FREE Printable Small Business Planner 2021

Do you have dreams of beginning a side hustle or small business but feel overwhelmed with all the start-up tasks you need to do?

Whether you decide to start a small business at home or do work-at-home jobs for extra money, you can get your work organized — and prioritized — with this free printable small business planner.

How Does This Free Business Planner Printable Help You?

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Research shows that when you keep track of anything, you are more likely to achieve the outcome you are working toward. Writing down your goals and then making a plan toward them each day means your work will have greater impact on a daily basis.

Have you ever tried to lose weight? Or run a race? Maybe pay off debt or save money? The only way you achieve your goal is to think about it daily and take action toward it. You probably had a healthy eating plan, workout plan, race training schedule, or budget for your finances.

The same thing goes for your small business goals. Even if you have a good business plan, you need a way to achieve it.

The key to achieving your big goals in a small business or side hustle is to take small steps toward your BIG goal each day. And to do that, you need to make a deliberate plan and start tracking goals. This free printable for small business planning helps you stay focused on your long term plan while taking daily steps toward it.

How Planning Ahead Helps Your Small Business Grow

Before you can really get started with your business planning, set a goal for your first 3 months.

(There is an excellent book called the 12 week year that explains how you can get more done by setting big goals in smaller chunks through out the year. Having that smaller time frame makes pursuing your goals feel more achievable.

It’s important to choose a project that is achievable and measurable. Try thinking of something that feels a little out of your comfort zone … but not completely out of reach. Something that is related to experience you have had in your business and an area you could stretch.

For example, over the next 3 months it would be impossible for me to become a country music singer. I would need serious music lessons that would take longer than 3 months to prepare me to sing in front of anyone! And it’s not related to my business at all!

However, creating a goal to make an extra $1,000 per month in my business is a great goal. It’s measurable and achievable. I can think of several ways to create more income, and it would take about 3 months’ worth of work to hit that number.

Some Project Ideas for Big Goals

• Landing a higher paying side hustle
• Signing 4 new clients in my service based business
• Starting a new side hustle
• Building a team of 4 in my network marketing business
• Developing a new product
• Growing my email list to 1000 subscribers
• Growing my social media to 1000 followers

What’ll yours be?

How to Use This Free Business Planner Printable to Stay on Track

Now that you have a 3 month goal in mind, our free small business management planner includes a place to record your BIG goal along with monthly steps to reach your goal. Then, you can break down your steps into smaller weekly actions that will push you to stay focused every day.

One of the best benefits of this printable is that it’s a visual cue to not lose sight of your business plan. (This is why I like having a printable planner rather than using a goal setting app or business plan software.) Using the printable template, update your goals each week. Keep your weekly business plan somewhere highly visible so you have to look at it every day.

Then, as you plan your days, break down your weekly goal into 3 actionable daily steps that will help move you toward accomplishing your project.

Our lives are very full. We all have things that pull our attention away from our business — whether it is work, family, friends, or just life in general. Make your daily 3 count! These are the non-negotiable things you will do each day to work on your business.

When you try to include more than 3 priorities on your “to do list,” things eventually fall apart. Usually it’s because you don’t have enough time to do all the things you want to do, and more than 3 means that your BIG goal isn’t specific enough.

Remember, we want you to stretch but we also want you to make a real impact in your business!

This planner includes:

• Monthly Goal Setting
• Weekly Goal Setting
• Monthly Income Tracker
• Monthly Expenses Tracker

Not sure what side hustle you want to start? Take the FREE Side Hustle Quiz so you can get started creating a life you love! 

Tracking Income With a Business Planner

Our monthly income tracker sheet is designed to help you keep track of how much money you’re actually making each month.

One of the things I’ve noticed working in small business is that I didn’t keep track of how many hours I was working on a project. So even if I made $100, I wasn’t sure if it was a good income for the amount of time I invested into the project.

Let’s say the project took 10 hours to create — that means I was working for $10 an hour.

Small business owners should be making about $25 per hour because of things like taking out taxes, paying for your own health insurance, covering your materials, etc. So $10 an hour isn’t great!

Keeping track of your income can help you earn more money when you analyze how much you are working, your expenses, and the pay.

One other key item on the monthly income tracking sheet is the “paid” column. It’s important to keep track of who has paid you and who hasn’t. This will help you determine who you want to work with again in the future … the ones who pay on time. And you can keep track of who you need to collect payments. Again, this is a benefit of using a printable planner rather than relying only on accounting software to keep tabs on your net income.

Tracking Expenses With a Business Planner

Our monthly expense tracking sheet is a great way to get insight into your spending habits.

You can see things like…

• ways you can save money on business expenses
• how much you are actually making after expenses

If you are making $1,000 per month but your business expenses are $800, you may want to re-evaluate your business plan. $200 in profit may not be worth the effort depending on how much time you invested in the project.

Tips for Small Business Owners

Get really clear about what you want to achieve with your business, and make it a daily habit to go after it.

It’s never too late to start creating goals for your business. We often think our goals should start in January, but really, goal tracking can start any time.

When I started tracking specific goals in my business, I saw those areas grow! I was amazed that simply focusing on the thing that I wanted to happen helped me to get where I wanted to be.

I hope this side hustle planner helps you get started with growing your income!

Download the FREE small business planner printable

Do you run a small business or have a side hustle?