Quarterly Reviews - Part 4

Quarterly Review Series:

• Part 1 - Shepherding Your Wife
• Part 2 - How We Heard about Quarter Reviews
• Part 3 - Why We Do Quarterly Reviews
  

Quarterly Reviews - Part 4

PLANNING QUARTERLY REVIEWS by Laura Stiller

I wish quarterly reviews planned themselves, just like I wish weekly date nights would plan themselves. But they don't.

I've learned two things about quarterly reviews since being married: they don't all have to follow a strict format/schedule/agenda AND it's absolutely wonderful to let Danny plan them, even if he forgets to pack something essential and it is a little more disorganized than I would have done it.

PLANNING - DATES/LOCATIONS:

We usually plan each quarterly review 3-6 months in advance.

To start, we sit down and brainstorm places we'd like to go. We go all out and dream big (for example: the Grand Canyon and Alaska are currently on our list of "Places we'd love to go to on a Quarterly Review" - and need I remind you we live in TEXAS!) Sometimes we have a long list, sometimes we both agree on one place right away. Sometimes we can't eliminate a location because we REALLY want to go there - so we just plan more than one quarterly review at once.

Second, we look at our Google Calendar (which I LOVE because I can color-code our life to my little heart's content!) and block out the weekend(s) we want for our Quarterly Review. These dates are guarded carefully, and we don't reschedule them (because chances are they wouldn't get rescheduled) and we don't plan anything else during that time.

PLANNING - THE DETAILS:

We then talk through the logistics of the weekend and communicate any expectations we might have. Here are a sample of questions we ask each other:

• Is this going to be a weekend geared more towards relaxing and playing or for planning, communicating and discussing?
• How are we going to travel? car/plane
• Do we want to plan lots of site-seeing activities to do, or do we just want to relax with no schedule at all?

We also discuss finances and lay out a budget for each quarterly review. Here is what this usually looks like for us:

• How much is this trip going to cost? (break it down and get specific - try to include every expenditure in a budget)
• Are we eating out or bringing our own food?
• How much are plane tickets? hotels? entertainment?
• Will we spend any money on materials/conference registration/etc?

We also assign tasks to insure that all the preparations are taken care of. For example:

• Who's responsible for booking flights (if necessary)?
• Who will make hotel reservations or reserve a campsite?
• Who is going to plan activities to do over the weekend?
• Who's in charge of planning meals, grocery shopping or finding restaurants/coffee shops?

Now, the only thing that Danny is ALWAYS in charge of is discussion questions for our weekend. Even, if we decided that we need to just relax and play together for a quarterly review, Danny will still have at least a few questions for us to talk about. He has taken ownership of this part of our marriage, and I appreciate his leadership. If I read something interesting in a marriage book, or come across good questions on a blog, I am always free to bring them to the table during our quarterly review, but the responsibility for guiding the depth of our quarterly review falls on Danny's shoulders.