Year End Goal Review – 2010
This blog passed its one year anniversary last August (!), so this is my first annual review with history!
In December 2009, I recommended brainstorming goals, ranking them, and then getting specific (or SMART). I was very prescriptive and detailed about how and when I would work towards these goals.
This year, I'm approaching Jan 1 with a very different mindset.
What's Changed?
I don't think I was wrong in 2009. Really thinking hard about what you want to do (and what you won't do instead), and how you're going to achieve your goals is an important skill. Only after a few years of practice did I learn how to spot conflicting and reinforcing goals, and how to really stick on a goal and track it until it was achieved. Only by thinking hard about the reasons I was failing to meet these goals and deadlines did I learn how to finally succeed. I think the process might still be valuable if you need to build discipline, or if you're new to this type of thinking.
But I'm starting to come around to Leo's way of thinking. It's time to try a year with no goals.
I accomplished a lot in 2009, but it's getting to the point where the process is getting in the way of progress. I have too many goals to track, too many times when not being there "yet" caused me stress and anxiety. A lot of the sub-goals really should have been tracked as projects and habits , and tackled one at a time in a more focused manner.
The Year End Goal Review Process, 2010 vintage
1. Review the previous year
It is still good to review your previous year's ambitions, and to make note of your successes and failures.
It's easy to keep marching towards a goal - adding "lose weight" to the list year after year after year, but unless you take the time to figure out what is going wrong, you're never going to make it stick. It's also important to celebrate successes, to add up what you've done in a small chunk of time and say "wow". 
You might not be at the top of the mountain yet, but you're a long way from where you've started!
2. Write "A Picture of Where I am TODAY"
From my goals, I can get a sense of what I had and had not accomplished by the end of last year, but it's really hard for me to remember how I was then. What was weighing most on my mind? What was I feeling good about? What was I excited to tackle? That's why I'm starting this year with a paragraph describing my life as I see it today. How do I feel about my current situation? What's going well? What needs to change?
3. THREE MISSIONS
This is how I am replacing goals. I chose one major thing that I really want to fix, and it's what I'm going to pour most of my energy into in the beginning of the year. It's made up of hundreds of tiny projects, but it's all in the name of one vision. Every day, I'm going to act towards this one objective. The deadline is "TODAY. AS SOON AS POSSIBLE." It will take as long as it takes, as long as I'm working on it and it gets done.
I chose two other missions as well, but I'm not going to act on them until the first main objective is achieved. The third one is something that I don't even expect to think about until it's fall or winter. It's a "stretch goal" if you want to think about it that way 
This year, instead of trying to act on a bunch of different goals at the same time, I'm going to pour all of my energy into ONE THING until it is DONE. I'll still have other things that will come up (I'll have to do the dishes, and taxes are due in April no matter what goals you've committed to), but all of my time management skills and focus are going to be on this ONE THING.
4. THREE HABITS
Start with the habit that is going to make the biggest difference in your life. The difference between a habit and a
mission is that the mission does have a point where you can say "mission accomplished". A new habit is something that you do regularly, and once it's built you should never stop. Focus on building just the first one, and when it becomes automatic, move to the next.
5. THREE REMINDERS
You can think of these as a cross between a resolution and a mantra. Missions and Habits define WHAT you're going to do next year, but reminders are how you're going to do it. Here are mine:
- What can I do to help someone?
- Stop overthinking everything.
- Enjoy Today.
There's no task, habit or project that I can tie to "enjoy today". It's just something I want to remind myself to do. Three might be too many, but I've written them on a card pinned it near my monitor. We'll see how it goes.
6. Write "A Picture of Where I will be in one year"
Just like the picture of where I am today, I wrote this short paragraph in first person present. When next December rolls around, what will have changed?
What will I have accomplished? How will I spend my days? How will I feel? Think of it like a short-term version of the "ideal day" exercise.
"It would be amazing if..." This is your stretch goal. What would you be amazed by, if your future self came back from one year in the future and told you they'd done it? Words are the first step to action.
Will I have a completely different opinion and process at the end of 2011? Maybe. As long as I'm working and learning, I'm okay with that.
By the way, since December 2009 I:
- Launched a new WastedTalent.ca in Februrary that fixed a lot of major problems
- Had the Winter Olympics come through my town
- Took some big steps to further my career
- Was featured in Reader's Digest and the Toronto Star for my comic work
- Kayaked the Broken Islands (3 days of kayaking from island to island in the Pacific)
- Finished a major apartment reno, and really improved my space
- Went to 5 comic conventions, one which was curated, and one I was an invited guest at
- Got Married
- Finished and printed my first book
- Went on a huge adventure in Thailand - my first time in Asia!
