Happy Wednesday!

Can you believe we have just a little over 3 months left of 2020?! Or maybe I'm just getting old...

Time is the same for everybody, yet we feel how fast or slow it moves depending on where we are in life and what we're doing.

Now that we're inching towards the end of 2020... My brain has been nagging at me to plan out the last quarter of the year for my business for the last 2 weeks.

Planning has become more important now that my new business is in motion. Because I want to be more intentional about how I'm spending my time.

The reason why my brain is screaming at me to plan out the next 3 months is all because of the shitty job I did last time...

I made a very scrappy 90 Day Plan that I shared with you back in mid-July...

I basically threw it together super last minute (right before a call with my coach) cus I knew she wanted to see my quarterly plan for my business.

That was my "Quick Jen! Do something so you don't get in trouble!" avoiding being a bad student moment lol

There was no thought behind it. It was a mish mash of ideas I had in my head that I knew I eventually wanted to do...

I was operating out of alignment with myself cus I typically don't do things 'fast'... I do things 'properly'.

So naturally the goals, projects and actions were not aligned.

And guess what happened? I didn't hit any of my goals! I got ONE project done on that list.

That's 1 out of 9 things.

4 weeks into that 'quickie plan', I found myself abandoning it.

It became useless to me very quickly as I stopped referring to it.

Was I surprised about my lack of results? Not at all. I made zero effort in planning.

And I did it out of alignment with myself.

That's why it's been bugging me.

I didn't like the way I approached business planning and I've been wanting to fix it since.

Here's a little time travel back to my Q2 goals (July-Sep) with my updated comments:

Goals

• Publish 1 blog post & 1 newsletter per week -- didn't happen! Not relevant to business goals in hindsight
• Build my audience (100 subscribers) -- only achieved 50%
• Run my first 5 Day Challenge -- didn't end up running the challenge

Projects

• Partnership Opportunities / Guest Posting -- done! YAY~
• Write book (literally came up with that idea on 10th July) -- haven't started writing yet
• Refine my challenge and backend offer ideas -- challenge didn't happen and still working on backend offer ideas

Action Commitments

• Write 1,000 words per day -- stopped end of Aug cus I missed 13 days and not super relevant to my business goals
• Market my blog posts -- realised it's not aligned to my business goals
• Create funnel pages on my site -- premature idea! Not relevant yet!

Sidenote: My Q2 is everyone else's Q3 cus my year starts in March :)

Good plans have everything (goals, projects and actions) in alignment.

That's the kind of plan I wanted to create for my business now that I'm 3 months into this new venture, and have more clarity about what I'm building.

Eventhough I've been wanting to do my 90 day planning, I decided to wait until I was done with a 3 day business retreat I attended 2 weekends ago, cus I knew I was going to get more ideas from that event, so I can decide what I want to integrate into my plan.

After recovering from 3 days of "information firehosing", I finally was able to work on it last week and get it done! Wooop!

I usually prefer to do my planning, note-taking, journaling, writing etc. digitally...

But in this case I'm using a physical planner as a prompt/trigger to train myself to develop my execution skills before moving it all digitally in the future.

I also wrote everything down on my whiteboard.

When developing new skills, I like to make it hit as many senses as I can, so I design my environment to help me integrate it as a habit easier.

So in this case, I want to see everything easily (whiteboard), and I'm making myself physically write and track my activities on paper (planner).

On my whiteboard, you'll see Goals and Projects on the left side.

There's 5 outcome goals I want to hit, and 15 projects I want to complete by the end of the 90 day cycle.

Action items are on the right side, which means I can erase and write new actions I need to take once I complete the ones I have already written on my board cus I'm right handed.

I decided to use my whiteboard for 2 reasons:

• I want to know where I'm at quickly at a glance anytime, so I can always orient back to my plan if I get distracted or lose track
• It's harder to put off cus it's right there in my face everyday, so stops excuses from creeping in

3 out of 5 of my outcome goals are based on sales, cus that's the most important focus for anyone in the start up stage of their business.

My sales goals are:

• Enrol 10 people for 5 Day Challenge
• Sell 100 copies of my book
• Enrol 5 1-on-1 clients

My 90 Day Plan is specifically for business only.

Of course I have personal projects I'd like to accomplish too:

• Play, record and produce "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" on piano and share it
• Start integrating a simple workout routine by 30 Sep

I'm taking a Personal Knowledge Management/Productivity course right now, so my personal projects are on the project list I shared with that community.

Today is Day 3 of 90. I started executing my plan on Monday.

I am very curious to see what I'll be able to create at the end of 90 days :)

If you haven't started planning yet, maybe this is prompting you to start thinking about how you want to finish the year.

How are you planning out the remainder of 2020?

What are you going to be working on?

Have a kick ass week and happy planning! :)

Jen x

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P.S.

In the spirit of planning...

I am planning to have lunch with my friends on Friday.

Just the girls. That means 2 hours of gas bagging, Japanese food and fun! lol

I want to get better at planning "days off" for myself.

This one is a baby step :)

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