Milestones
On my way to work this morning my trusty SUV rolled over 177777 miles. Now that’s not a big milestone, but a neat one to see on the odometer. It got me to thinking about personal milestones and how we measure where we are in life.
So often we try to measure our lives and careers by the big milestones: 10 years of service, 25 years of service, VP of something or other, etc. When managing projects you’re always taught to break the big tasks down into smaller ones that are achievable. The question naturally arises as to what you can do to break these big goals down into smaller ones that you can make happen.
This is where “natural milestones” come in. As a personal manager, you need to find those times when you cross natural thresholds and can take a bit of time to measure and assess where you stand and where you’re going. Even the hamster climbs out of his wheel every so often (unfortunately, he finds out he’s at the same place he started.) Now, I’m not saying use things such as the weekly review in GTD parlance for this. I’m saying be aware of your life and those points where you know you’re in a state of transition. It could be completion of a big project at home, a major milestone for someone else in your life (child’s graduation perhaps) or just a point in time when the pendulum is changing direction.
Understanding your personal milestones and being able to assess where you stand at any given time helps you learn how to do that with the people you manage. Developing a sense as to what their milestones are will assist you in guiding them in the right directions, or back on the correct path if they’re straying. After all, nobody wants to be a hamster, do they?
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POSTED IN: coaching, looking inward, management
4 opinions for Milestones
Baby booties
Aug 8, 2007 at 7:54 am
The newborn baby booties are something that has continued to gain appeal in families that are just taking shape and in families that are eager for the new addition.
WebedtecH
Aug 14, 2007 at 10:23 am
Milestones…
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Daniel
Aug 14, 2007 at 2:15 pm
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Slacker Manager, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
LittleBlackBook
Aug 14, 2007 at 5:05 pm
In a nutshell it means take those natural milestones that occur in all our lives and use them as the opportunities to take stock of your work, your family, and your personal life and put things in order and perspective.