Achieving Personal Goals

Clarity

The clearer we are about the goals and objectives we set for ourselves in life, the more efficient, and effective, we will be in achieving them. Clarity has as much or more to do with success and happiness as hard work, because once we’re clear about exactly what needs to be done, we produce far less wasted effort and motion. Having clear, written goals allows us to accomplish far more in a shorter period of time we would otherwise ever imagine.

Setting Priorities

Our ability to set priorities on our time (and again, they should be clear and specific) greatly impacts the entire quality of our life. To achieve great things, we have to concentrate on the small number of activities that contribute the greatest value to our life and work, and pursue them one at a time. See my recent post on the myth of multi-tasking for more along these lines.

Making Choices

Here’s another truth I believe: Before we start something new,we need to discontinue something old. Our ability to get control of our life occurs only to the degree to which we stop doing things that are no longer as valuable or as important to you as other thing you could be doing. There simply are only so many hours in the day, and as we learn to replace less important activities with more important ones, we move closer to the outcomes we desire. This leads to a sort of continual improvement of the investment of our time, replacing less beneficial activities with more beneficial ones.

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Several months ago, I wrote this post about the fallacy of trying to do two, or even worse three things at once. I’m well familiar with the hazards of this, as I have to be reminded frequently that I can’t do it (at least not effectively) and it simply undermines goal achievement.

All this to say that I ran across an interesting article in Fast Company’s online magazine (which I subscribe to and recommend). You can read that article online here: Stop MultiTasking

Their point is stated more clearly than mine, but the message is the same. The idea that multi-tasking makes us more productive is more fantasy than reality. Trying to do several things at once tends to result in less tangible results or output than doing one thing, which allows us to focus our attention, which produces maximum results. Split your attention among several things, and output will ultimately fall to near zero.

Since the 1990s, psychologists have done experiments on the human multitasking, it’s characteristics and limits. It’s been shown multitasking is not as workable as when we concentrate on a single item. In general, these studies have disclosed that people show significant interference when even very simple tasks are performed at the same time, if both tasks require choosing and producing action (e.g., (Gladstones, Regan & Lee 1989) (Pashler 1994)). Many researchers believe that it’s the action planning that represents a “bottleneck”, where the human brain can only perform one task at a time. Psychiatrist Richard Hallowell[2] has described multitasking as a “mythical activity in which people believe they can perform two or more tasks simultaneously.”

In short, it doesn’t work. You won’t achieve more, you’ll achieve less. It doesn’t help goal achievement, it undermines goal achievement.

Set your goals, and work on one thing at a time. It’s more efficient, more effective and the net result is you’ll cross the finish line faster.

One goal at a time, one thing at a time. Not two, or three, or ……

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The challenge for many of our true, ‘make a difference’ aspirations in life is to sustain our level of effort and focus, day and and day out. Most people aren’t able to do that, but that creates an opportunity for someone who’s serious about achieving something and is able to find a way to stay focused to rise above the crowd.

Still, it’s a challenge to do and there are things we can do to help ourselves maintain that level of consistency and attention. Here are my suggestions:

1. Create a simple 8 1/2 x 11″ page with the object of your focus written down, and put it somewhere you can’t miss every day (preferably morning and night). Having something that you see continually will help bring your attention back where you want it. Without that, there are just too many distractions for most of us.
2. Enhance your 8 1/2 x 11″ page described above just slightly, and create a grid of task(s) you want to do each day to make progress toward the goal down the left side, and list the days of the month (1 – 30) across the top. Every day, mark an ‘x’ in each box if you competed that task. See my page that discusses Jerry Seinfeld’s advice on this topic, too.



3. Send yourself reminders. If you’re plugged into the electronic age, setup a recurring appointment in Outook, Yahoo calendar, Google calendar, etc. that sends either an email or an SMS text message to your cell phone reminding you of that day’s task or activity. Sort of an electronic, virtual tap on the shoulder to help remind you of what you’ve decided you should be doing, just in case you get distracted (which we all do).
4. Tell people. Peer pressure and/or accountability is another great tool to help insure you stay true to the promise you made yourself. Of course, it’s generally preferable to pick people who will be supportive. I’ve read about some people, though, who tell their most despised critic, knowing that the embarrassment and humiliation of having that person chide them for failing to follow through will provide the kind of negative motivation that they will respond to.



5. Plan rewards. Select your first reward for reaching some milestone (2 weeks of consistent activity, for example), decide what your reward will be, and make sure it’s waiting for you. If a dinner at the best steak house in town is that reward, go purchase a gift certificate (refundable), put it in a drawer somewhere and promise yourself you won’t touch it until you reach the milestone. You’ll be surprised how well you’ll remember your own reward, and how it can help keep the task at hand in your awareness.

