The minimalist guide to planning 2012 and beyond

No New Year resolutions this year. In fact, I don’t do any any year. However I am resolved to creating a mind map of my goals and aspirations for this year and beyond. Yes, it’s a resolution; but it’s not a New Year’s resolution.

It’s something I’ve never done before and never really understood the point; I think because it’s so far removed from the day-to-day business of getting things done – to-do lists, projects and next actions. Plus, they’re very often cited in the context of a spiritual journey, which put me off & made me somewhat sceptical of their usefulness.

Now, I don’t know whether it’s my age (mid-life crisis), the fact that I’m now a grandfather, or the fact that every other productivity blog is discussing it, but I’ve reached a turning point in my position and have decided to make one for myself.

And I think I’ve found the solution to counteract my detail-focussed brain; it’s described in the blog post “Set audacious goals for 2012 using this powerful visual technique“ from The Mind Mapping Software Blog. From the post:

If you’re like most people, you take whatever you accomplished this year and will increment it upward by X percent. But what if you had a way to dream bigger dreams for 2012, to set ambitious goals that would help you to get much closer to your ideal future?

I encourage you to take a look at the post – it’s short and to the point. I like the idea of forcing myself into a non-linear mode of thought (in the same way that mind mapping does). According to the blog post it’s a well understood and effective method of ‘planning without limits’, but I’ve never come across it before (that I can remember, at least).

Another post I like on this topic (amongst the very many that are out there) is “4 simple steps to position yourself for getting it done in 2012” from smartselfmanagement.com. Mirko, the site’s owner had also made available an XMind mind map for 2011, which you can get from the end of this blog post.

I’m going to create my own MindJet template and make that available if anyone is interested.

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