Mid-year Assessment

Now that we have had our civic holiday to celebrate August (and Heritage), let's take an hour out of our less-busy day to assess how 2011 has gone compared to the goals we set and the aspirations we had in January.

Here is a brief analysis framework.  Write down the answers.

1. What immediately popped into your mind when confronted by the fact that it is mid-year already?
2. Review your formally set objectives.  Is the work towards accomplishing them on schedule?  Assess each one separately.  
3. Have any objectives or goals been informally added?
4. Think back to those heady days in January when the year was fresh.  What did you hope to do?
5. What new ideas are inspiring you now? 

This should create a fairly lengthy list, unless you have led a remarkably organized life this year.  Redesign the list with the following steps.

• Consolidate goals into related formal objectives, or if necessary, rewrite a formal objective to link the related goals.  Try to not add goals, because these would reflect an increased workload that may not be realistic.
• Adjust the scheduling of your work to acknowledge that half the year has already flown by.
• Choose just one of your aspirations as a focus for your own personal development.  Identify the steps that are reasonable to complete towards your aspiration during the next six months.
• If the changes have been substantial, meet with your boss to review and discuss the added work or new directions.