How to Achieve Your Grandest Goals Now
We mistakenly believe that there is a lot of time left in the year, and we act accordingly. We lack a sense of urgency, not realizing that every week is important, every day is important, every moment is important. Ultimately, effective execution happens daily and weekly!
—Brian P. Moran, author of The 12 Week Year
In 1955 Cyril Northcote Parkinson, a British political analyst and historian, observed that “work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” This adage is known as Parkinson’s Law and the lessons from this simple principle can have a profound effect on how you approach accomplishing your tasks in a timely manner.
From a productivity standpoint, this could mean you either have very little time and are forced to rush or you have more than enough time, which leads to rampant inefficiencies.
It’s a rare day when any of us schedules the exact amount of time we need to complete a task. Most people are notoriously terrible at predicting how long a project will take, and when given more time than necessary, they take it.
But why?
It’s human nature. We’re lazy. We want the easy answer and we want to believe we will be more productive tomorrow than we feel like being today. We believe that since we have “plenty of time” to work on a project, we can postpone the work to an arbitrary future date. The problem is that today is yesterday’s tomorrow. We are living out the fantasies of our past right now. Yesterday you probably thought you would have more time today than you do. Today you most likely believe that you will have more time tomorrow than you will. That’s the nature of the beast.
The reality is that time is finite. It’s running out quickly, and you only have the present moment to pounce on the goals you care so much about. Instead of planning life far in advance and believing there is a lot of time left to finish your important projects, you need to flip your perspective and get to work today.
WHY LONG-TERM PLANNING DOESN’T WORK
The most common approach to setting goals is sitting down once a year to write out New Year’s resolutions. What this means is that on January 1, you begin to work on projects that may not be due until December 31.
How motivating is a due date that’s a year away? How much is at stake if you don’t make progress today, tomorrow, next week, or even next month?
On top of the lack of urgency, you also have no idea how your year will actually unfold. You have little or no control over what projects will pop up, what ideas you will have, or what opportunities will capture your attention, energy, time, and money.
Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, was asked about his experience with creating a 25-year plan during graduate school. During the interview that took place 25 years after he graduated with his MBA, the interviewer asked Tim, “How did that [your 25-year plan] work out for you?”
This is how Tim responded:
“[My 25-year plan] was reasonably accurate for all of 18 to 24 months after it was written. Not a single thing on it was accurate after that. Not a single thing. Zero. The lesson there, at least for me, was that the journey was not predictable at all.”
Tim Cook is arguably one of the most powerful men in the world and he could not have predicted that he would be where he is today. What does that say for long-term planning? Not much.
One of the best books on productivity I have ever read is Getting Things Done by David Allen. David’s philosophy about how to be as productive as possible is a phenomenal lesson in perspective.
From a practical perspective, I suggest going from the bottom up, instead of top down. I have coached people from both directions, and in terms of lasting value, I can honestly say that getting someone in control of the details of his or her current physical world, and then evaluating the focus from there, has never missed.
What this means is that in order to eventually solve your 25-year problems, you need to first solve your 25-minute problems. In the book, David goes on to explain that when he helps a client take control of their daily tasks, they feel incredibly more confident, positive, and hopeful about their long-term future.
If you wanted to embrace this methodology as a way to plan your next couple of decades, start by first planning the next few hours, and then the next few days, and then maybe even the next few weeks.
Over time, as you improve your ability to plan your short-term schedule, it gets easier to plan the big picture. But, as we have seen with Tim Cook, there is certainly a point of diminishing returns. In other words, you may be able to effectively plan the next 30 days, but planning the next 30 years will be considerably more difficult and, in many ways, it would actually just be a waste of time. Many people fear their long-term future but they do little in the present moment to change anything about their circumstances.
Ask yourself, “If I continue down the path that I am on right now, where will I end up in 5, 10, or 20 years? Is that somewhere I want to be?”
Gaining clarity like that can make a huge difference in how you tackle your individual tasks on a day-to-day basis.
The reason that New Year’s resolutions and 25-year plans don’t work is that when you think too far ahead to a future you can’t control, you set expectations that don’t align with your ideal self.
You shortchange your potential when you plan years in advance by dreaming of goals that are either extraordinarily too far out of reach, which paralyzes you in fear, or even worse, goals that are so mediocre and boring that you have no enthusiasm to get moving.
When you plan our life too far in advance you often envision an idealistic future devoid of problems and obstacles while ignoring the real opportunities that are right here in the present moment.
It’s like shining a tiny flashlight into a deep, dark pit. You can see very little in front of you and are left guessing about everything beyond your reach. The farther out that you try to plan your life, the more you are forced to just make stuff up to fill in the gaps. On top of that, you then commit to too many projects in the present that don’t align with your goals for the future, causing you to be real busy without making any real progress.
