David A. Fields Consulting Group Since the new year is nigh, maybe you reviewed your consulting firm’s annual goals this week.
Or, maybe you plan to do that next week, and this week you reviewed your quarterly priorities.
Or, maybe you didn’t look at any goals this week, but you reviewed all your initiatives last week.
Does it matter?
Of course!
You and your consulting firm will have a noticeably better year next year if you establish a best-practice cadence for reviewing your goals.
Best-Practice Goal Review Principles
- Your consulting firm’s long-term goals must be revisited periodically or else they’ll be forgotten or crowded out by short term fires.
- However, if long-term goals are revisited too often, especially without meaningful progress between visits, their power to inspire excitement and action dissipates. Like the art on your wall, if you see it every day, you stop noticing it.
- A goal that appears unreasonably large, confusingly vague or downright daunting, can deter action.
- Small achievements accelerate progress toward large achievements
- A goal that includes chocolate is more likely to be achieved.
Implement those best-practice principles via a cadence with daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual time horizons.
Best-Practice Goal Review Cadence
Daily
Every evening set your priorities for the next day.
You could do that first thing in the morning, of course.
Either way, complete the task with your assistant by looking at the burning fires and your consulting firm’s weekly priorities.
Don’t look further out than weekly.
Weekly
Monday mornings your whole team should commit to your individual crucial results for the week.
To inform your commitments, review your consulting firm’s list of high-priority projects, which don’t change from week to week.
Where is the list of high-priority projects housed?
Your quarterly plan.
Monthly
When the first Monday of the month rolls around, it’s your cue to take a peek at your quarterly plan.
- Are you on track?
- Do you need to turn up the heat on any priority projects?
- Which of the priority projects will take center stage for the coming month?
The answers to those questions define your list of priority projects for the month.
Quarterly
Four Mondays a year revisit your consulting firm’s strategy.
On these high-octane Mondays you and your team:
- Remind yourselves of your full-year ambitions,
- Abandon projects that are falling short,
- Create new, priority projects inspired by your progress and learning over the previous three months.
The overarching question is:
“What must we accomplish to meet or exceed our annual goals?“
Finally, after you define the priority projects for the quarter you may find it helpful to outline the progress you expect in each of the upcoming three months.
Annually
Once a year you do the same thing as every other consulting team:
Jump into a hot tub filled with bubbling, coconut custard.
Translate your epic dreams into goals for the coming year.
While plenty of firms conduct their entire annual planning in a single event lasting a day or two, strongly consider an eight-week planning approach.
Also, consider inviting an outside advisor or strategic wizard who can challenge your assumptions, stretch your thinking, and fire up your ambitions.
That cadence creates a nice, logical flow from annual goals down to tactical, weekly commitments.
But what about game-changing, epic ideas and inspirations that pop up during the year… where do they fit?
Epic Dreams
Big ideas are in plentiful supply.
Every book you devour, every client you chat with and every webinar you attend could spark a new, ambitious vision.
For consulting firm leaders, most of whom are highly entrepreneurial, every big, new idea is a siren song, luring you to abandon your plans and embark on a new adventure.
Set those tempting dreams aside until the next quarterly review, at earliest.
Great ideas will survive a short incubation period.
That’s the best practice cadence.
In a nutshell, revisit your dreams annually and your annual goals quarterly. Everything else is tactical implementation.
What’s your cadence for reviewing goals?
Do you follow a similar approach to the one I’ve outlined, or something very different?
Text and images are © 2026 David A. Fields, all rights reserved.
Great points – fully agree.
On the DAILY: I have learnt that “daily planning the evening before” beats “first thing in the morning” on two fronts:
1. you reduce your thoughts to paper/iPad and so you worry less about forgetting something; and
2. your subconscious mind gets to work on preparing to solve those tasks while you sleep.
“Your mind is made for having ideas, not holding them.”
— David Allen, Getting Things Done (2001)
You and me both, Mike. The end-of-day routine with my assistant is one of my most effective productivity hacks and stress reducers. Love the David Allen quote too!
Thanks for sharing your experience, Mike. Much appreciated!
Like all your Blogs this one is very practical / useful. Also applies to an individual or family’s personal life
Thanks for the good practical advice
You’re right, Ray–the same cadence can work well on a personal level too. Thanks for that smart observation!