How To Brainstorm Your Month Ahead
It’s time to prepare for another month ahead! π
We’re excited to celebrate our progress, plan out our next steps, and maybe even tweak some of our goals.Β
As you begin to start thinking through where we want to focus your time this month, letβs take a little time to brainstorm. π€
Today on Tending List Tuesday we’re going to review our goals, gathers some ideas and get a little messy as we jump into our, Brainstorm Your Month page together! π±
Need more help breaking down your goals? Learn to break down your big-picture goals with theΒ Break It Down Goal Guide.

I look forward to my “Brainstorm Your Month” page each month! It’s the one place in my PowerSheets were I get really messy…and I’m so okay with that! β¨
This grace filled page helps me to see all the possibilities that ahead of me! Though I often have to mark through some of my goals to make room for others, I’m reminded that I get to pick what I plant in every season. π±πΈ
I’m so proud of my work and I can’t wait to dig into my March Tending List!
This is my favorite time of the month. I am so grateful to do my monthly tendinglist prep TOGETHER! Thank you. Also, love that sweater — where did you get it?
It’s my favorite time of the month too, Jessica! And we’re so grateful for you joining us each week! π
Also, thank you for the compliment! I got my sweater from Gap.
Going to try adding the Time Audit as it makes so much sense.
It’s such a game changer, Songhai! I’ve learned to stop over crowding my Tending List and it makes a world of a difference. Thanks for joining us! π
I love the brainstorm pages! It helps me organize all the things that are on my prepare well page into the daily, weekly, and monthly action items.
Also, I never let my tending list be written in stone. About halfway through this month, I found that I had marked off all of my monthly action items which left me time for a project that I wasn’t planning to begin until March. I added on a few of the steps for that project. Sometimes the opposite happens (something on the list takes longer than I planned). No matter what happens, I know that I am making progress on things that matter and that is important to remember throughout the month!
Love this perspective, Gayle! Also,this is a great tip for making room throughout the month for changes and updates. It’s such a great idea to prepare for the pivot if needed, but celebrate that no matter what progress will be made! π
I love these videos. Thank you for breaking this down for us.
Thank you so much for joining us, Rebecca! We’re so grateful for you! π
This was the most helpful video I have watched so far! I have not been successful because I have not simplified during my brainstorming. Thank you so much for walking us through this. March 1 is my new January 1!
Happy New Year, Brittney! I’m so glad this was helpful for you and I can’t wait to hear more about the progress you’re making in the coming months. π
Really great tips! I do a similar time audit where I add up how much time I think every thing will take, and see if it works with my month, and it is a game changer. I feel relaxed knowing that I DO have time to do all the things on my tending list because I made sure of it in my planning stage. Then all I have to do is execute.
Love this, Jenny! Much like you I feel less stressed when I know that I have capacity to do the things that I want to do in a month. Thank you so much for sharing! π
Thank you, Shanda. This was really helpful! Also, the time audit is a great idea.
Yippee, Kati! Thank you so much for joining us! π
This is the part where I can sit back and really write down everything that I need to accomplish.
It’s such a great way to see all the awesome things you want to do with your time, Catrena! Thanks for sharing!
I really enjoyed this video and love having a new way of looking at the brainstorm page!
Hooray, Zara! I’m so grateful that you joined us and love that you have a new outlook on your Brainstorm Your Month page! π
This was really helpful. Even though all this is technically explained in the Powersheets instructions having this walk-through really helped me “get it”.
We love getting to walk with you through your PowerSheets journey, Ekaterina! We’re so excited for you to make little by little progress on your goals friend! π
I’m so excited to do my Brainstorm My Month for March. January & February were a bit of a blur. I used my planner just a few times between both months but I’m focusing in on these thoughts to encourage myself “It’s not too late” and “Keep Trying”. Watching this video was so helpful and fun. Didn’t realized how challenging it could be to do a Time Audit. Just finished my first one for next month and I have about 8 hours left, lol. I can foresee that once I start tracking my tasks, I’ll be able to plan better each month as what works and what doesn’t becomes clearer. March is definitely looking like the month to set the tone for my year. Thank you so much!
Yay, Natasha! I love that you took the time to decided what matters most and make a plan for the month! Remember- we don’t need perfection…we’re all about making progress! Each little by little step you take, is helping you make progress on your goal. I’m so excited for you and I’m cheering you on!
Thank you, Shanda…this is so helpful. I’m coming out of February having put too much on my list that I couldn’t possibly get done, this is just what I needed to hear. Love the time audit idea to make planning more realistic. Thanks for your wisdom.
Love this, Rebecca! I’ve been guilty of making the same mistake. I’ve learned to view my time a little differently now. Instead of saying, “I don’t have enough time to do everything,” I’ve started saying, “I have enough time to do what matters most”. I feel less anxiety about doing a lot of stuff and more passionate about investing in what matters most. π
Thank you so much for this video. These Tending List Tuesday videos have been so instrumental in helping me keep on moving forward with my goals and continuing to use my PowerSheets. You are helping me make a difference in my life and I want you to know that I appreciate you.
