SMARTER approach to any goal or how to make **it done
Increasing your productivity isn’t hard.
It just requires you to be more conscious about your approach to time, resources and actions.
What you’ll need?
📅 a plan
🎯 a realistic goal and timeline
✍️ an action
🌱 dedication and consistency
✅ set OKR’s — when you will know the goal is achieved?
🧠 SMARTER approach
Even a notebook will work well if you are consistent and executive.
The main trick is not to try to do it all together. Instead, try to appreciate the power of the cumulative effect of smaller tasks.
“Cut the elephant into pieces”. Sounds familiar?
“There is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time.”
Desmond Tutu
You probably heard this quote a million times already, which means it’s worth taking it into account. Everything in life that seems immense, overwhelming, and even impossible can be accomplished gradually by taking a little step at a time. A simple rule drives the entire project management methodology — create a bigger goal and then split it into slices. Plan, act, iterate, validate.
“There is no impossible thing for me. I just need more time/resources to make it happen.”
Simple, but such a deep phrase. When we have more time to solve the problem, it usually gives us more confidence, more time for research and confirmation of assumption, risk elimination or gaining skills to accomplish the goal.
Treat your goal as a project. It has an initial stage of pre-discovery, followed by discovery and delivery.
Mind mapping is a powerful tool that helps to set goals and create a tree of connections — from one big goal towards tiny action steps.
Each project consists of various stages, which at the end of the day will have one aim — to accomplish one bigger goal.
Every action could be split into subtasks. Subtask could be bigger or smaller yet should be a part of a bigger goal.
Even your everyday activities could be divided into smaller tasks.
My favourite example we’ve often used during the story mapping workshop is to describe your daily routine before going out to work. It helps to look at trivial things from a different perspective and realise how many steps we tend to miss just because we never try to write them down in chronological sequence. For example, even such thing as taking a shower takes various sub-tasks: Take the towel, hang the towel in a bathroom, pump a shower gel and create a foam with the help of whisp of bast, turn on the hot water, etc.
Want to get an even more practical example? To make a perfect flat white, the barista needs to stick to the sequence of actions that eventually leads to the perfectly made cup of my favourite coffee. Every goal can be split into smaller sets of sub-goals.
My good friends taught me one more trick — use templates as much as possible and as reasonable as needed. It gives you a solid background for improvement whilst already drawing a direction towards a goal. Need to make a competitors analysis? Reach for the SWOT template.
Don’t waste your time reinventing the wheel. All good is already there — on the internet, books, articles, magazines, videos, Git, Stackoverflow, Quora, etc.
Somebody else has already faced that problem you are currently struggling with(if you next Elon Mask, sorry, you need to struggle and find your way). But, on the other hand, Elon read many books and sought fundamental rocket science approaches to reinvent them later.
Do appreciate the power of research and upskilling. It’s not a coincidence that we’ve faced a boom of online courses and educational channels during the pandemic. We all have 24h, but managing it varies from person to person, depending on current priorities, goals, relevance and resources. Too ambiguous goals will lead to uncertainty; too ambitious — to burn out and lack motivation.
It’s important to set realistic and achievable goals with a timeline and milestones. Then, of course, you need to act and adapt when needed. That’s why the well-known S.M.A.R.T. framework for goal setting has evolved to the S.M.A.R.T.E.R. one.
S — Specific
M — Measurable
A — Attainable
R — Relevant
T — Time-Bound
E — Evaluated
R- Reviewed
There is no shame to change the plan if it doesn’t work for you, and nothing embarrassing to adjust a goal to your needs. However, evaluating goals is needed to compare time and effort.
By reviewing your plan, you always keep your goals up to date. Conditions are changing fast, and we should respond wisely to those changes and not forget about strategy and tactics.
To summarise:
• One step at a time — from the bigger picture to the detailed and realistic steps
• Make information easy to find — stick to structure
• Make a to-do list — cut the elephant into pieces and make one step at a time
• Use templates to save time — use good practices. Someone already made a perfect template to solve your problem
• Find your way how to learn from mistakes — it’s a part of the process
• Celebrate little achievements — it helps to stay motivated and track progress
• Consistency and perseverance are your friends
- Review your goals and evaluate them regularly
Stay tuned for more and do not forget to reward yourself for smaller wins.
