At the beginning of 2011, I made a huge spreadsheet of all of the goals I wanted to accomplish throughout the year, which spanned multiple categories: work/research, playing guitar, painting, photography, weight lifting, jogging, recreational reading, cooking, etc. I detailed concrete, quarterly 3-month goals for every single category. Yet, I still failed miserably.
As we all know, it's very easy to put things off. However, I thought that defining objective deadlines for all of my tasks would help keep me regimented. Sure, I was pretty disciplined in some of the categories, but in some categories I essentially did nothing at all. Why is this, and how did it happen?
The main reason is that other, more pressing matters took higher precedence throughout the year, allowing me to completely neglect some categories.
For example, if something at work starts to consume all of my attention, I often put off doing everything else. I feel this is true for most people. We are good at accomplishing deadlines within our career. Why is that? We need to mimic that for all of our deadlines. I believe most people are good at meeting career deadlines because:
- we all work towards the deadline very often (~daily)
- we take it seriously (we don't want to be jobless or homeless)
- we are ideally passionate about the career work
All of these items help, but I believe the biggest one that separates goals of mine that were accomplished from those that were not is #1; when I look at my failed resolutions, the failed categories are ones that I never got momentum in -- the start was flaky at best.
There will always be some unforeseen task that comes up which I bump up to priority #1. And, if I have ~8 main categories that I'm trying to all work towards through the year, it will likely be the case that at least 3 of them will never be touched because of these unforeseen, pressing deadlines related to work/family/other goals. This leads me to think that setting deadlines is not necessarily ideal.
Sure, it's good to have objective marks signifying where you'd like to be, but even setting more regimented, smaller time-scaled deadlines isn't sufficient.
Personally, I always have some to-do list that I'm often working on. I got into this habit since I was just a little kid, my mom tells me. In recent years, my to-do list often spans a few days or a week. Even with this, I find myself often not getting around to at least 1-3 of say 10-15 items each time. Those items are typically not essential, so they sadly get pushed off and never done.
My point is, even a 5-day list of deadlines proves to be difficult enough to follow, so of course there's no way I/we can 100% fulfill a more grand, all-encompassing schedule of deadlines that span an entire year. List of deadlines, even if they are only span a week, will leave me short, as some items never get started.
So, let's not plot everything with respect to the end and the deadlines, even if they have intermediate deadlines. Rather, let's make startlines. Let's list the days on which we'll start things, and this takes highest priority over everything. In fact, when unforeseen pressing matters come up, let's then force these annoying deadlines to work around our pre-detailed startlines.
For example, say some art show is coming up, and I desperately want to edit, print, and mat a bunch of new photos that I had just taken a few days ago. In this very real example, I often put all other recreational activities behind in order to urgently get this done. Instead, I should keep in mind the big picture, relax my requirements for the photography art show (realizing that it's okay to not have the latest photos), and force myself to revolve my schedule around any previously schedule startlines. If I had previously listed that I will devote 2 hours to trying to learn to play guitar on Wednesday, and the pressing art show happened to be on Friday, well, I should still pick up the guitar on Wednesday.
I'm starting this approach for 2012. We'll see if it serves me well.
In short, let's try to list the actual days on which we'll start and do things, not far-away deadlines by which everything will magically be done.
Along the same lines, maybe I shouldn't think of any my goals in terms of long-term end results; maybe I should define my goals in terms of sheer investment.
To illustrate, well, I'll pick one of my goals which is highly quantifying, tempting to view in terms of long-term end results, and one that is amongst my least embarrassing (one which I haven't been too slack and delinquent): weight-lifting.
One of my weight-lifting goals concerns my body weight and my max 1-rep bench press. I currently weigh 147 lbs and my max bench press is 225 lb. My 2011 goal was to get back to my prime: weigh 156 lbs and bench press 240 lb. I would like to reach this in 2012, too. I know what it takes to get back to this condition (going hardcore on particular exercises, working out 5 times a week, proper nutrition, etc). So, instead of defining my success in terms of some boolean 1-point check of reaching the goal or not, I should make my goal to be the appropriate, necessary investment that's required to meet that goal.
Specifically, my goal should not be:
- By March 30: weigh 150 and bench 228.
- By June 30: weigh 152 and bench 235.
- By September 30: weigh 155 and bench 238.
- By December 30: weigh 156 and bench 240.
Instead,
maybe it should be:- In January, continue to go to the gym at least 3 times a week
- In February, increase to a consistent 4 times a week (17 times total).
- In March, increase to 20 times total.
Similarly, I could define specific workout goals in terms of the necessary investment. For example, "do chest & back workouts 2 times a week." As long as I do this, who cares if I EXACTLY meet some particular bench press weight goal such as benching 240 lbs or not? If I follow this investment schedule, I know I'll be close to my desired results. If I'm a few pounds under or over, so be it. I should be happy with my amount of effort and how much time I dedicate to this hobby that I love and enjoy. That's the most important thing.
Along the same lines, I shouldn't make it a goal to "learn how to play a guitar song by February 1," but "spend 2 hours per week learning to play guitar." You get the idea.
I like this approach. Any thoughts?
* Yea, Startlines sounds cheesy, but I had to call it something.
