A Key To Success: Set Daily Goals

Now that you are primed to take actions, you need to make sure you are taking actions that move you forward in the right direction. Our days usually fill up with all kinds of minutia. Have you ever looked back at the end of the day and thought what a busy day, only to realize you didn’t accomplish much of what you needed to accomplish? 

The term Parkinson’s law states that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Take an assembly line or example. A technician has a certain amount of time to complete their set of tasks called a takt time. A few years ago, I was helping an assembly line try to increase thier productivity. Reducing takt time ultimately had to be achieved to reach the productivity goal. The technicians doing the work felt there was no way they could do the work in less time than they already were. 

As we began our study, we noticed the technicians would dance about, talk to other employees, move around, etc. and finish their tasks right on time. We worked with the technicians to redesign their work and space improving workflow, work methods, material locations, and eliminating some of the non-value added movements. We estimated a 20 second reduction in takt time after our study and redesign was complete. 

The technicians now had to re-learn their jobs with the new process steps (the goals) and the redesigned workstations.  At first it was challenging for them, and they had to really focus on the job. But soon they were relaxed again, talking and cutting up, and completing their goals 20 seconds faster.

The point is you can accomplish so much more if you are focused on the important and right goals and tasks. What is even better is you will find you can accomplish all your goals and tasks while still handling all the minutiae that comes your way. That leads us to the fourth key to success; goals. 

I have found through my experience that you need to do more than just simply create a goal. You need to actually write the goals(s) down. Writing them down increases the likelihood of achieving them by 42%. Just by writing them down! 

To further improve the odds of successfully accomplishing the goal(s), they should be structured goals. There are different goal frameworks out there, like SMART goals for example.  Under the SMART framework goals are written using specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound parameters. These elements enable you to get very clear and precise on what you need to accomplish.  An example of a SMART goal would be something like: I will complete two half-marathons by the end of the year. 

Having these big annual goals is a great step and an important accomplishment. If you want to “Be Great…Today!” and accomplish even more, start with the big annual goals and then break them down. Create quarterly goals that keep you moving towards those annual goals.  Then break the quarterly goals into monthly, weekly and finally into daily goals.

Every week you create three things you must accomplish that week to move you towards your big goals. Then you refer to those three items each morning when you are creating your daily tasks to ensure you are doing three things everyday to move you towards hitting your weekly goals.

Sometimes you may just have quarterly goals and not a big annual goal(s).  You would still break those down to monthly, weekly and daily. The key is to break them down no matter the duration of the goal(s) to daily actions you need to take to accomplish the end result. This should be done for your business, any side-hustle and your personal goals.

The critical action is to write them down. The picture is the template I use every day. Each page has the gratitude at the top I introduced in the Mindset blog post, and then you see the goals sections. I break my daily tasks down into the Have to Complete (HTC) and the Nice To Complete (NTC) actions. The HTCs are the three daily actions I need to take today to move me towards my weekly commitments.   

The NTC’s tasks have to be done, but are not the most critical. They may end up moved to the HTC list on another day, delegated to others on the team, deleted at some point or completed by me after completing the HTC items. This system also allows me to see what items just keep getting pushed to the next day so I can re-evaluate my tasks.  

I schedule time in my schedule to do my daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual goal reviews. I have been able to accomplish so much more using this system of HTCs and NTCs because I am focused on what is most important each day to keep me moving forward. I am also still handling all the minutiae that comes up in my role, but I don’t let it fill up my entire day anymore.

Breaking things down into bite sized chunks will increase clarity, be more manageable and allow you to “Be Great…Today!”

Be Great….Today!

Brandon Brazeel, MBA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
Chief People Officer