Week #278 – Spread Happyness: PLAN AHEAD! (And USE those calendars!)
Happy Friday, Everyone!
Today is Friday, January 10th — and this is your annual reminder to unwrap and USE those cutesy calendars you received over the holidays!
By now, I hope you’ve had the chance to process and celebrate the year we just completed — and set some new goals or visions for the new year ahead. (If not, click back to Week #276 and Week #277 for some ideas about how to do that.)
- Maybe you’ve picked your ONE WORD.
- Maybe you’ve completed an end-of-year review.
- Maybe you’ve taken a life-satisfaction assessment to see where you’re at — and where you need to grow.
- Maybe you’ve set some SMART goals — and you made them even SMART-ER by considering the WHY behind your WHAT.
- Maybe you’ve set up a daily tracking chart like Jerry Seinfeld’s “Don’t Break the Chain.”
- Maybe you have cleaned your slate for January and are focusing on “Big Rocks First.”
What next?
What do we do with all those goals, dreams, visions, aspirations, and insight?
Plan them!
It is well-documented that planning ahead is directly related to happiness. And not only that — scheduling your goals and commitments increases the chances that you will actually follow through with them.
There’s a lot of discussion about the virtues of paper calendars versus digital calendars. Digital calendars have great portability and a low profile — but rarely are they in your face. A password, and then one, two, maybe three clicks — not to mention competition with all those other apps once you’re unlocked. They just don’t give you much information at a glance — or much time to really plan ahead.
A paper calendar, hanging on the wall by your bathroom sink or on your refrigerator in the kitchen, may not be all that high tech — but it is certainly high-profile. It also gives you (and whomever you are sharing it with) time to ponder, compare, contribute, discuss, and yes — even plan ahead!
And many people are boosting their outlook by using FULL-YEAR wall calendars to track all the major events, holidays, appointments, and deadlines that are already set by the time we turn the calendar to January 1st — not to mention their personal goals and commitments.
I’ve long been a 90-day outlook-er myself: three months seems focused, manageable, and it fits nicely with the seasons…but this year I’m trying out a full year calendar again. It’s still intimidating…but a few years after more than a few major life changes (a job loss, a death in the family, and then a cross-country move to name a few) I’m finally starting to feel like I can plan further and further into the year ahead. I do so carefully, because I know that anything can happen. Still…a full year’s calendar reaffirms that time is moving, the year will pass, and I may as well try to make the most of it from where I stand today!
Why not try it?
There is an old proverb: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is the tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:13) Don’t allow your daily or weekly schedule to rob you of the joy of planning ahead! Start plotting your year today!
Your Happyness Challenge for the Week Ahead: PLAN AHEAD! Perhaps someone gave you a cutesy calendar during the holidays — or you grabbed a freebie at your bank or pizza place without really thinking about where or how you’d use it. I challenge you this week to HANG IT UP! If you don’t like the pictures, tear out the calendar pages and arrange them in months, quarters — or the entire year at a glance. Then open your personal daily planners, pull together all those school and activity calendars, queue up Google to search holiday dates — and start plotting your year!
- Start with the big holidays and three-day weekends, birthdays, and major events (like weddings, graduations, important anniversaries).
- I also like to mark the solstices/equinoxes, full moons, and time changes.
- Then move on to some of your goals. Are you running a marathon? Writing a book? Growing a business? Saving for a house? Planning a vacation or next year’s holiday travel? Start plotting your desires on the calendar by asking: where and when will this take place?
Spread Happyness — PLAN AHEAD! Share your favorite calendar tips — but most important, share your calendars with the ones you love!
1/10/20 by Grace Church
© Grace Church
grace@spreadhappyness.com
With many lofty goals for the year ahead, ever-changing work schedules, a packed social calendar, and general life to-dos, I kept saying 2020 I needed to get more organized. For Christmas, my thoughtful and loving partner gave me a paper weekly planner (one that actually is printed for sight impaired so think bigger type and lots of space to write). My sister is the queen of paper planners and after showing her mine, she showed me how I can put the big goals in the notes section and then break them out by month and then by week/day. Parceling everything out while visually seeing the spacial gaps of when those to-dos that ladder up to serious goal accomplishment can take place will be so helpful. He also bought us a wall calendar and we will continue to use a shared digital calendar just so we can see each other’s schedules. Some duplication of effort when adding appointments but a little extra effort goes a long way to not avoiding flying through life by the seat of my pants.
Well hello there, Gina B!!! And thank you so much for reading along and commenting! You DEFINITELY need a calendar to keep your busy life in check (and keep yourself in one of the many right places you are at the right time)! We just started using a full year wall calendar and it’s been really fun to plot out our trips, holidays, and other fun stuff to look forward to in the year ahead. Can’t wait to see where the year takes you…my money is always on you!!!