Mandala chart or Lotus Blossom

Allegedly created by Yasuo Matsumura, a management consultant from Japan, this technique can help you get a broader overview of your goal. 

Start by drawing a 3x3 grid. In the center, write down your goal, like “get top grades this semester.” Then, fill the remaining eight squares with aspects of your life that you think can help you in your goal. It could be time management, a rest routine, daily structure, additional reading, and so on. You could also phrase them as actions, like “get better at time management.” 

Next, take each of those 8 aspects and place them inside their own 3x3 grids. Then, repeat the procedure for each of them, listing 8 aspects, actions, or habits that will help you achieve them. 

You should end up with 64 ideas on what you could incorporate into your life to reach your goal. Before you get overwhelmed, remember: the key is not to do them all. You can pick the most high-leverage actions or look for an overlap – maybe you can do one thing that will contribute to several aspects? 

After this structured brainstorm, you’ll have a better understanding of the various actions that could help you reach your ultimate goal.

Premortem planning

Originally outlined by Gary Klein for Harvard Business Review, this approach is primarily used for team project management but can offer curious insight for personal planning, as well. In clinical practice, a postmortem is the analysis of a deceased body to identify cause of death; a premortem of a project is meant to be the opposite: identify all the ways that a project may fail before you start working on it. 

How does it work? You start by imagining that you fail at your goal spectacularly. For example, you need to make a grade-defining presentation in class in three weeks. That’s the goal. You start by imagining that it’s the day of the presentation and you didn’t give it – it wasn’t ready. Your task is to come up with every plausible reason why you didn’t complete the presentation: 

• you left it till the last day and were overloaded with homework; 
• you realized halfway into the presentation that you don’t get the topic;
• you forgot about it altogether; 
• … and so on.

Once you have the list, you can come up with strategies to avoid these reasons and list early warning signs for each. 

For instance, how can you prevent leaving the presentation till the last day? Plan your work on it in several increments, roughly outlining what needs to be done during each of them. Your early warning sign: set yourself a reminder one week before the presentation is due; if you haven’t done anything on it yet, then this is the time to start.

By starting at the imaginary point when the project has already failed, this approach helps you come up with more ways it could fail by “looking back” on it – and thus, hopefully, more efficient ways to prevent them from happening.

WOOP

Another approach that helps you bridge the gap between your goal and reality is WOOP – Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan – as suggested by the psychologist Gabriele Oettingen. 

Here’s what it entails: 

1. Wish. You need to describe your wish or goal in a short sentence, ideally 3-6 words, to keep it clear and precise. Let’s use the example of making that grade-defining presentation again.
2. Outcome. What would be the best outcome of you reaching this goal? Envision it clearly, then describe it in 3-6 words. Feel confident and prepared while delivering your presentation.
3. Obstacle. Now, you need to think of internal obstacles that may get in the way. Originally, WOOP calls you to focus on just one main obstacle, but you can think of several. For instance, you spend time designing the presentation instead of focusing on the contents. 
4. Plan. On this step, you come up with an if-then plan for when the obstacle happens. If I start spending too much time on design, I will set a timer for 15 minutes and spend them researching the topic before I can get back to slide design.

The trick here is that your desired outcomes are contrasted and linked with the possible obstacles that can prevent them from becoming true. Thus, by thinking through the obstacles you actually get more prepared and motivated to fulfill your wish.

Good luck with hitting all your goals! 

Looking for more tips to stay productive? Discover them here.