I don't expect as impressive a checklist at the end of next year, but the goal is to evolve. Every dawn brings new opportunity. Go kick some ass!
I’m Back with a New Work Flow!
Hello, Internets! Just as promised, I'm baaaaaaaaack!
I honestly missed writing quite a bit! Taking the break was the right decision but I'm very glad to be back. Thank you all for being so supportive of my mini-hiatus.
First things first, I have a confession to make. When I started this blog, I promised that I would share with you how I organized things, and that I would let you know when I discovered that something isn't working. This is one of those times.
At the beginning of the year, I set a new process flow:
- Priorities were identified and SMART Goals were RANKED
- Success Metrics would be TRACKED weekly
- I assigned different goals for every month of the year. In January I would focus on this. In April I would focus on that.
Well, here we are, in July. More than six months of the year have drained by. Don't get me wrong, I have managed to accomplish a few things.
First and foremost: I have a frickin' BOOK (Wasted Talent Book One, currently at the printer). So much of my energy has gone into this, it's not even funny. It was worth it... except that it took way WAY longer than I was hoping it would. Thinking back I don't think I could have worked harder, but it's just depressing when I think of the sum-total of time I spent on this book.
I got frickin' MARRIED. Again, another thing that I am kind of bashing my head against the wall at how long it took. Wayyy too much time, money and energy. But I only had to do it once and it is over now. The day was great and I am so happy to have Trevor and just be married to him. (Should the unthinkable happen to our marriage - I'm just going to elope next time )
I suffered through a FLOOD and a MAJOR RENO. Our kitchen was completely torn apart, walls were ripped out and rotated, floors were redone. I couldn't wash a dish for two months. When you live in less than 800sqft, any little disruption makes a HUGE impact, especially on my poor little control-freak brain. The kitchen reno was happening either way, the flood just expanded the work-zone farther than we were hoping. But it's done! Done done done! The apartment is vastly improved.
These three major things took up way more time and energy than I was predicting, and as a result all of my "timelines" are thrown out the window. I also completely failed on the weekly tracking thing. I have a few things that were tracked automatically, like traffic, and other things that I've been tracking week-to-week, like chores and whether I worked out, but I haven't saved those records. I initially built a Google Doc to track it, but I just don't spend that much time on Google Docs.
When I evaluate my current standing compared to the goals I set at the beginning of the year, it's depresing. But I decided, rather than being depressed about how "behind" I am on everything, I'll develop a new way of doing things.
NEW PROCESS
- Still using ranked priorities and SMART goals
- Not going to obsess over tracking metrics. I am still looking for a way to track metrics that will fit suitably in my life, but for now I'd rather spend my precious energy DOING rather than TRACKING.
Here is the biggest shift:
- All of my goals are now divided into "habits" and "projects"
HABITS are something that need to be done repeatedly: every day, week or month (like working out, or writing a blog post, or getting dressed nicely.) Success is determined by how OFTEN and CONSISTENTLY you do it.
PROJECTS have a defined beginning, middle and end. Success is determined by whether it's done or not (1/0).
It's a pretty clear division, but when I set my goals at the beginning of the year, habits and projects were all mashed together with varying priorities.
HERE IS THE NEW RULE
- You can only build (or break) one new habit at a time.
- You can only tackle one project at a time, and you need to focus on it until it is DONE.
I'm not going to dwell so much on the "when". (such as, in April I will learn to ride my bike to work (I didn't) or I will finish my book by March (yeah, whoops.)) The "When" will always be "as soon as possible". When you finish one habit or project, you move onto the next most important one. Immediately. The order and priority is what concerns me.
So that's that.
I'm very excited by the new set of goals I have to tackle now that these huuuuge major ones are out of the way, and I'm glad to start posting again.
I'll let you know how this goes.
Weekly Goal Review – part 3 of 3
In previous posts, I taught you what a List Binder is and how to make one, and a strategy for scheduling your Work Days. But what do you do when you go home?
Year End Goal Review
As I mentioned in a previous post, I hate New Year's resolutions. But I DO think that the end of the year is a good time to reflect back on your previous year and plan the next one. In 'Western' society we're geared towards thinking of December as an "end" and January as a "beginning".
