Year-Ahead Planning Resources

“Where I’m headed is a direct result of the ideas, goals, intentions and plans I create space for in my life.” -Heather K. Powers

I’ve come to love a few tools that I use over and over routinely. I’m including a round up of them below along with some new tools! Planning begins for me by selecting a planner. I went back to paper a few years ago. I’ve used quite a few planners over the years, including the Franklin Covey system, Filofax, Danielle La Port, and more!

Schedule time for an end-of-year review and year ahead planning in the last weeks of the year.

I try to keep it simple and don’t go all out Bullet Journal. I use a Moleskin planner and customize it. This includes categories and intentions, goals, tasks, and events on a daily/weekly basis. My regular habit of Journaling helps me get a lot of ideas out of my head and on paper. During that process I can move more concrete ideas to my planner. This works for me. I’m always re-evaluating and making small adjustments. Overall, I’m happy with this and can easily go back through my year to see my accomplishments. If you’re searching for some great planning tools, the first few below are ones I’ve personally used and love! The last couple are new additions. But I deeply trust the sources and can recommend them with full confidence you will find them helpful!

• Susannah Conway guides us to reflect on your year in Photo’s (on Instagram) with December daily prompts. She has a beautiful tool called “Unravel your year”
• The word of the year is a process that both Christine Kane and Susannah Conway share tools for discovering. I’ll be revealing mine early next year.
• Ali Edwards shares beautiful tools for her One Little Word discovery. She also offers a year-long creative exploration you can join. She’s one of the first people I discovered the word of the year with!
• Check out this free toolkit from Do What You Love
• Moleskine Planners are still my favorite. Although I’ve tried digital planners and other newer planners, I keep going back to this great staple. I love the flexibility, lovely colors various sizes, and layouts.
• Danielle Laporte offers her free Soulful Habit Tracker. She also sells a gorgeous planner and other great tools for inspiration for planning. I’m a long time reader and fan of Danielle’s!
• Vision boards! This is such a fun project/tool for creating a visionary map of what you want to create in your new year. It’s a practice I began about 7 years ago and I’ve continued to make them and teach them almost every year! Join me for my next workshop here.

How do you do year ahead planning and reflect on your accomplishments? I’d love to hear your favorite tools and routines in the comments below! I know there are a lot of options out there so I’m only sharing what I know, trust, and have seen results from:) Happy, almost, New Year!