A mental note is a lost note. A short pencil is better than a long memory. If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.

That last quote is from Zig Ziglar. The first two my dad told me growing up…like…every day. They were drilled into my soul. “You have to write things down,” he’d say, “or it’s never gonna happen.” This is backed up by countless studies. I don’t know if successful people tend to write things down, or if writing things down makes you successful, but it doesn’t really matter which is the chicken and which is the egg – they both taste pretty good when they’re cooked and seasoned just right.

On this episode of A Time to Sharpen, we will discuss making SMARTr goals: goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-Bound…and “relationship-oriented.” We added that last letter to the famous acronym, SMART, because none of it matters to parents, teachers, and counselors, if we don’t have relationship, does it?

Plus, spelling it that way kind of reminded me of Dumb and Dumber. And I really like Dumb and Dumber.