How to Strategically Plan Your Entire Year
Summary of Episode
-Happy Listening!
🎙️Welcome to Leadership Unveiled, a podcast hosted by Kayla Fahey-Ahrndt, aka KFA. I'm here to help you get and stay organized while you live a full life and try to do it all, like me. Whether it's work life, career, leadership, mom life, or home life... I've got you covered with my tips and strategies from 11+ years working in healthcare, 8+ years of formal leadership experience, and being a wife and mama. I'm a working mom with two kids ages 5 and 2 plus one more on the way! How do I manage? With the support of my also full-time working hubby and systems to help me feel successful each day and make progress toward my long-term goals.
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Episode topics: Working mom organization tips, side hustles for working moms, working mom time management, block schedule for working mom, time management for moms, work from home for moms, working mom routines
Episode Chapters:
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Full Episode Transcript:
00:00
Hi, everybody welcome back to a new episode of leadership unveiled. I'm so happy that you are here thank you for having me back after a small hiatus. I took a little bit of a break from the podcast and my YouTube channel as I had my third baby at the end of April. Mr. Lincoln is doing awesome and we have three children our house is very full, but I love it. It's crazy at times…everybody has different needs and wants and desires but we're making it work!
00:30
I just got back to working in my leadership and my manager job about a month ago when I'm recording this, and so I'm starting to get back into the swing of things. Y'all it's hard — this time is hard because there's just more people to manage.
00:45
The baby needs me a lot right now and the older kids have to kind of figure out what that's like. Thank God for my amazing husband he's the best dude ever. Seriously could not and would not do this without him!
01:00
It's been an adjustment. But we're all just making it work, and I'm starting to kind of come out of that postpartum fog if you will and be like — OK I kinda wanna like do a couple things for me and the podcast is one of them.
01:15
This kind of prefaces by saying that for a while been posting the episodes and recording them with video on YouTube but just let this third kid and the phase of life that I'm in the season of life video editing takes a while it also takes a while to just set
01:30
Everything up and have you know my set up look in a way that I know people would wanna actually watch me like if you wanna look at a nice background you don't wanna be looking at like you know my dirty baby bottles in the background right and anyways it's just a lot of
01:45
I figured out this really cool streamlined way to just record the audio which if people are interested I can share with that but for now it's just gonna be audio only and so if you were used to watching on YouTube don't worry about it I figured out a way to automatically upload
02:00
My RSS feed or my podcast feed to YouTube so if you listen to the podcast apps great you're all set to go but if you were on YouTube the audio is just automatically gonna be there and fun fact I recently discovered this and so literally every single
02:15
Podcast episode I ever made is now on YouTube so you can like go back to the archives it's really cool I'm seeing new people find the podcast on YouTube and I've had my 5 to 10 new subscribers in the last few days since I did that so I'm like oh cool like
02:30
Please hugs are still relevant I try to make topics that are you know evergreen and will last a while so that if somebody finds this podcast to years from now that they will still enjoy so anyways thanks for having me back I probably should've mentioned at the top of this episode
02:45
That it's gonna be about strategic planning and goalsetting and we're gonna go on a metaphorical road trip together as I talk about what we're gonna do leading in a Q4 quarter four to set ourselves up for success
03:00
Then how are you gonna rock next year so I'm gonna be talking more about that but anyways I just want to say hello I'm back I'm excited if they're topics that you all want to hear about email me at kayla@cfaconsulting.org and I will check those out if you just wanna
03:15
Say hello send me an email I would love it let's see here oh other life updates you guys know that I'm a you know a basic B when it comes to fall like fall is my season and so
03:30
This is already started serving pumpkin spice latte and pumpkin pumpkin spice drinks but I just wanna say is there any nonbelievers out there it's cool I got you Starbucks actually also has these new apple drinks and I am
03:45
Guilty the first day that PSL was available I went to Starbucks but did I get a PSL no I got an apple macchiato and I would 1000% recommend an ever since
04:00
I have now gotten the pumpkin spice chai latte like multiple times so if you're gonna treat yourself even if it's just once I highly recommend spending the six dollars and change to get this drink once
04:15
Experience the Apple deliciousness and then I will post a link to it on my Pinterest I've searched some really cool make at home recipes for PSL pumpkin spice chai latte and apple macchiato
04:30
