Setting And Achieving Goals Utilizing Effective Time Management

Whatever your course in life, whether you’re a student, a freelancer, you run your own business or you work for an employer, setting and, more importantly, achieving goals is a key aspect to your continued success. Setting realistic but determined goals helps you to map out a direction and how you will get there but it also helps in many other ways. One of the most important reasons to set goals is to keep on top of time management. Effective time management ensures that you can realistically meet deadlines, progress through your chosen path and lead separate home and working lives.

Preparation Is Key

Before sitting down to compile your list of goals, you should think about the reasons you are setting them and split them down into different categories. As well as setting goals for your working or academic life, also set them for your personal life. Do you want to be living in the same house in 5, 10, 15 years? Do you intend to have a family? Do you want to quit your job in order to run your own business or work freelance? These are all important questions that coincide with one another and you should know the answers before you begin the task of goal setting.

Goal Categorizing

Do separate your goals into different categories. Personal, work and other achievements are equally important but they will be achieved through different means. Make sure you understand the correlation between each of the groups. It may be your goal to upgrade to a country mansion in ten years, in which case your work goals should fit around this. It would probably be unreasonable to expect to be able to upgrade your house in such incredible fashion without taking a sizable increase in salary somewhere along the way. Your bank balance is important to your goals. If you want to live the million-dollar lifestyle then you will need the appropriate bank balance and you will need to have made that money to put in your bank balance. All your goals are linked in some way.

Medium And Short Term Goals

Your long-term goals may seem like they are unrealistically distant. Once you’ve determined what you want to achieve in ten, twenty or thirty years and how you intend to achieve these goals it should be much easier to determine short term goals that will take you there. Set your medium goals and then your short-term goals. The actual length of time it will take to achieve short term goals will depend on a number of factors. One example would be your age. Without wanting to sound pessimistic, if you’re aged 50 then your short term goals will be a lot nearer than if you were aged 20 when a short term goal could be 5 years away.

Be Realistic

Be realistic. The main reason why people fail to meet their goals is because they are too unrealistic. Yes, we have to have dreams and we should always try to meet and beat those dreams but trying to get a new job, a pay rise, a degree and have two children in the next 5 years is highly unlikely. On the other hand, make sure your goals are not too easily attainable because without something to aspire to, something to work to, we become complacent and achieve much less than we could.

Be Flexible

Flexibility is the key to achieving anything. Remember that while goals are vitally important, they can and probably will change. You should stick to rigorously aiming to meet your goals but always be prepared for the unexpected and allow yourself to alter your goals accordingly. Losing your job or, conversely, meeting other goals unexpectedly early will result in a change in direction and pace. Without wanting to sound too much like a self-help tape, embrace those changes and act on them accordingly.

Managing Your Time With A Time Management Plan

Once you have determined all of your long, medium and short-term goals you should construct a time management plan. Time management is essentially the setting of extremely short-term goals. Consider what you need to do over the next hour, the next day, the next week and so on. Always be striving to meet your goals when you plan your week ahead. Everything you do should be geared towards meeting these goals.

Realistic Time Management

Again, the important thing with time management is to be realistic without being too lenient. Make sure you set aside time for completing everything you need to without having to work into the early hours and without starting work two hours late and taking long lunch breaks. If this does turn out to be the case then you should reassess your goals.

Expect The Unexpected

Include a little time in every day to deal with unexpected issues or to cope with overflow. Some jobs will inevitably take longer than you expect while others will crop up when you least expect them. These are the times when we start to panic about meeting deadlines and achieving our goals but by allowing just half an hour, or an hour; depending on the type of work you do and your workload this can be avoided. On the flip side of the coin, some jobs may take less time than expected. Use the extra time to catch up or, better still, get ahead.

Summary Of Goal Setting And Time Management

Goal setting and time management are essential to your success, but only if you adhere to them and use them effectively. It’s pointless setting goals if you have no intention of aiming for them and, similarly, it is pointless planning your week if you have no intention of sticking to your plan. Keep your goals in mind and your time management plan in sight and you should find that meeting your goals and progressing in your career or your course will become much easier.

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Erin Hurry
Girls with Goals
"Our Goal is Your Success"