Goal Setting
Make a Project Plan
A project plan will put all of your goals in context.
For example, the project plan should reflect an overall view of your goals, then further show a breakdown of the pieces that take more time, and those which require less time. From there, you can prioritize those from most important to least important. Be successful by setting goals! Use the tips below to be a pro!
Create a Daily Schedule to set daily, weekly, monthly "Goals"
Scheduling items is useful in establishing routines to keep you and your demanding schedule in sync. This will ultimately help you clearly identify, track, and reach your goals. Breaking down your overall goals into smaller and more manageable chunks that can be scheduled for a day, a week, and a month, will help you stay on track and accomplish them.
Set Realistic Goals
Set a goal for each study session that is challenging, but reachable. This can give you a sense of accomplishment, which is important to setting future goals. If you don’t usually exercise, but you set a goal to run three miles every day, it is not very likely that you will be successful accomplishing this goal. What might be realistic is to set a goal that you will jog three times a week for 30 minutes. Then as you get more comfortable running, you can up the goal. Always start with smaller goals, and as you accomplish them, set higher and higher goals.
Eliminate Distractions
Every time a distraction occurs, it breaks the thought process and then at some point, the learner has to re-group. The time that is lost due to the distraction can never be recouped, so avoiding distractions is a key component of helping you reach your goals. Try to eliminate things such as social media, personal phone calls, web surfing, and other possible distractions while you are learning. You can do it by setting a goal that you will not look at your phone for 20 minutes and you will study in those 20 minutes. As you get more comfortable with this time period, you can increase it later.
Start Working on Daily Goals Early in the Day
By starting on your goals early, you can effectively avoid most obstacles which can arise and consume time that would otherwise be spent reaching your goals. Accomplishing your goals is always easier when you have the time to do it. If your paper is due at midnight and you start setting your goals to study at 10 pm, it will not give you enough time to accomplish your goal.
Work on One Goal at A Time
A University of London study showed that those who multi-task will see a drop in their IQ, similar to someone who didn’t sleep the night before. Although you may have many different things to do, staying on task and focusing on a single item can be beneficial to a timely completion as opposed to bouncing around between several different items. This can especially be true if those items are unrelated.
Use Resources
You can set goals for many areas in your life, and there are plenty of resources to help get you on the path to reaching your goals!