For the past 12 months, I have been asking myself – and others around me – why some people (like Olympic athletes) are highly engaged in what they do every day without decent pay, while others hate their jobs despite their often sizeable paychecks. I found some interesting answers to this question in Marcus Buckinghams’ new book Love + Work’.

A year full of unexpected challenges for all of us has passed, and another challenging year lies ahead. We have learned that we can rise to the challenges and keep on top of it all – as long as we stay calm and maintain the overview.

What Laura Vanderkam has to offer in her talk is as profound as it is simple. She sees the lack of time most of us so painfully experience not as a byproduct of a hectic modern lifestyle or growing demands in the workplace, but instead, as rooted in a lack of willpower to set priorities and make tough decisions.

Tomas Tunguz, a former Google Employee on how to avoid burnout. His message is simple:
You can not have it all. You need to prioritize and ask yourself: “Which are the most important things I need to do well”.  So don’t set too many goals – set the right goals.

To deliver a truly great presentation you have to be enthusiastic about your subject matter and confident in your knowledge of it. You also have to engage your audience and interact with them. You have to be assertive, yet flexible and responsive.

A common life goal for many of us is how can we get everything done while at the same time enjoying some freedom and sanity. Yet we still want some structure and a way to prioritise our actions, with a clear image of the big picture. Because that makes you feel even better and gives you some control. For me, Goalscape makes this easy.

Information overload is a big problem in competitive sports. Goalscape is my visual index to knowledge, data, history and essential performance related ingredients. As an Olympic athlete; I gravitate toward a clean visual structure. It is my primary learning style for understanding, remembering and communicating complex information. 

When it comes to defining and achieving goals, Goalscape is far superior to mindmapping. While mindmaps are quite good at showing dependencies, they have no concept of upward progress. With Goalscape however, as you enter your progress in lower level goals it automatically reflects upwards all the way to the main goal.

Goal setting is probably the most significant factor in improving performance in nearly every area of life. Goals are not only great motivators; they provide a focus for your efforts and help you make decisions along the way. This article deals with the practical side of goal setting and planning.

Goalscape is as powerful as it is simple. Why? Because unlike standard project management tools it has an uncompromising focus on the question: “What is it all for?” Peter Senge answers this question more eloquently than I ever could. Listen to this recent interview he gave to “Soundview Executive Books”.