Goals - Yr 2021

Being in the IT industry for more than a decade:

• Start of the year: “Goal setting” - you align with your manager on how the year is gona possibly look like
• End of the year: “Self Assessment” - your retrospective of how the year was. Followed by “Performance Feedback” - comments from your peers and manager.

This is really good - a proven/well established process - which works!

On personal front - I have never thought about setting personal goals. Well Hang on! - what about New Yr Resolution? 😜 Oh ya; it just never worked - why? it never had a system. As a huge fan of Atomic Habits book - here is a blog from the author on Goals-Systems - which talks about the system. Below is a snip from it:

If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead - James Clear

In business - goals are usually based on SMART.

But: 3 criteria’s for MY personal goals:

• It should be a Compass
• Be honest about what I want
• Measure the Gain not the Gap ref

Seriously!! how can you be foccussed on achieving a goal if you are not SMART?

well - I would prefer to love and embrace the Journey that the actual destination.

Now lets set some goals:

Fitness:

I started around end of last yr (2020) - but due to the vacation/Christmas season (fantastic food at home 😋) and my fracture - had to drop it (well, stop blaming - you could have done better! 😉). This year I plan to restart and give it a honest try.

System:

• Signed up to Fittr
• Enrolled under a Coach - Mr.HR in Fittr
  • Quantified Nutrition and Workout plan
• Have a buddy - Mr.P
• Blocked 1hr of time on my calender every day for workout

Hopefully Fittr’s system would be able to track my progress and my coach w/ guidance. Expectation: I should be able to look back every month and see some progress. Progress could be anything - starting from loosing weight, to getting in shape, to ripped (ripped! seriously? be honest😁). As it stands today - I am in the obese category - any progress todays being healthy is good enough.

Sports:

I have always loved playing sports - like Cricket, Football and now Badminton, Cycling. But never went for coaching or had any planned schedule. But, always dreamt of playing sports every single day in my life! BTW, I don’t mean - I should have been a sportsman - I was never good at any of them 😉 - just enjoyed doing it.

Cricket requires lot of time investment and Football is too injury prone - So my only option is Badminton and Cycling.

System:

• Signed up a membership - at a badminton academy close to my house.
• Have a bunch of friends who play only on weekends thanks to Rozo
• Combine (alternate) Fitness workout with sports - optimizing time.
• Cycling once a week, with Mr.K

Honestly - just the feel of playing - is all that is required. It has always been a great refresher. Expectation: Sports 2days a week.

Journal:

Started very enthusistically on the Bullet Journal - but dropped it midway 😞.

Looking back: It was hard to manage, as I was throwing too many things at it - starting from adhoc meetings/calls to escalations. I was religiously following the - 2 minutes rule by David Allen - and the same went into the journal.

If it takes less than two minutes, then do it now - David Allen

It was a clutter - and the energy required, at the end of a long day to declutter 😟, lost motivation after a month.

System:

• Update Journal before bed
• email follow up: flag it and leave it in outlook.
• Try use Dynalist

This might be an ongoing thing - which I would need to recalibrate throughtout the year. Expectation: Every re-calibration should be an improvement of the previous state.

Blogs:

Started this last yr(2020). Have not been consistent.

System:

• Future Blog list - would be managed in Journal
• Block calendar time once a week - Saturday afternoon
• One blog per week
  • If I missed, will add a “No Blog week” blog 😝, keeps me accountable

Books:

For a starter like me - Last year was a fantastic year for books and podcast. I should pinch myself - I read 15 books in total i.e. more than 1 book per month 😍. I wish to continue the same momentum.

System:

• Read a non-fiction/non-technical book using Kindle everyday before bed - 10 pages.
• Read a technical book (hard copy) - every day during bfast or lunch.
• Order 2 books every month - lets push the envelope.👍
  • shroff publishers and Amazon

Personal Finance:

One thing that I am pathetic is managing my self finance. Mostly I have been lazy (or) coding was more fun.

I don’t plan to make any drastic changes - but just the knowledge of investing and managing - I belive would be useful.

System:

• Start reading some finance books
• Gather list of getting started books

Conclusion:

Goals are good to know where to go (read Compass). I want to always look back and be happy about the progress made - than being worried about the Gap that is left to achive the goal. Again: enjoy the Journey and the destination would become immaterial.