Assessment

Assessment
A beautiful year is on! Many plans are in place. The best thing about plans is that they often come to pass!
There seems to be less drive for planning and new-year-orientation in 2014 than I observed in 2013. I only hope folks are not tired of planning. Some see no point in planning since it tends to get dropped along the way anyway!
Why do plans get dropped along the way?
There is a saying, “What cannot be measured cannot be managed” (or improved). If we make plans for lofty goals and forget to put in assessments and course corrections, it wont be long before we get off course!
The idea is that by the end of January one should have concluded, roughly, a twelveth of each of the goals for the year 2014. If by the end of January one is not on course with this, then failure clouds are gathering. However, the remaining eleven months would be used to make adjustments and cover for the month of January. If one waits till mid-year to assess, one could still make corrections for the remaining 6 months, but the 6 months may not be enough to cover up for 6 lost months. And if one chooses to wait till the end of 2014 to assess, one would only get a take-home result with neither opportunity to improve the following months nor to cover up for past months.
So what do we do?
We need to plan assessments: monthly assessments, quarterly assessments, mid-year, etc. If we plan to save $12,000 dollars this year, then by the end of January, we should have $1,000 saved! Else each succeeding month will have to contribute $1,090. If we plan to do 40 push-ups a day by December, we should be on course with 10 a day by the end of January?