WIZE TIME MANAGEMENT

Off your goal rails?

It’s almost February.  By now, goals are a distant memory.  Life has taken over once again and dreams are put on the back burner until next year or maybe never.

It’s happened before, right?

Great excitement January 1st, great goals – you could see them in your mind’s eye.  You may even have gone through the process following some system you learned on the internet or in a course or a book.   You wrote them down. You were very specific what you wanted.  You even found a way to measure your goals.

Yet, nothing has happened.

Did you get overwhelmed?

Likely – work, family, exchanging gifts, cleaning up, and getting back to the routine of life – where is there time to fit in the goals?  The “goals” part could have been the problem – too many, too little time.

So you dropped the whole idea of achieving any of the goals because you didn’t have the time – so you thought.

Are you willing to try again?

Try the system on this site. It has a twist to it and will likely give you the best chance of achieving at the very least, one goal in 2011.  Success builds on success.  If you accomplish something with this system, then it will build on itself.  Give it a shot.  It’s free – the best price around!

Lorraine Arams

http://www.wizetime.com

How can you ever possible measure something you’ve never seen?

This would seem to be a logical question.  However, in the previous post about specificity, you can easily see that any goal is actually measurable when you are clear about exactly what you want.

I used a car example.  Once you know all the details of the car, you can go online and find out what a car with those specific attributes will cost.  That’s your measurable – the cost of the car.  You know that when you have saved that much money, you can buy the car and your goal of owning that car is done – you’ve achieved it!  One of the steps will be easy to determine:  how much will you have to save each month and for how many months in order to attain that goal?

It’s the same with any goal you set.  Once the specifics have been worked out, the measurable can usually be quite easy to determine.

Do you think you can do it? Of course – it all starts with the details in the first part of SMART goal setting.

Lorraine Arams

http://www.wizeimte.com

Did you ever wonder why your goals need to have specificity to them?

The SMART system suggests that goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-based.

Why isn’t it good enough just to say,

• “I want a new car”
• “I want more money”
• “I am working to a degree”

For some people, it might quite clear why specificity is a good idea but for others, the reason may not stand out immediately.

I didn’t at first.  I thought what’s wrong with just wanting a new car or more money.  Of course, there was nothing wrong with it except there is no real definition – could I see “more money” – how much more and for what?

Owning It

One of the most important aspects of goal setting is “owning the goal”.  In other words, you can see it in your mind’s eye and  you can feel the feeling of owning it, doing it or experiencing it.  How can anyone stir up pictures and emotions without a specific description?

Writing down the specifics of the goal makes it more concrete.  What does the goal look like when it is completed?

For instance, if it’s a new car, what color is it? What make is it? How much does it cost?  What does the interior look like?  What model year is it?  What extras does it have?  Does it have air conditioning?  What kind of tires does it require?  What’s the size of the engine and how much will it cost to fill up the tank?  Where will you keep it?  How will the car be used? What is the highest speed it will travel?  Does it have 4-wheel drive?

If the description is such that you can read it to yourself or someone else and actually “see it” and “feel it”, then you have been successful in being specific about your goal.

Once the goal is specific, the other factors are quite easy to fill in.  It is this first criteria which is the most challenging and most important of all.

Try it – see if you can make your goal so very specific that you can actually “see it” and “feel it”.

Lorraine Arams

http://www.wizetime.com

How do I keep track of my goals while I’m in the process of achieving them?

It’s a quandary which many people have because, for many, it’s the first time they have taken goal achievement seriously.

As I indicated in my last blog, achieving your goals is a process, often, a very long process.  Some goals may take years to achieve.  At a minimum, larger goals take at least a year to attain.  That’s a long time.

How do you keep track of such a long process?

There are many ways to do it and it’s so very personal.  I would say this:  use whatever makes sense to you.

However, I would say that you do need one essential thing:  a physical way of keeping everything in one place.

For what?  To write everything down – goal descriptions, thoughts, ideas, changes, rewrites, planning, creating, information gathering, notes about conversations you’ve had, names and phone numbers of people you meet or to whom you are referred – so many details – all in one place.

1.  One suggestion is a hard cover journal type book with ruled lines in it.

2.  Some people are technology bound.  That’s fine as long as you have a device in which you can make notes any time, anywhere and preferably use online storage for all the content should you lose your portable device or it is damaged.  You’ll lose so much if, somehow, there is no access to the process you’ve gone through and the information you’ve collected.

