PowerSheets Review: Thoughts from a First-time User

As I prepared to say hello to 2020, I wanted to gain some clarity on my goals. I felt like I needed to do more than just make a list of resolutions and call it done. After seeing other small business owners post about PowerSheets from Cultivate What Matters, I decided to purchase one. Here’s my honest PowerSheets review, as a first-time user.

(Note: This post isn’t sponsored, I just want to share my experience!)

What are PowerSheets?

Lara Casey created PowerSheets, an intentional goal planner. It provides a beautifully-packaged system for goal planning with instructions to guide you through the process. The planner helps you dig deep and figure out what really matters in your life. Then, you use those realizations to set goals and make an actionable plan towards achieving them.

How Does it Work?

When you open up a PowerSheets planner, you are first guided through the prep-work. The prep work involves reflecting on what excites you, scares you, and what you want to achieve in life.

In the second section, you brainstorm goals based on your revelations from the prep work. After you choose your goals, you break them down into action plans.

The remainder of the planner is dedicated to monthly prep, tending to your goals, and monthly reflection.

Now that I’ve given you a basic understanding of how PowerSheets work, let’s talk about my experience using PowerSheets.

PowerSheets Review: My Experience Using this Popular Planner

As an entrepreneur who offers brand and Showit web design services for creatives, and runs a shop with custom gifts for pet owners, my main goal was to gain clarity in my personal life & business.

PowerSheets cost more than your typical planner, but I managed to catch them on sale right after Christmas. Once I placed my order, I started looking at other PowerSheets reviews and tutorials to learn more about how other people complete the process.

My Initial Reaction & Completing the Prep Work

Looking at videos about PowerSheets taught me that the set-up process often takes users more than one day. I thought I was mentally prepared for how much work it would be – until my planner arrived.

After my mailman delivered my PowerSheets planner, I unboxed it…

…and then started feeling really intimidated.

Don’t get me wrong, the planner was beautiful and it asks really important questions. There was just something about the thought of having to answer questions like “Where do you want to be when you’re 80?,” “What do you want your legacy to be?,” and “What scares you the most?” that freaked me out a bit.

I guess the Cultivate What Matters team knows that their customers sometimes feel intimidated by the process, because one of the pages at the front of the planner says:

So after some time, I decided to just go for it. Once I stopped worrying about perfection and certainty, I actually enjoyed filling out the prep work. I won’t say that it was all easy, but it was a meaningful experience.

Goal Setting

By the time I got to the goal-setting stage, I was excited again!

Minutes later, my excitement was stifled by the intructions to choose only eight goals for the year.

“Oh boy,” I thought. “I just got excited and wrote down ALL these ideas, and you want me to narrow them down to just 8?!”

However, I noticed common threads in my goals that made it easy to narrow them down.

After picking eight goals, it was time to develop an action plan for each one. I struggled with this part because I feel like my goals were hard to break down into mini-goals. However, I think this is something that will get easier with practice.

The Tending Lists

Now for my favorite part of the planner: the tending lists. Each month, you choose daily, weekly, and monthly “action items” to help you work towards your yearly goals. The layout reminds me of bullet journal tracking pages.

The tending list is perforated so that you can tear it out and hang it somewhere that will be visible to you on a daily basis. My January list is hanging near my desk, and I love seeing a visual of the progress that I am making!

Final Thoughts

I haven’t had any life-changing experiences because of this planner (yet), but I hope that this PowerSheets review has been helpful to you. I want to continue using mine in the future. Maybe moving through the process and setting goals becomes easier with practice!

I joined the Facebook Group for PowerSheets users, and there are ladies in the community that have been using this planner for years. If you are looking for a new perspective on your life and the goals that you want to achieve personally and professionally, give Powersheets a try.