My Simple Trick to Easily Accomplishing Daily Goals

Posted on June 8, 2007 by Nate Whitehill

My Simple Trick To Easily Accomplishing Daily Goals

Last week I wrote about the importance of setting goals with a timeline. In the world of business development, it is vitally important to set reachable goals with a timeline that you will accomplish them by. At first, it may seem many of the goals may be long term goals, but by breaking these goals into daily goals, you are making it that much easier to follow through.

The Power of Breaking Up Your Goals

If you break up your bigger goals into smaller steps, you should be able to accomplish these smaller steps on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. For example, if your goal is to pay off a credit card balance of $2000, divide that goal into 10 steps of paying off $200 each time.

How many times have you made a daily or weekly to-do list without accomplishing all of your items? I know that I used to do that quite a bit. I would write out all my goals on my computer, and then a week later, come back to it, and realize I forgot to do several things on that list.

Why Do We Forget Our Goals?

Think about all of the times you have made a mental list of things to accomplish the following day. How many times have you actually done all of those things? Quite often, people simply forget their mental lists.

When you make a to-do list, often it is something you type up on your computer or write down on a piece of paper. Unfortunately, we do not always carry these lists with us during the day. What if you could have a constant reminder for your daily goals? Here is the trick:

  1. Every night, before you go to sleep, write down on a piece of paper (not your computer) 5-10 goals you would like to accomplish for the next day.
  2. Tape that piece of paper somewhere close to your bed so as soon as you wake up, you will be reminded of your goals.
  3. Once you wake up and get dressed, fold up that piece of paper and put it inside your pocket. You could even stick it to your coffee mug, or on your rear view mirror. The point is to be constantly reminded of what you made a goal to do that day.
  4. Once you accomplish the goals, cross them out. Do not throw away that piece of paper until all of the goals are accomplished or you have reassessed the need for them.

The Constant Reminder

The power of this technique is you are keeping focued on the goals for that day. At night, you can reassess and plan for the next day’s goals. Since most us do not have our computers with us at all times of the day, by having your list in your pocket, you will have a constant reminder.

No matter what you accomplish each day, whether you complete all your goals or not, it is very important psychologically to end your day by recognizing and emphasizing your successes. Too often we give too much weight to what we haven’t done and thus become too demoralized to do what still remains to be done.
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  • http://www.joshbuckley.net Josh Buckley

    Nice post nate,

    I find that it always helps to keep goals close to me. Using post-it notes stuck to your monitor is a very good method.

  • http://danielprimed.com Daniel Primed

    I always set goals for set periods of time. I usually do it for a weekly/bi-weekly/holiday period. When I wake up I think to myself “What are my goals for today?” and try and complete them. Sticky notes are a good idea if you need something to write your goals on.

  • http://www.alimadzi.com Patrick Lee

    Call me new-fangled, but I think there are a lot of advantages to using Web-based software to organize your goals. Something as simple as Ta-da List can be a powerful tool and you can always print a page to carry around with you.

  • http://antbag.com Anthony

    I agree about the smaller steps. I think it’s important to have 2-3 month goals, and then have those broken down to daily and weekly goals. You also have to have the habit of reviewing your goals and accomplishments as you achieve each one. For me personally, that’s the only way to keep my focus in the right direction.

  • http://fundszine.com Make Money With Funds

    Interesting read. I just noticed that today there are a lot of posts about motivation and goals in the blogosphere… Is it weekend or not? :D

  • http://www.blogtrepreneur.com Adnan

    Hey Nate – great post.
    @ Patrick – I’m not sure about all those online to-do list software thingys. I think that they are way over-hyped when in reality, paper does as good a job and is more versatile, customisable, easier and accessible.

    I find that breaking goals up like most can be a good way to work things, as having long and unreachable aims will get moral down and its more likely you won’t achieve what you’re after.

  • http://www.watchthisvid.com Frank

    I think Post-Its make the world go round.

    At the end of the day, my desktop around my keyboard is just littered with different post-its. Some have been crossed out and others are too vague and I forget what the info is supposed to be for. I think I need to centralize my note taking onto one central bit of paper. :)

  • http://www.communityspark.com/ Community Building Blog

    I like the idea of putting your goals on paper. Mine sit in a NotePad file on my PC’s desktop. Not visible enough, methinks!

    - Martin Reed

  • http://www.aimforawesome.com Vern at Aim for Awesome

    I have a free post-its notes for my windows xp desktop. There’s a few types going around. I love them. But now I have TOO MANY! Every couple days I go through and delete some and add some together to form my current todo list. Funstuff. I used to use post its papers – but they are all over the place – they don’t stick hard enough to my forehead or the back of my hand. I need post its with a rubber band bracelet around my wrist. I’d wear it – no lie! Nice blog – reading it a lot now. Vern

  • http://www.technologyevangelist.com Ed Kohler

    Great post. Many of the most effective people I know swear by paper lists. They’re always on and harder to forget or put out of your mind than electronically stored lists.

  • http://suncoastscribe.com/ Angie

    Holy Cow. You shoulds see my purse. It is an overflowing of little notes I have written myself and carry around to motivate me to accomplish tasks. Every now and then I just develop a sort of blindness to them and toss them all in the trash.

    I need to find a different method.

  • http://www.hoobin.com ken

    Just like to share my goal setting here. I’m using Microsoft office to set my goal as my master list. This is the list I will go to read everyday! Then, I will go through my next action list. I’m get this practice from the book “getting things done” by Allen, pretty pragmatic book, highly recommend for goal oriented people like you:)

  • http://www.simsnotes.com/ Simon

    Its very true that breaking up your goal into smaller steps really helps in the long run. Little pieces of paper can become annoying though, since I spend so much time on the computer anyway, I would much rather design a program that pops up my reminders every couple of hours or so until I’ve accomplished all my goals.

    Simon

  • http://www.charleslau.com Charles Lau

    I set my goals with daily targets to meet