Planning and Time Horizons
He who operates with the longest time horizon wins. Did you know that? They say Bill Gates can see out Five Years or so accurately to his strategy, and that he executes against it well. People in business talk about five year strategies and you should be afraid, because that’s far too long a time-span in today’s tech-energized world. But truly, when you look at YOUR time horizon, how long is it?
Near as I can tell, mine’s not as long as it should be. I’m in a little cycle of letting life live me. The more I examine myself, the more I realize I’m letting all these various points of life just wash over me, without giving them much personal thought.
Thanks for the nice comments on the other post by the way. It’s always nice to hear from friends.
Six Planning Streams
Covey would call these “Roles & Goals.” It’s when you figure out the different ways you view yourself, your interactions with the rest of the world, and then set specific goals to them. In my case, I just picked six focuses, and decided to set streams in action. Think of streams as… hmm.. in my vernacular, I’m thinking of this as like little streams of water, and when I set a paper boat in the stream, I can only set it in once, and I can only go in one direction. The trick is, which streams to watch, and what to do with the boats.
So, here are my streams. And after them, I’ll sketch out what I’m thinking, though I won’t share the concrete goals that I’ll write for myself.
- Family
- Work
- Self (health/fitness)
- Community
- Creativity
- Finances
Family
Of these, family has some significant challenges that I won’t chronicle here, but they just involve making the most out of every day. Since taking this job, and building my travel up, I’ve truly appreciated my family more. I spend MUCH better personal time with them now. This set of goals is private.
Work
Work will probably see the most calories in the case of blogging. Family first, but work is where I spend a lot of conscious energy. I’ve got *all* kinds I could write about here. And my goals do seem to have some depth of time horizon here. But there’s an overlay to this about how far I want to push things, how much I want to build out work. I’m in this unique position, and there’s what my boss wants done, but there’s what I feel *I* want to accomplish. I’m going to build out my goals, and see how this works for my boss. We’ll figure out the middles.
One sure goal: I want Video on the Net to be HUGE this spring, and I want Network2 to be a household name among video watching folks.
Self (Health/Fitness)
For health and fitness, I’ve totally let myself drop from my physical best in January of 2005. Yes, I had an injury. Yes, I let 80 work weeks get in the way. But it’s been almost 2 years since then. I think the excuses have run out. So, I’ve got some fitness and health goals I’ll start on tomorrow. (I love starting on random days and not a Monday, and not a first of the month). These will hopefully gain a little more prominence as they further define me.
Community
Ah community. I’ve got lots of PodCamps to attend, participate in, and develop. I want to work even closer with Chris and Bryan and Steve to better develop the “framework” of what we’re doing, to maybe finally form that Foundation we’ve discussed. I want some way to ensure that people are getting the opportunity to experience what we all got in Boston.
I will be rolling out a new for-pay event with Christopher S. Penn in March called “Make My Own TV,” which will be targeted towards traditional media types and new media adopters looking to better understand and develop their skills, abilities, and prospects with new media and video tools. That will be a great experience to me, because it will bridge the ground between our grassroots efforts in PodCamp and the higher-end conference of Video on the Net. Make My Own TV is that middle ground that people can afford to attend, but that provide definite deliverables.
I’ll also be working with Jeff to roll out more Pulver.com/Network2 social events, and we’ve got five planned before St. Patrick’s Day, if that gives you a sense of that craziness.
Finally in community, I’ll be further dedicating Small Boxes and my work with Grasshopper New Media to the pursuit of growing community use of video and new media tools to tell people’s stories digitally, and extend the conversation into the new media space.
There’s even more to community, but I’ll add to that later.
Creativity
This is easy to do. I’m just looking to push myself more creatively. I’ve threatened to write a book on and off for a while. If I don’t write something completely in 2007, I’ll stop telling people that I write. I’m actually leaning on doing two books: one fiction and one non-fiction, just to say I’ve finished both. More on that some other time, but you’ll see LOTS of video examples of my creativity as well, and maybe even a little bit of music.
Finances
I’ve had really messy finances for far too long. I’m getting paid a decent salary. I’ve got most of my crap in order. I think it’s about time I get this put together just right. So, I’m not going to share the details, but I’m starting this weekend to try and get all the money stuff in order, so that I’m not the poorest well-paid guy I know. (We’ll see). I’m kinda tired of being in the 110% club, to be honest, and I’d like to not wince whenever I swipe a credit card, or hell, my debit card. Of all these, I’ll have to take an active effort here, but I think that all the other ducks will help this goal line up.
Wrapping Up
And that’s it. After a day of really wracking my brain, I’m off and running. I’m using a really nice online free tool called Thinkature to better brainstorm the DETAILS of all this, and I won’t share tons about the guts of the goals here, but suffice to say that I feel like I’ve got the starts of the next level that I need.
Jon was right. I need a bigger palace.
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Comments
Damn you Justin Kownacki!!! :-P
How are we supposed to leave our comments after you’ve said everything which we were going to say?
You are spot on - if I look back just one year at how things were going for me, if I were to have had a five year plan, it would certainly not have included what I am doing at this point in time.
Five year plans in my view are silly because you simply cannot know what other things are going to crop up and have an influence.
I think that I prefer setting more open-ended, yet less measureable goals for mysel, which might come pretty close to your multiple stream analogy.
For example, now one of my goals is to, “Make a difference to the New Media community.”
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change of thought
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I had entered the above while sitting here drinking my first cup of coffee, then I became very introspective for a good half-hour and have realized that I’m afraid to make plans because it sets me up for possible failure….
- What if I cannot even meet goals which I’ve set for myself?
- How could I possibly be expected to meet the expectations which someone else might have for me if I cannot even meet my own expectations?
So I scroll back up to read Justin’s comment - maybe that’s my fear, maybe that’s what is holding me back?? -
Am I somehow afraid of myself?
- If so, what part?
- - - My potential, or lack of it?
- - - - Do I really have passion or is it just a blindness to reality?
Maybe it’s all just semantics then? Do I even really need to burn calories worrying about anything which I put in this comment?
I believe very strongly in time horizons in the sense that human beings are predictable creatures. Ultimately, from Buddhist thought, we all encounter old age, illness, and death, so that’s pretty much baked in. Chances are you already have some pretty definite horizons - that 30 year term life insurance has a definite horizon, and the whole life component of that matures around the same time that your mortgage should be paid off - so that’s baked in as well.
Realty tends to go in 7 year cycles locally and nationally. Here in Boston, we’re in year 2 of a 3 1/2 year decline. Knowing this means you know when roughly you should or should not buy.
Speaking of your finances, I have a brilliant idea. Let’s do a collaboration between small boxes and the Financial Aid Podcast and do a One Page Budget intensive on video for all the world to see.
I just made plans for SXSW in Austin for March 10-14th.
What are your plans for March?
I know VON starts on the 19th and you want to have something happening on the 18th too.
Is that going to be “Make My Own TV?”
The sooner you can let me know what that is the sooner I can make plans. Thanks!
I like the idea that you have, Chris. I’m not sure that the layout would work for me, though.
I, too, have a few “streams” that I’d like to (nay, need to) get going. However, I can’t think of them so generally. If I were to say, “Here are my streams. Today I’m going to do this so that I further this stream,” I would get lost very quickly. I find that what works for me is to set map out my goals in a hierarchical manner. This way I know where my priorities are and how they relate to my other goals. For instance, one of my priorities is financial. That is…I like eating. So I need money to do so. Now if that is priority number 1, then all of my other goals must bend to it. Hence, doing test shoots, while a good use of time ordinarily, may not be a good use of time for me unless I’m guaranteed to be making money off of the back end from selling prints or such. Why? Because if I’m not making any money off of test shoots and finance is truly my number one priority, then the time could be better spent elsewhere that is furthering my finances.
I can make lots of goals, but I’d soon drive myself mad and spread myself too thin if I couldn’t be selective about which goal I should be pursuing when. That’s the problem I’ve seen with myself recently. I have too many ideas and I’m trying to go after all of them at the same time. And when I can’t satisfy my goals that I’ve set for them, I end up depressed that I haven’t been successful.
So what I’m saying is you have a lot of great ideas there. You really do. But don’t burn yourself out trying to satisfy all of them at the same time. Pick and choose and set realistic, yet related, goals for yourself. That way a year from now you’re not looking back and wondering why you didn’t get things done. At least, that’s how it would work for me anyway. So anyway, after my little rant…I’m off to go take my own advice!
I don’t believe in time horizons. I believe in goals, and I believe in realistic expectations, but I don’t believe in charting my life for the next five years according to how I feel today. What works in the broad sense (how I feel, who I am, what I want and need) is not what works in the microcosmic sense (how new experiences and relationships will alter my immediate needs and opportunities, changing markets and worldviews, adjustments made as I improve).
If you want something, follow your heart / head / gut. I believe everyone knows the best way to get there. Everything else is just semantics.
The key is to realize what’s holding you back and take action to overcome that stumbling block. Maybe overcoming stumbling blocks can become a new pastime in itself. Moreover, perhaps you’ll be free of stumbling blocks if you cleave through everything, and then you’ll see the bigger scarier question:
What now?
In the meantime, don’t get too hung up on specifics and time charts and Getting Things Done, because that’s just another falsified reality. Instead, get excited about becoming Chris Brogan and let the rest fall into place around you, sir.