Goal vs Time

[Precious]

I little problem that I have is for example .. I set a goal, and my goals are unpredictable, like learn something in this time, or design something in this time, or other activities that I don't know how much they gonna last.When I study for example sometimes the materials are hard, and sometimes easy, and that influence my time on that goal.The same thing is when I design something ... sometimes I'm more creative, and sometimes I'm stuck, and need to look for inspiration.

And this way I write on my to do list that I will learn something in 2 hours.At the end of this 2 hours I find myself with only 80% material done.

Give me some advice.

[skydust]

i used to have the same problem before i realised that things usually take longer than we think they do. for example, if you have a day to lets say, go sightseeing in london, and you want to go see the british museum, big ben, the river, the lodon eye, and harrods, you will most likely only get around to half these places.

what i do, is i either assign more time than i think it will take to a project, or i put less things on my to do list for the day, and that way if you still have some time over, you can do extra things and feel good about it rather than not meet your goals and feel bad about it. so if you want to design something and you think it will take you 2 hours, put down 3 hours, or even 4.

hope this helps.

[Will Edwards]

Hi Precious

Your problem highlights precisely why you need to do the necessary planning before you put a time on your goal.

Break large goals down into smaller goals, then get into detailed planning for each small goal & watch your productivity explode.

[yinso]

I believe you are not going to be able to precisely time yourself until you've learned the topic, and in this case you are better served to let go of your time, and simply track progress.

We are all taught that in order to achieve your goal, you need to set a deadline. But you are not going to be able to predict when you would become a chess champion, nor do you know what all the tasks you need to do in order to become a chess champion. The only way to achieve such type of goals is to do it with a strong focus and keep learning, and focus ONLY on the immediate step ahead of you.

I have written a few articles on this particular topic on my blog - I am new here so to avoid looking like I am spamming, private message me if you want the specific links to the articles.

Thanks.