My kids have awesome dreams for the future.
One of my kids wants to be a movie producer. One wants to be a famous actor. One wants to travel the world.
For myself, I still dream of being a race car drive (Yes, it’s true I still this dream even as a middle age person).
These are examples of dreams and dreams can come true. However, inorder to make a dream a reality, it must be decomposed into a goal.
Dreams cost you very little energy and time. You can spend 5 minutes envisioning yourself crossing the finish line of a marathon or making decisions as the head of your own company or seeing yourself on the beach with your family in Hawaii or leading a large community of people to serve others or heading up significant a social change in your country or seeing your children live with integrity and principles.
And now the hard parts begins.
Goals on the other hand, require much more than 5 minutes to write down. And then they require much more energy and time to achieve once you’ve really put them down on paper and committed yourself to achieve the goal.
Some people have the capacity to keep all their most important dreams and goals totally encapsulated in their heads and then connect those to action. Those people are very rare.
Most people need to take deliberate action to translate dreams into well written goals and then decompose goals into specific action steps.
Simple Dreams and Goals
Dream: “I want to have more energy and less stress.”
This is a great ambition.
What gives a person more energy?
Studies show energy is rooted in good habits around sleeping, eating, drinking water, exercise and good mental health.
In fact, there is a study showing that active people have about 20% more energy. If that is true, then we can decompose a dream of having more energy into a goal about being active.
Goal (Weak): “I want to exercise so I can have more energy.”
The weak goal above has a couple elements to help a person move toward more energy, but it lacks some critical elements. The strong goal below includes the extra elements that remove the ambiguity about the frequency of exercise and the duration of exercise which are required ingredients to improve your chances for success.
Goal (Strong): “I want to exercise for 20 minutes, at least 3 times per week and do that consistently throughout 2016.”
This is much better and and more potent goal that has the potential to start a good habit.
Breaking that down further results in a plan of action which I talk about in the article, “How to Learn a Productivity System Part 3: Plan”
We’ll create a specific plan for this goal of exercising which should put us on the road to
achieving the dream of “having more energy.”
The Plan: “I will do (yoga, a walk, a run) for 20 minutes on Monday, Wednesday, Friday right after I get up at 6:00 am.”
More Complicated Dreams and Goals
Dream: “I want to be a CEO of my own company”
Interestingly, I’ve had this dream myself for many years. And as I looked around at the big company I was working for, I was overwhelmed with immense obstacles that seemed to bar the way: I don’t have an MBA. I didn’t attend Harvard, Yale, or Stanford. I’ve never started my own company before.
WAIT a minute. “I’ve never started my own company before.” What am I thinking? Starting my own company for the first time automatically makes me a CEO. Right?
After some contemplation I became aware that I didn’t really know what my company would do or what it would sell or what type of service it would provide.
So that dream was a little narcissistic in that I didn’t really have any purpose or obvious value to offer. It was more a ‘dream’ fueled by the desire for prestige.
To build a sustainable dream, you must insist on offering value. And you might argue that I’m wandering into the gray area of the philosophy of what makes a good dream vs. a bad dream. And you would be right. I think there are principles which should be followed when deciding about which dreams to chase vs. curtain.
Here a restatement of the original dream, but this rendition has a value statement.
Dream: “I want to lead a company which helps individuals and business maximize their productivity.”
This dream has more tangle value statement and can more easily be generate goals and plans.
Goal (Weak): “Create a business to help people be more productivity”
This goal makes sense in that it provides a more focused idea (creating a business), but the weak goal lacks a time frame in which to execute the business activity, which will enable procrastination rather than accountability.
Goal (Strong): “Have a profitable business that serves productivity minded individuals by 31 Dec 2016.”
The strong goal will provide the qualifiers and deadline that make a idea into a GOAL.The Strong version also provides the necessary ingredients that make up a ’SMART’ goal: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely.
Let’s examine whether or not this goals passes the SMART test:
Specific - There appears to be pretty specific outcome to this goal which is a ‘profitable business’ that serves a ‘productivity minded’ market group. The term ‘Specific’ is probably one of the gray areas to the ‘SMART’ goal definitions because the definition of ‘Specific’ can be broadly interrupted. However, the strong goal appears to meet this criteria.
Measurable - The word ‘profitable’ is a little loose with respect to measurement. Does this mean profitable over the whole year or profitable for one month or profitable since the dawn on time. This actually needs work. Let’s propose that this be modified to say, ’…profitable for 1 month in 2016’.
Attainable - Depending on the expenses to run the business and the time allocated to running the business, this could be very attainable or it could be unachievable. For the context of this goal, let’s assume the expenses are very low and the time commitment for the business is roughly 10 hours per week. That sounds attainable.
Relevant - I think this hits a home run for relevant category because it flows directly from the Dream.
Timely - There is a deadline on the goal, so this is also spot on.
Takeaway for Dreams and Goals
When it comes to creating goals and plans, there is a cost equations.
Dream-to-Plan Time = Size of Dream * Goals Creation Time * Plan Creation Time
Notice this is what we call an exponential equation. That means if you have a big dream, you’ll need to put in big time. Maybe not all at once, but definitely over the life of your dream.
