Goals. We all have them, right? We all craft some imaginary
(or real life) list of things we want to accomplish before we croak. Some goals
might be lofty (take over the world), others might be to quit smoking or to
spend more time with friends, or even to work out three times a week. However,
how well do you do at planning your goals?
No.
Wait.
Better question:
How well do you manage the accomplishment of each goal?
That, from where I sit – and no, I am not on the high horse
today – is where I see most people fall down.
Naturally, that led me to believe I needed to do a blog
about this.
So, direct from one of the most anal retentive people on the
planet – that would be me --, here are a few tips that might help you eat that
elephant (I’ll explain later).
Step 1: Build your
elephant
This is when I sit down and write my annual goals – usually right
before the end of the year, or directly after the start of the new one. Except
I don’t write them as goals, I have them in my Evernote as “Things That Will
Happen in the Next Year”. Then, I have a daily reminder to myself (set in my
Outlook) to review those goals. Daily review helps keep me focused forward, as
opposed to obsessing over things I didn’t get done.
And I obsess….a lot. Really. This helps me.
Step 2: Downsize your
elephant
From the annual list, I take the month ahead of me and do
what I call a “30 in 30”. A 30 in 30 is a list of 30 things I am going to
accomplish over the next 30 days. All of these things are written to help me
inch closer to my annual goals.
Step 3: Keep eating
that elephant
From there, I pepper my daily to do list with these 30 in 30
items, crossing off one item on the
“bigger” list each day – sometimes even two
in a day – and giving myself a system with which I can track my own progress.
How do I do it? I use a combination of Evernote (for the
larger goals), Outlook tasks and calendars and a plain old composition notebook
– for when inspiration strikes.
Goals only mean something if you measure them. As we are
now, officially two weeks into the new year, are you making goals you can track
and measure?
Because the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a
time.
Stay tuned for my next piece on this, at the beginning of February.
I’ll let you know how I fared.
And, of course, if you have something to share, please leave
a comment!
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