What do I know about planning?

Planning is crucial and can not be left out of a successful and a fulfilling life. Every below mentioned aspect of it is important and has an effect on the outcome.

For a long time I have not planned for desired outcomes and I was living based on my feelings and thoughts. This bleeds from a lot of different places. So solving this and planning upfront days, months, years or even multiple years can have a huge impact on your life. So do not forget this.

There will be times when you don’t have goals. That is completely viable and should not stress you. Try to find new challenges and work on your skills, so when the big thing comes, you will be prepared.

In this article I want to guide you through my process and thought process when it comes to planning a bigger goal or I want to learn something new.

How to be lucky?

Being lucky is something that everybody desires. Usually, we can hear people saying that the other person had some luck, how they achieved their success or what they wanted. That could be the case, but it is rare.

Being lucky is something that you should value, because to just even come close to being lucky is not so easy. People who had some luck in their life are talented and worked quite hard to reach their goals. They had goals, projects and valuable skills and those were translated to luck.

So being lucky comes down to be something that requires skills and work.

Unwilling hands make heavy work.

My rule of thumb to become lucky is to work 20% harder and smarter than others’ highest performance over 10-14 hours. That is the reason why you won’t see me doing things that do not resonate with my values.

How to be talented?

In high school I had a class where we were speaking about high achievers and performers, like Nikola Tesla.

I was asked by the teacher what I think about talent and my answer was: These people invested their whole life into one subject and that’s the reason why they became talented. Of course, this was the wrong answer for the teacher who was an alcoholic. I got a smaller grade because it was wrong compared to his answer: They were born with it.

It taught me a very important lesson. There might not be universal answers for everything in our life, as for talent.

Becoming talented in something happens through hard work and dedication towards that specific area that you might find interesting. Of course, if you were born with one leg you could train all day long you won’t become the next Messi, probably you do not even want to.

To know what we want to become talented we should design our lifestyle and define our values that will navigate our life.

Lifestyle Design

Everyone has only one life at once, not to exclude reincarnation. 😀

We cannot have an effect on the beginning, but on the end we have. Let’s call our life The Movie.

The Movie starts with fun and joy, but the end is still unknown. The length of our movie hopefully will be long, but statistically speaking it will be around 80 years. The Movie is not short. I hope it does not surprise you that one time it will end, so let’s make it how we want.

Let’s imagine how you would like to have your movie ending. Who are you laying on the death bed? What brought success in your life? What did you have to do to become yourself? What you did not do that you might regret?

Probably, you have an image of yourself at the end, as do I.

Having a life plan would make it easier to achieve. That life plan should navigate you through your life and help in making decisions. That plan should contain:

• Smaller plans, 5-10-15 year plans
• Required skills for executing on these plans
• Projects that would teach those skills

I am not saying that you should know everything upfront, that is simply impossible. But it could be a compass in your life. Imagine just going somewhere that won’t take you to your desired destination for sure.

Analysis paralysis is a real thing. There is so much unknown and incertains in our life that would make us unable to take action. That is the reason why you should just start thinking and imagining your final scenes from the movie. That is who you want to become, reaching that we will need our plans, skills and projects.

Remember one thing, everything is solvable, at least if we invest enough resources into it.

Now if we have our image of ourselves it would be easier to identify the challenges and skills that we will have to tackle one day. But first let’s see how to approach failures, you cannot hide from them.

Value of failure

Everybody in the universe faces failures in their life at least once. Most of them identify it as something bad. But in reality failures can teach us really important lessons.

I have faced failures multiple times, can be business or personal related. Every of them thought me important lessons.

If you fail in something, be grateful. Try to find the root causes of the failure and make sure you will try to eliminate them from your life. You will learn a lot from those so do not let them break or demotivate you. Those are just a part of the process and you will have opinions.

Value of having one opinion

Having your own opinions is a big part of figuring out who you are. It helps you understand what you believe in and what matters to you. In a world where we’re constantly surrounded by different ideas and information, being able to think for yourself is more important than ever.

