There’s something many of us crave in business, especially if we’re feeling busy and overwhelmed — a different pace. Something slower, more considered, and a little more sustainable.

We start to notice that some seasons feel expansive and creative, while others feel quieter, or heavier, or more inward. And yet, most traditional ways of planning don’t really allow for that. They ask us to map out a full year in advance and keep pushing forward — even when it doesn’t feel right.

So in this episode of Seasons in Business, I explore a gentler alternative: seasonal planning. A way of working that moves with the rhythm of the year, rather than against it.

Working with the rhythm of the year

At its heart, seasonal planning is about seeing the year as a cycle, rather than a straight line running from January to December — a cycle that moves through periods of growth, visibility, reflection, and rest.

If you listened to episode four, where I talked about what running a slow, seasonal business really means, this builds on that idea, taking it a step further into how we can actually plan and work with those natural shifts.

This is where the Wheel of the Year becomes so helpful. It offers a simple way of noticing those shifts and gives us natural moments to pause, reset, and begin again — without the pressure of arbitrary deadlines.

Why 90 days works so well

Alongside this more intuitive approach, seasonal planning also brings in something practical: a 90-day focus.

Twelve weeks sits in that middle ground. Long enough to make meaningful progress, but short enough to stay flexible when life inevitably shifts. Rather than planning a whole year at once, you’re simply focusing on the next season. One small chapter at a time.

A simple way to plan your season

One of the biggest shifts with seasonal planning is moving away from doing more, and instead doing less — but more intentionally.

Start with one focus for the season. One project, direction, or intention that really matters.

From there, break it into three key steps — one for each month — and support those with smaller, everyday actions that help you move forward.

It doesn’t need to be perfect or fully mapped out from the beginning. It’s simply a path you can follow, with space to adjust as you go.

Letting the seasons guide you

Each season brings a slightly different kind of energy.

Spring often invites new ideas and fresh starts.
Summer builds momentum, encouraging visibility and action.
Autumn offers space for reflection and refinement.
And winter allows for rest, quieter work, and letting things settle.

But this isn’t about forcing yourself into a pattern. Your personal rhythm might not always match the world outside — and that’s okay. Seasonal planning works best when it adapts to you, not the other way around.

Making space to pause

It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day and forget to stop and take a breath. That’s why a mid-season check-in can be so valuable. Around halfway through your 90 days, take a moment to pause and ask:

Is this still working?
Does this still feel aligned?
Do I need to adjust?

And if you do need to make some changes, that’s okay. Because flexibility is part of the process.

A gentler way forward

If setting a clear goal doesn’t feel right, that’s okay too. Seasonal planning doesn’t have to be structured to be meaningful. You might choose a theme or a feeling instead — something like creativity, rest, or curiosity — and let that guide your actions.

This approach shifts the focus away from outcomes, and towards how you want to move through your work and your days. And that can be just as powerful.

Links and resources mentioned in this episode

Download my Seasonal Planning Guides — These gentle guides will help you reflect, set intentions, and plan your next 90 days in a way that feels calm and manageable.

