Hello, Habr! All with the past holidays, our parting was difficult and long. Honestly, there wasn’t anything so big that I would like to write about. Then I realized that I want to raise the planning processes from the point of view of the product. After all, December and January is the time to take stock and set goals for the year, quarter, both in the organization and in life.

As usual, I continue to experiment with formats and bring to your attention a new release of the food digest. More materials on product management, development, and more on my telegram channel .

Let's deal sequentially with the following topics

What do I want? - we formulate a list of Wishlist, not goals, I will explain later.

What can I do? - formulate a list of skills and abilities worth working on.

Life Stories - I will share my experience in planning.

Share it, how do you plan your year? Enjoy reading.

What do I want?

I really like the analogy about life. Imagine that life is a wheel that has several spokes. In my case, these are 4 spokes:

Health - trips to the doctor, football and so on.
Development - books, films, meditation, practices and routines.
Relationships - family, friends.
Professional development - career, finance, science, personal brand.

Some of these spoke directions have more, others have fewer, others have others, but still there are several of them, and each of them covers a certain area of life.

The fundamental work for me is an article by Tim Urban, the author of the popular Wait But Why blog . He thoroughly sorted out the question and put it on the shelves. These are not banal advice in the style of “the best job is a paid hobby”, but useful and largely unobvious theses that allow a systematic approach to choosing a profession. The article is useful not only for finding a suitable career, but also for a general understanding of what you want to achieve in life.

An example of an uneven focus on different areas of life in the article: How to choose a career that really suits you- fundamental work for about 1 hour (by the way there is audio with Tarasov Valentin - the voice is just cosmic).

Like a real wheel, these spokes should be the same length. If one of the spokes knocks out badly, then the movement will be uneven, it will be difficult to turn this wheel, the path will take a lot of time. If a pair of spokes is much shorter than the others, then the wheel will also wobble all the time, and as a result the normal spokes will bend.

If all the knitting needles are the same length, but very short, then you get a very small wheel that you have to turn very, very fast, making a lot of efforts to gain the right speed.

If all the spokes are the same length and equally strong, then very little effort will be required to maintain a high speed. Therefore, it seems that you need to plan not only a career, but also the rest of your life, so that development is more even.

I tried to explain more about how to move from analogy to planning in this article: Hotel location is a course for those who do not want to put on their desires .

Comment from my friend channel author https://t.me/product_weekdays: Recently, I also ceased to clearly set goals and renamed my note from “Goals” to “Wishlist” - I can want anything. I was surprised when it began to work - I constantly replenish the list, I constantly do something from there. What’s cool, I calmly delete some points from there: it’s difficult to remove something from the “goals” (this is the GOAL, I thought well and should come to it), from the “Wishlist” it’s simple - I don’t want this anymore, I don’t believe it, what is needed or important for me.

What is my planning routine?

Here are two tools that help you put your plans on the shelves and break away from a routine.

Create Goal Map

Once every six months I try to understand where I am going. To do this, on the leaflet a list of plans:

For five years, what I want to achieve.
For five years, provided that there is no money.
New list, plans for five years without money restrictions.

After that, I analyze the points that went into A) and B) - these are the things that do not require anything but fulfillment of desire and time. Above C) - how to translate the elements of this list into B).

What is the method for? It helps to realize that the achievement of most goals is not dependent on money.

Where will i be

Another useful tool that makes you move is to ask yourself: after X time, am I there?

Example:

Let's say I want to move abroad, but I don’t know where to start. I take an arbitrary segment and ask myself a question: Tigran, and after 12 months am I there? If the answer is yes, then I am reducing the time. Tigran, and after 6 months am I there? Suppose not yet, then between 6 and 12 months there is an event Y - this is a move. And between the state of "now" and this event Y - lies preparation for this move. I ask myself the question, what are they doing for the move - they are preparing a visa, looking for housing, looking for work. Thus, I create an understanding of what needs to be prepared and how to get to the endpoint.

