Working Smarter
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I’ve felt this one was necessary for a while… There’s no shortage of opinion when discussing SMART goals and since almost everyone I’ve talked to is very passionate about their love or hatred for them, I figured it was time to clarify.
Starting around the 8th grade, teachers try unsuccessfully to engrain the practice of keeping SMART goals into students working on group projects. For your average 8–12th grader, this is a torturous technique devised be evil forces to painstakingly and mercilessly expand busy-work. To entrepreneurs, innovators and those working on something they care deeply about, the thoughts are quite the opposite. So to those students exploring an innovation or genius hour project, or my entrepreneur friends in need of a refresher in productivity, consider this:
In every successful venture I’ve EVER worked on, proper forward progress has been driven by clearly defined, highly collaborative, highly effective, scheduled goals. For my innovation tip this week, let’s dive into what it means to work SMARTer
Why do you care?
When completing a large scale or multifaceted project (alone or in a group setting), it’s absolutely crucial to break down large objectives/goals into small tasks. The SMART goal is a model for these smaller tasks that allows you to make sure you’re properly working toward your larger objectives.
What Does it Mean?
Start by laying out 5 sections in a notebook, a spreadsheet or your preferred planner. Here’s how to break them down:
Specific — What will you be doing?
This should describe exactly what your task is in language that anyone else would be able to understand. This ensures that it is clear, simple and as specific as possible. Something like “Grow my mailing list” is too vague, but something like “Generate more emails by posting my 5 different infographics as Twitter ads” is better.
Measurable — How do you know if it’s working?
Every task laid out in SMART format should have some kind of measurable elements so that you can see what’s going right and what’s going wrong. Sticking with the previous theme, you may decide something like “Use Twitter analysis panel to track which types of my 5 posts are most successful with my audience of 18–25 y/olds, and how many convert into email submissions” or even “Chart the age groups that respond to each of my 5 posts according to Twitter analysis panel.”
Attainable — How are you gonna pull this off?
“Cure cancer” is an example of a bad SMART goal. This section is to define how you will achieve your goal. My rule is that if I can’t list in plain language how to attain my goal in 10 bullet points or less, the goal is too big and should be broken down further. It’s fantastic to have big dreams and big goals, but you should be able to define in simple steps how all SMART goals are attainable. If it’s too big or too complicated, that’s fine! The solution is to break it into smaller chunks which should each be their own goal. The whole point of this is to ensure that big projects can be accomplished by breaking them down into actionable steps!
Relevant — Why am I doing this?
In this section, you should be able to explain why this SMART goal is relevant to the success of your larger objective or how it sets the framework for you to be successful. If it makes no sense, then your effort should be spent on another task. Working leaner is often working better.
Timely — When is this gonna get done?
If you’ve got a relevant, easily defined, actionable task then this part should be a piece of cake. In this section you should define when each facet of your task should be completed and what you plan on moving onto afterwards. When you hold yourself to a schedule, you get things done.
That’s it!
Boom, now you’re working more efficiently and more effectively.
Thanks for reading!
If you’d like to find out how real life innovation and entrepreneurship can become part of your school’s curriculum, check out StartEdUp.
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