The first month of the new year has already wizzed by. How has it been for you? Have you managed to set the goals for the year and start working on them? Or has it been chaotic and busy?
As the year is still young, it is good to ask yourself this question: How to make this year more intentional? How to achieve more of what’s important to you? …And how do you want to feel by the end of 2021, in December?
It is helpful to imagine what do you want to be sharing with your friends at the end of the year, and how do you want to feel when you’re looking back at your year. I’m guessing you don’t want to just say to your friends, or yourself, “Oh, I’ve just been busy the whole year.”
This is not intentional. This is just moving forward by default. This is just getting yourself busy and working on a lot of projects, without necessarily asking yourself: What’s important? Where do I want to be by the end of the year?
So today, I want to give you FIVE ways to make your 2021 more intentional! In my private and group coaching calls that I had in December and January, we looked at the previous year, we also looked forward into the new year and I helped my clients to create more intentions, more goals, more clarity. I’ve put that into five strategies for you!
1) Come up with a theme for your year.
It’s a word. One word that you want to lead you throughout the whole year. I discuss with my clients how this can be more productive than just having a new year resolution, which is very easy to break. (A lot of us break our new year’s resolutions fairly quickly!) So, have a word, a theme for your year, that will guide you throughout the year. That will help you make decisions. That will inspire you to take certain types of action. That will serve you as an inspiration through your ups and downs. It could be ‘Courage’, ‘Change’, ‘Adventure’, ‘Forward’, ‘Calm’, ‘Completion’, ‘Embracing’. These are just a few examples from the words that my clients have been sharing with me. A lot of them want forward movement, action… but some want… more calm. The word “calm” comes from a busy mum who’s just had her PhD, and now has a new job. She wanted to experience more calm and be more present – with her children and at work. So, choose your word of the year by asking yourself: Where do you want to be directing yourself this year?
2) Break the whole year down into quarters.
Ask yourself: What are you going to be focusing on in each of those quarters? So, every 3 months. We did it with one of my private clients and for her it was really clear. So, for the whole of the first quarter it’s going to be this project, the second quarter is going to be this focus, the third one is going to be this focus, and the last three months (October, November, December) that’s going to be this focus. Break it down into quarters. Ask yourself: What’s going to be your main project, main focus? That can be really helpful for some of you. For this client, she was SO excited, because suddenly she had so much clarity about where the year is going and what she’s going to be focusing on.
3) Create goals.
This is a very simple one. For some of you it’s a really easy one and you’ve been doing it. But you will be surprised to know how many people actually DON’T do this! One client said to me, ‘Oh, I’m going to create goals with deadlines and milestones?’ and she got so excited about it! That made me realise that many people don’t actually do it, so if that’s you, this is what you need to do now for your 2021. Create goals! Come up with goals. It could simply be the number of papers you want to publish. If it’s three papers you need to write and submit, come up with your own timeline, with the deadlines, with intermediate milestones that you want to hit. We’ve got 12 months, so divide by 3 papers and we’ve got 4 months per paper. But they could overlap. For example, start writing your first paper, then after a couple of rounds of improving it send it to your co-authors. After that you can start working on your second paper. Focus on getting a draft of the second paper done, and by then you might hear from the co-authors on your first paper. Roughly, it’s going to be four months per paper. So, start creating those goals. Come up with self-imposed deadlines, any outside deadlines you can create, as well as intermediate milestones.
4) Include YOU in those projects.
I’ve heard from many clients now, when they share with me their projects and goals for the next year, that there is usually no space for themselves. no time or space to work on self improvement. It’s called personal development! “Me-time” also falls under this category.
Are you going to look after yourself in a certain way? Are you going to do certain physical exercise? Healthy eating? Holidays? One of my clients said, “Well, no, I haven’t really planned any holidays.” Now is a good time to plan ahead! Several of my clients do struggle with the fact that they deal with a lot of emergencies, so they feel like they never can have a holiday (that was even before the pandemic and lockdown times!!)
Even if it is difficult to make travel plans these days, you can still plan ahead to have some time off work, to disconnect from it and recharge your baterries. The focus during this time can shift to doing a hobby, doing an online course in something you always wanted to do, or having lots of sleep and reading and relaxing, whatever speaks to you. It could be a longer holiday or it could be a long weekend of 3-4 days, done more often.
Think about it! Open the calendar and think about when is it going to be. INCLUDE YOURSELF! That means self-care, physical exercise, healthy eating and holidays.
5) Create daily, weekly and monthly rituals.
A lot of you have certain daily habits or rituals or things that maybe now you are intending to do daily. This could include, for example, writing. It’s good to do some writing daily! Or checking the literature… (For the scientists I work with, that’s a big issue: ‘When do I read the literature and check what’s coming up?’ Do it daily, a little bit!) It could be cooking. We brush our teeth daily. And so on and so on…
But, while you do this, also think about what you’re going to do on a weekly basis. Maybe some of the things you would like to do on a daily basis, but it’s just not realistic right now. You’re very busy. There’s just no time for that. Doing it on a weekly basis is still really really good! Because you’re going to do it 52 times this year!
So, if you wish you would do yoga everyday but there is no time, and then you end up not doing it at all, commit to doing it once a week. Believe me, by the end of the year, you will be more flexible and more strong, because you’re going to do it 52 times! So, think about what’s going to be your weekly rituals.
And then think about: What are you going to do monthly? It might be seeing a movie monthly, having a special outing with your family, or maybe seeing certain friends monthly… Again, you might want to see your firends every week, but right now your life is just too busy. You might want to shift it with time, and this is something we work on here at Productivity for Scientists, but right now, it’s not possible. Okay, so commit to do it monthly! It’s going to be 12 times this year you could do it!! Maybe you will see 12 movies. Maybe you will go on a special outing with your family 12 times this year. COMMIT to doing this! Schedule it into your calendar and do it!
So you’ve got:
- Theme of the year.
- Break down the year into the quarters.
- Create goals with deadlines and milestones.
- Include YOU in your project.
- Create daily, weekly and monthly rituals.
Pick one! Implement it! And let me know in the comments how it helped you create more intention for this year. I wish you an intentional 2021!
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