Here at Next Level Goal Setting, I normally spend most of my time writing about setting larger, yearly goals. However, just as important as our yearly goals are the smaller, daily goals we create to check things off of our to-do list. You may not have considered them as goals before, but it’s true – our daily to-dos are goals just like “lose 20 pounds” or “save $5,000” are. In this article on daily goal setting, I’ll talk about how you can make your days more efficient and complete more of your daily tasks.
Tips for Daily Goals – Limit Yourself to 3 Goals
While I am usually an advocate of striving for as many goals as you can handle, when it comes to daily tasks, I’ve found that it’s best to start with three. This isn’t to say that you should only complete three to-dos and call it a day. Rather, it’s a way to focus your intentions and narrow in on the most important things to be completed first. There will never be enough time to complete everything on our to-do list. Each night, write down on a piece of paper the 3 (and only 3) most important things you need to complete the next day. If you get through those three things, great! Pause, pull out another paper, and write down the next three tasks you need to complete. This is much more manageable than starting the day by staring at a sheet with 20 bullet points on it. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!
Daily Goals – Do The Worst Thing First
One of my favorite books that I’ve read on productivity is called “Eat That Frog!” The funny title holds a powerful lesson, which is this: when you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first. What does this mean in the context of goal setting? As you create your list of three goals for the coming day, place the least enjoyable task at the top. It’s extremely common to waste away our time completing small, meaningless tasks as we procrastinate the most important but least fun to-dos. I know that I do it, and you probably do to. Instead, you should tackle goal you least look forward to first. Once it’s completed, things can only get easier from there on out.
Daily Goal Setting – Be Flexible
No matter how much we plan and visualize the day ahead, it’s inevitable that situations we can’t control will arise. We may be in the perfect mindset to crush our daily goals, but if an urgent task arises that requires our attention, we can get pulled away from the goals we created the night before. Despite how discouraging it can be to leave a goal unfinished, understand that it happens to everyone. You may have to adjust your goal list for the day, deleting something lower on the list and inserting the urgent task above it.
Take Stock at The End of The Day
In the Next Level Goal Setting system, I preach the importance of reviewing yearly goals quarterly or bi-annually. When it comes to daily goals, review is just as important. At the end of each work day, or in the evening, take stock of what you completed that day. Did you finish your three main goals and move on to others? Did you get stuck on your hardest/least enjoyable task the entire day? Use the information you gain during this review to budget your time the following day. Are some tasks going to require more time than you initially thought? This introspection will, in turn, lead to better time budgeting the next day. With time, you will tweak and refine your own daily goal setting routine into one that is maximally efficient.
