How to Plan for the End of the Year

Well, another year has flown bye and as we prepare to say goodbye to 2021, we need to reflect on our accomplishments, opportunities, and hiccups. Acknowledging that this was the second year of a worldwide pandemic is also important for our sanity as we began to end this year.

Some of the things to think about during this time are and are not limited to:

❑ Gratefulness, being grateful for your team and the work that you have put in this year to make your organization the absolute best it can be. Thanking your colleagues/staff for their work can go along way for the future of your work in 2022.

❑ Reflecting and reviewing the accomplishments your organization and team have made in 2021. Understanding why you were successful and what were the key decision points that made that part of the work a success.

❑ There are always difficulties in the work, so it is important to also reflect on the hiccups that have occurred in 2021. Learning from those hiccups and making sure you have a plan in place to minimize the effects of these bumps in the road is especially important.

❑ Giving your self-time to plan and strategize for the new opportunities on the horizon in 2022 is necessary. You want to make sure you understand the landscape and what changes in that landscape might take place in the new year. The pandemic has accelerated the way we all approach our work and, in many ways, sped up the reliance on technology and being able to pivot at moment's notice.

While there are hundreds of other things you may also be thinking about during this time of year, I will leave you with the most important one for me. Give yourself permission to shut down for a bit during this time. We all need to reset and learn how to take a deep breath again. It has been a tough couple of years and while we mostly have rolled with the punches, we deserve some self care, some personal acknowledgment that we have done the best we can and the greatest thing of all a nap!