Do you wanna just like save the money which I totally understand because sometimes it's like that's ridiculous or you just wanna make it like more often and buy the few ingredients in your house I will link my Pinterest below and then you'll go right to the board where I've save some
04:45
Recipes so I hope I am trying to help y'all out OK also if you shop at target there is salted caramel cold foam and other flavored cold foam that they are they are selling now and I'm just like oh my gosh like
05:01
Everything is giving right now it is perfect so there's that I also have taken up running since I've been postpartum and I'm gonna be running a 5K for my daughters school in a couple weeks and I am not gonna lie like just getting
05:16
Side move my body and just being in the crisp air has like awaken me I get so lethargic and summer I have loved the summer but the fall is just the best so you y'all know that my spirit is like really happy
05:31
Right now which is cool so anyways enough about me enough about this you know being off in the updates but I just need you needed to know these Apple updates these Apple drink updates OK so cute the Gilmore girls full playlist
05:46
We're going on a metaphorical road trip down the east coast of course because that's where the foliage is the most beautiful right now as we talk about our strategic goals and planning for the year la la la la la
06:01
OK here we go so as you're listening to this we are in September OK so we have one more month left in quarter three so I'm just gonna talk about what I think you should be doing in quarter four which is October November December
06:16
To set yourself up for success for the end of the year with in terms of strategic planning and goals and performance reviews then I'm gonna talk about Q1 2 and three for next year and will wrap up our road trip back where we started OK so
06:32
I was gonna go on a road trip right you wanna choose your destination choose your route plan your stop here you know you're entertainment your fuel and at some point you gotta get real about about what time about the time
06:46
That you have if you're gonna be on time make all your stops and then you wanna you don't even like create a budget maybe to make sure that you have enough money and then you arrive at your destination right or at least where you were hoping to be
07:02
And maybe that destination has changed along the way but that's cool that's OK so we are in that road trip right now we're being realistic about the time that we have left and we are sort of preparing for last
07:16
Last leg of our trip so quarter four I want you to take a look at your goals you still have time since we're in December to check in on your current goals and tweak and adjust them and maybe set more realistic calls if you don't do this right now
07:31
Oh you probably won't have time to do it later and here's the thing we know that our performance review and appraisal we look at these goals that we set and often times that review determines our raise right our promotion
07:46
The trust we have with our leader so if we want to have a raise next year or to maintain or grow trust we want to be hitting our goals so it's really important that you check in on those goals and adjusted so I have 22 kind of ways this could go
08:02
When is maybe the goal we were not gonna hit the goal that we originally set but we have made a ton of ton of progress so maybe it makes sense to just adjust the goal to be more realistic and I think that is still appropriate if you've been making a lot
08:16
Meaningful progress and giving attention to the school if you don't do that and you miss your goal there's nothing wrong with missing I actually feel like goals really important is the direction of the goal and maybe the consistency may be
08:31
Times the intensity of the work toward the goal right and so you still have time to switch it I wouldn't want you to fail a goal because you didn't check in on what you said you know maybe you set the goal when you knew nothing about the project maybe the project had
08:46
It started so just tweak and adjust it a little bit I guess the second thing that could happen is maybe you haven't even worked on this thing that you put as a goal at all but you've worked on a lot of other amazing things that you need to give yourself credit for
09:01
That other thing that you made the goal maybe just at the time seemed juicy and like it was gonna be your thing and then it became clear that that was not the priority this year that's totally cool I just I think it's a great time to swap out that goal right now so that
09:16
We are not feeling at the end of the year or think of it this way if you're a leader or manager was gonna look at your goals and if they were like I have no idea if they actually worked on this you had to change your goal right now OK cause that would be a bad
09:32
Side do the same thing for your team if you have team goals department goals or if you're leading leaders have them check in on their goals and maybe you could do it together with them in a one on one and just make sure everything is aligned and tidy
09:47
Because as we go in a quarter four we got back to school right now for a lot of people falls and exciting time but then we've got tons of holidays right we've got Thanksgiving and Christmas for some another holidays we have New Year's
10:02
And that's a lot of time a lot of time people take off and so if you're trying to get stuff done in the last few months it's pretty much not gonna happen unless it's already started and we've agreed on it so that's what I would start doing now
