Making Realistic Goals

1. A VISION that avoids confusion (which requires a right attitude)
2. An INCENTIVE that speeds up change (often with a deadline)
3. ACTION PLANS that prevent dead-ends and false starts (which require correct goals)
4. SKILLS that prevent anxiety
5. RESOURCES that prevent frustration

• This isn’t useful for framing your future status, but critical for preparing your mind for specific tasks.
• Finding motivation requires we fully understand our purpose.
• Visualizing creates a sensory connection of experiencing, seeing, and feeling through intense imagination.
• Every successful person visualizes their purpose before they’ve created any results.

• If you’re competing against many people, you’re at a disadvantage out of sheer probabilistic chance.
• Instead, aim for things that have a much smaller set of people competing for that space.
• Preferably, if you’re the only one doing something, then you’re safe from people trying to imitate you until they catch up.

• Your future outlook on life
• The routine of your future typical day
• Your future job
• The things you’ll be looking forward to
• Your future family
• The people in your social circle and your closest friends
• Your future physical appearance and fitness
• Your future home
• How you will manage conflicts and hardships
• What you want people to remember you for

• Why do I do (action) and what makes me do it?
• What do I dream about or love doing and what has kept it from happening?
• Which skills am I good at and how can I use them more?
• What do other people need and where do they need it?
• Which opportunities can I use to expand my worldview or learn what I want to learn?
• What strengths and weaknesses do I have right now?
• What opportunities and threats surround me?

• State out loud “everything in my life is fine”, then pay close attention to any objections you feel
• Write down your top 5 problems in your life, then ask why you haven’t done anything about them
• Long-held beliefs, prejudices, and assumptions
• Communications with others
• Mindless routines and habits
• Insufficient time, energy or resources for your goals
• “Voids” of wasted time, energy or resources
• Your worst fears

1. Recognize their principle, technique or idea.
2. Relate their principle, technique or idea to your experience.
3. Assimilate the principle, technique or idea as part of yourself.
4. Action it by doing something to prove you now live by it.

• Write a “personal leadership code” of 5-10 principles or purposes you wish to live by.
• Place those rules somewhere prominently.
• Every year, review those rules to be sure they still apply.

• It often takes longer than you think because you’re completely incapable of realizing all the challenges along the way.
• It’s also impossible to stay motivated when things don’t work out the way you expected.

• Without long-term plans, we often don’t know when to stop or reconsider our actions.
• If we don’t expect to follow through with a goal, it’s better to save the discouragement and not start at all.

• If you aim for 20 BHAGs (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals), you’ll probably only do about 3 of them.

• Good systems allow you to build toward ideas and should be flexible to adapt to changes in life.
• Goals, on the other hand, can be discouraging if they’re not correctly set.
• A good system is simple enough to easily provoke you to act, but sophisticated enough to capture your ideas.

• Extraordinary people did above-average things every day for a long time.
  • Making small improvements you can stick to over a long time always yields more results than a large-scale ambition.
• While each person can become extraordinary, they started with unremarkable sacrifices.
• To believe you can achieve, you must start with something small.
  • We experience a psychological reward when finishing a task, so start something you can finish quickly.
  • Aiming for smaller goals has the advantage of building momentum toward larger goals later.
• Even skills for managing a large organization or starting a business start with remembering to floss every day or do laundry.

• By clarifying what you want, you free up your mind to focus on getting there.
• Since they separate you from the statement’s feeling, don’t use jargon or technical terminology.
• Avoid extremes and always/never statements, since they tend to foster mental illness.
• Set clear deadlines with a followup date to examine your results.

• Work forward from your opportunities, not back from some long-term vision.
• Contrary to most success “advice”, your goal will change much faster than your natural abilities and situation.
• If you must think long-term, imagine the future position that will give the most opportunities, not the ones that make you happiest or seem most promising.
  1. Clearly define what your problems are.
  2. Figure out all the things that would most likely guarantee failure.
  3. Carefully consider actions you can do to avoid every one of those things.

• Paper, notebooks, sticky notes
• To-do list and note-taking software
• Journals
• Gantt charts, mind maps, spreadsheets

• Create a natural flow from your brainstorming to making your results.
• Use any medium you feel adds value, and avoid what you don’t like.
• Always look for more ways to slice and capture your information better.

• You can only organize after you know what you want to do.

• Simple problems are relatively straightforward, even if they have many steps (e.g., most cooking).
• Complicated problems can also be broken into steps, but there’s no straightforward system to easily use for it (e.g., building a rocket).
• Complex problems are elaborate, interdependent situations that are difficult to simplify (e.g., parenting).

