The Secret To Financial Success?

Is there a secret to financial success?

One point stood out to me in the following article: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/195915_the-secret-that-only-rich-people-know

It's the first "secret", which I felt made an interesting point that does make a lot of sense when you think about it.

Multiple Income Streams

Here's the paragraph:

"The first part of the secret that only rich people know is the setting up of multiple income streams. Not just two or three, but as many as they can find that will allow them to have an accumulated income that will create the substantial amount of money"

Multiple income streams.

Even if each income stream doesn't generate much, if you have enough of them, it could add up to a substantial amount of money.

It also means you have more to fall back on: if one fails, you still have other income streams working for you, whereas if you have only one job and you lose it, you face a much bigger challenge.

Not the only way

It's clearly not the only way: there are many people who have made it with only one income stream, one job at a time, working their way forwards.

However, most of the "famous" entrepreneurs you're likely to hear of do have multiple income streams. In some cases that means multiple companies, in some cases it is that their company has entered multiple markets. In some cases it even means they have one main day job plus various other "side" channels to generating income such as books, advertising appearances, public speaking...

It also rings true with the "passive income" concept that a lot of affiliate marketers are pushing: lots of small sites targeting small niches, on their own don't provide a significant income, but together can generate a solid income.

How many income streams do you have?

If You're New, Shut Up and Listen

Ever started a new job or joined a new group and wanted to make the "right" impression?

Ever felt you needed to say something, even if it's just to be heard?

Don't

A number of times I've seen people say completely irrelevant and stupid things in front of people they really don't want to be making a fool of themselves in front of, just because they felt they needed to "make an impression".

Trust me, first impressions count - and being a bit quiet is better than being a bit stupid.

Listen

The best way you ensure you say the right thing is to listen first.

Make sure you say things that are relevant and useful: the only way you can do this is to understand the context, the needs of the people involved in the conversation, and to respond accordingly.

I don't mean to be patronising

I guess this post is really aimed at new graduates and people with limited experience who have just joined a new job - and I hope if you're in this category and you read this it's of some help to you.

However, I also know the feeling myself - the need to "make an impression" - and it can actually get stronger the more senior you get. How do you establish yourself as the "expert", the "experienced" one with a new client?

If you're new to a project or client or company, remember to take it easy, shut up and listen first.

It can even be the clearest demonstration of experience there is anyway.

How to Use Meetings To Drive Progress and Success

This is a very simple technique that can massively increase your productivity.

I noticed early in my career that I am motivated by deadlines and the drive to avoid any failure to meet those deadlines. However, that fear was not a fear of missing an arbitrary date, rather it was the fear of letting someone else down or disappointing someone in not delivering for them when I said I would.

This is a common driver. If we commit to doing something for someone, it increases our own drive to complete the task that we have committed to and therefore increases our chance of success.

The technique

The technique is very simple: if you need to get something done, book a meeting with someone with a vested interest in whatever that something is, for a specific time in the near future, to review either the output of the completed task (e.g. the deliverable) or progress towards its delivery.

Ideally, this time that you book the meeting should leave plenty of space before the overall "deadline", to provide you with time to make any updates you need to following this meeting. e.g. if you need to deliver something in two weeks time, try booking the meeting for one week's time.

Often, the tighter the deadline the better. It creates a sense of urgency for yourself and the pressure can often drive you to produce a better output quicker. It's better to finish early than to leave things to the last minute and rush something out, that could be either incomplete or not quite right (partly because you didn't consult with whoever you are doing the task for in time).

The more respect that you have for the individual you book the meeting with the better, particularly if you really care what they think of you. You need to care enough for it to get you to work.

I often find that I repeat this a number of times before I deliver something. It's common to take an iterative approach to the development, review and approval of deliverables for clients but I use this technique for more than just formal "deliverables": it can be applied to all kinds of tasks at work and at home.

