rhythms of planning and reflection.

you know, since it’s almost the new year and all.

If you’ve known me for any length of time or followed my writing and general online activity any time between 2015 and 2019, it might surprise you to know that I don’t set goals anymore.

At least not what most people think of when they hear the word “goals.”

From 2014 until 2019, sometime in the final weeks of the year, you could find me holed up in the corner of a Panera, a rather large stack of books taking up the majority of my table. I would spend hours with my daily planner and my goal planner, thinking over the past 12 months and dreaming about the ones to come.

I loved setting up a new planner. I loved the fresh start. I loved the idea of all the possibility the next 365 days could hold.

It’s not that I don’t love those things anymore. A new planner still makes me a nerdy level of happy.

But over the last few years, for who knows what or how many reasons (as y’all know, a lot has changed since the end of 2019), my overall perspective toward progress, personal growth, planning, and all that has softened.

I no longer use the daily planner I used to swear by, or the goal planner that walked with me through six years of life. Not because those tools aren’t good and helpful, but because they no longer fit what I needed in this season of my life.

It’s taken a few years to figure out what does work in this season. There’s been a good bit of trial and error, and moments where I’ve felt like I’m floundering because I didn’t have those practices that grounded me for so many years.

Throughout 2022, once I emerged from the initial postpartum fog, I decided to be intentional about consistently establishing rhythms I knew would help me, and as I’ve done so, I’ve been able to work out the missing pieces and create a practice that is exceptionally life-giving. (The last piece slid into place in just the past week and I’m so excited!)

The reason I don’t set goals anymore isn’t because I don’t think they’re helpful, or because I no longer feel the need to grow in various areas of my life.

I don’t set goals in a traditional sense anymore because my posture toward growth is set more towards establishing those consistent rhythms that make intentional reflection and the growth that comes with it a natural part of my regular life. In other words, I’m more focused on who I’m becoming, than what I’m doing.

Maybe you’re feeling a bit like I was a few years ago—worn out from the goal setting messages and the unspoken pressure it gave you to do more, be more, more, more.

If so, maybe a softer posture toward your own growth is what you need. Maybe a shift in focus from what you do to who you are and who you’re becoming would create a little space in your heart and soul and let you breathe easier.

To perhaps give you some ideas, I wanted to share the rhythms that make up my own practice of reflection and planning. They’ve been wonderfully grounding for me this year. Maybe they (or something similar) can be so for you in the year to come.

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Daily Rhythms

There are many quotes I could give you here about how our how we spend our days, but one of my favorites comes from Annie Dillard:

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.”

This reminder is especially helpful for me as the mom of an almost one-year-old. My days are remarkably unremarkable, spent largely on the floor of a playroom dropping balls into the ball drop again and again.

Each day, I take a few minutes to look at my planner (I use a Golden Coil one now, if you’re curious), specifically the list of tasks I would like to accomplish that particular week, and determine what, if any of them, I want to check off that specific day.

At the end of the day, I reflect on a particular moment or event of that day using the These Are The Days… section of my favorite reflection tool, The Next Right Thing Guided Journal from Emily P. Freeman.

These reflections are often as simple as, “These are the days of family walks in the sunshine” or “These are the days of Chick-fil-A and chocolate covered strawberries.” Something that captures a special moment of the day I want to remember.

The final piece to every day is my journaling practice. I’ve been journaling in some capacity for nearly 24 years, and as of today, I’ve made it a daily practice for eight years. Sometimes my thoughts are deep, sometimes they’re short, sometimes they’re common, sometimes they’re long. But they’re always how I end my day.

Weekly Rhythms

At the beginning of each week, I primarily focus on planning for the week to come.

My planner is set up with a weekly spread that provides a bit of space to write out any events happening on a particular day, as well as a task list, priorities, gratitude, meals, and habits I want to practice for the week to come.

I write out the events for the upcoming week, then review my task list from the week before and transfer over any things left undone, plan out our meals, and choose my priorities.

This is, admittedly, my most inconsistent practice. Some weeks it happens on Sunday night (the ideal situation), while other weeks it’s midway through Tuesday before I even pull out my planner.

But the more consistent I am, the more I find I complete the small and large tasks in my life that come with being an adult, raising a son, and managing a home, while also building good habits that contribute to who I want to become.