When you take the time to form your own views—rather than just going along with what others say—you’re building up your critical thinking skills. You’re learning how to question things, look at different sides, and decide what makes the most sense to you. That process doesn’t just make you smarter; it helps you grow into someone who’s mentally mature.

Mental maturity is really about being able to make your own decisions without always needing someone else to tell you what to do. It means you’ve got the confidence to trust your judgment and the awareness to know what feels right for you. That doesn’t mean you ignore advice or never ask for help—it just means you know how to think things through and stand by your choices.

People who are mentally mature take ownership of their actions. They understand that the decisions they make shape their future, so they don’t just act on impulse or follow the crowd. Instead, they take the time to weigh their options, think about the long-term effects, and choose what aligns with their values. That kind of mindset helps you handle life’s ups and downs with more clarity, confidence, and purpose.

By constantly trying to tackle challenges with success or failure we will end up having our own opinions. But let’s see how new skills and projects can bring you a better movie by understanding the expected value concept.

Expected value

The concept of expected value is a powerful way of thinking about choices and outcomes in life. While it often comes from the world of mathematics and probability, it applies to everyday decisions just as much. Expected value is essentially about weighing the potential outcomes of a decision—both good and bad—against the likelihood of each happening. Instead of focusing only on what might go right or wrong, it encourages us to take a more balanced, realistic approach.

For example, when deciding whether to take on a new project or skill, it’s easy to get caught up in either fear of failure or excitement about success. But thinking in terms of expected value means asking: what’s the most likely outcome, and what’s the potential benefit or loss in the long run? This way of thinking helps us make smarter, more calculated choices. It’s not about being overly cautious or overly optimistic—it’s about making decisions that, over time, lead to the best overall results.

Few weeks ago I had a discussion with one of my friends about buying or renting a flat. He has already decided that he will buy it. I tried to help him to make a better decision by having a pro vs cons debate. He had to realize that he was very driven by his emotions without even knowing the costs of buying a flat. My goal was to make him able to think and have his own opinions. Now his decision aligns with his movie.

Every decision we make comes with a cost—whether it’s time, energy, money, or missed opportunities. Often, people underestimate these hidden costs and make choices that feel easy or comfortable in the short term but are damaging in the long run.

One clear example is relying entirely on college to shape your future, without taking the initiative to learn beyond the classroom. Education systems can offer valuable tools, but they are not enough on their own. If you don’t actively seek knowledge, build skills, and take responsibility for your personal growth, you’re likely to find yourself unprepared for the real world. The cost of passivity here is high: missed chances, limited options, and ultimately, failure to end the movie with satisfaction.

Another major factor is the influence of consumer culture. We are constantly surrounded by messages that encourage us to buy, upgrade, and seek satisfaction through material things, the flat for example. But when we base our decisions on what society tells us we “need”, rather than what truly adds value to our lives. The long-term cost is not just financial, it also affects our time, mental well-being.

Being aware of these hidden costs and thinking critically about our choices is key to building a meaningful and sustainable life. Good decisions aren’t always the easiest or most popular ones—they’re the ones that align with your goals, values, and long-term well-being.

Risk vs. Uncertainty

Understanding the difference between risk and uncertainty is essential when making decisions in life. While the two terms are often used interchangeably, they describe very different situations.

Risk refers to situations where the possible outcomes are known, and we can assign probabilities to them. For example, when investing money in the stock market, you might not know exactly what will happen, but you can analyze past data, trends, and probabilities to make an informed choice. In this case, even though there’s a chance of loss, the risk can be measured and managed.

Uncertainty, on the other hand, deals with the unknown and unpredictable. It refers to situations where you don’t know all the possible outcomes, let alone the likelihood of each. Starting a brand-new business, choosing a completely unconventional life path, or facing unexpected changes in the world—these are all filled with uncertainty. There’s no reliable data or model to lean on, and that makes decisions much harder.

Your life will be full of uncertainties, which is completely good until it aligns with your values. In fact, uncertainties will become the challenges you will face in the movie. These challenges will require you to have some resources invested to make them move forward.

