I cringe every time I hear someone talk about ‘SMART’ goals… Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time based.

I would  keep the SMT… but who cares if its Achievable or Realistic?

In fact I’d almost add them as measures in reverse… be unrealistic and aim for what it seems you can’t achieve.. and you might get a surprise when you find yourself achieving it

Aside: I’ve always known SMART as Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time-based. But Wikipedia suggests it should have Attainable and Relevant instead. My point still stands however… who cares if its Attainable? Relevance could be useful though.

I’ve just been reading the excerpt from Rework – it looks like this will be a fantastic book so I recommend you check it out. Ordering my own copy might wait till I move to the UK or until I have an e-book reader. But here’s my thoughts from the excerpt:

Meetings can be a colossal waste of time.

But we often do need to meet with people – at least to avoid distractions while working on something.

So what about micro meetings? 15mins max. Focused on just one issue.

I’m sure this has been suggested before. But has anyone tried this out?

How did it go?

It still suffers from mental switching costs: breaking out of what you’re doing and going somewhere else to meet. But it’s better than the ‘normal’ model of meetings and it’s probably easier to sell to other people you work (compared with just no meetings).

I mentioned getting things moving quickly and then tweaking.

The key here is not to worry if its not perfect – not the perfect job or the perfect business idea, etc.

Just start, get moving, and keep moving towards your vision of perfect.

I don’t mean just take any old thing, don’t compromise your values or your goals – but don’t put them off waiting for everything to line up.

Serendipity might not happen. But you make it happen.

And yet until recently blog was sitting stagnant.

I came up with the idea to use it as an incentive:
When I feel like consuming – I’m at a loose end, the automatic response is just to read blogs for a while.
Don’t. Publish instead.

Write something.

If I’m struggling with a problem.
Procrastinating.
Write about it.

I decided I’d try this for a week. And it’s been 2 weeks now.
I’m not doing it religiously but it got me started blogging again.
I’m still reading other blogs – but only a few key ones – and only when I actually have time – not when procrastinating.

Try it out.

Leave a comment and let me know if this worked for you too.
Or just tell me what strategies you have instead.

Inspired by this lifehacker post – Tim Ferriss and Marci Alboher on Redesigning Your Career – featuring Tim Ferris and Marci Alboher talking at Google about of their books.

The main gem I took from listening to them talk is this:

You can pursue multiple careers but don’t try and pursue them all at once.

Drive and build one for a while then move onto the next one… while continuing the previous one. Keep adding incrementally.

In the past I’ve made a few attempts at to do everything at once.

It doesn’t usually work out for me.

Start with one thing – what’s most important or urgent right now

Get it moving quickly and then tweak it

(Hat tip: Ben Young (@bwagy) and Chris Guillebeau for various chats and comments about this)

It creates space for new things

De-cluttering a house, creates a nicer space to live in.. and gives space for things you actually want

Clear out old documents, photos, projects, etc… create space for new ones that you actually want now

De-clutter your head…

This is part of why I blog.

It gets the ideas out of my head,
gets them into the world,
where they can contribute to others…

But it also de-clutters my head

Creating space for new ideas, new thoughts

(See also: Seth Godin talking about why he blogs)

That’s what I came up with when trying to squeeze my current ideas into 4 words for a recent Intersect meetup.

It is in part I was inspired by this recent post by Seth Godin.

I keep saying I’m busy and don’t have time to do things, but yet I’m spending a lot of my ‘non work’ time either doing things I feel a duty to do, instead of the things I really want to do.

So over the next few months, I’m going to endeavour to start doing less of the things I just do automatically or out of duty.

This doesn’t mean I’m just going to abandon things I’m expected to do (like fixes for old clients).
- That wouldn’t serve me or anyone else very well
But I’m going to start tieing up the loose ends: fixing problems properly, so I only do it once.

If I still have to do something I’m not excited about, I want to do it consciously not just as an automatic reaction.

Basically I’m aiming to discover how much free time I really have and then be able to dedicate that to things I’m really passionate about.