
The Science of Goals - zaidekul
http://www.dbtventures.com/blog/2018/10/20/the-science-of-goals
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mikegentry
Fascinating. The degree to which you micro-manage yourself with the "recurring
goals" is a bit shocking tbh, but seeing the data stack up over 4-5 years is
instructive.

I have 3 main observations/questions:

1) what happens to the goals you don't attain? 2) are they prioritized in some
way? 3) having 1.035 activities in a qtr seems like a lot. how do you think
about the "upper limit"?

I lead a large team and fount this useful for empowering individuals in their
own development, and also highlighting what you're working on, routinely
(beyond JIRA/Github).

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zaidekul
To your questions:

1) goals I don't accomplish typically either roll over to the next quarter
once I diagnose what went wrong and assuming its a valid goal, or, if I decide
to kill it, it goes onto a list of failed goals w/ the reason they failed.
this is how I got the 3 flaws in the article (by doing mini postmortems on
each failed goals)

2) Typically the first goal in a category is the most important. However, the
goals are NOT prioritized overall (just intra category) so this is something I
should think about - thanks for calling that out.

3) Upper limit = only anecdotal. 1,035 activities in a quarter is about 11-12
activities per day, and some are as small/quick as flossing, or 10mi of
meditating. If I'm not at the theoretical upper limit, I certainly feel close
(and its starting to adversely affect my binary goals based on the
correlations). I don't know, it also depends on the magnitude of the recurring
goals, i.e. a goal of "I will run 10 miles 5x/week" would take 8 hours of your
week (pacing at 10min miles) so it also depends on the time required per
recurring goal/activity. It would also depend on how demanding one's job is. I
work full-time, but the hours are fairly flexible and I build/plan my own
schedule so I can find some extra time if I'm behind on certain goals. I
usually get up around 5/5:30am and have found mornings to be my most
productive time which alleviates evening/night anxiety, vis-a-vis:
[https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Morning-Not-So-Obvious-
Guaran...](https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Morning-Not-So-Obvious-Guaranteed-
Transform/dp/0979019710)

------
nairush
thank you for sharing this - where do you recommend learning more about the
goal setting in general?

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zaidekul
thx for reading. For me, learning about goals all started with a talk at work.
This pretty amazing guy, Tommy Romero, taught a small goals class at work and
started off by saying that <1% of people set goals. Then he talked about how
87% of US companies fail in the first 2 years, 50%+ of marriages fail, and a
bunch of other daunting facts which helped build the case that maybe we should
plan better.

Other resources: • The Art of Exceptional Living, by Jim Rohn
([https://www.amazon.com/Art-Exceptional-Living-Jim-
Rohn/dp/07...](https://www.amazon.com/Art-Exceptional-Living-Jim-
Rohn/dp/0743529065)) • Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill
([https://www.amazon.com/Think-Grow-Rich-Landmark-
Bestseller/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Think-Grow-Rich-Landmark-
Bestseller/dp/1585424331)) • Research on how to set SMART goals, e.g.
[https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_90.htm](https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_90.htm)

Hope this helps.

