How can you make your goals actually happen? Setting goals is the easy part. You experience fun and excitement as you envision the things you will do and become. Yet, keeping your goals on track for the next year is the hard part. Between now and the arching of the goal is frustration, fatigue, and thoughts of putting it off till tomorrow – which never comes.
Photo courtesy of Flickr/Creative Commons/Trekking Rinjani [/featured-image]
So, before you set off to make the goals, you first have to build in a process that works for you so that you can actually focus and get something done. On this podcast I will share the process I use.
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Works for Me: Tools and Tips for Productivity and Profit
Get too many business cards? Have an iPhone? Try Cardmunch. I found this tool (recommended by Ray Edwards) that is by LINKEDIN. I love it. You take a photo of your card and forget it. They MANUALLY read the card and create the appropriate contact information and then send it back to your phone. You keep the card (in image form) and the contact. Yay! – finally clean out the drawer of all those cards!
[reminder]How do you deal with business cards? [/reminder]
Topic of the Week: Make Your Goals Actually Happen
- Visual – Make the goals visual. I made a list on my whiteboard (mirror board) of all 9 of my 3-month goals.
- Folders – Create folders for the goals. For each goal I created a folder as I described in the previous post on Setting Goals for Next Year.
- Plan Ahead – Plan the day in advance. At 4PM everyday I make a plan for the next day. I try to focus on the 6 key things I want to get done tomorrow. Also, I have found that the more specific I am the better. For example, instead of saying “prep for the talk in Memphis” I might say instead “outline the 3 points for my Memphis talk.”
- Calendar – Put time on your calendar for the first action of every goal. This first action might be simple, such as send an email or make a call.
- Next Action – As you complete an action toward your goal, close out that moment by defining the next action and putting time on your calendar to do this next action.
- Weekly Review – Do a weekly review at the same time every week. I like to do it on Friday. During the review look for things you did not get done and things you need to get done next week. Make sure your calendar is ready.
- Sleep on Your Goals – Review your goals before you go to bed. Your brain keeps working.
- Think – Take time in the morning to think on paper. I often wake up with a ton of ideas as a result of my brain working while I sleep.
- Actions – Leave time in the morning to take small actions. From your list of new ideas, what little actions can you take now? Do it. For example, in my thinking time this morning I realized my number one audio issue with my podcast is an echo from my new office/studio. So I took immediate action and ordered sound dampening panels to cancel the echo. This is something I could have put on my “to-do” list, but instead I just did it then. Done.
- Setup your own Getting Things Done system. This takes some time, but well worth it.
- Join (or start) a mastermind group. This also is a time commitment, but pays off powerfully. One great rousouerce on this is the master (and the leader of my group) Jonathan Milligan. See the episode resources below for some other great links on how to start a mastermind group.
Episode Resources
In this episode I mentioned some resources, including:
- Cardmunch
- Getting Things Done
- Dave Ramey’s post on the 20 things the rich do everyday.
- Jonathan Milligan on mastermind groups
- Pat Flynn on mastermind groups
- Chris Ducker’s mastermind groups post
- Ray Edwards on masterminds
- Pat Flynn’s podcast on productivity tips
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[reminder]What major goal have you set this year? Do you dare to share? [/reminder]
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