Brought to you by Goals

Every ask should have a clear goal.

And it should be a single goal. For smaller tasks, the goal is created naturally, however, when you’re approaching a more important task, you should step back and think goals. 

Ever goal should be “SMART”

S - Specific 

M - Measurable 

A - Achievable 

R - Relevant 

T - Time bound

What is specific? 

Always move from general to specific. You should be able to clearly formulate your goal, in one sentence. Otherwise you won't be able to focus. When drafting your goal, try to answer:

• What do I want to accomplish?

• Why is this goal important?

• What are possible benefits from accomplishing it?

What is measurable? 

To put it simply: how will you know that your goal is accomplished? This usually refers to numbers or values.

If your goal is to make a presentation, then a finished document is that value. 

What is achievable?

The goal has to be realistic. You might need to ask for help, or you’ll be able to accomplish it yourself. That is something you need to answer yourself when looking at the goal. It is also closely connected with the deadlines. And if the goal is urgent and has to be finished by a certain deadline, you might need to delegate.  

What is relevant?

Your inner wishes might not always align with the needs of your project. You should always ask the question: Will this drive the team forward? Is it worthwhile? Is there a better person for the task? 

This will help you to focus on what’s really important for the project.

What is time-bound?

Simple. That is your deadline. It can be either created externally (by your manager), or internally, by yourself. 

In case your goal has no clear deadlines, all previous points should tell you exactly how urgent the task is. If the goal is not urgent or less important than other tasks, you need to plan your week accordingly. 

Prioritise your tasks according to the goals

As your days, weeks and months go by, you should stay focused on the most important tasks. Sometimes that is harder than we think. Good thing is that you can set goals for separate days, weeks and months. Just follow the same SMART approach. 

Always prioritise urgent tasks first. No matter how important the task might be, if the deadline is not tomorrow, you can do it later.

How to know if the task is urgent? 

• Is there any short-term benefit? If not, then it can be deprioritised. 

• Do you have any natural events that ask for this task to be finished? E.g. team meetings, presentations, monthly reports, etc.

• Have you agreed on a specific deadline with your Team Lead? If not, that means that the task is not so urgent, else ask your Team Lead. 

Always write it down

If there are more than you affected by the task, you should communicate it with the interested party, if that was not done before. So that the team knows:

• What to expect

• When to expect

• And from who

When a task is recurring on continuous basis, you need a content-plan or a tracker created. In a nutshell, such documents exist to track your goals. So you should create them in goals in mind.

Each tracker should be created using certain parameters:

• Repetition

• Responsible person

• Result

When your tracker/ content-plan has all three parameters, the team will know who will do what, when and how. And you automatically get your task in a written form.