Last Friday, I was communicating by email with several friends about my forthcoming book, Unlocking Private Company Wealth. You can sign up for notification when the book is available at the upper right hand of this blog.

As an afterthought, I set a goal with them of walking 50,000 steps over the weekend, i.e., on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

I’ve been a dedicated walker for years and have worn a Fitbit for going on three years now. My goal with the Fitbit is to track walking 10,000 steps per day. Actually, my goal at the end of each day is to have my rolling seven-day step total at or above 70,000, or a weekly average of 10,000 steps per day.

Before Friday, I had never set a weekend goal, or any goal other than as noted above. So the 50,000 step goal was a personal challenge. That is a daily pace of 16,700 steps.

Saturday. It was a rainy morning. I went to my club and walked on a treadmill for about 2.5 miles. With normal morning activities, I had 7,000 steps before lunch. I had shopping and errands to do, all of which involved walking. I walked a bit more in the evening. My step total for Saturday was 14,738, and the Fitbit said I travelled 7.4 miles.

Sunday. My team at church cooked breakfast for 75 teenagers who were staying there over night for a Happening Weekend. That was a treat! Seeing all those young people must have inspired me. I walked 5.5 miles after leaving the church and ended the day with 15,624 steps, or a total of 7.5 miles.

Monday. With a two day total of just over 30,000 steps, I knew I needed 20,000 steps when I started out the morning. After taking care of a few things around the house, I walked 7.2 miles in just under two hours. The pace wasn’t bad considering traffic and walking through a ten minute rain shower. I also had to stop to get a plastic bag for my iPhone so it wouldn’t get wet! As I write this afternoon, I have 18,097 steps and w weekend total of 48,459 steps at 3pm. I’ll definitely meet the goal with my normal activities for the remainder of the day!

Meeting my goal of 50,000 steps over the Labor Day Weekend is a good thing. I’m in good enough physical condition that there should be no after effects, other than satisfaction and the desire to set other, short-term walking goals. For example, I am setting another goal of walking a half marathon before the end of this year. That is not so short as Labor Day weekend, but I’ll meet it by setting other short-term goals to build mileage so that I’m ready when the time comes.

There is, however, a greater lesson. The focus of short-term goal setting is what many of us need from time to time to be rack through the clutter and clumsiness of daily life. Regarding the book I mentioned above, after delay after delay where life got in the way, we have accelerated its completion by setting short-term goals that simply must be met.

Examples include:

• External editing. I hired an editor and gave him a reasonable goal for his edits and suggestions. He met the goal.
• Processing the editor’s input. I stayed in Florida an extra week (don’t you feel sorry for me) in order to complete the needed revisions based on the editors comments. In the process, one reviewer suggested we had overlooked an important issue and I wrote an additional chapter.
• Obtaining external reviews. We have focused on communicating with my external reviewers regularly, and they are coming in timely.
• Cover design and internal layout. Same thing with focus.
• Last reviews and preparation of draft to send to printer for a galley. We have less than two weeks, but I think we will make it.
• Writing a book always calls for periods of intense focus and help from lots of people. For me, I am blessed to have access to the market staff at Mercer Capital, and blessed also to have friends and business associates who have volunteered to take the time to read drafts of the book, make suggestions, and provide reviews which you will see if you obtain the book!

Lots of your important but not urgent projects also cry out for intense focus at the right time. We just have to plow through the clutter of our daily lives and focus on what’s important. I’m not naive enough to believe that I will do that all the time. However, I know from infrequent periods of intense focus that the benefits far outweigh the costs.

Have an important task that you know really needs to be done and you keep putting it off. Stop today. Set a short-term goal. Let your activity on that goal crowd out those things that always get in the way, and just do it.

Now I’m off to get the rest of my 50,000 steps for Labor Day Weekend!

As always, please give me a call (901-685-2120) or email (mercerc@mercercapital.com) to discuss any valuation or ownership transition issues in confidence.

And do sign up for notification of the publication of my new book, Unlocking Private Company Wealth at the upper right hand corner of this blog.

In the meantime, be well and set and achieve a short-term, important goal!

Chris

p.s. actual step count for the weekend per Fitbit was 50,623