Planning for 2022

Well, I’ve officially hit that point in my life where it takes me a second to remember what year it is (cue Progressive’s ‘becoming your parents’ commercials 😂). It doesn’t help that my job is constantly planning for the year ahead. So now that 2022 is coming, I’m definitely feeling a bit out of whack!
But, one of my absolute favorite things to do during the week between Christmas and New Year is to look back on the previous year, and goal plan for the year ahead.
Does this mean I make New Year’s resolutions, like, drop 10 pounds? No, because research shows these don’t tend to work. But taking the time to reflect on the past year and having a clean slate ahead of you makes me feel excited to think ahead.
None of my annual plans are ever firm goals because I know that for a planning system to work, it needs to be flexible. This is why I also plan quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily. Yes, that’s a lot of planning. But it helps my head not feel so cluttered and it really does help!

My Goals for 2022

My goals for this year fall into a few categories. This includes health, financial, home, professional, and of course, this blog. Let’s focus on my DIY projects and this page for this post 😊

Home Projects

In 2020-2021, I completed A LOT of projects in my home. I’m super proud of doing this, but it was…a lot. I did work from home a lot more, which did make it easier because I was able to work on my house before and after work without the added commute time. But, I do want to slow it down a bit this year.

To give a recap of what I have accomplished over the past 18 months:

• July 2020: Bathroom – Full makeover
• September 2020: Front Porch – New door, trim, porch painted
• October-November 2020: Closet – repainted, fixed trim, finished organizing
• December 2020: Basement – Built a workbench and organized my tools
• January 2021: Dining Room – Refinished a cabinet
• February 2021: Dining Room – Built a sideboard
• March 2021: Living Room – Staircase, Panel Moulding, Window/Door Trim, Baseboards
• April-July 2021: Kitchen – Built and refinished kitchen cabinets
• August-September 2021: Touch Ups – Tried to not be part of the 95% club
• October 2021: Closet – Finally finished trim

I have several other projects on my list, but this year I want to focus on four rooms:

Basement: January – March

Hot mess, right?? My basement is one of those areas that if I wasn’t into DIY, I would never want to makeover. But, since it’s turned into my workshop, I go down there a lot more than I used to, and every single time I go down there, I’m unhappy. It’s dark, unorganized, and gets really dirty. Unfortunately, the ceilings are short (between 5’9” and 6’5”), so it wouldn’t make sense to fully finish the space off. So, instead here’s my overall plan:

• Refinish the floors
• Repaint the walls
• Upgrade the staircase
• Build a storage system
• Create a more functional workshop

Kitchen: April – July

In 2021, I built new kitchen cabinets surrounding the fridge and re-finished our old cabinets. This was phases 1 and 2 of a 4 phase kitchen remodel. I’m planning on completing at least Phase 3 this year, and hopefully Phase 4. Phase 3 includes:

• Paint
• Trim
• Backsplash
• Build an entry bench
• Build another wall cabinet for our “cat food area”
• Fixtures: Lights, faucet, wall art, door handles, etc.

Phase 4 is new flooring. I love the flooring we installed in our bathroom and I’d love to carry it through to the kitchen. Right now, it’s a pretty cheap laminate and there are some significant signs of wear and tear. It’s just not my favorite, but obviously installing flooring is a big task, and it can add up. So we’ll see where I’m at in a few months.

Living Room: August – September

I’ve already completed some work in our living room area, but there are still a number of things I’d like to do. First, I did order a new sectional on Black Friday from Interior Define. I’ve been wanting to do this for quite some time as our existing furniture is just way too big for the space. I also don’t really love that it’s all separate. One of my love languages is physical touch, and I’d definitely prefer some furniture that’s more conducive to cuddling 🥰
Of course, the sectional won’t arrive until at least April, so by August, I think I’ll have a better idea of the look I’m going for. However, the main elements I’d like to tackle include:

• Fireplace facelift
• Build a coffee table
• New Decor: Chair, Rug, Curtain, Plant, etc.

Hallway: October-November

The main thing I want to tackle here is our linen closet. I’m extremely grateful that we have this closet in our older, smaller home, but it definitely needs an upgrade. First, the drawers aren’t on slides so they’re a bit difficult to maneuver and VERY loud when you open and close them. They are also incredibly deep, which makes it very hard to organize them. Things get lost in the bottom of them all the time, so I’d like to take them out and build more drawers that are smaller. The hallway plan includes:

• New linen closet drawers
• Refinish linen closet door
• Baseboards/Door Trim
• Gallery wall or other wall art
• New light fixture

The Blog + Instagram

As you can see, there are a lot of projects that I’ve completed but have yet to show, and a lot of projects that I plan on completing this year. So, what do I plan on showing this year? I have five projects/rooms that I plan on showcasing the most:

Bathroom
This was my second big project and was a complete upgrade. It includes some fun paint details, new floors, trim, new vanity, etc. I’ll start out the year showing this project so stay tuned!

