Instead of my normal monthly goals update, I thought I’d take a look back at what I’ve accomplished over the whole of 2009. As Josh Kaufman notes in his year-end wrap-up, we overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can do in a year. I can sympathize with his reflection of how a string of days in which you feel lazy and behind can add up to one busy, fulfilling year.
What did I accomplish?
This year, I:
- Had a daughter, the lovely Sydney Olivia.
- Brainstormed, tested and spitballed a year’s worth of movie ideas. (241 ideas, 773 comments and 3,020 votes over 48 weeks.)
- Outlined 5 of those movie ideas. (NORMAN, HOLLYWOOD SCORE, BANDITOS!, HOME AGAIN, FENG SCHWEET)
- Planned and prepped for Phase 2 of my screenwriting project.
- Started freelance copywriting with both pro bono and paid clients.
- Polished my resume and portfolio.
- Designed, used and refined an efficient system for tracking, testing and improving my productivity and wellness. (And showed gains in happiness and productivity over the course of the year.)
- Envisioned and created an online substantiation repository for the collateral at my job.
- Worked ahead at my day job.
- Planned and started a competition tracking system that earned accolades from the President of my company.
- Brainstormed and pitched a number of revenue-generating ideas at my job.
- Increased my income by about 6%. (Not a huge amount, but good during a recession. Plus, I set myself up for bigger gains this year.)
- Placed third in the office Lifestyle Fitness Challenge.
- Shopped for, bought and moved into a townhouse. (Now officially nicknamed The Preserve thanks to all of the animals, particularly bunnies, that live in the area.)
- Visited the Kasubicks in Cleveland.
- Read the following books: The Art of Learning, Personal Development for Smart People, Talent Is Overrated, Outliers, The New Rules of Marketing & PR, Loving What Is and 20 others. (“2009 in Books” post coming soon.)
- Made a really really big snowman. (Yes, this was one of my goals.)
- Maxed my IRA.
- Developed the habit of saying grace at meals. (Family rule: the person in the worst mood has to say grace. It works!)
It’s been a great year!
What’s up for 2010?
I’m still working off our 101 Goals/1001 Days list, but I’ve also taken the advice of the people at Church of the Customer and drawn up an annual strategic plan. Sounds complicated and anal, but it’s really quite simple and very helpful. In short, at the end of the day, it’s not how many hours you work that’s important, but what you accomplish. Or as Seth Godin calls it, the ability to ship (required reading!). Setting up a strategic plan keeps you focused on the goal and helps prevent working-f0r-work’s sake.
To set up your own, follow these steps:
- Determine the 2-3 main accomplishments or developments you’d like to achieve this year. (More than that is too many.)
- Determine how you’ll measure your success in those 2-3 things. Could be miles run, pounds lost, pages written, products launched, clients gained, income earned, etc. (This should be numerical. And you might have several measurements per accomplishment.)
- Determine your strategies for reaching those measurements. (For example, if you want to lose weight, your strategy could be a morning run or a diet or both.)
- Determine the steps involved for each strategy. (For a morning run, you may need to buy running shoes and find the best start and stop time.)
And that’s it. Put it on a flowchart for easy reading and you’ve got simple, one-page instructions for how to accomplish everything you want to in 2010.
Here’s mine, if you’re curious:
Main accomplishments:
- Build my writing chops
- Grow my writing career
- Improve my wellness
How I’m measuring success:
- Write 12 script outlines
- Write a children’s book
- Land 3 new paid freelance clients
- Land 3 new charity clients
- Increase my income by 30%
- Reach 150 lbs.
- Maintain a certain “quality of life” score on my tracking metrics
My strategies to reach those measurements:
- Host an online writing group to develop one script outline per month
- Write 100 words per day on a children’s story I thought of last year
- Launch a charity project in which I offer my copywriting services for free to sustainable organizations (more about this in a future post)
- Build my professional network
- Improve my diet
- Develop a yoga & meditation practice
And I’ve outlined the 2-5 steps involved with each of these strategies. I’ll skip those here, though.
