Ever feel excited about setting New Year’s Resolutions and then finding yourself tired and discouraged a few weeks later due to losing the momentum and quitting altogether by February?
Use this 90-day plan instead to get yourself motivated and more productive. If you follow this plan and give it a try, I promise you, you’ll be able to accomplish more in 90 days then you’ve ever previously in a year by setting New Year’s resolutions.
I’ve been using this system for years. I’ve taught my direct reports and other managers to use this system and I hope it’ll help you out.
Why I love this plan…
So this is called the 90 day plan. What I love about this plan is that I’m able to divide the year into sections of 90 days and basically it’s about 13 weeks and I usually plan 12 weeks of things I’m going to do and the 13th week is when I reflect on the past 12 weeks and then set the next 90 day plan. What I love about this is that I get to reset my goals four times a year instead of only New Year’s Eve.
Another reason why I love this is because I can plan my year when there’s a bit of that seasonality involved. For example, summer months tend to be slower for me, there’s a lot going on in my life, there’s cottages to go. So in the summer, instead of a 90 day plan (or 12 weeks) I’ll plan for 6-8 weeks plan. I also like it as well for flexibility. If I’m traveling or sickness in the family, I’m able to move on and set another 10 week goal. It allows me to easily reset. So how do you do that?
First, set an achievable goal that you can achieve in 90 days. So something that you know roughly in 90 days you can achieve. A goal that you can look back after 90 days as something tangible and you’re able to then set the next one.
Number 2 – really think about your why. Why is this goal important. I like this step because it really anchors you and allows you to think “What is the purpose of setting this goal”. A bit of checkin for yourself to make sure you’re setting the right goal.
Number 3 – look at potential blockers. Do I know of any blockers that might come up. I might be traveling so I might want to rearrange my plan to make sure I’ve committed the two weeks of travel that I’ve planned. Maybe it could be just time. I tend to put other people first and I know myself that I’ll probably not give myself enough time to work on my goals.
The next step is looking at solutions for these blockers you’ve identified. What are some things you can plan ahead. What are some things that always come up. For example, instead of waiting for the weekend to work on your goal, one of the solutions when I don’t have time is to work 30 mins on your goal, daily.
Number 5: With this goal, I’m going to break it down into progress goals. I tend to break it into 3 sub goals. Because it fits nicely into the 90 day plan, into the 3 months.
For example, I have sub goals A, B and C. So how would that look like in weeks? I may have goal A, which is about 2 weeks worth of work. Goal B is a bit longer, I may need 6 weeks because it’s more complicated and there are unknowns I need to figure out. And the rest of the weeks I will focus on goal C.
The idea is that at a high-level, you can plan out those weeks for yourself so that you don’t feel overwhelmed that you have a whole year and you have a lot of things to achieve. You really just focus on those 12 weeks and you’re able to iterate on it, reflect on how you did and repeat these steps again for the next 90 days.
Comment below or email me and tell me:
what’s your next 90-day plan? Would you give this plan a try?
Photo by Essentialiving on Unsplash