Posted by Dare Ayodele on March 17, 2009 at 5:12pm
To be very successful and go through each day without stress, it is very important to plan your day. Maintaining the practice of having a daily plan can help you stay focused on the priorities of that particular day. You are more likely to get things accomplished if you pencil down your plans for the day.Before you go to sleep, plan out the following day. Personal Development Expert, Brian Tracy, states that one minute of planning will save you 10 minutes in executed action. If you wait until the next day to plan, you might run in to too many distractions and interruptions which will prevent you from staying focused on your plan. Also by planning the night before, you allow your subconscious mind to work with those tasks over night and in the morning you will know what your commitments are for that day, rather than trying to figure out your plans that morning. By having plan already prepared, you can cross-check any opportunities that come up during the day with your prior commitments and objectives. To achieve this, you have to have a must do list. Your must-do list should comprise of all the tasks that are of the highest priority for you and carry either positive or negative consequences. Spend some time carefully creating this list because once a ask goes into your must-do list-it must be, done that day. Don’t postpone or reschedule tasks on your must-do list unless absolutely necessary, because this will reinforce a bad habit of not holding true to your priorities-a habit which will eventually lead to idleness and not meeting your goals on time. Your must- do list should be relatively short in nature and should not be more than six items, this will enable you accomplish your set goals. It is very important for you to tackle these items first before moving on to other things.Keep track of appointments. These are the set times during the day that are dedicated for certain event. When you book an appointment, place it onto your main calendar and then transfer those appointments onto your daily planner each day. This will help you to keep your appointments.Delegate tasks if your work is too much. Always look at your to-do lists with an eye for delegation. You cannot do everything yourself so look at your to-do lists and ask yourself which of those activities you can hand over to other people to complete. This is a crucial aspect of maximizing your time.Make a should-do list. This is a list of the things that you should get done during the day, but are not crucial or necessary enough to warrant being on your must-do list. Your should-do tasks should be completed at your discretion only after all the items on your must-do list have been completed. Though this might not be necessary, but could save some time. Try not to postpone too much as three reschedules could put you out. If you find yourself moving uncompleted tasks over into the following day and over and over again then you must determine why that task is on your list in the first place and what value it has in your life. Make it a rule not to transfer a task more than three times if not you will be out in no time.In trying to plan ahead for the day, make sure you try to strike a balance with all aspects of your life. Do not give more priorities to others, thereby allowing other important aspects of your life to be neglected. If you implement these strategies for your day, you can successfully increase your personal and professional productivity and achieve your dreams and goals much more efficiently. Just give it a try and experience an amazing result.
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