- 2017 is over, have you achieved your personal annual goals?
- One week into 2018, have you set a new annual goal?
- Are you confident in accomplishing your annual goals for this year?
If one of the answers is not positive, it is necessary to read this book recommended today:
"Just Do It: The Goal Management Method That Lets You Realize Value-Added Quickly" is the second book by Mr. Zou Xiaoqiang (Zou Xin), the author of the classic time management story book "Xiaoqiang Promotion", which focuses on how to formulate and achieve your annual plan.
Teacher Xiaoqiang proposed a landing-style annual planning method :
Break down the annual plan into 6 steps:
- Clarify the vision with a letter five years from now
- Turn vision into goal
- Use SMART principles to clarify your goals
- Generate project plans based on goals
- Develop good habits and rely on the power of habits to advance the plan
- Use the 4D work method to complete daily tasks
Next, I'll take you through a quick tour of the 6 steps in the book Just Do It. But before we get started, let's take a look at why your annual plan is hard to come by.
fake big empty full
Most people's annual plans cannot be realized because of four words: false, big, empty, and full.
False: The goal is not from the heart, but by a momentary stimulus. For example, when you go to work after the New Year, someone says that you have gained two laps of weight, and you immediately make up your mind to lose weight; for example, when you see that so-and-so has developed a vest line, you also set a goal to go to the gym...
Large: The target is out of range. For example, if you read the biography of Steve Jobs, you immediately set a goal for yourself to complete a great product that surpasses the iPod this year; for example, if you see a marathon held in front of your home, you immediately set a goal of running a marathon in a few years...
Empty: There is a goal, but there is no implementation plan. For example, you set the goal of publishing a romance novel this year, but the story, outline, editing, publishing, everything is not arranged...
Complete: greed for more and more complete. In the new year, you will not only publish a novel, but also run a full horse, complete a great product that surpasses the iPod, and train the vest line, and obtain a first-level construction certificate and a teacher's qualification certificate. Want to give 20 public talks...
The goal must come from the heart, and within the scope of ability, there is a plan, and the amount is controlled within the scope that your energy can cover, so that it is easy to achieve.
Clarify the vision with a letter five years from now
What is your life vision?
Try starting with:
- Hourly dreams, such as being a scientist, singer, entrepreneur, imagine what life will be like when the dream is fulfilled
- Your idols, such as Huang Xiaoming, Ma Yun, Mo Yan, Ge You, imagine your life after becoming them
- What you most want to do when you are not financially stressed
- What you most want to do when you don't need to meet other people's expectations
- What you want to do most when you have only one year left in your life
Think about it...
Did you figure it out?
If you can't think of it, you can use the method that Mr. Xiaoqiang gave us to dig out your own vision by writing a letter to yourself five years later.
Here is a letter I wrote to myself five years later, describing my vision:
Xiaohui five years later, hello!
You now have your own consultation room, which is on the 1st floor of Building No. 1 in a certain community. The sun shines in through the large glass window in the south, which is warm. There are bookshelves exuding the fragrance of cypress wood on all sides of the house. All kinds of books you like, novels, essays, psychology, inspiration, and workplace, are placed on the bookshelves in different categories.
You are sitting in the cool rattan chair, holding Keigo Higashino's latest novel "That Night Was Like Day", reading quietly, sometimes frowning, sometimes sighing.
When the time for the appointment comes, you and the visitor sit side by side and chat for two hours. When the other person gets up and leaves with confidence, you breathe a long sigh of relief, a rare smile appears on your face, and a trace of sadness fills your heart. joy. At this moment, the noisy cicadas outside the window suddenly became sound.
Your book helps more and more readers, you keep getting letters from them, seeing them in their letters about their changes, you sometimes smile, sometimes nod, sometimes ponder, no matter what, you His heart is filled with emotions such as gratitude and satisfaction.
Due to the popularity of several books, and the sales of online courses have been going well. You have achieved financial freedom and no longer have to worry about financial problems. Every summer and winter vacation, you will travel with your wife and daughter, go to the beach to watch the ebb and flow, go to the grassland to feel the vastness of the world, the rolling sea of clouds, the slowly emerging red sun, and every pure and direct moment. There is a touch of joy.
When we write our vision, it is best to describe a state of life and add the five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch) to form a picture. Such a vision will have a powerful attraction to you, and may even make you want to cry.
Don't worry that the vision you write now may change one day in the future. The original vision is to change with the increase of your life experience. When you were a child, you may want to be a scientist. When you grow up, you may feel that you are an obstetrician. The doctor helps the mother to give birth smoothly and better. These are all good visions, just choose from your heart.
