HOW TO PLAN FOR A BETTER & MORE PRODUCTIVE 2023

It is imperative that you begin to plan for a better & more productive 2023 as early as you can.

Therefore, if you have just started doing so, you’re in error.

The best time to plan for a better and more productive 2023 was last month, but, the second best time is now.

In this blog post, I’m going to teach you how to plan your new year and no, I’m not talking about new year’s resolutions.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links to products I truly recommend. This means I may earn a commission should you choose to make a purchase using my link. It’s okay, I know you’ll love them too.

Studies have shown that new year’s resolutions do not exceed the month of March.

And I kid you not, once we start approaching March ending, my resolutions practically become non-existent.

So I thought really deeply about how to live a more productive life each year without being tied down by new year’s resolutions that never get fulfilled.

And that’s what I’m going to be sharing with you in this blog post.

So, let’s get right into it. How can you plan for a better and more productive 2023?

Audit Your 2022

When you enter or are about to enter into a new year, the first thing you should do is audit the year you’ve left or are leaving behind.

In finance, auditing is an independent examination of the financial information of an organization or entity.

And it’s purpose is to find out whether what is owned and what is owed are properly recorded.

Auditing is a very rigorous process and those who do it are ruthless.

They are basically looking for discrepancies in the records of an organization’s finances by staff.

Now if you bring that ruthlessness into your own life and rigorously look for discrepancies in your past activities, daily, weekly, and monthly, you’ll come up with information that will shock you.

First of all, you want to check your finances. How did you spend your money?

What did you spend your money on?

This would be so much easier if you kept a record of all your expenses for each day and ultimately each month.

I have an app called Spending Tracker that I write out all my expenses at the end of the day.

Listen, writing down your expenses is a great way to keep track of your lifestyle and ensure that you are not earning above your means.

But if you’ve not been recording your expenses, you’re forgiven because it’s not too late to start now.

If you don’t want to use the app, you can use the Clever Fox budget planner that I found on Amazon.

The next thing on the audit agenda is your career or business.

What was it like in 2022 or how has it been so far?

Did you meet your career goals? Did you get that promotion?

How was working with your colleagues throughout the year?

As per your business, what was your turnover for the year?

Did you reach your financial goals for the business?

Set Goals Around Outcomes not Desires

The reason why many of us don’t accomplish our goals is the way we set them.

We tend to set goals around our desires. We set goals around the things we cannot control.

For example, if you want to lose a bit of weight in the new year, don’t set a goal as vague as “I want to lose weight”

Instead, set a goal around that outcome like “I want to cut down on my food portions and take about 3 glasses of fruit drink every day”

The outcome of that will be that you will lose a lot of weight as a result of that and that is within your control.

You must understand that your goal is not your desire, your goal will produce your desire.

Let’s look at another example, say you want to buy a house in 2023, your goal should not be “I want to buy a house”

The goal should be adding a new income stream to the one you currently have and saving X amount of money every month toward the house.

If your goal is too vague and you end up not accomplishing it, you will feel like a failure.

Here’s the formula:

Desire = x x x x x x x

Goal = Form a new habit that will eventually lead to fulfilling that desire + SMART

So the question you should ask yourself is “What is required of me to do so that I can produce this desire?”

Once you start setting your goals using this formula, you’ll begin to accomplish a lot more than you think.

Incorporate Morning Routines

If you truly desire to live a tremendous life in 2023 and beyond, both in business and in life, it’s important that you have a morning routine.

Your morning routine will be heavily based on the kind of life you lead and the work you do.

A morning routine is a set of habits that you go through when you wake up.

It helps to set your day up in the right way and can have some drastic effects on your focus and productivity.

Check out this blog post on 6-morning routines guaranteed to change your life

What you spend the first part of your morning doing will set the tone for the rest of your day.

The thing about morning routines is that they have a way of reducing your anxiety and boosting your productivity levels throughout the day.

If you want to kickstart 2023 with a solid morning routine, the first thing you are going to learn how to do is to go to sleep early so that you can wake up early and do all that you need to do.

Other things to incorporate into your morning routines include reading, eating breakfast, exercising, and so on.

