Tag Archives: Planning

2025 Year at a Glance Planning

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I’ve got some big goals this year.

My biggest ones involve my fitness. Like going from not doing much activity to competing in endurance events that are longer and harder than any I’ve ever done before. Like re-building my capacity to run double digit mileage, bike a metric century, and swim miles in a wetsuit. Like finding my strength again to be adventure-ready and mentally ready to push harder and go longer even when it’s uncomfortable.

When setting big goals—the hairy, audacious kind that exceed your current capabilities and require you to train, grown, expand, and overcome some limitations to reach them—I like to look at them in the context of the big picture—in this case the calendar year. There are two reasons why.

The first is practical, I need to be sure I have the time. I need to ensure I have plenty of training time for events before I sign up to race them and I need to make sure it won’t conflict with anything else I’m committed to this year. Training while avoiding injury requires a long time and my goal race is in October so I will need to plan when to start training hard and when I can fit in vacations.

The second reason why I like to plan in the context of a full year is that it gives me perspective. Looking at it month-by-month or week-by-week helps me to begin visualizing the journey. It’s particularly helpful for endurance fitness training where I can plot out training phases and key race benchmarks and then schedule smaller milestones to hit along the way. I can then lay in mileage progressions and the bigger blocks of a training plan to be sure I’m not forcing myself to increase mileage too fast and allow for plenty of rest and recovery on the way. I also get to imagine a future where aim capable of doing these harder efforts and visualize my success in a way that helps motivate me when it’s in the teens and I don’t want to do my run.

My October goal race is a 70.3 Ironman Triathlon. That’s a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike, and. 13.1 mile run. I used to race sprint and Olympic distance triathlons but it’s been several years since I’ve competed and this is over double the longest distance I ever did. I’ve run half marathons before but that was before an injury and again has been years since I’ve regularly run longer than 3-6 miles. I’ve already started to rebuild my run capacity to peak in time for a favorite local half marathon in April but I know I’ll need a solid 6 months of triathlon specific training after that to be in good shape for a 70.3. Plotting that out on a numbered weekly calendar helps me verify it’s possible.

Weeks of 2025 are numbered down the left column of my Hobonichi Weeks Planner with my races and some training plans penciled in accordingly.

Now that I know when my 6-month triathlon training needs to begin, I realized I had 16 weeks before that in which to train for a half marathon. That coincided nicely with my local run groups training program so I liked them in my planner and started to schedule some pre-triathlon cross training builds in the bike and swim and some solid strength sessions to help me stay injury free.

Putting down my mileage for and times for this initial plan helped me to plan in a build that would get me a good base of fitness for later without increasing my overall mileage too fast. It also helped me prioritize which workouts are essential and which are less so which will help me for getting stressed when I get busy or the training load feels too much and I need to increase recovery.

Obviously this plan will continue to be tweaked and adapted as the year goes on but looking at it all at a glance gives me the confidence to lean into the hard work while knowing where those efforts are taking me. Do you plan anything a year at a time?

Welcome to 2025!

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And the start of a whole new plan.

That’s right, I’m back with some big plans, new updated goals, and lots of tricks to get me to them that I’m looking forward to sharing with you. In some ways, this is just a continuation of what I started with this site. An evolution of where I’ve been going all along, if you will.

But in other ways—very key ways—this is a change of direction and I’m still trying to figure what that means for this site. What do I mean? I want to make some of my goals more transparent and public so I’ll post about them here. Those will largely be well-being and movement related. Other goals are just for me and you might see indicators of changes here but they won’t be things I explicitly share.

I’m not going to breakdown techniques in advance and tell you how to hypothetically use them. I’m just going to put some into play for myself and tell you how they went as I journal what’s happened. I might lay out a strategy in advance but I won’t feel beholden to see it through. After getting to know myself better these last few years, I’ve learned that I’m very spontaneous, flexible, and adaptable in my planning.

I plan because it supports one way I take in information. When there are lots of details to consider, I gather and organize them as a coping mechanism. I consider lots of interpretations and worry through possibilities and alternative. I imagine ideal and worst case outcomes and plot out a most likely course. And I do most of it in my head.

I plan because it supports one way I take in information. When there are lots of details to consider, I gather and organize them as a coping mechanism. I consider lots of interpretations and worry through possibilities and alternative. I imagine ideal and worst case outcomes and plot out a most likely course. And I do most of it in my head.

You see, to someone who doesn’t prefer to plan, who can’t stand the thought of locking themselves in on what’s for dinner tomorrow much less next week, this looks like torture taking options off the table. It is, but it’s not. Stock with me.

It’s the difference between feeling sick on Friday and knowing vaguely that I’ve got an important run on Saturday OR knowing I’ve got 5K race planned for Saturday but that it’s not a key race in my training plan so it’s ok to miss it if I’m not feeling well because it won’t derail my training. It’s also 1 pm start so I have time Saturday morning to reassess. I’m the first example, I’m unnecessarily stressed, feeling like I might have to run sick or miss out, my choices looking like all or nothing, not knowing that I’ve got plenty of time, choices, options.

By knowing what my big goals and milestones are, my non-negotiable commitments, I also know where my flex space is. What I can blow off, change, or swap out in the moment if I feel like it. My planning isn’t a contract to do all the things, it’s a framework to show me where my options are, to increase the flexibility that I have, and to help me continue to progress toward goals whatever way I feel like in the moment.

