Goal Setting for Time-Crunched Professionals

Time Management Insights for Improving Productivity ⏰💡 I have been mentoring several people around the topic of time management. These are some pointers to help you master your time, boost productivity, and achieve more with less stress. 📈 1. Self-Assessment: Track and Analyze Your Time 📊 Track Your Time: For the next two weeks , keep a detailed log of how you spend each hour. There are tools like Toggl or RescueTime to help simplify this process.  I will put link to their sites in the comments. John Jensen also has a spreadsheet he utilizes that is a great framework for sales people. Categorize Activities: Once your log is complete, sort activities into categories such as planning, deal management, prospecting, admin tasks, internal and external meetings, and personal time.  Do you also understand what your high-impact activities are? Evaluate: Reflect on your log. Are you dedicating enough time to high-impact activities? Are personal activities getting the time they deserve? 2. Identify Areas for Improvement 🔍 High-Value vs. Low-Value Tasks: Pinpoint tasks that drive your goals forward. Delegate or eliminate low-value tasks. High-value tasks are often those that only you can do. Time Wasters: Identify activities that consume time without adding value, such as redundant meetings or excessive email checks. 3. Set Clear Priorities 🎯 Define Your Key Responsibilities: Clarify your role and responsibilities. Focus on activities that align with these and have the most significant impact. Goal Setting: Set clear, measurable goals. This will sharpen your focus and help you prioritize and delegate tasks effectively. 4. Improve Delegation 🤝 Identify Delegation Opportunities: Based on your time log and priorities, find tasks that can be handed off, freeing you to focus on high-level strategy. 5. Continuous Improvement 📈 Regular Check-Ins: Schedule regular check-ins to review your progress, discuss challenges, and adjust strategies as needed. This keeps you accountable and allows for timely adjustments. Personal Insights from My Experience 🌟 When I first started tracking my time, I was amazed at how much of it was spent on low-value tasks. By categorizing and analyzing my activities, I identified key areas for improvement and began delegating tasks that were consuming my time without significant returns. Setting clear priorities and goals was a game-changer, allowing me to focus on high-impact activities and achieve better results. Implementing these steps transformed my productivity, and I'm confident it can do the same for you! 🚀 #TimeManagement #Productivity

I've been a fractional CMO and consultant to 10+ startups. They all did this wrong. Goal setting. Many use OKRs as a “check the box” activity. A “hey look we can do this thing too” moment in the calendar year. The problem? They never look at those docs when the exercise is complete. Goals are not a one and done moment in time. They are a GPS destination for your day to day activities. Today's newsletter taught how to create quarterly goals and actually use them as a guide for your day to day life. Personal OKRs are great if you are: ➡️ Embarking on a new chapter ➡️ Spending a lot of effort but not seeing the impact ➡️ Struggling with staying focused on priorities ➡️ Stalling in personal or professional development Here's a recap of today's deep dive: Step 1: Pick your pillars Step 2: Prioritize them Step 3: Create your Objectives Step 4: Add your Key Results Step 5: Identify your tactics Step 6: Make a Plan Step 7: Bi-Weekly Review Be sure to sign up for 🧩Life's a Game to get these weekly deep dives in your inbox and start making progress toward your goals!

Here is why you really need to think about this👇🏻 A client vented their frustrations recently, that they were nowhere near achieving the goals they had set for themselves at the start of the year. They had become so overwhelmed as time went on, that their goals seemed to almost be out of reach and they now spent more time stressing about these goals than actually actioning them. Sound familiar? I have definitely fallen into that trap myself in the past.😆 Here is how I helped them overcome this mental block (because that is exactly what it is). Their goals hadn't changed but their mindset had and mindset will determine success or failure! Like all goals, unless they are backed by lots of small steps that are easy to implement, they all tend to fade away. Goal setting is a process that starts with careful consideration of what you want to achieve, and ends with a lot of hard work to actually do it. In between, there are some very well-defined steps that transcend the specifics of each goal. Knowing these steps will allow you to formulate goals that you can accomplish. ✏ Write it down and say it out loud - Saying what you want to achieve out loud creates an accountability to ourselves and those we say it to, to actually do something about it. 🧠 Make it SMART - Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-Bound. 🤏 Approach in bite size chunks - focus on one small, achievable change every week. Then enjoy the accumulation effect. 🤼Find an accountability buddy - An accountability buddy is someone who helps you stay on track while you work toward achieving your goals. 🥂 Set review milestones and celebrate successes - Take some time to think about what went well, what went wrong and what you want to focus your energy on for the rest of the year. Celebrate all your successes, no matter how small. By using this strategy, my client can now focus their energy on taking smaller, actionable steps towards their goals. It’s a surprisingly simple formula but it works every time. Can anyone relate to this? #mindset #goals #achievement #careeradvancement

High-performing teams love to bite off more than they can chew. They want to get a lot done in a short amount of time, which is admirable - but often not realistic. In my view, successful goal-setting starts with healthy pushback on timelines. For example, when I see our high achievers laying out a 90-day plan, I find it helpful to break down those 90 days into milestones. If we wind up with 7 milestones in the breakdown process (to me, a pretty high number), I nudge our team to consider hitting 3 or 4 instead - and leave the rest for the next quarter. The reason I encourage this breakdown is because I’ve seen this movie before: I know that a big part of goal-setting is leaving room for the unexpected. If a fire pops up, teams that are overstuffed with milestones to hit won’t be able to set aside time to put it out. Plus, people have day jobs to attend to, and those inevitably take up time. With a realistic set of milestones to attain in a given period of time, teams give themselves the freedom and space to iterate, deal with the unexpected, and get their daily work done too. I love a high-performing team’s confidence… but I love calibrating that confidence to realistic goal-setting. And that starts with breaking down that goal into bite-sized, achievable milestones.