Why it works

There are various reasons why this simple technique works:

• It provides us with a tighter timescale to work to, increasing our chances of getting it done sooner and decreasing the risk of missing our deadlines
• It creates a feeling of urgency, making us act now instead of putting it off "because we have time"
• It sets expectations with someone whose opinion we care about, increasing the stakes for success and failure
• It gives us more time, enabling us to increase the quality of our output or to get it done earlier
• It gives us a chance to get input early, to be able to adjust our approach so we can "get it right" based on people's feedback

It still depends on you

However, it still depends on you taking action:

• Choosing a date that will push you to get the job done quicker
• Choosing the right person to attend the meeting to increase your drive to succeed
• Actually following through to (1) getting the work done and (2) actually run the meeting when you said you'd run it (i.e. never postpone - it's better to go in there less prepared but still get the input/support/guidance - or less positive feedback - than to postpone and risk missing out on valuable feedback or reduce the amount of effort you put in so that you increase your risks of missing the overall deadline)

Avoiding Goal Overkill

Goals are important, but are of little value without action to achieve them.

In the intro for Og Mandino's book The Greatest Secret in the World, he does include the standard initial "goal setting" part to the personal development process - but it is far briefer than usual.

The interesting (and very good) thing about the focus of this book is that it is all about replacing bad habits with good ones and living certain principles, not on prescribed methodologies for goal setting etc.

A very, very short goal-setting exercise

The intro that is provided to this exercise is:

"Now, I'm not going to ask you what you want from life. I'm not going to ask you to list your assets as they are now and then make a second list showing what you'd like them to be a year from now, five years from now... and so on. We don't need to go through all that "pipe dream success bookkeeping" you find in most self-help books."

Any of the above sound familiar from other self-help books you've read?

The four things this short exercise asks for:

• Present job title
• Present weekly income
• Job title, 45 weeks from now
• Weekly income, 45 weeks from now

The reason it's so short is also explained:

"...If you have improved your job title and your weekly income as much as I think you've indicated on that private memo to yourself then all the material things you want will come your way."

Goals are still important

The interesting thing is, one of the scrolls places a fair amount of emphasis on setting goals. The difference is, rather than asking the reader to spend loads of time on it, it is emphasised as being a core part of how you should live your life. A regular activity, setting clear goals to achieve on a short and long term basis.

We do live our lives by our habits and principles. They guide the decisions we make and actions we take every day.

Likewise, goal setting should be just something we do, not a big one-off exercise we do to pretend that we're going to do something about our aspirations.

Posting Now, Not Later

Holding back content can sometimes be a great way to ensure maintained, regular, consistent communication.

If you have a surplus of content, it can be good to hold some of it back to use at a later date, for a number of reasons including:

• Keeping the "level" of communication consistent
• Ensuring the frequency of communication is consistent (reducing the risk of lack of time)
• Avoiding blocking the creative process for the purpose of keeping to a schedule
• Enabling better forward planning for the release of content

Why this sometimes doesn't work

It really depends on what you're trying to achieve with a blog or website.

If you are building a community, you will want to ensure there are regular, consistent, heartbeat articles or other comms along with the more significant posts: it keeps people coming back based on consistent expectations.

However, in the case of this blog I am partly doing it for myself. I want to drive myself to reflect and write daily, to improve myself. Whilst I always hope that the articles are of good use to others, I am doing this largely for myself.

As a result, if I am particularly productive on a particular day, I will post the content, even if I could save it to a later day. Some articles will take longer to write anyway, but the shorter ones (like this one), will be posted as soon as I've written them. This way, I will not be tempted to "skip" a day by using content I've written in the past.

Again, the purpose of the "daily rubbish" posts was to ensure I write something, even if it's not particularly high quality - it is to push myself to author content.

Do you hold back content or do you always post it straight away? Which strategy makes the most sense to you?

A Few Success Tracker Tools (available online)

I've started using this blog as a way to track my personal development progress.

Og Mandino provides another type of success tracker in his book "The Greatest Secret in the World", as mentioned in this post: http://business-life-success.blogspot.com/2009/12/greatest-personal-development-books-in.html

There are various similar trackers on the web, but most of them seem to be all about tracking weight loss!

As I've found another couple of examples I thought it would be worth sharing them here:

• http://hwhnews.com/uploads/Printable_Daily_Actions_Tracker.pdf
• http://www.achievementbridge.com/assets/files/Daily%20Success%20Tracker.pdf

A Fantastic Year (2009)

How awesome has your year been?

It's great to look back at the positives from the past few months to remind yourself how far you've come.

Have you sat back and really thought about it?

Off the top of my head, here are some of the great events and achievements of the year:

• Got married! Fantastic wedding - lots of family and friends, went really well, both of us really enjoyed it.
• Fantastic honeymoon! Two weeks in Jamaica - great hotel, delicious food, lots of really good, fun excursions.
• Awesome new bathroom! Including a great power shower. After three years of suffering the old shower, it's brilliant.
• My wife got a new car! It's taken a while to get there, but we got the car she wanted and is very happy with it.
• Massive success at work! I'm particularly happy to have successfully managed the delivery of a very big (and very challenging) enterprise architecture project for a major telco. Very hard work but well worth the pain - learnt a lot and it was a massive success.
• Started this blog! More to the point - started putting some real structure around my personal development efforts (this blog is only one small part of it), and am already seeing some great results.

We also built bridges with some people who we had not been too close to recently, got back in touch with loads of old friends and have had some fun looking into plans for the future following our marriage. It's been great!

It's still important to look at areas for improvement...

• More time at home! I've been spending a lot of time working away from home recently due to my current assignment - not great for a recently married man. Worth it for the assignment, but I need to redress that work/life balance.
• More exercise and better diet! i.e. any exercise at all would be a good starting point, as the past few months have been very unhealthy. Being away from home so much means lots of meals that are bought for convenient rather than health value but there is always time to do better.
• More effort on our social life! It's actually been a good year socially, but it still could have been a *lot* better. A lot of the social improvements this year have been one-off events putting us back in touch with old friends, plus my social life has been far better at work as well. The main thing for me will be a better and more regular social life at home and with my wife.
• Environmental improvements! e.g. even small efforts at home that will make a big difference over time (e.g. maintenance efforts on the house, the cars etc.) Also more efforts on more general environmental improvements (recycling etc.)

A lot more good than bad

There are more areas for improvement that I am going to work into a real action plan - but the key thing for this post is actually the focus on the positives.

Whilst there are areas for improvement, look at the successes!

It should also be noted that even in the areas for improvement, we have made progress against them this year already - we just need to do a lot more.

How has your year been?

Everything Is a Project

It's true - but what does it mean?

It mean that we can create the structure in our own lives to drive forwards constant progress.

It also means that discipline and structured action are key to success.

Scott Berkun on the subject...

Scott Berkun wrote a brief blog post on this here: http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2009/everything-is-a-project/

I read his book, The Art of Project Management (Theory in Practice (O'Reilly)), a few years back and thought it was great - and recommend having a browse of the essays on his blog too as there are some gems there that are very worth reading.

What makes a great article?

Some of the greatest articles I've read aren't that long at all - they just have one or two key concepts or principles that have changed my perspective, made me think a little differently or in some cases provided me with an idea or pushed me to change something that has transformed the way I do things.

It's pretty much common sense though, right?

Whilst I've always really known that "everything is a project", it's sometimes good to be reminded of that fact. It helps re-assure me that the way that I approach things is right and that's why it so often works - and when things don't go so well it's probably because I'm just not applying the principles that I so often advocate.

Can you think of anything that isn't a project?

_______________________________

For loads of great personal development and self-help books for business and personal success, check out one of these tailored book stores:

• Personal Development Book Store on Amazon.CO.UK
• Personal Development Book Store on Amazon.COM

The Greatest Personal Development Books In The World?...

