Intentions without a plan fall flat. And if that is what your typical business day looks like, you’ve got a big problem. It’s not uncommon for business owners to experience frantic workdays. In fact—it’s par for the course. However, when you don’t take control of your day, those valuable hours vanish before you know it, leaving you with a mile-long to-do list and a few more gray hairs.
Here are some tips to help you schedule your day for improved productivity:
- Put together a plan when you arrive at the office. If you didn’t create one the night before, this is the time to sit down and focus on what you’d like to accomplish with your day. If checking emails is one of your priorities, write down when and how long you will spend on your inbox. Make sure to put the hard stuff, the big rocks so to speak, at the top of your list. What does a successful day look like?
- Set reminders to check in with yourself to see how you’re doing. Every hour or so, take a look at your plan for the day and see if you are mapping to it. Have you been productive in completing your to-do items? If not, refocus and re-prioritize, so at the end of the day you are not disappointed with what you’ve accomplished.
- Every one or two hours, get up from your desk. Connect with people. You might find some of your team members can help you with items on that to-do list. They can take away some of the noise so you can focus.
- At the end of the day, turn off your computer and evaluate how you did. That 5-minute plan for your day that you created sets the course for everything you do. Measure against it, and what you didn’t accomplish goes on the next day’s plan, if it is still a priority.
Control your productivity. If you need some coaching, contact us.
By Blair Koch
