Lists and Lists: The Value of Writing it Down

It may seem like common sense, but writing down goals leads to accomplished goals. Easy, right?

Before setting wild goals and writing a list-novel, take stock of your present circumstance. Are you happy in your career? relationship? home? Do you have any regrets that can be thwarted? Have you always wanted to go back to school and pursue a new livelihood? Try to image your ideal scenario. Take into account your dreams and hopes, no matter how far-fetched.

Next you must prioritize. Manage your goals into timeframes that are realistic. Set a routine that will determine how you can manage your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals.

Once you have a routine in place, act on it and be vigilant. Write down your goals in a pattern or spreadsheet that works for you. Take a day and write down a 5 year plan that incorporates personal and professional goals. Write up a weekly planner that works with your daily goals to manage progress each workweek. Write down a monthly planner follows both the daily and the weekly guide, and can be spot-checked on a regular basis.

Tips for maintaining a routine:

Statistics show that habits can be broken or created successfully in 60 days. By setting a schedule, establishing clear goals, and strictly adhering to that timetable it is possible to create good habits.

Create incentives for productive habits. Make healthy goals, and reward yourself with minor vices: go to a matinee on a Tuesday afternoon, or get a latte with whole milk, etc. Rewarding yourself for maintaining progress will help with the struggles that you will inevitably encounter.

Do not collapse into yourself if you fail to meet a goal. Instead, take a step back, review where you fell short, and create a plan to re-meet that goal in the immediate future. Stumbling blocks will present themselves, and instead of taking the opportunity to fall into old habits, take stock of your mistakes, learn, and move forward.

Share your success with others. It's OK to blow your own horn from time to time. Success breeds success and while giving yourself a pat of the back, you will also implicitly be encouraging others around you to succeed as well.

Continue to update your goals. Lives change and so do priorities. Be flexible with your time, and be sure to adjust your daily, weekly, and monthly according to your schedule and your life. Success is an evolution, not a linear path.