261 The Purpose + Benefits of the 4 Levels of Planning
Are you tired of feeling overwhelmed and scattered when it comes to managing your life and goals? In this episode, I break down the four essential levels of planning that can help you get aligned and stay on track. I dive into weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual planning—each with its own unique benefits and purpose. You'll learn how often to review each level and why they’re key to avoiding burnout and achieving your goals.
In this episode I cover:
- Introduction to the four planning levels and the importance of each
- The purpose of each level of planning
- How to integrate weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual planning
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] When thinking about planning, most people think about two different types of planning. They think about their very tactical and then their very long term strategic ones. And for a lot of people that results in either daily planning and then annual goal setting or weekly planning and annual goal setting.
[00:00:18] But today I want to share with you what might be missing because I'm going to introduce you to the four levels of planning that everybody needs to make sure that they stay out of overwhelm and stay in alignment with what they want out of their lives. .
[00:00:34] Hey there. And welcome back to the work life harmony podcast. Usually once a year I take an episode to kind of refresh you and walk you through my signature four levels of planning, but I want to do it a little bit differently this year. Because I think it's important to really take a step back and understand why we need these four levels of planning.
[00:01:23] So today what I want to do is share with you the unique benefits that each of the four levels actually give you along with when you look at those plans. All right. And I'm really passionate about the when we use each of these four levels. Because I get so brokenhearted and frustrated when I see people taking their precious time and energy and investing it in creating longer term, like annual or three or five year plans.
[00:01:56] And then never knowing when to look at them or how to use them. All right. And the same goes with any type of planning. So that's what we're going to be zeroing in on here today. So first let's do a quick review of what are the four, you know, my core four levels of planning that I believe everybody should do.
[00:02:15] Well, first is weekly planning. All right. And it is just exactly what it sounds like. It is the planning that you do that encompasses an entire week. Now notice I'm starting with weekly planning. If you've been listening to me for a while, you already know, I feel very passionate, strong opinions about why we don't do daily planning.
[00:02:35] All right. Weekly planning is going to replace. your daily task list. All right. So weekly planning is kind of the lowest, most detailed level of planning. Now the next level of planning is monthly planning. All right. Now with the weekly planning, this is something we do once a week, and then we know how to replant if we need to.
[00:02:57] Monthly planning is something I typically do about four days prior to the upcoming next month. Now the third level of planning is Quarterly planning. I like to do my next quarter planning somewhere around seven to nine days before the next quarter. All right. Notice with these. I'm not doing it the day of right.
[00:03:21] I'm not going to sit down at the beginning of new quarter and do my quarterly planning because I just want to seamlessly move into the next quarter. And then the final and, you know, kind of the highest level of planning that I talk about and I teach is annual planning. Another way to think about annual planning really just is longer term planning.
[00:03:42] The way I teach it is. is fluid enough that you could choose to follow the annual planning process any time of the year, picking out like kind of a, Hey, I want to plan the next, I think it's good for anything around kind of that eight to 16 month window. All right. So let's, let's review what the benefits are for each one of these.
[00:04:07] And when and how we're actually leveraging them, because then it starts to help you understand why all of these ultimately need to be in place and how they all work together and support one another. So weekly planning, and this is where I typically start students. My signature program, the top program starts off by helping you master weekly and then monthly planning.
[00:04:33] Because if your current day to day feels overwhelming. overwhelming, exhausting, you know, this race against the task list, all of that. We need to fix that first before we have the expansiveness to take on some of those bigger, longer term goals and dreams. So your weekly planning ultimately tells you every single week with great specificity, what you're doing and when you're doing it.
[00:04:57] The benefit is it keeps you realistic. If you execute a weekly plan in the way I teach it. It's going to help you see what realistically can you actually get done this week so that you're not feeling like a failure every night going, Oh, I can't believe I didn't get it all done. Another benefit of weekly planning is it helps keep you focused on the most important things.
