For this weeks’ Journal Peek, I’ll take you inside the pages of my 2010 Strategic Planner. And in three more posts, I’ll share tips and techniques for making your Strategic Planner that you can use to make 2010 your best year yet.
Speaking of your best year yet, for the last five years I’ve been using Jinny Ditzler’s book of the same title to structure my annual strategic plan. I don’t follow her exact program, but use a few of her initial questions to get started. In the coming weeks I’ll show you exactly how I map out my strategic planning process.
Why Strategic Planning?
During my years in the corporate world, as well as in business school, the importance strategic planning was drilled into every aspect of my thinking and action. A strategic plan that is executed well ensures that a group people are working toward the same outcomes, with an agreed upon intent.
If you’ve ever worked for a company or individual and were unclear on what the purpose was for something your were doing, or it seemed the measure of success was always a moving target, then it’s likely that a strategic plan was missing.
In The Creative Entrepreneur, I’ve taken concepts like Strategic Planning and made them into simple, effective and useful tools for creative folks who (my hand is raised here) have found it really hard to find a productivity or goal-setting system that works for them.
One of my Great Failures: Planning & Following Through (maybe that counts as two?)
The thing is, for a good 15 years or so, I would go through a December ritual of trying to find the “perfect” planner/calendar/goal setting system. Often at some ridiculous expense (anyone ever bought one of those Franklin Covey binders?), only to find that before the first quarter was over, so was my relationship with the new system.
While these systems work for many, I could never find the exactly right system that worked for my creative brain. For example, since I found the planner binders so ugly (to my picky design eye) I resisted using it. Also, I found that after many years of trying this system or another, I am not a person who will punch holes in paper to fit in a certain size binder. Not even a simple 3-ring binder.
Forays into the endlessly interesting DIY Planner community left me incredibly inspired, but I get overwhelmed by so many choices and couldn’t ever settle on one for long. So what to do?
Enter: The Strategic Planner for Creatives
Over the years, I invented my own process and planner with a great deal of trial, error and more trial until I found something that worked for me.
I created the Strategic Planner tools as a kind of hybrid between the types of issues that are addressed in corporate strategic planning and the goal setting tools typical of systems like The 7 Habits of Effective People, whose bones you can see in Ditzler’s book if you are familiar with that system.
Productivity + Creativity = Happy Camper Getting Stuff Done
These techniques are combined with visual and creative tools I’ve developed that access our more intuitive ways of knowing, and address the inner life. For me, those were the missing pieces, that when added to my goal setting, made a huge difference in my ability to follow through. And get results.
For creative thinkers, it is important to actually utilize our creativity in creating a strategic planner that supports us, and this include having plenty of visual goodies to keep it interesting. Since I love how my planner looks, for example, I will use it regularly with anticipation.
The positive feelings from creating something I want to look at, are now anchored into goal setting, planning, and most importantly, consistent follow through and results tracking. If you’ve ever struggled with bringing creative ideas and projects to completion, you might want to give this a try.
My 2010 Strategic Planner
I love to experiment with making systems faster, easier, better, so this year’s Strategic Planner incarnation is simplified and very portable. I teach a workshop on creating Mini-Journals, and adapted some of those techniques for my 2010 Strategic Planner.
Here’s a look at the cover:
2010 Strategic Planner Cover
The cover is made out of a greeting card by Papaya!, designed by Anahata Katkin, whose work I’ve long admired and is getting more and more distribution. Yay, Anahata!
The interior pages are made from a House font catalog I recycled, along with some of my favorite decorative papers.
Decorative envelopes are tipped in to create pockets for the writing I do to arrive at my plan goals for the coming year.
The pages are embellished with color photocopies of photos and images from my other journal pages that seem relevant.
Postcard on left by artist Pam Garrison
Since I’m placing a big focus a project that includes 1008 paintings for an installation, I’ve added some postcards from some of the artists I’ve met whose work inspires me.
The Hindu Goddess Lakshmi is a symbol of good luck. I’ve always been drawn to her, and she was a potent symbol in last year’s strategic plan. I didn’t know this before, but when I researched her name I found that it is derived from the Sanskrit word “Laksya”, which means ‘aim’ or ‘goal’. So she is now my symbol for Strategic Planning and guides my goal setting.
My Goal Categories — Thanks to Lakshmi
Besides symbolizing good luck, Lakshmi is the goddess of prosperity, health, fertility (creativity), beauty, courage, and wisdom.
These six areas provide a comprehensive structure for balancing my goals between different aspects of my life. Each year, I interpret what the goal is in each category. I’ll show some specific examples of my goal setting process in the coming weeks.
Create Your Own Strategic Planner
Week 1: Getting Started
Step 1: Find a higher purpose for your strategic plan.
In business, this would be the mission statement. For individuals, this is tapping into your value system. Why do you want to create a plan, and what do you most hope to achieve? What burning desire do you hope to accomplish in the next year or five years?
What’s going to motivate you enough to stay interested and committed?