For Christmas I had the good fortune to receive two self-help books written by Og Mandino: The Greatest Salesman in the World and The Greatest Secret in the World.

The Greatest Salesman in the World

The first book is a small (A5-ish size), 89-page book, that presents the story of how a humble camel boy rose to become the greatest salesman in the world by following the instructions in the Ten Scrolls for Success (also included in the book).

Despite its length, this is a great little book.

The story surrounding the scrolls is entertaining and lightly written to provide context and maintain interest. There are some Christian themes that will add to its poignancy if you are religious but the messages are not over-bearing and you won't need to be religious to get something out of this book.

It's written in fairly "old style", but the truth in the words is instantly recognisable. The basic concept is that if you read the scrolls three times daily they will become part of your conscious and unconscious thoughts.

There is a bit more to it than the description above and the first scroll explains how they should be read and used. Of course, the challenge with anything like this is actually sticking to a new routine like this...

...which is where the next book comes in...

The Greatest Secret in the World

This is the follow-on to the The Greatest Salesman in the World, and provides a structure to help actually follow the lessons of that book day-by-day.

It contains the same "Scrolls For Success" as the previous book, but the context is more "practical" and aimed towards helping you "stick to the program".

The key tool it provides is a "success recorder" and instructions on how to use it. The success recorder is to be used on a daily basis to track progress and as a way to ensure the instructions the scrolls outline are followed.

Why buy both though?

Admittedly, the majority of the real content is the same in both books so some might argue that you're better off just getting either one or the other.

I personally found the story in the first book worth reading cover-to-cover, whilst the second book is more of a practical step-by-step guide to follow as prescribed; not as entertaining, but worth it for clear instructions on how to "put it into practice".

One or the other or both are well recommended if you don't mind the slightly old-style English used though.

_______________________________

For loads of great personal development and self-help books for business and personal success, check out one of these tailored book stores:

• Personal Development Book Store on Amazon.CO.UK
• Personal Development Book Store on Amazon.COM

Create Lots of Little Successes To Maintain Momentum

The most common cause for failing to finish a task or a programme of activity is due to a lack of visible results.

This is the same reason people often don't stick to things. If we can't see the benefits - and right now - why carry on? Surely it's a sign that it's not working?

However, the minute you can see any tangible benefit from an activity interest picks up again.

The trick is to create lots of little successes that maintain interest and momentum. These "successes" can still be fairly intangible: it's all about "creating" them in the right way.

Breaking it down

Creating the feeling of success can be fairly easy - although it's largely down to creating the perception of success, i.e. convincing yourself and others that whatever it is you're doing is going well, based on "evidence" you've gathered as you've progressed.

A few simple steps to follow to help with this:

1. Break the task down into smaller bits
2. Work out how you will know when you have completed one of these bits
3. See every bit of progress as a mini-success. It is all a step in the right direction.
4. Reflect on progress regularly. Look at what you have done and achieved. Tell people about it!

It may seem like common sense, but if you have a seemingly massive task that you are tackling, it's really worth taking a step back and thinking about how to break it down and what checkpoints you will review progress at along the way. Do give it a go - it really works!

Week-By-Week Personal Development Plan

Sometimes it's easier to just use a plan that someone else has made rather than coming up with our own from scratch - especially if we're doing something for the first time - and then it's always easier to build our own plans if it's something we've done before and are familiar with.

How about this for a nineteen-week step-by-step personal development plan to get you started: http://personaldevelopment.suite101.com/article.cfm/personal_development_program_building_awareness

There's a load of extra info behind each and every week, including extra supporting material here: http://www.suite101.com/blog/coachjerry/sample_personal_development_program

If you've had a go at following this plan, I'd be very interested to hear how it went. What worked? What didn't? Did you find it balanced enough? What would you do differently, were you to do it again?

Merry Christmas 2009!

A very brief post today, as I am spending the day with family (the in-laws for lunch and my side of the family in the evening).

