The important stuff we want to accomplish in our lives tends to get pushed aside by the urgent and routine stuff we have to do.

Understanding what the one most important thing is in your life at this moment.

For each part of your life list the most important things you want to accomplish. Prioritize them and pick the top 5. Then forget about the rest. Relegate them to the chaos of life and let them take care of themselves Now from the five, pick the one thing you are going to focus on this month. It will be a part of your big goal that is small enough for you to have a good chance of accomplishing it in a month. Break this months goal down into small steps you can accomplish in a few hours.

Plan to work on this one most important thing for an hour or less every day. If you are not able to fit an hour of concentrated work into your every day's schedule cut back on the time to a half hour or even less. The important thing is you work on it consistently every day. How long doesn't matter. what matters is you don't put it off.



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dchapman3 Premium
I'm pretty good about setting my weekly and monthly goals, but I lack in my daily goals that support the others.

It could be daily distractions or not, but I need to be better at that.

Do you set daily goals or objectives?
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bill808 Premium Plus
Yes, I review my day everyday before I go to bed. Usually early evening because I don't want to do this when I am tired. On the next to the last page of the tutorial I have a checklist of the questions I ask myself. The questions are in three sets:
1. What small step do a plan to do to move forward toward completing my goals
2. What did I actually accomplish, and
3. The psychological aspect of my day. Did I have any negative thoughts, how did I replace that negative with positive action and how do I feel about my day on a 1-10 scale and why. What could I have done better.

You can adapt the questions to your life and what works for you. I have found an application that makes it easy to use this technique to manage mastermind groups and have the group interact on a daily basis.

It is a must have for anyone who wants to facilitate a mastermind.
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dchapman3 Premium
Thanks for the great tips. I'll see how it goes..
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bill808 Premium Plus
I have 5 year goals. I used to set 25 year goals but I'm to old for that. I break my 5 year goals down into annual goals, then quarterly goals, then monthly goals, then my goals for the week and finally daily goals based on my weekly goals.

Be careful not to schedule to much. Three important goals a day is plenty. You gotta leave room for the urgent stuff you have to do and the play stuff you want to do.
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ASpivey1 Premium
I'm a list maker in general for most everything I do. I think it's something about writing things down that makes it harder for me to procrastinate because I have what needs to be done right in front of me. I guess I'm going to have to up my game and start ranking, and outlining things like I did in school so nothing falls by the wayside. Oh well, more notepads and good pens as well as continued focus and purpose. Great article and thank you!
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bill808 Premium Plus
Warren Buffet tells us to prioritize our lists. Then pick the top five to work on and let everything else take care of itself. To do lists tend to keep getting longer until they are totally meaningless.
Ben Franklin had 13 values he wanted to live his life by. He would concentrate on one value each week and continually cycle through them. By focusing on a value a week he would build habits around each value.
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bill808 Premium Plus
Check out bullet journalling. I find it is a great help.

Warren Buffet recommends writing out your to-do list, prioritizing you list, and then picking the top five tasks to work on. Leave the rest of your list to the chaos of life. Most of them will either take care of themselves or become irrelevant over time.

When you finish one of your important tasks pick the one most important thing in your pending list and move it up to you action list.
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RizaPelaez Premium
Great advice! I always fail to follow through on my goal setting. But now I realized my mistakes and will keep it up and follow your training. I think the key here is being consistent. The more I feel like procrastinating, the more I should work hard and do it!
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bill808 Premium Plus
Most of us don't even realize we are procrastinating.
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Trujunco Premium
Simple, powerful post. I know this works...I have followed your advise in two of the five important things in my life and have accumulated over consecutive 200 days in each.

I didn't initially catch the importance of this but realize the brilliance of keeping it simple. I know of others that are a whole lot better...

Thanks Bill, I appreciate that you found it important to share your secret
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bill808 Premium Plus
Like most secrets its common sense better shared.
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BooBish Premium
Yes, picking one thing to focus on for a month (to accomplish or gain traction on it) seems like a good method.

Yet another method I like that I started implementing effectively just over the last week is the one goal a day method: http://www.onesimplegoal.com/tips
Using this method, I finally got myself to do one thing I've been putting off for ages, i.e., meditate (using YouTube guided meditation video). And yesterday, I finally got myself to figure out how to use a drill.

One thing that doesn't work for me is trying to stick to a schedule. Though a schedule might work for some people, I seem to be resistant to any fairly rigid structure.
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bill808 Premium Plus
There is a difference between scheduling your time and blocking out time to do stuff. I schedule appointments with Doctors. I block out an hour a day to work on important stuff, 3 hours to work on the urgent stuff I have to do and the rest of the day I respond to all the stuff that comes up that has to be taken card off.

The one goal a day method for me is when I pick the important task I am going to work on that day that will move me forward toward my goal.

Meditation fits into the routine activities I do every day. I work in 30-6- minute chunks and take a five minute break in between. I meditate, lift weights, go for a walk or pull some weeds and then go back to whatever time block I need to work on.

Main thing distinguish between the urgent stuff imposed on you by others and the important stuff that will keep you moving forward toward your goals.
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BooBish Premium
Well, I might try another method of scheduling, such as blocking out time, but I've written and revised schedule various times and think I have a pretty good schedule, yet I don't find myself working with it.

In terms of meditation, it's not a routine activity if it hasn't been made a habit yet. Often the first plunge into a new thing is the hardest, and meditation is basically new to me, even though I've been "intending" to do it for a long time. But when there's 20 other things I've also been intending to do, that's why I wind up putting everything off. Making a point of just 1 thing a day gives more clarity and focus.

Eventually, though, meditation should be a routine activity.
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bill808 Premium Plus
Many people, including me, hate being controlled by a schedule. There is a difference between scheduling your day and blocking out time each day to work on important stuff.

My single goal for the day is a small step I can take that will help me reach my weekly goal. My weekly goal is the larger step that will help me reach my monthly goal.

Sometimes the Urgent stuff gets in the way and I don't get to the important stuff till evening.
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HennieSteyl Premium
Hi Bill, Thanks for explaining this so clearly.

Setting daily goals are so very important. That way a dream can become a reality.

I have created a similar training that you can have a look at. I will edit my training to reference yours. Hennie
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bill808 Premium Plus
Thank you. I have been a proponent and user of Management by Objectives since I was first introduced to MBO in the late 70s. The system has evolved over the years. You lay it out very well and it works for big projects that you are working on every day.

What I am trying to address is the most important stuff in the various segments of our lives that tends to get pushed aside and forgotten. The dreams of childhood tent to get forgotten as we settle into jobs and caring for our family.

An example, I have not completed Boot Camp because I have been concentrating on building, promoting and monetizing my websites. I realize that to accomplish my goals for my websites I have to complete Bootcamp and apply what I learn to my websites. I am now applying what I learn in Bootcamp to just one of my websites. By concentrating on one website, I have more time to study and implement what I learn in Boot Camp.

We have to learn to say no becausse when we say yest to one thing we are saying no to another and that other is usually the most important thing in our lives.
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bill808 Premium Plus
Id like to do the same for you but I cannot figure out how to edit my training. Can you help?
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HennieSteyl Premium
Thank you for laying it out so clearly, Bill. I realy like the way you explained it to us. That is why I refer to this training on mine.
Hennie
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HennieSteyl Premium
Click on the little gear icon on the left. You can edit your post from there. Thank you.
Hennie
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