by Jun Asis

An attic with a glass-bubble for a roof that opens up to the sky and becomes an amateur astronomer’s observatory.

This is just a small component of my written life plan. Have you written yours?

All of us have plans for our life. We have our dreams. Life plans are what we live for, our direction. Most people agree that this life plans are extremely important but they never get to writing it down. It’s all in the head. But many could attest that written goals are more like to be attained than ones that aren’t. And for entrepreneurs, this should be the first step to take as I’ve mentioned in a previous column.

So, where do you begin? How do you make a life plan?

There are many ways to write personal goals. We will try to give you several options in the coming weeks. We will start off with the easiest.

One of the simplest methods of making a life plan is answering a set of questions and prioritizing them. This is a common method used in as the starting point for most corporate workshops such as teambuilding and buy-in to the company mission and vision.

First, think of the answers to this question for 5 minutes.

What are your lifetime goals?

Next, set aside 2 minutes to list your answers. It should cover all the aspects of your whole life: personal, family, financial, social, physical and spiritual. The goals may be general or abstract. Don’t be afraid to write down seemingly impossible wishes such as going to the moon or seemingly-petty dreams such as getting an autographed picture of a famous person. This is not the end of the exercise and you are not committed to any of the goals. List down as many words as you can and put on paper everything that comes to mind.

After the two minutes are up, use another two minutes to edit what you have written until you are satisfied with you’re your aspirations.

Your answer to the first question may have generalities and abstractions. The second question point to specifics. Again, just record your thoughts and write as fast as you can.

For the next question, write down your answers within two minutes and spend another two minutes to re-check your answers. Change anything as you see fit.

The second question: How would you like to spend the next five years?

The last question is: If you knew you will die in your sleep six months from today, how would you live until then? Write down your answers quickly in two minutes. Use another two minutes to finalize your answers.

The last question finds out what things which are important to you that you are not doing or which deserve your attention more.

Spend two minutes to review your answers to each question. If you feel you need more time, go ahead. They are your goals anyway and your life is packed into these answers.

From your answers for each question, select your top three goals so you will have a total of nine goals.

Lastly, choose the top three goals from the nine. And here is a rough sketch of your life plan. If you do this again tomorrow, a different set of priorities may appear. My suggestion is to go over this exercise many times to really pinpoint what you really want to do with your life.

What is presented here is quite simplistic. I suggest this method to those who have not gone through any type of writing down a life plan. This is a starting point and is by no means complete. We will discuss some of these later on.

So when your write your life plan, consider your long-term, medium term and short term goals.

Credits: This article is based on a portion of Alan Lakein’s book, How To Get Control Of Your Time And Your Life.