I’ve spent most of January working out my goals and plans for the year. Yep, the whole of January. Okay, I’ve been really busy but really that was just too long.

I wanted a really detailed plan of everything I had to do because I thought that would be the big differentiator from previous years (the ones where not much happened…) so I’ve been agonising about creating these really detailed plan.

The thing is I started cringing when I thought about looking at my goals because they were taking so long to finish. NOT A GOOD SIGN. Even worse, I kept avoiding teasing out the milestones and actions for building my business - one of my key priorities this year.

I was missing milestones because I had way too many of them because I had way too many goals. It was causing me stress because they were overwhelming. So wrong, goals are meant to motivate, carry and focus you.

I realised that I needed to cut down my goals and cut down my milestones to a manageable number.

Remembering Dave Navarro’s teachings, I identified 2 priorities and 3 important goals - 5 in total. For each goal, I brainstormed the required actions but I didn’t get too hung up on this step, instead I focussed on “What are the TOP 10 milestones that need to happen NEXT”?

I made sure that I wrote each milestone so that the action attached is really clear. I also wrote them in the present as if I had achieved the goal. Lastly,  I ordered them so I could follow them as a step by step process.

For example, I have a Health goal but I don’t really care about weighing a particular weight, I just want to
be healthier. But “become healthier” isn’t really very useful or
measurable. So I thought, what are the top realistic actions that if I did would mean I would be healthier than now? So my top 5 milestones are:

1. I make time to plan and cook food - 1 hours planning and 3 evenings cooking each week
2. I have a list of 30 healthy dinner recipes
3. I have a list of 10 healthy lunch recipes
4. I am meditating 10 minutes a day
5. I am going to my gym 3x week

After taking a whole month and getting nowhere, it took me only half an evening to get my list of 5 goals each with the top 10 milestones. Even better, whatever what was blocking me planning out my business just disappeared. I couldn’t stop thinking of action steps for my business! I noted them all down but I was disciplined and picked out the top 10 in order to focus on first.

So now I have two pages of goals and milestones that takes me 1 minute to read through! YAY!

I have taken a highlighter and highlighted the milestones for this month. This then gets broken down into what I need to concentrate on each week (thanks again Dave!). At the end of the month in my monthly review, this list will be updated and rewritten.

Then I realised that something had changed from before, it wasn’t the long detailed action list that I needed, it was a simple focussed list that was missing from my life.

I discovered the force of the power of simplicity - it allows you to tap into the power of focus.

YAY again!

Just wanted to let everyone know that Dave Navarro has a special 3 day sale on his Becoming an Early Riser program. It’s normally $24 but it’s now only $12 for his coaching sessions. Bargain!

I’ve only just downloaded it so I haven’t gone through it yet - however, I’ve done his 30 hours a day program and that was just brilliant - really helped with changing some of my more unproductive habits! (And there are no affiliate links here!). The mp3 format backed up by pdf worksheets is a really effective coaching method.

One of my goals for the year is to consistently wake up at 6am - when I do, I find I just get so much more done! I’m doing it today for example because I’ve got a goals group meeting at 7am but that’s the exception.

Okay, have to rush off to that meeting - here’s the link: http://www.30hoursaday.com/earlyriser/

EDIT!: The link for the special half priced offer is http://www.30hoursaday.com/early-riser-special/ as Dave was nice enough to let me know in the comments!

I’m back at the office this week, sigh…. While I do plan on leaving this year I also want to do the best job I can without taking my work home with me (a terrible habit of mine and probably one of the many reasons I end up hating work) - so basically I need to up my productivity there.

Yesterday, I took five minutes to jot down my top tasks for the next day before leaving the office. I’ve heard the suggestion that you should even take out the relevant files for the projects you plan to work on the next day and spread them out, in your allocated order, on your left hand side. I didn’t do that but I did make sure my desk was in a tidy state so that the next morning I could plonk myself down and be ready to go.

I just watched this little video on how planning the day the night before really works:

The idea is that you subconsciously reinforce and brainstorm your plans overnight. I’m not so sure about that (especially if you’re not doing it just before you sleep). Rather I think it’s a good way of getting closure on your tasks and it allows you to relax and enjoy the remainder of the evening. And when you hit the desk the next day, you are focussed and ready to go.

I think another but less commonly talked about advantage is that you get perspectives of two very different frames of mind in assessing your action plan. The end of the day mind frame is often warmed up and connected while the morning mindf rame is clear and objective and perfect to review your plans made the day before.

In any case, my day was the better for it. Try it for a week and see if you notice a difference.

