Do this NOW if you want to take time off during the holidays!

Today we’re going to talk about quarterly planning, yea!  As September comes to a close, we have a special opportunity to set our intentions and do some important planning for the last quarter of the year.  I don’t know about you, but to me, quarterly planning is something that sounds very corporate, a time when KPI’s and ROI’s and all of those other acronyms are addressed.  Booorrring! Don’t worry, I’m not going to do that to you! 

Instead, Designer Sanity’s version of quarterly planning is focused on giving YOU, the designer, more SANITY in the next quarter.

Today I’m excited to pull back the curtain and show you what quarterly planning looks like with the Design Roadmap System - Designer Sanity style!  

Every month with the Design Roadmap System, we plan out our Master Calendar, starting with our CAPACITY first.  What is our capacity?  It’s the time we have available for billable work on our projects.  We always begin this with looking at our personal calendars and marking out all of the time we’ll be taking off FIRST, and then we plan our projects  around that.  

Quarter 4 is often a very busy time of the year for personal time off.  October - December is packed with holidays and school vacations. This is a time of year when we focus on spending time with family, either hosting in our homes or traveling.  Kids are home from school, and our regular schedules go out the window somewhere around mid-November.  So this year we're going to do things differently and take control so we can enjoy this time of year to the fullest!  

Step 1: Set your intention for this quarter

Think of past years when you didn’t plan, and how stressed you felt when important deadlines overlapped with the holidays and you found yourself working long hours when all you really wanted to do was enjoy some much-needed down time.  This year is going to be different. 

This year, we are going to START with our time off, mark it on the calendar and protect it like our sanity depends on it… because it does!  I want you to really think about what you want for this time of the year.  Do you want to downshift work so you can slow down and enjoy more time off?  With the Design Roadmap system we can make that happen.

Step 2: Plan your time off

So the first thing I’d like you to do is sit down with your regular calendar and mark out all of your time off.  Will you try and work while the kids are off from school and put them in day camps, or will you take time off?  If you’re in the Design Roadmap Program, I’d like you to print out Master Calendars for Oct - Dec and mark off your vacations and time off.  

If you have employees or rely on sub-contractors, now is the time to check in with them and find out what time they’ll be taking off.  

Step 3: Fill in and Adjust your Capacity on your Master Calendar

Okay - so now that you know all the time you’ll be taking off,  you can fill in your capacity on the Master Calendar -i.e. how much time you have left to work.  What is this looking like and how is it affecting your income?  Do you want to bank some extra hours in October and the beginning of November to make up for your time off?  If you plan this now, you could do a little bit every week and you’ll hardly notice the difference.  

Do the math now and calculate how many hours you’ll be taking off and decide if you’d like to re-distribute those hours over the rest of the quarter to maintain your regular income for the quarter.  What would this look like?  Adjust your Capacity on the calendar now if needed.  

Step 4: Plan your work on the Master Calendar

Okay, so now that you know how much time you have to work, we’re going to plan our work around that.  So pull out your GPS worksheets for your projects and begin plotting your projects out on the calendar, working around your time off.  You will need to adjust your GPS’s to work around your time off, and there will be some back-and-forth as you adjust things accordingly - so definitely do this in pencil!  

Step 5: Update your Design Roadmaps

You’ll be looking very carefully at your big deadlines and making sure they don’t fall during your time off.  Now is the time to adjust your Design Roadmaps so they work with your capacity and your schedule, not to mention your mental space.  For instance, if you celebrate Christmas, you know you’re not going to want any major deadlines that week, your focus just isn’t going to be there!  Adjust that deadline to hit before the holiday so you can complete it and relax afterwards. Add your time off to your Roadmaps and adjust the dates/timelines accordingly.  

Step 6: Check in with your Clients

With your Design Roadmaps adjusted to fit your capacity, it’s time to check in with your clients.  Now is the time to communicate the time you’ll be taking off, and find out from them what time they’ll be taking off.  

Plan your meetings.  

Do you need to adjust your Roadmaps to fit with your client’s travel schedules?  Go over your upcoming timelines and meetings with them and check how it’s all fitting with their capacity, too.  If they’ll be gone a lot and just not present, they may want to postpone some of their work until the new year. 

Or perhaps they would like to focus and get more done faster in October so they, too, can pull back and take a break from thinking about their remodel during the holidays.  Now is the time to have these discussions and to adjust your roadmaps and your Master Calendar accordingly.  

 The power of the Design Roadmap System...

…is the ability to look ahead and have these discussions ahead of time, rather than being surprised.  Before I had the Design Roadmap system, a couple of things would inevitably happen over the holidays.  Either I wanted to take time off, but my projects all seemed to be on fire and there was too much work to do, stressing me out.  OR, I actually wanted to be working, but all my clients went MIA and I couldn't get the answers I needed from them to move forward, so I was stressed about not making enough money. 

Focusing now on the quarterly planning exercise I outlined above will prevent both of these problems. 

YOU get to decide FIRST exactly how much you want to work, and then you get to plan your projects around that.  YOU get to talk with your clients ahead of time and set up expectations for what will be getting done (or not done) over the holidays, so there are no surprises for anyone.  

Bottom line, you get to take time off without feeling stressed, without getting unexpected calls/demands from clients, and enjoy your time off without any of your projects going off the rails.  This is the best holiday gift you can possibly give yourself!  

If this all sounds great but you haven’t signed up for my Design Roadmap Course yet, what are you waiting for?  It’s not too late to get your System up and running so you can enjoy your time off over the holidays too.  Find out more about the Design Roadmap System here.