Having a monthly reset routine is a perfect way to end the month and start your new month on the right track – Here’s the best monthly reset checklist, so you can have the perfect month.
What is a monthly reset routine? Why do a monthly reset when you can dabble into the new month and go with the flow? These may be some questions on your mind.
When you don’t know how to properly do a monthly reset before setting new goals for the new month. Keeping track of what’s necessary becomes challenging, and it feels like dabbling in the water without learning to swim.
Imagine if you could look into the month, evaluate what’s working and what didn’t, declutter, plan, and set personal and business goals before a new month. How refreshing, right?
Or, you may want to build a monthly reset routine habit but don’t know what to include in your monthly reset routine.
Because of this, you struggle to consistently reset and sometimes plan your month (I know this seems like work, but I promise you, It’s not at all).
After reading this blog post, you’ll know the steps to build a monthly reset routine and have a monthly reset checklist to simplify and reset your month. But before that, what exactly is a monthly reset routine?
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What is a Monthly Reset Routine?
A monthly reset routine is a series of activities you do monthly, either at the beginning or end of the month, to reorganize, refresh and reset various aspects of your life.
From finance to home organization, decluttering, health, business, career, etc.
When you do a monthly rest, it’s like hitting the reset button on various parts of your life to start the new month afresh.
Why is it Important to do a Monthly Reset?
Here’s the truth; sometimes you feel too busy to hit the reset button, review, and reflect on your goals and life at the end or beginning of the month.
And you end up spending the new month feeling disorganized and lost a few times.
However, With a monthly reset checklist, you can take intentional steps to plan and reorganize different areas of your life.
I digress; One of those days 2 years ago, I attended an online summit on quarterly planning and using spreadsheets monthly to take stock of everything.
And this is a game changer; it helped me reinforce my business decisions. And soon enough, I extended this reset routine to all aspects of my life.
Not only do I reflect and rest my month. Now I practice both daily and weekly reset.
A monthly reset checklist may seem like a minor tool, but it’s a powerful way of taking on the new month feeling refreshed and with a plan.
Here are other benefits of engaging in a monthly reset routine;
- A monthly rest routine helps you gain clarity for the new month.
- You can reflect on what’s working and what’s not.
- It boosts your productivity and provides a sense of direction.
- You can prioritize and set new goals.
- You’ll experience peace and feel organized as you declutter your physical and mental space.
- You’ll become self-aware and make good decisions that promote your well-being.
You see, the benefits of being intentional about doing a monthly reset can transform your life and help your self-growth journey. So what should you include in your monthly reset routine?
What Should Be in a Monthly Reset Routine?
Here are some areas for the monthly reset routine.
- Your finance, bills, and budget
- Goals
- Decluttering
- Inbox and digital files clean up
- Self-reflection
- Meals and Health
- Self-care
- Cleaning and home organization
Now you know what exactly you should include in your monthly reset. How do you do a monthly reset?
15 Easy Steps to Create the Perfect Monthly Reset Routine
Start your new month rightly with a monthly reset routine, and here are 15 easy and thorough steps to take to reset and take charge of your life and the new month.
1. Reflect on the Previous Month
The first step to having a monthly reset is reflection. Reflect on everything that happened in the previous month. From your work, business, to finance, health, self-care, and daily activities.
Reflecting allows you to look back on your best and worst experiences, the things that brought you joy, and helps you discover patterns and areas that need improvement.
Before learning the importance of having a monthly reset routine, I set goals for the new month without reflecting on what’s working, what needs improvement, and how far I’ve come.
And guess what? Because I wasn’t reflecting, I kept failing to achieve my goals and found myself in situations that didn’t align with my beliefs.
However, all these changed when I became intentional about reflecting and compulsorily practicing a new month reset.
If you don’t know where to start, here are some reflection questions you can ask yourself to gain insights;
- What went well last month?
- What am I grateful for?
- How did I do in X (health, finance, career, business, relationship, etc.) areas of my life?
- What didn’t go well, and how can I improve?
- Did I step out of my comfort zone?
- What are my biggest achievements this month, and why do they matter to me?
- Did I take care of myself and prioritize my needs?
These are some reflective monthly reset questions you can ask yourself to discover patterns and gain insights.
Imagine setting your new month’s goals and tasks based on your answers. Feels empowering, right?
2 . Do a Brain Dump
Aside from reflecting as a part of your monthly rest routine. Another powerful way to discover insight and understand your month better is by doing a brain dump.
Brain dumping is one of the most effective yet simple ways to declutter your mind, capture, and access your thoughts, ideas, and task on paper without pressure.
With a brain dump, you write everything you think about your month, the experiences, what you hoped to achieve, what you achieved, why you failed to achieve it, your goals, how you felt, and everything about it.
The goal is to write unfiltered, without holding back.
And after writing, you read aloud each sentence and take note of key points and activities.
