Setting SMART Goals for Productivity

day 1: setting smart goals

12/18/2018

Setting SMART Goals #EpiWritingChallenge

To kick off the first #EpiWritingChallenge, we started by setting SMART goals.

SMART goals are

specific
measurable
achievable
results-focused
time-bound

Goals for writing challenges often fall in one of several types:

Writing daily (time goals, content goals)
Starting a project
Finishing a project
Working on a skill

You may have an overall objective of finishing your dissertation, or a large project, or making time in your daily schedule to improve your writing. All of these can be broken down into SMART goals.

The first #EpiWritingChallenge occurred in November 2018. All 20 days are documented here as blog posts, and have been edited to be applicable beyond the challenge. Learn more about the #EpiWritingChallenge here.

not sure where to start? want some example goals?

The #RxWritingChallenge was to write for 30 minutes each day. There are plenty of articles out there that talk about how important it is to write something every single day – no matter what it is. It’s a key step in formulating an effective writing habit that helps productive.

Writing daily

Writing daily for 30 minutes - see this great post from Raul Pacheco-Vega
Writing for 30 minutes 3 times a week
Writing 500 words per day
Writing 1 page per day

Starting a project

Starting the literature review for your thesis / dissertation / next paper
Starting the manuscript for your thesis / dissertation / next paper

Finishing a project

Finishing the literature review or the manuscript!

Working on a skill

Work on your writing skills by editing previous papers, reading about writing, etc.

what counts as 'writing'?

Tasks that contribute to productive writing count as writing!

If you put off writing a draft until you’re in a “writing mood”, you may find that weeks have passed.

Sit down and just type, no matter how bad you think it is. Starting is often the hardest part.

Organizing the author list counts.
Updating your references counts.
Checking the journal’s formatting guidelines and formatting your work counts.
Reading background material for the introduction counts.

It all counts!

John Steinbeck wrote in the Fall 1975 issue of the Paris Review to “abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the…pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.”

There are so many steps from an idea to a publication, and it is easy to feel overwhelmed or jaded when one step becomes more of a hole.

Build on small goals and gain momentum.

Sloppy writing can be cleaned up, edited, deleted, re-written.
But a blank page cannot.

achieving smart goals

Later on in the blog post recap, we’ll be talking about productivity and time management systems but to get you started, I want to point out the Pomodoro Technique.

It involves bursts of work followed by short breaks, and repeated for several cycles.

If you have trouble paying attention, and find yourself distracted, this technique might be particularly helpful.

Here’s a Lifehacker article to explain it more, and a video to watch if you’re more into that.