Hop Into 2024!
Continuing my annual quest to get everyone to kick themselves into a new gear every year!
If I’m honest, my quest to promote new year planning and goal setting is one of the more Sisyphean efforts I undertake.
Having spoken with a fair number of people about this, I get it. Generally, I hear variants of:
Life is busy, I don’t have time to plan.
If I want to adjust something, I just do it, I don’t wait for the new year.
I’m content, I don’t really need to make any big changes.
One of these (or any other), may resonate with you. Whether you feel this way or you’ve heard this from friend or family, it’s a valid perspective.
That said, I want to briefly articulate a counterpoint.
One of the biggest things that I’ve realized over the years is that an hour spent planning can save you two or three hours of work. While certainly true for contained things like programming, it is equally true, perhaps more so, for life as a whole.
Even if you just throw a few hours at it, some focused introspection often helps you crystalize those thoughts that have likely lingered toward the back of your mind. You may know you want to look for a new job, but sitting down to question where you want to be at the end of the next year can help translate that relatively passive wish into a plan of action.
Take all that together, even if you are perfectly content with your life, it’s worth taking time to plan things out. None of us are perfect, and all of us have some things we could do better in the future. Even if planning only has a marginal impact, it is well worth an hour or two as all those marginal gains will add up substantially over the years.
That all said, I wanted to highlight my planning process and the tools that I’ve built and made available. I’ve built these through years of iterating on my own process, so I hope you find them useful!
Planning The New Year: Hop Notion Template
I wrote about this in detail in 2023, so I won’t belabor it here, but my (totally free) Hop New Year Template guides you through evaluating each area of your life:
Review how 2023 went
Brainstorm ideas for 2024
Narrow down what you commit yourself to
It’s pretty easy, but I’ve found it to be a very powerful approach. While I still constantly overcommit myself to things I won’t end up doing, it still helps me tremendously in brainstorming ideas and accomplishing more than I would have without this process.
You can download the updated 2024 template here: https://productivityinnotion.gumroad.com/l/hop-new-year
And read about the template in more detail below:
Executing on the Plan: Using Forward
Once you have some plans for 2024, the next challenge is how you execute on them. The Notion template does have a built-in checklist that you can use, but generally you’ll find that there’s a bit more to keep track of.
Forward, which I’ve covered before, is an all-in-one:
Task tracker
Project manager
Habit tracker
Goal tracker
Reminder
We pull them all together because it’s essential to have a single pane-of-glass view across all of those things.
Forward is the tool that I use every single day to keep track of everything I have going on. It has been built with a focus on accountability: giving you ways to set targets, keep track of your streaks, and turn things angry colors when you procrastinate!
Forward is not free, but is available at a super low rate of only $12/yr ($1/mo) with the code NOTIONNEWYEAR (and that price is good for life!) That cost goes to cover server costs and encourage future development, so please consider giving it a try (you can try free for 30 days), and sign up!
You can check out my overview video of Forward here as well:
The last thing I’ll say is that Forward is a natural follow-up to a planning process via the Notion template. Out of the template, you should have ideas for goals you want to achieve, habits you want to build, and tasks or projects you want to do. All of these fit perfectly into Forward.
No matter what your approach is, I hope you have a great holiday season and start to the new year!
I’d love to see you use our New Year template and/or Forward, but the most important thing is just to find a process that works for you. And on that front - if you have any questions or ideas for your new year planning or how to make the process better, please reach out!