How I’m Planning To Succeed In The Next 3 Months — Quarter 2

If you are reading this, we are likely a few days away from ending the first quarter of the year 2024. So soon after this article is uploaded, we will have officially finished 25% of the year. Crazy!

Last year, in 2023, I first came across the concept of the 12-week-planner. I got more into that in the article below, however, it is the idea that we should treat periods of three months as “a year” in order to achieve things easier.

For the first time, I organized my year around quarters, and it was very helpful because it pushed me to not forget my goals and to always think about how to achieve them and improve throughout the year 2023.

As I explained in the previous article, I decided to do monk mode in Q1 (January–March), and honestly, I achieved quite a lot through that. Now in Q2, I want to take it all easy, set into the spring and the summer, and prioritize spending time outside and with friends.

So, how am I planning to be successful in Q2? And how you can do too?

Organization

In Quarter 2, I’m planning how I want things to go. When I’ll be focusing on certain projects and when I’ll be away on vacation or hosting friends.

This helps me a lot because preparing ahead gives me the opportunity to put all my focus on the tasks at hand instead of trying to figure out what I should do and being paralyzed and overwhelmed by trying to do it without a plan.

How can you do this too?

Well, there are many things you can do to organize yourself, but calendars are definitely your best friend. I recommend creating some sort of calendar image laying out what your months are going to look like. Your work days, days off, doctors appointments, social gatherings and events…

This is an example of how I did it:

Also, Notion is a great tool that you can use. Through Notion, you can create databases to classify your goals in quarters, and this year I organized my daily to-do lists around what I need to get done each month.

Should I write an in-depth article about how I go about my Notion organization? It might be a 1000+ word one.

Reflection

In these last days of Quarter 1, I'm taking the time to reflect on what happened and what I could have improved or done differently. I also reflect on what’s been going on in my personal life and how that has affected me. I’m learning that self-improvement doesn’t have to be self-annihilation and that being understanding with myself, just like I do with everyone else, goes a long way.

So here are some journal prompts that can also help you during this time to reflect:

• How do you feel (overall) in quarter 1? Why?
• How did you feel in each individual month of the quarter? Why?
• What did you wish had gone differently? What did work out (and why)?
• What helped you get closer to your goals and what didn’t?
• What is your biggest takeaway or learning from these last 3 months?
• What was the highlight of the quarter?

Goals

After the reflection session(s) it’s wise to start setting goals for the new quarter or to evaluate and adjust the ones you already set at the beginning of the year (or even before). The latter is definitely my case.

In December 2023, I gave myself the goal of earning at least 500€ on the internet by March 31st and I haven't even passed the 100€ mark yet (writing this on March 26th). So now in Quarter 2, I need to create an earning goal based on what I learned I can do, and what I know is possible for me (without still aiming high enough to push myself of course).

Lifestyle

Like I said, this quarter I want to take it more easy, perhaps travel a bit more, and simply let myself not be in work mode 24/7. During Q1, I achieved the most important thing I wanted to which was creating a good routine that would allow me to work on my projects and my mental health.

So visualize how you would like your life to look and feel in the following 3 months. I have the habit of creating vision boards and that helps me get excited but also have a clear idea of where I want to go. The point of vision boards (at least personally) isn’t to completely replicate the images I add. It’s about feeling inspired… and having a pretty wallpaper is nice not gonna lie.

In Q1 I focused on:

• Discipline and routine
• Deep work
• Soul-searching
• Getting my car license
• Mental and physical recovery (healing)
• No social media and lowered social activity

In Q2 I’ll focus on:

• Reconnecting with friends
• Going out more and going on spontaneous trips
• Mental and physical recovery (healing)
• Solo dates (hopefully starting to go swimming!)
• Keep up with my momentum (work-wise)
• Going back to my personal Instagram?

Should I go back to Instagram after 3 months of not using my personal account? Let me know what you think.

I hope this helps you to plan Q2 and enjoy it. I found that being organized and creating this level of structure in my life has been incredibly helpful. If it’s your first time reading from me I love to write articles about my self-improvement and healing journey.

If you liked this article, consider:

• Subscribing for notifications when I upload here
• Commenting what you think about this article!

Thank you for reading till the end,

Love.