Monthly Rhythms

My monthly practice of reflection and planning is where it all started and one of my absolute favorite days of the month.

I block out 2-3 hours—sometimes on a weekend, sometimes on a weeknight, whatever is closest to the start of a new month—where my husband watches our son and I get out of the house and hole up in a coffee shop or something similar.

Reflection on the month coming to an end is where I begin. I start by answering two questions that are especially eye-opening—what was life-draining this month and what was life-giving this month?

This helps me think through all aspects of life—habits, schedule, relationships, work, etc.—and determine what about those things makes me come alive and what doesn’t. The point isn’t to then remove all the things that are life-draining (that’s simply not realistic a lot of the time), but to give me a better perspective overall.

After my initial reflection, I create what Emily P. Freeman calls a happy list—a list of things I read, watched, listened to, or made. It’s a lovely and simple way to keep track of the media I’ve consumed and the things I’ve created.

With reflection complete, I transition to planning.

I use the life-draining and life-giving lists to make note of things I want to stop, start, and continue doing. I look at our calendar and schedule a few specific things every month—reflection time for myself, introvert time for my husband, family outings, lunch dates with friends, etc.—and, depending on when I’m doing this planning, I either schedule anything else that needs it (like appointments), or I add them to my task list for the week.

I then consider the people I intentionally want to connect with in the upcoming month, and what matters most over the next 30 days in my home, schedule, relationships, and with myself.

Finally, I choose one project I want to complete in the month to come. Just one.

Seasonal Rhythms

While looking back on each month is a helpful practice, I also find looking back at bigger chunks of time to be helpful as well.

This is something I used to do quarterly, but last year I transitioned it to a seasonal reflection that coincides with the cultural start of each season. So I reflect on winter, spring, summer, and fall rather than Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4, and I do so at the end of February (winter), May (spring), August (summer), and November (fall).

Each season, I answer one simple question—what did I learn this season?

I try to make note of some of those lessons throughout the season, because I like to keep track of both the big and small lessons I’ve learned, and the small ones are often hard to remember three months later. But even if I haven’t been consistent about recording some of those lessons throughout the season, I take the time to reflect on it before the new one begins.

Next, I review the annual questions (we’ll get to those soon) that I answer each year to ensure I’m following through with the bigger picture intentions for my life.

I then look ahead at what’s happening with family, celebrations, deadlines, etc. in the season to come, and fill in three statements—I want, I hope, and I need.

Note: Nearly all of these regular practices of reflection are part of the outline of the previously mentioned The Next Right Thing Guided Journal by Emily P. Freeman. If you think these practices may be helpful for you as well, I highly recommend picking one up for yourself.

Annual Rhythms

I alluded to it a bit at the beginning, but at this point, the end/start of a new year isn’t that big of a deal for me. Especially since I structure so much of my reflection around the seasons, much of what I do is based on a December - November timeframe, rather than matching with the calendar year.

That being said, the one practice I engage in on an annual basis is a list of questions compiled by Lore Ferguson Wilbert. They include a few reflection questions for the year coming to a close, and then provide questions for the year to come in the areas of heart, spirit, soul, body, mind, and big picture.

These questions are lengthy and deep, so they take a good bit of time. For this reason, I usually start them at the beginning of December and slowly work through them over the month. They are a wonderful tool for helping you think deeply about a lot of different things in your life, and touch on topics that I haven’t found in many other reflection resources.

It’s these questions that I review during my seasonal reflection, so I don’t get to the end of the year and realize I haven’t made progress on any of the things I hoped to throughout the year.

There are also a few questions for spouses to ask one another, so my husband and I typically sit down one afternoon near the year’s end and ask those questions of each other. It’s a great way for us to connect on some bigger picture things.

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I know this was probably a lot. As I mentioned previously, it’s taken about three years to flesh out this practice of reflection and planning in my own life.

I don’t expect you to do it exactly how I do, because your life is your life. But perhaps incorporating one or two of these regular rhythms of reflection into your own life can be the grounding practice you need to become more of who you want to be in the year to come.

Do you have any practices for reflection, planning, or personal growth that you especially love? I would love to hear about them in the comments!