Starting the process of chasing your goals can be such a daunting task. I get it! But trust me, there is an easier way. So, what is it, you might be asking? It’s pretty simple really – having the right tools at your disposal! A goal planner can truly make the world of difference. It helps you brainstorm your goals, create an action plan, track your progress, and more. But, how do you choose the perfect goal planner? I’ve got you! My ultimate printable goal planner contains everything you need to smash your goals.
Why a Goal Planner Will Change Your Life
Once you begin using a goal planner, you’ll begin to see MAJOR progress towards your goals in a very short amount of time. How would I know? Great question.
At the beginning of each year, I used to write up my goals on a small piece of paper and by February, they would all be forgotten about. So one day, I decided to change my mindset and create my own goal planner to assist in my goal journey. Each year since then, I have achieved nearly all of my goals.
So, how does this goal planner help you on the journey to your dreams? Well, it…
- Walks you through how to choose your goals through a series of goal-brainstorming worksheets
- Helps you break down each individual goal by breaking them down into manageable pieces
- Assists you in planning out actionable tasks with monthly and quarterly goal planning worksheets
- Lets you track and review your progress using habit trackers mixed with monthly, quarterly, and yearly review templates
- …and so much more!
This goal planner really will make such a difference! But, don’t just take my word for it. Try out two of the pages yourself!
Project Planning Freebie
This project planning freebie is designed to help you take one single goal and break it down into actionable tasks. Try it out! Walk through the checklist and see how it works!
Okay, so what is all included?
Now that you have an idea of the benefits and a couple of the pages in your hot little hands, let’s take a look at what else is included in my Ultimate Goal Planner!
Oh! And before I forget to mention, this is an undated printable goal planner (in multiple different sizing options). That means that you can print it off over and over again to use for many years to come!
Alright, here is an overview of what is all included…
- Goals Planner Cover
- Goals Planner Table of Contents
- Goal Worksheets:
- Goals Brainstorm Workbook
- Turning Goals into Tasks Worksheet
- Goal Breakdown Worksheet
- Goal Review Checklist
- Calendar Pages:
- Year Planner
- One Page Month Calendar
- Long-Term Goal Planning:
- Long-Term Goals
- Bucket List
- Yearly Goal Planning:
- Yearly Goals
- Yearly Reflection
- Goal Progress Tracker
- Quarterly Goals Planner
- Quarterly Reflection
- Monthly Goals Planner
- Monthly Review
- Individual Goal Planning:
- Goal Category Planner
- Project Planner
- Project Planning Checklist
- Habit Tracker
- Reference and Other Goal Pages:
- Routines
- Vision Board
- Reward Ideas
- Notes
Let’s dive a bit deeper…
Below I have listed, in alphabetical order, a quick description of each page used in this planner. There are multiple ways to use each page, but I have listed at least one example for each. Below this list, I have created a short blurb about how I personally use this system as a detailed example on putting all of the pages together.
Bucket List
The Bucket List page includes two pages, one with pre-filled bucket list categories (travel, experience, career, finance, personal, education, family, and health) and one left blank for flexibility. This page is designed to be a list of every goal, experience, and accomplishment you wish to complete before you kick the bucket. For example, you might wish to travel to France, try bungee jumping, run a marathon, have children, and buy your dream house within your lifetime, this page is the place to keep track of those activities. Bucket lists are amazing motivational tools and great at helping you create your long-term goals.
Related: How to Create a Motivational Bucket List
Goal Breakdown Worksheet
The Goal Breakdown Worksheet includes two worksheets, one for yearly goals breakdown and another for quarterly goals breakdown. The yearly goal breakdown page helps you turn large yearly goals into quarterly, monthly, and weekly goals. The quarterly goal breakdown page helps you turn quarterly goals into monthly and weekly goals, giving a bit more space for details.
