Goals Are About Setting Your Priorities And Working “SMARTer”, Not Harder.

We all want to succeed in life. For most of us achieving success is often and only the result of planning. Just about everything worth doing in life should start with a plan.

Hopefully you have already realized that we can’t have it all. Time limits all of us. And so, in order for us to achieve one thing in life usually means giving up on something else. We sacrifice in our life whether we are conscious about it or not. Having a plan for your life should mean that the right things are being sacrificed and that the sacrifices that must be made are made consciously by you. Have a plan and work your plan.

Have You Planned Wisely?

But what if the items you have on your plan are wrong? This could lead you to a place in your life you didn’t expect and not for the better. Besides, it means that you have wasted your time and despite what you may think, time is not a renewable resource..

Having a plan is good. Having a plan that makes sense for who and where you are right now in your life, and where you want to really end up at is much, much better. This is why you need to focus on your priorities in your life.

If you are not doing things that really matter to you and for your future, then what are you doing? The following information will guide you to make a better plan and help you to map out your journey.

Start With The End In Mind: Make Your List Of Goals

Set aside about 15 to 30 minutes and start by writing out everything that you feel is important in your life. The items can have varying degrees of importance and you can put a number scale on each one to indicate which are more important than the others.

Set time targets for your goals in terms of what you would like to have over a time period of the next three to five years. But also keep the thought of how you would like to your life to be remembered after you have lived a long and productive life. For each aspect of your life, what would you like to have or achieve?

Life Topics For You To Consider:

Relationships. – Family, Friends, Intimate Partner
Work Life – Job, Career, Business and Entrepreneurship
Hobbies and Personal Interests.
Health – Physical and Mental
Education and Personal Growth

To start with make attempt to make a list for each topic. We will sort them out next.

Rank Your List Of Goals

At any particular time in your life, some of your goals are more critical than others. Certain things need to be done first before the next thing can be done.

After you have listed out your important items, use the number scale to rate the items. You can choose how you want the scale to be measured, but suppose it is 1 being the lowest priority to 5 being the highest. You can do this in a spreadsheet so that you can resort after you have done this for all the items.

Sort from highest to lowest. These are going to be the focal points of your goal setting. You can choose to try and include all the items on your list or you can decide to eliminate any that are below a certain number like all the items that have a priority of 1 or 2. That is up to you. But you do want to make the list as manageable and as meaningful as possible.

Keep in mind that you can consider this list as a master list. Depending on your circumstances choosing no more than one or two topics for your immediate goals for you to work on will be the desired objective.

Your Goals Need Not Be Isolated From Each Other

Also consider that your goals in one area can be tied to goals in another area. For example if one of your goals is to become and electrician and you are not yet licensed, then your education goals should take priority right now over your medium to long-term career goals.

You can have generic goals. As an example, having monetary goals in terms of how much money you would like to earn each year is good and recommended. However, what is important for goals like an income goal is to figure out how you will make your million dollars in a year. Have the end result of a goal in mind when sorting out for yourself what needs to be done to get there.

What Do I Do Now?

For each of the highest priority items, the next step is to figure out what it will take to achieve them. List out high-level mini goals for each item. You can choose to prioritize these in much the same way, but at this stage of the process, it is not completely necessary.

The next step is to come up with more detailed tasks for the mini goals. You can go as far down as you want or you can stop at just one level. It all depends on the type of tasks you come up with. If it’s enough to be defined as a work unit, i.e., a task that you can easily perform, then you probably have gone far enough down. If the item can be broken down into further sub-tasks, then that is the next step.

For Example

If one of your goals is to earn a certificate, diploma or degree in something, then a couple of your mini-goals should be to register for the program and then to study at least one or two hours per day. Some other related mini-goals can be to get a good night sleep, so this can mean going to bed at a certain time and waking up at a certain time every day. And limiting the time that you spend on entertainment can be another necessary mini goal to achieve one of your main goals.

Keep reading this page for information on how to “Get SMART” with your goals.

