Wow, January is already over and I’m shocked that it went by so quickly. This morning I spent some time reviewing my goals for the year and how my progress is coming along and while I’m on target in most areas there are a few I haven’t paid that much attention to.
I think there’s a certain power to constantly reviewing your goals. I don’t believe that the universe grants our wishes, or that a vision board will increase my bank balance. However I think that when you take the time to write something down and occasionally review it, that you help bring it to the forefront of your mind. I think one of the reasons that most people don’t accomplish their goals is that they forget they ever had them in the first place. By reviewing your goals you remind yourself that they exist and to look for opportunities in the world around you to help achieve them. I do a quick review every morning, and longer ones weekly, on the first of every month, and on the first of the year. I might start putting those up here, but haven’t decided yet.
Here’s a few of the things I’m focusing heavily on over the next year:
- Spanish – I took a couple of years in highschool but would like to be able to speak it conversationally.
- Programming – I’ve always been a really sub par programmer. So over the next year I’d like to try and develop something from the ground up as a way to improve. I’m toying with a few different project ideas and last year really started to pick up a lot of Python.
- Writing – I really enjoy writing, I like writing for this blog, I like writing fiction, I even enjoy writing up technical guides. This year I’m going to focus on that and try to create more content in a variety of different areas and places.
With each of these I have some more concrete goals attached, daily wordcount goals for writing, and daily vocabulary targets for Spanish, but in January I really didn’t push as hard as I should have. Without my monthly review I wouldn’t have even realized that I wasn’t making fast enough progress. An example would be my goal to read 100 books this year, I’m already a few books behind pace, partially because two of the books I finished last month were gigantic, but my goal was books read, not pages, so I can’t let that slow me down.
Now that January is over how much progress have you made on everything you said that you wanted to accomplish this year? The clock is ticking…
I’d really like to read some of your fiction. Writing is one of my favorite things ever, but I suck ass at fiction. Makes me sad
Marissa hasn’t even seen it, so yeah no. Not quite proud enough of it yet to let anyone know I wrote it.
Have you read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott? It’s one of my favorite books on writing. I’m super good at the Shitty First Draft.
I’ve got a stack of books on copywriting but haven’t read much on “real” writing. Have you checked out http://www.scribophile.com/ Would probably be a good way to get help with the revisions. I also like running stuff through http://prowritingaid.com/
Nice post Brett, and nice goals! I’d also like to get better at programming, but I’ve found it hard to get into it. I’m not yet passionate about it enough to give my attention to this field of work for more than a few hours a month. As for Spanish, have you tried italki? I hope everything goes according to plan!
I was wondering if you knew of any good literature on goal setting. I’m trying to read as much on the topic of goals and their importance in getting stuff done, and I’m planning to write a post on that topic this month, so any good recommendations would be great!
Cheers,
Sam
Thanks Sam. I’ve got a fairly simple system that works out perfectly for me that’s a mashup of Agile Results and Getting Things Done. David Allen wrote a follow up to Getting Things Done called Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life That was much more focused on the goals and longterm planning rather than the tasks/todo items.
I’m in the process of writing what will probably end up being a series about my productivity system. But in short my process is:
1.) Reviews – Staart of day, End of Day, Start of Week, Start of Month, Start of Year.
2.) Only 3 big goals per week and per month, Daily and Yearly numbers vary.
3.) Each day must have tasks that help achieve the weekly or monthly goals, monthly goals should contribute towards 1-5 year goals.