The Trap of Ambitious Goals

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I dig the concept man. You made me realise I haven't actually got any clear business goals... they were always so big and generic like 'build a profitable business' that they weren't actionable. I'll use this technique and change that for sure 👍

kangabru

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6 years ago
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  Glad to know you find it useful!
  Would be interested to know how will you rephrase your goals
  
  Jamal Mashal
  
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  6 years ago
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I'm a big fan of setting achievable, consistent goals like this, so nice work putting down a framework here.

How do you know when a micro goal is actually working or not though? I'm always worried that I'll set the wrong ones and will either keep chasing them blindly or give up too quickly.

I think I've done okay giving up at the appropriate times, but I'd be interested to hear what you think.

karlhughes

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6 years ago
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  I began using Notion the same time I start writing the book, so I was testing different approaches. the current approach I have atm is:
  
  Have a micro goal for max 1 month
  
  have weekly goals
  
  each sub-task has a counter next to it (how many days passed since I created the task)
  
  every week I do "housekeeping" I review my weekly progress and pay attention to tasks with the higher counters. it's either I'm procrastinating or the tasks are not a priority and I just send them to the backlog.
  This forces me to keep checking my micro-goals on a weekly basis
  Jamal Mashal
  
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  6 years ago
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For perfectionists, they might want the breakdown to be thorough and correct. So if the goal is big enough, breaking it down to micro goals, this action itself can become a daunting goal. I myself experienced this and procrastinated on breaking down goals.

How do you deal with this?

junji

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6 years ago
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  Very good point. I won't say I'm a perfectionist myself, but I can relate to what you are saying. For example, when used to write before, writing a 500 words post would take me forever because I was thinking its a "micro-goal" and should be done perfectly.
  
  I changed this by telling myself I just need a draft and I will fix it later. At the top of everything I start writing today, I type "Fast, Bad and Wrong" to remind myself this is not the final version and just to get me going.
  
  So I would loop over the "micro-goal" multiple times rather than trying to finish it in one session. And that will give you the chance to get to other micro-goals and keep moving forward
  
  Jamal Mashal
  
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  6 years ago
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