Weekly and monthly planning

At the beginning of the year, I collect a list of hotel wishes for a year in an electronic notebook, and I add the results of the previous year there.
, . , .
4 ( ) ( , ) — — , , , .
2–3 4 ( ).
. :)

— SMART

I sincerely believe that setting goals, formalizing desires and hotel wishes is one of the most useful skills that should be taught from the first grades of the school. The most common problem for those who are just starting to formulate Wishlist is their abstractness. For example, I want to learn English ...

There are a bunch of different frameworks that solve this problem, but there is one simple and poppy, in my opinion, this is no less convenient and effective - SMART. You probably know everything about him, but it’s worth it to remember about him precisely in the plane of personal plans for the year.

Briefly about SMART

The methodology includes 5 basic characteristics that each Wishlist must meet:

Specific. . , . : « ». ? . 100 — , IELTS 5.5 . : « TOEFL 95 ». , , , « , », , .
Measurable. - , ? . , « ». , . ? « 10 31 2020 ».
Achievable. . — . , . , « 1 2020 ». « 50 31 2020 » .
Relevant. - . , . « », , , , ?
Time bound. . , , . , 15 , 800 () . , , 3 , .

Now compare the two Wishlist: "Learn English" and "Pass the TOEFL certification at least 95 points by December 15, 2020."

Planning is not meant to solve problems - it makes us think. Thinking is very helpful.

What can I do?

How to measure skills?

My father is a fan of telling stories from life, he has a rich history. Once he asked me, what can you do? The question puzzled me, I was 22 years old then, I worked in IT for two years, I earned 100,000 rubles a month - but I had little idea what I could do.

I’m sure that if we were sitting over a cup of coffee and I would ask you the same question, what do you know or what skills do you have, then most likely you would tell me the following:

I do not know what I can do.
I do not have (few) skills.

The first answer suggests that you did not often ask yourself this question. If the second, then it is because you are a person. It is difficult for people to realize their own skills. Usually you take them for granted and do not single them out as abilities.

So, we continue to sit at an imaginary cup of coffee: first of all, you need to figure out what skills you have. We make a list of your current skills to understand what you can and cannot do. For this you need to be complete in two steps:

Record all ideas.
Structure them.

Step 1: Write down all the ideas

As a tool, you can use a board, a piece of paper, a notebook. Records should not be perfect. The main thing is to do them. The key criterion is the number of records, not their quality. One skill should be recorded on one card, there can be as many cards as you can remember. No need to edit anything. Now for us the main quantity. To start recording, answer the following questions:

What are you doing well? Drop modesty; there is no time for it. What are you good and great at? Maybe you know how to make great marketing offers? Can you, like no one else, know how to balance the budget? And I'm not talking about your current job right now. Go back to the past. If you once delivered newspapers well, write down “timely delivery.”
? , , . , , . - , , . , , , ? , , , , ?

2:

After you write a few skills, you will begin to notice something - some ideas are connected. Group them as you like. For example, “what I like to do most of all”, “skills that pay me more”, “skills that I want to improve”, “abilities that I have not used for a long time”. For example, in the figure I drew my matrix, which works on scales from “rarely” to “often” and from “bad” to “excellent”.

My matrix on the scale of use and quality of ownership

Yes, it may seem strange, but only an idiot will condemn you for writing down your ideas and trying to become smarter. The structure will help you understand exactly what skills you have. If you wrote down, for example, ten abilities and nine of them fall under the category “Skills that I do not use in my current job”, then this needs to be fixed. Try to use your abilities more often, learn the skills that will be needed in the current business, or even find a new job that suits your skills.

If in the end you got two cards with the general category “I have no skills, I hate the author of this article”, then it's time to call someone from your friends. Drink coffee with him and ask directly: "What do you think, what skills do I have?" The main goal of the exercise is to bring about two things: hope and awareness. Everything is simple with hope. At the beginning of this path, you can always easily lose heart and think that you have very few professional skills. Awareness - you need to understand what abilities to acquire. It doesn’t matter if you want to improve your current job or find a new one - in any case, you will certainly need new skills.

