Currently viewing the category: "Setting and Tracking goals in Evernote"

Using Evernote for Goal Tracking Pt. 3 – Organisation

By On January 19, 2010 · 22 Comments

So if you’ve gone  through the steps so far for collecting your clutter into Evernote then you’ll already be well on your way toward using Evernote for goal tracking . We started by collecting all our clutter and then we went about capturing it into Evernote. So if we’ve done everything correctly up until now we have a system filled with all the related information pertaining to our goals for the coming year, and we’ve stored it all in a trusted system.

Make a next action list

With all your information stored in one secure place, and your system set up to receive more information as you receive it. You can now start organizing your day to day affairs. Draw up a list of all the projects related to your goals that currently require your attention. So for example, if your goal is to lose weight, your first project might be to research methods of losing weight. What is the next action you have to take to move that project forward? You may make an appointment with a doctor, or spend time on the internet or go to the local bookstore. Whatever you choose, capture that next action into Evernote.

organisation

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Goal and Objective tracking in Evernote Pt. 2 – Capture

By On January 11, 2010 · 22 Comments

In my previous post on Collection for tracking your goals in Evernote, I started bringing together all my clutter and also setting up the bare bones of a Getting things done (GTD) system to organize and review your goals in Evernote. In today’s post we’re going to look at the best ways to capture all the information you’re going to be using into Evernote.

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Goal and Objective tracking in Evernote Pt. 1 – Collection

By On January 10, 2010 · 36 Comments

GTD organization evernote collection bookcase You've tried setting and achieving goals before, we all have. You've probably spent hours online and reading about the goals you want to achieve, and just as many hours coming to the stark realisation: "Achieving goals is hard"

In this, the first step in setting and achieving your goals with the help of GTD and Evernote, we're going to tackle all the false starts you've had and start corraling the information you already you have at hand in Evernote while applying some Getting things Done (GTD) principles.

This first post will be the shortest in my series. The purpose of this step is simply to set up a trusted GTD system of collection in Evernote as well as collecting all the information you already have amassed which will assist you in achieving your goals and objectives with ease.

"A vision without a task is but a dream; A task without a vision is drudgery; A vision and a task is the hope of the world"

Collect everything

The GTD system that we're going to be setting up in Evernote is a very simple system to keep track of your resources and goals. We'll keep your list of goals in notes in Evernote, feel free to get creative with this, you can create images, put your goals as statements in a note or pdf file. Do whatever you need to do to get your goal statements into Evernote and make them easy to review.I'm a huge fan of GTD by David Allen. It is the seminal book on managing your productivity. You already have a lot of documents, magazines, newspaper clippings, books, brochures, reciepts in short stuff relating to your goals lying around right now. Go find it now so we can find it a home.

One place to collect them all

Okay if I’m going to achieve my goals this year I’m going to need lots of information. I’m also going to need to refer to most of it fairly often. The best way to keep my goals moving forward is to spend quality time on them. In order to do this I’ve organised my information into one trusted system, Evernote. The beauty of this is that I keep all my information in one place. I can search in one place for anything I may need. Example:

I want to finish the first draft of my novel by June 2010

In order to complete my goals I need to:
  • Increase my knowledge about novel writing
  • Do research for my novel
  • write about 75 000 – 100 000 words
In order to move on to the last stage of my goal, the important bit, writing 75000 to 100 000 words, I need to complete the first two steps. In order to help myself achieve that, I’ll create 2 new notebooks in Evernote:
  • Novel 2010 - I'll be using this notebook for all the things pertaining to achieving and tracking my ulitmate goal of getting my first draft written
  • <Novel Name> Research - I'll be using this notebook for capturing and tracking all the information I've researched for my novel
I will use these two notebooks to save all the information around completing the first two steps of my goal of writing my novel.

Increase my knowledge about novel writing and do Research for my novel

Now i’m going to collect all my writing related:
  • Books
  • Magazines and Articles
  • Courses
  • Blogs and websites
Once I’ve found them all (well obviously not the blogs those are in ye old feed reader) I now have a very impressive pile which I’ll start capturing in Evernote soon. Go ahead and start going through your desk cupboards, all dark corners that your "stuff" may be hiding. In my next post I will take you through the process for capturing everything you may find and making sure it's search-able in Evernote so you can build a massive reference library that will not only support you in achieving your goals and getting things done but will also track your progress. This post forms part of my series Tracking Goals and objectives in Evernote: Part Two - Goal and Objective tracking in Evernote Pt. 2 – Capture Image Credits

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How to use Evernote and GTD for setting and achieving goals and objectives

By On January 8, 2010 · 33 Comments

Do you struggle with achieving your most important goals in life? Do you often feel as if you are a slave to clock? Has your office, home office or home become a cluttered and incoherent mess? If you're anything like me you're probably also constantly licking your wounds from the war against the creeping clutter which keeps trying to scale the walls of our mind.

