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The author David Allen is considered to be one of world's top consultants¹ when it comes to personal productivity. He's perhaps best known for his self-help time management book-Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity that has for years been an international best seller. Well, there's been two weeks into the New Year I caught up with him in Ohio, California to get his take on goal-setting in 2010. And write off the bad, he said that thinking about goals and the things you want to get out of life is:

Always gonna be better than the, you know, the things we’re 93% negative. So I’ll talk of most people do: Think of, well, life is hard, you know, I’ll never get there, so anything you can do to keep your mind focus on, you know, more positive stuff, that stuff you want to have, it's gonna be highly useful to you.

So, that's good news, but he also says to watch out for a few things when sitting down to think about your goals in a year ahead.

People need to get very serious about goal-setting and lighting² up the time. What people don't need is to beat themselves up any more. And I think most people usually in the US anyway, you know, with such an optimistic creature and in general, we are really optimistic and really sort of make a cope of, I gotta, you know, ate too much, I slipped up last year, I'm really gonna make a difference this year. Then I would highly suggest that people be cautious about that.

And so, what is the best way to set goals?

The best way to set goals is to set about 45 and see which to stick around.

Forty-five? Forty-five goals of, of what?

Oh, anything, anything, what would you like to have true by the end of next year. Or what would like to wait, how would far fashion like to run a mile, you know what would you like to shoot on the golf course, how much money would you like to have in the bank? How would you like to feel when you wake up in the morning? What would an ideal Sunday afternoon a year from now be for you? I mean, just keep going. You know, just keep coming all those wonderful, your images of what life would be like if it were in some things in hands, or expanded, or better for you and whatever that means to you. And then just, you know, essentially³ keep focusing on them and reset⁴, you know that we almost never achieve our goals.

What? Then why are bother making them in the first place?

Because from where I'm looking right now, but the goal I set by the time I'm half way to it, I'm already more mature, more experienced, have better data, and so by the time I get half way to the goal I set. I looked down that goal: Oh, wait a minute, that over there is what I really wanted, but I couldn't see it from back where I started, so I had to pick something and get going. You know I learned years ago in the marshal arch what you don't is standstill. You are better-off to actually be going in the wrong direction 180 degrees, and course correct and turn around, you actually, you take actually less energy to do that than to get going from a standstill. So most people wanna know what to do before they start doing, but frankly⁵ you are not gonna know what to do until you start doing.

And so what's one practical thing we can do to keep and meet our goals in 2010?

I would recommend that before, before in the midst of our, or maybe instead of setting big goals that you might crash and burn from, that the best thing to do is cleaning up.

And why is that so helpful?

It’s really nothing, you know, more frustrating⁶ than when you try to add new stuff under a whole lot of incompletion and old residue⁷ setting in your psyche⁸ and in your house. So, one of the coolest things to do at the year end is actually to use this inspiration: Hey, you know, it's really time to get our falling system order. It’s really time to, you know, walk around, do a sidewalk around, just make a list of all the stuff that we really, you know, might or need to want to clean up. And then also sit down with you and any partners in life, and just make a list of all the cool things or new things or things you completed in the last 12 months. It’s a very very power exercise, psychologically for people, they give themselves from acknowledgement. When you think where you were a year ago, or even, you know, any kind of timeline that really I think give you more grounded view of, you know how cool things could be and also that you don't over blow your expectations, ‘cause if you set something too far, you’ll stretch over bend and break it. Really need to make it, what I call 51% believable. Need to be something that, you know, yeah it’s 51% believable, you need to have stretch goals, they are fun, I think that's a good thing and healthy, you know for people to stretch and expand. But again you don't want to stretch it too far.

So here is your 2010 and your far-reaching yet reachable goals.