by Rob Leachman
From the “Leading a Goal-Driven Life” Series
-Part II-
This Series
Have you ever experienced a time when you worked hard all day, pushed frantically from start to finish, and ended the day exhausted, but upon reflection realized you didn’t really accomplish much of importance for your efforts? There were times early in my career as a school administrator when it seemed like I had weeks of days like this one. Instead of effectively controlling my time, it was as if the time was controlling me, tasks and conflicts and meetings and conversations haphazardly bombarding me, forcing me to address each as it was presented whether important or not. It tended to be particularly exhausting, very frustrating, and was no recipe for effectiveness. Of greater importance, this rather haphazard “method” of time management was not serving to effectively move forward me, my life and career, or the organization I was leading.
As the principal of a busy, growing, and very dynamic high school at the time, a young administrator with a family who was working on attaining advanced college degrees, my days were most often booked from early morning to late at night. As a result, I soon realized that if I wanted to accomplish what I hoped for in my career and for my school, I needed to get a handle on how I utilized the time that was available to me each and every day. The notion of working longer and harder, while perhaps noble and admirable, had taken me as far as it could; I needed to figure out how to work smarter and more efficiently, devoting my time, when possible, to the most important tasks and responsibilities. Though there were inevitable crises and bureaucratic responsibilities that at times took an inordinate amount of my time and would be challenging to completely ignore, I simply had to find a way to more effectively map out my days and devote available time to the tasks I considered most important.
To accomplish this, I turned to a process of writing down a set of goals for each day, determining in a thoughtful process what I wanted and needed to accomplish. This exceedingly simple process, which I first started utilizing over thirty years ago, is something that I still employ today as a largely retired individual not “working” in a traditional sense.
In terms of impacting my productivity, effectiveness, and career and life success, I could almost characterize this simple daily goal-setting process as being life-changing.
Simplicity is the Key
There are countless time management and goal-setting systems that lend themselves to this daily goal-setting process, and virtually all of them are valuable and effective. There is the “ABC of Goals,” stressing that effective goals are Achievable, Believable, and Committed. Of greater prominence, there is the system of “SMART Goals, which emphasize goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound.” There are even “SmartER Goals,” which basically expand SMART goals to also be Evaluative/ethical and Rewarding.
As I struggled to gain greater control over my time, I adopted the Franklin Planner system, a loose-leaf notebook with various daily, monthly, and yearly calendars, as well as areas for contacts, space for documenting meetings, phone calls, etc., and blank pages for advanced planning and reflection. For many years, as I completed the various duties associated with the different positions I held, I carried this small notebook wherever I went. (My initial foray into this process began in the 1990s when smartphones and iPads were still the stuff of science fiction.)
In the Planner, for each day there was space for what was called the “Prioritized Daily Task List.” In training in implementing the Franklin Planner System, it was emphasized that each day a “Task Dump” was to be completed. In this process, typically completed at the beginning of each day, the individual wrote down every task he or she could think of that needed to be completed each day in areas that included work, family, and others. The list could be exhaustive and could include critical tasks, as well as items most (including the individual writing the list), might consider trivial.
Once the “Task Dump” was completed, the participant was instructed to “Prioritize” each of the tasks using a potentially meaningful but often time-consuming process. As the individual looked through the task list, it was suggested that she or he identify the most important tasks and label them “A,” the next most important tasks “B,” and the least important tasks, yes, “C.” But then, for the “A” tasks, the participant was instructed to prioritize within that category, resulting in “A1,” “A2,” etc. This prioritizing process was then followed for the “B” and “C” tasks. Ideally, in tackling the Task List, the individual would complete all the “A” tasks, in order of priority, then all of the “Bs,” and then, if time permitted, the “Cs.”
At the end of the day, the participant was instructed to review each of the listed tasks and utilize a set of five symbols to signify whether the task was “Completed,” “Forwarded” (to a later date), “Deleted,” “Delegated,” or “In Progress.”
