One of my favorite writing teachers always takes time now to plan the next year. She gets herself a hotel room and doesn’t leave until she thinks up the big plans for her next year and breaks them up into little pieces to begin to conquer.
Totally inspiring and I’ve decided to follow her lead (after playing around with it for a few years). If you’ll remember from 2008 and 2009 that I have made proclamations on this blog. They get me farther than I would have gotten had I not made proclamations at all, but I don’t ever get everything done that’s on my list. I think that’s okay.
This year as I plan for 2010, it probably won’t be much different than past years, because me planning is like I’m trying to trump God. Seriously, I think I have to create the world in a day. I always have to remember it took God six days and He rested on the seventh, thus, this year, I will try to keep that in mind and not jam too much into my list.
But here’s how it’s done.
1. I use Moleskine’s X-tra Large Weekly Notebook for the daily stuff (19.95 from Moleskine). That’s where I write my daily to-do lists and where I plan out what I blog about each morning. One side has each day of the week and the other side has ruled lines for notes and important details.
2. For the overarching goals, I just use a simple notebook or legal pad. I throw down 6-10 big things I want to accomplish in a year. This is my downfall, though. Most of those big things are actually huge things, like, build a platform, get an agent, publish a book, etc. This year, I have another step that I’m going to focus on more than this big step.
3. The monthly list. Those 6-10 things must be broken down into smaller steps in order to get them finished. Thus each of them will break into twelve smaller pieces and each of those smaller pieces will be on my monthly list. This is complicated for MY BRAIN, so no worries if you’ve lost me already. I can’t seem to translate the big stuff to the monthly lists. Or what David Allen (of Getting Things Done fame) says, I haven’t broken them down into small enough pieces quite yet. Next step.
4. This is pure David Allen of GTD fame. Take those monthly tasks (the ones I wrestle with all year long) and write the first thing to be done (this is the next action step). This can go on any of my weekly Moleskine calendars, preferably the first week, because when you take one action, it invariably introduces another action. This is my strategy for 2010. I am going to break things down into GTD action steps and I’m going to keep at it until I run out of things to do. Ha!
5. By the end of 2010 (as it happens at the end of 2008 and 2009), I do have progress. I finish several tasks, get started on these other tasks, but as it always happens, I don’t get all the big stuff done. Me without an agent at the end of 2009, for example. But that’s okay. No need to panic.
After all, there’s always 2010. 
How are you planning for 2010? Have you started yet? Are you like me and tend to have too many goals? Or do you not have any goals at all? Let’s discuss.
{ 2 comments }
Love this, Trish! I’m in the dreaming phase of planning 2010 and sometimes I forget about breaking down my dreams into bite-sized bits; this post really encouraged me to keep on the right track. I love the way you spelled out your process of thinking through the planning, thanks!
Rosanna, you can download my template on today’s post. Glad it helped you! I love planning (dreaming) goals and this makes getting them to reality so much easier!
Merry Christmas!
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