My “just start” experience
Turning my SMART goals into reality
After understanding the concept of SMART goals and implementing it myself I identified my own goals and came up with 2 that I wanted to accomplish in the next 6 months. The one that I started to work on this week was to stop procrastinating and to learn to manage my tasks timely till the next 3 months by completing all Amal projects on time with the help of a weekly time table
The reason why I came up with this goal was because by self reflection I realized that my biggest weakness was putting things off and doing them at the very last moment. I have the ability to do things last minute and still do them well which inflated my self confidence to the point of over confidence. However I realized that even though I am able to complete my tasks well at the last minute it is not an accomplishment because I still have to go through a period of stress and have to over work to make it to the deadline. So I set this goal to avoid the unnecessary burden I put on myself by doing thing timely and improving the quality of my work even more. I mean if I can do it well in a short period of time and under stress, I can defiantly do even better by utilizing more time and being relaxed.
This is not the first time that I have set out to work on this particular weakness. I have tried many times in the past but my motivation only lasts a few days or few weeks at most. The reason why is because I lose momentum when I don’t have any pressure on myself. I usually give up after a few days and find it difficult to keep myself motivated for long enough to make it a habit. This week I have started to work on this again and I think the strategy I have adopted is most likely to succeed because I know that I have a 3 month commitment to Amal academy in which I will have to work on weekly assignments. In this way I will have the pressure of weekly project work to keep me motivated and by the time the fellowship comes to an end I would have make it my habit to work on time.
On Monday evening I read through the project work as I had some time, and the words SMART goals caught my eyes as it related to the work I had done in the last project. I decided to review the portion of SMART goals in the online course and then developed my goals. After making a rough sketch of my goals I selected this one and decided on 3 tasks that I needed to do to work efficiently and these were as follows
- To read project file early on and clear confusions
- To make a time table for the week keeping in mind my other commitments
- Review my self at the end of the week and give myself a treat if I succeeded in following the time table
On Tuesday afternoon after my university classes I took the time to read the project file thoroughly. Thankfully I had no confusions so I moved on to the next step. I reviewed my university time table and overall commitments of the week and made a suitable time table which is here as follows.
After that I started working on Wednesday. I followed the time table fully on Wednesday and Friday. On Thursday I had to shift the timings a bit but I managed to complete all tasks reserved for that day. Since I was doing better than expected I took some time in the afternoon on Friday and made myself some cookies as a treat for following the time table. Here is a picture
So far I was able to work according to plan and I did not face any challenges. The real challenge will be to keep it up for weeks to up but I am willing to try and give it my all. I learned a lot from this experience as it helped me clear my vision and decide on my goals more clearly. I realized what I needed to do right now in order to succeed in the future. For now my next steps will be to keep up the routine that I practiced this week and make it even more efficient by dividing my tasks better and making a system of accountability for myself.
The concept of SMART goals is indeed very effective and if used correctly can yield great results. I gained a lot of clarity from this task and once again I would like to thanks Amal academy for introducing me to this valuable lesson.