Attempting to achieve your life’s grandest goals by planning everything out years in advance is just simply not the answer.
Let’s take another look at the grandest goals list you created in Step 1 of The 5 AM Blueprint (page 35).
Those goals on your list are potential projects. They are ideas, fantasies, and future possibilities. You are now going to transform those concepts into reality with an effective goal-achievement system that will clarify what matters most right now and leave everything else for another day.
In effect, this is a system that facilitates real progress, here and now, on your most important goals because it eliminates the inefficiencies of long-term planning.
I introduce the Quarter System.
What would happen if you only had one big goal right now? How would that change your life? Would you be less stressed? More focused?
What about 10 goals? Or 100 goals? Is that workload manageable today, or even over the course of an entire year?
What I have found to be true over and over again is that simplicity always wins. There is no scenario where adding more to my plate makes me feel better, unless I literally have nothing going on.
More likely than not, you and I both don’t lead lives that need more things to do. Instead, what we need are drastic cuts to stay afloat, focus, and eventually, make tangible progress on our grandest goals.
An extremely simplified list of grand goals combined with a significantly shorter timeframe is your ticket out of the chaos. It is the healthier and more productive alternative to setting annual goals or making multi-year (or multi-decade) plans.
The Quarter System is the second step of The 5 AM Blueprint and it is as simple as it sounds. Instead of setting annual goals, you will set quarterly goals.
Now, you might be asking, “But, Jeff, I already have annual goals and quarterly goals. How is this any different than what I am doing now?”
First, if you already have a solid written plan for the year and your goals are broken down into quarterly checkpoints, and you are staying on track with your plan, then you are light-years ahead of the game and should probably be coauthoring this book with me.
Second, when I refer to quarterly goals, I am referring to them in the same way that Brian Moran does in his book, The 12 Week Year. In the book, Brian describes a year as lasting only 12 weeks, which is equivalent to three months, 90 days, or one quarter. (I will refer to this system in quarters, but feel free to use any length of time that helps you focus best. That’s the goal, after all.)
In practical terms this means that you will think of a quarter as a year—nothing will be scheduled after that time period unless it has to be, and you will work as hard during the current quarter as you normally would at the end of a 12-month year.
What most people tend to do is create a New Year’s resolution in January and then work like crazy on it in November and December because they procrastinated for over 10 months. The goal with a year that lasts only 12 weeks instead of 12 months is that it puts that kind of pressure on you right away. You are forced to prioritize, get laser-focused, and get to work immediately because the clock is ticking.
TYPICAL QUARTER SYSTEM TIMEFRAMES
• January 1 to March 31
• April 1 to June 30
• July 1 to September 30
• October 1 to December 31
I am tempted to suggest that you choose a different length of time for your year, like 60 days, 120 days, or even just shoot for living day-to-day with no thought beyond the next 24 hours. But there is magic in a Quarter System.
The business world operates in quarters, which makes it easy for you to align your deadlines with those of your peers. You also have enough time over three months to tackle seriously challenging projects, like starting your own business, writing a book, or training for a marathon.
A lot can happen in 90 days, and yet, it’s only a small window of time that needs to be handled carefully so you don’t squander too much of it.
MY EXPERIENCE WITH THE QUARTER SYSTEM
My personal experience with the Quarter System has been nothing short of revolutionary. I don’t want to exaggerate the benefits here, but simplifying my already highly productive life to a Quarter System changed everything.
Over the course of a few days, I cut over a dozen projects from my personal goals list and began focusing on just four of them. I completed two of those projects in the next few weeks and then slowly added a few more only as I had time.
The most immediate benefit was my attitude and stress levels. I felt more in control and less nervous about my immediate future. The more tasks, projects, and goals I cut from my task manager, the more free I felt to begin working on the projects that needed my attention most.
This is more of an art than a science and I certainly had to improve my own skills of learning to let go. It’s just so easy to get attached to goals, even if you have never made progress on them.
Before I discovered The 12 Week Year I had already been using a system that was very similar to it, just without the formal title. I began implementing a Quarter System as my personal goal-achievement program about six months after I launched my podcast. Truth be told, I waited way too long.
The sheer volume of projects I committed to was crazy. In that year alone, outside of launching the podcast, I began my coaching practice, overhauled my diet and fitness routines, ramped up and then quit my short career in real estate sales, and switched my website over to JeffSanders.com (which can be crazy if you, like me, have no experience in web design).
The first step I took when I implemented the Quarter System was to simplify my projects down to the bare essentials. I cut fluffy projects and postponed long-term goals. I focused on my present circumstances and began whittling myself out of the messes I had created.
