How I’m Planning for 2024
I love a plan. Even as a kid, I loved the back to school season. I loved going to Staples and getting new pencils and notebooks. As an adult, I get the same feeling at the start of a new year. I usually already have my new planner by early fall, and I love a paper planner. Give me lots of room to create deadlines and checklists and the more color coordinated the better.
As I start to focus more on my art and “trying to get it all done,” having a plan has become even more important, not just to my art, but to my life in general. There are only 24 hours in a day and while I do want to be accomplishing a lot, I also do not want to be working all the time. I want to work as smart as possible so that I am efficient and effective, but more importantly, I am looking to grow (personally and professionally) in a sustainable way that still allows me time to ride my bike, hang out with friends, and go on vacation.
I first read Amy Porterfield’s book Two Week’s Notice in February 2023 and she says “it’s not real until it’s scheduled.” In 2023, I made a conscious decision to write down all the things I wanted to accomplish and then I tried to spread them out over twelve months. I certainly didn’t get everything crossed off my list - I am still dragging my feet about consolidating my retirement accounts. Seriously why do I have to talk to a person to get that done - but, I did cross off a lot of things. For 2024, I wanted to be even more intentional about my lists.
This year I have a planner exclusively for everything art and I want it to be my north star for the upcoming year. Central to my idea of working smarter, not harder, is embracing the seasonality of the year and planning in time for intentional breaks, where I am not working on my art business or my day job to just unwind and recharge. I’m trying to double down on the less is more principle, because while I am enjoying my art hustle, there were definitely times when I was trying to do too much and then didn’t do anything well. I also want to be more intentional about tracking my time, so I know how long it takes me to work on a blog post, create my social media for the week, or complete a painting. Here is my step by step process for how I approached planning for this year.
Start Messy
When you plan, do you hesitate to write things down in pen because it pains you to make a mistake? I am. So when I start planning, I usually start with a stack of blank pieces of paper. This way I can be messy and get all of my ideas down on paper. Then I can organize them into my planner later.
Big Picture
I like to start with big picture planning first, where I map out the major things that I know are going to happen in the coming year. I’ll take a piece of computer paper and fold it so that I have 12 rectangles. Then I write down everything that I already know is happening in the appropriate month. For 2024, some of the major things I include are
Major vacations, weddings, trips, bike events, etc.
Work events. For me this includes special events where it is all hands on deck for everybody and major projects I’m responsible for, such as summer camp, which takes nearly all my energy for about nine weeks in the summer.
Workshops or classes I plan to take. This is new for 2024 because I plan to complete the self-paced Art to Print online course and to take an eight week intensive course focused on Adobe Illustrator.
I also spend some time daydreaming about what other tasks or goals I might like to accomplish, such as finally setting up an Etsy shop.
During this exercise I am not trying to micro plan my full twelve months. I want to know about my non-negotiables like weddings so that I can plan to enjoy them. I’m also trying to identify my busy times. For me, summer camp is emotionally and physically intense, and this year, I do not want to add too much to my plate during June and July. I want to focus on surviving work and enjoying the summer.
Reflection
Once I have a sense of the year ahead, I actually look backward. I take stock of what worked well and what didn’t from the past year. In 2023, blocking out time each week to work on my art business was huge, but I wasn’t always the most focused during that time. Sometimes I procrastinated and didn’t get much done. On days where I couldn’t focus, it probably would have been more productive to just settle in with a book, a cup of tea, and then go to bed early. Other times I would work for too long and the quality of the work wouldn’t be very good or I would just get burned out and need a break.
Priorities for Year Ahead
After a little reflection, I think about how I want to feel in the coming year. It sounds a little woo woo, but focusing on how I want to feel gives me more clarity and makes it easier to identify what my real priorities should be in the coming year. I usually just write down everything that comes to mind, just stream of consciousness. As I am writing down how I want to feel, usually the same words show up over and over again. These will become my word (or words) for the year. In 2023, I just had one word: consistency. For 2024, the words that came up during my brainstorming session were growth, strength, and friends (more on that in the next blog).
Once I have identified my words, I do some more brainstorming for what those words mean to me in terms of goals or tasks. This is the juicy bit. Sometimes the goal is big such as:
Sell my art prints online.
If I have 12 months to work on that goal, I think about what the smaller steps might look like. This could include:
Watch all the videos on Art to Print
Identify five of my works that might make a good print.
Research scanners.
Learn how to scan my art.
You get the idea. I’ll do this for as many things as pop into my head. I don’t have to figure out every single step. It’s more to get all of the ideas out of my head and on paper. I’ve learned that I can spend way too much time in the planning or researching phase, so I usually set a timer.
Then I take a break and let the ideas settle. After a break, I’ll review all of my messy notes and see what I think. Do the things I have written down feel right? Are they what I really want? Or do they feel like things I should want to do? Sometimes I’ll rework some of the ideas, sometimes I won’t.
Completing this messy brainstorming stage makes me feel much more prepared as I sit down to actually put pen to my planner. With my actual planner, I’ll write down the big things such as holidays, trips, weddings, courses, etc., the items that have dates or deadlines that are non-negotiable. I also write my words for the year on index cards. The word itself goes on one side and then what that word means to me goes on the other. I tape them inside my planner so I can remind myself of them when I’m feeling discouraged. Finally, I make a plan for the upcoming month. I find that planning a month ahead works well for me when it comes to my art.
Want help with planning your year?
Grab my freebie: My Yearly Plan.
Inside you'll find prompts to:
Reflect on what worked last year.
Brainstorm how you want to feel in the coming year.
Identify a word or words to guide you.
Make a plan.
I’m loving my 2024 Gingiber planner, which includes space to write down three big goals for the month and then a to-do list. My goals and my to-do list are usually more than I know I will accomplish in a month, but it gives me something to push for. At the end of the month, I review and plan for the next month. Because I spent time understanding what my year will look like as a whole, I know which months I might want to focus on my art business more, such as January through March, so that I can scale back as I get closer to summer. I also know that unexpected things will happen, and when they do, I just try to do my best. This is supposed to be fun. If somebody invites me to go backpacking and a blog post gets delayed, I’m ok with it.
What tips and tools do you use to plan for the coming year? Do you have a big goal you are striving for this year?