Let’s consider another complex dream to illustrate the cost principle.
Dream: “I want to have children who live with integrity and principles.”
You will probably need to spend time working on that dream every week. If you are a parent, you are probably already investing time in this area through many different activities and interaction with your kids.
Below is one example goal that is decomposed from the dream.
Goal: “Provide daily personal input into children’s lives regarding life principles.”
Let’s break this down and see if it complies with the SMART goal format.
Specific - Very specific
Measurable - The measurement is to do this everyday.
Attainable - Seems reasonable
Relevant - Very relevant toward the dream
Timely - This is a bit redundant with measurement in this case. It’s a daily thing.
And then there is a plan that comes out of this.
Plan: “Read a quote or article or affirmation at breakfast that captures a life principles and briefly discuss.”
As a parent, you might say, “I do this as a course of everyday living. I teach by example. I teach at every opportunity.” And I think you are correct. Keep up the good work.
Sometimes it gives you a boost if you can do something very intentionally rather than in a reactionary situation. Intentional situations are usually more relaxed and the child’s brain is ready to receive input. In reactionary situations, such as teaching in the heat of the moment or when something went wrong, is often frustrating and much of the energy and training is waisted because the emotional situation constrains the brain and learning doesn’t happen well.
I really love to hear from you about the your biggest challenges setting goals. What do you find the most difficult in goal setting?
Yes, this does raise the bar quite a bit.
There are 1440 minutes in a day.
Saving one million days x 1440 minutes = 1.4 billion minutes.
In order to save that kind of time I’m going to need a small army of people. So how big is the army? It’s about 2,000 people. For military folks I think thats about the size of a regiment.
The maneuvers of this army are unlike a traditional army. This small army is rather autonomous. Each person can act independently to achieve the goal of my previous article, “How To Save a Million Seconds This Year". I’m using 40 years for the lifetime because it represents the median years of the average person’s remaining life expectancy.
1.4 billion minutes / (40 years * 365 days per year) / 2000 people is about 49 minutes per day per person. Let’s round down to 45 minutes per day per person.
Saving (investing) 45 minutes per day is pretty achievable for most of us. Remember from my previous article, “How to Save a Million Milliseconds per Day”, that saving time is impossible, but what we really want to do is invest our time in things that matter.
Why do you care about saving a million days of time in a lifetime? In the previous article, “How to Save a Million Hours of Time in a Century,” you were pretty stunned that I asked you to save a million hours of time in a century and that goal was impossible to achieve without enlisting 25 friends and family.
Saving a million days of time in a lifetime is a goal I have for myself. It requires that I help 2,000 people save an average of 45 minutes a day during their lifetime. This is a personal mission.
If you would like to help me, please share this article with your family and friends.
Perhaps even ask if they would like to sign up to receive future articles. But only do that if you feel you are getting value from these articles.
Here’s a couple practical things that can help you save 45 or more minutes of time in your day.
A Goal
Let’s say you want to work on physical fitness (this category is probably one of the most tangle). A goal might be to run a 5k race. Consider picking a local race…and there are so many to choose from. Sign up. Now you have a goal. If you take this option, be sure to give yourself about 3-4 months if you are starting from scratch.
A weight reduction goal might also be very tangle. There are a zillion ways to approach this, but perhaps a practical way to approach this is targeting a 5 or 10 lbs in 30 days.
Another way to slice this goal would be a goal to workout a certain number of days in the week. Workouts might include yoga, weights at the gym or running. Let’s say you wanted to start with 2 days per week. You might find a class at the YMCA or Local Gym that could help. If you want to spend little or no money, you can easily grab a yoga mat and use YouTube as your instructor.
Another type of goal would be to read a book to improve your personal or professional skills. Breaking this down into a daily reading goal is potentially a good way to decompose into bite size morsels. Here’s a couple of my favorite if you need a starter list
Along this same line, a family based goal would be to play 1 family game in a week with your entire crew. Or perhaps have breakfast with everyone in attendance twice a week.
Perhaps you are ambitious on this front and want to have dinner together every weekday.
A Calendar
You probably have a calendar app or perhaps you use Google Calendar or Apple Calendar or Outlook Calendar. If you have a goal of doing a time saving activity such as personal growth or health or time with family or professional certification or personal activity, step 1 is to schedule the time in your calendar.
Seriously, if you want to do that morning jog or yoga or breakfast with family, put it in the calendar. Whether at home or at the office, we typically respect our calendar and do what it says. So take the proactive step and put your ambitious plans on your calendar.
A Buddy
I love to do things with my friends and family and you might feel the same way. It’s fun to go to the movies with a group or friend or spouse or son or daughter. When you go out to dinner It’s more fun to share a meal with someone rather than sit alone at a table.
This is also true for many of the aspirations that we have. Enjoying solo success is seldom fulfilling. Think about events like swimming or track where an individual competes alone. When he or she wins the race, the celebration is shared by coaches and family and not just one person.
