Hitting Your End Of Year Billing Targets-Turning Dead-Time Into Dead-Line
Hitting Your End Of Year Billing Targets-Turning Dead-Time Into Dead-Line
As Christmas decorations appear in shops, it’s all too easy to consider 2015 pretty much finished when it comes to reaching our yearly career targets. Our ‘2015 goals’ quickly become ‘2016 goals’ as our foot moves off the accelerator and we slip into neutral for the party and holiday season.
That is a terrible mistake-and one which overlooks a great opportunity. Instead of considering the lead-up to Xmas as a ‘dead-time’, let’s consider Xmas as a ‘dead-line’.
An enormous amount of progress can be made in short bursts of intense activity, as Eric Worre has so famously proven in his renowned 90 day plans. He likens a business or a project to an aircraft, and points out that planes cannot take off without 100% throttle. After you’ve reached ‘altitude’, you should ease off the throttle in order to avoid burnout, but by that stage you’re at a different level, having impressed others and yourself with your extraordinary achievements in a short time frame.
It doesn’t have to be 90 days- after all, in this case, Christmas is a bit shy of that anyway. Yet the concept is the same- and so is the reason it works so well.
How so?
The key to the power of making end of year targets in October is the refreshing shortness of the deadline. After all, when we set ourselves yearly, 5 yearly or even 10 yearly targets, it’s all too easy to procrastinate, and unforeseen events can come in and completely change matters. With a short-term plan that runs only over a few months with an immovable deadline, there’s no time to procrastinate, and there’s less vulnerability to outside forces.
Tips for short-term goal setting
Write down your goals and a non-negotiable deadline.
Remember, the idea is to throw everything you have at it. So aim high and then chase like crazy.
No excuses. Make this goal your top priority. If you have to work 14 hours a day to reach it, do so.
Choose a goal that will make you proud to reach it. This means that while it’s great to impress your bosses by reaching this target, it’s vital that you will impress yourself- otherwise you may falter.
Run work goals past your manager- they might have good input and may even be able to help you reach the goal by allocating you extra resources. On the other hand, you might find that they don’t think it’s a priority and you can save yourself a lot of effort and heartache by finding a more suitable end of year target.
You can choose more than one goal- often having personal goals like fitness will actually complement your work goals brilliantly as one achievement spurs the other.
Of course, you could ignore this advice and just begin a 90 day plan on the first of January, 2016. But then you begin 2016 on a note of failure, knowing that you didn’t reach your goals and didn’t even really try to. Happy goal-chasing- and remember, you can always relax over Xmas as you look back on a truly great year.
Until next time
Cheryl