We are steadily approaching the end of the year. How are your year goals going? Will you finish them by the end of the year? Some things to start thinking about as the days left are getting less and less rather fast. When you put it like that you suddenly get a new perspective. Knowing that the year is coming to an end I thought it was best to start looking at the things I must definitely accomplish, complete and/or finish this year. Normally I do this December 1st but since that creates such a rush feeling I decided to do start my end of year goals list earlier.
What You Need To Make Your List
– To-do list of this year
– Sheets of paper (lined or blank)
– Pens
– Markers (Black and Colored)
Recommended: Establish What You Want To Accomplish This Year
Step 1. Recategorize Your Year Goals
The first thing you need to do is to get your list of things that you set out to accomplish in this year. To make you smile, first look at the ones you have already crossed off. Yeey you and yeey me! Now that we’re in a good mood let’s get to work.
Grab yourself a sheet of paper. Write on top of one side of the paper, ‘’Yet to start’’ and on the other ”back” side ‘’Already started”. You can also fold the sheet in half so you can have the new lists side by side. I would suggest then to use A3 paper instead of A4 as you will have to know for sure that you will have enough room to write all your goals. How much room you need heavily depends on what all got crossed of in the step 1.1 of recategorizing your goals.
Now look at the goals that didn’t get crossed of in the very first step and categorize them in the aforementioned categories; ‘’yet to start’’ and ‘’already started’’. It goes without saying that in the category ‘’yet to start’’ are the goals you have not started working on yet and ‘’already started’’ has the goals which you are currently working on.
Step 2. Prioritizing The Year Goals
Here is where things get hard. You have to start thinking about two things:
- What do you want to finish this year?
- What can you finish this year?
These questions will determine which of the goals in either category will get highlighted to be shortlisted for completion in the current year. Now I can hear you thinking why is there a difference between want and can accomplish. The normal song is whatever you set your mind to one can accomplish. Sure in theory but in practice there are more things to take into account which we will look at in step 3.
For now what you need to is look at each goal in the list ”yet to start” & ”already started” and ask yourself the questions stated above. If you can answer yes then highlight them. If the second question is an ”I think so”, highlight the end of year goal but with a different color as we’ll take care of it in the upcoming steps.
Now of course I know that all goals will probably get a yes when passing question number one. Makes all the sense in the world. However you have to also ask yourself:
What is the added value of completing the goal this year vs next year?
With this question you’ll be zeroing in on goals that deserve to be end of year goals because their completion before December 31st actually makes a difference in your life that is important this year.
2.1 Goals Prioritizing Example
For example I have on my list upgrading my Spanish writing abilities. Do I really want to get that done this year? Yes. Will it make a significant difference if I get it done this year? No, as I speak more Spanish than I write it. So this makes that I don’t even have to get to question number two, or actually three as I already figured out that it is a goal that could be pushed back till next year.
Step 3. Gaining Clarity On What Your Goals Need
At this point you should have an ‘’already started’’ list and a ”yet to start” list with highlighted goals. The only goals that matter from this point on are the highlighted ones. However don’t damage the other ones, those are obviously immediately shortlisted to be accomplished during the first quarter of the next year.
3.1 What still needs to be done
Before you can continue you need to know what all still needs to be done to complete the highlighted goals. For the goals that you still have to start this normally should be absolutely clear as day as you wrote them down when you set this goal for yourself. If you haven’t I suggest you follow my goal plan making guide which you can find linked below.
Recommended: How To Make A Goal Plan To Make Your Dreams Your Reality
For the list ”already started” it could be quite chaotic depending on how you keep track of what you have and haven’t done. A to-do book can help you greatly with that by the way!
You now have to per highlighted goal on the already started list determine what part of the goals is already done and what still needs doing. I suggest taking a new sheet of paper, folding it in two or four depending on your hand writing and write down all the items that you still have to do per goal. This will make going forward easier as it will give you more clarity of which steps are actually part of your end of year goals.
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Now if you notice that the goal you choose has a lot of steps left it might be wise to decide which part of the goal you want to have accomplished by the end of the year and which part can potentially be pushed back. Questions that you can ask yourself are:
Q1.: ‘’What part of this goal must I accomplish before December 31st’’.
Q2.: ‘’What do I need to do to accomplish that part (replace ‘’part’’ with your goal) before December 31st?’’
The answers to these questions get written on your new sheet of paper as potentially being part of your end of year goals.
Step 4. Make A New Timeline For Your Goals
It’s time to dot the i’s of the highlighted goals, but before you can do that you need to have a few things clear in mind.
The first is how much time there is between today, the day you are making your end of goals list, and December 31st? Make sure to write that down somewhere clearly.
Now take your lists and a new sheet of paper, fold it in half and write at the top on one side ”Short term” and on the other side ”long term”. Personally I categorize short terms as done by Mid November and long term done by the end of December.
Per goal that got highlighted and recatogorized with the still needed steps consider whether they are a short term goal or a long term goal and write them on their respective side.
This step might seem redundant as all the goals that you highlighted you want to get done this year but you will be confronted by how much you actually are planning on doing. The point of this is to make sure that your end of year goal planning is actually feasible.
4.1 Recategorize your goals again
Now that you have categorized everything in their respective side you’re going to go over them one more time. This time you have to take the following clearly in account:
1. The amount of days left till December 31st
2. How many Short-term/Long term goals you have
2.1 How many steps each short term/long term goal has
The goals that you honestly feel pass as being feasible to accomplish by December 31st get highlighted. Remember there’s only so much you can do before the clock strikes midnight. So make sure that you have a, to you, realistic list of end of year goals.
It can very well be that some goals need to be pushed back till the new year. It’s a shame but it’s better to make sure that you have enough time to do some of your goals then to half do all of your goals. When you do it like that you will never see the finish line. While now you will accomplish some of your goals and thus create time to work on new goals in the new year.
Step 5. Make An End-of-Year Goals Overview
All there is left to do in the creation of your end-of-year goals list is to is to create a nicer looking list that gives you a clear overview of what all you are going to accomplish by the end of the year.
I personally took a new sheet of blank paper and wrote on the top in black marker; ”Must finish before December 31st” or you can write ”End Of Year Goals”. Below it I wrote down all the goals I highlighted. I hung this up somewhere where I pass daily so I see it everyday and are reminded of it as much as possible, even though I work on these goals daily extra reminders are never bad.
If you want to you can also add the steps needed to accomplish the goal but I felt it was a little more clear to just have the list of goals and have the specific steps on dedicated sheets of paper per goal like the ones you created in step 3.
Ps. Don’t forget to make it a December to Remember. Perhaps the My Story Of I Shop can help with that as well?!
For the remaining days of the year your to-do book is full. You have decided what you want to get done, made a list of steps that are needed and now it’s high time to get working on those must accomplish end of year goals.
Need help learning how to plan your day? Read the guide on how to plan your day efficiently here!
Let the end of the year be a time to celebrate what’s done alongside waiting for the new.
Love,
DCPR.
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