Summary

Dennis Cortés shares his personal approach to setting, organizing, and prioritizing goals to enhance productivity and personal development.

Abstract

In the article "How I Prioritize and Organize Goals in My Life," Dennis Cortés discusses his method for effectively managing goals. He emphasizes the importance of having actionable goals rather than broad ambitions, categorizing tasks into 'Overall,' 'Weekdays,' and 'Weekends' to maintain productivity, and keeping larger goals in mind to influence daily decisions. Cortés also highlights the significance of prioritizing tasks based on their contribution to overall productivity and suggests that maintaining certain goals as subconscious reminders can lead to positive habit formation and personality development.

Opinions

Cortés believes that large goals are too vague and prefers to focus on specific, actionable objectives that are achievable within a month.
He finds categorizing goals into 'Overall,' 'Weekdays,' and 'Weekends' helps balance work and personal life, allowing for more restful and productive weekends.
Prioritization is key to productivity, and Cortés suggests regularly assessing tasks to determine which will most effectively move you towards your goals.
Keeping larger, subconscious goals top-of-mind can naturally influence your actions and help in achieving those goals without direct, daily focus.
Cortés values the impact of subconscious goals on everyday choices, which can lead to significant personal growth over time.

How I Prioritize and Organize Goals in My Life

Volume 73 - three minute read

Feb 9th, 2018

What is the driving force in your life? What makes you want to be a better, more productive, and more caring person? Your goals of course! Everyone has them. Whether you write them down or subconsciously keep them in mind, at the end of the day the difference between where we are and where we want to be are the goals that drive us.

This is a continuation of my post from last week about how I manage my to-do list. I think both this article and last week’s work well with each other for me personally and are typically dependent of one another. So if you haven’t read that one yet, I recommend checking it out first!

Now, like most things in life there is no one-way to do things best. While I’m not here to tell you the way I do things is the best way, I do think there can be aspects of my personal process that can be applicable and beneficial to your own. Let’s go over how I approach my goals in life.

🏗 Think Small, Work Big

I don’t like to write down overarching goals that I have in life. Large goals tend to be very vague and difficult to work towards directly in my experience. For example; if I were to write down I want to be more productive in life, I would need to spend extra time and breaking down this goal every time I look at it. Instead, I keep my large goals subconscious and only write down actionable goals no more than a month out that I can work towards.

📥 Categorize

Categorizing my goals has been a game-changer for me. You’re welcome to categorize yours to best fit your needs and/or lifestyle but I personally categorize into Overall, Weekdays, and Weekends.

The reason I do this is to help keep me (somewhat) productive during the week. After a long day of full-time work it’s usually difficult to work on important or deep-thought tasks. Because of this I categorize smaller tasks under weekdays and leave larger, more thought required tasks for my weekends. On weekends I’m able to approach personal tasks with a more rested mind and more easily work through larger tasks. Weekdays for me consist of smaller project improvements, fun new project ideas, and working on my EP these days which are more relaxing tasks that I can do without as much focus needed.

My overall tasks are things I can approach relatively easy that don’t fall into either of the other categories specifically. Getting back into golf for example is a goal I have on my mind that doesn’t require much besides a time investment (I have the day there to keep myself accountable). Going to the gym 4 times a week doesn’t fall into either of the categories as well and is more so there to keep it top of mind for me.

⚖️ Prioritize, Prioritize Prioritize

Going back to the productivity goal: if I’m wanting to be more productive, I think about all the things I can possibly work on that amount to my overall productivity (ideally these will already be on your list so you can look through them). I think about what I consider to be the most productive item I can work on and prioritize these accordingly. This will usually lead to items on my separate to-do list to keep my tasks prioritized as I best see fit.

🧠 Top-of-Mind Grants Production

So remember when I said to keep larger goals as a subconscious part of your mind? Well it goes a long way. To be a bit transparent here, a goal I made for myself a few years back was to be an overall more pleasant person. Being nicer, more polite, more open to helping others, etc. This wasn’t something I wrote down, I kept it as a top-of-mind goal that I had. When situations presented themselves that I could work towards this goal, I had that goal on my mind and would act accordingly. Nowadays it has become part of my personality for the most part (despite some flaws of course, we’re not perfect!) and shows I was able to get that goal accomplished.

I’ve found this to be applicable in all types of goals from personality to habits to productivity. Whatever your goals are, I recommend you try putting this into practice and see how it affects even simple everyday choices.

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Dennis Cortés Designer & Illustrator that codes, writes, and makes music. www.cortes.us