This is my reply to the thread that used to be at the url http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1041, Scheduling and Goals, but now seems to have disappeared. I wanted to continue the discussion, so here is my point for it. If there was any real reason for taking the thread out, it's ok, I didn't mean to force anything.

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First of all, thanks Steve (and the other posters) for the information on your daily routine. I found it very interesting, and useful. I have read all of your articles like a year ago, but some day I saw your article Power of Clarity again and it changed my perspective a lot (thanks again for such great articles!).

That day I wrote "SET YOUR GOALS" big on a paper and pasted it somewhere in the work room of my house as to have it very visible for a time. I don't think that day I had the time to find a way to start setting my goals clearly, but when I later found such ridiculous marquee at the left of the computer I instantaneously remembered what my next task was supposed to be.

Then I started designing the goals routine I'm still using. It involves having a set of files telling my goals for the next week, the next month, the next three months, the next six months and the next year. Every file has a finalization date attached to it, and a listing of goals. When I'm at the date a given file is supposed to finish, I mark which goals of that file I have managed to achieve and which not, I move the file to a folder of old goal lists, and then I start a new goals file for which I set a new expiration date as well.

Every day I start my work day taking a look at the goals file of this week, which I also have in a printed version. Then I write a list of the things I expect to do this day, in the order I'm supposed to do those. My monthly goals are only checked when I'm making a new weekly list, and so on with the other lists (ie, my yearly goals are only used for writing the lists with goals for the next six months).

I still cannot say whether this method works or not, as it's evident to me that it still needs a lot of tweaking. Actually, I've been tweaking it since I started using it first, trying variations and evaluating their utility. These days, for example, I've been trying writing an activity plan for the next week together with the weekly list of goals. That helped me be somewhat more realistic on my goal setting, and helped me schedule the activities so that I have time for them all.

However all of the variations I have tried to the date have been quite decepting in that I haven't been able to achieve all the goals of even a single list for its expiration date. That's interesting because that's showing to me either that my goals aren't being adequate for my times, or that I'm not working smart enough in their pursuit. But it's also very upsetting of course, so I'm looking for a way to solve that problem.

Until now, I've been trying to keep my goals very ambitious in the short term, for making me surpass my own expectatives. But it haven't worked, and when I surpassed my expectatives lately it was mostly in ways I didn't even expect to. Also I have made my goal lists very miscellaneous, and while it seemed nice at the time of constructing the list ("look, at the end of this week I will have all those different things done!"), I believe it did more for breaking my concentration and focus than for making me work smarter.

So I ask myself how am I supposed to equilibrate what I find realistic with what could be rather ambitious, and the same with miscellaneous tasks for a given short period (a day or a week), so as to get the best results.

I would like to hear what you have to say about those questions.

Best regards,

My opinion is that goal setting is as much an art as a science. I've been writing and reading my goals for over a decade, and I'm still surprised by the almost magical ways in which it works. Often what seems like a failure will turn out years later to have been a success in disguise. My getting into shareware, for instance, was spawned by having failed at building Dexterity into a retail-oriented developer.

I don't want to get too new-agey, but I've found there's an almost mystical force that begins to go to work when I set a really good goal. Maybe it's my subconscious mind, the "collective unconscious," my own intentions influencing the outcomes of quantum events, or even a helpful spirit -- I don't really understand what it is. All I know is that under the right conditions, it works like magic.

Many people have written about this effect. Deepak Chopra and James Redfield call it synchronicity. Brian Tracy calls it serendipity. To Emerson and Thoreau it was the oversoul.

I've often found that when I set a goal and don't achieve it, after a certain amount of time has passed I realize it was best for me not to have achieved that goal anyway. It's as if there's a force that overrides me when I set goals that won't serve me well enough. No matter how hard I work on certain goals, they don't seem to budge. This especially happens with rigid time-bound goals.

However, when I tend to set broader, high-level goals, where my intent isn't simply for my own good but also for the highest possible good of others, this somehow triggers a force that brings the goals to fruition more rapidly than I thought possible. Usually a huge string of unlikely coincidences will happen that will lead me through twists and turns I never would have imagined, ultimately resulting in the achievement of the goal, but in a far different manner than which I'd envisioned.

I've read many books about other goal-setters experiencing this same phenomenon. An excellent example is The Millionaire Course by Marc Allen (which actually has very little to do with money). He covers goal-setting in detail, but he does so in a very open-ended way, as more of a flexible affirmation instead of a rigid time-bound goal. His belief is that there's a universal (divine) plan for his life, and he has to make sure he doesn't get off track by setting goals that conflict with this plan. So instead of setting a goal to increase his net worth by $X, he'll have an affirmation like, "I am now taking a financial quantum leap." And then some new business venture will fall into his lap out of nowhere, and he'll achieve his goal without much hard work at all.

