Time Management Tips: Do You Have Goals?

Goals can help you to make the most effective use of your time. Most people understand that goals are important but they aren't very good at setting and getting them. And that creates a lack of focus and that lack of focus causes you to make poor time related decisions.

One reason people mess up with their goal setting is that they try to set way too many goals. You can’t focus on or track too many goals so you’re better off setting a few goals and really concentrating on getting those than trying to do everything at once. Plus when you only have a few goals it’s much easier to plan the next actions you need to take to get them.

The whole purpose for goals is so you focus your energies on doing the right things. But before you can do that you have to know what the right things are. And that means you need to have your goals written.

When you write your goals out you can identify what’s keeping you from having that goal now and what you’d have to do to get it. That means you have to think through both your obstacles and your best options to overcome those obstacles. This helps you to identify the actions you will have to take.

When you know the actions you need to take and you can identify the actions that are most important you can make better use of your time. As you plan how you will get each goal down to the level of specific actions you can plan time each day to make those actions happen. The other advantage is that you can make better decisions before you take an action.

Currently you probably spend a large portion of your day responding to interruptions. That’s a reactive approach to time management that increases your stress and reduces your productivity. But it’s a whole lot easier to allow distractions and interruptions to use up your time than it is to proactively decide on the actions you will take before you take them.

When you have goal focus you have to retrain your behaviors and the behaviors of those around you. You have to train yourself to take at least one action everyday that will move you closer to the accomplishment of your goals. You have to train those around you that you will respond to their needs but not necessarily at the moment they come to you with their need.

The only way to really understand how to get the most value from your time is to understand what you want to get and how you can get that. It starts with having clear goals that are written in terms of actions. Then you have to back those goals up with your commitment to make those actions happen on a daily basis.