When I do my seasonal planning, I divide my years into Quintiles (5 seasons), inspired by SHU. In Australia, the school year runs January to December and has 4 terms with two weeks holiday between the. The terms run late Jan - late March, mid April to early June, mid June to early September, mid September to early December. Then Summer runs early December to late Jan. So my Quintiles are the 4 terms (Qs1-4) and the summer (Q5).
That makes me currently at the end of Q1 and entering Q2. Which means that over the Easter break I did both Q2 and April planning!
Q1 Recap
It was a good few months! Kids are now settled in school, I had a couple of successful work trips, and I felt like I got a lot done overall, with a good balance between work and life. A few goals I achieved were:
rearranged the living spaces (we now have an open plan lounge/kitchen and a separate toy room/dining room- so happy with this progress), started a blog (this is my 11th post- thanks to all who have read and commented so far! Still lots to learn and figure out, including setting up comments section properly, but getting there)
Create 4 writing slots per week at work As an academic, writing (publications, grants) is a big part of my role, yet my time can easily get eaten up by other things. Creating meetings with myself 4 mornings to write a week really helped to protect that time, even if some meetings had to moved or cancelled, I still got a lot of "deep work" done.
Q2 planning last week
Q2 Goals
Q2 (April - early June) has a lot in it to look forward to. I have a date night and adults dinner party over the next few days, family coming to visit in April, international travel for work in May, and a local conference in early June.
A few specific Q2 goals are:
In addition to keeping up with my blogging, kids routines, daily reading and prioritising writing at work, some key goals this quintile are:
Outline a new fiction novel. Over the last 6 years at various times I've done a lot of fiction writing as a hobby. I previously drafted a novel, but took a break over the past two years with the two kids so young and full-time work, it all got a bit too much. Now the kids are slightly older, I'm ready to start writing again, and I've got an idea for a new story I'd like to explore. So I'm going to spend Q2 exploring the characters and story, and hoping I can have a broad outline by June.
Cool Bloggers Walking Club Elisabeth came up with the idea of walking at least 10 minutes every day in April. I do walk most days, but I usually aim for 20 mins minimum. Theres probably 2 days a week, however, where I don't walk at all, and I feel it, as walking is SO good for me. Joining the cool bloggers walking club and having a 10 min minimum really help truly make this a daily habit.
Launch professional website. I've been working on this through Q1 and in Q2 I want to finish and actually make the website live.
Anyone else make seasonal goals? Anything you're excited about? Feel free to share in the comments!