In the next couple posts, I am going to be writing a Goal Management Series devoted to the procrastinator in all of us.
Setting goals is a little like taking your vitamins… Everyone should do it, but few people actually make it a priority. In fact, there are over 30 books released each year that talk about goals to one degree or another, but how many of us actually read them?
I am and always have been an advocate of good goal setting (and goal keeping). I think it’s a very important part of my daily existence and has led to a lot of my successes so far. The problem is, without a good process, goal management is often forgot about. And if you are going to buy software to address the problem, look to spend between $100 and $500 a copy.
In all actuality, a binder and a pen work even better.
What is a Goal? And Goal Management?
One of the best definitions of the word goal I have heard is:
“A goal is nothing more than a dream with a deadline.” Keith Ferrazi
Now, when I mention the word deadline, I can already see your eyes start to water. Deadlines are hated events for most people, in any work culture.
Personally, I don’t mind them. They force you to get very real about what it is going to take to accomplish some set objective. For instance, in taking on a big web based project, you have a goal. That goal might be to fabricate some sort of online based training website in two months.
Well, in order to meet that end requirement you have to break the project down into smaller pieces so you can plan accordingly. One day you might implement the front end sales pages. The next, you can get the credit card processing to work. The day after, you can start hacking away at the admin panel which will integrate Moodle. It isn’t such a daunting task when broken down into parts.
Goals aren’t much different. In order to hit some desired target, you need to take steps to get there.
That’s where goal management comes in. Goal management is nothing more than a process in which you address those goals. I personally like using some brainstorming charts that I will make available for download, combined with an excel spreadsheet that lets me move a lot of the information around. From these goal management sheets, I then develop task lists!
We will go over all of this stuff in a lot greater detail in the coming articles, but I just wanted to write a brief introduction to the series overall.
My personal take on Goal Management
Personally, I don’t mind them. They force you to get very real about what it is going to take to accomplish some set objective. For instance, in taking on a big web based project, you have a goal. That goal might be to fabricate some sort of online based training website in two months.
Well, in order to meet that end requirement you have to break the project down into smaller pieces so you can plan accordingly. One day you might implement the front end sales pages. The next, you can get the credit card processing to work. The day after, you can start hacking away at the admin panel which will integrate Moodle. It isn’t such a daunting task when broken down into parts.
Goals aren’t much different. In order to hit some desired target, you need to take steps to get there.
At this time, one of my goals is to make $2,000.00 a month on my network of sites. How am I going to get there? Establishing informational products and paid content? Yep. Establishing a member’s only higher-level educational site that relates to Empower Ideas? Right again.
In order for these things to be actionable, I had to fix them up with their start and finish dates. It is the only way for me to prioritize for them.
So, starting tomorrow, we are going to get into goal management - more notably brainstorming for goals. I have downloadable documents that I use personally almost every day as an added bonus for you.
Oftentimes, it isn’t so much where you are going, but how you are going to get there…
Here are the tools we will be discussing in greater details. If you want, you can download them now, or you can get them individually through the series of posts:
