What’s your Commitment Cadence?

Rather than setting annual goals, I’ve started to work in four week ‘bursts’.

I call it my Commitment Cadence.

It’s a rhythm that has clarity, action and continuous improvement built-in.

I’ve tried and tested making commitments over different time periods and found that four weeks is around my sweet spot for a few reasons:

  1. It’s as far ahead as I can reasonably predict or control
  2. It’s as far ahead as I want to commit, to allow myself some flexibility as new opportunities arise
  3. It’s a time frame during which not too much changes enabling me to put my head down and focus

Most importantly…

4. Beyond this time frame is not close enough to feel urgent. Your subconscious knows it can delay and you can catch up later (though you never do). A four week period, has only 20 working days and maybe less for you to commit time to strategic game-changing goals.

5. Within this time-frame can easily be linked to daily action. This is where the rubber hits the road. Four week goals must become Active Projects. They are real, and happening now. Action is urgent. Your subconscious knows it.

This doesn’t mean I don’t have long term epic goals and a vision. It just means I define exactly what my outcomes are and fully commit over this horizon.

What time horizon do you like to plan and commit to?

James Parnell is the founder and lead Performance Coach of The Wellbeing Gym, which provides offline and online wellbeing, performance, productivity and life design programmes to individuals and corporates.

Twitter @TheWellbeingGym, Facebook here.

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