<div class="text-justify">

The image is quite fairy-floss-like, but it doesn't represent much candy - it is a tool that I am using to plan my Q3 activities at work, where the yellow are the Goal, the pink are the Milestones, the blue the Tasks involved and the purple are the predefined Definitions of Done - which is essentially just a point to evaluate whether the goal was accomplished. 

I use a presentation software for this, as I am not a project manager, and this is easy enough and visual enough for me. I have no idea how some people plan projects on excels. The problem I currently have though is, I am meant to be planning the Q3 activities, but I still haven't finished the Q2 activities. I have been smashing it the last week or so though, so *hopefully* I will meet my deadlines and even get a bonus out of it. 

>I quite like the quarterly bonuses rather than yearly.  

![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/23x1WT3WWZH1pbrMJVQeXrYr3BCZAN4D9tgis17iHmnyog1X2Y9KNh8GSTj2xhCZCsQNc.png)


Some people prefer the large sum at the end and of course, there is a productivity reason for doing it this way, but I do feel that it benefits me more and I am more likely to meet expectations, when the pieces are more bitesize, which is why I use the model above to plan too. It makes it bitesize for me, which definitely helps considering my other cognitive challenges that affect me. 

>One more week...

Then four weeks of holidays and I think that for the first time in a long time, I feel like I really need the break. The weather *should* be pretty good next weekend too, so we are looking to get away to the beach for a couple nights, which is about a 200km drive from where we live. 

>But, I was looking at the picture above and what it represents and I wonder, do people do this in their lives? Or is it all just arranged in an ad hoc manner, a little willy-nilly with very little rhyme or reason?

I was talking with some friends over this recently and asked them what kinds of goals they had and nearly all had *something* in mind. However, when asked what they were doing toward that end, the answers got far more ambiguous, where there was almost an embarrassed mumbling, which I think is common when I have asked these impromptu questions from friends.

While we know what we want, *when it comes to doing what is required* to have it, we become far less enthusiastic. There are many reasons for this, like length of timeline and size of goal etc, but if we don't break it down into manageable pieces, not only is our activity sporadic, but a lot of necessary tasks end up falling through the cracks, slowing or halting progress, lowering our motivation and making us feel like we failed. Which we did.

>But, failure needn't be fatal. 

Just before, I was in a "coffee meeting" with a new colleague from my team and they were asking about Q3 goals and I mentioned I am well behind where I should be, but am very confident I will get them complete this week, *except for one,* which requires another person to produce content and they don't have time now - meaning I miss my deadline. This is my problem in this case, not theirs. Then my colleague said...

*So you won't get 80% of it done?*

>Score!!!

Damn yes I will and that is what is required for 100% bonus. The reason is that there are *long tails* on many of these projects that extend well past the end of the quarter, so 100% completion is very rarely possible. And, because I have everything else done (or will have by week's end), I will definitely be over the 80% marker. 

*But, I still feel like I failed.*

As I said to my colleague, while the bonus point might be passed, I still failed to meet the deadline of my own expectations. A week ago, my supervisor was ready to postpone two of my Q2 goals away, both are nearing completion. And, this is what I mean by "not fatal" as while even if I don't reach my end goals this week, the majority of what I set out to accomplish, was done and there isn't much to go until full completion. 

If we look at our own goals in life, do we do the same? Are we satisfied with not quite getting to where we wanted to be, finishing at 80% done? I suspect that like me, many are not, even though they justify why they didn't make it to protect themselves from the taste of disappointment and failure. When I look around at the house I have built (or paid for people to build), I can recognize that it is decent but, what stands out are all the things that failed or, I would have done differently if I had had more time or money. 

>This is normal too.

While a lot of people like to say they are positive in nature, I think that most of us are not, which is why "loss" weighs twice as heavily as gains. We are geared to look at the negatives, we are designed to fear failure, which means that if we want to be able to face it, we have to learn to overcome what we have been conditioned to respond to. Of course, fear of failure is a useful tool in our box, but when we apply it to all activities, we are going to hamper our ability to reach our goals.

Perhaps I should spend some time more actively developing my own personal goals in life and breaking them down to see what I can actually tend to now to move me along the path. It might not take me far or all the way, but it at least keeps my feet ticking over down that road and who knows, perhaps I will meet a fork that I wasn't expecting, that leads me in a completely different direction. 

One thing is for sure though - 

>If we don't move, it doesn't mean the world stops moving around us.

At the end, the Definition of Done is established, even if we never wanted that result.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]


</div>