You may have heard of Milind Soman, the actor and marathon runner who earned the title of ‘Iron Man Of India’. He completed a 3.8-km swim, a 180.2-km cycle ride and a 42.2-km run in under 17 hours. Doesn’t it make you wonder how he built the stamina and discipline to earn this title?
Soman, like other marathon runners, has a recipe for success. Their consistency comes from measuring progress—they constantly monitor their training and diet plans. They literally stay on track by staying on track! Let’s see how tracking progress can make a difference to our daily lives.
What Does It Mean To Track Progress?
We all set goals in our life. Some goals can be long-term. You may start to lose focus and motivation when pursuing long-term goals. You may lose track of what we were doing, start taking our goal lightly or we feel like we’re going to be stuck in the same place forever. This can be disheartening and demoralizing.
To stay committed to our goals, you need a way to understand how far you’ve come in achieving them. Find ways to measure and track progress. This will help you feel energized and motivated about your goals. Tracking each milestone and achievement will help us identify whether we’re making progress in the right direction. In short, the answer to two key questions:
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What have we done so far?
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What are we doing to do next?
is the same: track progress.
Why Track Your Progress?
When we feel that we’ve made progress in what we’re doing, it helps us visualize our plans more clearly. We create a step-by-step guide for achieving our targets. This makes the goal-setting process less overwhelming.
Let’s see why it’s important to monitor progress towards our goals.
1. Stay On Track
It’s difficult to stay focused and motivated for long-term projects. But if you track your progress, you can note how far you’ve come and how much is left to do. Monitoring your project progress can help you avoid mistakes and identify habits that can improve the quality of your work in the future.
2. Monitor Your Progress
Goals in the workplace are often measurable and time-bound. Whether you’re working towards a goal by yourself or with a team, make sure you monitor your progress. (www.bottomlineequipment.com) It’s a good idea to have a detailed record of what you’ve been up to and how your contributions have made a difference.
3. Create Crucial Milestones
Break a larger long-term goal into milestones. Milestones help you track progress because they tell you if your efforts work or not. They typically mark decision points, work cycles and the completion of tasks. For example, if you have to ask your employer to give you a raise, your work-related milestones can better support your request. You’ll feel confident in asking for what you deserve because your performance has improved over time.
4. Mental Satisfaction
When you know what you’ve been up to, you don’t feel lost or confused. If you document achievements and track your progress effectively, there’s a sense of accomplishment. Even if you’ve only made a little progress, you’ll at least be certain that you’re on the right path. Celebrate your achievements, no matter how big or small they are.
How To Monitor Progress In The Workplace
Businesses monitor progress because it helps them spot and address problems on the go. Additionally, it motivates employees to focus on their strengths and understand how their work contributes to overall organizational success. Let’s see how you can effectively track work progress:
1. The bigger a task is, the more likely are we to procrastinate. You can break down large tasks or long-term goals into smaller tasks or smaller goals. When you break your tasks down, it helps you organize your work and makes you feel less overwhelmed.
2. Scheduling is a good way to track work progress. When you set personal deadlines or timelines for monitoring project progress, you establish milestones over a period of time. It helps you identify the obstacles or resources influencing your performance.
3. Do a monthly personal performance review. It may sound strange to evaluate your own performance at work when the organization does it for you, but it’s a good way to keep yourself motivated. You can reflect on your personal goals and cross things off your personal checklist.
Conclusion
Harappa Education’s Executing Solutions course will teach you how to manage expectations and navigate roadblocks. You’ll learn how to balance short-term focus with long-term vision through the Bifocal Approach model. Stay on track and find successful ways of reaching your goals by monitoring your progress. Proactively track your progress and take responsibility for your actions, so you find executable, successful solutions every time.
Explore topics such as Project Management, Project Management Process, Project Management Triple Constraint & Fight or Flight Response from our Harappa Diaries blog section and develop your skills.