Okay, for a blog that at one point (not too long ago) was supposed to be purely about planning, I’m not a very good planner. Since then (very recently), this has sort of morphed into a personal essay blog. I feel like I’m driving a college student around that wants to try everything out on their way to figuring out what they really want to do with their life. I’m going to let that be okay for now. Eventually it will become something, and right now I’m content to write whatever pleases me and see how things develop.
But that doesn’t feel like a good planning strategy. Chris Guillebeau has a good planning strategy, and I’m plodding my way through it right now. Here’s what I’ve gotten through my head so far.
Number one – making rigid plans you hate is bad. I have a habit of making rigid plans, and then feeling absolutely miserable when I can’t maintain them. That is a class act way of making oneself more depressed. Not a great way to actually meet your goals.
Number two – New Year’s Resolutions that are not resolute suck. Why make a huge list (as I tend to do) of things that can’t be accomplished? For me, New Year’s Resolutions are no good if you don’t start from January 1st and maintain them continuously for the entire year. “Exercise every day,” is a very easy resolution to break the first time you get sick, or get bored, or get stressed, or simply get too busy. Back to depression, irritation, and more stress. Nice.
Number three – how do you know when you’ve “written more”, “exercised more”, or “given more to charity”? If you can’t measure it, how do you know you’ve met it? Oh yeah, you can’t!
I’m all about this Annual Review, now that I’ve read through both articles by Chris. It’s all I want to do, even though there are many more things that I know I need to get done in these evenings before the end of the year. My hope is that this ritual, done in fits and bursts before January 1st will help me get my other tasks done in the new year.
Know what my first goal is going to be? Setting up a weekly schedule for my evenings so I can get some good habits started.
And then I’m going to try this.