Many of us remember learning, as a child, Aesop’s fable of The Tortoise and the Hare. In the story, the slow, plodding Tortoise wins a race against the fast, agile Hare. The moral is that steady, consistent progress can outwit and outperform the faster, but inconsistent competitor.

In these modern times, this fable is more relevant than ever. The noise coming in from social media, television, and the shiny blue links of the internet, it’s incredibly easy to get distracted like the Hare.

However, with these three strategies, you can achieve your goals and become the victorious Tortoise.

Break It Down

Maybe you remember that project or paper you had to write in school. It wasn’t due for a few weeks and then the night before you are madly trying to get it done.

How’d that work out for you?

Most projects can be broken down into small, manageable pieces. Tackle each piece, consistently, over time, and you can make real progress.

For example, when I decided to re-launch this blog, my todo list didn’t have “launch blog” on it. Instead I did a brain dump of all the tasks that would be required (research blog engines, create github repository, export old blog posts, research hosting providers, set up hosting provider, etc.). Each day, I would pick one or two and tackle those in the 30 to 60 minutes I typically have before starting my day job. After a week or two, I had the blog live for all to see, even if it was just the cat that saw it.

This is one of the main tenets of the agile development process–consistently work on small, incremental enhancements to the product. Over time, that work adds up to something great.

Healthy Habits

Having a list of small, actionable tasks is useful, but not enough, by itself. The next step is to tackle those tasks on a consistent basis.

For nearly every achievement you aspire to, there are usually routines or habits you can install that will get you the result you want. These are small, consistent tasks you do each day or regularly throughout the week.

Consider these goals and the habits that might go along with them:

Run a marathon

• Run 5 miles three times a week (increase the mileage each week)
• Lift weights two times a week

Reach $X dollars in sales

• Make five cold calls each business day
• Attend one networking event each week
• Write two proposals each day

Launch personal blog

• Spend 30 minutes each day writing or researching a blog post
• Complete 1-2 maintenance tasks each day.

Each of these goals may seem large, but by training yourself to do the small, incremental things automatically, you can accomplish much.

Turn Down the Volume

We’ve all done it. You go to check the weather forecast and before you know it, it’s three hours later and you’re sitting in the dark eating a bag of cheetos watching cat videos.

Or maybe that’s just me.

The world is a noisy place these days, especially online. With so many distractions–email, Twitter, Netflix, the list goes on–it’s amazing that we get anything done!

To reach your lofty goals or complete that large project, it’s time to tune out many of these distractions.

First, turn off all the notifications on your computer, phone, tablet, microwave, refrigerator, and Blackberry.

Yes, I mean all of them.

The only notifications that are active on my phone are related to my on-call duties at my employer or phone calls from my immediate family. The world will not come to an end if you don’t respond to that Slack message right away or immediately text your friend back.

Second, block off time on your calendar to work on important projects, or just to catch up on those lingering tasks that keep getting away from you. Put it on your calendar so you don’t get a meeting scheduled on top of it. Maybe it’s that 30 minutes in the afternoon when the kids go down for a nap.

When the scheduled time arrives, shut down Slack, email, Twitter, etc. so you’re not tempted to distract yourself. Make this focused time for yourself to get stuff done! It might be hard the first few times when your brain wanders and screams for that dopamine hit. Over time, it gets easier to focus on the work at hand, knowing that you only have a short period of time to work on it.

Channel Your Inner Turtle

You can do great things, if you keep at it consistently.

Schedule a block of time for yourself in the next few days and write down all the tasks that are required to reach your goal or complete that big project. Decide how you’re going to tackle those on a consistent basis, schedule blocks of time to do them and shut off the noise of the world so you can focus on getting those tasks done.

Remember the tortoise. Keep plugging away at your goals and aspirations. When you look back, you’ll be amazed at how far you’ve come.

Question: What keeps you from maintaining consistency when working towards a goal?