Welcome to Seasons in Business, a podcast for creative business owners who want to build something thoughtful and sustainable, at a pace that actually feels good. I'm your host, designer and printmaker Sarah Phelps, and if, like me, you're craving a slower, more spacious way to grow, with a little gentle encouragement along the way, you're in the right place. So turn off your notifications, grab a cup of tea or coffee, and get cosy.
Hi everyone, and welcome back. As I'm recording, this spring has definitely sprung. The sky has been more blue than grey, the daffodils are nodding in the breeze, and I've even left the house without a coat a few times. It all feels like such a welcome change after a long, cold winter.
Today's episode feels like a natural continuation of something we touched on back in episode four, where I introduced the idea of running a slower, more seasonal business. We explored why working with the seasons can feel more supportive, and today I want to build on that by exploring how we can actually implement it. How we can take something quite intuitive and turn it into a way of planning and working that actually supports us, and how we can work at a gentler pace, one that feels manageable, sustainable, and aligned with the season we're in.
In that earlier episode, I talked about cycles and seasons — the natural ebb and flow of creativity and energy — and how noticing these shifts can make our work feel a lot more grounded and considered. But I get it, noticing that natural rhythm is one thing, and actually building your business around it is something else entirely, especially when we're conditioned to move at the fast pace of the modern world. What we need is something to guide us, something gentle and steady, with a bit of wiggle room when we need it.
So today, I want to gently introduce something that's really supported me over the past few years: seasonal planning.
At its heart, seasonal planning is really about working with the rhythm of the year instead of trying to push against it. But it also brings in elements of more traditional 90-day planning, so there's space for growth and gentle accountability.
For me, seasonal planning really clicked when I discovered the wheel of the year. And at its heart, this is a really simple concept — the wheel is a way of looking at the year as a repeating cycle, rather than a straight line. So instead of seeing the year beginning in January and ending in December, it encourages us to notice those subtle shifts in energy as one season flows into the next. This might mean waiting until spring to dive into new creative projects, or allowing ourselves to slow down in the darker, quieter months.
The version of the wheel we tend to see today is fairly modern, although it's inspired by much older seasonal traditions and festivals. And while it's often associated with pagan or spiritual practices, you don't need to follow it in that way at all. You can simply use it as a guide, noticing the change in seasons and giving yourself permission to respond in whatever way feels right for you.
The wheel itself looks a bit like a compass, with eight key points: two solstices, two equinoxes, and four midpoints between them. And each point marks subtle shifts in light and energy that creates a gentle rhythm throughout the year.
You're probably most familiar with the spring and autumn equinoxes when we set our clocks forward or back, and the summer and winter solstices, the longest and shortest days of the year. Viewed through a seasonal lens, these four key points also make perfect milestones for planning. And that's because the solstices and equinoxes sit roughly twelve weeks apart, creating natural pockets of time perfect for focused work, which aligns beautifully with something you might already know: 90-day planning.
There's a reason why quarterly planning is so popular in the business world — it works. Planning a whole year in January can feel overwhelming because life and priorities shift along the way. At the same time, a month can feel too short, with projects constantly starting and stopping before they've really had time to grow.
Twelve weeks, or around 90 days, sits somewhere in the middle. It gives you space to make meaningful progress and still be flexible enough to adapt. The only catch? A lot of quarterly planning is still tied to the calendar year starting in January, and that doesn't suit everyone, including me.
And that's the beauty of seasonal planning. It combines the natural rhythm of the wheel of the year with the focus of 90-day planning.
We know the wheel offers a more intuitive, sustainable approach, letting us move with the energy of the seasons. And we know that 90 days is a sweet spot in terms of timing, long enough to make progress and short enough to stay motivated. But how do we actually use this to plan in a way that feels gentle and doable?
The good news is, it's simpler than you might think. The first thing to remember: this isn't about doing more, it's about doing less, and doing it intentionally. Rather than filling your to do list with a dozen goals, the idea is to choose one main focus for the season — one project, one direction, or one priority — that really matters.
At the start of a new season, or even just now, wherever you are, ask yourself what feels important for the next 90 days. If you're anything like me, you'll probably think of a hundred things straight away. But this is where you keep it simple and choose just one goal or intention you'd like to nurture and see grow by the end of the season. Something that will make a meaningful impact on your business or creative life. This becomes your seasonal focus — your guiding star for the next twelve weeks — helping you decide where to use your time and energy.
To support that focus, identify three key steps one for each month of the season. These milestones will help you move forward steadily, giving you clear markers to track and celebrate your progress along the way.
From there, map out your supporting actions, the smaller, everyday tasks that keep things moving. They might not feel big or exciting, but they're essential for maintaining momentum.
