Reflecting on last year. Gearing up for 2015

It is the beginning of a new year, always a time of great hope and new possibilities. In closing out 2014, I find these reflection questions helpful.

1. What were my major accomplishments this year?
2. What goals did I not achieve? Why? Is the goal still relevant? Do I want to carry any of these forward? How will I approach them differently?
3. What was a major theme or words that characterized my year?
4. What were some of my biggest learnings this year?
5. What am I most grateful for?
6. What do I want to continue doing in the coming year?
7. What do I want to stop doing

Looking forward to 2015, how can I work to make it one of my best years ever? Success and goal achievement don't just happen. I find that I must be intentional about what I am wanting and then put plans into place to achieve I aim for. Here are some questions to consider.

1. What are my top 2-3 priorities for 2015? Are they challenging enough?
2. What are some specific tactics I will need to achieve these priorities?
3. What resources or learning will I need to get from where I am currently at?
4. How will I know I've been successful?
5. What process and outcome goals should I set?
6. What theme(s) or 1 to 2 word phrases do I want to focus on? Or do I want to set resolutions? How can I ensure that I will be successful

I offer these reflection questions to help start your year off right. For each of us, this will be a very personal exercise. I recommend that you have goals that are both personal and professional. On the personal level I include goals in all four dimensions: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.  

To help me more aggressively learn, make course corrections and achieve my goals, I've incorporated principles from the book, The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months by Moran, Brian P. and Lennington, Michael (May 15, 2013) which I reviewed in January of last year. I highly recommend it. It is guaranteed to help you make 2015 your most productive year ever.

Have a safe, healthy, happy and prosperous New Year.

Likely it has happened to you at one time or another, you click send on a business email and you immediately regret it. There is no way to get back email correspondence that you sent once it has gone out. It is important for the sake of your job to make sure that you avoid these common mistakes when sending out messages.

Sent to the Wrong Person:

It can be easy to send an email to the wrong person when you are handling multiple responses at the same time. This causes a great deal of confusion to the individuals that receive the email in error. It can also mean that you are giving private information to unauthorized parties. To avoid this mistake, leave the recipient field blank until you have completed the email. When you hit the send button, it will not immediately send your information, instead, you will have to stop and manually input an address. This is a particularly good thing to do when you work in a field where sensitive information is being shared through email communications.

Being Unclear:

When you are addressing information that you have received from someone, not giving a clear response is a common mistake. Often times, you respond to the last thing that was said in the correspondence instead of in the order in which the email was written. When you do this, it is easy to leave out pertinent information that recipient needs to know. Another problem is that you can easily respond to questions and comments without any indication to what you are responding to. It is best to copy and paste sections of the person's comments or questions and then post your response. You can avoid this problem on the reverse end of things by numbering your paragraphs so that when a person is formulating their response, they can use the same number system to respond to avoid being unclear.

Missing Information:

Often times, a mistake that happens when you are emailing others, is not including all information that is necessary for the recipients. When you leave out information, it brings about confusion to those who received the correspondence and can lead to a failure of accomplishing tasks. To avoid this mistake, it is important to always re-read your emails prior to sending. When you look back over what you have written, you will find grammatical errors as well as unclear phrases and missing information. Another good thing to do is create a document where you write down a bullet list of what things you plan to address in the correspondence.

These are a few email mistakes that are made in the business world. Making sure that you have clear communications with those you work with is vital to the success of your career and business.  

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