review how I use 43T

finally completed a goal (the cranes one). And after (4)3 years on 43T got my goals down to the essentials.

How do I know when I’ve accomplished something, and how do I keep it up once I’ve done it?

For instance, goals like “floss daily” and “cook more” are just fine, but once I check them off, I intend to do them forever… but this doesn’t happen. Sometimes checking off a goal makes it less likely that the accomplishment will continue! For instance, once I ran a 5k, I stopped running for nearly six weeks. Marking something as “done” takes off some pressure, but at once, puts the thing in the past.

Perhaps part of reviewing how I use 43T involves reviewing goals I’ve marked as done (or “I want to do this again”) and see what’s stuck and what hasn’t, and find a way to maintain those things I’ve completed. Maybe adding them to my personal cleansweep list will help, and I’ll make it a goal to stay close to 100%.

(Related to this goal)

my goals sorted at last.

That was a good exercise, I’ll do it again in six months.

I’m going to put my top 5 serious goals at the top of my list, and leave the more random, general ones further down. With one exception – “Relax”. This is going near the top because although it is un-quantifiable, I’ve got a feeling it holds the key to everything else.

I’m also going to keep my offline mind-map montage going so I have a good quarry from which to mine my source materials. And to really push the metaphor, if the MMM is the quarry, then my goals are blocks of stone, and on completing them I will have me-sculptures :-) ooooh what a scary thought.

Typing off the top of my head :-) what are my options? I could:

• leave my random stuff on here as a bucket of ideas, but in my mind cordon off the top five or six for proper goals

• keep my goals away from 43T and update the generic high-level stuff (for the social aspect?!)

• just have goals on 43T and keep my mulching private

• leave it as it is

I like having my mulching in the open, that way people can chip in if I’ve missed something, or if they have a better idea. I could keep the goals seperate and just update the “thing” as I go, but I don’t know – I like checking things off! And I don’t want to leave it as it is, I just don’t :-)

So that leaves the first one. I’ll give it a go and see if it works for me.

I’ve been using this website for six months or so now. I’ve made lots of progress on lots of things. I love the social aspect and I’ve been in touch with some great people. The supporting each other bit works for me.

But as much as I’ve enjoyed adding random things to my list, then filtering them over time, lots of them don’t get done, or are poorly worded, or are poorly formed goals, e.g. relax (a state of mind) and learn to play the piano (too general).

So I’ve taken these things, organised them into categories and made a lovely montage mind-map thing. From this I want to choose SMART goals (or well-formed outcomes as NLPers would say) that move me towards the more general desires. I currently use 43things to capture my desires, both long-term and short-term, but the ones that I make progress on are the ones I make into proper goals.

I wonder then if I can use 43things for more specific goals, and leave the important but vague desires on my montage-mind-map? That would mean having more like 11 things, and it might take some of the fun out of it. What to do?