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Before I begin, I’d like to put in a couple of short updates (which are relevant to the topic): Music: There’s a new Philistine on the Sidewalk track up entitled “Prophets of Doom”! It’s a lot more metallic and claustrophobic than “Contemplate the Evanescence”, but it has a similar droning feel. If you’re familiar with my work under my Forfallen project, you may like this too. Check it out – [http://www.philistineonthesidewalk.net]! Fitness: My weight is currently at 204.8, which means I’ve dropped 5.6 pounds since Monday and 2.4 since the last blog post. The only thing I’ve changed is that I’ve cut my dinner intake in about half. I eat enough to hit the empty spot, then I go to bed. The progress is great, but the hard part is going to be keeping the weight down over the weekend. Wish me luck! With that out of the way, I shall begin. |
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Since my last post on this blog focused on figuring out goals, I decided to make this one about how to achieve them. For those of you that know me personally or that have been following my blog for a while have likely picked up on the fact that I get a lot of things done. I set goals for myself and more often than not, I’m able to achieve them once I really set my mind to doing so. In this post, I’ll give you some tips on how you can do so as well. Defining and Prioritizing Goals The first thing you should figure out is what your goals are. Write them down on a piece of paper (or in a text document on your computer and print them out) and do a revision or two so they’re listed in the order that you want to get them done. You’ll want them on a piece of paper so you have them on something tangible that you can refer back to. Once you do that, figure out what your long-term goals are and figure out what your short-term goals are, then revise again accordingly. Long-term goals should be ones that will take at least 10 dedicated sessions and short-term ones are ones that could be knocked out in a session or two. For example, my long-term goals are generally related to working on albums or websites (and brewing beer this year), whereas short-term goals are ones that are recurring but don’t take a lot of time – doing a striking workout on a weekend, cleaning up clutter, cleaning up page coding, getting a new blog post up, etc. You should focus most of your energy on achieving the top goal on your long-term list, but make sure to schedule in the short-term goals as well. A smaller goal being accomplished will boost the spirits and make it easier to achieve that long-term goal. Another thing I’ve noticed is that over time, the number one goal can move down the list of priority to make way for something else. If you feel that’s the case, revise your list and work on your new number one, since that is the most important thing for you to accomplish at the time. Seeing something through to the end if you’re close to being done (within a few dedicated sessions) is fine, but if that top goal is a long way out of your reach, it’s best to bump it down the list a number or two. Working away at it without giving thought to other things you want to get done will leave you frustrated and potentially lead to burnout. The progress you made on said goal will still be there, provided it doesn’t require regular maintenance. If it does (like maintaining a skill or a weight), make that one of your short-term goals to take care of. Also, space your goals out some if you feel like doing them everyday would be overwhelming. That’s the main reason I blog three times a week instead of five to seven, as I can come up with three topics a week, but any more and I think my head would explode. That, and I’ve got other goals to take care of on the days I don’t blog. Optimizing Time So you’ve got your goals set and figured out what route you want to take to achieve them, now I’m sure you’re wondering how to take advantage of the free time you do have. I know that a lot of folks have full-time jobs (myself included) and certain commitments that take up a good chunk of time. Weekends are definitely essential to goal completion, though time can easily be optimized during the week to help progress towards your goals move right along. One of the big keys that I’ve found is that you make sure that the time that you do your best work is available to you. I used to do most of my work late night/early morning, but I’d get fuzzy-headed and end up with tunnel vision after a while. Then, the distractions came and I didn’t get as much done as I wanted to. I decided to change to working towards these goals in the early morning hours, right after I got up. As it was, I already got a fairly early jump on my day (5:30 AM), so getting up earlier made sense if I wanted to get more done in the morning. I now get up at 3:30 AM and while it’s hard to be a riff monster at that hour, typing blog posts, coding websites, sequencing tracks, and mastering tracks is very doable. Also, if you have any time where you’re idle (say, riding the bus to and from work), that’s a perfect time to achieve some goals. Reading is an easy one to tackle, though I prefer to sequence and master music on my laptop. I’ve got around an hour-long commute round-trip, and that’s plenty of time to get things done. In the past month alone, I’ve set the foundation for six tracks for a collaborative project and am currently working on a seventh. Removing Distractions This one is pretty simple, as all you need to do is make sure to jettison anything that’s not related to what you’re working on. Close your e-mail application and browser, turn off your television, turn off your phone, separate yourself from other people – make it a point to be focused on the task at hand. One distraction I do allow myself is music (no surprise there). As for music choices, I generally won’t be blasting anything with “core” as a suffix while I’m blogging or coding. I’d say that anything instrumental or mostly instrumental will do the trick. I’m partial to ambient music, though jazz works well too. Schedule Time for Fun While having your goals listed, having your time optimized, and having your distractions removed to get your goals accomplished are outstanding feats, you still need to schedule time to have fun. Spend it with friends, veg out on the couch, play video games – whatever you choose. This is the one I have the most difficulty with, but I do enjoy working on most of my goals. I can tell that I need to schedule more fun time as I’m starting to wear down a bit. I haven’t seen any of my friends since MAGFest, and I haven’t touched the games I got for my birthday or Christmas. I do have some video gaming planned this weekend, but it’s a means to an end for starting up [Nintendo-A-GoGo] again. It makes me laugh, it really does. Conclusion I think this should be pretty self-explanatory – define and prioritize your goals, optimize your time, remove all distractions, schedule some time to have fun and you’ll be on your way to achieving your goals in no time. Good luck to all of you! Discuss this post at [The Forum of Jason Vincion]! Posted on January 22nd, 2010. |
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[Avoiding Burnout] [Rediscovering Fitness Goals] [The Will to Succeed] |
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