Transcripts
1. Introduction: Time management
and goal setting, they go hand in hand. In order for you to manage
your time effectively, you need to set solid goals that set you up for
success and not failure. And this is what we're
going to be covering in this current class and
NuchaGng to teach you how to set effective goals and how to arrange your priorities
in the best way possible to move forward and crush those goals and manage
your time effectively.
2. Your Project: Your project for the class revolves around creating a to do list which incorporates
the elements of Smart Gold's creation, the Eisenhower matrix
four priorities to combine them in a way to
build up your to do list, which reflects those elements that we have covered
in the current class, after which you'll be
sharing your to do list with the rest of the
community for feedback.
3. What are SMART Goals : And welcome back.
Sometimes, when we are trying to
do something new or we're trying to create our day to day list of activities, also known as the to do list, we set up ourselves for failure from the get go
from the beginning because we have no idea how to set the tasks or the goals for
a given period of time. So how do we go about this? First of all, there's a
certain criteria which is called as the SMRT goals, capital S, capital M, capital A, capital R, capital T. I'm going to walk you
through them with details. What do they stand for? That way you could develop that mindset. As you're building your tasks, you're building
your goals as part of the efforts to
manage your time, manage your projects,
manage your activities, manage your studies, manage your content creation
approaches, whatever it is. This applies to
various applications. That way you are building goals and you're building tasks. That actually make sense
and push you forward. However, before we get
into the details of the smart goals one at a time, I would like to highlight some important elements that
we need to be familiar with. First of all, our goals
should be quite specific. When we say specific, it means clearly
defined objectives, leaving no room for ambiguity. This is very important
because often we're quite excited at the
beginning of a project. We are really motivated, and we set sky is the limit. For example, if you're planning
on a weight loss journey, you're going to say,
I'm going to lose, for example, 30 pounds
in the first five days. No way you could do this, right? So the goal at the beginning
was not even real, and you've made it
quite specific. So we have to get the
realistic part out of the way, which is what we're going to be talking about, which
is achievable. However, the specificity
of the goal, it means you add a quantifiable number and
a certain time frame. Right? Now, there
are goals which are reasonable and
they are specific, and there are goals
which are not reasonable and still specific. So specific has nothing to do whether the goal is
achievable or not. Specific mainly indicates
or adds a numerical figure, the way I think about
it, to your goal, planning on losing, for example, 25 pounds in three months. So we have a certain
numerical goal we're trying to achieve, a certain time frame, instead of just simply saying, I'm planning to lose
weight. That's it. So there's a huge difference. The first one has a time frame, has a certain amount
you're trying to tackle, which
gives you focus, which dedicates your
effort to a certain track, compared to just
keeping things quite open in the air without even
knowing how to move forward, which sets you up for failure. So being specific with
your goals by adding a quantifiable number and a certain time frame
is very important. Measurable. If it's not tracked, it doesn't really exist. So let's recall the example
of your weight loss journey, for example, right? You're
trying to lose weight. And as you go about the process, you're not keeping
track of any changes. Is your weight going up or
your weight going down? Fast forward one
month down the road, you weigh yourself, and then you're surprised
you've lost nothing. Why? Because you didn't track
the progress along the way, in order for you to figure out, are you doing something
right or are you doing something wrong
in order to correct? Unfortunately, as we set goals, it's not clear from the
get go how to get to the endpoint in the
smoothest way possible. You will face obstacles. You will face distractions. You will face delays. So if you're not measuring
your progress frequently, based on a certain time frame, weekly basis, daily basis, it's up to you,
based on your goal, you have no indication that you're moving forward
in a certain direction, which at the end of the day will reflect on your
progress towards your goal. So we have to create a specific goal where
we add a number, we add a certain time frame to it as part of being specific, we should be able to
measure it and track it, and the goal should be
achievable and reasonable. It means the goal
should make sense. When you say I'm
planning to lose 50 pounds one day, no
way you could do this. No way. Humanly possible
you could do this. Why? The goal should be quite realistic in order for
you to be motivated, if you believe that you could achieve an unachievable
goal realistically, you are going to set yourself up for failure
and you will be demotivated and you're going to throw the towel
and call it quits. Why? Because you had really different expectations
