In my professional life I’m a big believer in having clear objectives. I want these objectives to be SMART – i.e. measurable, timely, relevant and so forth. I first practised what I preach on my investing side last year, and found the exercise helpful but flawed. So I’ve been pondering what goals to work towards this year.
Last year’s goals: no longer useful
My three goals last year (debt reduction, sticking to my target asset allocation, income) reflected the major change I made to my portfolio in January 2016. I had taken on significant debt, which I wanted to know I could control. I had shrunk and restructured my portfolio, and wanted to know it could generate a certain level of income. And asset allocation is probably the single most important aspect of managing my (any?) portfolio so that needed to be in there too.