2009 Annual Review: Overview and Outline

This is the first in a series of five articles about my Annual Review. Every year since 2005 I’ve set aside an entire week in December to look back on the previous year and set goals for the next year.

This time I’m taking two weeks (it was an intense year!), but I’m also editing my book and outlining a couple of projects for January at the same time.

Last year I wrote a long post about the review process, and most of the info still applies. I’ll say a few other things here about the why and the how.

Why Is It Important to Plan?

A basic principle of life planning is that you can have anything you want, but not everything at the same time. You may have to give up something to achieve something else – so it’s better to know what’s most important to you in your own version of world domination.

Also, as Donald Miller says in his great new book, meaningful lives don’t just happen by accident. You have to make deliberate decisions at some point. If you know what you value and what you are working towards, it will be much easier to make the decisions.

Thus, I plan.

How Does It Work?

Again, last year’s post is about twice as long as this one and contains more details. But in short, the process can be broken down into three major steps.

Step 1: Review the Previous Year
Step 2: Outline Goals and Overall Focus for Next Year
Step 3: Make Decisions in Support of the Goals and Focus

I spend at least several hours working on each of these steps, especially #2 and #3. Here’s what each one looks like in brief:

Step 1: Review the Previous Year

I start by looking back at the year that’s coming to an end. What went well? What did not go well? I take an afternoon and write down at least 10 items for each category. I also go back and review all of the goals I set during the previous December. How did things work out?

If you’re feeling stuck or haven’t had a previous year’s goals to work with, these questions may help:

What disappointed me?
What surprised me?
Where did I excel?
Where did I fail?

Step 2: Outline Goals and Overall Focus for Next Year

The next step is the heart of the whole review. I go through a big list of categories, ranging from personal and family categories to various career, travel, and growth categories. For each category, I set an overall goal and 3-5 specific, measurable goals. You’ll probably want to make your own category list, but you can see mine from last year as a reference point.

I’ll share an example here from the Writing category:

2010 Writing Goals

Overall:
Write 300,000 words and track progress through white board or spreadsheet.

Specific:
Write 100+ blog posts, oriented towards legacy work (100,000)
Write one book (50,000 words)
Write one manifesto (10,000 words)

Write 6 Special Features (Magazines, Guest Posts, etc.) (6,000+)
Write 8 Oregonian Columns (660*8 = 5000)
Write 15 additional articles for CNN.com, HuffingtonPost, etc. (8,000)

[Plan to complete the rest through products, email list features, etc.]

Towards the end of the week, after I have 30-50 goals set in all the different categories, then I define the overall outcomes. One year from now, what do I want to have accomplished? I usually write this statement as a short paragraph. Last year’s was here:

Outcomes: At the end of 2009 I will have finished the manuscript for my first book and published 100 essays on the AONC site. I will have visited 20 new countries, recovered from my running injury to complete a fourth marathon (or two half-marathons), and built a new 50k/year small business that supports my primary writing goals.

Of course, I also have a number of other goals (30-50 total), but the list of outcomes highlights the big priorities.

Lastly, I choose a theme and purpose for the next year. For me, 2007 was the year of LEARNING as I finished my master’s degree and began this writing project. 2008 was the year of the REVOLUTION as I launched AONC and published A Brief Guide to World Domination. 2009 was the year of CONVERGENCE as I sought to tie together a number of areas of my life that had previously been quite distinct. (I wanted to fully transition to full-time writing without being distracted by a number of other commitments I had taken on.)

The theme and purpose usually comes as a result of the goals. Sometimes you may know intuitively what you need to do, but sometimes it takes a few days to think it through.

Step 3: Make Decisions in Support of the Goals and Focus

Once you know where you’re going, it’s much easier to plan the route. After setting the goals, you can then figure out how to make them happen.

If I have to get to 20 new countries next year, how will I do it? It’s getting harder and harder for me to visit more than two new countries on any given trip, so I’ll need to make some choices in support of the goal. Through two different promotions, I’ve got almost 400,000 new miles from U.S. Airways arriving in the spring. That will help. I’m also setting aside money in a special travel fund, so I don’t get stressed whenever I need to buy a Round-the-World plane ticket (one of my biggest expenses).

If you want to begin a new exercise program, what does it look like? For goals like exercise programs, it’s helpful to be as specific as possible. How many times a week will you work out, and for how long? How will you make sure you’re still doing it in May? What might stand in the way of keeping it going, and what can you do to ensure you don’t stop?

Are you depending on anything or anyone else for one of your goals? If so, it’s not really your goal. You can set a goal of applying to university and doing everything within your power to be accepted, but in the end, someone else will make the decision. It’s usually better to make sure the goals you set are within your control, so that you can take personal responsibility in making them happen.

Does it feel right? (When you look at what you’ve written, do you think “Yes! This is me!”?) Is there anything incongruent or missing in your plan? You know yourself better than anyone else does, so a quick gut check of everything you’ve outlined is helpful.

Note, however, that a certain amount of challenge and risk is good. You should feel a bit challenged by the goals you’ve set. If there’s not any chance of failure in at least some of your goals, consider rethinking what you’re really trying to accomplish. Maybe you can do more than you originally thought.

What If You Feel Resistant to Goal-Setting?

Lastly, I know that some people are generally resistant to this kind of active life planning. Why not take life as it comes? they say. You can’t plan for everything.

My sense is that people who are resistant to goal-setting may be looking at the wrong kind of goals. Goals should be personal and liberating, not generic or constricting. If you decide later that you don’t like something you put on your original list, you can always change it – but most years, you won’t have to do that very often.

My life is fairly structured in the sense that I know what I’m working towards, and I’ve made a number of sacrifices to achieve the goals I’ve set – but for the most part, I don’t feel like it’s restrictive in any way. I can wake up when I want, travel overseas for 12 weeks a year, spend my afternoons in coffee shops, and so on. If I wanted to do something different, I would – but as long as I keep challenging myself to take it up to a higher level each year, I’m fairly happy with how things are going.

That’s what it’s all about, and beginning the Annual Review five years ago was probably the most important process that’s helped me get to where I am now.

I’ll be working on this year’s version over the next two weeks. You’re more than welcome to join me in setting your own 2010 plans, using my model or your own way. Just remember: you have to make deliberate decisions at some point, and meaningful lives don’t happen by accident.

Warning: Don’t Just Read this Post

I’d love for you to share your ideas in the comments here, but don’t keep them here. Consider posting your plans up on your own blog, with a link to this post (if you’d like) so that others can do the same. I’ll post all the blog trackbacks at the bottom of this article, but it may take a few days due to my limited internet access this week.

Happy planning!

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