One of my favorite times of year is when I take time to do strategic planning for my life – including for my faculty work…That sounds like a big fancy thing, but really, it is not. It’s just a time that I take away from distractions to check on my progress toward my goals and make sure my upcoming months’ projects and activities align with my goals.
In short, here’s what I do during my strategic planning sessions:
Recenter my focus to make my highest contribution at work and in life by:
- Reviewing my Life’s Purpose and Direction statement to remind myself of my life’s work, why I’m here on this planet;
- Reviewing my academic mission statement to ensure it still feels right for my current phase of work
- Brainstorm and plan my most important projects for the coming few months;
- Get started on the most important projects OR Rejuvenate with the relaxed pace of a few days.
Regular Retreats are Key
I host my own mini-faculty strategic planning retreats 3-4 times per year. Sometimes, I just take a day to work in my favorite local coffee shop or my local library – away from the distractions of my office.
One to two times per year, I take 3-5 days away from home – sometimes camping from my van, other times renting an AirBnB.
The big sessions are the most rejuvenating; however, even the full or half day sessions allow me to recenter myself and allow me to calm the chaos that inevitably ensues if I don’t take time for strategic planning.
My strategic planning sessions have evolved and continue to evolve. There is not one way to do a strategic planning session. I’ve taken ideas from multiple places to create the format I currently use. I follow along with Robert Talbert’s quarterly review steps during part of my session to help keep me focused.
Review My Life Purpose and Direction
Recenter my focus to make my highest contribution at work and in life by: (a) Reviewing my Life’s Purpose and Direction (and 3 related visions) to remind myself of my life’s work, why I’m here on this planet, and (b) Reviewing my academic mission statement to ensure it still feels right for my current phase of work….
This first step helps me move away from the daily slog that can sometimes overtake me to think about why I’m doing the work I’m doing. Usually after this step of reviewing my personal Live Vision, and my academic mission statement, I am excited about my work again.
My life purpose and direction is to leave the world a better place by (1) Creating a safe space for all people, (2) Nurturing my family and friends emotionally and financially, (3) Sharing my skills and knowledge with others. That’s the big picture of why I’m even on this planet – what my ultimate purpose is in life.
Review My Academic Mission Statement
Since my work as a faculty member is a major part of my life purpose, I take a look at my academic mission statement and related goals. If you don’t have an academic mission statement, you can create one like I did with the help of Cathy Mazak’s lessons and template.
Sometimes during my mission review, I make tweaks to the mission. This is a living document – not something I set and then forget. I use my mission to help guide the work I’ll focus on – if something is not related to my mission, I often figure out how to eliminate it from my responsibilities or determine how to complete the work efficiently and get it off my list for the future.
Brainstorm & Plan Projects for Upcoming Months
After I’m feeling more hopeful about life in general, I review my annual goals and quarterly goals. And then establish goals for the next quarter or year.
I think start to think about projects that will move me toward my goals.
So, next, I brainstorm and plan my most important projects for the coming few months p based on the goals I set.
During this time, I dig into my Google file structure and my current project management software* to remind myself of the projects I have on deck. I check on all of my major ongoing projects, add more projects to my system list, and then make sure that every project has at least one “next action” assigned along with a check-in date (usually my next quarterly review).
*I’ve used everything from Trello, Obsidian, Clickup, Full Focus Planner, SmartSuite and others. There is not a best project management software out there. You can experiment to see what works for you.
I make sure each project has at least one specific action identified and a date to follow-up. Although I’m not great at predicting how much time various projects will take to reach completion, I do try to map out on my calendar when I’ll spend time on that project. I’m getting better at this by tracking time estimates for various tasks, and then comparing the estimate to the actual time it took. (I use and love Toggl for time tracking.) I generally do this planning at the month level, then I put specific plans during each weekly planning session.
December 2022 Retreat
Here’s part of my December 2022 strategic planning retreat.
My favorite part, that didn’t even make it into the video, is when I decided to focus on how I wanted to grow and learn over the coming year in addition to what I wanted to achieve. I created learning outcomes for myself this year.
My 2023 Learning Outcomes
Teaching & Learning
- Develop additional empathy for language learners
- Identify New teaching & Learning techniques and strategies
- Gain additional insights to the Deaf experience
Business Building
- Build “marketing” and engagement strategies for the business and followers that align with my values and community needs
- Identify sustainable business and marketing practices
- Hone new techniques and strategies to continue building business, courses, scholarship, teaching, and service activities
- build knowledge and skill around group coaching practices
- build knowledge and skill around individual coaching practices
Interpersonal Skills
- Build reflective practices habit for multiple areas of my life (research, teaching, coaching, business, family)
- Learn about emotional intelligence
- Build Intercultural Competence through the Intercultural Development Inventory
Textbook Authoring
- Learn foundational aspects of textbook design and developmental editing
- Apply design and editing practices to compose the draft of the textbook
After the Planning – Get to Work or Rest!
Finally, I use the remainder of my time in one of two ways (1) to start working on the project I’ve identified as next on deck or most important to get started on, or (2) I use the time to rest and rejuvenate. I sometimes read books, take walks, or take a nap, depending on which seems like it will be the most helpful.
Plan Your Own Retreat
If you’d like to grab a free Strategic Planning Guide customizable template, click here to get a google doc you can copy.