While the new year “technically” begins in January, a good question to ask is “what is my new year?”. Does it feel like the new year starts in September along with the academic year? Do you perhaps find (like me) that February feels more like the true beginning of the year, due to January being a more lean, gathering of energy kind of month? Do you celebrate Chinese New Year, or another set of holidays and cultural calendar layout?
Whenever the new year begins for you, one thing is for sure. If you want to spend your time on the things that matter to you in 2023, then spending time learning about, and working on, how you spend your time, is key. Reflection leads to conscious, targeted action towards things that are meaningful for us.
Here are some simple yet absolutely foundational steps you can take toward planning your 2023 your way:
Create the space. This sounds obvious but it is where the majority of people bow to immediate time pressures. For those who have not yet seen the immensely powerful upside of taking time out to plan things, it is surprisingly challenging to carve out the time it takes to intentionally reflect. Creating the space in your calendar is the first step in being able to plan.
Commit to the process. Once booked in your calendar, turning up and actually running the planning process is the next hurdle. If you turn up unprepared, tired, annoyed, resentful etc - then the time will feel like a waste. If instead you turn off notifications, shut the door, get some water and actually commit to the process, the time you spend will much more likely be a mix of interesting, satisfying, energising, comforting and exciting.
Follow your own lead. While there are a billion ways to run a planning process, the most effective one is the one that feels right to you. Focus on the key components and come up with a way that works for you, or adapt a process you have seen before that you like but needs to be tweaked to fit your preferences. There is no perfect way. There are however some fundamentals. These are:
Know what you value, and in what priority order. Time management is really all about focus management which means understanding your priorities.
Create/define/refine your goals. Outline what success would look like. (Ideally you will also think about how you will track and measure your progress).
Be Honest. Be honest and realistic about how much capacity you have to carry out your desired actions. Be honest about what your true priorities are. Be honest about being a human being with a limited amount of time and bandwidth. Be ready to let some things go so you can truly serve your priorities
If you like the idea of running a planning process, but feel a bit daunted at doing it from scratch, or indeed if you would just like to learn more about how you like to plan, then I have some good news for you!
I wanted, at what is a very difficult time for a lot of people, to offer something both practical and generally useful, so I will be running an entirely free 90 minute Masterclass ( Pre-Install Your Year) on the 5th of December at 7pm on Zoom.
This is not a typical “Masterclass”. My aim is to run this as a working session, because these are the type of sessions that have helped me the most in my own development. I will share insights and strategies, and prompts for focused reflection and decision-making, but more importantly we will spend the majority of the time running through the planning process I use live on the call. This is an opportunity to enter a space for learning and reflection, and experience a structured process. Depending on your level of commitment and presence, by the end of the session you will at least have the bones of a plan for 2023 to continue to build on in your own way. You may even complete the session with a finished plan!
If you’d like to attend please sign up here. I look forward to seeing you there!
Best,
Freya
P.S...Here are three more ways you can experience my work... 1 - Tailored Resources - simply let me know via email what you are working through and I will send you some helpful pointers and materials
2 - Half day Deep dive - four hours of deeply focused time working through whatever it is you want to bring 3 - Full day immersion - this is a sacred time for magical unfolding, where we get to explore whatever emerges with no limit on where the time takes us
I love to connect - please do leave a comment or share with someone you think this might benefit.
