Visual Planning

Last spring, Shiloh and her biz coach Amy Ahlers offered Dancing Entrepreneur for both Color of Woman students and the general community. We created the folded Vision Plan books (one of the CoW assignments) plus a set of 16 cards to support moving forward with our plans. 

We connected with others in the class (a weekend workshop or 5 week class) and used the momentum of the class to bring ideas into action or products. I developed my virtual Red Thread Circles, and collaborations with other students and IC teachers.

Some of the posts that caught my eye were of Karen Dawn's Visual Planning system, and I joined her Beta Test group on crafting similar systems of our own! I love Karen's creative approach to planning! (Her blog includes some of these teachings!) 

Vision Plan Board

Mine is on a foam board I had from a vision board class I offered, and has two of the Dancing Entrepreneur action cards, a little vision board we created with Karen, and - pockets. The clothesline is a ribbon, and I just taped the ends to the back of the board using painter's tape! You can use nails to tack the lines directly on a wall - so many options!

Karen uses this 'clothesline' system for organizing ideas visually. She found that when her notes were tucked away in journals and files, they weren't as accessible, and often dropped off her radar. (So me!) 

Viola - make pockets to hold sets of cards with those ideas. Larger file folder size pockets can be tacked up, with in depth writings/images.

It becomes an easy way to see what's on your plate, and easily access, move them around, and to inspire action! You can include a calendar page with dates dedicated to working on your project, classes, calls; The larger visual could be your medicine basket or another graphic...

I also like making little vision plans in Zines - these could easily tuck into small pockets! 

Planning pockets

Some variant on a Visual Planning wall or board Board is an excellent way to picture and address your remaining assignments and projects for Color of Woman. Small pockets could hold a few of your story cards, assignment overviews and action step cards (these can be on index cards or something else simple). Large pockets could hold more in depth notes on projects. 

If this system works well for you, it can easily be adapted for planning a class or other project, and balancing various aspects of your life! 

We'd love to see your planning system!