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42 Examples of Smart Objectives

John Spacey, updated on May 17, 2023

SMART objectives are targets that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timebound. This is an extremely common criteria adopted by organizations, businesses and institutions such as schools for goal setting activities. The SMART criteria are fairly intuitive with the challenge being finding a way to measure each of your targets. The following are illustrative examples of SMART objectives for business, school and life in general.

Achieve a GPA of 3.3 or higher.	Achieve a customer satisfaction rating of 4.4 out of 5.
Achieve a performance evaluation of ____ at work.	Achieve a return on investment of 70%.
Achieve a sales conversion rate of more than 4%.	Achieve professional certification.
Be on time for all classes next semester.	Close revenue of 800k next month.
Complete all coding assignments on time next semester.	Deliver code for the ____ project according to the project schedule. Measurement: stakeholder feedback.
Deliver the ____ project to schedule and budget with stakeholder satisfaction of at least 90%.	Each a healthy home cooked dinner every weeknight this month.
Gain acceptance into at least 3 of my target schools.	Gain experience public speaking. Target: give at least 7 presentations this year.
Get a 90% or higher class participation score.	Get a promotion by next April.
Get to bed by 1 AM every night this week.	Improve my 5 mile run time to ___.
Improve my score on spelling tests to an average of 80% or higher.	Improve on-time delivery rate to 97%.
Improve perceived usability to a score of 4.6 out of 5.	Increase battery life by 80%.
Increase brand recognition to 90%.	Increase customer loyalty by 15% (the number of customers who make regular purchases)
Increase gross margins to 40% in 2034.	Increase my savings to $500 a month.
Increase revenue per employee to $7 million this year.	Increase sales revenue by 10% in the next quarter.
Learn at least 50 new Japanese words each week.	Limit my game time to 2 hours a day.
Reduce HR costs by $14 million next year.	Reduce customer complaints by 20% this year.
Reduce customer returns by 40% this Christmas season.	Reduce energy consumption by 10%.
Reduce my spending on clothes by 50% this year.	Reserve one full day each week for family time.
Run at least 5 days each week.	Study for 3 hours a day in 30 minute intervals that are completely focused.
Take a 30 day break from social media to clear my mind.	Travel to at least 3 countries this year.
Volunteer at least 100 hours next year.	Walk the dog at least 3 times a day.

The original SMART criteria were specific, measurable, assignable, realistic and time-related as proposed by George Doran in 1981. The criteria given above have since become more common with many other variants circulating.

Technically speaking, anything that can be unambiguous marked as true or false is measurable. For example, completing an assignment on time is a measurable objective. However, people tend to feel that something is only measurable if it has a numerical target.

Objective is a more accurate term than goal for most planning activities. The term goal tends to imply end-goals such as revenue. Objectives can include steps towards end-goals such as launching a product.