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Personal Effectiveness · 3 min read

Improving your personal effectiveness

Learn a simple six-question routine that sharpens personal effectiveness, speeds progress and turns time management, goal setting and action plans into results.

Chris Farmer, Founder of Corporate Coach Group

“Personal effectiveness soars when you ask six daily questions: set a clear goal, build a detailed action plan, act, spot what works, note what fails and adapt fast. This simple loop turns each hour into progress and fuels constant improvement.”

Chris Farmer — Founder, Corporate Coach Group

Improving your personal effectiveness

Improving Personal effectiveness

How to make more progress in less time

If you want to make more progress in the least amount of time, then it is important that you work in the most efficient manner possible.

How can you ensure that you work in the most efficient manner possible?

You can ensure that you work in the most efficient manner possible, by working according to a six step system; a system that, if followed, will guarantee that you will be at your most effective.

The system we are referring to is a system of six simple questions that you ask and answer every day. If you ask these questions of yourself, every day, and if you demand from yourself, detailed answers, it will inevitably cause you to make great strides towards a better future.

The six questions are as follows:

  1. What is your long range goal? What major goal do you want to achieve, within the next six months to a year?
  2. What is your detailed plan of action? How exactly do you intend to achieve the goal that you have set out at point one?
  3. What have you done in the last few weeks to enact your plans in order to achieve your goal?
  4. In relation to the actions that you have taken in the last weeks, what has been going well for you?
  5. In relation to the actions that you have taken in the last few weeks, what has not been going well for you lately?
  6. In relation to the things that have not been going well for you, what adaptive changes do you need to make in order to make things go better in the future?

These questions are important because all successful action is goal directed action.

All successful action is based upon an evolutionary progression from a position of having a goal, with an undefined plan of how it can be achieved, to a position of having a goal together with a clear and defined plan of how it can be achieved.

The evolutionary development of your plan is dependent on you continuing to act; continually observing and evaluating the feedback results, which your actions are creating. You need to see what works and what does not work. And if your current actions are not working, then you need to change your approach. Then try again; and again see if you can improve your plan.

The continuous application of this simple system of six steps is the basis of all successful action.

  1. You need to have a goal.
  2. You need to have a plan.
  3. You need to be taking continuing action in the pursuit of your goal.
  4. You need to be noticing what is working.
  5. You need to be noticing what is not working.
  6. You need to be willing to change, adapt and evolve your plans and actions, when what you are doing is not working.

The above principles are the basis of personal effectiveness.

Use them every day.[Training Banner]

personal effectiveness

Personal effectiveness is the workplace skill of turning clear goals into results. It means you write goals, build and follow a step-by-step plan, use time wisely, and check what works so you can improve fast. Lose any one of these four parts and you lose personal effectiveness.

CG4D Definition

Context: Workplace
Genus: Skill

  • Sets clear, written goals
  • Builds and follows a detailed action plan
  • Uses time in the most efficient way
  • Reviews feedback often and adapts fast

Article Summary

Personal effectiveness soars when you ask six daily questions: set a clear goal, build a detailed action plan, act, spot what works, note what fails and adapt fast. This simple loop turns each hour into progress and fuels constant improvement.

Chris Farmer, Founder of Corporate Coach Group

Written by Chris Farmer

Founder & Lead Trainer, Corporate Coach Group

Chris Farmer is the founder of the Corporate Coach Group and has over 25 years experience designing and delivering leadership and management training across both the public and private sectors. His programmes are structured, practical and built around real-world performance. Read more about Chris and the story of how the Corporate Coach Group was founded.

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Key Statistics

Microsoft’s 2024 Work Trend Index found that staff who write down clear daily goals rate their own productivity 39% higher than those who do not.

Gallup’s 2023 State of the Global Workplace study shows that workers who strongly agree they manage their time well each day have 44% lower stress and 31% higher engagement than those who do not.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about this topic

The six questions: goal, plan, recent actions, what works, what fails, needed changes. Ask and answer them each day.
A clear written goal guides all later choices, so you work on what matters and avoid waste.
Review the plan daily while answering the six questions; tweak steps the moment feedback shows a better route.
Note why the task stalls, adjust the method or sequence, then test the change and keep what succeeds.
By linking each hour to a specific planned step, the routine stops drift and lets you progress in less time.
Yes. Daily reflection shows patterns fast, so you can adapt, learn and improve your output each day.
Many notice sharper focus within a week; clear progress usually appears inside one to two months of steady use.

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