Finite and Infinite Resources in Life

In life, one of the most important distinctions we can make is between finite and infinite resources. This mindset helps us understand what we need to protect, manage.

Resources like energy and time are all finite, they are limited, and once spent, they may be difficult or even impossible to recover fully. Time, once gone, is gone forever. And energy, both physical and mental, needs rest and recovery to be restored.

You can earn more money so we can say it is infinite, but it still takes time and effort. Infinite resources are curiosity, creativity, and the ability to grow as well, which can be used to make us more infinite and finite resources.

Because energy and time are finite, every decision we make should reflect their value. Spending an hour scrolling aimlessly, for example, costs you time and mental energy that could have gone toward something more meaningful. Similarly, constantly pushing yourself without rest may result in burnout, showing that even motivation and focus have limits.

The real skill lies in learning how to spend our finite resources wisely, directing them toward things that feed our infinite ones. When we do that, we create a life that’s not just productive, but purposeful and sustainable.

Passion vs Money

Everybody works 40 years. But still lots of people do not reach their desired life.

As we discussed earlier, money is an infinite resource. We can use it to make us more finite resources, time and energy. So saying that having more money could potentially make us more free. I would exchange some money to have more time with my family or doing things that I value.

People usually tend to bend towards their passion. That could be being an artist or an athlete. But we can say that these careers are highly risky. We have data that most of them cannot make a living from their passion and could not reach their desired life. Of course, there are exceptions, but 1 out of 100 is still risky for me.

I would rather recommend to choose something that is high in demand and pays well, and of course, aligns with your values. I value freedom, flexibility and knowledge, that is the reason why I am a software engineer. I could work remotely, I can make good money and I can learn new skills (hard and soft skills). So it is a good fit for me.

Look for careers that are in high demand and pay well. I am not saying that you should do everything for money, but try to find the best solution for yourself. Try to find a career that would bring you to your desired ending. A good pick should satisfy all your values.

Career capital refers to the rare and valuable skills, experiences, and reputation you accumulate over time that make you stand out in the job market. Just like financial capital allows you to invest in opportunities, career capital gives you leverage in your professional life. The more of it you have, the more freedom you gain to choose meaningful work, set your own terms, and avoid being stuck in roles that don’t align with your goals.

Valuable skills are at the heart of career capital. These aren’t just trendy or surface-level abilities—they’re deep, hard-won competencies that are difficult to replace. Whether it’s technical knowledge, problem-solving, communication, leadership, or creativity, skills that solve real problems and deliver real value are what employers and collaborators look for. And they’re not built overnight. They require patience, deliberate practice, and a mindset focused on growth rather than quick rewards.

When you focus on building career capital instead of chasing instant success, you lay the foundation for long-term satisfaction and resilience. You become someone who creates value wherever you go—and that’s what truly opens doors in any industry.

Excessive commitment to one specific career path can become a trap—especially in a world that is constantly evolving. Many people choose a profession early in life, invest years into it, and then feel stuck even when their interests change or the industry shifts. You might pass up new opportunities, avoid learning new skills, or resist change out of fear of “starting over.” But the truth is, careers are not static—they’re fluid. Being open to change doesn’t mean giving up; it means evolving. If you are in this trap you should evaluate what could be changed, there is nothing worse than accepting and not doing anything.

What truly matters is building transferable skills and a mindset that adapts to new challenges. Staying flexible allows you to pivot, explore new directions, and avoid becoming obsolete in an ever-changing world. Commitment should be toward growth and impact—not just a specific job title. In the long run, that kind of openness leads to a more fulfilling and sustainable career.

Focus is the answer

Whether you want to learn a new skill or execute a plan you will need focus for doing that. Being able to execute on the plan requires some additional soft skills which we won’t cover in this article.

Focus is something that makes you able to concentrate on something for a longer period of time. Focus is a skill as well and one of your tasks should be that you try improving it. Without being able to focus on your plan, you are basically destined to failure.

Improving it happens through practice. With certain challenges, which requires concentration will improve your focusing skill.

