Time Management Tips for Working at Home - Setting Goals
Goals can seem daunting, especially if they are big ones. Perhaps one of your goals is to have a book published. That’s a mighty big goal and one that may or may not be attainable.
Is there any way to make this goal seem more realistic? Can you make the ‘hugeness’ of this dream more manageable? The good news is, yes you can.
If you think about your goal in more detail, you will soon realize that it is made up of smaller goals. These smaller goals can be broken down into manageable stages. Breaking your goals into these smaller stages will make them seem more easily attainable.
Compare these two statements: “My goal is to have a book published” and “My goal is to take creative writing classes and join writer networks so as I can improve my writing and find out how to submit a manuscript to a publishing house.”
The second statement is more structured, outlining the steps you will take towards achieving your goal. The first statement is indeterminate. So you want to publish a book - but how are you going to go about it? Breaking your goal down in to these smaller, manageable steps will show you how you are going to achieve your goal. Your roadmap to the future becomes very clear when doing this.
Having big goals is a good thing, but you have to believe you can reach them. Think about how you are going to get there. How many specific steps can you break your big goal in to, to make the journey seem less daunting?
Believe it or not, setting smaller stages, will make your brain think the large goal is more easily within reach.
How do you think you would react to this statement? “I want to buy a house.” Seems reasonable enough - a dream of many people. But how are you going to reach that dream? You could start by noting down the steps to getting the house.
1. Save a deposit
2. Find a house
3. Buy the house
Let’s now look at the first step, save a deposit. How are you going to do that? How much money do you need? You will need to break down this smaller goal into a smaller goal again.
Your goal might now be, “I’m going to save $10,000 so I can put a deposit on a house.” That’s a good start, but it’s still not enough.
How are you going to save the $10,000? Break it down again to something like this, “Each week I’m going to put aside $50 and do this every week for four years. At the end of the four years I will have the $10,000 deposit for a house.” Seems much more realistic, doesn’t it?
List your goals then break them down in to small attainable steps. The task should seem easier. It’s almost like writing the recipe to achieving your dreams. Pretty soon you’ll be cooking up a storm, in a well-managed time frame.
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