I have a pretty solid system for my daily and weekly planning, but I recently saw a video from Ali Abdaal where he shared a unique way to add a yearly view to what’s happening and I thought it was pretty neat. It only takes about 90 seconds a week to use, so I’m giving it a shot.
In short, it’s a Google Spreadsheet that lays out the 12 months of the year in vertical strips so you can see them all side-by-side. With traditional calendars you can’t really get a view like this, so it’s a neat way to see how things are stacking up. Here is a quick photo from mine:
To dig a little deeper, here is the video from Abdaal that I watched, with this particular item in the 0:45 – 3:20 window:
You can get his template for free here: https://aliabdaal.com/year-in-a-glance-template/
For now I’m using this as part of my weekly preview. While looking at the week ahead, I take a quick look at the coming months to see what’s on the horizon and what might need to be adjusted.
Let me know what you think if you try it out!