Welcome to the Monthly Reset Series: Slow Living for Women Entrepreneurs. Each month, we tackle one aspect of building a business without burning out. No hustle. No overwhelm. Just sustainable momentum that you can rely on when life gets chaotic and schedules change throughout the year. You can find each month’s published issue here.
November planning for women entrepreneurs works best when you plan the next 90 days instead of the whole year. Choose a loose direction for next year, one clear win for the next three months, a focus for each month, and a check-in halfway through, then plan the following 90 days once you know what changed. A 12-month plan made in the fall rarely survives to February, because a new opportunity shows up or life shifts in a way the plan couldn't see coming, and a 90-day business plan is built for exactly that.
Key Takeaways
Most yearly business plans need rewriting within a few months, because your life and your business shift faster than a 12-month plan can allow for, and research on planning shows people underestimate how long their plans will take, even in their worst-case guesses.
A 90-day business plan keeps a loose direction for the whole year and plans only the next three months in detail: one clear win, a focus for each month, and a check-in halfway through.
Planning in November means the holidays and your time off go on the calendar first, and your next planning session lands right around February, which is when a yearly plan usually starts falling apart anyway.
Table of Contents
Every October, I check into a hotel room by myself for three days to rest and plan the year ahead, and every single year, the plan I came home with needed adjusting by February. Last year I came home from my retreat thrilled, with a full timeline for the whole year in order of priority, and then in January I started writing a book I had no idea I was going to write. So this year, I planned 90 days instead, and here's exactly how.
What Is November Planning for Women Entrepreneurs About?
November planning for women entrepreneurs is about turning what you learned from this year into a plan for the next 90 days, so you head into the holidays with a clear direction, planned time off, and a short, flexible plan instead of a 12-month one you'll be rewriting by spring.
By November, the big push of fall is winding down, the holidays are about to claim every open slot on your calendar, and the "plan your best year yet" content is everywhere you look. It's tempting to sit down with a fresh planner and write a business plan for next year that maps out all twelve months in one go. The trouble is that a plan that long has to guess at everything that will change between now and next fall: the opportunity you didn't see coming, the launch that took twice as long, the season of life that needed more of your time at home.
The June reset was about protecting your calendar. July was about getting the mental load out of your head. August was about letting your nervous system settle. September was about harvesting what you'd already planted. October was the year-end review: looking at what this year made and what it cost, and sorting it into what to keep, start, and stop. November takes those lists and turns them into a plan doable enough to survive the year ahead.
Why Do 12-Month Business Plans Fall Apart by February?
Because a 12-month plan is a long list of guesses about a year that hasn't happened yet, and the further out a plan reaches, the more room there is for things to change underneath it.
I've done a business planning retreat every October for years, and I can't think of one year where my plan made it to February without needing a rewrite. Some years it was a client who left or an opportunity that showed up out of nowhere. Last year, it was a book and our oldest going back to school from homeschool.
I went into January with a beautiful timeline and came out of it writing The Social Media Burnout Cure, which wasn't anywhere on the plan, and it turned into the biggest thing I did all year.
Psychologists have a name for part of this: the planning fallacy, first described by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in 1979. In a well-known 1994 study, researchers Roger Buehler, Dale Griffin, and Michael Ross asked university students to predict when they'd finish their honors theses. The average prediction was about 34 days, and the average student took about 56. Fewer than a third finished by the date they predicted, and even their worst-case guesses (about 49 days) came in short.
Buehler explains that when we plan, we picture the steps we'll take and leave out the interruptions, delays, and curveballs that showed up the last time we tried something similar. Stretch that across twelve months of running a business, and the gap between the plan and what happens gets wide enough that the plan stops being useful somewhere around the first quarter.
So plan for a stretch of time you can see.
Why Is a Quarterly Business Plan Easier to Stick To?
A 90-day business plan is close enough to see clearly, long enough to finish something that matters, and short enough that a curveball changes your next plan instead of throwing out your whole year.
Ninety days is about one season. You can look at your calendar right now and see most of what's coming in the next three months: the holidays, your kids' school breaks, the projects already in motion, the time off you want to take. You can't do that for next September.
It also changes how missing the plan feels. When a 12-month plan falls apart in February, it can feel like you failed the whole year before it started. When a 90-day plan needs to shift, you're already almost at your next planning session, and you get to plan the next 90 days with everything you learned in the last ones. Planning in shorter cycles isn't a new idea (Brian Moran's book The 12 Week Year is built around it), and the slow living version of it is simple: plan the season you're in, and let the next one get its own plan once you have more information about how life is going.
What Should a Quarterly Business Plan Include?
A 90-day business plan needs six things: a direction for the year, one clear win, a focus for each month, your keep, start, and stop lists, a midpoint check, and the date you'll plan the next 90 days.
A direction for the year: A few sentences about who you're becoming and how you want your days to feel next year, or a single word you want to guide it. This is the only part of the plan that covers twelve months, and it stays loose on purpose.
One clear win: The one outcome that would make these 90 days a success. Just one. Mine for this stretch is tied to my one-on-one client work, and everything else on my plan either supports it or waits.
A focus for each month: One line per month for what that month is mostly for. Mine runs mid-October to early January: November is for real conversations with people, December is for following up and then my time off, and January is for setting up my new weekly routines.
