Goals can be very effective ways to meet work-place demands in a timely manner. Goals are measurable, short-term objectives. Simply by setting an appropriate goal, you can better organize your day or week. Decades of research have supported the effectiveness of goal setting on performance in a variety of tasks. However, for a goal to be effective, it must be designed properly by being specific and difficult. Specific goals are much more effective than non-specific goals, because your progress can be assessed. For instance, setting a goal of reading 20 pages of a report is a good goal because you can determine whether or not it was accomplished. If your goal was to "read a lot of the report" then you might determine 5 pages into it, that you had accomplished that goal, when in reality, you had not read enough. Goals should also be difficult, but not too challenging. A goal that is too easy, such as "respond to one e-mail today" are not motivating because they present no challenge at all. Overly difficult goals (e.g., "improve my sales by 50 percent in one month") are also not motivational; they are so challenging that a person may give up too soon, realizing they will never reach the goal. In addition to being appropriately specific and difficult, you are more likely to reach goals to which you are committed. A lack of interest or commitment in reaching the goal makes the goal-setting process futile.
One of the advantages of setting goals to improve time management is that, over time, you gain a more realistic understanding of what can be accomplished in a workday. People who do not often set goals may not be aware of what their capabilities are; however, those who have set goals more consistently have a good idea of which goals they have been able to meet and which were set too high or too low.
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