Well I have good news for you, these are not problems at all. They are symptoms. Feeling disconnected from our goals, slaving away against the clock fighting the unending battle against clutter are all signs your personal organisation system is deficient. You do not trust it and with good reason. It simply doesn't work.

Evernote and a sprinkling of Getting Things Done Principles are all you need to get on back on track. If you haven't yet, click on the link to your right and join Evernote for free now. If you've been using Evernote for any length of time, you'll likely know all about Evernote's great benefits and ease of capture. With the constant pressure to perform and achieve our goals there is no better time than right now to start organizing our lives and moving closer to our goals.

Setting goals in Evernote

So you want big shiny pretty goals and objectives for the new more organized life you crave, first things first. What areas are you going to be setting goals in.
  • Social
  • Work
  • Family
  • Hobbies
  • Freelance work
  • Health
  • Charity
  • ?
What areas in your life do you want to focus on? If you're having some trouble with this try: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People if you only ever own one personal development book, make sure it's this one. Seven habits challenged me to re-assess my purpose on the planet and reconnect with my values. I'm not exaggerating when I say living the Seven habits may change your life. or Awaken the Giant Within : How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Destiny! I was very slow to take to Tony Robbins, his many many appearances on day time television left me with a bit of a sour taste. In addition I found Awaken the Giant a bit of a labor to read as the prose doesn't really flow and there is no noticably coherent narrative. However the book is packed to the brim with valuable and practical advice built on NLP principles. If seven habits is the map book to your goals, Awaken the Giant is the instruction manual for the car. These are both great books to put you in touch with the areas of your life that Turn you on. Once you find these areas out, you're on the way to setting goals in the right areas of your life. Eliminating the bad goals is almost as important as identifying the right goals.

Collect, Capture, Organize and Review

“'I need milk' and 'I need to decide whether to buy this company' both tie up space in psychic RAM. The solution is simple. Write it down. Look at it. Do it or say to yourself 'not now'.” David Allen author of Getting Things Done
Evernote-logo-153x173 Using Evernote to set goals is a 4 prong process for me. Collect, Capture, Organize and Review. The strength of Evernote when it comes to Goal and objective setting is the ease of capture. Keeping track of our goals during the year ahead is not going to be easy. We need to keep track of everything that's happening in our lives and affecting our goals and we need it in one place dammit. That one place for your goals this year is going to be Evernote.

Goal setting in Evernote, the series

I'll be writing a Series of posts this week that will take you step by step through the process of applying principles from Getting Things Done (GTD) and the power of Evernote to create a watertight system to catch all the information in your life and put it into motion to keep you on track with your goals and objectives for 2010. GTD is a personal productivity system based on David Allan's seminal text, Getting things. Getting things done (GTD) truly is a manual for stress free productivity in your life. Getting things done (GTD) focuses on managing your own creativity and and energy levels rather than clinging to the illusion that time can be managed. GTD is focused on the nuts and bolts of keeping a trusted system of organisation which will free our mind to focus on the most important matters of your day. GTD is not about time, GTD is about peace of mind. Ok just in case you were unsure, I really highly recommend this book, if you haven't already read GTD, buy it now! I will cover the process of: Collection: Collecting information about the areas you'd like to achieve success in Capture: How to get everything into your system GTD focuses on this area most, ensuring complete capture is the only way to keeps our minds at peace. Organize: Set your system up to work for you. A simple GTD system to organize your workspace and evernote for easy access to track your goals. Review: Setting up a system of review based on GTD that will keep your information up to date and keep you focused on your goals like a laser. In the series I'll look at a real life example of a goals I'd like to achieve this year. I won't unpack each goal in each example but I will use parts of my real plan to illustrate how you can apply GTD and Evernote to achieving your goals and objectives in 2010 and why Evernote in conjuction with Getting things done (GTD) is the best way for you to capture and track your goals in 2010.

Check out the full Evernote GTD Series Here:

Clip to Evernote Not Yet an Evernote user? Join Free Today! Check out this must have guide to using Evernote

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