Hi everyone! I meant to chime in with my SMART goal in the first week, but got around to writing it down and forgot to circle back to sharing it with the group! The funny part is that my goal to start off this adventure with you all is to establish a prioritization system that works for me. Here is what I wrote:
Goal: Prioritizing tasks effectively and then trusting my planning and doing it to plan.
Specific: Set time for POC You in work schedule amongst other top priorities and plan time to tackle other inevitable daily/weekly tasks.
Measurable: Accomplish priorities with deadlines first by scheduling blocks of time to do them daily until they are done. Aim for 80% of other tasks listed complete by end of week and make a waiting list of non priority tasks so they aren’t forgotten, but don’t rise to the top before its their turn.
Achievable: Yes, but be sure to break long tasks into steps so you see progress. Set STEPS of tasks as priorities.
Realistic: Definitely!
Timed: Assess week by week to have a set style by March based on what works best.
Since setting this goal, I’ve started prioritizing in the covey matrix (Urgent/Not Urgent/Important/Not Important) instead of a straight list and it has helped. I find myself still making a daily list quickly in the morning – but having the matrix to build off of is turning out to be very helpful. Additionally, in my personal life I am the captain of my Men’s Rugby Club and have recently stepped up in team leadership in order to weather the storm of our President moving away from Miami. This, plus my favorite job of being husband and dad is leaving me with less and less ‘job basis’ time available to knock out tasks outside of work. So I’m dealing with the with a positive attitude and accepting the roadblocks of unexpected tasks coming at me from all directions each day so I just started making time for those after lunch before I dive back into the planned tasks.
I’m not sure that I’ve fully explained my job as the utility guy for Zoo Miami’s Animal Department – but this role has exploded my to do list as I am the point person for guest engagement in our department and all of that has flipped on its head over the last 10 months. I look forward to sharing more next week – hopefully I’ll have a celebration to share then too!
