Go Getter Journal Method: A Quick, Goal Oriented Approach to your Growth

TL;DR This method has been years in the making. It is not for the 99%. It is for the 1% who are truly motivated to influence change in their life and career!

Feb 29, 2024

Disclaimer: This article has been years in the making. It is only for the 1% that want to take action to change your life and career. If you are the other 99%, STOP READING NOW.

It’s Feb 29th, two months since the new year resolutions happened. And perhaps the last Hail Mary before you give up on your resolves 2024 for next year. However, if you are action oriented, and looking for a framework to really do something about your career and life even still, it’s not too late. The 5 mins you spend reading this today help will you cut through chaos, get unstuck, become more intentional towards your career and life - without spending too much time. I have become fairly proficient in navigating the career ladder over the years, not only my own, but also growing people around me (since 2020) — in terms of direct promotions for people who have reported to me over the years, mentoring people who reach out for advice, helping people switch roles, exploring new domains, you get the point.

In each of these instances, it so happened that aside of the “opportunity meeting preparation”, two things were critical - 1. strategic intention and 2. consistent planning and accountability. Unlike popular belief opportunity does not arrive at your footsteps. Certainly not if you are a new grad, or a first generation immigrant, or in a new country, or in a new industry, or changing your field, or all of these all at once... There is persistence, process and strategic work on yourself involved, alongside continued proactivity to seek out opportunities.

To that end, after many many iterations, studying many methods [my favorite 2,3], talking to many other successful people and testing many productivity frameworks, I realized there was a gap. The existing frameworks while great, had 3 gaping holes in being strategically goal and deadline oriented.

They are too cumbersome to understand, not super intuitive for people who want to go from point A to point B in their career.
They presume you have an hour to spare on personal development everyday, while realistically it may just be 5 mins a day.
They presume people use their journal for everything, their work TODOs, their personal growth, big milestones and small ones.

I iterated on ones that existed and have been doing what I call the “go getter journaling” technique. It takes 20 mins to setup once a year - mainly because you have to be mindful about your annual goals and break them into monthly milestones, and then 5 mins everyday for checkins.

You don’t overwhelm your journal with your daily musings or daily TODOs, it’s for the big stuff, stuff that will move the needle on your life - personal, professional, health all of it. Because they are all connected.

Move the daily TODOs to a calendar or a document checklist whichever you encounter in your daily work. This journal is your compass to the future you.

So, here are the steps

Step 1: Annual Retrospective 2023 - Broken down into Personal, Career, Financial and Comfort Growth sections. Think about the top 1 thing you accomplished in each category, celebrate it! Think about the 1 thing you regret not getting to, or is incomplete, log it.

Step 2: Annual Goals 2024 - Broken down into Personal, Career, Financial and Comfort Growth sections. Think about where you see yourself in Dec 2024. Now, think about what it will take to get there - 1 item for each of the 4 categories. Does it match your regretful items from 2023? If yes, put it down in bold. If no, move on with your regrets. Give the monthly calendar a page (scroll down to see how) and plan what you have to do each month to accomplish your annual goals. These will be your monthly TODOs.

Step 3: Once you have monthly TODOs from #2 that line up with your annual ambitions, come back everyday for 2 mins to log the progress you made in each of your goal categories. Track the times you achieved something, and slot learnings where you missed the mark.

TL;DR

Here is an Example January!

BLUE highlights to track my workouts
TODOs / REDS to track monthly goals that will build up to my annual goals. These can be learning something new, investment, reading 20 papers about a technical topic, anything that helps you build towards the future.
LEARNINGS to track what you took away from that month. Mine has had things like “Need to learn inference optimization because I could not figure out 20% of paper”, or “Need to be more patient in situation X with Y”

All your accomplishments, and learnings will make up your annual retrospective.

If you have read this far, CONGRATULATIONS you are truly the 1%. So how do you get started on this thing. You can either DIY this method based on the descriptions above or order the one I created for myself from Amazon here.

Journal Website — https://gogettterjournal.com

A little about the journal I created on Amazon. This was a LOT of learning, effort, and many MANY years spent to understand the best way to bring my personal practice (inspired from many smart people) into a scalable process (for you and everyone else). There were many failures on the way as well! Having said that, it is still my very first attempt at physical content publishing, and distribution, and so, there will be mistakes. I am looking to learn from them and make it better overtime. So please don’t hesitate to reach out, and share with others who might like it!

I am excited to hear how you like this one! Reach out to me if you have thoughts.

References