Do you have a system for setting goals and tracking their completion?

January 16, 2005 12:58 PM

Do you have a system for setting goals and tracking their completion? How does it work? Have you accomplished more than you would have without it? Significantly more?
posted by tirade to Work & Money (9 answers total)

I've heard very good things about Getting Things Done but I've yet to try it myself. It's on my list, though (HHOS).
posted by Handcoding at 1:03 PM on January 16, 2005

Response by poster: Looks like an interesting book. I should point out that I'm not so much talking about workplace or project-level goal setting (although I'm not excluding them), but I mean more the sort of 6mo/1yr/5yr personal goals. Financial, career, relationship, whatever.
posted by tirade at 1:21 PM on January 16, 2005

While there's a whole Getting Things Done cult, I didn't find it really fit for my situation. The best "system" I have found for myself is simply to write the goal down along with (at least) a bare-bones action plan. I once heard a statistic from a life coach/self help author that you're 70-80% more likely to meet your goals if you write them down with a plan on how you're going to accomplish it.

That statistic might be false, but the idea is solid. For example, everyone makes a lot of new year's resolutions that never happen, like "I'm going to lose 10 lbs"; but if you make a plan that says, "I'm going to go to the gym 3x and keep a food diary", you've probably upped your chances for success.
posted by dicaxpuella at 1:46 PM on January 16, 2005 [1 favorite]

I have artistic goals, and I use a Daruma doll. His one eye staring at me from the nearby shelf keeps me on track.

The other low-tech solution I have is to write them in Stickies notes on my desktop, and have Stickies launch on startup. Usually one Sticky per goal, with the goal bolded at the top, and then the major steps to completion outlined below.
posted by xo at 1:48 PM on January 16, 2005

I'm currently midway through GTD. It's useful, but the book is an awful lot of filler ("in the coming pages I'm going to teach you how to master blah blah blah"--there must be about 7 pages of actual info in the whole thing!). Basically the main point--so far--is to break goals down into the smallest actionable steps needed to get there. A lot of his emphasis is on writing down every last bit of "stuff" so that you can free your mind of them.

If you're into GTD, Merlin Mann's site is full of suggestions for adapting and applying its principles. The user comments led me to Life Balance which has some interesting features that make it feasible to maintain a GTD-type of highly detailed to-do list without being overwhelmed by that many details. And, honestly, I am finding it easier to get things done since adopting this setup. This said by the incurable procrastinator!

For email, I also keep an "awaiting followup" folder that gets checked regularly. When someone is supposed to get back to me with info or whatever, the last message in the thread goes into the folder. It makes it easier to remember where the loose ends are, and what remains to be done about them. Works for snail mail too.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 2:39 PM on January 16, 2005

I keep a list of projects I'd like to complete in my head. When spare time comes my way I evaluate the time each project is likely to take to complete and, if it is possible to complete it in the spare time available, I do it.

This makes my life very random. I like it that way.
posted by shepd at 5:15 PM on January 16, 2005

Just measuring helps. Even if I tell myself I'm only going to count calories (for example) without trying to change what I eat, the number magically starts going down. The hard part with some projects is figuring out what to measure. Breaking projects into tasks works well for this. You get to watch tasks get ticked off the list. It works even better if you can move the tasks to a "done" list.
posted by callmejay at 8:59 PM on January 16, 2005

I find that documenting the progress is a Good Thing. We made a purchase last year with 12-months-same-as-cash, figured out a payment plan, and stuck to it even when it sucked (which was about six months), and exclaimed over the rapidly falling balance monthly, always looked at the interest accrued but not charged amount, and generally made paying it off a feel-good experience. For something like saving, we deduct to a savings account directly from the employer, so a set amount is automatically sent to savings without us doing anything at all. It's fun watching that money pile up. My husband wasn't a saver before he met me, so he's had to transfer some gadget-glee to saving-glee, but he's managed to become almost as miserly as me now. ;)
posted by Medieval Maven at 7:00 AM on January 17, 2005

I use Alex King's Tasks software, and am looking at using it along with Getting Things Done methodologies. As someone else mentioned, check out Merlin Mann's site for even more tips.
posted by mrbill at 4:14 PM on January 17, 2005