Section Summary

Sort out your goals. Make the master list of all of the things that you would like to accomplish in your life. From your master list, sort them into goals that apply to the next 3 to 5 years of your life. And from those, set your priorities.

By using this list-prioritization process, you have a much better chance of containing your tasks into a list of them that are the right ones to meet the objectives of your goals.

Get SMART – How To Set Goals For Success And For Better Time Management

When you have your goals and plan in place, one of the biggest hurdles to achieving goals and working from a plan is time. There are only so many hours and minutes in a day and if we are not careful, they can easily tick-tock away. Hours become days, days becomes weeks and before you know it another year has passed and what have you done?

Time management is all about learning to use your time better, being more efficient, and working smarter, not harder. But you can use all the absolute best time management tips and still be spinning your wheels and never getting anywhere if you are not setting the right goals for yourself.

Learning to set goals is perhaps the most critical skill for improving your time management. With the right goals, your time management skills will be used to their best advantage and you will enjoy all the benefits of the time you save.

Setting Better Goals For Improved Time Management

When you do not set effective goals, you can end up spending a lot of time working toward the wrong objective, working in the wrong direction, or generally wasting your time. If you have found that you seem to be working really hard but not necessarily getting where you want to be, then the problem may not lie in your time management. It may be in the goals you have set for yourself.

Work “SMARTer”, Not Harder.

There is an acronym that is often used when talking about how to set better goals, and it is very appropriate for this conversation. Learning to set SMART goals will help you figure out precisely what you want, will give you better focus for attaining that goal, and will help you use your time and resources to their full advantage. That means that setting SMART goals will not only increase your probability of achieving your goals but also of using your time more productively and effectively. But what is a SMART goal?

SMART is an acronym used to remind you of the critical characteristics of an effective objective.

Specific – Is your goal clear and precise, so you know where to focus your efforts?
Measurable – Will you be able to track your progress, which can help you stay motivated to achieve your aim?
Achievable – Is this goal something that is realistic and attainable for you at this time?
Relevant – Does this goal really matter to you? Is this important to your overall life goals and plan for your happiness?
Time-Bound – What is your deadline for meeting this goal?

When you use the SMART criteria for selecting goals, you make them much more likely to be attained, and you set yourself up for success. Thinking about your goals in the SMART manner should allow you to be able to drill-down your goals into actionable items.

Get SMART And Then GET SMARTER!

Some have also suggested extending the SMART acronym to make it – SMARTER – which would adds criteria for how your goal will be

Evaluated, in terms of the impact on your life as well as a making a
Review of how successful you were in your efforts to reach the goal.

Part of the SMART goal process will mean that from time-to-time you will need to check and analyze your goals, the steps that you are taking to get to them and even if the goals that you have set are still goals that you wish to achieve. Make sure that you set aside the appropriate time to do this review.

What it is that you are doing with your life should be reviewed weekly, monthly and yearly to make sure that you are on track and that you are even on the track that want to be on.

Using the SMART criteria can help you clarify what you are trying to achieve. The clearer you are about what you are after, the easier it is to work toward something. Clarity and precision also promote motivation, which will keep you going even when things get hard. The more focused you are on what you want the easier it is to keep pushing forward. All of these attributes are necessary for achieving your goal, which means your time was well spent, and your efforts did not go to waste.

Why Be SMART?

The simple answer is that working SMART means that you are making the best use of your time.

Once you have your goals outlined, it becomes much easier to identify weekly and daily objectives, to create to-do lists, and to improve your overall time management.

Knowing your ultimate destination ensures that you are on the right path, time is used to its full potential, and you have the resources you need to get there. In short, without goals, time management tips are mostly irrelevant and will not be of any real help for you.

Conclusion

Setting goals is perhaps the most critical skill for improving your time management and, of course, for you to be attaining success in life. With the right goals your time management skills will be used to their best advantage and you will reap all the benefits of the time you save by not wasting as your time.

With SMART goals and spending your time SMART-ly you will be well on your way to actually achieving your goals..

Ready to boost your time management skills and achieve your success? Start with figuring out which SMART goals will be the focus of your time.