which are not real. The whole purpose
of this lesson is for you to understand
that goals have certain criteria that need to be fulfilled in order for you
to actually create them, use them, and track them
and move forward with them. So these are three
important highlights I wanted to go through. The our goal should be quite
specific. We add a number. We add a certain time
frame, measurable, we should be able to measure
it and track it weekly, monthly, daily, it's up to you. Achievable, it
should make sense. It should be realistic. These are three criteria I
wanted to highlight before we actually we go to the
breakdown of SMRT goal. Let me walk you
through it. So we said smart goal stands for. We have the capital
letter S specific. M, measurable, A,
attainable or achievable, R, which is relevant. This is very important, T, time bound or time base. We've addressed the first two, which are the
foundational blocks. However, the last
two, the R and the T, they are uniquely yours. H. Like I mentioned, all of this makes up the
word smart smart goals. So once we say we
have a specific Goal. It means your goal is directly detailed and direct
detailed and meaningful. Certain number,
certain time frame has a certain end result. Usually, it's 1.5 sentences
long, that's main lay it. Measurable, you should
be able to quantify it, which is part of being specific. In order to track progress, are you moving forward or not? The best example that
we have used simply for demonstration purposes is
the weight loss journey. Some people, they go on
a weight loss journey. They're not tracking
their progress, and time goes by and
they have no idea, are they moving forward
or they falling behind? On the other hand, you get individuals who set up
a realistic goal that would like to lose a
certain number of pounds in a certain month,
they take steps. They measure on
day to day basis, week to week basis, they
collect the information, and they repeat the process and fix any issues
along the way. The goal should be attainable. It should be realistic and
you have the tools to do it. If you're trying to lose
body fat or lose weight, you have access to
certain facilities such as a gym or certain tools
to help you exercise. You're able to eat properly. So in order to call
it attainable, it means in simple words, within reach, within
a human reach. It's a matter of you doing the
tasks to get the job done. That's. And the final
two points I wanted to leave for this current
segment, which is relevant. Every single goal
is uniquely yours. If someone is taking a goal, it doesn't mean it works for you and for your
own unique life. The goal should be relevant
to your own journey, your own ambitions, your own visions,
your own preferences. You could take inspirations from other individuals.
What are they doing? But you do not accept
or absorb goals from others as if they're your own for the sake of
simply absorbing goals. At the end of the day,
you're going to be demotivated and
you're going to fail because the goals
are not aligned with your own journey. So
that's very important. And finally, time based. Your goal has a deadline. You should try to achieve that goal within a
certain time frame, which is related to being
measurable and being specific. You try to achieve
a certain goal, you're not going to
take forever to do it within a realistic time frame. So if you keep those things
at the back of your mind, as you are building
your day to day tasks list or to do
list or the activities you're going for that your goal is specific,
measurable, attainable, relevant, and time based, it will make your life way easier because every
single thing that you do in the effort of trying to achieve a
certain vision or goal, if it falls within
this criteria, it means you have chosen
a proper goal rather than choosing a goal which sets you up for
failure from day one.
4. Eisenhower Matrix: And welcome back. So we've
dealt with smart goals. But the question is, if you have a series of tasks
during your day, which is often the case. So as you build up your goals, it's not just simply a
matter of having one goal, and you have all the time in the world to chase that goal. Of course not. You got
other stuff to do. You got tasks, you got
priorities, you got commitments. You got stuff that you need
to address at your work, your own professional career, your own personal life, your own hobby, whatever it is. All of these are basic parts of your day to
day living as a human being. Now, the question is, how
do you navigate them, and you dedicate your attention to the tasks that
need to be done? First, keeping in mind, we have clearly set our goals, and now we're breaking down the tasks to go
through our goals. So how do we create a priority, some sort of relevance in terms of which one
is more important? How could I arrange my tasks on a day to day
basis or week to week basis? First of all, there are
key important definitions we need to get out
of the way, okay. Before we go through what we
call the Eisenhower matrix. It's a very basic
matrix to help you with the decision making
process in terms of arranging the priorities. First of all, let's define what we call as an urgent task. An urgent task, by definition, requires immediate attention, but it doesn't have
to be important. In other words, your car
is running out of gas. So you need to
fill up the gas in order for you to go
