My review of the Fokus Framework and why you don't reach your goals
2024-01-25
You might have seen me mention it on my now page, but I have been testing and extensively using Niklas Steenfatt's Fokus Framework for over two months by now and want to share my impressions as well as some general guidance on why you might not be reaching you goals in this article with you. So, let's dive into the topic without any further ado...
If have haven't heard the name Niklas Steenfatt before, there is no need to feel guilty, since he has a mostly German community focused on productivity, work-life balance and building a good life. Some important milestones along his way to a full-time content creator contain finishing his Abitur with a marvellous 1.0 grade, being best in class at university, studying abroad in Cambridge and Paris, landing a job at Facebook and until recently being in a high managerial position at Masterschool. Just like most of his content, the Fokus Framework is in German, perfected to suit the German school/university system and thus only really interesting, if you have at least intermediate language skills and live here. However, the core principles behind it can be applied in any circumstances and are genuinely helpful - so stick around regardless of your language skills.
What you get for your money, can be best described as some exceptionally well-made Notion templates to implement the ideas and structures described in the accompanying video course. It has a really hands-on approach and feels much more managable to implement than some of the theorically great, but rather abstract books I have read about productivity. Besides the video course and templates, you also get access to a private community forum of by now over 4000 rather active members, which is a great way to connect with peers and create some additional accountability for reaching your dreams once they are semi-publicly posted. The templates themselves are made up of a genius, actually revolutionary module for objective setting and evaluation accompanied by well-made, but rather generic other modules. These include a habit, calory and fitness tracker, a diary with a morning routine and a document system for organizing your notes, books, movies etc. Additionally also well-made modules to organize your studies for school or university can be bought for reasonable price.
The core essence of it all is the Zielsetzung (goal setting) module however, which guides you through the process of breaking down your long-term, annual goals into manageable chunks. If you think about it, most people don't fail at reaching their goals, because they don't set ambitious ones or aren't motivated, but because they don't know how to work on their goals on an everyday basis . Breaking down these huge objectives into smaller, mangable chunks is the point where is usually fails. And this is also where the Fokus Framework helps - so let's give this process a closer look:
- First and foremost you define 3 ambitious goals for the year. They don't need to have anything in common and can be rather abstract - we'll deal with it in the next step.
- Once your vision is clear, come up with 3 trackable, objectively verifiable milestones for every goal. This is where you need to become really specific and quantifiable. Saying "I want to be come fitter" is nice, but not really something you can be hold accountable for. Saying "I want to gain 5 kg of muscles in the next 12 months" is a completely other deal - it contains a meaningful metric, is concise and most importantly can be evaluated with the same outcome by any idiot who has the needed data. This step is probably the most important one, so spend your time coming up with well-considered milestones.
- Now, it's back to a brainstorm-kind of thinking again. With these clear objectives in mind, think off of all the measures (a.k.a. projects), no matter how crazy, that could lead you to your goals and write them down. Only once you have 15, 20 or however you like per milestone, start taking their viability into account and cross out the not-so-effective or too-out-of-this-world ones. Then align them on a timeline of the year considering how much time each one needs and when in the chain it can be most effective. Also don't make the mistake to start with all of them right in January, but try to increase the load gradually and balance it as best as you can in advantage.
- We are finally getting there - take a look at the current projects you are supposed to be working on and distil one mission-critical weekly priority out of them. This is your focus for the week and you should try to accomplish it - no matter what happens. If you can also work on your other projects beside it, that's nice, but this priority should overshadow everything else.
- Such a system is of course worth nothing at all, if it starts losing its connection to reality, so regular evaluation and course correction is critical. This can be perferrably done with a weekly review at the end of the week, during which you update all your data, evaluate what you have done this week and set the objectives for the next one. If you feel the need, you can also do these in other time intervals like every two days or once every 2 weeks - but be careful to not let slip this habit for too long.
The Fokus Framework does an excellent job at guiding you through this process, giving you examples for every step as well as providing you with the necessary digital tools to do it, but nothing from it is necessary. You can do it just as well with good old pen and paper - the principles and how regularly they are applied is what matters. With that said, I highly encourage you to give this method a try yourself, make 2024 (or whenever you are reading this) the best your of your life and of course share your experiences in the comments down below. Have a lovely day and we'll hear from each other next week...