Caroline Middlebrook - one of the most refreshingly honest bloggers on making money online, has just released a meaty ebook that shows you step by step how to develop niche sites with WordPress.

Did you know that it is against the terms and conditions of WordPress.com to run Google adsense on one of their hosted sites? Did you know that you are also not allowed sponsored/paid links?

The solution is to use the free and open WordPress software (sometimes known as the WordPress.org) and hosting it on your own server.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then this is where Caroline’s ebook comes in. With plenty of screenshots, it takes you very gently through the process of setting up your own WordPress site.

It is mainly aimed at the newbie with the following sections:

• Chapter 1: Getting and Installing WordPress
• Chapter 2: Basic WordPress Administration. 10
• Chapter 3: Installing a New Theme. 13
• Chapter 4: Setting up Adsense On Your Site. 16
• Chapter 5: WordPress Plugins. 20
• Chapter 6: Creating Your Site Content
• Chapter 7: Final Thoughts
• Appendix 1: Uploading Using FTP.. 33
• Appendix 2: External Resources.

However, it is also useful to those of us (eg me) who are very comfortable with WordPress but a newbie as far as any monetisation of it goes. The “Setting up Adsense On Your Site” is a tutorial that I’m going to work through as I’ve only ever got part of the way (the setting up of the account part).

Even for seasoned bloggers, it is worth having a look through to pick up some nice nuggets and another point of view. For example, the Creating Your Site Content chapter has a really good tip on how you can make your page both SEO optimised and keeping the title human friendly (ie not packed full of keywords) using the page slug feature. Caroline also provides a list of must have WordPress plugins and how to
install them (for me, the MAIN reason to go with a WordPress
installation rather than a WordPress.com site - even if you don’t want to monetise directly - it gives you so much better, and cooler, customisation options).

Best of all, she is giving the ebook away for free and you don’t even need to register to an email list to get it. How cool is that?!

PS Because I (along with a number of others) had made a small suggestion on her draft, she was even nice enough to list my blog in her acknowledgements!

I’ve been playing with Tweetscan - a search engine that gives you a whole heap of very cool tools to tap into the twitter pulse on the keywords of your choice. It also lets you subscribe to updates via RSS or email.

Privacy concerns aside (like MySpace - all because people have made/left their pages public doesn’t actually mean they necessarily want their stuff to be PUBLIC if you know what I mean), it is a brilliant market research tool - plug in your niche or brand name. Or even more fun, type in a random word that pops in you head and see what the twittersphere is saying about it at any one time. Or type in an adjective like “cool” or “useless” as a quick trend sniffer. Ah the uses are endless…

I found it through John Furrier’s blog, he recommends another couple of Twitter Apps:

Twitter Stats (eek, I originally wrote that as Twitter Tats - how cute!): while this says that it is set up to give you YOUR Twitter feed, there doesn’t appear to be anything stopping you (including any terms and conditions) from checking out anyone else’s twitter stats.

Tweeterboard: Apparently Twitter + Leaderboard = Tweeterboard. It gives you a ranking of the most popular people (from their sample) and popular links (as well as recent links). Worth a poke around.

Also check out Caroline Middlebrook’s now legendary Big Juicy Twitter Guide for many more ways of exploring the marvellous world of Twitter.

I love the idea of a virtual office - it’s an efficient way of getting infrastructure support to let your business grow without the financial commitments of brick and mortar premises.

One service I found this week, and may well try out is gotvmail.com. Got Vmail is a “virtual phone system designed for entrepreneurs”  and allows small businesses to be more professional and streamline their communications.

They have a range of plans but their entry level one is refreshingly generous and useful and doesn’t leave out any functionality (I really hate it when companies are stingy with their entry level plans and leave out vital functionality so you have to fork out the big bucks for a decent product eg most plans by 37signals.com - they have to be one of the most overrated companies on the web). Basically you pay for your usage level not for extra features which is brilliantly fair.

For only $9.95 they give you a toll free or local number (you can get more local numbers if needed) with 5 phone extensions, 50 minutes of included time (additional minutes are charged at 7.4c), call forwarding and music on hold.

But the feature I like the best is the voicemail/fax management where voicemails and faxes are delivered straight to your inbox as mp3s or faxes (so you don’t have to check a voicemail system) - this is worth the $9.95 a month in my opinion.

The US toll free number is also very useful for entrepreneurs outside the States (eg, me!) as it provides a way for their customers (and potential customers) to contact them by a normal phone for free. The call forwarding and extensions means that if you have outsourced parts of your business (eg customer help desk, billing etc) then the calls can be forwarded directly to whoever you’ve delegated that task to (even if they are in a completely different country).