That’s why I’m as likely to change course as stick to the plan. It’s also why, despite not feeling like a hard core planner, I use so many of the same techniques to reach my goals. I do the planning so that I know what of the planning I can ignore. I might make a plan that shows when I’ll eat at what restaurants at a theme park, but only so that I know which ones are closed, which require reservations because they book up, which ones my loved ones MUST eat at. I may stick to that plan because it’s something that planning people have already looked at and agreed to. But I’m most likely to pivot in the moment, doing nothing that even resembles the plan, because I know I can and still be sure we get to those reservations and key experiences.

The new year is a natural reset point for me as it comes with the time and space to pull back. I embrace the opportunity to think about where I want to be at the end of next year and have leveraged a few of the resolutions and challenges to restart my motivation to make big changes. I’ve got some ambitions objectives for myself this year and I’m looking forward to sharing more of that with you here.

Happy New Year!

9 Box Grids & 3 Common Ways To Use Them

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The 9 Box Grid is a powerful visual tool that has application in business and in social media. This post will show you 3 ways it is commonly used and how you can adapt this concept to help you achieve your goals.

What is a 9 Box Grid?

Image of 9 boxes arranged in a 3x3 grid

As the name implies, it refers to 9 boxes, arranged in a 3×3 grid. With this one simple tool you can better plan anything from your week to your year, and everything in between.

Let’s dive deeper into three ways that you may already be familiar with this concept and how to adapt them for your planning.

The Grid is a Classic Talent Management Tool

Image of the 9 box grid showing how it is used as a performance management tool

In business management and Human Resources, the grid is a simple and easy to use talent management tool.

Managers will label the horizontal axis (the bottom) with a scale of current performance and the verticals axis (the left) with a scale of future potential. This creates a matrix of 9 boxes where the two factors overlap.

They will then rate their employees from low to high in each area. Where they fall on the grid will indicate the different roles they plan on your team and suggests different support, development, encouragement, and intervention actions may be needed.

There are some concerns that this model is too simplistic and gets easily misused. Despite that, the basic premise of arranging ideas along a 2-axis chart is solid. Take the below example. Same grid, different labels and now you have hacked this tool to help you reach your goals.

Image of 9 box grid hack to use it as a workout planner

Let’s say your goal is to add healthy movement to your day. Easier said than done when you lead a busy life. However, I’m betting you have a least a few minutes to spare.

Here I have hacked the same grid you saw above to create a workout planning tool. To do this I made one axis the time you have available and the other your level of motivation.

You can customize it with your own favorite activities of varying durations (15-30-45 minutes) for days when you have more or less energy and motivation. Now, no matter how you feel or how much time you have, you can quickly eliminate excuses and make healthy choices.

It is a Visual Strategic Planning Tool

Image showing the 9 box grid as strategic visual planner

You probably noticed the grid is also a common format in photo-based social media applications. Feeds, such as my Instagram, use grids to display posts in rows of three-across.

The grid can help you strategically plan your overall layout. With this birds-eye view of your content, you can quickly assess style, color, theme and consistency.

Brand influencers often use this tool to strategically plan the types or categories of content they are working to build. And you can use it to quickly decide if the overall effect is the one you want. Think about what your audience to see when they first browse to your profile. Decide if it will convey the look you want.

Moreover, you can use this beyond your social media feed. Other applications that lean on visual style can make use of the grid to ensure key elements flow together. This includes photography, wardrobe planning (especially capsules wardrobes), quilting, interior design, art, etc.

To use this technique yourself, lay out samples, descriptions, labels, or photos of your project. Check that the colors, materials, textures, and other design elements are cohesive and give the desired impression.

I have been known to apply 9 Box Grids to mood boards and presentations. I’ve even made one out of paint swatches to be sure I like the overall impression before I commit to it.

The Grid is a Retrospective Reflection Tool

Image of 9 box grid used to assess a social media feed with notes critiquing the results around the margins.

You’ve also likely seen 9 Box Grids make an appearance across social media at the end of the year. These “Top 9” or “Best 9” posts are where people share their 9 most popular and liked posts formatted as a Grid.

I used to think posting a Top or Best 9 grid at the end of the year was bit gimmicky. I also didn’t like the bragging and unhealthy comparisons. But once I started thinking about it I found they had benefits too. Most importantly, this technique is both a creative way to celebrate your successes for the year and reflect on your value to you audience.

To get the best values out of this trend, take time to think about why those posts ranked in your top 9. Ask yourself what you see reflected in those posts. Are they a reflection of your core brand? So they align with your own perceptions on what should have ranked in the top 9? If not, what else is it that your audience sees and likes in your feed.

This introspection can help you derive insights to guide future posts even as you reminisce about where the past year. Or why wait until the end of the year and make this retrospective a quarterly exercise.

As you can see, the 9 Box Grid is a powerful tool for visually planning that can be adapted in many ways. Why not try one out and let me know what you think by tagging @BetterWithaPlan on social media or in the comments below.

If you liked these techniques, you’ll want to check out my next post to discover even more ways to make a 9 Box Grid work for you.

And if you want to see even more planning techniques and tips in action follow me on Instagram, Pinterest, or Facebook as @BetterWithaPlan