Agile Personal Development

I’m currently following a simple iterative process for revisiting my personal development methodology and plan.

1. Plan

This includes three elements - Goal-Setting, Strategy Development, and Implementation Planning. I’m using an iterative ‘agile’ approach to evaluate different methods for completing these steps (and folding the best methods into a comprehensive personal development methodology), and developing my personal development plan.

2.Implement

Implementation of the plan is the key to actually achieving my goals (this is the hard part for me - sometimes the planning is the most exciting part). Along the way, I’m evaluating different tools, techniques, etc to keep on the path. These implementation tools also become part of the personal development methodology.

3. Tracking

This is where I find ways to track my progress and guilt myself into sticking with the plan. I’ll evaluate different methods for collecting and displaying metrics, with the goal of developing a comprehensive ‘life scorecard’ or ‘progress meter’.

4. Repeat

As I become aware of new methods for planning, implementation, or tracking, I’ll need to revisit the overall approach. I’ll also reevaluate whether my goals are still valid, or if I need to re-prioritize.

The common thread through all the process steps is the use of an ‘agile’, iterative cycle to allow rapid evaluation of methods - how relevant are they to my goals, how quickly can I implement them, are they something I can stick with overall the long run, etc. This also allows for incorporation of the many great ideas that are constantly being generated either in books, blogs, or other sources.