Chapter 9 - Design Your Year
From Getting Results | The Book
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”—Peter Drucker
In This Chapter
- Figure out your three best results for the year.
- Learn how to create a scannable map of your year at a glance.
- Learn how to design more effective months to support your year.
This chapter helps you achieve three great results for the year. It also helps you see your year at a glance, design a more effective year, and enjoy the journey along the way.
What if you could look back a year from now and say with confidence that you achieved the three most important changes that you could make in your life right now? This could be anything from getting to your ideal weight, to finding your dream job, to taking an incredible journey. That's the idea behind focusing on three great results for the year. It's about having the three most important things to you, for the year, under your belt.
I first learned to focus on three great results for the year by studying goals and objectives. I tried to get precision and accuracy around goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics. When I finally got clarity, I pushed all my thinking aside and asked a very simple question, “If this were next year, what are three great results I would want?” Without hesitation, I answered: (1) get to my fighting weight; (2) finish my book; and (3) take an epic adventure. (Interestingly, completing this chapter means finishing the writing for my book.) Since it sounded almost too simple to be useful, I had to question whether this was how I was going to set my goals for the year. Something inside me told me that I finally found the secret sauce for significant change. I would feel a sense of fulfillment if I turned the page of another year of my life and found that I had achieved these three things for the year (or at least come really close).
Knowing your three great results for the year is one thing. Seeing your year at a glance is another. The inspiration for seeing my year at a glance came from one of my colleagues. He was always calm, cool, and collected. One of his secrets was his calendar on the wall. It was a simple view of the year at a glance. He put all the key project events on it, across multiple projects. He included people on the teams for their input as he mapped out the project milestones, activities, and deliverables. Everybody could easily see the map with the end in mind, and how to get there. They could see and plan for holidays. They could see when there might be bottlenecks or resource constraints. I thought to myself: If this works so great for dealing with complicated projects and dependencies … why not use it for life? And so, I did.
Three Great Results for the Year
Your three great results for the year are the three most important changes you want in your life at this time. These could be related to your work or personal life. These could be about making your dreams happen, such as starting your own business, or they can be about getting yourself out of pain, such as getting out of debt. Think about your life Hot Spots: mind, body, emotions, career, financial, relationships, and fun. What are the three most important things you want to achieve? The simplest way to get to some insightful answers is to ask yourself the tough question, “If this were next year, what are three things I would want to be different?”
For my example, I picked three things:
- Fighting weight – because I want the feeling of freedom and flexibility.
- Epic adventure – because I want to test myself and create great experiences to look back on.
- Book – because it's the greatest gift I can give others—the gift of results.
Grant Yourself Three Wishes
You can almost think of this as granting yourself three wishes. If you had three wishes to grant yourself, what would you wish for? Dream big before you whittle away to what you think is realistic or possible. You have all year to hone and refine. Listen to your gut instinct. For now, let your inner child say three things you want. You can always change them. You can always refine them. What’s important is that you first trust yourself to put out on the table what your three wishes would be. Go ahead and grant yourself these three wishes, but instead of using magic, we’re going to use the power of intention and the power of project management to make things happen. By making meaning and assigning significance to each wish or result, you unleash your most resourceful self. This is the same kid with the big dreams: back before anybody told you what you couldn’t do, or worse, before you told yourself what you couldn’t do. By using some simple project management skills, such as planning the results you want and when you want them, you give yourself clarity about the end in mind while staying flexible in how you get there.
Imagine Your Wishes
Briefly imagine what it would be like if you accomplished each of your three wishes or results you want for the year. If the results you imagined don’t feel compelling or inspiring, you haven’t found your three wishes. Don’t work at it. Play at it. What’s important is that your three wishes are compelling for you. If you achieve these three things within a year from now, you want to be able to honestly say that you spent your time on the things that matter most to you at this moment in your life.
When you imagine your wishes come true, don’t merely see it in your mind’s eye—invoke all of your senses. What does it feel like? What does it smell like? What does it sound like? What does it taste like? The “sweet taste of success” isn’t just a metaphor. If you have a tough time imagining how it looks, then try this exercise—see it on the big screen. Imagine you’re in a theater and you’re watching the movie about one of your wishes. The better you can see it, the more you can invoke your other senses, and the more you have working for you.
Here’s a quick example. When I decided that the ability to run longer distances was an important result for me, I imagined what it felt like to run free. I imagined a long winding road through the mountains. I imagined the cool, crisp autumn air as I ran through a blaze of trees with sun burnt leaves of orange, red and yellow. I could smell the outdoors so much that I could almost taste the flowers. My body felt so lean and so strong that I didn’t have to ask, “Can I make it?” Instead, I simply asked, “Where do I want to go?”
