The Quarterly Planner bridges the gap between the high-level vision of the Yearly Planner, and the rubber-meets-the-road other planning views (Daily, Weekly, and Monthly).
Your best work may need at least a quarter to accomplish. Several months is enough time to take on a significant project, but a short enough time to keep your destination in sight.
Here’s a quick peek at what the Quarterly Planner looks like:
Like all planners in Momentum, the Quarterly Planner is broken up into a Planner area (on the left) and Dashboard view (on the right).
The Planner Area
This area was designed to keep sight of all your commitments (projects) and constraints (events that might take some of your precious time, energy, and attention).
Yearly Projects The top three to five yearly projects you entered on your Yearly Planner. It’s better to select fewer of these to begin with (two or three), because as the year goes on… well, things come up.
If you’ve already done your yearly plan, those projects will auto-populate here. Otherwise, click the “Go To This Year’s Planner” link to shift to the yearly planner view.
🔢 This Quarter’s Projects This is where you’ll chunk down your big, annual goals/projects into the quarter-sized projects that will drive that annual goal forward.
And if you’re not drawing from a yearly plan, and just planning quarter by quarter, that’s fine, too. A quarter is a great horizon for planning your best-work projects: enough time to take on a significant project, but a short enough time to keep your destination in sight, and to create a little urgency (a good thing).
📅 Major Events These could be travel, holidays, medical procedures, kids’ school starting/ending, conferences, etc. Anything that will affect your schedule (and your time, energy, and attention) for a significant part of your quarter.
🔍 Review This Quarter At the end of the quarter, use this space to review and reflect how the quarter went for you — where you rocked it, and where you could improve for next time. Then apply those learnings to your next quarterly plan!
🗓 Quarterly Dashboard Use this to keep track of how you expect your quarter to play out month after month after month. As you complete your Monthly Planners, monthly projects will also appear in this section, or you can create them here.
The same tool used to create monthly projects on your Quarterly dashboard works to create monthly milestones and benchmarks.
Milestones and benchmark help you track your progress on your monthly goals.
🚩 Monthly Milestones These identify the interim goals you’ll need to hit to keep on target for finishing your monthly projects.
Think mini checkpoints on the way to your larger goal: like cleaning your house one room at a time on the way to having it all done for company next month, or writing a chapter a week to get your 12-chapter book completed.
📊 Monthly Benchmarks These note specific measures you’ll use to track your progress, like number of words written, sales conversations, or workouts completed. Think in terms of the actions you’re taking, rather than the results of those actions.
(Note: milestones and benchmarks are only visible — and can only be created — at the Quarterly planning view.)