7 Tools and Techniques for Planning Your Career Change in the Upcoming Year

As this year begins to come to a close, now is a great time to decide how you want to fill your time and your life next year.

Here are seven tools and techniques to help with your yearly planning:

Vision boards

Get a large piece of card or paper. Fill it with images and key words that represent what you want in the coming year. Be as creative as you like. For example, if you want to travel you might have an image (or a few images) of the place you want to go to. If you want to have your own allotment, you’ll have pictures of vegetables and people gardening. It’s a good idea to put all the things you want to do across your life on the board, not just your career or career change.

Bullet-point lists

For each area in your life (money, career, friends, family, hobbies, health etc) list five succinct goals for the year ahead. No more than five! And if you can’t do five and only have a couple, that’s fine. These will give you focus for the year ahead.

Schedule

I’ve found that I am less likely to do something if it hasn’t been written down in my diary. So, get your diary/calendar and where possible, mark down the dates and times when you will take the steps and actions needed to make your goals a reality.

Find a neutral space to make your plans

It can help to make your plans in an environment that doesn’t hold any memories or distractions. So, take a couple of hours out to go to the library or a coffee shop, preferably one you haven’t been to before.

Don’t rush the plan-making; don’t drag it out either!

Five days is a good guideline. And by that I don’t mean all day every day for five days. Rather, try and get an image board and bullet-point list done by the end of a five week period. Then you’ll have a clear plan of what you will do in the year ahead. If you drag it out for longer, you’ll procrastinate.

Schedule in time to review your yearly plan

If you’re anything like me, you can make plans, start on them and then forget them! So schedule in time throughout the year to check in with your plan, to see how you’re doing and what still needs to be done. This could be half way through the year, or you could do it more regularly, maybe quarterly.

Publicly stating your intent

You might be more likely to honour your plan(s) if you’ve told someone about them. This person can hold you to account, as well as be enthusiastic about your goals. If you don’t feel comfortable doing that with those close to you, share them with a coach or an online community. I made a financial goal recently and proclaimed it to an online personal finances forum. I feel like because my goal is now ‘out there’ in the world, and not just in my head, I have to work towards it and honour it now.

An useful tools to help you with this process is Chris Guillebeau’s Yearly Planning