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Introduction Cynthia Lee, Philip Bobko, Christopher Earley & Edwin Locke; “An empirical analysis of a goal-setting questionnaire”; November 1991; Journal of Organizational Behavior. Edwin Locke & Gary Latham; “New Directions in Goal-Setting Theory”; October 2006; Association for psychological science. Mathew White, Gavin Slemp & Simon Murray; “Future Directions in Well-Being”; 2017; Springer publishing. Paul Foos, Joseph Mora & Sharon Tkacz; “Student study techniques and the generation effect.”; 1994; Journal of […]

Remember the phrase “success leaves clues”? After life failed on him twice, Hal Elrod tried an exercise: he wanted to see what successful people do differently and model his actions after theirs. But Elrod took it a step further. He didn’t select one mentor to research — he selected dozens. Elrod studied all the successful people he admired, and found patterns of habits and routines that were common among many of […]

Time management refers to numerous skills and techniques that can help a person make use of available time in the most efficient and effective ways possible. Doing so raises the chances of accomplishing tasks, goals, and projects within a predetermined period of time. Time management is not just prioritizing tasks, planning, scheduling, organizing, and delegating. Time management includes analyzing time spent on different activities and monitoring processes to improve efficiency. […]

We know that celebrating successes is important. But I want revisit this theme, as it’s crucial to long-term success. We naturally punish ourselves for bad behavior. We usually don’t have any problem feeling guilty about a poor performance. It doesn’t matter how small the screw-up was — we almost always feel bad about it. But when we accomplish a small goal, we seldom feel good about it. There’s a paradox […]

You can fail once, or you can fail a hundred times. Chances are that it will be closer to the latter. You never know on which attempt you’ll reach your goal. Stephen King was rejected by 30 publishers before he finally found someone willing to publish his first novel. Imagine if he had given up at number 29. Put 100% in every attempt in when you set out to achieve your […]

Procrastination is delaying or postponing a task. We all experience it often, but why do we do it? What causes us to avoid things we know we are supposed to do? Procrastination can pull even the best-intentioned among us in the wrong direction. To be able to explain why, it is important to first explain the phenomenon of “time inconsistency,” used in the field of behavioral psychology to refer to the […]

There are plenty of things waiting to distract you from reaching your goals. Here are a few tips to help you keep your focus: Learn to say no: I had the tendency to always say “yes” when someone asked me for help or advice. But I realized that I was doing myself — and my goals — a disservice by putting others first. There is nothing wrong with being a […]

Another crucial aspect in making long-term progress toward your goals is measurement. Human minds are designed to crave feedback, and one of the biggest motivations is experiencing evidence that we are doing well. Measurement is critical for effective goal-setting and achievement. When you measure your progress, you get insight about your progress. The things we measure are things we can improve. There are a few techniques for setting measurable goals. […]

When you open the OKR spreadsheet, the overview page contains all objectives, sorted into four tabs with objectives and Key Results per quarter. This overview page refers to all the different tabs within the spreadsheet. When you start filling in the tabs, the overview page updates automatically. The overview page is there to give you insight into your progress — displayed in the column showing a summary of the underlying […]

Make sure you have your One Page Life Plan within reach when filling in your Personal Goals Spreadsheet. Go through this chapter and review the scientific information on setting personal goals. This review will help you set your own goals. You are free to use the spreadsheets I have created, but you can also make your own version of it. Tip: when you work in a specific field in the […]