Update on Personal Strategy Development
For the last week or so, I’ve been researching methods for developing a business strategic plan that can be applied to developing your own personal strategic plan. As noted on my Agile Personal Development Methodology page, I’ve identified good methods for developing a personal vision and values statement and also a life list of those items that you strive to achieve in life. The next step is to work on methods for developing the strategy to implement this vision.
What I’ve learned is that there isn’t a lot of specific, ‘how-to’ information on developing a business strategic plan. Most tools or descriptions focus on the importance of strategic planning, or what a strategic plan looks like, versus the detailed steps to develop one. This has made it difficult to identify a good method to use. I have found two methods that may be useful, one is the Balanced Scorecard method, and another is something called the Goals Grid.
The Balanced Scorecard method is a comprehensive approach to strategic planning and implementation for businesses. It focuses on the non-financial measures of effectiveness for a business (as well as the financial). My initial take is that there may be some concepts here that apply to your own personal development plan, particularly in trying to find a balance between the different aspects of your life. I’ll be evaluating this method over the next couple of weeks, so check back for progress.
The Goals Grid is a tool for thinking about what goals you want to achieve within a business. This leads to helping you develop a strategic plan. Where I think this may apply to developing a personal development plan is identifying what you want to do in life (or stop doing), and identify whether you are doing it now (or how well you are doing it now). This allows you to prioritize the areas in your life to focus on, and also what you should cut out of your life. I’ll be evaluating this method in the coming weeks.
I’m looking for ideas on other methods, so please leave a comment with suggestions.
On a separate note, I just read on Lifehacker about the 52 Nights Unplugged blog, where the author Ariel is spending one night a week without any electronic screens (i.e. no computers, no TV, no cell phone). She is using that time to focus on other important things in her life. The ‘no TV or Internet one night a week’ idea was something I ran across when developing my life list, and something I have wanted to check out. I think it is a great method for freeing up some time to learn something new or develop a new non-electronic hobby (for me, I’d like to sketch more). I’m going to check on her progress, and get ideas for how to implement this myself.