How to Set Weekly Goals: 10 Examples to Get You Started

Do you remember the last time when you set a weekly goal?

It must have been a week before your birthday when you promised to adopt a healthy lifestyle!

Were you successful in achieving your goal?

Maybe for a day, or two; maximum!

But why did you fail?

This is because while setting weekly goals, you failed to define your targets effectively.

To put this into context with what people think about weekly goals across the world, let me share a statistic that may sound very alarming.

According to a scientific study, 92% of people do not achieve their goals! Are you also in this category and want to make a jump to the other 8%?

And what is that unique characteristic that sets this 8% apart from the rest of the lot?

Worry not, you are at the right place to understand the basics of setting weekly goals and effective ways to accomplish them.

The reason I am confidently talking about setting goals with measured targets is because I have been through a number of instances when I failed to deliver results even after setting goals. As a manager, I realized that goals are achieved only by setting realistic targets, and this has been instrumental in making me a successful CMO.

In this article, I will share the importance of weekly goals for managers, methods for fulfilling these goals, as well as 10 examples that will help you set realistic weekly goals that will assist you in progressing on your path toward success.

What are weekly goals?

Weekly goals refer to breaking down your goals into smaller chunks that you can achieve within a week. This is the best way to start goal setting.

In general life, your goal could be to own a cool BMW, but that is not a weekly goal. Weekly goal refers to small targets like hitting the gym for 3 consecutive days, avoiding eating out for 5 days, etc.

Simply put, weekly goals help you in progressing towards your long-term goals, as you can achieve and fulfill small targets in your journey towards the ultimate goal.

When it comes to the workplace, weekly goals refer to completing a specific task or a project activity within a week. This will help you in making steady progress toward your project completion.

Now that we have understood weekly goals, the next thing that you must be wondering now, is how you would implement this in your managerial workflow and its importance.

Why weekly goal-setting important for managers?

Let me put you in an imaginary situation to provide a better perspective of the importance of weekly goal-setting in an office environment.

You are working on publishing weekly content for your website. You set your goal to work for at least 1 hour every day. At the end of the week, you realize that you worked every day on the task, however, you could not publish any article. This is because you had not set a target that you could measure and evaluate.

So, instead of setting the target as 1 hour every day, you needed to define your target of writing at least 500 words each day. This way you would have ensured to achieve your target of publishing content weekly.

The key benefits of weekly goal-setting are as follows –

1. Helps you stay focused and on track

As the manager, you would always be faced with numerous challenges that compete for your attention. When you predetermine your weekly goals you are able to establish a clear priority in your tasks and ensure that you do not get lost. A steady focus will ensure that you are aligned toward achieving your goal and staying on track with the company’s vision.

2. Improves your productivity

When you set weekly goals, you break down large tasks into smaller chunks. This eliminates procrastination and prevents your team members from looking at tasks as daunting. Achieving smaller milestones regularly builds up a sense of accomplishment, thereby, improving the overall productivity of your team in successfully delivering quality projects.

3. Boosts your motivation

The sense of accomplishment that we discussed above serves as a continuous motivation for your team members. When your team is motivated, they are keen to accomplish more goals. This helps you to effectively complete projects on time.

4. Helps you achieve your long-term goals

When it comes to successfully achieving long-term goals, it is all a matter of working on incremental short-term goals. When you are focused on accomplishing short-term goals, you are actively aligned toward achieving your long-term goals as well.

5. Improved team collaboration and communication

As managers, we need to ensure that our teams have a clear and concise understanding of the weekly goals. Effective communication and collaboration ensure that team members align their goals with the vision of the company. This not only ensures that your weekly goals are fulfilled, but is fruitful for your company in the long run.

How to set & achieve effective weekly goals

Having seen the importance of weekly goals let us now analyze how we can set and achieve weekly goals in practical day-to-day applications. 

➡️ Assess your priorities and long-term objectives

Categorizing various tasks will help you to understand your priorities with ease. Prioritizing tasks will help you create a work order that will help you make steady progress toward the overall target of the company. 

Breaking down tasks into small manageable chunks is the most simple way to manage long-term objectives. When you provide your team members with specific and measurable goals they not only accomplish them on time but also deliver high-quality results. 

For instance, if you are looking to publish 100 articles for your website over a period of 1 year, break it down to ensure that 2 articles are continuously posted every week. This will ensure that you achieve your long-term objective of 100 articles.

➡️ Use the SMART goals methodology 

SMART goals refer to the goals that are SMART😉, i.e.,

S – Specific

Specific weekly goals refer to goals that are clearly defined, thereby, ensuring that your team members have a clear and concise understanding of what they are working on. 

M – Measurable 

Set goals that are tangible, this helps you measure the work completed at the end of the week. This will help you to analyze the work completed by your team members throughout that week. 

A – Achievable

Setting realistic targets is essential for achieving weekly goals. When you set far bigger targets, your team members feel like underachievers if they are not able to fulfill those weekly goals.

R – Relevant

The weekly goals that you set should be in line with the overall vision of the company. The weekly goals should relate to the longer goals which should eventually contribute to the overall.

T – Time-bound

Although weekly goals are time-bound, you can further set up goals that have defined time limits. This will further help your team members in working proactively toward fulfilling their weekly goals.

With the SMART goals methodology, you can not only set realistic weekly goals but also ensure that your team members are able to achieve those by ensuring that these goals are specific, achievable, and relevant.

Read more – Smart Project Management Goals That Actually Works 

➡️ Create a weekly goals planner or utilize digital tools

If you believe in creating a weekly plan and do not write it down, then you are not doing it right. 

This is because you are using your right brain to make a creative and imaginary roadmap, but when you actually write it down or use a planner you effectively induce your left brain and the subconscious brain into action. This will help you to convert your imaginary roadmap into an actual process. 

Further, technological advancements make this process additionally simpler with planning tools like ProofHub, which not only assist you in creating a plan but also effectively follow the plan and deliver quality results. 

Key features provided by ProofHub to effectively create and accomplish weekly goals 

👉 The intuitive task management dashboard assists you in creating an effective plan, delegating tasks, monitoring progress, and even identifying potential bottlenecks early.

👉 You can create task lists by breaking down projects into smaller manageable chunks, thereby, making them less overwhelming and easily achievable.

👉 When you break down tasks into smaller chunks, Gantt charts let you set dependencies between the subtasks you create and milestones so that your team members are aware of their individual tasks.

👉 At the start of every week, you can use Discussion while creating and assigning weekly tasks and task lists.

👉 Custom field reports help you to analyze the progress of your project and the individual performance of your team members. You can use this data to make the necessary changes in the schedule for your upcoming week.

👉 Powerful collaboration and communication features such as Notes, Chat, and Comments (@mention) help in aligning your entire team toward the vision of your company.

👉 Built-in time tracker that helps you to set time limits for various tasks. You can use timesheets to track time spent by your team members on various tasks and identify the real reason for delays.

➡️ Regularly review and evaluate your progress

A key criterion in ensuring steady progress and delivering quality projects is continuous evaluation and review of the various tasks. Review meetings should be held at least once in the latter half of the week to ensure quality work as well as timely completion of goals. 

A regular review involves scheduling sessions where you appreciate accomplishments and understand issues that caused complications in the smooth flow of project work. This will help you to identify specific spots where you need to improve and create roadmaps accordingly while planning future weekly goals. 

Further, these reviews and evaluations will help you to build an adaptable team that is able to make quick decisions and accomplish weekly goals with ease. Finally, you can use these meetings to plan and schedule tasks for the upcoming week. 

10 Examples of Weekly Goals for Managers

So far we have explored what weekly goals means, its importance and how to set them. Now in this section, I have basically listed 10 different weekly goals examples that you could set for yourself. This list is a combination of both personal as well as professional goals. 

1. Improve your time management skills

Start by creating a weekly schedule. This will help you to define your workflow and concentrate on completing them on time. Although it is essential for you to create a schedule with flexibility, it is equally important to say NO to new commitments.

Adding new tasks to your schedule will lower the importance and impact of your weekly schedule. In such cases, it is better for you to delegate tasks to your team members, thereby, establishing effective time management and also timely completion of project work.

2. Develop your leadership skills

Harnessing skills is a never-ending task. Spend your time constructively by reading books and articles on leadership. Allot a certain time throughout the week to improve on your leadership skill set in a week.

This will play a significant role in improving the overall performance of your team. Attending workshops and conferences will not only help you to develop your leadership skills but provide you with a platform for interacting with peers that will help you to gain different perspectives for all-round development.

3. Improve your communication skills

Clear and concise communication is the base for establishing a steady communication system with your team members. Fix a certain time every week when you provide your team members with constructive feedback. This will not only ensure that your team members are on the same page as you but also stay on track for completing the project on time.

Listening plays a key role in any leadership position. You need to listen to your team members to create an inclusive plan that will help align the entire team to the vision of the company.

Enhance internal communication in your team with these 13 Best Internal Communication Tools 

4. Build a strong team

By breaking down project tasks into small chunks, you are effectively building a positive and supportive team culture. With weekly goals, your team members can comprehensively reach the desired milestones.

Weekly goals help in analyzing the project progress and provide timely feedback that ensures steady progression of work and accomplishing weekly tasks with ease. 

5. Increase your team’s productivity

Weekly goals help you to define clear expectations regarding project work. This ensures that your team members are able to work clearly on their defined roadmap.

Further, ensure that you allot sufficient time for various tasks, and provide your team members with the necessary resources for successfully completing their work. When you set realistic weekly goals, and motivate your team members, the overall productivity of your team is enhanced.

Accomplish weekly goals with the 43 Productivity Tools to Enhance the Focus of Your Team 

6. Improve your problem-solving skills

When working with weekly time-bound goals, you need to be proactive when it comes to identifying roadblocks and problems. Small delays can cause a major impact, thereby, resulting in incomplete goals and productivity loss. 

It is essential for you to ask for help when you feel that you are not able to solve a certain problem. Weekly goals may look small, but the time period is short. Therefore, do not waste time searching for ideas, instead ask for help from an expert. 

7. Learn new skills

Growth is a never-ending process, and so is learning new skills. Skills not only play a key role in your professional development but also in your personal life as well. 

Fix a certain time every week for learning new skills. Set your goal to learn at least one new skill every week. Sign up for online courses, and workshops, read books, and articles to start with. Interacting and networking with peers and industry leaders are some of the best ways to learn new skills in your busy schedule. 

8. Stay up-to-date on industry trends

Technology advancements happen every day. You will have to spend a fixed time every day reading industry publications. Further, staying up-to-date will help you to understand trends within the industry.

Attending industry conferences and following industry thought leaders on social media are the basic ways to get started. Every small piece of news about new developments will eventually provide you with fruitful returns in the long run.

9. Spend time with your family

Building strong family relationships and personal life bonding is necessary to maintain a steady work-life balance. You need to set apart a fixed time for your family and friends.

When you schedule time with your family ensure that you completely spend time off the grid. This not only provides you with adequate relaxation but also serves as a stress buster.

10. Give back to your community

As far as it is important for you to concentrate on your tasks and personal life, it is essentially important for you to spend some time every week for the community as well.

This could be as simple as mentoring a young person, donating to a charity, or volunteering time at a local organization. This will not only help you in recreation but also help you to spend your time constructively, as you are nurturing the next generation who will walk in your footsteps.

You will start seeing the results when you align your efforts to your goals which in return will help boost your overall productivity.

Conclusion

Weekly goal setting is a powerful exercise that will help you to enforce complete control over your projects and team members. You are not only able to complete tasks on time but also work with enhanced efficiency and guide your entire team toward success.

By following the tips in this article, and implementing goal-tracking software in your day-to-day activities, you can effectively build a road map that will lead you on the path to success. A planner or a digital tool like ProofHub not only assists you in creating weekly plans but also ensures that you work accordingly.

Start setting realistic goals with these 11 Performance Management Tools

FAQs about Weekly Goals