How to Plan 2024: Annual Calendar Excel Tool

As we look ahead to the new year, it’s easy to get in the weeds and miss the big picture. I like to plan the year ahead by taking a 30,000-foot view each year. I created this annual calendar Excel tool to look at my yearly calendar.

• What essential commitments have I already made for the year?
• When are important holidays, birthdays and events that I need to plan ahead for?
• When are open windows of time for focused work periods or travel opportunities?

Download the 2024 Annual Calander Excel Tool

Over the years, I’ve spent hundreds of dollars buying planners with lots of “bells and whistles,” but I’ve always defaulted to a single sheet of paper for planning the year with a month-by-month overview of significant events.

This isn’t about hour-by-hour details or the minute details of each month. Deeper information is managed in a more dynamic Outlook, Google, or other electronic calendar. This is about something other than setting my New Year’s Resolution or annual theme. This is a way of seeing the year to head off exhausting and overbooked months.

If you’re interested in planning for the year ahead and find this method useful, feel free to download this tool. If you find this tool useful, you might also like my Setting Personal Priorities tool which you can read about and download here.