Goal Category Planner
The Goal Category Planner is the heart of The Olden Chapters Goal Printable Planner system. This is a place for you to write down every individual goal you might have per goal category. This page includes a space for you to write down the specific goal category (health, career, finance, etc.), progress, reward, and individual goals within the category. It also comes in seven different colors (gray, pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple) to help you color code each of your goal categories. These colors match up with numerous other pages within the goal printable planner, including the Goal Progress Tracker and Monthly Goals Planner.
This page can be used in numerous ways. One example might include a goal category of “health,” and individual goals including: drink 8 glasses of water 4 times per week for the entire year, get mile run time down to 7 minutes, hike 10 different trails this year, and practice meditation 25 days each month. Then, you could use this page, as well as the Habit Tracker and Project Planning pages to track your progress and break down your further tasks if needed.
Get the Ultimate Printable Goal Planner Here!
Goal Progress Tracker
The Goal Progress Tracker is a template for you to track your goal progress by category throughout the year. It comes in two forms: one with no color and one color-coded by category. Use whichever works best for your style! This page pairs perfectly with the Goal Category Planner and helps you see, at a quick glance, where your progress is for all of your goals.
A great way to use this is, when completing your monthly goal review, to quickly evaluate your completed goals and progress by category, then mark your progress on this sheet. For example, for the health goal example given in the Goal Category Planner above, you might complete a monthly check-in during the month of June. By doing this, you can count up how many months you have drank 8 glasses of water 4 times per week, what your mile time is now compared to the beginning of the year, how many hiking trails you’ve completed, etc. and compare it to what you should have completed by the end of the year. Then, use this percentage to fill in the bar on this tracker page. By the end of June, you should have all your bars at the half-way mark.
Goal Review Checklist
The Goal Review Checklist includes a checklist for a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly goal review. These are suggested tasks to complete throughout the year to help you reach your goals through check-ins, tracking, re-evaluation, and reflections. These checklists help you use this goal printable planner to its fullest ability. You can also use this checklist to help you create your own goal check-ins.
Goals Brainstorm Workbook
The Goals Brainstorm Workbook is a nine-page workbook to help you create your goals each year. It includes prompts and resources to help you create your personal mission statement, bucket list, long-term goals, and yearly goals. It also includes different blog posts to reference and help you along the way.
Goals Planner Table of Contents and Title Page
The Goals Planner Table of Contents serves as a reference page to help you keep each of your goal printable planner pages organized. This works great as the second page in your planner, right after your cover page.
Habit Tracker
The Habit Tracker is a simple table with dates listed on the top and blank spaces along the side for you to add your habits. There are thirteen pages included, one habit tracker for every month, plus an extra February tracker option for a leap year. Monthly habit trackers are great tools to help you track and reach your goals.
You could have habits listed on this page to track how many times you drink 8 cups of water in a day, workout, read, floss, etc. A more detailed example may include a goal of exercising 10 times each month for 12 months, or a total of 120 times for the year. A habit tracker is a great way to actually track the number of days you exercise. This will allow you to know when exactly you’ve met this goal.
Long Term Goals
The Long Term Goals page is a simple, one-page sheet that has locations for you to list your 3-year, 5-year, 10-year, and 25-year goals. The Goals Brainstorm Worksheet is a great way to get started in brainstorming and finalizing your long-term goals.
Related: Achieve Your Long-Term Goals in 8 Easy Steps
Monthly Goals Planner
The Monthly Goals Planner is a twelve-page goals planner that allows you to break down each monthly goal into specific weeks. It comes in two different color schemes, one gray and one colorful to match your color-coordinated categories.
One way to use this monthly planner could be to break down each goal using the Goal Breakdown Worksheet, then schedule each goal-related task to a specific week within the year. In addition, you could use the Goal Category Planner and the Project Planner to break down each of your goal categories and individual goals (and color code each category). Then use the color-version of this monthly planner to schedule out one or two goal-related tasks for each week of the month.
Monthly Review
The Monthly Review pages include twelve sheets to help you review and reflect on each month. There are spaces for you to fill in your professional highlight, personal highlight, number of workouts, income, number of books read, number of projects completed, major tasks completed, titles of books read, and your favorite memories.
Notes
The Notes pages are simple lined pages that match the style of the planner to allow you to take notes, brainstorm ideas, and more.
