Wether you’re an organized crafter getting started at the beginning of the New Year, or you just require a bit of structure to planning your hand-made projects for the year ahead, this is a blog post worthy of a read.

“The secret to a stress-free handmaker’s plan is to think realistically, manage your time, frequently review it and be open to it changing.”

To make this easier, I created a worksheet that I can fill in, as an annual plan. I’ve called it my crochet (or knitting!) ‘Project Plannual’. Click the FREE PRINTABLES page to find your free copy).

Now, grab a pen or pencil and let’s begin!

Projects To Make

Start by thinking about all of the different projects you’d like to make over the next year. Use the ‘Projects’ page of your Project Plannual to scribble these down.

It really helps me to put my various projects into categories, so I can divide my time between them and thus, get a better idea of how long I can spend on each project. This step also gives us a bit of balance, as hand makers. By aiming to create items from each category throughout the year, we can enjoy all areas of our chosen craft, without neglecting any.

You can use the Notes area to consider some name ideas for your different categories.

For example, the first ones that stand out for me, are my own designs. These, I categorize as ‘Work’ projects.

Next, are ‘Gifts’. These could be for Christmas, Birthdays or simply Random Acts of Kindness (also known as ‘RAKs’).

Finally, I enjoy making things for my children, the home and myself. These I consider to be ‘Personal’ projects.

Categorize

Once you’ve got an idea of your different categories, write each one at the top of it’s own box on the ‘Categorize’ page of your Project Plannual. You’ll see there are 4 boxes, and although I wouldn’t recommend having more than this, you could always print off another copy of any of these pages if you run out of space.

So, I have chosen 3:

• Work
• Gifts
• Personal

Other ideas could be:

• Charity – these could include blankets for the homeless, preemie baby hats etc
• Languishing – a category to consider if you want to create an opportunity to finally finish all those projects that are currently in time-out
• Long Term – because these projects take longer to complete, you can make them in-between more specific creations. Anything made using scraps can be classed as ‘long-term’. This is a great idea to use up any leftover yarns and when the designs are very simple stitch patterns, they make for great relaxed projects to pick up during shorter time slots.

FUN FACT: If you’re already getting excited thinking about which colours you’re going to assign to each category, then that’s a surefire sign that you’re already a creative, avid planner!

I have approximately 6 designs in mind for this year. Perhaps I won’t get them all done, but I’ll write them in anyway as I can always push them into the following year.

• Blanket #1
• Booties #1
• Blanket #2
• Blanket #3
• Motif #1
• Booties #2

As far as gifts are concerned, I’m aiming to make 1 gift for each of my 2 sisters and 1 gift for each of my son’s teachers:

• Sister #1
• Sister #2
• Teacher #1
• Teacher #2
• Teacher #3

Personal projects will be:

• Son – something yet undecided 
• Daughter – to be decided too
• Poncho for me
• Coasters for the home

Considering crochet is my passion, these lists by themselves seem pretty small; only 5 gifts for the year? However when I think logically about my time, and when you add up the lists together, they’re realistic and achievable.

A note on time:

In 2016, to balance my home/work life, I wrote all of my daily & weekly tasks (as a parent & housekeeper) and I assigned them all into a routine. I was quite surprised that I only had about 2 hours of ‘work’ time per day. As well as actual crochet time, this was to include sketching, typing, photography, admin… as well as other designer roles! I mention this because honestly, if you want your Project Plannual to be achievable without the sense of overwhelm, I suggest you create a daily/weekly routine too, if you haven’t already.

Prioritize

Looking at all of your projects, do any of them have a specific deadline, for example birthday gifts? The teachers’ presents from us will be for Christmas time and my Work projects have release dates assigned to them, then the other Gifts and Personal makes can be randomly made in-between.

Prioritize your projects with deadlines by listing them in order on the ‘Prioritize’ page, with the first project to be completed at the top. All other projects without a target date can be written at the bottom of the page.

Yes I colour coded mine! 

Weekly Tracker

How you manage this next step will be up to you and dividing your time will depend on your day to day life. My weekdays are spent on my Work category. Evenings and weekends can be shared between Gifts and Personal projects. If you’re anything like me and have a generic weekly routine, then by colour coding your categories you can see the whole week at a glance. I look at the category and then work on the project of highest priority.

Some of you might be monogamous crafters, meaning you only ever have 1 project on the go. Unless you want to track your progress every 7 days, then perhaps dividing your project categories across the week isn’t as practical for you.

Other folks like to estimate their crafting time per week, then multiply this by 52 to give them a yearly total. This can be a good idea if you want to guess how many hours you can dedicate to each project. I, on the other hand, still like to list out all my project targets as we can use the following page, ‘Monthly Review’ to reconsider our plan. I’m not ashamed to carry any incomplete projects through to the next year.

So, this next step should be beneficial to us all…

Monthly Review 

The best method to ‘get stuff done’ follows a general principle of first offloading your thoughts onto paper, then creating some order to it and prioritizing tasks to work through. All of which we’ve applied so far within our Project Plannual. The next step to any great plan is to frequently review your progress, noting down any outstanding jobs or setbacks and make changes accordingly.

Perhaps a bamboo hook has broken that will need replacing or maybe upon weighing your project halfway through the pattern, you’ve realized you need to buy more yarn. Jot these down.

If you’ve realized that you’ve set yourself too much to attempt to make during the last 4 weeks, that’s okay. Just give yourself a more realistic amount to create for the following month and also take a look back at your ‘Prioritize’ page. Rearrange your projects if necessary and select some items to push to next year.

On the other hand you might have smashed through your targets and overachieved. Bravo! Perhaps you will have some extra time to finally make that piece which you thought wasn’t going to be possible until much later on!

Year At A Glance

This is an optional page that might help those of you who are ‘visual’ learners/workers, to see the year ahead on one page. Alternatively, you could use it as I do: I write in all the birthdays of those people who I’d like to make a gift for one day.

Well, I hope my Project Plannual can help you get organized too! Please tag your photos on social media with #projectplannual as I’d love to see them!

With love, and as always,

Let’s Consciously Crochet together,

Consciously Crochet, Xx