I started using Marc's goal/affirmation approach, and it works amazingly well for me. For instance, for a while I had a very specific goal to improve my diet. I had the whole thing planned out, but for some reason it never seemed to stick, and all sorts of obstacles kept popping up. It seemed like every day I was about to get started on this new diet, something would interfere. I put that goal aside for a while and worked on different goals. Then I tried changing that goal to a more flexible affirmation: "I am now taking a quantum leap in my physical health, in an easy and relaxed manner, in its own perfect time, for the highest good of all." I kept myself in a state of positive expectancy -- I expected that something synchronistic would happen to move me in the direction of the goal. And a few weeks later, I was in the bookstore, and a book almost jumped off the shelf at me. It was Dr. Young's Sick & Tired. I never would have looked for that book, since I'd never heard of Dr. Young, and I didn't feel sick or tired. But the book gave me exactly the info I needed to understand why I couldn't make the dietary shift I'd wanted to. A whole string of other coincidences happened, and this led me to adopt a diet that was way beyond the one I had originally attempted to move to, yet the transition was easy... almost effortless.

So it seems that when you give up a little control, you gain a lot more in power.

I've found that when I set a goal and run into all manner of obstacles trying to achieve it, there are a couple possibilities. On the one hand, it may simply be a tough goal, and these obstacles could be opportunities in disguise. I might become stronger by overcoming the challenges. But on the other hand, if it looks like the universe is going out of its way to block me from making any real progress, that makes me stop and pause. I ask if this goal is really right for me, or if I'm being too rigid and inflexible. If so, I broaden the goal. For instance, I might change a goal to increase my sales by X% into one to increase my income by X%. And if that doesn't work, I broaden it further, often adding "... for the highest good of all" as part of the goal. Eventually, when I get the intention right, within a few weeks things just start clicking, and the goal begins to materialize easily. And accomplishing this new goal invariably puts me way beyond the original goal I had set.

A simple example of this process was when I made the decision to get more involved in the ASP. I thought that running for the board would be a good idea, so I set a goal to get a seat on the board in the next election, but the elections were months away. A day or two later I received a general ASP email saying that one of the board members had suddenly resigned and that there would be a special election to replace him. I ran for the board seat, along with three other people, and I came in second by four votes. So I figured I'd wait until the end of the year and try again. But a week later the VP suddenly resigned too, and the board unanimously appointed me to replace him. A year later I became President, again an appointed position, yet I never won an election. So even though I failed to achieve my original goal, by remaining flexible and keeping a positive expectation, I was able to skip past that goal and achieve something much better.

It seems to be the really big goals that involve this process most. For small goals I can be very specific, set a clear deadline, and lock into a plan, and those tend to work just fine. But when it comes to the BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals), that's when I've learned I have to be very flexible. When you get the intention just right, a tremendous power is unleashed to help you. But when the intent isn't quite right, you'll find that you're blocked, and every step seems like a major uphill battle.

One of the most powerful types of goals for me is that of raising my awareness in a particular area, such as with an affirmation like, "I am now massively increasing my awareness in every area of my life." This one has been giving me an an absolutely incredible string of breakthroughs, especially in my relationships. Problems that had existed for years, I suddenly saw in a new light, and the solutions became obvious.

One of the dangers when setting goals is that you might make an erroneous assumption about how the goal should be achieved. This is where broadening your goals can help. For instance, I find it's often better to set a goal that a project will be completed rather than to say that I'll complete it. The second case assumes I'll be the one completing it, but the first case allows for the option that someone else may complete it too. Yet an even better approach is to clarify what results you expect from the completion of the project, and then set a goal to achieve those results -- often the universe will show you a way to get from A to C without going through B.

What I believe now is that goals are simply one way of clarifying intent. The real power lies in putting out the right intent, and then putting yourself in a state of positive expectancy. Planning can help achieve this, but for some people planning becomes an obstacle -- they create unrealistic plans that look good on paper, but deep down they don't expect the plans to work out. On the other hand, when you have a really good intent, you can still create a plan, but it will be flexible, and you'll have the expectation that the plan will come to fruition.

Many have experienced this process at work, and everyone seems to explain it differently. Mine is something of a quantum physics explanation. It's been determined that quantum events can be influenced by the intentions of the observer. So what if on a macroscopic scale, by focusing our intentions, we can subtly influence the outcomes of zillions of quantum events, such that our intentions are ultimately manifest? The key is to make sure there's enough random flux (i.e. quantum potential) for the universe to manifest your goals. For instance, if you set a goal to be a millionaire in 10 years, there's a lot more quantum potential to make that happen than if you set a goal to be a millionaire in one hour. My current philosophical model of the universe is one of a giant cosmic holodeck, crunching on all the intentions of conscious beings and directing quantum events to manifest them in the best way possible. If your intentions conflict with another person's, both are severely weakened. If your intentions coincide with those of others, all are strengthened. This is a model of reality I really like.

