The Perfect Year

Thinking holistically is a key principle of lifestyle design.

Creating a vision of your ideal life is easy if all you have to think about are endless margaritas on the beach. Fortunately, life isn't always that simple.

You have many roles and responsibilities to fulfill in life. There's also a lot of fun to be had. As Smash Mouth would put it, there's so much to do, so much to see.

To do successful lifestyle design, you need to consider all of this.

Long-term Lifestyle Design

The Perfect Year is an exercise designed to do exactly that. You start by writing down everything you want and need to do during the course of a year.

Not just any year - The Perfect Year.

From there, you'll do the same with a three-month period. What would an ideal quarter look like?

From there - a month, a week and a day.

We do this to make sure that there's space in your thinking for all aspects of life.

If you'd only design the perfect day or the perfect month, you'd miss the aspects of life that simply doesn't happen in these time intervals.

Traveling or finishing a big project might not be realistic to do every month, but it might happen every quarter or every year.

It's usually easiest to design years, weeks and days. Spend some time thinking about months and quarters too, but move on if it becomes redundant. Decide for yourself what's useful.

To get started, pull out a notebook and just start writing. The more detailed, the better. If you get stuck, simply move on. This is supposed to be a fun exercise.

Here are some questions to consider. Make sure to add your own as you see fit.

Yearly Design

Questions to reflect on:

• Are you going to travel?
• How are you celebrating holidays?
• What are the most important events?
• What do you want to do at least once a year?
• What do you need to do during the course of the year?
• What goals do you want to accomplish during the course of the year?
• What experiences do you want do have during the course of the year?

Quarterly Design

Questions to reflect on:

• What do you want to do at least once every quarter?
• What do you need to do at least once every quarter?

Monthly Design

Questions to reflect on:

• What do you want to do at least once every month?
• What do you need to do at least once every month?
• What responsibilities do you need to handle monthly?

Weekly Design

Questions to reflect on:

• When are you going to exercise?
• How do you balance work and leisure?
• Who do you want to spend time with every week?
• What responsibilities do you need to handle weekly?

Daily Design

Questions to reflect on:

• When do you wake up?
• What is the first thing you do in the morning?
• What do you prioritize during your day?
• Do you work? If so, what kind of work?
• Do you exercise? If so, what kind of exercise?
• What do you eat, and when?
• Who do you spend time with?
• What places do you go to?
• When do you go to bed?

As always, the goal is to design a life you love every day.