Introduction
Contrary to the popular belief that New Year's Resolution plans are a failure if not thoroughly followed, I think that even having reflected about what has happened, where you are, what you might be missing/lacking and where you want to improve is already enough.
You don't need to reach your goals to live a good life. You don't need to achieve goal x or earn y €, have the perfect house, an expensive car, be a high-performer at work to feel confident. I made the experience, though, that it helps a lot.
Nevertheless, I believe sincerely that improving in general is the actual essence of feeling a purpose in life. Purpose, for me, is not defined by a higher power "calling you to fulfill your destiny" but by finding the things you like to spend your life time on, sharing them with others and improving in its domain.
But if you are somebody who loves to improve in his/her preferred domain of pursuing something and measuring it, then this article is for you.
My goal is to give you an insight on how I look at my life and how I prioritize my "Areas of Responsibility". The system is not perfect by any means as I am experiencing right now: Right now, I am much more focussed on spending time with my significant other than to track my progress in my areas of responsibility. But: The area of "love/relationship" was actually my highest priority, which is why I see it fit. I am digressing.
What I am trying to say is that there is no right or wrong; find something that is sustainable for you, that gives you a good feeling about yourself. So if you want to take a look at your goals/plans/achievements once a year, do it once a year. If you want to follow a tight tracker to keep yourself accountable, then do that.
Spend as much time as you need in this section and feel absolutely confident you can manage whatever system you build for yourself.
How I track my progress
My current "life-tracking" is based on my notes in Roam Research (where I am also writing this article in), a Google Sheet I have created based on my notes, the time-tracker toggl, a personal hardcover diary - which I am neglecting currently - and last but not least my digital calendar.
The basis for everything is that I am almost always "working" and I am really conscious about writing a lot of things down in my digital notes tool Roam.
What I mean by "always working" is that I make notes on almost everything.
- I have a date? Notes on what went well/wrong, what we did and what I wonder.
- I meet up with friends? Notes on what we talked about, remarkable things that happened or how the food tasted.
- Having completed something at work? Notes on a meta level on how I think about it
- I watch a movie? Notes on the movie and my thoughts about its quality.
Therefore, I alway have something written down which inspires me to try something new, to change or to work harder on something.
Let's get started.
The high-level view
You have to imagine my thinking as an inverted pyramid: I start with generic, macro areas of life, set a rough goal/direction for the area and work it down to monthly & finally weekly plans. From there, I have already allocated my daily To-Do's.
While my planning is working top-down, my reflection works the other way around, which is also the kind of iteration I am trying to achieve to stay "agile" in my system.
Areas of Focus
First of all, I have defined my prioritized areas in my note-taking tool roam. Here is an example for the area "Home":
I don't want to get too much into the details, but as you can see, it is tagged as one of my "Areas" and is related to two goals. The "Vision Board" are just pictures which are standing for an aesthetic ideal in this case.
When you scroll down a bit more, you can find more details:
My other areas contain things like "Physical Health", our family business, "Buona Sera", my personal "finance", my "DeFi (crypto) journey", "Love" and some other private ones.
The Macro-Planning - Annual and Monthly
From there, I switch to Google Sheets" where I set my annual goals, which I link back to their equivalent in Roam. Nothing spectacular, don't be too excited. Here is an example of my unspectacular area "Physical Health". Also, the color-code is very simple (upper right corner):
I like to highlight the next step because it helps to break down the goal into a concrete next action or a milestone with an easier to achieve KPI.
By the way: These aren’t really “annual” in the sense that I expect them to be finished right on December 31st of the very year. Rather, it is about goals I want to accomplish or work towards during the year. You might think of them more like targets I want to move towards.
I like to keep them in a sheet because it is just pragmatic to do it. Starting with a spreadsheet tab, I list out my areas and then write the goals below them.
Usually, I always have a "Project" in Roam associated with the goal in Sheets.
Here is the example for the website I built for our restaurant:
And the related project in Roam:
Each month, I choose three goals to focus on. Obviously, I try to choose the ones which are either the most urgent (work-related topics usually) or the ones with the biggest impact in my current life (like finding a new girlfriend).
These go in a separate spreadsheet tab in my Google Sheet, in their own row with one or two habits I would like to (re)ignite. I mark them with colors so they stand out but there is no particular meaning behind the colors.
The Micro-Planning: Weekly & Daily
I differentiate my weekly goals into two sub-categories:
- The ones I am trying to accomplish every week
- and the goals related to my overall goals, allocated distinctively to this week
From here, I prioritize the things I want to do during the week on Sunday evenings and write them down as a simple list. I also review the last week with some dedicated points:
- Biggest Constraint Question: What’s the biggest constraint on my output right now?
- Finances Review: What have I been spending this week?
- Clear clutter/folders (Downloads, My GDrive and Desktop)
On Monday morning, I check my work schedule (Airbus) in the office and I start scheduling the list I produced the evening before, which contains everything I would like to achieve within the week. That is why I like to have a "clean" Sunday evening in order to have a good night of sleep and be up early in the morning before "everybody else". Usually, I am in the office between 7 and 7:30 am, which gives me enough time for planning.
The goal is to have max three things per day I will focus on (e.g., "Finish technical design for use case xyz") and have time allocated to it.
Then, I "just" execute whatever is written in my calendar.
More of my detailed planning will be written up in a dedicated Epic related to productivity.
Before I leave the office, I get into my tracking sheet and see if I have achieved my three goals for the day. If not, I may cancel a habit (reading in the morning, going to the gym in the morning) in order to recover it. But that depends on the importance of that topic.
At the end, I try to close all my browser tabs, clear my inbox, close my (mail) applications, do some notes on what happened that day and clean up my "downloads" folder as well as my desktop from unnecessary clutter.
The last piece is the monthly review, which I do at the end/beginning of every month. It is just an extended version of the weekly review but also includes a look into the current status of my assets and a subjective assessment of my accountability according to my principles, values & goals.
Final Thought
This may all seem like a ton of work to maintain, but I would estimate it takes me 15 minutes on most weekdays, ~30 minutes on Sunday, ~an hour on Monday, and maybe an hour at the end of each month.
And believe me: It is worth it because you stop feeling overwhelmed. The only risk is that you might start panicking if you are not following these routines anymore (as I am right now). It frightens me because I have the feeling of losing control over my life, but it is for a very good reason, and I know that I will recover soon.