True Path/New Path

This is the latest addition to my planning system, yet paradoxically it has become the underpinning for my entire system.

For the past four years, I take a break from the holiday excitement and spend an evening building my goals for the upcoming year. I usually have a nice dinner and then sit with a notebook and just noodle on what I'd like to accomplish, things I didn't get to in the current year, projects that are half finished. Then I write up a list of goals, along with the steps I need to accomplish the goals. I find goals so much less intimidating if they are broken up into bite sized bits.

Then I make a copy of my goals and their steps and keep in in a pocket that gets tucked into the current month of my calendar. I found that made a huge difference in achieving my goals. Previously I had kept my goals on a file in my computer and often forgot about them. Keeping them close by makes it easier for me to work on my goals as I plan my week.

This isn't entirely foolproof. This year, I realized in June that I simply didn't have any enthusiasm about my goals for the year and I had made very little progress on achieving them. I spent an evening thinking about what did interest me and wrote up a new list incorporating the few goals I was really excited about and adding a few more that had popped up on my radar. Since then, I've made alot more progress in achieving my goals for 2008.

So I learned an important lesson: Planning is important, but then again, so is enthusiasm!