Think Smart

If you're like me, you wake up in the morning, look at your email, look at your calendar, and then figure out what you'd like to accomplish during the day. You might have both professional goals and personal goals, depending on your calendar and your responsibilities.

Management literature tells us our goals should be S.M.A.R.T: Specific, Measurable, Achieveable, Realistic, and Time-based. Specific meaning something concrete. Measureable so that you can tell if you have succeeded or not. Achieveable. Creating a beautifully landscaped yard in a year is not achieveable to me (it might be to you if you have unlimited resources) Realistic -- back to that garden again. That wouldn't be realistic for me. And Time-based. Does the time reconcile with the goal?

Sometimes breaking large goals into smaller pieces helps. And remember, think S.M.A.R.T.