The secret to any great productivity system is simplicity, and the Quarter System delivered on that promise. I prioritized my ideas, ignored the ones that were not both urgent and important, and then began tackling the next project at the top of my now very short list.
Prior to the Quarter System, I had thought it would be best to simply keep taking on new projects just so I would feel more productive. I’ll be the first to admit that setting a goal to feel productive is ridiculous. The only value that feeling productive can bring to the table is motivating you to want to feel that way again. However, the slippery slope is that feeling productive simply leads to low-value tasks landing on your to-do list in place of high-priority tasks that move the needle.
A Quarter System has a funny way of prioritizing your time and eliminating much of the busy work that brings about the good feelings of getting things done. I’m not saying that feeling productive is a bad thing, just make sure it’s for the right reasons. At the end of the day, the questions you ask yourself should be related to effectiveness, not emotions.
• Did I make real, tangible progress toward my most important goals?
• Did I stay on track and avoid distractions?
• Did I get the most value out of my day today?
• Could I be more efficient tomorrow?
Checking off a long to-do list is shallow productivity. A focus on quantity instead of quality leads to CHS: Clean House Syndrome. Whenever I want to consciously avoid doing my most important work, I clean my house. Maybe it’s the type A in me that wants a clutter-free environment, or maybe it’s the lazy man in me that wants to do anything except the work I know I should be doing. As ironic as it sounds, on a great and productive day, my house is visibly messy. On a lazy day—spotless.
To get the most out of your Quarter System it will be essential for you to harness the skill of focusing on what matters while remaining blind to what doesn’t.
HOW TO SET UP YOUR QUARTER SYSTEM
The Quarter System is very simple to set up, implement, and maintain for years to come. Here are the seven steps to get your Quarter System up and running:
1. Choose the Dates for Your Quarters
You can choose any dates you wish, but it’s likely going to be easier to stick to the traditional quarters used by most people (January 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1). Depending on the date you are reading this, you can either start now and finish the current quarter you are in or plan to start at the beginning of the next quarter.
2. Clear Your Calendar
Eliminate everything you can from your current calendar to make space for the grandest goals that are most pressing. It’s likely that you will need to finish out the current quarter by completing the projects to which you have already committed. For example, if there are six weeks left in the current quarter and you are training for a half marathon and planning a wedding, then finish out those two events and start with a fresh and clear calendar next quarter.
This is an ideal time to cancel plans, eliminate unnecessary tasks, and begin saying no to any new invitations. As hard as it is to let go and say no, it’s the only way your calendar will remain open for your grandest goals.
3. Choose Your Top Two or Three Grandest Goals
Based on the list you created in the last chapter, choose only a couple to focus on—possibly even just one goal for now. Without a doubt this was the hardest part of the process when I went through it the first time. Choosing only your top goal(s) among dozens or hundreds of ideas is tough, but this is the dividing line between success and failure.
This is where you will begin to see the magic of creativity appear as you free up space in your head for thinking and space on your calendar for working. If you continue to operate with too many goals you will continue to stretch yourself too thin and see little progress.
You may have a goal or two that will take longer than a quarter to complete. For example, you may be training for a marathon and you know it will likely take 6 to 12 months. In that case, just as you normally would do with a traditional annual goal, break down that goal into milestones and choose an appropriate milestone to reach by the end of the quarter.
4. Create Your Next Actions List by Planning Your Goals in Reverse
Now that you have chosen your quarterly goals, it is time to plan those goals backward from the end of the quarter until now. Simply make a list of every major objective that needs to be completed from the finish back to the start in order to guarantee you complete the goal by the end of the quarter or sooner, if possible.
During this step, be as specific as possible. Not only should your goal be specific, but also each step along the way should be as laser-focused as you can imagine so that there is no ambiguity around what your next step will be.
5. Set Up Your Goals Notebook
You can set up a Quarter System right now with whatever tools you currently use. I am going to recommend and refer to the tools that I use, but feel free to stick with anything that you know is effective for you. I transitioned to a paperless lifestyle years ago and Evernote is one of the core pieces of my system. Evernote is a digital application that manages just about any notes you can imagine. Inside of Evernote you can create “notes,” which go inside of “notebooks,” which are inside of “stacks.”
As an alternative to Evernote you could also use Google Drive, Microsoft OneNote, traditional paper notebooks, or one of many other systems. Regardless of what system you choose, here is an effective way to set up, implement, and manage your Quarter System.
First, create (or find) a notebook and label it with the name of the current quarter (e.g. “2016 Q1 Goals”). Then create a note/page for each grand goal you plan to complete this quarter. The first section in the note will be the “next actions” list you made in the previous step. Below the next actions list is a progress reports section where you will record what progress you made each week.