If a ship goes to a destination 1% off, it will anchor possibly in a different country. So try to improve your focusing skill, it will make you an A-Player.

A-Players

You have to be 1000 days bad to become exceptionally good. That is the nature of improvement and learning.

As I already mentioned, the more complex problems you can solve the better position you will be in life. We can agree that a truck driver solves a less important problem than an AI engineer, that is clearly visible in their salaries.

In most companies, employees are seen as costs—a necessary part of operations, but not something management is eager to maximize investment in. That’s why it’s rare to find organizations that are truly motivated to significantly increase the salaries of average workers. However, there’s an important exception: a select group of individuals whom companies go out of their way to retain, reward, and invest in heavily. These are the A-players—the top performers who operate at an exceptionally high standard and are, quite frankly, irreplaceable.

These individuals aren’t valued just because they’ve been with the company for many years or because they follow rules well. Their true worth lies in their deep, hard-to-replace knowledge and capability. They carry what’s often called human capital or knowledge capital—the kind of expertise, problem-solving ability, and strategic thinking that actively powers the company forward. They don’t just do their jobs well—they create value at a level that most others cannot.

Many A-players have idols or role models in life—people whose career paths, mindset, or values they admire and seek to emulate. These idols inspire them to continuously grow, pushing beyond the ordinary and focusing on what truly matters. Applying tools like Pareto analysis (the 80/20 rule), A-players identify the critical 20% of skills that produce 80% of the value. They focus their efforts on developing these key areas, making their contribution disproportionately impactful.

A-players are not just employees—they are assets. They are the brains behind critical systems, the minds that innovate, and the people you can trust with high-stakes decisions. And because of that, companies treat them differently. They’re the ones who are hard to lose and even harder to replace. If you aim to become someone whose value is undeniable, the path isn’t about staying loyal to a desk for decades—it’s about becoming the kind of person whose skills and insight are essential to the success of any team you’re part of.

Goals and Projects

Probably, you played some MMORPG games before. In those games every player has its own character. Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses and the player is responsible to improve them. You can learn new spells, you can get new armors, so you will become stronger. That is what we need to achieve in our lives as well.

In those games there are predefined missions and quests that you have to do to learn something new. In real life we should do the same, somehow we should have a step by step guide that will guide us through to the solution. That is what we want to achieve.

You have your values defined, you know the movie, so you might know what you should do.

Projects are basically missions or quests if we want to compare them with games. We define what is the reason for doing it. We want to learn something new? For convenience it is good to define these things to be able to think on the bigger scope:

• What is the project about?
• What is the effect of the project on my life?
• What can I do to minimize the risk?
• How long would it take to get back to the starting position if something bad happens?

After the project is defined, we should move on to defining it more deeply:

• Current and desired situation
• Knowing your environment
• Who has already solved it?
• Defining the problem and the solution
• Commitment

After you have defined your next project it is important to define our goals and milestones. The project might include learning a new skill or doing something. Those would be our goals and milestones. For now on we will see how to define and track problems and our progress.

For a long time, people were captivated by the concept of goals, believing they were the ultimate solution to achieving success. Many books and articles on personal development focus on goal-setting as a central theme.

From my experience having goals are great. But you have to keep in mind that goals are giving direction and should not become a dreaming session. I always heard that written goals are the key to success. In theory they might help, but from my experience the procedure for writing them down was always a dreaming session. You don’t want that.

That being said, let’s see what points and aspects of goal setting we should focus on. There is an acronym called SMART goals. SMART goals stand for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals. It describes very well how a goal should be set and most importantly, measured.

Specifying problems in details

Everybody in their lives wants to achieve more and have more of certain things. That can be money, status, knowledge, health etc. The thing is that most of the time those things are unmeasurable and cannot be explained in a single sentence.

For example: “I want to be healthy and fit.”

The problem with this is that it cannot be measured, you don’t really know what it means to be healthy, you don’t really know when that would happen. I am aware that I am speaking in general, and it might not always be the case, but I am sure you got the point.

