setting goals by sarah buerger & dr chris stout

SETTING GOALSATI WOMEN IN TECH

AUGUST, 2017

PRESENTED BY SARAH BUERGER & DR CHRIS STOUT

GOAL

/ɡōl/

• the object of a person's ambition or effort; an aim or

desired result

• the end toward which effort is directed

•a desired result or possible outcome that a person or

a system envisions, plans and commits to achieve

TYPES OF PEOPLE--#1

Goals? Who needs goals? I like to fly

by the seat of my pants!

TYPES OF PEOPLE--#2

-Don’t need to write them down—they are all

in my brain!

-akin to building a house without a

blueprint

TYPES OF PEOPLE--#3

-Why bother writing them down, everything is going to

change anyway?!

-How can you course correct if you don’t know where you

are going?

TYPES OF PEOPLE--#4

-I don’t know how to articulate my goals

LIFE BALANCE

Sorry! We can’t have it

all—at least not at the

same time!

SMART GOALS

Not SMART: Provide project management support for all

Team Dry Needle projects

SMART: Delivery Project X within budget, scope and

schedule as approved by IT Steering Committee:

Budget: $1.3M

Scope: 15 pilot clinics

Schedule: by 9/30/2017

SETTING GOALS IS A SKILL—AND YOU CAN LEARN IT

You need a system

• Set

• Achieve

• Celebrate

• Consider all of the areas of your life: Health, wealth, relationships, finance, career

growth, personal growth, making a difference

• 3% of people in the world set goals

I’LL BE DISCUSSING…

• Work/Life “Balance”

• Productivity

• Organization

• To-do (Micro and macro) Lists

• To-Don’t Lists

• Goodies and tools.

WORK DOESN’T “VS.” LIFE

• I strive to have systems and structures in place (and constantly tweak, learn, add/shed) that I think are mutually beneficial to many aspects of my life —which includes:

• Relationships (family, friends, colleagues),

• Health (exercise, diet, sleep),

• Habits and approaches (“hacks,” tools, auto-pilots),

• Writing (personal journal, LinkedIn, scientific papers, love notes),

• Learning (parenting, professional education, intimacy),

• and the list goes on...

WORK DOESN’T “VS.” LIFE

• Most everything in my life is like an overlapping Venn diagram, BUT I have found that the amounts of overlap will vary “seasonally.”

• Think of an athlete and the various regimens s/he goes through depending on whether one’s sport is in season.

• When it's training time, workouts change, diet changes, stressors change.

• When one is playing, workouts change, diet changes, stressors change.

• And when one is in the post/off-season, workouts change, diet changes,

stressors change.

WORK DOESN’T “VS.” LIFE

• In life, this is paralleled with lifestyle changes:

• Studying for finals,

• Having a newborn,

• Preparing for a big presentation to a group of VCs…

• All of which are time-limited, stressful, and may cause a lack of sound

sleep.

• Once past (“post-season”), things can begin to return to a less stressful

phase, with new priorities manifesting that need to be dealt with

• This is why I think life is more about “ratios” rather than “balance.”

DEVELOP A SYSTEM AND PROCESS THAT WORKS FOR YOU

• Iterate and tweak as need be

•Use whatever tech/tools suites your fancy• I like electronic for calendar• I like ink and paper for To-Do• I like Bullet Journals and Moleskin for Projects• I like Word for Macro.

“THE LIST”

• There’s a magic of writing that turns abstract ideas into

Concrete

Actionable

Tangible possibilities

SO YOU WANT TO BE AN ASTRONAUT…?

SOME OTHER INSPIRATIONS/TOOLS

MY LIFE LIST: MACRO

VARIOUS WAYS TO GET THERE….

• Many people have it backward— they design their ambitions around their

life, rather than designing their life around their ambitions.

• What are the things you absolutely must do before you die? Start there.

• Then design your life around those things. Or as Stephen Covey explained

in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, "Begin with the end in mind."

• A simple mental exercise that may be helpful is imagining you only have 30

days to live. What would you do in those 30 days?

• Now imagine you have five years to live. What would you do during those

five years?

• Twenty years ago, Kevin Kelly, on the very first edition of This

American Life, described the experience of what he did when he acted

like had six months to live.

• This then led him to use actuarial data to estimate his longevity

(which can be tweaked higher or lower based on your health, lifestyle,

and family history if so desired).

• So let’s say I’ll live another 30 years. I can convert that into a specific

date by using the Date Duration Calculator. Creepy? Perhaps a little.

But what a sobering motivator!

INCREMENTAL PROGRESS APPROACH• “People often overestimate what they can accomplish in one year. But they greatly

underestimate what they could accomplish in five years.” - Peter Drucker

• Many people can’t follow through on the things they really want to achieve

in life because they are obsessed with the big picture, instead of keeping an

eye on the crucial, tiny daily actions.

• The problem with big goals is that they can be intimidating. The picture can

paralyze you into inaction.

• But if you start focusing on an incremental system designed to help you take

action daily, you can easily make 10x progress over time

• Consistent action coupled with time guarantees lasting progress.

LASTING PROGRESS IS INCREMENTAL

• Many people underestimate the power of incremental progress. They think

they have to take massive action to achieve anything significant.

• In “The Compound Effect: Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success,”

author Darren Hardy says:

• “Small, Smart Choices + Consistency + Time = RADICAL DIFFERENCE”

• In order to get what you want, you have to choose one direction and move

towards it, constantly improving over a prolonged period of time

• You can write a 50,000-word book in 100 days if you focus on one 500-word

piece at a time.

