Planning can be a useful way to bring more intentionality into your life and business and by extension, can help you be more productive and reach more of your goals. In this episode of the show I’m sharing the slightly more unusual way I plan using what I call ‘mini seasons’ of 6-8 weeks.

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Why 6-8 weeks?

I tried to plan for my life and business in the traditional quarterly or even monthly way, but I always struggled to get these time frames to work for me. Quarters just felt a little too long, and because I work closely around my children, when their school holidays came up, it felt like I was knocked off track. Monthly planning felt too short.

I ended up focusing on a 6-8 week period for two reasons. Firstly in England the school half terms tend to run to about 6-8 weeks with a week off (or two weeks at Christmas / Easter) between. Alongside the logistics of this making more sense for my personal circumstances since I was taking the holidays off, also found that the 6-8 week time period was my ‘sweet spot’ in terms of the amount of time I could be productive in.

I also loved that roughly, the 6-8 week pattern loosely followed the Celtic / Pagan Wheel of the Year – which includes the solstices, equinoxes and cross quarter days.

Being seasonally aligned has always been important to me so this system just seemed to fit much better with how I show up in my life and business. This alignment with nature has added flow and structure to my life.

How I plan

I use Notion for all of my planning (I basically run my life and business in Notion!). I start with my annual plan, which by the latter half of the year is usually a very amended version of what I started with in January. As I sit down to plan a mini season, I alway look at the annual plan and identify anything I need to pull through from that, which needs to be progressed this mini season.

Check out my Notion based planning templates for coaches here

Once I’ve done that, I open my Notion template for my mini plan and start putting it together with the following sections and headings.

You obviously don’t need to use Notion for this, any word doc or notebook / journal will also do the job.

Energy of the Season

In the first section I just do a bit of a check in on what this season is all about for me. I tune into the seasonal energy that influences how I show up. Each season carries a distinct vibe that can impact how you feel. I also set a bit of a vision for how I want to approach the coming 6-8 weeks

Priorities

Next I identify what my biggest priorities are for this coming mini season. It helps me know what the must-do things are this 6-8 weeks which will move my life and business forward in the right direction.

Manifestation List

Alongside my priorities, I might also list out the things I’m actively manifesting right now – be that physical things, experiences or results.

Seasonal Reset

Next up I have a section with a to do list of sorts that helps me reset each season. This includes things like doing a deeper clean and declutter of my space, refreshing my playlists and refreshing my capsule wardrobe.

Week by Week Run Down

Finally, in this section I list out each week in the mini season and make notes about any things that are scheduled to happen which will impact on how much I can get done / how I need to show up in that particular week.

Business

The next section of my mini season plan is business and I have several subsections here as well.

Income goal + sales plan

I set myself an income goal for each mini season. This helps to make me take action and move my business forward. The sales plan element here is looking at the actions I need to take in order to generate that income. I find having these two things front and centre each season helps me get better results alongside other more long term or strategic actions.

Audience building + Lead Gen

Next I look at what I am doing regarding audience building and lead generation. This is an area of business I have sometimes neglected in the past so it’s important for me to have clear actions I need to take each season in order to continue to grow my business.

Clients

I also have all of my 1:1 clients listed out as a reminder of who I am supporting in a 1:1 capacity this season

Marketing

Then I have a section on marketing – usually this is just reflective of what I do on an ongoing basis but it’s good to have a reminder of the workload involved in this when I come to move tasks into my weekly planner.

Organisational Delivery

The final business section is organisational and offers delivery which lists out any tasks I need to complete that are connected with an offer I deliver or some other area of the business, for example recording new trainings for Wholehearted Business.

Life

The next big section is for ‘life stuff’. Here I have headings for mindset to remind me to implement practices that support that as well as a section for home – so repairs that need doing around the house or decorating projects to progress too.

Health & Wealth

Then I have a section for health and a section for wealth. These areas just list out the things I’d like to focus on under each of these areas. For example how often I’d like to get to the gym and any specific money related actions.

Relationships & Bucket List

Another couple of sections under the life heading are relationships and a seasonal bucket list. I like to make specific plans with friends to make sure that I’m nurturing those relationships and then I have a seasonal bucket list of specific activities I’d like to do – I find this helps me enjoy the season even more so time doesn’t just pass me by.

What’s Next?

Finally, I end the plan with a ‘what’s next’ section where I’ll make a note of anything significant I know is coming up in the next mini season or anything I want to remind myself to implement in the following 6-8 weeks.

Creating Vision Boards and Weekly Plans

Once I have this mini plan crafted, I use it to inform what I do each week and pull tasks and actions into my weekly plan.

I also enjoy creating a mini season vision / vibe board using the Shuffles app which connects to Pinterest and allows you to create collages – I find this is a fun creative activity too.

Obviously this is just my way of planning and it doesn’t mean it’s right for you, but if there are any takeaways it would be that if the traditional quarterly or monthly planning doesn’t work for you it’s ok to think outside the box!

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