• Remove unnecessary steps or spin them off into projects.
• Group ideas to understand your ambitions.

• After you’ve made your plan, imagine you’ve received a vision that the plan is doomed to fail, then ask why it would.
• Expect every possible thing that could go wrong, then make plans for those.

• If the task breaks into multiple days or multiple parts, it needs sub-dividing.
• Vague tasks need more clarification, which may require spelling out exactly what to do.
• Every task will start with an “action” verb:
  • Single-step verbs only take a few minutes:
    • Book, brainstorm, buy, call, copy, discuss, draft, edit, email, fill out, find, gather, load, outline, print, purge, read, record, register, research, review, schedule, verify, wait for, write
  • Multi-step verbs take hours or days:
    • Analyze, build, complete, decide, design, ensure, finalize, finish, handle, implement, install, launch, look into, maximize, organize, research, resolve, roll out, set up

• What do I need to make results?
• What skills do I need?
• Which resources am I missing to make it happen?
• What can I control to manage things currently beyond my control?

• We tend to postpone tasks without deadlines forever.
• Without a specific end date, we tend to become perfectionistic.

• Use tags, titles, highlights, and categories liberally.

• For this reason, large-scale success can take up to four times as much work as you’ll expect.

• If you don’t have time, make a “2 Minute List”.

• You should be able to finish the task in the specified time.
• Add room for comfort and error between tasks.

• We can only complete 6-8 tasks on any given day.
• List fewer tasks you know you’ll finish instead of many you may not get to.
• If you’re done and have time, you can always do something else as a bonus task.

• Aim for To Do List Zero every day, where there is nothing left on your list.
• Move everything you couldn’t finish to the next period’s list or reconsider its value.

• While there are many ways to manage your to-do list, the best solution is often the simplest.
• Start with a plain text file or notepad, then work your way up as you need degrees of complexity.
• Technology gives many answers to problems, but the wide variety of options can be very time-consuming.
• No matter what system it is, it’ll eventually fail at something.

For tidying up creative brainstorming.

• Action Items – steps to get the project done.
• Backburner Items – interesting ideas that don’t quite fit into the project.
• Reference Items – resources and information for completing the project.

For goal-oriented people who want a complex timeline.

1. Set 3 outcomes you want for the upcoming year.
2. Set 3 outcomes you want for the upcoming month that line up with that year’s goals.
3. Set 3 outcomes you want for the upcoming week that line up with that month’s goals.
4. Set 3 outcomes you want for the upcoming day that line up with that week’s goals.
5. Perform the day’s or week’s tasks.
6. Adjust at the end of the respective periods for the next periods

For people who like measuring everything.

1. Remove any factors that may mess with your energy, such as caffeine.
2. Record what you’re accomplishing each hour you’re awake.
3. Look for patterns in your biological rhythms after collecting productivity data.

For people who are constantly disorganized and find productivity systems difficult.

1. Make a categorized index at the beginning of the document, which you’ll add to as you add components.
2. Write out a future month-by-month log of general tasks you need to do.
3. Write out a daily log to indicate daily activities.
4. Use “signifiers” as bullet points to indicate specific needs you have (tasks, notes, events, task migrated, task scheduled, task complete, etc.)
5. Organize your monthly goals into categories.
6. Store collections at the back of the document that you want to accomplish over a year.
7. Cross off items as you complete them, and transfer important uncompleted tasks to the next month.

For people who are incredibly uncertain about lots of things.



Organize the problems by their constraints and associations to other things.

1. Simple things are inherently obvious, so they need sensing it, then grouping it, then responding to it.
2. Complicated things are “known unknowns”, so they require sensing it, then analyzing what it is, then responding to it.
3. Complex things are difficult to understand, so they need probing into it further, then sensing it, then responding to it.
4. Chaotic things are completely unknown, so they require acting on it to find out what it is, sensing what everything is, then responding to it.

For people who can’t make up their mind.

1. Write down all the options on the left side of a piece of paper.
2. Write each of the factors you want to consider across the top.
3. Give each of the options a “score” based on each factor.
4. Total up the scores to figure out the best decision, and give weight to factors if you want a specific decision.

For people who have a difficult time honoring convictions.

1. Declare a small and intentional routine or habit you want to stop or start.
2. Every day you do the task, cross off the day on a paper wall calendar.
3. Try to avoid “breaking” your chain of days.

For procrastinators who miss deadlines or rush their work.