Wow, Carrie! Thank you so much for this encouraging message! I love getting to walk with you through your PowerSheets journey to fulfilling your dreams! This message means so much to me and I want you to know that I am cheering you friend! You’ve got this! π
Thanks for sharing, Shanda. It’s neat to see how different people use their PS. Your time audit is a cool idea.
I just finished up my March tending list set up. Here’s my brainstorming page.
I like to review my goals before I fill out this page to refresh my memory about what matters to me. Then, I go through and underline things that I think need to make it to the tending list.
Oh I love your pic, Heidi! I’m always looking for ideas to help me think of creative ways to fill out my Tending List and Prepare Well pages. Thanks for sharing! π
Thank you for this video…it was really helpful!! It was a perspective I hadn’t thought of for brainstorming.
I’m so grateful you joined in, Alicen! I love sharing tips and hacks to get the most out of your PowerSheets! π
I love the time audit idea! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much for joining us, Kimberly! π
I missed the Goal School session a couple of days ago but I am so glad that I can see how you brainstorm the month.
Giving myself a “warning” not to overfill the month… From the goals for the year, I am pulling out my monthly ideas. I have some benchmarks for the major goals set by the quarter.
Love this idea, Vedawattie! Thank you so much for joining us! π
This was so helpful! I’ve never felt clear about how to use the Brainstorm Your Month page and this really helped to break it down for me! I also love your time audit idea! Thank you!
Yippee, Marrisa! I love that you’re finding new ways to brainstorm your month and I’m so excited for the little by little progress you’ll be making this month! π
The prepare well page is usually enough brainstorming for me for that month, so I actually use the “brainstorm your month” page during the month to write notes/ideas for NEXT month. So in Feb, I wrote ideas I had that popped up as something to consider for March. Works for me better that way!
Love this, Ashley! This is such a great idea to help you see what you’re working on currently and what you will be working on in the month to come! Thank you so much for sharing! π
Thank you, Shanda! This is my first year with PowerSheets, and now that I’m on my third month, I feel I’m starting to understand better how to use them. Your videos are super-helpful.
Is it common to have a sort of snowball effect with goals? I don’t simply mean that “a girl who checks one thing off her list tends to start checking other things off her list,” as I once heard Lara Casey say. What I mean is: I’m still working on achieving the goals on my tending list, but now that I’m living more intentionally I find myself de-cluttering my house and doing other things I haven’t even put on my tending list (yet)! It is really proving to be a wild adventure and I am learning so much about myself and life. Thank you!
I love this question, Katrina! First, welcome to the PS community! We’re so excited that you decided to join!
To answer you question, yes. Once you start the journey of living an intentional and purpose filled life, you’ll start to notice that your intentionality starts to spread to all areas of your life. So you may have started your PS journey with one set of goals and over time you may notice that they change or get more detailed or something you decided that they don’t matter as much as you thought they did in the beginning.
Each month I like to use my brainstorm your month page to ask myself, “Are the goals that I have listed still important to me? Did I discover new goals that I need to add to my action plan pages? Are my goals detailed enough? Do I need to move some goals to another quarter and add a new goal to this quarter?”
All these questions help me to determine which goals I need to plant in this season and what I need to save for a later season.
I’m so excited for you to make little by little progress on your goals! I’m cheering you on friend! π
Oh! I LIKE it without background music…I didn’t really notice that the music was distracting me, until I watched this video without it. Thank-you, so much, Shanda, for listening to the other lady’s feedback and responding with this experiment on this, your next video! M <><.
Absolutely! It was such a small fit to add a better experience for everyone! Thank you for sharing your feedback and if you have any other ideas on how we can make the Goal School experience please share your suggestions at: https://goalschool.com/my-account/cwm-suggestions/
We’re so grateful for you! π
I love to see flowers growing in their bursts of colours, but I never had a garden of my own.
When I moved to a home where there were already flower beds, I looked forward to seeing what “came up”–as they had already been planted by the previous owners.
The flowers were beautiful and profuse! However, there were also weeds.
Weeds are easier to remove–we usually know what they look like (usually lol).
However, I learned from an avid gardener that if I allowed ALL the beautiful flowers to grow, they would eventually crowd each other out as they fought for sunlight and sustenance–ALL the flowers would suffer and many would die, even before they could re-seed.
It is a difficult thing to pull a beautiful flower out of the ground, just because it is overcrowded.
But, then I realized that I could put these beauties in a vase and enjoy them inside, while the now-healthily-spaced flowers outside could continue to bloom and re-seed.
The analogy is clear: when we try to pursue too many goals at once, ALL our goals suffer–as well as us!
Pull out a few that are over-crowding and put them in a “vase” (the next month’s ideas’ page–to be enjoyed at a later time) and then, focus on growing the best garden with those goals and action steps that you have chosen to leave in (the current month).
Thank-you, Shanda, for another outstanding video that both supports and motivates us to truly Cultivate What Matters!
M <><.
I love this so much, Margo! And yes, if you try to pursue too many things, the goals that matter most will suffer. Your analogy is spot on!
Thank you SO much for sharing! We’re so grateful for you! π