Simple Ways to Plan Ahead with Intention
As we approach a new year, there are a number of things I like to plan out in advance. Having a plan makes it more likely that I’ll follow through on goals and intentions, but I do hold my plans loosely and expect that things will change along the way. Below you’ll find a list of things to plan for a new year—some you may want to try for yourself and others may not be a good fit for you right now. Use this list to inspire you to consider what areas of your life you want to set some structure and intention around so that you make time for what matters to you.
Routines
I revisit my routines whenever my season of life changes—the beginning of summer, beginning of a school year, and when activities or commitments change.
Usually, nothing is changing between December and January with my kids’ activities or scheduled commitments, but after the busyness of December, I take some time to think through the cadence of my days and weeks and map out an ideal routine. Having a template of my ideal week is especially helpful in giving me something to shoot for. I take into consideration my non-negotiable commitments and try to be very realistic about what I can actually accomplish in my 168 hours.
Looking back at the routines of the fall allows me to zero in on what isn’t working quite right and make some adjustments for the new year.
For instance, my meal planning and grocery shopping routine hasn’t been quite as smooth as I’d like. I’ve been switching my weekly meal planning around between Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And the grocery shopping has been kind of haphazard for a few months. Looking toward the new year, I want to try out a new routine for a few months and see whether I can settle into a good weekly rhythm for this.
Daily Routines
There are a number of daily routines you might think about as you evaluate whether you want to make changes for the new year. You may not want or need all the routines listed below. These are just ideas to help you think about the different parts of your day.
- morning routine
- work start up routine
- lunch routine
- after school routine
- work shut down routine
- kids’ bedtime routine
- evening routine
Weekly Routines
On a weekly basis, there are a wide variety of possible routines to think about.
- meal planning
- grocery shopping
- meal/food prep
- home cleaning
- laundry
- household management (budgeting, paperwork, calendar, scheduling)
- family communication
Monthly Routines
There are also routines that happen on a monthly basis, or that you potentially want to implement on a monthly basis.
- household maintenance
- vehicle maintenance/upkeep
- financial management (budgeting, bill paying, tracking expenses)
- goal setting
- project work
- tech checks (organize digital files, photos, clean out email, etc.)
Read: 3 Important Questions to Ask When Planning Your Day, Week, Month, or Year
Reading
At the end of each year, I choose 12 books to read in the next year and assign one to each month.
This is a way for me to prioritize a selection of books I want to read, while leaving space for other books that come across my radar or that I choose more spontaneously.
As my life has gotten more and more busy in the last decade, I’ve made a concerted effort to prioritize my favorite hobby—reading. However, the time available for reading has shrunk, and my TBR (to be read) list just keeps growing.
For at least five years now, I’ve chosen 12 books from my list—books that have sat on my shelf for years, or newer books that I want to prioritize—and assigned one book to each month of the year. Most years, I’m still reading 25-40 books per year, but planning ahead for 12 specific books ensures that I prioritize those titles and don’t get distracted by whatever shiny new covers pique my interest during the year.
Media
Movies/Documentaries/Shows
I choose 12 movies or documentaries and assign one to each month of the upcoming year. I’m not a big TV watcher, so other than occasional movies with my family or an episode of How It’s Made with my husband, I don’t watch a whole lot outside of my pre-chosen watch list.
Read: 36 Documentaries to Watch with Your Kids
Podcasts
I don’t specifically choose new podcasts the same way, but I do spend a little time unsubscribing to shows I’m not interested in at the moment and thinking intentionally about when I can listen to the podcasts I most want to keep up with.
Often, I will look through my daily and weekly schedule and choose specific time slots for listening to certain podcasts. This becomes a routine, as I associate listening to a specific weekly podcast on a specific day that I’m driving home from dropping a kid at gymnastics or swim practice.
Social Media
I do a similar curation with my social media around the end/beginning of a new year. That looks like making decisions about unfollowing accounts or leaving FB groups that aren’t relevant to my current season or interests, and searching out accounts to follow that are relevant, inspiring, or motivational for me.
