These first few weeks of the year are always full of paper. And not the fiction kind. Receipts, bank statements, and check registers are spread in piles as I fill out college financial aid forms, and get our taxes in order.
But one sheet I fill out every year is my list of goals for the year. If I've got nothing to shoot for, I'll certainly hit it. In 2010 I used this sheet, and it worked well. Last year, I hand-wrote my goals. This year, I decided to look for something a little more official.
I found lots of downloadable goal sheets on the web, but I'll highlight just a few since it can be overwhelming.
My favorite of these worksheets is from a site called Money Saving Mom. With this set of sheets, you choose six priorities for the year. Each subsequent sheet allows you to take one specific goal and break it down into smaller, achievable goals. The bottom of each sheet has a spot where you can do a monthly checkup to see if you're on track.
Summit Street Joy has a single page that gives room for not only a timeline of when you want to complete your goals, but also asks the questions "why does it matter?" and "what's my motivation?".
The first three downloads on Tip Junkie are great for goals or resolutions. If you scroll down the page, you'll find dozens more free downloads for all kinds of organization.
And if you want to go more in-depth, check out the free Goal-setting and Action Workbook at Live Your Legend. You can download the pdf, or an MS Word version that you can type directly into.
Other resources you might be interested in:
Michael Hyatt's free ebook, Creating a Life Plan.
Kenda Turner's guest post on finding time to write: Aim, Shoot, Bull's-Eye.
The important thing is to have something you're aiming at. How do you record your goals for the new year?
I'm generally pretty good at setting and achieving goals. It's when I refuse to set goals for a certain thing that I don't get it done. ;) Often I will do it on purpose so I don't have to do the thing I don't want to do!
ReplyDeleteI did the bloggy thing and wrote a blog post with my goals. So far, so good.
ReplyDeleteI don't generally write my yearly goals (I have goals, but they don't depend on a specific timeline, usually). Things happen and at the end of the year I tend to look back and think:
ReplyDeleteHoly crap!
This complete lack of organisational ability is going to kick me in my butt in the future, I know it!
You guys crack me up! Isn't it amazing how each person responds to a particular method?
ReplyDelete~Debbie