The Most Effective Goal-Setting Plan Ever

The Most Effective Goal-Setting Plan Youll Ever Find. (Plus Worksheet) ... http://technori.com/2013/04/4259-the-most-effective-goal-setting-plan-you...
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The Most Effective

Goal-Setting Plan
Youll Ever Find.
(Plus Worksheet)
BY MELISSA JOY KONG
Technori
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Plan Youll Ever

Find. (Plus
Worksheet)
Tools Out
There)
Recently, I taked about the #1 reason why

people dont accomplish their goals: lack
of genuine connection and commitment
to them.
But once youve gured out what you
really want to do, you still need a strategy
Search The
Archives
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for accomplishing it. Your goals are not

going to get you anywhere if you dont
actually do something about them. And
not just anythingbut the right things.
So heres a very straightforward, fail-proof
plan for achieving your goals. I say its
fail-proof not because error isnt possible
(no one can predict the future or control
all circumstances), but because if you
follow this plan, youll accomplish more
than you would under any other plan
youve been testing out.
Recent Posts
6 Reasons
Why You
Shouldn't Put
a Price Tag on
Your Startup
1.) Focus on only 1-2 major goals.

Seriously.
Now that youve gured out how
youre spending time each week, lets
switch gears for a moment. Figure out
what your one major goal is this year. I
have two major goalsone personal, one
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career-drivenbut wouldnt advise

choosing more than 1-2.
The 5 Factors
This is the hardest part for most people

because choosing just one BIG goal to
pursue requires extreme focus and
connection to purpose.
Victory at
that Led Us to
LAUNCH
Techweek
Chicago
But, its really important that you stick to

just 1-2 major goals. Goals to me are
dierent than habit changes, which I
How To Craft
wrote more about on my blog. Your 1-2

goals should be so big that it would take
an entire year to accomplish. If you were
The World's
to accomplish only these 1-2 things, youd

feel like you had a very successful year.
Elevator Pitch
Examples:
Your Startup
Lose 40 pounds
Greatest
is Not First to
Successfully launch a startup and drive

$100k in revenue
Get into a top graduate school
Learn how to code and land a job as a
Market. But
front-end developer
Save for and take a month-long trip to
backpack through Southeast Asia
How Michael
Who Cares?
Slaby Utilized
Technology to
Based on what you really want to

accomplishwhere your deepest values,
passions, and skills intersectchoose 1-2
goals to focus on for the rest of the year.
Do not aim for reasonable. Be a bit
unreasonable. What do you really want
to accomplish in the next 365 days? Thats
what you should make your goal.
2.) Create monthly sub-goals.
Win the '08

Obama
Campaignand
Forever
Changed
Political
Campaigns
2/25/2015 12:47 PM
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Once youve created your 1-2 major goals,

create monthly sub-goals for each one.
The idea is that your monthly sub-goals
Do You Have
would very clearly lead to you

accomplishing your 1-2 major goals for
the year. (Note: Id recommend planning
for 12 months, but you can certainly plan
Hustle to
for 6 months, 18 months or whatever

number you feel comfortable with.)
Startup?
Example:
Startup
Big Goal: Learn how to code and land a

job as a front-end developer.
Enough
Build a
Successful
Institute:
We're Coming
to Chicago!
Sub-Goals:
April Apply and get into the Starter
The 9 Golden
League Beginner HTML/CSS class

May Take Starter League (SL) class &
Rules for
code my own personal blog for practice

June Continue taking SL class, nish
coding the blog, and work on a Demo
Day project
Dealing With
July Finish SL class & nd a company
Should a
to let me do front-end coding for free

to help them redesign a website
August - Apply and get into the Starter
League Advanced HTML/CSS class
September Continue taking SL class,
nish up coding for the company side
project
October - Finish SL class and take on
one more front-end freelance project
for another company
November Finish freelance project
#2 and apply to a minimum of 8
front-end developer jobs
December Interview with companies,
apply to 5 more jobs if necessaryand
Bad Publicity
Non-Technical
Founder Learn
to Code?
There's No
Such Thing As
"Free"
Funding for
Your Startup
2/25/2015 12:47 PM
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land a full-time developer job by 12/31!

When you break your major goal down
this way, you can see the natural
progression of your goal and exactly what
needs to be done each month in order for
you to get a job as a front-end developer
by December 31st. Breaking it down this
way makes the end goal seem even more
tangible. It will get you super
excited about the idea of taking on your
Topics We
Cover
Blog (202)
Chicago (150)
Cultivate (35)
Design (12)
plan and tackling that one big, amazing

goal of yours.
Essentials (33)
Is it possible that you could do all of this

perfectly and still not get a job as a
Grow (52)
front-end developer? Of course. But

youre signicantly more likely to get one if
you actually plan like this, versus not
planning at allor using one of the much
Guides (31)
more tedious, less user-friendly goal

setting strategies out there.
3.) Create weekly mini-goals.
Finance (21)
Inspire (68)
Keynotes (31)
Los Angeles (9)
Optimize (26)
Starters (123)
If you put my post from earlier this week

into action, youve gured out the 20% of
your work thats driving 80% of your
results. Now, the question is: What
systems can you put in place to do less of
the 80% of activity that isnt generating
results, and more of the 20% activity that
is?
Example:
80% of work that isnt driving a ton of
results:
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1. Checking email for 4 hours a day

2. Using social media too often
throughout the day
3. Taking too many meetings during the
week
Strategies to eradicate the issues
above:
1. Check email for only 2 hours a
dayone hour between 11-12pm, and
one hour between 4-5pm. Use Inbox
Zero techniques to answer, archive,
and delete more emails in half the time.
2. Block social media websites between
the hours of 9am-12pm and 1pm-4pm
using one of these distraction blocking
apps.
3. Only take meetings on Tuesdays and
Thursdays from 12-3pm. If it doesnt t
into the other persons schedule, the
meeting gets pushed to the following
week. Exceptions can be made, but
only if the meeting is of extremely high
importance and/or urgency.
Once you create a list of strategies, use
thosein addition to your set of monthly
sub-goalsas a guide, and create around
50 mini goals (about 4 mini goals per
monthone for each week). Each mini
goal should take no longer than a week to
accomplish. Essentially, the mini goals are
a way to further break down your
monthly goals into highly manageable
weekly chunks.
Example:
April sub-goal - Apply and get into
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the Starter League Beginner HTML/CSS

class
April weekly mini-goals
Week 1: Do research on Starter League
program
Week 2: Submit formal application for
Starter League
Week 3: Send hand-written notes to the
founders to let them know how excited
I am about taking the SL class
Week 4: Get accepted into SL and set
up coee meetings with 3 alums to get
advice on making the most of the class
When you break your monthly sub-goals
down like this, you basically create a
detailed road map for making stu
happen. It seems so obvious, but no one
plans like this. Thats why most people fail
(in addition to not creating strategies to
eradicate triggers that lead to wasting
time).
4.) Do your weekly planning.

Based on the weekly goals you outlined
for the current month youre in, you need
to set aside 30 minutes to create a weekly
plan of attack for accomplishing your
mini goal for the week ahead. I created
this template worksheet of what your
weekly planning sheet could look like:
2/25/2015 12:47 PM
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Its a good idea to add in your major goal,

monthly sub-goal, and weekly mini goal at
the top of your weekly worksheet to
remind you of what the whole point is
with all this planning business and hard
work. At the beginning of every week, you
should know exactly what youre looking
to accomplish every day to achieve your
weekly mini goalso that you can move
on to your next mini goal, in order to
move on to your next sub-goal, in order to
accomplish your one major goal.
Fun to look at goal setting this way, right?
Youll see that I listed additional projects
and tasks on the weekly planning
template I created above. Thats because
none of us have just one responsibility.
Were all juggling multiple things at any
given point in time. Ill explain how to best
t these additional projects and tasks in
later this week.
The point of this sheet is to help you make
the tasks that are directly related to your
major goal a priority over the other stu
you have to do. This is a huge part of goal
accomplishmentyou need to be willing
to get your goal-related tasks done rst,
even when youve got other important
things going on. If you dont get into the
habit of doing this, youll fail because
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theres simply too much other stu out

there to distract you from your
longer-term goal.
5.) Do your daily planning.

Once youve done your weekly planning,
you need to set aside time to plan every
single day for the upcoming day. Ive
soaked up a ton of productivity advice
over the last several years, and this is
something I hear from pretty much every
productivity guru and successful person
out there:
You have to plan on your own success.