You can read my previous blog post on morning routines here

Check In On Your Values

Your values are the fundamental core beliefs that guide your behaviors and goals and help you measure your overall success in your life.

You may or may not have compromised on your values in 2022.

You may or may not have engaged in things that you’d ordinarily not be found doing.

But the truth is, sometimes, we are faced with no other choice but compromise.

It is now left to us to decide if we’ll uphold our values strongly or fall into the torrents.

in 2021, I wrote out a set of values that will characterize my life and my work.

They were: Excellence, Professionalism, Honesty, Expertise, Innovation, and Speed.

Very great and lovely values to look forward to (LOL).

But, (yes there’s a but), I could not completely express all of them in my work and my life.

I started 2022 on a very great note trying to incorporate these values in everything I did, but as I met with challenge upon challenge, I started to falter.

I did a re-evaluation of my values as we approached the end of 2022 and I saw all the places and times that I compromised.

Now, I’m “Checking in on my values” because I don’t want to give room for compromise this year.

And that’s exactly what I’m asking you to do as you plan for a better and more productive 2023.

Acknowledge Your Weaknesses

This sounds counterintuitive, I know.

Many times, we have been told to capitalize on our strengths and ignore our weaknesses.

But the truth is, weaknesses tend to grow when we ignore them.

The best thing to do is to acknowledge your weaknesses as you capitalize on your strengths.

If you ignore your weakness and only focus on your strengths, your weaknesses will start growing on you.

For example, if you are good at writing the best content strategy or the best marketing plan, but you are also a great procrastinator.

Chances are, your weakness will spill over and will start affecting you in the area of your strength.

You’ll start to procrastinate on clients’ jobs and start turning over your deliverables late.

In no time, you will start losing clients and your reputation will go under.

So if you want to plan to have a better and more productive 2023, you need to acknowledge your weakness and work on them.

Implement a Workout Plan

At the start of 2022, I had this workout thing going on.

I used an app called ‘Workout for Women’ which had all these workout routines that you could do each minute.

Although, I started to gain a lot of balance and stability because the routines were really good.

I soon fell off. I fell off because I missed it for a couple of days and instead of continuing from where I stopped, I just gave up.

Recall that I mentioned earlier that our audacious goals tend to be abandoned after the month of March.

That was exactly what happened to me.

I was just overwhelmed with other stuff in my life that workouts stopped being the priority.

Now, this was largely due to the fact that I set a vague goal of “working out every morning”

Instead, I should have set a goal for the outcome of my desire.

So the desire was to be fit, and strong, and to stop getting tired easily.

The goal should have been to create a workout routine that would ensure that I don’t get tired easily.

So if you want to plan to have a better and more productive 2023, you need to implement a good workout plan.

You can join a gym membership, get an instructor, and so on.

Stay Away from Toxic People

Just as you successfully entered into 2023, toxic people entered successfully too (LOL).

They will always be a part of our lives each year, that’s why we must be deliberate about our circle.

The thing about toxic people is, they never take steps to do anything to better their own lives, but when they see that you are, they try to pull you down.

Sometimes, toxic people are not even aware that they are toxic, they just try to project their insecurities onto you.

If you want to plan for a better and more productive 2023, you must break every bond you have with toxic people.

Sometimes, they could be your close friends, your siblings or parents or colleagues, etc.

Whoever they are, find a way to cut every tie you have with them.

Have Multiple Sources of Income

In 2023, one source of income won’t cut it anymore.

Especially in a country like Nigeria where the prices of things have skyrocketed.

The joke around is that if you don’t buy something now because it’s expensive, you’ll come back to buy it at a multiplied cost later.

Healthcare costs have gone up, food costs are triple the amount they used to be, transportation, and so much more.

If you want to plan for a better and more productive 2023, having more than one source of income is the right way to go.

These days, it’s easier to make money online, especially in tech.

A few skills that are paying well, and that you can take up as an additional source of income include Copywriting, Graphics Design, Social media management, and so on.

Final Words

The best thing you can start to do at the beginning of this new year is to plan to have a better and more productive one.

Follow all the steps I’ve written in this post and you’ll be on the safe part.