Hint: It’s not one of those things that you think is a “should”, like losing weight or quitting smoking. Those are strategies that fit under the larger category of Health/Wellness. But overarching your categories is a theme, something highly motivating and much larger than the goals themselves.
How To Find a Theme for The Year
Make a list of what you value most, and what you most want to be different one year from now, to help find your theme and higher purpose for the coming year. For example, my theme for 2008 was Create ’08, the year my book was in its final stage of writing before it’s release in November.
In 2009, my theme was Align ’09, where I focused on coming back into balance after several years of growth in my design firm that only got busier as I wrote my book. (When it rains it pours, right?)
Next post I’ll share my 2010 theme. Yes, it rhymes, too. Can’t help it. It’s just something that happens. I like the levity and humor it adds to my serious/geeky nature.
Step 2: Pick categories for your goals.
Since I wanted to meditate on the qualities of Lakshmi, I chose those as a way of categorizing my goals. Find a symbol that works for you, or simply make categories such as: Relationships, Health, Work, Money, Creativity, Fun, Family, Community, Education, Spirituality.
Step 3: Ask some potent questions
For each category, use these writing prompts to help shape your goals:
What were my successes last year?
What worked and how?
What were my disappointments/frustrations?
What goal did I hope to achieve but didn’t. Why?
What do I most want to create in this category, for the coming year?
What does the outcome look like?
If I were to focus on just one thing in this category that would make the biggest difference in my life by this time next year, what would I choose?
Step 4: The Really Fun Part
It Involves Paper! Pretty Paper! Collect some beautiful papers to use to make your Strategic Planner. Your papers will be a reflection of your mood, mind-set and reflect what you want to create. Let the selection of papers be intuitive, don’t think about it too much.
You’ll find yourself naturally attracted to certain colors, textures, and images. Find a greeting card for the cover, or create a cover out of heavy cardstock and glue your own images on the front. ??Look for images that reflect what you most want to create. The images don’t have to be literal. Think about what symbols represent your higher purpose and intent.
Stay Tuned
In Part 2, I’ll share the spreadsheet I use to map out each goal with some very specific and succinct questions designed to get the strategic planning done in just a couple of hours. It’s incredibly simple, yet effective.
Then, in Part 3, I’ll show you how to take the information from the spreadsheet and turn it into meaningful imagery for your Strategic Planner.
Finally, I’ll present effective ways to stay on track so you can make 2010 your best year yet.
Resources:
Your Best Year Yet, by Jinny Ditzler is a great reference for conducting an annual review and creating a strategic plan.
Chris Guillebeau, whose Art of Non-Conformity blog is one of my favorite sources of inspiration, has some detailed articles on his own annual review process. When I read his posts on this subject, I found a kindred spirit.
http://chrisguillebeau.com/3×5/2009-annual-review-overview-and-outline/
Got some other great tips for planning and setting goals? Share your ideas and links in the comments.
If you don’t want to miss the next three articles on creating a Strategic Planner, please consider subscribing. You can get posts delivered to your email or via RSS. Thanks!
While you're here, please subscribe to get all the goodness right in your feed reader.Related posts:
- Strategic Planner Tutorial—Goal Setting for Creatives, part 3 of 4
- The Guts of the Strategic Planner—Goal Setting for Creatives, part 2 of 4
- Goal Setting for Creatives: Staying (or Getting) on Track with Your Goals, Part 4 of 4
- Getting Regular: Project Check-In’s To Support Creative Plans + March 2010 Review
- Visual Journal Peek + Activity: New Moon Intentions
Howdy! I’m Lisa Sonora Beam, author of The Creative Entrepreneur. I teach people how to get unstuck and use their creativity to make a living doing what they love. 
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This is fabulous, Lisa!! Thanks for sharing it all!
Love it! Please share how you bind it all together too! I usually end up using those old green treasury tags and the whole thing ends up a bit too loose! Great post.
Great ideas, and inspiring to see your own book. Please hurry to post the rest of the series, I need to start planning for next year now!
Take care!
@Ellen: The binding for this journal is just a ribbon—tied around the center of the page folds. There is only one signature of pages in this little book — so the ribbon works great.
I like to use a long reach stapler for these booklets, too, but since I am traveling light in Mexico, by stapler is packed away for now. Have to improvise!
Large rubber bands, strings, and even thin elastic headbands work great as bindings, if you can staple or don’t own a long reach stapler.
@ihanna: thanks – I’ll be adding posts every week — glad you’re enjoying this!
I write down my goals in a 2010 goals booklet. It is always in my wallet and I review it regularly. It keeps me focused on what really matters to me.
Enjoy and success!
Ronny
I never considered not finding a good planner as function of planners just meeting my creative standards.
I created a binder and the binder is where I do my creative planning using images and my favorite colored pens. I don’t know many other people that sit down with their planner, scissors, tape, colored pens and magazines to make out their lives.
The binder is too big to carry with me but I think I can recreate my smaller one to meet my creative needs. Look forward to your next entries.
