Let’s Set Our Goals for 2024 Together in Just 10 Minutes

The purpose of this exercise is to set meaningful and realistic goals that you will actually make progress towards in 2024. We’ll make sure they are visible throughout the year and you have a chance to modify your approach along the way to stay motivated.

A bit of background and why I’m writing this: I’m not a guru, I’m not rich and I’m certainly not as fulfilled in life as I’d like to be. But I am making progress year over year. If you’re also making good progress and you’re happy with your goal-setting framework, maybe I don’t have anything of value for you.

But if you’re struggling to make meaningful progress on your goals, I think I can help you with this exercise in just 10 minutes. Here’s what we’re gonna cover:

1. Your vision
2. Your goals in 2024 to support that vision
3. The habits and projects to achieve your goals
4. Implementing reviews and iterations throughout the year

Got your pen and paper? Phone? Whiteboard? Grab whatever is nearest to you — you’ll just need a place to write things down as we go along.

Let’s get started.

1. Your vision (2 minutes)

Close your eyes, take a deep breath and imagine your perfect day from the moment you wake up to the moment you fall asleep in the evening. Come back here in 1–2 minutes when you’re done.

Ready?

Now, really do it. Seriously. I know it’s hard but we can’t continue this exercise without dedicating some effort to your ideal vision. If your mind wanders off, come back to your perfect day. Feel the emotion from the various activities you imagine.

Did you really do it now?

Ok, write down the 3–5 anchor points from your perfect day — the things that make it a day worth living. Here’s an example from my vision:

• Spending time with my family in the morning and evening
• Deep work session early in the morning before everyone wakes up
• Workout in the afternoon
• Winding down with a book and writing my plan for the next day

Now, keeping this in mind, let’s move to setting your goals.

2. Your goals (2 minutes)

Spend 1 minute brainstorming all of the things you can do (or need to have in your life) to consistently live your best day from above. Use the anchor points as your guide and write down everything. No rules. No right answers. Just volume. Go.

Next, underline the items that feel most important. Spend 1 minute putting a structure behind them — that is, make them more specific and actionable. You don’t have to get it perfect. It just has to make sense to you. Here’s an example:

• Wake up early → Start getting up at 5am
• Get a new job → Find work as a senior financial analyst
• Work out more often → Start going to CrossFit
• Read more often → Read 12 books

Aim for a maximum of 5–10 bigger goals. Again, no rules. They could feel unrealistic or take much longer than a year to achieve. We’re going to handle this in the next section.

3. Habits and Projects (4 minutes)

Ok, now you’ve figured out your vision and identified the changes you need to make in support of that vision.

Looking at your goals from above, what are the things you can realistically accomplish in the next 12 months? Only the 3-5 goals that are most important to your vision should make the cut. Give it 1 minute.

Ready?

Now, we’re going to massively reduce the barriers to hitting your goals. We’ll do this by being ultra-specific and working in increments. Here’s an example using the goals from Step 2 above:

Goal: Start getting up at 5am

• Project: Buy a smartwatch with a vibrating alarm.
• Habit: 0 of 60 days waking up at 5am

Goal: Find work as a senior financial analyst

• Project: Update my CV
• Habit: 0 of 20 applications sent

Goal: Start going to CrossFit

• Project: Sign up for a CrossFit gym nearby
• Habit: 0 of 10 workouts completed

Goal: Read 12 books

• Project: Select 3 good books to read
• Habit: 0 of 60 days reading before bed

Complete this exercise with your own goals. Aim for a specific number of instances for each habit, similar to the examples above. Ideally, limit the instances for periods between 1 week and 3 months to allow for regular reviews and modifications which we will ensure in the next section.

4. Review and iterations (2 minutes)

So, you have a flexible roadmap for making progress on your most important goals. Now, you need to avoid the common mistake of “setting and forgetting” your resolutions.

This is when a bit of technology comes in handy. Personally, I use Todoist but you can use any task manager — such as TickTick or the built-in reminders on your phone. Here’s the process:

1. Create a new task called “Review goals and habits”
2. Add your goals and habits as a comment in the task
3. Set the task to recur every day
4. As you complete the actions and habits, update the comment daily
5. If needed, make modifications to your goals or approach. You will likely come across obstacles or insights to make your goal-setting more effective

Again, here’s an example from my own setup on Todoist:

As you can see, my approach is based on 3-month increments. If you are just starting out, it’s probably best to use a shorter time frame to allow you to modify your approach more often. As mentioned above, you can use any setup/tech you prefer as long as your goals and habits are visible on a daily basis.

Final thoughts

So we come to the end of the exercise. You will notice that my approach to goal setting is based on ongoing motivation and iteration. It’s based on identifying what’s important in your life and working backwards to achieve what matters.

I hope this will help you just as much as it has helped me in the last few years. Have questions or suggestions about the process? Just leave a reply.

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