Skip to main content

Managing Your Day

Peter Bregman starts out with “An 18-Minute Plan for Managing Your Day” post like this:

“Yesterday started with the best of intentions. I walked into my office in the morning with a vague sense of what I wanted to accomplish. Then I sat down, turned on my computer and checked my e-mail. Two hours later, after fighting several fires, solving other people's problems and dealing with whatever happened to be thrown at me through my computer and phone, I could hardly remember what I had set out to accomplish when I first turned on my computer.”


I can relate too well to this as many of my days seem to silently and swiftly become pulled off my intended course. Sometimes it’s simply amazing to me where the time goes without me being aware of its passing or cognizant of what was accomplished!

To help us all stay on course, here are Bregman’s three steps for keeping focus throughout the day.

Step 1 (5 minutes) Set Plan for Day. Before turning on your computer, sit down with a blank piece of paper and decide what will make this day highly successful. What can you realistically accomplish that will further your goals and allow you to leave at the end of the day feeling like you've been productive and successful? Write those things down. Now, take your calendar and schedule those things into time slots, placing the hardest and most important items at the beginning of the day. And by the beginning of the day I mean, if possible, before even checking your e-mail. If your entire list does not fit into your calendar, reprioritize your list. If you want to get something done, decide when and where you're going to do it. Otherwise, take it off your list.

Step 2 (1 minute every hour) Refocus.
Set your watch, phone or computer to ring every hour. When it rings, take a deep breath, look at your list and ask yourself if you spent your last hour productively. Then look at your calendar and deliberately recommit to how you are going to use the next hour. Manage your day hour by hour. Don't let the hours manage you.

Step 3 (5 minutes) Review. Shut off your computer and review your day.

  • What worked?
  • Where did you focus?
  • Where did you get distracted?
  • What did you learn that will help you be more productive tomorrow?

The power of implementing these simple steps into your daily flow is in their predictability. Doing the same thing repeatedly in the same way over and over again creates the habit of focus. By re-focusing throughout the day it allows you to adjust your course of action if you find yourself being pulled into “busy work” instead of “productive work.”

I’m going to give Bregman’s suggestions a try (they won’t take much time), how about you?

Comments

  1. I thought about a prior post of mine you might enjoy when I read this post, Lindsay! Great post and I will try it...if I remember!
    http://graceandgravity.blogspot.com/2008/07/on-mouse-holes-terry-speaks.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Simply making a plan for the day before turning on the computer is huge for me. Unfortunately, sometimes the lure of the computer is too strong to resist. :-) Gotta work on THAT!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Comfortable Friends

Last month I wrote a "Things I Want" list and one of the identified items was, “I want to have comfortable friends.” Today as I reread last month's thoughts I wondered to myself, so what is a “comfortable” friend and what constitutes a comfortable friendship? Is it the amount of time one spends with a person, is it proximity or identical preferences; what makes this special bond? I decided to take a little bit of my Saturday afternoon and jot down what makes a comfortable friend for me. Attributes of a “comfortable” friend, and thus, a comfortable friendship: We laugh, we cry, we rant, we tell secrets, we hold confidences and we know when to be silent. We listen. We respect each other’s strengths, and encourage each other to overcome our weaknesses. We speak with honesty, seasoned with grace. We forgive when boundaries have been crossed. We stand up for each other when the other person is not present. And at all times we can be ourselves, knowing that we a...

Four Handy iPhone Apps

There may be “ 100,000 apps for that ,”but recently I added four new apps to my iPhone that I truly find helpful for my day to day life, and business. Give these four iPhone apps a try: 1. Lose It! I have always been a huge Weight Watchers (WW) fan (and I mean no disrespect to that fine program) but this app is awesome! For some reason having over 1300 calories to consume feels like so much more than 23 WW points…plus the app instantly adds exercise calories and recalculates your daily intake accordingly. 2. Go Pedometer : I have only used this app a couple times and I really like it. I wish it would measure in “miles” versus “feet,” but there is a slight possibility that I just don’t know how to program it yet. 3. Pandora : Creates really nice music mixes for you on your iPhone or computer. 4. Awesome Note : Love it! I already have several folders titled To Do / Shopping / Windridge / Music / Travel Diary / Etc. Extremely helpful and the graphics are fun. On Another Note This is not a...

Making a Wish List

The Wish List is a writing exercise I picked up from Julia Cameron in her book Walking in This World . Cameron is an “artist’s writer” offering insights and encouragement for those who find their life’s work in artistic pursuits and endeavors. My thoughts are that all of us, no matter what industry or “lifestyle” we find ourselves in, are tied to artistic and creative endeavors. And that the greatest pursuit of all is creating our life! The following simple little exercise is one I use when I’m feeling a bit stuck on who I am, where I want to go and what the next steps may be. Number a blank sheet from 1 to 20. Writing (quickly) finish the phrase: “I wish” 20 times. Your wishes can range from the big things that you find difficult to wrap your mind around or the very small (almost imperceptible) things that are sometimes passed off in pursuit of bigger things. There is no right or wrong wish! What you will notice, once you have completed your list, is that there are several small, ye...