I had the ambition of running a marathon, and I shared it with a friend and we both began to dream and plan. We both ended up running marathons within 12 months of each other. Our plan to run together didn’t workout, but we achieved our dream and shared in each others the success.
Please leave a comment about the goal that you are trying achieve and your biggest challenge with reaching it.
-Steve.
A million minutes is…
16,667 hours or
694 days or
22.8 months or
1.9 years.
The median age of the population of the U.S. is about 37 years and life expectancy is 79 years of age. Subtract 37 from 79 and you get an average remaining life expectancy of 42 years. To make the math simpler, we’ll round down to 40 years.
Assuming you are at the average age you would need to save about 68 minutes per day to save a million minutes in your lifetime. Let’s call it 1 hour per day.
If this extra hour is invested properly it will results in a bounty of awesome results for you personally and for people in your sphere of influence.
This series of articles started with ‘Save a Million Milliseconds in a Day’, with a target of saving roughly 15 minutes a day. Followed by a second article ‘Save a Million Seconds in a Year’ with a target of saving roughly 45 minutes daily. And this article focuses on consistent time savings throughout your lifetime with a higher bar of 1 hour of per day.
How do we move from 15 to 45 to 60 minutes of savings (or rather investing our time)
Invested time is the time that you spend on things that matter, things that are truly important and that will leave a legacy.
The first step to saving a million minutes a year is to be consciously aware of that which is important.
In Stephen Covey’s
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
, he suggests an exercise of envision your 80th birthday party. In this self created visualization consider the location, the people, and the conversations you will have with those attending the party.
For me, I placed my 80th birthday party in my backyard and visualized my wife, my daughters, my grand kids, my extended family and my friends. I thought about my own character and legacy and the character of my children and grandchildren. And I wrote this down and try to refresh the content or add details year after year.
Another addition would be the end game of your professional pursuits. That could be the successful sale of a business or the retirement from a company after attaining a certain leadership position or perhaps the accomplishment of a significant goal that impacts the world.
Perhaps there are few things on your bucket list that you include in the 80th birthday party visualization.
-
A pace of life that is active but not frantic.
- A positive note about your personal health that enables you to be mobile, active and feeling good through all the years of your life
-
A lifestyle of traveling to places around the globe
Write down your visualization now…take 5 minutes…this article will still be here when you return…
This visualization will now be a beacon to guide you toward investing your time.
Here are some areas that may show up for you…
Investing in time with family
-This will develop a pattern of closeness and allow you to build character into your kids.
Investing in health to increase your longevity
- This increases your capacity to leave a legacy because you have energy and mobility.
Investing in your professional expertise
-This provides you with tools and skills to achieve your work related goals.
Investing in your personal growth
-This will improve your understanding of your own goals and motives, and improve your relationship with others.
Tips to save (invest) 1 hour in your day
Let’s start with family…
In my previous article I mentioned that I have breakfast with my family every morning. The selection of breakfast is just a sample event. The important thing is spending time to insure that the legacy of your family is strong. Other obvious options include dinner together or games. If you have an intention or desire to see happiness together in the future, you’ll need to build that practice into your daily routine. (30 minutes daily … breakfast, dinner, games, etc.)
Longevity…
Part of your capacity to lead a fruitful life is your energy and mobility. If you’re around the median age, you probably don’t have too many mobility issues, but as you move later into life, investments in physical fitness will be required to reduced your stress (longevity) and increase your stamina and muscle tone (mobility). (20 minutes daily)
Professional Expertise…
In order to achieve the results that you envision, you have will invest time in learning skills and collaborating with others. Part of that learning on the job, but you will need to invest additional time outside of your daily job role. In other words, you will be better equipped to achieve your professional goals if you analyze the things you need to know and the skills you need to acquire, and then allocate time to learning those specific skills.
For most professionals, interpersonal skills are the single most important thing you can learn. Second is how to organize people to achieve a goal. A third priority is to engage in a community of other individuals in your field (30 minutes daily or 2 hrs in a single week).
Personal Growth…
What is personal growth and how does the visualization of the 80th birthday party relate? I’m going to suggest that the depth of your friendships, the ability to positively impact your family and community, your conviction about what your life is about, and your ultimate satisfaction or happiness or contentment in life are all wrapped up in this amalgamation called ‘personal growth’.
This area of life is akin to a rudder and therefore the time spent here will direct the ship. Investments here have the highest return. Examples of include, consistently reading books that move you toward your goals (30 minutes daily), time for contemplation that includes analyzing your daily and life goals (15 minutes daily)
30 minutes (family) + 20 minutes (longevity) + 30 minutes (professional) + 45 minutes (personal growth) = 125 minutes
That’s about 2 hrs a day, which sounds like a lot. Let’s assume you consistently spend half that much time for all the activities listed. That is 1 hour a day. You are on course for saving (investing) a million minutes in your life-time.
Write a comment or send an e-mail and let me know where you struggle the most with your time savings?
, by 
(my foundation for a purposeful and productive life)
by 
(this is a system for executing a purposeful and productive life)
by 
by 
(a very specific system for applying the 80/20 Principle)