3.  You can have a combination of both written and technology.  In that case, I would suggest a binder instead of a hard cover writing book.  You’ll need blank sheets for handwriting and section in which to put copies of your computer generated process.  Some people know how to use project management software, some people love Excel and others like using Photoshop for a pictorial representation of the goal.  Whatever you use, make sure to have copies all in one spot along with the notes you write.

Then . . .

make sure that you write the steps to be taken in your schedule within the time slot you’ve allocated for achieving your goal.  You may know that I am a fan of working on your goals every single day, even it consists of only five minutes.  However, I do suggest that you have time set aside for your goals at least every week – no longer otherwise your goals will be forgotten.  If it’s important to you, you’ll make space for it in your life!

We all take pictures of the trips we’ve taken.  This is one “trip” you build the picture as you go along and you don’t want to miss a minute of it!

Lorraine Arams

http://www.wizetime.com

I have a free goal setting tool on my site if you don’t have one – check it out – goal setting the time management way!

Do you really have to write down your goals?

I have two answers to that question:  Yes and no though I personally believe that every goal should be written down in one format or another.  Some people, however, are really, really good at keeping things in their head and following through – short term.

How do you know if you should write down a goal or not?

It’s very simple.  Is your goal a short-term goal?  What I mean by short term is a week or a month.  Short goals are generally urgent.  For instance, you have want to get a good mark in a course and need to do well on a paper which is due at the end of the month.  Or you need to have a report done by the end of the week for your boss – the deadline is set and there are no alternatives.

These are still goals, albeit short-term and related to an activity already underway such as passing a course or holding down a job.

Most of these goals can be added to your schedule for a short duration and, for those people who keep a running tally in their heads, well, these goals won’t take up too much space!

However, for long-term goals, that is, those goals which will take you a little longer than a week or a month, yes, it is very important that you do write it down.  The steps will become part of your schedule for a very long time to come.  It’s so easy to forget what your original intention was and get sidetracked.

What most people do not realize is that goal achievement is a process.  It’s not just a matter of deciding what they are, writing them down, putting a deadline on achieving them and that’s it.  If only it were that simple!

Process takes time.   Goals consists of things you’ve never achieved before.  You really don’t have a road map and need to build one as you go.  It takes time to research, talk to people, try things out, etc. And you’ll be encountering a lot of dead ends, detours, road blocks, ditches, washouts, treacherous conditions, and other factors as you travel down the road towards your goal.

I do not believe you can plan goals effectively in your head.  It’s so very important that goals and the achievement process are written down.

What do you write and how much?

You need all the standard stuff:  deadline, a way to measure it, a way of determining whether it is attainable or not, whether it is a reasonable goal for you, a complete description of what it will look like when you attain it,  whether or not it’s relevant to your life, how you feel when you do achieve it, why you want it and whether or not the goal is actually a goal you want or someone else wants you to achieve.

My favorite way to do this is as follows:

-  write like mad – one, two, fifteen – how ever many pages you want – in handwritten form or on the computer – whatever way you prefer

-  boil it all down to 60 words or less making sure you have all the key points in there

Why do I like this method so much?  Because by the time you have boiled the “dream” down to 60 words, you’ll really understand the goal and what you want to achieve.  You’ll “see” it in your mind’s eye.  One of two things will happen:

a)  you’ll decide you really want this goal

or

b)  it was a silly goal or something you really didn’t want after all and toss it -

either way, you’ve won.  If you want it, you’ll have the determination to see it through.  If you’ve decided against pursuing that goal, you will have saved yourself a lot of time, money and energy you can use elsewhere.

What next?

As I said before, it’s a process.  And processes require multiple steps.  It’s not always clear what the steps should be.

Also, as you move along towards your goal, you’ll discover that you’ll change your mind.  You’ll tweak some of the details or you’ll discover information which makes you rethink exactly what you want.   The more you work on your goal, the more precise your description will become.

If you have downloaded my free goal achievement system, I talk about the steps and how to keep building as you go along until you reach your goal.

Most importantly, when you reach it, you’ll know you’re there! Why?  Because you wrote it down!  You won’t have to wonder, “Is this what I wanted?” – you’ll know because you’ve worked with it throughout the adventure!

So, yes, I do believe it is critical to write down your goals, the steps, the planning, the changes, the “evolution” – it’s so much more fun when you can see it in writing and look back at what you did to get there.   What you have learned will serve you well achieving the next goal and the next.

