5 tips to win your 4th quarter

With the last quarter of 2019 upon us, we are feeling the pressure to wrap up all the goals and projects that were on our plate for the year. 90 days is the perfect amount of time to really focus in, with the finish line in sight. We have written 5 Ways to Win the 4th Quarter to give you some ideas on how and where to start so that when we get to December 31st and you are cracking open your brand new 2020 planner, you will be filling it with fresh new goals instead of carrying over your 2019 goals! Don't forget, we also have the 90 Days of START planner that can help you really get laser focused and it can be paired with one of our Midyear weekly planners and Midyear Fancy Pants if you want to hit the ground running right now! 

Sit down and think about what your goals were last year, where are you sitting with them? Sometimes goals get pushed to the back-burner, sometimes they change, sometimes more important goals come up and the focus shifts. Where ever you are with your 2019 goals, it is ok, the important thing is to make a list of all the things that you still want to get done. Getting it all out on paper will help you visualize what you need to accomplish. Once you see it all written out, you may decide to take it all on, or you may decide that there are certain areas that you want to focus on. In either case, you will now have an overall picture of where you are heading. 

Now that you know what you want to accomplish, breaking it down into action steps is next. You will want to assign yourself days and times that you are going to get things done in order to finish before the end of the year. A great way to do this is to brainstorm ALL the steps that it will take into a list (I love using our Master Plan Notepad for this) 

Once you have your master list of action steps, then you can assign them days and times and plug them into your schedule. Actually putting them into your schedule will help you endure that they don't get bumped to the bottom of your to-do list each day and that you have allocated proper time to work towards your goal. Some goals will have repetitive steps (i.e. go to the gym 5x a week) and some goals will have steps that build on each other (i.e. starting a business, where you will first get your business license, then your bank account, then work on your website, etc.) Scheduling in times for your action steps works the same for both types of goals. 

The holidays can suck energy and every last free second you have from you. Start planning now for the holidays (all of our planners include the holiday planning sections!) so that you minimize stress and are able to stay focused when they do come around. If you know you will be travelling and/or hosting, go ahead and block out the time you will need to prepare for that and the actual time you will be unavailable so that you can work your goals around these times. Planning ahead will help you from feeling like you have to much on your plate and also reduce the guilt that you are doing "x" instead of "y" because you will have it all mapped out on your schedule and you will know when everything is getting done! 

Once you have your Q4 goals in place, be cautious of adding more to your plate. The end of the year is crazy and stressful as-is. If you come up with additional goals, consider tabling them until 2020, OR determine if the new goal is more important than a current goal, and if so, replace the current goal. It is OK to not get EVERYTHING done at once, by focusing on the goals at hand, you will feel an incredible sense of accomplishment when you achieve them and be able to move forward and be focused on the next goal instead of being scattered on many things at once! 

Remember, we are right here cheering for you and we know you can do this!! There is still time to make 2019 YOUR YEAR! If you need a little more encouragement, join our amazing community over in our private Facebook Group HERE