Basement
While I’m showing you the bathroom, I’ll also be working on my basement. While I plan on showing everything in the basement, I don’t think I’ll be doing this in real-time. To be honest, there’s a lot of prep work involved and it’s not exactly going to be the most “pretty” makeovers! I’ll definitely catch you up, but I won’t bore you too much with the dark and dreary.

Dining Room
This was my first time working with furniture builds. It’s also one of the only rooms in my house that I consider to be mostly “done”!

Kitchen
Well, obviously if I’m going to be working on Phases 3 and 4, I have to catch you up on Phases 1-2. This is going to be a big focus for this page and Instagram this year. I somehow got it in my head that I wanted to build floor-to-ceiling kitchen cabinets from scratch, and I was successful. I have a lot of lessons and tutorials to share, so you definitely won’t want to miss this!

Living Room
For such a tiny living room, I sure fit a lot of projects into this space. My staircase wall is one of my favorite spots in the house, so I can’t wait to share that process with you. I’m also excited about doing another furniture build and seeing what I can do to change up our fireplace to better match my style.

Whew. That’s a lot of plans for this year. Will some of this change? Haha, probably. But I like to have an idea of where I’m going, so we’ll see what the year ahead brings!

My Planning Systems

This is a system that is constantly evolving for me and my needs. Being too rigid here definitely won’t help since your planning system should be working for you, you shouldn’t be working for it!

Physical Planners

Happy Planner

I’ve been using the classic vertical Happy Planner for a few years now and I’ve been very…happy 😉. Every year I consider trying a different style, but I haven’t found anything else that I think would work with my style! I particularly like the ring system because you can add additional note pages as necessary. This is the one I chose for 2022.
Another thing I enjoy is the sticker pads. Now, some people might think these are childish, and that’s fine. However, to me, they serve two main purposes: creativity and visual memory.
I personally think their stickers are really cute and I particularly enjoy decorating my spread for holidays. But, I also have a pretty strong visual memory, and having these stickers helps me jog that memory quite a bit. If I’m away from my planner, it’s much easier for me to try to recall what’s on the page when it’s been decorated, vs a plain white page with just words. Again, to each their own, but decorating is not only fun, but it’s also useful for me!

Desk Pad

Sometimes, I can get overwhelmed with everything I have going on, so I recently purchased this monthly desk pad. Because it’s a full monthly spread, and quite big, I’m able to jot everything down and see the big picture. I love that it’s un-dated since I definitely don’t need to do this every month, but for particularly hectic months, it can really set my mind at ease.

Digital Planners

Evernote

I mentioned in my DIY Project Planning post that I love using Evernote for all sorts of planning and note-taking. That’s still very much the case. However, one thing about Evernote that I don’t love is its mobile app. I like to use tables in Evernote, but they can be quite difficult to work with in the mobile version. For this reason, I recently started using Google Sheets and Calendar more for planning, and Evernote more for notetaking and brainstorming.

Google

I actually used both Google Sheets and Google Calendar to plan out my 2022 goals and I found it to be really useful. I like that I can access these from my laptop, tablet, or phone and that they’re all synced. Plus, the color-coding and filtering in Google Calendar are really useful. Right now I have 10 categories, all color-coded, and they can all be filtered on as well. I’m using Google Sheets to basically have a high-level look at my weekly planning so that I can shift things around as necessary. I think using this in tandem with Google Calendar this year is going to be extremely effective!

 

Final Thoughts on Planning

I realize that not everyone is into planning and that some people, like me, are very into planning. And guess what, both are ok! I know that my system would seem crazy to some people, but it’s been incredibly helpful for someone like me who has trouble quieting their mind. I get particularly anxious when I don’t have a clear plan in mind and it really helps to write things down and get my thoughts organized.

Now that I’ve laid out all of my plans, I hope that you’ll follow along as I continue to show you my DIY journey. And, if you haven’t already, make sure to head over to Instagram and follow me there @brittandivydesign.

Let me know in the comments: What’s your big goal for 2022??