Many have said "think globally, act locally" or, in other words, "plan strategically, execute tactically" or many other paraphrases of the same idea - have a big plan backed up by a small one. With the small plan all is clear more or less. We create it for a day, or a week or at most - a month. But what does it mean to have a big plan? How big should it be and how often should it be corrected?
It depends, as usual. I have one really big - for a year - and then I check my progress with it once in a while. But the big plan I create for a year. In my case for a Jewish year. Today is such a day - first of Tishrey of 5766 year (happy new year and shana tova!:-). Every year I check my achievements for the passed year and reset my new targets for the coming one. I'll share here just the directions for which I set up targets that may give you an idea of what kinds of targets to choose in your case.
1. Family life. It must be a target. Don't underestimate this direction thinking it goes well on its own. Sometimes the easier it looks the more harder you advance on it. Write down for yourself real commitments towards most important people in your life. If you're a parent make up concrete (in numbers) plan for your kids. If you work hard it's not easy (especially when you travel or work till late at night). Few ideas: read a book 15 mins. every night, play 30 mins. every evening, walk together every morning with a dog, teach chess every weekend, study Photoshop 3 times/week together, make beads twice a week, and so on, and so forth. It can be absolutely everything what your kids like to do together with you. But make it a task for you (not for the kids). Don't treat it as a voluntary activity. Promise it and execute.
A similar situation is with your spouse and parents. The difference though is with your spouse you make a dual commitment, meaning you together may agree on freeing some time and spending it together. But the idea is to isolate this time only for you both. Not to seat together and work each on its own computer:-) I feel this target not less important and easier to execute than one for the kids.
2. Professional growth. Find what you want to learn/study/try/test/play-with for your career but on your own. Choose something that will help you to take next level on your professional development but out of your current scope. In other words if you don't learn it by yourself you won't get it. Choose a new technology or a new language or a new technic or a new practice that will enrich you as a pro. Build a plan like if you were a dean in a college and were waiting for students to come to their desks. Make it real, challenging but possible to complete. I allocate an hour 3 times a week for a theory part and about 2 hours daily for hands-on. Another challenge here is if you dig to something interesting you hardly can stop playing with it after your time is over:-) Time management is another very effortful task.
Making this task dressed up in numbers is easy. One way is to make up a project to run. Something real to develop, deploy, and ideally - make public. Another way is if you decided to learn a new technology then find an appropriate respectful certificate and pass it. The certificate will increase the value of your resume and at the same time your target will get a bold "V" in the Complete column.
3. Soft-skills development. It can be anything making your more professional regardless of your profession. Memory training, speech development, people relationships, a foreign language development, anything enriching your personal qualities not related to your job. If it's a foreign language I'd build a plan spanning over several directions: writing skills, reading and comprehension skills, vocabulary enrichment. Again, create a clear plan for each directions and put some numbers along. 10 new words every week, one new article/blog every 10 days, read a new book every month. If it's public speaking skills I'd advise to find a toastmaster club and enroll there. They have a plan to follow and grow.
4. Spiritual development. Though this is very private and vary for everyone make a commitment here too. It can be quantitative in time numbers (half an hour every morning) or in amount of material to study (one chapter of a book to learn every day). But don't neglect it. A good idea is to join this studying with the family commitments (at least partially). I think that the spiritual development is the most fundamental direction in personal development. If your business or your job or your financial or health situation get temporarily worse you need to have a strong foundation of your life philosophy to stand the strike. You have to find something that is more important than just money or health and this philosophy needs permanent care too.
5. Sport and personal health care. Simple to plan but not easy to complete. If you haven't been there start with something small in planning but set up a high target. Complete a marathon? Stretch to a split? Swim 10 miles? Quit smoking? Choose something that other have already done and go for it. Build a plan and execute. For example you can prepare to run a marathon for 16 weeks only. Find a challenge exciting you and go for it.
Complaining about being overweight? Plan to loose X pounds until day Y, choose a diet and go for it. Don't analyze too much and don't choose a diet too long. Stick with one and give a try. Spend a month and check your results. But be consistent and be acting. If it doesn't work then try another one.
There are many other directions you can pick up, plan, and go. The greatest site devoted to personal development in various ways is this one. I think the most important thing is to identify something challenging and exciting you, plan with it and go consistently. The consistency has at least three positive effects.
One is you build your own history of success. If you haven't smoked for three days it's an additional stimulus to keep not smoking - not to break your history of success. If you've been running every day your mileage you hardly will allow yourself skip one day for the same reason - not to damage the history of success of your plan's execution. Your history of success becomes another super-long strategic plan that you're executing.
Another good effect is the addiction. Good habits are not as easy to build as bad ones but the pattern is the same - consistency. After not smoking for a while you won't want smoking. After continuous running for a month your body will feel bad if you skip one planned run. After continuous getting to bed at 11pm and awaking at 5am you couldn't sleep until 7am.
The last positive effect the consistency brings is "the tipping point". By consistently performing you invest in what you're doing. After a while you'll see the results. Unlikely you'll see results of a year long plan after a week or two but already in a month some of your daily investments may yield fruits. Your kids will really play chess, you start understand a foreign language you're learning, you have lost 3 pounds, you easily run 1 mile more than you started from.
We come back to the same adagio but this time I'll rephrase it a bit. Act locally but plan globally. You have to make small steps every day towards your success but without big planning you can't lead yourself to your big targets.
Update: another reset for 2006
Technorati tags: self-development, plan, challenge, GTD
Do you constantly complain about the lack of time? Does your schedule slipper during a day as time goes and you miss some important stuff planned for the PM? It happens often to me and the missing part in my life is often running and workouts. 
