How to achieve your goals via post-it note

This is a post-it note on my computer. If you want to learn how to achieve your goals via post-it note, let me tell you what I’ve learned.

A few months ago I reorganized my office. In the process of thinking about my reorganization project (because I always do a lot of Thinking before I do anything), I came across a Buzzfeed article on “40 Inspiring Workspaces of  the Famously Creative.” This was the picture of Chip Kidd‘s computer, and his deskspace:

This workspace was particularly inspiring to me. It’s both organized and cluttered at the same time. “Wow,” I thought to myself, “I’m organized and cluttered, too. If it’s OK for Chip Kidd, it’s OK for me!”

I noticed how Chip Kidd had a jumble of post-it notes neatly encircling his computer monitor. I immediately realized that it was the perfect space for important reminders for a few reasons:

• your computer monitor frame is not a lot of space, so it forces you to restrict the reminders to the most important ones
• post-it notes are not very big, so they force you to edit your reminder to the most important elements
• it is right in front of you, so it’s impossible to ignore

These lessons come in very handy when you are trying to achieve a goal. I ask myself these questions:

• Which goals are most important to me?
• What’s the simplest, most basic step I need to take to reach my goal?
• How can I make my goal impossible to ignore?

Then I write my boiled-down, absolute-most-important goals in big letters on a post-it note and plaster it right below my monitor, where I see it ALL THE TIME.

I recently realized that I have been achieving 3 out of the 4 goals on my post-it above. I have been exercising three or four times a week, meditating almost every day, and being creative every day. Being creative is not much of a stretch for me, admittedly. But exercising and meditating regularly is a real victory!

Now I just have to work on the top goal: work fewer hours. I am still figuring out how to get there. I will keep you posted.

What goal(s) would you put on a post-it note?