If you are reading this post, congrats; you have made it to 2017! You have been a part of inspiring milestones and endured great world tragedies. Now is your chance to reflect, set goals, and move forward in the new year.
After taking two weeks off reuniting with old friends, eating amazing food with family, and meeting plenty of new friends I am finally back in the “Emerald City.” Shout out to Kevin Haggerty and his crew at Great Food Bad Conversations (GFBC) for throwing an awesome New Years Eve bash. Check out their podcast as they won’t disappoint with their witty banter and interesting insight on the modern male cook.
This article I am focusing my efforts on laying out a fool-proof plan to get where I want to be. From being more productive with my time, setting actionable goals, and creating everyday rituals to improve my lifestyle.
Becoming More Productive
In order to know how to be more productive with your time, you need to understand how you are currently utilizing your time. I urge you to check out “Zero to Skill” by Zdravko Cvijet as he lays out the ultimate cheat sheet for productivity. His cheat sheet is consolidated to three core areas; Assessing how you are currently spending time, how to get more time, and how to use time more efficiently.
The most eye-opening experiment is writing down your weekly time allocation. I realized I had been spending about 20 to 30 hours a week on my phone, watching TV, or gaming. Write down your weekly totals and subtract from 168 hours. This will allow you to see your biggest time wasters as well as time that is unaccounted for.
Turn Rituals Into Habits
It’s easy to waste time you didn’t know you had, so start on the right track this year by creating daily rituals. Go to bed and wake up at the same time. Wake up early for a quick workout, journal entry, breakfast, and some coffee to get the day going. Set time aside to read a new book, learn a new skill, or clean your apartment. If you need help, you should check out the Strides app! It will send friendly reminders daily, weekly, or monthly on your phone to keep you on track.
Prepare to be the person you want to be! Don’t worry about losing spontaneity in your life because this preparation will allow those moments to naturally fill in your previously unused time. You should also reward yourself with some “Cheat Days” here and there to keep life interesting. No one wants to have every second planned out.
My Goals & Tools I Am Using To Achieve Them
Z from “Zero to Skill” has some great insight on setting and achieving goals as well. I have picked a few of my goals that I plan to achieve in the next year and have phrased them as if I had already achieved them.
Got a 650 or higher on the GMAT in 2017 (Personal Growth)
- Purchased the training materials, dedicated weekly study time, and took all six practice exams
I became part of the American Marketing Association and actively participated in events (Social)
- Met with an active member to discuss participation, joined, and volunteered for specific projects
I have gained and maintained 10 pounds of muscle in 2017 (Health)
- Cooked a meal 1+ times a week and worked out 5 days a week
Traveled to the U.K. (Travel)
- Coordinated with friends, booked flights, set up rooms at hostels, and documented everything with photos 🙂
Some of the tools I will be using to achieve my 2017 goals:
- Strides App – To track and manage my rituals
- Mapmyrun – To maintain my fitness in basketball and soccer
- Allrecipes App – Utilize their dinner spinner to keep cooking interesting
- Journal – Become part of my morning ritual to get my mind creatively thinking
- Vision Board – Visualize my goals and who I want to become
- Google Calendar/Google Docs – Organize my schedule and coordinate planning with others
I wish you all the best in 2017 and would love to hear about your goals and tools you are using to achieve them. The more people that know your goals the more accountable you can be.
Stay casual until next Tie Tuesday!
EVB
4 Comments
Bryan Puyana
January 11, 2017 at 4:56 PMWell said Evan! Very inspirational. I’ll try not to be a bad influence! 😉
Evan VanBuhler
January 13, 2017 at 9:56 AMThank you, Bryan! I hope you hold me accountable for reaching my goals!
Eric VanBuhler
January 18, 2017 at 12:27 PMThis is a great and very structured approach! Goal setting (and hopefully achieving) is one of my favorite pastimes. I wanted to add a few techniques I use as well.
Numerous researchers have made the point that visualizing achieving your goals is an important step in actually achieving your goals. Phrasing your goals as you’ve already achieved them (like you did above), and the vision board are both good ways to do that. Every year, Mary and I pick 6 goals, and draw them in a grid on a paper. Due to Mary’s drawing skills, this usually turns into quite the work of art. This is something we can hang in our home office, and see it all the time. When we achieve one of the goals, we can check it off right on the paper. This method provides a constant reminder of our goals and the big picture!
One thing I’ve started doing for my goal setting is to look at my goals differently. Previously, all my goals we specific tasks and they were usually pretty disjoint. I’ve started first deciding bigger picture things that are hard to quantify, like the kind of person I want to be in my job, with friends, etc, then picking out goals that I think will help me become those things. That has helped me choose which goals are most important.
One other thing I wanted to mention, since you’ve taken up journaling, is something called object writing. You can read about it here: http://www.writersdigest.com/qp7-migration-books/writing-better-lyrics-excerpt. Basically You set the clock for 10 minutes in the morning, pick an “object,” and write about it diving deep into all the senses. When I do this consistently I find a surge of creativity, just because it pushes you to look at ordinary things differently. If you run out of journaling ideas give it a try!
The Strides app seems pretty cool! I’ll check it out.
Evan VanBuhler
January 18, 2017 at 1:55 PMWow, great addition Eric! I have wanted to start on the visualization train for quite some time, as I know it helps in more ways than one. I will let you know when I start the vision board and will definitely give object writing a look.