With the start of a new year I love to get creative with ideas for how to spend my time most productively and happily. Very different from a New Year’s Resolution, this kind of brainstorming can be energizing and inspiring long past the second week of January (when most NY resolutions fizzle).
My favorite way to do this planning is using the Lotus Blossom tool. Designed to help go beyond brainstorming, the Lotus Blossom helps generate a higher quantity of higher quality ideas. It helps do this by starting with a central question or problem, in this case, “How Do I Want to Spend Time in 2025?”
I use Mural but you can also print out a template, which you can find linked below. It’s basically a grid of 9x9 boxes, with the center square being the central question to solve or concept to brainstorm, like “How Do I Want to Spend Time in 2025?”
Then identify themes related to that question, such as, “books to read, podcasts to listen to, healthy activities, work goals/activities, etc.” The tool has 8 boxes, or “petals” around this central question that are for your themes/big picture concepts. When using this tool with teams AND for the yearly planning activity, I always put in a “Barriers” petal. That helps you identify barriers proactively and also come up with ways to address them.
This year (and last year) I also have a petal that says, “Things I Said No To.”
Use the values from those boxes as the center of the eight additional “Center” boxes/petals to create 8 mini lotus blossoms within your bigger blossom, which is where you put your specific ideas. Which books do I want to read? Which podcasts do I want to listen to?
When done, you can have up to 64 ideas!
The picture shows (blurred, as what I put in the boxes isn’t central to this post) what one looks like, partially completed. I left the “Things I Said No To” intentionally blank, so I could fill it in throughout the year. I didn’t say no to very many things last year (and am paying the price now). There's always this year!
Feel free to try it! The Lotus Blossom instructions and template are here: https://lnkd.in/eA8kQtZY
And here is a Mural link (though not positive it will work if you don’t have a Mural account):
Happy Blossoming!
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