how-to-use-smart-goals.md

How to Use SMART Goals - Achieve More in Less Time

Goal Setting System

• Achieve More
• Less Time
• Gain Clarity

using SMART Goals

• Specific
• Measurable
• Actionable
• Relevant
• Time Bound

And some Common Errors

5 - Minute Exercise:

• list all the goals or things you want to achieve

Specific

1. Vision

   • is an ideal future state
   • it's a picture of the future that you can envision
   • big picture ideas
   • Cure Cancer, End World Hunger, Conquer the World
   • doesn't have end point

2. Resolution

   • General
   • No End State
   • I Resolved to Be:
     • Wealthy
     • Healthy
     • Wise

3. Goal

   • Wealthy
     • Become a Millionaire
   • Healthy
     • Run a Marathon
   • Wise
     • Graduate from College

Goal vs. Vision

• Goal Can Modify, Can Evolve
• Vision being that's ideal, Perfect State

Specific + Challenging = Higher Success

Vague Goals = Lower Performance

When Specific is a Bad Timing

• Lead to Tunnel Vision
• Restrict Creativity
• Lead to Unethical Behavior

Check Your List

• How Specific?
• Goals, Visions, Resolutions?
• Right for SMART?

Specific is the foundation for SMART

Measurable

Performance Measure vs. Outcome Measure

Outcome Measure

• End Result
• 170 Pounds
• 5 pound milestones

Performance Measure

• Actions
• Eat < 2,000 Calories
• GO to Gym 3x a Week
• Eat an Apple a Day

Use Both Outcome and Performance Measure

Measure What You Manage, Don't Manage What You Measure

1. Decide What You Will Manage
2. Find the Right Measure Tool

Triangulation

• Takes Resources
• High Consequence

Example for try to lose weight

1. Scale
2. Tape Measure
3. Photos of Before and After

Actionable

Why Not Achievable? "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right." -Henry Ford

Unachievavle

• Running less than a 4 Minute Mile
• Human Flight
• Landing on the Moon
• Transplanting a Human Heart

Set Challenging Stretch Goals

Actionable

• Establish Initial Action
• Establish Milestones

Exhaustive Plan is Unnecessary

"No Plan Survives Contact Intact"

Example in One Note - Plan to: Conquer the World

• Milestone #1: Establish Hidden Lair
  • Select small island
  • Hire contractor (Angie's List)
    • Oversee construction of lair
    • Oversee construction of shark tank
  • Throw contractor in shark tank
• Milestone #2 Recruit Minions
  • Take oud ad on Monster.com
  • Interview candidates
• Milestone #3 Build Laser on Weapon
• Milestone #4 Make Unreasonable Demands

Actionable

• Identify Initials Steps
• Outline Milestones

Use Your list, Pick at least 1 or 2 of your goals and Establish those First 2 or 3 Actions and Establish 3 or 4 Milestones that you're gonna need to complete in order to achieve success.

Relevant

Why Relevant?

• without relevant, No Method to Manage Multiple Goals

1. Value/Effort Matrix

• Perceive Effort it will require to achieve the goal
• Perceive Value in accomplishing the goal

Now you want to take the list of goals and put it in matrix, consider the amount of effort and the amount of value each goal will bring.
In the end, you want to pursue those goals in Lowest Effort and Highest Value.

Now Remember, this is a relevant process. Hopefully if you set a challenging goals, then all of your goals will require a good degree of effort, but what you're really looking to do here, is in comparison to all of your goals together, which ones are the ones you really want to pursue. And the Value/Effort Matrix can help you to make that determination.

2. Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule)

What are the 20% of your goals that will get you 80% of your results?

Time Bound

Action/Feedback Loops

Example:
Frequency of Feedback?

• Every Day
• Once a Week
• Once a Month

The frequency if it's not schedule appropriately, can actually be demotivated.
So you want to make sure that the feedback you're trying to give yourself is not too frequent and you want to make sure it's frequent enough to keep you on track, and to keep you motivated.

What Does the Research Say?

• Shorter-Frequent feedback is more effective than delayed feedback

And the correct frequency of feedback cannot be understated, because you're going to use this feedback to review your performance. To evaluate, to make changes and to improve almost like a Continues Process Improvement

Process

You also want to ensure that you're feedback is tight to some sort of insiner to keep you motivated, and on the right track.

The Planning Fallacy

This is a psychological principle, and what they found is we psychologically always

• Overestimate What We Can Achieve (Overestimate Our Ability)
• Underestimate the Amount of Time/Resources it will require

Why Are We Such Horrible Planners?

Attribution Theory

• this is where we attribute all of our success to the actions that we have done where we discount our failures and we blamed it on external or things outside of our control.

How can we use what we know about Planning Fallacy to be better at achieving our goals?

Follow up research show that the number 1 thing you can do to count our act the fallacy is actually
Base Your Estimates on Past Performance

Take 1 or 2 goals and Establish some action Feedback Loops, consider the frequency at which you will need to give yourself some feedback and some potential incentives. Consider how you're gonna take that feedback and revise your goals moving forward. And also Consider your Past Performance try to count a rack The Planning Fallacy.

Seven Common Errors People Make When Setting Goals

1. Not Writing Down Your Goals

   • if you don't write your goal down, the chances that you want to be motivated, to continue through it, follow through, and accomplish the goal is lower.
   • Not to mention that you might just forget the goal

2. Having Too Many Goals

3. Goals in Only One Area (Not Having Any other)

   • Career/Profession Goals
   • Personal Goals
   • Spiritual Goals
   • Community Goals

4. Not Keeping Goals Visible

   • If you write it down, but keep it in a file folder that you're never going to open on a regular basis, chances are you might end up forgetting your goals, and it's going to lead to lower level of success.

5. Not Establishing Stretch Goals

6. Not Identifying the Next Action

   • It's not enough just to write the goal down, if you want to achieve success, you need to know what step will you take next.

7. Not Aligning Goals With Your Vision

   • You want to make sure that you're pursuing not only the most relevant goals, but all of your goals align with your vision

   Using the Eisenhower Matrix - Time Management

   Any task will be judged on two factors how Important task is, and what to extend the task is Urgent.

Four Quadrants, depending on where the task falls in the matrix determines the action you should take.

• Task that are both Important and Urgent are to be done as soon as possible
• Task that are Urgent but not Important, we need to delegate.
• Task that are Important but not Urgent, we can schedule those. Putting them on our calendar to be handled later
• There are tasks that are really neither Important nor Urgent, we just let those set for now.

One thing to realize is the importance of urgency of any specific task is a relative concept.

At anytime a new task emerges there is a possibility impacts the rest of the matrix.

How to appy the Matrix in the Real World?

Model Only Uses Two Factors in determining what action to take

1. Importance
2. Urgency

these maybe critical factors, but if we are trying to maximize our time and make the best decisions then there are many real world factors we need to consider. Factors such as required:

3. Effort
4. avaiable Resources
5. Complexity of the task
6. Common Traits