Setting Goals and Being Organized Are the Keys to Success

The most important thing you can do to have a rewarding and successful life is to have long term and short-term goals that you write down. A Yale University study found that only 10% of their students had defined goals, and just 4% had actually written them down. More than four decades later it was discovered that the 4% who regularly wrote down their goals had a combined net worth greater than the 96% who did not.

From my own experience over the past 40 years, I can attest that when I have been disciplined about writing down my daily and long-term goals, I have almost always been successful in reaching and surpassing my goals. When I did not, I rarely even reached my goals.

Setting and writing down goals on a daily basis helps make us organized. People are not naturally organized, but it is a talent one can attain. Surveys have found that people who achieve the greatest success and run our largest companies are very well organized.

An organized person is in control of their life. If you make a habit of writing down your daily goals, and organizing them into a schedule you are taking an enormous step toward becoming a proactive and responsible person. You are actually planning how to accomplish everything you need to do from the important to mundane. You are also constantly aware of what you need to be doing if your scheduled goals are in view. Always knowing which goals are most important allows us to better manage our time even as events change.

Being organized means not creating chaos. This means never leaving something where it does not belong, whether it is a drink you sit next to you as you read a book, or a bill that needs to paid and filed. Everything should have a place where it is kept. An organized person does not allow their house, car, or office to be messy. Don't allow things to accumulate, or your clutter will overwhelm you.

written by Charly Mann