Are Your Time Management Goals SMART?

A common mistake when setting yourself goals is being satisfied with just having MADE the goals, never mind if they are quality ones, or even relevant to what you're trying to achieve! Simply saying "I have set goals" sometimes won't really help you focus your energies. In time management, the irony is that you could actually be wasting your time by making yourself inefficient goals that aren't SMART.

S - Significant

Let's say that one of your time management goals was to "spend less time taking lunch". Is this significant? For example, if you go ten minutes over your lunch break on average, that's 50 minutes over a working week... are you setting a long, convoluted goal only to gain 50 minutes? Analyse the significance of how much you're going to gain from your particular goal. In this example too, are you sacrificing your break time and your health instead of finding the time from somewhere else? Again, this flags up whether your goal is significant or not.

M - Measurable

In the above example, you could at least measure that taking ten minutes off your lunch would have given you 50 mins spare time over the average week. Being able to measure a time management goal to see how much time it's really freeing up for you is very important, as this helps you to gauge the significance in turn. Measure how much time you need to save, how much is attainable and then measure again if you've put your measure where your mouth is and actually using the spare time you've freed up! Measuring your success also means you can keep tabs on upwards or downward trends in your productivity levels.

A - Achievable

Setting yourself unrealistic time management goals is also setting yourself up for failure. If you find yourself working late for an average of four hours a week, don't think you're going to hone your time so effectively that you're heading home on time after a week! Set realistic goals to remain motivated. Consult with your manager and the rest of your team to see if you're being a little too ambitious. It's best to start small and feel good about achieving goals instead of striving for impossible ones and demotivating yourself in the process.

R - Rewarding

Don't forget to reward yourself! Achieving goals is to be applauded, whether it's your manager praising you or just giving yourself a pat on the back. The goal should be rewarding in itself - in the previous example, imagine leaving work on time with the whole evening to enjoy instead of working late and getting stressed out (and possibly upsetting those at home waiting for you). Reward yourself for your efforts, but make sure the action itself has a reward and a meaning to you.

T - Time based!

This is stating the obvious when it comes to time management, but make sure you stay focused on what you're trying to achieve - better time management. It's tempting to set goals that are not entirely focused on the task in hand and have other things tied in - are you improving your time management, or productivity, delegation skills, and so on? Although lots of work-related tasks are time-managed, make sure your goals are going to directly affect time and how you spend it.