Paper based Goal Setting Tool
Are you more a paper and pencil type of person when it comes to goal setting?
If you are, you may want to check out this neat little tool called “5×5p5 Goals Booklet“. It’s a free PDF download that you can print it out on a nice sheet of paper, and fold it up into a neat little booklet. You can keep it in your wallet and keep track of your goals anywhere you go. What a nice idea!
Goal Setting Booklet
Upcoming new features in GoalsOnTrack
We have been busy developing new features and making improvements to the app. Thanks to the feedback of many GOT users, I was able to identify several features that people want to see most in the product. We’re taking an incremental development and improvement approach. New upgrades will be rolling out in the coming weeks.
First to be available in GOT is a new full view calendar tool, which allows you to manage goals and tasks on a calendar interface. This will make your job extremely easy when it comes to re-scheduing your tasks under different goals. Also a calendar view of all your tasks will give you a better view of what your schedule is for the month, or the week. Here is a sneak peak at how it looks like.
In addition to the calendar features, we’re also working on two main improvements. One is the recurring tasks, and the other is sub-goal support. We’re making changes to the way how recurring tasks work so that it’s more compatibile with the way it works in programs such as Google calendar, Outlook that most people are familiar with.
We’re also going to support adding sub goals for parent goals, so that all progress made on sub-goals will be reflected in parent goals. This may help you better break down a bigger goal and achieve it more efficiently.
Beyond, we’ve also done some work with the new iPhone/mobile version of GoalsOnTrack. However, it’s just started so I don’t have much to share at this point. So please come back and check this blog often to see what’s new with the site.
What Should You Write About in Journal For Your Goals
GoalsOnTrack comes with a feature where you can write journal entries for your goals. Some people may wonder, “What should I write about in my goal journal?”
Well, this is all up to you. There are many things you can write about in there. For me, I don’t write much about my goals, but I do write one thing in it pretty much on a daily basis. That is, my goals themselves. Just all my active goals.
Everyday, I write them out in the journal what my long term, mid term and short term goals are. That’s it. I occasionally try to phrase the same goal a bit differently, but generally it’s just repetition of writing down all my goals every day.
I’ve been doing this for about two years, and I think it has done wonders for me. At least there are a few benefits of doing this from my own experience.
- 1. Writing down my goals on a daily basis helps me remember them. Believe or not, many people fail to accomplish their goals, only because they have forgotten about them after a little while.
- 2. Writing down my goals helps me think about if they’re indeed what I want. Strangely sometimes we set goals that aren’t actually what we want for ourselves, but rather someone else’s wishes, society’s conditioning, etc. Writing them out gives me a chance to really reflect on them and decide for myself if it’s something I truely want to accomplish.
- 3. Writing down my goals helps me clear my mind and block out all other distractions that seem to pile up more and more on top of my goals. Without doing this, I usually find my goals tend to slip beneath more and more unimportant things.
- 4. Writing down my goals helps me subconciously find ways to achieve them. I don’t know exactly how it works, but I just find myself achieve far more goals that I’ve been writing down on a regular basis than all other things I once set for myself to accomplish but never get to write them down.
So that’s how goal journal has helped me. I believe if you start writing down your goals on a regular basis, you will also reap the benefits as I did.
The Magic Lamp: Goal Setting for People Who Hate Setting Goals
Do you hate setting goals? Many people do. If you happen to be one of them, you may want to check out this book called “The Magic Lamp: Goal Setting for People Who Hate Setting Goals”.
It describes a simple yet unforgettable process for how to obtain what you want from both your personal life and your career. You can read it as a goal-setting guide for people who hate setting goals.
This book tries to convert the process of setting goals from a dull routine into an exciting adventure by combining the methods of goal setting with the magic of making your wishes come true.
It offers a 4-step process:
- Step 1: Lock On
- Step 2: Act
- Step 3: Manage Your Progress
- Step 4: Persist
For more detaied reviews of the book, you can check it out at Amazon.com.
Time Management Advice from Last Lecture Professor Randy Pausch
I came across this great video on YouTube on time management. It was a talk given by Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch, the professor who gave that famous “Last Lecture”. He did this talk about only one year before he died of cancer. Who else could have given us better advice on time management than he?