Excited to have access to the Franklin Planner System, and desperately needing to gain greater control of my time and how my energy was being utilized, I started out attempting to use the system exactly as it was designed. I soon found, however, that:
1) The process of identifying and prioritizing all of the tasks I might try to complete in a day was overly cumbersome, taking time I didn’t have to complete a variety of planning activities, several of which I would determine were minimally impactful;
2) While the process did allow me to regain some control over my time, the mass of tasks listed each day seemed to reduce the emphasis on completing activities that were of greatest importance to me and the school I was leading. I ultimately determined that listing activities that weren’t that important and that I likely would not complete ( i.e. “Bs” and especially “Cs) was counter-productive, drawing attention away from the most essential tasks; and
3) Though I could see the validity and potential benefit of the entire planning process, I found that process to be unwieldy and not focused on meeting my most critical need, which was gearing my time and efforts toward the most critical tasks I needed to complete.
In essence, I realized that I needed a streamlined planning process that would assist me to a) reflect on my day before it began, b) quickly establish a manageable number of impactful goals each day that would guide me toward completing my most important work, c) revisit that list periodically throughout the day, and d) quickly assess my progress at the end of the day.
Simplicity and efficiency were the most important attributes of the process I was seeking, and the very uncomplicated daily goal-setting method I developed is one I have followed for several decades.
Benefits of Setting Daily Goals
Research and, I believe, common sense support the notion of setting daily goals. In one of the more relevant recent studies on goal setting, Dr. Gail Williams of Dominican University studied the impact of goal setting on performance in the workplace. Among the findings of her study, she found that individuals who wrote their goals accomplished significantly more than those who merely thought of their goals but didn’t write them down. While this rather simplistic notion certainly makes sense, it’s important to have reputable research to support such a practice.
But on a broader and more basic level, setting goals each day can provide for greater control of your time, allowing you to determine what is most important for you to accomplish and then keeping those goals in front of you. Though I would suggest that unimportant goals are not worthy of focused time and effort, establishing goals each day facilitates the prioritization of tasks, allowing you to visualize the goals you have established and determine which are most critical and need your greatest amount of time and attention.
A process of setting goals each day facilitates the sequential progress toward broader issues, such as yearly goals, that you have established for yourself. As an example, if you are a writer and have established a yearly goal of finishing the writing of a novel, a daily goal of writing a set number of words or pages can provide measured progress toward that broader goal.
But in my mind, the most important attribute of daily goal-setting is how it allows for thoughtful influence over how your day unfolds. A characteristic of my hectic days before adopting this process was the manner in which those days just seemed to happen, how the activities that just seemed to be presented to me often didn’t promote the devotion of my time and energy to what I wanted, and more importantly, needed, to accomplish.
Developing the Daily Goal List
The simple method I describe outlines the process I have followed, a set of quick procedures that has worked for me for a long time in a variety of positions and under vastly different circumstances. It can certainly be altered to meet the needs of anyone seeking to gain greater control over their day.
Step One – Reflective Planning
After adopting this goal-setting process, I quickly became more cognizant of what important work I needed and wanted to accomplish during the coming day. It was not uncommon for me to suddenly and randomly think about a goal I needed to include when I formalized the list the next morning.
On a slightly more structured level, through most of my career, I had a ten-minute commute from my home to my office. I soon got in the habit of devoting at least a portion of that time to consciously considering what goals I wanted to address during the coming day.
When I arrived at my office, before the inevitable rush of students and staff required my attention, I devoted a few minutes to writing down the goals I wanted to address for the day. Because I had already given some reflective thought to what I wanted/needed to work on, this process seldom took more than five minutes, which was just about how much time was available before my hectic day actually began.
The list of goals can be written in a journal or planner, a regular notebook, or now more commonly through the use of an app or program on a computer, tablet, or smartphone. As I started this process at a time when personal computers were still in their infancy, and mobile devices were unheard of, I actually used the Franklin Planner notebook for my much more simplistic goal-setting process.
For the past ten years or so, I have completed the process of setting and monitoring daily, yearly, and life goals on an iPad. At first, I used an app called “Planner Pro,” which I found to be functional but a bit cumbersome, at least at the time I was using it; it is likely now more intuitive and easier to use. For the past several years, I have utilized “Microsoft To-Do,” which I have found to be particularly user-friendly. With a robust auto-fill function, I find that I can often complete the actual writing of daily goals in less than a minute.