There you go, 5 suggestions to help you do what you need and want to do. If you’ve got others, feel free to contact me and tell me what they are.

Good luck!

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I bought a new audiobook this week that I’ve really been enjoying, “The 4 Laws of Financial Prosperity” by Blaine Harris, that’s been a great reminder of the importance of proper financial management in our lives. More importantly though, it’s also motivated me to start tracking my time on a daily basis for a few weeks. This is going to be an interesting experiment.

The messages in the book (so far, only about 1 1/2 hrs into it) aren’t really anything I haven’t known, read before and in fact written about here. For example:

1. You have to measure something for it to improve (put another way, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”)
2. Goals are absolutely essential to provide direction and feedback necessary to make progress

But the narrative around tracking and measuring, specifically tracking your spending, are (a) great reminders of how important it is to follow this proven principle of financial discipline, and (b) it started me thinking about tracking my time for a few weeks to get a better picture of how productive I really am.

Ironically, I was looking at David Seah’s forms yesterday and thinking about how I would like to customize one of them to track my time each day. So I’m thinking forms, I’m thinking time management, I’m thinking measure your progress: It’s like something is trying to persuade me to do this. Well, allrighty then!

I’m only about 1 1/2 hours into the audiobook, but it’s making great traditional facts about achieving financial prosperity in a new way, as well as pointing out some new things I hadn’t considered. More importantly though, the recipe and processes described in the The 4 Laws of Financial Prosperity are similar to alot of the ideas you’ll read here.

I could stop listening to the audiobook now and I it would be worth the price, because it’s reminded me in new ways about the importance of tracking and measuring, and how many things this applies to:

• Weight loss
• Saving for retirement
• Getting out of debt
• Building new career skills
• Developing a hobby skill

Anything that’s important to the quality and opportunities in life fits this model.

In my defense, I generally do a good job of time management and staying productive. I plan most days the night before, in writing. I know the important things I need to get accomplished, and I try to stay aware of staying in the Important and Not Urgent quadrant Steven Covey tells us about.

But the truth is, many times when I look back on the day I realize I spent alot of time on activities I didn’t plan on, and I missed some of the important stuff that really needed to be done to accomplish my bigger goals (writing my daily blog post, researching a new article idea, doing some important research for the website, etc).

So I’m making a commitment (in writing), to start tracking my time every day for the next 3 weeks. Each evening I’ll plan out what I think needs to get done, then I will track on paper how I spent my time.

I know, I know. You wouldn’t want to do this every day of your life. But occasionally this is a great way to get an accurate picture of where the time is really getting spent, and I’m really looking forward to doing it. This will (a) strengthen my self-discipline muscles, (b) make me more aware of how I’m spending my time, and (c) when I’m done, I’m going to summarize all the results and I bet I get an interesting perspective on how I might do better. Feedback leads to positive adjustments, and “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”.

Here’s an example of the form I drew up this morning for my 3 week self-imposed challenge. I know the picture sucks, I’ll try to retake it later with a better camera. The point is I’ve got a form to use to track the time dail.

The idea to use radio buttons to track 15 minute intervals comes from the forms David Seah produces, and I’ve just “tweaked” it for my own preferences. This is obviously just a rough handwritten version, if I use it a couple of days and decide I like it I’ll attempt to make it look a little better (that should be easy!).

Anyway, that’s the deal. I promise to report an honest summary of how it went in a few weeks, starting today (noon – 1pm was to write this blog post. See, it’s working!).

In the meantime, if getting your financial affairs in order is on your mind, or if you know someone who could benefit from guidance in that area, I cannot recommend The 4 Laws of Financial Prosperity highly enough. As with most wisdom, it’s clear and simply reiterates many of the principles we already know (which tells me that the information is correct), but it does it in a compelling, persuasive way that just about everyone I know needs to hear. Especially younger people, who have the most to gain and can be saved from making the biggest mistakes early in their life. Send it to a teenager or new professional you know – I guarantee it will influence their decisions if they read or listen to it.

Check back in 3 weeks for the results. I will.

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We know that a critical part of achieving a goal is to take regular action each and every day to move closer to it. Making time for those activities generally requires that we make some sacrifices.

The following is my list of the top 5 sacrifices that, if you identify them as potential time wasters up front, should make your daily planning easier and greatly improve your progress toward your goal.

Turn off the TV

The statistics on how much time we spend, or rather waste, watching TV are astounding. The TV is a fine creation and a nice way to unwind and relax, but we all know that 15 minutes of TV can turn into 2 hours before you know it. There are plenty of ways to relax and unwind, and leaving the TV turned off will put more time back into your week for goal related activities that can change your life.

Beware of the internet

There, I said it. Advice to turn away from the internet, delivered on the internet (kind of ironic, ain’t it?). I’ll admit that surfing my favorite web sites and drifting off to research some less than critical idea on the web are two of my greatest time wasters, so much so that I just have to consciously make myself close the browser window.