Get the Ultimate Printable Goal Planner Here!
One Page Month Calendar
The One Page Month Calendars include 12 calendars, one for each month, to help you schedule any major tasks, events, or projects that might come up throughout the year.
Project Planner
The Project Planner is a great one-page worksheet that has space for your project name, start date, deadline, goal, purpose, project description, notes/tasks, and date completed. This page comes in seven different colors (gray, pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple) to coordinate with your goal categories. These project planning pages are great to plan out your major goals and turn them into actionable tasks, all in one organized location.
For example, you might have a major goal of passing a licensing exam. This goal is included in your “career” category, which you have determined to be blue. So, you might want to use the blue project planner to jot down any related tasks, such as studying, signing up for the exam, practice exams, etc. Then, you could use the Monthly Goals Planner to schedule out each task.
A free version of this planner is at the top of this page if you want to try it out!
Related: How to Master Project Planning in 10 Easy Steps
Project Planning Checklist
The Project Planning Checklist is a great list to help you easily plan any project quickly. It walks you through the entire project planning process and can be used over and over again.
Quarterly Goals Planner
The Quarterly Goals Planner is a four-page goals planner, one page per each quarter of the year, to help you break down your large, yearly goals into smaller, more manageable chunks. This goals planner works great when using it with your Yearly Goals and Monthly Goals Planner. Furthermore, you can easily break down each of your yearly goals into quarterly goals using the Goal Breakdown Worksheet. It comes in two color schemes: one gray and one colorful to match your goal category colors.
Quarterly Reflection
The Quarterly Reflection worksheets include four pages, one for each quarter. Each page includes a quarterly review section where you can list your top highlights, major completed goals, best lessons learned, and things you are most grateful for this quarter. There is also an upcoming quarter preparation section with prompts to help you plan and mentally prepare for another great quarter.
Related: A Complete Guide to Yearly and Quarterly Reviews
Reward Ideas
The Reward Ideas page is a blank list page to help you keep all of your great reward ideas all in one place.
Routines
The Routines page offer a place for you to create the perfect morning and night routine, as well as weekly, monthly, and yearly reoccurring task lists to help you meet your goals. These are great to help you keep track of your habits that are related to your goals. This page also includes a blank routines option for flexibility.
For example, if you had a goal of reading and journaling every day, working out three times a week, and running a marathon once a month, you could use this page to help you create a routine to see these goals be met. Then you could add reading to your morning routine and journaling to your night routine, working out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and running a marathon during the first weekend of every month.
Get the Ultimate Printable Goal Planner Here!
Turning Goals into Tasks Worksheet
The Turning Goals into Tasks Worksheet is a one-page worksheet to help you turn each of your goals into actionable tasks. Each S.M.A.R.T. goal can easily be turned into a habit, project, or single task. This worksheet helps you identify which one to pursue to help you easily accomplish it. This worksheet works great with the other Goal Worksheets listed in the printing instructions above.
An example of the yearly goal breakdown page might be to have a yearly goal of saving $12,000. Then, your quarterly goals might include to save $3,000, and monthly goals might include saving $1,000. Then, in your weekly goals, you could break this value down even further or create weekly goals that involve making extra money (such as starting a side hustle or selling personal belongings) or saving strategies (such as couponing or researching other ways to save money).
Vision Board
The Vision Board page serves as a blank canvas for you to create a vision board and place in your goals printable planner.
Related: How to Create the Perfect Vision Board
Yearly Goals
The Yearly Goals page serves as a location for you to write down each of your yearly goals, all in one location. Print out as many copies as you need for the year, then use the other planning pages, such as the Turning Goals into Tasks Worksheet and the Monthly Goals Planner to break then down into tasks.
Yearly Reflection
The Yearly Reflection page includes questions and prompts to help you review your year and prepare for a new year. This worksheet also includes a space for you to write a letter to yourself to read one year from now.