To overcome this vagueness, we must make our goals specific and measurable so that we can track progress effectively.

The first thing when we are setting goals is that the goal should be very specific (S). Why, you might ask? I am sure that you faced earlier situations where you were really close to solving a problem, but something was missing. Then you asked the right question and it gave you some directions where to start the research. That is the reason why we need to be specific. Our brain works better if we know the right direction and we will find the right answers.

When you have a specific goal, you will be able to set some milestones or phases or even better a specific date. From my experience having milestones or phases with approximate dates is already a very big step towards achieving them. Milestones, phases, steps are measurable (M). You can see whether you achieved them or not. There are no maybes or uncertainties, only yeses or nos.

Time will pass by no matter what. By setting a date to your goals you will have an urge to work on your stuff. And that is a good thing, having something that constantly is whipping your back is great, you won’t forget it. You also reduce the time from dreaming and you will have motivation to work.

How would I describe a goal for myself? If I wanted to be more healthy there are quite a lot of measurable things. I measure health and fitness in my weight and stamina.

Goals of my would be: “Lose 10 kilos, while running 5km under 25 min”

Long term vision

People tend to underestimate what can be achieved over a decade and overestimate what is achievable in a year. That is our nature. When we accept that, we can value our time more and remove procrastination from our lives.

When planning for the future, it’s important to have a clear vision for where you see yourself in 10-20 years. The result of your vision should be the direction and motivation in the long run. Besides motivation it is handy to know your vision and the things that you value, it can help you to decide between the things you do every day.

A goal or a milestone in your life should be achievable (A) and realistic. That is the biggest difference between a dream and a goal/milestone. If you can believe what you imagined that would help a lot in achieving it.

Why am I saying vision is important? If you want to reach you next goal or milestone it is required to be a relevant (R) one. For the most cases you can see upfront the next steps, and if you overstep a critical goal in the meantime that would make the next one irrelevant, because you are not doing it step by step, thus messing up the whole process. For example, you want to get a degree and you still have some important classes to go, but you ignore it and you are working on your thesis. Makes no sense, you should focus on the next important step towards your goal. As Brian Tracy said once, eat your frog.

A critical thing that you have to keep in mind is to know your weaknesses and strengths. I always hear that you should always focus on your strengths. I do not agree with that, in my scenario the next chapter in my life always came by working on my weaknesses. Your strengths should be in focus, but you cannot leave your weaknesses under the table. You should work on your weaknesses as well.

Estimations

A milestone or a goal has to be time based (T). In the business world it is common to address some tasks with estimations. This is being done for a really simple reason. Time passes by anyways, but if you connect time to a task that changes the perspective of that task.

Giving estimation is hard. It requires some existing experience or some deeper knowledge on that topic. But giving an estimation is key.

Deadlines

As estimating things creates the value for your spent time, deadlines are creating the urge and the motivation to achieve them. Deadlines would encourage and give you the mental strength to value the goal even more.

A good example is when you want to learn a new language and you don’t have the motivation to take action, it is a good practice to find a language exam to the desired level. Imagine the scenario when you already paid for the exam and you have only months to learn a language. Would it not be motivating? I think so.

The same goes for starting businesses. Everybody thinks that you have to have a legal business already open to start the operation. It is not necessary, but if you have to pay every month the taxes without income, that would be motivating as hell.

Having estimations and deadlines would create the urge that you are looking for and you won’t hesitate or procrastinate. Don’t be stupid, but create something that urges you, it might be money, time, status or anything that might make you take action.

Project based learning

Since you started reading this I am sure you noticed that I highly emphasize the importance of having goals and directions in your life. For a long time I assumed that I am not motivated enough and always procrastinate. This might not always be true, rather by mistake I did not notice what type of goal was in the discussion.

There are two key topics that are responsible for achieving something or not. Deep work and daily routines.

Daily routines as its name suggests are daily actions we do often. It might be going to the gym, reading, having fun etc. Deep work on the other hand is more like a focused timeframe when everything is dedicated to one thing.

