- Write down what you want to accomplish by the end of the year.
- Make a daily routine to work every goal into (this is super important). If you don’t already have a daily routine, then you won’t be able to get your other goals tidily arranged into your chaotic day.
The brain cramping, mentally torturous challenge all creative souls must rise to , in order to complete this exercise.
- Set a definite time for each task (ouch! don’t hate me I’m helping you). Look, free thinker, I GET IT….you detest the ball and chain of a schedule. But you neeed it. (don’t you know you need a schedule?). Here’s the beautiful thing, reader…it’s just a schedule and it’s not set in stone. Once you get that daily schedule at least written down, your beautiful brain will automatically go to work fine tuning it and tweaking it for each day’s uniqueness. Here’s the big secret about scheduling (at least for creative types). When you are creative,
Almost NOTHING gets done at its scheduled time even with a schedule.
But none of that matters, because if you will at least work on and write down a schedule, your brain can see very clearly how much time each task should take, and it gives you a point of reference to plan from. You only need to write the vision, and give it structure. But just as the magnetic north pole shifts, so will your scheduled times. Just give your brain SOME magnetic point of reference, and your give your thoughts some anchors, by writing down those tasks into scheduled times.
HOW TO CRAFT A BEAUTFIFUL, CUSTOMIZABLE SCHEDULE
Details here:
- Make and add your New Year’s resolutions. Once your daily schedule is established, it’s a cinch adding your resolutions. Just make sure to break your year end goal down into incremental daily goals
Here’s my goal…running in place for five full minutes. I did the math…all I need is one extra second of running each day, and I should be able to hit my goal early. If I keep adding one second of running in place each day, by the end of the year, I will be running in place for fifteen minutes. No crawling around the block when summer hits. I’ll hit the ground running! The neighbors won’t believe it! The kids will be SO PROUD! So what’s it’ going to take, reader? ONE EXTRA SECOND PER DAY. Like, can ANYONE do that? Yes! But they won’t, and here’s why….
Consistency. Finishing what you start. Holding yourself accountable. So what’s that going to require?
- Creating Your Daily Log. Do it reader. Go ahead. Make your daily log that shows you added one extra pushup to your workout routine, one extra second to your running time, or that you completed one foreign phrase each day. First, though, do the math. Just do it. Yes, you must do the math. Otherwise, you will do fifty pushups today and none next week. Remember…consistency. Planning. Charting. How many foreign phrases do you want to learn this year? Three hundred and sixty five sounds like a good goal toward fluency. How many pushups do you want to work up to by year’s end? 150 sounds awesome to me. That will require adding three pushups each week to my total. Just decide on a year end goal (by the end of the year, I want to have learned________________;I want to be able to_______________.
- Break it down and write it down.
Did you do the math? You must do the math. Get out the calculator or tabulate by hand. Just do it.
Now, write it down. And don’t put it off. I have a bad case of this, reader. So let me tell you how I motivate myself— I bolt my chart down. Over the toilet, inside the kitchen cabinet, on the living room wall. I mean, I write the vision and MAKE IT PLAIN. See, as much as I’m hammering you on writing it all down, let’s get real. My dreams are so numerous, vast and awesome, I usually need all of January just to write them all out! And then, there’s my dream floating around….somewhere. No, reader, that won’t work for me. I post my dreams everywhere, and get them all filled in, fine tuned, and scheduled by January. Remember, the resolution is just to reach my goal by the end of the year. January is really my planning month. But I can’t plan what I forget about planning for!
What it takes.
Let’s get real, reader. If you’re like me (and most of you seem to be), then your beautiful creative soul needs the equivalent of a whiteboard. As in, your entire wall. Did you know you can use colored chalk on your white walls? Yes, you can. Will your family appreciate it? Are they creative too? Under six years old? Cool? Well, okay, but at least post a chalkboard. Put up your list and post it on wrapping paper with a cardboard frame around it. Make it look good, but make sure you can see it….every day. You want the emphasis to be on the list. If you look at your list every day for a month, and then finally do it, well, you did it! You got started! Reader, write EVERY SINGLE GOAL down, and make a daily chart for each goal. You must chart your progress in each goal every single day. You must write the vision AND make it plain; otherwise, it’s just turning to dust in your drawer.
This year’s going to be different. This year, it’s all going on paper and getting accounted for.
Remember: The columns of your template need to be, your goal, each day’s date, what you did that day. And don’t forget to plan how much you need to do each day to reach your year end goal.
Do you have any tips for reaching your New Year’s goals? Share your insight with us!
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