Keeping focus

My message for today is about keeping focus.

Focus is key to success, to driving forwards progress in the direction you want to.

However, remember that you must choose the right thing to focus on to be successful.

Success is not just about financial rewards.

Today my focus is on friends and family. I will focus on this completely and will not think about work or anything else.

This is the right focus for today. Without focus, I will not be successful. In same way, if I am distracted by work and consumed by thoughts of activities to succeed in a financial or material way, I will never truly be happy, because relationships are as important if not more important to happiness.

Have a great Christmas.

We Have Complete Control Over What Success Is

The following article suggests that "All situations that are mutually beneficial define Success":

http://website101.com/goal-setting/define-success/

Whilst I do agree that mutually beneficial scenarios are generally successful from my perspective, what this seems to miss is that we define our own successes.

They are successful to me because I believe them to be successful.

i.e. to some people, if they "win" and others "lose", this is success to them.

In the long term, win-win scenarios are generally better because it usually leads to building a relationship with the other person involved in an interaction, leading to future successes that make the initial success even more pivotal - but "success" is a subjective thing.

It's all down to our perception of a situation.

The great thing is, we have control over our own perception of success. If we enter a negotiation or interaction with a conscious decision on what a successful outcome will look like, as long as we define it in the right way, we will be able to achieve it.

The conscious choice is how we take control of our own lives.

Make it your choice for your life to be a success and you can make it that way.

Christmas Eve, 2009

Merry the-day-before-Christmas!

It's a time for giving, so an article like the following fits quite nicely: http://www.successful-blog.com/1/15-ways-to-help-the-people-in-your-business-and-your-life/

Even if you're not religious, Christmas is a great time where people are generally that bit nicer to each other, a bit more positive and happy, and give presents to one-another.

If we could keep that mindset of thinking of others before ourselves and giving not taking (and at Christmas not just thinking about what we're going to receive and the inevitable food and drink), the world would be a better place.

The more you give, the more people will give you back - and the more genuinely you do it, the better the results. i.e. if you're a genuinely nice person, who gives without expecting to receive, you will get what you deserve in return, even if it doesn't appear in the way you expected it or when you expected it.

So - give to give, not to receive, and enjoy the act of giving. Anything you get in return will just be a bonus on top.

Daily Rubbish: a lesson - 23rd Dec

Three days in to my daily routine, and yesterday I didn't post a "daily rubbish" article.

Ok, so it was the day before Christmas Eve, but the whole point of this routine is that I don't ever miss a day, no matter how busy I am, even if the post is a bit pointless.

There will be another, separate daily rubbish post for today. This is the post to replace yesterday's post.

What I did wrong

#1 error was trying to make the article too good.

The whole point of having the word "rubbish" in the title of my daily rubbish posts, is that they can be completely rubbish, it's just a structure to make sure I do it. Even if I write a post saying "sorry, I don't have enough time to post anything good - here's a link to something else to read that I found useful..." - that would be better than nothing.

I now have another half-finished post, that I'm not happy to post just yet so will not form one of my "daily rubbish" posts.

I will not miss another day.

It made me think about personal development writers in general...

...and how the one thing that often irritates me is the "holier than thou" writing style.

I am not better than you, I am just different. I am better at some thing and not as good at others. This is always going to be true, and if I start becoming too preachy I need to look at my life and realise that even if things are great that is no reason to think that it's better than anyone else's. I am still learning and will continue to learn and that is one of the best things about the journey.

Maybe there's an idea in this for a "proper" article in the future...

Capability vs. Experience: Does Age Matter?

There's a good list of "lessons learned" over on the Symbolics blog here:
http://symbolics.com/birthday-i-turn-30-today-30-lessons-ive-learned-in-life-and-business/

However, for today's "daily rubbish" post, I'm not discussing any of these lessons learned. Instead, I've actually picked up on something in one of the comments below the post: "You have wisdom way beyond your years..."

What's more valuable: capability or experience?

