Set Goals for the Week – and finally FINISH things.

Fun fact – every week, I make progress on my big life goals. Every. Single. Week. And that’s because I’ve figured out how to set goals for the week!

If you know anything about me, you know that I love a good system. Building a solid weekly goal review system has been key to accomplishing the Big Things that I’m proud of – running a half marathon, teaching myself piano, and learning German, to name a few. If you don’t have a system for reviewing your goals, fear not! We can build one from scratch pretty simply.

First, I’m assuming you have goals. If you don’t have any (and don’t know how to start choosing them), check out my list of 100 for some inspiration. And if your goals aren’t SMART, clean them up a little with my goal guide.

Now, you have a list of goals. Now what?!

Step 1: What are your priorities?

Here’s the deal – if you focus on everything at once, you’ll never get anything done. So choose 1-3 priorities to focus on. Limiting the number of things on your plate will allow you to really focus on each of them and make noticeable progress on all of them. Noticeable progress is incredibly motivating, so you’ll be able to sustain your focus on the priorities until they move out of “Works in Progress” into “Things I’ve Done”.

If your goal list is only 1-3 items long, congratulations! You can probably make real progress on all of them on a weekly basis! But if it’s longer than that, choose your 1-3 before moving on.

Step 2: Break it into big chunks of work

I’ll choose an example to work through here – I’m currently working on building a storage bench for my back terrace. It’s my first big woodworking project, so I don’t know the exact steps to take or how long it will take for each step.

But first, I’ll figure out what my best guess of the steps will be:

• Find a bench plan
• Buy wood
• Ensure I have the rest of the materials (screws, wood glue, stain, etc)
• Cut wood to length
• Sand/stain pieces
• Attach pieces

A word of reassurance: these steps don’t have to be very detailed or even accurate! This is just a starting point, a first draft. As time goes on, you’ll have many opportunities to edit it.

After you’ve penciled out your 1-3 priorities into big chunks of work, it’s time for the next step.

Step 3: Do a feasibility check

Take a look at your lists of steps. Highlight which ones you can work on right NOW. For the rest, note what needs to happen before you can do it.

For my storage bench example, the project is pretty linear, so the only really feasible step is to find a build plan. Once I know what I’m going to build, I can assemble a cut list and buy wood (oops – there’s a task I missed on my list! I’ll go back and add it).

But since there’s only the one thing I can do right now, that will be one of my goals for the week. Once you have your list of what’s feasible to do right now, you can move on to the next step to set goals for the week.

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Step 4: Plan your week – and set goals for the week

If you’re a calendar user, pull it out now. If not, it might be worthwhile to jot this down on paper.

First, fill in all your time commitments. When do you need to work? When’s that doctor’s appointment? And don’t forget about your weekly happy hour or trivia night. In order to set achievable goals, you have to be realistic about the time you have available.

Make sure you’ve scheduled in enough transition time. I’m notorious for being late, and it’s often because I didn’t acknowledge that it takes time to put on my jacket and shoes, so I can’t start getting ready at the exact time I need to leave.

Ok, now that you have a realistic plan for your time this week, look at the free spots. It’s important to have down time and practice good self-care, but find some windows of time that you can commit to your weekly goals – and schedule the blocks of work in!

If you don’t have any free blocks of time, it’s on you to create them. If you want your big life goals to be a priority in your life, you have to prioritize them! And if you really don’t have anything you can cut out of your schedule (and I understand – if you’re working multiple jobs to keep a roof over your head, free time is rare), then maybe you should reevaluate your big goal priorities. Finding time to read recreationally or take a bubble bath can be excellent weekly goals, if they keep you sane.

But we’re not done yet – there’s one more step.

Step 5: Execute, evaluate and set goals for next week

Now you get to live your week! And at the end of the week, sit down with your weekly plan and evaluate how you did – did you get everything done that you had planned? Why not?

For me, I tend to underestimate how much time it will take me to accomplish tasks. So every week during my evaluation time, I make some notes on how long it actually took me, so that I can get better at estimating.

If you found yourself avoiding doing the tasks that you’d scheduled for yourself, take this time to examine why. Is it intimidating? Maybe it needs to be broken into smaller steps. Did you find yourself drained after work, when you had planned to do the work? Maybe try and move the tasks earlier in the day, or allow yourself a quick 20-minute refresh before you get started on your big goals.

And remember – you don’t have to have the answer right now! Because this is just the first round of your weekly goals. Now you get to go through the process again and plan the coming week.

Wash, rinse, repeat. You’ll be surprised at how much you get done when you set goals for the week, every week.