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Have you ever wondered, how you can plan out your year while having a perfect balance between your business-self and your personal-self? Wonder no more!
We are currently in January, and that's the time when we usually plan for the year. Here are a couple of lessons that I've learned through the last years and I've implemented every year. Maybe it will give you some ideas for your planning of the year and you can implement them too.
Simple steps to life and work balance
Block out personal time in your calendar
When we plan, we tend to forget our personal days or our personal time off. I always recommend having one giant calendar where you have the whole year listed so that you can visually see it. Don't just block out your work projects but do also block out your personal time, such as:
- family vacations
- retreats
- time off, even if you don't travel anywhere
Personally, I always take time off after six weeks of work, I take at least one week off because I know that I need that balance. I block that out in my schedule and in my calendar. Like that, I can see immediately how much space I have for my projects.
Don't overbook yourself
We try to do too much. To be on all the summits, to be on all the podcasts, to launch a gazillion things. In a lot of cases, it leads to burnout or to stress and agony. That business that you created to have freedom is suddenly just a nightmare and it gives you more anxiety than anything else.
In order to avoid that, I really encourage you to only have five, maximum of six big projects in a year. A project can be
- a goal you set for yourself
- a launch
- a group coaching program
- a conference or hosting a retreat
- a live event
You should also not have more than one or two big projects per quarter. That is enough! You will see that each project needs weeks of preparation in order for you to do it without stress, to do it properly, to evaluate it afterward. See what worked and what didn't and to have your business flow nicely. Going from one step to the next in a logical order.
This will help you to gain your sanity and to keep it. Because you've blocked out your personal time, you will also know when to launch something, or when to host a group program. It's really important to see that and through that structure, you will be a lot more organized, you will be thriving personally as well and it will be a beautiful experience.
Have a better overview of your year
A year overview will also help you to accept speaking opportunities for virtual summits, for example. Those summits will require you to promote, which is something that you should do (out of integrity of course). If you have two or three summits in a month, you will have to email at least two or three times, but if you only send out biweekly emails to your email list, it will really seem a bit spammy. So make sure that you only accept as many as you can actually promote. For me, it is one, a maximum of two a month.
If you see that it's just not possible to attend a summit you were invited to, you can ask them to invite you at a later time or maybe you can be on their podcast or have a different kind of collaboration.