[00:05:24] meaning you don't get distracted by stuff that is not deserving of your time. And one of the benefits that I love the most because I was a chronic procrastinator for a very long time is when you do your weekly planning the right way. Another awesome benefit is it helps you avoid procrastination.
[00:05:42] Whenever I am tempted to procrastinate, my weekly plan is the tool that helps me not procrastinate. All right, it keeps me present and focused throughout the day. Now, how often am I looking at and or using my weekly plan multiple times a day instead of looking at this long list of things that I just, you know, brain dumped and went, okay, what should I do next?
[00:06:07] I don't know. I don't know. I keep making decisions all day long. I am looking at my weekly plan multiple times every day over the course of the week because it is reminding me. what I'm doing next and where I'm spending my time. All right, so this is the plan that you are going to be in the weeds on that you're going to be looking at on the regular every single week.
[00:06:28] Now, our next level of planning is monthly planning. Now, whereas weekly planning has a lot of granular specificity, we're granular specificity. Monthly planning doesn't have that layer of detail, and the real benefits here with monthly planning is that it keeps you from getting overbooked and overscheduled and allows you to clearly see how you need to protect time for yourself.
[00:07:00] Now, when we're talking about protecting time for ourself. What monthly planning is going to do is it's going to keep you accountable to those longer term goals and dreams that you have set aside for yourself. And it's going to help you avoid doing last minute things, right? Feeling like everything's always being done at the last minute.
[00:07:22] That's where monthly planning comes in. Okay? So I teach monthly planning in a nine step process. That is something my top program students all learn how to master as well. And again, the benefits, it's helping you from getting overbooked, over scheduled, it's connecting you back to the longer term goals that you had, and it helps you set up boundaries to protect your time.
[00:07:47] Alright, we've got to have those. in order to then, you know, reconnect with those longer term goals and dreams. Now, people are always asking, how often do you look at your monthly plan? Well, obviously we look at it as we're building it. As I mentioned, I like to do mine around four ish days before the next month, but the monthly plan is a tool that you use anytime you are, you are in your current month.
[00:08:15] And a request comes in for your time, that is something not in the current week. So if I'm in, you know, week one of a month, and I get a request for my time for week four of the month. I get to go look at my monthly plan, and it's going to show me the way I teach monthly planning if saying yes to this thing is going to be a good idea or not.
[00:08:37] Because remember, the purpose of this is to help us not get overbooked and overscheduled, alright? Now our third layer of planning is quarterly planning. Now the real benefit here with the quarterly planning is this is where we spend a lot of time and energy when we're building out our quarterly plan that keeps us on track for those longer term slash Annual goals.
[00:09:05] All right. It shows us very clearly. Do we need to reset? Do we need to pivot? Do we need to replan something? Because we are seeing the realities of, you know, the way our time and year is mapping out. Now, another benefit of quarterly planning is that reconnects us back with our core values. All right, we can't just constantly be adding things to our list without taking a step back and saying, is this something that's even deserving of my time, especially with those longer term goals.
[00:09:41] Now, one of my personal favorite benefits of quarterly planning is especially around large events, holidays, etc. So, thinking about Q4, which is coming up, you know, the month of December, kind of mid November to December can be very stressful for a lot of us. If you've got kids in school, the month of May can always feel a little overwhelming.
[00:10:03] Sometimes things around spring break, summer break perhaps if you run your own business and you are planning large events, conferences, et cetera, quarterly planning is where the magic happens that allows you to start prepping for things way in advance so that you can avoid last minute large event stress.
[00:10:32] Now, let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. I actually start doing a lot of my kind of December holiday planning and prep work starting in September. So September and October, I am actually protecting my time so that I can start working on things So that come near the end of the year, I can actually enjoy that season with friends and family instead of feeling overwhelmed and stressed.
[00:11:00] And this is what quarterly planning really allows us to do. I recommend that we look at our quarterly planning. That is an input. to the monthly planning process. So whenever I'm sitting down to plan my next month, I am looking at my quarterly plan, which is built out on one little piece of paper, and I am able to connect back with what I had outlined for myself for the upcoming quarter.
