Welcome to 2007 - Review of goals set in 2006

Sheesh, it’s already half way through January already. I’ve just taken a few weeks off, including a visit to NZ for Christmas (and seeing Jimmy Barnes live at the Coroglen Tavern!)

At the start of each year I like to take stock of the previous year and set some new goals for the year ahead. Last year around this time I set out in this post how I planned to double my income while working 30% less.

Here’s a followup on that post about how it went…

The good news: in 2006 I did in fact manage to double my income (from a faily modest base, I’ll admit).

The bad news: The while working 30% less part didn’t really work out that way. I probably worked about the same number of hours in 2006 as 2005 (around 50-60 per week).

Drilling a little deeper…

Here are some of the specific strategies I laid out to achieve my goal, plus how things actually turned out…

Redesign my workspace

Nope, it’s still just as cluttered as ever, although my online data management systems (e.g. CRM systems, email management, Google desktop, online storage etc.) are much improved.

Move to a home office

Yep, I did this, and cut 1.5 to 2 hours off my daily commute.

Check email and blog comments no more than 3 times a day

Compulsive email checking is a massive productivity sink. I’ve been pretty good with blog comments, but my email checking got pretty out of control over the last couple of months of 2006 - but now I’m much better!

Reorganise project management systems

We did achieve some good results in this area, but eventually decided to ditch the project model in favour of an ongoing consulting model… more about that in future posts!

Training, systems and procedures

A lot of time was put into this one too, and I’m sure some productivity gains were achieved as a result… but I have to admit that I found it a challenge to get tight systems in place because (a) how do you systematise copywriting? and (b) our systems are constantly changing and evolving, making procedures out of date faster than we can patch them up.

Delegate project management

Phil started early last year as my project manager and has done a stirling job - thanks Phil! Nick Schoonens has also been a great help over the past 8 months or so. Gavin was also with us for about 6 months and made some valuable contributions to the team.

Keep a desktop “to do” list

This has worked pretty well - I either use the simple and functional Google Desktop list tool or plain ol’ pen and paper.

Less multi-tasking - structuring work in longer blocks

This is still something I need to work on. Just as important as strucuring work in blocks is being able to get into the zone “on demand”. This is a skill I’d like to have more control over.

The Scorecard

On balance, I’d struggle to give myself much more than 5 out of 10 in the areas I committed to focus on, but the results were OK, which is the most important thing.

I could have been much more structured in my approach as well. One way to assist this would have been simply to print out a copy of my previous post and place it somewhere visible to remind me of what I committed to do.

Conceptually, goal setting is pretty straightforward. i.e.

1. Have written goals

2. Look at them every day

3. Keep track of your progress

…yet it’s amazing how few people are able to do in practice. Funny thing, the human mind.

Goals for 2007

My goal in 2007 is to double my income again while working 40-45 hrs per week and taking 4 weeks vacation. Wishing you success in everything you set out to achieve in 2007,

Will

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