Another model you might like is simply the subconscious mind approach. That is, when you set a goal and really expect it to happen, you're programming your subconscious mind to help you make it so. Your reticular activating system (RAS) may notice a particular book you should read, even if you don't consciously know why, because subconsciously your brain already knows something about the book and has determined you'll need to read it to accomplish your goals. When a goal of yours is blocked, it may be that you've programmed your subconscious mind with negative expectations about the outcome, or your subconscious may hold a broaden perspective that understands the likely consequences better than your conscious mind.

Take your pick of philosophies -- there are plenty of others to choose from.

too many... and it sounds as though it takes lifetimes to find one that works for you.

Originally posted by Uhfgood
too many... and it sounds as though it takes lifetimes to find one that works for you.

It is not so difficult. And every sistem you will try will work for you, just with different success. You will end modifying it to yourself.

It is some kind of preasure from inside when you set something which you MUST do to. We mostly hate word "must", that is our child compoment which will sabotague (sp?) everything we mark as "must". My initial tries to plan usually crashed after short time. I became effective when I really realized that my life is unique. It also helps to make some kind of contract with your "child", for example you can turn the very process of planning into a kind of game you will love to play. Try to beat yourself in number of day activities. Set some kinds of "scores" to each activity, and make a "highscores" table, try to beat it everyday. Remember, we are homo ludens after all :)

Steve: And how do you manage shorter term goals, or how do you fit the todo lists and schedules of the plans for specific longer term goals in these goals texts you described?

Do you know any interesting websites about time management?

Best regards,

Originally posted by HHM
Steve: And how do you manage shorter term goals, or how do you fit the todo lists and schedules of the plans for specific longer term goals in these goals texts you described?

Do you know any interesting websites about time management?

Best regards,
For prioritizing projects, I use a spreadsheet that does a basic cost-benefit analysis. I take into account the estimated time and money to complete a project as well as the estimated benefit in dollars. The goal is to select the projects that will yield the greatest benefit for the time and money invested. For projects with a long-term or monthly payoff, I'll usually use a 5-year time span in planning. So for instance, if a project may add an extra $100 per month to my income, I'll evaluate it as adding $6000 total. This way I can compare it to single-payoff projects.

So if I have one project that I expect will take 50 hours and increase my income by $100 per month, I'd say that's $6000/50 = $120 per hour. If I have another project that will take 40 hours plus $500 but will yield $8500 total, that's ($8500-500)/40 = $200 per hour. So I just keep picking the best project off the top of the list... i.e. the one with the highest hourly payoff.

I will vary the timespan for evaluation based on my short-term outlook. For instance, if everything looks good income- and sales-wise for the next several months, I'm happy using a 2-5 year time span for evaluation. However, if sales dip and the near-term doesn't look secure enough, I may lower the time span to 1-3 months, so then I'll select projects with the best short-term payoff... i.e. those that will give me the most month very soon, rather than over a period of years. The more secure the near-term, the longer my time perspective.

Also, I'll alter the parameters based on my personal goals. For instance, if I need cash for a downpayment on a house, then I may opt for a 6-month time span to save up for the downpayment. Sometimes I want more cash; other times I want more cashflow.

In practice my system is a bit more complex than this, since I also have a risk factor for each item. For instance, if a project has an 80% chance of success, then I multiply the project's $ per hour by 80%. It's easy to design your own spreadsheet for this based on what you want to optimize and what your goals are. The basic principle is to do what gets you the most benefit for the least cost.

This sytem works well for me, and I've been using it for a number of years. Although my estimates are often wrong, it gives me a fairly good prioritization. It also shows me that certain projects are never worth doing, since their bang per buck is so low that they'll never rise to the top of the list.

This kind of analysis is what led me to create expansion packs for Dweep. I estimated a 10% increase in sales for about 2 weeks of work, but in reality I got a 35% increase in sales for 2 weeks of work. It's always nice when the payoff is higher than expected.

Aside from devoting a chunk of each day to urgent tasks, such as handling emails, returning phone calls, communicating with developers, etc., I attempt to single-handle projects as much as possible. It isn't easy, but if I have too many projects going on at once, it takes too long to gain the benefits of each project. It's better to knock them off one at a time. So most of each day I'm chugging away on a single project, putting everything else that's non-urgent aside until that one project is done.

As far as time-management web sites, I don't know any that I would recommend. Mostly I read books and listen to audio programs here, since they go much deeper than web sites usually do. Articles I've seen on web sites tend to be pretty shallow and basic, containing tips like limit TV watching, get up an hour earlier, etc.

Thanks Steve!

Best regards,