3 Keys for Managing Your Life

Manage your life with effective and efficient GOALS.

The Life Management Cycle

Using the principles discussed in my SAM’S GOALS program, you can create a system that works with you and for you to manage your life effectively and efficiently. Use these 3 keys to manage your life:

• GOALS

• TAO of Interdependence

• Effectiveness & Efficiency

Start with GOALS to create your life management system. Use the TAO of Interdependence to consider all your needs and relationships. Be sure your system is both effective and efficient. 

GOALS

GOALS is the perfect acronym to remember your life management system. 

Goals

Objectives

Actions

Lessons

Success

These are the steps in order. Each step is important to the whole, and won’t work well without all of them being considered.

My clients create visions for their lives using a 3-year timeframe for more believable specificity. Although you can dream further into the future, maybe 5 or 10 years, you’re less likely to take immediate action. You can be even more specific with a 1-year vision, but most people overestimate what they can do in a year, which is overwhelming. A 3-year vision gives a sense of urgency without overwhelm.

Goals

Using the vision, you decide your specific goals in each area of your life and decide what benchmark would be realistically achieved within a year. Your goals should be specific enough that you can imagine yourself mentally, emotionally and physically achieving them. Having that vivid image provides the motivation to achieve them.

Objectives

Think of each goal like a project and divide it into specific objectives. To make tracking and adjusting easier, break your objectives down into smaller units by timeframe and/or tasks. You get to decide how you want to track them. Consider quarterly, monthly and weekly objectives and reviews.

Action

Then take action. By breaking down the objectives into smaller, do-able units, you can focus your attention on taking action on each individual unit, whether it be a task or a specified amount of time working on a larger unit. Finish one unit before starting the next. Schedule your units based on your energy level and your work style.

Lessons

Track every unit and analyze your lessons learned. What worked? What didn’t work? What changes will you make for next time? Are your time/activity estimates realistic? This doesn’t have to take long or be formal unless you want it to be. Consider what way of tracking your results and the lessons learned will work best for you.

Success 

Many people finish a unit and immediately move on to the next. To really experience your life, take the time to celebrate your successes. Every step you take is a success, whether or not you achieved your goal, because even when you didn’t, you successfully learned what didn’t work. Reward each step, even if it’s just checking off a box on your to-do list. Every acknowledgement gives you a boost of energy.

TAO of Interdependence

Your system of achieving your GOALS is impacted by the way you think, act and organize, and by the way you embrace your interdependence with others.

Think

The way you think is largely dictated by your subconscious beliefs. If you hold any beliefs that are negative and limiting, they will prevent you from achieving your goals. Do you believe that you are worthy of achieving your goals? Do you believe that you can have collaborative relationships to help you achieve your goals? Do you believe that the universe is friendly and supportive of all? If you said no to any of those questions, then challenge those beliefs. You are meant to thrive interdependently with other people and the natural abundant flow of the universe. 

Act

Do you take consistent, decisive action toward achieving your goals? Or do you hesitate, procrastinate and second-guess yourself? Hesitation, procrastination and self-doubt prevent you from achieving anything in a timely fashion if at all. Bring to mind the image of your vision fulfilled to give you the motivation. Set your intention to achieve the next step, even if it’s outside your comfort zone. That should say especially if it’s outside your comfort zone, because the only way to truly move forward toward your goals is to step outside your comfort zone. 

No worthwhile goal is within your comfort zone. That’s why each step needs to be something you believe you can achieve. Decide to take the first step, then the next step. Taking small consistent steps is the  way to achieve any goal. Even climbing Mount Everest requires one step at a time.

Organize

Your organizational style is uniquely yours. Don’t assume it needs to look like someone else’s. You get to decide how to organize using your own personal style. 

Some people seem very well organized. Everything is perfectly arranged in perfect containers, perfectly labeled and neatly stored. That is perfect for them as long as all the time used to perfect their system doesn’t actually take away time that would be better spent actually achieving their goals. 

Other people drop everything where it lands and leaves everything visible, because “out of sight, out of mind”. Yet when they have a lot of stuff, they can lose what they’re looking for in a pile of clutter.

Neither extreme is good or bad. You need to find the right level of materials you need to support your goals and an effective and efficient way to store them, whether visibly or in containers, based on your personal preferences. Once you create the system that works best for you, use it consistently. Decide on ways to prevent unmanageable clutter and/or time-wasters. Both are forms of self-sabotage that prevent you from achieving your goals. 

Interdependence

Reminding yourself of your interdependence with others will help you make better decisions about what to do yourself, what to delegate to others, and what to do synergistically with others. These choices can change due to changing circumstances. Don’t be reluctant to ask for help when you need it. Don’t be reluctant to offer help to others, just don’t give up all your time for others. 

The beauty of your interdependence is that everyone can thrive and collectively you can produce more than the sum of your individual achievements. Humans can achieve great things together, and even greater when acting in alignment with the natural flow of the universe.

Effectiveness & Efficiency

Many leaders believe that effectiveness is more important than efficiency, because it doesn’t matter how efficient you are if you’re doing the wrong things. I’ve challenged that idea in the past, because while doing the wrong things won’t achieve your goals, doing the right things in the wrong way won’t achieve them either. I believe effectiveness and efficiency are equally important to your results. 

Effectiveness

Effectiveness is choosing the right things to do to achieve your desired results. The best way to choose effective action is to test it against your vision and values, and to determine if it compares favorably to the alternatives being tested. 

Efficiency

Efficiency is choosing the right way to produce your desired results. Once you decide what effective actions to take, you need to determine the most efficient way to perform those actions. Efficiency is impacted by a lot of factors, such as having the tools and resources you need, scheduling your activities based on your energy levels throughout the day, and using the right people for specific tasks. So you ask yourself what would be the most efficient way to achieve your goals and compare your possible solution. Decide what you think is the most efficient method.

Optimal Natural Flow

Nobody knows what the most effective thing to do is or what the most efficient way to do it is. Nobody knows with 100% confidence what to do or how to do it!

So skip perfection. You, like everyone else, will make an educated guess based on all the information you’ve obtained up until the point of your decision. Then you can reevaluate it every step of the way to determine if you think it is still the best decision or to tweak it where necessary. You achieve the optimal natural flow when you consistently choose the projects and processes that you feel best match the way you think, act and organize to achieve your ultimate goals.

Going Deeper with the 3 Keys for Managing Your Life

In the next several blog posts, I will discuss the keys for managing your life in more depth.

• 5 Steps to Accomplish Your GOALS

• Create a system to achieve your goals that you will really use..

• 3 Aspects of Life Management You Can Control

• Create your system to align with the way you think, act and organize.

• 3 Manage Styles, You Decide Yours

• Create your system to match your management style.