What will you do with the next year of your life?
2008 is but hours from being gone forever and 2009 is waiting to rush in. For many people 2009 represents a clean slate, a new start, and 365 days of opportunity. Many of those people, maybe even you, had the same thought a year ago. Some made promises that this year, this time, it’d really count.
Here’s some news: it’s not the years that count, it’s the days, hours, minutes, and moments.
Life is wonderful. There is so much beauty in this world, so much to experience, to sample, to learn, and to love that it’s sometimes difficult to know what to do. The key, in the Project Life, is to identify what’s important, create priorities, create plans, and then to act on those plans. If you want to make 2009 a year full of memories, great experiences, and a year to become a better, richer, more joyful person you can.
Planning for 2009
Of course to plan for a whole year, to treat the next year of your life like a project, it’ll take time. If you’ve not read my entry on identifying your project requirements I recommend you do now. Planning is an iterative process that’ll happen throughout the project, not just at the beginning. Planning in your life is no different, but you first must know what you want, in order to create what you want. If you have no requirements for life then you’ll get whatever chance brings you.
In project management we often rely on lessons learned documentation to review what’s been done in the past to predict what’ll happen in the future. By reviewing past failures and past success you can create conditions to avoid mistakes and amplify successes. As you may be preparing resolutions for 2009 I encourage to look back in order to act forward. Examine what’s worked in the past and then plan accordingly.
Creating Lessons Learned Documentation
A recommendation for 2009: document your experiences. I strongly encourage you to create a journal of your life over the next year. You’ll use this journal to record your thoughts, feelings, and conditions of your life. You can make it electronic or use a paper-based book. Create a habit of making an entry each day; even if it’s just a sentence or two, record what’s happening in your life and how you’re managing it.
This journal will help you organize your current thoughts and keep you focused on achieving your goals and maintaining your resolutions. This journal will also serve as documentation for all you’ve learned once you reach the end of 2009 and look forward to this millennium’s teenage years. You’ll create your lessons learned documentation and have evidence of what’s worked, what didn’t work, and how you monitored and controlled your life.
