I had lost one set of car keys 24 months ago and since that day, I wanted to develop a spare key. However since I had the master key, it was not a priority to get it done. Also there was this financial dashboard which I was planning to develop for tracking my investments in a systematic way. Both these task were always on ‘to do’ list forever, simply because they were not urgent. Only last year within a span of one month, I could manage to get it both done within 30 days using a technique that I learnt and put it into practice successfully. This technique has helped me accomplish most of the things I want since then not just restricted to important not urgent tasks. And today I wanted to share the same technique. Its about getting things done.

Period.

If there is one word to define me it would be a ‘doer’. I have always focused on getting maximum things done, and have been quite successful.

There is no high greater than that of accomplishing a goal which you planned.

All my life, I have been absorbing information related to productivity and art of getting things done. But reading about it is one thing , to put it into practice is another.

We would all agree that most of the times, we plan something but it remains just that, a plan. Be it a small task like cleaning the cupboard to a major goal like starting your own blog or business. These plans remain forever, until we are forced with external triggers.

However I consider myself better than most of the people in this regard and have improved over the years further due to my relentless focus on improving my productivity . And today I wanted to share my secret of how to get things done. I believe this is probably the only way to get things done based on my own experience through failures and successes, and most importantly after putting it in practice. It works well both for large goals or simply mundane task which remain in your to do list forever.

The game plan to getting things done is simple. But extremely hard to follow. But again it is 100% effective.

It basically boils down to 3 step process

Clear Goal Setting + Planning + Formal Review

1. Goal Setting

A goal is nothing but a promise made to yourself. We can have mini goals or major ones. Small ones like getting a duplicate car key which is not urgent but important and major one like starting a blog.

I found that if you write down your goal/task , either in a book or simply excel or any software there is a much higher chance of it being getting done. When you write something down its like a more formal promise to yourself. You become more accountable. 50% of your task is accomplished if you write it down. 100% of what i have accomplished in by writing stuff down.

Second, its easier to get things done, when what you want to do is clearly defined. As its said, make your goal SMART. Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Timely. The more clear your goal is, the better the chances of it being achieved. It’s best to break your goal into smaller task. That would have a higher probability of it being getting done. If you have a small task to achieve then you might list it as is. But if its a large goal like reducing weight by 5 kg. You can plan for reducing 1 kg every 15 days and a plan for the same.

2. Plan.

Next stage is breaking down the goal into clear actionable task. Some of your goals may be task in itself, like cleaning the cupboard. You just have to do it, you slot a time for it and get done with it.

For larger goal such as losing weight or starting a blog, you may want to take baby steps. Like for a blog, you may list down topics you want to focus on , start by reading material on how to setup a blog, or contact an agency for the same.

Once you break down your task into actionable steps, you know exactly what you want to do and that comes in very handy for the next and the most important stage. Review.

3. Review

This is the crucial stage on which everything depends. This is what is not shared anywhere. In this stage you actually review your progress, where you reached? Have you been able to move forward as your planned? Are you closer to your goal?

I can assure you that we would have much higher success with our new year resolutions if we take this step seriously. Most of us miss this stage. And because we dont take this seriously, we are not able to achieve our goals.

Its so important to review our progress at frequent intervals. The review can happen weekly, monthly depending on how elaborate the goal is. And it should be a formal one. That means you should open the excel, book or software where you had written your goal and plan and evaluate your progress against that by updated the sheet, book or software. This is crucial. If its in your head it doesn’t work.

But if you do a formal review two things will happen

Either you have accomplished your task . Then you are happy and plan next set of tasks.

If you have not done the task as per plan, it will show up as not done. I color code task not done with red, just to make myself feel so inefficient. And move the task to next week. A few weeks down and if you still dont end up doing, I bet you start feeling bad with all those red line and that will prompt you to complete it . Because as humans we will feel terrible that we are continuously reminded that we have failed on a particular task however small it may be. And that is what motivates us to actually strike it off our list. That helps us to get things done.

When we dont review, we never come to know that. And we are masters of giving excuses of why we couldn’t do it. Some of us may review it informally in our mind say after 6 months, by that time its too late. There is no motivation.

Most of the time a formal review will easily helps get achieve at least 60% of our task which we would have otherwise pushed it for later. Doing is easy part its the plan and the review which is difficult. It took my 4 hours of work to get that duplicate key arranged which I had postponed for a year!

So ideally I write my mini goals in an excel and larger goals on a whiteboard. I try and review this every two weeks. I have found some of the task which earlier I kept postponing for almost 6 months, I managed to complete just by looking at it in a few weeks. Getting my duplicate car keys done and financial dashboard and many more was a direct result of the formal review process. I felt bad looking at my performance in the initial two weeks and thats when I got going and managed to get things done.

As mentioned, using this technique we can get a lot more done and the satisfaction is immense. More importantly we can complete lot of the important but not urgent work which otherwise would never have happened as life passes by.

All the best.

