It is amazing to me how little new material or ideas there are regarding productivity. Through 13 years of research there are three key areas I have identified. I will discuss the first area in this blog:

First Area of Improvement

It is very important to set aside the last 15-30 minutes of each day to put “closure” on your day. I see so many people that leave work and “the lights are still on”. When they go home they are still thinking about work. In fact, because there is no closure they often wake up in the middle of the night thinking about an unresolved issue.  They are often distracted when talking or listening to their family members. We tell our loved ones, “You’re #1, then show them through our actions, they’re #10.”  When they get to work the next day, its like they never left. There is no recharge, so people typically start off with low pay-off tasks first thing in the morning, like email.

At the end of every day, do a brain dump of things to do and things you don’t want to forget while its still fresh in your mind. Planning is best done at the end of your day when you’re “out of gas” mentally, not first thing in the morning. Go home and enjoy your evening, your family, and recharge. The reason the mind worries at night is that it is more afraid of the unknown than the known. By planning at the end of the day you will actually look more forward to work.  The end of every day is “spring board” for the next day.

95% of all the people that I evaluate have no mental closure. Try this and come back for the next blog on PART 2.

Let me know what happens when you try this…Ken Zeigler

This entry was posted on Friday, March 6th, 2009 at 2:35 pm and is filed under Time Management, Time Management Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.