The first thing I plan when setting my goals

I just finished my 90-day planning for the next quarter.   

As I reflect on the process, I realize that I teach it in a different order than I actually practice when I teach the goal-setting process.  

 

When I teach the goal-setting processes, I ask my planners to plan their big goals, and then I ask them to break those goals into smaller, 90-day goals. 

While they break down their goals into smaller 90-day chunks, I suggest they consider when they will take a vacation or when there will be a significant interruption to their business, such as the summer school break.  

Yet, when I plan, I plan my vacation FIRST.  I call them “rest weeks.”

Let me explain…

I’ll start with what a “rest week” is to me.  A rest week is a week I’ve planned to take off.  It could mean I am going away, like a vacation.  It could also just be a week I plan to rest at home.  Or perhaps it has a different intention, but the idea is that that week, I don’t plan to do tasks related to my goals, and I plan so that my “success activities” are done ahead of time, so I can rest, relax and play that week.  

I plan for a minimum of 4 “rest weeks” each year.  Yes, you read this correctly.  

After a concept called “reading week” from Daren Hardy, I loosely modeled my rest weeks.   Daren Hardy once indicated he takes a week each quarter to get caught up on reading.  I liked the concept but tweaked it.  I read regularly, yet I often need time to rest, relax, and play.  So instead of “reading weeks,” I plan “rest weeks.”  

At the start of each year, my husband and I plot out our four rest weeks.  We sometimes add extra weeks in the summer – my favorite season.  

Then at the start of each 90-day planning session, we check the timing of the rest week and confirm if it still works.  We make adjustments and then proceed with our planning session, making our planned rest week a priority.   

These rest weeks have become important to my husband and me, and we hold each other accountable for the concept of rest, relaxation, and play during those weeks.  It is rare for our schedules to match with two entrepreneurs in the house.  These rest weeks give us a chance to rest, relax and play together.  We often have the best conversations, laugh, and get creative during our time together. 

We might do a project at home, go for some drives or just relax by the pool together.    

I know they will never happen if I don’t get them in our calendars and then plan around them, and this is why I plan for them FIRST.    

Not all rest weeks are a success, and occasionally they get canceled altogether.  But if we didn’t plan for them, they would never happen. 

Do you plan for reading weeks or rest weeks?  

A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in.

Robert Orben