Planning the rest of 2024

Last Friday I was trying to slowly get back into work after a very disrupted and difficult week, but I still felt distracted.

A view I’ve done planning to before

So I did my go to reset- I took a walk with my planner in hand to the local park, sat in the shade, and did some forward planning. For work and for life. Turns out it was needed because November/December are months when life and work both jostle for attention.

It’s conference season!

It’s O’s birthday!

It’s let’s wrap up every possible work project!

It’s Christmas party season!

It’s A LOT.

I was listening to Sarah on Best Laid Plans last week discuss her Q5 (Quintile 5) planning and while I don’t use her exact timings (I go by the Australian school year terms plus the summer as my Quintiles), I found her headings great and I felt like I needed a reset so I’ve done my own version. My headings therefore for this Nov/Dec season are Reflect/Rest, Celebrate, Generate, and Care/Connect.

You can see I’m a functional planner, nothing fancy!

So far I’ve just written out the key things I want to accomplish, plan and/or prioritise.

For Reflect/Rest, I have a whole lost of personal and work planning for 2025, including a work “retreat” in December where I will block out a few hours, head to the beach, work on mapping out priorities and plans for next year. I love this process and finds it works better somewhere away from the office. I also will schedule a massage one day, as my friend and I are overdue to get one (we do this annually together), and it will be appreciated in the middle of a busy season. And of course looking forward to my personal planning for 2025 (I still have my Best Laid Plans at Home 2024 workbook so I’ll do my own version for 2025). I’d love to do it again with Sarah but it’s not in the budget this year.

For Celebrate, I’ve got a birthday, our wedding anniversary, work and school end of year events, and of course Christmas. O’s birthday will be low key at mum and dad’s (with their pool for if it’s hot!), and Al and I will likely go out for dinner for our anniversary. We don’t usually do much for our anniversary but it’s a good excuse for a date night. It’s 9 years- next year is a milestone one! Early December will be full of end of year events, and then Christmas will be again at my parents. Really looking forward to this!

For Generate, my goals are around a couple of journal articles I’m writing, a conference presentation I need to prepare, and for my side business, some materials I’m working on.

Finally, for Care/Connect, I’ve got some reminders to walk most days, prioritise connection with family and old friends this weekend in Melbourne, be away from my phone and present with the kids for some time every day, and catch up with someone socially each week (reminder to reach out to colleagues, friends, family etc). Mostly in person but online would be ok too for people I love far away. And medical checkups for me, the kids, and our cat as needed (a few things are due coming up).

After that process I felt much better. It will be a good guide on what to work on at the weekly level each week as we move through this busy season.

Your turn. Do you plan out a busy season? What is November/December looking like for you?