Year Planner
The Year Planner is a one-page planning spread that has space for you to plan out any events or tasks on the bigger scale. It includes one section per month of the year. This is a great space to write down big events, project deadlines, or any other big picture items you might need to quickly glance at.
Putting it all Together: a Detailed Example
This planner can be used in so many different ways, but to help you get started, here is how I personally use this planner. First, I complete the full yearly review process by following the prompts on the Goal Review Checklist and Goals Brainstorm Workbook. During this process, I finalize my goal categories (such as health, career, finance, etc.), then I fill out/update my Bucket List, Long-Term Goals, and Yearly Goals pages by category.
From here, I will create my quarterly and monthly goals by utilizing the Goal Breakdown Worksheet, again organizing everything by category. This process usually takes me a bit of time. I like to take it slow and really review my previous year and set great, S.M.A.R.T., intentional goals for myself.
This process is fully explained in this blog post.
After my quarterly and monthly goals are set and organized by category, the fun really begins (and the progress starts!). I will then fill out each Goal Category Planner. These are the pages that I list each of my yearly goals but separate them out by category and color. For example, all of my health goals will go onto one of the Goal Category Planner pages. Here, I use up more space to really break down my goals into smaller, actionable tasks.
This year, one of my health goals is to drink 8 cups of water 25 days each month. So, on the Goal Category Planner page, I have listed “Drink 8 Cups of Water 25 Days Each Month,” then I have listed a box for each month. Another goal I have is to run 10 miles without stopping, so on the same Goal Category Planner, I have listed “Run 10 Miles Without Stopping,” then below that, I have tasks listed including: run 1 mile without stopping, run 1.5 miles without stopping, all the way up to run 10 miles without stopping. This way, I can check off the millage as I go, and monitor my progress for this single goal, and see my entire progress in my health category, all on one page.
From here, I will go through each and every one of my goals, and decide if it is a habit, project, or single task using the process outlined on the Turning Goals into Tasks Worksheet. For the habits, I’ll list them all out on the Habit Tracker pages to monitor my progress throughout the year, and for the projects, I’ll utilize the Project Planner and Project Planning Checklist pages to really get serious about my large goals. For the examples listed above, I would consider the water drinking goal a habit, and the running goal a project.
Next, I will actually schedule out my goals using the Monthly Goals Planner pages. I personally use the color version of these pages and write down each task based on the category color listed. For the example listed above, I’ll write in “Drink 8 Cups of Water for 5 days” on each of the weeks, and perhaps “Run 1 Mile” on the first week, “Run 1.25 Miles” on the second, and go up from there. Then, as the weeks go on, I use the Monthly Goals Planner, to add goal related tasks to my to do list and check them off as they are completed.
Finally, at the end of each week, I complete the quick Weekly Review process listed on the Goal Review Checklist pages and at the end of the month, I’ll complete the Monthly Review process. This includes filling out the Monthly Review pages, creating new monthly goals (usually already listed on the Quarterly Goals pages), and giving myself a fun reward. I’ll also complete the Quarterly Review process at the end of every three-month period.
This all may sound incredibly tedious, but it actually is a quick process after creating your initial yearly goals. This planner and the process listed above is how I have been able to meet so many of my major goals in the past few years and has helped me move things from my goals list to my to do list in manageable chunks.
Further Reading
For more detailed instructions on each step of the goal planning process, check out these great posts:
- How to Create a Personal Mission Statement and Why It’s So Important
- Discover How to Create a Motivational Bucket List (+50 Ideas to Get You Started)
- The Ultimate Guide to Long-Term Goal Planning
- How to Create Short Term Goals in 12 Easy Steps: An Ultimate Guide
- Create the Perfect Vision Board in These Simple Steps
- How to Complete a Monthly Goal Review
- Steps for a Successful Quarterly and Yearly Goal Review
- 12 Secretes to Ensure You Reach Your Goals This Year
- The Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting and Achieving
And. That. Is. A. Wrap! Phew that was a TON of information! I hope you can see just how awesome this goal planner really is! Enjoy your free project planner, I really hope you find it useful!
Grab Your Ultimate Printable Goal Planner Here!
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