For Instance: While doing a brain dump for June, I’ve discovered that I should have prioritized my self-care because I got caught up trying to achieve a MAD goal I set. Self-care is something I’ll practice better this new month.
3 . Evaluate Your Finance
Our finances play one of the most significant roles in our daily lives.
Imagine a list of things to reset without looking at your finances, spending habits, and prioritizing where you spend your money and how you make money.
That will be a recipe for disaster.
Even though looking at your finances can be daunting, you must evaluate your finances.
I always panic after making big financial decisions during the month. Sometimes, I avoid looking at my expense tracker for a few days (lol).
Here is the truth, evaluating your finance and spending habits will help you plan better and set healthy and achievable goals for the next month.
Because the essence of a monthly reset routine is to hit reset in all aspects of your life, and your finance is vital.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself;
- Did my income grow this month
- How did I Spend this month?
- What are things I spent money on that could have been avoided?
- Did I stick to my budget?
- Did I save money or pay off debt this month?
You can make better financial decisions and goals in the new month by taking a moment to evaluate your finances and expenses.
4. Evaluate Your Relationships and Habits
One thing people take for granted is how our relationships, habits, and the people we surround ourselves with can affect and influence the quality of our lives.
I know you’re reading this blog because you want to live intentionally and improve your life.
And if you’re serious about self-improvement, assessing your relationships is essential.
Constantly assessing and evaluating your habits, relationships, and connections helps you avoid situations that don’t promote your peace and well-being.
While doing your monthly reset routine, assess your relationship with others, your habits, and your relationship with food and other things.
For example: assuming your goal is to live healthily and avoid unhealthy situations. Then It will be unwise to stay in relationships that bring you anxiety, stress, and worries.
5. Set New Monthly Goals
Now it’s time to set new monthly goals. Setting new monthly goals is one of the fun things you want to add to your monthly to-do list, and most times, we are in a hurry to do this.
Even so, setting new goals after reflecting on your life and evaluating your relationships and finances is ideal.
And With these noted, let’s set goals for the new month.
With the insights from your evaluation, set new monthly goals and ensure these goals aligns with your purpose and life goals.
Think about the areas you want to focus on. Is it your health, self-care, relationship, business, learning a new skill, or making extra income?
Perhaps you want to refocus on an area where you didn’t do well last month. You should prioritize your goals, break your goals into actionable bits (it could be weekly and daily), and add a time frame to them,
This way, you’re not just setting goals, but goals that are achievable and improve the quality of your life.
6. Clean and Declutter Your Home
Cleaning and decluttering are one of my favorite monthly reset things to do. Because who doesn’t love a clean and clear space?
When you clean and declutter your home, you create a healthy, fresh, soothing environment and atmosphere that promotes calmness, productivity, and peace.
Honestly, no one should hit the monthly reset button without cleaning, decluttering, and organizing their space.
Therefore, set aside one, two, or three days a month to deep clean your home.
You don’t have to do everything in one day to prevent exhaustion and breakdown.
For instance, every month, I set aside 3-4 hours for 3 days to clean and organize my home.
Sometimes, I begin with doing my laundry, then cleaning and organizing my apartment.
After which, I cook different sets of meals and refrigerate them (some meals over here take time, and I cook all meals I eat at home).
Here are some areas you can declutter and clean;
- The spaces in your apartment
- Kitchen
- Bathroom
- Declutter your closet, bags, and drawers.
- Do laundry
- Declutter your workspace, tables, shelves, etc.
7. Organize Everywhere
Now you’re done cleaning, it’s time to organize your home. A simple organization hacks I use to keep things in place throughout the month is “having a home for everything.”
When you have a designated space for everything, it’s easy to put them back in place after usage, making your space tidy. Because the essence of doing a monthly reset is to ensure you’re in charge of your life.
Organize your bedroom and makeup kits, and arrange your skincare products, books, closets, and shoe racks.
Also, your kitchen drawers, desk drawers, file cabinets, bathroom drawers, and storage areas.
8 . Clear and Declutter Your Digital Space
Gone are the days when our digital space didn’t matter. Many people now rely on emails, computers, etc, to work.
For maximum productivity and clear headspace, consider decluttering your emails and deleting files that are not useful.
Archive read emails that you may need in the future, use a password tracker to track your passwords, and organize files in your computer into folders.
Additionally, unfollow social media accounts that don’t align with your values or help your self-improvement journey.
9. Plan, Plan, and Map Out Your Activities
Some persons set monthly goals and leave them elaborate without breaking them down into tiny actionable bits they can accomplish daily and weekly, as the case may be.
Instead, use a planner to break down and map out your monthly goals (make a list of all activities you need to do to achieve your goal).
After creating your monthly to-do list, organize them into smaller daily and weekly tasks and work through them.
For example, if one of your monthly goals is to drink more water, you should consume a specific quantity daily. Set reminders throughout the day to drink water.
