Hi Reader,

The clocks went back in the UK a few weeks ago, and it always takes me a few days to settle into the darker evenings. There is something about this time of year that makes me want to put the kettle on, grab mu notebook and start thinking about what comes next.

Does November always arrive a little sooner than you expect, or is that just me?

Around now, a lot of business owners turn their attention to next year, with fresh goals, new ideas and a clean planner waiting on the desk. I love that energy, and before you dive in I’d like to suggest one small step that makes all of that planning more useful: a year-end calendar reset.

Your calendar has been keeping notes for you all year. Every client call, every launch, every week that ran over and every afternoon you managed to protect is sitting there, and together they tell a very honest story about how your business runs from one day to the next. Taking an hour to read that story back before you plan the next chapter is one of the most valuable things you can do this month.

How to do your reset

Block some time out in your calendar, I recommend an hour, and scroll back through the last few months of your calendar, and ask yourself three questions:

• Which weeks felt good, and what did they have in common?
• Where did my time go that I hadn’t planned for it to go?
• What kept appearing on repeat that could be streamlined, delegated or let go?

The answers are often more revealing than you might expect. You may find that your best weeks all had a couple of clear mornings with nothing booked in, or that a recurring call you set up back in the spring is still taking an hour every Monday long after it stopped serving its purpose. You might notice that the same kind of request keeps landing on your desk when it could easily sit with someone on your team.

Everything you notice becomes the raw material for designing a week that works better for you next year.

From reflection to design

That’s where this week’s blog comes in. It's the first in a short series I'm running throughout November called Better Business. Once you know what you’d like more of and less of, the next step is giving your week a shape that supports it. I’ve written up the eight steps I work through with clients, from protecting your focus time to building your operational rhythm into the calendar so the important things happen as a matter of routine.

Read the blog: How to Design Your Calendar for a Camer, More Focused Week​

So before the planners come out and the goal-setting begins (or picks up pace!), give yourself an afternoon with this year’s calendar. It’s a small investment of time, and it means you go into January building on everything this year has taught you.

If you do your reset, I’d love to hear what you notice. Just hit reply and tell me.

Katie