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Approaching Life With Seasons Mindset

Bartek Witczak
Bartek Witczak

You’re waiting whole year till January. Finally you’ll be able to plan upcoming year, set goals and start from the beginning. Planning in January is exciting. The year is beginning and you have carte blanche. There are 365/366 days. That’s a lot. You plan several goals. Of course, everything won’t fit but many will…

But if there are so many interesting things, which one to choose? (Or how to do them all?)

You need to choose carefully. There’s January and you’re setting goals for the whole year. Of course, they cannot change. That’s the idea of yearly planning. You want to plan ahead whole year. Don’t worry if anything goes bad, you have another year…

That’s how I imagine setting goals. I used to do that. And most people do that. Gym is the best place to observe that. In January, gym is full. In Feb, gym is empty. In March, everyone is waiting till next January.

It’s February, gym is empty.

You made few reps here and there. But it feels overwhelming. You set too many goals. Some of them turned out to be hard, some are boring, some don’t match you. You want to start new project, but it doesn’t feel right. You spent whole January planning. Now what? (If that helps, think that you’re not alone. Most people do that.)

You feel bad, overwhelmed & frustrated.

What if yearly planning is…

There are many ways to approach planning. I’ve tried a bunch of them. I’m a productivity freak. Think about opposite idea than yearly planning.

I’m not talking about not planning at all. I prefer that:

Plans are nothing. Planning is everything. - someone famous during war than that: Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth. - someone famous before/after fight

Sounds like we have few problems with yearly planning:

  • planning multiple goals
  • planning for a really long period - whole year
  • setting goals in stone
  • setting goals long before you start working on them
  • setting goals once a year

Charlie Munger had many mental models. Inversion principle is one of the best. The idea is simple. Let’s flip obstacles and see what we’ve got. (And turn goals into projects if possible.)

  1. Don’t plan multiple projects -> Focus on the single project.
  2. Don’t make long cycles -> Shorten project timeline to 1-3 months.
  3. Don’t set goals in stone -> We can change next project.
  4. Don’t plan months ahead of time. -> Plan next project when you start working.
  5. Don’t plan goals once a year. -> Plan continuously as you go.

Seasons

If you’re anything like me, it feels really limiting. You feel trapped. Focusing on 1 project means that you need to eliminate everything else. It means there can be only 1 important thing at the time.

Let’s face it. What did you achieve with yearly planning? How many projects/goals did you complete? When I look at past years, it doesn’t look good. I had great plans, interesting projects. But the reality is, I didn’t achieved a lot. I was distracted. I had too many responsibilities. And nothing was finished.

Narrowing focus gives clarity and peace of mind. You have only 1 project. You have short deadline.

Think of this as working in seasons.

For each season, you select 1 project.

At first, it seems that single project limits the number of things you can accomplish. That’s going to be only 1 project. At best, you’ll achieve only 1 goal. If you’re used to setting many goals, it feels like nothing. But it’s a bit counterintuitive.

Focus vs. many small steps

You have limited energy. You can put everything into single project or multiple. The thing is energy is not split evenly. Total effort in many projects won’t equal to progress in single project. Think about context switching, manipulating tasks, tracking progress. That’s why you need to focus. You want to choose single project and block other distractions(projects).

Energy does not split evenly

Working in seasons also gives you diversity. If you have many interests, you’d like to achieve / learn many things, seasons are the way. It also plays nicely with time of the year. Be it season, academic year, holidays. E.g. In winter, companies spend remaining education budget, so that could be time for workshops. In summer usually things slow down, so you can focus on building something more complex.

Seasons give you more options. If you’re bored with current theme, you can always pick different domain as your next project. And you don’t have to wait till next year planning.

Stacking bricks

Projects are going to stack. It’s snowball effect. If you finish 4 3-months projects in a year, that’s a lot. That’s a lot for me.

Often finishing project gives you fresh air. You’ve accomplished something. You feel good. Take time to celebrate. And move to the next project.

Short cycles give you one more thing. Faster feedback loop. With yearly goals, usually you need to wait whole year to see if you achieved the goal & gather feedback. If you shift to seasons, you can evaluate projects faster. Shorter feedback loop = faster learning.

What now?

You don’t have to wait for the New Year to set a new goal. You’ll start many projects throughout a year. If you fail, kill that project and move on. You’ll work in short cycles, you’ll get used to starting project in the middle of month.

Try working in seasons. Pick single goal. Think what you can achieve in 1-3 months. Turn it into project. Focus exclusively on it. And see what you can achieve.

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