👋 Hello and welcome! Thanks for taking the time for today’s post. I write and create everything myself so you’ll find things very straightforward and to-the-point here. Hope you enjoy it!

Annual Plan (template)

New Year, Same Goals

It’s well-known that most health & fitness resolutions fall off pretty quickly, usually not making it even to February. This time of year SEEMS like a great time to change things like our behaviors, habits, and routines.

This isn’t a new idea! Check out this picture for a bit of interesting history of “January”.

Derailment

Working as a health and fitness coach and personal trainer, I see a lot of people start off in January only to have things breakdown and their plans are derailed. This really gets to me because I think it is totally valid and worthwhile to have a health and fitness goal. We should be taking the time to take care of ourselves, not in a selfish way but so that we have our own best health that we can use for whatever we most value. Maybe it's taken care of your family or providing to others or maybe it's just making sure that your body works really well and feels comfortable when you use it.

Whatever the reason for a health and fitness goal, And whenever you start, one of the most important factors to consider is your duration and consistency. If you work out super intensely for only a few weeks before stopping completely, that will not be nearly as effective as working out half as intensely in more sessions.

Fitness is more like swimming than diving. It's about what you do once you're in the water, not the splash you make getting started.

I often debated one big question with my friends & fellow students at Oregon State University when we were studying exercise science…”What is the MOST important factor for health & fitness??”

I always argued that the most important thing for health and fitness results was longevity. A person who is able to work out for a larger portion of his or her life will have more results than a person who works out intensely and then stops. Now I'm thinking long-term like years. If you embark on a medium effort training plan that you can follow for the next decade, you will get so far ahead of someone who alternates between high-intensity and no-intensity.

Again not a terrifically original idea. This is very similar to the fable of the turtle and the hare. With your Health and fitness, the idea of working like that turtle is your best and most effective lifetime solution. However, it has become very trendy in fitness right now to work out very hard for a short period of weeks/months. You have seen these promotions and programs before. Things like “21 inch arms in just 21 days” or “train like a Navy SEAL for ______ weeks for only $$$$”.

Those programs can be good and they have their place in the grand scheme of things but for most people it is not the right place to start.

The right place to start is making sure that you have good consistency and frequency of your physical efforts. These need to be mildly overwhelming if they are going to make a stimulus for your body to change.

We can get into all the details of the health and fitness science but one of the things that I find most beneficial before that even starts is making sure that we have some "room "in our life to handle the extra time effort and fatigue that comes when we put some energy into our health and fitness.

Year after year I see people get derailed from their new January gym routine because ‘something came up” and they didn’t have enough time for the new routine. Sometimes it really was ‘out of the blue’ but often it was a fairly predictable challenge that they faced.

Because of this, I started creating resources to aid people in freeing up some more time for themselves & live the life they want. Not to be selfish or sloth, but to do more, be more, and create more. That’s what I hope this post (and the upcoming ones) can help you do!

Now, first things first, the Grand Annual Plan.

Check out the rest of this post of a template of a document I use each year to review my previous 12 months and plan my upcoming 12.

Annual Plan

Here is a template copy of my Annual Plan. You can use this template to catapult your life forward! The words here, along with this Google Document, will really help you to make the most next year. By making sure this often-overlooked stuff gets done, you can focus more on having a great life.

Even more content (and a handy Annual Layout in this google document.

>> Annual Grand Plan (template)

Start with the template as a guide then modify it to fit your life.

I have an ongoing project with a long list of tasks, each one scheduled to repeat on a certain pattern. Some tasks repeat monthly. Others repeat quarterly.

With quarterly tasks, those repeat on the 3rd of a month, but the month changes. Some quarterly tasks are on a January/April/July/October pattern, while others are on a February/May/August/November pattern, and others are on a March/June/September/December pattern.

My annual tasks are similarly spread out, but they always repeat on the 1st of a month. Some tasks repeat on January 1, others on March 1, whatever. I just try to keep them spread out so, again, I’m not slammed with a ton of tasks on one day.

While this might seem like a lot of tasks, they’re each really short (for the most part) and they repeat really infrequently, which means that it doesn’t take a whole lot of time to take care of these things. Doing them ensures that everything continues to last.

