My Montly Planning Routine

Hello wonderful human!

Once more I have to address the fact that my post is late. I am so sorry for this, October has been a CHAOTIC month for me. Between my grandmother’s health, exam prep as well as NaNoWriMo Prep I am so behind on sleep. My excuse this week: there was a death in the family but they’re in peace and no longer suffering.

_{EDIT: This death was, thankfully, not my grandmother.}

But it is the last day of October and time for me to plan what November 2021 is going to look like for me and likely, time for you to plan out next month for you too.

#1: Break Life Down Into Categories

For this step, I break down my life into categories that apply to it. My November Categories are:

• Blogging/The Labyrinth Life
• School (Exams)
• NaNoWriMo
• Writing
• Miscellanous Other Stuff

I’ve chosen to separate NaNoWriMo and writing as I’ll probably work on a short story or something on the side, you never know.

#2: Identify What Needs To Get Done

In each of these categories, there’ll be something that needs to get done that month or you’ll get into trouble either with your parents, teachers, your boss or even yourself. Remember that the things that have to get done this month will usually be time-bound and have to align with your goals or the things that sustain you.

Take my November for example:

• Blogging:

1. Put out one quality post a week, with graphics.
2. Actively Participate in doing NaNoWriMo with anyone who wants to.

• School:

1. Meet studying targets
2. Meet Revision Targets

And so forth for the other categories.

#3: Identify what you want to do

You need to be slightly proactive in life and you definitely need to have a little bit of fun. So now it is time to make one big list of all the things you want to get done in the month, categorised of course.

The things you want to do this month, sadly, must come second to what you have to do so that you avoid landing in hot water. I know it sucks but we have to do it. What you want to do are things that can wait and you won’t be in trouble for not doing right away.

• Blogging:

1. Film B-roll
2. Update email service (the way I send emails and their aestehic)
3. etc. (that cannot yet be revealed to you)

• School:

1. Teach the next grade’s physics syllabus to myself

#4: Prioritise and Schedule

Obviously, you’ve got to schedule your “need to”‘s before the “want to’s” but within each list, you’ve also got to prioritise it there. For example, if you want to launch a YouTube and hope to grow that into a business but you also want to take figure skating lessons because they’re fun you have to put the business first. It has the ability to open far more doors for your future while figure skating will just make you very enviable on an ice rink.

I usually don’t actually schedule anything on a monthly basis and do weekly planning instead so schedule it however you do your planning. Pro tip: try to make sure every week has something you can look forward to instead of just having one fun week-unless that works for you, in which case wow I am impressed.

#5: Make Sure That Everything ALigns Itself

This process for me is just one big set of monthly goal planning. After I’ve made all my lists and prioritised them I like to check that they are actually going to help me get where I want to be and are aligned with my goals and the life I want to have.

And that is all I have to say this October so tell me how you plan your month (you totally should if you don’t) and very good luck for NaNoWriMo!