David Hollingworth

When we set a goal it has to be a challenge. A goal that’s set too easy has little motivational impact; there’s little reward from achieving something that’s very easy and so there’s not much to motivate us.

On the other hand setting a goal that’s too hard is also demotivating. If we don’t believe we can achieve a goal then we won’t put any determination into getting them done.

Setting a goal is therefore a balance between setting it too easy and setting it too hard. This is where the A (Attainable) in SMART goals comes into play. We have to believe we can attain a goal and yet not set that goal too easy; it has to be a challenge.

How do you know when you’ve set a goal that’s too easy or too hard? Leave a comment and share your experiences.

In my last posting on attaining goals we looked at maintaining an All Projects list and a Current Projects list. However even my Current Projects list is too large to be easily manageable with eight projects on it, six of which are active.

To be really productive you have to be focussed and this means concentrating on one project at a time. Every time you switch projects it takes some of your productive time to get into the mind set for that project, pick up the tasks and get yourself organized. All this is time that is not actually moving the project forwards. If you spend your time doing a bit here and doing a bit there then you’ll make little progress across a broad spectrum of projects. This can rapidly become demotivating as seemingly little progress is made on any front.

With the index card system it’s easy to maintain the focus. Every morning, as part of the morning routine, review the Current Projects list:

1. Has a waiting project become active? Then mark it as active.
2. Is an active project now waiting for something? Then remove its Active sticker
3. Which project is needs to be focussed on now? Mark this project with a different colour.

Here’s my Current Project list for this morning:

This immediately puts me into the mind set I need to do focussed work on this project and makes the project stand out from the rest. Every time I glance at the Current Projects list I know just where I must focus my attention. Once I’ve completed all the tasks I can on this project then I’ll move the Focused Project sticker to the next most important project and start to focus there.

Soon we’ll look at breaking goals and projects down into the individual tasks needed to get them done and looking at how these fall into the organization structure.

If you’re anything like me you’ve probably got dozens of on-going goals or projects that you went to get done. How do you keep track of all of these and ensure nothing gets missed?

Part of the answer is in having regular reviews; but then you need to have something organized to look at when it comes to review time. Now you can either go high-tech (computerized) or low-tech (paper based) in this and there’s often an on-line debate as to which is better and what tool is best for the job. It’s not what you use that matters, it’s making it work for you that counts.

My current goal tracking system starts with an All Projects list.

The All Projects list is used as a high level overview of all the goals I want to achieve. An entry on here ensures none of my goals slips under the carpet and gets forgotten about.

I was amazed when I wrote out my All Projects list that I had so many things I wanted to get done. It was no wonder some things never got addressed - there were just too many of them to keep them all going around in my head. Here’s the first page of the list in full and thumbnails to the second and third pages if you want to take a look:

That’s one big list of projects; but some of these aren’t active yet. In fact I’ve only got eight active projects out of this list of thirty one. When I decide I’m going to address a project or a goal I move it onto a Current Projects card.

Now I can see the eight goals or projects that are currently active and need me to spend some time on so that’s narrowed the field down somewhat. However some of these projects are temporarily on hold so I use transparent sticky tabs to highlight those projects that can be worked at present:

At every review this shows me which goals I should and can be addressing now. At review time I can check my All Projects list for anything that has come into scope and needs further work; these get moved to my Current Projects list. I then check my Current Projects to see which projects need my immediate attention and which are on hold.

In a future post I’ll be looking at how the project cards integrate with task lists and to-do lists. Until then I’d love to read how you manage your high level goals, particularly if you’re using a low-tech system.

I set my weight loss goal on 25th April and it’s now mid-June so it’s definitely time for a review. I had a fairly major life change at the end of May when I was made redundant. So another reason to take stock and review.

I followed my goal review method and above is the resulting map (please click the thumbnail for a larger view). From this you can see that:

1. Relevance is still very high - loosing the weight is still very important to me
2. But that the walking goal I set for the month of May didn’t pan out as expected. The feedback here is that:
   1. Things started well for the first week or so
   2. Then I got ill with a stomach bug
   3. For the latter half of the month the redundancy proceedings took over and completely threw out any sort of routine

   It boils down to the fact that I found it impossible to establish the new walking habit at lunchtime because I needed to be more flexible at that time. I could have done it; but I chose not to!

3. Any new sub-goals to contribute to my weight loss goal?
   1. I can cycle instead of walk. I’ve always enjoyed cycling and used to cycle a lot in my thirties. This needs a new goal set with targets. I’ve much more motivation to cycle than walk, and I’ve a new bike!
   2. Do the ‘I Can Make You Thin’ 90 day challenge. This is a book (and a TV series) from Paul McKenna. I followed the TV series and I believe the challenge is based on some sound principles. This too needs a SMART goal that I started to sketch out on my review card.
4. Finally, Next Actions! What am I going to do next to kick start the weight loss goal again?
   • Set a SMART cycling goal with weekly targets, making it very easy to start so that I can establish the habit.
   • Set the 90 day challenge and follow through the work book.

I’ll be following up on these new goals in a latter posting.

By the way, I have lost some weight! I lost 5 pounds during my stomach upset and, at the last weighing, I’d kept them off!