Home & Auto Monthly Checklist

These are tasks that I aim to do each month as part of our home and auto maintenance. A quick reminder here that these are spread out all throughout the month. I don’t have them all pop up on the 1st. They’re on different repeating cycles, meaning I do some of them early in the month when I have time, others in the middle, and so on, as described earlier.

• Check the tire pressure on all cars and air them up to the recommended maximum I keep a tire pressure gauge in the glove compartment and simply use the “free air” at the gas station the next time I’m filling up.

• Check external home exhaust vents for blockage. Where the dryer and the bathrooms and the stove blow air to the outside. I simply go around the house and check each vent to see if there’s dust buildup on the inside and clear out anything that I find. This takes about five minutes.

• Test all fire/smoke/carbon monoxide detectors in the house I go through and hit the “test” button on each of them. I also check the expiration dates on the alarms themselves and replace ones that are outdated, and I replace backup batteries annually (that’s listed as an annual task).

• Check all faucets for dripping water. If any are dripping, then I’ll fix it – 90% of the time, the fix is simply replacing a washer. This doesn’t take long at all!

• Flush all toilets, run all sinks, run all showers, and run all bathtubs to check for problems. I’ve never seen a problem other than slow drains (fixed by clearing the drain with a drain-clearing tool and some baking soda and hot water) and a toilet that kept running. I immediately clear out any drain that seems even remotely slow.

Quarterly Checklist

These are tasks that I aim to do each quarter for maintenance. I don’t have them all pop up on the 1st. They’re on different repeating cycles, meaning I do some of them in January, some in February, and some in March, and this cycle repeats throughout the year.

• Check every fluid level in my vehicle about every three months. The fluids I watch are the engine oil, the coolant, the power steering fluid, the brake fluid, and the windshield washer fluid. The “how-to” is spelled out in the manual. I’m mostly just checking for levels, just to make sure there’s not a leak; for replacing the fluids, I follow the maintenance schedule in the manual. This takes maybe ten minutes.

• Check and replace the air handling filter We buy filters that need to be replaced annually these days, but I still check it every quarter just to make sure it’s still in place and it’s not clogged up. So, I have this as a quarterly task, but part of it is simply checking the date I wrote on the installed filter and replacing it with a new one. If I notice we’re out of new ones, I add another task to my to-do list: “pick up new air handling filters at the hardware store.” Peeking at the filter takes maybe thirty seconds; replacing it adds another thirty seconds or so.

• Examine the foundation for any cracks I do a “walkthrough” every three months looking for problems and this is part of that walkthrough. I just look at every part of the foundation that I can see and look for cracks that I haven’t seen before or have grown. If I see one, I usually mark it in some fashion to see if it’s growing. So far, I’ve never seen anything that seemed problematic (thankfully).

• Examine exposed wood for weather or insect damage This is also part of that walkthrough. I just look for spots where wood is exposed and see if there are weather or insect issues. Again, I’ve never seen a real problem with this.

• Check all vents for obstructions. Again, this is part of that walkthrough. I check all inside and outside vents to see if they’re blocked in any way and remove anything blocking them.

• Check all of the window and door locks I just go through and lock and unlock every door and window and make sure that they’re working fine. There are some doors and windows that we basically never open, so they’re worth a check; others are locked and unlocked and opened and closed regularly, so I usually just skip them.

• Look for squeaky hinges, loose fixtures, and other loose fasteners. Usually tightening them is a simple fix, while leaving them unattended results in a bigger problem later.

• Check the gauge on all fire extinguishers Do they appear properly pressurized? If not, there’s a leakage issue and the extinguisher needs to be replaced. I keep one under the sink and another in the garage, so this doesn’t take long.

• Check all gutters for blockage and clear as needed. I also peek into the downspouts to make sure they’re not blocked.

• Check all visible pipes for leaks. This mostly involves looking under the sinks at the pipes there and also checking the pipes in the utility room.

• Evaluate unused stuff. This takes the longest, but it’s a really good quarterly project. I just go through the closets and other storage areas and ask myself whether I’m really using this stuff. If it’s something I’m unsure about, I put it in a big box in the garage with a date one year in the future on it. I then look for similarly-dated boxes out there and if I find any, the stuff inside is sold off or donated, no questions asked. If I didn’t look at it for a year, it needs to go. This keeps clutter from taking over.

