Letter #60: 2023 goal tracking sheet template for you
This tracker has helped me achieve lots of my goals this year.
Howdy Habibis!
How’s year-end treating you?
I’ve been riding with an assassin finishing up the Remnant Chronicle series and client work while shopping for a ton of upcoming family events and babysitting a 14-month-old monster with four teeth and a soul as curious as Christopher Columbus’.
Anyhoo, back to the year's end. A time when your dead-from-the-start-of-the-year goals rise from their graves to shame you on doing little (or not enough) to achieve them.
I’ve had a lot of luck hitting them this year though. I traveled after a longg time, started journaling, and dipped my toes into consulting on top of my usual writing and editing work, for example.
One thing that worked for me throughout the year for hitting these and other goals was writing them down.
I did this using a Goal Tracking Sheet (GTS) that you can use as well to track personal and work goals.
It works for the simple reason: writing goals makes you more likely to achieve them. So I decided to wrap up this year’s last issue by sharing the sheet with you.
Use this sheet to not only track goals but also categorize them into work, mental wellness, and fitness among others. This way, you can work on improving each aspect of your life.
The Status corner is my favorite of all though because it’s not limited to start, stop, and done. Instead, it lets you mark a goal as ‘punted indefinitely’ and ‘deprioritized for now,’ which reduces the mental load that comes with unaccomplished goals.
A few things to keep in mind as you use GTS to track old and new goals:
Start like this: Go to File > Make a Copy > use the template as your own.
Add only the big, hairy goals to this list and their outcome — not the specific tasks that will lead you to them. This saves you from cluttering the sheet.
Set rough shipping dates. Adjust them as you achieve the goal.
Revisit this sheet every two months so you can revise pending goals and reflect on whether they’re still important before working toward them.
That’s all for the year, folks! It’s been one helluva ride — I hope the year has been kind to you and the next one turns out even brighter.
I’ll leave you with the sheet and return two weeks later, after the holiday break.
Cheers,
Masooma
Thanks for sharing!
Much appreciated, very practical, and timely.