This page explains how to effectively enter in a goal-oriented way of thinking.
Success orientation by circles of influence / life roles
Since you accumulate many tasks and goals, the
overall view is crucial, especially the choice of
the main bullet points. For this purpose we choose
primarily permanent life roles such as "profession"
or "family", but also large transient projects like
"build new main storage".
These top level
entries we usually call circles of influence, because
all the terms such as "roles" or "spheres of life"
do not really fit. All the roles in life where you
can achieve something and make a difference are
your circles of influence.
We list these
circles of influence in which we then outline our
goals and sub goals. Only then come the concrete
tasks. Forget about the common recommendation to
organize tasks by categories, e.g. "phone calls"
or "meetings". It is sheer nonsense.
The
identification of your circles of influence is the
starting point for an extensive reflection and clarification
process. Only if this clarification is completed,
you can effectively tackle your tasks and achieve
smaller and larger goals.
Collect your circles of influence
Which circles of influence exist in your life? Where there are tasks? For instance, you could be:
- Head of marketing
- Project manager of market entry Brazil
- Manager of...
- Data protection officer
- Works council member
- Wife or husband of...
- Mother or father of your children
- ...
There are also circles of influence without a fixed frame of reference for which there should be set goals:
- Learning and further education
- Health
- Pleasure, social life
- Finances
- ...
To your circles of influence do not only belong
short-term spheres like professional projects, but
also key roles or objectives such as "Father" or
"Life happiness". We have to cope with both types
of circles in our life.
Key roles are characterized
by behavior patterns and many new goals arise from
the improvement of these.
Also, think about
temporary circles of influence which are connected
to projects:
- Holidays
- Construction of a home
- New car
- ...
Hobbies and activities which are particularly close to your heart often have more single goals than the professional life. For some, a car is just a means of transportation, for the other a focal point of their life...
- Hobby
- Collection
- Car
- ...
Arranging circles of influence with meineZIELE
Now begin to use the program. The objectives
view has a simple basic structure: Built around the outline
view 
you find a toolbar above 
, navigation
buttons to the right 
and different available
views below 
.
Open a new file in meineZIELE and start recording your first circles of influence. All these entries should remain unindented.
Example
See example 1 in the "File" menu.
How many lines exist?
To find out how many lines are recorded within a circle of influence, go to Settings -> General ->Functions and activate the check box "Display 'line x of y'. Label (2) informs at which line of how many is the current location. If the line is a circle of influence, thus not indented, the number of lines (objectives, tasks, ...) within this sphere is displayed.
The balance of your life roles
Reasonable balance between your circles of influence is an important success factor. However, this balance is not achievable by calculation. Rather, it is a matter of recurring considerations. meineZIELE supports you with an automatically changing focus which can be set optionally. Using this function, always when you start the program another sphere is on top. So, also "minor" roles and projects will call your attention every now and then.
Navigating
by circles of influence
There is a navigation bar (1) on the right, by
which you can easily jump from one sphere to the
other. The sphere at which you stand is marked with
red color (2).
Each of your circles of influence
is represented by an icon (see also:
setting icons). The first
of three icons of each sphere is used for representation
in the navigation bar. In the example the sphere
"Ferienhaus Sardinien" / "Summer residence Sardinia"
is indicated with a sailboat.
Missing navigation
icons (4) are indicated with a brick pattern at
the respective position.
A single click on
an icon of the navigation bar is enough to jump
to the respective associated role or project.
You may want to use the scroll bar as well;
it is available at (5).
The title of each
circle of influence is displayed when you move the
cursor onto the respective icon of the navigation
bar.
Now, please take some time to assign
any icon to each of your circles.
Alternating attention purposes
Another aid for the balance of life roles are daily changing texts, arranged as notes on the today view. Details can be found in the (german only) pdf-document "Changing attention purposes".
Advanced users only: Changing the startup images
meineZIELE's random startup images can also belong
to the balance of your life roles, since they are
thought-provoking impulses.
Some customers
would prefer something about their company's environmental
policy or their favorite pictures on screen. No
problem, these pictures and texts can be exchanged.
To do this, create a text file in meineZIELE's
directory (My Documents/meineZIELE/StartUp) on your
computer. Give it the name "exclusive.txt" if you
want to see only your own texts and images, and
"mix.txt" if you want to include the preset images
and texts as well. Special case: If your files are
all stored on a USB device which doesn't access
your "My documents" directory, the folder in meineZIELE_mZ/StartUp
on the external device must be used.
In each
line of the text file, put the picture number (three
digits) and then directly your text, for instance:
002What must be done by today?
The pertaining
images (jpeg/jpg only) have to be put into the same
directory. The file names have to be chosen according
to the following scheme: "StartUp_x.jpg". The x
must be replaced by the picture number of the corresponding
frase in the text file, but without the leading
zeros. So, 999 images are available.
Advanced users only: Every day is important
There is also the thought-provoking impulse "Today
is your xth day of life. Use it." Of course, with
the correct day number. To create this appeal which
will be displayed about every fifth time, go to
the same folder as for the other startup images
and create a file called "Geburtstag.txt" where
you put your birthday in the YYYYMMDD format. meineZIELE
will calculate the day numbers automatically.
go on with Setting Goals
