Year

We divide our lives into years. Our birthday marks a new year. January first often encourages us to establish new goals. Gretchen Rubin says that September, the beginning of a new school year, is also significant to her.  Sometimes I feel like a new month is a fresh start.

Is a year still the best way to mark our goals and accomplishments? Is this too long a time period? Too short? John Lee Dumas (Entrepreneur on Fire) created the Freedom Journal which sets you up to achieve a goal into 100 days. It generally takes four years to complete college and  nine months to have a baby. Obviously, the length of time needed to complete a goal depends on the project. Perhaps it’s not the length of time that matters but the consideration we put into carrying out the plans.

A good plan for achieving things is estimating how long it will take to accomplish. I find it helpful these days to set a timer. This helps me get started. I usually set the time for 10, 20, or 30 minutes. For example, I set 20 minutes to write my blog posts. If I am reading for school, I set 30 minutes. If I just need motivation to start I set the timer for ten minutes and usually reset it 2 or 3 times until I finish.

Perhaps we are just looking for ways to get ourselves started more than finishing.