This isn't about creating a rigid plan. It's more like a path you can follow one step at a time with plenty of wiggle room. And the best part? You get to do this four times a year, so there's no pressure to do everything all at once.
As you start to plan this way, you can also begin to layer in the natural energy of the season you're in. Spring often brings a sense of renewal, so it's a great time for new ideas and exploration. Summer is where energy builds and becomes more visible, so it's a time for action and sharing things with the world. Autumn invites reflection, a chance to look back at what's worked, what hasn't, and what you want to carry forward. And winter offers a quieter kind of energy, space for rest, for deeper work, and for letting things settle before the next cycle begins.
There's something really lovely about letting the seasons guide you pace. But it's also worth remembering that our personal rhythms don't always match the outside world. You might feel energised in winter or need rest in summer, and that's perfectly okay. You're not doing anything wrong, because there's no wrong way to move through the year. If you're feeling out of sync with the season, simply honour where you are.
As the weeks unfold, it can be easy to get caught up in the work and forget to stop and look around. So it can be really helpful to schedule in time for a gentle check in with yourself, around six weeks in — the midpoint of your 90-day season. You might sit down with a tea or a coffee and ask yourself:
- Is this still working?
- Does this still feel aligned?
- Do I need to adjust?
And if you do need to make some changes, that's okay, because flexibility is part of the process. Sometimes we realise we need to change direction. Sometimes we need to soften our expectations or adjust our pace. And sometimes we simply need a moment to notice how far we've already come.
And I also want to say, if setting a big goal for the season doesn't feel right, that's okay too. Planning doesn't need to be structured to be meaningful.
Instead, you might choose a feeling, a theme, or even just a single word to explore over the season. Something like creativity, rest, or curiosity, and let that guide your actions. It could be as simple as trying a new creative activity like writing, painting, or photography, or maybe setting aside time each week for a reflective ritual like journaling or connecting with nature. This approach is less about achieving a specific outcome and more about how you want to move through the season. And that can be just as powerful.
So it's probably obvious by now that I love the wheel of the year, not just for its repeating rhythm, but for the way it naturally invites pause, reflection, and even celebration.
Each of the eight points we talked about earlier, the solstices and equinoxes and midpoints, were traditionally marked with festivals, celebrating the changing seasons, the cycles of light and dark, and the growth and fruition in nature. Moments like Litha in midsummer or Yule in midwinter mark the passing of time, but they can also become gentle markers of our own progress — opportunities to pause, acknowledge, and celebrate the wins along the way. To say this is where I am right now, and this is how far I've come.
As I mentioned back in episode four, seasonal planning came from necessity for me. During a time when my mind and body were riding the roller coaster of perimenopause, I needed a gentle way to keep my business moving. This approach to planning, alongside a healthy dose of HRT, really turned things around. It gave me the space to run my business in a way that felt true to me and healthy for me.
I needed something that offered both structure and flexibility, allowing for the good days and the difficult ones, and that's exactly what I found. These 90-day seasons give me just enough structure to stay grounded without taking away the freedom that made me start my business in the first place. The beauty of planning this way is its flexibility. Some seasons I lean into it fully and other times I just let it guide me more lightly. But each time I start the season with an intention and move through it in a way that feels right.
If you're curious about working more seasonally, take a moment and ask yourself, if you were going to start planning for the next 90 days here and now, what would you choose to focus on?
If you'd like a little guidance, I've created a set of seasonal planning guides, one for each season, that gently walk you through reflecting, setting intentions and finding your focus. The Spring guide, in particular, is a lovely place to begin, especially at this time of year when nature is waking up. I'll share a link for that in the show notes.
I hope that if you do try it, you'll find the same comfort, ease, and gentle momentum that I've found.
And I'd love to hear from you, so come and say hello over on Instagram or Threads @sarahandmaude, or drop me an email.
And if you've enjoyed the show today, please hit follow so you never miss an episode, maybe share it with a friend, or leave a quick rating or review. I know I say this every episode, but it really helps more people find the show and it means a lot.
Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.

Listen and subscribe

You can listen to Seasons in Business wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure you hit follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode:

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed

If you’re enjoying the show, please leave a 5* rating and review — it really helps more small business owners discover it.

Join the conversation

I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment below or reach out on Instagram or Threads, or share your thoughts through my podcast feedback form. You can also join my email community, where I share gentle seasonal business insights.

Get in touch

Have suggestions for topics or guests? Email me at podcast@sarahandmaude.com.

Recent episodes

Featured