A Guide for Achieving Anything

It’s a new year. A new chance for reaching your goals, fulfilling your potential and turning dreams into accomplishments. Like starting a business, losing weight, even organizing your garage. Large goals can be daunting, but they’re not impossible. The key is to break down your goal into baby steps. Then complete each step. Which is where many of us get stuck. How to get unstuck? Schedule these baby steps. Give yourself mini deadlines. Lose one pound by Valentine’s Day, Get rid of all the old paint cans in the garage by St. Patrick’s Day. Deadlines give you a push, hold you accountable, and put pep in your step. That’s where a paper schedule book can help. Paper schedule book? Yes, an old fashioned, old school paper schedule book. Ever since college I have used an At-A-Glance weekly schedule book. Each blank page is a possible new adventure waiting to be discovered. Sure, you can use Google Calendar, but it can be helpful to see the big picture. A visual reminder of which tasks still need to be done, which already finished. For fun, use a Sharpie or an orange marker. Make it stand out. Each completed task, a stepping-stone to where you will be tomorrow. And the day after that. Am I nuts for using a paper book? Maybe. But I’m not the only one. Sales of printed schedule books last year, according to the New York Times was $342.7 million. That’s million! There’s something motivating (and rewarding!) when you cross off a scheduled achievement in your book. Like crossing off a task from your To Do list. It says, “I did it!” and encourages you to achieve the next and the next. Until you’re one step closer to your goal. Somehow, hitting a “Delete” button is not the same. What will you accomplish in 2017? Only time will tell.