So have you got a great list of goals for this year? How do make sure that you keep moving towards those goals rather than finding the piece/s of paper where you’ve written them down at the end of the year and thinking “oh well, that would have been nice to have achieved that…”?

I’m a big fan of Dave Navarro and just rediscovered his blog. I signed up to his 30 hours a day course a bit over a month ago and I wholeheartedly recommend it (and you’ll note that’s not an affiliate link - I don’t even know if he does them). It’s a little on the pricey side, but it is a very different experience to reading a book. The course is a set of 10 lessons with mp3 coaching, workbooks, templates and exercises. Unlike reading a book, I actually feel compelled to do the exercises and do them properly. For example, I’ve read countless times that I need to track my time as one of the first steps to properly manage my time but I have never done it because it’s a hassle - but now I do it frequently and I’ve lost much of the stigma I’ve had towards it (he provides a simple template that makes it much easier).  I’m about half way through so I’ll do a full review when I’ve finished it.

I got an email from Dave’s list this week called “How To Guarantee You Keep Moving Forward Each Month” and he has four powerful tips to keep you on track.

Tip #1 - Write out your goals for the year, and look at them EVERY SINGLE DAY.

They have to be specific and measurable so you know if you are achieving them or not (and if you’re not, you need to honestly review them - is it not the right goal for you or is there a smarter way of doing it that you’re not seeing?).

Tip #2 - Define monthly milestones, and look at them EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Dave recommends focussing on what you’ve defined as the first milestone and later, the next monthly milestone. This milestone should be broken down so that it’s “incredibly specific”. You can fill out the details of the other milestones when you get to them (after all, it is often action that helps clarify further action).

Tip #3 - Break out a week-by-week plan for January, and look at it EVERY SINGLE DAY.

If you take out the time to plan your strategy and spell out clear actions (not results - that’s the goal not the action plan) then you can put yourself on autopilot. If you know the next step, it gives you one less excuse for not doing it. And if you set regular review times where you do objectively review your actions, you will be have more confidence in going autopilot.

Tip #4 - Have a business accountability partner who will hold you to your goals.

Co-coaching is one of the best ways to keep accountable and get an extra perspective on your strategy. Make sure that any criticism is constructive and that you take it on board!

Dave recommends 30 minutes of anchor time at the beginning of the day where you look over what you have to do and commit to certain actions during the course of the day. I think this is a great time to look over your goals (and if you have a vision board, that too) plus looking over your priority milestones and actions. This shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes and when you go to plan your day, you are much more likely to be taking action towards those priorities than if you had left out this step.

Remember when are looking over these lists in the morning, you don’t have to review (and probably shouldn’t be reviewing) them objectively - save that for your weekly review or if you have an evening review (and journal session). The idea is to quickly scan over them so that you can create the right framework for the day and you can focus your subconscious in the right direction.

Techsmith have been giving away free copies of an older version of their very powerful SnagIt screen capturing program - you then can upgrade to the current version much more cheaply.

While I have used SnagIt and it’s great, it might just be way too hefty for your needs.

For Windows XP, Snippy is a very small and quick program that allows you to do freeform and rectangular grabs from your screen. It copies it to your clipboard and you just have to paste it into an email, Word or graphics program.

Gadwin PrintScreen is compatible with most modern versions of Windows and gives you a lot more options - including saving directly to an image file (rather than going via a graphics editor like Snippy)

If you are on a Mac, you can register for a beta invite (might take a while) for the very clever little program Skitch from plasq, here’s a preview of what it does.

Rob and Elliot, a webcomic, have a funny comic strip on New Year’s Resolutions…

I just reset my ipod shuffle because I thought it had frozen (actually it was because it had run out of batteries - d’oh!). It was filled with old podcasts that I used to have to take ages to flick through to try to find the place I was up to. I was holding on to them because I planned to go over some of the things… Now I have fresh batch of content that it is immediately relevant. It was great getting rid of all the clutter and it was sapping my time trying to find the stuff I needed.

I think the same lesson can be reapplied to my environment and life in general. I am such a compulsive hoarder because I can see the future value in too many things. It’s a good skill to be able to see opportunities - however, it means not seeing the costs. And it is an opportunity cost if you hold on to low value items, ideas, processes etc, you then don’t have the space, energy and time for those things that can provide high value returns.

When I am forced into a process of resetting, I usually find that the gains from losing all that clutter are immense.

From the brilliant xkcd webcomic: