Geeks and Goals

Okay, how many geeks out there are willing to admit to using MS Project or Basecamp or some such professional application to track and manage their personal goals? Be honest!

If you thought you might want something that seems a little more, well... personal, you might want to check out Zeenami, the new Seattle-based website that's just been made available as a public beta. I always love trying new things if I think they might be helpful and I'm just starting to play around with it. Already I can see there are two areas in particular that my clients might appreciate.

One is the personal assessments area of the kind that I use regularly in my coaching. There's a life fulfillment survey and a sort of mini-Myers-Briggs that even provides the option of letting other people tell you what they notice about your personality. What you can do with these sure beats my own hacked-together Excel spreadsheet versions by a significant margin.

In fact, I might as well toss my home-grown tools altogether and let Zeenami take over. It's far more professional-looking than I'm ever going to take the time to make them. And you don't even have to register to access the assessments, which is nice.

The other area is the goal tracker templates, and to use those you do have to register. I still like Llamagraphics LifeBalance for managing my life overall, and I recognize that plenty of people simply want something to track their progress on a handful of goals. Zeenami can work great for that and I'm already starting to build some templates of my own to share with clients and others. I'll let you know when I've got something you can use.

Of course, I can hear some folks out there protesting any sort of tracking whatsoever. I know, it feels too much like micromanaging, sometimes. Think about it, though - we track progress and milestones for projects at work as a way of monitoring progress, making sure progress happens - and that it happens in alignment with the intended goal.

How is what we want out of life any different from that or less deserving?

I'm curious about whether you track goals or not and how well that works for you. Send me your opinions at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com and let me know what sorts of tools you favor for making sure (the right) things happen in your life.

What do I want to make happen in the next 90 days?