How am I doing so far?
I’m busy! I mean, this post has taken me over a month to write.
And here’s a shocker: caring for a newborn takes more time and energy than I expected. (Thankfully, it’s a lot more rewarding and joyful than I expected, too.) I wasn’t sure how Sydney would affect my goals, but I’m doing well so far. I’m halfway through my first script outline — having a blast with that — and haven’t missed a day’s 100 words on my children story yet — although I’ve done quite a bit of it bleary-eyed at 11 pm. Sydney’s also inspired a couple of new projects. Top secret for now, but some really great ideas.
I’m even managing to squeeze in freelance work. Very helpful with the delivery bills starting to roll in. I’ll be cutting back on that a little for awhile. I’m behind on my baby-reading and I’d like my weekends to be more open for family time, especially once the weather gets nicer and Sydney gets more alert.
And there’s a growing list of household projects I need to take care of before summer: clean up the basement, sell the canoe and accessories, sell the armoire, clean out the garage, finish touching up the paint around the house, paint above the fireplace, install the new thermostat and so on. Oy!
I won’t be posting goal updates monthly like last year. Just too much to do, which is great. But don’t worry; I’ll let you know how things are progressing from time to time.
What are your goals for 2010?
9 Comments
I love how you’ve taken the idea of OGST and applied it to your personal strategic plan. Smart! Thanks for the mention, too.
I’m curious about the “online substantiation repository” you created. Sounds like a good blog post.
You’re welcome! Church of the Customer is a great blog.
For me, there isn’t a clear distinction between personal and professional goals. The metrics may be different, but smart goals in one area should help me achieve my objectives in the other. Two sides of the same coin, if you will.
Improving my wellness, for example. That’s a personal goal, but we all know that being healthy boosts your clarity and productivity. Or increasing my income; a professional goal that’s really about improving my personal life.
i sent you an email!
Sitting down and setting goals is something that 99% of the world doesn’t do. (Unless forced. That’s why my kids don’t get to be in the 1% line, ha.) I admire your motivation.
Thanks!
Can you force someone to set goals? Do they keep them?
Could you elaborate on this one?
“Designed, used and refined an efficient system for tracking, testing and improving my productivity and wellness.”
Is this basically the flow chart you mentioned, or something else?
Something else, actually.
As the saying goes, “what gets measured, gets managed”. With that in mind, I created a spreadsheet at the start of 2009 that would allow me to track:
-How I spend my time (in 15 minute increments)
-How I rate my mood, energy, focus and health (in 2 hour increments)
-What I eat
-What my daily goals are and how many of them I accomplish
-How I feel about different aspects of my life (professional, creative, personal, etc.)
-How much time I spend on different tasks: work, writing, chores, exercise, etc.
I print up a “tracking sheet” every day to write down all of this information by hand. I keep it in my back pocket, so it’s also a handy notepad for brainstorms I may get.
Then, every so often, I transcribe these hard copies onto a master spreadsheet that totals and averages the data by month and year.
It was a pain in the butt at first — and sometimes still is — but it gets easier. I think a lot of the benefit — productivity and happiness wise — comes from just being mindful. If you’re regularly checking in to say ‘what am I doing now? how am I feeling?”, then you’re less apt to spend a day doing nothing or moping around.
A lot of work, yes. If nothing else, I highly recommend everyone start the day by setting three goals. Think of it this way: if I only get one thing done today, what should it be? Decide, that’s your first goal, do that first. And so on for two and three.
Ryan–That sounds exhausting, though I can see how it would be helpful. I think if I did something like that, I’d lie to my spread sheet about how I spent my time. I say that only partially joking. I guess that says something not too good about me.
It can be tiring, but I don’t update the chart EVERY 15 minutes. But I aim to make my notes between activities. Work for x hours, update, cook and eat dinner, clean up, update, read, etc.
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[...] either case, I’ve got a few minutes here. Thought I’d check in my 2010 goals and plan and see how I’m [...]