I've been fortunate enough to work for people who have given me the chance to stretch myself and work in positions far beyond those that would normally be expected of someone at those points in my career. For example, within two years of graduating I worked in a "Global Head of" position for a specialist UK-based consultancy.

These "sink or swim" scenarios are always risky, but with the right support and guidance I've always swam.

Many people who are just as capable may never get these opportunities because they "don't have the experience". It takes a good manager to have the courage to create these opportunities for people and to manage them through the roles, providing them with enough rope to hang themselves but always having a chair at the ready to stabilise them.

Experience is still key

You can't beat experience for learning lessons. No matter how capable you are, if you have zero experience, you're going to struggle. We base our actions based on reference points from past experiences, and without those reference points we will struggle.

However, the value of experience is in its application. If you don't actually apply the lessons you've learned - by repeating successes and avoiding repeated failures - your experience is worthless. This is why there are many people who are very experienced but still don't make any headway.

Likewise, the value of experience without capability is far lower than capability with limited experience. If you've experienced lots of things but can't do anything new or better based on those things, what value is that experience?

Conversely, if you are highly capable but have little experience, the contributions you can provide will be valuable, and the value you can provide will increase all the time because with everything you do, you will gain experience.

Some experience can be learned

There are many mistakes I have avoided, and many times I have been able to make sound decisions and talk authoritatively about what should be done, not through first-hand experience, but though things I have learned.

The key sources of learning are:

• More experienced people - especially more experienced people telling stories. Some people find it irritating when people keep recounting things they've done in the past. I recommend you listen before criticising, you might pick something up!
• Reading! - books, blogs, magazines, project reports... whatever works for you. Reading about other people's approaches, both academic methodologies and "real" case studies, is a great way to find out about how others have approached the same challenges that you are currently facing, the pitfalls to avoid and key things to do to succeed.
• Other people's mistakes - which can be picked up both through the above two sources, and from encountering them first-hand. It's far better to learn through other's mistakes than your own, and through reading you can pick up far more lessons than you would be able to through your own experience (because experiencing things takes time and opportunity!)
• Your own experiences - this is an obvious one, but it's still one of the most important. The above are all ways to fast-track learning, but your own experiences will stay with you and can be far more effective than the others. It may be more painful, but if you make a mistake, you're far more likely to remember to avoid it in the future (especially if it was particularly painful to resolve).

The key thing with all the above though, is to listen and think about how to apply the lessons you pick up.

With your own experiences in particular, it is important to recognise if you have made a mistake and address it rather than pretending it wasn't your fault - because you will risk repeating it, which is never a good thing to do.

Meritocracy hypocricy

The real challenge to all of this is when it's applied to real work environments.

There is a common perception that experience brings wisdom and greater capability - and the reality is that that generalisation is often right.

The problem is how to deal with when the perception is wrong.

Some companies like to think that they run a meritocracy (promotion through merit and achievement rather than time in post), but when people are involved in the review process emotions get involved and this often cannot occur.

The thing that really gets to me is when someone who has been promoted quickly due to their achievements ("fast-tracked"), doesn't share the same views as those who got them there and holds back others from the same opportunities. I've experienced this a few times over the years (fortunately only affecting me once), and I can see how frustrating it is for the individual.

Of course, the other side to this is where ambition clouds someone's judgement, making them think they should be promoted and thinking that they are looking at it "objectively", when in fact they are not.

In my case, I got around this a couple of times by accepting a more senior position early without the associated promotion/pay-rise/bonus/etc, proving I could do the job well then getting promoted off the back of the clear and irrefutable success. It's sometimes difficult to do this, performing a job where you know you should be paid a lot more than you are being paid, but the patience can pay off and result in a much more rapid progression as a result.

It's a tricky one

Ultimately, the whole thing comes down to human being striving to achieve and the difficulties that management face in taking risks and providing opportunities without over-exposing themselves, and the constant balance people need to strike in trying to fulfil their ambitions without becoming overly arrogant or over-stretching themselves.

