Even More Questions to Help You Mold Your Future

Posted on December 31, 2009 by Bruce Keener

This is a follow-on to my previous article that provided a list of questions to help you conduct a GTD 50,000 foot review. In this post, I provide links to other articles that have good questions for you to answer as you look forward. Since many of you are wondering about 2010 will be like for you, these questions will help you focus your energies so that it will be like what you want it to be.

  • The most recent David Allen Productive Living Newsletter has some excellent questions for you to answer, both for looking back on 2009 and for looking ahead to 2010. By the way, if you haven’t subscribed to David’s newsletter, you really should.
  • Seth Godin’s most recent post, Seven years gone, asks “Seven years from now, what will you have to show for what you’re doing right now?” When you look at that question in the context of Seth’s article, you can see how it important the question is.
  • The Smart Bear blog has 10 great questions for start-up managers to ask themselves monthly, but the questions can be easily modified to fit your situation or mine … you don’t have to be a start-up manager to benefit from the questions. For example, their Question 3, What one thing is most responsible for preventing sales?, could be phrased as What one thing is most responsible for me not meeting my most important goal?

I hope you will take the time to look these questions over and factor your favorites into your planning.

Happy New Year everyone!

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  • http://blog.asmartbear.com Jason Cohen

    Thanks for the link, and I certainly agree that many of my 10 startup tips can be remolded to personal life.

    As another example, the bit about “should I hire someone” could mean “can I outsource this,” sort of in a Tim Ferris manner.

    Cheers.

    • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce Keener

      Thanks for the great article (and blog), Jason. Thanks also for the extra example you just gave of how your start-up management questions can be applied to personal life management. Good stuff.

  • Dan

    Bruce, another good read to add, though it is a book, is a book entitled “The Principle of the Path” it is by Andy Stanley (I just finished it). The take home point is that “it is your direction, not intention, that determines your destination.” For example, we may have the intention of reducing spending this coming year, but if our direction (choices) don’t support that, we will not arrive at our destination (reduced spending). Or to phrase it another way, we need to understand that every decision we make has an effect — there is a cause-effect connection. So we would need to ask, “is this decision taking me in the direction I want to go.” This principle applies to every aspect of life and life’s goals: family, work, health, spiritual journey, finance, etc. It has prompted me to ask more questions about where this decision is going to take me. We can have a great plan, but are we making the necessary decisions to follow that plan?

    note: I get no commission from plugging this book, I just found it personally beneficial! ;-)

    Trust you have a blessed New Year!

    • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce Keener

      Dan,
      Thank you. Sounds like a great book. I’ve got a $75 B&N gift certificate that’s “burning a hole in my pocket,” so I’ll use it to grab Stanley’s book and a couple of scifi ones when I go out for lunch today.

      Thanks for sharing this with me. I look forward to reading it.

  • Dan

    Bruce, I should advise you that it does have a “religious” perspective intertwined which I found to be insightful. The Principle of the Path is still valid, even if one does not embrace the religious side of it. FYI

    • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce Keener

      Thanks for the forewarning, Dan. Although I am kinda “religioned out” right now, I’ll read it anyway. Thanks for letting me know, though.