Plan Your Genealogy Quarter-By-Quarter To Achieve Your Goals

Genealogists can reap enormous benefits from breaking down an annual research goal into quarters – this will make your genealogy research plan much easier to achieve. Quarter-by-quarter planning is a strategy that can help you achieve your goals by breaking them down into four manageable segments. To help you with this process, I’ve created the 2023 Genealogy Research Planner – and an example of a genealogy research plan is picture below…

Genealogy Research Plan Example

 

Which can be downloaded here

 

The Benefits of Quarter-by-Quarter Planning

By subdividing your annual goal into quarters, you can create a rhythm for the year that dramatically increases your ability to:

• Focus on activities and priorities that will bring you closer to your goal
• Forecast what is coming-up so you can plan your time and manage your resources
• Be flexible so that you can identify what’s working and what’s not, and make the necessary adjustments

One of the main benefits of quarterly planning is that it allows you to have a long-term goal such as a three- or five-year goal, yet have short-term activity timespans of only 13 weeks – which is one quarter. Quarter-by-quarter planning offers the ideal length of time for organising your genealogy plan. It’s long enough for decent progress to be made, yet short enough that it also encourages momentum and a sense of urgency. With the increased focus on the quarter’s end only weeks away, progress feels more necessary and noticeable.

‘Quarterising’ An Annual Goal

While the annual goal is your overall objective, it becomes more managable if it’s segmented or ‘chunked’ into smaller projects. When ‘quarterising’ your annual goal, identify four recognisable steps of activity. Each quarter should ideally represent a significant progress or an achievement which will the provide you with a roadmap. Once you have carved your goal into four areas of activity, you can focus on the specific tasks, projects, resources and deliverables required for the quarter. And just make sure that each 13-week period builds on the previous, increasing the tangibility of progress towards your goal.

Quarterising A Project – A Movie Example

We all know, or can hazard a guess, as to how complex producing a movie might be – so it serves as the perfect example of splitting a major project into quarters.

1. PRE-PRODUCTION: script, locations, budget & shooting schedule
2. PRODUCTION: cinematography
3. POST-PRODUCTION: editing, sound & visual effects, audience tests & final cut
4. RELEASE: distribution, promotion & evaluation

From this example, you can see that there are a number of diverse activities within each quarterly goal, but they have been packaged into a ‘quest’ which offers a strong and singular focus for each quarter.

Related Genealogy Planner Articles

This article is the first in a series to accompany the 2023 Genealogy Research Planner which can be used as your genealogy research plan template and can be downloaded from here. #1: How To Set An Annual Goal For Your Genealogy Plan #3: Monthly Plans For Genealogy: 5 Simple Steps #4: Introducing The 1-Page Genealogy Research Plan #5: Boost Your Genealogy Workflow With This Simple Productivity Template #6: The Benefits Of Using A Genealogy Progress Tracker To download the the Genealogy Planner Workbook: Access Here