I never considered not finding a good planner as function of planners just not meeting my creative standards.
I created a binder and the binder is where I do my creative planning using images and my favorite colored pens. I don’t know many other people that sit down with their planner, scissors, tape, colored pens and magazines to make out their lives.
The binder is too big to carry with me but I think I can recreate my smaller one to meet my creative needs. Look forward to your next entries.
Thanks for this Lisa. I like to do a year-end collage for the coming year, and sometimes a joint one with my husband, but that doesn’t always translate into something that feels like a usable plan.
This feels like a good combo between the collage and list making, which I always did find a little boring.
not exactly sure how i stumbled in here but i’m so glad i did.
i have been struggling to find/create a business goal plan that works with my creative spirit.
i like what you’ve offered here a lot, particularly the questions for reflection.
glad to have found you…
~erin
hi, lisa – i came via carmen. excellent post! you have lots of great stuff to chew on here and your journal pages are super – very colorful and soulful. it’s great to meet another artist who came from the corporate world and business school – not a combination i run into very often! take care and happy holidays, aimee
Would you recommend a separate planner for personal goals & business goals? It seems a lot of these kinda overlap for me.
(and thank you for doing these posts
I love to see your process in action!)
@Alexia Regarding keeping separate strategic planner for personal and business goals:
It all depends on your situation. If you have a separate business with employees/freelancers or subcontractors (or even just one virtual assistant) I would recommend creating a separate planner for that business.
Depending upon how involved your stakeholders are, they can also get involved…this is a great thing to do together at an annual strategic planner meeting.
In the spreadsheet example I shared in post #2 in this series, you can see my work and personal goals are together in one planner — but that’s because the work I’m focusing on now is stuff I am doing independently: painting and more teaching/consulting, and writing.
Blurring the boundaries of work/life is something very common for entrepreneurs and creatives. So don’t worry too much about that. As you sit with the journal prompts and design your objectives, you’ll find that your own plan evolves in a way that will feel right for you.
This takes some experimentation: there’s no right or wrong way to do it. The point is to have a tool that works for you.
It took me many years to get it simplified to this point — which happens to work well for me.
Hope that helps!
Would love to see what you create….
@Aimee Thanks for stopping by. Yes, being an artist in business school is not something I recommend…it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But a lot of good stuff has come out of it, especially learning how to translate business into a visual, creative language for other artists and creative thinkers.
i haven’t done a plan in about 10 years, but this has me jazzed and gathering supplies. (a bit of a sparkly-chaser, i’ve already been shopping at papaya and amazon, too.)
Wow, what a terrific concept and a great post explaining it. I’m definitely going to link to this. Wish I’d found it when it went up; I could have been shopping for paper all this time and be nearly done!
@raincoaster: funny about shopping for paper. It’s never too late! Don’t forget to check your recycling bin. I love to recycle gift wrap into my pages. Especially if it has glitter on it. Enjoy!
Oooh! Ooh! Oooh!
oh my gosh, strategic planning that doesn’t make my head hurt?! Really??!
Thank you for this. I am actually excited to plan out my year and stick with it. Woo!
Hey Lisa…
Sounds like a fun project. I did pick up the franklin covey schedulers but I only found one of theirs that I liked (metropolis) and of course it was discontinued immediately. It was way more freeflow then any of the others they have ever done. I look forward to reading on with parts 2,3, and 4. I do follow you on facebook. Thanks for the encouragements.
How exciting! I spent 5 months in Oaxaca last year and maybe coming back for Day of the Dead, please let me know about the workshop, it might be just the excuse I’m looking for. Thanks for your gorgeous images, inspiration and honesty.
Love Fran
oh…What a pretty planning journal! You are very talented Lisa.
@Fran: Hello fellow Oaxaca lover. Keep me posted about your travel plans. The dates for the Day of the Dead workshop are October 29-November 2, 2010, FYI. We’re working on the details and will post to the workshops page soon.
Thanks for your interest and support! Cheers!
@Jen Thanks so much. I noticed your blog has the word LIBRA in it, and I buzzed over. I’m a libra, too (capricorn rising, thank god — otherwise nothing would get done!) and also hail (previously) from Chicagoland. We also have the design stuff in common.
See? This is what I LOVE about the Internet. Connecting with people of like mind.
Update I used the journal process and the spread sheeet to do my goals, thank you for a wonderful idea. This is an amazing goal setting process and a more prettier and sparkly way of doing a vision board!!. On my spread sheet i did include an area for reward and I shall include this in my journal.
hi all you gorgeous creators . . . just bought The Creative Entrepreneur and am hoping this will help me stay focused and anchored which is a challenge for my add tendencies.
what a great virtual support!
thanks, margaet
Hi Lisa, wahoo! just booked flight to Oaxaca, do you have prices for workshop, and is it residential??
you are a marvel
maybe we could dream up a cross between your system and The Life Organizer one day for a class or a retreat?
Yes! Love the idea — will buzz you.