The speech offers a lot of great advice on how to make plans for goals, how to better manage your time, and be more productive with your life. It’s full of very practical techniques and tricks that anyone can take advantage easily, such as:
- Use quadrant method for your TODO list
- Have 3 monitors
- Have a speaker phone
- Stand up when you are on the phone
- Write thank-you notes
- … …
It’s a great talk.
How to Do Your New Year Goals?
Perhaps you have been wondering what’s the best way to set and achieve your new year goals for 2010.
There are certainly many different goal setting strategies and theories that people can use , but I think what Khuram Malik suggested in this new blog post “How to have your best year ever” shed some great light on how to make goal setting really work for you.
Also Khuram went on to create a video reviewing how GoalsOnTrack.com can help you keep track on your goals. If you have never used GoalsOnTrack before, this could be a great tutorial tour of how it works and how it can help you achieve goals.
Top 10 New Year Resolutions of All Time
Have you wondered what New Year resolutions most of people create all these years?
According to polls from Quicken, nutrition centers and others, the top ten New Year’s resolutions are (remarkably consistent year after year):
- Spend more quality time with family and friends,
- Get in shape and/or lose weight
- Quit smoking and/or drinking
- Enjoy life more
- Get into a good relationship
- Find a better job
- Get out of debt
- Volunteer more and/or help others
- Learn something new
- Get Organized
I guess this list only applies to people in the U.S. or western world. In many other countries, with different cultures and traditions than here, I would seriously doubt “Spend more quality time with family and friends” could be the number 1 goal for most people. 
Of course, that doesn’t mean people in those countries wouldn’t want to spend time with family and friends, but just that it wouldn’t be their first priority, amongst all things. What do you think?
Be Better Organized With A Mind Map Template
Have you ever tried mind mapping tools? I find it sometimes useful and effective for organizing things related to goals, projects, schedules etc. I guess the reason that it’s very good organizer tool is because the mind map is very easy for the brain to hold these things we try to remember as a picture in mind.
If you have never tried it, you may want to start with a free Personal Organizer Template mind map. It’s built with BiggerPlate.com.
Personal Organiser Template Mind Map
There is another very good mind mapping tool I’ve used before is called Mindjet.
Goal Setting Strategies Learned from Olympic Champions
When it comes to setting goals for the New Year, have you wondered how Olympic athletes do it? What can we learn from those Olympic champions? World records and Olympic champions are never accidental. The ways and strategies they use to set and accomplish their goals can be very effective and must have really worked for them. In similar ways, they can work for us too.
When we set goals, an important decision is about the size. Is it better to set large goals, or small ones? The idealistic answer to that is “large ones”. Because they bring us maximum result and realize our full potential. That’s also how you get to win gold medals if you are an Olympian.
But those large and lofty goals are usually very difficult to accomplish, so for average people they are rarely realized. On the other hand, smaller goals are often easy to achieve, but may not be significant enough to make any real change in our life.
The best strategy therefore is to aim high and celebrate incremental progress toward our larger goals. It is also a better approach to finding happiness and fulfillment from the goal setting process.
When we watch the Olympics, we usually see teams that ranked 3rd and 4th compete for the bronze medal, while 1st and 2nd fight for the gold. In both finals, the teams who won bronze and gold medals were often jubilant and would dance around in excitement, while the losing teams in both matches were understandably disappointed.
This is all normal, and there is nothing unusual about any of these reactions. But what seems illogical is that the silver medal winners tend to react far less positively than those who won bronze medal, even though one would think placing second is still preferable than being third.
Therefore, psychologically it’s much better to feel like you’ve won, even if it’s an easier goal. There is a great advantage to setting a high goal. It will inspire and motivate you to reach for the stars. But what really works for most people is to break that big goal down to relevant and smaller goals, which you will more easily get to by staying positive and motivated. And once these smaller goals are achieved, the large ones are often very close to reach.
How to Set Goals for Your Business in 2010
If you run or own a business, you may want set some goals for your business at the beginning of the new year. I’ve stumbled upon a very nice video on this topic. The main idea behind the whole talk is originally from Anthony Robbins’ goal setting principles, which include four main steps:
- Know your outcome (goal)
- Take action
- Notice your results
- If necessary, change your approach
I believe this formula also applies to almost any kind of goals you have, not just business goals. Anyway, enjoy the video and hope it gives you some ideas you can work with.
