Make each day the best

Making your work days productive requires proper planning to focus on right activities and ensure each day is fruitful. Here are some suggestions to help maximise each day.

Have a goal for the day: Make sure it’s specific, measurable and decide how to assess its success or failure. Some things go well, others don’t. Have a key result for the day to determine what activities will deliver. Also, have a plan to manage your time to complete key activities.

Standardise routine activities: Whatever your core daily routine tasks, it might be efficient to fix specific times to do these. You could decide first thing to check mail from your manager to implement urgent tasks required of you. For routine tasks, have a system in place to get through them quickly and focus on more strategic and complex assignments.

Take challenges in your stride: You may plan everything meticulously, but not everything goes as planned. Always think ahead so you can troubleshoot promptly when things go wrong. When facing obstacles, quickly work out the problem and sort it out.

Be disciplined and decisive: Don’t let distractions take over your day. Make decisions or postpone if you have to, but don’t leave them hanging without good reason. Delays will negatively impact on what’s planned ahead. Keep your focus and be ruthless with how you ration your time.

Do a review at the end: Use the last 10 minutes of your day to reflect on what went well, what didn’t and what you could do better. Pat yourself on the back for what was achieved and use what you learn about what you can improve to make tomorrow better.

Now take action: How can you improve your daily work output?