The key thing that has always kept me going is keeping a focus on doing the best job in the most interesting and challenging roles I can (and if I'm given a dull role looking for ways to create opportunities, make it more interesting to drive more value, or doing extra stuff around the sides), and also keeping a focus on learning and developing rather than on the next promotion.

By focussing on how to help and drive benefit and success, you're far more likely to achieve the associated financial and status benefits than if you focus on the promotion and do everything cynically out of a desire to progress your career.

What Everyone In Life Strives For

There are some things in life that almost everyone wants to achieve or do better.


There is great demand for help with these things: so both an opportunity to give and potential commercial opportunities.


What are these things?


The list below is a starting point, adapted from a list of categories that I found on a site selling self-help packages.


In each case you can also add to the end of the sentence words like quicker, better, for longer etc.

• How can I get fitter / healthier?
• How can I learn faster?
• How can I improve my memory?
• How can I boost energy?
• How can I generate genius ideas?
• How can I reduce anxiety?
• How can I control my dreams?
• How can I quit [smoking, eating, and other habits]?
• How can I reduce pain?
• How can I sleep more soundly?
• How can I meditate deeply?
• How can I change mental states?
• How can I access altered states?

Do any of these ring true with you?

Are there any you would add?

BTW - the site I found the initlal list on was: http://www.lifetools.com/. I can't comment on the quality of the products they sell, I just found their categories useful! If anyone has tried any of their products I would be interested to hear what they think though...

Concrete Goals Tracker

This post covers:

- The "Concrete Goals Tracker" tool

- The standard "concrete goals" and their priorities / scores

- A few minor criticisms

- Why it's still a brilliant idea

The "Concrete Goals Tracker" tool

A great tool from David Shea, published nearly a year ago (but stumbled across by me more recently): http://davidseah.com/blog/comments/concrete-goals-tracker-updates/

The key thing of interest that this raised for me was the question of turning goals into "concrete" things. This is always an interesting challenge that I spend a lot of time on (defining performance measures, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and so on are something many people in business get extremely hung up on - often without really stopping to think about why they're doing it in the first place).

The standard "concrete goals" and their priorities / scores

This goals tracker has a standard set of principles used to "score" activities you've completed based on which goals they have contributed towards. You can come up with your own list, but David's standard list is:

10 points - It's life-sustaining, billable work!

10 points - It's signing new business!

5 points - It's publishable code! Ship it!

5 points - It's sharp visual design! Show it!

5 points - It's concrete planning or accounting!

2 points - It's new self-promotion!

2 points - It's a new article for the blog!

2 points - It's social or business development!

1 point - It's maintaining an old relationship!

1 point - It's making a new relationship!

A few minor criticisms

Ok, so first, some of these clearly aren't relevant to everyone. I've not written any code in years and do not run software delivery projects, so anything about publishing code isn't really relevant for me.

Likewise, I'm not totally sure about the level of priority. As a consultant, building new relationships is a very important activity to me, and something I often don't place enough focus on, so I might bump this a bit higher on my list.

Finally, it doesn't cover all of the bases i.e. it's very much work-focussed. I think this is actually the right thing to do if it's something that you're using purely for managing tasks at work, but if you're setting your life principles, I'd at least expect something in there about your health (which again, is something I often miss off because I'm too focussed on work - so I'm raising it because I know it's something I often fail on!)

It's a brilliant idea

All of the criticisms above kind of miss the point though.

David makes it clear that you can tweak this tool to your own needs.

The key concept is: first work out your priorities, then on a regular basis, make sure that whenever you do a task you think about how that task aligns to your goals.

This provides a way of: aligning your daily activities to your longer-term goals; tracking progress against your longer-term goals; highlighting how well you're doing to cut out tasks you keep doing that aren't well enough aligned, or make decisions on things you could do instead of the things you normally do, in order to make more progress.