As such, I thought I'd write out a bit of my year-end process. I've been writing and reviewing annual goals this way for a few years now, and the process evolves every year, so I'm sure I'll be back with an update later on.
BIG ROCKS
This story was told to me in a time management seminar. It really stuck with me, and I looked around for a good video or summary, but I couldn't find one. So I drew it out really quickly (and I mean REALLY quickly, like over my lunch break kinda thing, so I apologize for that). It's kind of a third-hand story, and it originally belongs to the Highly Effective Stephen R. Covey.
Now What? Goal Review and Renewal
You have your "life-long" goals mapped out (or your "bucket list" goals) and you have prioritized your top ten goals and made them SMART... NOW what do you do with them?
Short Term Goals: Conflicting vs. Reinforcing
More than once when I've hit a brick wall on my goals, I've realized that I'd set myself up for failure. My goals were in complete conflict, and were unrealistic.
When setting short term (priority) goals, you must keep in mind that there is only one of you, and only so many hours in the day. If one goal is to compose a concerto, and the other is to create a christmas album, and they both need to be completed in the same amount of time-- you might run into trouble. Chances are you have only so many hours in the day that allow you to focus on your music - and you're forcing yourself to split that time between two goals! Making progress on your concerto means you've neglected working on your Christmas album.
Goal Setting 5 – the RANT
"Don't complain", we're told. We either get scolded for being unappreciative, or it becomes a competition.
"You think you're fat? What are you complaining for, I weigh 200lbs more than you!" Or, "You think YOUR job is tough, you've got it easy! Let me tell you--"
They're right-- you shouldn't complain. At least... not to them. In public you should be grateful for what you have, take problems in stride, and put on a strong face.
But it's natural to complainin. The urge to complain is your mind's way of telling you that something is wrong, something is making you unhappy.
That is the origin of this goal-setting excercise. If you don't know where you want to go, or why you're unhappy, just open up a notepad doc (or a pen and paper if you prefer) and start writing. Some might prefer to speak their rant out loud, but I find when I speak, it's harder to analyze what I've said and dig deeper into why it came out. The rant itself is just the leaves of the weed. Just "getting it out" might make you feel better, but to get your goals out if it, you'll need ot pull up the roots.
Go. Start writing. Once you've opened up the floodgates, let loose about everything you HATE in your life. Even the things you don't really hate, but just annoy you a lot. Don't worry about spelling or grammar, just keep letting the words flow onto the page. Some things might come up that surprise you - dig deeper.
As you continue, narrow it down to PRECISELY what it is that you hate. Is it really the toast that your roommate left on the counter that bothers you? Or is it the fact that you can't yet afford a place of your own?
Drill down and clarify those annoyances, down to the largest root-cause problems in your life. Now you've found your GOALS: to fix every one of those problems.
Goal Setting 4 – The Lottery
This is the fourth in a series of Goal-Setting excercises.
I've said before that you should not define your goals as contingent on winning the lottery (or other statistically insignificant chance of landing into a giant lump-sum of boundless cash), but it is a useful thought excercise.
If you won the lottery, and you had no more need for money for the rest of your life, what would you do?
- What would you use to fill your time?
- Where would you live?
- What type of people would you surround yourself with?
It's useful to think up the types of things that you would do if moneywere no object because it is a useful way to brainstorm dream careers and long term goals. It could also reveal a passion that you should cultivate.
But remember, money can't buy you everything!
Goal Setting 3: The Plane Crash
This is the third in a series of Goal Setting excercises.
The first two excercises (Bucket List and Ideal Day) have been pretty fanciful and fun, this one is a little darker. This excercise is about finding your PRIORITIES.
Imagine you're in a plane, and it's starting to crash. You're facing an abrupt and unexpected certain death. As it hurtles towards the earth, you think to yourself, "This is it! My life is over! I really wish I had _______!!"
That's your plane crash goal. It's the #1 thing that you must work towards accomplishing next, because it'll be your #1 regret if you die tomorrow. When you accomplish your #1 goal, run through the excercise again, the next most important thing will pop up.
Hilight this goal as the MOST IMPORTANT one. Make sure you are moving towards this goal in some small way at all times, regardless of what other short-term priorities come and go. There will always be something "urgent". But at the end, only your plane crash goal will matter.
(If you're having trouble visualising your plane-crash goal, my mind usually turns to it as I'm in a turbulent airplane -- which is the origin of the excercise. If there is some other situation that instills fear of death for you, you can go there in your mind instead).