to work tomorrow. So this is an urgent task, but it's not really important because it does not align with your vision or goals or
stuff that you're pursuing. But if you don't
get out of the way, it will have a direct
impact on your life. Another example for
an urgent task. If you do not, for example, pay your electricity bill
or your Internet bill, what happens is,
you're going to lose Internet connection or
electricity supply. Now obviously, this
is something urgent because it has a direct
impact on your day to day life and it has a direct
impact on your ability to pursue other So urgent tasks, they do not have
to be important. They could be minute,
quite simple. But they do have a
direct impact on your ability to proceed
comfortably with life. That's one. Two, we do
have important tasks, important tasks,
which they contribute to the long term
success and goals. This should be the
top of the priority, where you are actually
focusing on tasks which help you move forward
towards a certain goal, for example, at work, at your career,
at your personal, let's say, weight loss journey, at your personal hobbies, your personal business or your career growth
progression, whatever it is. There are certain tasks
that you need to do, which will move you forward. This is what we classify
as important tasks. Now, urgent tasks, they do
not have to be important, but they are part of your
day to day life, right? So this is very important to
distinguish between them. So creating a priority wisely, focus on important
and urgent tasks. We have created basic
classifications for both of them, urgent tasks and
important tasks. These should be at
the top of the list. But how do we classify them visually to make it
quite easy to navigate? This is where we have as
the Eisenhower matrix. If you take a look at this, for example, this is a matrix. Take a look at the left side. We have on the vertical axis, not important and important on the horizontal axis
or the column titles. Urgent and not urgent. If you take a look at the
boxes we do schedule, delegate or delete completely. Now, how do we navigate this? If a task is
important and urgent. We said we do have important tasks and
urgent tasks, right? So if a task is
urgent and important, this is where we need to do. We need to do it. This is the first thing that
goes on our list. We need to execute
this on the spot. Tasks with deadlines
or consequences, whether to your own
goal, to your career, to your day to day
living, whatever it is. If it has a certain deadline, it's really important and
urgent and it has consequences. If you don't do it, it has a negative
impact on your life. This is the first thing
that you need to get out of the however, if we have another
important task, it's not important,
but it's urgent, for example, the Wi Fi bill
that we have mentioned, that's where you can delegate this task that must get done, but do not require your
specific skill set. You could have someone
pay up the bill, right? Nowadays, you do
have applications. You don't have to go by yourself and go pay the bill, right? You can just simply log on
and get it out of the way. So you're able to delegate this. Like, you don't have
to get involved directly in the
process where you use your own skill set
in order to get it done. So you have the ability
to delegate this where you have an urgent
task that needs to be done, but not really important
because it doesn't really align with my goals and vision, the stuff that I'm pursuing,
so you get the difference. Now, if you do have
an important task, however, not urgent, it means this is something that will help you
move forward in your life, but you do not have
to do it right now. This is where you schedule this. Tasks with unclear deadlines that contribute to
long term success. You have no idea how long you'll be involved
in the process. You're going to have
a flexible deadline. However, it's important. It will help you move
forward, but it's not urgent. It doesn't have to
be done right now. So if a task is
important and urgent, this is the top priority, right? If a task is important and not urgent, then you
have to schedule it. If it's not important at all and urgent, you
could delegate this. And if it's not important
and not urgent. So basically, it adds no value to your growth
and progression, and really, it's
not urgent at all. So there's no need
for you to do it now. You completely delete this distractions and
unnecessary tasks. Think about going
through social media, for example, it's not important. It's not going to add to your goals and to your
progress, and it's not urgent. So simply, you can get it
out of the way, right? Or allocate a small
amount of time for it because it counts as a distraction. So
you get the idea. Feel free to use this
matrix to help you create a priority list or as you go about building your to do
list as we're going to see, you have a clear
direction to follow. You create your own
specific, measurable, achievable and relevant and time bound or timely
goals, smart goals. And then you create a list, priorities list, tasks
list, to do list, whatever you'd like to
call, and you arrange it based on the order
following this matrix. This is a great step forward. It will help you add
some order to your life. So you could use the
Eisenhower matrix to help you create some order within the tasks that you're
dealing on a day to day basis based on urgency
and importance.