BTW - this is the very first of my "Daily Rubbish" posts. Hope you enjoyed it!

Big plans, small actions - lots of little updates on the way...

Starting today, I am going to use this blog in a very different way.

The new structures that I will use are going to transform the level of activity on this blog and what I will achieve from it. It will also mean that the content will be far more personal.

The basic structures that I will be rolling out are:

1. Daily rubbish post

2. Daily reflection

3. Monthly detailed review

This is a post of intent. The first structure will be implemented from today. The second will be implemented over the next couple of weeks (once I have decided on a standard format for it), and the last one will start from the end of December 2009 - i.e. the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Not that the timing is particularly significant - the important thing is that I start as soon as possible.

When I first setup this blog, I had big plans for loads of useful articles that I was going to write and share here. Those plans do still hold, but the way they're going to get here is going to be quite different.

I have decided to implement some of the principles that I use all the time at work (and that are the reason for my massive success at work), to drive real progress here.

The principles

Over the coming weeks and months I will publish posts explaining these techniques, but for now I'm going to focus on immediate action.

I am going to put in place a simple routine to make sure I post things, even if the posts don't have as much content as I would like, and use this to build momentum while I write the more in-depth articles that I always had in mind for this blog.

Taking this action is the important first step, and I use similar structures on every project that I work on to establish the "project heartbeat". It is used to create sustained momentum, continuous alignment with goals and regular communication across the team. I will explain more about these structures later. For now, this post will just provide an overview of the structure I am putting in place on this Blog.

1. Daily rubbish post

This is just a post for posting's sake. If I can't think of anything useful to post, I will just dig out a link to a good site I've used and write some words around it. The purpose is just to make me look back at this blog and do something about it.

Sometimes, just forcing a routine like this makes us take just enough time out to think, leading to the occasional gem of an idea or new innovation. Some of the posts may be rubbish, but who am I to say what's rubbish and not? Let's see what I come up with...

2. Daily reflection

We learn through reflection.

It's through looking back and asking ourselves questions that we ensure we repeat successes and avoid repeating mistakes. What went well that I would repeat? What could I have done better that I would change if I did it again?

This is also the point where we can bring in our goals. Have we achieved something against each of the areas of our lives that we want to achieve something against today?

I'm going to decide on a structure for capturing this over the next few days, and when I do, I will start posting a post a day where I will document my reflections.

This is going to make the blog far more personal than I originally intended, but will be a good way for me to (1) make sure I do reflect on a daily basis, and (2) create something that I can look back on.

I'm doing this for myself rather than for any audience, but I hope that readers of this blog could at least find the principle useful for themselves.

** UPDATE: On 16th January 2010 I stopped posting daily reflections to this blog. I still continue with this routine and all of the old posts are still available to access, but I am not publishing them here, as described in the following post: http://business-life-success.blogspot.com/2010/01/end-of-daily-reflections.html

3. Monthly detailed review

This will be an extended version of the daily reflection, looking at the achievements and areas for improvement from the previous month. Whilst the daily reflection will be short and sweet (to remove any excuses for me to not do it!) - this will be my chance to really think a bit more about what I set out to achieve at the beginning of the month and how far down that path I made it.

4. Everything else

And of course, this is only the basic routine that I will be following. I will continue to write and publish articles on wider topics. The routine should help ensure I keep bringing my focus back to this blog and delivering on the commitments I've made here.

An important final note

One thing I have made a conscious decision on that I would also like to make clear is: I am not a pro-blogger, and do not plan on becoming one.

i.e. I don't seek to create an income that is equal to or exceeds my main income through blogging.

This is something that I'm doing for two reasons:

(1) To give myself the structures to drive my own personal development (not the original intention of this blog, but it's what I'm going to be using it for from now on), and

(2) To create and share content that genuinely helps people. If I can share things that have helped me, then I hope it will be useful to others too.

I'm very keen to hear people's thoughts on this approach to using the blog and if they find any of my posts useful. Please do get in contact if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.