My Monthly Planning Routine (and the Trigger List That Keeps Me Sane)
Part 4 of the My imPERFECT Planning Routine series. New here? Start with the overview of the whole system, then come back.
Quick note: this post contains affiliate links. Full details in the My Tools section at the bottom.
Here's a confession about monthly planning: for a long time, I was bad at it. Not because I didn't want to plan the month. Because I'd sit down with a fresh monthly spread, pen ready, and just go blank.
A whole month of life ahead of me and my brain would offer up nothing. I knew things were coming. Appointments, birthdays, school stuff, work deadlines, etc. I just couldn't think of any of it or think about what other tools I needed to look at to find it.
The fix for me was a trigger list.
When monthly planning happens
First, the logistics. My monthly setup happens sometime in the last week of the month, whenever the time feels right. A day I know the kids are going to nap really well or an evening with nothing going on. And now I film my monthly planning sessions for YouTube. Check out my Plan With Mes and be sure to subscribe here!
It's one sitting, and then here's the part I want you to hear: it doesn't have to be finished. Final details keep filling in through the first week of the new month as they show up. The monthly plan straddles the month boundary on purpose. A planner is a living document!!
It starts with deco (yes, really)
Every monthly setup starts the same way: with deco. A few stickers, some washi, whatever sets the vibe. I love the Laurel Denise banner stickers and Planner Kate kits and mini-kits for this. It keeps things cohesive and functional.
The deco is what makes me actually want to sit down and do the rest. I wrote about this in my weekly routine too, and it's even more true monthly: making the page feel like mine is what gets me to the page in the first place, I swear.
The trigger list: a blank-page cure
Now the star of the show. A trigger list is just a list of prompts you revisit every single month so your brain doesn't have to hold it all. Instead of staring at a blank spread waiting for your memory to perform, you scan the list and let it do the remembering.
Mine is organized into six categories:
Family and kids: school events, practices and lessons, medical and dental appointments, playdates.
Home: bills due, seasonal chores and deep cleaning, home projects, repairs and maintenance.
Work: meetings, deadlines, travel, projects, reports.
Health and self-care: beauty appointments, workouts, therapy and checkups, scheduled downtime.
Special days: birthdays and anniversaries, holidays and seasonal fun, date nights and family days, community events.
Errands: grocery runs, returns and donations, car maintenance, appointments like the vet.
I go category by category, and every month different things light up. Some months the home section is quiet and the special days section is packed. The list doesn't tell me what to do, it just asks me the right questions.
If you want my exact list, I turned it into a free printable. It has all six categories plus space to add your own triggers. Download the free Planner Trigger List here. Print it, tuck it in your planner, and pull it out every month. This one page is genuinely the highest-leverage thing in my whole monthly routine.
Goals and habits: stepping down from the bigger picture
After tasks, I check in on goals and habits for the month.
My goals step down from the top: yearly vision to quarterly goals to monthly focus to weekly plan to daily action. I use the Hustle Sanely goal setting framework for this, and my goals live in my Peacefully Productive planner and Notion rather than in the Anne. Different tools for different jobs.
Here's what stepping down looks like in real life. One of my standing goals is monthly dates with my husband. At the month level, that becomes three concrete pieces: a due date for choosing what we'll do, a date to get it scheduled, and the date itself, all planned the month prior.
Or a bigger one: growing my Instagram to 500 followers. That yearly goal becomes a strategy review each quarter, a content theme each month, a content plan each week, and just executing each day. By the time it reaches my daily planner, a big scary goal is a small doable task.
Tracking all the things: wherever it makes sense
Beyond tasks and goals, the monthly layer is where I track the stuff that needs a little more planning than a to-do. And here's my system for where it all lives: wherever it makes sense.
Birthdays and events go on the monthly spread where I'll see them coming. Gift planning lives in the dashboard area of my Anne, since gifts need a running list more than a date. Habits go in the habit tracker.
I also track my cleaning habits at the monthly level. Not because I'm that person. Because if it's not written down, it doesn't happen.
It sounds like a lot. It's a quick scan.
Reading this back, my monthly routine sounds involved. In practice, most of it is a quick scan, especially as it has become habit. Deco to “warm up”, trigger list to surface everything, goals stepped down from the year, tracking slotted wherever it fits, details trickling in through the first week.
The trigger list does the heavy lifting. I just show up and answer its questions. That's the imperfect practice.
Get the trigger list
If monthly planning is where your planning routine goes blank, start with the list. The Planner Trigger List is a free printable with all six categories from this post plus room for your own. Download it free here.
My Tools
Everything that shows up in this routine, all in one place:
The planner: Laurel Denise Anne, my daily driver. Code IMPERFECT10 for 10% off. [link: https://tidd.ly/3IyLSgc]
The goal planner: Peacefully Productive planner from Hustle Sanely, where my goal setting lives. Code SARAH86. [link: https://hustlesanely.com?bg_ref=PNiiHLyeg4]
The freebie: The Planner Trigger List. [link: https://www.imperfectplans.com/shop/p/planner-trigger-list-free-monthly-planning-printable]
The printables: The Imperfect Practice Kit, 7 pages including The Monthly Brain Dump and The Monthly Focus. [link to shop]
The starting point: The Imperfect Practice Sheet, free. ]link to signup]
Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate or referral links, which means I may earn a small commission if you shop through them, at no extra cost to you. I only share tools I genuinely use in my own routine. Thanks for supporting Imperfectly Planned!
Next up in the series: my quarterly and yearly planning routine, the loose, dreamy layer I do with my husband.
