How to track your Financial Goals?

“What gets measured, gets managed“, is a quote attributed to the renowned management guru, Peter Drucker.

A slightly different version of it says “What gets measured, gets done”.

I am sure executives, professionals and business persons, who have to manage teams, projects, businesses and Profit & Loss, have come to hold these words as a mantra.

In any of the roles, you work towards a certain goal that involves use of time, effort and resources. A goal sets everything in motion in a particular direction.

Then you need to measure progress.

It will help you will know what has been the result of the efforts, how far have you reached and what corrective actions needs to be taken, if any.

Makes sense?

Personal Financial Goals – what gets measured, gets done

But is that an approach you apply to your personal life as well, say your health, your financial goals and investments?

Probably not!

Today, let’s do that. Let’s measure where have you reached vis-a-vis your financial goals. And let’s put it straight into action with Unovest.

Go to smart.unovest.co, login into your FREE account and click on My Goals.

You will see this screen.

Click on “Create” to set your first financial goal. Give your goal a name and who is it meant for.

If you are wondering what should be your goal, then begin with a simple but an important one like “Retirement” or “Financial Independence”.

If you have kids, then their education would be a goal.

Planning for a vacation, or buying a house for yourself or a car – all of these count as financial goals too.

What will it take to meet the goal? How much money will be needed? You don’t have to be super accurate, an estimate will do just fine for now.

This would enable you to see your investments in an altogether different light.

The Power of Visualisation

Don’t forget to add a visual image of your goal. The image could be, for example, “skydiving” or “relaxing at the beach”. Use powerpoint or photoshop to create something unique for you.

It could also be the picture of your daughter or son for whose education you are making the investments.

You will probably not realise it now but the effect of attaching an image to the goal will help you keep you on track with your investments.

Now, mention the amount of any other investments (except mutual funds) like PPF, Bank FDs, Bonds, Stocks, etc that you have already made for this goal.

That’s it. Click Save. Your first goal is ready.

Now, let’s do the next step – mapping your Mutual Fund investments to the financial goals.

Note: If you have mutual funds as investments, you can upload them into Unovest through the “Upload portfolio” link.

Once uploaded, you can use the “Map” tab on My Goals to link your MF investments with the goals you just created.

You can map one goal to many MF investments (partially or fully).

So far so good.

Now comes the most interesting part, that we have been talking all along – measure.

Along with the “Other investments” number that you input while creating the goal, the MF investments that you have mapped will be totalled to show you the progress in the “Track” tab.

With “Track” will enable you to see how far you have come and what is the gap that needs to be covered. That’s the real essence of this entire exercise. That’s what will drive reflection and action. 

I will let the rest of the magic unfold itself in front of you.

So take charge, set goals and track them. 

Be a Unovestor at smart.unovest.co.