STEP 1. REVIEW THE PREVIOUS MONTH

The first thing I do is look back and reflect on the month that’s just occurred. 

The easy way to do this is to plan out your monthly projects, at the beginning of every month, and map out what it is you want to focus on and work on during the month. This will give you something to come back to and assess what worked and what didn’t.

What I’ll do is sit down and look at all the projects I listed out for myself and assess where I am now in regards to them. 

You want to ask yourself simple questions:

• Did I achieve this goal? If the answer is yes, congratulate yourself and have a little look at why you achieved it. What really worked?

• If not, why not and what can I improve moving forward? Or, is it something I should scrap altogether?

DIVE DEEPER INTO EACH PROJECT

To illustrate, one of my goals was to upload 2 YouTube videos a week and use my analytics to plan my content and grow my channel.

I did a full assessment of my YouTube channel: my retention rates, my views, all of it. 

And, then I created a document to house all of the videos that had the highest ratings within those analytics. 

From there I was able to assess the common threads and plan my future content accordingly. For me, that looked like thumbnails, click-through rates, and retention rates, but for you, it could be entirely different. 

Ultimately, what matters, is that you are sitting down and looking at what worked and didn’t work from an analytical perspective. Even if you’re trying to achieve health goals, the more data that you have about the areas that are supporting your goals and the ones that need improvement are going to be incredibly helpful for you moving forward.

So many people try and guess their way through achieving their goals. They look at the obvious vanity metrics, rather than really digging deep into the little details and seeing the individual variables that are actually really working. 

This is a really important part of figuring out what’s going to work for you in the next month.

STEP 2. PLAN THE NEW MONTHS PROJECTS

Now that you’ve finished with your reflection, we’re going to start planning our new month.

Go and grab a piece of paper and a pen (or iPad and pencil), and create a mind map with the month that you’re focusing on in the middle of the page and then choose 2-3 projects that you really want to focus on. Maybe it’s money, health, relationships, business…

And then, list outside of each project bubble some of the individual things you can do to achieve that goal.

STEP 3. IN-DEPTH PROJECT PLANNING

Ok, so now that you’ve done your reflections and you’ve decided on your monthly projects, you want to plan out what you’re actually going to spend your time doing within each project.

Once you have an idea of the steps you need to take, it’s time to plan out each individual program in your project management tool of choice. Asana is my personal favourite. 

Go into detail and plan out each project. Now, not all of your goals are going to require a detailed plan, some may even just require a phone reminder, but some of your projects are going to require more in-depth planning. 

What are all of the main things you need to do to get this project done?

Once you know the answer to that question, you can create a checklist (with subcategories if need be) and begin to work your way through it until the project’s completion.

STEP 4. OTHER REOCCURING MONTHLY PROJECTS YOU HAVE IN LIFE OR BUSINESS

Now, the next step is to do more general planning for your life and business. 

For me, that looks like:

• Planning the content for my monthly membership The Game Changer Collective.

• Planning the content for my group coaching program Simply Business. 

• Scheduling my 1:1 calls.

Ultimately, it’s about sitting down and planning all the things that occur every single month in your life and/or business. 

STEP 5. PUT IT INTO THE CALENDAR

Honestly, where the planning magic happens is in the calendar.

People ask me all the time how I get so much done. My calendar, that’s how. I use it and I stick to it. 

I would be nowhere near as organized and productive as I am without it. 

So, take all the projects and project steps you’ve listed out + all of the other things going on in your life and business, and give them all a date and space in your calendar.

If you need extra support, join our community on Facebook and Instagram – @erinmayhenry, I’ll see you there!