Plan Your Year as a Creative Solopreneur: From Big Picture to Daily Action
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A Friendly Guide to Hitting Your Goals
Ah, January. That magical “fresh start” energy is everywhere, but let’s be honest: by January 2nd, some of us are already feeling behind. Here’s the thing: your calendar doesn’t dictate your motivation. Every day can be a mini January 1st if you let it. This post is all about creating clarity and turning it into a step-by-step guide for you to plan your year, quarters, months, weeks, and days—so you feel motivated, in control, and aligned every step of the way.
Step 1: Get Clear about Your Values
Before you dive into planning, make sure you’ve clarified your values. If you haven’t yet, check out my previous post on getting clear about your values and creating a personal mantra. Think of your values as your internal GPS for the year: they guide your decisions, your goals, and even your daily tasks. Keep them visible and check in regularly.
Step 2: Reflect on the Past Year for Better Planning
You’ve probably heard this before: Planning without reflection is like setting off on a road trip without checking the map. Take a moment to look at the past year or past months:
- What worked well?
- What didn’t?
- What do you want to do more of, or quit entirely?
If you’d like to dive deeper into this topic, you can check out my blog post How to Create Your Own Annual Review.
Don’t worry if you don’t have a full set of goals yet. Even 1–3 personal or business goals is enough to start planning. The key is progress, not perfection. Celebrate wins, note patterns, and keep doing what energizes you.
Step 3: Plan Your Year, Quarters, Months
Once you have your values ready and are done reflecting, it’s time to structure your time, from big-picture to day-to-day.
Annual Planning: Your Big Picture
- Include family commitments, school and public holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and other major events.
- Mark big projects, launches, or milestones for the year.
Quarterly Planning: Checkpoints & Reflection
- Decide what you want to accomplish by the end (or beginning) of each quarter.
- Schedule time for reflection: review progress, adjust goals, back up important files, and celebrate wins.
Monthly Planning: One Key Focus
- Ask yourself: If I could achieve just one thing this month, what would it be?
- Keep it realistic. The goal is to make the month feel successful, not overloaded.
Step 4: Weekly Planning for Focus and Flow
Here’s a confession: I used to try to cram everything into one day. Admin tasks, content creation, social media, marketing… you know the feeling.
So much to do, not sure where to start. Eventually, the overwhelm makes you feel and act busy, but nothing that really moves the needle gets done. You just have too many literal and mental tabs open.
The trick? Prioritize and pace yourself. You don’t have to and simply cannot do everything in one day.
A strategy that changed everything for me was assigning categories to weekdays, meaning I would focus on only ONE area of my business:
- Monday = CEO day
- Tuesday = CRM
- Wednesday = Content
- Thursday = Marketing
- Friday = Art
Now it looks a bit more manageable, right? This keeps me focused, reduces overwhelm, and makes each week feel structured yet flexible. So this blog post? Yep. Written and scheduled on a Wednesday. And no, this does not mean that I only create on Fridays, I have a daily routine for that as well.
Step 5: Daily Planning Tips
Daily planning is your secret weapon. Even five minutes in the morning to review your values, check your goals, and prioritize tasks can make a massive difference.
Tips for daily planning:
- Identify 1–3 essential tasks for the day; the rest can wait. Try focusing on tasks from a specific category or “task pillar” for that day (like my dedicated workday themes from above). Give it a shot and adjust it to fit your own workflow—find what works best for you.
- Make decisions intentionally—avoid randomly jumping between tasks. Your dedicated weekdays can help here: when each day has a focus (like CEO Monday, Content Wednesday, etc.), it’s easier to know what to prioritize and stay on track.
- Take breaks! I cannot emphasize this enough. I know it’s tempting to skip them when you’re in the flow—those moments count as exceptions—but otherwise, take breaks! I’m a fan of the Pomodoro technique: work in focused chunks, then take short resets to recharge. Use a timer if it helps — I definitely need one.
During breaks, do things that refresh both body and mind:
– Stretching or dancing (especially important if you sit a lot)
– Hydrate (just as important as movement!)
– Look outside your window
– Jot down ideas that pop into your head etc.
Bonus Tips
- Check and answer emails at the start of your workday, then decide what really needs attention now. The rest can wait until tomorrow—or get discarded entirely.
- Experiment with working hours and breaks. Try different approaches and see what works best for you. If it works, stick to it. If not, adjust tomorrow.
Conclusion: Start Anytime, Plan Smartly & Realistically
Planning your year doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Break it down from
year → quarter → month → week → day, stay aligned with your values, and take things one step at a time.
Keep it realistic. Be honest with yourself about what you can actually achieve.
The best part? You don’t have to wait for January 1st. Every day is a fresh opportunity to hit reset, reflect, and move closer to your goals. If you like, you can even do a full overhaul. It’s your life, and you decide what to make of it.
Like I said at the beginning, even though the new year has just started, many of us already feel behind and honestly, that feeling has become almost constant these days. (Probably a topic for another blog post, haha.) Don’t freak out about it. If imagining today as a mini January 1st gives you a little extra push, use it. If not, ignore it. One small action today is more than enough.
Happy reflecting and planning! You’ve got this!
Always cheering you on,
Kathrin
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Kathrin Woo Design | Create & Live