12 Steps to Goal Setting

Answer the following questions/steps and you will be well on your way to achieving  your goals.

Do this for every goal you have.  

• Be realistic.
• Limit the number of Active goals (write all goals down, classify what is now vs. someday maybe)
• Prioritize your goals.  Your Tasks will also prioritize accordingly.

Goal Setting:

1. Clearly Define the GOAL (What is your success statement?)
2. Why is this goal meaningful (Purpose)?
3. When will this be accomplished? Set a Deadline!
4. What are my action steps? - yes define them. List the everything that you need to do to make this goal a reality.
5. Who is involved? - Understand your resource requirements.  Who do you need to work with to accomplish your goals.
6. Who will hold me accountable? Share your goal with them, as well as the expectations and milestones.
7. How will I define Success?
8. What Tools Do I need? Define "things" you will need to accomplish this goal.  This goes along with the resources required.
9. When? Set a TimeLine
•   Start Date
•   How Many Hours of focus per week?
•   Add to my Time Budget
•   Under What circumstances beyond completion will I stop?
10. What Milestones?
•   Chart your progress (set your milestones and understand the time frames you expect to achieve them)
•   Weekly review
• Progress notes weekly
• Review your Action List and assess new and validity of old
11. How will I reward myself for completion?  This goes beyond your purpose, and applies some basic risk reward definitions.  If the goal is a big one, what is your reward?
12. What is One Step I can Take in The Next Five Days to initiate This Goal?

Why do we need time management????

I'm not a writer, and hopefully if you follow this blog I won't have wasted 2 minutes of your life that you won't get back. :^) As of this moment I am planning a series of posts regarding time management loosely based on presentations that I have given concerning this topic.


Why do we need time management?


First off, I can't imagine a fulfilled life without it . Our lives are so technically filled with stuff that makes us capable to do more with less time. Well while that is true we also waste more time thanks to these technical marvels (ie. pda, ipods, iphones, media centers ect...) Oh, and did I mention social networks such as facebook. Not that it is not fun, but seriously, a productive time mechanism it is not. Unless ofcoarse you have budgeted that time or consider it part of your leisure time. Just like TV, or any other activity that does not directly guide you to your goals!

The reality is, people want to accomplish certain things in their lives. They have multitudes of activities and have a hard time crossing "things" off of their lists. With out time management, they can't really achieve their goals and make sure the "things" they are doing help them to attain their goals.

So is this Time Management or Goal Management? It's both. Time management is a tool to help you achieve your goals. You need one to get the other. With out the two of them working together you'll be going in circles getting nowhere. Well, literally you will always move forward, but honestly, are you where you want to be or should you be growing and changing?

In the next series of posts, I'll go over goal setting, task management and scheduling as well a some tools that I use to accomplish all of the above.

Thanks for checking out my blog and I hope to be conversing with you soon!