SMART Goals Are Timely

When we go about setting our goals, it's always advisable to make sure we give ourselves a deadline in order to provide some urgency. Like using metrics to keep our goals measurable, giving our goals definite time tables is a way to let us know whether or not we're on target. If we leave our goals open ended, the goals may never get accomplished.

SMART Goals are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Timely

By giving a goal a due date, we are more inclined to place a little more pressure on ourselves to achieve the goal. Without this, it is very easy to let the matter slide indefinitely. By stating that I want to lose 10 pounds by the end of the month, we set an alarm clock for our goal that will be constantly "ticking" in the back of our minds telling us to get off the stick.

Another reason we want to place time constraints on our goals is for scheduling. Organized folks should have their work planned out such that they have calendars with milestones. These timelines provide us with the structure to keep everything rolling along smoothly. If we tend to do things "whenever", how do we ever know exactly what we should be doing at any given time? Setting timely goals will keep busy people more organized and therefore more efficient in the long run.

If we want our goals to get done, we need to make sure we're SMART about it. If our goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely, then we have a markedly improved chance of achieving them. If we let everything kind of randomly fall into place, our results may not be optimal. A reminder that people who fail to plan are planning to fail is something that I constantly come back to any time I find myself spinning my wheels. If I have my goals in front of me, it's never really a mystery what I should be doing at any given point in time.