It’s that time of year again. Whether it’s my birthday (23rd Dec), the winter solstice (happy birthday, Nicole!), Christmas or New Year, around this time I feel the urge to look back and reflect, and to look ahead and plan.

My Goalscape for 2011-2012

This year I’ve been playing around with a goal-setting application called Goalscape, which has really helped me focus my thoughts. If you are of a geeky persuasion, you might want to try out Goalscape too – but if you prefer pen and paper, for financial or other reasons, then that works too.

[I probably need to declare a vested interest – I got Goalscape for free. All I had to do was row 11,000 miles. You could try this strategy too, or you may just prefer to pay the 89 Euros/£75/$117 and skip the rowing. If you do want to get it, please click on the logo at the bottom of this blog, and a % of the cost will go to help fund the Indian Ocean row – but honestly, that’s not my motivation for talking about it!]

I used to use Novamind mind-mapping software to chart out all my projects. It was good, but projects did tend to proliferate. I’ve included my latest Novamind chart, not with the intention that you should be able to read it, but just to give you some idea of how unwieldy it was getting.

What I like about Goalscape is that it uses a pie-chart to represent my time. This constantly reminds me that there is only one of me, and if I take on additional projects, that means a bit less time for everything else. Visually, when I add a new project to the chart, all the other segments shrink a bit to make room.

I can adjust the size of the slice of the pie that I want to allocate to each project, depending on priority, but the pie pointedly refused to have any more than 360 degrees in it. Just as my day stubbornly refuses to have any more than 24 hours in it. If anybody has any solutions to the latter problem, please post a comment to let me know!

One of my goals for 2011 is to get a book deal for the Pacific book that I've just written

Other Stuff:

Oh, and by the way, did I mention it’s my birthday soon?!

If you’re feeling generous, the best birthday present you could give me, which costs you nothing and has no environmental impact, would be to cast your vote for the National Geographic “People’s Choice” Adventurer of the Year.

Thanks a million!

Supercharge your Goals with Goalscape - visual goal management

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