In One Weekend, We Planned Our Entire Year

In One Weekend, We Planned Our Entire Year

/ February 6, 2017 / 20 Comments / Parenting and More

Setting Goals at our Family Planning Retreat

This year we took a stab at planning our year, yep, the big PLANNING talk. I’m not a stranger to coming up with a good plan but the Hubs can tend to avoid it if possible. He’d rather review the plan, give me his suggestions and tell me how great of a job I did. But this year, we decided to be as “One Mind” and commit to family planning together. Yippy!! Since I know that planning can be tedious, I proposed that we make a retreat out of it. Needless to say that he jumped right on board because who wouldn’t want to retreat with their spouse for the weekend. 🙂

Here’s what we did…

1. Pre-planning for the Retreat

-Settled on a location

-Searched for a hotel with business like amenities. We chose the Residence Inn by Marriott.

-Created and agreed on an agenda

2. Retreat in Full Swing

In order to ensure an efficient, effective, energetic and fun planning session, we had to set the atmosphere just right. From supplies to snacks to stress relievers we had it covered.

A. Supplies

-Dry Erase Board and Markers

-Stationary (Paper, post-it notes, etc.)

-Pens, Markers, Pencils

-Journal or Notebook

-Magazines

-Poster Board

-Push Pins

-Stress Reliever Item (like a Nerf Gun), yeah we like excitement

B. Atmosphere – Atmosphere is huge so don’t try to be fancy. We took along items and played games that would keep us entertained and would help when the momentum dropped a little.

-Snacks on Deck (candy, cookies, soda, etc.)

-Instead of ordering in, we picked up food on our way to the hotel

-Nerf Guns locked and loaded

-Rearranged the furniture

-Music playlist set to preferences we both love

C. Then we had to set the Ground Rules

-When a dull moment exists, we had a dance or exercise break

-A time constraint was set for most of the activities in order to keep us motivated and on track

-We played a game called “Give It A Chance.” Any time someone crushes another person’s idea, the other person is invited to shoot the offender with the Nerf Gun and shout “Give It A Chance!” I love this one but can’t remember where I got it from.

D. Agenda Topics – There were a number of things we set out to accomplish involving family, personal and business goals. Typically, the agenda would have been easy for me to create but with so many objectives to tackle, we pretty much followed these discussion topics.

-Mission and Vision – Identify and define the mission and vision for our family and each business and set goals for each.

-Supplies – Cork Board, Push Pins, Magazines

-What does our future look like

-Family/Work life Balance

-Financial Obligations (i.e. budget, savings, offerings, vacations, conferences, etc.)

-Finding Perfecting Your Niche (Business)

-Vision Board (Hotel)

-Brainstorming Session

3. Ending on a Good Note with the Action Plan

-Created a Plan of Action with set dates for tasks

-Scheduled a quarterly follow up meeting to assess our progress

Overall we had a fantastic family planning retreat. It was by far one of the best things we could have done to get a jump start on the new year. We were able to really think about and express immediate and future expectations for our family. Better than that, we were able to spend some much needed time alone. Yeah, I guess we could have planned at home but the sound of nagging children was something we opted out of. This will be our new tradition, who knows, we may have just started a new trend.

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