6. Schedule Your Next Actions on Your Calendar and/or Task Manager
I manage all of my tasks, projects, events, and commitments in a digital task management application named Nozbe. I will go into much more detail about that system in Chapter 8 (page 70). For now, just note that once you have created your next actions list, you will schedule those actions on your calendar and/or in your task management system.
The key here is to take the list of next actions from your goals and make them real by scheduling them. Once a task ends up on a calendar it should be treated like a firm commitment that cannot be broken.
Assuming you truly have cleared your calendar and scheduled each next action at its most opportune time, your odds of success will increase dramatically. This is where you will begin to see the progress I have been talking about. This is where the work begins to feel like fun!
7. Review Your Progress Weekly and Quarterly
I will go into much more detail about how to track all of your tasks, projects, and goals in Chapter 9 (page 80). For now, here is a quick overview of what to review each week.
At the end of each week and quarter, it’s best to review the progress you made on your goals and update your progress reports in your notebook. Then, based on what you accomplished and how fast the end of the quarter is approaching, choose your next actions for each goal in the upcoming week. If you have an accountability partner, coach, or friend that you discuss your goals with, this is a great time to review your progress with him or her as well.
On a related note, I also post my weekly goals on my vision board (page 94) in my home office, just so I have a visual reminder of what I am working toward. This has helped keep me on track every week. Having a physical list certainly reinforces the digital system.
RINSE AND REPEAT
At the end of each quarter you will have the chance to fully review your progress, make notes about what went well and what did not, and then start over fresh next quarter.
Ideally, you will have completed the few grand goals you set out to complete and can begin the new quarter with new grand goals that are now the most pressing in your life. This process repeats itself over and over every 90 days and it works wonders.
It was hard for me to imagine how effective this system would be until I tried it. The act of clearing your calendar is rejuvenating in and of itself. When you then add in only the goals that matter and you proactively track your progress toward the completion of those goals, it’s nothing short of remarkable. The progress you will make is going to blow your mind. Trust me.
KILL THE SNOOZE BUTTON
Pitfalls, Mistakes, and Problems to Avoid
Don’t drown in your own commitments.
It’s easy to take credit for your successes but quite the opposite when it comes to your failures. It’s never easy to point the finger at yourself when you have made a mistake, missed a deadline, or just never got around to finishing something you started.
What I find most intriguing is that it’s nearly impossible to get anyone to admit that they are overly busy because of their own choices. We like to play the victim and believe that being busy is normal, expected, or worse, unavoidable.
The reality, though, is that if you are too busy, it is because you committed to too many things. You made your schedule, said yes to too many projects, and refused to turn down all those enticing invitations to happy hour, holiday barbecues, and dance-till-you-drop weddings.
If you want to turn things around, free up your schedule, and avoid being buried in work, then just say so.
Say no to the next invitation or pointless office meeting, no to the next party or social event that keeps you up late, and no to the next anything that doesn’t align with the highest and best use of your time.
I’m not recommending that you quit your job, totally avoid your friends and family, and strive to do as little as possible. However, that’s the kind of creative space that leads to the breakthroughs you will need to avoid drowning in your own commitments.
Be willing to let go and say no. Clear your calendar and only begin to refill it with the tasks, projects, and goals that are essential to achieving what truly matters most in your life.
QUICK REVIEW: YOUR QUARTER SYSTEM
1. Parkinson’s Law tells us that we spend more time than we need to when the time is given.
2. New Year’s resolutions and 25-year plans are unpredictable and ineffective, and they never quite work as intended.
3. Implementing a Quarter System can help you focus on your grandest goals, which are those projects that will have the biggest impact on your life now and far into the future.
4. You can set up a Quarter System right now with a notebook, day planner, and Post-it notes, or go digital with Evernote, a calendar in the cloud, and a task manager.
1. Using your list of grandest goals from Chapter 4, choose two or three goals to focus on this quarter (or next quarter if it’s fast approaching). These goals are now your new quarterly goals.
1) __________________________________________________
2) __________________________________________________
3) __________________________________________________
2. Clear your calendar and task manger of every task and project that doesn’t directly align to your new quarterly goals.
Your calendar will be cleared on ___________________ (date)
Your task manager will be cleared on __________________ (date)
3. Analyze each quarterly goal, breaking it down into tiny baby steps in your preferred note-taking application (Evernote, OneNote, etc.).
Quarterly Goal #1
First few baby steps to get started:
Quarterly Goal #2
First few baby steps to get started:
Quarterly Goal #3
First few baby steps to get started: