all right so I've actually taped my planner down so that it doesn't move around so we're all ready
to go so for today's video I'm gonna be taking you guys through my monthly planning routine and
my monthly planning routine is all written out in my notebook right here I highly recommend writing
out any routine that you're trying to do whether it's a week of planning routine a morning routine
bedtime routine whatever you're doing I think it helps a lot to just have it written out on a piece
of paper not only so that you can refer to it but so that it feels more concrete so we're just gonna
get right into it the first step of my monthly planning routine is to fill out my monthly review
so I flip back to my July pages where I have on the left side some planning that I did and then
on the right side is this page that I left blank for reviewing how July went so first I start with
what went well this month and so here all right things that I accomplished habits that I kept up
with just anything that I'm proud of that makes me look back and July and think that was a good month
so one thing I'm going to write down right away for sure is that I got second place in my event
at FDLE Nationals which was like the highlight of my month I traveled alone for the very first time
and survived it was kind of a weird month because for about half of it I was away from home so this
is probably gonna look a little bit different than it normally does but I think it's still important
to do a review like this so I'm just gonna finish filling this out real quick one thing that helps
me is that I also like to do this like what went well and what could have gone better type thing
every week and so I do that on a little post-it for every weekly spread that I have and so I like
to look back at those to get ideas for what to write in the monthly section all right I think
that's good I've written down eleven which is about normally what I write and then the next step
is to write down what could have gone better this month and I do like to say what could have gone
better instead of what went poorly just because it's more positive I like to look at these as
ways to and not things to be upset at myself about so again looking back at my weekly post it helps
with this but also just kind of trying to remember how the month went I also like to look at my habit
tracking app on my phone to see how my habits went because oftentimes that's something that went well
or didn't go well all right once I've written down some things that could have gone better I
usually do about five or six like I did this time I like to write down three lessons that I learned
that month I mean I think we're all constantly learning a lot of lessons but it's good to just
recap the main things that you want to take away from the month I like to look back at my journal
for this that helps a lot and I'm not gonna go through every little thing that I write down
here because I am gonna do a July recap video and so I'll talk about what I'm writing but for now I
just want to go through my process okay so the next step is to take a look at whether or not I
achieved the goals that I set for myself at the beginning of the month and so either just write
like yes I achieved it and kind of give myself a pat on the back for that or I'll write down that
I didn't and kind of try to see why I do this on the back side of the calendar page so I just make
a page and I title it planning the first thing I do is I write down three goals that I have for
the month and to help me do this I like to look at my 20 18 goals or looking at goals that you
had for past months and kind of trying to build on to those next I choose one habit to focus on
obviously I'm always tracking all of my habits but I like to just choose one for the month and really
put a lot of effort into making sure that I do it as much as I can and this month I think I'll focus
on doing meditation everyday I think it's really important to always be learning and try to improve
ourselves so every month I choose one course to focus on and one book to read I usually keep some
ideas for that in my notes app on my phone so I just look back at that alright then I flip back
to my calendar for the month and usually what I'm writing events in that are happening far in the
future I don't highlight them but once I get to that month and I like to make sure that everything
is color-coded sometimes I also just write things in with pencils so I just erase that and write it
in with pen again because this is taped down it's kind of hard to write normally I would just take
out the pages cuz these are disk bound but it's ok I'll manage I also like to go over the days of
the week with the tombo brush pen along this side here I have a little kind of sidebar for writing
in little weekly reminders so like sometimes we know that there's something we need to do but
all we know is kind of the general time of the month that we'll need to do it we don't know the
exact day so that's what I like to write things here and then when I'm doing my weekly planning
I can just take that information and schedule it in so as I'm doing my monthly planning I'll
just add anything in if I remember it all right then because I think it's always important to be
looking at the positive side so what can we look forward to this month I write down three things
that I'm excited for in August I think once I edit this video I'll just have some blurred out
things not because anything I write in here is bad but because I just want to keep hidden like some
names of people or organizations that I'm involved with I assure you nothing that I'm blurring out
is important to see it's just for the sake of privacy I choose an affirmation for the month
so this is just gonna be a saying that's kind of currently resonating with me and I want to keep in
mind in the upcoming month just as an example my affirmation in July was something I've read in my
book that I was reading last month tripod mentors I don't remember which interview this was from but
I'll added it they said macro patience micro speed I just meaning that you should stop worrying so
much about the future and about making really big plans but try looking more at the next and how can
you make the next few days the next few hours even the best that you can make them I go over these
with some color just to kind of brighten this page up I've mentioned these in a lot of videos but I
used the zebra mild liners which are amazing and then on the next side I'll just set up my review
page in advance but as I mentioned before I keep that blank until the end of the month so one step
I forgot to mention to you guys is that I have to set up my weekly pages so I basically just like
draw a lines down the page and fill in the days of the week and the date numbers so technically
this review should have gone on the back of one of these pages but it honestly doesn't really matter
so I like to just tear out a previous page and use it as a template so yeah as I'm making these I'll
just go over a few of my like finishing points once you do your monthly planning page you have
to make sure that you're actually looking back at it for it to be effective so I recommend looking
back at that page like every morning and evening when you're doing your planning also especially
when you're doing your weekly planning because that's when you can schedule in time to actually
work towards those goals that you set for yourself or like schedule in time to read the book that you
wanted to read or work on the course that you wanted to complete the best planning isn't gonna
do anything for you if you don't put it into action always make sure that your scheduling
in some downtime especially social time so make sure that your scheduling in time to spend with
friends and family also when it comes to monthly planning just try to have fun with the process I
don't decorate my planner a ton but as you saw I like to use my tombo brush pens and then my zebra
my aligners I think it's important that it looks pretty because it just makes you enjoy the process
more and be more willing to look back at it in the future also try and make it neat because there's
nothing more annoying than when your planner and barely legible um that'll definitely make you
unlikely to use it so that's the end my monthly planning process thank you so much for watching
this I hope that this has inspired you giving you some tips for your own planning don't feel like
you have to do this a hundred percent the way that I do it because everyone needs a different
process and that's totally fine just find what works for you and the important thing is that you
stick with that so with that I'm going to end this video and until next time until my next video bye