I had lost one set of car keys 24 months ago and since that day, I wanted to develop a spare key. However since I had the master key, it was not a priority to get it done. Also there was this financial dashboard which I was planning to develop for tracking my investments in a systematic way. Both these task were always on ‘to do’ list forever, simply because they were not urgent. Only last year within a span of one month, I could manage to get it both done within 30 days using a technique that I learnt and put it into practice successfully. This technique has helped me accomplish most of the things I want since then not just restricted to important not urgent tasks. And today I wanted to share the same technique. Its about getting things done.

Period.

If there is one word to define me it would be a ‘doer’. I have always focused on getting maximum things done, and have been quite successful.

There is no high greater than that of accomplishing a goal which you planned.

All my life, I have been absorbing information related to productivity and art of getting things done. But reading about it is one thing , to put it into practice is another.

We would all agree that most of the times, we plan something but it remains just that, a plan. Be it a small task like cleaning the cupboard to a major goal like starting your own blog or business. These plans remain forever, until we are forced with external triggers.

However I consider myself better than most of the people in this regard and have improved over the years further due to my relentless focus on improving my productivity . And today I wanted to share my secret of how to get things done. I believe this is probably the only way to get things done based on my own experience through failures and successes, and most importantly after putting it in practice. It works well both for large goals or simply mundane task which remain in your to do list forever.

The game plan to getting things done is simple. But extremely hard to follow. But again it is 100% effective.

It basically boils down to 3 step process

Clear Goal Setting + Planning + Formal Review

1. Goal Setting

A goal is nothing but a promise made to yourself. We can have mini goals or major ones. Small ones like getting a duplicate car key which is not urgent but important and major one like starting a blog.

I found that if you write down your goal/task , either in a book or simply excel or any software there is a much higher chance of it being getting done. When you write something down its like a more formal promise to yourself. You become more accountable. 50% of your task is accomplished if you write it down. 100% of what i have accomplished in by writing stuff down.

Second, its easier to get things done, when what you want to do is clearly defined. As its said, make your goal SMART. Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Timely. The more clear your goal is, the better the chances of it being achieved. It’s best to break your goal into smaller task. That would have a higher probability of it being getting done. If you have a small task to achieve then you might list it as is. But if its a large goal like reducing weight by 5 kg. You can plan for reducing 1 kg every 15 days and a plan for the same.

2. Plan.

Next stage is breaking down the goal into clear actionable task. Some of your goals may be task in itself, like cleaning the cupboard. You just have to do it, you slot a time for it and get done with it.

For larger goal such as losing weight or starting a blog, you may want to take baby steps. Like for a blog, you may list down topics you want to focus on , start by reading material on how to setup a blog, or contact an agency for the same.

Once you break down your task into actionable steps, you know exactly what you want to do and that comes in very handy for the next and the most important stage. Review.

3. Review

This is the crucial stage on which everything depends. This is what is not shared anywhere. In this stage you actually review your progress, where you reached? Have you been able to move forward as your planned? Are you closer to your goal?

I can assure you that we would have much higher success with our new year resolutions if we take this step seriously. Most of us miss this stage. And because we dont take this seriously, we are not able to achieve our goals.

Its so important to review our progress at frequent intervals. The review can happen weekly, monthly depending on how elaborate the goal is. And it should be a formal one. That means you should open the excel, book or software where you had written your goal and plan and evaluate your progress against that by updated the sheet, book or software. This is crucial. If its in your head it doesn’t work.

But if you do a formal review two things will happen

Either you have accomplished your task . Then you are happy and plan next set of tasks.

If you have not done the task as per plan, it will show up as not done. I color code task not done with red, just to make myself feel so inefficient. And move the task to next week. A few weeks down and if you still dont end up doing, I bet you start feeling bad with all those red line and that will prompt you to complete it . Because as humans we will feel terrible that we are continuously reminded that we have failed on a particular task however small it may be. And that is what motivates us to actually strike it off our list. That helps us to get things done.

When we dont review, we never come to know that. And we are masters of giving excuses of why we couldn’t do it. Some of us may review it informally in our mind say after 6 months, by that time its too late. There is no motivation.

Most of the time a formal review will easily helps get achieve at least 60% of our task which we would have otherwise pushed it for later. Doing is easy part its the plan and the review which is difficult. It took my 4 hours of work to get that duplicate key arranged which I had postponed for a year!

So ideally I write my mini goals in an excel and larger goals on a whiteboard. I try and review this every two weeks. I have found some of the task which earlier I kept postponing for almost 6 months, I managed to complete just by looking at it in a few weeks. Getting my duplicate car keys done and financial dashboard and many more was a direct result of the formal review process. I felt bad looking at my performance in the initial two weeks and thats when I got going and managed to get things done.

As mentioned, using this technique we can get a lot more done and the satisfaction is immense. More importantly we can complete lot of the important but not urgent work which otherwise would never have happened as life passes by.

All the best.