My Personal Goals for 2020
Last year I tracked my personal goals. It was the first time I’ve done this so formally, and found the process pretty helpful — perhaps mainly cos I pretty much achieved them all. I’ve reviewed my goals for 2020 and added a few new ‘uns.
TL;DR: Reading, Cycling, Blogging, Weight Management, Time with family.
>> Read 50 books. [No change in target]. Last year I read 58 books, which was an unusual year. Reading a book a week on average still feels like a tough target. I feel like I get through a lot of books, but still enjoy them — increasing the target runs the risk of it becoming a chore and that is the last thing I want.
>> Summarise 100% of non-fiction books read. [No change in target]. I’m finding the three-sentence summary useful when I’m trying to remember which book said what thing.
>> Cycle 4000 miles. [No change in target]. This still feels like a stretch target for a normal year (I’ve only managed to hit this target in 3 out of the last 7 years).
>> Cycle a Gran Fondo each month [New]. One of my cycling buddies has done this through 2019, and seems like a good sub-target to help achieve the 4,000 miles above.
>> Write 10 Blog Articles. [No change in target]. This felt like a stretch in 2019, so keeping it the same.
>> Get 1,000 Twitter Followers. [New]. This is a completely pointless and arbitrary target, but 1,000 feels like a big landmark. This has to be achieved organically, without any blatant harvesting. Of course, the main thing is for me to remain top of the KGH Exec Twitter League — a league my colleagues have no idea about- until now!!
>> Get to my target weight. [No change in target]. I did really well at working to this in the first third of the year and then it went to pot. John Cutler tweeted recently about people giving themselves hard (basically unachievable) targets at the start of the year, and suggesting that a conservative start that iterates is better. In 2019 it helped to have a specific event (in my case, cycling over 1000 miles in 9 days) as a motivation, with the causal link that every kg less would make each mile a tiny bit easier. I do have another fairly major cycling event planned for June this year, which will help so maybe I also need an autumn one in there too.
>> Spend more time with my family and friends. [New target]. Not quite sure how and if I can measure it, other than being subjective based on ‘feel’. This feels appropriate as I wouldn’t want to reduce it to a rigid time measurement. Other measurement methods are available I’m sure, but I’d be bloomin’ reluctant to survey my family and friends! How weird would that be!
>> Write weeknotes. No target (intentionally). Last year I managed to do one every week apart from the weeks I was on holiday, which came to 46. I’m in a rhythm for doing them on a Friday evening and it continues to be a useful conversation point with people I meet, some of whom have read it before they meet me IRL. It was also useful leading up to the senior appointments I made in 2019 to give people a transparent view of where my thinking was on various things.
