Following on from my previous post about inspiration sources I’m in a contemplative mood, it’s almost 2009 and looking back over the last year (or even ten) I’m thinking about goals for the year ahead, both personal and business ones, it’s evident to me that when I’ve used goals I’ve achieved things, when I haven’t I have just ambled along treading water so now I’m pretty goal orientated.

I first used goals when I was a shop fittings salesman almost 20 years ago and then I eventually ended up working at Whitbread’s in 1990 for just over 10 years and bumbled along with a steady job without much happening but by 2000 I was £25k in debt, working in a fairly well paid job but living on a spiral of credit card doom like many have done for the last few years and I was sick of the cycle so looked around for ways to make more cash and get out of it.

Having been tinkering online since 1999 I decided to take a closer look at how I could make money via the Internet, I had a few ideas, worked hard at them then sat down and set some goals in place, My initial goals were quite vague such as within two years I’ll be debt free, quit working 6 am to 5 pm for someone else and work when I wanted to, and to be able to travel where and when I wanted, then finally a bit of a day dream goal to buy (insure, maintain and run) a Porsche 911, Looking back they were not very specific goals but still better than nothing.

Despite them being a bit vague I achieved them, well all except the last one but I got to the point where I could afford to buy a 911 but didn’t, (blue collar background means I have a hard time binning huge wedges of cash on things) although I finally did sort that final one a few weeks ago hence my current goal setting mind frame for the year head.

My goal setting has evolved over the last few years, they are now S.M.A.R.T goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed) So instead of “I want to pay off £25k and be debt free in two years” I would now say I want to earn an extra £1,000 per month over the next 24 months, this way I know each month if I’m on track to get there, you could break it down further into £250 per week or even to £34 per day, this sounds far more manageable than “in two years I’ll pay off £25,000″.

The setting of goals is only part of the process, you have to break then down into smaller steps to achieve them (and frequently manage other people to make those steps happen) and over the years I’ve gone from being a frantic scribbler of goals and steps to a more organised online based list kind of guy and I’ve found a few useful tools for goal, project and work-flow management that help to get things organised, monitored and eventually completed so I’ll share a few of my favorites below:

My first tool is blist, this in an online list manager with a quality web 2.0 interface and some flexible features, you can share your lists with one or more people (great for creating to-do lists for staff and monitoring their progress) and you can borrow other people’s templates (if they choose to share them), edit and customise them or simply build your own from scratch, the main thing I like is that it’s not location specific as I work on my macbook at home, desktop in the office and even iPhone when mobile and I can access blist and see what’s going on anywhere, For simple one line to-do things I use Toodledo to create quick to-do items that will sync via widgets across my PC, Mac and also iPhone via an app called “todo”.

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My second goal and productivity tool is Evernote, this is a document storage and manipulation system, you can create to-do’s, save images, web pages, business cards etc. and then access and send to others via an iPhone or any mac or pc you wish to access Evernote via, the best two things for me are A) images are searchable for text and it will recognise handwriting !! and B) you can send anyone any document on your Evernote account via iPhone, if it’s on my mac or pc then it’s in my Evernote account and I simply have to select it from the free iPhone application and send it and the recipient gets the full document which means I can even get work done when not in the office!

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My third tool has been around a while, Basecamp is a tool to manage projects etc., It’s ideal from one user as a unified project management console to multiple users from around the world working on one or more projects. We use it for in-house projects as well as external ones as we can give a coder/designer etc. access to a single project and set them to-do’s and milestones etc. and then remove their access once their part of the project is completed etc. It’s an ideal tool to get things done and I use it in conjunction with an iPhone app called Minivan which allows you to access your Bascamp account via the iPhone. 

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The next tool isn’t a goal tool, it’s a productivity one for faster, trouble free invoicing, it helps you get the cash in to pay for the financial orientated goals and it’s frees up time for other work to be done, it’s called FreshBooks. It’s a flexible system where you can set up recurring invoices each month for fixed billing as well as create a new invoice in a couple of clicks or edit existing ones, You can download them as PDF’s and email them or send then online straight from FreshBooks, Clients can pay online via PayPal too if they choose. FreshBooks is a great tool for keeping track of what’s been paid and what money is due and is an aid to monitoring financial goals are achieved (and paid) on time. 

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Another tool worthy of note is a great file orientated one called DropBox, this is a simple application to centralise files for use on multiple machines, you could do it with Evernote too but I’ve found this is simpler for larger files and folders that you may need on multiple machines but don’t necessarily need to search or send them to others, it saves time emailing yourself documents and files, you can simply drag and drop them into the Dropbox application and it will upload them (encrypted) and then when you start any other PC or Mac tied to your Dropbox acount it will automatically synch and download the files or any changes so they are ready to use, it’s also a good way to avoid the risk of losing files as you’ll have them on one or more computers and online encrypted in Dropbox too.

I’m sure the year ahead will be full of challenges but also new opportunities so good luck navigating through them, if you at least know where you wish to end up you can start planning how to get there so sit down and plan those goals out over the next week or two and work towards them, with focus you’ll find the journey easier as obstacles seem much smaller if you know where you are heading.