The blog

For you who pre­fer lis­ten­ing to read­ing, this post is also avail­able as an episode of the ““Done!”” pod­cast:

What is the lay of the land?

It is valu­able to be able to see ​“every­thing” in one sin­gle view, so that you can see how the var­i­ous activ­i­ties relate to one anoth­er and ensure that noth­ing clash­es devastatingly.

Pow­er­Point is a com­mon tool to draw the ​“annu­al rings” in, and if you have tak­en the annu­al plan­ning wheel work to a high­er lev­el than most, you have acquired a tool like Plan­disc, which is one of the few that han­dles annu­al plan­ning wheels in an exquis­ite way.

But what about the details?

See­ing the shared annu­al plan­ning wheel is one thing, but how are you to keep track of all the detailed tasks you are respon­si­ble for, of every­thing that appears in the annu­al plan­ning wheel? Of course, you want to bring those tasks into the place where you keep all the oth­ers, instead of hav­ing the annu­al plan­ning wheel tasks some­where off to the side.

Of course, you want to bring them into your to-do list. It can be done.

Do this

If you want to be able to see every­thing relat­ed to the annu­al plan­ning wheel in one sin­gle view in your dig­i­tal to-do list, you can:

1. Cre­ate your own list in the list tool you use. In Microsoft To-Do, it is called ​“list,” and in Todoist and Asana, it is called ​“project”. Call it ​“annu­al plan­ning wheel”, for example.
2. In the ​“annu­al plan­ning wheel” list, cre­ate the tasks you need to do that are hid­den behind the larg­er head­ings in your actu­al annu­al plan­ning wheel. If you have your own lists or projects for the larg­er tasks you are respon­si­ble for in the annu­al plan­ning wheel (for exam­ple ​“bud­get”, ​“year-end clos­ing” and the like), put in the annu­al plan­ning wheel list the actu­al start task for each larg­er task instead (for exam­ple ​“start the bud­get work” or ​“take the first step on this year’s year-end clos­ing”). Then the activ­i­ty will be vis­i­ble in the annu­al plan­ning wheel list with­out you dupli­cat­ing the tasks in the main task.
3. Make the annu­al plan­ning wheel tasks recur­ring and set a dead­line or due date for each one, so they land in the right place dur­ing the year.
4. Cre­ate labels or cat­e­gories so that you have one cat­e­go­ry for each month.
5. Put the cor­rect month label on each task in the annu­al plan­ning wheel list.
6. If pos­si­ble in the tool you use, group and or sort the tasks by label or category.
7. Done! You have now moved your own annu­al plan­ning wheel into the list. It fit, even though the wheel is round and the list is long and straight.

One place again

If you move the essen­tials that con­cern you from your shared annu­al plan­ning wheel into your to-do list, you will once again have all tasks in one place. Then you do not have to remem­ber to con­stant­ly look at the shared annu­al plan­ning wheel, which some of us would eas­i­ly for­get. You have an overview of every­thing, and noth­ing falls between the cracks.

How do you do it?

How have you brought the annu­al plan­ning wheel into your to-do list? Sure­ly there are more ways to do this. I am curi­ous about yours. Please write to me and let me know.

(Speak­ing of plan­ning. Also check out my tips on why you should book pre­dictable meet­ings far in advance!)