New Year, Focused Goals: Planning and Prioritization Methods for Achievers

Resources to advance the goals and projects that matter most to you

Scrabble tiles that say “Dream, Plan, Act”. Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Over the last month, we’ve been sharing resources to help with reflecting and visioning at the same time that we’ve been holding off on sharing more frameworks and posts centered on planning. We have intended to give ample time for the priming that leads to great planning instead of just jumping into New Year’s Resolutions and plannings.

And we’re full-on into the New Year — Happy New Year, by the way — so this month’s focus will be planning and prioritization. As a reminder, one of the gifts of the 5 Projects Rule is it does a lot of prioritization and planning work for us because it decreases the scope of what needs to be planned and deconflicted. Too often, we think of a specific goal or project as if it were the only project we have on deck, and add complications by assuming we have “open time” in the next few weeks just because our schedules aren’t full yet and the tasks and chunks of work that make fuel for projects and goals aren’t on our calendar.

Reality check: most of us have multiple projects and goals we’re trying to push forward at once AND the “open time” appearing on our schedule is an illusion.

The goal isn’t to do ALL.THE.THINGS, but to advance the goals and projects that matter most to you. (That’s prioritization.)

We’ll be sharing more throughout the month, but if you want to get started today, dive in with the resources below.

Premium Resources

Premium and Pro subscribers have immediate access to the following:

• The Annual Reflection Mini-Guide - If you haven’t done your Annual Reflection, today’s a good day to start. Also included with the Annual Reflection Mini-Guide are two resources to help you capture and pick your most important projects.

• The Guided Business Review - If you’re an entrepreneur or business owner, this resource will help you take stock of how last year shaped up for you. Many people find the Advanced version which walks through the four dimensions of business to be particularly helpful.

• The Momentum Planners - If you’re ready to start shaping the year, the Momentum Planners (and the Momentum Planning E-Course) helps you find homes for those goals and projects. Even if you just get your arms around this quarter, you’ll be a good way into making the year purposeful and productive.

Free Resources

These posts are great for prioritization and planning:

• The Five Keys to Overcoming the Air Sandwich - If your dreams and big goals seem to be light years away from your day-to-day reality, you’re familiar with the air sandwich (though you may not call it that yet). If you don’t address the five challenges that are in that gap, your days and your dreams will continue to be far apart.

• How to Set SMART Goals - You may have heard of the SMART goal-setting framework before, but our formulation of it works better for creative types and creative work.

• Why Strategic Planning Is So Hard for Creative People - It’s not just you, and the reason it’s hard is because it’s not just a logical process.

• The Benefits of Displacement - Anything you do displaces lots of other things you could’ve done instead. If you accept the constraint, you can make better choices about where your time, energy, and attention go.

• 37 Universal Verbs to Use for Your To-Do Lists - It turns out that verbs give a clue about how big a project is. Use that to help size and prioritize your projects.

Next week, I will be sharing a new framework that will help you break annual quantitative goals (of any kind) into more realistic quarterly goals.

Additional Support

Join us on our next Monthly Community Coaching Call (February 21) to ask questions, socially process, or see how others in the community are channeling their start-of-the-year energy. [Paid and Pro]

For Pro members, join us for our Quarterly Planning Session on January 24, 11am PST and get in-the-moment support putting your Quarter 1 plans together (or adjusting them based on what you’ve seen of life and work the first few weeks of the year). [Pro exclusive]