Productivity Tip #2- Planning Ahead: Six for Success

September 30th, 2013

In my last productivity post, I talked about narrowing your focus to your most important goals. Now the question becomes how do you achieve these goals?

If you ask people about their top three ambitions in life, they will invariably list a health, relationship and financial (or career) goal. My goals would be to be in the best shape of my life, a loving mother and partner to my son and husband, and a respected surgeon and author.

These goals can sound overwhelming but there is a simple strategy to help you move towards all your goals on a daily basis. I call it my Six for Success Plan.

Six For Success Plan

Every morning during my hour of power, I write down six small achievable goals for the day. There are two goals for each of the three important areas in my life.

Under my health goals, I might write a goal to work out in the morning, go for a walk, look up a healthy recipe or eat 7+ servings of fruits and vegetables. Under my career section, I write things like “write for 15 minutes,” “read new medical study” or “schedule meeting.” For my family goals, I might make it a goal to take my son to the park after dinner or plan a date night.

The six goals are things that might not otherwise get done. You don’t have to include all your daily to-dos on the list, just the top six things that should get done to move you towards your overall goals. Some of the goals seem so small but if you do something every day it will bring you that much closer to the life you want to be living.

This system breaks you of the habit of waiting for the magical uninterrupted hours of free time you think you need to accomplish something. This way you are doing small things in shorter spans of time in a number of areas consistently. It is amazing how this can impact your life over time.

Some days you can accomplish so much but still feel like you failed because you didn’t do something like connect with your loved ones or make time to exercise. Breaking down your goals into three key areas helps you stay balanced. By reviewing what you have done the previous week, you can take time to correct any areas that you may have neglected.

By seeing the positive results this six for success planning can bring, you will be energized and able to accomplish more than you ever thought possible.

Planning and goal setting only works if it’s realistic. Come back for the next post on how to make realistic to-do lists.

The next post is about how to plan ahead for success using my six for success plan.  Sign up for my newsletter or follow me on Facebook or Twitter to get all my productivity, energy and wellness tips.