No More Annual Goal Setting

I am not a fan of the annual goal setting process. It reminds me of the way we handled large software projects at the university years ago. Because you make all of your goals at one time, you have to come up with a big vision. So you make your three medium-sized goals for four to eight areas of your life. Each one must have clear definitions of success, and a deadline. After all, a goal without a deadline is just a dream, right? We'll talk about dreams in another article. Once you have your list of twelve or more goals, you break them down into action items in order to get things done. With a bit of effort, and the right mindset, you can apply your resources to achieve your outcomes and do it all again next year.

But what happens when you get to September and realize your goals were too ambitious? Worse yet, what happens when you realize you were better than you thought at something that did not provide the value you expected? Once you achieve some of your goals, you may find you want new things. When do you decide if you should replace some of your goals? Do you wait until the next annual goal setting process?

There has to be a better way

Imagine if you had a system that would let you design a life with all the rewards and depth and complexity you could want, and still adapted as your priorities changed over any time frame. If your growth revealed new possibilities, your system would change with you. If an obstacle or new information forced you to put an item on the back burner while you handled something urgent, your system would adjust and help you face the new reality.

What does a system like that look like?

• It lets you move back and forth between a broad view of your life and the details of what you are trying to accomplish right now.
• It lets you get things done on a repeatable schedule so you can celebrate your successes and quickly improve based on what you learn.
• It accepts that no part of your life is truly ever finished. You can continue working as long as we like.
• It allows you to say any given part of your life is good enough for now, so you can use your resources on something that will serve you better.

Setting annual goals with this system will not seem drastically different from regular goal setting at first. You will set some outcomes for each of your life areas. Each outcome will have measurements so you know when it has been achieved. Unlike regular goal setting, you will not include due dates unless there are dates imposed on you by the nature of the outcome. If your desired outcome is to have your wedding in September, ignoring the date is not going to help.

Once you have your list of outcomes, it is time to rank them based on priority. If you have outcomes with dates, use that information when setting your priorities. Do not spend a lot of time agonizing over priorities. Do the best you can with the information at hand.

Next, you need to be able to determine how much effort is involved in reaching your outcomes. For each outcome, give them a designation based on shirt sizes. The choices are small, medium, large, and extra large. Again, do not agonize over your estimates. All estimates are wrong. You will get better at this with practice. The system will work with your best guess, because a small outcome for you is going to be similar to other outcomes you decide are small.

At this point, you have a list of outcomes in priority order. You know roughly how much effort is involved in achieving each outcome. Now you are almost ready to get to work solving problems and working toward your outcomes. Unlike regular goal setting, which tends to move from an annual view to a daily view, this system has a weekly cycle to it. This gives you 52 opportunities each year to evaluate your progress and improve your approach.

At the beginning of each week, look at the highest priority outcome that is incomplete. If it is designated as a large or extra large outcome, take some time to break it into smaller chunks. Ideally, spend most of your effort on small outcomes, as they represent the least amount of lost time if you make a mistake. Medium outcomes introduce more risk of lost time, because they take more time and effort.

After your highest priority outcomes are at a manageable size, make a guess about how much you can get done during the week given the amount of time available. Take the first outcome, make sure you remember what you wanted to accomplish and why, and put it on your list for the week. Then examine the next one. Will it fit into the time you have left? If it does, put it on your weekly list too. Keep doing that until you are unsure that you can get another item completed. Always start the week with a list your are confident you can finish.

For the remainder of the week, work from your weekly list. Limit yourself to having at most two or three outcomes being worked on at any time during the week. This allows you to focus your energy and realize your outcomes so your weekly planning is easier with each passing week.

At the end of the week, look at your weekly list. Anything that is incomplete goes back to the top of your master list for review next week. Then look back at the most recent week and record the things you learned. What did you do well? What were your pain points? What could you do differently next week? Identify one thing to try next week that might make you more effective. This is a safe experiment you can try. The worst that can happen is that you lose a week of effort.

Finally, it is time to celebrate. Record the things you learned. Record the things you accomplished. Reflect on the distance you have traveled through the year. And give yourself permission to relax. Take at least one day to recharge. You will pick up our list of outcomes next week and use your improved process to continue working on your highest priorities.

If you would like more details about this process, let me know. I can write more articles.