Theory

2. Breaking down your goals

In the ABC exercise, you broke down your goal into smaller weekly tasks.

Remember these: Break tasks down into small enough parts to make sure you get them done. A reasonably sized task would be, for instance, one hour of work at a time. This way, you will get positive experiences as you get things done.

Break the goals down into weekly tasks by asking yourself: what do I have to do to meet this goal?

• For example, if your goal is to pass a mathematics course, your weekly tasks will include going to lectures, getting the study materials, doing the homework, going to math exercise classes, practising with your friends, asking for advice, finding any missing pieces of information online, and going over the areas you don’t know well enough yet.
• If your goal is to get fit, your weekly task is to exercise 4 times per week.
• A 5-credit course studied at a steady pace over a period of six weeks has a fairly high weekly workload. It will take a total of 135 working hours to pass the course. This spread over six weeks equals more than 20 working hours per week, which you should record in your weekly schedule.