Deep Work refers to focused, uninterrupted periods of time where you dedicate your full attention to a single task, while daily routines are regular, often repetitive actions that contribute to long-term progress.

Both have their own scenarios but there are times when by mistake you do something that is a routine and not a deep work. Learning programming is highly energy and focus consuming. If you do it daily for 1 hour without full focus and energy that is just wasted time. I think we can agree. On the other side of the coin you might want to lose weight, one good meal or one intensive training would change nothing, but on a daily basis it would make the difference.

Your goals and vision has to influence how you do your daily actions. If your goal is to learn how to code or to learn a new language you have to be focused on those things. Ideally on one thing at the time. Learning a language while learning how to code makes totally no sense and it is not realistic and unrealistic. If we go with the programming example, you might have to dedicate 3-6 months to get a grip on it, that is reality.

Timeframe

Timeframe has a strong connection with deep work. Having a fixed period for deadlines is a good practice. Depending on the complexity of the goal or milestone is it good to divide it to months. Having a month or multiple months of capacity to work on milestones that would bring huge value to you is good. 30/60/90 days works the best. 90 days with full focus on learning something new for example programming is the way it should work. Daily 4-8 hours would bring the result that you want.

As your timeframe grows the more tracking points would be needed to keep you on track. The shorter the period the more focus and time would be required with fewer tracking points. On tracking points later.

Do less

I have mentioned that to achieve bigger milestones and goals in your life requires time and more importantly energy. Everybody has limited energy in their life and knowing what you spend that valuable resource is important. Mixing multiple important goals and milestones makes you have a monkey mind. You would not be able to focus, thus now desired results.

There is a matrix that might give you a direction of what to eliminate in your life and what to not. It is called the Eisenhower Matrix. It describes what to focus on, what to avoid, what has an impact on your life and what not. Is it considered as a good practice to follow these principles that the matrix shows.

With knowing this you can identify the 20% of your action that really makes the difference and reduce or even better eliminate the other 80%, and helps you organize the daily actions that are required for achieving the milestone. It might sound a bit harsh, but in reality all of us have only one life at once. It is good advice to maximize your talent and opportunities. Time will pass by so fast if you are not doing the things that matter.

People are mentioning in general that you should focus on the actions that you want to do. I agree with it, but also you have to keep it in mind that you want to reduce the number of actions that require your time and energy. Do less not important actions and do more important work.

Your life decisions also have a great impact on your actions that you have to do. For example If you buy a big house with a big garden, you will create extra work, because you might have to cut grass, keep the garden in order. I am not saying it is bad, but you have to know these hidden costs and actions when you make a decision in your life.

Maker’s Schedule vs. Manager’s Schedule also explains a very important thing about the two types of people and how much energy and time is required for achieving something. The same applies for learning and achieving bigger goals, we become makers. Read it.

Tracking daily actions

When it comes to executing on the desired milestone it is important to track your daily actions and review them often. Why? It is a valuable information what you did in certain situations and how you acted. You might face better days when you have more focus, more energy, it is good to know what you are, what you drank to know how to act next time.

Also it is important how you executed the day’s prescribed actions. Was it effective, can you take it as a win for that day?

What to track?

Tracking is not an easy job to do. It can be really challenging to identify what to track, which are the good metrics to follow.

When it comes to the daily actions I like to track my inputs.

• Nutrition (What did I eat?)
• Exercise (Did I exercise today?)
• Sleep (How well did I sleep?)
• Work (How much time did I spend working?)

It is good to track the most important inputs in your life that can affect your energy, time. Based on these inputs you can nearly always replicate good and bad performances. That’s the reason why professional athletes have their routines when they have to perform. Some of them are eating only pasta, some of them consume more salt or caffeine. Knowing these things are important to always perform on your possible best level.

On the other hand it is a good practice to track your work. How much did you work, how much energy did you have on a scale of 10? Were you able to focus, how long?

Track those things that you think influence your work or performance.

