Goals serve as a filter to eliminate strange requests, giving life an order, meaning and purpose that maintain interest and motivation for a long period of time. Goal setting begins with an awareness of the present and a desire to change the future. The sole purpose of the goal setting process is to guide you throughout the journey from desire to fulfillment.
Focus on top-priority activities: The quickest way to increase productivity is to spend your time on tasks that bring you closer to important goals. 80% of the results you get come from 20% of the tasks you do.
Exercise self-discipline: Self-discipline allows people to stay focused on a task and work on it until it's done. Set your priorities, and then don't allow distractions, interruptions, or current events to destroy your focus. Maintain your discipline for each task only as much time and effort as it really deserves or delegate it to other members of your team.
Be persistent: Careful planning and goal setting, a determination to achieve them, and the recognition of the benefits of reaching a goal are all vital to your personal productivity. Persistent individuals keep their goals in mind and work hard toward them until they relish the success of achieving them.
Get going! the best way to guarantee the completion of a project is to start it now! Start the required work and avoid thinking if you "have to." Face the fact that some jobs will never be "easy" now or later.
Strive for results - not perfection: Overemphasizing perfection almost always leads to negative consequences (immobilizing fear of making mistakes, discouragement and worrying about what others think, rather than true productivity)
The power of written goals: Writing your goals forces you to clarify and crystallize your way of thinking. At the beginning of each week, you have to dedicate time, specifically, just to plan.
Tracking and feedback: Tracking your progress toward achieving a predetermined goal provides valuable feedback that allows you to evaluate progress and make any changes necessary to reach your goals. An exact and systematic measurement of evolution will help you to progress even more. Tracking progress is the only way to know when you need to take action to get back on track.
