You won’t meet many of your goals unless you assign a completion date to them.

For example, if you want to get your industry’s or profession’s certifications, decide by what date you will earn it. This will help you create a reverse calendar to plan your trip (if necessary), studies, attendance at workshops, online courses and application.

This means you will actually need several dates, or a career calendar.

For example, you not only want to set dates for completing certain action items (such as earning a specific certification), but you will want dates for locating resources you will need to use (such as a webinar or trade show or lunch-and-learn) and dates for registering, booking flights and hotels and other tasks that must be completed.

Steve’s article on How to Create an Actionable Career Plan for Cafe Quill provides more information on how to do this.

Here’s an example of setting up a calendar to earn a certification:

• Join American XYZ Association – January 2, 2021 (two-week approval process)
• Register for certification program – January 17, 2021
• Purchase books – January 17, 2021
• Take module 1 certification webinar – April 3, 2021
• Attend Georgia Chapter, ABC Society annual meeting – April 28, 2021
• Take module 2 certification webinar – July 8, 2021
• Attend American XYZ Association annual conference – September 22, 2021
• Take module 3 certification webinar – October 12, 2021
• Take certification test – February 15 – 2022
• Complete XYZ certification – March 1, 2022