Your weekly, daily, monthly, and quarterly goals should align and synchronize with your yearly plans.
You see, many people set random goals without considering how achieving them will reflect on their overall quality of life.
10. Pay Your Bills and Budget
Paying your bills is inevitable, so why not include it in your monthly reset routine?
Organize your bills. You could automate them, while for others, you need to manually make payments.
Set the days when payments go through, and remember to set your budgets using the insights from your financial evaluation.
I pay my bills in the middle of the month, around 15-17th, and at the end of each month.
For the middle of the month, I pay for subscriptions, including tools I use for running my business.
Also, I’m yet to buy or build my home, so I pay my rent annually, but I set aside some money for this monthly.
I’m debt free and owe no one (this is a conscious habit). Most of my income goes into family, savings, education, business, and personal lifestyle.
We may not be in similar situations; however, tracking and planning your finances is essential and should be in your monthly reset routine.
11. Plan Your Meals
Your monthly reset routine should include activities that promote your well-being and success. And the food you eat is vital for your well-being.
Planning your meals helps you make better meal choices and stay on track to achieving your nutrition and health goals.
Additionally, it helps you avoid impulsively eating unhealthy meals and save more money when you cook at home.
PS: I cook all my meals at home and eat takeouts only when I hang out with friends.
Every month, I have a list of meals I prepare and refrigerate; this helps me eat on time, be productive, and reduce stress since I work from home and could get carried away if I have to prepare certain local dishes daily.
Therefore, start by finding recipes you enjoy, create a shopping list, and set aside time each month to plan and prep your meals. Your body and mind will thank you for it.
12. Restock Your Home and Supplies
Restocking your home and your monthly reset routine go hand in hand. Restock supplies you need throughout the month, from groceries to self-care products and random things around the house.
Every month, I make a list of supplies I’ll need for a month, from food items to personal effects, and I stock them up.
Doing this means I’ll lack nothing at home and never need to rush out to pick up supplies.
Apart from the fact that planning and buying your supplies ahead helps in budgeting, it also enables you to stay organized.
13. Pick New Books to Read
Another great activity to add to your monthly to-do list is selecting new books to read.
Reading a new book should be a part of your monthly routine if you’re serious about your self-improvement journey.
It could be a hard copy, soft copy, or audiobook. Nevertheless, ensure you read at least one book monthly.
For instance, this month, I’ll be reading “It Ends with Us by Collen Hoover” (fiction) and the Gospel of Wellness (non-fiction).
14. Plan and Throw in Self Care Activities
The next thing to include in your reset routine is self-care. Your monthly reset routine is incomplete without self-care activities.
Imagine sitting on the sofa in your well-organized and decluttered apartment, listening to calming music with scented candles on as you journal or meditate. Thrilling and refreshing, right?
You should practice self-care daily as there are many self-care activities you can engage in for 5 to 30 minutes daily.
Additionally, I love to end my monthly reset routine with self-care activities.
It could be going on a self-date, journaling, dancing or bingeing, taking a self-care shower, or doing skin care.
Think about activities that bring you peace and laughter and throw them into your monthly reset routine.
By doing this, you’ll feel refreshed and ready to take on the new month.
Take this opportunity to list self-care activities you can indulge yourself in the new month.
15. Implement and Track Your Habits
The final step of your monthly reset routine is implementing and tracking these monthly to list.
You see, more than making a list of things to do monthly is required; you should create a means for tracking your habits and goals.
You can use digital apps like the notes app on your phone, a habit tracker, or other tools to help you implement and track these goals and tasks.
I use the Notes app on my phone to tick off my daily activities after seeing them in my planner.
When Should You Do a Monthly Reset?
The best time to do a monthly reset is at the end of the month. This helps you organize, plan, and reset your activities before the new month.
Although some persons do their monthly reset at the beginning of the month. Personally, I don’t.
Since I love planning, whenever I enter a new month without organizing my life and headspace, I feel lost for the first few days of the month (lol) until I set my goals.
Hence, having a monthly reset at the end of the month is ideal.
Download Free Monthly Reset Checklist
Ready to reset your month, organize, and plan before entering a new month? Download this free monthly reset checklist and easily create your list of things to do monthly.
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Final Thoughts on Monthly Reset Routine
A monthly reset routine will change your productivity and efficiency in the new month.
Apart from the productivity aspects, it helps reduce anxiety and slows you down from the hustle and bustle of life and making a living (it’s like taking a deep breath).
Besides, resetting your month allows you to have a clean slate, fresh mindset, clear head space, and perspectives, and this is a game changer.
If you’ve yet to incorporate a monthly reset routine into your list of things to do, start doing it before beginning a new month.
Do you reset your month? What’s one monthly reset tip you swear by? Let me know in the comments.
Very useful post. Thanks for all the tips! 🙂