The APD Methodology

This page contains the current comprehensive methodology for planning, implementation, and tracking of my personal development. I’ve started off with a general structure for now. Over time, I’ll fill in more as I evaluate the different methods (detailed evaluations of each method are in the blog posts) using the APD process.

Planning Methods

Goal-Setting Methodology (Version 1.0)

After evaluating multiple methods, I recommend the following comprehensive methodology for setting your long term personal development goals:

  1. Develop your Personal Vision & Values following the corporate approach. You can read about my results here, here and here, with my final evaluation here. Bottom line, this method worked really well for me. The questions helped me to think through my overall goals for my life, and to tie them together into a concise statement.
  2. Develop your Life List using this comprehensive methodology. This includes a five step process to finalizing your life list.
  3. Align your Personal Vision & Values and your Life List. Details are here. The quick summary - first, make sure everything on your life list is consistent with your personal vision or values. Second, evaluate each section of your personal vision and determine whether your life list supports it. Finally, for each item on your life list, determine where it specifically aligns within your personal vision. Modify your life list as appropriate.

Strategy Development Methodology (Version 1.0)

  1. Develop 5-7 Strategic Themes for each category of your life (e.g. financial, family, career, etc) that you want to focus on. This theme should identify what you want to improve on over the next few years. Examples include ‘Improve Health and Wellness’, ‘Expand Relationships with Friends and Family’, and ‘Increase Career Path Options’. You should also review your personal vision to identify additional ideas for themes and to ensure alignment.
  2. Develop 1-3 Strategic Objectives for each Strategic Theme. Figure out what items on your list are things you want to accomplish over the next few years, and tie them to strategic themes. Incorporate elements from your life list as appropriate. Examples of strategic objectives for the strategic theme ‘Improve Health and Wellness’ theme are ‘Implement fitness plan’, ‘Follow a healthy diet’, and ‘Ensure time for self-reflection’.
  3. Align your Strategic Objectives using a Strategy Map. Use the Strategy Map software at this link. Add all of your strategic objectives onto the map, and identify how they are interrelated to each other.

Current Status of This Iteration

Have developed an approach for using the Balanced Scorecard methodology for developing strategic themes and objectives. Evaluating rest of Balanced Scorecard process for developing specific measurements and implementation plan. This includes how to incorporate metrics from a Life Budget into the Balanced Scorecard process.

Implementation Planning (Version 1.0)

  1. Establish your Life Budget. This applies the personal finance concept of a budget to establishing how many hours a week you should focus on specific activities. This is managed using financial metrics for each hour of activity. The start of a six post series on how to do this is at this post.

Implementation Methods (beta testing)

Current Status of This Iteration

I’m currently evaluating use of a spreadsheet with calculations of my Life Budget. I’m also evaluating how to use the Life Budget to ensure a balanced life and that I’m making progress against my Goals and Objectives.

Methods for Tracking Progress (beta testing)

  1. I’m currently evaluating using 1Time for tracking my hours to feed into the Life Budget spreadsheet.
  2. I’ve completed my evaluation of using the Toggl tool to track my hours to feed into the Life Budget spreadsheet. Details on how to use it are in this post.

In follow-on iterations, I’d like to begin incorporating GTD and other tools.

Last updated: 6/1/08 (Added 1Time as Method for Tracking Progress)