{Planning 101} How to Do Monthly Planning to Be More Intentional
What you need for monthly planning:
- Bible (to remember why you plan)
- Planner (this one is my favorite one)
- Pens (gotta be able to write this stuff down folks)
- Water (to stay hydrated because this can be exhausting if you’re not careful)
You can see all my planning tools here, but these are the necessities for monthly planning.
Tips for Effective Monthly Planning
I have found that the more specific I am with my monthly planning, the easier my month flows and the more likely I am to do my weekly planning, which we will talk about next.
Because I’ve done my yearly planning, I know that major events are probably already on the calendar (i.e., church conferences, birthdays, holidays). Also, since I’ve completed our quarterly planning, I know whether or not I need to travel this month or if someone is coming to visit us.
Tip: Before getting started, it’s a good idea to review your mission statement along with your roles and goals. This will keep your God-given purpose fresh in your mind as you fill in your calendar. You can check out my 5-day series, How to Fill Up Your Life and Not Just Your Schedule here for additional inspiration.
Additional things to think about during monthly planning:
Date Nights – We set aside a day each week to for date night. We try to do three date nights at home and one date night out. You can see a whole slew of ideas in this post.
Family time – We set aside one to two times a week for family time. Right now Tuesday nights are family night out. We like to go out to eat and just get out of the house! Then either Saturday morning or Saturday evening is reserved for family time depending on what we have going on that week.
Work deadlines – Since we are a work at home family, we have to make sure we communicate all work deadlines so we can be sure we’re getting enough time to work to complete the task. This could also include out of town meetings, financial planning, etc.
Small group, Bible studies, etc. – We are just getting plugged into the church calendar in our new town, but this is something I make sure is on the calendar for the month.
Budget meetings – We try to do budget meetings weekly. I slot these into our shared calendar.
Hospitality – We love having people into our home, but right now we don’t have a home. I look forward to getting Friday Night Meatballs up and running again. I like to add to my calendar potential times to gather with friends and family so we can be sure to get plans in place.
Miscellaneous – Some other things I try to think about during monthly planning is car maintenance (oil change, tire rotation, etc.), haircuts, doctor appointments, etc.
After it’s all said and done, our calendar will look something like this:
As I said about yearly planning & quarterly planning, this plan is the same…it is not the end all be all. There are many times our schedules get shifted. Life happens and things don’t always go as planned. That’s okay!
This post is part of our Planning 101 series. See all the posts in this series here.
Did you know that I turned this series into an eBook (and added even more to it?)
You can now download this entire series plus more in one easy PDF download. Click here to learn more!
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I have a question for you if you don’t mind, you said you don’t have a home right now, I follow you on IG and it looks like you moved back to your home town and are staying with family. We (my hubby and I and our 3 kids) will soon be living with my in-laws for a while. We’re not sure how long we will be staying with them and that worries me. I know that God has a plan through all of this, and I believe He is answering our prayers through this, but it’s hard. We are planning on putting our stuff in storage, and taking just some necessities with us to their house so we don’t overwhelm them. Of course kids have a lot of “necessities” so that’s a challenge 🙂 I guess my question is do you have any tips for someone going through a very similar situation as you? How do you handle having some stuff in storage and deciding on what to take with you? Hope you don’t mind helpin me out!
That’s a great word! My word for 2012 was balance, and I think that’s a good one for 2013 as well. I’m going to add aoethnr though: simplify. I think its easy to get caught up in wanting to do too much, buy too much, expect too much… so, I’m going to try to simplify.
Love that!
If your views have gone up suddenly it is because I’m totally obsessed with this right now. I’m a new mom and run a homestead and a home business and have health issues that make remembering things difficultv so I am really looking forward to getting things on paper and organized! A lot of your other posts have been a blessing lately too; I read while I am nursing at night 🙂
We’ll take it. 🙂 Thanks so much for being our top visitor today. haha!
In all seriousness, I’m really glad you’ve found so many helpful resources and posts here. Nursing nights are great for reading. I’ll be there again soon …
After reading your post on “friday night meatballs,” my husband and I decided to do a variation on your theme. We had our first one a couple of weeks ago – and it was such fun! We have decided to invite three couples/families from church – once a month. A different group each month. Since we are both new in our community (I’ve lived here for 7 months), it is a great way to get to know people other than Sunday mornings at church. We plan to do this once a month, since my husband travels out of the country one week per month. What a blessing to get to know God’s people! BUT – you have to do your monthly planning to make sure that you fit things like this in!
What a great idea! This is also something we are thinking about doing. We moved again and our friendships have changed as well as our season of life. So, we need to rethink the weekly meatball theme. I love how you were inspired to do something! Anything! As the Lord inspired and led you and your husband. I love your idea!