2.6. S.M.A.R.T. Goals

When you set goals for yourself, ensure you follow S.M.A.R.T. principles.

S - Specific:

Can you be more specific about this goal? What can be done to remove ambiguity from the goal?

Exercise would be a vague goal, but running for bicycling would add specificity to the goal.

Improving documentation is vague goal. But, reviewing and updating documentation for the installation steps would make it more specific.

M - Measurable:

Can you measure or count it? Would it be possible to identify whether you are going fast enough? Even if you don’t want to compare against outside world, can you compare against yourself? Are you faster than what you were doing yesterday?

For running or exercise, you can see how much minutes you have Run.

For any kind of documentation you can use number of words/lines/pages. With source code you can count the number of lines.

A - Achievable:

Will you be able to achieve it?

You may have a full day blocked for some activity, but because of back-to-back meetings, are you really sure that you will be able to work on that activity?

R - Relevant:

Do you really need this Goal?

Are sure that you’re not doing this just because it is easy to be done? In the larger scheme of things, is this something that you want to give your attention to, or you should better be to working on something else?

T - Timely:

Is there a timeline a deadline associated with this goal?

By today, by this week, 10 days before a particular milestone of a project

As an exercise, just set some goals what you want to achieve with this book, and see if they are S.M.A.R.T. or not.

Once you have goals, put them into Eisenhower Box and prioritize.