Remember Your 2010 Goals? Get Back on Track with Goal Tracker.

Did you know that there are 8,760 hours in a (non-leap) year? So have you decided how you will apply your energy during those hours in order to achieve your goals? I thought it might be worthwhile to share how I go about this process each year; which an ever-evolving exercise for me.

First of all, it is important to distinguish between different types of goals. Here is how I classify three primary goal types:
1. Commitment (of Time/Energy) – DOING (i.e. – “I would like to exercise at least 3 times per week every week this year.”)
2. Aspirational – ATTAINING (i.e. – “I want to earn $150,000 dollars this year.”)
3. Inner States / Consciousness – FEELING (i.e. – “I want to overcome chronic depression and feel happy more often this year than I have over the past several year.”)

Here is a useful tool that I have created and refined over the years to help me manage my goals. Some people might think that I am too obsessed with time, and frankly these techniques are not for everyone; although I think that everyone can benefit from some level of time management structure, or what I call energy allocation planning, in their lives.

• DOWNLOAD MY GOAL TRACKER EXCEL TEMPLATE HERE (FREE OF CHARGE)

In this Excel Template, you will find my current Exercise Log, which helps me track my goal of exercising at least 300 times in 2010.  I set and achieved the very same goal in 2009, with the help of this simple yet effective Goal Tracking tool.  The great thing about it for me is the ability to view the big picture goal (300 work-outs out of 365 days), as well as my detailed progress (106 out of 134 days by May 14th, 194 workouts to go), in a one page document.  It also allows me to course correct if I’ve fallen behind, by rescheduling work-outs over the remaining months of 2010.

The second tab of this spreadsheet, called “2005_Timebank” is an actual view from my 2005 Goal Setting exercise, where I mapped out in quite a bit of detail how I would like to spend the 8,760 hours of the year.  I included both professional and personal areas of living, including Sleep, Vacation and Family time.  It gets pretty granular, which I don’t do every year, but found to be very useful in the years or time periods that I did organize myself in this way.  It underscores how much I believe in effective time management as being one of the keys to living a productive and meaningful life.  Now you certainly don’t need spreadsheets to do it – there are other ways.  However, I find this type of approach to be very methodical and useful when it comes to matching your dreams and aspirations to a practical road map.

I encourage you to take a look at Goal Tracker, customize it for your own needs and aims, and update it on a daily or weekly basis.  This tool is constantly being updated based on how I think it can be more useful.  I’d love to hear some feedback from those of you that test it out.