10:16
Next I would start thinking about what you want your teams to do in terms of their performance review so maybe like mid October I would be planning to send something out about hey these were your goals or you know check in
10:31
On your goals and then say for your performance appraisal I would like you to do a self assessment right if you want them to write some maybe bulleted points of how they think they were successful in their goal or how they think they could've done better what they learned
10:46
Maybe you want them to share with you like some of the best ways they improved give them a heads up about what you want and you're gonna need for this review and instead of deadline on it again this is just sort of a graciousness you can give to your team just because like I said
11:01
A lot of people got out of town and so if you've got people taking long vacations at the end of the year they might miss your deadline if your deadline is December 31 so think about what you want from them and how they can wrap up the year
11:16
Maybe they need to note milestones stuff like that and have them document know exactly what you want documented how they can turn it into you and when it's due by so that's really what I would be doing right now in terms of like
11:31
Finishing out the year checking on anything that you think isn't gonna meet expectations if you can fix it fix it if not do you wanna own it if not do you want to edit it that's the mindset I would have
11:46
Yeah and just make sure that you recognize that you know this is time to be grateful for whole things that you did do this year like wow take inventory I would say quarter four really I love doing this sort of over
12:01
What is if I'm working and there's no one in the office or maybe it's like a random Friday and just take note and be grateful for the things that you actually accomplish and man like there are so many things that
12:16
Forget about
12:19
Then we go to look at our what we've done in our goals were like man we really accomplished a lot so just be really proud of yourself for that and just take note in a previous episode I talked about how to you know
12:34
Ask for a raise and Tata at extreme value and one of the things that I like to do is keep a running tally and Excel of the projects I've completed and how I've added value so that if I ever want to ask for raise or ever
12:49
Need to like update my résumé I have that stuff in my back pocket without having to look for it so I would just document this somewhere maybe it is your review form or maybe we've got like a separate running list that you can be really grateful for and just be like me
13:04
And I did a lot this year that's awesome I did some really I made some major progress whether it was a project for work or maybe it was professional or personal development
13:14
All right so that's what I would be doing um and then make time with your team to celebrate wins maybe you're like we've worked super hard can we plan like a little happy hour or can we plan like a small party or something like that that we can just
13:29
Rest and say wow like thank you this was a great time it's been nice to work with you all and think after working remote a lot sometimes you don't run into everybody every day so it's just nice if maybe we can get together and start to celebrate so think ahead
13:45
For the end of the year I know people get busy and they wanna go home to their families but is there something you can even organize during the workday like hey we're gonna grab lunch together it'll be my treat something like that
13:56
All right that's what I'd be doing right now as as we prepare to arrive at our destination for quarter four so essentially like if we were going through the year if we'd already started a road trip at the beginning of the year this would be like our last stop
14:11
Pull into wherever you're going to be at which would be our goal so it's kind of like bittersweet like man our roads over and then at some point it's like oh thank God our roads over I've been stuck at this car with these crazy people I need a break right
14:27
I would also be just thinking about your time off for next year as you get into December look ahead like are you gonna takeoff last week of the year gonna takeoff the first week of the year a lot of people are out because that's just the way
14:41
Yeah that leadership works and not a lot gets done so this is really your time to like clean house get organized and get your calendar set for yourself
14:52
All right so quarter one would be we're starting over it's really deciding on our destination and choosing our route we're kind of plugging our route into the GPS if you will and maybe we're starting you know
15:07
New Haven I don't know if somewhere north and we're filling up the car and we're packing the trunk and everything like that so this is where you get to brainstorm goals for the beginning of the year January February March
15:22
You can even think about this at the end of quarter four like hey what do we do last year and then what do we not do that we still wanna do start listening are there projects and things that are sort of in your parking lot that you haven't gotten around to
15:37
Things that you are hearing about potential goal lives or strategy coming down from the top of the organization I would just take out a sheet of paper or type in your one note or whatever app that you use and make a list of all the projects in
15:52
Ideas and things that you have from other people from yourself from just you listening
15:58
This is where you can have catch ball on goals and projects with your team right you can talk with your one up leader if it's your goal strategically as a leader hey here's what I'm thinking for my goals what do you think are they aligned you can have conversations in one01s or team meeting
16:13
With your team like hey here are the sort of the buckets of goals we have here some ideas we have where would you want to see us at the end of the year one question that I love to ask my leaders is what do we need to care about
16:28
Right now or what are we basically what's the where's the biggest risk that we have right now and maybe they'll tell me something I'm surprised about and then we decide maybe we need to do something about that if we have a risk maybe there's an improvement project we can be
16:43
Working on this year and this is where you can kind of talk about as a team like who's owning what and you could start scheduling dedicated calendar time to work on your projects
16:54
I know I have a block in my calendar I try almost every day it's not always possible some days are just completely full but I try to have a time block of something that's part something that's a strategic goal so work intentionally every day
17:09
Towards meeting a strategic goal whether that you know making progress on it to do item or a communication or something like that so that they're out the year I've got those standing meetings on my calendar and I never have to sort of make time for sure
17:24
Your goals if there's always time and people schedule around it so I would set calendar meetings so I'm kind of like telling my calendar that I'm gonna be working on stuff throughout the year I don't know what it is yet but I know that like every day I wanna work for an hour and something strategic
17:40
Oh really setting the stage excuse me and I would say in quarter one you know a lot of times the biggest thing is like organizations don't always have their goals set for a while but you can be prepared knowing
17:56
Directly what the goals have been and what you think is important so even though you might not have goals coming from the top down yet I think it's a good idea to get proactive and be prepared because when you are ahead of the game you can lean into the year
18:11
And have time for being a vision caster you can have time for having your eye out for ideas and being able to pivot instead of being in the weeds and sort of in the daily grind where you can't even lift your head up so I think this is the part
18:26
Set you up for proactiveness I would also remember that if you've got a ton of performance reviews to do in quarter one get those scheduled ASAP and get them done just plug away dedicate a week to it whatever you need to do
18:41
No I feel like yeah they're exhausting but they're great to get done and they're really important and you should dedicate time for them if you're super organized maybe you can plan them out over a series of weeks so
18:56
October while yourself maybe make one day a week review day or maybe you do like one or two every single day for three weeks whatever you need to do whatever works for yourself so that's what I be doing in quarter one kind of wrapping up last year and starting to make
19:11
List of things for this year maybe doing some recurring meeting invitations getting a feel for who's gonna own what all right and now we've kind of plugged everything into our GPS we're starting to fill up the tank we're
19:26
One of the trunk we've got things packed in the car and now we're starting to do the work so this is where we start driving on our road trip and this is where we take action this is April May and June now we kind of start to solidify the goals that we
19:41
Had outlined we pair down the goals and we pick a few meaningful ones I like to have about three goals for each of my leaders I typically have five for myself because that's how many area goal areas we have an organization maybe for your teams are in
19:56
Joel contributors you have three or so just depends two or three it depends on what you do as your organization but you really pair down the list and you start to get realistic about who can own what as well as timing
20:11
Julie as time goes on it becomes clear when deadlines are gonna happen and when things are gonna be due and so this is a great time for you to sort of check in maybe monthly my team check in monthly on our project
20:26
Text and says like hey quick status tape where are you at has the deadline changed is it the same do you have any barriers are we excited are there any does anybody need any help and we do the work we just get in there do the work
20:41
Go on the road trip enjoy see the sites have fun with that right when you accomplish something or you you know reach a new place on the road trip you tell the team you get excited we celebrate so that's really what quarter two is all
20:56
About April May June I find that the spring is probably the most productive time of the year cause there's not a lot going on in terms of huge huge holidays at least huge Christian holidays there are other holiday
21:11
Days but it seems to be the most inner uninterrupted time at least for me
21:17
All right then in quarter three where we kinda are right now but we're kind of on our way out of Creek quarter three that's July August and September that's why you're really hitting a lot of your stops you are finding your entertainment
21:32
You may be kind of like refueling so maybe pausing to be like OK where have you been wow that was really fun all this is really hard we're finishing stuff we're able to check some things off is done but some things are gonna carry over and
21:47
This is where we're gonna be realistic about the time that we have left and what else we're gonna be able to accomplish this might be a time where we're like you know what after we finish these things in September in October we're not gonna
22:02
New goals we're gonna just like write out the year get ourselves kind of doing our typical daily work we're gonna refine our systems we're gonna clean up we're gonna get organized and it's all gonna be good
22:18
So often when I finish my goals early I'm like let me set new ones and I think that's great except for the fact that you're unrealistic about the amount of time that you have and also why don't you just soak in the fact that you did everything that you're hoping
22:33
So I think amen just like rock the fact that you've you've made it this far and then we're back to September where you're getting realistic you're adjusting your goals you're pivoting after you've done that work and checked
22:47
On it every month and ask for escalations and maybe pivot in on your goal so yeah I hope we ended somewhere near like Washington DC or maybe further down the coast but if that were me I'd be going on a road trip starting this year
23:02
Here you know at the top of the East Coast just enjoying the beautiful foliage and thinking about right now how can I clean up those goals make them a little bit more refined so I can hit them make it clear to my team what I expect for them to do it
23:17
Be able to wrap this year up start planning my reviews for next year maybe getting ideas for next year and then at the beginning of the year once we've done review season catch ball around these new ideas you know it
23:32
Who's gonna be doing them and then really refining those goals and getting to work so if you need a tool to help you with this I have a download that I'll link in the show notes
23:47
It's called my yearly roadmap and it's just where you can list your products on the left-hand side and then the top hand side are the month of the year and you just mark off when you plan to do work or devote energy on these projects and then you mark
24:02
Also the go live date and then after that you don't work anything once it's complete so it's really nice visual as you sort of trying to figure out for next year when am I gonna space out these projects because you don't wanna
24:18
Give someone too much work all at one time you kind of want to spread your projects out also you might have projects that are dependent on other projects getting done right so you wanna make sure that everything is sort of level loaded so it's not to
24:32
Well people maybe you also have like an impending inspection or some big event and you have a lot of people out or busy during that time you maybe we don't want to schedule a project go live right in the middle of that right so this is a hopeful tool
24:47
You help you be mindful of when you're gonna plan your projects and who has what workload so check that out in the show notes I hope this helps you let me know if you download the
25:02
The tool if you have uses before it is included in my leader standard workbook so you can also find it there in the the workbook itself if you want all of my pages but I found it really nice because I am a visual learner so
25:17
Like hearing about something but then it like just writing it all out and seen it in front of me my team uses this project roadmap monthly when we review our project status at our meetings but we actually have a digital so we use Excel or PowerPoint
25:32
And make a grid just like the one on the form and then we use checkboxes or checkmarks using like the bulleted list function to check off when we have projects done so it's been really helpful I think for my team too because
25:47
As whenever they're all together they also know then what other folks are working on so they don't think like oh my gosh I'm the only one doing stuff or hey I wonder why this person isn't getting back to me I need their help and they can see like oh there in the middle
26:02
Oh life right so it's just a helpful tool as a to help your team be more cohesive and it can be a really helpful communication tool for your one up leader if you're sharing this is what my teams been working on here's where they're at so it's here when up leader
26:17
Or you can even do it for your own personal projects so your leader knows what you've been working on and you're using it yourself so it's not like you're re-creating the wheel so yeah that is what I want to talk about this week I hope you enjoyed the episode
26:32
Meow on YouTube or on the podcast apps please leave me a rating a review if you have enjoyed it next week we're gonna be talking about what a great manager looks like some of the top traits that I see and maybe maybe a little bit about what a great
26:47
And doesn't look like so I hope that you will tune into this podcast podcast so that you don't miss that episode so I will see you next week for the next one appreciate you all and I will talk to you soon bye
