When we think of goals, they’re usually the big, audacious, life-changing ones, like reaching a high position at work, launching your company, writing a best-seller, or creating the next Uber for X. However, effective goal setting isn’t about the end result — it is about learning to be 1% better every single day.
Setting daily goals bring a lot of benefits to your personal and work life.
Having a clear plan for the day with a limited set of goals will help you focus on what is important and not spread your attention. Focused attention reduces anxiety and also makes you more productive along the way.
Daily goals also bring a level of control and prioritization to your day. Those who regularly set goals and follow through on them feel more in control, more organized, and can visualize the progress more quickly and recognize how much they have accomplished, even when it doesn’t feel like a lot.
Additionally, do not forget that small wins build momentum. According to a review by RescueTime, for many people, the most important aspect of setting daily goals is how they help bring momentum into their days. The feeling of achievement in a small but important goal will naturally give you more mental space and motivation to achieve bigger things later.
Here are some tips to get the most out of goal setting:
1. Focus on a limited set of goals or todo items, like 3 or 4.
2. Think about things that will make you feel better at the end of the day. This could be finishing some long-postponed task, eating healthy food for lunch instead of fast food, keeping your caffeine consumption under the limit, or learning just one new thing.
3. Write them out the night before or in the morning. Use Wellwork to do that, setting the topic, a due date, and complexity.
4. Treat your goals as simply a guide for the day. They should push you in the right direction but not dictate where you should end up.
5. Take some time in the evening for a retrospective. When we analyze our goals in the evening, we can gain perspective on just how we followed through during the day. Further, when we setup a system to track and analyze our daily progress towards our goals, we can watch our progress as it unfolds over time.
Now that you know about the power of setting goals on a daily basis, set at least one goal for today (or your next workday) with Wellwork, crush it, and analyze how you feel after that.