When you have an inventory of your current skills, it’s easier for you to understand what is missing. So you can quickly determine what new skills will be required to get a new job or to get out of the usual rut.

Skill Theory

Let's start with the theory of formation and improvement of skills. Conventionally, four stages can be distinguished along this path:

preliminary associated with the first attempts and, accordingly, an overabundance of information;
analytical - during it, a person analyzes and tries to understand how best to accomplish what is required of him;
synthetic - characterized by a combination of theory and practice;
automatic - a person brings his skill to perfection without focusing much attention on its implementation.

Brainstorm is not a group

First of all, you need to try, setting yourself up for the upcoming work. For example, someone wants to learn how to hit hard. Immediately begins to hammer the pear as it happens. There is a familiarization with this sports equipment. Further, he watches thematic videos, reads books, maybe takes a couple of trainings from an experienced boxer. In the process of this, he analyzes his actions and compares them with the information received. In the head of this person, a synthesis of theory and practical skills takes place. Tries to beat the pear correctly, starting from the leg, spinning the pelvis, correctly directing the fist at the target. The necessary skill is gradually developed. It is no longer difficult for him to carry out the technically correct blow without even thinking about it. This is an automatic skill.

The Four Pillars of Mastering a New Skill

Master only one skill in one period of time. In order for a skill to take root in our life, to take root to the level of automatism, you need to give it maximum attention. Childhood is a period when a person is able to cover an incredible amount of new knowledge. At this time, we simultaneously learn to walk, talk, hold a spoon and tie shoelaces. This takes years - despite the fact that our consciousness is most open to the new. In adulthood, this ability is dulled. Even mastering one skill will become a real stress for the psyche and the body. In addition, at the same time, the skills we learn will subconsciously bind together and act as a complex phenomenon. This can lead to an absolutely unexpected effect. For example,if for some reason you cannot use one skill or it will not be necessary at this time, the second can “fall off” by analogy. The study of one skill in one period of time should occur in a concentrated form, then you can learn it as quickly as possible and move on to the next.

Train a lot, at first not paying attention to the quality of the work done. I do not urge you to complete missions. But the fact is that at first nothing works out well, no matter how hard we try. Trying to focus on quality when learning, we slow ourselves down. In this case, the number is more important - it is better to do a lot of repetitions with an average result than few, but with a good one. Studies show that with constant intensive practice, the shortcomings go away by themselves, people learn much faster than when trying to do everything perfectly in the early stages.

Practice the new skill many times. An interesting observation: after attending a training or master class, most participants show worse results than they would have shown with an amateur approach without professional information. This happens because the application of new skills in practice is always associated with inexperience, we feel discomfort and helplessness, because our psyche and body are not used to performing these actions. To understand how well a given skill is given to you, you need to repeat it several times, at least three.

Do not apply new skills in important matters. I think, having read the previous three points, you yourself guess why. Imagine that you just mastered the skill, and then try to test it in "combat" conditions. The importance of the situation makes you nervous, the stress of the inconvenience of novelty is superimposed on the excitement, the skill has not yet been worked out as it should ... And-and-and everything turns out even worse than if this skill was not used at all. Remember - you must first rehearse it well in a calm situation, and only then apply it in stressful circumstances.

FIRST development principles

In order for the skill development process to be effective, you can adhere to the principle of continuous development of FIRST:

Focus on priorities - identify development goals as precisely as possible, select a specific area for improvement;
Implement something every day ( ) — , , , , « »;
Reflect on what happens ( ) — , , ;
Seek feedback and support ( ) — , , ;
Transfer learning into next steps ( )– , , .

Once you begin to measure and understand, then you can begin to change. Have a nice change! Tell us about how you study yourself and how to put Wishlist?

PS For me - this format is a big experiment, if it comes to you, then I will write more about development.

Product Management Digest for December and January