Wow! It’s been quite the year. How about for you?

Here’s what I love about annual planning and monthly check-ins like these: It keeps me on track, focused, and constantly shifting my weight to stay aligned with what matters most. I imagine a boat captain making constant subtle shifts to the wheel to keep the boat charting a straight path. (But isn’t it cool how the path is actually anything but straight if we were able to see all those minuscule adjustments!)

I think without the intentional practice of monthly reviews,  I’d keep walking forward thinking all along I was following the path but then at some point in the future turn around and wonder how I got so far off track. Know what I mean?

April on paper wasn’t a very “successful” month. In fact, I only achieved two action items on my list :

• We bought a house! Yay!
• I fully prepped Spring Enrollment of Blueprint at Home.

This month taught me several things :

1.

Not to underestimate how much work goes into achieving a big goal. #facepalm. Launch prep is a lot of work! And moving … well, nuf said! While I only achieved two of my goals on paper by golly those were two giant achievements to tackle in just 30 days!

2.

Set more realistic monthly goals! Remember that Time Bank exercise I refer to (Blueprint Model students I’m looking to you on this one!). Months like April are what send me back to the drawing board when it comes to managing my time. I always tend to overestimate how much I can get done in a day, and underestimate how long a task will actually take. A bad combination for actually getting the work done in the allotted amount of time. This leaves me to either increase my working hours or decrease what I achieve. This month I chose the latter of the two options! (See Lesson #3 below!)

3.

Prioritize what matters. As soon as I realized what I hoped to achieve in April was way to much and not realistic for the time I actually had to give … I had to prioritize the most important things and let some really good things go (for now!). This month it was more important for me to spend time moving and putting my home together at the cost of productivity on the business side of things (as you’ll see in my April review below!). I weighed the trade-off and life > work won this month.

I’ve often said, as business owners we must learn to be “professional sifters”. In order to hold onto what matters most, we often must let go of some really good things. Realistically, we can always pick up those good things later down the road if / when there is time / room, but not accepting the reality of a trade-off (in my experience) only leads to frustration and burnout.

One thing that wasn’t on my goal list this month that I’m super proud of is accomplishing is consistently blogging! With the help of the amazing Blueprint community and my rock solid content gal, Marieanna, new blogs were published every week. Some of my favorite articles of the year hit the blog this month recapping our past six blueprint live events! It was so fun to read these blogs and allow the Blueprint community to step up to the plate and contribute their voices to this platform!

Ok without further ado …

April  PROGRESS

PERSONAL :

• Get moving! Run 3xs a week and weights 2xs a week! | Made Progress
• Unpack and get settled into new house! | Made Progress (this will be a long time work in progress!)
• 30 minutes before-bed reading time | Yes!

PROFESSIONAL :

• Write, Prep, Film & schedule all Q2 content (through end of June) | NO.

• Secure location, dates and budget for Blueprint Summit 2019! | NO.
• On-board new support team member | NO.

FINANCIAL :

• Open Spring enrollment for Blueprint at Home! | Yes.

• Open early bird ticket sales for Summit 2019 | No.

• Transition business to Minnesota (update licensing, addresses, payroll, etc.) | No.

MARCH BOOK COMPLETED :  YES!

Finished Jesus the King by Tim Keller

MEMORIES MADE :

• Colored Easter Eggs with Kyle!
• Started a new Easter tradition (resurrection rolls)

MAY GOALS

PERSONAL :

• Finish household transition to Minnesota (licenses, banks, tags, address change, etc)
• Fridays off
• 30 minutes daily exercise

PROFESSIONAL :

• Secure location, dates and budget for Blueprint Summit 2019!
• End of Year Content Calendar
• Transition business to Minnesota (update licensing, addresses, payroll, etc.)

FINANCIAL :

• Approach Ambassadors for secret project (more details on this to come!)

MAY READ : Scrappy Little Nobody Anna Kendrick

CREATE MEMORIES IN MAY :

• Memorial Day Weekend Fun
• Hanging baskets

YOUR TURN!

Have you ever had a day or month when you overestimated how much you could get done? How to reset and adjust your priority list?