While I found such morning planning to be most effective for me, some try to complete the goal-setting process before they leave in the evening. That way, their day is planned out when they arrive the next morning. While I never tried this evening time for setting goals for the next day, it truly comes down to an individual’s preferences and work habits.
At the most hectic times of my career, with a desire to focus on the most important work I needed to complete, I tried to limit my daily goal list to no more than ten goals. I found that if I listed many more than that, more trivial tasks were inevitably included. Plus, given the time needed to complete truly important work, I would consider it next to impossible to thoroughly address more than ten important goals during any given day.
Now largely retired from what we might call “traditional work,” my list of daily goals typically includes four to six goals. Now in my mid-sixties, I find that a list of four, five, or six goals keeps my days productive and purposeful.
Like virtually everything with this goal-setting process I am describing, each individual needs to adapt the process to fit his or her needs and circumstances, including finding an appropriate number of important goals to try to address each day.
Step Two – In-Progress Goal List Review
While I largely remembered the relatively compact list of goals I had written down at the beginning of the day, I still tried to review those goals at least a time or two through the course of the day. For any goal that I had completed, I simply drew a line crossing it out, an act that provided me with an odd sense of satisfaction. This simple list review helped me to keep on track of completing the most important work I had identified, and allowed me to assess whether and how far I had allowed my day to get off track. As with many positions, there were days when unanticipated events largely gobbled up my entire day. But most days, with conscious attention to what I had reflectively planned, I accomplished far more impactful work than I would have had I allowed my day to simply unfold.
Step Three – Final Goal List Review
At the end of each day, often as I was preparing to leave my office for the evening, I completed one last review of the goal list I had established for the day. For any additional goals I had completed since my last review, I crossed them out. For any goals that I had not completed, I quickly considered why they hadn’t been completed, whether they had been of enough significance to be included on the list, and whether they should be considered for inclusion on the next day’s goal list. In general, this was the time I began to ponder what goals I needed to include for the following day, though I would not formalize that list until the next morning.
This final review rarely took more than a couple of minutes, and as it was completed as I was leaving my office for the day, I typically needed (wanted) to get home, or often to a meeting or a school activity. In essence, I didn’t have a lot of time to reflect on the day that had just concluded (at least through the formal evaluation of the goals I had established for the day). And I didn’t generally find that it required much time.
The next morning, I started the process all over again.
Characteristics of Effective Daily Goals
Over time, I developed a sense of what types of daily goals work for me and the characteristics of those goals that make them most effective.
1. Daily goals should be relatively short and simply written
Virtually any important task can be adequately explained in a few words, typically less than a full sentence. As an example, if you have a presentation scheduled for later in the week, a daily goal might be, “Complete outline for presentation.” As a building principal, one of the most important tasks involved completing observations and evaluations of teachers. As a result, a typical daily goal might have been, “Complete three teacher observations.” I address fitness needs through the daily goal-setting process, and as a result, a goal might state, “Complete bike ride” or “Complete gym workout.” All these goals are short and simple but are understandable to me (the only person who will typically ever read them).
2. Daily goals should be specific enough to allow for personal accountability
Though daily goals don’t have to be lengthy, they require enough specificity to ensure that their completion ensures I have completed significant work related to the goal. As an example, if I am working on an article for my website, a rather ambiguous daily goal related to that task might state, “Work on article.” What does that mean? If I write a few sentences, have I not “worked on article.” I have found that such vague goals don’t promote accountability, and their completion doesn’t necessarily mean that I have accomplished much of anything.
If, on the other hand, I establish a related goal of “Write at least one page of article” or “Write at least 500 words of article,” completing that goal means I have made significant progress toward the completion of that important task.
