Planning the Household Quarterly Goals

As we started April and the beginning of the second quarter of the year, the boxes in front of the @erincondren planner came in handy at the right time.  They will help me organize the quarterly goals and take a look at the goals we accomplished as the year goes by.

Jason and I get together at the end/beginning of each quarter to go over what plans we have for the household.  This might include: big expenditures (traveling, fixing bathroom), DIY house projects (painting, garden boxes), kids’ activities, etc.  We started doing this because at the beginning of a year we would talk about the plans for the year, but mid-year one of us would get an idea and we would act on it, forgetting we might have already planned for something else and it caused some miscommunication and overspending. 

Erin Condren Life Planners, have 12 boxes in the beginning of their planners.  They are blank boxes, which I like the flexibility.  In the past I have tried using them for memory highlights of each month, budget tracking for big expanses or have not used them at all and left them blank.

Since I am motivated right now to use every page of the planner, I have available, I have decided to use it for our household quarterly planning. 

Getting together to plan for the quarter, has helped us connect with each other and make sure we both are still in the same page.  It allows us to change, if we need/want to, ahead of time or remember our long-term plans and keep going.  We started doing it to help us with communicating with each other, however, one of the side benefits of it is the budget.  It has helped give goals to our money and be more conscious about what we spend our it on.

We meet in March to close out Q1 (Jan. to Mar.) and plan Q2 (Apr. – Jun.).  June to close Q2 and plan Q3 (Jul. – Sept.).  September to close Q3 and plan Q4 (Oct. – Dec.). And then in December we close Q4 and start the new year plans.

I usually write down our plans on my budget notebook, and they have been a sort of meeting notes and the final decisions in one place.  I am seeing these 12 boxes in my everyday planer as more accessible and will help me keep track of them more. 

Here is how I have set the boxes up:

I used a month stamp kit from Amy Tangerine (@amytangerine) and Erin Condren (@erincondren) collaboration, which I bought years ago, to add each month on top of the boxes.

I lined up horizontally so I could divide them in each quarter.

Once Jason and I have our quarterly meetings and we decide what we will be working or continuing to work on, I will transfer that information to each box.

Once each item is completed, I’ll check them off.  This step is where I see those boxes coming in handy.  It is a more visual, organized way for me.

I am hoping this helps us keep track of our household goals.  I will let you know how it works out.