So much nostalgia just writing out that title! Do you remember when I still made header images for each post? I had a template for goal posts. And then the many different ways I had to format them, and how much time I spent checking and editing those posts.
It was fantastic.
I want to write about goals again, even though I won't be tracking them here because I have Trello now. I also don't have a recap of last quarter, because last quarter I was just surviving. But I do want to talk about my goals organization system.
I love Trello. So when I started this job and realized most of my day-to-day work activities were moving to other project management systems, I had more than a few pangs of sadness. Live without Trello? Not possible!
But I've found some things are still useful. I have the "This Week" board with my supposed daily schedules, and I still like using it to set daily priorities because our work system doesn't have anything like that.
And then I took my "Personal Planning" board and made it into organized goals the same way I had been doing business goals.
The first list is a reminder that I need sometimes to ignore all the minutia. Then I made lists for each of my core areas with goals and action steps.
All the cards are formatted the same way. I like grouping goals into types, so each area has 3 segments. In this case it's my job, my business, and my professional achievements within my field. I have a goal for each of those areas and then...
I have another card with the action steps for each goal! Again it's in 3's because I'm very fond of that number. And also because these are fairly big "steps" so any more than 3 would be overwhelming. For the actual individual tasks I have a card on my "This Week" board.
This card has no particular order or grouping with the goals and action steps. It's just literally all the things from the planning board that I want to accomplish this month, with a weekly breakdown. It lives on the board I look at daily so I remember to do them.
I also have some automation set up to create a blank version of this card at the beginning of every month to remind me to reassess what I've completed, what's left on the quarterly goals list, and to assign some new goals for the upcoming month. I've done the same thing for my "Top Tasks" card every weekday and I almost did it for the weekly tasks BUT it gets to be a pain to try to have a bunch of cards open to copy things over, so it was just easier to leave that on the same card as the monthly goals.
Plus it's super fun (for me) to look at a card that's covered with checked-off tasks!
Now that you know way too much about my goal organizational system, here's the official quarterly goals.
It was fantastic.
I want to write about goals again, even though I won't be tracking them here because I have Trello now. I also don't have a recap of last quarter, because last quarter I was just surviving. But I do want to talk about my goals organization system.
I love Trello. So when I started this job and realized most of my day-to-day work activities were moving to other project management systems, I had more than a few pangs of sadness. Live without Trello? Not possible!
But I've found some things are still useful. I have the "This Week" board with my supposed daily schedules, and I still like using it to set daily priorities because our work system doesn't have anything like that.
And then I took my "Personal Planning" board and made it into organized goals the same way I had been doing business goals.
The first list is a reminder that I need sometimes to ignore all the minutia. Then I made lists for each of my core areas with goals and action steps.
All the cards are formatted the same way. I like grouping goals into types, so each area has 3 segments. In this case it's my job, my business, and my professional achievements within my field. I have a goal for each of those areas and then...
I have another card with the action steps for each goal! Again it's in 3's because I'm very fond of that number. And also because these are fairly big "steps" so any more than 3 would be overwhelming. For the actual individual tasks I have a card on my "This Week" board.
This card has no particular order or grouping with the goals and action steps. It's just literally all the things from the planning board that I want to accomplish this month, with a weekly breakdown. It lives on the board I look at daily so I remember to do them.
I also have some automation set up to create a blank version of this card at the beginning of every month to remind me to reassess what I've completed, what's left on the quarterly goals list, and to assign some new goals for the upcoming month. I've done the same thing for my "Top Tasks" card every weekday and I almost did it for the weekly tasks BUT it gets to be a pain to try to have a bunch of cards open to copy things over, so it was just easier to leave that on the same card as the monthly goals.
Plus it's super fun (for me) to look at a card that's covered with checked-off tasks!
Now that you know way too much about my goal organizational system, here's the official quarterly goals.
Fall Goals
Health
- Physical: Prep for new baby
- Diet: Cook more
- Mental: Self Care
Family
- Relationship: Enjoy spending time with Ryan
- Parenting: Expose Orion to new experiences
- Dogs: Take better care of them
Work
- Tapp Network: Finish rebrand
- Jenn Wells Design: Creating 1st branding kit
- Personal: Make progress on strategic design book
Looking these over, I'm realizing this is very high level. It's almost more what I want to focus on more than it is goals. But I want the flexibility to change my action steps over the next 3 months. Maybe Ryan and I won't actually get out on that belated anniversary date. But if we play tons of video games and cook together and make a point of holding our tongues when we're cranky, I'm still marking it as a success.
So when I reassess this later on, with the exception of work goals, it's going to be more about how I feel about my life than whether I checked boxes. Which makes sense to me because that's the whole point of life design anyway.
