Quarterly planning is fantastic, but any time is a good time to plan. If you don’t have a format to follow, read on for some suggestions.

In an ideal world, you create a beautiful aligned plan at the beginning of each new quarter. It gives you that back to school feeling, four times a year and the perfect opportunity to take stock of where you are, what’s worked, what hasn’t and where you’re going.

However, we’re not all living in an ideal world all the time. Life happens and other things may have taken priority. You may not have a format to follow for your plan so you don’t know where to start. It’s never too late to create a beautiful good feeling plan. Block out some time for yourself in your diary at the next available opportunity, grab your favourite beverage, and pen and gift yourself the time and space to create something special for yourself going forward.

Here’s the format I use and work through with my clients. It really works to give you clarity and a bird’s eye view of your business as well as the opportunity to break it down into smaller actionable steps.

90-day plan format.

1. Annual and quarterly income goals.

This needs to feel good to you. If it makes you cringe then you’ll block the income from coming to you. Notice how you feel about writing an income goal and use your mindset tools, to find better feeling thoughts about it. You can write good, better, best goals, or if they really don’t sit well with you yet, you don’t need to set income goals at all. I often fill this piece in last even though it’s on the front page of my plan.

2. Accomplishments.

It’s so important to acknowledge and celebrate your accomplishments big and small. Too many of us go around thinking we haven’t achieved much in any given space and time and 99% of the time it’s just not true.

3. Learnings.

What didn’t go well? What did you learn from it? How will you do things differently going forward? What will help you to do this?

4. Three-Year Business Wish List.

Close your eyes and take three deep breaths. Imagine your business in three years time. You’re just playing, it WILL change in the next three years, nobody is going to hold you to it, it’s not set in stone. Let your imagination run wild. You don’t need to work out HOW it’s going to happen. How will Business and life look? How will it operate? What will you offer? What will your team look like? And most importantly, how will you feel?

5. One-Year Business Wish List.

Again, close your eyes and take three deep breaths. Imagine your business this time next year. Which of the things from your three-year plan could you have in place next year? You’re still just playing, make it a stretch, but not too far out of your comfort zone.

6. 90-day Business Wish List.

What do you need to do in the next 90 days to move towards your one year vision? Remember you don’t have to do it all in the next 90 days. You can push some things back to the next 90 days. Don’t overload yourself, give yourself space.

7. 90 Day Goals.

Write out your income, marketing, offer, self & team management, tech, systems, and learning goals. The more specific you make them the more clear it is as to whether you’ve nailed them or not at the end of the quarter.

8. Next, prioritise. What are the most important tasks, projects or goals?

What will have the biggest impact on your business and life? Which will; bring the most income? Be easiest or most difficult? Make your life easier? You get to decide what is most important to you right now.

9. Schedule what is happening, what needs to happen, and when.

I do this on my digital calendar, but also on paper month to view pdfs. Drop me a line if you’d like me to send you one. It’ll help you to reverse engineer when things need to happen, in order to meet your deadlines and commitments.

10. Draw up a SIMPLE content plan.

For each week, include your key selling dates, what you’ll be promoting, which content pillar/bucket/micro-niche you’ll be focusing on, plus a core content idea. It doesn’t need to be complicated, just enough to keep you on track and focused. You can always go off-piste if you feel inspired!

11. Simple Metrics record.

Record the metrics which are important to you and your business for the last quarter, compare them to the previous quarter and the same quarter last year. Eg. Income, expenditure, profit/loss, email list metrics, social media metrics. Then journal on what you’re making those numbers mean and what you’ll do differently going forward as a result of spending time with these numbers.

12. Strengths and Values.

Regularly recording and revisiting your strengths and values helps you to both stay aligned and make aligned business decisions with more ease.

13. Last but not least – Celebrate.

Make yourself a list of ways to celebrate, big and small celebrations for big and small accomplishments. It’s so easy to be so focused on what you’ve been accomplishing that you’re not in the headspace to think up a pleasurable way to celebrate when it’s done. Having a pre-written list to choose from makes celebrating easy and fun!

As you can see, this process will take you a while, but it’s a time investment that will pay you back in dividends. I love this process both for myself and taking my clients through it. It brings so much clarity, productivity and getting stuff done, and who doesn’t want that?

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