5. Goals and Values: Welcome back. Now
in this lesson, we're going to address a
very important pitfall that many professionals
they tend to fall into, which is the misalignment of
goals with their own values. So what does that
mean? First of all, when you are picking up a first, you need to make sure that you know what are you
trying to pursue, and what do you stand
for as an individual? What are the things
that you would like to pursue and
you are okay with, and it aligns with
your own vision and values compared to goals which do not align
with your values. In other words, reflect on
what matters the most in life, your own life, not
anyone else's life. Unfortunately, we
tend to pick up goals based on other
individuals preferences. Or we see, for example, anyone doing a certain task, we think that it's
something good, so we need to do it ourselves. That's far from the
truth. You have to be very careful with this. You need to make
sure, first of all, that you are being
quite true to yourself. You have a clear idea. What are your values? For example, you value freedom. You value time,
you value health, you value whatever it is. And this should be
uniquely yours, like you actually
value this, right? You're not valuing something because someone else
values that thing. You have to be very
careful with this. So make sure that you
have some time to reflect and identify
the values which are really important to
then the goals that you are creating should be
relevant to your values. They're actually helping you build up and enforce
those values, and nothing is worse than
pursuing something in one direction and your values
are in the other direction. This is catastrophic. You will be demotivated. It gives you a sense of what we call as depersonalization. In other words,
sounds like a fake. Why? Because you are doing
something which is not you. Right? Why? Because you think it's something
that needs to be done, or you are picking up goals because your friends
have picked up those goals, or you have seen someone
or something on TV, and you decided to
pick up those goals. Unfortunately, this will not
work in the long run for you because the goals that you
create should be personal. This is what I've said
at the beginning. Everyone got their
own unique life. And as you go through life, you cannot apply the measures or the goals of
someone else's life. Everyone got their own path. You could get inspiration.
Don't get me wrong. You could get inspiration from other people's journey,
avoid their mistakes. This is part of wisdom, where you actually learn from someone else's mistake before committing that
mistake yourself. For example, you do not have
to fall to know it hurts. If you have seen
someone fall and you see them get hurt
because of the fall, you're able to learn from their mistake and
avoid that fall. This is part of your own growth. So as you go about this,
make sure that you are true to yourself by setting goals
which are related to you. What would you like to
pursuing your life, whatever it is, what are the things that you
would like to grow in? Forget about the external noise, whatever you hear online, social media, whatever it is. What would you like to pursue? It takes time. It takes effort. It takes reflection for
you to understand this. But once you identify this, you're able to know what are the goals which
align with this. That way, you're able to create smart goals which are relevant, which will help you
maintain motivation. Why? Because as you go through the process, let me
tell you something. Motivation fades. First week, you're excited. Then it goes away. Then what happens? You're going to call it quits on your goals. After 90% of the people,
this is what they do. However, in order to make
sure that you are consistent, you're able to pursue your
goals to get the job done, you need to have a purpose
driven commitment. This is very important. It increases the chances of you committing to
your goal because the goal is valuable to you and it's important to if
it's important to you, it means it's related
to your own vision, your own preferences, your
own persona in that sense. So if things go wrong along the way or you face
some difficulties, guess what? You
will push through. However, if the goal is not yours and it doesn't
align with your values, your own innate
values, guess what? At the first difficulty, you're going to call it
quits because you've got an excuse to leave that goal subconsciously because
it's not aligned to you. So keep in mind,
in order for you to succeed and crush your goals, you need to make sure that the goals that you are creating, they actually resonate
with your own values. This will help you
reinforce your values, support your
motivational efforts, actually proceed further against difficulties and against
the odds because why? Your values are part of you.
6. Competing Priorities: And as you go about tackling
your goals and priorities, often you'll come at a point, which is important to
know how to navigate where you do have
competing priorities. Life is not about
black and white. You do have gray. So you
have a clear to do list, you got tasks list. However, there are tasks
which are going to compete with each other in terms of importance
and time frame. So how do you navigate this? First of all, evaluate the task, identify critical and
impactful activities. The way I'd like
to think about it, if a task is urgent that
needs to be done right now, and if I don't do it, it has a negative consequence,
direct negative consequence. This is the first
thing on the list. Get it out of the way. Think about it in terms of the negative consequences that's going to happen if you
don't do that task. How severe are so the most severe consequences
from the most related task, in that case, this is the first thing that
you need to tackle, especially if you do
have competing tasks, which leads us to saying no, decline non essential
commitments. This is very important. Let's say you're
working on something. You're trying to
go on a project. You're trying to pursue
