Lisa WoodruffCEO and founder, Organize 365

Good, Better, Best Goals

13 Oct 2017 · 3 min

Watch on YouTube

2:53

In this solo talk, Lisa Woodruff shares her enthusiasm for goal‑setting and explains why she often falls into the trap of only setting big, hairy, audacious goals (BHAGs) that she never fully achieves. She introduces the "good, better, best" framework she heard on James Wedmore’s podcast, which breaks a single objective into three progressive levels: a "good" goal that must be met, a "better" goal that represents the desired outcome, and a "best" goal that is the ideal, often unrealistic, scenario. Lisa illustrates the concept with a concrete organizing example—decluttering a room is the good level, arranging items functionally is the better level, and creating a perfectly styled interior is the best level. She emphasizes that setting all three tiers helps ensure progress, reduces overwhelm, and yields substantial productivity dividends. The talk concludes with a call to listeners to adopt this tiered approach for any personal or professional goal.

Chapters

Let's talk about goal setting. This may not be your favorite thing, but it is my favorite thing. It is my favorite thing, maybe even more than organizing, possibly. I love goal setting. Like, I remember as a kid setting goals. I always set goals. The only problem with the goals that I set is that they are BHAGs— big, hairy, audacious goals. Like, Oh, this will not surprise many of you, especially my mother. So I heard on James Wedmore's podcast this idea of good, better, best goals. I was like, huh, good, better, best goals. That's such an interesting concept. And the basic idea is that you have a goal that you want to achieve, and in that goal, whatever my big goal is, there are 3 levels that you can achieve. You can achieve a good goal, a better goal, or a best goal. And I am always setting best goals and not achieving the best goal. So I feel like I haven't achieved the goal where along the way I have achieved the good and better goal. I just never set them. If you look at organization or you were to classify organizing as a whole, You could say to declutter a space, well, that would be good. Like you need to declutter a space in order to organize, so that's good. We need to declutter the space. Better would be to functionally organize that space after it's decluttered. So not only is it decluttered, but now we can find the things, so it is organized, it is better. Best would be if everything has brand new containers and they all match and the room is, um, interiorly designed and the magazine could come in and take pictures. So as far as looking at your room, you could say decluttered is good, organized is better, looking like an interior designer is best. When you are setting a goal, I want you to think of what would be good, better, or best. And the best way for me to think about it is good. Like, good means this has to happen. If this doesn't happen, then I did not meet this goal. Better is, this is what I really want to happen. Like, this is what I'm striving for. And best is, if the sun, moon, and stars all aligned and I won the lottery and my husband came home in a tuxedo and we went off to Paris, that goal would be met. Because, you know, that's about how big my big goals are. You are making so much progress personally on productivity and organization and just your focused attention on getting better in these areas. Is going to produce huge dividends. So don't be afraid about goals. I want you to set good, better, and best goals.