If you dont break it down to what youll
do every day, then theres no way youll
accomplish your weekly, monthly, or
annual goals. Basically, if you dont plan
daily, youre screwed. Either youre going
to own your day, or your day is going
to own you.
I see an enormous dierence in my own
productivity when I plan it out thoroughly
versus just wing it. Of course, your daily
plan needs to go hand-in-hand with the
strategies you implement to actively avoid
time-wasting triggers and activities.
Heres an example of what your daily
planning worksheet can look like:
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As you can tell, I like using pretty colors on

my templates. You can tailor your weekly
and daily worksheets to look however you
want them to look, but these sheets work
really well for me.
Youll notice a few new sections on this
daily sheet. The rst is Todays Top
Tasksthese are the top three things
Tasks
you must get done for the day. If you
accomplish these three things only, your
day will have been a success. At least one
task should be related to your weekly mini
goal.
This is really important: make sure you get

this task done before you do anything else
on your daily task list. Do your top 3 tasks
in order before you do anything else, and
get them out of the way. Each task should
take no longer than 90 minutes (And
yes, its possible to get your taxes done in
under 90 minutes, depending on
complexityIve timed it).
Youll also notice a Batch Tasks section.
This is a list of all the basic operational
stu you need to do your job, like coee
meetings to build new relationships,
checking and answering email, getting
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organized, sending out email newsletters,

etc. Basically, they are the tasks you need
to do to keep things going, but arent
really going to equate directly to success
at the end of the year.
For example, I need to publish content
daily for Technori.com, but if I just focus
on that, well have a lot of content, but not
that much growth. For me, a major
sub-goal would be focusing on growth
strategy. Therefore, while very important,
editing and publishing articles is
actually not a top task for meits a batch
task. You need to gure out how you
dierentiate between top tasks and batch
tasks, given your own work and priorities.
Ill talk more about batch tasks soon, but I
wanted to show them to you on the daily
sheet for now, because its important to
make note of and label them as such.
As a note, I learned a lot of the above
techniques from reading Ive done over
the years. My favorite thought leaders in
this space are Steven Covey, Leo Babauta,
and Brian Tracy. I would highly
recommend reading any of the books
these three guys have written, particularly
Leos Power of Less. That being said, Ive
learned about and tested the psychology
behind why we achieve and dont achieve
what we set out to do. So, I tailored the
plan above based on what Ive seen
actually work and not work through my
various productivity testing. I believe the
plan above is the absolute best
aggregated, tailored plan for making your
goals a reality.
2/25/2015 12:47 PM
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So there you have it! An easy-asthey-come, fail-proof goal-setting (and

achieving) method. Five steps. A lot of
happiness and accomplished goals.
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The Most Effective Goal-Setting Plan Youll Ever Find. (Plus Worksheet) ... http://technori.com/2013/04/4259-the-most-effective-goal-setting-plan-you...

The Most Effective

4,164 people like

Plan Youll Ever

Recently, I taked about the #1 reason why

for accomplishing it. Your goals are not

1.) Focus on only 1-2 major goals.

career-drivenbut wouldnt advise

This is the hardest part for most people

But, its really important that you stick to

wrote more about on my blog. Your 1-2

to accomplish only these 1-2 things, youd

Successfully launch a startup and drive

Based on what you really want to

2.) Create monthly sub-goals.

Win the '08

Once youve created your 1-2 major goals,

would very clearly lead to you

for 6 months, 18 months or whatever

Big Goal: Learn how to code and land a

April Apply and get into the Starter

League Beginner HTML/CSS class

code my own personal blog for practice

July Finish SL class & nd a company

to let me do front-end coding for free

land a full-time developer job by 12/31!

plan and tackling that one big, amazing

Is it possible that you could do all of this

front-end developer? Of course. But

more tedious, less user-friendly goal

3.) Create weekly mini-goals.

If you put my post from earlier this week

1. Checking email for 4 hours a day

April sub-goal - Apply and get into

the Starter League Beginner HTML/CSS

4.) Do your weekly planning.

Its a good idea to add in your major goal,

theres simply too much other stu out

5.) Do your daily planning.

You have to plan on your own success.

As you can tell, I like using pretty colors on

This is really important: make sure you get

organized, sending out email newsletters,

So there you have it! An easy-asthey-come, fail-proof goal-setting (and

IN BLOG, OPTIMIZE, STARTERS.

Looking For Something?

The Beginners Guide to Quantified Self

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