a certain hobby. You try to figure
out a certain goal, whatever it is
that you're doing, you're trying to do as part
of your goal setting process. Obviously, there will
be distractions. For example, your friends
might call you up, that it's time to go on a certain activity,
for example, right? So what happens is, you're
going to get distracted. Make sure that you decline
non essential commitments. So all of these
commitments which are not related or which are
not part of your life, which are not essential
to your life, you're going to be actually
taking some of your time. So learn to say no, if, for example, at work, your colleague asks you to
create their own report, their own work, do their own
job, and helping them out. Well, it's up to
you at that case. You could do it once,
you can do it twice, but if it becomes repetitive, learn to say no,
that you know what? I got stuff to do,
and that's it. So by default, you eliminate unnecessary
commitments which actually get in the way of you pursuing those goals, pursuing
your growth. Delegate when you
can. Now, there are tasks that you could
pass onto others, your friends, your colleagues, if you are a manager,
for example, working in a company
or a business owner, irrespective, a content
creator, whatever it is. There are certain
tasks which you are getting involved in on
a day to day basis, which are not really
that critical, or you have the
ability to pass it on to someone who specialized and they could get the job done. As good as you or
better than you and still maintain progress
towards that goal. So there's nothing
wrong with delegating tasks to the right individuals
to get the job done. So if you have
competing priorities, you could tackle one task
and delegate the other task to someone else or
evaluate the tasks. Which one has a higher
negative consequence? Let's say if I ignore it, deal with that
first. Then say no. If you're working
on certain stuff and you got your
colleague that comes up, can you help me with the report, or if you have
time, by all means, you could help your colleagues. However, if that becomes
a repetitive thing where, for example, your colleague
is going for coffee and you are the one
dealing with the report, you need to learn how to say no, because at the end of the day, you could initiate helping them for one time,
two, three times. But if you notice it
becomes some sort of a repetitive cycle where they go for coffee and you're
the first person, they go for it to help
them with the report, where they are actually
delegating the task to you. So think about it that way. So when you have
competing priorities, here's a roadmap to keep at
the back of your mind to help you navigate your day to day
activities and to do list.
7. More Than a List: And welcome back. So
we've learned about smart goals, the
Eisenhower matrix, how to navigate
conflicting priorities, how to align our goals with our values in order
to make sure that we stay motivated
and to move forward. And often, all of this
ends up on a to do list. Now, a typical to do list, something that maybe
you have done. Everyone has used a
to do list before. It looks something like this, where you have a list of
tasks, and that's mainly it. And often this list gets bigger
and bigger and bigger on a day to day basis
and often doesn't get concluded as intended. Why? Because it doesn't align
with what we have discussed. Specific, measurable,
achievable, relevant time boundy
goals, smart goals. So you need to add your own to do list. Think
about it as a guide. Add some time bound frame, for example, for a certain goal. What are you trying to achieve? How long would it take
any specific numbers which might help you
quantify that goal. As you go about creating
your to do list, you could add certain elements
such as top priorities, for example, key important tasks based on the
Eisenhower matrix, stuff for tomorrow, you could
schedule them for later. Again, based on
Eisenhower matrix. Feel free to add extra insights which are related
to your own life, appointment and cards,
whatever it is. Notes, things that pop up. Obviously, the to do
list is not concrete. Think about it like
work in progress. As you go about this, as you engage through building
your own to do list, and you're able to incorporate the elements of smart goals, the Eisenhower matrix,
you're able to inject your own aspects
of life into it. That way, the to do list
becomes uniquely yours. You're able to frame it in a way to help you move forward
based on your own life. Because if you take that to do list and give it
to someone else, it's not going to
work because it has different elements based
on that individual's life. So how do we incorporate what we have learned
in our to do list? Make sure that all of
the goals or the tasks, they are quantifiable, right? You're able to have a
certain measure to them, right, in order to
track your progress along the days, along the weeks. And then you do
have the element of delegation or importance or priorities based on
the Eisenhower matrix, which will help you to arrange your to do list
in a systematic fashion. You could clearly
number the tasks based on importance or arrange them
based on the importance, one, two, three, four and five. That way, you have
a clear idea which tasks you should tackle
first and then sequence. So whatever detail that
you think is necessary, Feel free to add it
to your to do list. That way, it aligns with
your own unique goals. It aligns with what we
have discussed so far. So instead of having a list, which includes random items, you have a targeted list, which helps you move forward as part of achieving your
goals and ambitions.
8. Wrapping Up: So what do you think?
I truly hope that you found the class
quite helpful if you added at least 1% help you move forward 1% means it has
done its job perfectly. I look forward to receiving your feedback on the
current class and make sure that you follow
my profile for the latest releases and updates, and I'll see you
in the next class.
Engr. Hussein Attié, CEO I Engineer I Educator