[00:11:26] Now, the final level of planning is annual planning. And you've heard me talk about my annual planning event. It's called Planapalooza. I hold it once a year and it's where I teach this long term 12 month planning process. Now, as I mentioned, once you've learned this, You can do this anytime you want, there's nothing preventing you from saying, you know what, I'm going to play, create a plan from September of this year, all the way through December of next year, or you could even do this from summer to summer, right?
[00:11:52] It doesn't have to be a January to December, but I just, I'm just going to call it annual planning. Now, this is where we get out of the weeds. And we start looking at the bigger longer term picture. This is not really tactical like our weekly planning is, right? The benefit of annual planning when done the right way is it connects you back to what you have decided is most important for you and serves you.
[00:12:27] All right. So this isn't just about, I'm going to set some goals and I'm going to write them down. Absolutely not. There's a process I guide people through to help you uncover what is it that's most important to you, what do you want more of, what do you want less of, and then realistically, what's possible for you in the upcoming year, so that we can start to create a roadmap for that.
[00:12:55] Now, my annual plan is something I look at in one of two situations. Every time I am doing my upcoming monthly planning, I am looking at my annual plan. And that is one of the steps that I guide everybody through in monthly planning process. Now, the second time, and this is where it really comes into play, is one of the key outputs that you make when you, when you go through my annual planning process, and I'll be teaching this in Planapalooza, is what I call a year at a glance.
[00:13:27] And so anytime I am getting a, I'm either trying to plan something large in the future, or I'm getting a request for my time in the future. I am looking at my annual 1 pager because that is reminding me. All right, Megan, here's the key things that you said you wanted to get done this year. Does saying yes to this make sense or not?
[00:13:52] So, some examples let's say my family and I are trying to plan out a summer vacation. I'm going to go right to my annual one pager, and it's going to help me see very clearly Where it might be a good idea or a bad idea to plan that. I personally get a lot of requests to go and speak at conferences, and there tends to be a ton of them that all happen at the same time.
[00:14:14] Well, as requests are coming in, I go straight to my annual one pager, and I can instantly see, will I get overbooked and overcommitted if I say yes to this thing six months from now, right? It is astounding how unbelievably easy it is. To get put yourself into a really precarious situation where let's say it is currently the month of May.
[00:14:38] I'm just picking a random month. Let's say it's currently May and you could end up 100 percent getting yourself into a situation where the month of October is an absolute train wreck waiting to happen. And this happens to so many people because. They don't have the right planning tools in place that help show them where they need to make smart choices about their time.
[00:15:07] Now, all four of these planning levels work together, right? Notice how I said when I'm doing my quarterly planning, I'm looking at my annual plan. When I'm doing my monthly planning, I'm looking at my quarterly planning. And often reviewing my annual what I call one pager again. And then when I'm doing my weekly planning, I'm looking at my monthly plan.
[00:15:26] They are all supporting each other, but they're providing unique benefits and they are leveraged in different times to help us protect our time and make sure that we're spending it on the things that are most important to us. So if you are excited and interested and saying, yeah, I need to learn this whole annual planning thing.
[00:15:49] I am tired of feeling like every month I'm like, whoo, if I can just get through this month, next month is going to be easier, right? It's not going to be magically unless you put the right tools in place to make sure that doesn't happen. And that is one of the things that we're going to be doing in Planapalooza.
[00:16:05] So if you have not gotten your ticket yet I'm going to be teaching this annual planning process for 2024 on October 17th and 18th. We're going to be mapping out your 2025 year. We've got the link here in the show notes, but you can just go to megansumrall. com forward slash plan. All right, and you can grab your ticket to Planapalooza.
[00:16:25] If you can't be there live, don't worry. You will get all the replays as well. And let this be the year that you really get your head around how to do annual planning the right way to support you in realistic goal setting and connecting you back to the things that are most important to you.
