Setting Goals and Smarts

Academic Skills Advice

Setting Goals and SMARTs

This workshop will

- Cover the basic principles of effective goal-setting

- Enable you to practise making your targets SMART, rather than vague and hard to achieve.

- Introduce you to detailed action plans.

Teaching Points: 1. Basic Principles 2. SMARTs 3. Action Plans 4. Time management

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1 Academic Skills Advice 1. Basic principles

Why do we need goals?

Motivation: Goals keep you going, and help you remember why you started your degree

Focus: A goal keeps us on point, and helps to maintain your focus on a target

Progress: Goals show how far you are along a path to achievement

Achievement: When a goal is reached, you will get a celebratory sense of satisfaction

Goals are a great help to being a successful student. Get used to setting and attaining meaningful goals now as they are a driving force behind you being able to monitor yourself (and others) effectively, and being accountable for your actions in your future professional life.

Setting goals is a process – it’s not just about deciding something of the cuff and making promises you’ll do it. It’s about:

 planning what needs to be done (the task)

 deciding when it needs to be done by (the deadline)

 choosing what resources are needed to get it done (the tools)

The above translate into…

 a spelling out of the steps that you will follow to achieve your target/deadline

 a time schedule for when each step must start and how long it is likely to take

 a clarification of the resources you will need

Take control and make it happen!

Activity 1: Your goals On the table overleaf, indicate with a (✓) if the item is something that you want to gain from your time at University. Put more than tick if you think the item is very important (✓✓). Go through the items you ticked and rate them in order of importance (1 for the most important, 2 for the next in importance, and so on). Circle your top 2 goals.

Whilst at Importance Order of Whilst at Importance Order of www.brad.ac.uk/academic-skills

2 Academic Skills Advice University I want to me? Importance University I want to me? Importance to: to:

Improve my Reflect effectively assignment Learn how to writing skills revise for exams Perform good Work with groups presentations of people Gain report Use internet writing skills sources Have effective appropriately time Take notes management competently Use grammar Know how to and punctuation critically analyse correctly a piece of work Read efficiently Other academic skills:

2. SMARTs

The SMART model can be part of this process, and is great for focusing on one particular task. There are a number of versions of SMART, but the following stages and definitions have been chosen for tasks and skills relating to students’ needs.

SMART: • Specific – who, what, where, when • Measurable – targets (how much, when) • Achievable – break down into steps and don’t over-reach yourself • Relevant – be willing and able to complete the task • Time-based – within a set timeframe (Yemm, 2013)

My sample task and SMART is shown below:

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3 Academic Skills Advice

Item Wanting to be able to talk to Italian waiters, bus drivers, ticket sellers, etc for a holiday Specific Speak basic Italian

Measurable To order food, use transport, and other social activities

Attainable Yes – have time and will buy book/s; take classes; practice

Relevant Yes – want to enhance my holiday, and have time and money to complete task Time- By July, so 8 months based

Let’s count up which was the most popular goal, and do a SMART matrix

Item

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Time-based

Activity 2: Your SMART

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4 Academic Skills Advice Choose one of your top two goals and create your own SMART. Work with your neighbours to consider how they have put theirs together. Don’t worry if you find this tricky – a lot of people do.

Item

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Time-based

3. Action plans

Now that you have your SMART, the next stage is to produce an action plan. This will provide you with the fine detail of what you want to do, when to do it by and what you need to complete it.

Remember the reasons we have goals?

Motivation: Goals keep you going, and help you remember why you started your degree

Focus: A goal keeps us on point, and helps to maintain your focus on a target

Progress: Goals show how far you are along a path to achievement

Achievement: When a goal is reached, you will get a celebratory sense of satisfaction

Using action plans dovetail perfectly with the above. If you look at the sample action plan below, at a glance you can see what you have to do and when (focus and progress), what you have done – putting those ticks in the boxes feel brilliant (achievement), which keeps you going to the next stage (motivation).

There is a blank template for you to use on page 7. You don’t have to have 3 milestones for each main thing to do – you might have less or more.

Speak basic Italian Main things to do Steps to take What indicates Start date Target completion date

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5 Academic Skills Advice (Milestones) successful completion? 1 buy/borrow book/s A research List of 1.11.15 01.1.16 online and recommended amongst books friends for recommende d books B visit Presence at book 8.11.15 01.1.16 bookshop/libr shop/library ary and ask for assistance C buy or take Purchased book 8.11.15 01.1.16 out book/s

2 take classes A research List of classes, 15.11.15 31.1.16 online for education centres classes and contact details B contact Completed list in B 22.11.15 31.1.16 education for each class centre to confirm start date/length of course/regula rity of classes/level of Italian/locatio n/price/availa bility C attend first Attendance at first As approp 31.3.16 class class

3 practice A ask friends, 1.11.15 15.12.15 colleagues and family members if want to do too B make 31.1.16 1.3.16 decision about when

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6 Academic Skills Advice will practice and how often C start 31.1.16 July 2016 practising

Task: Main things to do Steps to take (Milestones) What indicates successful completion?

1 A

B C

2 A

3 A

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7 Academic Skills Advice 4. Time Management

You may be used to planning or it may be a new notion to you, but whichever it is, ensure you plan well in advance and are realistic about the time frame you have allowed. Work when you know you are at your best and remember:

It is not planning to deadlines... It’s planning from a deadline: working backwards from it.

If it is a new idea for you, imagine you have an assignment with a deadline in 8 weeks – that is your submission date and the latest date you have.

Think about what you need to do to complete it: deciphering the question, research and reading, organisation of notes, structure of assignment, writing, editing and proofing.

Allocate a number of weeks or days to each task.

Write out the action plan with these dates starting from the submission date and working backwards.

References

Cottrell, S. (2013) The Study Skills Handbook. 4th ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Shapiro, J. Action Planning. Johannesburg: Civicus. [online] Available at: http://www.civicus.org/new/media/Action%20Planning.pdf [Accessed on 16.6.2014]

Yemm, G. (2013) Essential Guide to Leading Your Team: How to Set Goals, Measure Performance and Reward Talent. London: Pearson Education. [online] Cited on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria#cite_note-Yemm-4 [Accessed on 20.2.2014]

Visuals from Clip Art - motivation/focus/progress/winner/idea/question