I’ve been setting 90 day goals for a couple years and they are life changing. This year, I set my quarter one goals and rocked them, but quarter two was a totally different story. There were various reasons, but I won’t bore you with the details. Just know it’s okay to make adjustments when necessary. It’s now the end of May and I’ve accomplished hardly anything I planned, so I decided to start a new 90 day block and plan new 90 day goals for summer.
The timing feels right for me and will also set me up for the rest of the year. I’ll be able to set more goals for September through November and take most of December off so I have some time to plan for the new year (which I absolutely love!) Sounds fantastic to me.
Why 90 Days?
90 days is the ideal time frame to focus on a goal. You all know the feeling of being excited about something new. You’re focused and dedicated and those feelings translate into working hard. Hard work inevitably builds momentum and brings desired growth.
- Long enough to make progress and achieve big goals
- Short enough to stay focused and excited
- Having a deadline eliminates procrastination
Area of Focus
I personally create a list of my top ten goals every year in my Design your Destiny Course. Often, I’ll pick a couple of those to work on each quarter instead of focusing on all of them at the same time.
I always pick one business and one personal goal. I start out by brainstorming and asking myself these questions:
- What am I trying to achieve? And, why?
- What would make the biggest difference in my life right now?
- How do I want to feel about this specific area of my life? What would make me feel that way?
- Does this goal push the edges of my comfort zone? (You WANT it to be a stretch for you.)
- Can it be done in 90 days?
- What are the benefits of achieving my goal?
- How will I measure whether I achieved it?
Step One:
Based on your answers to the questions, identify the outcome you’d like to achieve from your goals.
My two goals for summer are:
Business – Gain clarity about the future direction of my business so I stop being stuck in indecision and overwhelm.
Personal – Increased vitality and confidence so I can show up as my best self in all areas of my life.
Notice that I framed these as an outcome. Those are the results I want based on the projects I will pursue. In other words, they are answering the question WHY? I know that can feel a little unclear and your mind will automatically jump to BUT HOW? Stick with me, we are getting there. Just keep in mind that it’s very important to know why you’re doing what you’re doing. Knowing why keeps your motivation high throughout the 90 days.
Step 2: Identify 3 Projects for Each Goal
I’ve found that 3 projects for each goal is the perfect number. For starters, you have 3 months to achieve them, and often it works to focus on one project each month. But don’t worry if you have one project that is ongoing through the 90 days — that works too.
When selecting projects, keep in mind your time frame of either 30 or 90 days, depending if you’re doing one project per month, or if it spans the whole quarter.
Step 3: Brainstorm Tasks for Each Project
This process will be ongoing throughout the 90 days, but it’s good to have a brainstorming session to get as many ideas down as possible.
One important thing to mention here–just writing the tasks down does not get them done. That’s where this system trumps regular S.M.A.R.T goals. The next key step is to schedule when you’re going to do each task. This is where the Bullet Journal becomes super helpful!
Step 4: Schedule a Time to Work on your 90 Day Goals
My favorite way to schedule tasks is to assign specific hours of my day to work on my 90 Day Goals. For summer, I’m spending 90 minutes, right after I’ve finished my morning routine. This gives it a place of priority in my day so it doesn’t get overlooked or pushed off until later. You’ll be surprised how much you get accomplished toward a goal with a specific block of FOCUSED time spent on it each day.
Here’s my ideal summer schedule. See the green section designated for my 90 day goals?
Step 5: How do I decide which tasks to work on each day?
I pick 3 tasks to work on every day from the list we brainstormed earlier. Since I set aside 90 minutes for my 90 day goals tasks each morning, I try to break my tasks down small enough to accomplish them in 30 minutes each. Breaking tasks down super small makes accomplishing them feel much more manageable.
For example, it’s much easier to “search for a specific topic in google and do 30 minutes of research” than to “write chapter 1.” To help break your tasks down, ask yourself, what is the very next step you need to take. Make it super small. It’s so much more productive to accomplish a whole bunch of small tasks than to procrastinate, feel overwhelmed, and get very little done because you don’t know where to begin.
I don’t have room on my 90 day goals layout, so I just write down a few bigger projects and break them down into smaller tasks in my project management software.
More 90 Day Goals Bullet Journal Layouts
Here are a few other of my 90 day goals layouts in my bullet journal to give you some more ideas.