Day starting and ending

From my experience the best time to evaluate your inputs for the last day is at the start of the next day. At that time you know basically everything that happened and had an influence on your performance. On the other hand the end of the day is the best to check on your performance.

Control points – What indicates if you are off track?

When you already started the execution of the plan and the milestone it is important to know when you are still on track or you are already off track and started to waste valuable resources.

This is hard especially when you don’t have the knowledge yet. You basically cannot identify what means what. Even in that scenario you have to force yourself to check on your progress. To check whether you are closer to your expected results or not. By not doing this you are wasting your time, money and energy. I made this mistake so I know what I am talking about.

When starting out with a new milestone or goal it is required to have more control points. Even daily. As long as you are in the process you can reduce the number of tracking points. I encourage you to implement this in your workflow, because it will take you to the next chapters in your life.

You might have been working on a task that ended up being a total mess. I certainly have. That can happen in such scenarios when you don’t emphasize the importance of control points.

Feedback circles

When it comes to acting on a control point what should you consider?

There are scenarios when you cannot test your progress by yourself.

How can it be tested?

When you are working toward a milestone or a goal you have to identify how something can be tested to know if you have made progress or not.

Based on your earlier experience you can identify how it can be tested. In that case when you do not have any experience you should do two things. Find someone who already did what you want to do, send him an email and ask for three test scenarios. Everyone would help. When you get the information you should transform it to your usage.

Finding mentors or someone who can help is important and pay for their help. Do not allow yourself to be scammed, but there I am sure you got free advice that went bad. When you ask for help, be ready to pay and look at it as an investment where you trade money to time.

What does progress mean? (KPI)

If you are facing a milestone or a goal it is good to know what progress means. These key performance indicators (KPI) can tell you what to look for when you are about to evaluate your progress on a daily basis. Did you learn 10 words today? If you’re working on losing weight, a KPI could be the number of calories consumed each day, or the number of hours spent exercising. Should be practical and easily measurable.

Essential resources

Before starting the execution plan and identify essential resources. You might have to buy some books, some courses, or find someone to help. A good start is always to ask Google and some AI for identifying your needs. A good query would be something like: “best books on …”, “best resources on …”, “who can help in …”

This is an important step to maximize the output and result of your work. Instead of gathering every resource on the topic, focus on a few high-quality resources that align with your learning style and needs.

By doing this you would be ready to start the work and would have a fun time.

AI

In today’s world learning anything has become easy as hell. Having a tool that can give you directions when you don’t know where to look for something is extremely helpful. For every above mentioned topic a query would help you a lot. By asking for good practices, how should something be learned, how should KPI be identified, what are realistic estimates could help you and reduce your execution time by factors.

I use it a lot and you should too, but remember to use it as a tool and do not allow yourself to depend on it. AI is great for providing insights and saving time, but it can’t replace personal effort, experience, or judgment. Use AI to supplement your learning and decision-making, but make sure you remain engaged and actively involved in the process.

When working toward a large goal, one of the most time-consuming parts can be finding reliable resources, whether it’s books, articles, or expert advice. AI tools like ChatGPT can assist you in gathering relevant information quickly and efficiently. Rather than spending hours scouring the web, you can ask AI to summarize articles, provide recommendations, or clarify complex concepts.

AI can help you create realistic KPIs and milestones by analyzing data and suggesting metrics that are most relevant to your goal. For example, if you’re working on a fitness goal, AI can track your physical activity and suggest specific targets based on your progress. This can help ensure that the KPIs you’re setting are measurable and grounded in real data.

How to Use AI for Learning and Researching

When you’re starting to learn something new, AI can help you quickly gather the most relevant and up-to-date information. The key is to ask clear, focused questions to get the best results.

Prompts:

• “What are the top books/articles on [topic]?”
  • Example: “What are the top books on personal productivity?”
• “Summarize the key points of [topic].”
  • Example: “Summarize the key points of quantum mechanics in simple terms.”
• “Provide a list of the best online courses/resources for learning [skill/subject].”
  • Example: “What are the best online courses for learning Python programming?”
• “Can you provide a breakdown of the history and key concepts of [topic]?”
  • Example: “Can you provide a breakdown of the history and key concepts of artificial intelligence?”
• “What are the latest trends or discoveries in [field]?”
  • Example: “What are the latest trends in renewable energy technology?”

