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Ask some
truly successful people what accounts for their achievements and you’ll often
hear this answer: goals. Indeed, clear goals are the fulcrum on which all prioritizing
turns. To set goals is worth a good block of your time. Without goals your time
will be aimless. But what kinds of goals? What must
goals be?
•
Attainable. Successful people set goals that are ambitious yet realistic.
Cycles of success mark achievers’ lives. When such people fail, it isn’t from a
lack of planning oreffort. Dreamers, on the other
hand, set unreachable goals. They ride a rollercoaster of ups and downs,
sometimes never making it to the top of the first hill.
•
Measurable. Imagine a football game with no yard lines, end zones, goal posts,
scoreboard, clock, or even clear-cut teams—just a bunch of players whose goal
is to pass a football, run around, and collide. It might be fun to watch for a
while, but not for long. The chaos would soon drive the fans out of the
stadium. Shortly thereafter, the players, unmotivated and confused, would
wander off the field. To work without clear-cut, measurable goals is, in
reality, not much more productive or engaging than our imaginary football game.
To motivate yourself and others—to know if you have won—you absolutely need
goals that can be measured.
• Written.
“I read it, so it must be true!” Something written has a peculiar power to
convince. Writing down your objectives and having others read them (if you
supervise them, they may need to read your goals) brings authority,
accountability, and permanence to your priorities. The Sheraton Anchorage has
printed goal statements all over its service corridors; it’s one of the
best-run hotels in the country.
•
Accountable. Without accountability, goals melt away, forgotten. Remain
flexible; feedback may prompt you to revise targets you set for yourself or for
others. But hold to your goals.
• Deadlined. If you set a deadline for your tasks, you’ll
have a much better chance of achieving your goal. Better yet, tell someone else
that you set that deadline. It will make you more accountable. The same applies
to deadlines you set for others. Always give a precise time of completion and
periodically review progress toward your objectives.
What can
you accomplish in five minutes? Sometimes, important things:
• Return an
e-mail.
• Make an
appointment.
• Leave a
voicemail message.
• Write a
page of text.
• Create an
agenda for a meeting.
• Research
a point.
• Write a
thank-you note.
• Locate a
missing source.
• Ask a
colleague a question you need the answer to.
• Read a
short message.
• Clarify
something you were unclear about.
Often, if
you can promise yourself to devote the next five minutes to a task, you’ll find
that it stretches into 10 or 15 minutes and you accomplish more than you
thought you might when you began.
You may
have seen this popular, uncredited e-mail that has
widely circulated on the Internet:
• To
realize the value of one year, ask a student who failed a grade.
• To
realize the value of one month, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature
baby.
• To
realize the value of one week, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
• To
realize the value of one hour, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
• To
realize the value of one second, ask the person who just avoided a traffic
accident.
• To
realize the value of one millisecond, ask the person who won an Olympic medal.
Time has a value
greater than any currency. We may leave our children the money we don’t use in
our own lifetimes, but we cannot leave them one millisecond of time.