From scattered tasks to clear priorities: how SMART goals changed my workflow

Photo by Content Pixie on Unsplash

Planning is great. Planning is essential. Planning is key. But… sometimes it can go too far. Along my journey to find out what best suits my butterfly brain for organizing my workflow, I’ve learned this the hard way.

In my quest to become ‘Polina Perfect Pants’ when writing for clients, the need to track everything from all my ideas, notes, research, and tasks often led to my becoming even more overwhelmed and ultimately made for less than great end results.

A chat with Olga, a valued colleague, opened up a discussion about SMART goals and how she’d been trying them to great effect in her own workflow. I thought I should give it a go, and I’m going to pass on what I’ve gleaned and how they fit into my routine.

What is a SMART goal?

OK, so, simply put, it’s a way to replace vague intentions with real, actionable results. You aim to break work down into five criteria:

1. Specific
2. Measurable
3. Achievable
4. Relevant
5. Time-bound

It should end up making you more productive, less stressed, and ensure you meet all your work outcomes neatly and without fuss.

Here are a couple of great SMART goals examples pertinent to someone like me who works in content creation.

Instead of saying: “I’ll work harder to increase traffic to my own website by 30%.”

You say: “I’ll increase my organic website traffic by 30% by the end of the year through SEO-informed content marketing strategies.”

Instead of saying: “I’ll put in some extra hours to get a few new clients by the end of June.”

You say: “I’ll try to secure a minimum of six new clients before the end of the quarter by dedicating five hours each week to networking and pitching.”

Once you hone in on the idea itself and break it down into components that are actually achievable, it becomes easier to focus on the work and what needs to be done to get there.

How I get SMART goals to work for me (and get my iPhone in on it)

So, in the next week, we have a brand new client onboarding. Olga and I are going to go through the process of organizing our workflow and defining our ultimate aim.

Our overall SMART Goal is: “We’ll create, edit, and write a detailed brief and an initial draft of an article with a view to engaging the client for future work throughout June and July”.

With this in mind, I’m going to use my iPhone to help me stay on track of it all:

1 and 2: Specific & Measurable

I’ll create dedicated lists in Reminders that will guide me through the process. Using this app, I can break down large goals into small, actionable tasks with deadlines.

3 and 4: Achievable & Relevant

I’ll then use Notes to draft my Whys and track any major milestones. I can also use this app to add any ideas we have and capture them for safekeeping.

5: Time-bound

When everything is underway, I can use the Calendar app to schedule dedicated work blocks to ensure progress, and I’ll also enable notifications in my Reminders so I stay on track.

I can also use the timer and stopwatch functions on my iPhone to block out chunks of time for deep, focused work. When the timer goes off, I can step away for a few moments in order to refocus and do something else before tackling the next part of the task.

Prioritizing my workflow has produced real results

It’s about clarity, not productivity for its own sake, nor is it about doing lots of ‘busywork’ yet achieving absolutely nothing.

Looking at tasks through the lens of SMART goals has given me a greater degree of flexibility and more freedom than I thought it could.

How do you make SMART goals work for you? Any tips? Let’s chat in the comment section…