Here we are sharing some framework from our experience doing personal planning workshop every year-end, leading to the new year's resolutions and their tracking.

1. Personal
Annual Planning
Framework
Hisun Kim @uxhisun
Ryan Krems @kremsr

2. Who we are + Caveats
• We are wife and husband who care deeply about life’s
priorities and living them to the fullest
• So we started looking into ways to remind us what
matters most to us and how to achieve them most
efficiently & enjoyably
• Two-MBA household (though also designer & engineer)
= planning-obsessive and measurement-driven
• Start-uppers following Lean Startup (build-measure-
learn) paradigm = plan quick & get to action
• We are still tinkering the framework. Pick only the things
that work for you & modify others.

3. Why personal planning?
• Feeling of ownership with life’s priorities
• Understand our own desires and aspirations
• Evaluate current standings
• Take challenges with our own pace
• Big bonding experience among family members (shared
goals, everyone pitches in)

5. FRAMEWORK: Where we are

6. Warming-up: simple recap
• Top 10 events of the past
year
• Travels each individual
took throughout the year
• Nominate Good/Bad/Out-
of-whack of the year
• Any celebrations to make
toast for

7. Spider map gut check
• Gut-check current
status of life balance for
each participant
• N axes to represent
things important to you
• Rank how you feel
about each axis this
year 0 – 10
• Any dent = areas you
are not balanced well
• Overlay past years’
spider maps to see the
changes over time

8. Past year plan evaluation

9. Professional recap
• List out professional achievement of the year
• Take time to update resume and LinkedIn
• Gather portfolio material

10. Financial review
• Assets / debts – list out all assets/debts and their values
• Expenses – check expenses of the year (or any big
chunks)
• Investments – how they are doing, rebalancing needed?
• Tools to utilize
o Mint.com
o Zillow.com (house market value)
o Kbb.com (car market value)

11. FRAMEWORK: Where we want to be

12. Roadmap of the future
• Future resume / future press release about
yourself or your achievement
• 5 / 10 / 15 year map
• Yearly markers

13. Personal branding
• Write down 10 adjectives that
you want to be described
with, by others
• One adjective on each sticky
note
• After throwing all on the wall,
group them with affinity
• Summarize the branding in a
sentence
• Compare among participants

14. What’s-in-your-mind map

15. FRAMEWORK: How to get there

16. M.O.S.T.
• Mission
• Objective
• Strategy
• Tactics

17. New year’s resolutions
• Brainstorm what’s important next year to bring you closer
o to the personal branding
o to the road map of future
• Pick a mission for the year, 5-7 objectives for the
mission, strategies and tactics for each objective
• SMART goals from strategies and tactics
o Specific
o Measurable
o Attainable
o Relevant
o Time-bound

18. How to keep on track
• Pre-determined check points
• Scorecard
• Checkboxes
• Measure progress
• (We are still struggling with how to keep ourselves on
track. Please share back what works for you)

19. Wrap-up

20. Tips to make it more enjoyable
• Make things quantifiable, measure and visualize it –
seeing it is believing in it
• Make the workshop special time & put yourself in the
different frame of mind
o Book a get-away
o Make an enjoyable ritual associated with it
o Throw in wine/beer/coffee whatever bev of your choice
• Use lots of colorful sticky notes, color pens, whiteboards,
etc – make them tangible & fun
• Involve everyone in the household. Complete buy-in is
needed
• Choose only the methods that work for you & modify

21. Lessons learned
• True value of planning workshops comes in from the 2nd
year
o Review of the past year’s planning
o Overlay years’ accumulation
o Changes and how to address them
• Have to attach actions for each goal and make it
measurable
• Attention span during the planning doesn’t go more than
2~2.5 hours for two adults
o maybe less for more people or family with kids
• Follow up with pre-scheduled check points!