Take a look around your space right now. Are there clean clothes sprawled across your bedroom floor? Were you just running around the house trying to find those boots you wore the other day? Do you find yourself checking each of your coats in the morning for your keys?
Let me guess, you’re shaking your head in agreement as you finally locate your keys, that you had in your hand the whole time. Well, I’m here to be your organizing fairy godmother and grant your wishes to have a clean, organized, working lifestyle. Grab your pen and paper and let’s get to work! Just a heads up, be prepared to break into a song and dance!
Let’s Talk Shop
The very first thing we are going to do is lay it all out on the table. No, I don’t mean all of our clothes and nick nacks that we want to organize. I’m talking about getting into the real nitty gritty stuff, like what are the precise clear goals that we want to accomplish. While we are at it let’s dive into the reasons why we’ve been struggling with keeping organizing. You can’t solve a problem until you know exactly why it is a problem. But first, I’m going to share with you my little secret of how I’m able to achieve my goals. It a simple thing called having S.M.A.R.T’s!
Hey There, Smartie!
During my time as a director of team training and compliance, I was introduced to a five letter acronym that would change my life as well as the direction of the company. So I know you’re wondering what does acronym that a corporate company uses every day have to do with me being productive? Well, let me share the secret sauce!
S.M.A.R.T is a mnemonic device that is a model on how to structure objectives into attainable goals. This little baby first surfaced in 1981 in the November issue of Management Review by George T. Doran and has gone to be a staple for some of the most successful, influential people of our times. Are you just dying to know what it stands for? Ok, here we go!
(S) Specific – Your goal need to be as specific as possible. It needs to include the following questions to be answered.
- Who, is involved in the goal completion?
- What, exactly do you want to accomplish?
- When, will the goal be completed?
- Why, what is the reason for the goal?
(M) Measurable – Make sure your goal is trackable.
(A) Attainable – Can you obtain this goal? Work towards a goal that is challenging but possible.
(R) Realistic – Be honest with your self and don’t set unrealistic goals.
(T) Time-Bound – Give yourself a deadline
Examples You Can Use:
Blogging:
Within two months, my blog traffic will add a total of 400 unique visitors by doubling my publishing frequency from two posts per week to four and by increasing my word count per blog from 800 words to 1,600 words.
Organization:
Within a month, I will organize the first floor of my home, by going through a different room each week. I will do this by throwing away unused, old items and combining like items for easy retrieval. This will help increase the daily productivity of the house and will reduce our clutter by at least 20%.
Why the Mess?
Now I want to ask you something, have you had these goals before and haven’t been able to see them through? I’m taking a wild guess here, but I’m guessing the answer is yes. That perfectly OK and no reason to be down on yourself. In a given day, I think about at-least 10 different goals. Now if there are 365 days in a year and I dream up 10 goals a day, I’m setting myself up with the expectation to completed 3,650 goals in a given year. That doesn’t seem realistic at all, which brings me to my first reason why goals aren’t achieved, we don’t feel it will happen.
I Won’t Be Able to Do This
If it doesn’t seem realistic, why should I even try, right? Let’s take losing weight for example, one of the most common goals we hear. You have an event coming up in a month and you want to lose x amount of weight. Those first couple of days I’m sure you’re giving yourself a Oprah Winfrey pep talk and killing it at the gym. Then you slip and don’t go to the gym one day or eat that last slice of pizza. The doubt starts to set in “there is NO WAY I’m going to lose x amount of weight, so why kill myself trying?”. Before we know it the goal is throw out and we feel lousy. When we focus only on the the BIG goal we get overwhelmed. Remembering our SMART goals, if we break it down into attainable, time bound goals we will work towards achieving our end goal. So if we take our month x weight number and divide it by the weeks, we can look at things on a smaller more attainable scale, in which allows us to have a higher percentage at success.
Portia Brittani
If we break it down into attainable, time bound goals we will work towards achieving our end goal
Plain and Simple, I Lack Motivation
Which would you rather do? Sit on the couch binge watching Game of Thrones or go to that killer barre class where you can’t even walk afterwards? Of course the Game of Thrones sounds better, but the barre class is better for us. It all comes down to having motivation. It’s an endless cycle at the end of the month where we say to ourselves, “Ok starting next month I’m going to the gym three times a week and I’m going to cut out pasta.” We may stick to it for the first week but if we don’t see results instantly we start to decrease to maybe going two times during the week and then nothing. In a world where we want instant gratification, motivation becomes a constant battle. Pushing ourselves daily towards our end goal without seeing daily results increases our lack of motivation. This is where is so important to set daily goals and reminders of your end result. Remember that your daily achievements are steps towards your end goal.
Portia Brittani
Pushing ourselves daily towards our end goal without seeing daily results increases our lack of motivation
Go Out There and Rock It!
Close your eyes for a second, think about the S.M.A.R.T goal you just wrote down and imagine how your life is going to be when you’ve completed it. Whatever it may be, whether it’s a clean, organized house, or your business increased by 15%, how do you feel knowing you’ve accomplished your goal? I’m sure you have a beaming smile smeared across your face and maybe even patting yourself on the back. You conquered your doubts and fears by addressing the real reasons why you were held back in the past.
This is great! Way to go you! You’ve got this!
