You set your weekly Big 3 goals, but you missed them! What went wrong?
This post was first published on my Medium blog—follow me there for the most up-to-date entries!
Few, if any, of us can accomplish more than three big tasks each week. By that I mean not the mundane tasks, not the dreaded tasks, but the tasks that will truly move us closer to our bigger goals for a better life. That’s why I live by weekly Big 3 goals: distilling a to-do list to three tasks that are timely, aligned to my long-term goals, and high leverage. If you set those weekly Big 3 goals and miss them, it will help to reflect on why that happened. Here are 6 questions you could ask yourself if you didn’t reach your weekly goals.
1. Were my Big 3 too big?
In one breath I’d say that “thinking big” is good. But thinking too big can backfire.
I always say it’s important to start the Big 3 tasks with an active verb. But when I hear members of my Friday Accountability Group articulate their Big 3, I often stop them when I hear a verb that sounds “too big.”
The most disturbing one I hear is “Finish…”
If you plan to “finish” something, you might be setting a goal that’s too big. “Finish” is a tall order. With rare exceptions, every task has several subtasks. Some or many of them might be simple. But often, they take time, or, for one reason or another, get hung up.
Go back and ask yourself, what are the subtasks that would need to be completed before “finishing?” A few words of warning here:
- If you haven’t listed any subtasks, that can sometimes be the root of your problem.
- If one of your subtasks depends on some outside human, material, technological, financial, or material resource, that might be the circumstance that prevents you from finishing. Joe didn’t call you back, so you can’t complete the next subtask that will push you over the finish line.
- Doing backwards planning is one way to force yourself into identifying subtasks. It’s laborious, but if you have a big project with big tasks and subtasks, it’s a critical step.
If you’re thinking too big too soon, that might be why you didn’t reach your weekly goals.
2. Did I underestimate the time needed?
Often, I estimate that a task will take me an hour. I block out the hour.
After wading into the task, however, I realize that it’s probably a 3-hour task. And then I finish in 5 hours. This continues to happen to me — and probably to you. I won’t say there’s some bullet-proof solution. But I am consoled by the fact that my estimates have gotten better over time.
The most famous under-estimation involved the Sydney Opera House. The estimated cost to build it was $7 million, and the time needed was estimated to be 4 years. It was finished 14 years after construction was started, and the final cost was $102 million.
That shows that even people who are knowledgeable and intentional with their estimates about time and money can be far off. For what it’s worth, my late father gave some good advice about making “estimates.” He was talking about money, but the same could be applied to time. Here it is:
“Make your best guess. Double it. Then add $500.” (I have no idea where he came up with the $500!)
A time-oriented version of that advice might be:
- Make your best guess.
- Double it.
- Add 20%.
There’s no science to that formula. But try it and see if it helps! It has helped me.
I listen to the word machine in my head. When I hear myself saying, “Oh, I just need to do x with that…” it’s a signal that I’m having some magical thinking, or that I’m underestimating the amount of time needed. That’s often the reason I didn’t reach my weekly goals.
3. Did I underestimate the time I have available?
Whereas the above discussion was about calculating the amount of time needed, here, it’s about the amount of time available.
I picked this up from Joel Miller. Think of your day as a suitcase. If you pack a bowling ball and a set of encyclopedias right off the bat, you won’t have room for much else.
Like Joel, my biggest time-sucker-upper is a meeting. Or several meetings.
Ask yourself: What are your other big time-sucker-uppers? Can you modify those activities in some way? For example, unless it’s a sensitive issue, I refuse to run a meeting that’s “for information only.” Instead, I send out a short video.
4. Am I dealing with interruptions, distractions, or other people?
Some would make the distinction between interruptions and distractions; the former being internal and the latter being external. For the moment, the label isn’t important. Interruptions, distractions, and anything that depends on other people can be why you didn’t achieve your weekly goals, and learning to recognize and minimize them can help you stay on track.
Entrepreneur gives several explicit examples, but it appears to me that they all center around three central issues:
- People: kids, bosses, colleagues, and more
- Devices and communication: cell phones (including all the dings and beeps that they emit), email, and social media
- Environment: multi-tasking, background noise or noise outside, clutter. (I’d be curious to know if there’s any data on how much we’re distracted by clutter!)
Usually, we have at least some control over our interruptions or distractions. But we have little or no control over the actions (or inactions) of other people. Recently, a client in my small group said her goal for that week was to get on to a particular podcaster’s weekly show. Great! That’s for sure a high leverage goal! But her goal is at risk for not being accomplished by the end of the week.
As stated, her goal depends on the podcaster receiving the email, accepting her idea and inviting her onto the podcast. Yet, “receiving” is not something my client has much control over. Her inquiry or proposal might get lost in the podcaster’s spam folder. Or the podcaster might receive it but not respond to her until a month later. Hence, a better goal for this week would be “Email my proposal on X to Mr. Podcaster.”
5. How are my motivations and my habits?
Olympic medalist Jim Ryun said,
“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
We’re motivated by rewards or consequences. If you didn’t reach your weekly goals, ask yourself if either of those are out of whack. If you’re not doing what needs to be done, consider what happens if you continue such non-action. If you started but haven’t continued, ask yourself if you’ve developed a strong habit.
If you are truly motivated, have solid habits, and take 100% accountability for your actions and omissions, you’ll get your Big 3 done.
6. Did I plan for some margin?
We might know what “margin” is when it comes to pages in a book or profit margin. But I’m talking about something different. I’m talking about life margins.
Richard Swenson, author of Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives, defines margin thus:
Margin is the space between our load and our limits. It is the amount allowed beyond that which is needed. It is something held in reserve for contingencies or unanticipated situations. Margin is the gap between rest and exhaustion, the space between breathing freely and suffocating
If you find yourself with little margin, re-visit your “Ideal Week.” Todd Duncan, author of Time Traps: Proven Strategies for Swamped Salespeople offers some advice about creating a week that will help you to find ways to find margin.
Consider spending your time the way you spend your money: with a budget, and with categories. As a Full Focus Pro, I suggest three categories for your “budget:”
- Personal: Everything from the dentist appointment to personal banking to showing up at your kid’s soccer game.
- Administrative: Everything from meetings to running payroll to hiring and firing.
- High leverage: Anything and everything that moves you towards the life you’re dreaming of.
By the way, I don’t plan to get many (if any) high leverage activities done on the days when I have meetings. Meetings kill my productivity and creativity abilities.
If you didn’t reach your weekly goals, you might need to improve your margin. Ask yourself these 3 questions:
- What’s killing my planning? Chances are, it’s my underestimation of the scope of the task, the time anyone would need to complete it, and the time I have available to do it.
- What’s killing my execution? Basically, interruptions, distractions, motivations, habits.
- What’s killing my spirit? Lack of margin. None of us can work well unless we have plenty of margin.
Set and accomplish your Big 3 goals every week
I swear by the productive power of setting three big goals per week. But setting them doesn’t do any good if you don’t accomplish your weekly goals. Use these questions to set yourself up for success by setting goals that are as achievable as they are meaningful and start moving your needle today.
From those 6 questions named here, which one is most important for you to ask yourself this week?
This post was first published on my Medium blog—follow me there for the most up-to-date entries!
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