Inspired by Mark Twain’s quote saying “If you eat a live frog in the morning, nothing worse can happen the rest of the day.”

1. Order your tasks from hardest to easiest:
   1. Things you don’t want to do, but need to do
   2. Things you want to do and need to do
   3. Things you want to do and don’t need to do
   4. Things you don’t want to do and don’t need to do
   
   
2. Work on the hardest task first:
   • The most important
   • The most uncomfortable
   • The most mind-numbing
   • The most difficult to do

For people who feel controlled by urgent things.



Only do what is important (i.e., “above the line”), and disregard urgency.

1. Urgent things are seldom important and important things are rarely urgent.
2. Most people move to Quadrant 3 from Quadrant 1 because Quadrant 2 never feels necessary.
3. Productive people move to Quadrant 2 by disregarding instant gratification.

For people who don’t trust their ability to focus.

1. Make a vertical list that categorizes everything you do all day, with a few additional entries for miscellaneous needs.
2. Make a horizontal list indicating every 15 minutes of that day.
3. Set a timer for every 15 minutes.
4. Record what you do every 15 minutes, back-filling if you can’t get to it.
5. Review what you did after you’ve accumulated data, noting patterns across days and weeks.

For people who want to organize plenty of loose ends.

1. Collect every single thought, scrap, idea or process into one “box”.
2. Run everything through the GTD Flowchart:

   

3. Organize the results backward from large-scale goals:
   1. Define your greatest purposes and principles.
   2. Visualize the outcome you want toward those purposes and principles.
   3. Brainstorm how to create that outcome.
   4. Organize what to do to achieve that outcome.
   5. Identify the next actions to achieve your purposes and principles.
4. Routinely review what to do next:
   1. Make a “Tickler File” of 43 folders (31 for each day and 12 for each month).
   2. Review the Tickler file each day and month to remember what to do.
   3. Purge tasks and clear out old or obsolete things.
5. Do your tasks based on available time and energy, context, and priority.

For people who want prioritized lists more than graphs.

Group tasks into categories of MUST, SHOULD, COULD, and WOULD.

1. MUST is non-negotiable.
2. SHOULD is also important, but not for today.
3. COULD is whatever you want to do that isn’t necessary.
4. WOULD may make sense if it wasn’t such a drain on resources.

For staying focused when you want to automate your work.

1. Specify a task you want done more than a few times per day, then put that many paper clips in a container.
2. Place one paper clip in a second container when you complete the task.
3. Empty the paper clips from the first container by the end of the day.

For people who dislike planning and seem to have plenty of unfinished projects.

1. Set up “boards” as columns from left to right. (Trello is an online solution)
2. Label the boards at the top.
   1. Not Started
   2. In Process
   3. Completed
3. Place all the tasks on the boards.
4. Break out even more boards to capture all the phases of completion.
5. Move all the tasks across the boards as they’re completed.
   • Subdivide and separate partially completed tasks.
6. If you need, arrange the board into a grid by placing Priority or Members as a vertical dimension for the tasks.

For getting things done with plenty of distractions.

1. Break down all tasks into pieces that take less than 25 minutes.
2. Focus on that task alone for 25 minutes, then take a 5-minute break (aka a Pomodoro).
3. Do 4 Pomodoros, then take a 30-minute break or end your day.

For people who wan to keep in touch with many people without relying on memory.

• A list – very important people, contact every 3 weeks
• B list – important people, contact every 2 months
• C list – most people, contact every 6 months
• D list – demoted people, contact once a year to make sure you still have their correct info

For people who have a difficult time making their goals connect to tasks.

• Specific – numerous details (SCHEMES acronym)
  • Space – is there room for it?
  • Cash – can you afford it?
  • Helpers/people – are the right people able to assist?
  • Equipment – do you have the right tools?
  • Materials – do you have enough to finish?
  • Expertise – have you researched and understand enough?
  • Systems – do you have something to do it with?
• Measurable – how much or how long?
• Attainable/Assignable – who can do it and when?
• Realistic – given everything, is it possible?
• Time-based – what’s the deadline to re-evaluate progress?

For people who have vague feelings about what they want to do, but can’t connect them to their daily activities.

1. Set yearly “themes” for what you want to do, with ideal outcomes for each.
2. Write out daily journal entries on how you’ve done in light of those large-scale themes.
3. Track daily measurable habits to see how well you’ve persevered.

For fighting against interruptions and distractions.