3. Daily goals should be reasonable and attainable
Setting outlandish and unattainable goals serves little purpose other than to cause frustration and muck up the goal-setting process. Using some of the tasks associated with the sample goals mentioned above, if I established as daily goals, “Complete twelve teacher observations” or “Write at least 5,000 words of article,” there is no doubt that I would fail to complete them. With the evaluation of teachers, there are too many other tasks to complete and too little time in the school day to complete twelve teacher observations, at least in a meaningful manner. If I tried to write 5,000 words in a day, at least the last 2,500 would likely be incoherent. While some might view such bold goals as motivational tools, to me, they only promote frustration. Daily goals should be reasonable and attainable, but . . .
4. Daily goals should occasionally be aspirational
While unattainable goals, in my view, serve no productive purpose, it’s healthy and appropriate to set daily goals that stretch you, but that are ultimately attainable with extra focus and effort. As a simple example, if your regular fitness run is three miles and you would like to complete races at longer distances, an aspirational goal might be to complete a six-mile run. Though such a goal seems tough but attainable, if you try but are unable to complete such a distance, you may not have met the daily goal you established, but you have still completed good work toward your larger aspiration. As another example, suppose you have always wanted or needed to learn to speak Spanish but have never taken steps toward becoming bilingual. A related aspirational goal might state, “Sign up for online Spanish course,” which would represent an initial step in the process of learning to speak Spanish, something to which you have aspired but toward which you had previously taken no action.
These aspirational, or “stretch” goals should push you out of your comfort zone but should be ultimately attainable with sharp focus and dedicated work.
5. Daily goals can be but don’t have to be linked to yearly goals
If you are in the practice of establishing a set of broader goals at the beginning of each year, it is a natural part of the daily goal setting process to revisit those yearly goals regularly, at least every couple of months, to reflect on the progress that you have made toward the completion of each goal. Such regular review also helps you to keep those broader goals at the forefront of your daily planning process.
As such, it is only logical that some of your daily goals should be supportive of the attainment of your yearly goals. In the two examples listed above, the running-related daily goal could very naturally be linked to a yearly goal such as, “Complete a marathon.” And the daily goal of signing up for a Spanish class would be supportive of a yearly goal such as, “Learn to speak Spanish.” So, it’s natural for some daily goals to be linked to your yearly goals.
But by their nature, yearly goals tend to be aspirational, related to broader accomplishments that individuals want to tackle. While it would be effective to address these yearly goals through daily goal setting, there are important tasks that must be completed each day that are relatively mundane and procedural, are related to our daily lives, work, responsibilities, and/or well-being, but are completely unrelated to a yearly goal. As an example, though the “completion of reports” would seldom rise to the level of a yearly goal, “complete end-of-quarter report” would be an appropriate daily goal if you have been tasked with such an important responsibility. “Complete yoga class” could be linked to a yearly goal if you are seeking to establish a regular yoga practice. But a long-time yogi with a well-established practice would probably not include a yearly goal related to yoga but might include “Complete yoga class” as a daily goal to help ensure the completion of such an activity simply for the health benefits that would be derived.
6. When possible, daily goals should emphasize truly important work
In Part I of this “Leading a Goal-Driven Life” series, I briefly addressed Stephen Covey’s “Time Management Matrix,” which describes the intersection of task urgency and importance. As Covey suggests, tasks that are “not urgent” and “not important” are, in his view, not worthy of our time (and certainly not worthy of being listed as a daily goal). Tasks that are “urgent” but “not important” are considered to be only a little better, though they may be considered important by bosses or others and as such should be dispatched as quickly as possible. Most of our time, according to Dr. Covey, is consumed by completing tasks that are “urgent” and “important.” These tasks include those related to crises, deadlines, and “putting out fires.” I devoted much of my career to dealing with crises, both real and simply perceived, and until I studied Covey’s research, I believed such tasks were at the core of effective leadership.
But to my wonderment, Covey suggests that truly effective individuals devote a significant amount of their available time to tasks that are “not urgent” but “important.” When I first came to understand this concept, it was as if a light bulb had been turned on in my brain.
