When the first of every month is creeping around the corner, I get excited to start with a fresh, new slate (anyone else?). A new month means new goals and new projects that I get to organize, and it makes me so happy because I’ve implemented a system that not only helps me to organize my goals, but MAINTAIN them throughout the month.

Okay, I can practically see your eye roll through the computer. Do you have lots of goals and projects but you don’t even know what to do with them? Do you set goals and then completely forget about them?

Well, that was me a few months ago and I would get very down on myself because I wasn’t accomplishing #allthethings every single day. The reason I titled this REALISTIC goal setting is because we’re dreamers! We’re optimistic, hard working and have very big goals, but we have to remember that we’re only one person and there’s only so much we can handle.

So, today I’m going to share with you how to set and maintain realistic daily, weekly and monthly goals for your business.

Naturally as an entrepreneur you have BIG goals for your business, as well as trying to stay on top of all the current projects you’re working on. In order to dream big and maintain your workload, you need three resources:

1. Cultivate What Matters Powersheets – I swear by my powersheets because they help me to set daily, weekly, monthly & quarterly goals with check-ins. I highly recommend this for the business owner with lots of plans & needs help organizing.
2. Asana – Project management tool that you can share with your whole team.
3. A planner – I use the Rifle Paper Co planner because it’s beautiful and functional. You can see days, weeks and months all laid out which is super helpful!

The combination of these three resources has made a HUGE impact on organizing and maintaining the goals I set for myself and has proven to not only accomplish the goals I set, but exceed them tremendously. As a visionary, I need to have things written down and on paper, but if you have a system that works for you – then use it! These are just suggestions because it’s what I’ve been using and it works for me!

Before we get started, some relatable blog posts:

My favorite management & marketing resources

How to be & feel productive as a creative business owner

Tools & resources I can’t live or work without

5 methods to stay on track with your daily tasks

Set Monthly Goals

I like to start with the big monthly goals and then break them down from there. Now, when setting your monthly goals think of what you realistically can handle and how long each project will take you to accomplish.

Take into consideration the back and forth, business housekeeping, phone calls and other randomness that comes with being a business owner. Also, don’t forget about happy hour – this is very important.

Usually when setting monthly goals, I’ll come back to them about 2-3 times before I actually deem them my goals for the month! You want to be certain that you can handle them and that it’s realistic for you to accomplish them.

Since most goals require smaller tasks in order to be accomplished, I go into Asana after I’ve set my monthly goals and break down each goal into individual tasks. With this, you can set due dates and assign the tasks to different people (if you have multiple people on the project), which is very helpful because you get notifications when a due date it coming up!

I only use Asana for my big monthly goals because I’m not good at checking in every day. If you need something for everyday, then you can definitely use Asana, but remember to set realistic goals!

Setting Weekly Goals

So now that you have a handle on the big picture, start small. At the end of every Friday I make a list of 10-15 tasks I would like to accomplish for the following week. Again, think about how long each task will take you and if it’s even possible to finish everything.

Doing this will allow you to take a look at what you accomplished the week before and then get you excited for what’s coming up in the next week. You won’t be dwelling on what wasn’t finished, or worrying about it over the weekend because you’ll know exactly what you’re excited to get started on once Monday rolls around.

Daily goals

Okay, so let’s take it down even smaller and start setting daily goals. Take the list that you made with the tasks you’d like to accomplish and pick 3-4 tasks you’d like to accomplish that day. Because owning a business means a never ending hole of work that you have to do, accomplish those tasks and call it a day. Don’t start something an hour before your work day ends (I’m 100% guilty), just finish the tasks and leave your work area.

I hope this helps in setting and maintaining realistic goals for your business. Remember… it’s OKAY to change your goals every month because we’re always changing and so is our business!