We’ve all heard the saying “out of sight, out of mind” but still we don’t pay enough heed to this simple expression. 

Recently my OCD got the better of me and I was compelled to clean out a cupboard that was getting on my nerves. As expected I found triplicates of items jammed in the back with some way past their sell by date. I wasn't making it possible to see what was in the cupboard so forgot what was there and in doing so created a micro climate or decaying crackers, biscuits and a metamorphosis of other unsavoury items.

The same can be true of our goals whether they be our personal or business/job objectives. We’re usually good at creating our top level goals with gusto and pride but not so good at keeping them visible so they can compete with the expanding list of tasks that land at our feet every day. 

As the year end approaches it's beneficial to reflect on how you managed the goals you set this year. How successful were you? Are you happy with your level of success? How often did you review and reflect on your goals throughout the year? If you accepted new goals did you re-prioritize your goal list or did you start working on the new stuff as it came in? How visible were your goals, to you and others they impacted?

Our goals can fall foul for the same reason our crackers can be lost in our cupboard. You want to be successful (you are hungry) so you create your goals (you buy the crackers), and store the goals in a document and put them in a safe place (you put the crackers in the cupboard). You want to complete the goals (eat the crackers) but when you look to start, there are many other interesting tasks now in the way (a box of chocolate biscuits). As you complete this new task (you eat the chocolate biscuits) more new tasks land on your plate (shiny new food in the cupboard) and the cycle of obscurity and thus lack of top level goal focus continues.

You see, life, business and other people do not particularly care if your goals get lost in space in the far reaches of your cupboard. Everyone has their own plans to achieve and while your manager wants you to get your goals completed, if you don’t, well that's up to you and manager can’t do the work for you. So delivering success can be a cold place, just like the dark recess of your cupboard and colder still if you don’t give yourself every chance by keeping your goals front and center and visible at all times.

The solution seems simple (figure 1) but since we struggle with this so much I guess I should say it's simply complicated. 

Keep your yearly, monthly, weekly and daily goals all in the one place and live. By live, I mean each and every day create your daily tasks based on what you want to achieve for the present week, based on a good monthly target that is aligned to achieving your top level goals for the year.

The first thing you do each day before you do any work is copy the previous day's goal template and create a new one for today's date with updated daily tasks aligned to what you planned and decided would be a successful task completion week.

The mindset for this is straightforward; You intuitively understand how much time you will need every week for BAU (business as usual), like recurring meetings, customer visits, one off events, must do’s like status reports and the usual emergencies etc. The rest of the time should be blocked off to do the strategic but not urgent work i.e. your top level goals. Setting a monthly target helps you see the bigger picture but not so big that it's too hard to manage. 

The daily tasks should only include the work that you will actually do today, with a focus priority of what to take in what order. You can add in your BAU work items or keep a block of hours for that per day. All non BAU work tasks targeted to be completed that day should be a written task with a priority assigned.

You visit your template a couple of times a day or at least every time you finish a task and pick up the next priority work item. This helps with visibility and scheduling non BAU tasks/hours in your calendar is a sound safeguarding tactic. Ticking off tasks as you go and applying a hefty praise pat on your back engenders motivation, positivity and feeling good about what you are achieving in the moment and not just at the end.  

Every morning you should reflect on your weekly progress and take a quick look at monthly and top level goals (TLG’s), and rinse and repeat your daily tasks. I find even with everything on one page you might fall prey to daily task blindness so this is by no means a perfect solution. At least you have a working mechanism to deliberately decide if a new work item should be added to the list for focus time. You only need to look up the page and decide if it aligns with the other time buckets.

Another reason for task blindness is your TLG’s are not as important to you as they should be and you lack passion for them resulting in lack of focus. Perhaps there is no emotional pull that secures the benefit or the goals could be someone else’s and you’re not fully bought in? You don’t believe in them and I guess doesn’t align with your overall work purpose. Take my acoustic guitar for example that's on its stand beside my desk. It's in front of my face everyday but I don't play it because I don’t see it, because I have lost the passion for it at this moment.

It is hard enough to complete your TLG’s so do yourself a favour and find the visibility approach that works for you in a simply uncomplicated way.