1. Group tasks by the type of work they’re made of.
2. Estimate how much time each task will take.
3. Block off specific times of the day for specific types of work.
4. Enforce each block with a timer.

One popular variation is Day-Theming with each weekday dedicated to a type of work.

For people who have concerns about unfinished tasks.

1. Start with a To-Done List
   1. Keep track of what you finish.
   2. Focus on your progress alone and ignore incomplete tasks.
   3. Review the To-Done List at the end of each day.
2. When tasks stay incomplete, make a To-Don’t List
   1. Write down a list of activities, bad habits, and distractions that get in the way of your productivity.
   2. Check off each To-Don’t as you avoid each of them.

• The word “no” is a boundary you or someone else could dislike.
• People with low emotional intelligence are usually offended by the word “no”.

• Saying “no” to something is saying “yes” to something else.
• Rebuild your goals to new purposes, but never do anything outside them.

• Evading people creates false expectations.
• Saying “yes” ensures you never have enough time.
• Compromising is often a variation of saying “yes”.

• I have too much on my plate right now./I can’t fit anything else into my schedule.
• I don’t know when I can do it, but I know someone who can help you right now.
• I can help you tomorrow, but here are some resources that can help you today.
• Please ask me in a week/month/year.
• I would, but only if you’re okay with me dropping (task) to do it.
• Can we talk about this later?/Could you please ask me later?
• I wish I could help, but I’m trying to cut back.
• I want to help, but I would like to focus on your task without distractions.

• Review anything you’re instinctively saying “yes” to:
  • Consider the worst thing that could happen if you don’t do a task.
  • Systematically purge anything irrelevant.
  • Renegotiate commitments as soon as you realize they’ve become burdensome.
• Move ego-boosting activities that aren’t helping you or others:
  • Attending a club that doesn’t challenge you
  • Church activities that don’t grow or help anyone
  • Sitting on a volunteer board
  • Pontificating about successes with others
  • Unproductive tasks you’ve mastered

• Assigning 2 hours may turn a 30-minute task into an hour.
• Assigning 20 minutes can make a 30-minute task low-quality or stressful.
• Without experience, our subconscious tends to estimate ideal circumstances, so always add 20% more to it.

• Sharpen your understanding of time by testing specific lengths and deadlines for tasks.
• Give extra room in your schedule to think, plan, and fail.
• Most people use some tricks to “feel” through their events:
  • Declare what they want
  • Keep a productivity journal
  • Make a story about what happened

• Results are volatile and can usually get delayed.
• Most successful people track how well they change their habits.
• Some people try to manage work, but our time estimations are usually very inaccurate.

• It might feel counter-intuitive, but planning for free time gives room to relax and recuperate.
• In fact, the world’s greatest ideas usually came to people relaxing or doing something unrelated.

• Since talking is easier than doing anything, talking about them removes the motivation to perform.

• “I can’t wait to finish my book!” instead of “I’m writing a book right now.”
• “I’m looking forward to showing my new design.” instead of “I’m making a design.”
• “I want to share my findings.” instead of “I’ve been researching that subject.”

• Depending on their complexity revisit them monthly, weekly or daily.

• Strategy influences long-term effects, so you should consider it carefully.
• Tactics, on the other hand, create short-term results and you can quickly tell their results.

• Make your unfinished goals smaller.
• Consider new pathways with your current position.

• On the way, our original passion can completely shift.
• We should always ask if our “finish line” is the same.
• Align any new short-term goals to existing long-term ones, and vice versa.

• What you can do to improve
• What you’re doing that you shouldn’t
• What you’re not doing that you should
• Whether other people are succeeding from your actions
• How much you feel invested toward your goals and tasks

• The things you should or ought to be doing
• What do other people think about your goals
• Whether you’re marketing yourself enough
• Whether your network is growing well enough
• How much you’re honoring what you promised

• How much skill you have or developed
• How much knowledge you’ve learned
• Your ability to handle the burden of your workload
• How much you’ve changed
• The quality and quantity of your communications
• How fast you respond to others
• Your ability to focus by yourself
• Your quality of work in a group and delegate responsibility
• How you make others feel and respond
• Willingness to take on more responsibilities
• How consistent and reliable you’ve been

• How much you’ve done
• How much you have left to go

• Natural assumptions you’re making
• Habits you’re slowly developing or losing
• The things you spend the most time thinking and doing

• You won’t get to everything you want to do.
• Your estimations about your capabilities and others’ are usually way off.
• Whenever possible, avoid bias by measuring with numbers instead of comparisons, or compare yourself to your past self.