You can also make your own vision board based on this letter and stick it in a prominent place in your home.
Turn vision into goal
Visions are like beacons on the waterway, guiding them. But to turn visions into reality, you also need to turn them into goals.
Please extract the things mentioned in your vision, life status, etc., and fill in the following nine-square grid:
The nine-square grid provided by Mr. Xiaoqiang can support us in sorting out a balanced goal combination, avoiding the occurrence of bad situations such as focusing on career and neglecting family, thinking only about family and not working, focusing only on pleasure and neglecting health.
When turning a vision into a goal, you can follow the three-step method of “ defining, planning, and targeting .”
For example, the vision of financial freedom can be defined first.
In the book "The Road to Financial Freedom", Bodo Fisher, the author of "Puppy Money", divides the financial freedom we often talk about into three levels:
- Financial security: It means that you have a reserve that can sustain your basic living for 6 to 12 months. For example, if your monthly basic living expenses are 20,000 yuan, then if you have a deposit of 120,000 yuan, then you have a 6-month financial security cycle.
- Financial security: It means that your passive income can meet your basic living expenses, but it does not allow you to realize your wishes at will. For example, if your monthly basic living expenses are 20,000 yuan, and your deposit interest is 20,000 yuan per month, you have achieved financial security. But buying a BMW worth 1 million yuan or a mountain view villa worth 10 million is still out of reach. (Note that you cannot use the goose that laid the golden eggs at this time).
- Financial freedom: You have enough assets to generate passive income that not only covers basic living expenses, but also supports your more extravagant aspirations.
The "basic financial freedom" mentioned by Mr. Xiaoqiang in "Just Do It" refers to financial security: passive income is greater than total expenditure.
Once you understand the definition, you can calculate how much money you need to save to achieve financial security. For example, if you spend 20,000 yuan per month, 240,000 yuan a year, and the return on assets is calculated at 5%, then you need a deposit of 4.8 million yuan to achieve financial security by eating interest.
Seeing 4.8 million, I feel so desperate, so desperate, /(ㄒoㄒ)/~~
Next, you can explore the ways you can accumulate 4.8 million yuan in savings: wages, bonuses, dividends...
Note that this is the strategy and means of realizing the vision, which is the plan in the three-step method.
Then you can see what you can do this year: double your salary, change jobs, change to core positions...
Note that the things here are your goals for this year.
Use SMART principles to clarify your goals
An effective goal must conform to the SMART principle.
SMART is the abbreviation of five English words, which are explained as follows:
- S (Specific): The goal must be specific, and it must be based on specific work indicators, and cannot be generalized;
- M (Measurable): The goal must be measurable, the indicators to be measured are quantitative or behavioral, and the data or information to verify these indicators can be obtained;
- A (Attainable): The goal must be achievable and achievable with effort;
- R (Relevant): Some relevance to other goals
- T (Time-bound): The goal must have a clear deadline
For example, "I'm going to learn the Python language this year" does not meet the SMART principle. Because the goal is not specific (what is "learning"), and it is not measurable (if it is not specific, it is usually difficult to measure).
For example, the goal of "doubling the salary this year" is not necessarily achievable. Do you think, if you are doing front-end development in Xi'an, and now your monthly salary is 15,000, will it become 30,000 per month this year? Basically impossible!
So when we set goals, we must ponder more against the SMART principle to see if this goal is effective.
Generate project plans based on goals
Manage each of your goals as a project, and use the project management method to promote the realization of the goal. In this way, the probability of achieving the goal is increased from the method.
Mr. Xiaoqiang loves Gantt charts. He mentioned it in "Xiaoqiang's Promotion" and used it again in this book "Just Do It":
On this picture, Mr. Xiaoqiang has drawn all the annual goals, which goal will be completed in what time period and what the progress is.
In the actual annual plan, it may not be so simple because of the goals, such as writing a novel and traveling to Phuket. These two goals are actually quite slow and complicated, and each can be decomposed into several sub-tasks. Each subtask has a time box...in which case it may be more appropriate to manage each of the more complex goals as a project.
Given this situation, Just Do It provides a tool to analyze goals from two dimensions:
- simple-complex
- vague-specific
After analyzing Mr. Xiaoqiang's annual goals with this tool, the diagram is as follows:
You can also use this tool to group your goals into groups, pick out more complex goals, and manage them as separate projects.
For simple and specific goals such as tattoos and experiences, there is no need for complicated plans, just set a schedule reminder. For complex goals like writing a book or developing a checklist app, you need to make a concrete and actionable plan.
So, how do you go from goal to plan?
"Just Do It" provides a "reverse decomposition method" (similar to the top-down method commonly used in software development).
Teacher Xiaoqiang took writing a time management book as an example to demonstrate the use of backward decomposition method.
- The goal is to “publish a time management book by November”…
- To achieve this goal, it will be on the shelves of various bookstores in November...
- To be on the shelves, you should go through the publishing process first. Calculated in one month, it will be published in early October...
- If you want to publish, you must submit the manuscript first, about the end of September...
- To submit the manuscript, it must be finished by the end of August (leave one month for revision)...
- To finish writing a 100,000-word book by the end of August, and to write 1,000 words a day, it will take 4 months, and then start writing in March...
- If you want to start writing in March, then in January and February, you will have to organize materials, contact publishing companies, and accumulate cases.
- ……
In this way, the plan is roughly as follows:
When using the backward decomposition method, you need to pay attention to 2 points:
- to keep pushing until now
- The more it is now, the more clear the specific action plan
Let's deduce the goal of "developing a list app" with a backward method:
- From the results, the first node is: release the app on Google Play in December.
- To be released, it must first: complete the test of the app at the end of November.
- To complete the test, it must first: complete development by the end of October.
- To complete the development, it must first: complete the design by the end of August.
- To complete the design, it must first: define the function at the end of July.
- To define the function, it must be first: define the problem at the end of June
- To define the problem, a user needs analysis must be completed by May.
- ……
But in reality, a lot of the time you've done a project breakdown and you're still... at a loss and don't know how to do it! This is because many things in a project that you have not done before are complicated and vague for you, not simple and specific enough.
So at this time, you need to do what Mr. Xiaoqiang calls "project resolution". Projects can be resolved along two dimensions:
- How can we make this easier?
- How can I make this more concrete?
How to do it can only be explained clearly with examples. It would be too long to excerpt the original text... Please refer to the dialogue between Lao Fu and Xiaoqiang in "Just Do It".
3 steps to develop good habits
Many people can make annual plans, but they often put them where they are after they are done, or give up after three or a few days of implementation. There is a large part of the reason for this: not developing good habits.
Therefore, Mr. Xiaoqiang dedicated a chapter on how to develop a good habit.
This section begins with an introduction to the four stages of habit building:
Then it introduces the habit loop mentioned in The Power of Habit.
These two steps are the theoretical support for cultivating habits.
The third step is to develop habits.
Teacher Xiaoqiang first introduced a habit selection table, let us choose the habit that we really want to do and can do to cultivate:
This table introduces 3 key elements to consider when choosing a habit:
- Pain : Which pain does this thing solve for me? The pain level is from shallow to deep, and can be scored from 0 to 10 points.
- Enthusiasm : What motivates you to do this? How intense is it? The intensity ranges from shallow to deep, and can be scored on a scale of 0 to 10.
- Timing : Now is the right time to do this. From not suitable to very suitable, you can give a score of 0 to 10.
Once you've scored, you'll know what habit you really want to form.
Once you've selected the habit you want to cultivate, you can use an initiation ritual to reinforce the habit. The book gives a habit-building card:
The next step is to develop a step-by-step plan.
Finally, it is necessary to record faithfully and give positive feedback.
4D working method
When the plan doesn't come to fruition, our excuse is often - we don't have time. But in fact, after in-depth analysis, Mr. Xiaoqiang found that:
- You don't have time, you don't have energy.
- It's not that you don't have time, you don't have a lot of time.
- It's not that you don't have time, it's that you don't do it right away.
So, in response to these, he proposed a 4D work method:
You can use the 4D work method to make lists, and you can organize your daily affairs in good order:
When you can get your daily plan in order, you have time to implement your annual plan.
However, some people will say: there are always a bunch of unexpected situations that disrupt my plans, and the arrangements I make are useless!
Teacher Xiaoqiang understands you very well. He uses a picture to show you how to deal with sudden disturbances:
Do things by the system
If you can think through this book and put it into practice, you will establish a system to achieve your goals and advance to the ranks of masters. Because, ordinary people do things by feeling, and experts do things by system.
Go! Start your New Year's resolutions!
"Just Do It" Jingdong purchase link: https://item.jd.com/12285572.html .
"Programmer's Growth Lesson" Jingdong purchase link: http://item.jd.com/12243573.html .