SOME TIPS TO HELP YOU COMPLETE YOUR TO-DO LIST

LIMIT IT TO SIX THINGS A DAY

• As James Clear wrote, the idea isn’t that six is some sort of magic

number, it’s that by imposing a limit on the amount of tasks on your

to-do list, you’re forced to make tough decisions about what’s

important and what’s not.

• Also, the idea of tackling a to-do list of six is a lot less overwhelming

than a to-do list of 20–which means you’ll be less likely to

procrastinate.

DIVIDE IT INTO SECTIONS

• There are certain tasks that are just easy to do one after another, and

others require a complete switch in thinking.

• If we’re interrupted by a phone call when we’re heads down writing a

report, it’ll probably take us awhile to get back “in the zone” after that

phone call, and as a result we take much longer to complete our task

because we need to allow time for brain transition.

• This is why lumping similar tasks together make sense; you’ll get

more done in less time that way.

• Example, divide tasks between:

• “digital quickies” (like emailing someone or making dinner reservations),

• “work” (writing, reporting, and pitching stories) and

• “real world” (personal errands like laundry or grocery shopping).

TRY TIME BLOCKING or CHUNKING

• Maybe you’re just not a “list person,” or you find it difficult to break

down “making progress on that big project” to smaller to-dos.

• You could try abandoning lists altogether, and instead dedicate

chunks of time for certain work instead.

• You can devote time slots to certain work rather than make her way

down a long list.

Not all to-dos are created equal

MY TO-DO LISTS AND LOGS: MICRO

Another great

prioritization method

HOW ABOUT YOU…?

• Who has a goal, or two or twenty?

• How many of you have written them down?

• Who else knows about them?

HOW ABOUT YOU…?

• Who has a to-do list?

• What format or approach works well for you?

TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES…

• Inventory your dreams

• Estimate when to achieve them/timeline them

• Pick the 5 most important for this year

• Evaluate your five key goals thru your filter.

• Make a list of the most important reasons you are ready to

achieve these goals

• List 3 – 5 times in your life you were totally successful

• What kind of person do you need to become to achieve your

outcomes?

ONCE YOU HAVE A GOAL, ENVISION IT AS FULLY AS YOU CAN

• How does it…

• Look

• Smell

• Feel

• Taste

• Sound

• Is it what you expected/wanted?

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• Write a few paragraphs about what prevents you from what you want

• What’s your “why”?

• Develop a strategy and/or a system

• Put goals together to support each other

• Take action.

PARADOX

• Goal not per se to achieve it, but rather the pursuit

• “Processional Effect”

• Without goals, emotions can become more variable, and

people risk becoming unhappy.

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HAVE A SYSTEM

Pain: Going to the gym 3-4 times a week is a goal. Exercising 3-4 times a week can feel like punishment -especially if you overdo it because you’re impatient to get results. Then gym = pain.

Eventually you will find yourself “too busy” to keep up your 3-4 days of exercise. The real reason will be because it just hurts and you don’t want to do it anymore.

Gain: Instead, think of exercising 3-4 times a week with a system of being active every day at a level that feels good, while continuously learning about the best methods of exercise for you.

Then you are training both your body and psyche look forward to the psychological lift you get from being active every day.

Next, it becomes easier to exercise than to skip it - no willpower required, and you can build from that foundation

That’s a system.

Scott Adams: using systems instead of goals. For example, losing ten pounds is a goal (that most people can’t maintain), whereas learning to eat right is a system that substitutes knowledge for willpower.

NOT-TO-DO LIST/TO-DON’T LIST

• Prieto Principle: 80/20 Rule

• Evolution from “Yes to everything” to only “HECK YES..!!!” or it’s “no”

• Helps to become clear(er) on what your priorities are

• Your to-do list will become more useful

• Travel Tips and Hacks

• Tools and approaches for better managing your finances and investments

• Productivity tools

• Fitness

• Managing your relationships

• Leadership

• Tools to increase your creativity

• Ways to get rid of bad habits, and ways to foster helpful ones

• Methods to overcome difficult situations

• Career tips galore…

“POX OF THE ‘UNTILS’...”

• Until I finish school

• Until I pay off my loans

• Until I get married/divorced

• Until I lose 10 pounds

• Until I …

Wanna know what I think is even cooler…?

Just over a month later,

John Landy Aus shaved almost two seconds off

Bannister’s time.

And you know what?

Over the course of the following few

years, 19 others ran sub-4 minute miles.

19..!

How come?

What took so long?

WEBSITES NOTED HEREIN:• Chris’ stuff http://DrChrisStout.com

• Countdown timer: https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/create

• Goddard’s Life List: http://www.johngoddard.info/life_list.htm

• This American Life: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/50/shoulda-been-dead

• Chris’ Life List: https://www.slideshare.net/drchrisstout1/the-list-27414319

• Incremental Change: https://medium.com/the-mission/10x-your-results-one-tiny-action-at-a-time-the-power-of-incremental-progress-cda9ed3ff36e

• These Five Tricks Will Help You Finally Complete Your To-Do List: https://www.fastcompany.com/40440153/these-five-tricks-will-help-you-finally-complete-your-to-do-list?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fcdaily-top&position=7&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=07192017

• The Eisenhower Box: http://jamesclear.com/eisenhower-box