Your keep, start, and stop lists: If you did a year-end review in October, those lists decide what earns a spot in the next 90 days. Everything on the keep list stays, one thing from the start list gets added (only one), and the stop list is what you get to say no thanks to.
A midpoint check: A date about halfway through, with one or two questions you'll ask yourself when you get there. Mine is in mid-November: if the conversations I'm having aren't turning into calls, am I asking directly enough? If they are and nobody's saying yes, is it the fit, the timing, or the offer? Deciding those questions ahead of time means the check-in takes ten minutes instead of a spiral.
A date for your next plan: Put the next 90-day planning session on your calendar now. If you're planning in November, it lands right around early February.
How Do You Plan Your Next Business Quarter Around the Holidays?
Put the holidays and your time off on the calendar first, then plan your 90-day goals around what's left, because a November-to-January plan that pretends the holidays aren't coming isn’t going to work (ask me how I know).
For the past several years, I've taken the last two weeks of the year completely off, with no email, no social media, and my phone used for texting and that's it. That goes on the calendar before any business goal does. Then come the school breaks, the travel, the family events, and the week of Thanksgiving, which I treat as the start of my winter season, when I spend less time out front and more time on the work behind the scenes.
You're still open for business in a slower season, and your 90-day goals should fit the weeks you'll have. If December only has two working weeks for you, plan two weeks of work into it, and let January carry the rest of your plans.
Your November Plan: A Week-by-Week Approach to Your Quarterly Business Plan
November is a planning month, and the work is four weeks of turning this year's lessons into a short plan you'll still recognize in February.
Week 1: Write your direction and pick your one win. Spend twenty minutes writing a few sentences about who you're becoming and how you want next year to feel. Then look at your keep list from October and pick the one win that would make the next 90 days a success.
Week 2: Block the holidays first, then give each month a focus. Put your time off, the school breaks, and the family events on your calendar before anything else. Then write one line for what each of the next three months is mostly for.
Week 3: Set your midpoint check. Pick a date halfway through your 90 days and write down the one or two questions you'll ask yourself when you get there, including what you'll change if your one win isn't moving.
Week 4: Plan the next few weeks in detail and book your next planning date. It's Thanksgiving week, so keep this one light: plan only the weeks between now and your time off in detail, and put the date for your next 90-day plan on the calendar.
Conclusion
November will hand you plenty of pressure to have all of next year figured out before the holidays. What you need is a direction, one clear win, and a plan for the season you can see.
Plan the next 90 days, check in halfway, and plan the next 90 once you get there, with everything you learned along the way.
That's the reset.
Want a weekly plan that bends when your 90 days shift?
Your 90-day plan tells you where you're headed, and Chaos Detox is how you get through each week of it. The method helps you see where your overwhelm is coming from, then builds one flexible weekly plan around your energy and your schedule in under 60 minutes a week. No rigid time-blocking, no system to maintain on top of your work. Built for the chaos, curveballs included. The goal is calm, not caught up.
👉Want a weekly rhythm to run your 90 days? Read: How to Build a Weekly Planning Routine That Sticks
Want More Than a Planning Reset This Season?
The Social Media Burnout Cure is out now, and it makes a great gift for anyone on your list who spends too much time on their phone (yourself included). It's the long-form version of everything this series has been pointing at all year: why the constant scroll burns women entrepreneurs out, what it's costing their time, energy, and attention, and what to build instead. Signed hardbacks with a personal inscription are in my shop. Learn more about the book →
And if your plan for the next 90 days includes getting your marketing to take less of your time, that's exactly what my 6-week, 1:1 marketing coaching is for. See what's included and book your free 20-minute discovery call →
Frequently Asked Questions
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It's the practice of turning what you learned this year into a plan for the next 90 days before the holidays take over. Instead of mapping out all twelve months of next year, you set a loose direction for the year, pick one clear win for the next three months, and plan the following 90 days once you know what changed.
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A quarterly business plan covers the next three months of your business (about 90 days) in detail and leaves the rest of the year as a loose direction. Mine includes one clear win, a focus for each month, my keep, start, and stop lists, a midpoint check, and the date I'll plan the next quarter.
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Start with a loose direction for the whole year, a few sentences or a single word, then plan only the first quarter in detail: one clear win, a focus for each month, and a midpoint check. When those 90 days are up, plan the next quarter with everything you learned along the way. If you plan in November, that next session lands right around early February.
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A 12-month plan has to guess at everything that will change over a year, and people consistently underestimate how long their plans will take. Every year I've done a planning retreat, my plan needed adjusting by February, because a new opportunity showed up or life shifted in a way the plan couldn't have known about.
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October was the year-end review: looking back at what this year made and what it cost, and sorting it into what to keep, start, and stop. November takes those lists and turns them into a 90-day plan, so you head into the holidays with a short, flexible plan instead of a 12-month one.
Related Posts & Mentioned In This Blog:
Monthly Reset Series: Slow Living for Women Entrepreneurs (all issues)
How to Align Your Business with Seasonal Planning to Prevent Burnout
Buehler, R., Griffin, D., & Ross, M. (1994). Exploring the "planning fallacy": Why people underestimate their task completion times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(3), 366–381.
