Templates

Welcome to the Life After College template gallery!

To use any of the following templates, click on the name of the template and a preview will open in a new window that looks like this:

Select the “Use this Template” button and get crackin’!

Money:

Four-Step Budget
Most budgets are too cumbersome to be useful. Check-out this handy 4-step budget: After filling in income, must-have expenses & nice-to-have expenses, you’ll get a “monthly allowance” for you to spend on discretionary items as you’d like.

Career/Work:

Job-Interview One-Sheeter
This template condenses nine key questions into a one-page “Cliffs Notes.” Quickly articulate your answers to 9 key areas, including: strengths, goals, work-style, ideas, challenges you’ve overcome, questions & an answer to that dreaded “weaknesses” question.

Plan Your Next Career Move
This template will help you start to lift the fog on your career — it breaks down various categories within a job or career (location, company size, type of work, etc), and provides space for you to brainstorm a list of must-haves, nice-to-haves, and can’t stands for each area. Think of it like an “ideal mate” exercise, but for a job — arguably an even bigger commitment given how much time we spend at work!

Professional Development Strategy
This template has three strategy areas: Your Vision (brainstorm about desired impact, what you want to do & have), The What (skills, knowledge, education, experience), and The How (quarterly benchmarks & resources).

Project Plan Template
This is a simple project plan template (though fancier than the thumbnail preview indicates). “Done?” column cells change color automatically if you type “Yes”, “No,” or “In Progress.”

Networking Tracker
Track contact info of people you meet that you want to follow-up with. No need to refer back to business cards – info is easily accessible online (& centralized). Skim through your list every few months & follow-up.

Life & Coaching Exercises:

Wheel of Life
The Wheel of Life is a commonly used coaching exercise. It can help you examine each of the areas of your life and determine where you want to focus your attention. Template bonus: the cells automatically change color based on the values you enter.

Wheel of Aliveness
The Wheel of Aliveness is a take on the Wheel of Life, and helps you rate your current state of “aliveness” on 12 dimensions: Movement + Play, Dance, Nature, Water, Community, Laughter, Learning + Creativity, Challenge, Commitment, Gratitude + Positivity, Letting go, Light and Love.

Decision-Making Tool
Weighing a big decision? Pro/con list not doing the trick? This template will help you break down fears/concerns and brainstorm next steps to move you forward.

Ten Questions to Help you Stop Thinking and Start DOING
This is a self-coaching exercise that will walk you through ten questions to help you move forward on a major idea, life goal or decision. You might also reflect on the questions one week at a time, jotting down notes as new ideas come up.

Life Checklist Template
The principle of the life list is simple. You list all the things you want to do in life – big and small – then cross them off as you do them. This template will help you create a life checklist of your own. Remember: have fun and dream big!

13 Thought-Starters for 2013
It’s easy to fall into the trap of focusing on a routine set of goals — and then it’s no surprise that we end up letting them fall by the wayside because they feel dull and uninspiring. Here’s a twist on your 2013 list — 13 thought-starters to help you come up with a handful of meaningful yet interesting ideas to kick-off the new year.

Dating & Relationships:

The Meet Market
Just graduated? Moving to a new area? This template will help you brainstorm ways to meet new people.

Pining Prevention Plan
This template will (hopefully!) help you get over someone, even if you weren’t in a serious relationship with that person. See also: Break-up Processing Template.

Break-up Processing
If you are going through a break-up or still trying to get over someone, these 20+ questions will help you sort through your thoughts, mourn your losses, and start to see your situation more clearly.

Health & Fitness:

Super-Simple Skill (or Habit) Builder
Studies show that we can build habits or a new skill in as little as five minutes a day for five days, aided significantly by tracking our progress. So why not give it a shot? Use this template to track your progress, with a few reflection questions at the end. Bonus: do this together with a friend and share the same spreadsheet!

Weekly Activity Tracker
Set the target goal for each activity (ex: run twice per week, strength training three times per week), and the spreadsheet will give you a countdown as you check them off. It also totals your minutes per week, w/notes column.

One-Month Health Challenge
**Note: click on second tab below to see full template** This template allows you to track a health challenge that you design with a friend – holds you accountable and makes checking things off fun!

Triathlon / Marathon / Half-Marathon Training Tracker
This template has four tabs: training schedules for a triathlon, half-marathon, tri- and half-combined, and a full marathon. Great for tracking your progress & even better if you can share with a friend for accountability (separate tab for each person).

Organization:

Moving Checklist Template
Moving is a big task — use this template to keep track of all the various aspects of moving out of one home and into another.

Clear Your Clutter
This template will help you identify the area of your house that has most clutter and create a plan for removing it. Clear house, clear mind!

Simple Appointment Tracking
Use this simple spreadsheet to track all of your recurring appointments and the relevant contact information in one place, then schedule reminders to actually make the next appointment one month before you are due.

For Authors:

15-Tab Book Marketing Spreadsheet
15-tab spreadsheet to help authors get organized (and stay sane!) around their book promotion. Tabs include: online promo, offline promo, advance copy distribution, book tour, etc.