Starting Each Day – Wisely & Well by Meggin McIntosh, PhD
As an entrepreneur, your day could start at 2 a.m., 6 a.m., or noon, depending on your work and lifestyle. Regardless of the time, here are ten productive practices to get your day started both wisely and well. Note: These are not necessarily in order, so read them with the idea of thinking about getting them all handled within a reasonable amount of your early morning window.
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Leave the most important task (or a representation of it) front and center on your desk. You want your highest priority to get your attention FIRST when you get to your office or other workspace. It may not be the very first item you attend to, but you want to know that it is a major commitment for today.
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Have a clean desk to work from. This presumes that you follow some of next week’s tips about how to end your day wisely and well…so stay tuned for those.
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If there are tasks that you need to do to clear the deck for yourself, then do those swiftly and promptly – no delaying tactics, however! If you need to quickly process your inbox to zero, for example, do that. If you need to check the overnight orders before you do anything else, then do that.
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Review your to-do list for the day. Do a reasonable ranking of what your #1, #2, and #3 tasks are.
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Review your appointments for the day. If there are any that you have not yet confirmed, then confirm them (or better yet, have your assistant do so).
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Turn on your cup warmer. If you like drinking hot beverages, keeping your cup of tea, coffee, or hot chocolate warm helps you stay at your desk working instead of jumping up to go reheat your beverage.
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Check in with your assistant or other key personnel within the first couple of business hours. Note: I felt the need to say business hours because if you’re like me, you start working much earlier than other people would appreciate a call.
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Proactively reconfigure tomorrow’s tasks and appointments, if you recognize, upon reviewing your schedule, appointments, and task list that today is going to slop over into tomorrow. Enlist the help of your assistant(s).
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Check your voicemail to see if any messages came in since you were last in the office that need attending to. Add them to your daily task list or pass them along to your assistant.
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Turn off the ringer on your phone. You have voice mail and it will pick up. You now need to focus on your highest priority tasks – and answering the phone probably is not in that category.
Now! Get to work making money and making a difference! That’s what entrepreneurs do.
© Meggin McIntosh, PhD | Emphasis on Excellence, Inc. | www.meggin.com
Meggin has been entrepreneurial since elementary school when she published one copy of a catalog that other little girls could order doll furniture, doll clothes, doll food, etc. from. Since then, she continued her entrepreneurial pursuits, essentially bringing that attitude into her teacher and her life as a professor. Since 2003, she has worked full-time through her company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc., based in Reno, NV.
And for strategies to help put pockets of time into your writing, check out Putting Pockets in Your Professional Life: 52 Tips to Implement Immediately. This booklet is for professionals who are frequently rushing from meeting to meeting, promising and then not delivering, or wondering if they will ever “catch up.” In this booklet, readers will find tools to support them in our often-crazy world so that they can live their professional lives more peacefully and productively.
