How to Make a One Year Plan
Let us start this with an unpopular opinion. Making a 2- or 5-year plan is simply dumb.
Reflect on yourself. Are you the same person from 2 or 5 years ago?
Need a little more guidance? Do you cringe when you look at your old photos or videos?
Instead of pointlessly looking ahead, you can make a one year plan using an analog planner. In this case, we are going through a Hobonichi Weeks.
Do not limit yourself. Feel free to try this method with other planners.
Summary
What’s Your Big Plan?
Consider what you want from within yourself. The step should not involve what other people tell you to do.
Think of this as a level. You have grand goals, such as getting healthier so you will not develop obesity. The big plan is to run a marathon.
The big plan is something that will take some time for you to accomplish. It needs to be sizable but not impossible to do.
You can have more than one big plan because you are multi-faceted.
You can choose to work on your health, but at the same time, you want to improve your finances.
Once you have one or multiple big plans, it is time to write them down. Make it huge and bold in your planner.
Related Post: Make Goals with the SMART Pillar
Break It Down into Smaller Chunks
Once you have your big plan, it is time to fill out your one year plan using actionable steps.
You can divide your plan by quarters. One big thing per plan to accomplish every 3 months.
Let us say we are working toward doing a full unassisted pull-up. What should we do every 3 months?
- Quarter 1: Hang for 30 seconds straight
- Quarter 2: Bench Press 60-80% body weight
- Quarter 3: Do 8 assisted pull-ups
- Quarter 4: Do one pull-up unassisted
As you can see, each quarter works toward our big plan of doing one unassisted pull-up. The steps are much more approachable to do.
Do the same thing for your goal(s). That is why it is vital to use the SMART Pillar to make your goals.
Because you know so specific on what you want to do, the smaller chunks are easier to realize and execute.
If you need help making quarterly goals, feel free to download this template for personal use. You can print it out OR use the fillable form available (≧∇≦)ﾉ
Let’s Organize the Months
The step here is both easier and harder to plan because this is where your life comes in. When making goals, you have to be realistic.
In your monthly planner, be sure to note down important dates, such as birthdays, travel plans, or other important events.
Once you have an overview of what is coming, you can fill out what you want to accomplish each month in regard to your quarterly goals.
You can break your quarterly goal down at this point. Depending on how busy you might be, you can be more or less ambitious in making your monthly goals.
Remember, this is our one year planner. We are working toward the big goal we set.
From our quarterly goal of hanging for 30 seconds straight. We can break it down into smaller monthly goals of when we will start.
The first month can be finding an appropriate spot to hang. The second month is for starting wrist exercises and hanging using the spot. The third month is actually to get the hang of it for 30 seconds.
As you can see, once you break the goal down into even smaller steps, it is much easier to do.
By taking your life into consideration, you can be pragmatic in what you are aiming for.
Related post: How I use my Hobonichi Weeks as a weekly planner
Get to Work with the Weekly
Here is to the nitty gritty. This is the step that you should not do beforehand.
You plan each week based on the monthly objectives.
Once you get to this step of your one year plan, it is time to stop planning for the whole year, and instead, plan week by week instead.
Like how you begin to put life into your plan, the weekly plan is where you can be most flexible.
This is where you execute your one year plan in the smallest steps.
Personally, I create a 3-item to-do list for every week day. They follow along with my monthly plan while making sure that I also focus on other areas of life.
You do not want to be overwhelmed at this stage by being too ambitious. The 3-item list is to limit overworking.
You might want to do more. On the other hand, by limiting your workload, you can feel a sense of accomplishment and concentration.
A one year plan is something more realistic than any 2- or 5-year plan you can imagine.
It is long enough so that you have the time you need to achieve your goals while still short enough that you can allow yourself space to grow.
Being able to grow and change your opinions are also critical to improving your life and health.
Here to your best accomplishment! (☆▽☆)