If you would like the free tool I offer for achieving your goals, please visit my blog at http://www.wizetime.com.

Lorraine Arams

What happened?

You’ve taken the courses.  You’ve done the exercises.  You’ve thought it through.  You’ve written your goals down.  You’ve applied the SMART principles.  And yet . . . year after year, that’s where the goals seem to sit – on paper, going nowhere.

Life takes over.  That’s what many people say.

The deadlines  come and go.  Nothing.

It’s an empty feeling, isn’t it?  Is it the reason most people give up setting goals?  Likely.

Why is it happening to so many people despite the huge amount of material out there?

Would you like to know why you and others are not achieving those goals which have been neatly and carefully written?

The reasons are many, of course.  All people have some reason, not all the same.  And, each year there seems to be different reasons why not much has been accomplished towards achieving goals.

The last time you took a course or read a book, you thought for sure, this time, you would get there.  When you’re relaxed, everything seems possible.  Then, the pile ups happen.  All kinds of things happen.  Often, it has to do with work and health.  Long hours at work, even for a few months, can throw everything else out the window.  Or your health is impacted or someone else’s.  All of a sudden, it’s chaos.  You barely have the time to do laundry!

What has happened to your goals?  Can you even find them?

And that’s the problem with most goal setting courses and systems – you set a lot of goals in various parts of your life and, of course, even after all the terrific exercises are done, your life is still there – nothing has changed.  All that has happened is that you’ve invested time in this exercise, hoping you can do something to get your dreams to meet reality!

That’s the rub – you’ve still got a full life so how do you put all of those new things into it and expect to achieve them all?  You can’t.  That’s the truth.  It’s impossible.

The reason is simple:  your life was full before you began setting goals and it is still full after it.  Goals require attention and work.  Where will you fit them all in?

Every single goal needs work and work takes time.  That time may or may not be available in your current schedule. This is the point where most people fall flat – making room for the work involved in achieving a goal.

Let’s say you want to take up golf as your exercise this year.  An average round of golf takes at least 4 hours or more.  Where will you fit it  in?  Where will you fit in:  finding a reputable instructor, attending classes, practicing on the range, playing with friends, buying clubs and other equipment you’ll need.  It’s a great goal but where, in your schedule, will you find the time?

If you were already doing it and it was part of your regular schedule, it wouldn’t be a goal, would it?

That’s why I believe most people fail. They simply have not taken into account the time factors.  Then, they feel like failures and, year after year, they try again until one year, they simply give up.

If you want to try one more time, try the system I offer you for free on my blog.  It’s a blend of something old and something new, designed to assure that you reach your goals in the future the time management way.

I hope you do try it.  Do let me know how it works out for you.  Just that one little tweak contained in this system may just make the difference between achieving even one goal this year or achieving none – give it a shot.  Once you have achieved one goal, it’s so much easier to achieve the next and the next and the next.  Big goals don’t seem so onerous any longer – and your confidence rises – success builds upon success!

Lorraine Arams

http://www.wizetime.com

What is the best tool to help you set goals visually?

You might be asking:  “Why would I want to have a visual of my goals in the first place?  Wouldn’t a goal setting system be enough?”

A goal setting system might be enough for some people especially with the added twist that I have put into Missing Link.  However, humans are visual and they like to “see”.  Think of a stop sign.  Do you see in your mind the picture of a stop sign?  Likely.  When you think of your favorite car, do you think in pictures?

What if you could “see” your goals before you get there? Would that help you with the steps outlined in Missing Link? Yes, of course.  Similar to a road trip, if you take out a map and look at the route you will take, it’s far easier to determine the best way to get somewhere than just getting into the car and driving – you’ll likely find some shortcuts and better alternate routes than the ones offered.

And here’s where one of the best tools for “picturing” your goals comes in – mind mapping.  Lots of people think they know mind mapping but in actual fact they try it and get muddled by the process.   There’s nothing like learning from the inventor – the inventor is usually the best person to explain how to use his own invention.  Many have copied his process but few have had the results because he knows how to explain his invention.  Watch this video:

Fascinating, isn’t it? This is truly a great way to help you set those steps I talk about in Missing Link. Once we can see something, it’s so much easier to see what comes next and next and next.