The Why Behind Your Wishes
Once you have chosen your three wishes, the best thing you can do is find out why they matter so much. The simplest way to do this is to just start writing down why they matter. Take each result you want to achieve and write a hearty paragraph about why it really matters to you. Ask yourself, “Why do I need to make this happen?” Don’t critique your thoughts. Instead, just pluck your reasons as they flow and plot them down. Think of it as your personal manifesto, and if you should forget why you do what you do or get knocked off your horse, this will be your reminder. If you can’t write at least a paragraph of why each one is so important to you and why you need to make it happen, then consider whether you picked your three best results for the year. When you’re designing your year, you really want to invest your life force where it matters most.
Test Your Three Wishes
Know the true result you want to achieve; don’t get stuck on how you get there or confuse a means with the ends. By separating the ends from the means, you give yourself flexibility in how you get there. For example, you might think you want a Ferrari. What you might actually want is to feel free or to feel strong. There are plenty of faster, less expensive, and more effective ways than buying the Ferrari. If you think you really need the Ferrari, then try before you buy—rent one for the day. Experiment with your dreams and test them to figure out what you really want. Remember the adage, “Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.”
Making Your Wishes Happen
When you have your big goals in front of you (and you will because you can easily remember your three wishes), your world suddenly conspires with you. You’ll find yourself noticing all sorts of things that you didn’t before. Have you ever bought a new car, only to suddenly see the same car on the road when you never noticed how many there were before? Your mind is an amazing filter. By setting your sights and living with focus, you expand your awareness. You start to realize how many people and resources, in addition to your own abilities, are available to help you. In fact, a useful exercise is to simply make a list of all the people, resources, and skills that can help you make your dreams happen.
By clarifying your yearly results, you guide your daily, weekly, and monthly results. By keeping these loosely connected, you allow for change while keeping your eyes on the prize. It’s the full power of the Agile Results system working for you. You get a fresh start each day, each week, each month, and each year to make progress against whatever the most important results are in your life. It’s this rhythm of results that helps you respond to change while getting results along the way.
Goals Setting and Your Three Wishes
While focusing on three results or three wishes for the year doesn’t necessarily replace your normal goals setting exercise (although it might), you can use it to guide and supplement any other goals setting or planning exercises. It’s really about helping you make mindful choices so that another year of your life doesn’t slip by where you ask yourself at the end of the year, “How did I let that go?” or “Why didn’t I just focus on that?” Goals and objectives are powerful tools. However, you should be able to see the forest from the trees, and no tool or technique should overshadow your power to dream up great results for your life. That starts inside you, and the key here is just letting it out. You’re perfectly free to use all of your tried and true goal setting methods. Consider this exercise, however, as the icing on top or as the firm foundation you can use to drive the rest of your goals and objectives from, or anywhere in between. Don’t throw out goal setting methods that work for you, but do make sure that you give yourself a chance to dream up and design your best year possible. It’s your life—dream big dreams and grant your wishes.
Questions and Answers About Your Three Results for the Year
While explaining this approach to a friend, he had some questions. I figured the best thing I can do is share those questions with you, along with my answers, since many of you may have the very same questions:
- Question: “How do I evaluate goals that are applicable as yearly goals versus monthly?”
- Answer: It’s OK to be off. You can always adjust, but if you can’t do it within the month, it’s probably something for the year. Keep in mind that if you finish one of your goals, you can add another. The simplest way to test yourself here is to ask yourself, “If this were next year, what are the top three things I would regret the most if I didn’t accomplish them?” Don’t live a life of regret. Lead a life of action and results. Like anything, you’ll get better with practice. Just thinking in terms of three things that you want to accomplish for the year is a start in the right direction. If you accomplish them in less than a year, then good for you—you’re ahead of the game. It’s an open buffet, so grab your next three results; just don’t bite off more than three at a time. If you start trying to remember your four or five most important things, then you lose the power, perspective, and focus of keeping the three most important results right in front of you.
- Question: “How do I track progress against my yearly goals when my monthly goals are derivatives of the yearly, and not the whole goal?”
- Answer: The simplest way is to evaluate your monthly results. Simply list your key accomplishments and progress each month. You can then evaluate your immediate results against the bigger picture. Three months in, are you a quarter there? Six months in, are you halfway there? Or, do you have a specific block of time when you’ll achieve your results. For example, to take my “epic adventure” I blocked off October as the month to make it happen.
- Question: “What are examples of a good yearly goal?”
- Answer: When I see people a year later, some of the most profound and meaningful changes are these: a new position or a new job, a new life style, a new house, a new body, a new or improved relationship, a new outlook on life, more smarts or skills at their craft, a new hobby, an epic adventure, etc. Just about any significant change takes more than a day or week or month to accomplish. Other goals could also simply be a change that you want in your life, and you’d like to practice throughout the year. For example, you might want to eat less candy, or you might want to quit smoking. By focusing on a habit, giving yourself a year, and moving toward your outcome each month, you can structure yourself for success. You can also give yourself additional leverage by adding these practices: daily, weekly and monthly results; checking your progress at the end of each month; and using monthly improvement sprints when you need to add focus. Allow for the fact that change is hard. You might fail multiple times; just keep getting back on the horse, learn from each setback, and carry the good forward. Don’t break yourself against your own goals by biting off too much or beating yourself over the head with them; instead, use them to lift you and guide your choices.
