Why I believe in cyclical planning and how it can work for you too

There is something I have come to believe more and more deeply over the years, both through my own experience and through the work I do with women, and that is that we were never designed to live every day, every week, every month, or even every season in exactly the same way.

And yet, so much of the way we organise our lives asks us to do exactly that.

We create routines that assume our energy will be consistent, we make plans at the beginning of the year and expect ourselves to follow them twelve months later, and we set goals based on what we want to achieve without necessarily considering whether the capacity, energy or circumstances required to achieve them will still be there when we get to them.

We create morning routines, workout schedules, productivity systems, meal plans and carefully structured calendars that can work beautifully when life is predictable, and then when our energy changes, our priorities change, our circumstances change, the season changes or simply life happens, we can find ourselves struggling to maintain the very systems that were supposed to make life easier.

And instead of questioning the system, we tend to question ourselves.

We assume we need more discipline, more motivation, more consistency, a better routine or perhaps a little more willpower, when actually what we may need is a completely different way of thinking about how we organise our lives.

This is one of the reasons I believe so strongly in cyclical planning.

Not because I think you need another complicated planning system, another set of rules to follow or another thing to add to your already very full life, but because I believe cyclical planning can actually help you step away from the pressure to constantly optimise yourself and instead create a way of organising your life that has room for change built into it.

Because change isn’t something that happens to your plans.

Change is part of the plan.

And when you create a way of planning that already accounts for the fact that you are going to change, that your energy is going to change, that your priorities are going to change and that life is going to change around you, planning can actually become something that creates more simplicity rather than more pressure.

We are already living cyclically

One of the reasons cyclical planning makes so much sense to me is that we don’t actually have to look very far to see that cycles are already everywhere.

The seasons change, the light changes, the weather changes, the natural world moves through periods of growth, abundance, harvest, decay and rest, and the Moon moves through its phases whether we pay attention to it or not.

There are cycles of beginning and ending, expansion and contraction, activity and rest, creation and integration happening all around us and within us all the time.

And yet, somewhere along the way, many of us have become very disconnected from this reality when it comes to the way we organise our own lives.

We expect January energy to carry us through December.

We make a decision in January about the person we are going to be for the entire year and then feel disappointed when we don’t still want exactly the same things six months later.

We expect ourselves to maintain the same routines regardless of whether it is the height of summer or the depths of winter, whether we are feeling energised or depleted, whether we are in a period of outward expansion or inward reflection.

And when we inevitably can’t sustain that level of consistency, we often interpret it as a personal failure rather than recognising that perhaps the expectation itself was never particularly realistic.

I think there is something incredibly freeing about recognising that we are not the same person with the same needs every day of the year.

We don’t need to be.

We aren’t supposed to be.

Cyclical planning begins with that acceptance.

It doesn’t mean abandoning structure or becoming completely spontaneous, and it doesn’t mean that you can never make a long-term plan because you might change your mind.

It simply means creating a structure that has enough flexibility to move with you.

Planning through rhythm rather than repetition

For me, cyclical planning is about looking at your life through the lens of rhythm rather than repetition.

Traditional planning often asks us to think about what we want to achieve, what we need to get done and how we can fit everything into the available time.

Cyclical planning adds another layer to that conversation.

It asks:

What season am I in?

What is this season asking of me?

What do I have capacity for right now?

What would support me here?

And these questions don’t mean that you stop having goals or ambitions.

In fact, I think they can help you create much more meaningful goals because you are no longer separating what you want to achieve from the reality of how you actually live.

You might have a big goal for the year, but your approach to that goal might look completely different in spring than it does in autumn.

Perhaps spring is the season in which you want to begin, experiment, create and put new ideas into motion, while summer gives you an opportunity to expand, share and become more visible.

Autumn might then naturally become a time of refining, harvesting and deciding what is worth continuing, while winter gives you the space to reflect, rest, integrate and imagine what might come next.

The goal hasn’t necessarily changed.

The way you move towards it has.

And I think that distinction is really important.

Because cyclical planning isn’t about throwing your goals out of the window every few months.

It is about understanding that there are different ways of working towards them.

Your planner can become more than a to-do list

This is also why I don’t believe your planner should simply be a place where you write down everything you have to do.

Of course, there needs to be space for appointments, deadlines, tasks and practical life, because we all have things that need doing, but I think a planner can become so much more valuable when it also gives you a place to step back from the busyness and actually meet yourself where you are.

A place to look at what is happening in your life, what your energy is doing, what the season is offering, what your priorities are, what you are being called towards and what perhaps needs to be released, reduced or given more attention.

This is why I created the Aligned Planner in the first place.

It was never intended to be another productivity planner designed to help you squeeze more into your day, because I don’t think most of us need more encouragement to fill every available space with something productive.

Instead, I wanted to create something that could help you build a relationship with your time, energy and priorities that feels more supportive, intentional and sustainable.

The planner brings together the practical and the reflective, so that planning isn’t simply about what you are doing, but also about understanding why you are doing it and whether it still matters.

And the 2027 Aligned Planner is now available for pre-order, with a smaller format, fewer pages and more concise information, while keeping the seasonal approach and structure that makes it what it is.

→ Pre-Order Planner

You don’t have to plan your whole year at once

One of my favourite things about cyclical planning is that it allows you to hold both the bigger picture and the present moment.

