Quarterly reflection + planning for small business owners
The importance of planning.
I’m a huge advocate of planning.
Planning ahead of time means that you will save time in the day-to-day, for example - this might look like time wasted due to decision making.
It’s estimated that everyday we make over 35,000 choices and decisions. A huge number of these are subconscious decisions. There was a study that I found that suggested we make an average of 122 informed choices every day.
Seemingly we can spend up to 3 hours a day deciding what to have to eat, what time to go to bed and what to wear and watch!
Planning in advance can reduce your decision making, freeing up your brain for other more important things.
Holly Tucker agrees with me >>>
For small business owners, where there is typically a lot of overlap with home and business, getting a system in place for planning your home-life will make your work-life smoother. I believe the first step should be establishing processes and systems in your home life before jumping into business systems.
I plan my weeks in advance (more on this here), but I also think it’s beneficial to zoom out and look at the year or the quarter from that bigger picture viewpoint.
“An hour of planning can save you 10 hours of doing.”
Quarterly reflection for small business owners.
Before we jump into the planning, it’s really helpful to do a bit of reflection. Here are the questions that I ask myself >>>
What went well?
How did I feel this quarter? How was my energy?
What did I achieve, and how does this stack up against my objectives for the quarter? (and I make sure I celebrate my wins too!)
What could have been better?
And then I also check-in with any metrics that I’m tracking. Right now, this looks like my sleep quality, my daily steps and screen-time duration for my personal life, and then I’ll also check-in on my business stats: revenue, newsletter subscribers, website traffic and Instagram followers are the main ones.
Quarterly planning for small business owners.
With my reflection complete, I’ll then turn to planning.
Based on my reflections, where do I want my energy to be for the next quarter? What’s important for this season?
I’ll have a look at my calendar for the upcoming quarter. Are there any adjustments that are needed, for example, are there any conflicts that need ironed out? Is there anything I need to add to my to-do list, for example, is there a reminder for insurance that needs renewed, or any health checks I need to schedule. Sometimes there might be a business meeting that means I need to organise childcare, so I’d add this to my to-do list also. It’s easier to have these things sorted in advance, rather than doing it closer to the event with my weekly planning.
I can also get a sense from my time blocked, colour-coded calendar if I’ve got a sufficient amount of family time scheduled, versus time for consulting / coaching as well as time for myself. I might start thinking about time mapping (going into more details with what I want to do with the block), particularly the blocks for myself where I might want to book in for a massage or treatment or get together with friends.
If you’d like to see how I set-up my Google calendar, and time block my week >>> you can access a free, on-demand video training I created here.
I’ll also have a review of my goals, both personal and business - are these still in alignment with my values & vision? Does my calendar and the scheduled activities reflect my goals?
Next I’ll have a think about any other planning that might be needed, for instance if there are any holidays approaching, or if I’ve got a business launch coming up. Getting some of this down on paper is helpful, ahead of my weekly/monthly planning.
Lastly, I’ll think about setting an intention for the next quarter. How am I going to show up… who am I going to be?
Let me know in the comments if this has been helpful, and if you would like some support with your reflection and planning activities - I currently have availability for 1-to-1 clients.
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