Of course, this advice includes Google searches, surfing, FACEBOOK(!), YouTube, blogs and all the rest. We’ve got important work to do, things that can change our lives and the lives of others. Accomplishing those things generally doesn’t involve surfing the internet.

I appreciate how hard it is to manage this, and that’s exactly why it’s #2 on the list. It helps me to remember that we’re looking for progress, not perfection. Less surfing, more goal activity.

Poorly Planned Day (no list, objectives)

Not having a to do list, agenda or set of objectives for the day is just another opportunity to end up chasing unimportant or unnecessary tasks, instead of those that will move your life and outcomes in the right direction. Having a list of key things you want to get done each day, and working on those tasks first until finished, dramatically improves personal productivity.

Saying “Yes”

Someone is standing in front of you, it’s not a big request, should only take 30 minutes, and you don’t want to say “no”. It happens to all of us, sometimes many times a day. If we say “yes”, we stop doing what we need to be doing, venture of in a different direction, and when we come back it takes 10 minutes just to get back into what we were doing.

The only useful antidote for this time waster is awareness. Staying aware of the list you created in time #3 (above), knowing the important things you need to accomplish today, are essential to making the right decision when someone is trying to divert your attention.

Telephone

Stephen Covey describes the 4 quadrants of activities are those that are:

• Urgent
• Not Urgent
• Important
• Not Important

Most of the time, the telephone is classified as a Not Urgent, and frequently Not Important. I know that sales people and other professions are required to spend time on the phone with clients. Time spent talking to real clients about real problems is not what we’re talking about. This time waste involves time on the phone with friends, family, co-workers, you name it – just chatting or killing time. I’m not advocating seclusion, just throwing up red flags for those things can can silently derail your progress and ultimate success.

Summary
I know that we each need time to relax, and that’s a critical part of a well balanced day. But web surfing, chatting on the phone, taking interruptions or zoned out on TV can be time wasters whose use result in diminishing who and what you can become. No one’s advocating that they be eliminated, but they are “high risk” zones and should be approached with extreme caution!

You have three great resources: Your time, your money and your energy. Use them all wisely.

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If you’re like me, it helps when starting something new to look at examples. Using examples of goals others have written to guide your goal definition and creating your action plan is always a good idea. In an effort to help you along, I’ve included a couple of examples of goal statements below:

Make Them SMART

Any conversation about how to select or write good goals should start with the tried and true acronym: SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time Sensitive). Here are a couple of examples of SMART goal statements, both well written and not so much:

Examples

Not good: I want to retire with alot of money.

Better: I will retire at age 50 with $2.08 million dollars in liquid investments and my home paid for. This will allow me to live on $10,000/month and still allow my principal to grow by 2% to keep pace with inflation.

Why: This is specific ($2.08 million by age 50), measurable (just check the bank balance on your 50th birthday), attainable (depends on your age, income), relevant (retirement planning is an important activity), and time-sensitive (deadline of age 50). There will be no doubt whether this goal has been reached or not, and it’s quite clear what has to be done to reach it. Exactly HOW it will be reached is another subject (the Action Plan), but where you are heading is certain, and that’s important.
 
Here’s another example:
Not good: “I don’t want to have to take my daughter to day care any more.”

Better: I will earn an additional $750 a month by doing Company ABC’s bookkeeping work starting next month. I will do this for 4 hours every Saturday, which will pay for a nanny to stay with my daughter from 9pm – 4pm every day until I come home from my job.

Why: Again, it’s specific (do Joe’s excess bookkeeping work), measurable (4 hours every Saturday), attainable (to be done on the weekends), relevant (affects how she raises her daughter) and time-sensitive (starts next month, continuing every Saturday).
 

Top Goals

Here are the top 25 goals we are setting lately, according to 43Things:

1. Lose weight 37224 people
2. Stop procrastinating 27241 people
3. Write a book 26469 people
4. Fall in love 24734 people
5. Be happy 22226 people
6. Get a tattoo 20481 people
7. Drink more water 19283 people
8. Get married 18895 people
9. Travel the world 18699 people
10. Go on a road trip with no predetermined destination 18691 people
11. See the northern lights 17156 people
12. Learn Spanish 15784 people
13. Save money 14979 people
14. Kiss in the rain 14608 people
15. Take more pictures 14421 people
16. Make new friends 12906 people
17. Buy a House 12788 people
18. Learn to play the guitar 12772 people
19. Get out of debt 11217 people
20. Read more books 11115 people
21. Get a job 10941 people
22. To live instead of exist 10924 people
23. Learn french 10786 people
24. Tun a marathon 10729 people
25. Exercise regularly 10620 people

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