Happy April, y’all!! We’re jumping into a brand new month so today I thought it’d be fun to take you behind the scenes and show you how I plan for my business (and my life)!

Instead of my typical BTS look at my quarterly planning, I thought that this month I’d break down how I take my Quarterly Plan and play it out into one month. In other words, how can I be sure that this month I am focusing on the goals and projects that I set out to do in that big 90-day plan I’ve made? Let’s dive into how I plan for my business!!

There are 3 key elements that I’m going to focus on as I plan out my month.

1. Quarterly Calendar
2. Google Calendar (Spoiler alert! I don’t use a paper planner!)
3. Trello Daily Planner

Let’s go BTS & I’ll show you how I use each one to plan out this month!

Quarterly Calendar

First, I pull out my Quarterly Calendar. The reason you want to have this when you’re planning out the next 30 days is that 90 days is the base. You’ve sat down and planned out your 90-day plan so you know what you’re working for in your business. Now you want to laser-focus in on one month at a time.

You want to assess in Q2 what you have on your calendar, what you have going on in your business, etc. Now, you can tweak and create the details on the calendar to be whatever YOU need for your business. Clients of mine use this as a content calendar, anything & everything they have going on for the next 90 days… there is no real wrong way to use it.

I use my quarterly plan for the projects & goals in the business, not everything I have going on. Not every single Zoom call, client project, personal appt, etc. That’ll come later. This Quarterly Calendar is for my biz projects & goals.

If you’ve followed my Quarterly Planning System, you know that I want you to assess time, money, dreams & dailys. You’re going to do something really similar when you look at one month at a time. For this month I want to circle back to talking about time, money, dreams & dailys.

BTS in my personal Quarterly Plan Assessment

• Time: Where is my time going? What’s going on time-wise in the business? How much do I have on my plate? Personally, I’m gearing up for maternity leave so my April is full – time is limited in terms of projects! Realistically, I need to hustle this month and if I want to change it now, I can. But I know by looking here, this is going to be a month of hustle.
• Money: I want to look at my launches, what revenue coming in, if I’m getting new clients – basically anything related to revenue as I consider the next month.
• Dreams: These are the projects & the goals. Are these still the goals that I want to have this month? Does my monthly focus and success standard still make sense for me right now? For me, my focus this month is client work. Again, I’m gearing up for a maternity leave, so that’s a big part of it.
• Dailys: I’m not necessarily looking at my daily to-do list because that’ll come later in my Trello Planner, but I take a bird’s eye foot view and I ask: Does this feel realistic? Does this feel doable? Only you can answer this question. (PS: I hope that acts as a permission slip for you: only you can judge what your daily to-dos can look like. You are the boss. You are the CEO. In order to build a business we have to have seasons of hustle! We have to have seasons where our heads are down and we are working hard. That’s for me this month. That’s necessary because I have some time off coming soon!)

Google Calendar

Everything in my whole life is in Google Calendar – I don’t use a paper planner anymore! With our business being on the go, the various projects I juggle, and our family plans, it’s way easier for our family & our team to use this! So when it’s time, I’m going to pull up my Google Calendar and ask: What does the month look like in the weeds? What’s the nitty gritty of all the things going on in my biz & my personal life?

BTS for my April Calendar

You can see that my April is pretty full – but I am expecting that so that I can enjoy a great maternity leave! You can see I have travel time, launches, and various meetings and projects all filled in here.

I also break it down by various calendars so that I am able to see certain things that I want to see. I can hide or show those calendars at any time. For example, if I don’t want to see anything for marketing, and I just want to see calls & personal, I can take a look at that. If I just want to see personal, I can do that. I can pick & choose what I am looking at so that it’s easier for me to get a handle on what is going on in my life.

Trello

I use a template called the My Week Trello Template to keep up with my daily tasks. This is what allows me to stay streamlined with what’s going on in the business. Trello is the real MVP behind how I plan for my business.

BTS in my Trello Calendar

The first list I focus on is my yearly view overview. This helps me see my year at a glance, then my quarterly goals.

Next you’ll see my plan for the week. I can move things around on the board based on what needs to be done throughout the week — and this isn’t something that I plan too far ahead because every week I’m going to sit down and plan this out. But at the beginning of the month I’m going to take a look at this first list in Trello with my Google Calendar and Quarterly Calendar to sync all of those pieces together to be realistic.

So, there you go! A look into my actual planning for April 2022 and all the BTS details you’re curious about as you plan yours! I hope you enjoyed by breakdown of how I plan for my business, and I’m so excited for YOU as you plan out your April 2022!