• Reorganize the pantry and cupboards This also takes a couple of hours, but in doing so, I almost always find the ingredients for meals that were planned but didn’t get made and other forgotten items that end up making up a big part of meal plans for the next couple of weeks. The reorganization also makes it far easier to find things (for a while, at least) and usually frees up quite a bit of room, as well as helps us discover any items that have gone bad.

• Reorganize the freezer This doesn’t take nearly as long. Generally, the goal here is to move all of the older stuff to the front so that it gets used soon and intentionally add that stuff to meal plans sooner rather than later. This prevents us from having to chuck stuff due to freezer burn.

• Clean out the fridge completely, then restock. I literally pull everything out of the fridge, wipe things down, throw away anything that’s scary, and then put everything else back in there in a more sensible fashion.

• Review the car maintenance schedules in the car manuals and make sure we’re up to date on everything. Car manuals are very clear on what maintenance needs to be done and when. Spending a few minutes just to review the schedule, do the things you can do, and schedule appointments to handle things that are out of your pay grade will greatly extend the life of your car. **Bonus tip: Put small post it notes on the most frequently used pages of your car manual.

• Clean the garbage disposal with ice, hot water, and baking soda I just stuff a bunch of ice cubes into the garbage disposal, run it for about ten seconds, then pour some hot water and baking soda in there and run it for another five. This keeps it smelling good and in good working order.

Annual Checklist

These are tasks that I aim to do each year. The timeframe for each is mentioned in the description.

• Winterize the lawnmower. This goes at the end of the warm summer. This involves a few steps: siphon the gas out of the gas tank, disconnect the spark plug, remove the blade, drain out the oil, clean the underside, replace the spark plug, and change the air filter. I break this up into two tasks – one involves getting an air filter and spark plug at the hardware store and the other, a week or so later, for actually doing the tasks. It takes half an hour or so.

• Summer-ize the lawnmower Usually late spring. I usually sharpen and reattach the blade, reattach the spark plug cable, put fresh gas and oil in the mower, and then start it to make sure it works. Again, I have an earlier task for late March that involves picking up mower gas and oil. It takes maybe fifteen minutes, all told.

• Check the filter in the stove hood and clean it. The stove in my house has an overhead hood with a filter. I just pull it out and wash it and put it back in there. Some Dawn and baking soda on a soft brush make this task easy. Five minutes or so does the trick.

• Remove grills on forced air system ducts and vacuum inside the ducts This is on my list twice a year, in March and October, so it’s two different annually repeated tasks. This takes maybe fifteen minutes; I just go around the house and remove vent coverings and vacuum in there a little to clear out dust blockage.

• Check the breakers I flip each breaker on and off individually and make sure that it works. I’ll just make sure there’s nothing that can’t lose power for a couple of minutes in our house, then I’ll flip off a breaker and make sure what I expect is powered off, then I’ll flip it on and make sure things in that area are back on. This takes about ten minutes.

• Clean all windows and window wells and dry them This involves removing screens, washing the windows on the inside (and outside if I can), washing the wells, and then drying everything off. I also check the caulking while doing this and if I notice loose or weathered caulk, I either fix it right then or add a new item to my to-do list.

• Drain off some water from the bottom of the hot water tank The goal here is to remove sediment, which can cause the tank to run poorly. I usually drain it into a pan, then turn the valve back off and let that pan of hot water sit for a while to cool down. It’s usually got a bit of sediment in it, but nothing much. This greatly extends the lifespan of the hot water tank and keeps it nice and efficient.

• Do a fire drill In the late evening, I’ll hit the test button on the fire alarms near bedrooms and have everyone follow the standard fire drill.

• Check and clean refrigerator & freezer coils. This involves turning off the power to the fridge, pulling it out, and dusting off the coils on the back, then sliding it back into place.

• Clean the dryer lint trap thoroughly. I vacuum the trap and as much of the dryer vent tube as well. Also, check for any maintenance tasks before they become problems.

Even more content (and a handy Annual Layout) in this google document.

>> Annual Grand Plan (template)

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