How do you prioritize goals when you have many projects and possibilities competing for your attention?

We’re approaching the busy 4th quarter jewelry-sales season. As you are busily trying to increase your inventory, either for sales or gifts, I think it’s a good time to ask yourself about your goals.

Goals are things that tell you where you want to end up and what you want to achieve. They help you make sense of, make choices about, set priorities for all the overwhelming set of things that have to get done to keep your business or avocation on the right track. That is, on the right track so that you do not get overwhelmed, paralyzed, frustrated, angry or disappointed.

You don’t want to get stuck wondering what the future should be.

You set goals and let them guide you in your decision making simply because you want to maximize your creative time, minimize your non-creative time, and end up with a satisfying degree of accomplishment and profit.

Ask yourself these questions:

• How do you prioritize goals when you have many projects and possibilities competing for your attention?
• How can you identify the things that really matter in your business or avocation, and stay focused on them?
• What is your current mindset around goal-setting, and how can you improve it?

Think of your set of goals as a strategy roadmap of what you want to do, and what is more important to get done. This roadmap needs to cover these topical areas:

• Financial things
• Customer satisfaction things
• Administrative procedure things
• Learning and growth things

You can use this strategy roadmap to keep score. At any time. In any part of the process. With whatever you are doing. What is your score, and how does it reflect a balance in everything you need to do and get done?

Think In Terms Of Circles And Overlaps

When keeping score and finding balance, it is useful to visualize your goals as a set of circles. Each circle represents (a) a set of activities, (b) a set of choices to be made, © a dependency on the availability of resources, and (d) a list of desired outputs and outcomes.

Where the circles overlap, called a Venn Diagram, these become the primary set of things to focus on, do and accomplish. These become the major things to which you score and balance. These are the options that get a first look and first dibs. As your list of things to think about and do get further and further away from where the circles overlap, the less important they are.

In your Venn Diagram, you will have 4 circles — the four types of things listed above which your strategy roadmap needs to cover — money, customers, procedures, and personal growth.

You want to train yourself to start thinking of your business or avocation in terms of circles and overlaps. Instead of thinking it has to be black or white, or left or right, or one separate thing after another, think of things in grays or middle grounds, or things which gel together or integrate together. The question for you is NOT: How can I do one thing or another? The question should be: How can I do one thing concurrently with another? How can you get the best of both worlds?

Goal Setting (Systems Thinking)

So, for each of the 4 topical areas above, you might list 10 options you want to do in order to accomplish the topical area satisfactorily. The goal here is quantity, not necessarily quality. Get 10 options for each topical area on the table.

Lay these out like a deck of cards into 4 columns.

Now, narrow down these options. Which ones co-occur or are co-dependent or where one can be done instead of another? Which ones are more important than others? You want to begin to define those optimum points between efficiency and effectiveness.

How would the benefits of A look like coupled with the benefits of B, so that I can benefit from both and find that middle path?

As you are narrowing down your options, do you begin to discover new options? Can you add these as more cards to your list, as you are rejecting others? Perhaps there is a more ideal option as you are thinking about the benefits that might result from all your cards.

Train your thinking process to be systems thinking. Your goals (that is, in this exercise, your cards) are destinations. Your process for evaluating, rejecting, creating, converging, diverging options is a process. Systems thinking is this process.

Blend your goals and your process orientation. You want to minimize the times when you feel lost and not sure of what you should do next. Systems thinking helps you here. It helps you identify what things you want to be involved with now. Such involvement gets you to that future without having to overly ponder it.

Set your time frame: Reality always changes. New opportunities arise, others close. It’s useful to think of your goal options in terms of this week, this month, this quarter.

Constantly adjust your process actions to new opportunities as these arise.

Follow through. Adjust as necessary. Think about the next logical steps. Following through and a willingness to adjust as necessary and thinking ahead leads to success.

Last, Step Back and Exercise Your Metacognitive Skills

It is important to be aware of your thinking process at all times. This is called metacognition.

Reflect on what you were thinking, what options you were delineating, how you were choosing some and not others, and why.

• Do you find your mind-set more goal-oriented or more process oriented?
• Do you need to balance these out?
• What strategies can you employ to find that best balance between goal-orientation and process-orientation?
• Are you thinking too much in the future, or getting too lost in the day-to-day?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SUBSCRIBE

**Be part of a community of jewelry designers who recognize that we have a different way of thinking and doing than other types of crafters or artists.

Engage with a community. Benefit from its collective power — insights, reactions, feedback, foresight, and directing you to opportunities.

Never miss an update. You won’t have to worry about missing anything. Every new article of interest, and announcements about kits, workshops and webinars, chat group, feedback session, and special promotions, goes directly to your inbox.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also, check out my website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).

Enroll in my jewelry design and business of craft Video Tutorials online. Begin with my ORIENTATION TO BEADS & JEWELRY FINDINGS COURSE.
Take my tutorial on THE JEWELRY DESIGNER’S APPROACH TO COLOR .

Follow my articles on Medium.com.

Check out my books on Amazon.com

Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).

Follow my series HOW TO BEAD A ROGUE ELEPHANT.

Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com)for all your jewelry making supplies. Use this coupon code XFOREVER25 to get a 25% discount on your order!

Check out my Jewelry Making and Beadwork Kits.

Add your name to my email list.

___________________________________________