- Question: “How do I properly set boundaries on what a yearly goal encompasses?”
- Answer: Worry less about the boundaries and more about being able to say your three great results you want for the year to yourself and to others. You’ll naturally find the boundaries during the progression of the year. You’ll either be driven by some great pain or by some great pleasure; at which point, you’ll need to respond. Like your daily, weekly, and monthly results, your yearly results are flexible and should support you. If work is your biggest pain point, chances are one of your three great results will be about work. If your personal life is a struggle, chances are you’ll have at least one of your three great results about your personal life. If you are having trouble finding the right three things, consider a more structured approach: (1) pick one great result for work; (2) pick one great results for home and personal life; and (3) pick one great results from one of your life Hot Spots (mind, body, emotions, career, financial, relationships, and fun).
- Question: “Is it appropriate to change a yearly goal mid-year?”
- Answer: Yes, and that’s actually a key to Agile Results. Agility is about responding to change. The key is making sure you change your goals for the right reasons. Your test is always, “What’s the next best thing to accomplish in your life?” To stay out of the short-term trap, check yourself against different time periods. What’s the next best thing to accomplish in your life for the next month, the next year or the next ten years? When you check yourself against these different time frames, it quickly changes your perspective on how important something is. For example, eating that cake might feel good right now, but what do you want for yourself for the month or for the year, and does that help you? You can use time frames to bound your goals, prioritize your actions, and correct course. The most important thing is that you are taking action towards your most important results, and you may very well find that you need to change your goals as you get more clarity. You may find that what you thought was a goal was really a means to an end. You might also find that what was important before isn’t important now. Time changes what’s important. It’s also a changing landscape. As things change in your life, you have to respond, driving from the inside out. This is about responding, not reacting, and embracing the fact that life happens, things change, and so can you. If you embrace this, you can make change work for you instead of against you, and look forward to the fresh starts each day, each week, each month, and each year, including fresh goals for your best results.
Year at a Glance
This section shows you how to map out your year to create scannable months. When you can see your months at a glance, you can anticipate better and create better plans—or at least get surprised less. Having a rough idea for your months helps you to feel more empowered and to take steps necessary to improve your monthly results by design.
Mapping Out Your Year
Things can take you by surprise, unless you expect them. While you can’t predict everything, you can improve how you anticipate your year. You do this by mapping it out.
Recurring Activities
List your recurring monthly activities. For example, you might list seasonal sports you participate in. It’s less about being complete, and more about identifying the big things you spend your time on during the year.
Key Events
List any key events. To keep it simple, start with birthdays and holidays. Next, include any of your vacations or big projects. Next, list any events that you participate in. Then, list the big events that impact you. For example, for my work at Microsoft, there are a number of big industry-wide events that I need to be aware of throughout the year. By noting the timing of these events, I can be proactive about preparing content to supply to event coordinators, or at the very least, know when people won’t be available to work on my projects. Before I mapped out these events in advance, I was continually surprised, either doing last minute work or losing key people from my projects. Once I started making maps each year, my ability to anticipate improved, making it easier to design my project schedules to accommodate big events.
Meaningful Milestones
A milestone is a significant point in development. They help you chart progress along the way during a larger project. If you already do project work, it will be natural for you to know your big milestones, such as project start, checkpoints along the way, and when you are done. If you don’t normally do project work, you can assign milestones to any big task or body of work that you have.
Year at a Glance Templates
The following templates can help you quickly map out your year. You can use a pen and paper, a whiteboard, a spreadsheet, or whatever works best for you. The main idea is to capture a month-by-month picture of your year, including recurring activities, key events, and meaningful milestones.
One template focuses on plotting out the key events for the year. The other templates focuses on plotting out the key outcomes you want for each month. Together, these templates help you organize your thinking and planning for the year. In addition, you can find the Yearly Planner template in the reference section of this guide; this template combines capturing your three outcomes for the year, your key outcomes, and your key events all at a glance.
Template – Events for the Year at a Glance
This template is helpful when you need to first map out the big picture of your year. You can quickly plot out birthdays, holidays, vacation, personal projects, and key events. On the work side, include your big projects, recurring events, such as your mid-year and annual reviews, and include any other meaningful milestones that help you see your year at a glance. You may be significantly surprised the first time you do this exercise, unless you had a good picture of your year already.
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Example
Here is an example of using the Events for the Year at a Glance template:
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Template – Outcomes for the Year at a Glance
This template is a list of your activities and outcomes on a month-by-month basis. I find it easier to first identify the results or outcomes that I want for a given month, and then identify the activities that will support that outcome. This tells me where I’ll be spending my time. It also puts a stake in the ground. If it looks like I have too many months without flowing the right results, then I can adjust my focus and where I spend my time. Mapping this out also helps me spot bottlenecks and potential problems well before I run into them.
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Example
Here is an example of using the Outcomes for the Year at a Glance template:
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In Summary
- Identify your three key results for the year.
- Create a scannable map of your year at a glance.
- Design more effective months to support your year.
