Software you need to achieve your goals - Part 1

1. A Calendar.

How can you get things accomplished without a calendar? You need to write down appointments and when things need to get done. Sure you can do this with a paper calendar, but with software you can book appointments in the distant future. Things like birthdays and anniversaries can recur year after year and you will not miss them. Enter items in your schedule as soon as you know about them. Staff meetings, holidays. Even things like changing your furace filter and cleaning the drains should be entered. If you don’t enter them, you will forget about them, and they won’t get done.

There are so many variants of calendar software, you need to find one that is easy to use, that suits you, but most importantly, one that you will use.

Having a calendar pop up an alert is valuable, but consider the convergence of technology. If you have a cell phone, why not have your calendar send an email to your cell phone to remind you. Don’t miss any appointments.

Some free options are Google Calendar. It’s web based, so you can get your calendar from anywhere and you do things like sharing your calendar with others, and you can add other calendars to yours (such as your local club, or theatre, etc).

Personally, I like eGroupWare. I like it because its web based and I’ve had most of the features of Google calendar for years. It requires a web server though.

When you finish one task that needs to be scheduled for the future, schedule it now. The 6 month cleaning at the dentist? Schedule it when you are the dentist.

Put your life goals on the calendar. Don’t just say things like “I’m moving out of this town in 2 years.” Put in on the calendar. “I’ll give my small business 6 months to make a profit.” Put the profitability deadline on the calendar.

After you’ve used the calendar for several years, the information can be quite interesting. I now have 10 years of my life scheduled. It was interesting to see how often I met friends at restaurants, how often I took trips, etc. It’s valuable to see if my life has been turning out how I’ve expected. It’s also interesting to see how many appointments I’ve had with people - who I simply can’t recall.

Nonetheless, things just don’t happen. If you are disorganized in your scheduling, chances are your life is disorganized. It really doesn’t take much time. Get organized and get closer to achieving your goals.