into the future and be ready (and planned) for what is coming your way.
When are you starting your next year planning?
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