Is GoalThe short answer to the title of this piece is a resounding yes! There’s more to it than that, though, and we’ll go into the particulars below.

The problem with taking action in the absence of a clearly defined goal is that you’re just staying busy. Sure, that will fill up your day. But your actions won’t have much, if any, payoff because they’re not focused or directed by the presence of a goal.

Before you leap into action, ask yourself, “why am I doing this?” How will the action you’re about to take help you? What goal will it push forward? If you don’t know the answer to that question, you have to ask yourself why you’re bothering with the action in the first place.

The first step, then, toward taking massive and meaningful action, is to figure out what you want to accomplish. Set a specific goal, and write it down.

Once you’ve got your main goal clearly spelled out, start breaking it down into highly granular sub-goals. Give these tight timetables and specific steps you can march through. Make a list from those things, and then you’re ready to start taking action.

When you do it that way, you’re being smart about it. The action you wind up taking will be tightly focused and directed toward your sub-goals, which feed into your main goal, and that’s how you move the needle. That’s how you get things done.

If you follow this basic approach in everything you do, you’ll find yourself getting more done, more efficiently than you ever have in your life. In a world where most people are stressed out and super busy, you’ll be able to knock down your daily “to do list” in record time, and have some time left over to relax and enjoy yourself. It’s hard to argue with that.