Read: 25 Ways to Waste Less Time on Social Media
Music
This year, I’m thinking of adding songs to a monthly themed playlist in Apple Music. For January, I’m choosing songs related to winter or with a theme of newness. Not sure I’ll follow through on this all year, but right now it sounds like a fun idea!
Family Life
I typically plan some kind of monthly family fun activity for the year ahead. These do get switched up or swapped out sometimes over the course of a year, but it’s still fun for me to brainstorm something fun to do every month.
I’ve also planned a monthly focus on some life skills area to work on with the kids. This ranges from communication skills to setting a table to doing laundry. The intentional planning of this is more for me than for them—a way for me to focus on an important aspect of teaching and training them to be independent, functional adults someday!
Read: 140 Essential Life Skills to Prepare for Adulthood
Spiritual Life
Every year I plan some study or Bible reading plan to start off the year.
For 2025, I’ve chosen a reading plan, two specific books I want to study more deeply, and 12 scripture passages I want to memorize. I think the memorization plan is a bit daunting, but even if I don’t get all the planned verses memorized, I will surely get through some of them.
Goals
My goal setting has varied greatly over the past 30 years, but I usually do set some goals for a new year. Some of them are habit or process goals, and some of them are outcome goals.
This year, I’m jumping on the Gretchen Rubin trend of creating a list of things I want to do. Since it’s 2025, my list will be 25 for ’25. I’ll probably share that list in a later post, but regardless of the exact format, I do plan some type of goals for a new year.
Fitness
Like most people, I almost always have some sort of health and fitness related goals for a new year. Generally, I like to start out the year with a plan for movement/exercise. I don’t plan out the entire year, because that never, ever, absolutely never works.
However, I do create a plan for January to give my momentum a little jumpstart and make sure I don’t have to deal with decision fatigue over what to do.
I’m a big fan of the Fitness Blender website for this purpose. They offer hundreds of workout videos, allowing you to choose the type of workout, body focus, duration, and intensity. I love the calendar feature. I add specific workouts to the calendar in advance and then all I have to do in the mornings is open up the calendar and click play.
Homeschooling
Most of my homeschool planning happens before we start our school year in August or September.
However, before we begin the new year in January, I plan for a few fun, creative projects that I want to do before the end of the school year.
I also think about whether there’s anything we need to let go of, change, or add based on how things are going.
Finally, I begin thinking about the next school year in big picture terms, like what subjects or curriculum is of interest to me, since many curriculum sales happen in spring.
Travel
We aren’t big travelers, but whether you travel a lot or a little, it generally requires some advance planning. At the end/beginning of a year is a great time to think ahead to possible travel plans and pencil out a quick list of tasks that need to be checked off—including deadlines where applicable—to make your travel plans happen.
Fresh Start Energy
I love the beginning of a new year and find that it generates a lot of fresh start energy for me. This is usually enough to keep me motivated during the wet, gloomy, dark days of January.
In recent years, I’ve been choosing a word or phrase to focus on as I begin a new year.
In 2023 it was “prayer,” 2024 was “rest,” and for 2025, I’ll begin the year focused on the word “content.”
Not CONtent…but conTENT, as in seeking to be content even when circumstances are discouraging, I feel dissatisfied with what I have, or my expectations aren’t being met.
Having a focus as I begin a new year helps me orient my thoughts in a positive way and pay attention to how I can incorporate that idea in practical ways.
Some people may not like the structure of a plan for their entertainment, like reading or watching movies, but for me, it feels like I’m giving myself something to look forward to. I’m building anticipation for something I already know I want to do!
Looking forward to another beginning and praying this prayer over my new year.
Lord, these three things I pray…
…to see Him more clearly,
…to love Him more dearly, and
…to follow Him more nearly
…day by day.-Richard of Chichester
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Intentional Planning for a New Year
