The very first thing we need to talk about and get out of the way is your mindset because when it comes to getting things done instead of procrastinating, it’s all in our head. And what I mean by that is that in June if you feel like you’re behind, it’s really hard to start afresh for some reason. Probably because in December and January that’s all everyone talks about and you can go and get yourself this new beautiful planner you’ve been dreaming of.
You feel like there’s this energy around the world where everyone is starting afresh and so you want to do the same.
When it’s June and you’re realising that you need a fresh start, and you’re feeling completely behind on your goals, it’s harder. It’s harder because you feel alone. You start thinking “I’m silly starting now.” But it’s not silly. There’s nothing preventing you from starting afresh tomorrow.
I want you to start exactly like you would if it was the first of January, and if you want to go and get yourself a beautiful new notebook or a beautiful new diary or planner, just go and do it! There’s nothing preventing you from doing that. You can still do a lot in six months and you can also decide that every year instead of planning from January to January, you’re going to be planning from June to June. You can still make a 12 year plan in June!
It’s all in your mind. I actually plan my year from May to May and… it works fine!
The second thing you need to do is start asking yourself what didn’t work, because when things don’t happen, they don’t happen for a reason.
Maybe it’s because of your employment situation, you might be working another job that’s been keeping you too busy. Or it might be that you’ve been too busy taking care of the kids and the family. Or both (you superhero you!).
Whatever the reason, something hasn’t been working and you need to be honest with yourself and try to understand what that is, so that you can slowly eliminate those issues and carve a different time table for your project.
I know it’s easy to guilt trip yourself when you start thinking about that.
Please don’t. There’s no judgement here.
You’re just looking at what didn’t work so you can stop doing that and change it to experiment with something new and different that’s hopefully going to work this time.
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Let’s talk about the actual goal setting strategy,and how we will plan goals for the next six months. A question people ask me regularly is how many goals they should have for the year, and how to know how many goals is too many.
My answer is : how many they are doesn’t really matter. It’s just about making sure that you can realistically fit them all in the timeframe you’ve got which at this time, is six months.
My recommendation is to always work in groups of three goals, so you can try to find three big projects that you can achieve by the end of the year. But it one of these projects is building an entire new online store and you only have five to 10 hours a week to work on that project, maybe that’s enough. Then maybe you just want to have this one big goal for the rest of the year. Anywhere between one and five is fine. Five will be if they are smaller projects and one if you’ve got a very big project that you want to really tackle and finish by the end of the year.
When it comes to deciding which projects are going to make it on your to-do list for the rest of the year, always start by brainstorming and writing them down on paper and then ask yourself this really simple question:
What projects will have the most positive impact on your business while requiring the least amount of work and time? “Duh” Right?! But most of us don’t do this!
Sometimes we get sidetracked because there’s something that we want to do more. But sadly that doesn’t mean it’s actually the best thing for our business right now. You really need to ask yourself what’s best for your business while not requiring the least amount of work, so you can slowly decide which projects are worth pursuing for the rest of the year.
Another quick tip about actually setting goals and sticking to them is to try and reconnect with the reason why you even wanted to do a project in the first place. Usually the reason we write down a goal on paper and forget about it is because we are disconnected from the reason why we need to do this for ourselves or for our businesses.
Write down on paper what is going to happen if you achieve it, and what is going to happen if you don’t. Because if there’s something that you don’t really want to do and you forgot the reason why you should be doing it, I can guarantee you’re not going to do it at all.
If you wrote down, for example, “I need to take all my product pictures again and upload all the new pictures onto my website,” and you haaaate taking pictures, and you forgot why you wanted to do this in the first place, you’re just probably never going to get to it.
But, if you wrote down on paper, “I need to take all pictures of my products again and upload them to my website because this is the number one key factor in my conversion rate and the best possible way I can try to increase my sales,” then you start getting a better sense of why you really should do this. Try as best as possible to reconnect with the reason why you chose to put a project on your to-do list because that’s one of the best way to keep you motivated and keep you working on those projects.
Number four is make your to-do list achievable. Usually the reason we’re not able to get anything done and cross things off of our to-do list is because what we wrote down on paper to start with was making it really hard for us to work and implement. What you need to do is add as many sub tasks as possible for each of your to-do list items. And, for each of these sub tasks, write down how much time you think it’s going to take you. This way, every time you get to your desk and you finally have a bit of time to work, you know where you need to start. Everything is already laid down for you and you know that it will take you roughly 20 minutes, or 40, or 2-hours.
If you write down something like launch new website, every time you’re going to your desk, you’re not going to know where to start. It’s going to take you an hour to try to figure out what the next step is.
But, if you wrote down a hundred bullet points of all the things you need to do to launch your website in advance, it makes it really easy to get to work and know exactly what the next step is, how long it is going to take and if you have time to do it or not. It really makes it easier to fit things in your calendar, and you’ll notice that you start making much more progress if you have sub tasks on your to-do list than if you have big, bulky items sitting there.
My last tip is to be accountable and there’s a few different way you can do that.
If you’re not accountable to yourself or to someone else, you can easily lose track and start saying, “Okay. I’ll do that next week.”
If I want to be accountable to myself, I set reminders on my phone. I know that sounds a bit weird but it’s just a little alarm that goes off every month for me to reassess the progress I’ve made this month. I also have another one for every three months for me to reassess the bigger picture, the progress I’ve made and the things I’m late on. Basically, I have a look at what I’ve done and what I still have to do.
I did that yesterday so I know what I mean and I know how it feels…Most of the time, you look at what you wrote down three months ago thinking, “In three months, this is what I’m going to have done,” and you’re WAY off. You’ve started working on something completely different. You’re not even working on the things you said you would be work on!
Set an alarm or just write it in your calendar so that every month or every three months, you check in with yourself, be honest and look at the progress you’ve made.
Another way of being accountable is to join a community of people who are doing the same thing, going through the same issues and same challenges. Every week, let them know what you’re working on. On Monday and on Friday, let them know what you’ve done and what you haven’t done. This way, everyone supports each other and helps each other grow.
One of the best ways to do that is to join free Facebook communities.
I have one called the Tizzit Circle which you can join here. Every Monday, we share what’s on our to-do list and every Friday we’re checking to make sure that we’ve made progress. But whatever you decide to do, make sure that you’re accountable to yourself or to someone else.
That’s the best way to make progress!
The Maker’s Roadmap Planner is an un-dated productivity journal( so you can start it at any time) for makers that was specifically designed to help you work on what matters to grow your handmade shop. It includes:
Do you feel like there’s simply not enough hours in a day to get everything on your growing to-do list done?
Meet the Maker’s Roadmap Planner, a life and business planner created just for makers and handmade shop owners and designed to help you stay focused, be more productive.
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