Select Page

Let’s get this planning party started!

Jan 5, 2019 | Life | 0 comments

Trello card

Any recommendation on a classic movie I can put on my list for January?

If you know me, you know that after reviewing 2018, letting go of the bagage and setting an intention for 2019, we’re entering my favorite part of all: planning for the year to come!

Final step in the Sacred Bow process designed by Leo Babauta, this last part is all about putting abstract notions into concrete actions. My all time favorite!

Create a Plan: Now we’re going to make a monthly, weekly and daily plan. It doesn’t have to be incredibly detailed — just create structure so that we can flexibly move into our intentions, so that we can remember the intentions, so that we can keep checking back in with them. So that we can bring focus, as if this might be the last year of our lives.

Leo Babauta

I also borrowed a bit of Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project and upcoming 19 for 2019 along the way, and decided to move away from Chris Guillebeau’s spreadsheet this year to put everything into one of my beloved Trello boards (the intention is the same the look of it is much more user friendly).

Planning for 2019

So how did that all pan out?

Easy.

Always keeping the idea of Balance in mind, I first made a list of 12 categories that seemed like good areas of attention for the year to come, and to each category I attributed a month.

  1. January: Vitality & Health
  2. February: Personal Care & Appearance
  3. March: Romance & Relationships
  4. April: Family
  5. May: Friendship
  6. June: Art & Leisure
  7. July: Travel
  8. August: Home
  9. September: Business & Work
  10. October: Learning
  11. November: Books & Writing
  12. December: Money & Finances

Does this mean I won’t be focusing on my business except for the month of September? Certainly not. But having a focus theme each month helps with not feeling overwhelmed in January and giving up on everything before Valentine’s Day.

I also looked at my agenda and picked the month that seemed to make the most sense for me to focus on these various areas.

Then I made a list (yes, yet another list…) I wrote down all the things I would like to achieve, I would like to do, I would like to experiment… In random order, without any specific focus. Once I have about 20-25 things on my list I started spreading them in the different categories.

For example, the item “Visit at least one new country” easily found it’s spot under the Travel category. Not as easy with “Take Matteo (my 12-year old nephew) to London” which could also be under Travel, but that I preferred adding under the Family umbrella.

It was easy then to build a Trello board with 12 lists, and in each list, a card per item. On each of theses cards, I can also split it into tinier actions to track my progress. Like this (see on the side).

19 for 2019

The last step of the planning party for the new year was to select my “19 for 2019”. Across all categories, what are the items that either mean the most to me or that I’m the more confident I will achieve. As Michelle, from Intentional Travelers suggested it in our Twitter conversation: 

https://twitter.com/Int_Travelers/status/1076981573625335808
Michelle rocks!

So, here we go:

  1. Schedule health checkups (oh the fun of getting older...)
  2. Schedule a hair appointment every other month
  3. Ask someone out on a date (this will take the kind of guts I never had…)
  4. Take Matteo to London
  5. Host a dinner party
  6. Watch a classic movie once a month
  7. Visit at least one new country
  8. Find 12 items to donate
  9. Host a Kameleon Collective meetup
  10. Take a Masterclass on Creative Live
  11. Read at least 12 books
  12. Increase my short-term emergency fund by 25%
  13. Make a 2018 photo book
  14. Do a new hike
  15. Create the Kameleon Collective workshop
  16. Take a non-digital new class
  17. Do the 24-hour Project again
  18. Try a dance class
  19. Write a minimum of 5,000 words on NaNoWriMo

A bunch of somewhat little things. Nothing crazy or overly ambitious. But each one of these actions, as well as all the other ones on my Trello board, will help keep me fulfilled and content.

I am ready to take 2019 by the horns! What about you? What’s on your 19 for 2019 list?

Photo by Estée Janssens

In case you missed them…

How about a Holiday Fun List ?

How about a Holiday Fun List ?

It snowed !!! How can that not put you in a Holiday kind of mood ?December 2022 - Lyon, FranceI am not your Holiday season fan kind of gal... but...This year things seem to have taken a different turn. Blame it on the snow ! When I lived in the US, Holiday Season was...

read more
Audrey in Wonderland

Audrey in Wonderland

Red sands, rock formations and emptiness as far as the eye can see.November 2022 - Wadi Rum, Jordan"Physically confronted with what dwarfs us, we are forced to reverse our normal perception, in which we are the center and measure of everything." - Robert GreeneIn a...

read more
Welcome to Jordan

Welcome to Jordan

So much space... so little lifeNovember 2022 - Wadi Rum, Jordan"In the desert of life the wise person travels with a group, while the fool prefers to travel alone."-Jordanian ProverbThankfully, I traveled up and down Jordan with three friends : two Americans and a...

read more

0 Comments

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Get Untied
Copyright © 2024 Company Name