Last year we received tremendous feedback from you when we sent you an annual resolution on how to make 2018 your dream year. Some of you even reached out and asked if the updated version for 2019 was coming soon.
And sure enough, it is! It took me a bit longer than expected, but it’s never too late to plan your life and take proactive steps to turn your dreams into reality.
For all the new folks reading this, every year I create a framework that helps me to plan and organize my life. It resonated with people around me and everyone loved it, so I made a decision to share it with our users as well.
Readdle stands for productivity. In 2019, I believe that being productive doesn’t mean working 16 hours a day. Productivity happens when you organize your thoughts, actions, and creativity into one coherent and efficient system. Here at Readdle, we are dedicated to creating useful tools and apps that help you win back your time. This means working less, focusing on what matters and spending time with the loved ones.
The New Framework
This useful worksheet aims to help you better understand yourself and provides an easy framework to better plan and organize your life.
Download worksheet
Every one of us wants to live a happy and fulfilling life. A life full of meaning, joy, victories, family, and friends around. We feel happy when what we do matters when we develop deep connections with the people surrounding us.
Pause for a moment and try to answer a few simple questions: “What do I want from my life? Who do I want to be? Where do I want to go?”.
These simple questions are hard, that’s why this framework will help you find answers, set priorities and make an action plan on how to achieve your goals.
I believe that knowing what you want will help you achieve it, or at least move in the right direction. For the past 3 years, I’ve been conducting research on goal setting, productivity, efficiency, energy and time management. I modified and improved the existing framework with the knowledge and experience we have.
Making it work
There’s research that says the majority of people drop their New Year resolutions on day 12. In 2018, I only completed 60% of my goals. I spent a few weeks in January reflecting on why that is and what could be done to reach my goals.
There are a few important things to remember:
1. Goals are flexible.
Your annual goals can be altered anytime if you feel that something has changed or you have new priorities. It’s absolutely fine.
2. Review your goals monthly.
It’s important to review and update the framework and goals every month. Personally, I’ve set a reminder in my calendar (using Readdle Calendars, of course, for recurring events) to review my goals every month on the 1st of February, March, April, etc.
3. Be honest with yourself.
Often we think that we want or we need something, but in reality, we really don’t. It’s society or people around us who shape our choices or expect something out of us. I believe it’s very important to be very honest with yourself and figure out, “What do I really want?”
4. In a moment of doubt, open the framework.
Many of us face hard times, depression and uncertainty. It’s always helpful for me to get back to level zero and look at all the ambitious plans and goals I’ve laid out. They give positive energy and guide you forward.
5. A system beats the hustle.
Having routines and an organized system with processes yields the best results.
6. Share your goals with friends
This simple step will play a major Jedi-mind trick on your brain. Once we share our goals with friends or the ones we love, it will be much harder to not deliver the promised results, because we know that people expect them from us.
7. Start Small
Ambitious and big goals might scare us away. That’s why I’ve incorporated the First Steps section for each life area, where we can write down little steps to help us get started.
8. Do one change at a time.
Engrave new habits into your routines one after another. Doing everything at once will be very hard. Set reminders, make calendar events, ask your loved ones or friends to support you.
9. Reward yourself
Don’t forget to treat yourself. You are living the best life anyway, making efforts to become even better. So take a step back, reflect, write down things you are grateful for and wake up with a smile.
I hope that you will find this framework useful. It would be great to hear your feedback, ideas, and thoughts. But most importantly, do what matters and live a happy life, we will do our best to support you.
Denys Zhadanov 