Completing urgent and important tasks is metaphorically like treading water, necessary for survival but seldom something that moves you or your organization forward. To make real progress, you must complete activities that might include developing an organizational vision, researching ways of implementing that vision, enhancing your capacity to lead your organization and implement that vision, and working to develop relationships that will help move the organization forward. These types of activities are obviously critical but don’t have time constraints, and in fact, don’t have to be completed. Hence, they are not urgent, and in many organizations many of these activities never get completed.
As a simple example, there are few if any positions of leadership that aren’t evolving and constantly changing, requiring individuals in those positions to be constantly learning if they want to continue to be effective. A common part of that learning process involves reading articles, books, and other reports relative to aspects of the position, business, industry, etc. Many will admit that such reading is vitally important but suggest that they engage in such learning activities “when they have time.” What I found back when I was employed in a very hectic professional position is that when I allowed my day to evolve naturally with no formal planning, I never seemed to “have time” for personal learning activities like reading.
But when I started implementing a daily goal-setting process, I was able to include in those goals personal development activities that included reading and studying important articles I had identified and research reports that were pertinent to the organizational vision we had developed. I soon found that my job satisfaction was improving and that the organization (in this instance, a school) was making greater and smoother progress toward that vision.
Important tasks that aren’t accompanied by deadlines often represent the most impactful work you can complete. Including those tasks in your daily goals can help ensure that they get accomplished.
Tackling the Daily Goal List
How you work your way through the list of daily goals you have developed is a matter of personal preference, situational circumstances, and how your day unfolds. Some may want to tackle the least challenging or most enjoyable tasks first, to get their day off to a good start. Others may want to address the most challenging tasks first in an effort to get them out of the way as well as to make sure they are ultimately completed. As I have used this process for the past several decades, there was typically little rhyme or reason to how I addressed the list of daily goals; each was a task I hoped to get completed before the end of the day.
Mark Twain famously wrote, “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” In this same vein, he similarly wrote, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” Clearly, Mr. Clemens would be an advocate of the practice of tackling the most challenging and most distasteful tasks first off in the day.
In a seminal work interestingly titled Eat That Frog!, self-improvement authority Brian Tracy describes the “Law of Forced Efficiency” which states, “There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing.” Though I long ago found the formal prioritization of daily goals to be counterproductive, I typically could review the list of goals and pick out the one or two that were most important and impactful. And though I wouldn’t necessarily tackle those goals first, I subconsciously made sure that, if possible, they were adequately addressed before the day concluded.
Truly, though, the order in which you address your list of daily goals is a matter of personal preference. But if a task is of sufficient importance to be placed on the list of daily goals, it should be considered worthy of the time needed for its completion.
Summary
Over thirty years ago, striving to keep my head above the rising tide of crises and other “urgent” tasks that seemed to consume every one of my days, I sought a quick, simple, but impactful way of organizing and controlling my day. The result was the daily goal-setting process I have described, a method I adapted over time to fit my needs. I have used variations of that process for well over thirty years, still set daily goals most days, and still find that it enhances my productivity immensely.
If you are struggling to gain control over your day, seeking ways to improve your impact, productivity, and effectiveness, I invite you to adapt this system to meet your unique needs. Good luck!
References
Asmus, Sven, Karl, Florian, Mohnen, Alwine, and Reinhart, Gunther, 2015, “The Impact of Goal-Setting on Worker Performance – Empirical Evidence from a Real-Effort Production Experiment,” Science Direct, 2015
Cooper, Belle, 2017, A Short Guide to Setting and Achieving Goals, RescueTime
Covey, Stephen R., 1989, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, New York: Simon & Schuster
Covey, Stephen R., Merrill, A. Roger, and Merrill, Rebecca R., 1994, First Things First, New York: Simon & Schuster
Price-Mitchell, Marilyn, 2018, “Goal-Setting is Linked to Higher Achievement,”, Psychology Today March 14, 2018
Tabaka, Marla, 2019, “New Study Says This Simple Step Will Increase the Odds of Achieving Your Goals (Substantially),” Inc., January 28, 2019
Tracy, Brian, 2017, Eat That Frog!, Oakland, California: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Copyright 2021 by Rob Leachman – All Rights Reserved
