Apologies for the slight delay on sending ProductiveNotes this week – I’ve been doing more travelling in Australia which is slightly messing with my usual routines. Anyway, one of the things that I’m doing as part of this travelling is quarterly planning for the business because, somewhat remarkably, Q1 is almost over – we’re already 90 days into the year and, if you’re anything like me a few years ago, the goals you set in January might be feeling a little distant.
And I talked about this at the start of the year but the problem with New Year’s Resolutions etc is that they take people down the path of treating goal-setting as a New Year activity – you set the goals in January, hope for the best, and then wonder why nothing’s really changed by March. In fact, I saw a stat last year that said something like 80% of resolutions fail by February, and I reckon a big part of that is because there’s no system in place to actually review and adapt them along the way. The only meaningful period of reflection seems to come in the last week in December when we start planning for next year and realise that we actually did set goals back in January.
I wasn’t always sold on this, tbh. It took a conversation with my coach Eric a few years back for it to click – he pointed out that I was spending loads of energy setting goals but almost zero energy checking in on them. And once I started building in regular checkpoints, everything changed.
Real progress comes down to two things. First, getting clear on where you’re going – if you don’t know what matters most, you’ll end up busy but not actually moving forward. And second, designing systems that make execution feel effortless because willpower fades (as we all know 😅), but the right systems make the right actions almost automatic and sustainable and stuff like that.
This is the thinking behind the Quarterly Review – one of the core pillars of LifeOS. It goes beyond a Weekly Review (which is brilliant for day-to-day prioritisation, but not so great for actually zooming out) and gives you a proper chance to assess whether you’re heading in the right direction.
That’s why I began hosting free quarterly review workshops in 2024 to help everyone (including myself) set aside the time to actually do this quarterly check-in. And given that we’re only a few weeks away from the end of the quarter, I wanted to announce that I’ll be hosting the Spring Reset 2026 on Saturday 4th April at 1200 GMT where we’ll do this review together.
We’ll reflect on the first 90 days of the year, align on your overall vision, and build out a realistic action plan for Q2. It’s highly interactive, so you’ll come away with something tangible rather than just a load of notes you’ll never look at again (we’ve all been there).
If that sounds useful, you can sign up for free here.
And if you want to go deeper into the LifeOS framework beyond the workshop, the course is there whenever you’re ready. If you enrol before April 11th, there’s some free bonus content included too – you can check it out here.