By using these prompts, AI can help you quickly access key articles, research papers, and resources, saving you time on sifting through search results. It can also help you understand the basics of a topic before diving deeper into specialized content.

As you dive deeper into your learning, you’ll often encounter complex concepts that need further explanation. AI can break down difficult topics into simpler language or provide further clarification.

Prompts:

• “Explain [concept] in simpler terms.”
  • Example: “Explain blockchain technology in simpler terms.”
• “What are the most common misconceptions about [topic]?”
  • Example: “What are the most common misconceptions about climate change?”
• “Can you compare and contrast [concept 1] and [concept 2]?”
  • Example: “Can you compare and contrast machine learning and deep learning?”
• “Provide a step-by-step explanation of how [process] works.”
  • Example: “Provide a step-by-step explanation of how the scientific method works.”
• “Give examples of real-world applications of [concept].”
  • Example: “Give examples of real-world applications of artificial intelligence.”

These prompts encourage AI to simplify or break down difficult ideas. Whether you’re trying to understand a technical subject or grasp the nuances of a concept, AI can provide more accessible language, examples, and analogies to clarify your understanding.

AI can also assist in organizing your learning process and ensuring that you’re progressing at an appropriate pace. Use AI tools to help create a structured learning plan or set realistic goals.

Prompts:

• “Help me create a 4-week plan to learn [topic or skill].”
  • Example: “Help me create a 4-week plan to learn data analysis with Python.”
• “What milestones should I aim for when learning [skill]?”
  • Example: “What milestones should I aim for when learning photography?”
• “Can you suggest a study schedule for [course/subject]?”
  • Example: “Can you suggest a study schedule for the SAT exam?”
• “Based on my current knowledge, what should I focus on next in my learning of [subject]?”
  • Example: “Based on my current knowledge of economics, what should I focus on next?”
• “What’s the most efficient way to study for [exam/test]?”
  • Example: “What’s the most efficient way to study for the GRE exam?”

By using these prompts, AI can provide guidance on how to structure your learning, recommend pacing, and highlight the most important milestones for achieving mastery. It can also help break down complex subjects into smaller, more manageable chunks.

AI can generate practice questions, quizzes, and tests to help reinforce what you’ve learned. You can also use AI to simulate different scenarios and practice applying concepts in real-world situations.

Prompts:

• “Generate 5 practice questions based on [topic].”
  • Example: “Generate 5 practice questions based on the basics of calculus.”
• “Test me on [topic] with multiple-choice questions.”
  • Example: “Test me on the basics of machine learning with multiple-choice questions.”
• “Can you provide me with a summary of the main points to remember about [concept]?”
  • Example: “Can you provide me with a summary of the main points to remember about the causes of World War I?”
• “Give me a real-world problem related to [topic] to solve.”
  • Example: “Give me a real-world problem related to data visualization to solve.”
• “Generate a quiz with true/false and multiple-choice questions on [topic].”
  • Example: “Generate a quiz with true/false and multiple-choice questions on global warming.”

These prompts allow you to actively engage with the material. By testing yourself or using AI to simulate real-world scenarios, you can identify knowledge gaps, improve retention, and apply your learning in different contexts.

Documenting the process

While working on a challenge keep in mind that somebody is certainly working on the same thing. By documenting how you learned something or how you solved something would be very valuable information that can make you money or just help others.

The best way is to make videos or articles on certain parts of the whole process. It would be amazing.

Do not forget to work

It is nice to have plans and goals. But even without them you can achieve great things by only just working. But if you want to reduce the required resources you should do the above mentioned topics.

In conclusion, planning is not only about setting goals, but also about executing on them consistently. The best plan in the world means nothing if you don’t take action.

Take the first step today. Pick one goal, apply the SMART criteria, and begin your journey towards making the movie great.