I encourage you to check out this system.  There’s nothing like learning a system from the inventor himself and I guarantee one thing – for most of us, this tool is an incredible way to help us with goal setting and goal achievement.  You’ll also find that this system lends itself to learning a new language, managing time better, developing projects, etc. and your children can use it to study.  It’s such an amazing tool, you’ll be glad you found it!  There are many other versions but this is the real thing!

Check it out – there’s only one decision you’ll make -”It’s for me!  Wow!”

And make sure that you download your complimentary copy of Missing Link at my website:  http://www.wizetime.com.  Combined with this mind mapping technique, you are sure to achieve your goals as you have never done before.  Even if you have never ever been successful before in setting and achieving goals, try Missing Link – you might just like it!  And better yet, your dreams will be realized!  Wow!  Wouldn’t that be fantastic!

Lorraine Arams
Complimentary copy of Missing Link at:

http://www.wizetime.com

Are you missing these important steps in goal setting?

I think you likely are

The difference in this goal achieving exercise is that it comes from someone who actually used goal setting to achieve great success as opposed to goal setting from a theoretical point of view – this is how it works in real life.

Listen very carefully to this video – you’ll see what I mean – it makes sense.  Zig Ziglar as some of you may know grew up in the Southern State of Mississippi.  He knew the meaning of poor but that didn’t stop him from becoming a top salesman and carving out a career as a renowed international speaker and authority on high-level performance.  His approach to most everything is “unconventional” and it is effective because he did the “doing” before he taught the strategies.  I’ve seen Zig Ziglar on stage and he is one dynamo – drawl and all!

It’s incredible how we miss the obvious sometimes because our minds are focused on what someone is teaching us. Zig Ziglar’s truth comes from the fact he achieved success and believes in goal setting. 

He adds important dimensions to the “usual” approaches: obstacles – do we know the obstacles we will face to achieving our goals?  Every single goal we set has obstacles to it whether it be the need to acquire new knowledge or skills, money, location – there are so many!  How can we plan effectively without understanding what the obstacles are in the first place.

Have we identified people who can help us? The right people, of course, because not all people we know or come to know are the right people to help us move towards our dreams.

And the biggest motivator of all – “what’s in it for me” - you’ll see that I have included this in my “Missing Link” goal setting system which I have created and is available to you gratis on my site at http://www.wizetime.com.

Blend some of these concepts into the steps in “Missing Link”, and, slowly and surely, you’ll be ever so much closer to achieving your dream life – one step at a time!

Lorraine Arams

http://www.wizetime.com

Are you achieving your goals?  Why?  What do you think is stopping you from reaching them? 

Or do you just like the dreaming and that’s enough for you?  After all, you likely have most everything you want in any case – job, family, friends, money and free time to enjoy your hobbies.  And that’s okay – it’s okay to have fun dreaming of possibilities.

For those of you who do set goals or New Year’s Resolutions, are you struggling to turn your dreams into goals and goals into reality?

If so, why not try a new approach based on time management. 

Stats haven’t changed much in years – 3% of the population achieve their goals – that means a whopping 97% of people who set goals never realize them.  Isn’t that amazing? 

It’s not because there are no courses, books, systems or loads of information, because there are  – you just need to go on Amazon and search goals – you’ll be amazed how much there is available.

So I asked myself why?  Why don’t people achieve their goals?  Is it because they really don’t want them but it’s a fun exercise to dream?  Perhaps.  Is it because their lives change and what seemed important at one time, isn’t so any longer?  Perhaps.  Is it that they really don’t want to read a 300-page book on attaining goals and apply the principles?  Perhaps.  Is it because the course is fun to take but, like so many things, learn and forget?  Perhaps.

Or it could be something else.  I thought it might be something else.

So I’ve created a new system based on some old principles used in books and courses plus I’ve added a new twist to the process.  This new twist combines several principles into a step-by-step system that I believe will allow people to achieve their goals.  It certainly has helped me get and stay on track. 

Staying on track with goals is the most difficult part.  Just like so many things in life, there are obstacles and, if there is no immediate loss, then goals take a back seat to potential losses which are immediately apparent.

It’s a 17-page fast read and fast implementation process  – at no cost to you!  That’s right – no cost.  It won’t cost you a cent.  However, I’d appreciate it if you would give me feedback how the system is working for you.    All you have to do is visit my site at http://www.wizetime.com.  You’ll find a box on the right hand side – fill it in and you’ll receive a download. 

Try it – you might like it! 

Lorraine Arams
http://www.wizetime.com
Time is your Life!