Tucker, you do know that goals aren't tasks don't you?
Sunday, January 15, 2012 Last week I not only recapped my entire last year of blogging in a single post, I told you how I had joined 60 other artists in a 9 week marketing and business skills challenge. Read it when you're done this week's post.
My six month and twelve month goals.
My 6 month and 12 month goals for my music business
The first chapter of the challenge was on setting goals. Sounds simple right?
I kept writing out lists of things I needed to do: Write a blog post, Contact so and so, Stop looking at tech blogs and write a new song already etc. These are all things I need to do but they aren't places I need to be. They aren't final desitnation kind of things.
I just kept writing and I wound up with a couple pages of tasks I needed to do. Then I started grouping them into common buckets and labeling them with what they pertained to: Grow Audience, Sell CDs, Sell Kids Book etc.
I still had a million things to do but they all fit into less than ten buckets. They felt way easier to deal with because the were working towards something (not just doing work).
I looked at my big buckets and asked myself “What do you think you can do with all of this in 6 months? In a year?” Then I wrote those down. If they didn't really fit with my bigger buckets I wrote it on my 'more than a year' list to be visited later. As an example I wrote down ‘Make a full length CD’. Since I’ve only just put out my EP it’s not really feasible for me to be writing or funding a new album project.
Once I had my big goals I wrote them out pretty and hung them on my wall. Now every task I do, will be in support of those goals.
Tasks: What you do to get to your goals. Goals: What you say you'll finally get done one day.
If you'd like to know more about how I got to my goals just get in touch. Or if you'd just like keep up with how I'm doing with the challenge you can follow me on twitter, @SH_Tucker, or you can come join me at Facebook.com/SongsTuckerWrote
Getting To Done, goals, tasks in Music Success In Nine Weeks, My Story
Reader Comments (5)
You have described the process brilliantly! Thanks Tucker. I always wondered how to deal with those vague "in the future projects." I am now adding a goal to my list of goals, which is to regularly revisit and organize my goals using your bucket idea. :)
Meanwhile, onward to week 2!
My teacher and amazing business coach (and amazing artist) http://julieflanders.com/ always stops me from making to do lists into goals - this is a very good point. It's important to look at the "tasks" and realize they are baby steps to a larger goal! Well done and I can't wait to see Week 2 :)
Thanks Ariel, I thought of that after I posted. I just felt, while I was doing the process, I had so much stuff on the go already it made sense to see where they fit.
Next go 'round I'll work with the big goals and figure out the tasks I need to do to get there.
This is very cool. I have been making "to-do lists" for years, and over the last couple of years they have almost always been oriented toward moving my band (http://www.reverbnation.com/20riverside) forward, but I had never thought of organizing them into groups of the goals I wanted to achieve. I think this will take some weight off my mind. Thanks Tucker/Sean.
Thanks James I'm glad you enjoyed My post. Good Luck with the band, you have a great sound.