Start a New Job Right With a 30-60-90 Plan

So you’ve just started a new job. Congratulations! Now, what’s your plan for starting it off on the right foot? After spending time and energy on applying, interviewing, and/or gunning for a promotion, it’s easy to forget that the real work is about to begin.

When starting a new job, it’s a good idea to think ahead three months — but also keep an eye on shorter-term goals and tasks. To effectively accomplish both, try the 30-60-90 day plan, a method that allows you to to set and juggle a variety of future goals.

How does the 30-60-90 day plan work?

A 30-60-90 day plan is a document you make when you start a new job (or any long-term task, really). It serves as a roadmap to the things you want to have accomplished in one month, two months, and three months, so you’re not just clocking in every day and feeling confused or overwhelmed — especially during the meandering early days, before you’ve been fully integrated into the company’s workflow. You can develop these benchmarks on your own or, as Forbes advises, seek help from your hiring manager, who can help you determine which goals should take precedence.

It’s key to make it your plan into a real document, not just a vague plan in your head. It’s easy enough to do so: Create a table with three columns, titled 30, 60, and 90, and list your goals for each time period under the corresponding label. For example, within each 30-day span, you might set two learning goals and two productivity goals.

You can leave extra fields under or alongside each entry where you can chart your progress or jot down notes. It’s a good idea to keep it open in a tab in your browser and check in regularly to see how you are progressing or if you need to make any tweaks to align what’s there with your (or your boss’s) revised expectations.

How to organise your 30-60-90 day plan

Start by identifying your biggest goals — the ones you’ll be shooting for at the 90-day mark, then breaking down what steps you’ll have to take to accomplish them, and sort those incremental milestones and benchmarks into the 30- and 60-day columns. As Forbes notes, it’s smart to keep your company’s larger priorities in mind while you do this — you can even write them at the top of the document — so you can be sure your personal goals align with the company’s, and that the projects you’re working on will contribute to the organizational mission in some way.

You don’t want to overwhelm yourself, so to keep things manageable, limit the goals for each time period to between three and five. Again, leave space under each to jot down associated actions you can take to meet each goal, or to provide a metric by which you’re success or progress can be judged. For instance, If one of your 60-day goals is to work collaboratively with your new team, a metric might be, “Submit a proposal for one team-based project.” That gives you around two months to make connections, get situated with your team, learn your unique responsibilities within the group, and complete a task together.

Your 30-day goals should be related to learning the ropes, getting the lay of the land, and figuring out how your role fits into the company, advises Indeed. In your 60-day goals, identify how you can personally contribute and how you can put the knowledge you gathered in the first month to use. For your longest-term goals, focus on enhancing your contributions and solidifying your place within the company structure.

Once you’ve completed the document, let your supervisor look it over to be sure it’s in line with the company’s overall goals and what they want you to be working on. And don’t forget about it when it comes time for your first performance review — you can use it to build the case for why you deserve a raise or a promotion.