You can know where you are heading without needing to know exactly how you are going to get there.

You can set intentions for the year and then revisit them as the seasons change, you can decide what matters most for the next few months without assuming that those priorities will never evolve, and you can plan your weeks while still leaving space for the unexpected things that inevitably make up a real human life.

It creates a kind of relationship between the long-term and the present moment, where you have enough direction to know what you are moving towards but enough flexibility to respond to what is actually happening.

And I think this is where planning becomes much less about control.

Because perhaps one of the reasons we struggle with planning is that we have unconsciously made planning synonymous with predicting.

We think that if we can create the perfect plan, we can prevent things from changing.

But we can’t.

We can plan, prepare and create supportive structures, but we cannot know exactly what the next six months are going to bring.

So instead of trying to create a plan that can predict the future, I would much rather create a plan that can respond to it.

That means regularly returning to your intentions and asking yourself what is still true.

What matters now?

What has changed?

What needs my attention?

What can wait?

What am I trying to force simply because it was part of an old plan?

And sometimes the answer will be that you need to move forward.

Sometimes you will need to pause.

Sometimes you will need to finish something you have been carrying for too long.

Sometimes you will need to begin something completely new.

And sometimes you will realise that the plan you made three months ago no longer fits the person you are today.

That isn’t failure.

That’s information.

Cyclical planning isn’t about doing less

I think this is another important misconception to challenge, because when I talk about cyclical living, slowing down and working with the seasons, it can sometimes sound as though the alternative is simply doing less.

And that isn’t really what I mean.

Cyclical living doesn’t necessarily mean slowing everything down or becoming less ambitious.

It means learning to work with your capacity rather than constantly overriding it.

There may be seasons of expansion where you want to create, launch, travel, socialise, connect, share and say yes to more, and there may be seasons of consolidation where what feels most useful is simplifying, organising, refining and strengthening what you already have.

There may be periods where you have an enormous amount of creative energy and want to follow every idea that comes through you, and there may be other periods where your greatest work is stepping back far enough to listen, reflect and allow something to develop beneath the surface.

There is a time for planting and a time for tending.

A time for growing and a time for harvesting.

A time for action and a time for integration.

And when you stop expecting every season to look the same, you can actually start using each one for what it is good at.

You don’t have to force yourself to be in expansion when your life is clearly asking for consolidation.

You don’t have to feel guilty for wanting more rest when you have been in a particularly demanding period.

And you don’t have to turn every quiet season into a problem that needs fixing.

Sometimes the quiet is part of the process.

What cyclical planning can look like in real life

You don’t need to completely redesign your life to begin working cyclically.

In fact, I would encourage you not to.

Start small.

At the beginning of each season, take some time to step back and look at the bigger picture.

Consider what is happening in your life, what the season naturally invites, what your current priorities are and what kind of energy you want to bring into the next few months.

Choose a small number of seasonal intentions rather than creating an enormous list of things you need to accomplish.

Then, at the beginning of each month, revisit those intentions and ask yourself what actually needs your attention now.

You might decide that this is the month for finishing rather than starting, or for creating rather than consuming, or for getting your home organised, reconnecting with people, making space for creativity or simply getting the foundations of your life back into a more supportive rhythm.

Then bring that into your weekly planning.

Rather than filling every space because there is technically room for something, consider your capacity alongside your commitments.

Leave some white space.

Give yourself somewhere to put the things that matter but don’t have a deadline.

And most importantly, allow your plan to change.

Because the purpose of a plan isn’t to make you obedient to a piece of paper.

The purpose of a plan is to support the life you are actually living.

A different way to approach 2027

As we move towards a new year, I don’t want you to begin by asking yourself only what you need to accomplish.

I would love you to begin somewhere deeper.

Ask yourself how you want to feel as you move through the year.

Ask what you want to create space for, what you want more of, what you are ready to release and what you want to give your attention to.

Think about where you need more structure and where you need more flexibility.

Think about the rhythms that already exist in your life and where you have perhaps been fighting against them.

And perhaps most importantly, ask yourself:

How can I create a life that works with the rhythms of being a human, rather than constantly asking myself to operate at the same level?

That question sits at the heart of cyclical planning for me.

It isn’t about planning every minute.

It isn’t about perfectly following the seasons.

And it isn’t about creating another system that gives you one more thing to feel guilty about when you don’t follow it perfectly.

It is about creating a relationship with your time that feels intentional, grounded and responsive to the season of life you are actually living.

And that is exactly what I want the 2027 Aligned Planner to support.

A way of looking at your year as a whole, while still allowing yourself to live it one season, one month, one week and one day at a time.

Because I don’t want you to spend another year trying to become more consistent by forcing yourself to repeat the same patterns, especially when those patterns were never designed to account for the changing nature of your life.

I want you to discover what becomes possible when consistency means creating a rhythm you can actually live with; one that changes with you, supports you and gives you permission to move between periods of action and rest, growth and reflection, expansion and consolidation, without believing that one is somehow more valuable than the other.

That is cyclical planning.

And ultimately, it is an invitation to stop planning the life you think you should be able to live, and start creating one that actually supports the human being living it.

A life with rhythm.

A life with space.

A life that has room for change.

A life that doesn’t require you to be the same person every day in order to feel successful.

And I think that is a much more sustainable, compassionate and realistic way to plan a life that you actually want to live.

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